Chapter XVI: A Cooking Memory 240 (7)

All had gone well on the voyage and so long as they remained at Durban and Maritzburg; but as soon as the distant settlement was reached, Maria’s kinsmen came around her and began to claim some share in her prosperity. Free fights were of constant occurrence, and in one of them Maria, using the skull of an ox as a weapon, broke her sister’s leg. Soon after that she returned to the savage life she had not known since her infancy, and took to it with delight. I don’t know what became of her clothes, but she had presented herself before my friend clad in an old sack and with necklaces of wild animals’ teeth, and proudly announced she had just been married “with cows”—thus showing how completely her Christianity had fallen away from her, and she had practically returned, on the first opportunity, to the depth of that savagery from which she had been taken before she could even remember it. I soon lost all trace of her, but Malia’s story has always remained in my mind as an amazing instance of the strength of race-instinct.

My next colonial home was in Mauritius, and certainly the servants of that day—twenty years ago, alas!—were the best I have ever come across out of England. I am told that this is no longer the case, and that that type of domestic has been improved and educated into half-starved little clerks. The cooks were excellent, so were the butlers. Of course, they had all preserved the Indian custom of “dustoor” (I am not at all sure of the spelling) or perquisite. In fact, a sort of little duty was levied on every article of consumption in a household.

I never shall forget the agony of mind of one of my butlers at having handed me a wrong statement of the previous day’s “bazaar.” I had really not yet looked at it, but he implored me with such dreadful agitation to let him have it back again to “correct” that I read it aloud before him, to his utter confusion and abasement. The vendor had first put down the price paid him for each article, and then the “dustoor” to be added; needless to say, I was to pay the difference, and the tax had been amply allowed for in the price charged. As “Gyp” would say, Tableau!

Curiously enough, it was the dhoby or washerman class which gave the most or rather the only trouble. They—_i.e._ the washerman and his numerous wives—fought so dreadfully. Once I received a petition requesting me in most pompous language to give the youngest or “last-joined” wife a good talking to, for in spite of all corrections—that is, beatings—she declined entirely to iron her share of the clothes, and had the effrontery to say she had not married an ugly old man to have to work hard. The dhoby on his side declared he had only incurred the extra expense and bother of a fourth and much younger wife in order that the “Grande Madame’s” white gowns might be beautifully ironed, fresh every day.

I handed the letter—almost undecipherable on account of its ornate penmanship and flourishes—to the A.D.C. who was good enough to help me with my domestic affairs, and he must have arranged it satisfactorily, for when he left us hurriedly to rejoin his regiment, which had been ordered on active service, he received a joint letter of adieu from all the dhobies, wishing him every sort of good fortune in the campaign, and expressing a hope that he might soon return with “le croix de la reine Victoria flottant de sa casaque.” Rather a confusion of ideas, but doubtless well meant.

In spite, however, of the general excellence of Mauritius servants, my very dignified butler at Réduit cost me the most trying experience of my party-giving career. Once upon a time I had an archery meeting at Réduit, and a dance afterwards for the young people. This programme—combining, as it did, afternoon and evening amusements—required a certain amount of organisation as to food. The shooting was to go on as long as the light lasted, and it was thought better to have the usual refreshments in the tents during that time, and then an early and very substantial supper indoors so soon after the dancing began as the guests liked to have it.

There used in those days to be an excellent restaurant in Port Louis which furnished all the ball suppers. The cost was high, but all trouble was saved, and the food provided left nothing to be desired. The manager of the “Flore Mauricienne” never made a mistake, and only needed to be told how many guests to provide for; everything was then sure to be beautifully arranged. So I had no anxieties on the score of ample supplies of every obtainable dainty being forthcoming. Great, therefore, was my surprise, when, after the first batch of guests had been in to the supper-room, I was informed in a tragic whisper that everything looked very nice in there, but that there was no second supply of food to replenish the tables. This seemed impossible, and I sent for the butler and demanded to know what had become of the supper. “Monsieur Jorge” smiled blandly and, waving his hands in despair, ejaculated “Rien, rien, Madame,” repeatedly. So, although I had not intended to go in to supper myself just then, I hastened to the scene. There were the lovely tables as usual, a mass of flowers and silver, but with empty dishes. I felt as if it must be a bad dream from which I should presently awake, but that did not make it less terrible at the moment. Of course the A.D.C.s were active and energetic, but they could not perform miracles and produce a supper which they had themselves ordered and knew had arrived, but which seemed to have vanished into thin air. Tins of biscuits were found and sandwiches were hastily cut, and every one was most kind and good-natured and full of sympathy for me.

If “Monsieur Jorge” and his myrmidons had appeared in the least tipsy, the situation would have been less perplexing, but except a profound and impenetrable gravity of demeanour every servant seemed quite right. My guests danced merrily away, and hunger had no effect on their gay humour, but the staff and I (who had had no supper) were plunged in melancholy.

