HOW THE COOK-LADY FOUND HER LEVEL
Two days later, the morning mail brought relief—not too soon, for there
was evidence that the battle between the housekeeper and the cook-lady
could not be much longer delayed, and Sarah was going about with a face
of wooden agony that gave Norah a chilly feeling whenever she
encountered her. Allenby alone retained any cheerfulness; and much of
that was due to ancient military discipline. Therefore Mrs. Moroney’s
letter was hailed with acclamation. “Two maids she can recommend, bless
her heart!” said Mr. Linton. “She doesn’t label their particular
activities, but says they’ll be willing to do anything at all.”
“That’s the kind I like,” said Norah thankfully.
“And their names are Bride Kelly and Katty O’Gorman; doesn’t that bring
Killard and brown bogs back to you? And—oh, by Jove!”
“What is it?” demanded his family, in unison.
“This is what it is. ‘I don’t know would your honour remember Con
Hegarty, that was shofer to Sir John at Rathcullen, and a decent boy
with one leg and he after coming back from the war. He have no job
since Sir John died, and he bid me tell you he’d be proud to drive a
car for you, and to be with ye all. And if he have only one leg itself
he’s as handy as any one with two or more. Sir John had him with him at
Homewood, and he knows the car that’s there, and ’tis the way if you
had a job for him he could take the two girls over when he went, and he
used to travelling the world.’ That’s all, I think,” Mr. Linton ended.
“What luck!” Jim ejaculated. “We couldn’t have a better chauffeur.”
“I wonder we never thought of Con,” said his father. “A nice boy; I’d
like to have him.”
“So would I,” added Norah. “When will you get them, Dad?”
“I’ll write at once and send a cheque for their fares,” said her
father. “I’ll tell them to send me a telegram when they start.” He rose
to leave the room. “What are you going to do this morning, children?”
“We’re all turning out the cottage,” Norah answered promptly. “I
haven’t told Sarah; she disapproves of me so painfully if I do any
work, and hurts my feelings by always doing it over again, if possible.
At the same time, she looks so unhappy about working at all, and sighs
so often, that I don’t feel equal to telling her that the cottage has
to be done. So Jim and Wally have nobly volunteered to help me.”
“Don’t knock yourself up,” said her father. “Will you want me?”
“No—unless you like to come as a guest and sit still and do nothing. My
two housemaids and I can easily finish off that little job. There’s not
really a great deal to do,” Norah added; “the place is very clean. Only
one likes to have everything extra nice when Tired People come.”
“Well, I’m not coming to sit still and do nothing,” said her father
firmly, “so I’ll stay at home and write letters.” He watched them from
the terrace a little later, racing across the lawn, and smiled a
little. It was so unlikely that this long-legged family of his would
ever really grow up.
The house was very quiet that morning. Mrs. Atkins and Miss de Lisle
having quarrelled over the question of dinner, had retreated, the one
to the housekeeper’s room, the other to the kitchen. Sarah went about
her duties sourly. Allenby was Sarah’s uncle, and, as such, felt some
duty to her, which he considered he had discharged in getting her a
good place; beyond that, Sarah frankly bored him, and he saw no reason
to let her regard him as anything else than a butler. “Bad for
discipline, too!” he reflected. Therefore Allenby was lonely. He read
the _Daily Mail_ in the seclusion of his pantry, and then, strolling
through the hall, with a watchful eye alert lest a speck of dust should
have escaped Sarah, he saw his master cross the garden and strike
across the park in the direction of Hawkins’ farm. Every one else was
out, Allenby knew not where. An impulse for fresh air fell upon him,
and he sauntered towards the shrubbery.
Voices and laughter came to him from the cottage. He pushed through the
shrubs and found himself near a window; and, peeping through, received
a severe shock to his well-trained nerves. Norah, enveloped in a huge
apron, was energetically polishing the kitchen tins; the boys, in their
shirt-sleeves, were equally busy, Wally scrubbing the sink with Monkey
soap, and Jim blackleading the stove. It was very clear that work was
no new thing to any of the trio. Allenby gasped with horror.
“Officers, too!” he ejaculated. “What’s the world coming to, I wonder!”
He hesitated a moment, and then walked round to the back door.
“May I come in, please, miss?”
“Oh, come in, Allenby,” Norah said, a little confused. “We’re busy, you
see. Did you want anything?”
