By the time Billy had searched five minutes and found no chicken, no oysters, and no halibut, it occurred to her that her larder was not, after all, an open market, and that one"s provisions must be especially ordered to fit one"s needs. As to ordering them now--Billy glanced at the clock and shook her head.
"It"s almost five, already, and they"d never get here in time," she sighed regretfully. "I"ll have to have something else."
Billy looked now, not for what she wanted, but for what she could find.
And she found: some cold roast lamb, at which she turned up her nose; an uncooked beefsteak, which she appropriated doubtfully; a raw turnip and a head of lettuce, which she hailed with glee; and some beets, potatoes, onions, and grapefruit, from all of which she took a generous supply.
Thus laden she went back to the kitchen.
Spread upon the table they made a brave show.
"Oh, well, I"ll have quite a dinner, after all," she triumphed, c.o.c.king her head happily. "And now for the dessert," she finished, pouncing on the cookbook.
It was while she was turning the leaves to find the pies and puddings that she ran across the vegetables and found the word "beets" staring her in the face. Mechanically she read the line below.
"Winter beets will require three hours to cook. Use hot water."
Billy"s startled eyes sought the clock.
Three hours--and it was five, now!
Frenziedly, then, she ran her finger down the page.
"Onions, one and one-half hours. Use hot water. Turnips require a long time, but if cut thin they will cook in an hour and a quarter."
"An hour and a quarter, indeed!" she moaned.
"Isn"t there anything anywhere that doesn"t take forever to cook?"
"Early peas--... green corn--... summer squash--..." mumbled Billy"s dry lips. "But what do folks eat in January--_January_?"
It was the apparently inoffensive sentence, "New potatoes will boil in thirty minutes," that brought fresh terror to Billy"s soul, and set her to fluttering the cookbook leaves with renewed haste. If it took _new_ potatoes thirty minutes to cook, how long did it take old ones? In vain she searched for the answer. There were plenty of potatoes. They were mashed, whipped, scalloped, creamed, fried, and broiled; they were made into puffs, croquettes, potato border, and potato snow. For many of these they were boiled first--"until tender," one rule said.
"But that doesn"t tell me how long it takes to get "em tender," fumed Billy, despairingly. "I suppose they think anybody ought to know that--but I don"t!" Suddenly her eyes fell once more on the instructions for boiling turnips, and her face cleared. "If it helps to cut turnips thin, why not potatoes?" she cried. "I _can_ do that, anyhow; and I will," she finished, with a sigh of relief, as she caught up half a dozen potatoes and hurried into the pantry for a knife. A few minutes later, the potatoes, peeled, and cut almost to wafer thinness, were dumped into a basin of cold water.
"There! now I guess you"ll cook," nodded Billy to the dish in her hand as she hurried to the stove.
Chilled by an ominous unresponsiveness, Billy lifted the stove lid and peered inside. Only a ma.s.s of black and graying coals greeted her. The fire was out.
"To think that even you had to go back on me like this!" upbraided Billy, eyeing the dismal ma.s.s with reproachful gaze.
This disaster, however, as Billy knew, was not so great as it seemed, for there was still the gas stove. In the old days, under Dong Ling"s rule, there had been no gas stove. Dong Ling disapproved of "devil stoves" that had "no coalee, no woodee, but burned like h.e.l.lee." Eliza, however, did approve of them; and not long after her arrival, a fine one had been put in for her use. So now Billy soon had her potatoes with a brisk blaze under them.
In frantic earnest, then, Billy went to work. Brushing the discarded onions, turnip, and beets into a pail under the table, she was still confronted with the beefsteak, lettuce, and grapefruit. All but the beefsteak she pushed to one side with gentle pats.
"You"re all right," she nodded to them. "I can use you. You don"t have to be cooked, bless your hearts! But _you_--!" Billy scowled at the beefsteak and ran her finger down the index of the "Bride"s Helper"--Billy knew how to handle that book now.
"No, you don"t--not for me!" she muttered, after a minute, shaking her finger at the tenderloin on the table. "I haven"t got any "hot coals,"
and I thought a "gridiron" was where they played football; though it seems it"s some sort of a dish to cook you in, here--but I shouldn"t know it from a teaspoon, probably, if I should see it. No, sir! It"s back to the refrigerator for you, and a nice cold sensible roast leg of lamb for me, that doesn"t have to be cooked. Understand? _Cooked_," she finished, as she carried the beefsteak away and took possession of the hitherto despised cold lamb.
