'Thanks, Sam, any letters?' and then 'Knee bad?'
'Pretty middling, sir.'
'Go and put it up, then. What are you about on it for?'
'It'll be time enough to put it up after dinner, sir. I _must_ wait at
table to-night, the parlour-maid is out.'
The atmosphere in the hall became suddenly arctic. I shivered as the
cold of it blew into me. I could feel Ross looking through Sam as he
asked coldly,--
'Did you intend to say "must" to me, Brown?' And Brown said,--
'No, sir,' and did not appear at dinner. I sent him up a book and two
Cox's oranges, so I had to continue 'My 'Ilda's' education in the art of
waiting.
As she handed the soup she decorated each plate with a beautiful scallop
like a flannel petticoat. I suppose it is difficult to keep liquid level
and walk at the same time. She had put no fish forks on the table, so I
said reprovingly,--
'What are we to eat the fish with, Hilda?'
'Oh, whatever you like, Mrs Ellsley,' she said brightly. Ross drank
some water hurriedly. I endeavoured to make my meaning clearer and to
keep my face straight at the same time, whereupon 'My 'Ilda' said,--
'I do like being here; you don't mind how many mistakes I make so long
as I do it right.'
She shot a knife and fork into Ross's lap, mercifully they were clean or
there would have been ructions, then she upset a glass of water and got
the hiccoughs, and later tripped over the footstool and sent the cheese
straws flying like leaves before an autumn gale.
When 'My 'Ilda' brought the coffee into the hall she stepped on the
kitten's tail, and as that indignant fluffy ball spat at her, she
remarked,--
'My! ain't Fitzbattleaxe got a temper, I don't think. Your face _is_
red, Mrs Ellsley; did I do it all right at dinner?'
As I went to my room to fetch a book I heard her fall down the back
stairs with a pail. It was the end of an imperfect meal. Ross says I
ought to start a nursing home for sergeant-majors suffering from
depression--they'd be cured in a week, and then he remarked,--
'I wonder if Sam's got a decent supper. I must go and see.'