HOW AUNT STINGY BECAME MARIANNE'S COOK. A MOST OFFENSIVE BIBLE CLASS.
MR. CHALLIS'S JUDITH. ESTRILD AND THE OSTROGOTHS. THE ACROPOLIS CLUB
It was certainly our friend Marianne at the Hermitage, Wimbledon, to
whom Mrs. Steptoe, now a free-lance, was going to apply for a cook's
place. It was rather an audacious piece of effrontery; so also are
two-thirds of the applications the Registry sends you on, and charges
you five shillings for. Mrs. Steptoe was a very poor cook indeed; but,
then, it was so long since she done any cooking reg'lar that it was
easy for her to forget how poor it had been.
The coincidence was not a miraculous one, and it will not appear so
if you will image to yourself Mrs. Charlotte Eldridge coming down
very late one morning and opening letters. Further, imagine that the
contents of one takes her aback, binds her attention, and excites a
sort of torpid curiosity in Mr. John Eldridge, who is just off to catch
his train; but the nine thirty-eight will do if he misses it. Then that
the lady throws the letter down, and says: "Well, I declare! Elizabeth
Barclay, of all people in the world!"
Don't try to imagine Mr. Eldridge, nor his hat, nor its band, nor the
woollen comforter he buttons his coat over. It isn't worth the effort.
But take the story's word for it that he said "Elizabeth Barclay?" six
times, and ended with, "What's she been had up for?"
"John, you're a fool! She's Marianne's cook, and she wants me to find
her another. Of course!"
"But what's her game? What's Marianne's cook's little game? What's she
been a-takin' shares in? Where's she been selling her dripping to?
Tell away, Lotty!--spit it out!" But he does not forward matters, for
he again says "Elizabeth Barclay" several times, and finishes up with
"Well!"
"When you've done." A pause. "She's going to marry a corn-factor."
Mr. Eldridge closes one eye. "Females do," he says; and then adds,
quite inexplicably: "I shouldn't wonder if he was in the Brixton Road."
"It doesn't matter whether he is or isn't. The question is, where am I
to go to find a really good plain cook for Marianne?"
"Ah!--that's the question."
"Well, but you might help, instead of looking like a gaby."
"Why not ask that party?"
"What party?"
"Over Clapham way. Some connection. Where you got Ellen Sayce." Mrs.
Eldridge looks her despair, for was not Ellen Sayce a girl who wept
on the stairs instead of doing them down, and had to return to her
parents? Nevertheless the attempt was worth a postcard, which was
written as Mr. Eldridge--whose peritonitis had gone--trotted away
down a snow-swept footway slapping his gloves, and saying "Elizabeth
Barclay" at intervals. But she omitted the date, as she decided not to
post it then and there, but to exhaust her other resources first. Ellen
Sayce was a poor result.
The consequence of this was that for a month or thereabouts Mr.
Eldridge was never without a topic of conversation, frequently
calling attention to the unborn postcard in a recess on his wife's
_escritoire_. "I say, Lotty, when's Miss Fossijaw's letter a-going?"
being his form of query, connecting the matter in hand with
phosphorus-poisoning, humorously but not intelligently.
However, when Mrs. Eldridge's other presentments ran dry, the postcard
was despatched, and reached Adeline Fossett just the moment after Mrs.
Steptoe had been submitting her cookworthiness, and lodging her claims
for favourable consideration. Whereupon Miss Fossett despatched a
summons to her to come next day for a written character (which would do
in this case), and the events we know of followed. There was nothing
remarkable in the coincidence whatever.
But there was something very remarkable--so Mrs. Challis had
thought--about Elizabeth Barclay's unaccountable desire to marry a
corn-factor, after being in the family fourteen years! For the Challis
family had monopolized Mrs. Barclay during the whole of that time,
and it was natural it should be indignant at her desertion. In fact,
Marianne had hardly been able to believe her ears when one day the good
woman, who had been very _distraite_ over the ordering of dinner, took
advantage of its conclusion to say, through huskiness and hesitation,
that she had been thinking it well over, and had decided on it, in
spite of her attachment to the family and heartfelt desire to cause it
no inconvenience. Being pressed to say what she had decided on--which
she had not so far mentioned--she had turned the colour of a tomato,
and with a determined rush had said: "I have decided, ma'am, to change
my condition," and had then revealed the corn-factor with such a
tremendous accent on his first syllable that an impression followed
it in the mind of Bob Challis, the boy, home for the holidays, that
factors of many other goods had been under consideration, and that Mr.
