The Country of the Blind | Page 4

him! Jane was always very free with her conversation
to my wife, and discoursed admirably in the kitchen on a variety of
topics--so well, indeed, that I sometimes left my study door open--our
house is a small one--to partake of it. But after William came, it was
always William, nothing but William; William this and William that;
and when we thought William was worked out and exhausted
altogether, then William all over again. The engagement lasted
altogether three years; yet how she got introduced to William, and so
became thus saturated with him, was always a secret. For my part, I
believe it was at the street corner where the Rev. Barnabas Baux used
to hold an open-air service after evensong on Sundays. Young Cupids
were wont to flit like moths round the paraffin flare of that centre of
High Church hymn-singing. I fancy she stood singing hymns there, out
of memory and her imagination, instead of coming home to get supper,
and William came up beside her and said, "Hello!" "Hello yourself!"
she said; and etiquette being satisfied, they proceeded to talk together.
As Euphemia has a reprehensible way of letting her servants talk to her,
she soon heard of him. "He is such a respectable young man, ma'am,"
said Jane, "you don't know." Ignoring the slur cast on her acquaintance,
my wife inquired further about this William.
"He is second porter at Maynard's, the draper's," said Jane, "and gets
eighteen shillings--nearly a pound--a week, m'm; and when the head
porter leaves he will be head porter. His relatives are quite superior
people, m'm. Not labouring people at all. His father was a greengrosher,
m'm, and had a churnor, and he was bankrup' twice. And one of his
sisters is in a Home for the Dying. It will be a very good match for me,
m'm," said Jane, "me being an orphan girl."
"Then you are engaged to him?" asked my wife.

"Not engaged, ma'am; but he is saving money to buy a
ring--hammyfist."
"Well, Jane, when you are properly engaged to him you may ask him
round here on Sunday afternoons, and have tea with him in the
kitchen;" for my Euphemia has a motherly conception of her duty
towards her maid-servants. And presently the amethystine ring was
being worn about the house, even with ostentation, and Jane developed
a new way of bringing in the joint so that this gage was evident. The
elder Miss Maitland was aggrieved by it, and told my wife that servants
ought not to wear rings. But my wife looked it up in Enquire Within
and Mrs. Motherly's Book of Household Management, and found no
prohibition. So Jane remained with this happiness added to her love.
The treasure of Jane's heart appeared to me to be what respectable
people call a very deserving young man. "William, ma'am," said Jane
one day suddenly, with ill-concealed complacency, as she counted out
the beer bottles, "William, ma'am, is a teetotaller. Yes, m'm; and he
don't smoke. Smoking, ma'am," said Jane, as one who reads the heart,
"do make such a dust about. Beside the waste of money. And the smell.
However, I suppose they got to do it--some of them..."
William was at first a rather shabby young man of the ready-made
black coat school of costume. He had watery gray eyes, and a
complexion appropriate to the brother of one in a Home for the Dying.
Euphemia did not fancy him very much, even at the beginning. His
eminent respectability was vouched for by an alpaca umbrella, from
which he never allowed himself to be parted.
"He goes to chapel," said Jane. "His papa, ma'am----"
"His what, Jane?"
"His papa, ma'am, was Church: but Mr. Maynard is a Plymouth Brother,
and William thinks it Policy, ma'am, to go there too. Mr. Maynard
comes and talks to him quite friendly when they ain't busy, about using
up all the ends of string, and about his soul. He takes a lot of notice, do
Mr. Maynard, of William, and the way he saves his soul, ma'am."

Presently we heard that the head porter at Maynard's had left, and that
William was head porter at twenty-three shillings a week. "He is really
kind of over the man who drives the van," said Jane, "and him married,
with three children." And she promised in the pride of her heart to
make interest for us with William to favour us so that we might get our
parcels of drapery from Maynard's with exceptional promptitude.
After this promotion a rapidly-increasing prosperity came upon Jane's
young man. One day we learned that Mr. Maynard had given William a
book. "'Smiles' 'Elp Yourself,' it's called," said Jane; "but it ain't comic.
It tells you how to get on in the world, and some what