Part 10 (1/2)
”If you drinks a drop more, Miss Lucy, you'll just go like my pore young sister goed,” observed Cook in a warning voice, as Lucille paused to get her second wind for the second draught.
(Lucille had just been tortured at the stake by Sioux and Blackfeet--thirsty work on a July afternoon.)
”And how did she go, Cookie-Bird--_Pop?_” inquired Lucille politely, with round eyes, considering over the top of the big lemonade-flagon as it rose again to her determined little mouth.
”No, Miss Lucy,” replied Cook severely. ”Pop she did not. She swole ... swole and swole.”
”You mean 'swelled,' Cookoo,” corrected Lucille, inclined to be a little didactic and corrective at the age of ten.
”Well, she were _my_ sister after all, Miss Lucy,” retorted Cook, ”and perhaps I may, or may not, know what she done. _I_ say she swole--and what is more she swole clean into a dropsy. All along of drinking water.... _Drops_ of water--_Dropsy_.”
”Never drink water,” murmured Dam, absentmindedly annexing, and pocketing, an apple.
”Ah, water, but you see this is lemonade,” countered Lucille.
”Home-made, too, and not--er--gusty. It doesn't make you go----” and here it is regrettable to have to relate that Lucille made a shockingly realistic sound, painfully indicative of the condition of one who has imbibed unwisely and too well of a gas-impregnated liquor.
”No more does water in my experiants,” returned Cook, ”and I was not allooding to wulgarity, Miss Lucy, which you should know better than to do such. My pore young sister's systerm turned watery and they tapped her at the last. All through drinking too much water, which lemonade ain't so very different either, be it never so 'ome-made....
Tapped 'er they did--like a carksk, an' 'er a Band of 'Oper, Blue Ribander, an' Sunday Schooler from birth, an' not departin' from it when she grew up. Such be the Ways of Providence,” and Cook sighed with protestive respectfulness....
”Tapped 'er systerm, they did,” she added pensively, and with a little justifiable pride.
”Were they hard taps?” inquired Lucille, reappearing from behind the flagon. ”I hate them myself, even on the funny-bone or knuckles--but on the _cistern!_ Ugh!”
”_Hard_ taps; they was _silver_ taps,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cook, ”and drawed gallings and gallings--and nothing to laugh at, Master Dammicles, neether.... So don't you drink no more, Miss Lucy.”
”I can't,” admitted Lucille--and indeed, to Dam, who regarded his ”cousin” with considerable concern, it did seem that, even as Cook's poor young sister of unhappy memory, Lucille had ”swole”--though only locally.
”Does _beer_ make you swell or swole or swellow when you swallow, Cooker?” he inquired; ”because, if so, _you_ had better be--” but he was not allowed to conclude his deduction, for cook, bridling, bristling, and incensed, bore down upon the children and swept them from her kitchen.
To the boy, even as he fled _via_ a dish of tartlets and cakes, it seemed remarkable that a certain uncertainty of temper (and figure) should invariably distinguish those who devote their lives to the obviously charming and attractive pursuit of the culinary art.
Surely one who, by reason of unfortunate limitations of s.e.x, age, ability, or property, could not become a Colonel of Cavalry could still find infinite compensation in the career of cook or railway-servant.
Imagine, in the one case, having absolute freedom of action with regard to raisins, tarts, cream, candy-peel, jam, plum-puddings and cakes, making life one vast hamper, and in the other case, boundless opportunity in the matter of leaping on and off moving trains, carrying lighted bull's-eye lanterns, and waving flags.
One of the early lessons that life taught him, without troubling to explain them, and she taught him many and cruel, was that Cooks are Cross.
”What shall we do now, Dam?” asked Lucille, and added, ”Let's raid the rotten nursery and rag the Haddock. Little a.s.s! Nothing else to do. How I _hate_ Sunday afternoon.... No work and no play. Rotten.”
The Haddock, it may be stated, owed his fishy t.i.tle to the fact that he once possessed a Wealthy Relative of the name of Haddon. With far-sighted reversionary intent his mother, a Mrs. Berners _nee_ Seymour Stukeley, had christened him Haddon.
But the Wealthy Relative, on being informed of his good fortune, had bluntly replied that he intended to leave his little all to the founding of Night-Schools for illiterate Members of Parliament, Travelling-Scholars.h.i.+ps for uneducated Cabinet Ministers, and Deportment Cla.s.ses for New Radical Peers. He was a Funny Man as well as a Wealthy Relative.
And, thereafter, Haddon Berners' parents had, as Cook put it, ”up and died” and ”Grandfather” had sent for, and adopted, the orphan Haddock.
Though known to Dam and Lucille as ”The Haddock” he was in reality an utter Rabbit and esteemed as such. A Rabbit he was born, a Rabbit he lived, and a Rabbit he died. Respectable ever. Seen in the Right Place, in the Right Clothes, doing the Right Thing with the Right People at the Right Time.
Lucille was the daughter of Sylvester Bethune Gavestone, the late and lamented Bishop of Minsterbury (once a cavalry subaltern), a school, Sandhurst, and life-long friend of ”Grandfather,” and husband of ”Grandfather's” cousin, Geraldine Seymour Stukeley.
Poor ”Grandfather,” known to the children as ”Grumper,” the ferocious old tyrant who loved all mankind and hated all men, with him adoption was a habit, and the inviting of other children to stay as long as they liked with the adopted children, a craze.