"You may think us very foolish," said the tall man, as he seated
himself.
"Or very greedy," said his wife.
"But we want some advice about food, and seeing your signboard, which
reminded me of the inn my father used to keep in Helmsley," the man
continued, "we thought we'd come in and ask. But," he said, "I never
thought to find a beautiful young lady like you, miss. You are 'miss,'
I take it?"
"Yes," said Ben, laughing.
"Somehow," said the tall man, "our difficulty is more one to put to
an older woman. But it's like this. My wife and I are just back from
New Zealand, where we've lived ever since I was twenty. I've done very
well, and we're having a look round London. We're staying at the Hotel
Splendid, you know. Everything bang up. Private suite. Gold clock under
a glass shade."
"Which doesn't go," said his wife.
"Steam heat," he continued, "that dries up all my tobacco. Everything
perfect, in fact. But we can't get the food we like. You see, miss,
we're very simple folk, and we want the old-fashioned things. All the
way home we have been thinking and talking about the things we would
eat, and now that we're here we can't get them. They serve them, but
they're not right. Sausages and mashed--I know just how they ought to
taste; but at the 'Splendid' they taste of nothing. And lots of things
I used to be so fond of at home they don't serve at all. I can't get a
pork-pie--'porch-peen,' as we used to call it. When I asked the head
waiter for cow's heel, I thought he'd throw a fit. Batter pudding,
boiled onions, apple dumplings; it's no good, they can't make them to
taste of anything, or they can't make them at all. They've got such
a horror of the flavour of apple that they smother it with lemon and
cloves. Now, miss, couldn't you tell us of some smaller places--we
don't mind how small or how common--where we could get some of the old
homely stuff? My poor wife here is wasting away."
"Oh, John, it's you that want them much more than I do," said his wife.
"I don't know much about food myself," said Ben, "but I've heard my
father say that there are certain things that no restaurant can ever
do as well as home cooks. He says that no restaurant can make bread
sauce or horse-radish sauce properly. No restaurant can be trusted
with mushrooms. My advice to you," she continued, "would be to cut
out London altogether, unless you were set on it, and go either to a
country inn or to a farm, where the milk isn't watered and the cream
hasn't any boric acid, and the eggs are this morning's, and things
taste as they should. London never gets anything really fresh. Why
don't you go to your own Yorkshire?" she asked.
"We shall later," said the tall man. "But we want to see London first;
and meanwhile we're starving."
"Then you must go into lodgings," said Ben, "where there is a good
plain cook."
"John is so fond of the 'Splendid,'" said his wife. "He's always wanted
to stay in that kind of hotel and waste his money on red carpets and
sit in lounges and watch the actresses."
"Then stay at the 'Splendid,'" said Ben, "but eat at simpler places. It
would be amusing to pay five pounds for a bed and five shillings for
meals. The management ought to know about it--it might do them good.
But wait a minute," she went on, "I've just thought of something."
She rang the bell and Dolly entered.
"We want your advice," she said. "Do you know of any eating-houses
where old-fashioned food is well cooked and tastes like itself?"
"Plenty, miss," said Dolly. "There's a place in the Hampstead Road with
a placard up that says 'Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It.'"
The New Zealander slapped his thigh. "Now you're talking!" he cried.
"Does it really say that? That's what we're looking for: 'Everything
as Nice as Mother Makes It'--my! but that's a great sentence; that's
literature. Where is this place, boy?"
"In the Hampstead Road," said Dolly. "But there are others too, very
likely. And I can tell them about sausages, too, miss, and tripe and
onions. Famous places. And stewed eels, miss."
Ben shuddered.
"This is great!" said her client. "Now, look here, miss," he continued,
"this seems to me to be a bright boy. Let us have him for a few days
to show us round, and name your own price. He'll take us to the places
we want to see, like the Tower and the Zoo and Westminster Abbey, and
he'll show us where to eat."
"What do you say, Dolly?" Ben asked.
Dolly was obviously flattered; but he had the business at heart.
"I was wondering if I could be spared," he replied.
"Well, if you can be, what do you think your time is worth?" Ben
inquired.
"Including fares," he said, after some thought, "and taking into
consideration the distress and upheaval caused here by my absence,
fifteen bob a day, exclusive of lunch."
"We'll pay that," said the New Zealander, cheerfully, and the bargain
was struck. Dolly had become, for a week, a courier.
Later that same afternoon, Ben told me--it was one of her mixed-grill
days, as she called them, when every one was odd--a plainly dressed
young woman asked to see Miss Staveley on very pressing private
business, and was admitted.
"You won't know me, miss," she said, "but my mother was your Jane."
"Jane?" replied Ben. "You don't mean Jane Bunce?"
"Yes," said the girl. "The one who was with the Colonel and his lady
for so long and only left to be married."
"Of course," said Ben. "We are all very fond of her. I can remember her
perfectly, although I was so small. I hope she is all right."
"Yes," said the girl. "But father----"
"Tell me," said Ben.
"It's like this," said the girl. "Father's been ill now for months and
months, and somehow mother heard about you setting up here as a kind of
advice-giver. And she said 'You go along to Miss Ben's and ask her. I'm
sure she wouldn't object, for old sake's sake.'"
"Tell me," said Ben again.
"It's like this," the girl resumed. "Father's been ill for months and
months, and you know what sick folks are, how they get their minds
set on things? Well, he sits in a chair at the window watching the
motor-cars go by. We're in Peckham, you know, and motor-cars go by all
the time, and even more on Sundays, and--well, miss--he's never been in
one in his life. In motor-buses, yes, but never in a car. Motor-buses
don't count. They've got solid tyres; they're public. But a shiny
private car with rubber tyres, all his own for the time being--he's
never been in one of those; and he sits there at the window and it's
his only wish. But you see, miss, he can't ever do it now, because he's
that weak, and the doctor only gives him another two or three days."
"Well?" said Ben.
"Well," the girl went on, dabbing her eyes, "well, mother told me to
come and ask you if you think it would be very wrong--too extravagant,
I mean--if we were to give him a motor funeral? As a surprise, miss,
of course? What do you think, miss? What may I tell mother?"
"Give her my love," said Ben, "and tell her most certainly to do it.
And tell her to come and see me when the funeral's over."