“so far as I can find out. Depend upon it, that’s the explanation: she has got frightened and has run away.
“But what was there to frighten her?” said my father, pausing with a decanter in one hand and the bottle in the other.
“It was the idea of the thing,” replied my mother. “She has never been used to waiting at table. She was actually crying about it only last night.”
“But what’s to be done?” said my father. “They will be here in less than an hour.”
“There will be no dinner for them,” said my mother, “unless I put on an apron and bring it up myself.”
“Where does she live?” asked my father.
“At Ilford,” answered my mother.
“We must make a joke of it,” said my father.
My mother, sitting down, began to cry. It had been a trying week for my mother. A party to dinner – to a real dinner, beginning with anchovies and ending with ices from the confectioner’s; if only they would remain ices and not, giving way to unaccustomed influences, present themselves as cold custard – was an extraordinary departure from the even tenor of our narrow domestic way; indeed, I recollect none previous. First there had been the house to clean and rearrange almost from top to bottom; endless small purchases to be made of articles that Need never misses, but which Ostentation, if ever you let her sneering nose inside the door, at once demands. Then the kitchen range – it goes without saying: one might imagine them all members of a stove union, controlled by some agitating old boiler out of work – had taken the opportunity to strike, refusing to bake another dish except under permanently improved conditions, necessitating weary days with plumbers. Fat cookery books, long neglected on their shelf, had been consulted, argued with and abused; experiments made, failures sighed over, successes noted; cost calculated anxiously; means and ways adjusted, hope finally achieved, shadowed by fear.
And now with victory practically won, to have the reward thus dashed from her hand at the last moment! Downstairs in the kitchen would be the dinner, waiting for the guests; upstairs round the glittering table would be the assembled guests, waiting for their dinner. But between the two yawned an impassable gulf. The bridge, without a word of warning, had bolted – was probably by this time well on its way to Ilford. There was excuse for my mother’s tears.
“Isn’t it possible to get somebody else?” asked my father.
“Impossible, in the time,” said my mother. “I had been training her for the whole week. We had rehearsed it perfectly.”
“Have it in the kitchen,” suggested my aunt, who was folding napkins to look like ships, which they didn’t in the least, “and call it a picnic.” Really it seemed the only practical solution.
There came a light knock at the front door.
“It can’t be anybody yet, surely,” exclaimed my father in alarm, making for his coat.
“It’s Barbara, I expect,” explained my mother. “She promised to come round and help me dress. But now, of course, I shan’t want her.” My mother’s nature was pessimistic.
But with the words Barbara ran into the room, for I had taken it upon myself to admit her, knowing that shadows slipped out through the window when Barbara came in at the door – in those days, I mean.
She kissed them all three, though it seemed but one movement, she was so quick. And at once they saw the humour of the thing.
“There’s going to be no dinner,” laughed my father. “We are going to look surprised and pretend that it was yesterday. It will be fun to see their faces.”
“There will be a very nice dinner,” smiled my mother, “but it will be in the kitchen, and there’s no way of getting it upstairs.” And they explained to her the situation.
She stood for an instant, her sweet face the gravest in the group. Then a light broke upon it.
“I’ll get you someone,” she said.
“My dear, you don’t even know the neighbourhood,” began my mother. But Barbara had snatched the latchkey from its nail and was gone.
With her disappearance, shadow fell again upon us. “If there were only an hotel in this beastly neighbourhood,” said my father.
“You must entertain them by yourself, Luke,” said my mother; “and I must wait – that’s all.”
“Don’t be absurd, Maggie,” cried my father, getting angry. “Can’t cook bring it in?”
“No one can cook a dinner and serve it, too,” answered my mother, impatiently. “Besides, she’s not presentable.”
“What about Fan?” whispered my father.
My mother merely looked. It was sufficient.
“Paul?” suggested my father.
“Thank you,” retorted my mother. “I don’t choose to have my son turned into a footman, if you do.”
“Well, hadn’t you better go and dress?” was my father’s next remark.
“It won’t take me long to put on an apron,” was my mother’s reply.
“I was looking forward to seeing you in that new frock,” said my father. In the case of another, one might have attributed such a speech to tact; in the case of my father, one felt it was a happy accident.
My mother confessed – speaking with a certain indulgence, as one does of one’s own follies when past – that she herself also had looked forward to seeing herself therein. Threatening discord melted into mutual sympathy.
“I so wanted everything to be all right, for your sake, Luke,” said my mother; “I know you were hoping it would help on the business.”
“I was only thinking of you, Maggie, dear,” answered my father. “You are my business.”
“I know, dear,” said my mother. “It is hard.”
The key turned in the lock, and we all stood quiet to listen.
“She’s come back alone,” said my mother. “I knew it was hopeless.”
The door opened.
“Please, ma’am,” said the new parlour-maid, “will I do?”
She stood there, framed by the lintel, in the daintiest of aprons, the daintiest of caps upon her golden hair; and every objection she swept aside with the wind of her merry wilfulness. No one ever had their way with her, nor wanted it.
“You shall be footman,” she ordered, turning to me – but this time my mother only laughed. “Wait here till I come down again.” Then to my mother: “Now, ma’am, are you ready?”
It was the first time I had seen my mother, or, indeed, any other flesh and blood woman, in evening dress, and to tell the truth I was a little shocked. Nay, more than a little, and showed it, I suppose; for my mother flushed and drew her shawl over the gleaming whiteness of her shoulders, pleading coldness. But Barbara cried out against this, saying it was a sin such beauty should be hid; and my father, filching a shawl with a quick hand, so dextrously indeed as to suggest some previous practice in the feat, dropped on one knee – as though the world were some sweet picture book – and raised my mother’s hand with grave reverence to his lips; and Barbara, standing behind my mother’s chair, insisted on my following suit, saying the Queen was receiving. So I knelt also, glancing up shyly as towards the gracious face of some fair lady hitherto unknown, thus Catching my first glimpse of the philosophy of clothes.
My memory lingers upon this scene by contrast with the sad, changed days that swiftly followed, when my mother’s eyes would flash towards my father angry gleams, and her voice ring cruel and hard; though the moment he was gone her lips would tremble and her eyes grow soft again and fill with tears; when my father would sit with averted face and sullen lips tight pressed, or worse, would open them only to pour forth a rapid flood of savage speech; and fling out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and I would find him hours afterwards,