“No, miss, thank you. But really, miss—I could ’ave got a woman from
the village for you, to do all this. Or Sarah.”
“Sarah has quite enough to do,” said Norah.
“Indeed, Sarah’s not killed with work,” said that damsel’s uncle. “I
don’t like to see you soilin’ your ’ands, miss. Nor the gentlemen.”
“The gentlemen are all right,” said Wally cheerfully. “Look at this
sink, now, Allenby; did you ever see anything better?”
“It’s—it’s not right,” murmured Allenby unhappily. He threw off his
black coat suddenly, and advanced upon Jim. “If you please, sir, I’ll
finish that stove.”
“That you won’t,” said Jim. “Thanks all the same, Allenby, but I’m
getting used to it now.” He laughed. “Besides, don’t you forget that
you’re a butler?”
“I can’t forget that you’re an officer, sir,” said Allenby, wretchedly.
“It’s not right: think of the regiment. And Miss Norah. Won’t you let
me ’elp sir?”
“You can clean the paint, Allenby,” said Norah, taking pity on his
distressed face. “But there’s really no need to keep you.”
“If you’d only not mind telling any of them at the ’ouse what I was
doing,” said the butler anxiously. “It ’ud undermine me position.
There’s that Miss de Lisle, now—she looks down on everybody enough
without knowin’ I was doin’ any job like this.”
“She shall never know,” said Jim tragically, waving a blacklead brush.
“Now I’m off to do the dining-room grate. If you’re deadly anxious to
work, Allenby, you could wash this floor—couldn’t he, Norah?”
“Thanks very much, sir,” said Allenby gratefully, “I’ll leave this
place all right—just shut the door, sir, and don’t you bother about it
any more.”
“However did you dare, Jim?” breathed Norah, as the cleaning party
moved towards the dining-room. “Do you think a butler ever washed a
floor before?”
“Can’t say,” said Jim easily. “I’m regarding him more as a sergeant
than a butler, for the moment—not that I can remember seeing a sergeant
wash a floor, either. But he seemed anxious to help, so why not let
him? It won’t hurt him; he’s getting disgracefully fat. And there’s
plenty to do.”
“Heaps,” said Wally cheerily. “Where’s that floor-polish, Nor? These
boards want a rub. What are you going to do?”
“Polish brass,” said Norah, beginning on a window-catch. “When I grow
up I think I’ll be an architect, and then I’ll make the sort of house
that women will care to live in.”
“What sort’s that?” asked Jim.
“I don’t know what the outside will be like. But it won’t have any
brass to keep clean, or any skirting-boards with pretty tops to catch
dust, or any corners in the rooms. Brownie and I used to talk about it.
All the cupboards will be built in, so’s no dust can get under them,
and the windows will have some patent dodge to open inwards when they
want cleaning. And there’ll be built-in washstands in every room, with
taps and plugs——”
“Brass taps?” queried Wally.
“Certainly not.”
“What then?”
“Oh—something. Something that doesn’t need to be kept pretty. And then
there will be heaps of cupboard-room and heaps of shelf-room—only all
the shelves will be narrow, so that nothing can be put behind anything
else.”
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Jim.
“She means dead mice—you know they get behind bottles of jam,” said
Wally kindly. “Go on, Nor, you talk like a book.”
“Well, dead mice are as good as anything,” said Norah lucidly. “There
won’t be any room for their corpses on _my_ shelves. And I’ll have some
arrangement for supplying hot water through the house that doesn’t
depend on keeping a huge kitchen fire alight.”
“That’s a good notion,” said Jim, sitting back on his heels, blacklead
brush in hand. “I think I’ll go architecting with you, Nor. We’ll go in
for all sorts of electric dodges; plugs in all the rooms to fix to
vacuum cleaners you can work with one hand—most of ’em want two men and
a boy; and electric washing-machines, and cookers, and fans and all
kinds of things. And everybody will be using them, so electricity will
have to be cheap.”
“I really couldn’t help listening to you,” said a deep voice in the
doorway.
Every one jumped. It was Miss de Lisle, in her skimpy red
overall—rather more flushed than usual, and a little embarrassed.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I heard voices—and I didn’t think
any one lived here. I knocked, but you were all so busy you didn’t hear
me.”
“So busy talking, you mean,” laughed Wally. “Terrible chatterboxes, Jim
and Norah; they never get any work done.” A blacklead brush hurtled
across the room: he caught it neatly and returned it to the owner.
