Eliza, Barry Pain [best fiction novels .txt] 📗

lit the fire in the drawing-room; and not only lit it, but piled coals on it. It is not Sunday, so far as I am aware." It is our rule to have the drawing-room fire lit on Sundays only. We are rather exclusive, and some other people seem to be rather stuck-up, and between the two we do not have many callers. If any one comes, it is always perfectly easy for Eliza to say, "The housemaid has foolishly forgotten to light the fire here. Shall we not step into the dining-room?" I hate to see anything like waste.

"At this very moment," I added, "the drawing-room fire is flaming half-way up the chimney. It seems we can afford to burn half a ton of coals for nothing. I cannot say that I was aware of it."

"You are satirical!" said Eliza. "I always know when you are being satirical, because you move your eyebrows, and say, 'I am aware,' instead of 'I know.' I told Jane to light the fire myself."

"May I ask why?"

"Miss Sakers is coming in. She sent me a note this morning to say so."

"That puts a different complexion on the affair. Very tactful of her to have announced the intention. I do not grudge a handful of firing when there is a reason. I only ask that there shall be a reason." Miss Sakers is the vicar's daughter. Strictly speaking, I suppose her social position is superior to our own. I know for a fact that she has been to county balls. She seemed anxious to cultivate an intimacy with us, so I gathered. I was not absurdly pleased about it. One has one's dignity. Besides, at the office we frequently see people far above Miss Sakers. A nobleman who had called to see one of the partners once remarked to me, "Your office is a devilish long way from everywhere!" There was no particular reason why he should have spoken to me, but he seemed to wish it. After that, it was no very great thing that Miss Sakers seemed anxious to know us better. At the same time, I do not pretend that I was displeased. I went into the drawing-room and put some more coal on.

"Is it to be a party?" I asked.

"Not at all. She is coming quite as a friend."

I went up-stairs and changed all my clothes, and then purchased a few flowers, which I placed in vases in the drawing-room. Eliza had got two kinds of cake; I added a plate of mixed biscuits on my own responsibility. Beyond this, I did nothing in the way of preparation, wishing to keep the thing as simple and informal as possible.

The tea was quite a success. Miss Sakers was to have a stall at the bazaar in aid of the new church. I promised her five shillings at first, but afterward made it seven-and-six. Though no longer young, Miss Sakers is very pleasant in her manner.

After tea Miss Sakers and Eliza both did needlework. Miss Sakers was doing a thing in crewels. I could not see what Eliza was doing. She kept it hidden, almost under the table.

To prevent the conversation from flagging, I said, "Eliza, dear, what are you making?"

She frowned hard at me, shook her head slightly, and asked Miss Sakers about the special preacher for Epiphany Sunday.

I at once guessed that Eliza was doing something for Miss Sakers' stall at the bazaar, and had intended to keep it secret.

I smiled. "Miss Sakers," I said, "I do not know what Eliza is making, but I am quite sure it is for you."

There was a dead silence. Miss Sakers and Eliza both blushed. Then Miss Sakers said, without looking at me, "I think you are mistaken."

I felt so sure that I was mistaken that I blushed, too.

Eliza hurriedly hid her work in the work-basket, and said, "It is very close in here. Let me show you round our little garden."

They both went out, without taking any notice of me. Not having had much tea, I cut myself another slice of cake. While I was in the middle of it, Miss Sakers and Eliza came back, and Miss Sakers said good-bye to me very coldly. I offered to raise my bazaar donation to ten shillings, but she did not seem to have heard me.

"How could you say that?" said Eliza, when Miss Sakers had gone. "It was most tactless—and not very nice."

"I thought you were doing something for the bazaar. What were you making, then?"

She did not actually tell me, but she implied it in a delicate way.

"Well," I said, "of course I wouldn't have called attention to it if I had known, but I don't think you ought to have been doing that work when Miss Sakers was here."

"I've no time to waste, and I always make mine myself. I was most careful to keep them hidden. You are very tactless."

"I don't think much of that Miss Sakers," I said. "Why should we go to this expense," pointing to the cakes, "for a woman of that kind?"

 

THE ORCHESTROME

The orchestrome was on Lady Sandlingbury's stall at the bazaar. Her ladyship came up to Eliza in the friendliest way, and said, "My dear lady, I am convinced that you need an orchestrome. It's the sweetest instrument in the world, worth at least five pounds, and for one shilling you have a chance of getting it. It is to be raffled." Eliza objects, on principle, to anything like gambling; but as this was for the Deserving Inebriates, which is a good cause, she paid her shilling. She won the orchestrome, and I carried it home for her.

Six tunes were given with the orchestrome; each tune was on a slip of perforated paper, and all you had to do was to put in a slip and touch the spring.