Soul had been the fortunate candidate. For his name was actually Seth
Soul.
This, of course, was at the Christmas following Challis _père's_
visit to Royd. But Mrs. Barclay had kept her condition unchanged for
the time being, to oblige Miss Marianne, which was how she as often
as not spoke of Mrs. Challis. That lady had really exerted herself
to find a substitute, any plausible application having been referred
for settlement to the corn-factor's _fiancée_. That very honest
woman had denounced and rejected every candidate for the place so
far. She applied the same formula to all: "It don't speak much for
her"--that there was such a flaw in her register, or such a defect in
her demeanour. It didn't speak much for one that she had just taken a
twelvemonth's leisure at a relative's; or for another that she smelt
of spirits at that time in the morning; or for another that she nearly
came tumblin' down the kitchen flight, and couldn't walk straight. It
certainly didn't. But it spoke volumes for Mrs. Barclay's integrity
that she rejected them all, when, by accepting one, she might have
flown straight to the corn-factor and nested under his wing, the minute
her things were got.
The acceptance of our friend Aunt Stingy was the result of desperation,
as we have hinted, on Mrs. Challis's part. However, to do her justice,
she tried to shift the responsibility off her own shoulders.
"I should not have dared to send her packing after what you said
this morning, Titus," said she; scarcely, perhaps, quite fairly. But
Titus replied good-humouredly--for think how well that chapter had
started!--"Never mind, Polly Anne! I'll be responsible. She'll turn out
all right enough, I dare say."
And thus it had come about that Mrs. Steptoe found herself, within
six weeks of her husband's death, in a situation where, although its
standard of cooking was no better than that of most English houses of
the same type, she was hard put to it to keep up the pretence of any
knowledge at all. A very slight early experience had to go a long way,
and detection and conviction would have ensued if Marianne Challis had
profited by her dozen of years of housekeeping. But Elizabeth Barclay
had been a treasure; and treasures--that is to say, persons who don't
drink, can roast and boil, and know three sorts of soup--make it
quite unnecessary for any English mistress to give any thought to the
subject. The new cook, too, was entrenched in a strong position. Who
shall say that any chance person who does not know how to pull and
grill now was incompetent to pull and grill ten or fifteen years ago?
Or that it is impossible that she passed a culinary youth in contact
with mayonnaise sauce, truffles, or Gorgonzola cheese, and yet should
in that period have forgotten the very names of them? The problem Aunt
Stingy had to solve was how to acquire knowledge without admitting
ignorance. And the attitude she took up in the pursuit of this object
was that of a higher cult graciously stooping to accommodate itself
to insular prejudice or mere bucolic barbarism. She elicited a great
deal of information by dwelling on skilful achievements hard to believe
in, but practised for all that in the Augustan age of her experience,
for the tables of an almost Parisian circle of connoisseurs. There was
danger in the method, but her intrepidity was more than Murat-like.
As, for instance, when, apropos of omelettes, she said that "we"--that
is, the cooks attached to that circle--always made them without eggs.
On learning that omelettes contained nothing but eggs, she exclaimed
with the greatest presence of mind, "Oh yes!--what we used to call
egg-pancakes."
"I'm afraid you'll have to give this woman the sack, Polly Anne. She
can't cook worth a cent." Thus Mr. Challis, sampling something one day
at lunch, perhaps an omelette without eggs.
"Oh, _do_ have a little patience, Titus!"
"Well--of course we must give her a fair trial. I didn't mean
immediately."
