CAULIFLOWERS
“They cocks and hens,” Mr. Swipes used to say in the earlier days of
his empire--“bless you, my lord, they cocks and hens knows a good bit of
gardening as well as I do. They calls one another, and they comes to see
it, and they puts their heads to one side and talks about it, and they
say to one another, 'Must be something good there, or he wouldn't have
made it so bootiful'; and then up go their combs, and they tear away
into it, like a passel of Scotchmen at a scratching-match. If your
lordship won't put a lock on the door, you will never taste a bit of
good vegetable.”
Admiral Darling was at length persuaded to allow Mr. Swipes the
privilege of locking himself in the kitchen-garden; and then, for
the purpose of getting at him, a bell was put in the gable of the
tool-house, with a long handle hanging outside the door in the courtyard
towards the kitchen. Thus he was able to rest from his labours, without
incurring unjust reproach; and gradually as he declined, with increasing
decision, to answer the bell when it rang, according to the highest laws
of nature it left off ringing altogether. So Mr. Swipes in the walled
kitchen-garden sought peace and ensued it.
One quiet November afternoon, when the disappearance of Dan Tugwell had
been talked out and done with, a sad mishap befell this gardener, during
the performance, or, to speak more correctly, the contemplation of his
work. A yawn of such length and breadth and height and profundity took
possession of him that the space it had so well occupied still retained
the tender memory. In plainer words, he had ricked his jaw, not from
general want of usage, but from the momentary excess.
“Sarves me right,” he muttered, “for carrying on so, without nothing
inside of 'un. Must go to doctor, quick step, and no mistake.”
In this strait he set off for John Prater's (for it was a matter of
luck to get ale at the Hall, and in such emergency he must not trust to
fortune), and passing hastily through the door, left it unlocked behind
him. Going down the hill he remembered this, and had a great mind to go
back again, but the unanimous demand of his system for beer impelled
him downwards. He never could get up that hill again without hydraulic
pressure.
All might have gone well, and all would have gone well, except for the
grievous mistake of Nature in furnishing women with eyes whose keenness
is only exceeded by that of their tongues. The cook at the Hall, a
superior person--though lightly esteemed by Mrs. Cloam--had long been
ambitious to have a voice in the selection of her raw material. If
anything was good, who got the credit? Mr. Swipes, immediately. But if
everything was bad, as more often happened, who received the blame? Mary
Knuckledown. Her lawful name was “Knuckleup,” but early misfortunes
had reduced her to such mildness that her name became converted--as she
expressed it--in harmony with her nature. Facts having generally been
adverse to her, she found some comfort in warm affection for their
natural enemies and ever-victorious rivals--words. Any words coming with
a brave rush are able to scatter to the winds the strongest facts; but
big words--as all our great orators know--knock them at once on the head
and cremate them. But the cook was a kind-hearted woman, and liked both
little and big words, without thinking of them.
She had put down her joint, a good aitch-bone, for roasting--than which,
if well treated, are few better treats--to revolve in the distant salute
of the fire (until it should ripen for the close embrace, where the
tints of gold and chestnut vie), when it came into her provident mind
with a flash that neither horse-radish nor cauliflower had yet been
delivered by Mr. Swipes. She must run out and pull the long handle in
the yard, and remind him gently of her needs, for she stood in some awe
of his character, as a great annalist of little people's lives.
Leaving the small dog Dandolo with stern orders to keep the jack
steadily going, with a stick on the dresser to intimidate one eye, and
a sop in the dripping-pan to encourage the other, Mrs. Knuckledown ran
into the court-yard, just in time to see the last swing of the skirt of
that noble gardener's coat, as he turned the wall corner on his march
towards the tap. She longed to call him back, but remembered just in
time how fearfully cross that had made him once before, and she was
yielding with a sigh to her usual bad luck, when an eager and triumphant
cluck made her look about. The monarch and patriarch of cocks, a
magnificent old Dorking, not idly endowed with five claws for the
scratch, had discovered something great, and was calling all his wives,
and even his sons, as many as yet crowed not against him, to share this
special luck of fortune, or kind mood of Providence. In a minute or two
he had levied an army, some half-hundred strong, and all spurring the
land, to practise their liberal claws betimes for the gorgeous joy of
scattering it. Then the grand old cock, whose name was “Bill,” made
them all fall in behind him, and strutting till he almost tumbled on his
head, led the march of destruction to the garden door.
But, alas, he had waited for his followers too long, eager as they were
for rapine. When he came to his portal of delight, there stood, stout
as Britannia herself, and sweeping a long knife for her trident, the
valiant cook, to protect her cauliflowers. “You be off, Bill,” she
cried. “I don't want to hurt you, because you have been a good bird in
your time, but now you be growing outrageous.” Bill made a rush for it,
but losing a slice of his top-heavy comb, retired.
