“I know because I’ve accepted Him, and I know Him. He lives in my heart and makes it possible for me to live and be happy even when things are very hard.”
Her aunt looked at her curiously, studying her face to try and make it out, and just then the lunch bell rang and there was no more opportunity to talk.
For several days Aunt Carlotta seemed to avoid talking any more about it, but Margaret thought a great deal, wondering if she had said the right thing and praying for her aunt with all her heart. Perhaps God was going to use her to help her aunt to know Him, but oh, she needed wisdom. She must ask to be taught. So far she had only been telling the simple truths her mother had taught her. Now she began to spend more time with her Bible.
Chapter 18
The new mistress had not been in Radcliffe House many days before she told Irving and Mandy that she would not be needing them any longer and sent them on their way into a world that had not been theirs for many years, for they had been with Mr. Radcliffe since before Revel was born.
She chose a time when Hiram Radcliffe was off on one of his business trips for two or three days, and when he returned he found that his old retainers had departed.
“They were simply impossible!” declared the new Mrs. Radcliffe. “As soon as you left they both became so impertinent that it was out of the question to let them stay, even until your return. I can’t understand how you have endured them all these years. But of course, you two poor dears were alone here, and men don’t know how to hire new servants.”
As a matter of fact, Hiram had hired Irving and Mandy himself and forced them on his gentle first wife. Then he had withstood her every attempt to make any kind of a change from the order he himself had established.
Hiram was somewhat dismayed at the announcement and drew his brows in an old-time frown, but his wife touched his forehead lightly with the tips of her velvet fingers and smoothed out the frown.
“But what shall we do?” he asked. “It isn’t so easy to get such servants nowadays, and it takes years to train them in the ways of a household.”
“Then change the ways of the household,” smiled the new mistress. “You know, you had gotten into terribly old-fashioned ways. Why, I would have been ashamed to invite any of my friends out here, the way things were being run.”
Astonishment dawned on Hiram’s hard face. No one had dared to speak in that way to him for years. He resembled a much petted family cat who has had its ears severely boxed for the first time.
“Well, but I thought you would be so delighted with my household regime. I thought Mandy was a fine cook. You won’t find another cook who can equal her.”
“Oh, yes, I will. I have one now. Wait until you see. Hurry and get ready for dinner. We’ve a couple of guests, old friends of mine from New York. They were passing through the town and stopped to call. I simply made them stay. I knew you’d be crazy to see them. You don’t know half of my old friends.”
Hiram frowned heavily.
“Well, I’m not keen on unexpected company. When I come home I’m tired as a dog, and I don’t want to get togged up and talk nonsense all the evening.”
“Oh, now, Hi, that’s ridiculous! What did you want me to marry you for if we weren’t going to have a grand time together? And here I’ve got up a lovely surprise for you, and you begin to pout and growl like a naughty little boy!”
“I thought you said these people just happened to stop here, and now you’re saying you got this up,” roared Hiram.
“Well, of course I did indicate to them when I heard them saying they were coming this way, that we would be delighted to have them drop in.”
“Oh, you did! Yes, I see!”
“But, Hi, don’t you want me to be happy here?”
“Why, yes—of course. But why should you drag in a lot of other people? This is our home, and I want you all to myself!”
“Oh, you silly old fellow,” laughed the new wife. “You’ll appreciate me all the more when you see me around with other people! Come, now, Hi, don’t let’s waste any more time. I don’t like to give my new servants the impression that we’re not prompt. Servants do get such a quick prejudice if everything isn’t just as they want it at the very first. And you know it isn’t easy to get really trained servants to come away out in the sticks like this and stay. And I do want these to stay, at least till we can sell this place and move nearer to the city.”
“Move?” exclaimed Hiram, looking at her, aghast. “Sell this place that I’ve spent my life getting the money together to build! Certainly I have no intention of selling, and I am sure you understood that before we were married, Natalie.”
“Well, don’t let’s discuss it now. I tell you, dinner is ready, and our guests are waiting downstairs. This is awful!”
“Guests be hanged!” asserted Hiram angrily. “I didn’t invite them. Let them wait! I want this thing understood at once, and settled for good and all. I do not intend to sell this place, ever! I built it for a permanent home! And if the servants you have hired don’t like it, they can go, right now, before they serve dinner, and the guests can go hungry! This is my house and I am master of it.”
Hiram was getting worked up to a good fit of temper, such as he had dished out to his first wife early and late, if ever she ventured to differ from him in any smallest matter. But Natalie Radcliffe had never seen a hint of this characteristic in him. She stared at him in horror then quickly changed her tactics. She was a clever lady, else she would never have snared Hiram Radcliffe.
“There, now, Hi dear! Think of all the pleasant peace and quietness you are spoiling with this display of temper. You shouldn’t waste your energy! Energy is the same as any other possession, it needs to be economized. And just because I was having a little joke, you took me in earnest and got all worked up. Of course we won’t sell the house if you are attached to it. I was only using that as a little illustration to show how careful we ought to be with these new servants—”
“Well, I never had to be careful with Mandy and Irving!” roared Hiram, still furious with the idea that she should have dared to venture to upset his regime.
