“WHAT!” cried Mrs. Gashleigh; and the cook repeated his former expression.
“Never, whilst I am in this house,” cried out Mrs. Gashleigh, indignantly; “never in a Christian ENGLISH household; never shall such sinful waste be permitted by ME. If you wish me to dine, Rosa, you must get a dinner less EXPENSIVE. The Right Honorable Lord Fortyskewer could dine, sir, without these wicked luxuries, and I presume my daughter's guests can.”
“Madame is perfectly at liberty to decide,” said M. Cavalcadour. “I came to oblige Madame and my good friend Mirobolant, not myself.”
“Thank you, sir, I think it WILL be too expensive,” Rosa stammered in a great flutter; “but I am very much obliged to you.”
“Il n'y a point d'obligation, Madame,” said Monsieur Alcide Camille Cavalcadour in his most superb manner; and, making a splendid bow to the lady of the house, was respectfully conducted to the upper regions by little Buttons, leaving Rosa frightened, the cook amazed and silent, and Mrs. Gashleigh boiling with indignation against the dresser.
Up to that moment, Mrs. Blowser, the cook, who had come out of Devonshire with Mrs. Gashleigh (of course that lady garrisoned her daughter's house with servants, and expected them to give her information of everything which took place there) up to that moment, I say, the cook had been quite contented with that subterraneous station which she occupied in life, and had a pride in keeping her kitchen neat, bright, and clean. It was, in her opinion, the comfortablest room in the house (we all thought so when we came down of a night to smoke there), and the handsomest kitchen in Lilliput Street.
But after the visit of Cavalcadour, the cook became quite discontented and uneasy in her mind. She talked in a melancholy manner over the area-railings to the cooks at twenty-three and twenty-five. She stepped over the way, and conferred with the cook there. She made inquiries at the baker's and at other places about the kitchens in the great houses in Brobdingnag Gardens, and how many spits, bangmarry-pans, and stoo-pans they had. She thought she could not do with an occasional help, but must have a kitchen-maid. And she was often discovered by a gentleman of the police force, who was, I believe, her cousin, and occasionally visited her when Mrs. Gashleigh was not in the house or spying it:—she was discovered seated with MRS. RUNDELL in her lap, its leaves bespattered with her tears. “My pease be gone, Pelisse,” she said, “zins I zaw that ther Franchman!” And it was all the faithful fellow could do to console her.
“—— the dinner!” said Timmins, in a rage at last. “Having it cooked in the house is out of the question. The bother of it, and the row your mother makes, are enough to drive one mad. It won't happen again, I can promise you, Rosa. Order it at Fubsby's, at once. You can have everything from Fubsby's—from footmen to saltspoons. Let's go and order it at Fubsby's.”
“Darling, if you don't mind the expense, and it will be any relief to you, let us do as you wish,” Rosa said; and she put on her bonnet, and they went off to the grand cook and confectioner of the Brobdingnag quarter.