ON AMELIA, FLUES, AND DRAIN-BAMBOOS
"Put down your worries," said Nanty, so I must perforce enter Amelia
and the kitchen boiler. The boiler won't yield hot water, and Amelia
says that isn't her fault, that she wasn't the plumber who put it
there, and she can't be expected to get a flue-brush into a hole the
size of a threepenny-bit.
When I said I thought she put it up the chimney she asked me what for.
"To clean the flue, of course," I retorted, a little irritably; and she
replied with fine scorn that flues didn't grow up chimneys, but at the
backs of fire-grates and other un-get-at-able places.
Ever since Amelia came to us her object appears to have been the
sounding the depths of my ignorance, with the idea of putting us in our
proper positions. I don't mean that she wishes to be the mistress
exactly, and sit with Dimbie in the drawing-room while I peel potatoes
in the back kitchen; but she wishes me to understand that she knows I
am a silly sort of creature, and she will do the best she can for me,
seeing that she is one of the "old-fashioned sort" who still take a
kindly and benevolent interest in their master and mistress.
Not that Amelia is old-fashioned really, with flat caps and
elastic-sided cloth boots, such as mother's servants wear. She is an
entirely modern product. She knows how to do the cake-walk, and wears
two-strapped patent slippers, with high Louis heels which turn over at
a most dangerous angle, looking more like two leaning towers of Pisa
than decorous, respectable "general's" heels. But she is old-fashioned
in the sense that she appears to have our interests most tremendously
at heart, is quite painfully economical, is forever scrubbing and
cleaning, and calls me "mum" instead of "madam" when she isn't calling
me "miss."
Just now she invited me to go and see how far she had got the brush up
the flue. She was hurt because Dimbie had said _he_ should have to get
up early and see what he could do about the hot water. In fact, she
had laughed derisively behind the roller-towel. She thinks no more of
Dimbie's capabilities than of mine.
I went, and was much impressed by the length of the flue-brush and its
pliability. Amelia had raked out the fire, and, with sleeves rolled
back, showed me what she could do with flues. It was like being at a
conjuring entertainment. The brush flashed about like lightning, got
into impossible places, curved, wriggled, and once I thought that
Amelia herself was about to disappear up the chimney. I clutched at
her legs and brought her down. Her face was glowing and black in
places.
"Now, mum," she panted, "if there's no hot water, is it my fault? If
Amelia Cockles can't get no hot water, no livin' mortal can, includin'
the master hisself. I'll show him to-night."
"Oh, don't, Amelia! Don't do it again! It's so difficult and
dangerous, you might get stuck," I pleaded. "We'll have a new boiler."
"It's not the boiler," she pronounced; "it's where it's been put."
"Well, we'll have it moved. Where would you like it?"
She was guarded in her answer.
"I'm not sure as you can move boilers about like furniture. We must
think it over."
She drew the brush from the flue, and I now saw it in its entire length.
"Wherever did you get it from?" I knew Dimbie and I hadn't bought it
when we furnished.
"From the ironmonger's, of course."
"Was it expensive?" I asked carelessly. I wondered if it were a
present from Amelia to us.
"Sixpence ha'penny. I sold some bottles and rubbish to the
donkey-stone man."
"All that for sixpence halfpenny?" I ejaculated, ignoring the
donkey-stone man, of whom I had never heard before.
Amelia eyed me a little pityingly.
"Would you care to see the drain-bamboo, mum? _That cost fourpence._"
"The drain-bamboo?"
"The thing we push down the drains to keep 'em clean and save bad
smells."
"Yes, please."
Amelia produced it. It was tied up in coils, and as she cut the string
it shot across the kitchen floor and narrowly escaped my ankles. I
didn't like the drain-bamboo at all, it was a nasty, sinuous thing, and
I asked Amelia to remove it at once.
"Have you any further contrivances, I mean unusual ones, concealed
about the premises?" I inquired.
"Them are not unusual. I can't think where you was brought up if you
haven't seen a flue-brush before, mum."
"I was born in Westmoreland first and then Dorking."
Amelia looked at me.
"I mean I was born in Westmoreland and then removed to Dorking."
