The Girl at Cobhurst Part 23

"Oh, yes, madam," replied La Fleur; "it suits me very well. It is not what I am accustomed to, but I gave up all that of my own accord. Life in great houses has its advantages and its pleasures, and its ambitions, too; but I am getting on in years, and I am tired of the worry and bustle of large households. I came to this country to visit my relatives, and to rest and enjoy myself; but I soon found that I could not live without cooking. You might as well expect Dr. Tolbridge to live without reading."

"That is very true, La Fleur," said Miss Panney; "and it seems to me that you are in the very home where you can spend the rest of your days most profitably to others, and most happily to yourself. And yet I hear that you are considering the possibility of not staying here."

"Yes," answered La Fleur, "I am considering that; but it is not because I am dissatisfied with anything here. It is altogether a different question. I am very much attached to the family I first lived with in this country. They are in trouble now, and I think they may need me. If they do, I shall go to them. I have quite settled all that in my mind. I am now waiting for an answer to a letter I have written to Mrs. Drane."

"La Fleur," said Miss Panney, "if you leave Dr. Tolbridge, I think it will be a great mistake; and, although I do not want to hurt your feelings, I feel bound to say that it will be almost a crime."

The cook's face a.s.sumed an expression of firmness.

"All that may be," she said, "but it makes no difference. If they need me, I shall go to them."

"But cannot somebody else be found to go to them? You are not as necessary there as you are here, nor so highly prized. They let you go of their own accord."

"No one else will go to them for nothing," said La Fleur, "and I shall do that."

Miss Panney sat with her brows knit.

"If the Dranes have become poor," she said presently, "it is natural that you should want to help them; but it may not be at all necessary that you should go to them. In fact, by doing that, you might embarra.s.s them very much. There are only two of them, I believe,--mother and daughter. Do they do anything to support themselves?"

"Miss Cicely is trying to get a situation as teacher. If she can do that, she can support her mother. At present they are doing nothing, and I fear have nothing to live on. I know my going to them would not embarra.s.s them. I can help them in ways you do not think of."

"La Fleur," said Miss Panney, "your feelings are highly honorable to you, but you are not going about this business in the right way. I have heard of the Drane family, and know what sort of people they are. They would not have you work for them for nothing, and perhaps buy with your own money the food you cook. What should be done is to help them to help themselves. If Miss Drane wishes a position as teacher, one should be got for her."

"That is out of my line," said La Fleur, shaking her head, "out of my line. I can cook for them, but I can't help them to be teachers."

"But perhaps I can, and I am going to try. What you have told me encourages me very much. To get a position as teacher for Miss Drane ought to be easy enough. To get Dr. Tolbridge a cook who could take your place would be impossible."

La Fleur smiled. "I believe that," she said.

"Now what I do is for the sake of the doctor," continued Miss Panney. "I do not know the Dranes personally, but I have no objection to benefit them if I can. But for the sake of a friend whom I have known all his days, I wish to keep you in this kitchen. I am not afraid to say this to you, because I know you are not a person who would take advantage of the opinion in which you are held, to make demands upon the family which they could not satisfy."

"You need not say anything about that, madam," replied La Fleur. "n.o.body can tell me anything about my work and value which I did not know before, and as for my salary, I fixed that myself, and there shall be no change."

Miss Panney rose. "La Fleur," she said, "I am very glad I came here to talk to you. I did not suppose that I should meet with such a sensible woman, and I shall ask a favor of you; please do not take any steps in this matter without consulting me. I am going to work immediately to see what I can do for Miss Drane, and if I succeed it will be far better for her and her mother than if you went to them. Don't you see that?"

"Yes," said La Fleur, "that is reasonable enough, but I must admit that I should like to see them."

Miss Panney ignored the latter remark.

"Now do not forget, La Fleur," she said, "to send me word when you get a letter, and then I may write to Miss Drane, but I shall go to work for her immediately. And now I will leave you to go on with your dinner. I shall dine here to-day, and I shall enjoy the meal so much better because I know the chef who prepared it."

La Fleur resumed her seat and the consideration of her "sweet."

"She is a wheedling old body," she said to herself, "but I suppose I ought to give her something extra for that speech."

