To the truth of which last clause Miss Hope assented with such unnecessary readiness, that Mrs. Piggott’s temper was excited instead of mollified; and when the lady in the kindest manner possible subsequently suggested “going into the kitchen to prepare a few dishes,” Mrs. Piggott locked herself up in the store-room with a huge Bible and her spectacles, and sat there till Bessie came to say the performances were over, and the messes ready for sending to table.
“And messes they be, miss,” declared Mrs. Piggott, after due inspection. “If Mr. Arthur or Mrs. Dudley either likes that trash, I shall be greatly astonished; but lor, miss! them old maids is all alike. If it’s not cats, it’s dogs; and if it’s not dogs, it’s meddling in other folkses business, and going about from house to house carrying their nasty prying ways about with them among their luggage. Who ever heard of boiling lettuce-leaves afore, or of putting onions, and sugar, and eggs among green pease, spiling the flavour of them? It’s not Christian, that’s what I say; and you tell me she fried them potatoes in oil; and that soup—why, it is thick with grease—butter, is it, miss? I wonder how much she has used! And a quart of cream, do you tell me? Well, if that is ’conomical cooking, I don’t know what ’conomy is. I hope master will like his dinner, that is all—I only hope he may.”
Which was about as great a fib as Mrs. Piggott ever uttered; for most devoutly did she hope the good things Miss Hope had prepared might come out untasted.
“Poking about, indeed!—messing in the kitchen. I wonder how she would like me to go into the drawing-room this evening, and offer to play the pianner to her? Talk about servants knowing their places! It would be well if ladies learnt theirs, I’m thinking. Her sister would never have dreamt of doing such a thing; and as for Mr. Arthur’s wife, she is too soft and easy; she ought to know better than allow such goings on.”
Thus Mrs. Piggott—who, after refusing to take service with the second Mrs. Dudley, or in the republic which succeeded that lady’s marriage to Dr. Marsden—had come over to Berrie Down some twelve months after Heather’s arrival there, and stated that, “having heard a good report of Mr. Arthur’s wife, she had no objection to serve her, if she were in want of a cook.”
With which offer Heather closing, Mrs. Piggott a week later entered the gates of Berrie Down, and virtually resumed possession of all her old authority. Amongst her goods and chattels were a Bible, a cookery book, a tea-caddy (with a key), a pair of spectacles, a work-box, and her marriage lines—all articles without which Mrs. Piggott never travelled.
A staunch Protestant, Mrs. Piggott read her Bible diligently on Sundays, and on what she called particular occasions—such, for instance, as the death of a relative, the news of some frightful railway accident, shipwreck, or colliery explosion, the sickness of any member of the Berrie Down household, the birth of a child, or in times of special aggravation.
But if she perused the sacred volume occasionally, she pored over her cookery book daily. From the valuable receipts it contained she had culled fragrant flowers in the shape of savoury dishes, curious puddings, wonderful sweetmeats, and a method of making puff-paste, in which even the housekeeper at Moorlands had not disdained to request instruction.
And after that, for Miss Hope to come with “her foreign notions, her garlic, her shalots, her tarragon, her basil, her clear soups (like dish-water), her meat done to rags, her vegetables cooked till all flavour was boiled out of them; her fruit breakfasts, her messy salads, her pinches of flavouring, her newfangled sauces, her endless dishes, with not a good mouthful on each.”
If Mrs. Piggott had not, at this trying period, found a sympathizing listener in Bessie Ormson, for want of vent her indignation must have killed her; as it was, Bessie took the keen edge off the knife that stabbed the cook, made fun of Miss Hope and Miss Hope’s stew-pans, and told poor Mrs. Piggott that the result of the French dinner had been a failure. “We all unaccountably lost our appetites,” said the young lady, slyly; “the dishes were capital, no doubt, but then, if one be not hungry, you know,” and then Miss Ormson looked archly at Mrs. Piggott, and the pair laughed wickedly.