Keeping up Appearances CHAPTER 12.
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During the time that this effort for the sake of appearances was kept up, visits between Annetta and some of her young acquaintances were continued as usual — but Mrs. Laurie never ventured out, although a few old friends occasionally called to see her. Among them was Mrs. Morton, who, as well as almost everyone else, was aware that her husband had left an insolvent estate. Mrs. Morton always felt puzzled to make out how so elegant a style of living could possibly be supported. That something was wrong, she had no doubt. Could it be an effort to keep up appearance on the poor remnant of her husband's property, that common report said had been left her? And if so, what inducement was there for such an effort? Or could it be possible that money had, by some means, been kept back from the creditors?
These questions perplexed the mind of Mrs. Morton. She saw enough to satisfy her that the mind of Mrs. Laurie was ill at ease, and also that there was a weight upon the heart of Annetta. She also noticed, here and there, little things that plainly indicated a diminished income, and the necessity for an over-careful use of money. It did not escape her eye, that the younger children had been taken from school, although nothing was said on the subject; and from another quarter she learned, incidentally, that their music lessons had been suspended. Once, in the hope that Mrs. Laurie would open her mind to her, and thus give her an opportunity of conferring with her as a friend — she had no other motive, Mrs. Morton said, in a suggestive way —
"I would think that you would find a smaller and more compact house than this pleasanter, Mrs. Laurie. It is too large for your family now, and must cost you extra trouble, which might as well be dispensed with."
"So Annetta says," replied Mrs. Laurie, "but I cannot make up my mind to move from here. We have lived in this house for ten years, and all the happiest associations of my life are connected with it. I don't think I could leave it. If there was any necessity for doing so, it would be another thing."
Particular emphasis was laid on the last sentence; Mrs. Morton thought too much, and it tended to confirm her in the impression that all this external show of a good conditionwas only an effort to keep up appearances; but for what end — she could not conjecture.
But to our narrative of the effort made by the widow and her daughter to maintain the semblance of wealth. On the morning after the concert, Annetta, with strong feelings of reluctance, and many fears lest she should encounter a similar danger and loss with that which attended her last effort, set forth with the remaining watch, the two gold chains and pencils, and her diamond breast-pin for which twenty pounds had been paid. She took her way, as before, to the Bowery, and went directly to the shop where she had purchased the thimble she did not want. The owner recognized her as soon as she came in, and left a customer to attend to her.
"Well, ma'am," he said, with a pleasant countenance, "have you brought the watches?"
"I have brought one of them, sir, which you can have for thirteen pounds, the price you thought you would be disposed to give. The owner was much disappointed at the low offer — but, as she did not like to go out herself, and I could do no better with it, she has concluded to take the price you mentioned."
"Is not her sister willing to part with hers at the same price?"
The manner in which the man spoke, which was kind, as well as the expression of his face, inspired Annetta with confidence, and after a few moments of hurried reflection, she thought she would venture to tell him of the manner she had been treated on the last day she was out.
"The young scoundrel!" exclaimed the watchmaker, when she had finished her brief history of the affair, taking up his hat as he spoke. "I know him very well, and will get your watch for you in a few minutes. But stay — do you write me an order for it; that will settle the matter at once, and prevent any caviling on his part as to giving me possession of the watch. Police! — all a trick to frighten you! He wants as little to do with the police as possible; although they have found it necessary more than once to have something to do with him, the young rascal! Here are pen and paper. Just write the simplest order in the world; it will be all that is necessary."
Annetta took the pen in hand, and mused a moment or two, as if determining the form of the order — but really debating the question whether she should sign her real name or not. A fictitious name, it occurred to her, might get her into trouble, and so she wrote a simple demand for the watch, and signed it with her real name. The watchmaker looked at it attentively, and then requested her to sit down and await his return.
The man was not gone long, before the thought flashed across her mind that he might only be detaining her there until he could bring a police officer and have her arrested on suspicion of theft. Alarmed at this idea, she could hardly restrain herself from hurriedly leaving the shop. Still, the hope and probability that this might not be so, kept her lingering in debate, until his return, which was in about ten minutes. He came in with a look and smile of triumph, holding the watch in his hand.
"The scoundrel!" he said. "I frightened him half to death! He'll not try that trick again, soon, I imagine. I made him crouch and whine like a spaniel."
