"I obey, Omphale. Call in Chitty."
"Call him in yourself," was Helen's parting shot.
Chitty and I laboured some time setting up beds, beginning with the crib
in the nursery. Though the heavens were to fall, the baby had to have a
nap at precisely two o'clock every afternoon. We were interrupted once
by Helen, who reported that cook, housemaid, and nurse alike had refused
point blank to eat any of Chitty's cooking. It ended by our sending them
all off to a public house, near the station, where food was obtainable.
"An ominous look-out until we get that range going," I growled.
"I wish we had a Polish girl from Deep Harbor," was Helen's comment
after her first run-in with English servants.
"I had rather have a Pole from Deep Harbor than an American from
Warsaw," I amended.
"That is nonsense, Ted," Helen said.
"It isn't, if you think it over," I replied.
Chitty and I resumed setting up beds. At the end of the first hour I
paused. My face was moist.
"Chitty," I observed, "living is composed of a great many details. Take
a bed, for example. You find them in lots of rooms, looking harmless
enough. It is only when you analyze them, or, more correctly speaking,
synthetize them--if that is, in fact, the word--that you realize their
complexity."
"Yessir," said Chitty. "It's 'ard work for a gentleman, I dare say."
"Then dare say so no longer. On with our task."
"Very good, sir."
Gradually we reached the top of the house and the end of the infernal
job. Helen appeared again. "Do we have tea?" she asked.
"How long since is it, madam," I asked sternly, "that afternoon tea
became a necessity in your life? Shall we tolerate this aping of foreign
customs?"
"I can easily make the madam a cup of tea, sir," Chitty cut in, a shade
of anxiety in his tone.
"Then let the madam have her tea," I answered, "since her throat burns."
"Ted," said Helen, as Chitty disappeared, "how am I going to have any
discipline among the servants if you persist in making a damn fool of
yourself in their presence?"
"A what, madam?" I inquired.
"A damn fool," said Helen firmly.
"You shall pay dear for that, madam," I exclaimed, seizing her. It was
several minutes later that we went back to our dining room for tea, our
arms about one another like a Bank holiday couple at Hampstead Heath.
Chitty provided a tin of tea, black as Cimmerian darkness. The furniture
had by now been removed from the pavement and piled in smaller
individual pyramids in each room.
"It looks absolutely hopeless, Ted," said Helen, shuddering over a taste
of Chitty's tea, as well she might. "Shall we ever get settled?"
"I am so comfortable," I replied, "that it is a matter of complete
indifference to me. Let's live as we are."
At this moment a surprise arrived. The family, whether suspecting the
result of our first day's housekeeping, or out of sheer good will, had
sent us a large hamper of food from Fortnum and Mason's. There was a
bottle of champagne to give the final glow. No need for Chitty to cook
any more that day. We summoned him from his tea. I verily believe he had
consumed two quarts of that brew of his--proof positive that the British
army is made of stern stuff, "hearts of oak and tummies of copper,"
Helen ventured.
"Sailors, my dear--for hearts of oak--not soldiers," I corrected.
"I'm right about the tummies," Helen rebutted stubbornly....
"Chitty," I commanded, "this room must be set right. The madam dines
here tonight."
"Very good, sir." Chitty saluted, not a trace of a smile visible. In
half an hour he had done wonders. Its normal appearance three quarters
emerged from the confusion left behind by the van men.
We set the hamper in the centre of our gate-legged table, Helen's
especial pride. Real ones were even then becoming hard to pick up. Helen
lighted the candles herself, refusing to hear of gas or of assistance.
There followed a feast. Cold pheasant, boned turkey, _fonds
d'artichaut_, bottled asparagus d'Argenteuil, cakes and wine jellies,
with champagne to top it all off. We made our own coffee over a spirit
lamp.
With the third glass of champagne I was all for bringing the younger
Helen down from the nursery, as we called it, to respond to her health.
On this point her mother was immovable. The child's slumber was not
disturbed.
"Madam"--I arose, addressing my wife--"once more permit me to point out
to you that this is not at all like the first dinner we once planned."
"I think you have had enough champagne, Ted," was the woman's irrelevant
response. "Let's give the last glass to Chitty."
"An excellent idea and a kindly thought, worthy of your woman's heart."
Once more Chitty was summoned. His eyes stared amazement when I poured
him a glass of champagne.
"Thank you, sir. Thank you, madam," and he tossed it off with a neat
jerk of his head. Meanwhile Helen made him up a heaping plate of food
from the hamper.
"Thank you, madam."
He went out, carrying his ration carefully. We finished our coffee
sitting on a rug before the fire, Helen tucked up comfortably against
me.
* * * * *
We made heroic efforts all the week to get the house settled by Sunday.
Chitty came out by train each morning to perform prodigies of strength
in placing furniture. Our eagerness to be ready by Sunday was owing to
the fact that we had invited the family to spend the day with us. Helen
was extremely nervous about the critical eye she knew my mother would
cast over our housekeeping. Poor Helen had never kept house before, let
alone in a land where many ways and customs were still strange to her.