“Now's my opportunity,” said Mary to herself, “for to cut my own cabbage
for once in my life, and to see what that old beast does in here. Oh my!
The old villain, and robber that he is! Bamboozlement is the language
for it.” Embezzlement she should have said, and to one who knew as she
did how badly the table of the master was supplied, the suspicion was
almost unavoidable. For here she saw in plenteous show, and appetising
excellence, a many many of the very things she had vainly craved from
Mr. Swipes. And if it was so now in November, what must it have been two
months ago? Why, poor Miss Faith--Mary Knuckledown's idol, because of
her kindness and sad disappointment--had asked a little while ago for a
bit of salsify, not for herself--she never thought of herself--but for a
guest who was fond of it; also the Admiral himself had called out for a
good dish of skirrets. But no; Mr. Swipes said the weather and the black
blight had destroyed them. Yet here they were; Mary could swear to them
both, with their necks above-ground, as if waiting for the washing!
Cauliflowers also (as the cooks call broccoli of every kind), here they
were in abundance, ten long rows all across the middle square, very
beautiful to behold. Some were just curling in their crinkled coronets,
to conceal the young heart that was forming, as Miss in her teens draws
her tresses around the first peep of her own palpitation; others were
showing their broad candid bosoms, with bold sprigs of nature's green
lace crisping round; while others had their ripe breasts shielded from
the air by the breakage of their own broad fringe upon them.
Mary knew that this was done by Mr. Swipes himself, because he had
brought her some in that condition; but the unsuspicious master had
accepted his assurance that “they was only fit for pigs as soon as the
break-stalk blight come on 'em”; and then the next day he had bought
the very same, perhaps at ninepence apiece, from Mr. Cheeseman's window,
trimmed and shorn close, like the head of a monk. “I'll see every bit of
'un, now that I be here.” Mrs. Knuckledown spoke aloud, to keep up her
courage. “Too bad for that old beast to keep us locked out from the very
place us ought to have for pommylarding, because he saith all the fruit
would go into our pockets. And what goes into his'en, I should like to
know? Suppose I lock him out, as he hath locked us out. He won't be back
yet for half an hour, anyway. Wish I could write--what a list I would
make, if it was only of the things he denieth he hath got!”
Strong in her own honesty and loyalty to her master, the cook turned the
key in the lock, and left Swipes to ring himself into his own garden, as
he always called it. That is to say, if he should return, which was not
very likely, before she had time for a good look round. But she saw
such a sight of things she had longed for, to redeem her repute in the
vegetable way, as well as such herbs for dainty stuffing, of which she
knew more than cooks generally do, that her cap nearly came off her head
with amazement, and time flew by unheeded. Until she was startled and
terrified sadly by the loud, angry clang of the bell in the gable. Not
only was Mr. Swipes come back, but he was in a furious rage outside,
though his fury was chilled with some shivers of fear. At first, when he
found the door locked against him, he thought that the Admiral must have
come home unexpected, and failing to find him at work, had turned the
key against him, while himself inside. If so, his situation would be in
sad peril, and many acres of lies would be required to redeem it. For
trusting in his master's long times of absence, and full times of public
duty when at home, Mr. Swipes had grown more private stock, as he
called it, and denied the kitchen more, than he had ever done before,
in special preparation for some public dinners about to be given at the
Darling Arms, by military officers to naval, and in turn by the latter
to the former; for those were hospitable days, when all true Britons
stuck their country's enemy with knife and fork, as well as sword.
But learning, as he soon did at the stables, that the Admiral was still
away, and both the young ladies were gone for a ride with Miss Twemlow,
the gardener came back in a rage, and rang the bell. “Oh, whatever shall
I do?” the trembling Mary asked herself. “Best take the upper hand if
I can. He's a thief, and a rogue, and he ought to be frighted. Does
he know I can't write? No, for certain he dothn't. One of his big lies
about me was a letter I wrote to poor Jonadab.”
With her courage renewed by the sense of that wrong, she opened the
door, and stood facing Mr. Swipes, with a piece of paper in her hand,
which a woman's quick wit bade her fetch from her pocket.
“Halloa, madam!” the gardener exclaimed, with a sweep of his hat and
a low salute, which he meant to be vastly satirical; “so your ladyship
have come to take the air in my poor garden, instead of tending the
spit. And what do your ladyship think of it, so please you? Sorry as I
had any dung about, but hadn't no warning of this royal honour.”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Knuckledown, pretending to be frightened a great deal
more than she was--“oh, sir, forgive me! I am sure I meant no harm. But
the fowls was running in, and I ran up to stop them.”
“Oh, that was how your ladyship condescended; and to keep out the fowls,
you locked out me! Allow me the royal and unapparelled honour of showing
your ladyship to her carriage; and if I ever catch her in here again,
I'll pitch you down the court-yard pretty quick. Be off, you dirty
baggage, or I won't answer for it now!”