The moment our telegraph clerk came on duty next morning a message was sent to Port Louis (eight miles off) asking the manager of the “Flore” what had become of his supper, and by the time I came down to breakfast that worthy had appeared on the scene, and, more versed in the ways of Mauritian servants than any of us were, had elicited from Monsieur Jorge that he remembered putting the numerous boxes of supper away carefully, but where, he could not imagine. The night before he had insisted that he had placed all the supper there was, on the tables. So a search was instituted, and very soon the melancholy remains of the supper were discovered hidden away in an unused room. All the packing ice had, of course, melted, and jellies, &c., were reduced to liquid. There was about fifty pounds’ worth of food quite spoiled and useless, most of it only fit to be thrown away. The manager’s wrath really exceeded mine, and he stipulated that not one of the crowd of servants should have a crumb of the remains of that supper, which I heard afterwards had been given to the garden coolies. As a matter of fact, I believe Monsieur Jorge _was_ somewhat tipsy, and it took the form of complete loss of memory. But it was a dreadful experience.

From the “belle isle de Maurice” we went to Western Australia, where we arrived in the middle of winter, and the contrast seemed great in every way, especially in the domestic arrangements, for servants were few and far between and of a very elementary stamp of knowledge. I tried to remedy that defect by importing maid-servants, but succeeded only in acquiring some very strange specimens. In those days Western Australia was such an unknown and distant land that the friends at home who kindly tried to help me found great difficulty in inducing any good servant to venture so far, and although the wages offered must have seemed enormous, the good class I wanted could not at first be induced to leave England. Later, things improved considerably and we got very good servants, but the first importations were very disheartening. I used to be so amazed at their love of finery. To see one’s housemaid at church absolutely covered with sham diamonds, large rings outside her gloves, huge _solitaire_ earrings, and at least a dozen brooches stuck about her, was, to say the least of it, startling; so was the apparition of my head-cook, whom I sent for hurriedly once, after dinner, and who appeared in an evening dress of black net and silver. I also recognised the kitchen-maid at a concert in a magnificent pale green satin evening dress, which, taken in conjunction with her scarlet hair, was rather conspicuous. Of one gentle and timid little housemaid, who did not dazzle me with her toilettes, I inquired what she found most strange and unexpected in her new home—which, by the way, she professed to like very much.

“The lemons, my lady, if you please.”

“Lemons!” I said; “why?”

“Well, it’s their growin’ on trees as is so puzzlin’ like, if you please.”

“Where else did you expect them to grow?” I inquired.

“I thought they belonged to the nets. I’d always seen them in nets in shops, you know; and lemons looks strange without nets.”

My next and last experience of colonial servants was in Trinidad. By this time I had gained so much and such varied experience that there was no excuse for things not working smoothly, and as I was fortunate in possessing an excellent head-servant who acted as house-steward I had practically no trouble at all, beyond a little anxiety at any time of extra pressure about the head-cook, who had not only heart disease, but when drunk flew into violent rages. Our doctor had warned the house-steward that this man—who was a half-caste Portuguese from Goa—might drop dead at any moment if he gave way to temper and drink combined. So it was always an anxious time when balls and banquets and luncheons followed each other in quick succession. On these occasions, besides his two permanent assistants, G. was allowed a free hand as to engaging outside help. But he seemed to take that opportunity to bring in his bitterest foes, to judge by the incessant quarrels, all of long standing, which poor Mr. V. (the house-steward) had to arrange. I only did the complimenting, and after each ball supper or big dinner sent for the cook and paid him extravagant compliments on his efforts. That was the only way to keep him going, and things went well on the surface; but there were tragic moments to be lived through when the said cook had refreshed himself a little too often, and about midday would declare he had no idea what all these people were doing in his kitchens, and, arming himself with a rolling-pin, would drive them forth with much obloquy. I chanced to be looking out of my dressing-room window one day when he started a raid on the _corps d’armée_ of black girls who were busily picking turkeys and fowls for the next night’s ball supper. I never saw anything so absurd as the way the girls fled into the neighbouring nutmeg-grove, each clasping her half-picked fowls and scattering the feathers out of her apron as she ran with many “hi! hi’s!”

I really began to think it would be necessary to summon the police sentries to protect them, for G. was flinging all sorts of fruit and vegetables at them, and had quite got their range. However, as Mr. V. emerged from his office and began to inquire of the cook if he was anxious to die on the spot, I only looked on. At first there was nothing but rage and fury on the cook’s part, to which Mr. V. opposed an imperturbable calm and the emphatic repetition of the doctor’s warning. Then came a burst of weeping, caused, G. declared, by his sense of the wickedness of the human race in general and “dem girls” in particular. After that a deep peace seemed to suddenly descend on the scene, and the cook returned to his large and airy kitchens, still weeping bitterly. Mr. V. vanished, the picking girls reappeared one by one, and, cautiously looking round to see if it was safe to do so, took up their former positions under shady trees. Presently I saw other forms stealing back into the kitchens, from which they too had been forcibly ejected; and then I heard the cook’s voice start one of Moody and Sankey’s hymns, with apparently fifty verses and a rousing chorus. After that I had no misgivings as to the success of the supper.

