Cr’ymer was a very recent acquisition to the Pratt ménage. Mrs. Pratt would have preferred a Japanese but for once she was overruled by her husband, who harboured the malicious belief that every man of foreign birth, especially negroes and Orientals, look upon the women of our race with lascivious eyes. So when Cr’ymer applied, and upheld his cleverly-forged reference with a plausible story, Mrs. Pratt engaged him—bibulous mien and Cockney accent, notwithstanding.
Having been but a few weeks in the city, and most of that time comfortably soothed by vinous refreshment, Cr’ymer was not conversant with the names of social Ottawa, and even had he been, it is doubtful that those of Mrs. Pratt’s guests would have been familiar to him.
“How d’ye do?” asked Mrs. Prendergast, annoyed to find that no one else had arrived. There was a suggestion of over-eagerness in being early.
“How do yuh do?” returned Mrs. Pratt, wishing that she was Lady Elton or someone worth while. “Sit down, won’t you? I think you’ll find any of my chairs comfortable, and there’s no need for you to stand because we have to . . . The others can’t be long, now.”
“They can if they choose,” remarked Dr. Prendergast, who liked his dinner in the middle of the day and a substantial supper at six o’clock. “Never saw anything to beat the people, to-day. They don’t start out till it’s time for decent folks to be in bed. Things get later and later. Shouldn’t be surprised to see the hour for dinner set at eleven o’clock . . . Outrageous!”
“Well, with so many engagements to crowd in of an afternoon, and with the House sitting till six o’clock, it’s vurry difficult to dine much earlier than seven o’clock,” argued Mrs. Pratt. “Oh, here are the Leeds. How do yuh do? Augustus, meet Mrs. Leeds!”
“How do?” mumbled Augustus, and prayed for the coming of the cocktails, which, as an antidote for the concoctions of an atrocious cook, he had made extra strong.
Mrs. Pratt aspired to a good cook, by which she meant a person who could disguise the most familiar comestibles so that recognition was impossible. Personally, she liked plain and wholesome cooking. Most people do. But she laboured under the misapprehension that members of the aristocracy ate strange and undistinguishable dishes; moreover, that the degree of exaltation which one had attained, was evident by the kind of food one ate. For example, she could not conceive of His Majesty enjoying a rasher of liver and bacon, nor a Duke sitting down to the staple pork and beans so familiar to the humble farming class. Long hours she pondered the question of food, rising gradually through the ragouts and rissoles, ramakins and casseroles, to ravioli, caviare, canapes and the bewildering aux and a la’s that make a wholesome menu so picturesque and indigestible.
The cook that Mrs. Pratt had in mind, was one who had served at least an Earl, and had titillated the palates of his class. But at that time—now half a decade past—social distinctions were drawn quite as finely in the kitchen as the drawing-room, and the woman who would exchange her culinary gifts and aristocratic associations for the wages of a mistress not even an Honourable in her own right, had not been found.
The hour set for dinner had past. In the drawing-room, a noticeable chill tempered the atmosphere. Mrs. Pratt was not an easy hostess. The word “entertaining” was, for her, the most perfect euphemism, and in ordinary circumstances, she would have taken satisfaction rather than pleasure by gathering people at her home. On this occasion, she was denied satisfaction, and a rising resentment gave her far from gracious manner an added acerbity. Conversation lost all semblance to spontaneity, and every eye seemed to be fixed upon Mrs. Pratt, who sat stiffly on a Louis Quinze chair and hoped that Rufus Sullivan was sensible of her displeasure.