Chapter IX: Only a Servant

FOR the first week or so after her arrival at Barford Violet was most careful in keeping her bedroom in good order, for she was delighted with the pretty little room, which was a picture of daintiness and freshness; but it was not long before she began to grow careless about it, and there came a day when, on her return from school in the afternoon, Mrs. Reed followed her upstairs and told her in a tone, which, though kind, betrayed displeasure, that she really must learn to be more tidy and not leave her bedroom in such a litter again.

"I—I am very sorry," stammered Violet, crimsoning with mortification, as she cast one hurried look around and saw that Mrs. Reed had not spoken without reason, "I—I was in a hurry, and I had no time to put things straight before I left for school."

"I don't think that is an adequate excuse, my dear," Mrs. Reed said gravely, "for it would have taken you no longer to have put that wet towel on the towel-horse than to have flung it on the bed. Then look at your boots and shoes strewn about the floor as though you had no cupboard to keep them in, and your desk left open, and your mother's letter—I see it is hers by the writing on the envelope—on the dressing-table. I have no reason to think that there is anyone in the house who is sufficiently prying and dishonourable to read another person's letters, but it is always unwise to leave correspondence about."

"Yes, I know it is," Violet admitted, taking her mother's letter from the dressing-table and slipping it into her pocket, whilst she remembered there was a great deal in it she would not care for a servant to see. She then proceeded to close and lock her desk; after which she collected her boots and shoes and put them in the cupboard; hung up in its proper place in the wardrobe a skirt which she had thrown over the back of a chair; took the damp towel off the bed; and otherwise tidied the room.

"That's better," Mrs. Reed said approvingly, "you must be more careful in future. I cannot endure disorder, and there is really no excuse for it in this case, for there is a place for everything."

"I won't leave my room so untidy again," promised Violet, "but I—I really was in a great hurry, and I didn't think what I was doing. I just did as I should have done at home and left my things all higgledy-piggledy."

Mrs. Reed could not refrain from smiling at this frank admission.

"It is a very great pity to get into the habit of doing that, Violet," she said; "and really it is quite as easy to be tidy as untidy. You shared a bedroom with your elder sister, at home, did you not?"

"Yes. I am afraid our room was always in more or less of a muddle. Sometimes Ruth used to have what I called 'a tidy fit,' but it never lasted very long; for I was always forgetting, and she would be disheartened."

"Poor Ruth!" said Mrs. Reed, sympathetically.

"I am afraid it was hard lines on her," Violet admitted. "I expect if you saw what our home at Streatham is like you would be quite shocked," she continued, shaking her head and sighing, "but you don't know how difficult it is to be orderly in a little house with a lot of people in it."

"Oh, yes, indeed I do," Mrs. Reed answered, smiling; "I was brought up in a little house myself, and there were so many of us young folks that my father used to say we reminded him of birds packed in a nest. Tidiness is a mere matter of habit, my dear; the home where it is practised is generally a comfortable one, be it a palace or a cottage. Here's Ann coming to hear what I am lecturing you about. Come down to tea now, both of you."

So saying Mrs. Reed left the room, whilst Ann stood on the threshold regarding Violet inquiringly.

"Oh, Ann, I am ashamed of myself!" cried Violet, and her face showed that she spoke the truth. "I left my room in such a muddle," she went on to explain, "and your mother has been speaking to me about it—very kindly, but I know she is vexed with me, and no wonder. I ought not to be disorderly, for, as Mrs. Reed says, there's a place for everything; it's not as it was at home where Ruth and I had no wardrobe, only pegs behind the door to hang our things on."

"You'll be more careful another time," Ann said, consolingly; "mother wasn't angry, you know, Violet," she added, as she saw her companion's brown eyes were a trifle misty.

"Oh, I know she was not! Well, I must try not to give her cause to complain of me in that way again."

Violet did try, but often she relapsed into her disorderly habits, thereby bringing rebuke upon herself. She was always so genuinely sorry and repentant afterwards that Mrs. Reed refrained from speaking to her as sharply as she would otherwise have done, remembering, too, the manner in which the girl had been brought up in her own home.

Truth to tell Violet's new home was very unlike what she had expected. She had anticipated the house of a successful man, as she knew Dr. Reed to be, would be far different from what it actually was. She had imagined it managed regardless of expense, and she soon found, to her secret astonishment, that it was not, and that the strictest economy was practised by its mistress. There was enough of everything, but there was nothing superfluous. Mrs. Reed was one of the most careful of housewives, and, unlike poor Mrs. Wyndham, she knew to a farthing the amount of her expenditure.

Dr. Reed and his wife noted with satisfaction that Violet was becoming very friendly with Ann. Since Violet had read Ruth's letter to Ann she had been more open with her, and was no longer averse to talking of her home. The two girls now prepared their lessons together of an evening, the younger proving herself quite the equal of the elder in most subjects, for she was forward for her age, and, being very quick to learn, she bade fair to make good use of the advantages which had so unexpectedly fallen to her share, and for which she felt really very deeply grateful.

The first week Violet received her pocket money she founds there were so many little things she required for her own use that she put aside the idea of sending Ruth a part of it on that occasion, as she had fully intended doing, and spent it entirely on herself. Next week it was the same, and so the week after, until she began to tell herself that Ruth, not being at school, did not need money so much as she did.

"She would only spend it on pencils and paints," she reflected, "and she does not know what pocket money I get or anything about it."