“But you’re working terribly hard,” said the cook-lady, in
bewilderment. “Is any one going to live here?”
Norah explained briefly. Miss de Lisle listened with interest, nodding
her head from time to time.
“It’s a beautiful idea,” she said at length. “Fancy now, you rescuing
those poor little children and their father and mother! It makes me
feel quite sentimental. Most cooks are sentimental, you know: it’s such
a—a warm occupation,” she added vaguely. “When I’m cooking something
that requires particular care I always find myself crooning a love
song!” At which Wally collapsed into such a hopeless giggle that Jim
and Norah, in little better case themselves, looked at him in horror,
expecting to see him annihilated. To their relief, Miss de Lisle
grinned cheerfully.
“Oh, yes, you may laugh!” she said—whereupon they all did. “I know I
don’t look sentimental. Perhaps it’s just as well; nobody would want a
cook with golden hair and languishing blue eyes. And I do cook so much
better than I sing! Now I’m going to help. What can I do?”
“Indeed, you’re not,” said Norah. “Thanks ever so, Miss de Lisle, but
we can manage quite well.”
“Now, you’re thinking of what I said the other day,” said Miss de Lisle
disgustedly. “I know I did say my province was cooking, and nothing
else. But if you knew the places I’ve struck. Dear me, there was one
place where the footman chucked me under the chin!”
It was too much for the others. They sat down on the floor and shrieked
in unison.
“Yes, I know it’s funny,” said Miss de Lisle. “I howled myself, after
it was all over. But I don’t think the footman ever chucked any one
under the chin again. I settled him!” There was a reminiscent gleam in
her eye: Norah felt a flash of sympathy for the hapless footman.
“Then there was another house—that was a duke’s—where the butler
expected me to walk out with him. That’s the worst of it: if you behave
like a human being you get that sort of thing, and if you don’t you’re
a pig, and treated accordingly.” She looked at them whimsically.
“Please don’t think me a pig!” she said. “I—I shall never forget how
you held the door open for me, Mr. Jim!”
“Oh, I say, don’t!” protested the unhappy Jim, turning scarlet.
“Now you’re afraid I’m going to be sentimental, but I’m not. I’m going
to polish the boards in the passage, and then you can give me another
job. Lunch is cold to-day: I’ve done all the cooking. Now, please
don’t—” as Norah began to protest. “Dear me, if you only knew how nice
it is to speak to some one again!” She swooped upon Wally’s tin of
floor-polish, scooped half of its contents into the lid with a
hair-pin, commandeered two cloths from a basketful of cleaning matters,
and strode off. From the passage came a steady pounding that spoke of
as much “elbow-grease” as polish being applied.
“Did you ever!” said Jim weakly.
“Never,” said Wally. “I say, I think she’s a good sort.”
“So do I. But who’d have thought it!”
“Poor old soul!” said Norah. “She must be most horribly dull. But after
our first day I wouldn’t have dared to make a remark to her unless
she’d condescended to address me first.”
“I should think you wouldn’t,” said Wally. “But she’s really quite
human when she tucks her claws in.”
“Oh, my aunt!” said Jim, chuckling. “I’d give a month’s pay to have
seen the footman chuck her under the chin!” They fell into convulsions
of silent laughter.
From the passage, as they regained composure, came a broken melody,
punctuated by the dull pounding on the floor. Miss de Lisle, on her
knees, had become sentimental, and warbled as she rubbed.
_“‘I do not ask for the heart of thy heart.’”_
“Why wouldn’t you?” murmured Wally, with a rapt expression. “Any one
who can make pikelets like you——”
“Be quiet, Wally,” grinned Jim. “She’ll hear you.”
“Not she—she’s too happy. Listen.”
“‘All that I a-a-sk for is all that may be,
All that thou ca-a-a-rest to give unto me!
I do not ask’”——
Crash! Bang! Splash!
“Heavens, what’s happened!” exclaimed Jim.
They rushed out. At the end of the passage Miss de Lisle and the
irreproachable Allenby struggled in a heap—in an ever-widening pool of
water that came from an overturned bucket lying a yard away. The family
rushed to the rescue. Allenby got to his feet as they arrived, and
dragged up the drenched cook-lady. He was pale with apprehension.
“I—I—do beg your pardon, mum!” he gasped. “I ’adn’t an idea in me ’ead
there was any one there, least of all you on your knees. I just come
backin’ out with the bucket!”