"Anyone would have thought you did. And it only upsets me, and does
no good at all. Do leave it alone till Elizabeth Barclay has shown
her one or two of her receipts. She's very willing to learn, and
goes to chapel." For Marianne was disposed to be lazy about this as
about other things, and was inclined to temporize. If Mrs. Steptoe
could be educated, why not retain Mrs. Steptoe? "Even if you dined
out every night for a time--you know you _can_; look at all those
invitations!--it would be better than having to go through it all
again. Oh dear!"
But Challis was not anxious either to dine out every night, or to
quarrel over the dinners at home. He was really well pleased with
himself and his surroundings, when he could feel that he had passed a
comfortable domestic evening free from self-questionings and collisions
with--well!--that disorder he made the awkward compound word for. But
he never got off without scars. When he thought he had succeeded, after
a very well-executed quiet evening with his wife, in saying to himself:
"Jam me juvaverit
Viros relinquere
Doctaeque conjugis
Sinu quiescere,"
really almost with earnestness!--all the wind was taken out of his
sails by a perfectly uncalled-for reflection on Marianne's education.
He was angry after with himself for making it. Besides, no one in his
senses could ascribe any abnormal culture to.... Never you mind!--what
on earth had _she_ to do with it?
The fact is that, at this date of the story, some two or three weeks
after we last heard his voice in that cab that drew up in Grosvenor
Square, Challis was keeping watch and ward over his love of his own
home and the mother of his two children. His other world--especially
the brilliant and fascinating one that centred in the Megatherium
Theatre and the preparation of his new play--was both courted and
kept at bay by him. He could make no strong stand against its
temptations; but he could resent them, and did so. And whenever his
conscience--however he nicknamed it--had been especially intrusive,
he could always rebuke it by a little more home life than usual, by a
more patient toleration of some home discomfort. He did not see that
the very fact of his doing penance, as it were, for his enjoyment of
that outer world of enchantment, was really opening a postern-gate to
admit the enemy his culverins were pounding from the battlements. When
he paid himself out for that delightful supper with the Megatheriums
in the small hours of the morning by showing forbearance over Mrs.
Steptoe's fatuous attempts at cookery, he was no more conscious that he
was really pleading guilty on the main issue than was Judith Arkroyd,
when she declined an invitation to join it, conscious that she was only
hedging against her dallyings with perfect truth and honour towards
her family in keeping back the lengths she had gone in rehearsals
of the part of Aminta Torrington. Mrs. Steptoe's greasy cookery and
a dull pompous dinner at the Duke's each did duty as a salve to
conscience without the unwilling sharers in either detecting their own
self-deception. But it was good for Mr. Ramsey Tomes, who took Miss
Arkroyd in to the banquet and bored her by his appreciation more than
by his talk; which Judith mimicked extremely well, to Mr. Challis's
great delight, when she met him next day at the theatre. And it was
good for Mrs. Steptoe, who between Challis's penances and Marianne's
indisposition for another excursion into disengaged-cook land, seemed
likely to attain the low standard of excellence we have mentioned as
satisfactory to the British housekeeper.
Marianne gave her husband no help. Of course, she was not bound to.
_We_ know! No woman is under any legal obligation to assist her husband
against himself, if his affections--promised at the altar, don't you
see?--become weak-kneed and uncertain. He may have to love uphill, but
he must take his chance of that. Still, she need not skid his wheels or
put stones in his path. But did Marianne do so?
In our opinion she did. Mere words, told in a story, go for little; a
shade of accent makes them much or nothing. How, we ask you, did Bob
Challis, Rugby-sharpened, know that his mater, whenever she made an
allusion to churches or chapels, was having a fling at his Governor?
How did Bob know that his Governor was making no answer in italics, as
one might say, when he turned to him and said: "Got your new skates,
human schoolboy? Let's have a look! Now, why is it no new strap ever
has a hole in the right place?" And made conversation, transparently.
Bob did know, somehow; and had he been present to hear his mother say
that Mrs. Steptoe went to Chapel, he would have quite understood her
inflection of voice to convey an addendum, "which _you_ don't; or, at
least, Church, and you wouldn't say the responses if you did."
If Mrs. Challis would only have left that point alone, it would have
made a world of difference in her relation with her husband. Why would
she not? He had left her free to secure salvation, not only to her own
children, but to her nephew or stepson, whichever you like to call Bob.