“Yes?” said the new wife, in a soothing tone. “Well, we shall see. In the meantime, let’s try to make the best impression possible on the new servants, and then you can properly judge just what you really like.”
Then came a knock at the door, and one of the new servants carried on a low-toned conversation with Mrs. Radcliffe.
“Yes, that’s right, Lucile. Suppose you tap at their door and tell them that dinner will be served in ten minutes. Yes, Mr. Radcliffe will be ready by that time. Yes, that will be all right, and don’t forget what I told you about the wines.”
These last words were spoken so low that Hiram didn’t hear them. He had never been in the habit of serving liquor in his house, though not from any inherent conviction about it, just that it was an expensive habit that one who was trying to accumulate wealth would do well to avoid.
The subject had not come up between them at all, but the new Mrs. Radcliffe did not intend it should. She was planning to produce the liquor at her dinner and let it come as a matter of course.
So for the first time Hiram went down to dinner in his own house and found a great change had come upon the place while he had been absent for a few days.
He was not a man who accepted anything against his will easily. His wife had counted without knowledge of him when she dared to make innovations in the house without telling him, expecting that the presence of strangers would keep him from demurring. Hiram had never abstained from demurring in his life if he felt like it, no matter who was present. He therefore sat down solemnly at his table and surveyed the whole arrangement. To begin with there were new dishes. Dishes he had never seen before. Had she been buying new dishes without consulting him? That fact alone was sufficient to make him glower. He resolved that those dishes, if they had been bought on any charge account of his, should go straight back to the store the next morning.
br /> So the dinner began with a glowering host, who said very little to his unwanted guests, and went on from bad to worse. Whatever talking there was, was done by the guests, and the laughter, of which there was a good deal, was performed by his wife. She carried the evening off in fine style and appeared to be entirely satisfied, and much amused at her angry husband.
As a result of the disaffection of the master of the house, the guests took themselves off soon after dinner instead of staying all night, which was exactly what Hiram had intended they would do. It was a method he had effectually used on his first wife’s friends.
But before they left and while the dinner was in progress, two or three times he thundered orders to the new servants, just as he had been in the habit of ordering Irving and Mandy about. But they only looked at him haughtily, and finally ignored his orders entirely, carrying out instead the orders of his wife. At last he roared at them that they might do as he said or leave the house at once. So the lofty butler, and the waitress who had been added to the mange, with heads held stiffly high, marched solemnly out of the room and remained out of sight till the main part of the meal was concluded.
But the new mistress was clever. She did not intend to let her dinner be spoiled nor her husband be misjudged. She would teach him later the amenities of life, but just at present she would create the idea that all this had been planned. She smiled upon her guests and said, “Well, now we’re going into the other room for the dessert. I thought it would be pleasant if we ate it sitting around the fire,” And she gave the signal to rise, touching the bell by her place as if it were a prearranged plan.
Nothing happened about the bell, but she led the way toward the living room, saying in a silvery voice, “I know you will excuse my poor husband. He has been working so hard on his trip and didn’t sleep at all last night in the sleeper. He has come home simply worn out. I told him he might go and lie down and take a little sleep. I was sure you would excuse him.” Then at the door she waved her guests into the living room and slid back into the kitchen to whisper to the waitress, who was standing with haughty chin and curling lips by the pantry door.
“Don’t mind what he said. He is half sick. Serve the dessert in the living room.”
Hiram stood there by his table place in his own house and looked uncertainly around. Was it possible that anyone had dared to treat him like that? A mere wife? Who did she think she was?
And then she was gone, on into the living room with her guests, and he was left standing alone, free to follow, or to escape.
He escaped.
He went to his own room and paced the floor back and forth, and well for his wife’s peace of mind that his room was not over the living room, for he made a thunderous noise, flinging chairs about and stamping around the room like a crazy person.
So the guests were left silently in the living room and ate their lovely ices, served by disapproving angry servants with pursed lips and fine intentions of leaving early in the morning. As soon as the guests could make their excuses they left, watched from the master’s window with satisfaction. This was the method by which he had subdued his first wife so effectually.
But the new Mrs. Radcliffe was of sterner stuff than her predecessor, and she had her plans well laid. When her guests were gone she went swiftly into the kitchen, where the glowering servants were reviling her and her husband together, and did a fine little placating apology act.
“You know,” she said with a charming smile, the smile that had won their consent to working in the country when she hired them, “I’m depending on you all to help me.” Then she told them with a gentle voice how ill her husband had been when he came home and how he could hardly hold up his head, and had been upset that there were guests when he was feeling so badly. So she hoped they would pass over any little irregularities in his conduct and just simply forget them. He would be all right in the morning she was sure, and wouldn’t in the least realize what he had done to upset them. She begged them to forget it all and go to bed, get a good rest, and in another day or two things would become adjusted and they would like the country.
