Chapter 13

THE BREAKING UP OF MARY

Prosperity disagrees with some people. But with Mary I have always thought it was jealousy.

As long as we had no one but her, and she practically ran the house and us, too, she was the same faithful, honest, sympathetic soul, who first won our young love at the Waldorf during our honeymoon, but after we came to Peach Orchard and needed old Amos for the horses, and a gardener, and two extra maids in the house, Mary's thrift took wings, and no Liande de Pougy or Otero could exceed her extravagance in ordering things she did not want, and never could use.

I noticed that the bills were becoming perfectly unbearable, and, never dreaming that our good, faithful Mary could be at fault,--she, who used to declare that she had walked ten blocks to find lettuce at eight cents a head instead of nine, and who never could be persuaded that her time at home was worth far more to me than that extra cent,--I spoke to the grocer and asked him what he meant by such prices.

"It isn't the prices, Mrs. Jardine--it's the quantity you have been ordering. Are you running a hotel?"

"No," I said. "Not that I know of."

"Well," he answered. "Look here; here's three gallons of olive-oil you've ordered in one week."

"Three gallons!" I gasped. "You mean three bottles."

"No, ma'am! Three gallons!"

"Who ordered it?"

"That there old woman of yours,--the one that cusses so."

"You mean Mary?" I asked, incredulously.

"I don't know what her name is, but I know her tongue when I hear it. A white-haired old lady with specs."

"That must be Mary," I mused.

"Well, 'm, she said Mr. Jardine ate salad twice a day, and needed lots of oil."

"So he does," I observed, drily, "but he doesn't bathe in it."

This pleasantry was quite lost on the grocer, for he hastened to agree with me, with a--

"Sure he doesn't," and a convincing wag of the head, as who should say, "Let no man accuse my friend, Mr. Jardine, of bathing in olive-oil, while I am about!"

It was very soothing.

"Well, just send it back, Mrs. Jardine," said he, presently, "it's in gallon cans and sealed."

I went home with wrath in my soul, but intending to modify my bill by at least three gallons of olive-oil. To my horror, however, I found that Mary had opened all three cans, and filled, perhaps, but one cruet from each.

Mary's face fell when I accusingly pointed this fact out to her.

"I forgot that I had any, Missis dear," she said, humbly. "I know you hate to run out of things."

"So I do," I said, severely, "but ten dollars' worth of olive-oil is rather too much to forget at a time, and there is absolutely no excuse for your opening all three of them."

"I know it, Missis dear."

I opened my mouth to say more, but her penitence, her humility, the sight of her old white head, moved me. "Suppose," I said to myself, "that, in addition to her extravagance, she was as impudent, as brazen, and as defiant as most servants? What would I do then?"

I turned away grateful for small mercies.

Soon after this, we began to take our meals out-of-doors. I had made a little lawn near the house, and surrounded it with a wire fencing, over which sweet peas were climbing. In the centre of this patch of grass was spread a rug made of green denim, just the colour of the grass, and on this stood a dinner-table of weathered oak. Here, in fine weather, we took all our meals. Breakfast was served anywhere from six to ten, and by looking from your bedroom windows, you might see a man in white flannels, smoking a cigarette and reading the morning paper over coffee or rolls or a dish of strawberries on thin green leaves.

The women--until they had once tried the open-air breakfast--always preferred their coffee in their rooms. But, if I do say it myself, Peach Orchard at six o'clock in the morning is the most beautiful spot on earth. (The Angel has just thoughtfully observed that for me that is a very moderate statement.)

One day while Lady Mary and Sir Wemyss were with us, I made a lobster salad for them. I always use nasturtium stems in the mayonnaise for a lobster, and mix the blossoms in for garnishing and to serve it with.

This suggested the colour scheme of yellow, so I decorated entirely with nasturtiums, and, beginning with grapefruit, I planned a yellow luncheon throughout.

The Angel had seen me fussing with things in the servants' dining-room, and knew that I had made a salad. I simply mention this to show why I continue to call him the Angel, though the honeymoon has waxed and waned many, many times.

