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Our Elizabeth A Humour Novel By: Florence A. (Florence Antoinette) Kilpatrick (1888-) |
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A Humour Novel by FLORENCE A. KILPATRICK Illustrated by Ernest Forbes [Frontispiece: Elizabeth Renshaw.]
Thornton Butterworth Limited
62 St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 2
Published November 1920
TO CIS
AUTHOR'S NOTE Elizabeth is not a type; she is an individuality. Signs and omens at
her birth no doubt determined her sense of the superstitious; but I
trace her evolution as a figure of fun to some sketches of mine in the
pages of Punch. These, however, were only impressions of Elizabeth on
a small scale, but I acknowledge the use of them here in the process of
developing her to full life size. Elizabeth, as I say, is a
personality apart; there is only one Elizabeth. Here she is. F. A. K.
TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 20
ILLUSTRATIONS Our Elizabeth . . . . . . Frontispiece Henry and I looked at the Cookery Book The Kid A Bad Sign Marion dropped fifteen stitches Our Friend William 'Wot's 'orrible about it?' 'Oh, must I, Mama?' ''E was starin' at it wild like.' 'Do you mean the boiler one?' I asked. 'I suppose I'm shocking you terribly.' A slight lowering of the left eye lid. Henry, being a Scotsman, likes argument. 'A fair razzle dazzle.' She dashed from the room in a spasm of mirth. 'Am I not a suitable wife for Henry?' 'Carn't you get rid of 'er?' 'Stop, William!' Marion said. 'Oo ses the Signs is wrong?' ''Ere's to us, all of us!'
OUR ELIZABETH
CHAPTER I If you ask Henry he will tell you that I cannot cook. In fact, he will
tell you even if you don't ask. To hold up my culinary failures to
ridicule is one of his newest forms of humour (new to Henry, I
mean the actual jokes you will have learned already at your
grandmother's knee). I had begun to see that I must either get a servant soon or a judicial
separation from Henry. That was the stage at which I had arrived.
Things were getting beyond me. By 'things' I mean the whole loathsome
business of housework. My métier is to write not that I am a great
writer as yet, though I hope to be some day. What I never hope to be
is a culinary expert. Should you command your cook to turn out a short
story she could not suffer more in the agonies of composition than I do
in making a simple Yorkshire pudding. Henry does not like housework any more than I do; he says the
performance of menial duties crushes his spirit but he makes such a
fuss about things. You might think, to hear him talk, that getting up
coal, lighting fires, chopping wood and cleaning flues, knives and
brasses were the entire work of a household instead of being mere
incidents in the daily routine. If he had had to tackle my
duties . . . but men never understand how much there is to do in a
house. Even when they do lend a hand my experience is that they invariably
manage to hurt themselves in some way. Henry seems incapable of
getting up coal without dropping the largest knob on his foot. If he
chops wood he gashes himself; he cannot go through the simple rite of
pouring boiling water out of a saucepan without getting scalded; and
when he mounts the steps to adjust the blinds I always keep the brandy
uncorked in readiness; you see, he declares that a chap needs something
to pull himself together after a fall from a step ladder. Perhaps you trace in all this a certain bitterness, a veiled antagonism
on my part towards Henry; you may even imagine that we are a bickering
sort of couple, constantly trying to get the better of each other. If
so, you are mistaken. Up to six months before this story opens our
married life had been ideal for which reason I didn't open the story
earlier... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
Romance |
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