little later my next interviewer. I beheld a small, trim, and cleanly
clad little man entering at the door. His request was for a pedlar’s
licence. I timidly pointed out that I did not deal in such things, and
that he must have been wrongly advised to apply to me for the document.
This brought on a rambling story, very difficult to comprehend until I
furbished up the scanty remains of my own knowledge of Hindustani. I
then gathered that my friend was somewhat of a black sheep in character
as well as complexion, and had so indifferent a record in the police
sheets that he could not get a licence to start a hawker’s cart unless
some one would become security for his good behaviour. He explained
very carefully how he could manage to raise sufficient money to stock
his cart, but no one would go security for him. I knew that hawkers
made quite a good living in the thinly populated parts of the colony,
and he seemed desperately in earnest in his desire to make a fresh
start and gain his bread honestly. I told him that I would consult
the Commissioner of Police and see him again; which I did, with the
result that I went security for his good conduct myself! No doubt it
was a rash thing to do, but I wanted him to have another chance, and
I impressed on him how keenly I should feel the disgrace if he did
not run straight. “Very good, lady Sahib; I won’t disgrace you,” were
his last words in his own language; and he never did. It all turned
out like a story in a book, and two or three times a year my “Indoo”
turned up, bringing a smiling little wife and an ever-increasing series
of babies, to report himself as being on the high road to fortune, if
not actually at her temple gate. It was one of the most satisfactory
interviews that little back room witnessed.
Sometimes I had a very bad quarter of an hour trying to explain to the
relatives of prisoners that I did not habitually carry the key of the
big Jail in my pocket, and so was unable to go up that very moment,
unlock its door, and let out their, of course, quite wrongfully tried
and convicted friends. I have often been asked, “Why did you see these
weeping women at all?” but at the time it was very hard to refuse,
for, in so small a community as it then was, one knew something of the
circumstances, and how hardly the trouble or disgrace pressed on the
innocent members of the family. Sympathy was all there was to give, and
it was impossible to withhold that.
Looking back on those interviews one sees how comedy treads all through
life on the heels of tragedy, and I am sure to a listener the comic
element, even in the most pathetic tales, would have been supplied
by my legal axioms. I used to invent them on the spot in the wildest
manner, and I observed they always brought great comfort, which is
perhaps more than can be claimed for the real thing. For instance,
when I was very hard put to it once to persuade a weeping girl who had
flung herself on her knees at my feet, and was entreating me to at once
release her brother, who was in prison for manslaughter, that I had no
power to give the order she begged for, I cried, “Why, my poor girl,
the Queen of England could not do such a thing, how much less the wife
of a Governor? I dare not even speak to my husband on the subject.” I
have often wondered since if the first part of that assertion was true.
The second certainly was.
Although I could not promise to overthrow the action of the Supreme
Court in the high-handed manner demanded of me, still I have never
regretted my habit of seeing these poor women and listening to their
sad stories. It really seemed to comfort them a little to know how
truly sorry I felt for them, and I always tried to keep up their own
self-respect, and so help them over the dark days. I had very few
demands on me for money, which was seldom needed for such cases; only
when illness—rare in the beautiful climate—supervened, was that sort of
aid at all necessary.
But my interviewers did not invariably consist of supplicants against
the course of justice. When it was found that a visit to me did not
affect in any way the carrying out of the just-passed sentence, my
petitioners fell off in numbers, for which I was very thankful.
Sometimes I received visits of the gratitude which is so emphatically
a sense of favours to come, but I very soon learned the futility of
attempting to deal with those daughters of the horse-leech, and cut
their visits as short as I could.
