Tea & Antipathy Read Free Page A

Irish, and quite honest and dependable. You may give her a key if you like. It’s
quite
all right.” I could only admire her assurance. I knew that she
must
be correct; she had an instinct for it. It was an instinct that I notably lacked. “I intend to retain her myself when I return in the autumn,” Mrs. Stackpole added.
    â€œWill she cook dinner for us?” I asked, thinking of The Stove.
    She paused to consider. “She’ll have to go home to feed her family. They eat at five or six. I don’t see why she couldn’t come back to serve
your
dinner at eight.”
    Since our dinnertime was approximately the same as Mrs. Grail’s, I could see that I would have to cope with The Stove myself.
    â€œNow the slipcovers…” Jordan began.
    â€œOh, yes.” She blushed prettily, smiling. “They’re being mended. They didn’t fit properly.”
    â€œWell, would you just jot down the name and number of the shop? In case we need to call them.”
    â€œOh yes, of course.” She wrote something quickly on the back of our list, and said, “I’ve left some eggs in the refrigerator. It’s so difficult to leave food when one doesn’t know … er … other’s … habits….”
    Gathering herself together to depart, she paused to leave us some keys: two front door, three back door, and twelve or fifteen odd-looking gold-and-black ones.
    â€œThese are keys to the burglar locks,” she said to me. “You can’t open the windows without them, and you must remember always to lock the windows with these keys when you close them. Please remember
never, never
to leave the doors or the windows unlocked when you go out. I can’t emphasize this strongly enough. All the houses around here have been broken into at one time or another. They watch, you see, and they know when you go out. Even if you go out for only a few minutes, you
must
lock all the doors and windows. It’s terribly important.”
    â€œIt would be difficult for them to climb in a bedroom window,” I said nervously.
    â€œThey’re much more apt to come over the roofs, aren’t they?” she asked calmly. I looked at the houses across the street: the rooftops were peaked, gabled, with crooked Dickensian chimneypots silhouetted against the gloomy sky. Could someone crouch there, behind a peak or gable, and watch … ?
    â€œPlease don’t lose the keys,” Mrs. Stackpole said at the door. “These are the only ones and it costs thirty pounds to replace the lock. And do remember to lock the windows. You can open them when you’re
in
the house, of course.” She called over her shoulder as she went out, “And remember, if you need anything, there’s always Mr. MacAllister, isn’t there?”
    â€œWho’s that?” I asked Jordan, when the door had closed.
    â€œSome man,” he said vaguely. “Her boyfriend, I guess.”
    â€œHer fiancé, you mean,” I said. “I suppose he sends her the flowers for all those vases.”
    â€œI’d better go out and get some bread and butter to go with those eggs,” Jordan said. He looked at his watch. “It’s five-thirty, but I think there’s a delicatessen in South Ken that stays open late.” I should explain that in those days London shops closed at five o’clock, except for Early Closing on Wednesday and Saturday at one in the afternoon.
    â€œMaybe you ought to call a plumber before you go,” I said. “Something’s wrong with the toilet.”
    â€œNothing’s wrong with the toilet,” he said. “I can tell you that right now. It’s an English toilet, that’s all. Just pump the handle gently up and down and eventually it will flush.”
    I found this difficult to believe, because I felt that when the English did something, they
had
to do it at least as well as Americans. But I let it go, and