Now I admit that _I_ am forgetful. I admit that _I_ am absent-minded, and I furthermore beg to state that with the Jimmies and the Beguelins and Bee tearing subjects for conversation into mental rags and tatters for the admiration and astonishment of the Lombards, I think I might be excused for not noticing that Mary forgot the salad. She forgot it as completely as if salad had never dawned upon the culinary horizon. The cook, not having made it, naturally dismissed it from _her_ mind, but _Mary_ had helped me make it. _Mary_ put it in the ice-box with her own hands. _Mary_ knew how I had worked over it. Drat her!

When all was over, the Angel strolled over to me and murmured:

"I thought you were making that salad for luncheon, dear."

I sprang from my chair as if shot, and stared at him wildly. He regarded me with alarm.

"So I _was_!" I shrieked, in a whisper. I wrung my hands, and so great was my anguish that tears came into my eyes.

"There! There, dearie!" said Aubrey, kindly. "Don't mind, little girl! It would have been too much with all the rest of your lovely luncheon. It will go _much_ better tonight."

"You are an angel," I said, brokenly, "but I'll feel a little easier in my mind after I have killed Mary."

It was hot, but I ran all the way to the house. I found Mary. The light of battle was in my eye, and she quailed before I spoke.

"Where was that lobster salad?" I demanded.

She turned pale, and sank into a chair. I simply stood glaring at her. She peeked through her fingers to see if I were relenting as usual, but as I still looked blood-thirsty, she began to cry. She covered her head with her apron, and rocked herself back and forth.

"I forgot it, Missis dear! Kick me if you want to. I'll not say I don't deserve it, but since I burst me stomach I can't remember anything!"

"Since you _what_?" I gasped, in horror.

Mary took down her apron in triumph, and looked as important as though she had a funeral to go to.

"Didn't you know, Missis? In my mother's last sickness--God rest her soul!--I had to lift her every day, and I burst me stomach. The doctor said so. That's why I forget things!"

I stood staring at her. She was nodding her head, and smoothing her apron over her knees with a look of the greatest complacency.

I thought of many, many things to say. And in several languages. But all of them put together would have been inadequate, so, without one word, I turned and walked slowly and thoughtfully away.

That did not phase Mary in the least. She had looked for voluble and valuable sympathy--such as generally pours from me on the slightest provocation. She was so disappointed that she grew ugly and broke a soap-dish.

"Aubrey," I said to the Angel, "how is your memory connected with your stomach?"

"Very nearly," he answered, pleasantly. "My stomach reminds me of many things,--when it's time to eat, and when it's time to drink."

"So then, if anything happened to that reminder, you might forget even to get dinner if you were a cook, or to serve it if you were a butler?"

"Certainly."

"I see," I answered, thoughtfully.

"If I might beg to inquire the wherefore of this thirst for information--" hazarded the Angel, politely.

"Oh, nothing much. Only Mary says she has burst her stomach, and that's why she forgets everything."

Fortunately, Aubrey was sitting in his Morris chair. If he had flung himself about in that manner on a bench, he would have broken his back.

"Mary," said Aubrey, when he could speak, "ought to go in a book."

"Mary," I said, with equal emphasis, "ought to go into an asylum."

It was not long after that that old Katie, the cook, came up-stairs, and beckoned me from the room.

"You said, Mrs. Jardine, that you'd never seen butter made. Now I've got the first churning from the Guernsey cow in the churn, and if you would like to see it--"

She never finished the sentence, for I rushed past her so that she had to follow me into the milk-room. (Bee wanted me to call it "the dairy.")

I sat by while Katie churned and told stories. Then while she was turning it out, and I was raving over the colour of it, I heard a suspicious sniffing behind me, and behold, there was Mary, with her apron to her eyes, murmuring, brokenly, "My poor dear mother! Oh, my poor dear mother!"

Seeing that she had attracted my attention, she walked away, stumbling over the threshold to emphasize her grief.

"What's the matter with Mary, Mrs. Jardine?" asked old Katie, wonderingly.

"Her mother used to churn, she told me, and I suppose it brings it all back to her to see you churn," I said, with as straight a face as I could muster.