Once, however, after a brief interview with a fluent and very red-faced
lady, leading a demure little boy by the hand, a great and bitter cry
was raised in my establishment, and I was implored by my housemaids
not to “see any more of them hussies.” The lady in question said she
came to thank me for letting her dear, innocent, good little boy out
of the reformatory. In vain I protested that I knew nothing whatever
about the matter. The boy had been one of six or seven little waifs
who had been sent to the reformatory on Rottnest Island, where we
always spent our summers. These children used to come down to me every
Sunday afternoon for a sort of Bible lesson, which I tried to make as
interesting as I could; but beyond their names I knew nothing about
them. I found that they were well taught and cared for, and, as they
could not possibly escape from the island (I never heard that they
had ever tried to do so), were allowed a good deal of liberty after
the hours spent in school or the carpenter’s shop. I presume this
boy’s sentence had expired in due course, and that he had returned
to his loving mother; hence the wail from my distracted handmaidens,
who found empty clothes-lines in the back-yard, through which these
visitors had departed, taking with them all the socks, stockings, and
pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole household. As a feat of legerdemain
it certainly deserves credit for the rapidity with which it was done,
as well as the way the articles had been hidden so as to escape the
sentries’ eyes. I don’t know what happened to the lady, who I heard
was quickly caught, but I saw the little boy, looking as cherubic as
ever, the next summer when we went over to Rottnest. The subject was,
however, never alluded to between us, and he used to get his stick of
barley sugar as did the others after the Bible lesson was ended.
Once I had a visit from a delightful old gentleman who certainly
possessed the nicest “derangement of epitaphs” I have ever met with in
real life. And he was so proud of his choice language, and repeated his
distorted expressions so constantly, that I don’t know how I preserved
the smallest show of gravity. He was an office-keeper of some sort,
and was threatened with the loss of his post for neglect of duty. “You
know, my lady, it’s with regard to that there orfice fire. I never
did know fires was my special providence, never. No one could be more
partikler than me about my dooty. Why, when we was over at Rottnest
last year, I was always a prevaricating with the shore for orders.
There was never no inadvartences about me, never;” and so on. I wish I
could remember half his flowers of rhetoric.
There was, however, one class of interviewer of whom I saw far too many
specimens during the last year or two of my stay in Western Australia.
The colony had been making great progress in every direction. The first
indications of its splendid gold-fields were passing from vague rumours
to hopeful facts. Railways were being rapidly pushed on to every point
of the compass, work at high wages was plentiful, and every week
brought shiploads of men for the railways and all other public works.
As a rule, I believe, the immigrants were fairly satisfactory, and I
heard of the various contractors gladly absorbing large numbers of
workmen. In many instances these men brought their wives and families
with them, and it was with the modern colonist’s wife that my troubles
began.
I had heard wonderful stories of the struggles and hardships of the
early settlers, and admired the splendid spirit in which the older sons
and daughters started empire-building. One dear old lady showed me the
packing-case of a grand piano, which she declared she should always
treasure, as she had brought up a large and healthy family in it.
“You see, my dear, my piano was not much use to me in those days, and I
don’t know what became of it, but the case made a splendid crêche for
the babies.” And on every side I saw instances of difficulties overcome
and hardships borne with the same indomitable pluck and cheerfulness.
But the modern colonist’s wife is a very different lady. We seem to
have educated the original woman off the face of the earth, and we have
got instead a discontented, helpless sort of person, who is wretched
without all the latest forms of civilisation, who wants “a little ’ome”
where she can put her fans and yellow vases on the walls, and sit
indoors and do crewel work.
One woman wept scalding tears over the cruel fate which brought her to
a country as yet innocent of Kindergartens. She had two sweet little
girl-babies, certainly under three years old, who looked the picture of
rosy health. I tried to comfort her by saying that surely there was no
hurry about their education.
“Oh no, it’s not the schooling I mind, ma’am,” she sobbed; “it’s the
getting ’em out of the way. They do mess about so, and I want ’em
kept safe and quiet out of the house.” This elegant lady’s hardships
consisted in being required to go a hundred miles or so up the railway
line to live in a little township, where her husband had highly paid
work. She wished me to tell him that she could not possibly go away
from Perth, though she despised our little capital very heartily. I
declined to interfere, and told her she ought to be ashamed of herself,
so she ended the interview by sobbing out that “she did think a lady as
was a lady might feel for her.”
“And what can I do for you?” was my question to a neat, rather nervous
young woman, who said she was Mrs. Jakes.
“Well, mum, would you be so good as to ask his Excellency to order Mr.
——” (the great contractor of that day) “to send my ’usband back to me.”
“Why?” I inquired.