Annetta repeated over and over again her thanks, and then asked if he would give the price he had mentioned, thirteen pounds apiece for the watches. This he agreed to do. The chains and pencils were next produced. After weighing them, and carefully examining the gold in order to arrive at some idea of its fineness, he said that the style of chain was not very saleable, two or three new patterns being now all the fashion, and therefore he could not offer more than five pounds apiece for the chains, and one pound for the two pencils — eleven pounds for all. This seemed to Annetta very low — but after the man's agency in recovering her watch, which she had never expected to see again, she could not object to the prices.
The diamond pin was next produced. Ten pounds was the most the watchmaker would give for it, and Annetta had no alternative but to take that sum. With forty-seven pounds, the amount received for articles that had originally cost nearly one hundred pounds, and for which between sixty and eighty pounds had been expected, Annetta returned home. The gratifying intelligence which she brought of the recovery of the watch, counterbalanced, in her mother's mind, the disappointment she felt at the smallness of the sums received for the gold chains and diamond breast-pin.
"Forty-seven pounds," said Mrs. Laurie, in a thoughtful manner. "And there's the music teacher's last bill, twelve guineas, which he has sent for once or twice. That must be paid. And there's Miss Bailey's last quarter's bill for the girls — ten pounds eight shillings more; it won't do to let that stand, for there's no telling into whose ears it may be whispered. These will take twenty-two pounds, which will leave about twenty-five. Both the cook and housemaid have asked for their money, and I believe there are three pounds apiece due to them. Nothing less than two pounds each I suppose will satisfy them. The baker has been two or three times for his bill, and there are several other little matters to pay, which, take them altogether, will reduce the sum we now have to within twenty pounds. It will take nearly every farthing of that to keep us through the next five or six weeks, when another quarter's rent will be due. How that is to be paid, is more than I can now tell. But it must be paid by some means. Once safely over that difficulty, and I trust all will be well. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Lewis will delay his intended offer longer than four or five months beyond this period."
"If made at all, it certainly will come within that time," replied Annetta. "But how the rent is to be paid, passes my comprehension."
"We have a great deal of elegant furniture. Portions of it will have to be sold."
"In what way, mother?"
"It must be sent to auction. A great deal of good furniture is sold at auction, and always, I believe, at excellent prices."
"That will have to be done, I suppose. But is there nothing that we can do to earn a little money — nothing that I could do?" said Annetta.
"What can you do, child?" asked Mrs. Laurie.
"I've been thinking that I might earn considerably by working capes and collars in imitation of French lace. I understand how to do it, and I am sure I could work a cape in a week, in every way equal to those for which I have often paid as high as two, three, or four pounds. Suppose I could earn twenty-four or thirty shillings a week in this way: it would be a great help to us."
"It certainly would, Annetta."
"I will get the necessary materials at once," said the daughter. "I shall be happier at work than I am in sitting idly about, and thinking of one thing until I almost go wild."
"And I think," remarked Mrs. Laurie, "that I will let the housemaid go, and with Mary's assistance, do the house-work. Mary is a big girl now, and it won't hurt her to work about the house. We can give the cook a couple of shillings a week more to attend the door and do other little extra things. By this we shall save twelve shillings a week, besides the cost of boarding one person, which will be nearly as much more. This saving, added to what you can earn by embroidery, will make thirty-six or forty shillings a week; quite an important sum."
To this Annetta did not object. The housemaid was accordingly sent away. And now began a more earnest and serious effort to sustain the position they were so desirous to hold. Neither Annetta nor her mother found the new duties they had assumed, as easy of performance as they had imagined. Both found themselves soon weary, one with too much bodily exertion, and the other with sitting too long over her slowly progressing tasks. After a week of patient application, Annetta finished a really beautiful cape, much to her own and her mother's satisfaction.
"It's tedious and tiresome work," she said, "but I have felt much better than I did while sitting about and doing nothing. To read is impossible; and somehow or other, I have no heart to practice on the piano. I think I can do a cape and a half, like this, each week. This first one took me longer. I had to learn my method. When I finish three or four, with half-a-dozen finely wrought collars, I will try to sell them. I have heard that this is done every day, and that most of the work sold as French needle-work, is actually produced at home by poor girls, or by young ladies who take that means of procuring an extra supply of pocket money.
