Kathleen Part 9

"Surely you didn't mash them that way at Maggie Hall, Eliza?"

"Yes, miss. The young ladies got so they couldn't abide them done any other way."

Kathleen looked more closely, and examined the badly bruised tubers. "Good gracious," she exclaimed, with a ripple of laughter. "They haven't been cooked yet!"

Eliza was rather taken aback.

"Well, you see, Miss," she said, "at the college we used nothing but fireless cookers, and I don't understand these old-fas.h.i.+oned stoves very well. I wanted to get you to explain it to me."

"It's perfectly simple," said Kathleen. "This is the oven, and when you want to bake anything--_Phew_!" she cried, opening the oven door, "what _have_ you got in here?"

She took a cloth, and lifted out of the oven a tall china pitcher with a strange-looking object protruding from it.

Eliza was panic stricken, and for an instant forgot her role.

"My G.o.d! I put the hare in there and forgot all about it. What a bally sell!"

Kathleen removed the hideous thing, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"Look here, Eliza," she said. "They may jug hares that way at Maggie Hall, but I doubt it. Now, what _can_ you cook? We've got guests coming to-night. A gentleman from America is going to be here and we must put our best foot forward."

Eliza's face was a study in painful emotion.

"Excuse me, Miss," she said, "but is that American gentleman called Mr. Blair?"

"Yes," said Kathleen. "Really, Eliza, you are most extraordinary.

How did you know?"

"I've heard of him," said Eliza. "I think I ought to warn you against him, miss. He's--he's a counterfeiter."

"Nonsense, Eliza. What notions you do have! He's an antiquarian, and he's coming to see my father about archaeology. He's a friend of Miss Josephine, from Oxford. Now I think you'd better get on with your cooking and not worry about counterfeiters."

"Miss Kathleen," said Eliza, "I think I'd better be frank with you. I want to tell you--"

Here Mary came into the kitchen, and although Eliza Thick made frantic gestures to her to keep away, the housemaid was too dense to understand. The opportunity for confession was lost.

"Now, Eliza," said Kathleen, "Mary will help you in anything you're not certain about. I'll come down again later to see how you're getting on."

By supper time that night Eliza Thick began to think that perhaps she had made a tactical error by interning herself in the kitchen where there was but small opportunity for a tete-a-tete with the bewitching Kathleen. The news that Blair was coming to the evening meal was highly disconcerting, and the worried cook even contemplated the possibility of doctoring the American's plate of soup with ratsbane or hemlock. Once during the afternoon she ventured a sally upstairs (carrying a scuttle of coal as a pretext) in the vague hope of finding Kathleen somewhere about the house. Unfortunately she met Mrs. Kent on the stairs, who promptly ordered her back to her proper domain. Here Eliza found a disreputable-looking person trying to cozen Mary into admitting him to the house. He claimed to be an agent of the gas company, in search of a rumoured leak. Eliza immediately spotted Priapus, and indignantly ejected him by force of arms. In the scuffle a dish pan and several chairs were overturned. Mary, whose nerves were rather unstrung by the sustained comedy she was witnessing, uttered an obbligato of piercing yelps which soon brought Kathleen to the scene. Eliza received a severe rating, and so admired the angry sparkle in Kathleen's eyes that she could hardly retort.

"One other thing, Eliza," said Kathleen, in conclusion. "There are to be two guests at supper. Mr. Carter, a curate from Oxford, is coming, too. Please allow for him in your preparations."

"If you please, Miss," cried the much-goaded cook, "is that Mr.

Stephen Carter?"

"I believe it is," said Kathleen, "but what of it? Is he a counterfeiter, too?"

"Miss Kathleen, I know you think it strange, but I must warn you against that curate. Dear Miss Kathleen, he is dangerous. He is not what he seems."

"Eliza, you forget yourself," said Kathleen, severely. "Mr.

Carter comes with an introduction from the Bishop of Oxford. I hope that is satisfactory to you! In any case, we do not need your approval for our list of guests. Mrs. Kent wants you to take great care with the stuffed eggs. Those mashed potatoes made her quite ill."