“Well, mum, Jakes, he wants me to go up the line ever so far and live
in a bush, leastways in a tent, and I never can do it.”
“Dear me, why not?” I inquired. “Many of my friends camp out in the
bush, and like it very much. Why don’t you go?”
With a deeply disgusted glance at my cheerful aspect Mrs. Jakes
answered with dignity, “I don’t ’old with living among wild beasts,
mum, and Jakes ought to be ashamed of ’isself asking a decent woman to
go and live in bushes with lions and tigers.”
As soon as I could speak for laughing, I assured Mrs. Jakes that
the forests of Western Australia were absolutely innocent of such
denizens, but she did not seem to willingly believe my assertions, and
left me much disappointed at my advice to go up and join her husband,
who was perfectly well and happy, and working for excellent wages.
I stopped at that very same road-side station later, in one of my
spring excursions after wild flowers, and I inquired if Jakes was
still working there. “Yes; he is a capital man, and is now foreman,
getting over two pounds a week.” So then I asked to be conducted to
his tent, which I found pitched in a lovely sylvan glade, and there,
to my great satisfaction, I saw Mrs. Jakes preparing his tea. She was
fain to confess that bush-life was very different from her alarming
anticipations of it. She looked ever so much better herself, and the
children, whom I carried off to tea with me—only on account of the
buns—were as rosy as the dawn.
Some of my interviews were too sad to be spoken of here: interviews
in which I had often to helplessly witness the awful creeping back to
the capacity for suffering which is the worst stage in that long _viâ
dolorosa_.
One terrible night, spent in walking up and down the shore at Rottnest
with a distracted lighthouse-keeper, who had just heard that his
young wife had been wrecked and lost on her way out to him, can never
be forgotten. The poor man was literally beside himself. His mates
brought him down to me, declaring that they could not manage him,
and felt sure he meant to jump into the sea. There was not much to
be said, so we paced the shore in the moonlight outside my house in
silence. I did not dare to leave him for a moment, and it was not until
I saw the smoke of the kitchen fire very early in the morning that
I took him indoors, gave him some hot tea, and made him go and lie
down. He promised me, like a child, “to be good,” and kept his word
bravely—poor, heart-broken mourner.
And then there was my “loving boy Corny,” a red-headed imp of mischief,
whose mother used, when he “drove her past her patience,” to bring
him to me to scold. Poor Corny’s mischief was only animal spirits
unemployed, and we became great friends. The difficulty was to induce
Corny to go to school or to learn anything, but it chanced that I was
going to England for a few months, and Corny declared himself grieved,
so I promised to write to him regularly, if he would learn to write
to me, which he did with ease, clever little monkey that he was, and
signed himself as above. From what I knew of Corny I strongly suspect
he would be one of the very first to volunteer for service in South
Africa. Our troublesome boys generally make splendid “soldiers of the
Queen,” and bestow their troublesomeness on her enemies.
Instead of interviews, which were seldom or never asked for in the
next colonies we went to, I was assailed by letters, which, however,
were chiefly directed to the Governor, who passed on some to me to
inquire into, though the Inspector-General of Police made short work
of those submitted to him. A visit from a constable to the suppliant’s
address would generally discover the existence of a very different
state of affairs from what was represented in the piteous application.
A youthful and starving family, afflicted by divers strange maladies,
would resolve itself into a comfortable old couple, who could not even
be made the least ashamed of their barefaced imposture.
The language employed in these begging letters was of the finest,
if not always the most intelligible. I sometimes wondered in what
dictionary they found the words they used. For instance, here is a
literal copy of what I imagine was meant for a sort of appeal from a
decision on a very barefaced case of imposture. “We rectitudely beg to
recognise our hesitation of his Excy^s dogma thereon.”
Perhaps the most wonderful of these epistles purported to come from
an old woman who begged for money, and detailed her ill-success in
obtaining an order for a coffin for her daughter, who, she declared,
was “in a ridiculous condition on the roof of her cottage.” This
statement seemed to open up such a vista of horrors that a mounted
policeman was at once despatched to inquire into the case. It was then
found that the young lady was in rude health and wanted the money for
toilette purposes.
