Mrs Albert Forrester stopped and a slight frown darkened her really noble brow.
'I should have thought they knew by now that I will not have this devastating racket in the flat. Would you mind ringing the bell, Miss Warren, and asking what is the reason of this tumult?'
Miss Warren rang the bell and in a moment the maid appeared. Miss Warren at the door, in order not to interrupt Mrs Albert Forrester, spoke to her in undertones. But Mrs Albert Forrester somewhat irritably interrupted herself.
'Well, Carter, what is it? Is the house falling down or has the Red Revolution at last broken out?'
'If you please, ma'am, it's the new cook's box,' answered the maid. 'The porter dropped it as he was bringing it in and the cook got all upset about it.'
'What do you mean by "the new cook"?'
'Mrs Bulfinch went away this afternoon, ma'am,' said the maid.
Mrs Albert Forrester stared at her.
'This is the first I've heard of it. Had Mrs Bulfinch given notice? The moment Mr Forrester comes in tell him that I wish to speak to him.'
'Very good, ma'am.'
The maid went out and Miss Warren slowly returned to the tea-table. Mechanically, though nobody wanted them, she poured out several cups of tea.
'What a catastrophe!' cried Miss Waterford.
'You must get her back,' said Clifford Boyleston. 'She's a treasure, that woman, a remarkable cook, and she gets better and better every day.'
But at that moment the maid came in again with a letter on a small plated salver and handed it to her mistress.
'What is this?' said Mrs Albert Forrester.
'Mr Forrester said I was to give you this letter when you asked for him, ma'am,' said the maid.
'Where is Mr Forrester then?'
'Mr Forrester's gone, ma'am,' answered the maid as though the question surprised her.
'Gone? That'll do. You can go.'
The maid left the room and Mrs Albert Forrester, with a look of perplexity on her large face, opened the letter. Rose Waterford has told me that her first thought was that Albert, fearful of his wife's displeasure at the departure of Mrs Bulfinch, had thrown himself in the Thames. Mrs Albert Forrester read the letter and a look of consternation crossed her face.
'Oh, monstrous,' she cried. 'Monstrous! Monstrous!'
'What is it, Mrs Forrester?'
Mrs Albert Forrester pawed the carpet with her foot like a restive, high-spirited horse pawing the ground, and crossing her arms with a gesture that is indescribable (but that you sometimes see in a fishwife who is going to make the very devil of a scene) bent her looks upon her curious and excessively startled friends.
'Albert has eloped with the cook.'
There was a gasp of dismay. Then something terrible happened. Miss Warren, who was standing behind the tea-table, suddenly choked. Miss Warren, who never opened her mouth and whom no one ever spoke to, Miss Warren, whom not one of them, though he had seen her every week for three years, would have recognized in the street, Miss Warren suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter. With one accord, aghast, they turned and stared at her. They felt as Balaam must have felt when his ass broke into speech. She positively shrieked with laughter. There was a nameless horror about the sight, as though something had on a sudden gone wrong with a natural phenomenon, and you were just as startled as though the chairs and tables without warning began to skip about the floor in an antic dance. Miss Warren tried to contain herself, but the more she tried the more pitilessly the laughter shook her, and seizing a handkerchief she stuffed it in her mouth and hurried from the room. The door slammed behind her.
'Hysteria,' said Clifford Boyleston.
'Pure hysteria, of course,' said Harry Oakland.
But Mrs Albert Forrester said nothing.
The letter had dropped at her feet and Simmons, the agent, picked it up and handed it to her. She would not take it
'Read it,' she said. 'Read it aloud.'
Mr Simmons pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and holding the letter very close to his eyes read as follows:
My Dear—
Mrs Bulfinch is in need of a change and has decided to leave, and as I do not feel inclined to stay on here without her I am going too. I have had all the literature I can stand and I am fed up with art.
Mrs Bulfinch does not care about marriage, but if you care to divorce me she is willing to marry me. I hope you will find the new cook satisfactory. She has excellent references. It may save you trouble if I inform you that Mrs Bulfinch and I are living at 411 Kennington Road, S.E.
Albert
No one spoke. Mr Simmons slipped his spectacles back on to the bridge of his nose. The fact was that none of them, brilliant as they were and accustomed to find topics of conversation to suit every occasion, could think of an appropriate remark. Mrs Albert Forrester was not the kind of woman to whom you could offer condolences and each was too much afraid of the other's ridicule to venture upon the obvious. At last Clifford Boyleston came bravely to the rescue.
'One doesn't know what to say,' he observed.
There was another silence and then Rose Waterford spoke.
'What does Mrs Bulfinch look like?' she asked.
'How should I know?' answered Mrs Albert Forrester, somewhat peevishly. 'I never looked at her. Albert always engaged the servants, she just came in for a moment so that I could see if her aura was satisfactory.'
'But you must have seen her every morning when you did the housekeeping.'
'Albert did the housekeeping. It was his own wish, so that I might be free to devote myself to my work. In this life one has to limit oneself.'
'Did Albert order your luncheons?' asked Clifford Boyleston.
'Naturally. It was his province.'
Clifford Boyleston slightly raised his eyebrows. What a fool he had been never to guess that it was Albert who was responsible for Mrs Forrester's beautiful food! And of course it was owing to him that the excellent Chablis was always just sufficiently chilled to run coolly over the tongue, but never so cold as to lose its bouquet and its savour.
'He certainly knew good food and good wine.'
'I always told you he had his points,' answered Mrs Albert Forrester, as though he were reproaching her. 'You all laughed at him. You would not believe me when I told you that I owed a great deal to him.'
There was no answer to this and once more silence, heavy and ominous, fell on the party. Suddenly Mr Simmons flung a bombshell.
'You must get him back.'
So great was her surprise that if Mrs Albert Forrester had not been standing against the chimney-piece she would undoubtedly have staggered two paces to the rear.
'What on earth do you mean?' she cried. 'I will never see him again as long as I live. Take him back? Never. Not even if he came and begged me on his bended knees.'
'I didn't say take him back; I said, get him back.'
But Mrs Albert Forrester paid no attention to the misplaced interruption.
'I have done everything for him. What would he be without me? I ask you. I have given him a position which never in his remotest dreams could he have aspired to.'
None could deny that there was something magnificent in the indignation of Mrs Albert Forrester, but it appeared to have little effect on Mr Simmons. 'What are you going to live on?'
Mrs Albert Forrester flung him a glance totally devoid of amiability.
'God will provide,' she answered in freezing tones.
'I think it very unlikely,' he returned.
Mrs Albert Forrester shrugged her shoulders. She wore an outraged expression. But Mr Simmons made himself as comfortable as he could on his chair and lit a cigarette.
'You know you have no warmer admirer of your art than me,' he said.
'Than I,' corrected Clifford Boyleston.