"Please, Miss, I'm dreadful worried about those eggs. The book says to make a nest for 'em, and truly I don't know how to go about it. The young ladies at college never ate their eggs in nests, miss. And when I gets nervous I can't do myself justice, Miss. I never can remember which is the yolks and which is the whites, miss."

"Now, that will do, Eliza," said Kathleen. "You are a very eccentric creature, but I don't think you are as stupid as all that. What do you want? Do you expect me to come down here and oversee all your preparations?"

"Oh, if you only would, Miss, it would be _so_ gratifying!"

Kathleen laughed, a girlish bubbling of pure mirth, which was dreadful torment to the jealous masquerader. She departed, leaving the cook a prey to savage resolve. "Well," thought Eliza, "if the supper is bad enough I guess she'll just _have_ to come down and help me. Thank goodness Blair and Carter are _both_ coming; they'll cut each other's throats, and perhaps the stuffed eggs will win after all. As for that gas-man, he won't get into this house unless it's over my dead body!"

XII

It was a feverish and excited Eliza that Kathleen found in the kitchen when she tripped downstairs after the soup course. On a large platter the cook had built a kind of untidy thicket of parsley and chopped celery, eked out with lettuce leaves.

Ambushed in this were lurking a number of very pallid and bluish-looking eggs, with a nondescript stuffing bulging out of them.

"I forgot to measure the yolks, Miss," wailed Eliza. "That's why the stuffing don't fit. Shall I throw a dash of rum on board to stiffen 'em up?"

In spite of her vexation, Kathleen could not help laughing. "No, no," she said. "We'll tidy up the nest a bit and send them upstairs."

"That's grand," said Eliza, watching Kathleen's quick fingers.

"'Tis a beautiful comely hand you have, miss, one that it's a pleasure to admire."

"Now, Eliza," said Kathleen, "you must not shout up the dumb waiter so. I distinctly heard you cry out '_This plate's for the parson_!' as you sent up one of the dishes of soup."

"If you please, Miss," said Eliza. "That was because it was the plate I spilled a spoonful of pepper into, and I thought it had better go to the cloth than anywhere else.

Miss Kathleen, I have something very urgent to say to you before them two counterfeiters upstairs commit any affidavits or sworn statements."

"You dish out the eggs, Eliza," said Kathleen, "and I'll send them up the dumb waiter. Quick, now! And where's your dessert? Is it ready?"

"All doing finely, Miss," answered Eliza, but as she opened the oven door her a.s.surance collapsed. She drew out a cottage pudding, blackened and burnt to carbon.

"A great success," said the bogus cook, but holding it on the other side of her ap.r.o.n so that Kathleen could not see. "Here, I'll just shoot it up the shaft myself before it gets cold." She hurried into the pantry, whisked it into the dumb waiter before Kathleen could catch a glimpse, and sent it flying aloft.

"That smelt a little burnt, cook," said Kathleen.

"Just a wee bit crisp on one side, miss."

Kathleen was in the pantry, with her nose up the dumb-waiter shaft, sniffing the trail of the cottage pudding and wondering whether she ought to recall it for inspection, when Eliza, turning toward the back door, saw the gas-man on the threshold.

The cook's mind moved rapidly in this emergency. She knew that if Priapus found himself face to face with Kathleen, dangerous exposures would follow at once.

"Mary," she whispered to the maid, who had just come down from upstairs, "run tell the Mistress the gas-man is here again. I'll send him down the cellar." And while Kathleen was still in the pantry and before the pseudo gas-man could demur, Eliza seized him by the coat and hurried him across the kitchen to the cellar door. She opened this and pointed downstairs. The bewildered gas-man disappeared down the steps and Eliza closed the door and turned the key.

"Now, Miss," said Eliza. "I have something very serious to say to you--"

Just at that moment she saw the clerical black of the Reverend Mr. Carter coming down the kitchen stairs.