CHAPTER II
YOU dont get a very good class of servant down this way, my mother says, but then she is so particular. She is the kind of mistress who knows how to do everything better herself, and that kind never gets good servants; it seems to paralyze the poor girls, and make them limp and without an idea in their heads, or what they choose to call their heads, which I strongly suspect is their stomachs. You can punish or reward a servant best through its stomach, and dont give them beer, or beer-money either! Beer makes them cross or cheeky, depending, I suppose, on the make of the beer. Mother never gives it. They buy it, I know, but I never tell. It would be as much as my place (in the kitchen) is worth, and I value my right of free entry.
Mother is terribly down on dust too. She has a book about germ culture, and sees germs in everything. It doesnt make her any happier. But as for dusting, so far as I can see, what they call dusting is only a plan for raising the dirt and taking it to some other place. It gets into our mouths in the end. I do pity Matter that is always getting into the wrong place, chivied here and there, with no resting-place for the sole of the foot. For whenever Mother sees dust anywhere, or suspects it, she makes a cross with her finger in it, and the servants are supposed to see the cross and feel ashamed. Though I dont believe any servant was ever ashamed in her life. Tisnt in their natures. They just grin and bear with itwith the dust, and the scolding too.
Its er little way, I heard Sarah say once, not a bit unkindly or disagreeably, though, after Mother had come down on her about something. But once I caught the very same girl shaking her fist at Georges back and calling him an old beast!
Sarah, I said, whom are you addressing?
The doctors donkey, miss, she said, as quick as lightning, pointing to it grazing in the doctors garden next door. People were always overloading that donkey, and shaking their fists at it.
I must get to the new cook. The last one gave Mother notice, and I never could find out why, because she was fond of Mother and could stand the cats.
Oh, I like you, maam, I heard her say, just as if she disliked some one else. Mother took no notice, but left the kitchen, and Cook took a currant off her elbow and pulled down her sleeves, and mumbled to Sarah, It isnt right, and I for one aint going to help countenance it. A-visiting his family now and then between jobs, just like a burglaror some-think worse!
What is worse than a burglar? I was passing the scullery window, and Sarah had just thrown a lot of boiling water into a basin in front of them both, so that it made a mist and she didnt see me. I knew, though, she was saying something rude, for when Sarah told her she shouldnt reely, she muttered something more about a neglected angel! I did think at first she meant me, or perhaps the doctors donkey as usual, but then the words didnt fit either of us? I asked her straight if she did mean the donkey, just for fun, and she said the poor beast was minding his own business and I had better do the same.
She left us next month, crying worse than I ever did in my life for really serious things. Mother patted her on the back as she went out at the back door, and she kept saying, A poor girls only got her character, mum, and she is bound to think of it and Mother said, Yes, yes, you did quite right! and seemed just to want her out of the house and a little peace and quiet and will of her own. The very moment Sarahs back was turned, she set to work and turned everything into the middle of the room and left it there while she and Cook swept round into every corner. Ariadne and I rather enjoyed clearing our bed of the towel-horse before we could lie down in it, and having dinner off the corner of the kitchen-table because the dining-room one was lying on its back like a horse kicking.
Of course George wasnt allowed home all this time. Mother wrote to him where he was staying at the Duke of Frocesters for the shooting (George shooting! My eye!and the keepers legs!) and said he had better not come home till we were straight again. I was in no hurry to be straight again. It was like Heaven. When I was a child I always built my brick houses crooked, and Ariadne called me Queen Unstraight, and that made me cry. But she liked this too. We made all the beds, and didnt bother to tuck them in. It isnt necessary to do so when we turn head over heels in the bed-clothes onto the floor every night three times to make us dizzy and sleepy. We washed up everything with a nice lather of three things mixed that occurred to me, Hudsons, Monkey Soap, and Bath Eucryl. In the end there wasnt a speck of dirt, or pattern either, left on the plates. It looked much cleaner. Why should one eat ones meat off a fat Chinese dragon or have bees all round the edge of ones soup plate ready to fall in? It is a dirty idea. We basted the joints turn and turn about, and our own pinafores. They couldnt scold us for not keeping clean, any more than they can pigs when they put them in a sty. We asked no questions or bothered Mother at all, but we black-leaded the steps and bath-bricked the grates, and washed down the walls with soda-water. The wallpaper peeled off here and there, but that shows it was shabby and ready for death.
