CHAPTER XXVII
"IT COULDN'T BE BETTER THAN THAT"
The Haverleys could not expect that the people of Thorbury would feel anygeneral and urgent desire to recognize them as neighbors. They did notlive in the town, and moreover newcomers, even to the town itself, wereusually looked upon as "summer people," until they had proved that theywere to be permanent residents, and the leading families of Thorbury madeit a rule not to call on summer people.
But the example of the Tolbridges and Bannisters had a certain effect onThorbury society, and people now began to drive out to Cobhurst; not verymany of them, but some of them representative people. Mr. Ames, therector of Grace Church, came early because the Haverleys had been to hischurch several times, and Mr. Torry, the Presbyterian minister, cameafterwards because the Haverleys had stopped going to Grace Church, andhe did not know that it was on account of the gig shafts.
Mr. Hampton, the Methodist, who was a pedestrian, walked out to Cobhurstone day, but as neither the brother or sister could be found, hegood-humoredly resolved to postpone a future call until cooler weather.
Lately, when a lady had called, it happened that there had been no one toreceive her but Mrs. Drane; and although there could be no doubt thatthat lady performed the duties of hostess most admirably, Miriamresolved that that thing should never happen again. She did not wish thepeople to think that there was a regent in rule at Cobhurst, and she nowdetermined to make it a point to be within call during ordinary visitinghours. Or, if she felt strongly moved to a late afternoon ramble, shewould invite the other ladies to accompany her. She still wore her hairdown her back, and her dresses did not quite touch the tops of her boots,and it was therefore necessary to be careful in regard to herprerogatives as mistress of the house.
Early one afternoon, much sooner than there was reason to expectvisitors, a carriage came in at the Cobhurst gate, driven by our friendAndy Griffing. Miriam happened to be at a front window, and regardedwith some surprise the shabby equipage. It came with a flourish to thefront of the house, and stopped. But instead of alighting, its occupantseemed to be expostulating with the driver. Andy shook his head a greatdeal, but finally drove round at the back, when an elderly woman gotout, and came to the hall door. Miriam, who supposed, of course, thatshe would be wanted, was there to meet her, and there was no necessityfor ringing or knocking.
"My name," said the visitor, "is La Fleur, if you please. I came to seeMrs. Drane and Miss Drane, if you please. Thank you very much, I willcome in. I will wait here, or, if you will be so good as to tell me whereI can find Mrs. Drane, I will go to her. I used to live with her: I washer cook."
Miriam had been gazing with much interest on the puffy face andshawl-enwrapped body of the old woman who addressed her with a smilingobsequiousness to which she was not at all accustomed.
The thought struck her that with servants like this woman, it would beeasy to feel herself a mistress. She had heard from the Dranes a greatdeal about their famous cook, and she was glad of the opportunity to lookupon this learned professor of kitchen lore.
"What would she have said to my tall raspberry tarts?" involuntarilythought the girl.
But it was when La Fleur had gone to Mrs. Drane's room, and Cicely,wildly delighted when informed who had come to see them, had run to meetthe dear old woman, that Miriam pondered most seriously upon this visitfrom a cook. She had not known anything of the ties between families andold family servants. At school, servants had been no more than machines;she was nothing to them, and they were nothing to her; and now she feltthat the ignorance of these ties was one of the deprivations of her life.That old woman upstairs had not lived very long with the Dranes, and yetshe regarded them with a positive affection. Miriam knew this from whatshe had heard. If they were in trouble, and needed her, she would come tothem and serve them wherever they were. This she had told them often. Howdifferent was such a woman from Phoebe or Molly Tooney! How happy wouldshe be if there had been such a one in her mother's family, and were shewith her now!
"But I have only Ralph," thought Miriam; "no one else in the world."Ralph was good,--no human being could be better; but he was only oneperson, and knew nothing of many things she wanted to know, and could nothelp her in many ways in which she needed to be helped.
With a feeling that from certain points of view she was rather solitaryand somewhat forsaken, she went to look for her brother. It would bebetter to talk to what she had than to think about what she had not.
As she walked toward the barn and pasture fields, Ralph came up from thecornfield by the woods on the other side of the house. As he went in hemet Mrs. Drane and La Fleur, who had just come downstairs. Cicely hadalready retired to her work. At the sight of the gentleman, who, she wasinformed, was the master of the house, La Fleur bowed her head, cast downher eyes, smiled and courtesied.
Mrs. Drane drew Ralph aside.
