SETTLING IN
They bade good-bye to the flat early next morning and went down to
Homewood through a dense fog that rolled up almost to the carriage
windows like masses of white wool. At the station the closed carriage
waited for them, with the brown cobs pawing the ground impatiently.
General Somers’ chauffeur had gone with his master, and so far they had
not succeeded in finding a substitute, but the groom and coachman, who
were also gardeners in their spare time, considered themselves part and
parcel of the place, and had no idea of changing their home.
“The cart for the luggage will be here presently, sir,” Jones, the old
coachman, told Mr. Linton. So they left a bewildering assortment of
suit-cases and trunks piled up on the platform in the care of an
ancient porter, and packed themselves into the carriage. Norah was wont
to say that the only vehicle capable of accommodating her three long
men-folk comfortably was an omnibus. The fog was lifting as they rolled
smoothly up the long avenue; and just as they came within sight of the
house a gleam of pale sunlight found its way through the misty clouds
and lingered on the ivy-clad gables. The front door was flung wide to
welcome them: on the steps hovered the ex-sergeant, wearing a discreet
smile. Behind him fluttered a print dress and a white apron, presumably
worn by his niece.
“I say, Norah, don’t you feel like the Queen of Sheba entering her
ancestral halls?” whispered Wally wickedly, as they mounted the steps.
“If she felt simply horrible, then I do!” returned Norah. “I suppose
I’ll get used to it in time, but at present I want a hollow log to
crawl into!”
Allenby greeted them respectfully.
“We did not know what rooms you would like, sir,” he said. “They are
all practically ready, of course. My niece, miss, thought you might
prefer the blue bedroom. Her name is Sarah, miss.”
“We don’t want the best rooms—the sunniest, I mean,” Norah said. “They
must be for the Tired People, mustn’t they, Dad?”
“Well, there are no Tired People, except ourselves, at present,” said
her father, laughing. “So if you have a fancy for any room, you had
better take it, don’t you think?”
“Well, we’ll tour round, and see,” said Norah diplomatically, with
mental visions of the sudden “turning-out” of rooms should weary guests
arrive. “It might be better to settle down from the first as we mean to
be.”
“A lady has come, miss,” said Allenby. “I understood her to say she was
the cook, but perhaps I made a mistake?” He paused, questioningly, his
face comically puzzled.
“Oh—Miss de Lisle?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Oh, yes, she’s the cook,” said Norah. “And the housekeeper—Mrs.
Atkins?”
“No one else has arrived, miss.”
“Well, I expect she’ll come,” said Norah. “At least she promised.”
“Miss de Lisle, miss, asked for her kitchenmaid.”
“There isn’t one, at present,” said Norah, feeling a little desperate.
“Oh!” said Allenby, looking blank. “I—I am afraid, miss, that the lady
expects one.”
“Well, she can’t have one until one comes,” said Mr. Linton. “Cheer up,
Norah, I’ll talk to Miss de Lisle.”
“I’ll be the kitchenmaid, if necessary,” said Wally cheerfully. “What
does one do?”
Allenby shuddered visibly.
“My niece, I am sure, will do all she can, sir,” he said. His gaze
dwelt on Wally’s uniform; it was easy to see him quailing in spirit
before the vision of an officer with a kitchen mop. “Perhaps, miss, if
you would like to see the rooms?”
They trooped upstairs, the silent house suddenly waking to life with
the quick footsteps and cheery voices. The big front bedrooms were at
once put aside for future guests. Norah fell in love with, and promptly
appropriated, a little room that appeared to have been tucked into a
corner by the architect, as an afterthought. It was curiously shaped,
with a quaint little nook for the bed, and had a big window furnished
with a low cushioned seat, wide enough for any one to curl up with a
book. Mr. Linton and the boys selected rooms principally remarkable for
bareness. Jim had a lively hatred for furniture; they left him
discussing with Allenby the question of removing a spindle-legged
writing table. Mr. Linton and Norah went downstairs, with sinking
hearts, to encounter Miss de Lisle.
