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THE TREASURE

KATHLEEN NORRIS




CHAPTER I


Lizzie, who happened to be the Salisbury's one servant at the time, was
wasteful. It was almost her only fault, in Mrs. Salisbury's eyes, for
such trifles as her habit of becoming excited and "saucy," in moments
of domestic stress, or to ask boldly for other holidays than her
alternate Sunday and Thursday afternoons, or to resent at all times the
intrusion of any person, even her mistress, into her immaculate
kitchen, might have been overlooked. Mrs. Salisbury had been keeping
house in a suburban town for twenty years; she was not considered an
exacting mistress. She was perfectly willing to forgive Lizzie what was
said in the hurried hours before the company dinner or impromptu lunch,
and to let Lizzie slip out for a walk with her sister in the evening,
and to keep out of the kitchen herself as much as was possible. So much
might be conceded to a girl who was honest and clean, industrious,
respectable, and a fair cook.

But the wastefulness was a serious matter. Mrs. Salisbury was a careful
and an experienced manager; she resented waste; indeed, she could not
afford to tolerate it. She liked to go into the kitchen herself every
morning, to eye the contents of icebox and pantry, and decide upon
needed stores. Enough butter, enough cold meat for dinner, enough milk
for a nourishing soup, eggs and salad for luncheon--what about potatoes?

Lizzie deliberately frustrated this house-wifely ambition. She flounced
and muttered when other hands than her own were laid upon her icebox.
She turned on rushing faucets, rattled dishes in her pan. Yet Mrs.
Salisbury felt that she must personally superintend these matters,
because Lizzie was so wasteful. The girl had not been three months in
the Salisbury family before all bills for supplies soared alarmingly.

This was all wrong. Mrs. Salisbury fretted over it a few weeks, then
confided her concern to her husband. But Kane Salisbury would not
listen to the details. He scowled at the introduction of the topic,
glanced restlessly at his paper, murmured that Lizzie might be "fired";
and, when Mrs. Salisbury had resolutely bottled up her seething
discontent inside of herself, she sometimes heard him murmuring,
"Bad--bad--management" as he sat chewing his pipe-stem on the dark
porch or beside the fire.

Alexandra, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the house, was equally
incurious and unreasonable about domestic details.

"But, honestly, Mother, you know you're afraid of Lizzie, and she knows
it," Alexandra would declare gaily; "I can't tell you how I'd manage
her, because she's not my servant, but I know I would do something!"

Beauty and intelligence gave Alexandra, even at eighteen, a certain
serene poise and self-reliance that lifted her above the old-fashioned
topics of "trouble with girls," and housekeeping, and marketing.
Alexandra touched these subjects under the titles of "budgets,"
"domestic science," and "efficiency." Neither she nor her mother
recognized the old, homely subjects under their new names, and so the
daughter felt a lack of interest, and the mother a lack of sympathy,
that kept them from understanding each other. Alexandra, ready to meet
and conquer all the troubles of a badly managed world, felt that one
small home did not present a very terrible problem. Poor Mrs. Salisbury
only knew that it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep a general
servant at all in a family of five, and that her husband's salary, of
something a little less than four thousand dollars a year, did not at
all seem the princely sum that they would have thought it when they
were married on twenty dollars a week.

From the younger members of the family, Fred, who was fifteen, and
Stanford, three years younger, she expected, and got, no sympathy. The
three young Salisburys found money interesting only when they needed it
for new gowns, or matinee tickets, or tennis rackets, or some kindred
purchase. They needed it desperately, asked for it, got it, spent it,
and gave it no further thought. It meant nothing to them that Lizzie
was wasteful. It was only to their mother that the girl's slipshod ways
were becoming an absolute trial.

Lizzie, very neat and respectful, would interfere with Mrs. Salisbury's
plan of a visit to the kitchen by appearing to ask for instructions
before breakfast was fairly over. When the man of the house had gone,
and before the children appeared, Lizzie would inquire:

"Just yourselves for dinner, Mrs. Salisbury?"

"Just ourselves. Let--me--see--" Mrs. Salisbury would lay down her
newspaper, stir her cooling coffee. The memory of last night's
vegetables would rise before her; there must be baked onions left, and
some of the corn.

"There was some lamb left, wasn't there?" she might ask.

Amazement on Lizzie's part