"That is La Fleur, who used to be our cook. She is a kind old body, whotakes the greatest interest in our welfare. She is greatly pleased tofind us in such delightful quarters, but she has queer notions, and nowshe wants very much to call on your cook. I don't know that this is theright thing, and I have been looking for your sister, to ask her if sheobjects to it, but I think she is not in the house."
"Oh, bless me!" exclaimed Ralph, "she will not mind in the least. Let thegood woman go down and see Molly Tooney, and if she can give her somepoints about cooking, I am sure we shall all be delighted."
"Oh, she would not do that," said Mrs. Drane. "She is a very considerateperson; but I suppose, in any house, her instincts would naturally drawher toward the cook."
When Ralph turned to La Fleur, and assured her that his sister would beglad to have her visit the kitchen, the old woman, who had not taken hereyes from him for an instant, thanked him with great unction, againbowed, courtesied, smiled, and, being shown the way to the kitchen,descended.
Molly Tooney, who was sitting on a low stool, paring potatoes, looked upin amazement at the person who entered her kitchen. It was not anobsequious old woman she saw, but a sedate, dignified, elderly person,with her brows somewhat knitted. Throwing about her a glance, which wasnot one of admiration, La Fleur remarked,--
"I suppose you are the cook of the house."
"Indade, an' I am," said Molly, still upon the stool, with a knife in onehand, and a potato, with a long paring hanging from it, in the other;"an' the washer-woman, an' the chambermaid, an' the butler, too, as loikeas may be. An' who may you be, an' which do you want to see?"
"I am Madame La Fleur," said the other, with a stateliness that none ofher mistresses ever supposed that she possessed. "I came to see Mrs.Drane, in whose service I was formerly engaged, and I wish to know formyself what sort of a person was cooking for the ladies whose meals Iused to prepare."
Molly put down her knife and her half-pared potato, and arose. She hadheard of La Fleur, whose fame had spread through and about Thorbury.
"Sit down, mum," said she. "This isn't much of a kitchen, for Ihaven't had time to clane it up, an' as for me, I'm not much of acook, nather; for when ye have to be iverything, ye can't be anythingto no great ixtent."
La Fleur, still standing, looked at her severely.
"How often do you bake?" she asked.
"Three times a week," answered Molly, lying.
"The ladies upstairs," said La Fleur, "have been accustomed to freshrolls every morning for their breakfast."
"An' afther this, they shall have 'em," said Molly, "Sundays an' weekday,an' sorry I am that I didn't know before that they was used to have 'em."
"How do you make your coffee?" asked La Fleur.
Molly looked at her hesitatingly.
"I am very keerful about that," she said. "I niver let it bile toomuch--"
"Ugh!" exclaimed La Fleur, raising her hand. "Tell your mistress to getyou a French coffee-pot, and if you don't know how to use it, I'll comeand teach you. I shall be here off and on as long as Mrs. Drane stops inthis house." And then, seating herself, L
a Fleur proceeded to put Mollythrough an elementary domestic service examination.
"Well," said the examiner, when she had finished, "I think you must bethe worst cook in this part of the country."
"No, mum, I'm not," said Molly. "There was one here afore me, a nagerwoman named Phoebe, that must have been worse, from what I'm told."
"Where I have lived," said La Fleur, "they have such women to cook for thefarm laborers."
"Beggin' your pardon, mum," said Molly, "that's what they are here, orth' same thing. Mr. Haverley, he works on the farm with a pitchfork, jestlike the nager man."
"Don't talk to me like that!" exclaimed La Fleur. "Mr. Haverley is agentleman. I have lived enough among gentlemen to know them when I seethem, and they can work and they can play and they can do what theyplease, and they are gentlemen still. Don't you ever speak that way,again, of your master."
"I thought I had heard, mum," said Molly, "that you looked down ontradespeople and the loike."
"Tradespeople!" said the other, scornfully. "A gentleman farmer is verydifferent from a person in trade; but I can't expect anything better froma woman who boils coffee, and never heard of bouillon. But remember thethings I have told you, and thank your stars that a cook as high up inthe profession as I am is willing to tell you anything. Are you the onlyservant in this house?"
"There's a man by the name of Mike," said Molly, "a nager, though youwouldn't think it from his name. He helps me sometimes, an' he helpsiverybody else other times."
"Is that the man?" said La Fleur, looking out of the window.
"That's him, mum," said Molly; "he's jest goin' to the woodpilewith his axe."
"I wish to speak to him," said La Fleur, and with a very slight nod ofthe head she left the kitchen by the door that led into the grounds.
Looking after her, Molly exclaimed,--
"Drat you, for a stuck-up, cross-grained, meddlin', bumble-bee-backedold hag of a soup-slopper; to come stickin' yer big nose into otherpeople's kitchens! If there was a rale misthress to the house insteadof the little gal upstairs, you'd be rowled down the front steps aforeyou'd been let come into my kitchen." And with this she returned toher potatoes.
