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y jf^ rr i i "f"Tttftit J<yUi llUlIiu
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Y Jf^ Rr I I "F"Tttftit J≪Yui Lluliiu
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SKETCHES FROM LIFE . By Harriet Martineau . III . —T HE MAID-SERVAN T— { Continued ) . The eldest of Mrs . Barclay ' s sons , who had been married about two years before was so ill as to be ordered to Madeira to save his life . There was more rashness formerly than there is now about sending persons so very ill far away from their own homes ; and Madeira was then a less comfortable residence for Englishmen than it has since been made . A large countryhouse was taken for the invalid and his family ; and all that forethought could do was done for their comfort . The very best piece of forethought was that of Mrs . Barclay , when she proposed that Jemima should be asked
to go as one of their servants . Jemima asked a few days to consider ; and during those few days the anxiety of the family increased as they saw how all-important the presence of such a helper would be . Nothing could be more reasonable than Jemima ' s explanation , when she had made up her mind . She said that if she was to engage herself for two years , and defer her marriage * it must be for the sake of some advantage to Richard , and to their affairs afterwards , that she would make such a sacrifice . It was Richard's object and hers to save at present ; if , therefore , she went to Madeira it must be on high wages . She would devote herself to do the best she could for the family : but she must see that Richard did not suffer by it . Of course , this was agreed to at once , and she went to Madeira .
It is always a severe and wearing trial to servants to travel in foreign countries , or remain long abroad . They usually have all the discomfort without the gratifications which their employers seek and enjoy . Their employers can speak the languages of the people among whom they go ; and they have intellectual interests , historical , philosophical , or artistical , which their servants know nothing about . Thus we hear of one lady ' s maid who cried all through Italy ; and another who scolded or sulked all the way up the hill and down again ; and another who declared every morning for some weeks in the Arabian deserts that she would bear it no longer , but would go
ruined thousands of capitalists—from bankers to tradesmen—was now bringing starvation upon hundreds of thousands of artizans and labourers . Richard ' s business , till now a rising one , had become slack . During the few months longer that the young people waited , they bought what they could get to advantage of good furniture , and despised no small earnings . A certain clock—a thoroughly good one—was to be had for £ 8 , which a year before would have cost £ 10 at least . Mrs . Barclay saw the longing there was to have this clock ; while nothing like £ 8 was left to buy it with . She offered to buy
it for them , and let them work it out ; and the offer was gladly accepted . When they married she wished to send it home , but they both said they could never look at the clock in their own house without reproach while it was not truly their own . They actually craved permission to have it stand in Mr . Barclay ' s warehouse . Once a week they brought what money they could spare , and then they always stepped into the warehouse and took a long look at their clock ; and at last the day came when they paid the last shilling and took it home , where , no doubt , thev gave it a longer gaze than ever .
Poor things ! they little knew what was before them . Richard had plenty of business ; and his stock of leather was used up , again and again ; but , as the winter wore on , he could obtain no payment . One of the Miss Barclays , in speaking of the state of the times , thoughtlessly congratulated Jemima on her husband being a shoemaker , saying that one of the last things people could do without was shoes . A sort of spasm passed over Jemima ' s face when she tried to smile , and she stopped a moment before she said , very quietly , yes , that that was true : people still had shoes ; but they could not pay for them . In a little while longer , she was making gowns , or doing any
other sewing for any body , for anything they could pay . As she worked , Richard sat by and read to her . He had no more leather ; and there was no use trying his credit when he knew he should not get paid for the shoes he might make . At Christmas , they were sitting thus without a fire . A little later still , the Barclays found Jemima rubbing up her furniture , which was as clean and polished before as it could well be . No careless observer , seeing a neat young woman , in a snow-white cap , polishing substantial furniture of her own , with a handsome clock ticking in a corner , could have supposed that she was wanting food . But it was so ; and there was
something in her face , —a pinched look about the nose , a quivering about the chin , which betrayed the fact to the Barclays . It was partly to warm herself , in the absence of fire , that Jemima was rubbing up her furniture . As for pawning or selling it , —it would have gone very hard with the young couple to do that , if it had been possible . But it was not possible ; and they had no conflict of mind on that point . The furniture brokers had no money , —any more than other people ; and the pawnbrokers' houses were so crowded , from cellar to garret , that every one of them in the city had for some time refused to take any thing more whatever . The Barclays themselves were sorely embarrassed , and eventually ruined , by the same crash . The very little they could do was needed by multitudes even more than by Richard and Jemima .
