“It was ‘Kate,’ my dear, not cake,—a wretched Kate that haunted us all afternoon. Did you realise that every second word in the English language ends with Kate? Well, it does! and Mrs Morley read out a story, and we had to fill in the gaps with Kate words. Kate had an untruthful nature and was given to prevari-Kate, so she got into trouble, and engaged an advo-Kate. See?”
Cassandra groaned.
“Don’t! Too awful. You’ll have dozens of these preposterous invitations if you once accept. Why do you go?”
“Ah!” Grizel looked thoughtful. “There was a prize.—I’d be bored for hours for the chance of gaining a prize. Why is it that the prospect of something for nothing has such a fatal lure? I might win a manicure set, or a shoe-horn, or a leather bag. I’ve thousands already; I wouldn’t know what to do with the blessed things, but I crave to win them! I racked my brains over that wretched Kate until I was quite exhausted, and came out next to the bottom. Next week there’s ‘A Florin Tea.’ What happens to a florin? Do they give us one all round? And a Photograph Tea after that. Everyone takes a photograph of herself as a baby, and you guess Who’s who. There’s going to be some scope for personal remarks. There is a Smelling Tea too, but I’m going to be ill for that. She means well, dear lady, and I accepted with pleasure, but I shall stay at home with more. I couldn’t respect myself going about smelling at little bags...”
“They tried the same sort of thing with me years ago, but I steadily refused, and now they have given me up. You’ll have no peace in Chumley, Grizel, if you let yourself in for these dreadful entertainments. You’ll be asked out to tea every afternoon of your life, to meet the same people, and sit in the same rooms, and hear the same little gossip over and over again.”
“But that makes them so keen to have me for a change!” Grizel said, laughing. “My dear, they adore me. I’m a succès fou. I wear different clothes wherever I go, and say all the maddest things that come into my head, and they hang on my every word. The Kate hostess nearly cried because I didn’t get the prize. She was trying to give me hints all the time. It was touching! And I was so stupid.”
Cassandra regarded her with a puzzled air.
“I believe you really enjoy it! And it’s so different from your old life, just as different as it was for me. I can’t think why you aren’t bored!”
“I’m never bored,” Grizel declared. “At least, not all at a time. It’s such a funny old world, and a bit of me is interested in everything that comes along. Besides, I adore kindness, even when it disguises itself in Kate teas, and the least I can do is to be agreeable in return. But I am thankful that I have you, Cassandra. I should be lost without one real friend, who speaks my own language.”
There was no procrastination in Grizel’s nature; what she had to do, must be done at once, if it were to be done at all. Straight from the kitchen she adjourned to the telephone, rang up Teresa to make sure of the guests of honour, and then proceeded to scribble half a dozen of the most informal of invitations for an unfashionably early date, which were despatched forthwith to the post. In an incredibly short space of time the answers were received, one and all accepting with pleasure, and Cook, divided between depression and elation, nerved herself to prepare the dinner of her life.