On the way appeared Sarah; very clean and starched as to dress, very
pink and shiny as to complexion. Her hair was strained back from her
forehead so tightly it appeared to be pulling her eyes up.
“Oh, Sarah,” said Mr. Linton, pausing.
“Yes, sir,” said Sarah meekly.
“You may be required to help the cook for a few days until we—er—until
the staff is complete,” said her employer. “Your uncle tells me you
will have no objection.”
“It being understood, sir, as it is only tempory,” said Sarah firmly.
“Oh, quite,” said Mr. Linton hurriedly.
“And of course I will help you with the housework, Sarah,” put in
Norah.
Sarah looked more wooden than before.
“Thank you, miss, I’m sure,” she returned.
They went on.
“Doesn’t she make you feel a worm!” said Norah.
“This is a terrible business, Norah!” said Mr. Linton fervently. “I
didn’t guess what Brownie was saving me from, all these years.”
They found Miss de Lisle in the kitchen, where an enormous range glowed
like a fiery furnace, in which respect Miss de Lisle rather resembled
it. She was a tall, stout woman, dressed in an overall several sizes
too small for her. The overall was rose-coloured, and Miss de Lisle was
many shades deeper in hue. She accepted their greetings without
enthusiasm, and plunged at once into a catalogue of grievances.
“The butler tells me there is no kitchenmaid,” she boomed wrathfully.
“And I had not expected such an antiquated range. Nor could I possibly
manage with these saucepans”—sweeping a scornful hand towards an array
which seemed to the hapless Lintons to err only on the side of
magnificence. “There will be a number of necessary items. And where am
I to sit? You will hardly expect me to herd with the servants.”
“It would be rough on them!” rose to Norah’s lips. But she prudently
kept the reflection to herself.
“To sit?” echoed Mr. Linton. “Why, I really hadn’t thought of it.” His
brow cleared. “Oh—there is the housekeeper’s room.”
“And who is the housekeeper? Is she a lady?”
“She hasn’t said so, yet,” said Mr. Linton. It was evident that he
considered this a point in the absent housekeeper’s favour. Miss de
Lisle flamed anew.
“I cannot sit with your housekeeper,” she averred. “You must remember,
Mr. Linton, that I told you when engaging with you, that I expected
special treatment.”
“And _you_ must remember,” said Mr. Linton, with sudden firmness, “that
we ourselves have not been half an hour in the house, and that we must
have time to make arrangements. As for what you require, we will see
into that later.”
Miss de Lisle sniffed.
“It’s not what I am accustomed to,” she said. “However, I will wait.
And the kitchenmaid?”
“I can’t make a kitchenmaid out of nothing,” said Mr. Linton gloomily.
“I hope to hear of one in a day or two; I have written to Ireland.”
“To Ireland!” ejaculated Miss de Lisle in accents of horror. “My dear
sir, do you know what Irish maids are like?”
“They’re the nicest maids I know,” said Norah, speaking for the first
time. “And so kind and obliging.”
“H’m,” sniffed the cook-lady. “But you are not sure of obtaining even
one of these treasures?”
“Well, we’ll all help,” said Norah. “Sarah will give you a hand until
we get settled, and my brother and Mr. Meadows and I can do anything.
There can’t be such an awful lot of work!” She stopped. Miss de Lisle
was regarding her with an eye in which horror and amazement were
mingled.
“But we don’t _do_ such things in England!” she gasped. “Your brother!
And the other officer! In my kitchen, may I ask?”
“Well, one moment you seem afraid of too much work, and the next, of
too much help,” said Norah, laughing. “You’d find them very useful.”
“I trust that I have never been afraid of work,” said Miss de Lisle
severely. “But I have my position to consider. There are duties which
belong to it, and other duties which do not. My province is cooking.
Cooking. And nothing else. Who, I ask, is to keep my kitchen clean?”
“Me, if necessary,” said a voice in which Allenby the butler was
clearly merged in Allenby the sergeant. “Begging your pardon, sir.” He
was deferential again—save for the eye with which he glared upon Miss
de Lisle. “I think, perhaps, between me and Sarah and—er—this lady, we
can arrange matters for the present without troubling you or Miss
Linton.”
