Chapter II: At Thornton Park

Meanwhile the barouche had stopped under the grand archway at the side entrance of the Park house, where a host of servants was in waiting; the butler, the housekeeper, the cook, the laundress, the maids, the gardener and groom and several more, for, aping his English ancestry and the custom of his mother’s Southern home before the war, Mr. Thornton kept about him a retinue of servants with whom he was very popular. He paid them well and fed them well, and while requiring from them the utmost deference, was kind in every way, and they came crowding around him with words of welcome and offers of assistance. Mrs. Thornton went at once to her room, while Alice was taken possession of by her nurse, who had come from the city the night before, and who soon had her charge in a little willow carriage, drawing her around the grounds. Gerard, who was a quiet, studious boy, went to the library, while Mr. Thornton, after seeing that his wife was comfortable, joined his little daughter, whose love for her country home he knew, and to whom he said, “I suppose you are quite happy now?”

“Yes, papa,” she replied, “only I want somebody to play with me. Ann is too big. I want Milly Leach. She was so nice to me last summer. Can’t I have her, papa?”

For Alice to want a thing was for her to have it, if possession were possible, and her father answered her:

“Yes, daughter, you shall have her,” without knowing at all who Milly Leach was. But Alice explained that she was the girl who lived in the little red house where Ann had often taken her the summer before to play with Tom and Bessie. And so it came about that Ann was sent that afternoon to the farm house with a request from Mr. Thornton that Mildred should come for the summer and amuse his daughter. Three dollars a week was the remuneration offered, for he always held out a golden bait when the fish was doubtful, as he thought it might be in this case. Mrs. Leach was better, and sitting up while Mildred combed and brushed the hair much like her own, except that it was softer and smoother, because it had more care and there was less of it.

“Oh, mother,” she cried, when Ann made her errand known, “can’t I go? Three dollars a week! Only think, what a lot; and I’ll give it all to you, and you can get that pretty French calico at Mr. Overton’s store. May I go?”

“Who will do the work when I’m sick?” Mrs. Leach asked, herself a good deal moved by the three dollars a week, which seemed a fortune to her.

“I guess they’ll let me come home when you have a headache,” Milly pleaded, and on this condition it was finally arranged that she should go to the Park for a time at least, and two days after we saw her shelling peas and longing for a change, the change came and she started out on her career in her best gingham dress and white apron, with her small satchel of clothes in her hand and a great lump in her throat as she kissed her mother and Bessie and Charlie, and would have kissed Tom if he had not disappeared with a don’t-care air and a watery look in his eyes, which he wiped with his checked shirt sleeve, and then, boy-like, threw a green apple after his sister, hiding behind the tree when she looked around to see whence it came.

It was a lovely morning, and Thornton Park lay fair and beautiful in the distance as she walked rapidly on until a familiar whistle stopped her and she saw Hugh hurrying across the fields and waving his hat to her.

“Hello!” he said, as he came to her side, “I nearly broke my neck to catch you. And so you are going to be a hired girl. Let me carry that satchel,” and he took it from her while she answered hotly, “I ain’t a hired girl. I’m Allie’s little friend; that’s what she said when she came with Ann last night and we made the bargain, and I’m to have three dollars a week.”

“Three dollars a week! That is big,” Hugh said, staggered a little at the price. “But, I say, don’t go so fast. Let’s sit down awhile and talk;” and seating himself upon a log, with Mildred beside him and the satchel at his feet, he went on: “Milly, I don’t want you to go to Thornton Park. Won’t you give it up? Seems as if I was losing you.”

“You never had me to lose,” was the girl’s reply, and Hugh continued:

“That’s so; but I mean that I like you better than any girl I ever knew; like you just as I should my sister if I had one.”

Here Milly elevated her eyebrows a little, while Hugh went on: “And I don’t want you to go to that fine place and learn to despise us all, and the old home by the brook.”

“I shall never do that, for I love father and mother and Tom and Bessie and Charlie better than I do myself. I’d die for them, but I do hate the old house and the poverty and work, and I mean to be a grand lady and rich, and then I’ll help them all, and you, too, if you’ll let me.”

“I don’t need your help, and I don’t want to see you a grand lady, and I don’t want you to be snubbed by that proud Thornton,” Hugh replied, and Milly answered quickly, with short, emphatic nods of her head:

“I sha’n’t be snubbed by him, for if he sasses me I shall sass him. I’ve made up my mind to that.”

