Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

MRS. BENN'S WRONGS.

"Then, Benn, I'll not have it done! You can't go."

"But I tell you I have got my orders. I am sent."

"And who gave you the orders, pray, Joe Benn? Who sent you?"

"Mr. Oswald Cray. And the best thing for you to do is to hold your tongue and take off that there guy of a bonnet, and hide your bare arms, and put on a apron that's clean, and otherwise make yourself decent, for you have got to do it. And when folks have got to do a thing, they may as well make up their minds to do it in the best way and readiest way they can."

Mr. Benn, in thus breathlessly telling his wife she had "got to do it," did not allude to the little items of personal embellishment he mentioned, but to something else which Mrs. Benn abhorred above all things--that of waiting on gentlemen. It happened now and then that a luncheon or other meal would be ordered at the offices in Parliament Street for some stranger or friend stopping in London, which meal Mrs. Benn had to prepare, and her husband to wait at. On this day Mr. Street had ordered mutton-chops to be ready for two o'clock, and the tray laid for three persons; and this it was that was discomposing Mrs. Benn. In the first place, it was one of those oft-recurring periodical battles of her life--a cleaning-day; in the next place, her husband had just given her the startling information that she would have to wait at the meal as well as to cook it. "And a fine object you be, to do it!" he had wound up with in a mutter to himself.

Certainly Mrs. Benn did not appear to particular advantage today, looking at her in an artistic point of view. You have had the pleasure of seeing her once before in the high costume donned for the occasion of those days specially marked in her calendar. I don't think there's much change. Her bonnet, black once, rusty brown now, is on, brim downwards, crown up, strings tied in a knot at the back; her apron is a piece of wrappering off a bale of goods, embellished with sundry holes and fastened round her with an iron skewer; and her gown, turned up under it, is pinned into a heap behind. She stands over the Dutch oven, her arms bare and black, and a fork in her hand; and ever and anon as she stoops to turn or touch the chops in the Dutch oven, the gathered gown sways itself up at the back, not unlike a sail. Mr. Benn is in his shirtsleeves, having taken off his coat to brush it, preparatory to going out.

"It's sure to be the case! I've marked it times and times again!" burst forth Mrs. Benn, trying to fling off a live coal which bad intruded itself into the Dutch oven. "If ever there's lunch or any bothering extra of that sort wanted, it's safe to be on my cleaning-day! Mr. Street have got no more consideration nor a stalking gander; and Mr. Oswald Cray have got as little. They might remember my cleaning-days, and spare a body on 'em."

"And a fine speech that is," said Mr. Benn, in a reprimanding tone. "You'd better not let it come anigh their ears. We are here, you and me, to do what work's required of us, at any hour, whether it's cooking or whether it's waiting, and your ord'nary work must give way when it's wanted to give it. They'd soon get other servants in our places."

"He comes to the top o' the stairs just as the clock was going one," observed Mrs. Benn, paying no more attention to the words of her husband than if she had been deaf. "'Are you there?' he calls out, and I looked up and see it was Mr. Street. 'Yes, sir,' says I, 'I be;' and I was in a cloud of dust at the moment fit to smother you, a doing out of that there wood and bottle cupboard. 'Oh,' says he 'some mutton-chops for two o'clock, and lay the tray for three. And do 'em well,' says he, 'and a dish of mashed potaters.' A nice thing that was for me to hear!--and to have to go out the figure I be, after chops, and to be hindered in my cleaning a good two hours! Ain't that enough, Joe Benn, without having to turn to and wait?"