CHAPTER IV

Domestic Economy

At exactly two minutes to one o'clock Miss Drummond and Mademoiselle arrived at the cottage, and were ushered by three rather nervous and anxious housewives into the sitting-room, where the table, at any rate, looked inviting, with its nice clean cloth and elaborately-folded serviettes. The girls had arranged among themselves that Aldred was to bring in and remove the soup and the cheese, Mabel the meat course and the dessert, and Dora the sweets and the coffee. While the others, therefore, were taking their seats, Aldred, with a good many misgivings, poured her _potage_ into the little tureen which formed part of the dinner service. She had never tasted French vegetable soup, and doubted whether her compound bore the slightest resemblance to the wonderful _bouillon maigre_ of which Madame Pontier had boasted; it seemed of such a particularly weak and washy consistency, the herbs were not half-cooked, and the salad oil was floating on the top, and refused to mix up properly, though she stirred it vigorously with a spoon.

"I'm afraid it hasn't boiled enough on this wretched paraffin cooker," she thought. "Well, it will have to do now; I can't keep them waiting. I'm glad Dora remembered the toast."

"A six-course dinner!" exclaimed Miss Drummond, picking up the menu with great approval. "This is more than Mademoiselle and I had dreamed of! We certainly never expected to find soup--it is quite a surprise! Where did you get the stock?"

"There wasn't any stock; it's made from vegetables," replied Aldred. "I heard a French lady tell my aunt how to do it, so I thought I'd try."

"_Potage aux herbes!_" ejaculated Mademoiselle, looking at the tureen with an interest half-gastronomical, half-sentimental; "ah, but that bring to me other days! I have not tasted _bouillon maigre_ since I live with my _grand'mère_ at Avignon."

"You must imagine you are back in Provence, then, Mademoiselle," said Miss Drummond, as she helped to hand the plates.

"It was a sweet thought to make it--_une idée tout à fait gentille_! The scenes of one's youth, ah, what it is to recall them to the memory! _Ma foi!_ but I am again in the old white _château_: the green shutters are closed to keep out the warm sun; Jules, the _concierge_, carries in the dishes, treading softly on the polished floor; outside is the cooing of doves, and the tinkling of goat bells. _Grand'mère_, so stately, so erect, so gay in spite of her years, she sit at the table's head, and serve to all the portion. It is to me as if I were there!"

Steeped in these reminiscences of her childhood, Mademoiselle, with pleased anticipation, raised her spoon to her lips. Then, alas! alas! she spluttered, made a horrible grimace, and buried her face in her serviette.

"_Ah! mais c'est dégoûtant!_" she murmured faintly.

Aldred hurriedly tasted her own plateful. Mademoiselle had not exaggerated matters; a more unpleasant brew could not be imagined. The various vegetables and herbs were still half-raw, and had not imparted their flavour, so the soup seemed mainly a mixture of spices and salad oil, and had, besides, a suggestion of paraffin, owing no doubt to the flaring-up of the lamp.

Poor Aldred blushed hotly. She was covered with confusion at such a dead failure. The others had all politely sampled the soup, and then laid down their spoons; it was quite impossible for anybody to take it.

"Never mind, my dear!" said Miss Drummond kindly. "You tried to give us a surprise, and we are as sorry as you that it should have turned out so unfortunately. Even the best cook has to profit by experience, and the value of this little cottage is that it gives you the opportunity of learning from practice. You will be wiser another time. Perhaps your aunt's French friend will send you a written recipe, with exact quantities and instructions. It needs a very old housekeeper to make a dish from hearsay. Suppose you take out the tureen, and we will go on with the next course."

Mabel's and Dora's stew, made exactly as Miss Reade had shown them in the cookery class, was quite satisfactory. They had put in the right seasonings, and had remembered to brown and thicken the gravy. The potatoes and beans were also up to standard, which cheered Aldred a little. She was partly responsible for them, and had helped to prepare them, though it was Dora who had shaken the potato pan, and put the dab of butter among the beans. Miss Drummond looked mildly surprised at the addition of bread sauce, but she helped herself without comment, feeling pledged to taste all her pupils' efforts. Aldred had been obliged to draw upon her inventive powers for this also, as she had no recipe, and the result, though not so disagreeable as the soup, was far from palatable. She had made it exactly like bread and milk, without onion, butter, or cloves; and had even added a little sugar to it. She wished sincerely that she had not included it in the menu, or, at any rate, that she had not allowed it to be brought to table. She looked so conscious and distressed that Miss Drummond readily divined who was the author of the attempt, and charitably forbore to remark upon it, though she left her portion unfinished on her plate.

The rest of the dinner was really very creditable. Dora's blancmange was smooth, and Mabel's pastry light. Aldred had arranged the cheese and biscuits daintily on paper d'oyleys; and the coffee, a combined effort of the trio, was a great improvement upon that of the morning.

