"And so am I," replied the cook, regardless of the sneers and smiles of
the rest of the domestics at the table. "As I said before, I have a
heart of my own, and if some people follow the example of their
betters,"--here Mrs Downes stared very hard at the contemptuous
countenance of the French maid,--"and like the furren element, it's no
business of nobody's."
Madame Justine's eyes flashed.
"Did you make that saying for me, Madame Downes?" she flashed out
viciously.
"Sayings ain't puddens," retorted cook.
"I say, make you that vairy witty jeer for me?" cried Mademoiselle
Justine viciously.
"What I say is," continued the cook, who, having a blunter tongue, stood
on her defence, but heaping up dull verbiage round her position as a
guard against the Frenchwoman's sharp attack, "that a man's a man, and
if he's a furrener it ain't no fault of his. I should say he's a count
at least, and he's very handsome."
"Counts don't count in this country," said Robbins smiling, and waiting
for the applause of the table.
"Count indeed!" cried Mademoiselle Justine. "Count you the fork and
spoons, Mr Robbins, and see that these canaille music men come not down
the air--_ree_. As for that green-goose girl Preen--Bah! she is a
little shild for her mamma to vip and send to bed wizout her
soop--_paire_. Madame Downes, you are a vairy foolish woman."
Mademoiselle Justine rose from her seat, and made a movement as if to
push back a chair; but she had been seated upon a form which
accommodated half a dozen more domestics, and in consequence she had to
climb out and glide toward the door, through which she passed with a
rustle like that of a cloud of dead leaves swept into a barn.
"You've put ma'amselle out, Mrs Downes," said Robbins with
condescension.
"That's easy enough done, Mr Robbins. It's her furren blood. I don't
like young people to be sneered at if they're a bit tender. I've got a
heart of my own."
"And a very good heart too, Mrs Downes," said the butler.
"Hear, hear," said Joseph the footman.
"Hear, hear, hear, hear, hear!" cried the page-boy, a young gentleman
who lived in a constant state of suppression, and consequently in his
youthful vivacity was always seeking an opportunity to come to the
surface. This appeared to him to be one. His chief had paid a
compliment which had been cheered by the said chief's first-lieutenant
Joseph, so Henry, the bearer of three rows of buttons, every one of
which he longed to annex for purposes of play, cried "hear, hear, hear,"
as the footman's echo, and rapped loudly upon the table with the haft of
his knife.
A dead silence fell upon the occupants of the servants' hall, and Henry
longed to take flight; but the butler fixed him as the Ancient Mariner
did the wedding guest, and held him with his glittering eye.
"There, I knowed you'd do it," whispered the footman. "You're always up
to some of your manoeuvres."
"Henry," said the butler in his most severe tones, and with the look
upon his countenance that he generally reserved for Lord Barmouth, "I
don't know where you were brought up, my good boy, and I don't want to
know, but have the goodness to recollect that you are now in a
nobleman's service, where, as there is no regular steward's room for the
upper servants, you are allowed to take your meals with your superiors.
I have before had occasion to complain of your behaviour, eating with
your knife, breathing all over your plate, and sniffing at the table in
a most disgusting way."
"Hear, hear," said Joseph in a low voice, and the boy thought it
additionally hard that he was to be chidden while his fellow-servant in
livery went free.
Mr Robbins bowed his head graciously to his underling's softly-breathed
piece of adulation, and continued--
"Once for all, my good boy, I must request that if you do not wish to be
sent into the knife place to partake of your meals, you will cease your
low pothouse conduct, and behave yourself properly."
The butler turned away with a dignified air, while Henry screwed up his
face as if about to cry, bent down his head, and began to kick the
footman's legs under the table--a playful piece of impudence that the
lofty servitor did not resent, Master Henry the buttons knowing too much
of things in general appertaining to the pantry; sundry stealings out at
night when other people were in bed, and when returns were made through
the area door, and from good fellowship, for though there was a vast
difference in years and size, Joseph's brain was of much the same
calibre as that of the boy.
"Mrs Downes," said the butler, after clearing his voice with a good
cough, "your sentiments do you credit. You have a heart of your own,
and what is more, you are English."
"I am, Mr Robbins, I am," said the lady addressed, and she wiped her
eyes.
"Furreners are furreners," continued the butler didactically; "but what
I always will maintain is, that the English are so thoroughly English."
There was a murmur of applause here which warmed the imposing-looking
butler's heart, and he continued--
"Your sentiments do you the greatest of credit, Mrs Downes; but you are
too tender."
"I can't help it, Mr Robbins," said the lady pathetically.
"And I'm sure no one wishes that you should, Mrs Downes, for I say it
boldly so that all may hear,--except the two lady's maids who have left
the hall,--that a better cook, and a kinder fellow-servant never came
into a house."
Another murmur of applause, and the cook sighed, shed two more tears,
and felt, to use her own words, afterward expressed, "all of a fluster."
"Mr Robbins," she began.
"I beg your pardon, madam, I have not finished," said the butler,
smiling. "I only wished to observe, and I must say it even if I give
offence to your delicate susceptibilities, madam, that that furren
papist fellow with the organ haunts Portland Place like a regular demon,
smiling at weak woman, and taking of her captive, when it's well known
what lives the poor creatures live out Saffron Hill way. I should feel
as I was not doing my duty toward my fellow creatures if I didn't
protest against such a man having any encouragement here."
"Hear, hear," said the footman again.
"Some impudent person once observed," continued the butler, "that when a
footman married he took a room in a mews for his wife, and furnished it
with a tub and a looking-glass."
"Haw, haw, haw!" laughed the buttons.
"Henry, be silent, or you will have to leave the room," said the butler,
sternly. "A tub and a looking-glass, I repeat," he added, as he looked
round, "so that his wife might try to get her living by washing, and see
herself starve."
A murmur of approval rose here from every one but the footman, who
looked aggrieved, and kicked Henry beneath the table.
"But what I say is this," continued the butler, "the pore girl who lets
herself be deluded into marrying one of those lazy rony organ men may
have the looking-glass, for Italians is a vain nation; but from what I
know of 'em, the pore wives will never have the tub, let alone the
soap."
The butler smiled, and there was a burst of laughter, which ceased as
the cook took up the defence.
"Maybe," she said, "but what I say is this, as I've said before, I can
feel for a woman in love, for I have a heart of my own."
It was self-evident, for that heart was thoroughly doing its work of
pumping the vital current so energetically, that the blood flushed the
lady's cheeks, rose into her forehead, and was beginning to suffuse her
eyes, which looked angry, when a loud peal at the front door bell acted
as a check to the discussion, Joseph going off to answer the summons as
all arose, and the butler, to finish the debate, exclaimed--
"Mark my words, no good won't come of it if that man's allowed to haunt
this house, and--Well, of all the impudence! there he is again. I shall
have to call her ladyship's attention to the fact."
For Luigi was slowly grinding out the last new waltz, and it had such an
effect on the more frivolous of the hired servants, that as soon as
their elders had quitted the underground banquetting hall, two of them
clasped each other, and began to spin round the place, proving that
music had charms as well as the man.