It was undignified, but necessary. Any other course would have been
impossible. It was a case of bowing to the inevitable--and it seems to
me that the inevitable simply exists for the sake of the curtseys
bestowed upon it by unfortunates. One is always bowing and scraping to
the inevitable. It is a species of toadyism that is invariably omitted
from textbooks on the sublime art of sycophancy.
The inevitable, in this particular instance, was Aunt Julia. After the
vociferous, verbose, and vortiginous departure of Birdie Miriam and the
convalescent brat, dread symptoms of _cynanche parotidaea_ appeared in
Letitia, herself; we were alone, helpless, and mump-ridden, and it was
Letitia who suggested Aunt Julia. I made few telephonic explanations to
Tarrytown. I merely begged my aunt-in-law to put a few things in a
valise and come to us at once, as her niece was quite ill. This was
true. By the time Aunt Julia arrived, Letitia's fair face had lost its
outlines. In the grip of this most prosaic indisposition she was
inclined to be irritable--particularly when she looked at herself in the
glass, which she did every five minutes. Some patients, it is said, are
amused at the facial contortions guaranteed by this ailment. They must
be the patients who own a sense of humor. Letitia was awed by her own
ugliness, and I must confess that I hated to look at her. She insisted
upon wearing a lace mantilla over her head, and fastening it with a
diamond brooch beneath her chin. Under other circumstances this might
have seemed Spanish, but Letitia was cross, and when I dared to suggest
that she was emulating Otero, she was most indignant, and thought my
remark uncalled for.
Aunt Julia's advent was very welcome. After all, she had fine qualities.
There was not a suspicion of the baleful "I told you so" in her manner.
She _did_ turn away her head several times, as Letitia narrated the
tragic stories of Anna Carter, _La_ Potzenheimer, and Birdie Miriam, but
although I had a suspicion that she was exuding mirth, I could not prove
it. I could not have sworn that Aunt Julia was laughing, although I
followed her face round the corner, so to speak. Mercifully, Letitia was
unable to do this, owing to circumstances--to say nothing of
swellings--over which she had no control. My poor Letitia! If
irritability were a good sign--as old women declare--her convalescence
soon set in. She was as "cross as two sticks," as my old nurse used to
remark.
The worst of it was that I had to absent myself from the office until
Aunt Julia arrived. I told Tamworth that my wife had tonsilitis, as I
thought it sounded better and would be more evocative of sympathy.
People are sorry when you say tonsilitis; they are merely amused when
you mention mumps. A heroine with mumps, or even toothache, is a
romantic impossibility; but tonsilitis or nervous prostration is less
destructive to poetic commiseration.
"You have probably arrived at a conclusion often forced upon me," said
Aunt Julia, as her keen, beady eyes roved around the room. "The happiest
day after that upon which cook arrives is that upon which cook departs."
If _I_ had dared to say that, Letitia would have exclaimed ironically,
"How clever!" or, "How epigrammatic!" and I should have been instantly
snubbed. As it was, she murmured a dutiful "Yes, aunt," and sat with her
hands folded in her lap, meekness personified.
Aunt Julia, however, was not particularly restful to the nerves
overweeningly unstrung. Even while she was listening to our history she
was bustling about, arranging things, and--of course!--dusting. She
flicked dust from the piano, filched it from the ornaments, dug it from
the tiger-head, blew it from the pictures, rubbed it from the
chair-backs, fought it from the window-sills. And then--if any had
remained--I am perfectly certain that she would have eaten it. Dust was
Aunt Julia's weakness, as it is the weakness of many women. If dust had
sex, it would assuredly be masculine, as the majority of women are so
disgracefully attentive to it. They run after it so rudely. It is only
the intellectual, large-minded women, who don't mind a little bit of
harmless dust, and can sit still comfortably while it settles and enjoys
itself. The others are always pottering around after it, making their
own life, and that of their associates, unnecessarily miserable.
Personally, dust has always seemed to me to be homelike and cozy, and I
hate to see it flagged away and routed.