One of the most unsatisfactory interviews I ever had was in one of
those languid sunny isles. My interviewer was a nice, pretty young
widow, slightly coloured, who had lost her excellent husband under
very sad and sudden circumstances. Of course, help was forthcoming for
the moment, but it was suggested that I should try to find out from
her how she could be helped to earn her own living. She appeared at
the stated hour, most beautifully and expensively dressed, and had
charming, gentle manners. But any one so helpless I never came across.
She seemed to have received a fairly good education, but to be quite
incapable of using it. I asked if she would undertake the care of
little children. “Oh, no!” she “did not like children.” Could she set
up as a dressmaker? “Oh, no!” she “did not like dressmaking,” and so
on through every sort of occupation. There were plenty of openings for
any talent of any sort which she might possess. At last, in despair, I
asked if she had a plan of her own, and it seems she had, but the plan
consisted in my making her a handsome weekly allowance out of a large
fund which she had been told I had at my disposal. This I energetically
denied, so at last she wound up by asking if I would order a certain
insurance office to pay her a small sum for which her husband’s life
had been insured. I suggested that no doubt she would receive the money
in due time without my interference. But she thought not, “Because the
premiums had not been paid lately, as she always wanted the money for
something else.” Dress, I should think.
I often wish I had kept any of the wonderful letters we received upon
every sort of subject. One was addressed to “Sa Majesté le Roi de
Trinidad,” and contained a request for a decoration or order of some
unknown kind. Another, with a similar address, only asked for stamps.
It appeared later that both these epistles were intended for the other
Trinidad, which at present is only inhabited by hermit-crabs, and
certainly could not be expected to furnish either commodity.
XVI
A COOKING MEMORY
I often think, as I pass the handsome and substantial building in
Buckingham Palace Road, known as the National School of Cookery, how
much it has grown and developed since my day, nearly thirty years ago.
That was indeed the “day of small things,” for we started work in a
series of sheds, lent by the trustees of the South Kensington Museum,
in Exhibition Road, near what used to be the temporary site of the
Royal School of Art Needlework. The idea originated with the late Sir
Henry Cole, and was one of the many excellent plans he conceived and
started. As often happens, the first outcome of Sir Henry’s scheme
proved widely different from his original intention; but on the whole
there is no doubt that the teaching of the National School of Cookery
has worked a great improvement in our culinary ideas and knowledge.
Sir Henry at once gathered a strong working committee together,
including the late Duke of Westminster, the late Lord Granville, Mr.
Hans Busk, Sir Daniel Cooper, Mr. (Rob Roy) McGregor and many other
experts. I was asked to be the first Lady Superintendent, to my deep
amazement, for I have never cared in the least what I ate, provided
it was “neat and clean.” I was a very busy woman in those days, and
it seemed difficult to give the necessary time to the school, from 10
A.M. to 4.30 P.M. every day except Saturday afternoon. I have, however,
never regretted the extra work my acceptance entailed, for it was of
incalculable benefit to me to learn Sir Henry Cole’s method of dealing
with subjects, and to watch his habits of patient attention and care of
even the minutest details.
We started with very little money to our credit—as well as I remember,
less than two hundred pounds; but Sir Henry had thorough confidence
in the depth of the purse of the British public. This confidence
was abundantly justified, for want of money was never one of the
difficulties besetting our earliest efforts towards teaching a better
kind of cooking. We at once set to work to provide ourselves with
really good cooks, and in this respect we were exceptionally fortunate,
for three out of the five young women we selected remained with us many
years, and indeed they were all very satisfactory. The only thing I had
to teach them was how to impart their knowledge, for they jibbed, as
it were, at the idea of having to speak aloud, especially to ladies.
There were dreadful moments when I feared I should never be able to
induce them to accompany their lessons by a few explanatory words,
loud enough to be heard, at every stage of the dish. I acted a whole
benchful of pupils of every grade of ignorance before them, without
eliciting anything beyond painfully deep blushes or an occasional
laugh. So long as I was the only imaginary pupil we did not make much
progress; but at last I left them alone, to get on their own way,
with just two or three clever girls as their first pupils, whom I
had previously begged to ask every sort of question about the very
beginning of things.
