Novel Notes | Page 4

is a secret that nobody has ever yet been able to fathom.
Ethelbertha was very young when we started housekeeping. (Our first butcher very nearly lost her custom, I remember, once and for ever by calling her "Missie," and giving her a message to take back to her mother. She arrived home in tears. She said that perhaps she wasn't fit to be anybody's wife, but she did not see why she should be told so by the tradespeople.) She was naturally somewhat inexperienced in domestic affairs, and, feeling this keenly, was grateful to any one who would give her useful hints and advice. When MacShaughnassy came along he seemed, in her eyes, a sort of glorified Mrs. Beeton. He knew everything wanted to be known inside a house, from the scientific method of peeling a potato to the cure of spasms in cats, and Ethelbertha would sit at his feet, figuratively speaking, and gain enough information in one evening to make the house unlivable in for a month.
He told her how fires ought to be laid. He said that the way fires were usually laid in this country was contrary to all the laws of nature, and he showed her how the thing was done in Crim Tartary, or some such place, where the science of laying fires is alone properly understood. He proved to her that an immense saving in time and labour, to say nothing of coals, could be effected by the adoption of the Crim Tartary system; and he taught it to her then and there, and she went straight downstairs and explained it to the girl.
Amenda, our then "general," was an extremely stolid young person, and, in some respects, a model servant. She never argued. She never seemed to have any notions of her own whatever. She accepted our ideas without comment, and carried them out with such pedantic precision and such evident absence of all feeling of responsibility concerning the result as to surround our home legislation with quite a military atmosphere.
On the present occasion she stood quietly by while the MacShaughnassy method of fire-laying was expounded to her. When Ethelbertha had finished she simply said:--
"You want me to lay the fires like that?"
"Yes, Amenda, we'll always have the fires laid like that in future, if you please."
"All right, mum," replied Amenda, with perfect unconcern, and there the matter ended, for that evening.
On coming downstairs the next morning we found the breakfast table spread very nicely, but there was no breakfast. We waited. Ten minutes went by--a quarter of an hour--twenty minutes. Then Ethelbertha rang the bell. In response Amenda presented herself, calm and respectful.
"Do you know that the proper time for breakfast is half-past eight, Amenda?"
"Yes'm."
"And do you know that it's now nearly nine?"
"Yes'm."
"Well, isn't breakfast ready?"
"No, mum."
"Will it ever be ready?"
"Well, mum," replied Amenda, in a tone of genial frankness, "to tell you the truth, I don't think it ever will."
"What's the reason? Won't the fire light?"
"Oh yes, it lights all right."
"Well, then, why can't you cook the breakfast?"
"Because before you can turn yourself round it goes out again."
Amenda never volunteered statements. She answered the question put to her and then stopped dead. I called downstairs to her on one occasion, before I understood her peculiarities, to ask her if she knew the time. She replied, "Yes, sir," and disappeared into the back kitchen. At the end of thirty seconds or so, I called down again. "I asked you, Amenda," I said reproachfully, "to tell me the time about ten minutes ago."
"Oh, did you?" she called back pleasantly. "I beg your pardon. I thought you asked me if I knew it--it's half-past four."
Ethelbertha inquired--to return to our fire--if she had tried lighting it again.
"Oh yes, mum," answered the girl. "I've tried four times." Then she added cheerfully, "I'll try again if you like, mum."
Amenda was the most willing servant we ever paid wages to.
Ethelbertha said she would step down and light the fire herself, and told Amenda to follow her and watch how she did it. I felt interested in the experiment, and followed also. Ethelbertha tucked up her frock and set to work. Amenda and I stood around and looked on.
At the end of half an hour Ethelbertha retired from the contest, hot, dirty, and a trifle irritable. The fireplace retained the same cold, cynical expression with which it had greeted our entrance.
Then I tried. I honestly tried my best. I was eager and anxious to succeed. For one reason, I wanted my breakfast. For another, I wanted to be able to say that I had done this thing. It seemed to me that for any human being to light a fire, laid as that fire was laid, would be a feat to be proud of. To light a fire even under