"You see," said Aunt Julia triumphantly, as she lifted the clock from
the mantel-piece, and revealed the huge space, surrounded entirely by
thick dust, upon which it had stood, "you two children, who are always
talking cooks, really need what we call a general. You want somebody who
will dust as well as cook. Apparently, you have secured ladies who could
do neither."
"You engaged Anna Carter for us, aunt," remarked Letitia pointedly, and
I could have applauded her gladly, if I had not been in my own house.
The opportunities for being impolite are wonderfully curtailed nowadays.
Etiquette says that you must be polite in your own house; you must be
polite in other people's houses. Apparently, one can be impolite only
out of doors.
"And I particularly told her," said Aunt Julia emphatically, "that the
main thing was to keep the place spick-and-span. I made more of a point
of that than I did of the cooking. Healthy young people don't want a lot
of messy '_à la_' dishes, but they do want immaculate living rooms."
"Oh, Aunt Julia--" Letitia began argumentatively.
"Oh, Aunt Julia!" mimicked the old lady. "Wait until you can afford to
keep three or four servants before you put on so many airs. 'Oh, Aunt
Julia!' Yes, and 'Oh, Aunt Julia' again! With your 'drawing-room' and
your 'evening dress' and your menus you want a retinue of domestics. You
think that all you have to do is to sit down and live artistically in
the most inartistic and impossible city in the world. I say that, and
I'm a good American, too. And there's no 'Oh, Aunt Julia!' about it,
either."
I bit my lips, and impressed upon my mind the fact that I was in my own
house. I should have liked to ask Aunt Julia to walk with me to the
corner, so that I could say rude things to her. Of course her
statements were absolutely grotesque and ridiculous, and both Letitia
and I knew it. We exchanged sympathetic glances. I could have laughed in
scorn at Aunt Julia. Letitia couldn't, of course, as her face was not in
laughing order.
"In the meantime, Aunt Julia," I said with an effort--I _had_ thought of
addressing her as "Mrs. Dinsmore," but, after all, she was there at my
invitation--"you see we have no servant at present. What can we do?
Letitia can't leave the house; I am unable to cook a dinner; I _could_
take a basket and sally forth to the delicatessen shops, but--"
"I'm here," replied Aunt Julia, spreading her hands whimsically. "Like
the poor, I am always with you. And I assure you, you silly helpless
things, that the situation is not too many for me. In fact, I am
distinctly able to cope with it. My motto in life has been: Don't worry
about being rich; don't bother about being poor; but do, for goodness'
sake, make up your mind to be independent. That's it--independence. Do
you fancy that a mere cook can either make or mar me? And yet, my dear
Letitia, and my equally dear Archibald, I flatter myself that I am quite
as good, socially, as anybody you are ever likely to meet. I have known
the time when I have cooked an entire dinner, from soup to sweets, and
sat at the head of my own table, in a low-neck dress and entertained my
guests, who probably thought that I had lolled on a sofa all day, and
read--er--Ovid!" she added maliciously.
This sounded horribly Sandford-and-Merton-y. I was Sandford, and Letitia
was Merton, while Aunt Julia appeared to be that detestable consummation
of all the virtues, Mr. Barlow. I nearly called her "Uncle Barlow," but
haply refrained in time.
"I don't like the idea of your slaving, Aunt Julia," began Letitia,
adjusting her mantilla.
"I don't say that I should select it as a pastime," asserted that lady,
in her most formidable manner; "but when it is necessary--and it often
is, even in the best regulated families (among which I do not class this
household)--I am always on hand. The situation is mine, absolutely. You
see my education was unlike yours, Letitia. I am saying nothing against
my poor sister, Frances, your dear mother, who had her own views, but I
assert that the average American woman is quite helpless and--and--the
race suffers."
"Don't lecture me, please, Aunt Julia," cried Letitia feebly. "I know
I'm helpless, but Archie is quite willing to pay for help, and--I can't
be squalid. Excuse me, Aunt Julia."