“Do,” said his employer thankfully. He beat a retreat, followed by
Norah—rather to Norah’s disappointment. She was beginning to feel
warlike, and hankered for the battle, with Allenby ranged on her side.
“I’m going to love Allenby,” she said with conviction, as they gained
the outer regions.
“He’s a trump!” said her father. “But isn’t that a terrible woman,
Norah!”
“Here’s another, anyhow,” said Norah with a wild inclination to giggle.
A dismal cab halted at a side entrance, and the driver was struggling
with a stout iron trunk. The passenger, a tall, angular woman, was
standing in the doorway.
“The housekeeper!” breathed Mr. Linton faintly. “Do you feel equal to
her, Norah?” He fled, with disgraceful weakness, to the billiard-room.
“Good morning,” Norah said, advancing.
“Good morning,” returned the newcomer, with severity. “I have rung
three times.”
“Oh—we’re a little shorthanded,” said Norah, and began to giggle
hopelessly, to her own dismay. Her world seemed suddenly full of
important upper servants, with no one to wait on them. It was rather
terrible, but beyond doubt it was very funny—to an Australian mind.
The housekeeper gazed at her with a sort of cold anger.
“I’m afraid I don’t know which is your room,” Norah said, recovering
under that fish-like glare. “You see, we’ve only just come. I’ll send
Allenby.” She hurried off, meeting the butler in the passage.
“Oh, Allenby,” she said; “it’s the housekeeper. And her trunk. Allenby,
what does a housekeeper do? She won’t clean the kitchen for Miss de
Lisle, will she?”
“I’m afraid not, miss,” said Allenby. His manner grew confidential; had
he not been so correct a butler, Norah felt that he might have patted
her head. “Now look, miss,” he said. “You just leave them women to me;
I’ll fix them. And don’t you worry.”
“Oh, thank you, Allenby,” said Norah gratefully. She followed in her
father’s wake, leaving the butler to advance upon the wrathful figure
that yet blocked the side doorway.
In the billiard-room all her men-folk were gathered, looking guilty.
“It’s awful to see you all huddling together here out of the storm!”
said Norah, laughing. “Isn’t it all terrible! Do you think we’ll ever
settle down, Daddy?”
“Indeed, I wouldn’t be too certain,” responded Mr. Linton gloomily.
“How did you get on, Norah? Was she anything like Miss de Lisle? That’s
an appalling woman! She ought to stand for Parliament!”
“She’s not like Miss de Lisle, but I’m not sure that she’s any nicer,”
said Norah. “She’s very skinny and vinegarish. I say, Daddy, aren’t we
going to have a wild time!”
“Well, if she and the cook-lady get going the encounter should be worth
seeing,” remarked Jim. “Talk about the Kilkenny cats!”
“I only hope it will come off before we go,” said Wally gleefully. “We
haven’t had much war yet, have we, Jim? I think we deserve to see a
little.”
“I should much prefer it in some one else’s house,” said Mr. Linton
with haste. “But it’s bound to come, I should think, and then I shall
be called in as referee. Well, Australia was never like this. Still,
there are compensations.”
He went out, returning in a moment with a battered hat of soft grey
felt.
“Now you’ll be happy!” said Norah, laughing.
“I am,” responded her father. He put on the hat with tender care. “I
haven’t been so comfortable since I was in Ireland. It’s one of the
horrors of war that David Linton of Billabong has worn a stiff bowler
hat for nearly a year!”
“Never mind, no one in Australia would believe it unless they saw it
photographed!” said Jim soothingly. “And it hasn’t had to be a top-hat,
so you really haven’t had to bear the worst.”
“That is certainly something,” said his father. “In the dim future I
suppose you and Norah may get married; but I warn you here and now that
you needn’t expect me to appear in a top-hat. However, there’s no need
to face these problems yet, thank goodness. Suppose we leave the
kitchen to fight it out alone, and go and inspect the cottage?”
