It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely
certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a
thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted
in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had
definitively planted herself in our midst, that we admitted to ourselves
openly, unhesitatingly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda
blazoned forth the enigma in all its force and defiance.
The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly
blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew.
Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical
fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg,
apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain
views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed to have
vaguely reached her that things called eggs dropped into water, would,
in the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become
eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those
antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled
egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly
thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had
laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is,
perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda.
Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was
certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her
hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The
situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a
particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely
ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique.
Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers,
laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our
daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess
some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook,
it was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the
slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that
water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a
salary.
Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with
Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was a
culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil
coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the
dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She
grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived
on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.
"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third
day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That
is why she is so ignorant."
I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I
muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers
have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why
can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have
arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to
'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of
peasant food. The result has been _nil_."
"It _is_ odd," Letitia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in
the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't
understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish."
"I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the
conversation book."
"Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green
peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and--"
"'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours',"
I interrupted. She was silent, and I went on: "It seems a pity to end
your studies in Swedish, Letitia, but fascinating though they be, they
do not really necessitate our keeping this barbarian. You can always
pursue them, and exercise on me. I don't mind. Even with an American
cook, if such a being exist, you could still continue to ask for venison
steak in Swedish, and to look forward to arriving at Gothenburg in forty
hours."
Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in
the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had
consisted of steak, burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a
rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly
tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to
supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an
indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface.
People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of
this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men
and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not
particular--so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of
these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest
gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best
isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a
score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare,
canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look
askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome"
liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor
whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment.
Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not
to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return,
the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up.
We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American
institution, the boarding-house feeder and the restaurant diner. We
knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and
a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts
its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook--no--lack of
cook--should drive us to these abysmal depths.
Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath
of _The Lives of Great Men_. She read a sweet little classic called "The
Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by
Alessandro Filippini--a delightful _table-d'hôte_-y name. I lay back in
my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence.
As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned
that I should not have to wait long. I was right.
"Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the
civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called
high-livers, as New York City, which was educated by the famous
Delmonico and his able lieutenants."
"Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I
should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of
low-livers."
"'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory
of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at
one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the
hands of the metropolis of the New World'."
"What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant
talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris,
there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there, they
have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New
York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any
more of your cook-book to me, my girl. It is written to catch the
American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery."
"Try and be patriotic, dear," she said soothingly. "Of course, I know
you wouldn't allow a Frenchman to say all that, and that you are just
talking cussedly with your own wife."
A ring at the bell caused a diversion. We hailed it. We were in the
humor to hail anything. The domestic hearth _was_ most trying. We were
bored to death. I sprang up and ran to the door, a little pastime to
which I was growing accustomed. Three tittering young women, each
wearing a hat in which roses, violets, poppies, cornflowers,
forget-me-nots, feathers and ribbons ran riot, confronted me.
"Miss Gerda Lyberg?" said the foremost, who wore a bright red gown, and
from whose hat six spiteful poppies lurched forward and almost hit me in
the face.
For a moment, dazed from the cook-book, I was nonplussed. All I could
say was "No," meaning that I wasn't Miss Gerda Lyberg. I felt so sure
that I wasn't, that I was about to close the door.
"She lives here, I believe," asserted the damsel, again shooting forth
the poppies.
I came to myself with an effort. "She is the--the cook," I muttered
weakly.
"We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her
voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable."
The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went
toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was
amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of
tongues, and then--I groped my way back to Letitia.
"They've come to the Thursday sociable!" I cried, and sank into a chair.
"Who?" she asked in astonishment, and I imparted to her the full extent
of my knowledge. Letitia took it very nicely. She had always heard, she
said, in fact Mrs. Archer had told her, that Thursday nights were
festival occasions with the Swedes. She thought it rather a pleasant
and convivial notion. Servants must enjoy themselves, after all. Better
a happy gathering of girls than a rowdy collection of men. Letitia
thought the idea felicitous. She had no objections to giving privileges
to a cook. Nor had I, for the matter of that. I ventured to remark,
however, that Gerda didn't seem to be a cook.
"Then let us call her a 'girl'," said Letitia, irritated at last.
"Gerda is a girl, only because she isn't a boy," I remarked tauntingly.
"If by 'girl' you even mean servant, then Gerda isn't a girl. Goodness
knows what she is. Hello! Another ring!"
