Marshall Saunders - The Story of the Gravelys

“I will, but what about the dress?”

“I had ordered it, but I went to Madame Bouvard. I said, frankly, ‘I can’t pay as much as a hundred dollars for a gown.’

“‘You shall have it for eighty,’ she said.

“I said, ‘Please let me off altogether. I want to save a little on my outfit this summer, but I promise to come to you the first time I want a gown.’

“As soon as I said it I bit my lip. ‘Oh, Madame Bouvard,’ I said, ‘you are the most satisfactory dressmaker I have ever had, but I don’t know whether I can afford to come to you again.’

“She is just a plain little woman, but when she saw how badly I felt, her face lighted up like an angel’s. ‘Madame,’ she said, ‘do not take your custom from me. You have been the best lady I have worked for in Riverport. Why, my girls say when your fair head passes the glass door of the workroom that it casts a ray of sunshine in upon them’—just think of that, Roger,—a ray of sunshine. I was quite pleased.”

He laid a hand on the fair head, then hastily bent over the paper.

“I was pleased, Roger, because I didn’t know that dressmakers or their sewing-girls ever cared for the people they work for; and what do you think she went on to say?—‘Madame, don’t go to a second-class establishment. I know you like first-class things. Come to me when you want a gown, and it shall be given to you at cost price, with just a trifle to satisfy you for my work’—wasn’t that sweet in her, Roger? I just caught her hand and squeezed it, and then she laid a finger on her lips—‘Not a word of this to any one, madame.’ I sent her a basket of flowers the next day.”

“You are a good child,” said her husband, huskily.

“Now go on to the next item,” said Margaretta, jubilantly.

“‘Butter, twenty dollars’—what in the name of common sense does that mean?”

“Queer, isn’t it?” laughed Margaretta. “I’ll go back to the beginning and explain. You know, Roger, I am not such a terribly strong person, and I do love to lie in bed in the morning. It is so delicious when you know you ought to get up, to roll yourself in the soft clothes and have another nap! You remember that I had got into a great way of having my breakfast in bed. Well, madam in bed meant carelessness in the kitchen. We have honest servants, Roger, but they are heedless. After my shock from Grandma about economy, I said, ‘I will reform. I will watch the cents, and the cents will watch the dollars.’

“Now, to catch the first stray cent, it was necessary to get up early. I just hated to do it, but I made myself. I sprang out of bed in the morning, had my cold plunge, and was down before you, and it was far more interesting to have company for breakfast than to have no one, wasn’t it?”

“Well, rather.”

“You good boy. You never complained. Well, cook was immensely surprised to have a call from me before breakfast. One morning I found her making pastry, and putting the most delicious-looking yellow butter in it. ‘Why, that’s our table butter,’ I said, ‘isn’t it, that comes from Cloverdale, and costs a ridiculous amount?’

“She said it was.

“‘Why don’t you use cooking-butter, Jane?’ I asked; ‘it’s just as good, isn’t it?’

“‘Well, ma’am, there’s nothing impure about it,’ she said, ‘but I know you like everything of the best, so I put this in.’

“‘Jane,’ I said, ‘never do it again. I’m going to economize, and I want you to help me. If you can’t, I must send you away and get some one else.’

“She laughed—you know what a fat, good-natured creature she is—and seemed to think it a kind of joke that I should want to economize.

“‘Jane,’ I said, ‘I’m in earnest.’

“Then she sobered down. ‘Truth, and I’ll help you, ma’am, if you really want me to. There’s lots of ways I can save for you, but I thought you didn’t care. You always seem so open-handed.’

“‘Well, Jane,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to be mean, and I don’t want adulterated food, but my husband and I are young, and we want to save something for old age. Now you’ll help us, won’t you?’

“‘Honour bright, I will, ma’am,’ she said, and I believed her. I can’t stay in the kitchen and watch her, but she watches herself, and just read that list of groceries and see what else she has saved.”

“How have you found out the exact list of your economies?” asked Roger, curiously.

“By comparing my bills of this month with those of the month before. For instance, sugar was so many dollars in June; in July it is so many dollars less. Of course, we must take into account that we have been entertaining less. Have you noticed it?”

“Yes, but I thought it only a passing whim.”

“Some whims don’t pass, they stay,” said Margaretta, shaking her head. “Go on, Roger.”

“One hundred and fifty dollars saved in not entertaining Miss Gregory—pray who is Miss Gregory?”

“That society belle from Newport who has been staying with the Darley-Jameses.”

“How does she come into your expenditures?”

“She doesn’t come in,” said Margaretta, with satisfaction. “I haven’t done a thing for her beyond being polite and talking to her whenever I get a chance, and, oh, yes—I did give her a drive.”

“Well, but—”

“Let me explain. If I hadn’t been taken with a fit of economy, I would, in the natural order of things, have made a dinner for Miss Gregory. I would have had a picnic, and perhaps a big evening party. Think what it would have cost—you remember Mrs. Handfell?”

Her husband made a face.

“You never liked her, and I did wrong to have her here so much. Well, Roger, do you know I spent a large sum of money in entertaining that woman? I am ashamed to tell you how much. I had her here, morning, noon, and night. I took her up the river—you remember the decorated boats and the delightful music. It was charming, but we could not afford it, and when I went to New York she met me on Fifth Avenue, and said, ‘Oh, how do you do—so glad to see you. Be sure to call while you are here. My day is Friday.’ Then she swept away. That was a society woman who had graciously allowed me to amuse her during her summer trip to Maine. I was so hurt about it that I never told you.”

“What an empty head,” said Roger, picking up the list.

“It taught me a lesson,” continued his wife. “Now go on—do read the other things.”

His eyes had run down to the total. “Whew, Margaretta!—you don’t mean to say you have saved all this in a month?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I haven’t felt any tightening in your household arrangements. Why, at what a rate were we living?”

“At a careless rate,” said Margaretta, seriously, “a careless, slipshod rate. I bought everything I wanted. Flowers, in spite of our greenhouse, fruit and vegetables out of season, in spite of our garden, but now I look in the shop windows and say with a person I was reading about the other day, ‘Why, how many things there are I can do without,’—and with all my economy I have yet managed to squeeze out something for Grandma. I just made her take it.”

Roger’s face flushed. “Margaretta, if you will keep this thing going, we won’t have to give up this house.”

“I’ll keep it going,” said Margaretta, solemnly, “you shall not leave this house. It would be a blow to your honest pride.”

The young man was deeply moved, and, lifting his face to the pale, rising young moon, he murmured, “Thank God for a good wife.” Then he turned to her. “I wish some other men starting out in life had such a helper as you.”

“Oh, wish them a better one,” said Margaretta, humbly; “but I know what you mean, Roger. A man cannot succeed unless his wife helps him.”