The three girls heaved a vast sigh of relief when Miss Drummond, after a tour of inspection into the kitchen and scullery, departed, expressing satisfaction both with the dinner and with the general neatness and order of the establishment. Mademoiselle had excused herself the moment coffee was finished. She had been very silent after the episode of the soup, perhaps her thoughts were in Provence, or perhaps she considered it a hardship that her duties should include being obliged to endure such amateur cookery.

"Hurrah! The worst part of the day is over," said Mabel. "I felt I couldn't breathe freely until dinner was done with, and Miss Drummond out of the house!"

"I'm quite exhausted with all our efforts," declared Dora, sinking into a basket-chair and tucking a cushion behind her head.

"Your efforts were successful," said Aldred ruefully. "I don't think Mademoiselle will ever forget my wretched _bouillon maigre_. I'm afraid she won't accept an invitation to dine at the cottage again."

"Well, she won't have us for cooks in any case, for we shan't get another day here now until next term. I wish our turns could come oftener!"

"Yes, we could do with a whole row of cottages."

"I'm afraid Miss Drummond won't build them."

"No, I suppose they cost too much."

The girls felt they had earned a rest after their labours, so they sat chatting for a while in the sitting-room before they began to clear away the remains of the feast.

"The others are looking forward tremendously to coming to tea," said Mabel. "It was nice of Miss Drummond to let us ask the whole Form."

"Well, we were allowed three visitors, and it would have been so hard to choose which. The two who were left out would have been so offended; and it really would have been hard on them, when they thought of the fun the rest were having."

"Look here!" cried Dora, starting up, "do you know it's a quarter-past two? If we're expecting five girls to tea at half-past four, we shall have to bestir ourselves and make some cakes."

"And there's the jam! We mustn't forget our precious blackberries," added Aldred.

An unpleasant surprise awaited them in the kitchen. They had forgotten the very existence of the stove while they were talking, and the fire was out. Until it was rekindled there did not seem much prospect of either cakes or jam. Dora and Aldred hastened to the rescue, while Mabel cleared the table, swept up crumbs, and generally tidied the sitting-room.

"We must manage to make it burn up quickly, or we shan't have the oven hot in time," said Aldred; and going into the scullery, she fetched the paraffin can, and poured a liberal amount over the pyramid of sticks and coal in the grate.

"Miss Reade said we were never to use paraffin!" objected Dora.

"Well, I suppose it's wrong in theory," answered Aldred, "but it's good in practice. I've seen the housemaid use it at home, when Aunt Bertha was out of the way. There's nothing like it for making a blaze. There! I've put on the lid, so if you will set a light to it, you'll see it will catch at once."

Dora knelt down in front of the stove, struck a match, and applied it to the paper. Then, instantly, a horrible thing happened. The paraffin flared up, and the strong down-draught from the stove pipe sent the flame suddenly straight out through the bars of the grate into her face. With a shriek she drew swiftly back; for the moment she thought she was blinded. Mabel came running in much consternation from the sitting-room, to see what had happened, and found Dora crouching on the floor with her hands over her eyes, and Aldred standing by, as white as a ghost.

"What's the matter? Are you hurt?" cried Mabel.

"Oh, I can see, after all!" shuddered Dora, cautiously peeping through her hands. "I never expected the stove to play me such a horrid trick! Is my face burnt?"

"No; but oh dear, your eyebrows and eyelashes are singed! They look so queer!"

Dora got up, and ran to view herself in the small mirror that hung over the dresser.

"I've certainly spoilt my beauty--what there was of it! And I've had a most dreadful fright, too!" she remarked.

"It was my fault!" quavered Aldred, who was horror-stricken at the accident. "I'd no idea the flame would rush out in front. You might have lost your sight!"

"Well, it can't be helped now," said Dora, with good-tempered philosophy. "We'd better keep this little episode as quiet as we can. I only hope Miss Drummond won't notice my eyebrows, and ask what I've been doing to them. We'll never try such a silly thing again, though it was very efficacious--the fire's blazing away hard. What about the jam? Can you look after it, Aldred? You said you knew how. Mabel and I will make some potato cakes, and some scones."

After the failure of the soup and the bread sauce, Aldred's supreme confidence in her powers was rather shaken; but she would not confess as much to her companions, and readily undertook to superintend the preserving. The blackberries were waiting in the basket, and the pounds of sugar had been smuggled in that morning by the cook, and were concealed under towels in a drawer.

Aldred wished now that she had not refused Miss Reade's recipe. There was no printed cookery book at the cottage, as the girls were not supposed to try experiments, but to carry out what they had learned in class, the instructions being written down in their notebooks.