We succeeded, as it were, to most of our servants, for they had nearly all been at Government House for some years, and at all events knew their duties. I met one functionary, whose face I did not seem to know, on the staircase one day, and inquired who he was. “Me second butlare, please,” was the answer. The first “butlare” was an intensely respectable middle-aged man, of apparently deeply religious convictions, and I always saw him at church every Sunday, and he was a regular and most devout communicant. Judge, then, of my surprise and dismay, when, poor Jacob having died rather suddenly of heart disease, I was assured that four separate and distinct Mrs. Jacobs had appeared, each clad in deepest widow’s weeds, and each armed with orthodox “lines” to claim the small arrears of his monthly pay. But I am afraid that similar inconsistencies between theory and practice are by no means uncommon in those “Summer Isles of Eden.”

XV

INTERVIEWS

My experience of being interviewed began many years before the invention of the present fashion of demanding from perfect strangers answers to questions which one’s most intimate friend would hesitate to ask. My interviewers had not the smallest desire to be informed as to what I liked to eat or drink, or at what hour I got up of a morning. The conversation on these occasions used to be strictly confined to my visitor’s own affairs. Perhaps “strictly” is not the word I want, for I well remember that my greatest difficulty at these interviews was to keep the information showered on me at all to the subject in hand, and to avoid incessant parenthetical reminiscences of bygone events.

Both in Natal and Mauritius we lived so far away from the town that it was too much trouble for the interviewer to seek me out, nor indeed do I remember hearing of cases which needed help and advice there so often as at other places.

My real _début_ in being interviewed was made in Western Australia some twenty years ago in the dear old primitive days, when I felt that I was the squire’s wife and the rector’s wife rolled into one, and most of the troubles used to be brought straight to me. Indeed, so numerous were my visitors of this class that a special room had to be set aside in which to receive them; and certainly, if its walls had tongues as well as ears, some droll confidences might be betrayed by them.

But I must confess I began badly. Almost my first visitor in that room was a “pensioner’s” widow. There can be very few “pensioners” left now, for fifteen years ago, when we left dear Western Australia, hardly thirty of the old “Enrolled Guard” survived. The colloquial name by which they were known in those latter days was Pensioner, though it does not really express their status.

Fifty years ago a large military force had been sent out to the Swan River Settlement—all that was then known of a colony now a million square miles in extent—to guard the convicts asked for by the first settlers to help them to make roads and bridges and public buildings. After twenty years the deportation of convicts to Western Australia ceased, and the troops were withdrawn.

As, however, it was desirable to induce respectable settlers to make the colony their home, special advantages had been offered to soldiers to remain and take up free grants of land. Many of those who had wives and families accepted the offer, and, whenever they proved to be sober and industrious men, did extremely well. In addition to the liberal grants of land, each man was given a small pension, and ever since the convicts left his military functions had been confined to mounting guard at Government House. Even that slight duty came to an end, however, during our stay, and smart young policemen replaced the old veterans in out-of-date uniforms, their breasts covered with numerous medals for active service in all parts of the globe.

But to return to my first interviewer—an old Irishwoman, very feeble and very poor, her man long since dead, and the children apparently scattered to the four winds of heaven; the grant of land sold, the money spent, the pension always forestalled, and the inevitable objection to entering the colonial equivalent for “the House.” To more practised ears it would no doubt have sounded a suspicious story, but it went to my heart, and I gave the poor old body some tea and sugar, an order for a little meat, and—fatal mistake—a few shillings. Next day there was a coroner’s inquest on the charred remains of my unfortunate friend, who had got, as it seems she usually did, very drunk, and had tumbled into her own fireplace. Every one seemed to know how weak and foolish I had been in the matter of even that small gift of money, and the newspapers hinted that I must be a Political Economist of the lowest type! So pensioners’ widows tried in vain to “put the com-mether” on me after that experience.

