SCIENCE APPLIED
Gaspard was ill--very ill. He lay in the little anteroom at the top of
the stairs and groaned thunderously. He had a pain in his back and a
roaring in his head, and an extreme disorder in the region of his
solar plexus.
"Sure an' he's no more nor less than a human earthquake," Michael
reported after an examination.
Nancy applied ice caps and hot-water bags to the afflicted areas
without avail. The stricken man had struggled from his bed in the
Twentieth Street lodging-house that he had chosen for his habitation,
and staggered through the heavy morning heat to his post in the
basement kitchen of Nancy's Inn, there to collapse ignominiously
between his cooking ranges. With Molly and Dolly and Hildeguard at his
feet and herself and Michael and a dishwasher at his head they had
managed to get him up the two short flights of stairs. It developed
that it would be necessary to remove him in an ambulance later in the
day, but for the time being he lay like a contorted Colossus on the
fragile-looking cot that constituted his improvised bed of pain: "Like
the great grandfather," to quote Michael again, "of all of them
Zeus'es and gargoyles, and other cavortin' gentlemen in the yard
down-stairs."
With the luncheon menu before her, Nancy decided that the hour had
come for her to prove herself. She had assumed the practical
management of the business of the Inn only to have the responsibility
and much of the authority of her position taken from her by the very
efficiency of her staff. She was far too good a business woman not to
realize that this condition was distinctly to her advantage, and to
encourage it accordingly, but there was still so much of the child in
her that she secretly resented every usurpation of privilege.
With Gaspard ill she was able to manipulate the affairs of the kitchen
exactly as she chose, and even in the moment of applying the "hot at
the base of the brain and the cold at the forehead" that the doctor
had prescribed as the most effective method for relieving the pressure
of blood in the tortured temples of the suffering man, she had been
conscious of that thrill of triumph that most human beings feel when
the involuntary removal of the man higher up invests them with power.
Michael did the marketing, and the list went through as Gaspard had
planned it, with some slight adaptations to the exigency, such as the
substitution of twenty-five cans of tomato soup for the fresh
vegetables with which Gaspard had planned to make his tomato bisque,
and brandied peaches in glass jars instead of peach soufflé.
"If I allow myself a little handicap in the matter of details," she
said, "I know I can put everything else through as well as Gaspard;"
whereupon she enveloped herself in a huge linen apron, tucked her hair
into one of the chef's white caps, and attacked the problem of
preparing luncheon for from sixty-five to two hundred people, who were
scheduled to appear at uncertain intervals between the hours of twelve
and two-thirty. Later she must be ready to serve tea and ices to a
problematical number of patrons, but she tried not to think beyond the
immediate task.
She could make a very good tomato bisque by adding one cup of milk and
a dash of cream to one half-pint can of MacDonald's tomato soup,
enough to serve three people adequately, and she proceeded to multiply
that recipe by twenty-five. She didn't think of getting large cans
till Michael in the process of opening the half-pint tins made the
belated suggestion, which she greeted with some hauteur.
"I'm not the person to mind a little extra work, Michael, when I am
sure of my results. Precision--that's the secret of the difference
between American and French cooking."
"An' sure and I fail to see the difference between the preciseness of
a quart can and four half-pint ones, but I suppose it's my ignorance
now."
"Your supposition is correct, Michael," she said airily, but out of
the corner of her eye she saw him smiling to himself over the growing
heap of half-pint tins, and reddened with mortification at her naiveté
in the matter.
She looked at the vat of terra-cotta purée with considerable dismay
when she had stirred in the last measure of cream. Twenty-five pints
of tomato bisque is a rather formidable quantity of a liquid the chief
virtue of which is its sparing and judicious introduction into the
individual diet scheme. Nancy hardly felt that she wanted to be alone
with it.
"They'll soon lick it all up, and be polishing their plates like so
many Tom-cats," Michael said, indicating their potential patronage by
waving his hand toward the courtyard. "Here comes Miss Betty, now.
She'll be after lending a hand in the cooking."
"Keep her away, Michael," Nancy cried; "go out and head her off. Make
her go up-stairs and sit with Gaspard,--anything, but don't let her
come in here. If she does I won't answer for the consequences.
I'll--I'll--I don't know what I'll do to her."
"Throw her in the soup kettle, most likely," Michael chuckled. "Faith,
an' I never saw a woman yet that wasn't ready to scratch the eyes out
of the next one that got into her kitchen."
"She isn't safe," Nancy said darkly. "I need every bit of brain and
self-control I have to put this luncheon through. You keep Miss
Betty's mind on something else--anything but me and the way I am doing
the cooking."
"'Tis done," said Michael; "sure an' I'll protect her from you, if I
have to abduct her myself!"