Amelia flurries me so at times I hardly know what I am saying. "I
never went into the kitchen much," I added apologetically.
"P'r'aps your ma helped the general?"
"Oh, no, we hadn't a general."
"No servant?" in great astonishment.
"We had a servant, but not a general."
"A help?"
"No, we'd four servants. You see, my father suffers from gout, and he
requires a lot----"
"Cook, kitchen-maid, housemaid, parlour-maid?" interrupted Amelia,
ignoring my explanation.
"That was it."
Amelia put some coal on the fire, which she had relit, with a
considerable amount of noise.
"No wonder you're hignorant, mum."
Amelia never leaves an "h" out, but in moments of stress occasionally
puts one in. On the whole she speaks well for a Cockney born, and
educated in the Mile End Road. Of course all her "a's" are "i's," but
I find it difficult to transcribe them. "I tell Dimbie I know I shall
pick up the vernacular as I am peculiarly imitative; and he says he
hopes I won't, as it is not pretty."
"Beggin' your pardon for sayin' such a thing, but it's evidently not
your fault, and p'r'aps you'll improve as time goes on. You've time to
learn."
I tried to feel cheered at the hopes Amelia held out to me, and
prepared to leave the kitchen, feeling a little annoyed with mother for
neglecting my education so far as flue-brushes and drain-bamboos were
concerned.
"How old are you, mum? You'll hexcuse me askin' you."
I hesitated. Were Amelia to know that I was two years her senior would
she despise me more than ever?
"Never mind, mum. No ladies likes to tell their ages. In my last
place--Tompkinses'--the oldest daughter, Miss Julia, used to begin a
chatterin' to the canary for all she was worth when anybody so much as
mentions how old they was, and the way time was passin'. New Year's
Eve was the worst, when the bells was tollin'. I've known her wake
that poor canary up, when it had gone to bed, and say, 'Dicky, Dicky,
pretty Dick,' and it thought the incandescent light was the sun, and
had its bath straight away."
"Oh, I'm not so bad as that," I laughed, "I'm twenty-three!"
Amelia blacked her face more than ever in her surprise.
"Bless my soul! Who'd have thought it? In that white dress you wears
at night you looks like a bit of a thing who has just got out of
pinifores. Twenty-three! You're older than me, and never seed a
flue-brush before."
"Perhaps you have always been brought up with them?" I suggested.
"I could handle one at six, or my mother would have let me know what
for."
She swelled with pride at the retrospection of her infant capabilities.
"You were evidently most clever. Perhaps you were born grown up. Some
people are."
She considered this.
"I was always smart for my years."
"And I wasn't. I think I must have developed slowly, Amelia. When you
were cleaning flues I was nursing dolls. Perhaps it was my parents'
fault. I was the only child."
"And I'm the eldest of fourteen."
"Dear me!" I said. "And are they all expert flue cleaners?"
"Eight of 'em is in heaven."
She sounded as sure of this point as the exasperating little cottage
girl.
"You'd better get on with your work; I'm interrupting you," I said, as
I walked to the door.
About every third day I make this remark to Amelia with the faint hope
of impressing upon her that _I_ am the mistress of the establishment.
Then I carefully close the kitchen door behind me, barricade myself in
the dining- or drawing-room, and sit down and think about her. I am
sure Amelia has not the slightest idea of how her figure looms in my
mental horizon. I don't want to think about her. Dimbie or mother or
Nanty are much pleasanter subjects, but I can't help it; she is the
sort of person you _must_ think about.
Nanty found her for me.
She said, "You and Dimbie will require someone extremely capable.
Amelia Cockles exactly answers to this description."
Now what worries me is whether to sit down quietly and let Amelia
manage us and be happy, or whether to endeavour to uphold our dignity
and be uncomfortable.
Were I to put such a question to Dimbie he would say, "Let's be happy."