Once more Billy made a mad search through cupboards and shelves. This time she bore back in triumph a can of corn, another of tomatoes, and a gla.s.s jar of preserved peaches. In the kitchen a cheery bubbling from the potatoes on the stove greeted her. Billy"s spirits rose with the steam.
"There, s.p.u.n.kie," she said gayly to the cat, who had just uncurled from a nap behind the stove. "Tell me I can"t get up a dinner! And maybe we"ll have the peach fritters, too," she chirped. "I"ve got the peach-part, anyway."
But Billy did not have the peach fritters, after all. She got out the sugar and the flour, to be sure, and she made a great ado looking up the rule; but a hurried glance at the clock sent her into the dining-room to set the table, and all thought of the peach fritters was given up.
CHAPTER X. THE DINNER BILLY GOT
At five minutes of six Bertram and Calderwell came. Bertram gave his peculiar ring and let himself in with his latchkey; but Billy did not meet him in the hall, nor in the drawing-room. Excusing himself, Bertram hurried up-stairs. Billy was not in her room, nor anywhere on that floor. She was not in William"s room. Coming down-stairs to the hall again, Bertram confronted William, who had just come in.
"Where"s Billy?" demanded the young husband, with just a touch of irritation, as if he suspected William of having Billy in his pocket.
William stared slightly.
"Why, I don"t know. Isn"t she here?"
"I"ll ask Pete," frowned Bertram.
In the dining-room Bertram found no one, though the table was prettily set, and showed half a grapefruit at each place. In the kitchen--in the kitchen Bertram found a din of rattling tin, an odor of burned food--, a confusion of scattered pots and pans, a frightened cat who peered at him from under a littered stove, and a flushed, disheveled young woman in a blue dust-cap and ruffled ap.r.o.n, whom he finally recognized as his wife.
"Why, Billy!" he gasped.
Billy, who was struggling with something at the sink, turned sharply.
"Bertram Henshaw," she panted, "I used to think you were wonderful because you could paint a picture. I even used to think I was a little wonderful because I could write a song. Well, I don"t any more! But I"ll tell you who _is_ wonderful. It"s Eliza and Rosa, and all the rest of those women who can get a meal on to the table all at once, so it"s fit to eat!"
"Why, Billy!" gasped Bertram again, falling back to the door he had closed behind him. "What in the world does this mean?"
"Mean? It means I"m getting dinner," choked Billy. "Can"t you see?"
"But--Pete! Eliza!"
"They"re sick--I mean he"s sick; and I said I"d do it. I"d be an oak.
But how did I know there wasn"t anything in the house except stuff that took hours to cook--only potatoes? And how did I know that _they_ cooked in no time, and then got all smushy and wet staying in the water? And how did I know that everything else would stick on and burn on till you"d used every dish there was in the house to cook "em in?"
"Why, Billy!" gasped Bertram, for the third time. And then, because he had been married only six months instead of six years, he made the mistake of trying to argue with a woman whose nerves were already at the snapping point. "But, dear, it was so foolish of you to do all this! Why didn"t you telephone? Why didn"t you get somebody?"
Like an irate little tigress, Billy turned at bay.
"Bertram Henshaw," she flamed angrily, "if you don"t go up-stairs and tend to that man up there, I shall _scream_. Now go! I"ll be up when I can."
And Bertram went.
It was not so very long, after all, before Billy came in to greet her guest. She was not stately and imposing in royally sumptuous blue velvet and ermine; nor yet was she cozy and homy in bronze-gold crepe de Chine and swan"s-down. She was just herself in a pretty little morning house gown of blue gingham. She was minus the dust-cap and the ruffled ap.r.o.n, but she had a dab of flour on the left cheek, and a s.m.u.tch of crock on her forehead. She had, too, a cut finger on her right hand, and a burned thumb on her left. But she was Billy--and being Billy, she advanced with a bright smile and held out a cordial hand--not even wincing when the cut finger came under Calderwell"s hearty clasp.
"I"m glad to see you," she welcomed him. "You"ll excuse my not appearing sooner, I"m sure, for--didn"t Bertram tell you?--I"m playing Bridget to-night. But dinner is ready now, and we"ll go down, please," she smiled, as she laid a light hand on her guest"s arm.