We drew up the plan for dinner a dozen times, trying to include things
that would please my mother's taste and rejecting everything we feared
was doubtful.
We explored the shops in the village, choosing a butcher, a grocer, a
greengrocer, and a fishmonger after minute investigation. There was also
the question of the baby's milk. The milkman, who took Helen's searching
inquiries rather light-heartedly, finally told her he would "earmark"
one special cow for her.
"What on earth did he mean by that, Ted?" she said, as we pursued our
way up the High Street. "Will he brand the cow in the ear so he can tell
her from the others?"
I leaned against a convenient lamp-post to laugh. Helen grew quite
indignant.
"Ted, you are making an exhibition of yourself in the public street!"
"I'm sorry, dear," I apologized. "But you conjured up a vision in my
mind of that good English yoeman swinging on to his broncho in the early
dawn to ride forth and rope your cow, while the Mexican peons dash up
with the branding irons--and all for a cow's ear."
"It may all be very funny," Helen snorted, "but I really think baby's
milk is more important than your silly idea of humour."
It was not often that we failed to agree on a laugh.
"What _is_ the joke, Ted?"
"The milkman, my dear, has been reading the speeches of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. He is quoting a favourite phrase--that a certain item
of revenue has been earmarked for a particular purpose. Thus he thought
it good to earmark his cows. It's awful, my dear, when a joke has to be
explained."
"I don't think it was much of a joke, now you have explained it," said
Helen.
"Probably not," I agreed. "But you put it to a very severe test. It
would have to be a remarkable joke to survive an analytical lecture."
"You are as clumsy as an elephant this morning, Ted."
We left the joke at that.
* * * * *
By Sunday we had established some sort of order and routine in the
house. Not all the curtains were up, an omission which gave Helen
distress. Curtains up, it appeared, was one of the first tests of
housekeeping ability. There was no rug for the dining room. Otherwise we
felt we had done rather well, as we surveyed our preparations. From now
on we should have to manage without Chitty, who was to return Monday to
his work at the Willesden factory.
Taking stock of our situation, we agreed that the sitting room would
pass inspection. There was not much furniture in it, because we hoped
later to pick up one or two good bits for it. It had, nevertheless,
curtains and comfortable chairs. The extra room downstairs was our
study, with all our books--a decent lot, too--around the walls. It also
contained a good mahogany desk with over-shelves--but there were no
curtains here. The dining room was likewise nearly done, save for the
rug. Upstairs our bedroom and the nursery were complete; only the guest
room remained to be furnished. The odd bedroom was to be turned into a
laboratory for me; as yet nothing had been done to it. On the top floor
the cook and housemaid lived in solitary state with an extra empty room
between them. Such was the result of our final look around before the
family was due.
They arrived about twelve, driven up by the station fly, which worthily
upheld all the conservative traditions of village cabs. Napoleon might
well have driven from the field of Waterloo in it.
Frances was the first to rush forward to greet us, dashing into the
house like a Newfoundland puppy that has just been let off its leash. My
father and mother followed more sedately. Helen took my mother upstairs,
while Frances was running all over the place on her own, poking into
everything. My father sat down in the study and got out his pipe.
"Satisfied, Ted?" he asked, as he began to consume matches.
"Yes, sir," I answered. "I can't imagine what more one could want."
"End of the chapter, eh, Ted?"
"With the addition of 'and they lived happily ever afterwards.'"
My father took a wire and ran it through the stem of his pipe.
"About the future which you have just mentioned. Your mother and sister
will be on the Continent probably for several years. I shall be with
them a good deal of the time. I am going to make you a director in the
company to look after my interests and your own. That will not, however,
take much of your time. You'll be free therefore, to do whatever you
wish. I am definitely putting you and Helen on your own feet. If you
need advice or help, you know where to turn--otherwise, go ahead and run
your own show."
Any reply I might have made was cut short by Helen's entrance with my
mother. My father joined us in a solemn visit to the whole house. The
nursery received the closest inspection. Nurse was holding a very pink
and well scrubbed baby, dressed in her Sunday best. The crib was ordered
nearer the window; that was the only flaw discovered in what Helen and I
felt to be the crucial room. We breathed easier, once by that. But a
difficulty developed over the proposed laboratory. My mother said it was
"criminal"--that was her very word--to have chemical fumes on the same
floor with a baby's nursery. The rooms actually adjoined one another,
making it much worse. The laboratory, if it was necessary at all to have
such a nonsensical mess in a house, would have to be in the unoccupied
room above. How Helen could in any event tolerate such a thing was
beyond my mother's power to see. I was liable to burn the house down at
any moment. If we were incapable of thinking for ourselves, we might at
least occasionally think of the baby. The whole concluded with a
peroration on my lack of any sense of responsibility. That had always
been the curse of the Jevons side of the family. We humbly expressed our
eagerness to put the laboratory upstairs.