“And when you do may I be there to hear; but you are a brick, any way,” was Hugh’s laughing rejoinder, and as Milly had risen to her feet, he, too, arose, and taking up the satchel walked with her to the Park gate, where he said good-bye, but called to her after a minute, “I say, Milly, I have that pea-pod yet, and _you_ are beginning to wilt, but I am as plump as ever.”

“Pshaw!” was Mildred’s scornful reply, as she hurried on through the Park, while Hugh walked slowly down the road, wishing he had money and could give it all to Milly.

“But I shall never be rich,” he said to himself, “even if I’m a lawyer as I mean to be, for only dishonest lawyers make money, they say, and I sha’n’t be a cheat if I never make a cent.”

Meanwhile Milly had reached the house, which had always impressed her with a good deal of awe, it was so stately and grand. Going up to the front door she was about to ring, when the same voice which had ordered her from the berry pasture, said to her rather sharply:

“What are you doing here, little girl?”

“I’m Mildred Leach, and I’ve come to be Allie’s little friend,” Mildred answered, facing the speaker squarely, with her satchel in both hands.

“Oh, yes; I know, but go to the side door, and say Miss Alice instead of Allie,” Mr. Thornton replied as he began to puff at his cigar.

Here was _sass_ at the outset, and remembering her promise to Hugh, Milly gave a vigorous pull at the bell, saying as she did so:

“I sha’n’t call her Miss, and I shall go into the front door, or I sha’n’t stay. I ain’t dirt!”

This speech was so astounding and unexpected, that instead of resenting it, Mr. Thornton laughed aloud, and as a servant just then came to the door, he sauntered away, saying to himself:

“Plucky, by Jove; but if she suits Allie, I don’t care.”

If Mr. Thornton had a redeeming trait it was his love for his wife and children, especially little Alice, for whom he would sacrifice everything, even his pride, which is saying a great deal, and when, an hour later, he found her in the Park with Mildred at her side making dandelion curls for her, he was very gracious and friendly, asking her how old she was, and giving her numerous charges with regard to his daughter. Then he went away, while Mildred looked admiringly after him, thinking how handsome he was in his city clothes, and how different he was from her father.

“It’s because he’s rich and has money. I mean to have some, too,” she thought, and with the seeds of ambition taking deeper and deeper root, she began her life at Thornton Park, where she soon became a great favorite, not only with Alice, but with Mrs. Thornton, to whom she was almost as necessary as to Alice herself.

Regularly every Saturday night her three dollars were paid to her, and as regularly every Sunday morning she took them home, where they were very acceptable, for Mr. Leach had not the least idea of thrift, and his daughter’s wages tided over many an ugly gap in the household economy. Mrs. Leach had the French calico gown, and Charlie a pair of red shoes, and Bessie a new white frock, and Tom a new straw hat, but for all that they missed Mildred everywhere, she was so helpful and willing, even when rebelling most against her condition, and when in September Mrs. Thornton proposed that she should go with them to New York, Mrs. Leach refused so decidedly that the wages were at once doubled, and six dollars a week offered in place of three. Money was nothing to Mrs. Thornton, and as what she set her mind upon she usually managed to get, she succeeded in this, and when in October the family returned to the city, Mildred went with them, very smart in the new suit Mrs. Thornton had given her, and very red about the eyes from the tears she had shed when saying good-bye to her home.

“If I’d known I should feel this way, I believe I wouldn’t have gone,” she had thought, as she went from room to room with Charlie in her arms, Bessie holding her hand, and Tom following in the rear, whistling “The girl I left behind me,” and trying to seem very brave.

On a bench by the brook which ran back of the house Mildred at last sat down with Charlie in her lap, and looking at the water running so fast at her feet, wondered if she should ever see it again, and where Hugh was that he did not come to say good-bye. She had a little package for him, and when at last he appeared, and leaping across the brook, sat down beside her, she gave it to him, and said with a forced laugh:

“A splint from the oven broom. You used to ask for one, and here ’tis.”

He knew what she meant, and opening the paper saw one of her dark curls.

“Thanks, Milly,” he said, with a lump in his throat. “I’ll keep it, and the peas, too, till you come back. When will that be?”

“I don’t know; next summer, most likely; though perhaps I shall stay away until I’m such a fine lady that you won’t know me. I’m to study with Allie’s governess and learn everything, so as to teach some time,” she said.

“Here’s the carriage,” Tom called round the corner, and kissing Charlie and Bessie and Tom, who did not resist her now, and crying on her mother’s neck, and wringing her father’s hard hand and saying good-bye to Hugh, she went out from the home where for many a long year she was not seen again.