And he had made no conditions except that he himself should be allowed
the luxury of perdition on his own terms. "You let me go to the Devil
my own way, Polly Anne," he had said, "and you shall have poor Kate's
boy, and tell him any gammon you like." Perhaps the reason why he
said--just now in the story--"_Docta conjux_, indeed!" may have been
some memory of how, when Bob blacked another boy's eye for calling the
Founder of Christianity a Jew, Marianne had defended his action, and
condemned the other boy for impiety and heathenism. "And you know I'm
right, Titus," said the lady triumphantly.
Of course, it is impossible to say that a really honest fulfilment of
the religious bargain would have diverted the current of events into
another channel. All the story points to is that if Challis could
have reposed on the bosom of his "docta conjux" with less fear of
its bristling suddenly--like the image of the Virgin with which the
Inquisition convinced the most sceptical--with suggestions of precept
or reproof, even as the blessed image shot out spikes, then there would
have been one needless apple of discord the less. And if Marianne
had carried out her half of the compact, Titus would certainly have
been more scrupulous in saying, before the boy, things of a racy
nature on subjects of reverence in the eyes of all Christendom and
many thoughtful persons outside it. It wasn't fair to Marianne, who
had no sense of humour at all, to develope an old line of critical
analysis of the Scriptures for the benefit of Bob; to consider that
young man, in fact, as a Bible Class, anxious to discover and record
the first mentions of all the trades, all the professions, all the
popular complaints delicacy allows to be canvassed in public, all the
sports and all the winners, in a volume his mother regarded as sacred.
What did it matter how indistinct an idea she had of what she meant
by the word _sacred_, or anything else? She might at least have been
spared one especial atrocity--the first mention of pugilism. To do him
justice, however, Challis was not himself guilty of this triumph of
successful research, which we need not record here. It came home from
school with Bob next Easter holidays, and Bob teemed and twinkled with
it until at last he got the chance of delivering it into his father's
ear as he sat astride of his knee, with all the license of a boy just
released from the classics.
"You young scaramouch! Where do you expect to go to? Don't you go and
tell your mother that!" For Challis, in the presence of this youth,
kept up a certain parade of potential reverence, available in extreme
cases. He could countenance the first mention of Cannibalism--"The
woman tempted me, and I did eat." But this one ran near the confines of
the unpermissible--overpast them.
"Shuttleworth and Graves Minor's going to tell their sisters. Because
they'll be in such an awful rage!"
"A very low motive. Perhaps you'll be good enough to regulate your
conduct on better models than Shuttleworth and Graves Minor."
"Their father's a Bishop. At least, Graves Minor's is. He only allows
him a shilling a month pocket-money. He's gone to his aunts Jane and
Mary's for the holidays because they're infectious...."
"Which--the holidays or the aunts? Pay attention to your antecedents,
young man!"
"Neither. They're infectious at home; they've got scarlet fever. He's
awfully glad, because his Aunt Jane lives in a haunted house, and he
can get out on the leads. I say, pater!"
"What, offspring?"
"When's that lady coming that gave me my skates at Christmas, and the
'Lives of the Buccaneers'?"
"I don't know. I can't say. Some day." Challis has become reserved
suddenly. "Give me the little Japanese ash-pan, and find yourself a
chair. A strong one, I should recommend." For Bob is at that pleasant
growing age that has relapses into babyhood, if not checked by a hint
now and then. He accepts the hint this time, but declines the chair,
preferring to lean over the back of his father's, and pull his hair.
"The mater hates her. I don't." Now, if this had been said immediately,
it would have seemed much slighter conversation, easy to pass by.
Coming after a good pause of hairpulling, it implied a confidence in
the speaker's mind that his hearer's had been dwelling, during that
pause, on the person he didn't hate and his mother did.
"It's no concern of any young monkey's who his mother hates or doesn't
hate."
"Well!--it's true. And I say it's a beastly shame. After all, it wasn't
_her_ fault that it thawed."
