The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"That's because you did not soak them long enough."

"Soaking or not soaking does not seem to make much difference," said the aspersed Sister, shaking out a muslin kerchief violently before spreading it on the blanket. "The last time it was my week for cooking we had pea-soup twice. I soaked the peas for four-and-twenty hours; and yet the soup was grumbled at! Give me a fresh iron, please, Sister Ann."

Sister Ann, in taking one of the irons from between the bars of the grate, let it fall with a crash on the purgatory. It made a fine clatter, and both the ironers looked round. Sister Ann picked it up; rubbed it on the ironing cloth to see that it was the right heat, put it on Sister Caroline's stand, and took away the cool one.

"The fact is this," she said, putting the latter to the fire, "you can't make pea-soup, Sister Caroline. Now, it's of no use to fly out: you can't. You don't go the right way to make it. You just put on the liquor that the beef or pork has been boiled in, or from bones stewed down, as may be, and you boil the peas in that, and serve it up as pea-soup. Fine soup it is! No flavour, no goodness, no anything. The stock is good enough: we can't afford better; and nobody need have better: but if you want your pea-soup to be nice, you must stew plenty of vegetables in it--carrots especially, and the outside leaves of celery. That gives it a delicious flavour: and you need not use half the quantity of peas if you pass the pulp of the vegetables with them through the calender."

"Oh, yes!" returned Sister Caroline in a sarcastic tone. "Your pea-soup is always good: we all know that!"

"And so it is good," was easy-tempered Sister Ann's cheery answer: and she knew that she spoke the truth. "The soup I make is not a tasteless stodge that you may almost cut with the spoon, as the soup was to-day; but a delicious, palatable soup that anybody may enjoy, fit for the company-table of the Master of Greylands. Just look how your candle wants snuffing!"

Sister Caroline snuffed the candle with a fling, and put down the snuffers. She did not like to be found fault with. Sister Phoeby, who wanted a fresh iron, went clanking to the fire in her pattens, and got it for herself, leaving her own in the bars. Sister Ann was busy just then, turning the clothes on the horse.

"What I should do with that cold pea-soup is this--for I'm sure it can never be eaten as it is," suggested Sister Ann to the cook. "You've got the liquor from that boiled knuckle of ham in the larder; put it on early to-morrow with plenty of water and fresh vegetables; half an hour before dinner strain the vegetables off, and turn the pea-soup into it. It will thin it by the one half, and make it palatable."

"What's the time?" demanded Sister Caroline, making no answering comment to the advice. "Does anybody know?"

"It must have struck half-past eight."