"I wish he would," Nancy said to herself viciously, "before she gets
another chance at Collier Pratt.--Creamed chicken and mushrooms. It's
a lucky thing that Gaspard diced the chicken last night, and fixed
that macédoine of vegetables for a garnish.--She's a dangerous woman;
she might wreck one's whole life with her unfeeling, histrionic
nonsense.--I wonder if thirteen quarts of cream sauce is going to be
enough."
It turned out to be quite enough after the crises in which the butter
basis got too brown, and the flour after melting into it smoothly
seemed unreasonably inclined to lump again as Nancy stirred the cold
milk into it, but the result after all was perfectly adequate, except
for the uncanny brown tinge that the whole mixture had taken on. Nancy
was unable to restrain herself from taking a sample of it to Gaspard's
bedside.
"_Mais_--but I can not eat it now," he cried, misunderstanding the
purpose of her visit, "nor again--nor ever again. _Jamais!_"
"I don't want you to eat it, Gaspard, I want you to look at it, and
tell me what makes it that color. It turned tan, you see. I don't want
to poison any one."
"I am too miserable," Gaspard said. "The sauce--you have made into
Béchamel with the browning butter, _voilà tout_. It is better so,--it
would not hurt any one in the world but me--and me it would kill."
"Poor thing," sighed Nancy, as she took her place by the kitchen
dresser again, trying to remember where she had last seen brown eyes
that reflected the look of stricken endurance that glazed Gaspard's
velvet orbs, recalled with a start that Dick had gazed at her in
much the same helpless fashion on their drive home from their
recent motor trip in Connecticut. She had been too absorbed in her
own distresses to consider anybody's state of mind but her own, on
that occasion, but now Dick's expression came back to her vividly,
and she nearly ruined a big bowl of French dressing, at the crucial
moment of putting in the vinegar, trying to imagine which one of
the events of that inauspicious day might conceivably have caused it.
After the actual serving of the meal began, however, she had very
little time for reflection or reminiscence. The distribution of
food to the waitresses as they called for it required the full
concentration of her powers. Molly and Dolly coached her, and with
their assistance she was soon able to fill the bewilderingly rapid
orders from the line of girls stretching from the door to the open
space in front of her serving-table, which never seemed to diminish
however adequately its demands were met.
Mechanically she took soup and meat dishes from the hooded shelves at
the top of the range where they were kept warming, and ladled out the
brick-colored bisque, the creamed chicken and garnishing of the
individual orders. The chicken looked delicious with its accompaniment
of vari-colored vegetables,--Nancy had done away with the side dish
long since--and each serving was assembled with special reference to
its decorative qualities. The girls went up-stairs to put the salad on
the plates, where the desserts were already dished in the quaint blue
bowls in which stewed fruits and the more fluid sweets were always
served.
In her mind's eye Nancy could see the picture. At noon the court was
almost entirely in the shade, and instead of the awning top, which
shut out the air, there were gay striped umbrellas at the one or two
tables that were imperfectly protected from the sun. She had recently
invested in some table-cloths with bright blue woven borders. Flowers
were arranged in low bowls and baskets on respective tables. Nancy
instinctively grouped tired young business men in blue serge and soft
collars at the tables decorated with the baskets of blue flowers; and
pale young women in lingerie blouses before the bowls of roses. She
could see them,--those big-eyed girls with delicate blue veins
accentuating the pallor of their white faces--sinking gratefully into
the wicker seats and benches, and sniffing rapturously at the faint
far-away fragrance of the woodland blossoms.
"I hope they will steal a great many of them," she thought, for her
patrons were given to despoiling her flower vases in a way that
scandalized the good Hildeguard, who was a just but ungenerous soul in
spite of her ample proportions and popular qualities. Molly and Dolly
were rather given to encouraging the vandals, knowing that they had
Nancy's tacit approval.
Automatically dipping the huge metal ladle--one filling of which was
enough for a service--into the big soup kettle, she stood for a moment
gazing into its magenta depths oblivious to everything but the
rhapsodic consideration of her realized dream. Now for the first time
she was contributing directly her own strength and energy to the
public which she served. She had prepared with her own hands the meal
which her grateful patrons were consuming. The little girls with the
tired faces, the jaded men, the smart, weary business women--buyers
and secretaries and modistes,--who were occupied in the neighborhood
were all being literally nourished by her. She had actually
manufactured the product that was to sustain them through the weary
day of heat and effort.
"How do they like the lunch, Molly?" she asked, as she deftly
deposited the forty-fifth serving of chicken with Béchamel sauce on
the exact center of the plate before her. "Are they pleased with the
soup? Are they saying complimentary things about the chicken?"
"Some of them is, Miss Nancy. Some of them is complaining that they
can't get any other kind of soup. Them that usually gets invalid broth
don't understand our running out of it."