It nestled at the far side of a belt of shrubbery: a cheery, thatched
place, with wide casement windows that looked out on a trim stretch of
grass. At one side there was actually a little verandah! a sight so
unusual in England that the Australians could scarcely believe their
eyes. Certainly it was only a very tiny verandah.
Within, all was bright and cheery and simple. The cottage had been used
as a “barracks” when the sons of a former owner had brought home boy
friends. Two rooms were fitted with bunks built against the wall, as in
a ship’s cabin: there was a little dining-room, plainly furnished, and
a big sitting-room that took up the whole width of the building, and
had casement windows on three sides. There was a roomy kitchen, from
which a ladder-like staircase ascended to big attics, one of which was
fitted as a bedroom.
“It’s no end of a jolly place,” was Jim’s verdict. “I don’t know that I
wouldn’t rather live here than in your mansion, Norah; but I suppose it
wouldn’t do.”
“I think it would be rather nice,” Norah said. “But you can’t, because
we want it for the Hunts. And it will be splendid for them, won’t it,
Dad?”
“Yes, I think it will do very well,” said Mr. Linton. “We’ll get the
housekeeper to come down and make sure that it has enough pots and pans
and working outfit generally.”
“And then we’ll go up to London and kidnap Mrs. Hunt and the babies,”
said Norah, pirouetting gently. “Now, shall we go and see the horses?”
They spent a blissful half-hour in the stables, and arranged to ride in
the afternoon—the old coachman was plainly delighted at the absence of
a chauffeur, and displayed his treasures with a pride to which he had
long been a stranger.
“The ’orses ’aven’t ’ad enough to do since Sir John used to come,” he
said. “The General didn’t care for them—an infantry gent he must have
been—and it was always the motor for ’im. We exercised ’em, of course,
but it ain’t the same to the ’orses, and don’t they know it!”
“Of course they do.” Norah caressed Killaloe’s lean head.
“You’ll hunt him, sir, won’t you, this season?” asked Jones anxiously.
“The meets ain’t what they was, of course, but there’s a few goes out
still. The Master’s a lady—Mrs. Ainslie; her husband’s in France. He’s
’ad the ’ounds these five years.”
“Oh, we’ll hunt, won’t we, Dad?” Norah’s face glowed as she lifted it.
“Rather!” said Jim. “Of course you will. What about the other horses,
Jones? Can they jump?”
“To tell you the truth, sir,” said Jones happily, “there’s not one of
them that can’t. Even the cobs ain’t too bad; and the black pony that’s
at the vet.’s, ’e’s a flyer. ’E’ll be ’ome to-morrow; the vet. sent me
word yesterday that ’is shoulder’s all right. Strained it a bit, ’e
did. Of course they ain’t made hunters, like Killaloe; but they’re
quick and clever, and once you know the country, and the short cuts,
and the gaps, you can generally manage to see most of a run.” He sighed
ecstatically. “Eh, but it’ll be like old times to get ready again on a
hunting morning!”
The gong sounded from the house, and they bade the stables a reluctant
good-bye. Lunch waited in the morning-room; there was a pleasant
sparkle of silver and glass on a little table in the window. And there
was no doubt that Miss de Lisle could cook.
“If her temper were as good as her pastry, I should say we had found a
treasure,” said Mr. Linton, looking at the fragments which remained of
a superlative apple-pie. “Let’s hope that Mrs. Moroney will discover a
kitchenmaid or two, and that they will induce her to overlook our other
shortcomings.”
“I’m afraid we’ll never be genteel enough for her,” said Norah, shaking
her curly head. “And the other servants will all hate her because she
thinks they aren’t fit for her to speak to. If she only knew how much
nicer Allenby is!”
“Or Brownie,” said Wally loyally. “Brownie could beat that pie with one
hand tied behind her.”
Allenby entered—sympathy on every line of his face.
“The ’ousekeeper—Mrs. Atkins—would like to see you, sir. Or Miss
Linton. And so would Miss de Lisle.”
But Miss de Lisle was on his heels, breathing threatenings and
slaughter.