“I say, Miss de Lisle, are you hurt?” Jim asked anxiously.
“Not a bit, which is queer, considering Allenby’s weight!” returned
Miss de Lisle. “But it’s—it’s just t-too funny, isn’t it!” She broke
into a shout of laughter, and the others, who had, indeed, been choking
with repressed feeling, followed suit. Allenby, after a gallant attempt
to preserve the correct demeanour of a butler, unchanged by any
circumstance, suddenly bolted into the kitchen like a rabbit. They
heard strange sounds from the direction of the sink.
“But, I say, you’re drenched!” said Jim, when every one felt a little
better.
Miss de Lisle glanced at her stained and dripping overall.
“Well, a little. I’ll take this off,” she said, suiting the action to
the word, and appearing in a white blouse and grey skirt which suited
her very much better than the roseate garment. “But my floor! And I had
it so beautifully polished!” she raised her voice. “Allenby! What are
you going to do about this floor?”
“Indeed, mum, I’ve made a pretty mess of it,” said Allenby,
reappearing.
“You have, indeed,” said she.
“But I never expected to find you ’ere a-polishin’,” said the
bewildered ex-sergeant.
“And I certainly never expected to find the butler scrubbing!” retorted
Miss de Lisle; at which Allenby’s jaw dropped, and he cast an appealing
glance at Jim.
“This is a working-bee,” said Jim promptly. “We’re all in it, and no
one else knows anything about it.”
“Not Mrs. Atkins, I hope, sir,” said Allenby.
“Certainly not. As for Sarah, she’s out of it altogether.”
Allenby sighed, a relieved butler.
“I’ll see to the floor, sir,” he said. “It’s up to me, isn’t it? And
polish it after. I can easy slip down ’ere for a couple of hours after
lunch, when you’re all out ridin’.”
“Then I really had better fly,” said Miss de Lisle. “I am pretty wet,
and there’s lunch to think about.” She looked at them in friendly
fashion. “Thank you all very much,” she said—and was gone, with a kind
of elephantine swiftness.
The family returned to the dining-room, leaving Allenby to grapple with
the swamp in the passage.
“Don’t we have cheery adventures when we clean house!” said Wally
happily. “I wouldn’t have missed this morning for anything.”
“No—it _has_ been merry and bright,” Jim agreed. “And isn’t the
cook-lady a surprise-packet! I say, Nor, do you think you’d find a
human side to Mrs. Atkins if we let Allenby fall over her with a bucket
of water?”
“’Fraid not,” said Norah.
“You can’t find what doesn’t exist,” said Wally wisely. “Mrs. Atkins is
only a walking cruet—sort of mixture of salt and vinegar.”
They told the story to Mr. Linton over the luncheon-table, after
Allenby had withdrawn. Nevertheless, the butler, listening from his
pantry to the shouts of laughter from the morning-room, had a fairly
good idea of the subject under discussion, and became rather pink.
“It’s lovely in another way,” Norah finished. “For you see, I thought
Miss de Lisle wasn’t human, but I was all wrong. She’s rather a dear
when you come to know her.”
“Yes,” said her father thoughtfully. “But you’ll have to be careful,
Norah; you mustn’t make any distinctions between her and Mrs. Atkins.
It doesn’t matter if Miss de Lisle’s pedigree is full of dukes and
bishops—Mrs. Atkins is the upper servant, and she’ll resent it if you
put Miss de Lisle on a different footing to herself.”
“Yes, I see,” said Norah, nodding. “I’ll do my best, Dad.”
Miss de Lisle, however, played the game. She did not encounter Norah
often, and when she did it was in Mrs. Atkins’ presence: and on these
occasions she maintained an attitude of impersonal politeness which
made it hard to realize that she and the butler had indeed bathed
together on the floor of the cottage. She found various matters in her
little sitting-room: an easy-chair, a flowering pot-plant, a pile of
books that bore Norah’s name—or Jim’s; but she made no sign of having
received them except that Norah found on her table at night a twisted
note in a masculine hand that said “Thank you.—C. de L.” As for Mrs.
Atkins, she made her silent way about the house, sour and watchful, her
green eyes rather resembling those of a cat, and her step as stealthy.
Norah tried hard to talk to her on other matters than housekeeping, but
found her so stolidly unresponsive that at last she gave up the
attempt. Life, as she said to Wally, was too short to woo a
cruet-stand!
