I piloted Elizabeth in and bade her be seated. Strangely enough, my usual hopeful expectations entirely deserted me at that moment. I felt that the interview would be fruitless. They say hope springs eternal in the human breast, but my breast didn't feel human just then. It was throbbing with savage and sanguinary thoughts. Perhaps it was the eggs. Many animals are rendered ferocious by an over-diet of meat. I can testify (so can Henry) that an over-diet of eggs has exactly the same effect on human beings. I think they stimulate the wrong kind of phagocytes. They can make the mildest and most forgiving person wild and vindictive. Henry always declares, when he reads of a man murdering his wife under exceptionally brutal circumstances, that she must have been giving him too many scrambled eggs. In fact, he wrote articles about it, entitled 'The Psychology of Diet,' in the Sunday papers, signed 'By a Physician.'
Henry is not a physician. Neither is he 'An Eminent Surgeon,' 'A Harley Street Expert,' an 'Ex-M.P.,' 'A Special Crime Investigator,' or 'A Well-known Bishop,' although he has written under all these pseudonyms. Do not blame Henry. In private life he seeks the truth as one who seeks the light, but by profession he is a journalist. Not being an expert in anything, he can write about everything-which is the true test of the born journalist.
But to return to Elizabeth. With the remembrance of the similar interview of only a few hours before still rankling in my mind, I looked at her a little austerely. This time it was I who began the causerie.
'First of all I must tell you,' I said, 'that we have no hot water circulator.'
'Carn't abide them things,' commented Elizabeth; 'they bust sometimes and blows folks up.'
'We have no outside help,' I continued.
'An' a good thing, too. One place I was in the char 'elped 'erself to things an' it was me who was blamed fer it.'
'We have no gas-cooker.'
'Well, that's all right, then. Don't understand 'em. Give me a proper kitchen range, that's all I ask.'
I looked up hopefully. If all she asked for was a kitchen range I should be glad enough to give her a little thing like that. But the supreme test was yet to come. 'We don't send everything to the laundry,' I began.
'I 'ope you don't,' she broke in, 'leastways my clothes. The state they send 'em back, 'arf torn to ribbons. A girl never 'as 'er 'and out of 'er pocket buying new things. Besides, I like a bit o' washin'-makes a change, I always say.'
My heart began to beat so loudly with hope that I could hardly hear my own voice as I asked, 'How … how soon can you come?'
'To-morrow, if you like,' she answered casually. 'I've 'ad a row with the friend I'm stayin' with and I can't abide living-in with folks I've fallen out with.'
I struggled to reconstruct this sentence and then, remembering what was required of me, I remarked, 'And your references?'
She gave me the address of her last place.
'Are they on the 'phone?' I questioned eagerly. 'If so, I'll settle the thing at once.' It seemed they were. I tottered to the telephone. My call was answered by a woman with a thin, sharp voice.
'I am sorry,' she said in answer to my query, 'I must refuse to answer any questions concerning Elizabeth Renshaw.'
'But you only need say "yes" or "no." Is she honest?'
'I am not in a position to give you a reply.'
'Am I to understand that she isn't sober?'
'I cannot answer that question.'
'Look here, she hasn't murdered any one, has she?'
'I am not in a position--'
'Oh, hang the woman,' I muttered, jerking up the receiver. But I felt the situation was an awkward one. What sinister and turbid happenings were connected with Elizabeth and her last place? I meditated. If she were not sober it was, after all, no business of mine so long as she got through her work. And if she didn't we should be no worse off than we were at present.
If she were dishonest it might be awkward, certainly, but then there was nothing of very much value in the house, Henry and I merely being writers by profession. Most of our friends are writers, too, so we have not the usual array of massive silver wedding gifts about the place, but quite a lot of autograph photos and books instead. The value of these might not be apparent to the casual pilferer. My meditations got no further. I decided to lock up my silk stockings and best handkerchiefs and engage Elizabeth without delay. As a matter of fact, I afterwards discovered that her career had been blameless, while she had every foundation for her favourite declaration, 'I wouldn't take a used postage stamp, no, nor a rusty nail that wasn't my own.'
I do not condemn the woman I interviewed on the telephone, reprehensible as was her conduct. Perhaps she, too, was living on eggs and it had warped her better nature.
'I suppose you can cook all right?' I asked Elizabeth as ten minutes later, all arrangements made, I accompanied her to the door.
'Me? I'm a rare 'and at cookin'. My friend's 'usband ses 'e's never come across any one who can cook a steak like I can.'