"Certainly," she said amiably, "I'll excuse you. You can't be squalid,
but you _can_ be dusty. Personally, I'd sooner be squalid, as you call
it, but tastes differ, as the old lady remarked when she kissed her cow.
Thank goodness, I've removed a few of the evidences of neglect. I think
I'll rest for a few minutes. You sit still, Letitia, and you, Mr.
Archie, don't get fidgetty. The trouble to-day is that the average New
York woman who gets married doesn't want cooking, or housekeeping, or
children, or the comradeship of a man. She wants diamonds for her ears,
silks for her back, furs for her shoulders. She'd sooner live in an
apartment that has a palatial entrance, and dark, airless cubby-holes
for rooms; she'd sooner go and dine at a _table d'hôte_ restaurant than
order her own dinner at home; she'd sooner pant in impossible waists and
flaunt herself before the world as some odious 'Gibson' freak, than stay
at home in something loose, and have healthy children easily."
"Aunt Julia!" cried Letitia, aghast. "You really mustn't--before
Archie."
"Please, Mrs. Dinsmore," I objected, "such things--before Letitia--"
"Don't add prudery to your other follies," retorted this terrible old
lady, "I hate it. What is, is; and we might as well talk about it.
Somebody has said, Letitia (and it wasn't your friend Ovid, the
chestnut), that decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence--which is
clever. You see, I read occasionally, squalid though I be. It is a true
remark. I hope you'll have children, but not until you know what to do
with them, and are not as dependent upon a nurse as you are upon a cook.
Then you would be treating your own children as badly as you now treat
your own stomachs. Your poor stomachs!"
Involuntarily I placed my hand on the lower part of my waistcoat. There
was certainly a flatness there. Strangely enough, Letitia did the
same--omitting of course the waistcoat. We were both so indignant with
Aunt Julia, that this silent action probably took the place of insulting
words.
"Home is a thing that is going out of fashion in this city," Aunt Julia
continued bitingly. "It is a place to sleep in, to get your letters at;
a spot in which to blazon forth your name, for the compilers of the city
directory. American women prefer to dine out, dance out, make merry out.
They even like to get married--out. Probably they will have their
children out, one of these days. There will be elegant caterers to
expectant mothers. No, Letitia, you can't stop me. I intend to have my
say. The situation confronts us. Let us face it, manfully or
womanfully."
"You talk as though we were trying to demolish the home, Aunt Julia,"
said Letitia, endeavoring to infuse an expression of indignation into
her poor congested face. "We are doing our best. We are anxious to live
in the house, and not out of it. What are we to do? We are unfortunate."
"Stuff and nonsense!" retorted Aunt Julia irritably; "if I were not here
at this moment, and if you, Letitia, were not indisposed, the two of you
would be trotting out to your meals to-day, ruining your digestions with
unhealthy food, and doing it because cook had left. 'Oh, Aunt Julia!' I
anticipate that you were about to remark. Bah! I've no patience with
you. Now, if instead of reading the ridiculous antiquities you affect,
you were to set to work and study the--er--cook-book--"
"I shall never advise Letitia, at her age, to stupefy herself with such
literature," I asserted stoutly; "I don't believe in it."
"What you believe in is of no consequence, Archibald," she declared,
rising suddenly, as another dusty spot dawned upon her vision. "You can
put on your things, my boy, and go to your office. I take charge. I
guarantee you a dinner to-night--no sticky _à la_ affair, but something
that will appeal to a healthy appetite. Go down-town, and leave Letitia
alone with me. I promise you that I shan't ask her to do anything. She
can read the classics, if she likes, as long as she doesn't read 'em
aloud to me. The classics in the Harlem end of Columbus Avenue! Ha! Ha!
Ha! Now, vanish, Mr. Fairfax. I can't stand a man in the house, in the
daytime."
"I think you're unjust, Aunt Julia," murmured Letitia; "poor Archie is
so domestic. He loves to be around."