The next morning Mrs. Tolbridge came into the kitchen. "La Fleur," said she, "what is the name of that delicious dessert you gave us last night?"

The cook sighed. "She will always call the 'sweet' a dessert," she thought; and then she answered, "That was Blarney Fluff, ma'am, with sauce Irlandaise."

Mrs. Tolbridge laughed. "Whatever is its name," she said, "we all thought it was the sweetest and softest, most delightful thing of the kind we had ever tasted. Miss Panney was particularly pleased with it."

"I hoped she would be," said La Fleur.

CHAPTER XIX

MISS PANNEY IS "TOOK SUDDEN"

"I have spoken to Mr. Ames about it," said Dr. Tolbridge to Miss Panney, as two days later they were sitting together in his office, "and we are both agreed that teachers in Thorbury are like the vines on the gable ends of our church; they are needed there, but they do not flourish. You see, so many of our people send their children away to school, that is, when they are really old enough to learn anything."

"I would do it too, if I had children," said the old lady; "but this is a matter which rises above the ordinary points of view. I do not believe that you look at it properly, for if you did you would not sit there and talk so coolly. Do you appreciate the fact that if Miss Drane does not soon get something to do, you will be living on soggy, half-baked bread, greasy fried meat, water-soaked vegetables, and muddy coffee, and every one of your higher sentiments will be merged in dyspepsia?"

The doctor smiled. "I did not suppose it would be as bad as that," he said; "but if what you say is true, let us skip about instantly, and do something."

"That is the sort of action that I am trying to goad you into," said the old lady.

"Oh, I will do what I can," said the doctor, "but I really think there is nothing to be done here, and at this season. People do not want teachers in summer, and I see no promise of a later demand of this sort in Thorbury. We must try elsewhere."

"Not yet," said the other. "I shall not give up Thorbury yet. It is easier for us to work for Miss Drane here than anywhere else, because we are here, and we are not anywhere else. Moreover, she will like to come here, for then she will not be among strangers; so please let us exhaust Thorbury before thinking of any other place."

"Very good," said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, "and now let us exhaust Thorbury as fast as we can, before a patient comes in. I am expecting one."

"If she comes, she can wait," said Miss Panney. "You have a case here which is acute and alarming, and cannot be trifled with."

"How do you know I expect a 'she'?" asked the doctor.

"If it had been a man, he would have been here and gone," said Miss Panney.

Miss Panney knew as well as any one that immediate employment as a teacher could be rarely obtained in summer, and for this reason she wished to confine her efforts to the immediate neighborhood, where personal persuasion and influence might be brought into action.

Moreover, she had said to herself, "If we cannot get any teaching for the girl, we must get her something else to do, for the present. But whatever is to be done must be done here and now, or the old woman will be off before we know it."

She sat for a few moments with her brows knitted in thought. Suddenly she exclaimed, "Is it Susan Clopsey you expect? Very well, then, I will make an exception in her favor. She is just coming in at the gate, and I would not interfere with your practice on her for anything. She has got money and a spinal column, and as long as they both last she is more to be depended on than government bonds. If her troubles ever get into her legs, and I have reason to believe they will, you can afford to hire a little maid for your cook. Old Daniel Clopsey, her grandfather, died at ninety-five, and he had then the same doctorable rheumatism that he had at fifty. I have something to think over, and I will come in again when she is gone."

"Depart, O mercenary being!" exclaimed the doctor, "before you abase my thoughts from sulphate of quinia to filthy lucre."

"Lucre is never filthy until you lose it," said the old lady as she went out on the back piazza, and closed the door behind her.

About twenty minutes later she burst into the doctor's office. "Mercy on us!" she exclaimed, "are you here yet, Susan Clopsey? I must see you, doctor; but don't you go, Susan. I won't keep him more than two minutes."

"Oh, don't mind me," cried Miss Clopsey, a parched maiden of twoscore. "I can wait just as well as not. Where is the pain, Miss Panney? Were you took sudden?"

"Like the pop of a jackbox. Come, doctor, I must see you in the parlor."

"Can I do anything?" asked Miss Clopsey, rising. "How dreadful! Shall I go for hot water?"