The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight Part 21

"Oh, only some cheap prints," said Priscilla hastily. "I think they're called oleographs or something."

"What impertinence," said Tussie hotly.

"I expect it was kindly meant, but I--I like my cottage quite plain."

"I'll have them sent back, sir," Tussie said to Fritzing, who was rubbing his hands nervously through his hair; for the sight of his grand ducal master's face smiling at him on whom he would surely never wish to smile again, and doing it, too, from the walls of Creeper Cottage, had given him a shock.

"You are ever helpful, young man," he said, bowing abstractedly and going away to put down his hat and umbrella; and Priscilla, with a cold feeling that she had had a bad omen, rang the handbell Tussie's thoughtfulness had placed on her table and ordered Annalise to bring tea.

Now Annalise had been standing on the threshold of her attic staring at it in an amazement too deep for words when the bell fetched her down. She appeared, however, before her mistress with a composed face, received the order with her customary respectfulness, and sought out Fritzing to inquire of him where the servants were to be found. "Her Grand Ducal Highness desires tea," announced Annalise, appearing in Fritzing's sitting-room, where he was standing absorbed in the bill from the furnishers that he had found lying on his table.

"Then take it in," said Fritzing impatiently, without looking up.

"To whom shall I give the order?" inquired Annalise.

"To whom shall you give the order?" repeated Fritzing, pausing in his study to stare at her, the bill in one hand and his pocket-handkerchief, with which he was mopping his forehead, in the other.

"Where," asked Annalise, "shall I find the cook?"

"Where shall you find the cook?" repeated Fritzing, staring still harder. "This house is so gigantic is it not," he said with an enormous sarcasm, "that no doubt the cook has lost himself. Have you perhaps omitted to investigate the coal-hole?"

"Herr Geheimrath, where shall I find the cook?" asked Annalise tossing her head.

"Fraulein, is there a mirror in your bedroom?"

"The smallest I ever saw. Only one-half of my face can I see reflected in it at a time."

"Fraulein, the half of that face you see reflected in it is the half of the face of the cook."

"I do not understand," said Annalise.

"Yet it is as clear as s.h.i.+ning after rain. You, _mein liebes Kind_, are the cook."

It was now Annalise's turn to stare, and she stood for a moment doing it, her face changing from white to red while Fritzing turned his back and taking out a pencil made little sums on the margin of the bill.

"Herr Geheimrath, I am not a cook," she said at last, swallowing her indignation.

"What, still there?" he exclaimed, looking up sharply. "Unworthy one, get thee quickly to the kitchen. Is it seemly to keep the Princess waiting?"

"I am not a cook," said Annalise defiantly. "I was not engaged as a cook, I never was a cook, and I will not be a cook."

Fritzing flung down the bill and came and glared close into Annalise's face. "Not a cook?" he cried. "You, a German girl, the daughter of poor parents, you are not ashamed to say it? You do not hide your head for shame? No--a being so useful, so necessary, so worthy of respect as a cook you are not and never will be. I'll tell you what you are,--I've told you once already, and I repeat it--you are a knave, my Fraulein, a knave, I say. And in those parts of your miserable nature where you are not a knave--for I willingly concede that no man or woman is bad all through--in those parts, I say, where your knavishness is intermittent, you are an absolute, unmitigated fool."

"I will not bear this," cried Annalise.

"Will not! Cannot! Shall not! Inept Negation, get thee to thy kitchen and seek wisdom among the pots."

"I am no one's slave," cried Annalise, "I am no one's prisoner."

"Hark at her! Who said you were? Have I not told you the only two things you are?"

"But I am treated as a prisoner, I am treated as a slave," sobbed Annalise.

"Unmannerly one, how dare you linger talking follies when your royal mistress is waiting for her tea? Run--run! Or must I show you how?"

"Her Grand Ducal Highness," said Annalise, not budging, "told me also to prepare the bath for her this evening."

"Well, what of that?" cried Fritzing, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the bill again and adding up furiously. "Prepare it, then."

"I see no water-taps."

"Woman, there are none."

"How can I prepare a bath without water-taps?"

"O thou Inefficiency! Inept.i.tude garbed as woman! Must I then teach thee the elements of thy business? Hast thou not observed the pump? Go to it, and draw water. Cause the water to flow into buckets. Carry these buckets--need I go on? Will not Nature herself teach thee what to do with buckets?"

Annalise flushed scarlet. "I will not go to the pump," she said.

"What, you will not carry out her Grand Ducal Highness's orders?"

"I will not go to the pump."

"You refuse to prepare the bath?"

"I will not go to the pump."

"You refuse to prepare the tea?"

"I will not be a cook."

"You are rankly rebellious?"

"I will not sleep in the attic."

"What!"

"I will not eat the food."

"What!"

"I will not do the work."

"What!"

"I will go."

"Go?"