“Oh, Roseborough, couldn’t you make a milady of the little butter girl from Poplars without making her—Milady Prevaricator? What is it—you, there, Mr. Golden Sun, who sees everything; you, shining old heart-searcher, tell me—what is it makes so many poor humans twist and trick when it is their blessed privilege to speak the plain truth? Did you laugh long ago, Mr. Sun, when you saw the little, barefoot butter girl birched for telling fibs?—and did you know that some day she would put on silk stockings and satin shoes and have to learn to use something called ‘tact’—first, because the rod of a certain fine gentleman’s sarcasm was merciless toward any feeling that frankly revealed itself, and secondly, because—marvel of marvels!—most people, it seems, prefer deceit? Heigh-ho! How the old pool in the south meadow is shining among its reeds at this very moment!”
She laughed, and the wistful shadow which had darkened her eyes disappeared.
“At any rate, I’ve managed Mrs. Witherby so that dear Mrs. Lee can continue to believe in the beneficent spirit of Roseborough. Roseborough will open its arms to her Jack Falcon instead of tearing off his hair—that is, if he still has hair. B’r’r’r, but I am a-weary of old men!”
She gathered up her breakfast dishes, and took them into the kitchen. The kitchen closet yielded a blue-checked all-over apron of Amanda’s. Rosamond literally dropped herself into it at the neck. She pinned it up in front so that she could not fall over it. The back she did not bother about but let it trail. After washing the dishes, she set about the cake-making. This was not so simple as she had expected. It appeared presently that, in a few years of miladying, one could forget even such native feminine knowledge as pints, pecks, and egg calculations.
“This is absurd!” she exclaimed, indignantly. “I can’t have forgotten! Why, I made much better cakes than Mrs. Greenup does. I shall have to find a cook book.”
A thorough search of every shelf and drawer in Amanda’s domain yielded naught in literature but a few almanacs, and a tract entitled “Howl, Sodom!” This last, she knew, belonged to Jemima, who had surreptitiously attended a revival in Trenton Waters during the spring and had been roundly scolded for it by her elder sister, for whom the Church of her fathers was sufficient. Mrs. Mearely surmised that Jemima had hidden this leaflet of grace in the clove pot because no cranny of her bedroom was safe from Amanda’s prying.
“Horrid nonsense!” She dropped it into the stove. “There! I’m not going to have that Howl Jemima stuff in my kitchen. No cook book? Of course, not! His Friggets’ boast that they never even measure anything, because they are such born cooks! What shall I do?”
She spent five minutes in dark despair. Then a light broke upon her. It was a light with humour in its flash, evidently, for she giggled.
“Now, I wonder if there is a cake recipe in the old cook book written by that Portuguese woman, Countess Lallia of Mountjoye, who catered to the Prince of Paradis so attractively that she never lost his affection?”
She was soon rummaging recklessly among the old volumes on the lowest shelf of the glassed bookcase. Each book or collection of leaves was in a leather binding and bore a tag, telling its name, date, and presumed history in Mr. Hibbert Mearely’s fine flourish. Memoirs, missals and Latin parchments of all sorts and sizes—some said to have been in popes’ and princes’ pockets—were tumbled out on the floor, while irreverent Mrs. Mearely hunted for information on practical cakemaking to serve Mr. Falcon’s palate.