This time, Miss Lyberg herself went to the door, and we listened. More
arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily
attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which,
in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were
Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra--as we soon learned. It was
wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at
home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and
humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia
stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door.
Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in our
house.
"Just the same, Letitia," I observed, galled, "I think I should say
to-morrow that this invasion is most impertinent--most uncalled for."
"Yes, Archie," said Letitia demurely, "you think you should say it. But
please don't think _I_ shall, for I assure you that I shan't. I suppose
that we must discharge her. She can't do anything and she doesn't want
to learn. I don't blame her. She can always get the wages she asks, by
doing nothing. You would pursue a similar policy, Archie, if it were
possible. Everybody would. But all other laborers must know how to
labor."
I was glad to hear Letitia echoing my sentiments. She was quite
unconsciously plagiarizing. Once again, she took up the cook-book. The
sound of merrymaking in the kitchen drifted in upon us. From what we
could gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of
her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My
nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that
there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings, I should have
slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to
comfort me.
"You've no idea what hundreds of ways there are of cooking eggs,
Archie," she said. "Do listen to me, dear. I'm trying so hard to be
domesticated, and I do so want to please you. Don't let cook come
between us. Here's a recipe for eggs _à la reine_ that reads most
charmingly. Are you listening, Archie?"
Letitia came over to me, and kissed me, and smoothed my hair, and
apologized, and asked me to help her with her cook-book--and I was
pacified. At another time, I should not have allowed her to apologize.
But as there were eight obstreperous women in our kitchen and Letitia
didn't object--well, I thought the apology was not out of place.
"How to make eggs _à la reine_," read Letitia lightly. "You prepare
twelve eggs as for the above."
"What's 'as for the above'?" I asked.
"Let me see. Ah, yes. 'As for the above' means as for eggs _à la
Meyerbeer_. To make eggs _à la reine_, you prepare twelve eggs as though
for eggs '_à la Meyerbeer_.' It's simple."
"But we don't know how to make eggs '_à la Meyerbeer_'," I protested,
thinking of the _pons asinorum_ in Euclid that had caused me bitter
anguish.
"To make eggs '_à la Meyerbeer_'," read Letitia, "you butter a silver
dish, and break into it twelve fresh eggs--"
"Twelve!" I cried. "My dear, we should be ill. We should die of
biliousness. Six eggs apiece!"
"Twelve _fresh_ eggs, Archie. I'm giving you Filippini's recipe. You
break the eggs into a silver dish, and cook them on the stove for two
minutes. Then cut six mutton kidneys in halves--"
"Six kidneys and twelve eggs!" I exclaimed. "Surely this is a recipe
for--for--horses."
"We are not obliged to eat it all at once, silly! After cutting the
mutton kidneys in halves, you broil or stew them according to taste,
then add them to the eggs and serve with half a pint of hot _Perigueux
sauce_, thrown over."
"What's _Perigueux sauce_?"
"See No. 191," continued Letitia, in a somewhat stupefied tone. "How
confusing! No. 191. Here it is. _Perigueux sauce_: Chop up very fine two
truffles. Place them in a sautoire with a glass of Madeira wine. Reduce
on the hot stove for five minutes. Add half a pint of _Espagnole sauce_.
For _Espagnole sauce_, see No. 151."
"What a labyrinth!" I said, feeling quite muddled; "it's like following
a maze. We may as well see the thing through. What does No. 151 say?"
"No. 151. _Sauce Espagnole_. Mix one pint of raw, strong, mirepoix--"
"Raw, strong what?"
"Raw, strong mirepoix--oh, Archie, see No. 138. In one minute I shall
forget what we really wanted to make. Isn't it positively bewildering?
See No. 138. Stew in a saucepan two ounces of fat, two carrots, one
onion, one sprig of thyme, one bay leaf, six whole peppers, three
cloves, and, if handy, a hambone cut into pieces. Add two sprigs of
celery, and half a bunch of parsley roots, cook for fifteen minutes."
"And then--what do you get?" I asked putting my hands to my fevered
brow.
"That's for the mirepoix," she replied; "and the mirepoix is for the
_Espagnole sauce_. You mix one pint of raw strong mirepoix with five
ounces of good fat (chicken's fat is preferable). Mix with the compound
four ounces of flour, and moisten with one gallon of white broth. See
No. 99."