Mother said afterwards that she couldnt see any improvement anywhere, but anyhow we enjoyed ourselves and that is everything. We spent money on it, for we bought décalcomanie pictures, and did bouquets all over the mantelpieces, but Mother insisted we should peel all these off again before George came back. He couldnt come back till we got that cook, for George is most absurdly particular about our servants. Sarah has got used to him, and there seems to be no idea of her going. She has to valet him, for he is always beautifully dressed. She has to take the greatest care of her own appearance, and get her nails manicured and her hair waved when he is at home. That is about all for her. But the cook he calls the keeper of his conscience, that is to say, his digestion. His digestion is as jumpy as he is. Sometimes it wants everything quite plain, and he will eat nothing but our rice-puddings and cold shapes of tapioca, etc.; at another time he calls it apparition, and says the very name of it makes him shiver. I am used to cold shapes, alas! He sometimes brings things down from town himselfcaviare and patty de foy. Children are not supposed to like that sort of thing, but we do, and George gives them us; he is not mean in trifles. Sometimes it is pheasants and partridges, that he has shot himself on ducal acres. They are shot very badly, not tidily, with the shot all in one place as it ought to be: Mr. Aix explained this to me. They are not to be cooked till they are ready, and when they are they are a little too ready for Mother and us, so Papa and Mr. Aix have to eat it all. George belongs to the sect of the Epicureans; I heard him tell the cook so, also that he is the reincarnation of a gentleman called Villon.
For a month Mother sat in for cooks, and all sorts of fat and lean women came and went. Our establishment didnt seem attractive. George bespoke a fat one, by letter, but Mother inclined to lean. These women sat on the best chairs and prodded the pattern of the carpets with their dusty umbrellas, and asked tons of questions,far more than she asked them, it seemed to me, and this one that we have at last got was the coolest of all, but in rather a nice way. She was tall and thin, with a long nose with a dip in it just before the tip, which was particularly broad. Ariadne said afterwards that a nose like that seemed to need a bustle. She said she was a north-country woman, and that is about all she did tell us about herself, except her name, Elizabeth Cawthorne.
She sat and asked questions. When she came to the usual And if you please, maam, how many is there in family? Mother answered, Myself and my son and my two daughters,and my sistershe is professionaland is here for long visitsthat is all.
Then I take it you are a widow, maam?
Mother, getting very red, explained that George is very little at home, so that in one way he didnt count, but in another way he did, for he is very particular and has to be cooked for specially. Being an author, he has got a very delicate appetite.
A proud stomach, I understand ye. Well, I shall hope to give him satisfaction. She said that as if she would have liked to add, or Ill know the reason why.
She seemed quite to have settled in her own mind that she was going to take our place. She blessed Mothers bonny face before that interview was over, and passed me over entirely.
She came in in a week, and the first time she saw George she was doing her hall. Ariadne and I were there as Georges hansom drove up and he got out and began a shindy with the cabman.
Honeys, this will be your father, Im thinking! she said.
Perhaps she expected us to rush into his arms, but we didnt; we knew better. We just said Hallo! and waited till he was disengaged with the cabman, who wanted too much, as we are beyond the radius. George didnt give it to him, but a good talking to instead. The new cook stopped sweepingservants always stop their work when there is something going on that doesnt concern them, and looked quite pleased with George.
He can explain himself, and no mistake! she said to Sarah afterwards, and she cooked a splendid dinner that night, for, says she to Sarah, seemed to her he was the kind of master whod let a woman know if she didnt suit him.
She doesnt make much account of childer, in fact I think she hates them, for when Ariadne showed her the young shoots in a pot of snowdrops she was bringing up, and said, See, cook, they have had babies in the night! Elizabeth, meaning to be civil, said, Disgusting things, miss!
Still, she isnt really unkind to children, and admits that they have a right to exist. She will boil me my glue-pot and make me paste, and lets Ariadne heat her curling-tongs between the bars of the kitchen fire. She doesnt matter cats, but she gives them their meals regular and doesnt hold with them loafing in the kitchen, and getting tit-bits stolen or bestowed. And they know she is just, though not generous, and never forgets their supper. They were all hid, as it happened, when she came about the place, but she said she knew she had got into a cat house as soon as she found herself eating fluff with her tea, and she thinks she ought to have been told. George laughs at her and calls her stern daughter of the north, but he wasnt a bit cross when she told him that Ben ought to be sent to school. He even agreed, but Ben isnt sent. Ben is still eating his heart out, and he keeps telling Elizabeth Cawthorne so. He is much in the kitchen. She is very sensible. She just stuffs a jam tart into his mouth, and says, Tak that atween whiles then, my bonny bairn, to distract ye. Ben takes it like a lamb, and it does distract him, or at any rate it distends him; he has got fat since she came.
