ONE OF OUR DIFFICULTIES.
Under this title I refer to a lady whom I will call Mrs. Legion, for there are many of her all over the country, bless her conservative old heart. She has been in service as cook or cook-housekeeper most of her life (she is now getting on in years), and constant preoccupation with kitchen affairs has somewhat narrowed her outlook, so that the circumvention of the butcher, whose dominant idea (she believes) is to provide her with indifferent joints, is more to her than the defeat of Hindenburg; and so far as she is concerned the main theatre of the War is neither Europe nor the Atlantic, but the coal merchant's yard, which disgorges its treasure so grudgingly. Not only is her first thought for her cooking, in order—the transition to her second thought is automatic—that her employer or employers may be comfortable; but it is her last thought too.
With such singleness of purpose to crystallize her, she cannot absorb even the gravest of warnings; not from unwillingness or stupid obstinacy, but from sheer inability to grasp any novelty. That her beloved master and mistress—either or both—should not have the best of everything and plenty of it is, at this advanced stage in her career, unthinkable. Even though she read it in print she would disregard it, for her attitude to them papers is sceptical; even Lord Northcliffe, with all his many voices, dulcet or commanding, has wooed in vain.
I imagine that the milkman, from whom she heard of the War and whom she thinks (for his class) a sagacious fellow, has warned her against the Press. Anyway she has refused—and will, I fancy, never relent—to allow any extreme idea of food shortage to disturb her routine.
"Look here, Mrs. Legion," you say, "really, you know"—you don't like, or you have lost the power, to be too firm with her after all these years of friendliness—"really we mustn't have toast any more."
"Not toast!"
"No, not any more. In fact"—a light laugh here—"I'm going to do without bread altogether directly."
"Do without bread!" This with much more alarmed surprise than if you had declared your intention of forswearing clothes.
"Yes; the Government want us to eat less bread. In fact we must, you know; and toast is particularly wasteful, they say."
"There's no waste in this house, Sir [or 'M]." This with a touch of acerbity, for Mrs. Legion is not without pride. "No one can ever accuse me of waste. I'm not vain, but that I will say."
"No, no," you hasten to reply, "of course not; but things have reached such a point, you know, that even the strictest economy and care have got to be made more strict. That's all. And toast has to be stopped, I'm afraid."
"Very well, Sir [or 'M], if you wish it. But I can't say that I understand what it all means."
And that evening, which is meatless and is given up largely to asparagus (just beginning, thank God!), you certainly see no toast in the rack, but find that the tender green faggot reposes on a slab of it large enough to feed several children.
Mrs. Legion may go to church, but her real religion is concerned far more with her employers' bodies than with her own soul; and among the cardinal tenets of her faith is the necessity for dinner to be hot. You may have a cold lunch, but everything at dinner must have been cooked especially for that meal, all circling about the joint, or a bird, like satellite suns.
How to cleave such a rock of tradition? How to bring the old Tory into line with the new rules and yet not break her heart?
"And, Mrs. Legion," you say, not too boldly, and at the end of some other remark, "we'll have yesterday's leg of mutton for dinner to-night, with a salad."
"Cold mutton for dinner?" she replies dully.
"Yes—now the weather's getting warmer it's much nicer. It will save coal too. Just the mutton and a salad. No potatoes."
"No potatoes!" Surely the skies are falling, says her accent. You have been eating mashed potatoes, done with cream and a dash of beetroot in it, with cold meat, at lunch, for years.
"No, no—we mustn't eat potatoes any more. Haven't you heard?"
"I heard something about it, yes. But aren't we to eat those we've got?"
"No, we must give them away. Remember, just cold mutton and salad. And no toast." You are getting more confidence. "Never toast any more"—another light laugh—"never any more!"
And at dinner there are the cold mutton and salad all right; but to your horror you are asked first to eat a slice of salmon with two boiled potatoes.
"Good heavens!" you say, "what's this?"
"Well, Sir [or 'M], the fishmonger called, and as I felt sure the cold meat couldn't be enough for you...."
Summoning all your courage you protest again, adding, "And another thing, Mrs. Legion; you mustn't make any more pastry. The flour can't be spared. It's not only bread we've got to be careful about, but everything made with flour."
"Then what's the flour for?"
"That's all right. But it's got to be saved."
"I don't understand, Sir [or 'M]. I can't see why it shouldn't be used if we have it."
"No. The idea is that every one should go without flour as much as possible, and then there will be more and it will last longer. More for other people."
"My duty is to this house, Sir [or 'M]. But the flour's so coarse and brown it's hardly worth using, anyhow. I never saw such stuff. It's a scandal. But I'm truly sorry if I've disappointed you. All I want to do is my duty."
"You have, Mrs. Legion, you have. You've been splendid; but the time has come now to eat less and to eat more simply. Is that clear?"
"Well, I hear you right enough, Sir [or 'M], but I can't say I understand it. War or no war, I don't hold with folks being starved."
And there it breaks off, only, of course, to begin again.
That is Mrs. Legion!—one of the hardest nuts that Lord Devonport has to crack. She doesn't hold with Lords poking their noses into people's kitchens, anyway. That's not her idea of how Lords ought to behave. Lords not only ought to be gentlefolk, and be fed and waited upon and live in affluent idleness, but super-gentlefolk. But then she doesn't hold with many modern things. She doesn't (for one) hold with the War.
Sergeant-Major. "Ain't you got that bivvy built yet, me lad? Gawd bless my soul, I could ha' knitted it in half the time."