“If you please, my lady, an ’Indoo wants to speak to you,” ushered in a little later my next interviewer. I beheld a small, trim, and cleanly clad little man entering at the door. His request was for a pedlar’s licence. I timidly pointed out that I did not deal in such things, and that he must have been wrongly advised to apply to me for the document. This brought on a rambling story, very difficult to comprehend until I furbished up the scanty remains of my own knowledge of Hindustani. I then gathered that my friend was somewhat of a black sheep in character as well as complexion, and had so indifferent a record in the police sheets that he could not get a licence to start a hawker’s cart unless some one would become security for his good behaviour. He explained very carefully how he could manage to raise sufficient money to stock his cart, but no one would go security for him. I knew that hawkers made quite a good living in the thinly populated parts of the colony, and he seemed desperately in earnest in his desire to make a fresh start and gain his bread honestly. I told him that I would consult the Commissioner of Police and see him again; which I did, with the result that I went security for his good conduct myself! No doubt it was a rash thing to do, but I wanted him to have another chance, and I impressed on him how keenly I should feel the disgrace if he did not run straight. “Very good, lady Sahib; I won’t disgrace you,” were his last words in his own language; and he never did. It all turned out like a story in a book, and two or three times a year my “Indoo” turned up, bringing a smiling little wife and an ever-increasing series of babies, to report himself as being on the high road to fortune, if not actually at her temple gate. It was one of the most satisfactory interviews that little back room witnessed.

Sometimes I had a very bad quarter of an hour trying to explain to the relatives of prisoners that I did not habitually carry the key of the big Jail in my pocket, and so was unable to go up that very moment, unlock its door, and let out their, of course, quite wrongfully tried and convicted friends. I have often been asked, “Why did you see these weeping women at all?” but at the time it was very hard to refuse, for, in so small a community as it then was, one knew something of the circumstances, and how hardly the trouble or disgrace pressed on the innocent members of the family. Sympathy was all there was to give, and it was impossible to withhold that.

Looking back on those interviews one sees how comedy treads all through life on the heels of tragedy, and I am sure to a listener the comic element, even in the most pathetic tales, would have been supplied by my legal axioms. I used to invent them on the spot in the wildest manner, and I observed they always brought great comfort, which is perhaps more than can be claimed for the real thing. For instance, when I was very hard put to it once to persuade a weeping girl who had flung herself on her knees at my feet, and was entreating me to at once release her brother, who was in prison for manslaughter, that I had no power to give the order she begged for, I cried, “Why, my poor girl, the Queen of England could not do such a thing, how much less the wife of a Governor? I dare not even speak to my husband on the subject.” I have often wondered since if the first part of that assertion was true. The second certainly was.

Although I could not promise to overthrow the action of the Supreme Court in the high-handed manner demanded of me, still I have never regretted my habit of seeing these poor women and listening to their sad stories. It really seemed to comfort them a little to know how truly sorry I felt for them, and I always tried to keep up their own self-respect, and so help them over the dark days. I had very few demands on me for money, which was seldom needed for such cases; only when illness—rare in the beautiful climate—supervened, was that sort of aid at all necessary.

But my interviewers did not invariably consist of supplicants against the course of justice. When it was found that a visit to me did not affect in any way the carrying out of the just-passed sentence, my petitioners fell off in numbers, for which I was very thankful. Sometimes I received visits of the gratitude which is so emphatically a sense of favours to come, but I very soon learned the futility of attempting to deal with those daughters of the horse-leech, and cut their visits as short as I could.

Once, however, after a brief interview with a fluent and very red-faced lady, leading a demure little boy by the hand, a great and bitter cry was raised in my establishment, and I was implored by my housemaids not to “see any more of them hussies.” The lady in question said she came to thank me for letting her dear, innocent, good little boy out of the reformatory. In vain I protested that I knew nothing whatever about the matter. The boy had been one of six or seven little waifs who had been sent to the reformatory on Rottnest Island, where we always spent our summers. These children used to come down to me every Sunday afternoon for a sort of Bible lesson, which I tried to make as interesting as I could; but beyond their names I knew nothing about them. I found that they were well taught and cared for, and, as they could not possibly escape from the island (I never heard that they had ever tried to do so), were allowed a good deal of liberty after the hours spent in school or the carpenter’s shop. I presume this boy’s sentence had expired in due course, and that he had returned to his loving mother; hence the wail from my distracted handmaidens, who found empty clothes-lines in the back-yard, through which these visitors had departed, taking with them all the socks, stockings, and pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole household. As a feat of legerdemain it certainly deserves credit for the rapidity with which it was done, as well as the way the articles had been hidden so as to escape the sentries’ eyes. I don’t know what happened to the lady, who I heard was quickly caught, but I saw the little boy, looking as cherubic as ever, the next summer when we went over to Rottnest. The subject was, however, never alluded to between us, and he used to get his stick of barley sugar as did the others after the Bible lesson was ended.

Once I had a visit from a delightful old gentleman who certainly possessed the nicest “derangement of epitaphs” I have ever met with in real life. And he was so proud of his choice language, and repeated his distorted expressions so constantly, that I don’t know how I preserved the smallest show of gravity. He was an office-keeper of some sort, and was threatened with the loss of his post for neglect of duty. “You know, my lady, it’s with regard to that there orfice fire. I never did know fires was my special providence, never. No one could be more partikler than me about my dooty. Why, when we was over at Rottnest last year, I was always a prevaricating with the shore for orders. There was never no inadvartences about me, never;” and so on. I wish I could remember half his flowers of rhetoric.

