by Saki
‘And the boy?’
‘Is still in journalism.’
The Byzantine Omelette
Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage. The particular member of that wealthy family whom she had married was rich, even as his relatives counted riches. Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to the distribution of money: it was a pleasing and fortunate circumstance that she also had the money. When she inveighed eloquently against the evils of capitalism at drawing-room meetings and Fabian conferences she was conscious of a comfortable feeling that the system, with all its inequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time. It is one of the consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good they inculcate must live after them if it is to live at all.
On a certain spring evening, somewhere towards the dinner hour, Sophie sat tranquilly between her mirror and her maid, undergoing the process of having her hair built into an elaborate reflection of the prevailing fashion. She was hedged round with a great peace, the peace of one who has attained a desired end with much effort and perseverance, and who has found it still eminently desirable in its attainment. The Duke of Syria had consented to come beneath her roof as a guest, was even now installed beneath her roof, and would shortly be sitting at her dining-table. As a good Socialist, Sophie disapproved of social distinctions, and derided the idea of a princely caste, but if there were to be these artificial gradations of rank and dignity she was pleased and anxious to have an exalted specimen of an exalted order included in her houseparty. She was broad-minded enough to love the sinner while hating the sin – not that she entertained any warm feeling of personal affection for the Duke of Syria, who was a comparative stranger, but still, as Duke of Syria, he was very, very welcome beneath her roof. She could not have explained why, but no one was likely to ask her for an explanation, and most hostesses envied her.
‘You must surpass yourself tonight, Richardson,’ she said complacently to her maid; ‘I must be looking my very best. We must all surpass ourselves.’
The maid said nothing, but from the concentrated look in her eyes and the deft play of her fingers it was evident that she was beset with the ambition to surpass herself.
A knock came at the door, a quiet but peremptory knock, as of some one who would not be denied.
‘Go and see who it is,’ said Sophie; ‘it may be something about the wine.’
Richardson held a hurried conference with an invisible messenger at the door; when she returned there was noticeable a curious listlessness in place of her hitherto alert manner.
‘What is it?’ asked Sophie.
‘The household servants have “downed tools”, madame,’ said Richardson.
‘Downed tools!’ exclaimed Sophie; ‘do you mean to say they’ve gone on strike?’
‘Yes, madame,’ said Richardson, adding the information: ‘It’s Gaspare that the trouble is about.’
‘Gaspare?’ said Sophie wonderingly; ‘the emergency chef! The omelette specialist!’
‘Yes, madame. Before he became an omelette specialist he was a valet, and he was one of the strike-breakers in the great strike at Lord Grimford’s two years ago. As soon as the household staff here learned that you had engaged him they resolved to “down tools” as a protest. They haven’t got any grievance against you personally, but they demand that Gaspare should be immediately dismissed.’
‘But,’ protested Sophie, ‘he is the only man in England who understands how to make a Byzantine omelette. I engaged him specially for the Duke of Syria’s visit, and it would be impossible to replace him at short notice. I should have to send to Paris, and the Duke loves Byzantine omelettes. It was the one thing we talked about coming from the station.’
‘He was one of the strike-breakers at Lord Grimford’s,’ reiterated Richardson.
‘This is too awful,’ said Sophie; ‘a strike of servants at a moment like this, with the Duke of Syria staying in the house. Something must be done immediately. Quick, finish my hair and I’ll go and see what I can do to bring them round.’
‘I can’t finish your hair, madame,’ said Richardson quietly, but with immense decision. ‘I belong to the union and I can’t do another half-minute’s work till the strike is settled. I’m sorry to be disobliging.’
‘But this is inhuman!’ exclaimed Sophie tragically; ‘I’ve always been a model mistress and I’ve refused to employ any but union servants, and this is the result. I can’t finish my hair myself; I don’t know how to. What am I to do? It’s wicked!’
‘Wicked is the word,’ said Richardson; ‘I’m a good Conservative, and I’ve no patience with this Socialist foolery, asking your pardon. It’s tyranny, that’s what it is, all along the line, but I’ve my living to make, same as other people, and I’ve got to belong to the union. I couldn’t touch another hairpin without a strike permit, not if you was to double my wages.’
The door burst open and Catherine Malsom raged into the room.
‘Here’s a nice affair,’ she screamed, ‘a strike of household servants without a moment’s warning, and I’m left like this! I can’t appear in public in this condition.’
After a very hasty scrutiny Sophie assured her that she could not.
‘Have they all struck?’ she asked her maid.
‘Not the kitchen staff,’ said Richardson, ‘they belong to a different union.
‘Dinner at least will be assured,’ said Sophie, ‘that is something to be thankful for.’
‘Dinner!’ snorted Catherine, ‘what on earth is the good of dinner when none of us will be able to appear at it? Look at your hair – and look at me! or rather, don’t.’
‘I know it’s difficult to manage without a maid; can’t your husband be any help to you?’ asked Sophie despairingly.
