Lady Maude's Mania Part 12

"Did you make that saying for me, Madame Downes?" she flashed out viciously.

"Sayings ain't puddens," retorted cook.

"I say, make you that vairy witty jeer for me?" cried Mademoiselle Justine viciously.

"What I say is," continued the cook, who, having a blunter tongue, stood on her defence, but heaping up dull verbiage round her position as a guard against the Frenchwoman's sharp attack, "that a man's a man, and if he's a furrener it ain't no fault of his. I should say he's a count at least, and he's very handsome."

"Counts don't count in this country," said Robbins smiling, and waiting for the applause of the table.

"Count indeed!" cried Mademoiselle Justine. "Count you the fork and spoons, Mr Robbins, and see that these canaille music men come not down the air--_ree_. As for that green-goose girl Preen--Bah! she is a little shild for her mamma to vip and send to bed wizout her soop--_paire_. Madame Downes, you are a vairy foolish woman."

Mademoiselle Justine rose from her seat, and made a movement as if to push back a chair; but she had been seated upon a form which accommodated half a dozen more domestics, and in consequence she had to climb out and glide toward the door, through which she pa.s.sed with a rustle like that of a cloud of dead leaves swept into a barn.

"You've put ma'amselle out, Mrs Downes," said Robbins with condescension.

"That's easy enough done, Mr Robbins. It's her furren blood. I don't like young people to be sneered at if they're a bit tender. I've got a heart of my own."

"And a very good heart too, Mrs Downes," said the butler.

"Hear, hear," said Joseph the footman.

"Hear, hear, hear, hear, hear!" cried the page-boy, a young gentleman who lived in a constant state of suppression, and consequently in his youthful vivacity was always seeking an opportunity to come to the surface. This appeared to him to be one. His chief had paid a compliment which had been cheered by the said chief's first-lieutenant Joseph, so Henry, the bearer of three rows of b.u.t.tons, every one of which he longed to annex for purposes of play, cried "hear, hear, hear,"

as the footman's echo, and rapped loudly upon the table with the haft of his knife.

A dead silence fell upon the occupants of the servants' hall, and Henry longed to take flight; but the butler fixed him as the Ancient Mariner did the wedding guest, and held him with his glittering eye.

"There, I knowed you'd do it," whispered the footman. "You're always up to some of your manoeuvres."

"Henry," said the butler in his most severe tones, and with the look upon his countenance that he generally reserved for Lord Barmouth, "I don't know where you were brought up, my good boy, and I don't want to know, but have the goodness to recollect that you are now in a n.o.bleman's service, where, as there is no regular steward's room for the upper servants, you are allowed to take your meals with your superiors.

I have before had occasion to complain of your behaviour, eating with your knife, breathing all over your plate, and sniffing at the table in a most disgusting way."

"Hear, hear," said Joseph in a low voice, and the boy thought it additionally hard that he was to be chidden while his fellow-servant in livery went free.

Mr Robbins bowed his head graciously to his underling's softly-breathed piece of adulation, and continued--

"Once for all, my good boy, I must request that if you do not wish to be sent into the knife place to partake of your meals, you will cease your low pothouse conduct, and behave yourself properly."

The butler turned away with a dignified air, while Henry screwed up his face as if about to cry, bent down his head, and began to kick the footman's legs under the table--a playful piece of impudence that the lofty servitor did not resent, Master Henry the b.u.t.tons knowing too much of things in general appertaining to the pantry; sundry stealings out at night when other people were in bed, and when returns were made through the area door, and from good fellowship, for though there was a vast difference in years and size, Joseph's brain was of much the same calibre as that of the boy.

"Mrs Downes," said the butler, after clearing his voice with a good cough, "your sentiments do you credit. You have a heart of your own, and what is more, you are English."

"I am, Mr Robbins, I am," said the lady addressed, and she wiped her eyes.

"Furreners are furreners," continued the butler didactically; "but what I always will maintain is, that the English are so thoroughly English."