"You unblushing young egotist! Is the whole world to be nothing but
skates--skates--skates? _Whose_ fault wasn't it? Your mother's?"
"No fear! The mater wanted me to chuck it up, and not skate at all.
Rather!" This youth's language depends for expression on a tone of
overstrained contempt for experience outside his own. But the desert of
his egotism has oases. He reaches one now, and says in quite a natural
voice: "I say, pap!"
"Go on, human creature!"
"Shall I tell you what me and Cat...."
"What _who_?" This is accompanied by a pantomimic threat of
extermination.
"Well! Cat and I, then ... what we call her, when we're alone?"
"By all means. Only look alive! Because your father's cigar is waning,
and copy is behindhand. Go it!"
"_We_ call her Judy. Cat and I do. Short for Judith."
"You'll make your little sister as bad as yourself, and she's too
sharp by half already. How do you know her name's Judith? It might be
Sarah--or Euterpe."
"But it ain't. It's Judith."
"Ah!--but how do you know? That's the point."
"Because we listened. And we knew the mater meant _her_."
Perhaps if Master Bob had seen his father's face, it would have checked
his outflow of virgin candour. But he was behind him, and saw nothing.
Challis was balancing a nice question in his mind. Ought he not to
check this revelation? Was it not like eavesdropping to listen to it?
He decided that he might, as Marianne would surely never say before
the children anything she would not wish him to hear. But he wanted to
know, too. Still, he was conscious enough of his wish to know, to find
it necessary to impute his reluctance to be influenced by it to that
mental vice he had invented a name for.
"How did you know your mother meant her? How did you know she didn't
mean the new cook?"
"No fear! _Her_ name's Priscilla. Besides, the mater calls her Steptoe.
Besides, Aunt Lotty did it, too."
"Did what? What did Aunt Lotty do?"
"Called her Judith. Cat heard her, same as me."
"Probably you ought to say 'same as I,' young man. But it may be an
open question." Challis paused, half-minded to request his promising
son and heir to keep his confidences in reserve. But the evil genius
of himself or Marianne stepped in, and caused Catharine, the little
girl, who was still under seven, to sing with her mouth shut as she
hung over the bannisters in the passage outside. Master Bob immediately
left off pulling his father's hair and rushed to the door, shouting
loud enough for the Universe to hear, "Didn't she, Cat?" and ended a
perfectly orthodox interview for the collection of evidence by lugging
the witness in, nearly upside down, to testify.
"Put your sister down, you young ruffian--do you hear?" And Challis
adds under his breath: "Much good your school's doing you!" But the
young persons explain simultaneously, "That's how we do," not without
pride in an ancient usage.
Now, this little provincialism, or scrap of folklore, had its share
in moulding events. For consider!--if a Sabine woman, after Rubens,
had been put down right-end-up, anxious to make a statement, who could
have refused to listen to her? Challis, who would not have objected
to hearing no more of what Aunt Lotty said, felt bound to take the
readjusted maiden on his knee--she wasn't Sabine, and he could--and
get at the upshot of her disjointed testimony. Master Bob, following
ascertained usage, dictated or suggested her evidence; and nipped
anticipated statement in the bud, at his convenience. Between the two
of them, however, it was clear-enough what sort of talk had gone on
between their mother and Aunt Lotty.
"After all," said the vexed man to himself, after packing off his young
informants to presumable mischief elsewhere--"after all, what can it
matter if Marianne _did_ say in a moment of irritation that I might go
away to ..." he paused on the next two words, and finished without
them abruptly "... altogether if I liked?" Then he tormented himself a
little about his own shrinking from uttering the words "my Judith," and
ended by saying them in a cowardly way, under his breath, to show his
independence.
He was sitting in his library at the time, opposite to a half-written
sheet of foolscap. It was copy, waiting for more copy, which came not.
Challis denied his self-accusation that this was owing to the way that
fool of a woman's words had upset him--meaning Charlotte Eldridge;
he absolved his wife. Had he not often to wait for an idea, to get a
start with? Let him see, where was he? Oh yes!--where Estrild tears
off her jewels and flings them at the Ostrogoths. Judith Arkroyd would
be simply magnificent there! For this was the great tragedy he had
promised Judith he would try his hand on expressly for her. How that
incomparable arm and hand would tell, with Estrild's blood visible on
it, torn by the bracelet her vehemence had plucked off!...