Her conscience told her she was acting selfishly, but she did not listen to it, and she took care not to tell Ann that she had not fulfilled her intention of sending money to Ruth, so that Ann concluded she had done so.

In a very short while Violet had won the good opinions of those teachers with whom she came in contact at Helmsford College, for she was always attentive and eager to learn. She grew popular, too, with her class-mates, and, though they soon found that she was cleverer than most of them, that indisputable fact did not evoke jealousy as it might have done if she had not been unfailingly good-tempered and obliging. It was supposed by those who thought upon the matter at all that Dr. Reed was Violet's guardian, as, of course he was, only no one guessed that he was paying for her education out of his own pocket and giving her a home besides.

Finding Violet made herself popular at school, Agnes Hosking thought it worth her while to cultivate her acquaintance, and made much of the fact that they had been school-fellows previously; and she refrained from telling anyone of the shabby little home at Streatham where Violet had lived all her life till now, or that Mr. Wyndham was a not very successful journalist.

"It must be very pleasant for you living with the Reeds," she remarked to Violet on one occasion; "much pleasanter than being a boarder here. I suppose the Reeds are very old friends of yours?"

"Dr. Reed is a very old friend of my father's," Violet replied; "he came to see us at Streatham last November, but I never saw Mrs. Reed or Ann before I came to Barford."

"And you like them?" questioned Agnes curiously.

"Oh, yes! Ann and I have become great friends already, and Mrs. Reed is exceedingly kind to me. Of course I missed all my own people dreadfully at first, but now I'm very happy with the Reeds."

"It must be a great change for you," Agnes observed meaningly. Then, as her companion coloured with annoyance, she continued: "I hear Dr. Reed has the best paying practices in the place, he attends all the rich families, and yet they say he was a mere nobody to commence with—I mean, he has made his position himself."

"Yes," assented Violet, curtly.

"I heard one of the girls say that his relations—they live in Devonshire, I believe—are all working people, and that his mother was only a servant."

"Nonsense!" cried Violet, sceptical about the latter statement. "I know his father was a farmer in Devonshire, and his mother is still living—I have seen her likeness. She looks a dear old soul; she couldn't have been a servant."

"Well, of course you would know as the Reeds are such friends of yours," said Agnes, "but I was certainly told it as a fact."

"I don't think it can be true, but I'll ask Ann," Violet replied, eager to be in the position to contradict what she considered an idle report.

And ask Ann Violet did that same day, after they had prepared their lessons in the evening, in the upstairs room which had formerly been Ann's nursery. They were gathering together their books when Violet, with some hesitation, commenced:—

"Oh, Ann, I want to ask you something; but, before I tell you what it is, you must promise you will not be offended with me."

"I promise," Ann replied, smiling; "what is it?"

"Well, I was talking to Agnes Hosking to-day—she is a very inquisitive sort of girl, you know—and she said that someone had told her that— that your grandmother, your father's mother—"

"Yes?" Ann said interrogatively, as her companion appeared embarrassed and hesitated; "what had someone told her about Granny?"

"That she was a servant," Violet answered; "of course I didn't believe it, but I said I'd ask you," she added hastily.

"Agnes Hosking is quite right," Ann said, and her voice sounded cold and proud to Violet's ears, whilst her grey eyes glowed brightly, "Granny was a servant in her young days. What of that?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Violet replied, much taken aback; "only I did not know, and—and—"

"I never thought of mentioning the fact to you—"

"No, no," Violet interposed, "of course not. I would not have spoken of it if I had thought it was true, but I never, for a moment, believed that it was."

"Do you think I mind your mentioning it?" Ann asked, with a touch of irritation in her tone, and an unwonted expression of displeasure on her face. "You surely cannot imagine that I am ashamed for it to be known that my grandmother was 'only a servant' as people say? Why, I am as fond and proud of Granny as though she was a duchess, aye, prouder, and no duchess could be a better or a sweeter woman—I have often heard mother say that."

She paused for a minute, and her voice softened as she proceeded:—

"My father says he is proud of his ancestry; his people were working folks, it is true, folks of the class Jesus chose His disciples from, but they were honest and always did their duty in life; and father says to serve others is the highest privilege, we all ought to be servants in one way or another in this world; don't you remember that our Lord told His disciples that the greatest amongst them must be servant of all? You can tell Agnes Hosking her statement that my grandmother was a servant is quite correct. Never think I wish to keep that a secret."

"I hope you are not angry with me," Violet said, looking, as she felt, deeply distressed, "you promised you would not be offended. Oh, Ann! I have not said anything to distress you, have? You must not be annoyed because I am surprised—"

"Oh, I am not!" Ann broke in. "Of course it is natural that you should be surprised, I realise that. But I thought you spoke as though I might be ashamed of Granny's having been a servant."

This had actually been the case, and Violet looked abashed. She knew if her grandmother had been a servant she would not have people aware of it for the world; nevertheless she could not but admire Ann for being above what she recognised to be a despicable feeling.

"I am so very sorry if I have hurt you in any way," she murmured; "but—but I didn't understand. I have no grandmother myself, and I didn't know you loved yours so much."

The next day Violet informed Agnes Hosking that she had been right, and that Dr. Reed's mother had been a servant.

"How sly of Ann Reed not to have told you before!" exclaimed Agnes, secretly delighted that she had been the one to enlighten Violet. There was a malicious gleam in her eyes as she spoke.

"Not at all," Violet returned; "she did not think of telling me, and you are mistaken if you imagine she wishes to keep it a secret. She loves her grandmother dearly." And with that she brought the conversation to an abrupt close.