"Heavens! Can't they bring it to a head? The twelve eggs and the six
kidneys are waiting, Letitia."
"It _is_ most exasperating, but we won't be worsted, Archie. See No. 99.
White broth. There's half a page about it. I--I really don't believe
that this flat is large enough to hold all the ingredients for this
dish. You place in a large stock-urn, on a moderate fire, a good heavy
knuckle of fine white veal with all the _débris_, or scraps of meat,
cover fully with water, add salt, carrots, turnips, onions, parsley,
leeks, celery. Boil six hours--"
"What--what are we trying to make?" I asked helplessly.
Letitia was equally dismayed. "I declare I almost forget. Let me see:
The white broth was to be mixed with the mirepoix; the mirepoix was for
the _sauce Espagnole_; the _sauce Espagnole_ was for the _Perigueux
sauce_; the _Perigueux sauce_ was for the eggs _à la Meyerbeer_. We know
that, don't we? Well, for eggs _à la reine_. At present we know how to
make eggs _à la Meyerbeer_. To cook eggs _à la reine_, you proceed as
for eggs _à la Meyerbeer_, and then--"
"I don't think we'll have any, Letitia," I ventured. "Really, I believe
I can do without them. Anyway, they would be rather indigestible."
"Well, I _will_ know the end," she declared pluckily. "I hate to be
beaten. We know how to make eggs _à la Meyerbeer_. We know that, don't
we? Well, for the eggs _à la reine_, you make a garnishing of one ounce
of cooked chicken breast, one finely-shred, medium-sized truffle, and
six minced mushrooms. You moisten with half a pint of good _Allemande
sauce_, see No. 210. No, I won't see No. 210. You're right, Archie.
We'll do without the eggs _à la reine_. This recipe is like the House
That Jack Built, only much worse, for, you have to 'see' things all the
time. We'll have just plain, soft-boiled eggs."
"You might learn how to cook those, dear," I suggested timidly. "No,
Letitia, don't be vexed. There must be an art in it. We've had four
cooks, all unable to boil eggs. There must be a knack."
Letitia sighed, and shut up the cook-book. Eggs _à la reine_ seemed as
difficult as trigonometry, or conic sections, or differential
calculus--and much more expensive. Certainly, the eight giggling cooks
in the kitchen, now at the very height of their exhilaration, worried
themselves little about such concoctions. My nerves again began to play
pranks. The devilish pandemonium infuriated me. Letitia was tired and
wanted to go to bed. I was tired and hungry and disillusioned. It was
close upon midnight and the Swedish Thursday was about over. I thought
it unwise to allow them even an initial minute of Friday. When the clock
struck twelve, I marched majestically to the kitchen, threw open the
door, revealed the octette in the enjoyment of a mound of ice-cream and
a mountain of cake--that in my famished condition made my mouth
water--and announced in a severe, jet subdued tone, that the revel must
cease.
"You must go at once," I said, "I am going to shut up the house."
Then I withdrew and waited. There was a delay, during which a Babel of
tongues was let loose, and then Miss Lyberg's seven guests were heard
noisily leaving the house. Two minutes later, there was a knock at our
door and Miss Lyberg appeared, her eyes blazing, her face flushed and
the expression of the hunted antelope defiantly asserting that it would
never be brought to bay, on her perspiring features.
"You've insulted my guests!" she cried, in English as good as my own.
"I've had to turn them out of the house, and I've had about enough of
this place."
Letitia's face was a psychological study. Amazement, consternation,
humiliation--all seemed determined to possess her. Here was the obtuse
Swede, for whose dear sake she had dallied with the intricacies of the
language of Stockholm, furiously familiar with admirable English! The
dense, dumb Scandinavian--the lady of the "me no understand"
rejoinder--apparently had the "gift of tongues." Letitia trembled.
Rarely have I seen her so thoroughly perturbed. Yet seemingly she was
unwilling to credit the testimony of her own ears, for with sudden
energy, she confronted Miss Lyberg, and exclaimed imperiously, in
Swedish that was either pure or impure: "_Tig. Ga din väg!_"
"Ah, come off!" cried the handmaiden insolently. "I understand English.