"I forgot about the specials," Nancy cried.
"That red-haired girl that we feed on custards and nut bread and that
special cocoa Gaspard makes for her, she acted real bad. They get
expecting certain things, and then they want them."
"I'm sorry," Nancy said; "I'll make all those things to-morrow."
"The old feller that always has the stewed prunes is terrible pleased
though. I give him two helps of the peaches, and he wanted another. He
was pleased to get white bread too. He complains something dreadful
about his bran biscuit every day."
"I meant to send to the woman's exchange for different kinds of health
bread, but I forgot it," Nancy moaned. "Do they like the peaches at
all?"
"Most of them likes them too well. There was one old lady that got one
whiff of them, and pushed back her chair and left. I guess she had
took the pledge, and the brandy went against her principles."
"I never thought of that. I only thought that brandied peaches would
be a treat to so many people who didn't have them habitually served at
home."
The picture in Nancy's mind changed in color a trifle. She could see
sour-faced spinsters at single tables pushing back their chairs,
overturning the rose bowls in their hurry to shake the dust of her
restaurant from their feet.
"Don't accept any money from people who don't like their luncheon,"
she admonished Molly, who was next in line with several orders to be
filled at once. "Tell them that the proprietor of Outside Inn prefers
not to be paid unless the meal is entirely satisfactory."
"I'm afraid there wouldn't never be any satisfactory meals if I told
them that, Miss Nancy."
"I don't want any one ever to pay for anything he doesn't like," Nancy
insisted. "Slip the money back in their coat pockets if you can't
manage it any other way."
"There's lots of complaints about the soup," Dolly said; "so many
people don't like tomato in the heat. Gaspard, he always had a choice
even if it wasn't down on the menu. I might deduct, say fifteen cents
now, and slip it back to them with their change."
"Please do," Nancy implored. "Tell Molly and Hildeguard."
"Hilda would drop dead, but Molly'd like the fun of it."
It was hot in the kitchen. The soup kettle bad been emptied of more
than half its contents, but the liquid that was left bubbled thickly
over the gas flame that had been newly lit to reheat it. The pungent,
acrid odor of hot tomatoes affronted her nostrils. She had a vision
now of the pale tired faces of the little stenographers turning in
disgust from the contemplation of the flamboyant and sticky purée on
their plates, annoyed by the color scheme in combination with the soft
wild-rose pink of the table bouquets, if not actually sickened by the
fluid itself. For the first time since his abrupt seizure that morning
she began to hope in her heart that Gaspard's illness might be a
matter of days instead of weeks. She served Hildeguard and one of the
other waitresses with more soup, and then began to boil some eggs to
eke out the chicken, which, owing to her unprecedented generosity in
the matter of portions, seemed to be diminishing with alarming
rapidity.
From the kitchen closet beyond came the clatter of dishwashing, the
interminable splashing of water, and stacking of plates, punctuated by
the occasional clang of smashing glass or pottery. She had discharged
two dishwashers in less than two weeks' time, with the natural feeling
that any change in that department must be for the better, but the
present incumbent was even more incompetent than his predecessors.
Even Nancy's impregnable nerves began to feel the strain of the
continual clamorous assault on them.
Betty appeared in the doorway that led directly from the restaurant
stairs.
"I'm sorry to intrude," she said. "Don't blame Michael, I'm breaking
my parole to get in here. He locked me in and made me swear I'd keep
out of the kitchen before he'd let me out at all, but I had to tell
you this. The tomato soup has curdled and you ought not to serve it
any more."
"Well, I thought it looked rather funny," Nancy moaned.
"It won't do anybody any harm, you know. It just looks bad, and a lot
of people are kicking about it. Did Molly tell you about the old
fellow that got tipsy on the peaches?"
"No, she didn't. I sent Michael out for some ripe peaches and other
fruit to serve instead."
"That's a good idea. How's the food holding out? There are lots of
people you know up-stairs," she rattled on, for Nancy, who was getting
more and more distraught with each disquieting detail, made no
pretense of answering her. "Dolly has probably kept you informed.
Dick's aunt is here, and that terribly highbrow cousin of Caroline's;
and that good-looking young surgeon that suddenly got so famous last
winter, and admired you so much. Dr. Sunderland--isn't that his name?
I never saw Collier Pratt here for lunch before. There's a little girl
with him, too."
"Collier Pratt?" Nancy cried, "Oh, Betty, he isn't here. He couldn't
be. Don't frighten me with any such nonsense. He never comes here in
the day-time."
"He is though," Betty said, "and a queer-looking little child with
him, a dark-eyed little thing dressed in black satin."
"It seems a good deal to me as if you were making that up," Nancy
cried in exasperation; "it's so much the kind of thing you do make
up."