There was, however, one class of interviewer of whom I saw far too many specimens during the last year or two of my stay in Western Australia. The colony had been making great progress in every direction. The first indications of its splendid gold-fields were passing from vague rumours to hopeful facts. Railways were being rapidly pushed on to every point of the compass, work at high wages was plentiful, and every week brought shiploads of men for the railways and all other public works. As a rule, I believe, the immigrants were fairly satisfactory, and I heard of the various contractors gladly absorbing large numbers of workmen. In many instances these men brought their wives and families with them, and it was with the modern colonist’s wife that my troubles began.

I had heard wonderful stories of the struggles and hardships of the early settlers, and admired the splendid spirit in which the older sons and daughters started empire-building. One dear old lady showed me the packing-case of a grand piano, which she declared she should always treasure, as she had brought up a large and healthy family in it.

“You see, my dear, my piano was not much use to me in those days, and I don’t know what became of it, but the case made a splendid crêche for the babies.” And on every side I saw instances of difficulties overcome and hardships borne with the same indomitable pluck and cheerfulness. But the modern colonist’s wife is a very different lady. We seem to have educated the original woman off the face of the earth, and we have got instead a discontented, helpless sort of person, who is wretched without all the latest forms of civilisation, who wants “a little ’ome” where she can put her fans and yellow vases on the walls, and sit indoors and do crewel work.

One woman wept scalding tears over the cruel fate which brought her to a country as yet innocent of Kindergartens. She had two sweet little girl-babies, certainly under three years old, who looked the picture of rosy health. I tried to comfort her by saying that surely there was no hurry about their education.

“Oh no, it’s not the schooling I mind, ma’am,” she sobbed; “it’s the getting ’em out of the way. They do mess about so, and I want ’em kept safe and quiet out of the house.” This elegant lady’s hardships consisted in being required to go a hundred miles or so up the railway line to live in a little township, where her husband had highly paid work. She wished me to tell him that she could not possibly go away from Perth, though she despised our little capital very heartily. I declined to interfere, and told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, so she ended the interview by sobbing out that “she did think a lady as was a lady might feel for her.”

“And what can I do for you?” was my question to a neat, rather nervous young woman, who said she was Mrs. Jakes.

“Well, mum, would you be so good as to ask his Excellency to order Mr. ——” (the great contractor of that day) “to send my ’usband back to me.”

“Why?” I inquired.

“Well, mum, Jakes, he wants me to go up the line ever so far and live in a bush, leastways in a tent, and I never can do it.”

“Dear me, why not?” I inquired. “Many of my friends camp out in the bush, and like it very much. Why don’t you go?”

With a deeply disgusted glance at my cheerful aspect Mrs. Jakes answered with dignity, “I don’t ’old with living among wild beasts, mum, and Jakes ought to be ashamed of ’isself asking a decent woman to go and live in bushes with lions and tigers.”

As soon as I could speak for laughing, I assured Mrs. Jakes that the forests of Western Australia were absolutely innocent of such denizens, but she did not seem to willingly believe my assertions, and left me much disappointed at my advice to go up and join her husband, who was perfectly well and happy, and working for excellent wages.

I stopped at that very same road-side station later, in one of my spring excursions after wild flowers, and I inquired if Jakes was still working there. “Yes; he is a capital man, and is now foreman, getting over two pounds a week.” So then I asked to be conducted to his tent, which I found pitched in a lovely sylvan glade, and there, to my great satisfaction, I saw Mrs. Jakes preparing his tea. She was fain to confess that bush-life was very different from her alarming anticipations of it. She looked ever so much better herself, and the children, whom I carried off to tea with me—only on account of the buns—were as rosy as the dawn.

Some of my interviews were too sad to be spoken of here: interviews in which I had often to helplessly witness the awful creeping back to the capacity for suffering which is the worst stage in that long _viâ dolorosa_.

One terrible night, spent in walking up and down the shore at Rottnest with a distracted lighthouse-keeper, who had just heard that his young wife had been wrecked and lost on her way out to him, can never be forgotten. The poor man was literally beside himself. His mates brought him down to me, declaring that they could not manage him, and felt sure he meant to jump into the sea. There was not much to be said, so we paced the shore in the moonlight outside my house in silence. I did not dare to leave him for a moment, and it was not until I saw the smoke of the kitchen fire very early in the morning that I took him indoors, gave him some hot tea, and made him go and lie down. He promised me, like a child, “to be good,” and kept his word bravely—poor, heart-broken mourner.