La Fleur stopped at the woodpile, as if in passing she had happened tonotice a good man splitting logs. In her blandest voice she accosted Mikeand bade him good-day.
"I think you must be Michael," she said. "The cook has been speaking ofyou to me. My name is La Fleur."
Mike, who had struck his axe into a log, touched his flattened hat.
"Yes, mum," he said; "Mr. Griffing has been tellin' me that. Are youlookin' for any of the folks?"
"Oh no, no," said La Fleur; "I am just walking about to see a little ofthis beautiful place. You don't mind that, do you, Michael? You keepeverything in such nice order. I haven't seen your garden, but I know itis a fine one, because I saw some of the vegetables that came out of it."
Mike grinned. "I reckon it ain't the same kind of a garden that you'vebeen used to, mum. I've heerd that you cooked for Queen Victoria."
"Oh no, no," said La Fleur, dropping her head on one side so that hersmile made a slight angle with the horizon; "I never cooked for thequeen, no indeed; but I have lived with high families, lords, ladies, andambassadors, and I don't remember that any of them had better potatoesthan I saw to-day. Is this a large farm, Michael?"
"It's considerable over a hundred acres, though I don't 'xactly know howmuch. Not what you'd call big, and not what you'd call little."
"But you grow beautiful crops on it, I don't doubt," remarked La Fleur.
"Can't say about that," said Mike, shaking his head a little. "I 'spectswe'll git good 'nough craps for what we do for 'em. This ain't the kindof farm your lords and ladies has got. It's ramshackle, you know."
"Ramshackle?" repeated La Fleur. "Is that a sort of sheep farm?"
Mike grinned. "Law, no, we ain't got no sheep, and I'm glad of it.Ramshackle farmin' means takin' things as you find 'em, an' makin' 'emdo, an' what you git you've got, but with tother kind of farmin' mosttimes what you git, ye have to pay out, an' then you ain't got nuthin'."
This was more than La Fleur could comprehend, but she inferred in ageneral way that Mr. Haverley's farm was a profitable one.
"All so pretty, so pretty," she said, looking from side to side; "such agrand barn, and such broad acres. Is it the estate as far as I can see?"
"Yes, mum," said Mike, "an' a good deal furder. The woods cuts it offdown thataway."
"It is a lordly place," said La Fleur, "and it does you honor, Michael,for the cook told me you were Mr. Haverley's head man."
"I reckon she's about right there," said Mike.
"And I am very glad indeed," continued the old woman, "that Mrs. and MissDrane are living here. And now, Michael, if either of them is ever takenill, and you're sent for the doctor, I want you to come straight to me,and I'll see that he goes to them. If you knock at the back door of thekitchen, I'll hear you, whether I am awake or asleep. And when you arecoming to town, Michael, you must drop in and see me. I can give you anice bit of a lunch, any day. I daresay you like good things to eat aswell as any-body."
Mike stood silent for a moment, and his eyes began to brighten.
"Indeed I do, mum," said he. "If I was to carry in a punkin to you whenthey're ripe, I wonder if you'd be willin' to make me a punkin pie, samekind as Queen Victoria has in the fall of the year."
La Fleur beamed on him most graciously.
"I will do that gladly, Michael: you may count on me to do that. And Iwill give you other things that you like. Wait till we see, wait till wesee. Good-day, Michael; I must be going now, or the doctor will be keptwaiting for his dinner. Where's my cabby?"
"Mr. Griffing has drove round to the front of the house, mum," said Mike.
"Just like the stupid American," muttered the old woman as she hurriedaway, "as if I'd get in at the front of the house."
Andy Griffing talked a good deal on the drive back to Thorbury, but LaFleur heard little and answered less. She was in a state of great mentalsatisfaction, and during her driver's long descriptions of persons andplaces, she kept saying to herself, "It couldn't be better than that. Itcouldn't be better than that."
This mental expression she applied to Mr. Haverley, whom she consideredan extraordinarily fine-looking young man; to the broad acres and finebarn; to the fact that the Dranes were living with him; to theprobability that he would fall in love with the charming Miss Cicely, andmake her mistress of the estate; and to the strong possibility, thatshould this thing happen, she herself would be the cook of Cobhurst, andhelp her young mistress put the establishment on the footing that herstation demanded.
"It couldn't be better than that," she muttered over and over again asshe busied herself about the Tolbridge dinner, and she even repeated theexpression two or three times after she went to bed.