"I know it," Betty said, unexpectedly reasonable, "but as it happens
I'm not. Collier Pratt really is up-stairs with a poor little orphan
in tow. Ask any one of the girls."
At this moment Dolly, her ribbons awry and her china-blue eyes widened
with excitement, appeared with a dramatic confirmation of Betty's
astonishing announcement.
"There's a little girl took sick from the peaches, and moved up-stairs
in the room next to Gaspard's," she cried breathlessly. "The doctor
that was sitting at the next table, had her moved right up there. He
wants to see the lady that runs the restaurant, and he wants a lot of
hot water in a pitcher, and some baking soda."
"You see," Betty said, "go on up, I'll take your place here. Dolly,
get the things the doctor asked for."
Nancy stripped off her cap and her apron and resigned her spoons and
ladles to Betty without a word. She was still incredulous of what she
would find at the top of the three flights of creaking age-worn stairs
that separated her from the nest of rooms that were the storm quarters
of her hostelry, now converted by a sudden malevolence on the part of
fate into a temporary hospital. As she took the last flight she could
hear Gaspard's stertorous breathing coming at the regular intervals of
distressful slumber, and through that an ominous murmur of grave and
low-voiced conference, such as one hears in the chambers of the dead.
The convulsive application of a powder puff to the tip of her burning
nose--her whole face was aflame with exertion and excitement--was
merely a part of her whole subconscious effort to get herself in hand
for the exigency. Her mind, itself, refused any preparation for the
scene that awaited her.
On one of the cushioned benches against the wall in the most
decorative of the dining-rooms of the up-stairs suite, a little girl
was lying stark against the brilliant blue of the upholstery. She was
a child of some seven or eight, lightly built and delicate of features
and dressed all in black. Her eyes were closed, but the long lashes
emphasizing the shadows in which they were set, prepared you for the
revelation of them. Nancy understood that they were Collier Pratt's
eyes, and that they would open presently, and look wonderingly up at
her. She recognized the presence of Dr. Sunderland, of Michael and
several of the waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta--an
ubiquitous patron,--but she made her way past them at once, and sank
on her knees before the prostrate child.
"It's nothing very serious, Miss Martin," the young surgeon reassured
her, "delicate children of this type are likely to have these
seizures. It's not exactly a fainting fit. It belongs rather to the
family of hysteria."
"Wasn't it the peaches?" Nancy asked fearfully. "They--they had a
little brandy in them."
"They may have been a contributing cause," Dr. Sunderland acknowledged,
"but the child's condition is primarily responsible. Let her alone
until she rouses,--then give her hot water with a pinch of soda in it
at fifteen-minute intervals. Keep her feet hot and her head cold and
don't try to move her until after dark, when it's cooler."
"All right," Nancy said, "I'll take care of her."
"Here comes her poor father, now," the lady in taffeta announced with
the dramatic commiseration of the self-invited auditor. "He thought an
iced towel on her head might make her feel better. Is the dear little
thing an orphan--I mean a half orphan?"
The assembled company seeming disinclined to respond, she repeated her
inquiry to Collier Pratt himself, as with the susceptive grace that
characterized all his movements, he swung the compress he was carrying
sharply to and fro to preserve its temperature in transit. "Is the
poor little thing a half orphan?"
"The poor little thing is nine-tenths orphan, madam," said Collier
Pratt, "that is--the only creature to whom she can turn for protection
is the apology for a parent that you see before you. Would you mind
stepping aside and giving me a little more room to work in?"
"Not at all." Irony was wasted on the indomitable sympathizer in blue.
"Hasn't she really anybody but you to take care of her?"
Collier Pratt arranged the towel precisely in position over the little
girl's forehead, smoothing with careful fingers the cloud of dusky
hair that fell about her face.
"She has not," he answered with some savagery.
"Hasn't she any women friends or relatives that would be willing to
take charge of her?"
"No, madam."
"Then some woman that has no child of her own to care for ought to
adopt her, and relieve you of the responsibility. It's a shame and
disgrace the way these New York women with no natural ties of their
own go around crying for something to do, when there are sweet little
children like this suffering for a mother's care. I'd adopt her myself
if I was able to. I certainly would."
"I'm perfectly willing to give over the technical part of her bringing
up to some one of the women whom you so feelingly describe," Collier
Pratt said. "The trouble is to find the woman--the right woman. The
vicarious mother is not the most prevalent of our modern types, I
regret to say."
The little girl on the couch stirred softly, and the hand that Nancy
was holding, a pathetic, thin, unkempt little hand, grew warm in hers.
The lids of the big eyes fluttered and lifted. Nancy looked into their
clouded depths for an instant. Then she turned to Collier Pratt
decisively.
"I'll take care of your little girl for you, if you will let me," she
said.