And then there was my “loving boy Corny,” a red-headed imp of mischief, whose mother used, when he “drove her past her patience,” to bring him to me to scold. Poor Corny’s mischief was only animal spirits unemployed, and we became great friends. The difficulty was to induce Corny to go to school or to learn anything, but it chanced that I was going to England for a few months, and Corny declared himself grieved, so I promised to write to him regularly, if he would learn to write to me, which he did with ease, clever little monkey that he was, and signed himself as above. From what I knew of Corny I strongly suspect he would be one of the very first to volunteer for service in South Africa. Our troublesome boys generally make splendid “soldiers of the Queen,” and bestow their troublesomeness on her enemies.

Instead of interviews, which were seldom or never asked for in the next colonies we went to, I was assailed by letters, which, however, were chiefly directed to the Governor, who passed on some to me to inquire into, though the Inspector-General of Police made short work of those submitted to him. A visit from a constable to the suppliant’s address would generally discover the existence of a very different state of affairs from what was represented in the piteous application. A youthful and starving family, afflicted by divers strange maladies, would resolve itself into a comfortable old couple, who could not even be made the least ashamed of their barefaced imposture.

The language employed in these begging letters was of the finest, if not always the most intelligible. I sometimes wondered in what dictionary they found the words they used. For instance, here is a literal copy of what I imagine was meant for a sort of appeal from a decision on a very barefaced case of imposture. “We rectitudely beg to recognise our hesitation of his Excy^s dogma thereon.”

Perhaps the most wonderful of these epistles purported to come from an old woman who begged for money, and detailed her ill-success in obtaining an order for a coffin for her daughter, who, she declared, was “in a ridiculous condition on the roof of her cottage.” This statement seemed to open up such a vista of horrors that a mounted policeman was at once despatched to inquire into the case. It was then found that the young lady was in rude health and wanted the money for toilette purposes.

One of the most unsatisfactory interviews I ever had was in one of those languid sunny isles. My interviewer was a nice, pretty young widow, slightly coloured, who had lost her excellent husband under very sad and sudden circumstances. Of course, help was forthcoming for the moment, but it was suggested that I should try to find out from her how she could be helped to earn her own living. She appeared at the stated hour, most beautifully and expensively dressed, and had charming, gentle manners. But any one so helpless I never came across. She seemed to have received a fairly good education, but to be quite incapable of using it. I asked if she would undertake the care of little children. “Oh, no!” she “did not like children.” Could she set up as a dressmaker? “Oh, no!” she “did not like dressmaking,” and so on through every sort of occupation. There were plenty of openings for any talent of any sort which she might possess. At last, in despair, I asked if she had a plan of her own, and it seems she had, but the plan consisted in my making her a handsome weekly allowance out of a large fund which she had been told I had at my disposal. This I energetically denied, so at last she wound up by asking if I would order a certain insurance office to pay her a small sum for which her husband’s life had been insured. I suggested that no doubt she would receive the money in due time without my interference. But she thought not, “Because the premiums had not been paid lately, as she always wanted the money for something else.” Dress, I should think.

I often wish I had kept any of the wonderful letters we received upon every sort of subject. One was addressed to “Sa Majesté le Roi de Trinidad,” and contained a request for a decoration or order of some unknown kind. Another, with a similar address, only asked for stamps. It appeared later that both these epistles were intended for the other Trinidad, which at present is only inhabited by hermit-crabs, and certainly could not be expected to furnish either commodity.

XVI

A COOKING MEMORY

I often think, as I pass the handsome and substantial building in Buckingham Palace Road, known as the National School of Cookery, how much it has grown and developed since my day, nearly thirty years ago.

That was indeed the “day of small things,” for we started work in a series of sheds, lent by the trustees of the South Kensington Museum, in Exhibition Road, near what used to be the temporary site of the Royal School of Art Needlework. The idea originated with the late Sir Henry Cole, and was one of the many excellent plans he conceived and started. As often happens, the first outcome of Sir Henry’s scheme proved widely different from his original intention; but on the whole there is no doubt that the teaching of the National School of Cookery has worked a great improvement in our culinary ideas and knowledge.

Sir Henry at once gathered a strong working committee together, including the late Duke of Westminster, the late Lord Granville, Mr. Hans Busk, Sir Daniel Cooper, Mr. (Rob Roy) McGregor and many other experts. I was asked to be the first Lady Superintendent, to my deep amazement, for I have never cared in the least what I ate, provided it was “neat and clean.” I was a very busy woman in those days, and it seemed difficult to give the necessary time to the school, from 10 A.M. to 4.30 P.M. every day except Saturday afternoon. I have, however, never regretted the extra work my acceptance entailed, for it was of incalculable benefit to me to learn Sir Henry Cole’s method of dealing with subjects, and to watch his habits of patient attention and care of even the minutest details.