‘Henry? He’s in worse case than any of us. His man is the only person who really understands that ridiculous new-fangled Turkish bath that he insists on taking with him everywhere.’
‘Surely he could do without a Turkish bath for one evening,’ said Sophie; ‘I can’t appear without hair, but a Turkish bath is a luxury.’
‘My good woman,’ said Catherine, speaking with a fearful intensity, ‘Henry was in the bath when the strike started. In it, do you understand? He’s there now.’
‘Can’t he get out?’
‘He doesn’t know how to. Every time he pulls the lever marked “release” he only releases hot steam. There are two kinds of steam in the bath, “bearable” and “scarcely bearable”; he has released them both. By this time I’m probably a widow.’
‘I simply can’t send away Gaspare,’ wailed Sophie; ‘I should never be able to secure another omelette specialist.’
‘Any difficulty that I may experience in securing another husband is of course a trifle beneath any one’s consideration,’ said Catherine bitterly.
Sophie capitulated. ‘Go,’ she said to Richardson, ‘and tell the Strike Committee, or whoever are directing this affair, that Gaspare is herewith dismissed. And ask Gaspare to see me presently in the library, when I will pay him what is due to him and make what excuses I can; and then fly back and finish my hair.’
Some half an hour later Sophie marshalled her guests in the Grand Salon preparatory to the formal march to the dining-room. Except that Henry Malsom was of the ripe raspberry tint that one sometimes sees at private theatricals representing the human complexion, there was little outward sign among those assembled of the crisis that had just been encountered and surmounted. But the tension had been too stupefying while it lasted not to leave some mental effects behind it. Sophie talked at random to her illustrious guest, and found her eyes straying with increasing frequency towards the great doors through which would presently come the blessed announcement that dinner was served. Now and again she glanced mirror-ward at the reflection of her wonderfully coiffed hair, as an insurance underwriter might gaze thankfully at an overdue vessel that had ridden safely into harbour in the wake of a devastating hurrican
e. Then the doors opened and the welcome figure of the butler entered the room. But he made no general announcement of a banquet in readiness, and the doors closed behind him; his message was for Sophie alone.
‘There is no dinner, madame,’ he said gravely; ‘the kitchen staff have “downed tools”. Gaspare belongs to the Union of Cooks and Kitchen Employés, and as soon as they heard of his summary dismissal at a moment’s notice they struck work. They demand his instant reinstatement and an apology to the union. I may add, madame, that they are very firm; I’ve been obliged even to hand back the dinner rolls that were already on the table.’
After the lapse of eighteen months Sophie Chattel-Monkheim is beginning to go about again among her old haunts and associates, but she still has to be very careful. The doctors will not let her attend anything at all exciting, such as a drawing-room meeting or a Fabian conference; it is doubtful, indeed, whether she wants to.
The Feast of Nemesis
‘It’s a good thing that Saint Valentine’s Day has dropped out of vogue,’ said Mrs Thackenbury; ‘what with Christmas and New Year and Easter, not to speak of birthdays, there are quite enough remembrance days as it is. I tried to save myself trouble at Christmas by just sending flowers to all my friends, but it wouldn’t work; Gertrude has eleven hot-houses and about thirty gardeners, so it would have been ridiculous to send flowers to her, and Milly has just started a florist’s shop, so it was equally out of the question there. The stress of having to decide in a hurry what to give to Gertrude and Milly just when I thought I’d got the whole question nicely off my mind completely ruined my Christmas, and then the awful monotony of the letters of thanks: “Thank you so much for your lovely flowers. It was so good of you to think of me.” Of course in the majority of cases I hadn’t thought about the recipients at all; their names were down in my list of “people who must not be left out”. If I trusted to remembering them there would be some awful sins of omission.’
‘The trouble is,’ said Clovis to his aunt, ‘all these days of intrusive remembrance harp so persistently on one aspect of human nature and entirely ignore the other; that is why they become so perfunctory and artificial. At Christmas and New Year you are emboldened and encouraged by convention to send gushing messages of optimistic goodwill and servile affection to people whom you would scarcely ask to lunch unless some one else had failed you at the last moment; if you are supping at a restaurant on New Year’s Eve you are permitted and expected to join hands and sing “For Auld Lang Syne” with strangers whom you have never seen before and never want to see again. But no licence is allowed in the opposite direction.’
‘Opposite direction; what opposite direction?’ queried Mrs Thackenbury.
‘There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whom you simply loathe. That is really the crying need of our modern civilisation. Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day were set apart for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when one could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive to a carefully treasured list of “people who must not be let off”. I remember when I was at a private school we had one day, the last Monday of the term I think it was, consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges; of course we did not appreciate it as much as it deserved, because after all, any day of the term could be used for that purpose. Still, if one had chastised a smaller boy for being cheeky weeks before, one was always permitted on that day to recall the episode to his memory by chastising him again. That is what the French call reconstructing the crime.’
‘I should call it reconstructing the punishment,’ said Mrs Thackenbury; ‘and, anyhow, I don’t see how you could introduce a system of primitive school-boy vengeance into civilised adult life. We haven’t outgrown our passions, but we are supposed to have learned how to keep them within strictly decorous limits.’