"Sitting in thick dust," added Mrs. Dinsmore, "and imagining that he's
milord Tomnoddy; also encouraging you to live in the clouds. And now, if
you'll excuse me, I'll go and introduce myself to the kitchen. No,
Letitia, don't trouble to come with me, for I'm perfectly convinced that
you don't know the difference between a saucepan and a corkscrew. I can
find my way, and I shall amuse myself. I quite enjoy the idea of a
regular, old-fashioned set-to. _Au revoir._ Dinner at six, Mr. Fairfax.
By-the-by, I forgot to bring a low-neck bodice with me. Do you mind?
I'll sit outside in Mrs. Potzenheimer's sanctum, if, by any chance, I
should be offensive to your evening eyes."
And off she went. Letitia and I sat staring at each other, lacking even
the gumption to smile. Upon the silence was borne the tin-ny noise of
pots and pans apparently being routed and abused. A second later, and we
heard Aunt Julia singing. That settled it. I closed the door. I loathe
cheery kitchen music--especially _Bedelia_.
"I'll go, Letitia," I sighed; "I'm turned out. I shall advertise at
once. We can't trespass upon Aunt Julia's--er--er--kindness."
"Yes, do, Archie,"--and Letitia also sighed; "Aunt Julia means well, but
she's very old-fashioned. You mustn't mind what she said, dear. I dare
say I don't know very much, but if I had been a kitchen-y old _Frau_,
you wouldn't have liked me, and we shouldn't have been married. Of
course, there _are_ servants. Somebody must have them. We've had a few
failures, but we'll try again."
I kissed her quite pathetically, and started officeward with a heavy
heart. It seemed delightful to get away from the mugginess of home, and
I marveled at my sensations. They were so strange. The people in the
streets all interested me. There seemed to be such a quantity of women.
Women, women, everywhere, but not a cook to greet! A longing to pounce
upon some of the nice, comfortable-looking women I saw, and cry: "Come
live with me, and be my cook," took possession of me. We wanted so
little, Letitia and I; just a domesticated home-body who would ply us
with easy dishes, and let us "live our life"--as Ibsen would say. Was
there anything exaggerated in these demands?
In the train, I sat opposite a most attractive looking colored person;
one might have almost called her a party. She eyed me rather furtively,
and had perhaps some telepathic inkling of my mood. Oh, if I had owned
the courage to throw myself at her feet, and beg her to come cook for
us! I lacked the necessary nerve. She looked as though she could
contrive dainty Southern dishes, and I was particularly fond of
terrapin. But perhaps, I told myself cynically, she couldn't even boil
an egg, and I should find myself landed again in the midst of the alarms
of delicatessen.
At Eighty-first Street, a neat looking young woman got in, and became
the object of my culinary speculation. I liked her appearance immensely,
and would have engaged her upon the spot, without references, if the
opportunity had been there. I felt certain that she would get along
admirably with Letitia,--my poor Letitia, who would have been so
considerate and indulgent with her cooks if they had only permitted it.
Why, she had even hinted at her intention of giving Birdie Miriam her
low-neck, white chiffon bodice, in a week or two, when she had no more
use for it. Fool that I was! I had argued with Letitia upon the
incongruity of presenting Mrs. McCaffrey with a _décolleté_ waist, and
had quite vexed myself. I had told Letitia that I couldn't possibly eat
stew, if a low-neck cook brought it in. It was so unnecessary, for
Birdie Miriam had departed long before the gift was ready for her
acceptance.
The girl who got in at Eighty-first Street appealed to me. An impulse,
quite irresistible, seized me. I felt that both Aunt Julia and Letitia
would look upon me as a hero, if suddenly I marched in with a splendid
cook that I had fished, unaided, from an elevated train. I say the
impulse was irresistible. It was. I edged up to the young woman. I tried
to attract her attention by nudging her. I smiled, and was about to
speak, when she rose, and in a loud voice, cried: "Say, you're too
fresh! Where d'ye think ye are?"
