THE ORDEAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 80

THE ORDEAL.

Br

Alice A. Kenny.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.)

Angela, the bride of five months, was going to call on Evadne, the bride of three months, and each was looking forward to the event with alarm. Angela was afraid of Evadne because everyone knew how terribly clever the latter was—she talked about • Hiring but books, and was an M.A. Angela did not want either to read books or talk about them, although she had an anthology of verse, bound in stamped leather, on her drawing room table, and dutifully read one book a year, the new novel her mother always, gave her for a Christmas present. Having performed this intellectual feat, which generally took about a mouth, she rested mentally for the other 11 months. Evadne, on her part, was afraid of Angela because that fair and fluffy lady was so much richer than anyone else in the little town, and was reputed by gos■sips to do things in great style, and put on side, holding her poorer neighbours in contempt. Evadne’s brow was furrowe with care on the morning of the day, and her young husband's cheery “ Why worry, darling?" passed her by as one of the ii—el vaneies of ignorance. She had put on her largest overall on rising, and swept and garnished the house as if she were expecting seven devils instead of only another girl, as the frivolous bridegroom remarked under the impression that he was quoting Scripture. The M.A., who was not versed in that literature either, gave him a brooding look. It was all very well for him, but he had not to sit at home and be overpowered by a rich person, who would look round and sneer at the poor devices of inadequate means. The wedding presents were marshalled that morning, every E.P. piece polished to look like real siver, and the garden was stripped of its roses to adorn the little drawing room. But the iced sponge sandwich was the really important feature of the day—the supreme effort. Sandwiches are tricky things at times, even for an M.A., perhaps more for an M.A., than for people of a more exclusively domestic training. The first one failed, and there were four eggs wasted as well as all the time and trouble, and whether it was because of the oven or not beating enough, who could say? After a brief collapse the M.A., who locked like a hot and anxious girl of 15 in her blue overall, pulled herself together, and began again. The ruin, which visibly settled into a slab of yellow wash leather before her eyes, was laid aside. Jim might eat it with jam. (Jim might, and did).

“ Four eggs,” muttered Evadne. glancing at her recipe like a sybil refreshing her memory about a really potent spell; “ beat for five minutes without the sugar, and then add a tea cup of sugar, and beat for 10 more.” She did so, the eggbeater whizzed under her fingers, and a yellow foam rose in the basin. But quarter of an hour is a long time. “ A tablespoonful of boiling water and a piece of butter the size of a walnut melted.” These cookery-book ompilers were careless about the stops; anyone who knew no better might waste their time trying to melt the walnut. “ Add tea cup of flour and baking powder, taking care not to beat any more, only folding the flour in.” She folded it in, more and more disgusted at the literary style of the book. The well-buttered tins were ready, and the fire good, and with the last solemn warning of the writer in her mind she committed her cake to the oven.

“Do not have too quick a fire; the sponge must rise well before it begins to brown.” It did; all went well, and her heart sang as she turned it out on a spgared paper to cool. It was golden, light as air, a masterpiece and a poem among cakes. When Jim came home for his lunch he was taken to look at it. By this time its golden layers were sundered by a deep band of snJw, whipped cream flavoured with almond, and its upper surface was coated with icing and shreds of almond. “By Jove!" said Jim respectfully, and they stood and gazed at it hand in hand. “ I hope she’ll leave a bit for me," he added, and sat down to eat his lunch, at which the ruin masqueraded as a pudding, and was found quite acceptable. The rich bride did not come in her car, because she liked walking, and she wished it were not a formal call, so that she could have taken her dog with her.

Being little and fluffy, she did not have a Pom, she had a great Dane, which weighed more than she did, and stood as high as a table. She told this animal apologetically that she was going calling, and it could not come, “ Duckunis then!” Duckums sighed, and drooped, and lay down in the porch with a sound and an appearance as if a number of strings had given way all at once, and he had fallen to pieces, but as soon as she was 20 yards down the road be rase, fell casually over the gate, and followed. He had not