‘Of course the thing would have to be done furtively and politely,’ said Clovis; ‘the charm of it would be that it would never be perfunctory like the other thing. Now, for instance, you say to yourself: “I must show the Webleys some attention at Christmas, they were kind to dear Bertie at Bournemouth”, and you send them a calendar, and daily for six days after Christmas the male Webley asks the female Webley if she has remembered to thank you for the calendar you sent them. Well, transplant that idea to the other and more human side of your nature, and say to yourself: “Next Thursday is Nemesis Day; what on earth can I do to those odious people next door who made such an absurd fuss when Ping Yang bit their youngest child?” Then you’d get up awfully early on the allotted day and climb over into their garden and dig for truffles on their tennis court with a good gardening fork, choosing, of course, that part of the court that was screened from observation by the laurel bushes. You wouldn’t find any truffles but you would find a great peace, such as no amount of present-giving could ever bestow.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Mrs Thackenbury, though her air of protest sounded a bit forced, ‘I should feel rather a worm for doing such a thing.’
‘You exaggerate the power of upheaval which a worm would be able to bring into play in the limited time available,’ said Clovis; ‘if you put in a strenuous ten minutes with a really useful fork, the result ought to suggest the operations of an unusually masterful mole or a badger in a hurry.’
‘They might guess I had done it,’ said Mrs Thackenbury.
‘Of course they would,’ said Clovis; ‘that would be half the satisfaction of the thing, just as you like people at Christmas to know what presents or cards you’ve sent them. The thing would be much easier to manage, of course, when you were on outwardly friendly terms with the object of your dislike. That greedy little Agnes Blaik, for instance, who thinks of nothing but her food, it would be quite simple to ask her to a picnic in some wild woodland spot and lose her just before lunch was served; when you found her again every morsel of food could have been eaten up.’
‘It would require no ordinary human strategy to lose Agnes Blaik when luncheon was imminent: in fact, I don’t believe it could be done.’
‘Then have all the other guests, people whom you dislike, and lose the luncheon. It could have been sent by accident in the wrong direction.’
‘It would be a ghastly picnic,’ said Mrs Thackenbury.
‘For them, but not for you,’ said Clovis; ‘you would have had an early and comforting lunch before you started, and you could improve the occasion by mentioning in detail the items of the missing banquet – the lobster Newburg and the egg mayonnaise, and the curry that was to have been heated in a chafing-dish. Agnes Blaik would be delirious long before you got to the list of wines, and in the long interval of waiting, before they had quite abandoned hope of the lunch turning up, you could induce them to play silly games, such as that idiotic one of “the Lord Mayor’s dinner-party”, in which every one has to choose the name of a dish and do something futile when it is called out. In this case they would probably burst into tears when their dish is mentioned. It would be a heavenly picnic.’
Mrs Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she was probably making a mental list of the people she would like to invite to the Duke Humphrey picnic. Presently she asked: ‘And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley, who is always coddling himself – have you thought of anything that one could do to him?’ Evidently she was beginning to see the possibilities of Nemesis Day.
‘If there was anything like a general observance of the festival,’ said Clovis, ‘Waldo would be in such demand that you would have to bespeak him weeks beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind blowing or a cloud or two in the sky he might be too careful of his precious self to come out. It would be rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock in the orchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps’ nest every summer. A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoon would appeal to his indolent tastes, and then, when he was getting drowsy, a lighted fusee thrown into the nest would bring the wasps out in an indignant mass, and they would soon find a “home away from home”
on Waldo’s fat body. It takes some doing to get out of a hammock in a hurry.’
‘They might sting him to death,’ protested Mrs Thackenbury.
‘Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death,’ said Clovis; ‘but if you didn’t want to go as far as that, you could have some wet straw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammock at the same time that the fusee was thrown into the nest; the smoke would keep all but the most militant of the wasps just outside the stinging line, and as long as Waldo remained within its protection he would escape serious damage, and could be eventually restored to his mother, kippered all over and swollen in places, but still perfectly recognisable.’
‘His mother would be my enemy for life,’ said Mrs Thackenbury.
‘That would be one greeting less to exchange at Christmas,’ said Clovis.
The Dreamer
It was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis and Nettlepink had lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession to trade observances, much as an Archduchess might protestingly contract an attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory reason that influenza was locally prevalent. Adela Chemping, who considered herself in some measure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a point of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and Nettlepink’s.
‘I’m not a bargain hunter,’ she said, ‘but I like to go where bargains are.’
Which showed that beneath her surface strength of character there flowed a gracious undercurrent of human weakness.
With a view to providing herself with a male escort Mrs Chemping had invited her youngest nephew to accompany her on the first day of the shopping expedition, throwing in the additional allurement of a cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light refreshment. As Cyprian was not yet eighteen, she hoped he might not have reached that stage in masculine development when parcel carrying is looked on as a thing abhorrent.