I have very earnest reasons for wishing that Elizabeth could have a "settled" young man. You see, she never retains the same one for many weeks at a time. It isn't her fault, poor girl. She would be as true as steel if she had a chance; she would cling to any one of them through thick and thin, following him to the ends of the earth if necessary.
It is they who are fickle, and the excuses they make to break away from her are both varied and ingenious. During the War of course they always had the pretext of being ordered to the Front at a moment's notice, and were not, it appears, allowed to write home on account of the Censor. Elizabeth used to blame Lloyd George for these defects of organisation. And to this day she is extremely bitter against the Government.
In fact, she is bitter against everyone when her love affairs are not running smoothly. The entire household suffers in consequence. She is sullen and obstinate; she is always on the verge of giving notice. And the way she breaks things in her abstraction is awful. Elizabeth's illusions and my crockery always get shattered together. My rose-bowl of Venetian glass got broken when the butcher threw her over for the housemaid next-door. Half-a-dozen tumblers, a basin and several odd plates came in two in her hands after the grocer's assistant went away suddenly to join the silent Navy. And nearly the whole of a dinner service was sacrificed when Lloyd George peremptorily ordered her young man in the New Army to go to Mesopotamia and stay there for at least three years without leave.
You will now understand why I was dejected at the perfidy of the follower belonging to the Boilermakers' Society. I saw a dreary period of discomfort ahead of me. And worst of all I was expecting the Boscombes to dinner that very week. They had not before visited us and Henry was anxious, for business reasons, to make a good impression on them. I will not elaborate the case. All I can say is that there is no earthly possibility of making a good impression on any living thing if Elizabeth is in one of her bad moods. And it would be no use explaining the situation to Mrs. Boscombe, because she has no sense of humour; or to Mr. Boscombe, because he likes a good dinner.
Finally, the Domestic Bureau failed me. Hitherto they had always been able to supply me with a temporary waitress on the occasion of dinner-parties. Now it appeared these commodities had become pearls of great price which could no longer be cast before me and mine (at the modest fee of ten shillings a night) without at least fourteen days' notice.
The Bureau promised to do its best for me, of course, but reminded me that women were scarce. I asked, with bitterness, what had become of the surplus million we heard so much about. They replied with politeness that, judging from the number of applications received, they must be the million in search of domestics.
Returning home from the Bureau I found Elizabeth studying a time-table. "I see it's a hundred and eighty-three miles to Manchester," she commented, "an' the fare's 15s. 5 ½d."
"That's an old time-table you've got," I hastened to remark; "it is now £2 6s. 4 ½d.—return fare."
"I shan't want no return ticket," said Elizabeth grimly.
Sickening outlook, wasn't it?