Part 13 (1/2)
CHAPTER IX.
MONA RECEIVES A SHOCK.
When Mona arrived at the office of the employment bureau, at the hour appointed, she found awaiting her the carriage belonging to the woman who had engaged her services.
A pretty serving girl admitted her when she arrived at the elegant brown stone mansion, and remarked, as she showed her up to the room she was to occupy, that ”the mistress had been called out of town for the day, and would not be at home until dinner time.”
The girl seemed kindly disposed, and chatted socially about the family, which consisted only of ”the mistress and her nephew, Master Louis.” The mistress was a widow, but very gay--very much of a society lady, and ”handsome as a picture,” She was upward of forty, but didn't look a day over thirty. She was very proud and high spirited, but treated her help kindly if they didn't cross her.
Somehow Mona did not get a very favorable impression of her employer from this gossipy information; but her fate was fixed for the present, and she resolved to do the best that she could, and not worry regarding the result.
As the girl was about to leave the room to go about her duties, she remarked that dinner would be served at six o'clock, and that Mona was to come down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to eat with the other servants.
Mona flushed hotly at this information. Must she, who all her life had been the petted child of fortune, go among menials to eat with she knew not whom?
But she soon conquered her momentary indignation, for she realized that she was nothing more than a servant herself now, and could not expect to be treated as an equal by her fas.h.i.+onable employer.
”Will you tell me your name, please?” she asked of the girl, and trying not to betray any of her sensitiveness.
”Mary, miss,” was the respectful reply, for the girl recognized that the new seamstress was a lady, in spite of the fact that she was obliged to work for her living.
”Thank you; and--will you please tell me the name of your mistress, also; the card which she left at the office was lost, and I have not learned it,” Mona said as she arose to hang her wraps in the closet.
”Lor', miss! that is queer,” said the girl in a tone of surprise, ”that you should engage yourself and not know who to.”
”It didn't really make much difference what the name was--it was the situation that I wanted,” Mona remarked, smiling.
”True enough, but my lady's name's a high-sounding one, and she's not at all backward about airing it; it rolls off her sweet tongue as easy as water off a duck's back--Mrs. Richmond Montague,” and the girl tossed her head and drew herself up in imitation of her mistress's haughty air in a way that would have done credit to a professional actress, ”But there,”
she cried, with a start, as a shrill voice sounded from below, ”cook is calling me, and I must run.”
She tripped away, humming a gay tune, while Mona sank, white and trembling, upon the nearest chair.
”Mrs. Richmond Montague!” she repeated, in a scarcely audible voice.
”Can it be possible that she--this woman, to whom I have come as a seamstress--is my father's second wife--or was, since she is a widow! How strange! how very strange that I, of all persons, should have been fated to come here! It is very unfortunate that I could not have known her name, for, of course, I should never have come if I had. It may be,” she went on, musingly, ”that she is some other Mrs. Montague; but no--it could hardly be possible that there are two persons with that peculiar combination of names. This, then, is the woman for whom my father deserted my mother in order to secure the fortune left by his aunt! How unworthy!--how contemptible! I am glad that I fell to Uncle Walter's care; I am glad that I never knew him--this unnatural father who never betrayed the slightest interest in his own child. But--can I stay here with her?” she asked, with burning cheeks and flas.h.i.+ng eyes. ”Can I--his daughter--remain to serve the woman who usurped my mother's place, who is living in affluence upon money which rightly belongs to me?”
The young girl was trembling with nervous excitement, and a feeling of hot anger, a sense of deep injustice burned within her.
This startling discovery--for she was convinced that there could be but one Mrs. Richmond Montague--stirred her soul to its lowest depths. She felt a strange dread of this woman; a feeling almost of horror and aversion made her sink from contact with her; and yet, at the same time, she experienced an unaccountable curiosity to see and know something of her. There was a spice of romance about the situation which prompted her, in spite of her first impulse to flee from the house--to stay and study this gay woman of the world, who was so strangely connected with her own life.
She could leave at any time, she told herself, should the position prove to be an uncongenial one; but since she had chosen the vocation of a seamstress, she might as well sew for Mrs. Richmond Montague as any one else; while possibly she might be able to learn something more regarding her mother's history than she already knew. She felt sure that her uncle had kept something back from her, and she so longed to have the mystery fully explained.
But, of course, if she remained, it would never do for her to give her own name, for this woman would suspect her ident.i.ty at once, and probably drive her out into the world again. It was not probable that she would knowingly tolerate the child of a rival in her home.
Mona was glad now that she had not told Mary her name, as she had once been on the point of doing.
”What shall I call myself?” she mused. ”I do not dare to use Uncle Walter's name, for that would betray me as readily as my own; even Mona, being such an uncommon name, would also make her suspect me. There is my middle name, Ruth, and my father was called Richmond--suppose I call myself Ruth Richards?”
This rather pleased her, and she decided to use it. But she was strangely nervous about meeting Mrs. Montague, and several times she was tempted to send Mary for a carriage and flee to Mr. Graves's hospitable home, and start out from there to seek some other position.
Once she did rise to call her. ”I cannot stay,” she said. ”I must go.”