Part 17 (1/2)

CHAPTER XI

THE FEASTING OF THE CHARM

”There's that that would be thought upon, I trow, beside the bride.

The business of the kitchen's great, For it is fit that men should eat, Nor was it there denied.”

Sir John Suckling.

Crowded hours were to follow that quiet afternoon in the forest.

A morning or so afterwards Olwen darted out into the hall, where she had caught a glimpse of the bride-to-be going past in a great hurry.

”Miss Walsh----!”

”Oh, Olwen,” said Miss Walsh, stopping breathlessly. ”Oh, I do want to talk to you, but I haven't a moment. It's the lunch today, you know, the _dejeuner intime_ for all his relations and friends. They've had the cards----”

Olwen nodded; she had sent her ”_faire part_” card home to Wales as a curiosity.

”It's to be down in Madame Leroux's own sitting-room; she says better so than having the party in the _salle_ after the hotel visitors have had lunch,” explained Miss Walsh, always breathless. ”Oh, I feel I must go down and see if I can help her, but it is so difficult to understand when she will talk French so dreadfully fast----”

”Let me come too,” entreated Olwen, eyes suddenly alight. ”Let me help, do! I can generally make out even her fast French.”

”Very well--if _you_ ask her!”

Madame Leroux was talking faster French that morning than they had ever heard from her before. They found her in the bas.e.m.e.nt, a whole region of the hotel that was unknown ground to Olwen, peopled by a tribe of workers whose sallow faces she had never seen before, and who were flying hither and thither on errands undreamt of on the upper floors.

Even so the stoke-hole of a liner is unthought about on its polished decks.

The manageress was in the _appartement_ that adjoined the kitchen, a domain smaller but pleasanter of aspect than any of the big rooms above, and more comfortable, except for one narrow s.p.a.ce that was neither kitchen nor _appartement_. This s.p.a.ce between the walls seemed to be a sound magnifier of the rumbling service-lift, the whistles of speaking-tubes, and the hissing and running of every water-pipe in the place. The door into the huge French kitchen stood open, giving a glimpse of marmites, burnished copper pans, crocks, and five-decker cookers; of vegetables piled haystack high, of ramparts of yard-long rolls, of twenty other kinds of provisions.

Beyond the kitchen a second door opened out into the _cour_, where buckets clanked, a tap splashed, and the whistling of a knife-cleaning machine could be heard. By yet another door Marie and Rosalie were bringing in chairs collected from bedrooms, attics, landings, and any other corner.

”May we both come in?” Miss Walsh asked timidly.

Madame Leroux turned.

”Ah! Enter always, Mademoiselle. It is not to all the world that I permit it--but for the little demoiselle of M. the Professor, but yes, but yes----To help? But certainly, if that gives her pleasure. One would have said that she would have preferred to spend the fine morning with M. le Capitaine in the forest, he with the one arm who admires her already----” Madame's glance was as swift as the dart of a chameleon's tongue after a fly.

She was already dressed for the day, her dark hair dragged up to the top of her head in a fist-shaped k.n.o.b, secured with combs, and her front locks _frises_ above her mercilessly intelligent face. Over her tightly-fitted gown of black _broche_ and _pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie_, showing a fat white V of neck, a velvet band and a pendant, she had pa.s.sed an enormous ap.r.o.n of blue-and-white check.

She was looking over her well-covered shoulder with eyes that were everywhere at once, and giving orders in a voice that was as shrill as a whipsaw and as quick as a mill-race.

”Hold! Prop that door open, Rosalie, instead of b.u.mping it each time with the good chair, little careless one; one would say a swing!” (She took breath in a gasp.)

”And those oysters from Monsieur Paul; are they not yet arrived? Do not open them immediately, as last time; and even so, see that you open me but half of them in order that they may keep. And thou, Marcel, take me that mat into the yard instead of brus.h.i.+ng me the dust over the vegetables!” (Gasps.) ”_Bon dieu_, one would need twenty eyes----As for these knives, Etienne, have you the intention to grind them to powder rather than find other work? It is then not necessary that they serve us for another day?” (Gasp.) ”My faith!... Ah, Mees Ouall she--Agathe----but no, it is not necessary that you help. Go, go and make yourself beautiful for after the _dejeuner_, when you are presented to the friends. Make yourself beautiful for Pierre, who shall mount up afterwards to beg you to descend for a little half-hour, like a princess!” (Gasp.) ”_Eh bien_, if you hold to a.s.sisting me now, but not in the kitchen, no, no; if you will have the goodness to dispose on the table within the _serviettes_ that I have already placed in a heap. Also the gla.s.ses; they are in those cupboards there; no, not there, Mademoiselle, here, here, here. Arrange them all precisely as in England, at your _chateau_, yes? It is that! It is perfect!” (Gasp.) ”And the little demoiselle of the Professor shall set out the cards with the names----But no, no, no, no, no; she does not know the names nor where they sit. Better to place these pots of cyclamen on the window-sill, Mademoiselle, if you please. One would say real flowers, would one not? But two francs.” (Gasp.) ”Fifty! It is true! _Ah, pas ca_----” seeing Agatha Walsh, entirely at a loss, picking up from the sofa-corner and unrolling a tricolor flag. ”Not that. It should have been interlaced with the other. I was desolated, but one could not obtain in time, the Union Jacques. Flowers only, therefore. _Tiens_, I have not placed a cloth over the safe----”

She spread over the iron cash-safe a cloth edged and inserted with the lovely pillow-made lace of the neighbourhood, while her nimble French tongue ran ceaselessly on.

Her niece-by-marriage-to-be, helped by Olwen, set to work with all the good will in the world to lay the large round table. From the cupboard drawers indicated by Madame's plump hands they brought a tablecloth, an ornately embroidered table-centre, and napkins of the finest linen, all wedded to that beautiful lace; from the cupboards they took old and exquisite gla.s.s, and silver that could not have been bettered at the Grange of Miss Walsh's youth. Olwen noticed that the old-fas.h.i.+oned carved bread-cradle that swung from the ceiling had already been filled with blossomed and berried boughs of the arbutus, patron plant of the place. She thought as Mrs. Cartwright had thought, ”I shall always think of arbutus--and here.”

The chairs, some of them rush-bottomed, others of carved gilt, were ranged about the table; then Olwen and Agatha Walsh sped out into the yard and returned with the knives that Etienne, the boy in the green drugget ap.r.o.n, had at last polished to his satisfaction.