The week flew by swiftly, every moment busy with work and plans for the
Tired People to come. Mrs. Atkins, it was plain, did not like the
scheme. She mentioned that it would make a great deal of work, and how
did Norah expect servants in these days to put up with unexpected
people coming at all sorts of hours?
“But,” said Norah, “that’s what the house is _for_. My father and I
would not want a houseful of servants if we didn’t mean to have a
houseful of people. What would we do with you all?” At which Mrs.
Atkins sniffed, and replied haughtily that she had been in a place
where there was only one lady, and _she_ kept eleven servants.
“More shame for her,” said Norah. “Anyhow, we explained it all to you
when we engaged you, Mrs. Atkins. If we weren’t going to have people
here we should still be living in London, in a flat. And if the
servants won’t do their work, we shall just have to get others who
will.” Which was a terrible effort of firmness for poor Norah, who
inwardly hoped that Mrs. Atkins did not realize that she was shaking in
her shoes!
“Easier said than done, in war-time,” said the housekeeper morosely.
“Servants don’t grow on gooseberry-bushes now, and what they don’t
expect——! Well, _I_ don’t know what the world’s coming to.” But Norah,
feeling unequal to more, fled, and, being discovered by Wally and Jim
with her head in her hands over an account-book, was promptly taken out
on Killaloe—the boys riding the cobs, which they untruthfully persisted
that they preferred.
Then came Tuesday morning: with early breakfast, and the boys once more
in khaki, and Jones, in the carriage, keeping the browns moving in the
chill air. Not such a hard parting as others they had known since for
the present there was no anxiety: but from the days when Jim used to
leave Billabong for his Melbourne boarding-school, good-bye morning had
been a difficult one for the Lintons. They joked through it in their
usual way: it was part of the family creed to keep the flag flying.
“Well, you may have us back at any time as your first Tired People,”
said Wally, his keen face looking as though it never could grow weary.
“Machine-gun courses must be very fatiguing, don’t you think, Jim?”
“Poor dears!” said Norah feelingly. “We’ll have a special beef-tea diet
for you, and bath-chairs. Will they send you in an ambulance?”
“Very likely, and then you’ll be sorry you were so disrespectful, won’t
she, Mr. Linton?”
“I’m afraid you can’t count on it,” said that gentleman, laughing.
“Norah’s bump of respect isn’t highly developed, even for me. You’ll
write soon, Jim, and tell us how you get on—and what your next
movements are.”
“Rather,” answered Jim. “Don’t let the lady of the house wear off all
her curls over the accounts, will you, Dad? I’d hate to see her bald!”
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” said his father. “Now, boys; it’s time you
were off.”
They shook hands with Allenby, to his secret gratification. He closed
the carriage door upon them, and stood back at attention, as they drove
off. From an upper window—unseen, unfortunately—a figure in a red
overall leaned, waving a handkerchief.
The train was late, and they all stamped about the platform—it was a
frosty morning.
“Buck up, old kiddie,” said Jim. “We’ll be home in no time. And look
after Dad.”
“Yes—rather!” said Norah. “Send me all your socks when they want
darning—which is every week.”
“Right.” They looked at each other with the blank feeling of having
nothing to say that comes on station platforms or on the decks of ships
before the final bell rings. Then the train came in sight, the elderly
porter, expectant of a tip, bustled mightily with suit-cases and
kit-bags, and presently they were gone. The two brown faces hung out of
the carriage-window until the train disappeared round a curve.
Norah and her father looked at each other.
“Well, my girl,” said he. “Now I suppose we had better begin our job.”
They went out to the carriage. Just as they were getting in, the
ancient porter hurried after them.
“There’s some people come by that train for you, sir.”
The Lintons turned. A thin man, with sad Irish eyes, was limping out of
the station. Behind him came two girls.
“Why, it’s Con!” Norah cried.
“It is, miss,” said the chauffeur. “And the gerrls I have with
me—Bridie and Katty.”
“But you didn’t write,” Mr. Linton said.
“Well, indeed, I was that rushed, an’ we gettin’ off,” said Con. “But I
give Patsy Burke the money and towld him to send the wire. But ’tis the
way with Patsy he’ll likely think it’ll do in a day or two as well as
any time.” And as a matter of fact, the telegram duly arrived three
days later—by which time the new arrivals had shaken down, and there
seemed some prospect of domestic peace in the Home for Tired People.