"Why the devil did I tell her about that blasted laboratory?" I
whispered to Helen as we went down into the garden. Outside we paused
before the spacious kennel inhabited by the genial Sir Leonidas de la
Patte Jaune. His welcome spread from ear to ear.
"This spot has been especially earmarked for Leonidas," I said to my
mother, with a wink at Helen.
"Ted, what absurd words you use at times!" my mother said. "I can't see
what attraction there is about that wretched animal. It's a loathsome
yellow cur. If you are going to have a dog, for God's sake get a good
one."
"He matches our family crest, mother. On a field vert, a hound souriant,
or, enkennele."
"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about, Ted. You are always
a bore, like all the Jevonses, when you try to be amusing. The crest is
certainly not a yellow dog."
There had been no time, as yet, to do anything to the garden. We stood,
therefore, and talked of possibilities rather than of facts. We hoped to
afford a tennis court by spring. There was just enough length, with room
along the sides for flowers and a vegetable patch at the back. By the
dining room window we were meditating a pergola.
"Amateur flowers never grow, or, if they do, they never blossom,"
announced my mother.
The housemaid rang the dinner gong. Helen and I felt we had now to face
the supreme test. Our first dinner party! Helen was probably nervous as
we sat down, and I rather wished I knew more about carving. My dear
wife, not thinking of me, had ordered ducklings. The soup passed off
very well. I had cheated there and brought some out from a caterer's in
town.
"Helen makes rather good soup," I remarked, while the lady of the house
cast me an imploring look from the other end of the table.
"It's the best soup I ever tasted," affirmed my father, wishing to be
tactful. "Very clever of you, Helen."
Helen blushed crimson, but sat silent.
"You got it at Hickson's," said my mother calmly. "We often have it at
home, although no one notices it."
"Ted--" Helen began. My mother cut her short.
"You need not apologize for Ted, Helen. I knew him before you did."
"May I offer an apology for hitting Helen with my boomerang?"
"Do," my mother replied. "It is exceedingly unusual for a Jevons to be
aware he owes one."
The ducklings arrived at this point, and I arose to get a firmer grip
upon them than was possible from a chair. Delicately I made the first
incision, only to discover that ducklings do not respond to delicate
treatment. I worked in silence for a time upon number one. Although
division into his integral factors accumulated many apparent units,
there seemed surprisingly little of him to serve when thus reduced to
his lowest terms. Frances giggled.
"You look so funny, Ted," she explained, with sisterly devotion.
"For that you shall have a drum-stick," I retorted.
"I can see nothing funny in watching good food being ruined," my mother
said encouragingly. The housemaid standing at my elbow with a plate
ready made me nervous.
"It is a curious fact," my mother went on, in a reminiscent mood, "that
no Jevons could ever carve. They are the most incompetent men that ever
existed."
As I knew for a certainty that the only two Jevonses on earth my mother
had ever seen were my father and myself, I wondered whether she was
drawing on state documents or simply making a sweeping generalization
from two examples. Something told me, however, not to argue this point.
"A duckling," I said, "is an act of God. Steamer tickets and insurance
policies specially provide for no liability for such. Even a Jevons is
powerless in the face of the handiwork of Providence."
"Sit down, Ted, and let me finish. It makes me ill to see you messing up
those ducklings," my mother said. Willingly I changed places. To my
secret joy she splashed some gravy on the table cloth. I tried to kick
Helen under the table, but all I did was to make an awful crash against
one of the complicated gate legs. My mother looked fixedly at me. I did
not move a muscle of my face.
"Sorry," I murmured. "I haven't room for my feet."
The fragments of the two ducklings were at last distributed to my
mother's satisfaction. The remainder of the dinner was eaten without
caustic. Indeed, my mother commended the Burgundy, bought for her
particular gratification.
* * * * *
It was, if the truth must be told, with mixed feelings that Helen and I
sat down after saying good-bye to the family that evening. The day had
been trying for Helen, for it was like being on dress parade before a
critic whose motives were kindly, but who was perhaps all the more
eager, for that reason, to find mistakes. Never before this week had the
child kept house or entertained guests of her own. She could hardly be
blamed for uttering a sigh of relief when it was all over. On the other
hand, we neither of us knew when we should see any of the family again,
for they were leaving England at once. Eager as we had been to be our
own masters, we felt the isolation that was now to be ours as almost too
literal a response to our prayers. Our circle of friends in town was
neither large nor intimate; we had yet to test the resources of our
village. Of one thing, however, time had made us absolutely certain.
That certainty was concerning the stability of our love. Each week, each
day made that firmer and more intense. We lived but for each other; we
thought of nothing else....
"Well, Ted," Helen smiled at me, "there is one thing we can do now."
"What is that, dear?"
"Work. We have the leisure we have dreamed about. Let's use it. You
shall begin writing your play in the morning." We went to bed very
happy.