There was a murmur of applause here which warmed the imposing-looking butler's heart, and he continued--

"Your sentiments do you the greatest of credit, Mrs Downes; but you are too tender."

"I can't help it, Mr Robbins," said the lady pathetically.

"And I'm sure no one wishes that you should, Mrs Downes, for I say it boldly so that all may hear,--except the two lady's maids who have left the hall,--that a better cook, and a kinder fellow-servant never came into a house."

Another murmur of applause, and the cook sighed, shed two more tears, and felt, to use her own words, afterward expressed, "all of a fl.u.s.ter."

"Mr Robbins," she began.

"I beg your pardon, madam, I have not finished," said the butler, smiling. "I only wished to observe, and I must say it even if I give offence to your delicate susceptibilities, madam, that that furren papist fellow with the organ haunts Portland Place like a regular demon, smiling at weak woman, and taking of her captive, when it's well known what lives the poor creatures live out Saffron Hill way. I should feel as I was not doing my duty toward my fellow creatures if I didn't protest against such a man having any encouragement here."

"Hear, hear," said the footman again.

"Some impudent person once observed," continued the butler, "that when a footman married he took a room in a mews for his wife, and furnished it with a tub and a looking-gla.s.s."

"Haw, haw, haw!" laughed the b.u.t.tons.

"Henry, be silent, or you will have to leave the room," said the butler, sternly. "A tub and a looking-gla.s.s, I repeat," he added, as he looked round, "so that his wife might try to get her living by washing, and see herself starve."

A murmur of approval rose here from every one but the footman, who looked aggrieved, and kicked Henry beneath the table.

"But what I say is this," continued the butler, "the pore girl who lets herself be deluded into marrying one of those lazy rony organ men may have the looking-gla.s.s, for Italians is a vain nation; but from what I know of 'em, the pore wives will never have the tub, let alone the soap."

The butler smiled, and there was a burst of laughter, which ceased as the cook took up the defence.

"Maybe," she said, "but what I say is this, as I've said before, I can feel for a woman in love, for I have a heart of my own."

It was self-evident, for that heart was thoroughly doing its work of pumping the vital current so energetically, that the blood flushed the lady's cheeks, rose into her forehead, and was beginning to suffuse her eyes, which looked angry, when a loud peal at the front door bell acted as a check to the discussion, Joseph going off to answer the summons as all arose, and the butler, to finish the debate, exclaimed--

"Mark my words, no good won't come of it if that man's allowed to haunt this house, and--Well, of all the impudence! there he is again. I shall have to call her ladyship's attention to the fact."

For Luigi was slowly grinding out the last new waltz, and it had such an effect on the more frivolous of the hired servants, that as soon as their elders had quitted the underground banquetting hall, two of them clasped each other, and began to spin round the place, proving that music had charms as well as the man.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

FAMILY MATTERS.

Charley Melton made up his mind that he would behave honourably, and he called several times more at Portland Place, till it became evident that there was no prospect of his being admitted. He saw the carriage twice in the Park, and bowed, to obtain a cold recognition from her ladyship the first time, the cut direct from her the second time, and an agonised look from Maude.

"That's the second time this week," he muttered angrily; "I must end this." He stopped short, leaning over the rails and watching the carriage as it was pulled up, and a fashionably-dressed gentleman went to the door and stood talking for some considerable time.

"My rival, I suppose. Sir Grantley Wilters, then, is to be the happy man? Here, come along, Joby, it is time to take to stratagem. I wonder what has become of Tom?"

The next day a special message was sent to that medical attendant, Doctor Todd, Lady Barmouth imploring him to come directly, as Maude was so ill that she was growing uneasy.

"Humph!" said the doctor, "poor girl. But she must wait her turn."

He hurried through his interviews with his regular patients, and reached Portland Place just as lunch was going in; but it was put back while Lady Barmouth took him into the drawing-room, where Maude was seated.