Brenda's Bargain Part 19

XIV

CONCILIATION

One day not so very long after the valentine party, when it was still rather uncertain whether Maggie and Concetta were to be friends or enemies, the former had a chance to do Concetta a real favor. It was a morning when she had been very busy herself, as it was her week for taking care of the large reading-room, and she had been up very early in order to finish certain things before breakfast. First of all she had cleaned mirrors with powdered whiting until they shone; then she had polished the bra.s.ses; and finally, after spreading covers over everything that might harbor dust, she had swept the long room.

"Don't you hate sweeping?" asked Haleema, who was to help her dust and arrange the rooms.

"Not half as much as dusting. I really do hate that, it is so fussy, and, do you know," dropping her voice, "I heard Miss Julia the other day saying that she didn't like dusting either."

In spite of any dislike that she may have had for the work, Maggie was a willing worker, and soon she had the long room in perfect order.

Soon after breakfast, pa.s.sing through the back hall, they came upon an array of lamps ranged on a long table.

"Where's Concetta?"

"I don't know. She was here a little while ago."

"Well, I've looked all over the house, and I haven't seen her for an hour."

"It's her day to do the lamps. She'll get a scolding if she doesn't fill them."

"Who'll scold her? I never heard any one in this house scold."

"Well, Miss Dreen, for one, is very particular, and she said that she'd punish the next girl who neglected the lamps."

"Oh, well," said Maggie, "perhaps she won't be back in time to do them,--that is, if she has gone off anywhere."

"She hasn't any right to go off in the morning."

"I don't mind doing the lamps," said Maggie,--"that is, I'm not so very fond of doing them, but I'd just as lieves, and it will save Concetta a scolding. I don't mind a bit."

So Maggie set to work with a will. She filled the lamps, trimmed one or two wicks, put in one or two new ones, washed and polished the chimneys, and when they were finished set them on a large tray to be ready for evening.

"Well, that's more than I would do," said Haleema.

"I wonder how these lamps get used," said Maggie; "except in the library they mostly use gas--the young ladies, I mean--and, of course, we only have gas in our room."

"Why, that's so," said Haleema, "though I never thought of it before."

But neither of the girls put her mind sufficiently on the subject to see that the care of the lamps was one of the devices of the two head workers at the Mansion for getting a certain kind of exact service from the young girls. The lamps were not needed. Often two of them were set in a little-used room where they burned just long enough to sear the wicks and cloud the shades, so that the young housekeepers could show their skill in cleaning them. Miss South made it her duty usually to keep in mind the girl whose task for the week it was to attend to the lamps, and when the results were thoroughly satisfactory she was loud in her praise, just as she felt it her duty to blame when the reverse was true. From the lamps the two little girls went to the bathroom.

"Oh, you oughtn't to dust without lifting down those bottles. Miss Dreen says that we ought never to leave a corner untouched."

"But I've dusted in between; it doesn't matter what there is under the bottles."

But Haleema was not to be rebuffed.

"I like bottles," she added. "They almost always have things in them that smell good," and she reached up on tiptoe toward the shelf. The first bottle that she reached just came within her grasp, and she pulled it toward her. When she pulled the stopper, it proved to be a fragrant toilet water, and even Maggie, admitting that it was delightful, yielded to the pleasure of inhaling it directly from the bottle. Emboldened by her success, Haleema drew another bottle down toward her and made a feint of drinking from it.

"Oh, don't!" cried Maggie, in genuine alarm, "it may be poison."

"Oh, they wouldn't leave poisons around like this. I'd just as lief as not taste anything here. I ain't afraid."

But although she spoke thus bravely, Haleema really did not venture to put the liquid to her mouth. Then she touched a third bottle, filled with a colorless liquid. She tried to pull out the rubber stopper, but it would not stir. Holding the bottle under one arm, she gave a second, more vigorous pull, when the stopper not only came out, but in some way the liquid flew out, and then--a loud scream from Maggie, who was wiping the edge of the bathtub. Haleema herself, half suffocated by the fumes of the ammonia from the harmless-looking bottle, had enough presence of mind to set it up on the marble washstand. But, alas! she set it down so hard that the gla.s.s broke and the ammonia trickled down, destroying the glossy surface of the hardwood floor.

All these things, of course, had happened in a very short time; not a minute, indeed, had pa.s.sed after Maggie's first shriek before Julia and Miss South and two or three girls had rushed to the room.

The ammonia fumes at once told the story to Miss South, and without waiting for an explanation she had raised Maggie from the floor.

"Oh, dear, my eyes!" sobbed Maggie, and for a moment Miss South was frightened. Ammonia can work great havoc when it touches the eyes.

Fortunately, however, as it happened it was not Maggie's eyes but her face that the ammonia had really hurt. Her eyes were inflamed, and she had to be kept in a dark room for a day or two, and her face had to be salved and swathed in cloths. But in the end no great injury had been done, and she won Haleema's everlasting grat.i.tude by resisting the temptation to tell enquirers that Haleema's carelessness had caused the disaster; for great injury had been done the polished floor, and Haleema knew that she deserved reproof and punishment. Yet such was Maggie's reputation for destructiveness that she was supposed to have broken the bottle, and in the injury to her face she was thought to have paid a sufficient penalty.

When Concetta returned to the house an hour later, great was her surprise to find that her lamps had been cleaned, and when Haleema told her of Maggie's kindness she could not understand it.

"Perhaps she's trying for a prize."

"What prize?"

"Why, don't you know? At the end of the year the very best girl at the Mansion is to have a prize. I shouldn't wonder if it would be a gold watch."

"Oh, I don't believe it."

"Then you can ask Miss Bourne."

A few days later Concetta had a chance to put the question to Julia.

"Yes, indeed, there are to be two prizes: one for the girl who has tried the hardest, and the other for the one who has succeeded the best."

"Which will get them, Miss Bourne?"

"Ah, how can I tell?"

"I don't see how any one can tell; no one is watching us all the time."

"Some one does take account, Inez, of almost everything that you say and do."

"Oh, dear, I hate to be spied on," grumbled Concetta.

"No one is spying, I can a.s.sure you; but there are certain things that we notice carefully, and you have all been here so long that we know pretty well just what you are likely to do."

"I expect some one marks everything down in a book, like they used to at school?" Maggie put this as a question, but Julia did not reply directly.

"All the advice I can give you is to do as well as you can, and whether things are written in a book or not you will fare very well--at least, you will all fare alike."

"What will the prizes be, Miss Bourne?"

"Ah, I cannot tell exactly."