Interrogated, Lizarann's aunt is finding the place comfortable. The ketching chemley draws a little imperfect, certainly; but the boiler full up, if hot over-night, lastis on the next day, and any quantity. A great convenience! It is noticeable about Mrs. Steptoe's speech that it does not improve when she tries to talk up to her company. When she spoke to her equals in Tallack Street, without desire to impress, she was provincial and unpolished, but seldom Cockney. Now, her attempts to be classical and win respect from Mrs. Eldridge are failures.
"What sort of a place was Mrs. Fossett's!"
"Miss!—excusin' my makin' bold to correct. But not in a place there. Only as a reference."
"Where was your last place, then?" But Mrs. Steptoe explained, with many reserves and sidelights, that she had never been truly in service; having led, broadly speaking, a regal life, until she married beneath her, but, nevertheless, into a respectable trade connection. The suggestion that her husband's brain had been affected rounded off a tale that hinted at ancestry and a pursuing evil destiny—the race of Laius! "But you used to cook, wherever you were, once," said Mrs. Eldridge, wedded to practical issues.
"Oh, there, now!—cook, indeed! Why, I was sayin', only today, to Miss Harmood, 'If you could have seen the table they kep' at Sea View, soups and jellies and made-up dishes and the whole attention left to me, in the manner of speakin'.' Owing, ma'am, you see, to uncertain health, my aunt's sister—in charge of the establishment—suffering with a complication, and terminated fatally eleven years this Easter Day. Coming back to me, naturally, with the season." A retrospective sigh, over life's changes, came well in here.
"Was it a sort of private hotel, or boarding-house?" Mrs. Eldridge thought she saw light.
Mrs. Steptoe conveyed general assent, without close definition. "But very select!" she added. And Mrs. Eldridge said, "Of course," entirely without reason.
Aunt Stingy felt encouraged, and made up her mind to resume in full all particulars of the banquet we have heard about. After all, she is not the only person that ever dwelt overmuch on scanty incidents of slight importance in themselves; but oases, for all that, in the arid stretches of an eventless life. Besides—as her tale showed after Mrs. Eldridge had heard all about the splendid cooking accommodation of this establishment at Ramsgate, and full particulars almost of every dish on the table—there was revealed a curious sequel to this seaside dissipation, which no doubt would have been communicated to Mrs. Challis, if that lady had been as inquisitive as her friend. For Mrs. Charlotte hearing of an occasion—fifteen years ago!—when six or eight persons of either sex had dined together, forthwith smelt rats, and made for their places of concealment with the alacrity of a Dandie Dinmont.
"You seem to remember them all very well, Mrs. Steptoe."
"Along of what followed, no doubt, ma'am." The speaker appeared to become suddenly reserved, but awaiting catechism for all that.