"Still, jam really isn't difficult," she reflected. "There are no horrid seasonings and flavourings, only the fruit and the sugar. I don't see how I can go wrong over this; I've seen Aunt Bertha make it dozens of times!"

She set to work very providently and systematically. First she found the jam pots, wiped them, and placed them in readiness, then got the big brass pan and rubbed it carefully with butter, to make sure that not the slightest particle of verdigris could be left in it. She felt quite proud of herself for thus remembering her aunt's methodical ways. Next she measured the blackberries with a pint mug, and found that there were nearly five quarts, therefore four pounds of sugar would be just enough.

"I'll put the sugar in first," she thought, "and then, when it's boiling, drop in the fruit, like Aunt Bertha does. It keeps the blackberries whole, instead of letting them go squashy."

So on went the pan, and Aldred, armed with a big wooden spoon, stirred vigorously, wondering why the sugar did not begin to turn into a soft syrup, such as she had seen at home.

"There's a queer smell from somewhere!" exclaimed Mabel, who was at the table concocting potato cakes. "Is anything burning?"

"It's surely not my precious scones!" shrieked Dora, flying to the oven in hot haste, to ascertain the fate of the delicacies in question.

"Why, you only put them in a moment ago!"

"No, it's not the scones; they've hardly begun to cook yet," said Dora, much relieved. "Aldred, I believe it's your sugar. Why don't you stir it?"

"I am stirring," returned Aldred, who, indeed, was wielding the spoon with frantic zeal.

"What's wrong then? Let me try."

Aldred resigned her weapon, and Dora took her place at the stove; but she was already too late, for the sugar was rapidly turning into a black, solid mass.

"Lift off the pan!" cried Mabel. "Can't you see it's burning horribly? Oh, what a nasty, disgusting, sticky mess!"

"I don't know why it should have burnt," complained Aldred; "I was watching it the whole time."

"Did you put enough water into it?"

"Water! I didn't put in any at all," faltered Aldred.

"You unmitigated goose!" exclaimed Dora. "Why, even I know that sugar will burn by itself, though I don't pretend to make jam. You really are a bungler to-day! How many more silly things are you going to do?"

"Everyone's liable to make mistakes," said Mabel, coming to her friend's defence. "It was you who suggested the jam, Dora, and neither you nor I knew exactly the proper way."

"Evidently Aldred didn't either. Why couldn't she get a recipe from Miss Reade?"

"I thought I could remember," apologized Aldred, who was feeling decidedly crestfallen.

"Well, you've spoilt all the sugar, at any rate! And the blackberries are no use now, either. It's really too bad!"

"Oh, Dora, don't be cross, there's a dear!" entreated Mabel. "Aldred's fearfully sorry! I suppose we shouldn't have been so ambitious. I expect your scones will be lovely, and that will quite make up for the jam. Hadn't you better look at them again?"

Dora allowed herself to be pacified, though she felt she had more than one grievance against Aldred that day. She had refrained from any reproaches when her eyebrows were singed, but she was annoyed at her disfigurement, and thought that the various misadventures might have been avoided. She was considerably consoled, however, when she opened the oven door and caught sight of her scones. They had risen beautifully, and were done to a turn, just brown enough on the top, and nicely baked through.

"I believe they'll taste all right, when they're split in halves and buttered," she murmured, as she took them out of the tin.

"Help me with the potato cakes, Aldred," suggested Mabel, who was anxious to make up for Dora's snubbing. "You can stamp them out, and I'll do the rolling. And somebody fill the kettle! It is a quarter to four, and the girls are sure to be so punctual!"

"She'd better clean out the preserving pan!" grunted Dora. "It can't be left in this state. Miss Drummond will be round again at six, to inspect before we go. Those who make a mess must tidy up."

Aldred saw the force of the argument. She did not want to shirk the disagreeable task, nor put it off on to anybody else. Though she held rather too good an opinion of herself, it was not one of her failings to try to avoid her fair share of any work on hand. She began at once to clean the pan, and toiled away without asking any help from the others, though it was a lengthy and troublesome performance. She was obliged to scrape the burnt sugar off with a knife, and then scrub away with sand and brick dust and soap. It took her fully half an hour, and made her hands quite sore.

She had just finished, and put the humiliating row of jam pots back on to the scullery shelf, when a loud rap-tap sounded on the door.

"They're here--ten minutes too soon!" cried Mabel. "Go and let them in, Aldred. I'm taking out the potato cakes, and Dora's laying the table."

The five visitors arrived in the very highest of spirits, and with the best of appetites. They overstepped the bounds of politeness by sniffing the air appreciatively as they entered, and announcing themselves ready to eat anything and everything.

"I feel like a ragged-school child going to a treat!" announced Ursula. "As for Lorna, she's been banting in preparation; she hardly took any dinner."

"It's a libel!" protested Lorna. "I had quite as much as Ursie. What have you made? We're dying to know!"