They found the weaver hanging fainting over his loom , and the reduced schoolmistress sitting on the bottom stair , too dizzy with hunger to mount to her own room . They found the elderly widow too proud to own her need to the district visitors , lending her pitcher , without a handle , to the sinking family above stairs , to fetch the soup from the public kitchen ; while they , sinking as they were , divined her case , and left some soup at the bottom of the pitcher , as if by accident . No one was more ready than Jemima to point out to the Barclays the sufferers who , while saying least about it , most wanted bread . All that her friends could do for her was to get their shoes mended by Richard , and to give her a few days' employment , now and then , by their good fire , and with three good meals in the day .
How they managed it , the young couple could themselves hardly tell ; but they got through . The worst times of commercial crisis must come to an end ; and the end found the young people somewhat sunk in health and spirits , but clear of debt , and with all their little property safe about them . Of course their credit was good ; and when people were again able to pay for their shoes , Richard was as safe as any man can be who is bound up with a system of fluctuations .
As safe , that is , about money matters . But the next autumn showed him by how frail a tenure he held his very best earthly blessing . Jemima was confined ; and almost before he had seen his little daughter , his wife was in the last extremity of danger . She well knew it ; and the surgeon said afterwards that in all his experience , he had never seen such an instance of calm and amiable good sense under the strongest possible circumstances of proof . She understood the case—her affections were all alive—her husband and child were in the
room—a bright life was before her—and she was slipping away from all : yet there was no fear , and , amidst excessive exhaustion , no perturbation . The surgeon said she saved her own life , for he could not have saved her . In a few weeks she brought her little daughter to the Barclays' house ; and , as she sat there , they could not help thinking that her face was almost as childlike as her infant ' s . It was , at least , much the same , in its innocence and brightness , as it was on that summer evening , so many years ago , when they found it on their steps , on returning from their walk .
The infant was extremely pretty . In connection with it happened tho severest trial that Jemima had ever known ; certainly , a severer one than she had looked for in her married life . She wished to have the child vaccinated . Richard objected . He had committed all he had to God , and it would be taking tho child out of tho hands of Providence to havo it vaccinated .
straight home—that she would . Jemima and her fellow-servants had much to bear , but she and another bore it well , The voyage was trying , the seasickness was bad enough ; but a worse thing was , that the infant , five months ' old , got no proper sleep , from the noises and moving on board ; and the foundation was thus laid for brain disease , of which he died in the winter . Then , when they landed , the great house was dreadfully dirty and wanted airing ; as it was not like a dirty house in England , which can always be cleaned when desired . The Portuguese at Madeira were found to have no notion of cleanliness ; and as they could speak no English , and the servants no Portuguese , the business was an irritating one . There were great
privileges about the abode . The view over land and sea was most magnificent ; and there was in the grounds a hedge several hundred yards long , of geraniums , fuchsias , and many glorious foreign blossoms , in flower and fragrance all the winter through ; and the air was the most delicious that could be breathed : but Jemima would have given all these things , at any moment , for English food , and English ways , and the sound of English church bells , or the familiar voice of her own preacher . Her master visibly declined on the whole , and the infant pined and died . She could not but know that she was the mainstay of the party as to their external comfort . She must have had some sweet moments in the consciousness of
this . What she considered , however , the great luxury of all was watching for the English packet from the top of the house . The house itself was on the mountains , and when she and a fellow-servant went up to the flat roof , and steadied the telescope on the balustrade , they could see very far indeed over the ocean , and sometimes watched the approach of the vessel , in which she knew there was a letter from Richard , for some hours before it reached the harbour . These days of the arrival of letters were the few days of animation and good cheer of that dreary and mournful season , which was more dismal among sunshine , and flowers , and sweet airs , than the gloomiest winter the party had ever known in England . If it had been for an unlimited time , even Jemima ' steady spirits could hardly have borne it ; but she said to herself that it was only for two years , and she should never repent it .
It did not last two years . When the heats came on , in May , the physicians said that the invalid must go home ; and in June the family embarked in the only vessel in which they could have a passage—a wine-vessel going to a French port . It was dirty , and almost without comforts . Its discomforts were too great to be dwelt upon . In the Bay of Biscay there was a dead calm , in which they lay suffering for so many days that it seemed as if they were never to get on . Under this the invalid sank . He was buried at sea . The widow and her servants landed at Bordeaux , and travelled homewards through France . Never , perhaps , had Jemima felt so happy as when she saw again the cathedral spire of her native city , and was presently met by Richard , and welcomed by the grateful blessings of the Barclay family . She had well discharged her trust , and now her own domestic life was to begin . Not immediately , however . It was a season of fearful distress in England ^—tho year 1820 , the time of the dreadful commercial crash , which , having
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iVe should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . — GOETHE .
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Dec . 14 , 1850 . ] & $$ gLl&frl ?* 907
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 14, 1850, page 907, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1862/page/19/
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