She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She never put herself forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary's absence caused the weight of housekeeping and domestic management to fall chiefly upon her. She went about her duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her girlhood; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much demonstrativeness: she was one of those people who never "come out" till they are strongly needed, and then— But it remained to be proved what this girl would be.
Years afterward1 Hilary remembered with what a curious reticence2 Elizabeth used to go about in those days: how she remained as old-fashioned as ever; acquired no London ways, no fripperies of dress or flippancies of manner. Also, that she never complained of anything; though the discomforts3 of her lodging-house life must have been great—greater than her mistresses had any idea of at the time. Slowly, out of her rough, unpliant girlhood, was forming that character of self-reliance and self-control, which, in all ranks, makes of some women the helpers rather than the helped, the laborers4 rather than the pleasure-seekers; women whose constant lot it seems to be to walk on the shadowed side of life, to endure rather than to enjoy.
Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment5. She made no acquaintances, and never asked for holidays. Indeed she did not seem to care for any. Her great treat was when, on a Sunday afternoon, Miss Hilary sometimes took her to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's; when her pleasure and gratitude6 always struck her mistress—may, even soothed7 her, and won her from her own many anxieties. It is such a blessing8 to be able to make any other human being, even for an hour or two, entirely9 happy.
Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth's whole time was spent in waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly frail10 and old. It might be that living without her child six days out of the seven was a greater trial than had at first appeared to the elder sister, who until now had never parted with her since she was born; or it was perhaps a more commonplace and yet natural cause, the living in London lodgings11, without even a change of air from room to room; and the want of little comforts and luxuries, which, with all Hilary's care, were as impossible as ever to their limited means.
For Selina's engagement, which, as a matter of decorum, she had insisted should last six months, did not lessen12 expenses. Old gowns were shabby, and omnibuses impossible to the future Mrs. Ascott of Russell Square; and though, to do her justice, she spent as little as to her self-pleasing nature was possible, still she spent something.
"It's the last; I shall never cost you any more," she would say, complacently13; and revert14 to that question of absorbing interest, her trousseau, an extremely handsome one, provided liberally by Mr. Ascott. Sorely had this arrangement jarred upon the pride of the Leaf family; yet it was inevitable15. But no personal favors would the other two sisters have accepted from Mr. Ascott, even had he offered them—which he did not—save a dress each for the marriage, and a card for the marriage breakfast, which, he also arranged, was to take place at a hotel.
So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was little change in the dull life that went on at No. 15. Its only brightness was when Miss Hilary came home from Saturday to Monday. And in those brief glimpses, when, as was natural, she on her side, and they on theirs, put on their best face, so to speak, each trying to hide from the other any special care, it so fell out that Miss Hilary never discovered a thing which, week by week, Elizabeth resolved to speak to her about, and yet never could. For it was not her own affair; it seemed like presumptuously16 middling in the affairs of the family. Above all, it involved the necessity of something which looked like tale-bearing and backbiting17 of a person she disliked, and there was in Elizabeth—servant as she was—an instinctive18 chivalrous19 honor which made her especially anxious to be just to her enemies.
Enemy, however, is a large word to use; and yet day by day her feelings grew more bitter toward the person concerned—namely. Mr. Ascott Leaf. It was not from any badness in him: he was the sort of young man always likely to be a favorite with what would be termed his "inferiors;" easy, good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a good deal of trouble certainly, but giving it so agreeably that few servants would have grumbled20, and paying for it—as he apparently21 thought every thing could be paid for—with a pleasant word and a handful of silver.
But Elizabeth's distaste for him had deeper roots. The principal one was his exceeding indifference22 to his aunts' affairs, great and small, from the marriage, which he briefly23 designated as a "jolly lark," to the sharp economies which, even with the addition of Miss Hilary's salary, were still requisite24.—None of these latter did he ever seem to notice, except when they pressed upon himself; when he neither scolded nor argued, but simply went out and avoided them.