declined to go out with his master for nothing that day; he knew his mistress was going out calling, and he loved going out with women. He was well awaro that he looked his best when some silken person put a small hand on his brow and said: “What a noble-looking fellow!” and he always rolled his eyes up with a melting expression, and swung that rather ixipy appendage, his tail. Afternoon teas, besides, had rather agreeable features for a dog with a passion for almond fingers and chocolates. The first intimation Evadne received that her visitor had arrived was an agitated voice saying: “Go home! Go away at once ! you bad boy !” She went to the door, wearing a nervous, artificial smile, and discovered her visitor engaged in an argument with a vast animal of the canine species. At least, taking an optimistic view, she hoped it was of the canine species and not something escaped from a travelling menagerie. I« was standing ankle deep among her pansies and sinking with them into the soft soil. All formalities were suspended while his mistress dragged him off and drove him home. She led him down the path. He was so overcome by her harshness that he could barely totter along, and she opened the gate, very unnecessarily, and pushed him out. She had just managed to seat herself, apologising profusely, when there was a heavy sound on the veranda. The hostess looked surprised, but Angela knew what it was. Duckums had fallen over the gate and crept up the path like a burglar’s best friend only to be betrayed by that habit of his of letting all his joints go at once, and collapsing like coal shot out of a sack. Its that dreadful dog of mine,’’ moaned the visitor. “ I’ll ” “ Oh, please don’t trouble about him, he’s all right there,” protested Evadne sweetly. She much preferred having an eight stone dog on her veranda to having him embedded among her pansies. “ He’s a noble-looking fellow,” she added, and the dog pricked up a hopeful ear. 'les, isn’t he?” said Angela, with a gurgle. ‘‘He’s such a duck, and his skin is just like shadow tissue polished over with black lead.” “Really—how nice.” “And he’s really so faithful and obed ’ A vast sigh stirred the atmosphere, a floppy black jowl and two imploring eyes had come round the door.

Angela gave a shriek, and promptly reversed her favourable opinion. “Oh! isn t he a brute !” she shrieked, and ran straight at him and slapped him. He fled, cowed at such brutality, and two discomposed ladies made another attempt at polite conversation. Evadne said that she loved dogs, and repeated that he was a noble-looking fellow, and Angela said her hostess’s roses were just too sweet, and how did she grow them. Evadne seized gratefully upon the roses, said a piece about them,' and handed them back to her guest-, who treated them to all the superlatives she could think of and then gave up. The hostess was wondering whether she could bring in afternoon tea now and get it over, and the perfection of her cake was an encouraging thought, and Angela was wishing she would, so that she would not have to rack her brains for conversation much longer. Evadne was just about to rise for that purpose when her attention was caught by sounds in the kitchen. There was a hissing noise like escaping steam, followed by a rattling as if one tin after another were falling from a shelf Angela sprang up, wild-eyed. “ What is it?” she said in a tone of panic, but she knew, and she ran after Evadne into the little shining kitchen. The sound of tins falling from shelves fo the floor was caused precisely bv tins falling from shelves to the floor, and the antecendent cause was the kitten ascending to the highest shelf in haste. The sound of escaping steam was also supplied by the kitten, but all these were almost irrelevaneies to the central tragedy taking place on the kitchen table. The sandwich ! the perfect white and golden sandwich ! Duckums had his eyes almost shut in rapture as it melted, cream and all, into his mouth. He was eating hastily, for he more than suspected that this sort of thing was not done. At the moment of detection agony overpowered him ; smeared with cream and entano'led with the best d’ovley, he fled. Evadne looked speechlessly at tho empty plate, and Angela reave a "'nil of grief and ran after the robber. He was gone; he could move without tottering when he _ divined a real necessity. She returned in a moment, holding the d’ovley in her hand.

“ He left this, it was all he did leave.” she sobbed, and burst into tears. “Oh! Im so ashamed, I don’t know what to do. I’ve been so terrified about coming to see you, because everyone said you were so clever and—and nice, and I’m not a bit clever, and niv—mv beastly dog ” “ Never mind,” said Evadne. and the despairing dog-owner looked so infantile that she caught her in her arms. I don t care a bit—no one could nossiblv have enjoyed it more than he did.” ‘‘ Brute !” gasped Angela. “ And I’ve been just as frightened of you because—because you wear such prett-v clothes, and all that, but now T won’t he any more. We’ll have a cun of tea nnri R’scuits, and not bother any mora about it.”

“ Let me stay in the kitchen,’’ said Angela. “ What a darling kitten—and I can help you, can’t I?” “Yes, indeed. All my nicest visitors are kitchen ones. Sit down here and I’ll fet kittykins down for you. Was it Tightened by the big dog, then?” “It needn’t be,’’ said Angela, bright and natural at ]a§t. “ Carlo, that’s his real name, is terrified of cats.”