Arminell: A Social Romance, Vol. 3Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
General
Arminell: A Social Romance, Vol. 3
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
English fiction -- 19th century
Arminell was in the process of framing, and the frame was one of her own
selection. Whether suitable or not, the situation could not be adapted
to her, she must adapt herself to it; she must cut away here, and piece
on there to fit it. The reader shall be shown some instances of the way
in which Arminell progressed with her framing.
In the first place, the girl had been accustomed all her life to having
a lady’s-maid in attendance on her, and putting to rights everything she
left in disorder. When she changed her dress, she had been accustomed to
throw her clothes about just where she had taken them off; she had not
put her gloves away, tidied her dressing-table, arranged her dresses in
the drawers. When, at first, she came to the Avenue, she did as she had
been wont, and was unable to understand the hints thrown out by her
hostess that the maid had too much of household work to do to be able to
act as a lady’s-maid as well. Then Arminell discovered that it engaged
Mrs. Welsh half-an-hour in the morning, another half-hour in the
afternoon, and a third in the evening, to arrange her clothes and room.
And as she was aware that Mrs. Welsh had no cook, and had to superintend
the cooking herself, this imposed on her hostess an extra and arduous
task. Mrs. Welsh expected before long to be a mother, and to accumulate
work on the good woman at such a time was unjustifiable.
Accordingly Arminell began to put her room to rights herself, learned
how to fold her gowns, and liked to arrange her boots tidily under the
dressing-table, and put her towels straight on the horse, and the comb
on the brush. After a week she found that the trouble she gave herself
was very slight, and that it afforded her real pleasure to be her own
lady’s-maid.
That was one item in the framing.
Mrs. Welsh had not much plate. Arminell was not particular about what
she ate, but she was accustomed to silver and glass, kept very bright,
and to unchipped and pretty china. The plate of the Welsh establishment
was electro-plate, and the plating was somewhat abraded. The forks and
spoons were scratched, not polished. If an egg had been eaten at
breakfast, it was not impossible to identify at dinner the spoon that
had been used for the egg. Even Castle E claret was not attractive when
the bowl of the wine-glass bore on it the impress of a thumb.
One day Arminell said to Mrs. Welsh, “I am sure that the girl is
overworked. Shall I give a final burnish to the silver and glass before
they come on table?” And Mrs. Welsh had joyfully assented. So Arminell
began to take a pride and find a pleasure in being butler in the house
of Welsh.
That was another item in the framing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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