Chapter II: Service

"THE menagerie! O father, will you?" cried Narcissus. "I do want to see the lions and tigers, and they'll be here such a short time. But mother said you wouldn't think of it."

"Throwing away money on foolery," murmured Mrs. Plunkett.

"The beasts ain't always such fools as men and women, after all," quoth Plunkett. "Anyway, they're worth looking at. I do believe Narcissus has never seen a tiger in her life. There hasn't been a beast show here since I don't know when."

"Since I was so high," Marigold said, putting out her hand. "Narcissus was too little, but I went, and I haven't forgotten. Only there was no elephant that time, and they've got one now—such an enormous creature!"

"Narcissus won't be called by her name at the Parsonage," broke in Mrs. Plunkett. "I know that. It's no name for a servant."

"The name's given, and it can't be ungiven; Narcissus she is, and Narcissus she'll have to be all her life through. If you'd ha' been my wife sixteen years agone, why then she'd have been Betsy or Jane, as like as not. But you wasn't!"

"They 'll call her Betsy or Jane at the Parsonage, you'll see."

"Shouldn't wonder if they didn't do nothing of the sort. Anyway she's going. I've promised, and she's got to go." Then in an undertone to the girls, "All right about the beast show!" And losing no more time, he went off.

"Well, I say it's rubbish, and I don't care who I says it to," observed Mrs. Plunkett. "Sending a girl away for a year, just when she's beginning to be useful. And how I'm to manage—"

"I shall be more useful when I come back, mother."

"No, you won't. You'll be full of notions, like Marigold; and set on your own way. I know that. I like you a deal best as you are,—a girl that'll do as she's told, and ask no questions. Marigold is for ever meddling in what don't concern her; and I don't mean to stand it. I wish Mrs. Heavitree would just let folks alone."

Marigold presently stole away to an upstairs room; and Narcissus slipped after her.

"I'm glad to be going. I didn't feel sure at the first moment, but I'm glad now," said Narcissus. "Mother does worry so; and you say Mrs. Heavitree isn't hard to please."

"Never hard. She does expect the work to be done properly. She works a lot herself, and she means others to work. Oh, I don't mean that she sweeps and dusts, though she wouldn't be above that if there was need; but she's always seeing after everybody and everything, and thinking and planning, and doing kindnesses, and looking to the poor. Mrs. Heavitree's never idle; and she never gives in so long as she's got the power to go on. You like her now, and you'll like her ever so much better when you're in the same house."

"I don't mind if she doesn't scold. It's being scolded I mind."

"You won't have that to bear, for she doesn't scold. She'll tell you if you do wrong, but she don't scold. I only wish I was going too, and I would if it wasn't for father. He'd be miserable if he hadn't one of us. I can't think what in the world has come over mother in the last year. Why, when she first came, she was as different! She couldn't be just the same as our own mother, of course; but she did seem nice; and now—"

"There's no getting along straight," said Narcissus. "Everybody is wrong, and everything goes crooked. There! She's calling. One of us has got to answer."

"I'll go. Don't you mind. I'll run," said Marigold, suiting her action to the word. She had a peculiarly light way of going about, a quick noiseless step and capable manner, such as one sees in a well-trained servant. Mrs. Plunkett walked heavily, and Narcissus did everything in a limp style; but it was a treat to look at Marigold.

The first Mrs. Plunkett had been, before her marriage, a very efficient servant; and she had done her best to train her girls well. Nobody can do so much as a mother in that line. If the early home-training in cleanliness, order, diligence, good management, be absent, later training will seldom entirely take the place of it. When mothers carelessly allow children to waste their time, to grow into untidy and dirty ways, they little think how hard they are making it for those children to become afterward either good servants or good wives and mothers.

But these girls had had the advantage of good early training. They had never been allowed to go about with soiled hands and faces, nor with torn clothes. They had been taught to darn and mend well, to scour and clean thoroughly, to put everything away in the right place directly it was done with, to keep the house always neat, and to do unhesitatingly whatever needed to be done.

Marigold had profited the most by these instructions, because she was the older, also because she was the more spirited and firm in character. Narcissus was not very energetic naturally, and as the youngest, she had been just a degree spoilt; still she was a gentle-mannered nice girl, generally liked.

In addition to early training, Marigold had had the advantage of a year in the family of the Rev. Henry Heavitree, Incumbent of St. Philip's, a church outside the town beyond the farther extremity, a good two miles off. Mr. Heavitree was son of the lady in whose house the first Mrs. Plunkett had been for many years a servant, and his wife gave herself a great deal of trouble in training young girls for service, preparing them well and wisely, showing them how to put their heart into their work, and to make a duty of it all, by doing everything as in the sight of God.