She orders Mother about as if she were a child. Mother does look very young, as I have said. She ought, and so ought Aunt Gerty, considering the trouble they both take to keep the cloven hoof of age off their faces. They go to bed with poultices of oatmeal on them, and Aunt Gerty once tried the raw-beef plaster. But what she does in the night she undoes in the day, with the grease paint and sticky messes that are part of her profession.
She lives with us except when she is on tour, and is only here when she is resting in the Era, and all that time she is dreadfully cross, because she would rather be doing than resting, for resting is only a polite way of saying no one has wanted to engage her, and that she is out of a shop, which all actresses hate.
CHAPTER III
I HAVE forced Georges hand, so I am told, and neither he nor mother take any notice of me.
But Aunt Gerty hugged me all over when she heard what I had done, and scolded Mother for not being nice to me.
I dont see why you need put that poor child in Coventry? she said. You had more need to be grateful to her than not. How much longer was it going to go on, I want to know? Hiding away his lawful wife like an old Bluebeard, and me Sister Anne boiling over and wanting to call it all from the house-tops!
Well, Gerty, you seem to have got it a bit mixed! said Mother. But, talking of Bluebeard, I always envied the first Mrs. B. the lots of cupboard room she must have had! I wonder if she was a hoarder, like me, who never have the heart to throw anything away? If I do happen to see the plans for the new house, I will speak up for lots of cupboards, and that is all I care about.
See the plans! Why, of course you will! Isnt it your right? You must make a point of seeing them and putting your word in. Look after your own comfort in this world or you will jolly well find yourself out in the cold, and specially with a husband like youve got!
Bother moving! said Mother, in her dreary way that comes when she has been overdoing it, as she has lately. It is an odious wrench; just like having all ones teeth out at once.
Hadnt need! Yours are just beautiful. One of your points, Lucy, and dont you forget it.
The life here suited me well enough; I had got used to it, I suppose.
You can get used to something bad, cant you, but thats no reason you are not to welcome a change? Oh, youll like the new life thats to be spent up-stairs in the daylight, above-board like, instead of this kind of behind the scenes you have been doing for eighteen years. And a pretty woman still, for so you are. Cheer up! You are going to get new scenery, new dresses, new backcloth
You see everything through the stage, Gerty. I must say it irritates one sometimes, especially now, when
I know what you mean. No offence, my dear old sis. And you can depend on me not to be bringing the smell of the footlights, as they call itits the only truly pleasant smell there is, to my idea!into your fine new house. Pity but He cant get a little whiff of it into his comedies, and some manager would see his way to putting them on, perhaps? No, beloved, me and George dont cotton to each other, nor never shall. He isnt my sort. I like a man that is a man, not a society baa-lamb! Baa! Ive no patience with such
Sh, Gerty. You seem to forget his child sitting messing away with her paints in a corner so quietly there!
That was me. Aunt Gerty stopped a minute, and then they went on just the same.
We have never minded the child yet (which was true), and I dont see why we should begin now. Tempe is getting quite a woman and able to hold her tongue when needful. And she knows her way about her precious father well enough. What youve to think of now, Lucy, is getting your hands white, and the marks of sewing and cooking off. Lemons and pumice! Creams good, too. You have been George Taylors upper servant too longGracious, whos that at the front-door?
Aunt Gerty nearly knocked me over in her rush to the window. We were all three sitting in the front bedroom, which is Georges, when he is at home, and Mother had been washing my hair. It was a dreadfully hot daya dog-day, only we havent any dogs, but the kittens were tastefully arranged in the spare wash-basin all round the jug for coolness. They had put themselves there. We humans had got very little clothes on, partly for heat and also having got out of the habit of dressing in the afternoons, for no callers ever came to The Magnolias. But there were some now. There was a big, two-horsed thing at the door such as I have often seen driving out to Hampton Court, but never, never had I seen one stop at our gate before. It was most exciting. I hoped Jessie Hitchings and her mother saw.