"Dear me!" said Katie, in high disgust. "_I_ had a mother and _she_ used to churn, but it doesn't turn me into salt water every time I hear the dasher going!"

Katie is a shrewd woman, so I said nothing in answer to that. Finally Katie lifted her chin--a way she had--and added:

"I'm thinking it sits bad on her mind to see you in here with me, instead of with her!"

As I still said nothing, she apparently repented herself, for she said, a moment later:

"But Mary was mighty fond of her old father and mother. She keeps mementoes of them ahl over the place. She has now what she calls his Polean pitcher--"

"His what?"

"Shure _I_ don't know! But she says it is. It's got a man on the outside, and you pours out of his three-cornered hat."

"Oh, yes," I said. "I remember now. What did you say she called it?"

"There it is now, on the shelf above your head. But how it got there, _I_ don't know. And Mary would be throwing fits if she saw it."

"Why?"

"Because she says her father used to send her every night, when she was a little girl, to get his Polean pitcher filled with beer. She says she minds him every time she looks at it--Gahd rest his soul."

I turned and looked at the little squat figure of Napoleon. It was the pitcher the little man had given Mary for getting our trade for him, when we were first married.

"She cried once when I put some cream in it to make pot-cheese," said Katie. "And she emptied it and washed it and kissed it; then she stood it on th' shelf with her picture of the Pope that you gave her."

Just then Mary, as if suspecting something, appeared at the door. She looked suspiciously from one to the other.

"I was just afther telling the Missis, Mary, how careful you are of the Polean pitcher you used to rush the growler with for your poor dear father," said Katie, with a shy grin that was gone before we fairly saw it.

Mary turned away without a word. She never spoke to me on the subject, nor I to her.

The next day a gipsy fortune-teller came to Peach Orchard, and told the fortunes of all the servants. She predicted a rich husband for Katie, and a fit of sickness for Mary. I think she could not have pleased each better.

That night we were sitting in the Angel's porch-study, when the most dreadful howls and groans began to emanate from the kitchen. We all hurried to the scene, and there, prone upon the floor, lay Mary, weeping and twitching herself and moaning that she was going to die.

"It's the fortune-teller," said Katie in my ear. But Aubrey heard.

"Get up, Mary!" he said, sternly. (I did not know the Angel _could_ be so stern.)

To the surprise of all of us, Mary obediently scrambled to her feet.

"Now go to your room, and go properly to bed. Katie will help you. Then I shall telephone for the doctor."

Mary began to look frightened.

"Don't send for the doctor, Boss dear," she pleaded. "I'll be better soon. These attacks don't mean anything."

"The gipsy predicted that you were going to have a fit of sickness, and I believe it has come," said Aubrey, seriously. "Take her to bed quickly, Katie. I don't want her to die in the kitchen."

The two old women stumbled up the back stairway together.

"Oh, Aubrey, what is it?" I whispered.

"It is the breaking up of Mary," said the Angel when we were alone. "It has been going on for some time. Either jealousy, or old age, or imagination, or incipient insanity has seized our poor old servant-friend, and well-nigh wrecked her. I have tried various remedies, but all have failed. I didn't want to bother you with it before, but the fact is, Faith dear, Mary must go. She has outlived her usefulness with us."

"I've been afraid of it for some time," I answered. "But it seems too bad. She has been with us through some strenuous times, Aubrey."

"I know, dear, and I have no idea of turning the old creature adrift. The last time I was in town I spoke to Doctor North and arranged to send Mary to his sanatorium for a month."

"You are good, Aubrey."

Aubrey smoked in silence for a few moments.

"Yes, Mary has been with us through deep waters and hard fights, and never has she flinched. Perhaps it is her nature. Perhaps she just can't stand the lameness of prosperity."

In a day or two we sent Mary to Doctor North's sanatorium, a badly scared and deeply repentant old woman, and Aubrey wired Doctor North:

"Is this a genuine case, or is she faking?"

The answer came back:

"Faking."

Poor Mary! She escaped from the sanatorium on the third day. But we never saw her again, and though we often write to her and send her things, she never answers.

I think it was the "Polean pitcher."