I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. It's just on
account of folks like you that poor hard-working girls, who ain't
allowed to take no baths or entertain no lady friends, have to protect
themselves. Pretend not to understand them, says I. I've found it worked
before this. If they think you don't understand 'em, they'll let you
alone and stop worriting. It's like your impidence to turn my
lady-friends out of this flat. It's like your impidence. I'll--"
Letitia's crestfallen look, following upon her perturbation, completely
upset me. A wave of indignation swamped me. I advanced, and in another
minute Miss Gerda Lyberg would have found herself in the hall, impelled
there by a persuasive hand upon her shoulder. However, it was not to be.
"You just lay a hand on me," she said with cold deliberation, and a
smile, "and I'll have you arrested for assault. Oh, I know the law. I
haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. The law looks
after poor weak, Swedish girls. Just push me out. It's all I ask. Just
you push me out."
She edged up to me defiantly. My blood boiled. I would have mortgaged
the prospects of my _Lives of Great Men_ (not that they were worth
mortgaging) for the exquisite satisfaction of confounding this
abominable woman. Then I saw the peril of the situation. I thought of
horrid headlines in the papers: "Author charged with abusing servant
girl," or, "Arrest of Archibald Fairfax on serious charge," and my mood
changed.
"I understood you all the time," continued Miss Lyberg insultingly. "I
listened to you. I knew what you thought of me. Now I'm telling you what
I think of you. The idea of turning out my lady-friends, on a Thursday
night, too! And me a-slaving for them, and a-bathing for them, and
a-treating them to ice-cream and cake, and in me own kitchen. You ain't
no lady. As for you"--I seemed to be her particular pet--"when I sees a
man around the house all the time, a-molly-coddling and a-fussing, I
says to myself, he ain't much good if he can't trust the women folk
alone."
We stood there like dummies, listening to the tirade. What could we do?
To be sure, there were two of us, and we were in our own house. The
antagonist, however, was a servant, not in her own house. The situation,
for reasons that it is impossible to define, was hers. She knew it, too.
We allowed her full sway, because we couldn't help it. The sympathy of
the public, in case of violent measures, would not have been on our
side. The poor domestic, oppressed and enslaved, would have appealed to
any jury of married men, living luxuriously in cheap boarding-houses!
When she left us, as she did when she was completely ready to do so,
Letitia began to cry. The sight of her tears unnerved me, and I checked
a most unfeeling remark that I intended to make to the effect that, "if
the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours."
"It's not that I mind her insolence," she sobbed, "we were going to
send her off anyway, weren't we? But it's so humiliating to be
'done.' We've been 'done.' Here have I been working hard at
Swedish--writing exercises, learning verbs, studying proverbs--just
to talk to a woman who speaks English as well as I do.
It's--it's--so--so--mor--mortifying."
"Never mind, dear," I said, drying her eyes for her; "the Swedish will
come in handy some day."
"No," she declared vehemently, "don't say that you'll take me to Sweden.
I wouldn't go to the hateful country. It's a hideous language, anyway,
isn't it, Archie? It is a nasty, laconic, ugly tongue. You heard me say
_Tig_ to her just now. _Tig_ means 'be silent.' Could anything sound
more repulsive? _Tig! Tig! Ugh!_"
Letitia stamped her foot. She was exceeding wroth.
"Aunt Julia, and her clean slate!" she went on. "If this was a sample of
a clean slate, give me one that has been scribbled all over. The
annoying thing is that we have to stand still and listen to all this
abuse. These women seem to hate one so! They are always on the
defensive, when there is nothing to defend. They won't let you treat
them nicely. Honestly, Archie, I think that they are all anarchists and
that they hate us because we have a few dollars more than they have."
It was rather a grave assertion but I was not prepared to combat it.
Could it be the fault of our "system"--admitting, for the sake of
argument, that we have a system? Why did peasants, from the purlieus of
foreign countries, undergo a "sea change" the instant they landed? Why
did ladies who would have clamored to black your shoes in their own
country, insist that you should black theirs when they came to yours?
Why was it? What did it mean? Surely it was a problem, as knotty as that
of the cooking of eggs _à la reine_. Still, undoubtedly, there are chefs
who have succeeded in elaborating the eggs _à la reine_. Were there any
people in this broad land, who, by dint of a life's persistence, had
managed to understand their cook?
Letitia declined to talk any more. I could have harangued a mob. I
could have stood on a wagon, without flags, and have incited the
populace to deeds of violence. I should have loved to do it; I ached for
the mere chance, and--and--
Well, I merely switched off the light.