Part I Chapter 9 Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl by L. T. Meade
LIMITS
Even the wisest men know very little of household management, and never did an excellent and well-intentioned individual put, to use a well-known phrase, his foot more completely into it than Dr. Maybright when he allowed Polly to learn experience by taking the reins of household management for a week.
Except in matters that related to his own profession, Dr. Maybright was apt to be slightly absent-minded; here he was always keenly alive. When visiting a patient not a symptom escaped him, not a flicker of timid eyelids passed unnoticed, not a passing shade of color on the invalid’s countenance but called for his acute observation. In household matters, however, he was apt to overlook trifles, and very often completely to forget what seemed to his family important arrangements. He was the kind of man who was sure to be very much beloved at home, for he was neither fretful nor fussy, but took large views of all things. Such people are appreciated, and if his children thought him the best of all men, his servants also spoke of him as the most perfect of masters.
“You might put anything before him,” Mrs. Power would aver. “Bless his ’art, he wouldn’t see, nor he wouldn’t scold. Ef it were rinsings of the tea-pot he would drink it instead of soup; and I say, and always will say, that ef a cook don’t jelly the soup for the like of a gentleman like the doctor what have no mean ways and no fusses, she ain’t fit to call herself a cook.”
So just because they loved him, Dr. Maybright’s servants kept his table fairly well, and his house tolerably clean, and the domestic machinery went on wheels, not exactly oiled, but with no serious clog to their progress.
These things of course happened since Mrs. Maybright’s death. In her day this gentlest and firmest of mistresses, this most tactful of women, kept all things in their proper place, and her servants obeyed her with both will and cheerfulness.
On the Saturday before Polly’s novitiate poor Dr. Maybright’s troubles began. He had completely forgotten all about his promise to Polly, and was surprised when the little girl skipped into his study after breakfast, with her black frock put on more neatly than usual, her hair well brushed and pushed off her face, and a wonderful brown holland apron enveloping her from her throat to her ankles. The apron had several pockets, and certainly gave Polly a quaint and original appearance.
“Here I am, father,” she said. “I have come for the money, please.”
“The—the what, my dear?”
Dr. Maybright put up his eye-glass, and surveyed the little figure critically.
“Are these pockets for your school-books?” he said. “It is not a bad idea; only don’t lose them, Polly. I don’t like untidy books scattered here and there.”
Polly took the opportunity to dart a quick, anxious glance into her father’s eyes—they were bright, dark, clear. Of course Helen’s horrid story was untrue. Her spirits rose, she gave a little skip, and clasped her hands on the Doctor’s arm.
“These are housekeeping pockets, father,” she said. “Nothing at all to say to books. I’m domestic, not intellectual; my housekeeping begins on Monday, you know, and I’ve come for the eighty shillings now. Can you give it to me in silver, not in gold, for I want to divide it, and pop it into the little box with divisions at once?”
“Bless me,” said the Doctor, “I’d forgotten—I did not know that indigestion week was so near. Well, here you are, Polly, two pounds in gold and two pounds in silver. I can’t manage more than two sovereigns’ worth of silver, I fear. Now my love, as you are strong, be merciful—give us only small doses of poison at each meal. I beseech of you, Polly, be temperate in your zeal.”
“You laugh at me,” said Polly, “Well, never mind. I’m too happy to care. I don’t expect you’ll talk about poisoning when you have eaten my cheesecakes. And father, dear father, you will let Paul and Virginia come? Nell and I meant to speak to you yesterday about them, but you were out all day. With me to housekeep, and Nell to look after everybody, you needn’t have the smallest fear about Paul and Virginia; they can come and they can line your pockets, can’t they?”
“My dear child, I have not an idea what you are talking about. Who are Paul and Virginia—have I not a large enough family without taking in the inhabitants of a desert island? There, I can’t wait to hear explanations now; that is my patients’ bell—run away, my dear, run away.”
Dr. Maybright always saw his poorer patients gratis on Saturday morning from ten to twelve. This part of his work pleased him, for he was the sort of man who thought that the affectionate and grateful glance in the eye, and the squeeze of the hand, and the “God bless you, doctor,” paid in many cases better than the guinea’s worth. He had an interesting case this morning, and again Polly and her housekeeping slipped from his mind. He was surprised, therefore, in the interim between the departure of one patient and the arrival of another, to hear a somewhat tremulous tap at his study door, and on his saying “Come in,” to see the pretty but decidedly ruffled face of his housemaid Alice presenting herself.
“Ef you please, Doctor, I won’t keep you a minute, but I thought I’d ask you myself ef it’s your wish as Miss Polly should go and give orders that on Monday morning I’m to turn the linen-press out from top to bottom, and to do it first of all before the rooms is put straight. And if I’m to unpick the blue muslin curtains, and take them down from where they was hung by my late blessed mistress’s orders, in the spare room, and to fit them into the primrose room over the porch—for she says there’s a Miss Virginy and a Master Paul coming, and the primrose room with the blue curtains is for one of them, she says. And I want to know from you, please, Doctor, if Miss Polly is to mistress it over me? And to take away the keys of the linen-press from me, and to follow me round, and to upset all my work, what I never stood, nor would stand. I want to know if it’s your wish, Doctor?”
