Eliza Part 3

But my mind was made up, and I went back to the bazaar, and up to Lady Sandlingbury's stall. Eliza wouldn't come with me.

"I beg your ladys.h.i.+p's pardon," I said, "but your ladys.h.i.+p supplied me with this orchestrome, and your ladys.h.i.+p will have to take it back again."

"Dear me! what's all the trouble?"

I started the instrument, and let her hear for herself. She smiled, and turned to another lady who was helping her. The other lady was young, and very pretty, but with a scornful kind of amused expression, and a drawling way of speaking--both of which I disliked extremely.

"Edith," said Lady Sandlingbury, "here's this angry gentleman going to put us both in prison for selling him a bad orchestrome. He says it won't work."

"Doesn't matter, does it?" said the other lady. "I mean to say, as long as it will play, you know." At this rather stupid remark they both laughed, without so much as looking at me.

"I don't want to make myself in any way unpleasant, your ladys.h.i.+p," I said; "but this instrument was offered for raffle as being worth five pounds, and it's not worth five s.h.i.+llings."

"Come, now," said Lady Sandlingbury, "I will give you five s.h.i.+llings for it. There you are! Now you can be happy, and go and spend your money." I thanked her. She took the orchestrome and started it, and it played magnificently. Nothing could have been more perfect. "These things do better," she said, "when you don't put the tunes in wrong end first, so that the instrument plays them backwards."

"I think your ladys.h.i.+p might have told me that before," I said.

"Oh! you were so angry, and you didn't ask me. Edith, dear, do go and be civil to some people, and make them take tickets for another raffle."

"I call this sharp practice," I said, "if not worse, and----"

Here the other lady interrupted me.

"Could you, please, go away, unless you want to buy something? Thanks, so much!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Could you, please, go away?_"]

I went. I am rather sorry for it now. I think it would have been more dignified to have stopped and defied them.

Eliza appeared to think that I had made myself ridiculous. I do not agree with her. I do think, however, that when members of the aristocracy practise a common swindle in support of a charity, they go to show that rank is not everything. If Miss Sakers happens to ask us whether we are going to the bazaar in support of the Deserving Inebriates next year, I have instructed Eliza to reply: "Not if Lady Sandlingbury and her friend have a stall." I positively refuse to meet them, and I do not care twopence if they know it.

THE TONIC PORT

We do a large export trade (that is, the firm does), and there are often samples lying about in the office. There was a bottle of Tarret's Tonic Port, which had been there some time, and one of the partners told the head clerk that he could have it if he liked. Later in the day the head clerk said if a bottle of Tarret's Tonic Port was any use to me I might take it home. He said he had just opened it and tasted it, because he did not like to give anything away until he knew if it was all right.

I thanked him. "Tastes," I said, "just like any ordinary port, I suppose?"

"Well," he said, "it's more a tonic port than an ordinary port. But that's only what you'd expect from the label."

"Quite so," I said--"quite so." I looked at the label, and saw that it said that the port was peculiarly rich in phosphates. I put the bottle in my bag that night and took it home.

"Eliza," I said, "I have brought you a little present. It is a bottle of port." Eliza very rarely takes anything at all, but if she does it is a gla.s.s of port. In this respect I admire her taste. Port, as I have sometimes said to her, is the king of wines. We decided that we would have a gla.s.s after supper. That is really the best time to take anything of the kind; the wine soothes the nerves and prevents insomnia.

Eliza picked the bottle up and looked at the label. "Why," she said, "you told me it was port!"

"So it is."

"It says tonic port on the label."

"Well, tonic port practically _is_ port. That is to say, it is port with the addition of--er--phosphates."

"What are phosphates?"

"Oh, there are so many of them, you know. There is quinine, of course, and magnesium, and--and so on. Let me fill your gla.s.s."

She took one very little sip. "It isn't what I should call a pleasant wine," she said. "It stings so."

"Ah!" I said, "that's the phosphates. It would be a little like that.

But that's not the way to judge a port. What you should do is to take a large mouthful and roll it round the tongue,--then you get the aroma.

Look: this is the way."

I took a large mouthful.

When I had stopped coughing I said that I didn't know that there was anything absolutely wrong with the wine, but you wanted to be ready for it. It had come on me rather unexpectedly.

Eliza said that very likely that was it, and she asked me if I would care to finish my gla.s.s now that I knew what it was like.

I said that it was not quite a fair test to try a port just after it had been shaken about. I would let the bottle stand for a day or two.

Ultimately I took what was left in Eliza's gla.s.s and my own, and emptied it into the garden. I did this because I did not want our general servant to try it when she cleared away, and possibly acquire a taste for drink.

Next morning I found that two of our best geraniums had died during the night. I said that it was most inexplicable. Eliza said nothing.

A few nights afterward, Eliza asked me if I thought that the tonic port had stood long enough.

"Yes," I said; "I will decant it for you, and then if Miss Sakers calls you might say carelessly that you were just going to have a gla.s.s of port, and would be glad if she would join you."

"No, thank you," she said; "I don't want to deceive Miss Sakers."

"You could mention that it was rich in phosphates. There need be no deception about it."

"Well, then, I don't want to lose the few friends we've got."

"As you please, Eliza. It seems a pity to waste more than half a bottle of good wine."

"Bottle of what?"

"You heard what I said."

"Well, drink it yourself, if you like it."