'A steak,' I murmured ecstatically, 'richly brown with softly swelling curves--'
'Rather underdone in the middle,' supplemented Elizabeth, 'just a little bit o' fat, fairly crisp, a lump o' butter on the top, and I always 'old that a dash o' fried onion improves the flavour.'
'How beautiful,' I murmured again. It sounded like a poem. Swinburne or de Musset have never stirred me so deeply as did that simple recitation.
Elizabeth, seeing that she had an attentive audience, continued, 'Take roast pork, now. Well, I always say there's a lot in the cookin' o' that, with crisp cracklin', apple sauce an' stuffin'---'
'Don't go on,' I, broke in, feeling in my weakened state, unable to stand any more. Tears that men weep had risen to my eyes. 'Promise,' I said, taking her toil-worn hand, 'that you will come to-morrow.'
'Right-o,' said Elizabeth, and her lank form disappeared in the darkness. I staggered into the dining-room. Henry was sitting at the disordered dinner table jotting down notes. At any other time this would have irritated me, because I knew it was a preliminary to his remark that as he had an article to write which must be finished that evening he would not be able to help me with the washing-up. A hackneyed dodge of his. Oh, I could tell you a tale of the meanness of men.
'Henry, something has happened,' I began.
Without looking round he remarked, 'Don't disturb me. I must write up a brief biographical sketch of Courtenay Colville, the actor. He's been taken seriously ill and may be dead just in time for the morning papers.' In this way do journalists speak. To them life and death, all the tremendous happenings of the world-wars, revolutions, or even weddings of revue actresses-are just so much matter for printed and pictorial display. Do you think, if a great and honoured statesman dies, sub-editors care two pins about his public services? Not they. All they worry about is whether he is worth double-column headings, a long primer intro., and a line across the page.
'I didn't know Courtenay Colville was so ill,' I commented mildly. What I did know was that he was reported to have sprained his right toe at golf, and only an hour previously I should have commented caustically on Henry's description of this 'serious illness.' Now I came up to him and put my arm about his neck.
'I've just put on a clean collar-be careful,' he said, shaking off my hand.
'Henry, dear, I've landed a servant at last,' I breathed.
He looked up and, for a moment, I felt that I ought not to have told him so suddenly. But joy does not often kill. I went and knelt beside him. 'Dearest,' I whispered, 'it seems as though all the bitterness and misunderstanding between you and me is to be swept away at last. She can cook steaks, dear-juicy steaks, pork with crackling--'
'Sage and onion stuffing?' burst in a hoarse murmur from Henry.
'Yes, and large mutton chops, rich in fat--'
'Dearest, how splendid,' whispered Henry. Our lips met in ecstacy.
That evening was one of the happiest we have ever spent. Henry and I sat together on the divan and looked at the cookery-book. There was no doubt about it. Henry said, that Mrs. Beeton was a wonderful woman. We felt that she and Mr. Beeton must have been tremendously happy in their married life.
The illustrations to the book delighted us, too, with their bold outlines, vigorous colouring, and, attention to detail. Henry and I rather favour the impressionist school in art, but when you're admiring a picture of salmon mayonnaise it refreshes you to distinguish the ingredients.
Elizabeth arrived the next day, bringing with her a small-perplexingly small-brown paper parcel. The rest of her luggage, she said, was on the way. It remained on the way so long that I finally got uneasy and began to question her about it. She did not seem so disturbed at the prospect of its being lost as I did. At last, when I declared my intention of writing Carter Paterson's about it on her behalf, she confessed. Frankness is one of her distinguishing qualities.
'My box is still at my friend's,' she explained. 'You see, when I goes to a new place I never 'ave my luggage sent on until I feel I'm going to settle. It saves a lot o' bother-if I don't stop.'
'I hadn't thought of that,' I commented feebly.
'I brought a clean cap and another pair o' stockings with me, so I'm all right for a fortnight,' she went on. Her creed, like her change of underclothing, was obviously simple. Mournfully I withdrew from the kitchen to meditate.
So we were on probation. It was a tremulous time. I bade Henry tread softly and not to forget to rub his feet on the mat. I gave all my orders to Elizabeth in a voice which blended deference with supplication. I strove hard to live up to what I thought must be her conception of the Perfect Mistress. And when, the fortnight expired, Carter Paterson drove up and deposited a small corded box on the hall mat, I felt it to be a personal triumph. But Henry said I had nothing to do with it. To this day he declares that Elizabeth decided to stop because she so earnestly desired to serve such a gentle master.