It is pleasant to think that my successor—who is still the lady
superintendent of the school—was one of those same pupils, and so took
an early part in removing one of the greatest difficulties. In spite
of much impatience on the part of the public, who were, as usual,
possessed by an erroneous idea of what the work of the school aimed at,
we had to devote some weeks to this same teaching of the teachers, and
organisation of what was to be taught.
There was no difficulty about providing ranges and stoves of every sort
and kind, for the makers of such wares offered us numerous samples. It
was, however, necessary for the five cooks to sit in judgment on each
novelty, and decide whether it was worth accepting, for of course
we wanted to use the best sort of cooking apparatus, but yet not to
depart too much from familiar paths. We felt sure it would be of no
use teaching beginners to cook on a stove or range which, from its
costliness or some other reason, would be rarely met with. Every sort
of cooking utensil was also offered to us free of expense, besides many
and various kinds of patent fuel; but this latter gift was invariably
declined with thanks by the cooks, who would have none of it.
Sir Henry Cole had foreseen that we ought to begin at the very
beginning, so the first thing taught was how to clean a stove with all
its flues, puzzling little doors, &c. Then it was ordained that the
practical pupil was to be shown how to clean, quickly and thoroughly,
saucepans, fryingpans, and in short all kitchen utensils. This was
followed by a course of scrubbing tables and hearths. The morning
lessons were devoted generally to the acquisition of this useful
knowledge, supplemented by little lectures on choosing provisions,
and how to tell good from bad, fresh from stale, and so forth. In the
afternoons—for the poor cooks had to be given an interval of rest and
refreshment—the lessons were given in two ways: by demonstration,
where the instructor prepared the dish before her class from the
beginning, and the pupils watched the process and took notes; or
else by practical experience, where they prepared and cooked the dish
themselves under the cook’s superintendence.
In those early days we attempted the cooking only of simple food; such
as soups and broths, plain joints, simple entrées, pastry, puddings,
jellies, salads, and such like. One day was set apart entirely for
learning “sick-room cookery,” and this was found to be very popular,
only the pupils invariably began by asking to be shown how to make
poultices! I soon observed that each of these very nice cooks of ours
excelled in just _one_ thing, and so they had to fall into line, as
it were, and the soup-lesson would be given by the expert in soups,
and so all through. Fortunately one dear, nice little woman had a
perfect genius for sick-room cookery, and that day’s lessons were
confided entirely to her. Not one of them, however, could make really
good pastry, for we aimed at producing the very best of everything
we attempted. I tried in vain to get it right, until I mentioned my
difficulty to Lord Granville, who at once sent his _chef_ down to give
private lessons to the cook whose ideas on pastry were most nearly
what we wanted. This was a great help and of immense benefit; but I
was much amused when, a week or two after, as I was sitting in my
little office—all very shabby and inconvenient, but we were too deeply
interested to mind trifles—a most elegant young gentleman appeared,
faultlessly attired, and carrying a large envelope, which, with a
beautiful bow, he tendered to me.
“What is this?” I inquired.
“A State Paper on Pastry, Madam,” was the answer, and the bearer of the
important document proved to be the _chef_ himself, who had taken the
trouble to commit his lesson to paper.
At last everything was ready, and one fine Monday morning the school
opened its doors to a perfect rush of pupils. We ought to have been
happy, but Sir Henry certainly was not, for these same pupils were by
no means the class he wanted to get at. Fine ladies of every rank, rich
women, gay Americans in beautiful clothes, all thronged our kitchens,
and the waiting carriages looked as if a smart party were going on
within our dingy sheds. It was certainly a very curious craze, and
I can answer for its lasting the two years I was superintendent. I
asked many of the ladies why they insisted on coming to learn how to
clean kitchen ranges and scrub wooden tables, as nothing short of a
revolution could possibly make such knowledge useful to them, and I
received very curious answers. One friend said it was because of their
Scotch shooting-box, where such knowledge would come in very handy; but
this statement has never been borne out by any subsequent experience
of my own. Others said they wanted to set an example. Some stated that
their husbands wished it; but I cannot imagine why, as they were all
people who could afford excellent cooks.