Goodness knows what has happened to this usually placid house.
Never again will I complain to you that there is no excitement in
Wolverhampton.
I got home from Birmingham yesterday noon and since then everything has
been perfectly absurd. I can only believe you have gone balmy.
First comes your wire about Mr. Blair and your having hurt your arm
playing soccer. What you can have been doing at soccer I can't conceive.
I supposed it was a mistake for hockey, or else some kind of a twit.
Well, I couldn't see what I could do to help a historical student but
I showed Dad the wire and the old dear said he would write Mr. Blair a
line.
I had just settled down to help Mother with some sewing when along comes
your second wire, addressed to her. Mother and I threw up our hands and
screamed! Certainly we thought you were off your crumpet. Why on earth
should you send us another cook when you know Ethel has been here for
so long? I read the wire forward and backward but it could mean nothing
else. It said: _Have found very good cook out of place am sending her
to you earnestly recommend give her a trial reliable woman but eccentric
name Eliza Thick will call Sunday morning_.
Well, we all had a good laugh over this, and wondered what kind of a
joke you were up to. Then, after supper, to our amazement, came a third
wire--not from you, this one, but to Dad, and who do you suppose from?
The Bishop of Oxford if you please! Dad was so flustered (you know how
telegrams excite him: they offend all his antiquarian instincts!)--well,
the Bishop said--_Am sending my favourite curate to call on you
magnificent young fellow excellent family very worthy chap will be in
Wolverhampton a day or two anxious to have him meet your family_.
Well, this rather flabbergasted us, but Dad took it rather as a matter
of course, after the first surprise. He used to know the Bishop well--in
fact, he dedicated his book to him. “Quite all right, my dear,” Dad kept
saying. “I dare say the young man has some antiquarian problems to talk
over. Too bad I'm so crippled with rheumatism.”
After supper along came Mr. Dunton, and began to talk about a charming
young American who had been calling on him, and who did it prove to be
but your friend Mr. Blair, who had been quite put out of our minds by
the later telegrams. So Dad sat down right away and wrote a note to Mr.
Blair at the Blue Boar asking him for luncheon to-day, and sent it up by
the gardener's boy.
But this morning, when I had just decided not to go to church (you'll
see why in a minute) comes your perfectly mad message to Fred, about
hurting your leg at soccer and all the rest of it. This convinced us
that you are quite crazy. How could we send Fred all that way alone! And
when did you take up soccer anyway?
But we know what a mad creature you are anyway, so we simply suspected
some deep-laid twit. Now I come to the queerest thing of all!
Ethel went out last night, for her usual Saturday evening off, and
hasn't returned! In all the years she's been with us, Mother says, it's
the first time such a thing ever happened. And before breakfast this
morning, turns up this Eliza Thick person of yours, with a note from
Ethel to say that she was sick but that her friend Eliza would see us
through for a day or so. Well, you surely have a queer eye for picking
out domestics! Of all the figures of fun I ever imagined, she is the
strangest. I don't think she's quite right in her head. I'll tell you
all about her when I see you. Really, I roar with laughter every time I
look at her!
I haven't got time to say more. With this Eliza person in the kitchen
goodness knows what may happen. We had to send a note to Mr. Blair not
to come for luncheon, the house was so upset. We heard a fearful uproar
in the lower regions this afternoon and found Eliza engaged in ejecting
some kind of gas-man who said he had come to see the meter (on Sunday,
if you please!)
Everything seems quite topsy turvy. And Mr. Blair is coming to supper in
a few minutes, and that favourite curate of the Bishop's, too. I think
I shall have to stay down in the kitchen to see that Eliza Thick gets
through with it all right. I can forgive you almost anything except her!
Never, never say again that nothing happens in Bancroft Road!
Yours,