On the present occasion she stood quietly by while the MacShaughnassy method of fire-laying was expounded to her. When Ethelbertha had finished she simply said:—
“You want me to lay the fires like that?”
“Yes, Amenda, we’ll always have the fires laid like that in future, if you please.”
“All right, mum,” replied Amenda, with perfect unconcern, and there the matter ended, for that evening.
On coming downstairs the next morning we found the breakfast table spread very nicely, but there was no breakfast. We waited. Ten minutes went by—a quarter of an hour—twenty minutes. Then Ethelbertha rang the bell. In response Amenda presented herself, calm and respectful.
“Do you know that the proper time for breakfast is half-past eight, Amenda?”
“Yes’m.”
“And do you know that it’s now nearly nine?”
“Yes’m.”
“Well, isn’t breakfast ready?”
“No, mum.”
“Will it ever be ready?”
“Well, mum,” replied Amenda, in a tone of genial frankness, “to tell you the truth, I don’t think it ever will.”
“What’s the reason? Won’t the fire light?”
“Oh yes, it lights all right.”
“Well, then, why can’t you cook the breakfast?”
“Because before you can turn yourself round it goes out again.”
Amenda never volunteered statements. She answered the question put to her and then stopped dead. I called downstairs to her on one occasion, before I understood her peculiarities, to ask her if she knew the time. She replied, “Yes, sir,” and disappeared into the back kitchen. At the end of thirty seconds or so, I called down again. “I asked you, Amenda,” I said reproachfully, “to tell me the time about ten minutes ago.”
“Oh, did you?” she called back pleasantly. “I beg your pardon. I thought you asked me if I knew it—it’s half-past four.”
Ethelbertha inquired—to return to our fire—if she had tried lighting it again.
“Oh yes, mum,” answered the girl. “I’ve tried four times.” Then she added cheerfully, “I’ll try again if you like, mum.”
Amenda was the most willing servant we ever paid wages to.
Ethelbertha said she would step down and light the fire herself, and told Amenda to follow her and watch how she did it. I felt interested in the experiment, and followed also. Ethelbertha tucked up her frock and set to work. Amenda and I stood around and looked on.
At the end of half an hour Ethelbertha retired from the contest, hot, dirty, and a trifle irritable. The fireplace retained the same cold, cynical expression with which it had greeted our entrance.
Then I tried. I honestly tried my best. I was eager and anxious to succeed. For one reason, I wanted my breakfast. For another, I wanted to be able to say that I had done this thing. It seemed to me that for any human being to light a fire, laid as that fire was laid, would be a feat to be proud of. To light a fire even under ordinary circumstances is not too easy a task: to do so, handicapped by MacShaughnassy’s rules, would, I felt, be an achievement pleasant to look back upon. My idea, had I succeeded, would have been to go round the neighbourhood and brag about it.
However, I did not succeed. I lit various other things, including the kitchen carpet and the cat, who would come sniffing about, but the materials within the stove appeared to be fire-proof.
Ethelbertha and I sat down, one each side of our cheerless hearth, and looked at one another, and thought of MacShaughnassy, until Amenda chimed in on our despair with one of those practical suggestions of hers that she occasionally threw out for us to accept or not, as we chose.
“Maybe,” said she, “I’d better light it in the old way just for to-day.”
“Do, Amenda,” said Ethelbertha, rising. And then she added, “I think we’ll always have them lighted in the old way, Amenda, if you please.”
Another time he showed us how to make coffee—according to the Arabian method. Arabia must be a very untidy country if they made coffee often over there. He dirtied two saucepans, three jugs, one tablecloth, one nutmeg-grater, one hearthrug, three cups, and himself. This made coffee for two—what would have been necessary in the case of a party, one dares not think.
That we did not like the coffee when made, MacShaughnassy attributed to our debased taste—the result of long indulgence in an inferior article. He drank both cups himself, and afterwards went home in a cab.
He had an aunt in those days, I remember, a mysterious old lady, who lived in some secluded retreat from where she wrought incalculable mischief upon MacShaughnassy’s friends. What he did not know—the one or two things that he was not an authority upon—this aunt of his knew. “No,” he would say with engaging candour—“no, that is a thing I cannot advise you about myself. But,” he would add, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll write to my aunt and ask her.” And a day or two afterwards he would call again, bringing his aunt’s advice with him; and, if you were young and inexperienced, or a natural born fool, you might possibly follow it.
She sent us a recipe on one occasion, through MacShaughnassy, for the extermination of blackbeetles. We occupied a very picturesque old house; but, as with most picturesque old houses, its advantages were chiefly external. There were many holes and cracks and crevices within its creaking framework. Frogs, who had lost their way and taken the wrong turning, would suddenly discover themselves in the middle of our dining-room, apparently quite as much to their own surprise and annoyance as to ours. A numerous company of rats and mice, remarkably fond of physical exercise, had fitted the place up as a gymnasium for themselves; and our kitchen, after ten o’clock, was turned into a blackbeetles’ club. They came up through the floor and out through the walls, and gambolled there in their light-hearted, reckless way till daylight.
The rats and mice Amenda did not object to. She said she liked to watch them. But against the blackbeetles she was prejudiced. Therefore, when my wife informed her that MacShaughnassy’s aunt had given us an infallible recipe for their annihilation, she rejoiced.
We purchased the materials, manufactured the mixture, and put it about. The beetles came and ate it. They seemed to like it. They finished it all up, and were evidently vexed that there was not more. But they did not die.
We told these facts to MacShaughnassy. He smiled, a very grim smile, and said in a low tone, full of meaning, “Let them eat!”
It appeared that this was one of those slow, insidious poisons. It did not kill the beetle off immediately, but it undermined his constitution. Day by day he would sink and droop without being able to tell what was the matter with himself, until one morning we should enter the kitchen to find him lying cold and very still.
So we made more stuff and laid it round each night, and the blackbeetles from all about the parish swarmed to it. Each night they came in greater quantities. They fetched up all their friends and relations. Strange beetles—beetles from other families, with no claim on us whatever—got to hear about the thing, and came in hordes, and tried to rob our blackbeetles of it. By the end of a week we had lured into our kitchen every beetle that wasn’t lame for miles round.
MacShaughnassy said it was a good thing. We should clear the suburb at one swoop. The beetles had now been eating this poison steadily for ten days, and he said that the end could not be far off. I was glad to hear it, because I was beginning to find this unlimited hospitality expensive. It was a dear poison that we were giving them, and they were hearty eaters.
We went downstairs to see how they were getting on. MacShaughnassy