“Oh, you are too kind, Mr. Swipes; I am sure you are too gentle, to
forgive me, like of that! And the little list I made of the flowers
in your garden, I shall put it in a teapot till the Quality wants
something.”
Mr. Swipes gave a start, and his over-watered eyes could not meet those
of Mary, which were mildly set upon them. “List!” he muttered--“little
list! What do you please to mean, Miss?”
“Well, the 'dirty baggage' means nothing unparalleled, sir, but just the
same as anybody else might do. Some people calls it a Inventionary, and
some an Emmarandum, and some a Catalogue. It don't interfere with you,
Mr. Swipes; only the next time as Miss Dolly asks, the same as she was
doing the other day--”
“Oh, she was, was she? The little -----!” Mr. Swipes used a word
concerning that young lady which would have insured his immediate
discharge, together with one from the Admiral's best toe. “And pray,
what was her observations, ma'am?”
“It was Charles told me, for he was waiting at dinner. Seems that the
turnip was not to her liking, though I picked out the very best of what
few you sent in, so she looks up from her plate, and she says: 'Well, I
cannot understand it! To me it is the greatest mistress in the world,'
she says, 'that we never can get a bit of vegetable fit for eating.
We've got,' she says, 'a kitchen-garden close upon two acres, and a man
who calls himself head gardener, by the name of Swipes'--my pardoning
to you, Mr. Swipes, for the young lady's way of saying it--'and his two
sons, and his nephew, and I dare say soon his grandsons. Well, and what
comes of it?' says she. 'Why, that we never has a bit of any kind
of vegetable, much less of fruit, fit to lay a fork to!' Charles was
a-pricking up his ears at this, because of his own grumbles, and the
master saw it, and he says, 'Hush, Dolly!' But she up and answers
spiritly: 'No, I won't hush, papa, because it is too bad. Only you
leave it to me,' she says, 'and if I don't keep the key from that old
thief--excoose me, Mr. Swipes, for her shocking language--'and find out
what he locks up in there, my name's not Horatia Dorothy Darling.' Oh,
don't let it dwell so on your mind, Mr. Swipes! You know what young
ladies be. They says things random, and then goes away and never
thinks no more about it. Oh, don't be upset so--or I shall have to call
Charles!”
Mr. Swipes took his hat off to ease his poor mind, which had lost its
way altogether in other people's wickedness. “May I never set eyes on
that young man no more!” he exclaimed, with more pathetic force than
reasoning power. “Either him or me quits this establishment to-morrow.
Ah, I know well why he left his last place, and somebody else shall know
to-morrow!”
“What harm have poor Charles done?” the cook asked sharply; “it
wasn't him that said it; it was Miss Dolly. Charley only told me
conferentially.”
“Oh, I know what 'conferentially' means, when anything once gets among
the womenkind! But I know a thing or two about Miss Dolly, as will give
her enough to do at home, I'll warrant, without coming spying after me
and my affairs. Don't you be surprised, cook, whatever you may hear, as
soon as ever the Admiral returneth. He's a soft man enough in a number
of ways, but he won't put up with everything. The nasty little vixen, if
she don't smart for this!”
“Oh, don't 'e, now don't 'e, Mr. Swipes, that's a dear!” cried the
soft-hearted Mrs. Knuckledown; “don't 'e tell on her, the poor young
thing. If her hath been carrying on a bit with some of them young
hofficers, why, it's only natteral, and her such a young booty. Don't 'e
be Dick-tell-tale, with a name to it, or without. And perhaps her never
said half the things that Charles hath contributed to her.” The truth
was that poor Dolly had said scarcely one of them.
“Bain't no young hofficer,” Mr. Swipes replied, contemptuously; “ten
times wuss than that, and madder for the Admiral. Give me that paper,
Miss, and then, perhaps, I'll tell 'e. Be no good to you, and might be
useful to me.”
Mary could not give up the paper, because it was a letter from one of
her adorers, which, with the aid of Jenny Shanks, she had interpreted.
“No, no,” she said, with a coaxing look; “by-and-by, Mr. Swipes, when
you have told me who it is, and when you have promised not to tell on
poor Miss Dolly. But nobody sha'n't see it, without your permission.
We'll have another talk about that to-morrow. But, oh my! look at the
time you have kept me, with all the good things to make a hangel's
mouth water! Bring me two cauliflowers in two seconds. My beef will want
basting long ago; and if Dandy hathn't left his job, he'll be pretty
well roasted hisself by now.”
Mr. Swipes went muttering up the walk, and was forced to cut two of the
finest cauliflowers intended for Cheeseman's adornment to-morrow. This
turned his heart very sour again, and he shook his head, growling in
self-commune: “You see if I don't do it, my young lady. You speaks again
me, behind my back, and I writes again you, before your face; though, in
course, I need not put my name to it.”