Time went by, and it became necessary that some move should be made, looking to the procurement of sufficient money to pay the rent soon falling due — a formidable sum for people in their situation. Annetta had a splendid rosewood piano, for which her father had paid one hundred pounds. It was a seven octave instrument, of exquisite tone and great power. Like her watch, that, too, was a birthday present, and highly prized. But now the mental vision of both mother and daughter was directed to a single object, and everything else was seen in obscure light. Under other circumstances, almost the last suggestion to the mind of Annetta would have been to part with that dearly prized instrument. But now, the thought, when it occurred to her, was entertained with something akin to pleasure, for the loss of that might be the means of securing her lover.
"I'll tell you how we may get the money for the rent, mother," she said, one day, after having thought over the matter for some time.
"How, dear?"
"By selling my piano. It would bring sixty pounds; you know it cost a hundred."
Mrs. Laurie shook her head. "I don't think you ought to part with that instrument, if it can possibly be avoided."
"Can it be avoided, mother? That is the question."
"I don't know. Sixty pounds is a good deal of money to raise."
"So it is. And I see no certain way of doing it but by parting with my piano."
"Mr. Lewis will miss it from the parlor. What can you say to him? Will not his suspicions be aroused?"
"I don't know exactly what I will say; but I must give some plausible reason. Suppose I say that we have had it removed upstairs for Mary and Adeline to practice on. How would that do?"
"It might answer," said Mrs. Laurie.
"Although it is an untruth. I wish I could get along without uttering a falsehood to him. It is bad enough to have to equivocate and evade the truth in so many ways. But to him, it goes dreadfully against me to make a mis-statement."
"I don't see that anything can be said about it at all, then. Of course, you cannot tell him that you have sold the piano."
"Oh, no, no! Anything but that. It may be that he will ask no questions. I'll tell you what we can do; as the piano stands in the back parlor, we can keep the folding doors shut after its removal. I will keep my guitar on the pier-table in the front parlor, into which he must always be shown, and when he asks for music, I will sing for him, and play on the guitar. What do you think of that?"
"That's very well, as far as it goes. But still you must be prepared with some answer, if the piano is inquired for."
"Its removal upstairs I suppose will do as well as anything else; or I may say it is out of tune."
"That last reason won't do as well. It may have to be kept out of tune too long."
"But I'll tell you what will do," said Annetta with animation. "Let us have it removed upstairs immediately — say this very afternoon; and let it remain there until his next visit. Then, while he is in the parlor below, you can get Mary to practice on it, and keep her playing for an hour. While she is playing, I can remark that we have had the piano taken upstairs for my sisters to practice and take their lessons on. If he asks no questions, I need say nothing further. After that, we can have it sent away whenever we please, and no suspicionswill be created."
"Just the arrangement!" replied Mrs. Laurie. "Nothing could be better. Of course the girls will have a dozen questions to ask — but we can satisfy them with some excuse or other."
The cook was sent out soon after dinner for a couple of porters, who came and removed the piano from its place in the parlor, to the front chamber above. When Mr. Lewis made his next visit, he did not miss the instrument until he heard the sound of music overhead. He paused in the conversation that was going on between him and Annetta, listened a moment, and then glancing into the adjoining parlor, said —
"You've had your piano removed?"
"Yes," returned Annetta, as a choking sensation arose in her throat, "we have had it taken up into the front chamber."
"For your sisters to practice on, I suppose?" he said, indifferently.
"It's more convenient for them, up there," she remarked, evasively; and then the conversation that had been interrupted, went on again. Mr. Lewis stayed later than usual — but still there was something about his manner that oppressed Annetta. He was kind and attentive, and seemed to enter into all her feelings, and to be pleased with all she said; and yet she could not feel that there was any real affection for her in all this. There were times when he would be thoughtful, and sit for some minutes; and then there were times when he would look at her and seem to regard what she said, as if he were trying to see below the surface of things. All this might have been a mere appearance arising from her own consciousness that she was acting a part, and seeking to play off upon him a gross deception; so it occurred to her; but this thought did not give her mind much relief.
Two or three days after this, the piano was sent to the room of an auctioneer and commission merchant, with directions, if not disposed of in two or three weeks for the price fixed upon it — sixty pounds, to offer it at public sale, and take the highest bid that could be obtained. It fell, of course, to Annetta's lot to go to the auctioneer's and make all these arrangements. The task was not performed without the sacrifice of much feeling, and the dread of coming in contact either with Mr. Lewis, or some old and familiar acquaintance. Such contact, however, was escaped. Still, the fear remained that she might have been seen entering the room by someone who knew her, and the nature of her errand there discovered.
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