We started with very little money to our credit—as well as I remember, less than two hundred pounds; but Sir Henry had thorough confidence in the depth of the purse of the British public. This confidence was abundantly justified, for want of money was never one of the difficulties besetting our earliest efforts towards teaching a better kind of cooking. We at once set to work to provide ourselves with really good cooks, and in this respect we were exceptionally fortunate, for three out of the five young women we selected remained with us many years, and indeed they were all very satisfactory. The only thing I had to teach them was how to impart their knowledge, for they jibbed, as it were, at the idea of having to speak aloud, especially to ladies. There were dreadful moments when I feared I should never be able to induce them to accompany their lessons by a few explanatory words, loud enough to be heard, at every stage of the dish. I acted a whole benchful of pupils of every grade of ignorance before them, without eliciting anything beyond painfully deep blushes or an occasional laugh. So long as I was the only imaginary pupil we did not make much progress; but at last I left them alone, to get on their own way, with just two or three clever girls as their first pupils, whom I had previously begged to ask every sort of question about the very beginning of things.

It is pleasant to think that my successor—who is still the lady superintendent of the school—was one of those same pupils, and so took an early part in removing one of the greatest difficulties. In spite of much impatience on the part of the public, who were, as usual, possessed by an erroneous idea of what the work of the school aimed at, we had to devote some weeks to this same teaching of the teachers, and organisation of what was to be taught.

There was no difficulty about providing ranges and stoves of every sort and kind, for the makers of such wares offered us numerous samples. It was, however, necessary for the five cooks to sit in judgment on each novelty, and decide whether it was worth accepting, for of course we wanted to use the best sort of cooking apparatus, but yet not to depart too much from familiar paths. We felt sure it would be of no use teaching beginners to cook on a stove or range which, from its costliness or some other reason, would be rarely met with. Every sort of cooking utensil was also offered to us free of expense, besides many and various kinds of patent fuel; but this latter gift was invariably declined with thanks by the cooks, who would have none of it.

Sir Henry Cole had foreseen that we ought to begin at the very beginning, so the first thing taught was how to clean a stove with all its flues, puzzling little doors, &c. Then it was ordained that the practical pupil was to be shown how to clean, quickly and thoroughly, saucepans, fryingpans, and in short all kitchen utensils. This was followed by a course of scrubbing tables and hearths. The morning lessons were devoted generally to the acquisition of this useful knowledge, supplemented by little lectures on choosing provisions, and how to tell good from bad, fresh from stale, and so forth. In the afternoons—for the poor cooks had to be given an interval of rest and refreshment—the lessons were given in two ways: by demonstration, where the instructor prepared the dish before her class from the beginning, and the pupils watched the process and took notes; or else by practical experience, where they prepared and cooked the dish themselves under the cook’s superintendence.

In those early days we attempted the cooking only of simple food; such as soups and broths, plain joints, simple entrées, pastry, puddings, jellies, salads, and such like. One day was set apart entirely for learning “sick-room cookery,” and this was found to be very popular, only the pupils invariably began by asking to be shown how to make poultices! I soon observed that each of these very nice cooks of ours excelled in just _one_ thing, and so they had to fall into line, as it were, and the soup-lesson would be given by the expert in soups, and so all through. Fortunately one dear, nice little woman had a perfect genius for sick-room cookery, and that day’s lessons were confided entirely to her. Not one of them, however, could make really good pastry, for we aimed at producing the very best of everything we attempted. I tried in vain to get it right, until I mentioned my difficulty to Lord Granville, who at once sent his _chef_ down to give private lessons to the cook whose ideas on pastry were most nearly what we wanted. This was a great help and of immense benefit; but I was much amused when, a week or two after, as I was sitting in my little office—all very shabby and inconvenient, but we were too deeply interested to mind trifles—a most elegant young gentleman appeared, faultlessly attired, and carrying a large envelope, which, with a beautiful bow, he tendered to me.

“What is this?” I inquired.

“A State Paper on Pastry, Madam,” was the answer, and the bearer of the important document proved to be the _chef_ himself, who had taken the trouble to commit his lesson to paper.

At last everything was ready, and one fine Monday morning the school opened its doors to a perfect rush of pupils. We ought to have been happy, but Sir Henry certainly was not, for these same pupils were by no means the class he wanted to get at. Fine ladies of every rank, rich women, gay Americans in beautiful clothes, all thronged our kitchens, and the waiting carriages looked as if a smart party were going on within our dingy sheds. It was certainly a very curious craze, and I can answer for its lasting the two years I was superintendent. I asked many of the ladies why they insisted on coming to learn how to clean kitchen ranges and scrub wooden tables, as nothing short of a revolution could possibly make such knowledge useful to them, and I received very curious answers. One friend said it was because of their Scotch shooting-box, where such knowledge would come in very handy; but this statement has never been borne out by any subsequent experience of my own. Others said they wanted to set an example. Some stated that their husbands wished it; but I cannot imagine why, as they were all people who could afford excellent cooks.