In an instant a stout Irishman was on his feet, and I heard him mutter
something about "cursed mashers." A disgraceful scene impended, and the
horror of being accused of "mashing," when I was merely intent on
"cook-ing," overwhelmed me. I apologized abjectly, and though I was now
more certain than I had been before that the young woman was a cook,
the fact that I was laying myself open to suspicion dawned suddenly upon
me. The Irishman sat down glowering, presumably rather vexed at the
de-materialization of a fight, and I continued my journey down-town,
silently. The young woman left the train at Fifty-third Street, with a
malicious, provocative smile in my direction, but I was in no mood to
notice it ostentatiously.
The car was filled with smiling, radiant women, all evidently free from
domestic care. My poor mind ran in the one groove only. Had they cooks?
If so, how? Did they dine at restaurants? Had they homes? I listened to
their conversation. It was not exhilarating; it was interspersed with
"and I says," "and she says," and then, "says she to me," and "says I to
her." They were jovially wallowing in a cheery labyrinth of
non-refinement and banality, and it occurred to me that perhaps some of
this domestic problem's difficulties lay in the fact that the mental
difference between cook and her mistress was not marked enough! This was
a horrid thought. Don't blame me for it. One thinks horrid things when
one is gloomy and oppressed--horrid things that are also unjust.
At Twenty-third Street domestic thoughts vanished. The troubles of home
evaporated in that atmosphere of stately hotels, and shops, and
carriages, and pretty women, and theaters. Just once these memories
returned. It was when I passed the Flat-iron Building, and thought, in a
bitter vengeful spirit, that I would like to condemn Aunt Julia to flick
dust from every window in that most oppressive pile. What a gorgeous
revenge it would be!
At the office I worked automatically. I read two manuscripts that had
been submitted for publication. Both were humorous, and they disgusted
me. My mood was not one that the authors of those luckless manuscripts
would have liked to see. It augured ill for their work. I frowned at
their fantasies and ground my teeth at their airy flights. This was rank
injustice, of course, and I felt it my duty to state, in declining these
works, that "humor was not our specialty." I thought that rather neat.
Of course, in these days of ferocious competition, the authors would
feel but little discomfiture. Others would appreciate their labors.
Personally, as I have said, I hate humorists. Undoubtedly there are
perversities on earth who could turn my cooks to humorous account. They
need never apply to me for a lift toward publicity. Humor is assuredly
abnormal.
I rather dreaded the idea of going home. I had visions of boiled
mutton, which I detest, and then there would be, perhaps--the mere idea
sickened me--stewed prunes! Aunt Julia, being old-fashioned, would
probably deem this menu wholesome, and American. To me it was appalling,
deadening. I could see the meal before me--the loathsome prunes set
before my eyes, at the same time as the meat, to confront and defy me,
as I sat at table. Everything would be spotlessly clean--you could "eat
your dinner off the carpet" of course--but spotlessly unappetizing.
It was a shock to me to find that Letitia had not "dressed" for dinner.
She explained quickly that she was not well enough to don evening dress,
but begged me to do so, and not to let Aunt Julia think that I was
afraid of her. Afraid of her! Perhaps I was, but I had no intention of
admitting it. I went at once to my room, selected the most immaculate
shirt I possessed, decorated it with my pearl studs, and then, putting
on my Tuxedo coat, I sallied forth to Letitia, who had a
turpentine-soaked flannel round her neck.
Aunt Julia was in the kitchen, and I could hear her laboring at
_Bedelia_, in high spirits, and an undaunted voice.
"She went out shortly after you left," said Letitia, "and I haven't seen
her since. Of course, it is awfully good of her, Archie. She didn't
even consult me as to what she should get. At any rate, dear, it's a
case of beggars mustn't be choosers. Please try and be amiable."