Mrs. Heavitree had always promised the first Mrs. Plunkett that, when Marigold and Narcissus should be old enough, she would have them at the Parsonage, each for a year's training. Plunkett himself did not greatly care for the plan, since he was loth to part with his girls, and he was not one to look far ahead into their future; but the wiser mother wanted them to be fitted to make their own way in life, whenever need should arise. She knew well that for domestic service, as for every other kind of service, preparation is necessary. A good housemaid or parlourmaid can no more be turned out ready-made, at an hour's notice, than a good soldier or a good business man. Success in any manner of life has to be worked for, through steady learning and steady practice.

Some people dislike the word "service," as if there were something lowering in the term. Yet who is there in this world, worth anything at all, who does not serve somebody? The husband serves his wife, and the wife serves her husband. The mother serves her children, and the children serve, or ought to serve, their mother. The clergyman serves his flock, the statesman serves his country, the Queen serves her people; and the very motto of the Queen's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, is "Ich dien," which means "I serve." And, to go far higher, we know that ONE, Who lived among men, One Who is Himself the LORD of lords, said to His disciples: "I am among you as he that serveth."

So when we speak of service, whether domestic or any other kind, we speak of that which may be beautiful and grand, because Christ Himself came among us as a SERVANT.

Though Plunkett did not so clearly as his wife see the need for his girls to be trained, yet he gave in to her judgment; and before she died, he promised that her wish should be carried out.

It was not until nearly three months after his second marriage, when things still seemed fair and pleasant in the little home, that Mrs. Heavitree reminded him of this promise, and asked for Marigold. Plunkett grumbled, but did not resist, for he was not a man to fail in keeping his word. He held to it scrupulously, indeed; allowing Marigold to spend a whole year at St. Philip's Parsonage.

Mr. Heavitree was a man comfortably off in point of money, far more so than is usual with clergymen. Not that the living was a good one. Had he had only the little stipend of St. Philip's to depend on, he would have been a poor man; but having private property of his own made all the difference.

Nothing delighted him more than to spend much of this property for the good of his parish; not by giving to lazy beggars who ought to have worked for themselves, but in helping the really needy who could not work, the aged and the sick especially; and in making countless improvements in schools, almshouses, etc.

Mr. Heavitree's was often called "a model parish," everything in it was so beautifully managed, and so well worked.

His wife lent an active helping hand in all these things; and in addition, she made the training of young girls her especial work. The Parsonage was large, and she had several children. While keeping two or three good old servants, she used to have a succession of young ones, as housemaids and nursemaids, constantly taken in, taught their duties, and passed onward to other places. Those who know the worry of young and untrained maids in a large household, where everything goes like clockwork, will appreciate the self-denial of Mrs. Heavitree in undertaking such a task.

Marigold went to the Parsonage three months after her father's second marriage, remained a year, and came home just about three months before my story begins—came home to a changed household, because of the change in Mrs. Plunkett. In the three months before she left home, all had gone smoothly; but now she found herself in an atmosphere of fretting, of worry and ill-temper, of disorder and carelessness, of all that in a small way could make life hard to bear.

She had heard something of this before, but not much. Mrs. Heavitree had not encouraged perpetual running home; while Plunkett and Narcissus had resolved to say as little as might be.

Now, however, when Marigold was living at home, the transformation became clear, and the new variety tried Marigold greatly.

The contrast between home and Parsonage proved severe. Everything there had been cheery and bright, the whole household in perfect order. Each person had his or her own duties, and was expected to do them well. To pass from such a state of calm regularity, order, and kindliness, to a house where all was mess and muddle, where things were used and set down anywhere to be left unwashed for hours, where a white tablecloth for meals was thought too much trouble, and where not a smile lightened the day's duties, Marigold felt acutely. She had been used to so different a condition, not only in the past year, but during all her life. It was not the smallness or the comparative poverty of home which distressed her, but the lack of order and of prettiness.

Marigold at first threw herself into the breach, so to say, and tried to improve matters. She washed whatever wanted washing, put away whatever was left lying about, scoured and scrubbed, dusted and swept, endeavoured in all ways to bring back the home to its olden state.

There, however, she met with a check. Words of pleasure and of praise spoken by Plunkett to Marigold roused his wife's annoyance. "Why, this is old days over again," he said. "Home hasn't been home since—" and anybody might understand the half-finished sentence.

Mrs. Plunkett began irritably to oppose Marigold from that hour. She did not choose to be interfered with, she said. Marigold no longer found herself free to put straight Mrs. Plunkett's untidinesses; but only to do as she was told. If a soiled utensil were flung down, and left unwashed, there it had to remain. Thus difficulties began and increased. Marigold, who had a quick temper, would speak sharply, and Narcissus would cry, and the household generally would be overshadowed.