For a long time we could not get one of the class we wanted, nor did a single servant come to learn, though the fees were purposely made as low as possible—in fact, almost nominal for servants. We also wished to get hold of the class of young matron who is represented in _Punch_ as timidly imploring her cook “not to put lumps in the melted butter,” but even they were very shy of coming. Sometimes, I think, they were really ashamed of their stupendous and amazing ignorance, for it was in that rank we found, when we did catch one or two, that the most absolute want of knowledge of the simplest domestic details existed. Whether or no it is due to the many schools of cookery which now happily exist all over Great Britain, I will not venture to say; but surely it would be impossible nowadays for any young woman to give me the answer one of our earliest pupils gave. She was very young and very pretty, and we all consequently took the greatest interest in her progress; but alas! she was privately reported to me as being a most unpromising subject. One day, when her lesson was just over, I chanced to meet her and inquired how she was getting on. She took the most hopeful view, and declared she “knew a lot.” I next asked her to tell me what she had learned that day.

“Oh, let me see; we’ve been doing breakfast dishes, I think.”

“And what did you learn about them?”

“I learned”—this with an air of triumph—“that they are all the same eggs which you poach or boil. I always thought they were a different sort of egg, a different _shape_, you know!”

I think one of my greatest worries was the way in which the British middle-class matron regarded the National School of Cookery as an institution for supplying her with an excellent cook, possessing all the virtues as well as all the talents, at very low wages. Every post brought me sheaves and piles of letters entering into the minutest details of the writers’ domestic affairs, and requesting—I might almost say ordering—me to send them down next day one of the treasures I was supposed to manufacture and turn out by the score. In vain I published notices that the school was not a registry office, and that no cooks could be “sent from it.” Sometimes I tried to cope with any particularly beseeching matron by writing to explain the nature of the undertaking, and suggesting that she should send her cook, or _a_ cook, to learn; but this always made her very indignant. At last I found the only way to get rid of the intolerable nuisance of such correspondents was to answer by a lithographed post-card, stating that the school did not undertake to supply cooks. This missive appeared to act as a bombshell in the establishment; for apparently the existing cook immediately gave warning, eliciting one more despairing shriek of “See what you have done,” to me, from the persevering mistress. I was not, however, so inhuman as to launch this missile until I had many times said the same thing, either by letter or by enclosing printed notices of the work and plan of the school.

I often wonder we had not more accidents, considering the crass ignorance of our ladies. Oddly enough, the only alarming episode came to us from a girl of the people, one of four who had begged to be allowed to act as kitchen-maids. Their idea was a good one, for of course they got their food all day, and were at least in the way of picking up a good deal of useful knowledge. These girls also cleaned up after the class was over, so saving the poor weary cooks, who early in the undertaking remarked, with a sigh, “The young ladies do make such a mess, to be sure!” Well, this girl, who was very steady and hard-working, but abnormally stupid, saw fit one morning to turn on the gas in certain stoves some little time beforehand. The sheds were so airy—to say the least of it—that there was not sufficient smell to attract any one’s attention, and the gas accumulated comfortably in the stoves until the class started work. It chanced to be a lesson in cooking vegetables, and potatoes were the “object.” About twenty-five small saucepans had been filled with water and potatoes, and the next step was to put them on to boil. I was not in that kitchen at the moment, or I hope I should have perceived the escape, and have had the common-sense to forbid a match being struck to light the gas in certain stoves. But I was near enough to hear a loud “pouf,” followed by cries of alarm and dismay, and I rushed in while the potatoes were still in the air, for they went up as high as ever they could get. Happily no one was hurt, though a good deal of damage was done to some of the stoves; but it was a very narrow escape, owing doubtless to the space and involuntary ventilation of these same sheds. In the midst of my alarm I well remember the ridiculous effect of that rain of potatoes. Every one had forgotten all about them, and their re-appearance created as much surprise as though such things had never existed.

I am afraid the object of much of the severity of cleanliness taught in the morning lessons was to discourage the numerous fine and smart ladies who beset our doors, though Sir Henry had always declared it was only to test their intentions. I always made a round of the kitchens after work had been started, and it was really touching to see beautiful gowns pinned back and covered by large coarse aprons, and jewelled hands wielding scrubbing brushes. Once, as I came round the corner, I heard one of the cook teachers say to a fair pupil who was kneeling amid a great slop of soapy water, and calling upon her to admire the scrubbing of a kitchen table, “No, my lady, I’m afraid that won’t do at all. You see her ladyship” (that was I, _bien entendu_) “is a tiger about the legs!” I certainly had no idea such was my character.

I wonder what has become of all the certificates gained, with a great deal of trouble and fatigue, by strict and lengthy examinations, which used to be so proudly exhibited, framed and glazed, in stately mansions thirty years ago.