She did her act so well that the servants were actually placated, and relented, promising that they would give the master of the house another chance.
So the new lady, with a bewildering smile of gratitude went on her way to endeavor to placate her new lord now. She did not anticipate it would be a very difficult task.
But Mrs. Radcliffe had reckoned this time without knowledge of her bridegroom. He wheeled on her when she entered their room and gave her a choice arrangement of very definite language calculated to show her his exact feelings with regard to her high-handed dismissal of the family servants and family arrangements, and her audacity in purchasing new dishes and the like. He called it unforgivable waste.
He had placed himself where the light would show up his severity and where he could see her quail and quiver, as his first wife had done when he delivered his ultimatum to her. But there was no quivering nor quailing in Natalie. She was of different fiber. She stood watching him icily for a moment as he went ranting on, giving her his first husbandly homily on economy and good taste, and then her attractive delicate chin lifted almost imperceptibly, until it was both severe and haughty. And in an interval when he paused to select a more fitting and cutting word for his purpose, she spoke, with a voice like an icicle.
“Hiram! You forget yourself! Remember you are speaking to a lady! To your wife! That will be about all I care to hear from you tonight.” And then she sailed majestically out of the room, closing the door with a finality the like of which he had never had administered to him before. He stood still, amazed, there by the window, and stared at the door through which she had passed, feeling stunned and helpless. Emily had never treated him this way. What did it mean? Emily had always yielded quickly and sorrowfully to his outrageous tirades and had never spoken of the subject of his harangue again, only grown sadder and meeker with every day that passed, and quivered when he found a new subject to scold her about. But now this lady had turned haughty on him, and how was he to manage a temperament like that? He must not give in to her. And yet, how charming and imperious she had looked as she stood there coldly and surveyed him. Well, she had to learn, of course. He couldn’t have her carrying things with a high hand that way and forcing obnoxious company upon him every time she took a notion. But how charming she had been with her head held high. How fitting a lady to manage his handsome house and meet his guests! Of course he could afford to be a little lenient with her, after she thoroughly understood what he would have and what he would not. He would forgive her and have a charming time doing it, melt her out of that icy mask into which she had retired at his first word of faultfinding. But those servants would have to go, and those dishes would have to be returned to the people who influenced her into buying them. He wouldn’t have dishes like that when he already had handsome dishes that were plenty good enough for anything, and she certainly must have a good strong lesson on economy. She needn’t think she could run out and buy new house furnishings without consulting him. There must be an end of that.
Then when she thoroughly understood, he would forgive her, of course, and buy her some trinket to make her forget her anger. Perhaps he would give her one of the sets of jewelry he had given Emily, and which she had never worn. They were reposing in a vault in the bank now. The emeralds, perhaps, or the set of pearls.
He waited for some time for Natalie to return and beg his forgiveness, and he would forgive her, of course, when she got humble enough. But somehow the time got longer and longer, and she did not return.
At last he opened the door noiselessly and looked down the hall, but all was quite silent. She had probably gone to one of the guest rooms. So he tiptoed down the hall and tried the door of one but found it locked. His face grew stony with anger, but again he turned the knob and then tapped with the tips of his fingers.
“Natalie!” in a stern demand.
Another silence,
and then he tried again, more gently.
“Natalie!”
Still no answer.
At last, “Natalie, my dear!” But only silence answered him.
It was a long time before he gave up and tiptoed back to his room, leaving the door ajar, hoping she would repent and come back, but the night went on and she did not come, and in the morning she was cold and unconquered. And though he tried in a polite way to say something again about the subject matter of their difference, he got nowhere with her. She only looked past him and managed to make him feel that she did not see him.
It was the first time that anyone in close relation to him had ever tried that, and he didn’t quite know what to make of it, that she should dare. Why, she was his wife, and she had no right to act that way!
That was the start of their trouble, and it went on from there. It was not till evening that she relented and condescended to speak to him, telling him plainly how uncomfortable he had made her, how ashamed she had been of him!
Chapter 19
It was some time before Hiram really realized that he was up against someone who would not take his sharp words and sulks and criticisms the way Emily had done, and by the time he got to the point where he knew that if he protested against any of her arrangements he had to look forward to hours, perhaps days, of being ignored, or reproved in a cold, sarcastic tone, he was almost beside himself, for he had never controlled his temper in his life, and it did not come easily now. There were days when he sat in his office boiling over with rage at some little word of Natalie’s at the breakfast table. He began to see that his work was suffering and that the home he had planned with a view to utter contentment was really a hotbed of contention. She kept him so occupied in protesting everything she was doing that he had little time to think of anything else, least of all his son. Whenever his thoughts did turn toward Revel and the way he was continually frustrating all his plans for him, it seemed so trivial a matter beside his own disappointments that he passed it over. He could attend to the boy afterward, when he got his own life straightened out. Surely, surely no woman could keep this up, trying to change everything that he liked and make over his home.