The Carpenter's Children by Maggie Bennett Page B

arrived with a female companion and demanded her usual table beneath the window. Miss Munday took their order, tea for two and lemon cake. When she brought the tray with two generous slices of lemon cake, Mrs Bentley-Foulkes regarded it with a frown.
    ‘I ordered a teacake, toasted and buttered,’ she said. ‘Mrs Whittington ordered the cake. Please change it.’
    ‘But madam, you ordered lemon cake for both of you – didn’t she, Mrs…er…’ protested Miss Munday, turning to the other lady for confirmation.
    ‘Don’t you answer back at
me
, my girl,’ retorted Mrs Bentley-Foulkes in indignation. ‘Take that slice of cake away
at once
, and bring me what I ordered.’
    ‘I’ll change it for you, madam, but you definitely ordered cake,’ insisted Miss Munday, quickly removing the offending slice and returning with a teacake, hastily toasted by Miss Brangton; she set it down without a word.
    When Mrs Brangton emerged from her office to speak to her customers, she returned looking very grave, and beckoned to Miss Munday.
    ‘I’m appalled to hear that you were insolent to one of my most valued customers, Miss Munday,’ she said. ‘You will have to go and apologise to Mrs Bentley-Foulkes at once.’
    ‘But she distinctly asked for lemon cake in the first place, and then said she hadn’t, Mrs Brangton!’ protested Miss Munday, reddening. ‘She was in the wrong, and as good as called me a liar!’
    ‘Hold your tongue, Miss Munday, and don’t ever raise your voice to me again, or you will be dismissed without notice!’ Mrs Brangton told her, also reddening. ‘Stepaside has a reputation as a high-class tea room, where the customer is
always
right, and don’t you ever forget that. Now go and apologise to Mrs Bentley-Foulkes and her companion –
at
once
, Miss Munday!’
    Grace Munday drew several deep breaths and adjusted her face to one of pained submission as she went over to the table and muttered, ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Bentley-Foulkes.’ The lady nodded in frosty acceptance, and Miss Munday went to take an orderfrom another table. It isn’t easy to be subservient to one you regard as a stuck-up, overdressed Lady Muck, and a seed of rebellion was planted.

    ‘Looks as if there could be civil war in Ireland over this Home Rule business,’ said Ernest Munday, looking up from his newspaper.
    ‘Hm!’ grunted Aaron Pascoe, biting into his cold roast lamb sliced with unleavened bread. They were sitting at the wooden table in the yard at the back of Schelling and Pascoe’s offices, taking advantage of the midday sunshine while keeping an ear open for the doorbell.
    ‘All very well saying “Hm!” It could be a dangerous game if we have to send troops over there,’ said Ernest reprovingly.
    ‘My dear old chap, there could be far more dangerous games ahead if this trouble between Serbia and Austria goes on and develops into outright conflict,’ said Aaron, looking so serious that Ernest glanced up sharply from his paper. He had never been able to take a real interest in events happening in a distant part of the world, and the Balkans, though not as far away as India or Africa, seemed particularly remote. Oddly, the great Dominions of the British Empire, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, seemed nearer because of their close historical links with Great Britain, while the United States of America, though independent for well over a hundred years, spoke thesame language and could still be called cousins of their country of origin. Serbia and Croatia, Turkey and those eastern European countries with their incomprehensible languages and current stirrings and rumblings, held far less importance in Ernest’s view than, say, an upheaval in a part of the Empire, such as India which had had its uprisings and rebellions, but which was now peacefully governed by the viceroy and a network of district commissioners like Sir Arnold Neville. Ernest thought back to the great durbar of 1911 when the king and queen