As the clock struck six, Aunt Julia announced dinner and Letitia and I
went to the dining-room. The old lady was as calm and unruffled as
though she had been napping all afternoon. Her silk dress was
unperturbed; her lace collar knew its place; she was not even flushed. I
felt rather guilty. The table looked so nice! There were oysters at the
three places; there was no vestige of a stewed prune; the table napkins
were daintily folded, with a pallidly baked roll in each. It certainly
didn't look a bit old-fashioned--in the abused acceptance of that
phrase.
"Sit down, cookless ones," said Aunt Julia, with a laugh, "and revel in
your squalor. I haven't known what to do with myself all afternoon. The
time has positively hung on my hands. I took a doze, Letitia, because
there was nothing else to take. Work in an apartment! It's child's
play."
We ate our oysters in a somewhat embarrassed mood. Aunt Julia was as
lively as a kitten. She chatted and criticised, and asked questions, and
never waited for the answers, and actually enjoyed herself. Then she
skirmished quickly away with the oyster plates, and brought in the
silver tureen, filled with strong beef soup. It all seemed to be ready
at hand and piping hot, and as I tasted it, the cockles of my heart
expanded and I smiled. Letitia's _cynanche_ seemed remarkably better,
and I don't know how it was, but the three of us found ourselves engaged
in the most enlivening conversation, without having to seek for it in
racked brains. Nor was it small talk.
So interested were we, that we never noticed how the soup got away. Yet
it did, and I suddenly perceived before me an appetizing dish of fried
smelts, nestling beside a silver receptacle containing a _sauce
tartare_. It was marvelous. It was as though a conjurer had cried,
"Presto!"--and behold the metamorphosis! The fish was delicious and Aunt
Julia enjoyed it quite as much as we did.
"I'm very fond of my own cooking," she said. "I take a scientific
interest in it. I like to see what one can do with various foods. I love
experiments. I have the same interest in a _sauce tartare_ that--er--Sir
Oliver Lodge has in radium. One is born that way, I suppose."
I continued to expand. How could I help it? Aunt Julia seemed suddenly
transfigured. She was no longer the fussy old meddler, but the Good
Samaritan. I liked her silk dress, her lace collar, her antique cameo
brooch, and with every glass of sauterne that I took, I liked them
better! It was quite wonderful how they grew upon me. Letitia seemed to
be equally effervescent. I quite forgot her lack of evening dress, in
which she had been so resplendently imperious at Anna Carter's
delicatessen spread. This was a meal at which evening dress would have
been perfectly appropriate, but this meal, alas! was born of no cook's
efforts. It was original. Perhaps we scarcely dared to hope for its
repetition. And as this thought occurred to me, I sighed.
The chicken was roasted to perfection, and its dressing was almost
poetic. An epicure would have delighted in it. Brillat-Savarin, himself,
would have commented favorably. Aunt Julia explained that she had not
tried to display any particularly "fancy" cooking, but she opined that
this was sufficient to remove satisfactorily the edge from the
ordinarily unfastidious appetite. How I had wronged her! How different
was the reality to the anticipation of boiled mutton and stewed prunes!
We finished with a firm and convincing jelly, and some of the best black
coffee I have ever tasted outside of Paris.
It was the first comfortable meal we had enjoyed at home! It was the
first time we had ever sat at our own table, to arise therefrom at peace
with the world!
"And now," said the old lady solemnly, "you two young people may go into
the parlor--oh, I beg your pardon, I mean drawing-room--and your squalid
aunt will clear the things away. She will be with you in fifteen
minutes, ready to preach, or answer questions, or do anything you like."
Home certainly did seem like home. The drawing-room was cozy and
inviting. I felt stimulated to mental effort. Letitia had forgotten her
ailments, and was lively and amusing.
"I must try and learn Aunt Julia's system," she said, "so that I can at
any rate, supervise, though, Archie, I'm quite sure that frauds like
Anna Carter, or Potzenheimer, or Birdie Miriam would never brook
supervision."
"There you're right," remarked Aunt Julia, entering suddenly. "These
women know little and what they know, they know wrong. Get a clean slate
to work upon, secure a girl whom you can teach, and--well, your chances
will be better."