"What's become of Mrs Grigson?" asked Owen. "You haven't parted with that disciple of Apicius, I should hope?"
"She's confined again," said my grandfather, sighing; "a most prolific woman that! It certainly can't be above half-a-year since her last child was born, and she's just going to have another. 'Tis certainly not longer ago than last autumn," he added musingly.
"A wonderful woman," said Owen; "she ought to be purchased by the Government, and sent out to some of our thinly-populated colonies. And who fills her place?"
"Why, I'll tell you," responded the Major. "Joe Trigg, my old servant, is confined too – in the guardroom, I mean, for getting drunk – and I've taken a man of the regiment, one Private Bags, for a day or two, who recommended his wife as an excellent cook. She says the same of herself; but this is her first trial, and I'm a little nervous about it."
"Shocking rascal that Bags," said Owen.
"Indeed!" said my grandfather; "I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't inquire about his character. He offered his services, saying he came from the same part of England as myself, though I don't recollect him."
"Terrible work this blockade," said the Major after a pause. "Do you know, if I was a general in command of a besieging army, I don't think I could find it in my heart to starve out the garrison. Consider now, my dear boy," (laying his forefinger on Owen's arm,) – "consider, now, several thousand men, with strong appetites, never having a full meal for months together. And just, too, as my digestion was getting all right – for I never get a nightmare now, though I frequently have the most delicious dreams of banquets that I try to eat, but wake before I get a mouthful. 'Tis enough to provoke a saint. And, as if this was not enough, the supply of books is cut off. The Weekly Entertainer isn't even an annual entertainer to me. The last number I got was in '79, and I've been a regular subscriber these twelve years. There's the Gentleman's Magazine, too. The last one reached me a year since, with a capital story in it, only half-finished, that I'm anxious to know the end of; and also a rebus that I've been longing to see the answer to. 'The answer in our next,' says the tantalising editor. It's a capital rebus – just listen now. 'Two-thirds of the name of an old novelist, one-sixth of what we all do in the morning, and a heathen deity, make together a morsel fit for a king.' I've been working at it for upwards of a year, and I can't guess it. Can you?"
"Roast pig with stuffing answers the general description," said Owen. "That, you'll admit, is a morsel fit for a king."
"Pooh!" said my grandfather. "But you must really try now. I've run through the mythology, all that I know of it, and tried all the old novelists' names, even Boccaccio and Cervantes. Never were such combinations as I've made – but can't compound anything edible out of them. Again, as to what we do in the morning: we all shave, (that is, all who have beards) – and we yawn, too; at least I do, on waking; but it must be a word of six letters. Then, who can the heathen deity be?"
"Pan is the only heathen deity that has anything to do with cookery," said Owen. "Frying-pan, you know, and stew-pan."
My grandfather caught at the idea, but had not succeeded in making anything of it, or in approximating to the solution of the riddle, when Carlota entered from an inner room.
"I wish, my dear, you would see about the dinner," said the Major; "'tis a quarter past three."
"Si, mi vida," (yes, my life,) said Carlota, who was in the habit of bestowing lavishly on my grandfather the most endearing epithets in the Spanish language, some of them, perhaps, not particularly applicable —niño de mi alma, (child of my soul,) luz de mis ojos, (light of my eyes,) and the like; none of which appeared to have any more effect on the object of them than if they had been addressed to somebody else.
Carlota rung the bell, which nobody answered. "Nurse is busy with de niña," she said, when nobody answered it; "I go myself to de cocina," (kitchen,) – she spoke English as yet but imperfectly.
"There's one comfort in delay," said the Major; "'tis better to boil a ham too much than too little – and yet I shouldn't like it overdone either."
Here they were alarmed by an exclamation from Carlota. "Ah Dios! Caramba! Ven, ven, mi niño!" cried she from the kitchen.
The Major and Owen hastened to the kitchen, which was so close at hand that the smell of the dinner sometimes anticipated its appearance in the dining-room. Mrs Bags, the new cook, was seated before the fire. On the table beside her was an empty champagne bottle, the fellow to which protruded its neck from a pail in one corner, where the Major had put it to cool; and another bottle of more robust build, about half-full, was also beside her. The countenance of Mrs Bags wore a pleasant and satisfied, though not very intelligent smile, as she gazed steadfastly on the ham that was roasting on a spit before the fire – at least one side of it was done quite black, while the other oozed with warm greese; for the machinery which should have turned it was not in motion.
"Caramba!" exclaimed Carlota, with uplifted hands. "Que picarilla!" – (What a knave of a woman!)
"Gracious heavens!" said my grandfather, "she's roasting it! Who ever heard of a roast ham?"
"A many years," remarked Mrs Bags, without turning her head, and still smiling pleasantly, "have I lived in gentlemen's families – " Here this fragment of autobiography was terminated by a hiccup.
"And the champagne bottle is empty," said Owen, handling it. "A nice sort of cook this of yours, Major. She seems to have constituted herself butler, too."
My grandfather advanced and lifted the other bottle to his nose. "'Tis the old rum," he ejaculated with a groan. "But if the woman has drunk all this 'twill be the death of her. Bags," he called, "come here."
The spouse of Mrs Bags emerged from a sort of scullery behind the kitchen – a tall bony man, of an ugliness quite remarkable, and with a very red face. He was better known by his comrades as Tongs, in allusion probably to personal peculiarities; for the length of his legs, the width of his bony hips, and the smallness of his head, gave him some distant resemblance to that article of domestic ironmongery; but as his wife called herself Mrs Bags, and he was entered in the regimental books by that name, it was probably his real appellation.
"Run directly to Dr Fagan," said the Major, "and request him to come here. Your wife has poisoned herself with rum."
"'Tisn't rum," said Bags, somewhat thickly – "'tis fits."
"Fits!" said my grandfather.
"Fits," doggedly replied Mr Bags, who seemed by no means disturbed at the alleged indisposition of his wife – "she often gets them."
"Don't alarm yourself, Major," said Owen, "I'll answer for it she hasn't drunk all the rum. The scoundrel is half-drunk himself, and smells like a spirit-vault. You'd better take your wife away," he said to Bags.
"She can leave if she ain't wanted," said Private Bags, with dignity: "we never comes where we ain't wanted." And he advanced to remove the lady. Mrs Bags at first resisted this measure, proceeding to deliver a eulogium on her own excellent qualities, moral and culinary. She had, she said, the best of characters, in proof of which she made reference to several persons in various parts of the United Kingdom, and, as she spoke, she smiled more affably than ever.
"La picarilla no tiene verguenza," (the wretch is perfectly shameless,) cried Carlota, who, having hastily removed the ham from the fire, was now looking after the rest of the dinner. The fowls, cut up in small pieces, were boiling along with the sheep's head, and, probably to save time, the estimable Mrs Bags had put the rice and raisins destined for a pudding into the pot along with them – certainly, as Owen remarked, a bold innovation in cookery.
Still continuing to afford them glimpses of her personal history, Mrs Bags was at length persuaded to retire along with her helpmate.
"What astonishing impudence," said the Major, shutting the door upon her, "to pretend to be a cook, and yet know no better than to roast a ham!"
Carlota,