"Where are your manners? Please to remember you're visitors. You're not to ask; you must wait until we bring the things on to the table."

Three hostesses and five guests seemed to completely fill the tiny sitting-room.

"It's so delightfully minute!" declared Phoebe Stanhope. "When I was a little girl, I always longed to make myself small, like Alice in Wonderland, and have tea in my own dolls' house. Now I feel as if I were really doing it at last!"

"There isn't room for us all at the table," said Mabel. "Dora, you had better let down that side leaf."

"It's an afternoon calling tea, not a sit-down schoolroom tea," explained Aldred.

"Three of you must sit in the cosy corner," commanded Dora, "and the other two may have the arm-chairs."

"But mayn't we help to bring in the things?"

"No, you mayn't! Agnes, I wish you'd sit down! If you were paying a real call, you wouldn't bounce up and try to peep into the kitchen."

"You came too early," said Mabel reproachfully. "We were going to have everything exactly ready for half-past four."

"Well, you might at least tell us how you've been getting on. Has it been fun spending the day here?"

"Simply scrumptious!" replied the trio.

"I'd like to do it again next week!" added Dora.

"It's the Fifth Form next Saturday, and after that it's my turn, with Phoebe and Myfanwy. When's this wonderful tea coming in? We're all waiting!"

"We'll make it now," said Mabel. "Aldred, will you put out the spoons?"

Dora had laid the best embroidered linen cloth on the table, set cups and saucers, and brought in the milk and a plateful of bread and butter. It only needed the teapot and the scones and cakes, therefore, to complete the feast.

"I hope you've made enough to go round twice!" said Ursula.

"Beautiful cakes, so rich and brown, Oh, how quickly you'll go down! Who for such dainties does not ache? Cake of the evening, beautiful, beautiful cake!"

sang Phoebe, trying to out-Alice _Alice_.

"How disgustingly greedy you are! I call it quite indecent. You don't deserve anything, except plain bread and scrape."

Mabel crossed the passage laughing; but as she opened the kitchen door her mirth was changed to mourning. There, with his fore-paws upon the table, stood Raggles, the shaggy yard dog, devouring scones as fast as he could gulp them down his capacious throat. Mabel uttered a cry of dismay, and, catching up the rolling pin, which was the nearest thing at hand, flung it at the intruder, who snatched a last mouthful, and bolted hastily through the back door.

"Oh, Dora! Aldred! Come and see what's happened!" cried poor Mabel, bursting into the sitting-room, oblivious of the fact that a model hostess ought not to air such domestic catastrophes in public. The visitors did not stand on ceremony, however, but seized the opportunity to make a dash for the kitchen, into which they had been longing to peep.

"I never dreamt of Raggles coming in! I thought he was tied up!" wailed Dora.

"We oughtn't to have left the back door open," said Aldred.

"It was so hot; one can't have the place all stuffy! Oh, the wretch! I wish they'd choked him!"

"Has he taken every one?" asked the disconsolate guests.

"All except three, and as he seemed to be licking the whole plateful, I don't suppose anybody would care to try what he's left!" replied Mabel.

"My lovely scones! And I had split them and buttered them!" moaned Dora, almost in tears.

"Well, we have the potato cakes, at any rate. Luckily, I put them on the top of the stove, to keep hot, and Raggles didn't find them out."

"We'd better eat them quick, before any more accidents happen," advised Aldred, hastily pouring the water on the tea, and heading the procession back into the sitting-room.

The potato cakes were a huge success. That was the universal verdict. They were light, and hot, and buttery, and the only fault to be found was that there were not nearly sufficient of them. Mabel handed the plate round with impartial justice, and there were only two apiece.

"Just enough to make one want more!" sighed Ursula, consuming the last delicious crumb.

"There's plenty of bread and butter, if you're hungry."

"But I'm not bread-and-butter hungry!"

"I'm sorry we've no jam!" apologized Dora.

"Oh, don't!" begged Aldred, who still felt humiliated at the fate of the blackberries.

"She didn't mean it!" interposed Mabel the peacemaker. "I vote we have some buttered toast, and anybody can hold it who likes to volunteer."

When Miss Drummond arrived at six o'clock she found the visitors gone, the tea-things washed, and the whole of the wee establishment in apple-pie order; while three flushed, rather tired little maids-of-all-work stood at attention, ready for her tour of inspection.

"Housekeeping isn't quite so easy and simple as it appears on the surface, is it?" she remarked. "In its own way, it has as many difficulties as Latin or mathematics, and needs as much learning. It's a very useful art, however, and worthy of cultivation. You'll have gained a little experience even in this one brief experiment, and your mistakes will teach you what to avoid next time. You have done very nicely, though, and I shall give you each a good report. Have you enjoyed your day at the cottage?"

And all three girls answered: "Immensely!"