We tried it first with "The Dandy Coloured Coon." It certainly played something, but it was not right. There was no recognizable tune about it.

"This won't do at all," I said.

"Perhaps that tune's got bent or something," said Eliza. "Put in another."

I put in "The Lost Chord" and "The Old Folks at Home," and both were complete failures—a mere jumble of notes, with no tune in them at all. I confess that this exasperated me.

"You see what you've done?" I said. "You've fooled away a shilling. Nothing is more idiotic than to buy a thing without trying it first."

"Why didn't you say that before, then?" said Eliza. "I don't believe there's anything really wrong with it—just some little thing that's got out of order, and can be put right again."

"Wrong! Why, it's wrong all through. Not one scrap of any of the tunes comes out right. I shall take it back to Lady Sandlingbury at once."

"Oh, don't do that!"

But my mind was made up, and I went back to the bazaar, and up to Lady Sandlingbury's stall. Eliza wouldn't come with me.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon," I said, "but your ladyship supplied me with this orchestrome, and your ladyship will have to take it back again."

"Dear me! what's all the trouble?"

I started the instrument, and let her hear for herself. She smiled, and turned to another lady who was helping her. The other lady was young, and very pretty, but with a scornful kind of amused expression, and a drawling way of speaking—both of which I disliked extremely.

"Edith," said Lady Sandlingbury, "here's this angry gentleman going to put us both in prison for selling him a bad orchestrome. He says it won't work."

"Doesn't matter, does it?" said the other lady. "I mean to say, as long as it will play, you know." At this rather stupid remark they both laughed, without so much as looking at me.

"I don't want to make myself in any way unpleasant, your ladyship," I said; "but this instrument was offered for raffle as being worth five pounds, and it's not worth five shillings."

"Come, now," said Lady Sandlingbury, "I will give you five shillings for it. There you are! Now you can be happy, and go and spend your money." I thanked her. She took the orchestrome and started it, and it played magnificently. Nothing could have been more perfect. "These things do better," she said, "when you don't put the tunes in wrong end first, so that the instrument plays them backwards."

"I think your ladyship might have told me that before," I said.

"Oh! you were so angry, and you didn't ask me. Edith, dear, do go and be civil to some people, and make them take tickets for another raffle."

"I call this sharp practice," I said, "if not worse, and——"

Here the other lady interrupted me.

"Could you, please, go away, unless you want to buy something? Thanks, so much!"

"Could you, please, go away?"

I went. I am rather sorry for it now. I think it would have been more dignified to have stopped and defied them.

Eliza appeared to think that I had made myself ridiculous. I do not agree with her. I do think, however, that when members of the aristocracy practise a common swindle in support of a charity, they go to show that rank is not everything. If Miss Sakers happens to ask us whether we are going to the bazaar in support of the Deserving Inebriates next year, I have instructed Eliza to reply: "Not if Lady Sandlingbury and her friend have a stall." I positively refuse to meet them, and I do not care twopence if they know it.

 

THE TONIC PORT

We do a large export trade (that is, the firm does), and there are often samples lying about in the office. There was a bottle of Tarret's Tonic Port, which had been there some time, and one of the partners told the head clerk that he could have it if he liked. Later in the day the head clerk said if a bottle of Tarret's Tonic Port was any use to me I might take it home. He said he had just opened it and tasted it, because he did not like to give anything away until he knew if it was all right.

I thanked him. "Tastes," I said, "just like any ordinary port, I suppose?"

"Well," he said, "it's more a tonic port than an ordinary port. But that's only what you'd expect from the label."

"Quite so," I said—"quite so." I looked at the label, and saw that it said that the port was peculiarly rich in phosphates. I put the bottle in my bag that night and took it home.

"Eliza," I said, "I have brought you a little present. It is a bottle of port." Eliza very rarely takes anything at all, but if she does it is a glass of port. In this respect I admire her taste. Port, as I have sometimes said to her, is the king of wines. We decided that we would have a glass after supper. That is really the best time to take anything of the kind; the wine soothes the nerves and prevents insomnia.

Eliza picked the bottle up and looked at the label. "Why," she said, "you told me it was port!"

"So it is."

"It says tonic port on the label."

"Well, tonic port practically is port. That is to say, it is port with the addition of—er—phosphates."

"What are phosphates?"

"Oh, there are so many of them, you know. There is quinine, of course, and magnesium, and—and so on. Let me fill your glass."

She took one very little sip. "It isn't what I should call a pleasant wine," she said. "It stings so."

"Ah!" I said, "that's the phosphates. It would be a little like that. But that's not the way to judge a port. What you should do is to take a large mouthful and roll it round the tongue,—then you get the aroma. Look: this is the way."

I took a large mouthful.

When I had stopped coughing I said that I didn't know that there was anything absolutely wrong with the