“There must be some arrangement made as to my instructions,” she
boomed. “Your housekeeper evidently does not understand my position.
She has had the impertinence to address me as ‘Cook.’ Cook!” She paused
for breath, glaring.
“But, good gracious, isn’t it your profession?” asked Mr. Linton.
Miss de Lisle fairly choked with wrath. Wally’s voice fell like oil on
a stormy sea.
“If I could make a pie like that I’d _expect_ to be called ‘Cook,’”
said he. “It’s—it’s a regular poem of a pie!” Whereat Jim choked in his
turn, and endeavoured, with signal lack of success, to turn his emotion
into a sneeze.
Miss de Lisle’s lowering countenance cleared somewhat. She looked at
Wally in a manner that was almost kindly.
“War-time cookery is a makeshift, not an art,” she said. “Before the
war I could have shown you what cooking could be.”
“That pie wasn’t a makeshift,” persisted Wally. “It was a dream. I say,
Miss de Lisle, can you make pikelets?”
“Yes, of course,” said the cook-lady. “Do you like them?”
“I’d go into a trap for a pikelet,” said Wally, warming to his task.
“Oh, Norah, do ask Miss de Lisle if she’ll make some for tea!”
“Oh, do!” pleaded Norah. As a matter of stern fact, Norah preferred
bread-and-butter to pikelets, but the human beam in the cook-lady’s eye
was not to be neglected. “We haven’t had any for ages.” She cast about
for further encouragement for the beam. “Miss de Lisle, I suppose you
have a very special cookery-book?”
“I make my own recipes,” said the cook-lady with pride. “But for the
war I should have brought out my book.”
“By Jove, you don’t say so!” said Jim. “I say, Norah, you’ll have to
get that when it comes out.”
“Rather!” said Norah. “I wonder would it bother you awfully to show me
some day how to make meringues? I never can get them right.”
“We’ll see,” said Miss de Lisle graciously. “And would you really like
pikelets for tea?”
“Please—if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“Very well.” Jim held the door open for the cook-lady as she marched
out. Suddenly she paused.
“You will see the housekeeper, Mr. Linton?”
“Oh, certainly!” said David Linton hastily. The door closed; behind it
they could hear a tread, heavy and martial, dying away.
“A fearsome woman!” said Mr. Linton. “Wally, you deserve a medal! But
are we always to lick the ground under the cook’s feet in this
fashion?”
“Oh, she’ll find her level,” said Jim. “But you’d better tell Mrs.
Atkins not to offend her again. Talk to her like a father, Dad—say she
and Miss de Lisle are here to run the house, not to bother you and
Norah.”
“It’s excellent in theory,” said his father sadly, “but in practice I
find my tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth when these militant
females tackle me. And if you saw Mrs. Atkins you would realize how
difficult it would be for me to regard her as a daughter. But I’ll do
my best.”
Mrs. Atkins, admitted by the sympathetic Allenby, proved less fierce
than the cook-lady, although by no stretch of imagination could she
have been called pleasant.
“I have never worked with a cook as considered herself a lady,” she
remarked. “It makes all very difficult, and no kitchen-maid, and am I
in authority or am I not? And such airs, turning up her nose at being
called Cook. Which if she is the cook, why not be called so? And going
off to her bedroom with her dinner, no one downstairs being good enough
to eat with her. I must say it isn’t what I’m used to, and me lived
with the first families. _Quite_ the first.” Mrs. Atkins ceased her
weary monologue and gazed on the family with conscious virtue. She was
dressed in dull black silk, and looked overwhelmingly respectable.
“Oh, well, you must put up with things as they are,” said Mr. Linton
vaguely. “Miss de Lisle expects a few unusual things, but apparently
there is no doubt that she can do her work. I hope to have more maids
in a few days; if not”—a brilliant idea striking him—“I must send you
up to London to find us some, Mrs. Atkins.”
“I shall be delighted, sir,” replied the housekeeper primly. “And do I
understand that the cook is to have a separate sitting-room?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, ask Allenby!” ejaculated her employer. “It
will have to be managed somewhere, or we shall have no cook!”