But this happiness is qualified when she gives us roly-poly pudding
more than once every ten days. It is a pudding for which I have always
had a peculiar dislike. I will order, I mean suggest, that we shall
have a thatched house pudding for dinner. I mention my liking for
brown thatch, not straw-coloured thatch. I sit with an expectant
appetite, and a roly-poly appears, white, flabby, and bursting at its
ends with raspberry jam. Reproachfully I look at Amelia, but her
return gaze is as innocent and ingenuous as a little child's. She
would have me believe that I never even so much as mentioned a thatched
house pudding. Dimbie sends up his plate for a second helping. While
Amelia goes for the cheese course I say, "Do you think you could like
roly-poly a little less, only a _little_ less?" And Dimbie, passing up
his plate for a third helping, says he will try, but it will be
difficult, as Amelia makes such ripping ones, and of course she enters
the room at the moment and hears him. She hears everything. I think
she must fly between the kitchen and dining-room when she waits at
dinner, or have spring boots concealed beneath the hall table.
I happened to mention the roly-poly to Nanty, and she said, "Be
thankful she can make a pudding at all, or you might have to make it
yourself." There was an assumption in her manner that I couldn't, and
I didn't argue the point. It is useless arguing with Nanty.
There is another point in Amelia's disfavour to put against her
admitted capability--she squeaks. Her shoes squeak and her corsets
creak, and her breathing is conducted in a series of gasps--long ones
when she sweeps a room, short ones when she hands the potatoes at
dinner. She seems to want oiling at every point of vantage, like a
bicycle. Sometimes I lie awake at night and discuss or try to discuss
with Dimbie the possibilities of stopping the squeaking.
"Tell her to wear cloth boots like your mother."
"Mother doesn't wear cloth boots," I contradict.
"I thought you said she did," he murmurs sleepily.
"No, our servants wear them."
"Well, tell Amelia to do the same."
"She won't."
"Then I give it up."
"Dimbie," I say coaxingly, "before you go quite, quite off, couldn't
you suggest a remedy for squeaking? Oil would spoil the carpets."
"Fill 'em with corn," comes the amazing suggestion.
"You put corn in wet shoes, dear donkey," I shout, trying to clutch him
back from that beautiful land of oblivion to which all of us, happy or
unhappy, healthy or sick, young or old, are so glad to go, when like
little children we are just tired. But he had gone. Nothing short of
a thunderbolt would bring him back till the morrow.
And when that morrow came I suggested to Amelia that she should dip the
shoes into water.
"Why not boil 'em, mum, with a little washing powder?"
Her face was stolid, but there was a hint of irony in her voice. With
dignity I walked from the kitchen, barricaded myself, and once again
sat down to think about her. The squeaking was unendurable; the
creaking of the corsets was nearly as bad. For these two things I
could not give her notice; besides, I should never dare to give anybody
notice.
A little later on I caught her in the hall in an old pair of wool-work
slippers embroidered with tea-roses which had belonged to Dimbie, but
which I had surreptitiously banished to the boxroom. She was in the
midst of a cake-walk; her chest was stuck out like a pouter pigeon's,
and one tea-rose was poised high in the air.
"_Amelia!_" I shouted, scandalised, "what are you dreaming of? Have
you taken leave of your senses?"
She brought the tea-rose to earth with a bang, and stood like a soldier
at attention.
"Beg pardon, mum. Didn't know you was there, or I wouldn't have done
it. But I was so happy at thinkin' how pleased you would be in seein'
me in these here shoes, as you have took such a dislike to the others."
"But I'm not pleased," I rejoined. "I could not think of permit--of
approving of your wearing wool-work slippers for answering the
front-door bell."
"It never rings, mum."
"It will when callers begin to arrive; and when you receive your next
month's wages I shall be glad, Amelia, if you will buy a pair of cloth
flat-heeled boots or shoes. Kid are expensive, but cloth is
beautifully cheap."
"You mentioned them before, mum. P'r'aps you'll remember. I never
have and never could wear black cloth shoes. It would be like walkin'
about with a pair of funerals on your feet. They'd depress a nigger
minstrel. Anything else to meet you. White tennis shoes? They're
soft and don't squeak."
"No, Amelia," I said wearily, "white tennis shoes would be worse than
the wool-work. We'll dismiss the subject. It is said that a man can
get accustomed even to being hanged. I may learn to like your shoes in
time, and even regard their noisiness as music."
And I went back to the drawing-room and closed the door. The subject
was finished, and so Amelia continues to squeak.