It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

The consequence of this was that for a month or thereabouts Mr. Eldridge was never without a topic of conversation, frequently calling attention to the unborn postcard in a recess on his wife's escritoire. "I say, Lotty, when's Miss Fossijaw's letter a-going?" being his form of query, connecting the matter in hand with phosphorus-poisoning, humorously but not intelligently.

However, when Mrs. Eldridge's other presentments ran dry, the postcard was despatched, and reached Adeline Fossett just the moment after Mrs. Steptoe had been submitting her cookworthiness, and lodging her claims for favourable consideration. Whereupon Miss Fossett despatched a summons to her to come next day for a written character (which would do in this case), and the events we know of followed. There was nothing remarkable in the coincidence whatever.

But there was something very remarkable—so Mrs. Challis had thought—about Elizabeth Barclay's unaccountable desire to marry a corn-factor, after being in the family fourteen years! For the Challis family had monopolized Mrs. Barclay during the whole of that time, and it was natural it should be indignant at her desertion. In fact, Marianne had hardly been able to believe her ears when one day the good woman, who had been very distraite over the ordering of dinner, took advantage of its conclusion to say, through huskiness and hesitation, that she had been thinking it well over, and had decided on it, in spite of her attachment to the family and heartfelt desire to cause it no inconvenience. Being pressed to say what she had decided on—which she had not so far mentioned—she had turned the colour of a tomato, and with a determined rush had said: "I have decided, ma'am, to change my condition," and had then revealed the corn-factor with such a tremendous accent on his first syllable that an impression followed it in the mind of Bob Challis, the boy, home for the holidays, that factors of many other goods had been under consideration, and that Mr. Soul had been the fortunate candidate. For his name was actually Seth Soul.

This, of course, was at the Christmas following Challis père's visit to Royd. But Mrs. Barclay had kept her condition unchanged for the time being, to oblige Miss Marianne, which was how she as often as not spoke of Mrs. Challis. That lady had really exerted herself to find a substitute, any plausible application having been referred for settlement to the corn-factor's fiancée. That very honest woman had denounced and rejected every candidate for the place so far. She applied the same formula to all: "It don't speak much for her"—that there was such a flaw in her register, or such a defect in her demeanour. It didn't speak much for one that she had just taken a twelvemonth's leisure at a relative's; or for another that she smelt of spirits at that time in the morning; or for another that she nearly came tumblin' down the kitchen flight, and couldn't walk straight. It certainly didn't. But it spoke volumes for Mrs. Barclay's integrity that she rejected them all, when, by accepting one, she might have flown straight to the corn-factor and nested under his wing, the minute her things were got.

The acceptance of our friend Aunt Stingy was the result of desperation, as we have hinted, on Mrs. Challis's part. However, to do her justice, she tried to shift the responsibility off her own shoulders.

"I should not have dared to send her packing after what you said this morning, Titus," said she; scarcely, perhaps, quite fairly. But Titus replied good-humouredly—for think how well that chapter had started!—"Never mind, Polly Anne! I'll be responsible. She'll turn out all right enough, I dare say."

And thus it had come about that Mrs. Steptoe found herself, within six weeks of her husband's death, in a situation where, although its standard of cooking was no better than that of most English houses of the same type, she was hard put to it to keep up the pretence of any knowledge at all. A very slight early experience had to go a long way, and detection and conviction would have ensued if Marianne Challis had profited by her dozen of years of housekeeping. But Elizabeth Barclay had been a treasure; and treasures—that is to say, persons who don't drink, can roast and boil, and know three sorts of soup—make it quite unnecessary for any English mistress to give any thought to the subject. The new cook, too, was entrenched in a strong position. Who shall say that any chance person who does not know how to pull and grill now was incompetent to pull and grill ten or fifteen years ago? Or that it is impossible that she passed a culinary youth in contact with mayonnaise sauce, truffles, or Gorgonzola cheese, and yet should in that period have forgotten the very names of them? The problem Aunt Stingy had to solve was how to acquire knowledge without admitting ignorance. And the attitude she took up in the pursuit of this object was that of a higher cult graciously stooping to accommodate itself to insular prejudice or mere bucolic barbarism. She elicited a great deal of information by dwelling on skilful achievements hard to believe in, but practised for all that in the Augustan age of her experience, for the tables of an almost Parisian circle of connoisseurs. There was danger in the method, but her intrepidity was more than Murat-like. As, for instance, when, apropos of omelettes, she said that "we"—that is, the cooks attached to that circle—always made them without eggs. On learning that omelettes contained nothing but eggs, she exclaimed with the greatest presence of mind, "Oh yes!—what we used to call egg-pancakes."

"I'm afraid you'll have to give this woman the sack, Polly Anne. She can't cook worth a cent." Thus Mr. Challis, sampling something one day at lunch, perhaps an omelette without eggs.

"Oh, do have a little patience, Titus!"

"Well—of course we must give her a fair trial. I didn't mean immediately."