Very likely it was all a blunder of the kid's, and Charlotte Eldridge
had never said any such thing. Was it likely she would say, "Of course,
Titus calls her Judith, when they're alone"? Still, the deposition
did sound like that, and that was a damnable mischief-making woman,
mind you! Challis was conscious, as he said this to himself, of an
image of Charlotte Eldridge, rather a graceful one, turning an impish
glance over her shoulder to see the effect of some apple of discord,
just thrown. There was a skittishness about this image, a skirt-sweep,
that was true to life. So was the becoming hat the odious woman always
wore indoors whenever she could, with that meaning feather in it.
How Challis hated her as he thought to himself that they all meant,
somehow, her studentship in the University in which that dowdy Eros,
whom we mentioned before, was Dean of the Faculty of Discord-breeding
between a lady and gentleman, about a gentleman or lady. But they were
the constituents of a Stylish Female, according to John Eldridge, her
husband, the victim of peritonitis.
"Come _in_!" No wonder Mr. Challis said it a little impatiently, when a
knock came at his study-door, because he had just got his idea, and was
at last effectively at work again upon the Ostrogoths. The impatience
caused Marianne, who had knocked, to say that another time would do
as well. But to her husband's sensitive hearing the tone, distant and
severe, in which she said it spoke volumes. And the Tables of Contents
of those volumes related to gulfs placed between married couples
resident in Wimbledon by fashionable beauties with a turn for the
stage. It was a large order for a mere tone of voice, but it was quite
filled out, as the commercial phrase it. Challis could not possibly
allow Marianne to depart, closing the door with aggressive gentleness.
It would have been checking the items of the large order. "Come back!"
he shouted. "What _is_ it? How _can_ you be absurd, Polly Anne? Come
in!"
Polly Anne came in, but every step of her entry was fraught with
instant withdrawal. "I won't keep you a minute, because of Steptoe and
the dinner," she said, jumbling her context horribly. "Only I must know
if you're going out or not."
Challis really tried to be jolly and good-natured over it. "Oh no! it's
all right," said he. "I'm at home to-night."
"You had better make sure." She spoke rather like an iceberg--a
forbearing one, but still an iceberg. "Look at your cards on the
chimney-piece."
Now, the fact was that the lady knew the position, having gone over
the ground the evening before in her husband's absence. "The pink
card!" said she. And thus guided, Challis found himself brought to
book--convicted of inconsiderate forgetfulness alike of his friend and
his household. "I wish you would be more careful," said the iceberg.
"But I really did think the Acropolis was to-morrow, the twenty-third."
"To-day is the twenty-third." One more degree of frost on the iceberg.
"I thought to-day was Wednesday." A feeble effort to extenuate.
"To-day is Thursday. You see on the card. It doesn't matter. I can
easily arrange with Steptoe.... Oh no!--you can't throw them over at
the last moment. Quite absurd!"
"Well!--I'm awfully sorry."
"It makes no difference at all. Now, I won't disturb you any more." And
the iceberg retired.
But if Challis had given way to his first impulse, had run after his
wife, kissed her, said good-humouredly, "Don't be miffy, Polly Anne!--I
shall be at home to-morrow. And you know the Acropolites _did_ ask you
too"--had he done this, all might have gone better. But his impulse was
weakened by the thought--or the knowledge--that his wife knew perfectly
well when she entered the room that he had this engagement, and must
already have made all her household arrangements with reference to it.
He resented her insincerity, and though he rose from his chair and
went towards the door, his resentment had the best of it half-way,
and he bit his lip and returned, looking vexed. Now, why couldn't she
have said honestly to him at breakfast, "Recollect, to-night's the
Acropolis dinner"? He was in such a state of sensitive irritation that,
just as he was getting into stroke again, he had a new upset--caught a
crab, as it were--because Estrild reminded him of Eldridge, and brought
the whole vexation back in full force!