He was now absent from home more than ever, and apparently tried as much as possible to keep the household in the dark as to his movements—leaving at uncertain times, never saying what hour he would be back, or if he said so, never keeping to his word. This was the more annoying as there were a number of people continually inquiring for him, hanging about the house, and waiting to see him "on business;" and some of these occasionally commented on the young gentleman in such unflattering terms that Elizabeth was afraid they would reach the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to attend to the door herself.
But Mrs. Jones was a wide awake woman. She had not let lodgings for thirty years for nothing. Ere long she discovered, and took good care to inform Elizabeth of her discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what is euphuistically termed "in difficulties."
And here one word, lest in telling this poor lad's story I may be supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if there was no crime greater than that which a large portion of society seems to count as none; as if, at the merest mention of the ugly word debt, this rabid author flew out, and made all the ultra virtuous26 persons whose history is here told fly out, like turkeys, after a bit of red cloth which is a very harmless scrap27 of red cloth after all.
Most true, some kind of debt deserves only compassion28. The merchant suddenly failing; the tenderly reared family who by some strange blunder or unkind kindness have been kept in ignorance of their real circumstances, and been spending pounds for which there was only pence to pay; the individuals, men or women, who, without any laxity of principle, are such utter children in practice, that they have to learn the value and use of money by hard experience, much as a child does, and are little better than children in all that concerns L. S. D. to the end of their days.
But these are debtors29 by accident, not error. The deliberate debtor30, who orders what he knows he has no means of paying for; the pleasure loving debtor, who can not renounce31 one single luxury for conscience' sake; the well-meaning, lazy debtor, who might make "ends meet," but does not, simply because he will not take the trouble; upon such as these it is right to have no mercy—they deserve none.
To which of these classes young Ascott Leaf belonged his story will show. I tell it, or rather let it tell itself, and point its own moral; it is the story of hundreds and thousands.
That a young fellow should not enjoy his youth would be hard; that it should not be pleasant to him to dress well, live well, and spend with open hand upon himself as well as others, no one will question. No one would ever wish it otherwise. Many a kindly32 spendthrift of twenty-one makes a prudent33 paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in his twenties showed a purposeless niggardliness34, would at sixty grow into the most contemptible35 miser36 alive. There is something even in the thoughtless liberality of youth to which one's heart warms, even while one's wisdom reproves.—But what struck Elizabeth was that Ascott's liberalities were always toward himself, and himself only.
Sometimes when she took in a parcel of new clothes, while others yet unpaid37 for were tossing in wasteful38 disorder39 about his room, or when she cleaned indefinite pairs of handsome boots, and washed dozens of the finest cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, her spirit grew hot within her to remember Miss Hilary's countless40 wants and contrivances in the matter of dress, and all the little domestic comforts which Miss Leaf's frail health required—things which never once seemed to cross the nephew's imagination. Of course not, it will be said; how could a young man be expected to trouble himself about these things?
But they do though. Answer, many a widow's son; many a heedful brother of orphan41 sisters; many a solitary42 clerk living and paying his way upon the merest pittance43; is it not better to think of others than one's self? Can a man, even a young man, find his highest happiness in mere25 personal enjoyment?
However, let me cease throwing these pebbles44 of preaching under the wheels of my story; as it moves on it will preach enough for itself.
Elizabeth's annoyances45, suspicions, and conscience-pricks as to whether she ought or ought not to communicate both, came to an end at last. Gradually she made up her mind that, even if it did look like tale bearing, on the following Saturday night Miss Hilary must know all.
It was an anxious week; for Miss Leaf had fallen ill. Not seriously; and she never complained until her sister had left, when she returned to her bed and did not again rise. She would not have Miss Hilary sent for, nor Miss Selina, who was away paying a ceremonious prenuptial visit to Mr. Ascott's partner's wife at Dulwich.
"I don't want any thing that you can not do for me. You are becoming a first rate nurse. Elizabeth," she said, with that passive, peaceful smile which almost frightened the girl; it seemed as if she were slipping away from this world and all its cares into another existence. Elizabeth felt that to tell her any thing about her nephew's affairs was
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