“The fact is, Alice,” began the Doctor—he put his hand to his brow, and a dim look came over his eyes—“the fact is—ah, that is my patients’ bell, I must ask you to go, Alice, and to—to moderate your feelings. I have been anxious to give Miss Polly a lesson in experience, and it is only for a week. You will oblige me very much, Alice, by helping me in this matter.”
The Doctor walked to the door as he spoke, and opened it courteously.
“Come in, Johnson,” he said, to a ruddy-faced farmer, who was accompanied by a shy boy with a swelled face. “Come in; glad to see you, my friend. Is Tommy’s toothache better?”
Alice said afterwards that she never felt smaller in her life than when Dr. Maybright opened the study door to show her out.
“Ef I’d been a queen he couldn’t have done it more elegant,” she remarked. “Eh, but he’s a blessed man, and one would put up with two Miss Pollys for the sake of serving him.”
The Doctor having conquered Alice, again forgot his second daughter’s vagaries, but a much sterner and more formidable interview was in store for him; it was one thing to conquer Alice, who was impressionable, and had a soft heart, and another to encounter the stony visage and rather awful presence of Mrs. Power.
“It’s to give notice I’ve come, Dr. Maybright,” she said, dropping a curtsey, and twisting a corner of her large white apron round with one formidable red hand. “It’s to give notice. This day month, please, Doctor, and, though I says it as shouldn’t, you won’t get no one else to jelly your soups, nor feather your potatoes, nor puff your pastry, as Jane Power has done. But there’s limits, Dr. Maybright; and I has come to give you notice, though out of no disrespect to you, sir.”
“Then why do you do it, Mrs. Power?” said the Doctor. “You are an honest and conscientious servant, I know that from your late mistress’s testimony. You cook very good dinners too, and you make suitable puddings for the children, and pastry not too rich. Why do you want to leave? I don’t like change; and, if it is a question of wages, perhaps I may be able to meet you.”
“I’m obligated to you, Doctor; but it ain’t that. I has my twenty-two pounds paid regular, and all found. I ain’t grumbling on that score, and Jane Power was never havaricious nor grasping. I’m obligated too by what you says with respect to the pastry; but, Doctor, it ain’t in mortal woman to stand a chit of a child being put over her. So I’m going this day month; and, with your leave, I’ll turn the key in the kitchen-door next week, or else I’ll forfeit my wage and go at once.”
“Dear, dear,” said the Doctor. “This is really embarrassing. I never thought that Polly’s experience would upset the household economy in so marked a manner. I am really annoyed, for I certainly gave her leave to housekeep for a week.”
“It isn’t as I minds youth, Dr. Maybright,” continued Mrs. Power. “I makes due allowances for the young, for I says to myself, ‘Jane Power, you was once, so to speak, like an unfledged chick yourself;’ but there’s youth and youth, Dr. Maybright; and Miss Polly’s of the kind as makes your ’air stand on hend.”
“Poor Polly,” said the Doctor.
“No, sir, begging your parding, if you was in the kitchen, it’s ‘poor Mrs. Power’ you’d be a-saying. Now I don’t say nothing agin Miss Nelly—she’s the elder, and she have nice ways with her—she takes a little bit after my poor dear mistress; oh, what a nature was hers, blessed angel!”
Here Mrs. Power rolled her eyes skywards, and the Doctor, turning his back, walked to the window.
“Be brief,” he said, “I am pressed for time.”
“Sir, I was never one for long words; agen’ Miss Helen I haven’t a word to say. She comes down to the kitchen after breakfast as pretty as you please, and she says, ‘Power,’ says she, ‘you’ll advise me about the dinner to-day,’ says she. ‘Shall we have minced collops, or roast beef? And shall we have fruit tart with custard?’ Pretty dear, she don’t know nothink, and she owns it, and I counsel her, as who that wasn’t the most hard-hearted would. But Miss Polly, she’s all on wires like, and she bounds in and she says that I pepper the soup too strong, and that I ought to go to cookery schools, and ef I’ll go with her that blessed minit she’ll tell me what I wants in my own storeroom. There’s limits. Dr. Maybright, and Miss Polly’s my limits; so, ef you’ll have no objection, sir, I’ll go this day month.”
“But I have an objection,” replied Dr. Maybright. “Even Polly’s experiment must not cost me a valuable servant. Mrs. Power, I have promised my little girl, and I feel more than convinced that her week’s trial will ensure to you the freedom you desire and deserve in the future. Listen, I have a plan. Suppose you go for a week’s holiday on Monday?”
“Oh, my word, sir! And are you to be poisoned hout and hout?”
“That is unlikely. Maggie, your kitchen-maid, is fond of cooking, and she won’t quarrel with Miss Polly. Let us consider it arranged, then. A week’s holiday won’t do you any harm, cook, and your expenses I will defray. Now, excuse me, I must go out at once. The carriage has been at the door for some time.”