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V
A Hostess at Home
An English telephone is a contradiction in terms. If it is in England, it isn’t a telephone. It is a thing that looks something like a broken ox-yoke, that is manipulated something like a trombone, and is about as effectual as the Keeley Motor.
A course of lessons is necessary to learn to use one, but the lessons are wasted, as the instrument is invariably out of order, and moreover, nobody has one, anyhow.
But one morning, before I had discovered all this, I was summoned to the telephone booth of the Pantheon Club, and blithely grasped the cumbersome affair, with its receiver on one end and its transmitter on the other. I ignorantly held it wrong end to, but that made no difference, as it wouldn’t work either way.
“Grawsp it stiffer, madame,” advised the anxious Buttons who engineered it. At length I discovered that this meant to press firmly on a fret, as if playing a flute, but by this time the party addressing me had been disconnected from the other end, and all attempts to regain communication were futile.
The boy took the instrument, and I have never seen a finer display of human ingenuity and patience than he showed for the next half-hour trying to hear that chord again. Then he gave it up, and, laying the horrid thing gently in its cradle, he nonchalantly informed me that if the party awrsked for me again, he’d send me naotice, and then demanded tuppence.
This I willingly paid, as I was always glad to get rid of those copper heavy-weights; and, too, it seemed a remarkably small price even for a telephone call, – until I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t made the call, – nor had I received it.
The call was repeated later, and after another distracting session of incoherent shouting, and painfully-cramped finger muscles, I learned that I was invited to an informal dinner that evening at Mrs. Marchbanks’s at seven-thirty.
I had not intended to plunge into the social whirl so soon, and had declined all the many invitations which had come to me by mail.
But somehow the telephone invitation took me unawares, and, too, I was so pleased to succeed in getting the message at all that it seemed ungracious and ungrateful to refuse. So, I took a fresh grip on the fretted monster, and, aiming my voice carefully at the far-away transmitter, I shouted an acceptance. I hoped it reached the goal, but as there was nothing but awful silence afterward, I had to take it on faith, and I went away to look over my dinner gowns.
The invitation had been classed as “informal,” but I knew the elasticity of that term, and so, though I did not select my very best raiment, I chose a pretty décolleté frock, that had “New York” legibly written on its every fold and pucker.
So late is the dusk of the London spring that I easily made my toilette by daylight, and was all ready at seven o’clock.
Carefully studying my Baedeker maps and plans to make sure of the distance, I stepped into my hansom just in time to reach my destination at a minute or two before half past seven, assuming that New York customs prevailed in England.
The door was opened to me by an amazed-looking maid, who seemed so uncertain what to do with me that I almost grew embarrassed myself.
Finally, she asked me to follow her up-stairs, and then ushered me into a room where my hostess, in the hands of her maid, was in the earliest stages of her toilette.
“You dear thing,” she said, “how sweet of you to come. Yes, Louise, that aigrette is right. Here is the key of my jewel case.”
“I fear I have mistaken the hour,” I said; “the telephone was a bit difficult, – but I understood half past seven.”
“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Marchbanks, studying the back of her head in a hand-mirror, “but in London seven-thirty means eight, you know.”
This was definite information, and I promptly stored it away for future use. Also, it was reliable information, for it proved true, and at eight the guests began to arrive.
Dinner was served at quarter to nine, and all was well.
Incidentally I had learned my lesson.
The half-hour in the drawing-room before dinner was an interesting “first impression” of that indescribable combination of warmth and frost known as a London Hostess.
Further experience taught me that Mrs. Marchbanks was a typical one.
The London hostess’s invariable mode of procedure is a sudden, inordinate gush of welcome, followed immediately by an icy stare. By the time you have politely responded to the welcome, your hostess has forgotten your existence. Nay, more, she seems almost to have forgotten her own. She is vague, self-absorbed, and quite oblivious of your existence. I have heard of a lady with a gracious presence. The London hostess is best described by a gracious absence.
But having adapted yourself to this condition, your hostess is likely to whirl about and dart a remark or a question at you.
On the evening under discussion, my hostess suddenly broke off her own greeting to another guest, to say to me, “Of course you’ll be wanting to buy some new clothes at once.”
This statement was accompanied by a deliberate survey, from berthe to hem, of my palpably American-made gown, and as the incident pleased my sense of humor, I felt no resentment, and amiably acquiesced in her decision.
Then, funnily enough, the conversation turned upon good-breeding.
“A well-bred Englishwoman,” my hostess dictatorially observed, “never talks of herself. She tactfully makes the person to whom she is talking the subject of conversation.”
“But,” said I, “if the person to whom she is talking is also well-bred, he must reject that subject, and tactfully talk about the first speaker. This must bring about a deadlock.” She looked at me, or rather through me, in a pitying, uncomprehending way, and went on:
“The well-bred Englishwoman never makes an allusion or an implication that could cause even the slightest trace of discomfiture or annoyance to the person addressed.”
This, of itself, seemed true enough, but again she turned swiftly toward me, and abruptly inquired, “Doesn’t the servility of the English servants embarrass you?”
This time, too, my sense of humor saved me from embarrassment, but I began to think serious-minded persons should not brave the slings and arrows of a well-bred Englishwoman.
Geniality and ingenuousness are alike unknown to the English hostess. It is a very rare thing to meet a charming Englishwoman. Good traits they have in plenty and many sterling qualities which Americans often lack, but magnetism and responsiveness are as a rule not among these qualities.
And I do not yet know whether it is through ignorance or with malice prepense that an English hostess greets you effusively, and then drops you with an air of finality that gives a “lost your last friend” feeling more than anything else in all the world.
This state of things is of course more pronouncedly noticeable at teas than at dinners. At an afternoon reception, the hostility of the hostess is beyond all words. Moreover, at English afternoon teas there are two rules. One is you may not speak to a fellow-guest without an introduction. The other is that no introduction is necessary between guests of the house. One of these rules is always inflexibly enforced at every tea; but the casual guest never knows which one, and so complications ensue.
English hostesses always seem to me very much like that peculiar kind of flowered chintz with which they cover their furniture – the kind that looks like oilcloth, and is very cold and shiny, very beautiful, very slippery, and decidedly uncomfortable.
But in inverse proportion to the conversational unsatisfactoriness of the English women are the entertaining powers of the English men. They are voluntarily delightful. They make an effort (if necessary) to be pleasantly talkative and amusing.
And, notwithstanding the traditional slurs on British humor, the English society man is deliciously humorous, and often as brilliantly witty as our own Americans.
At the dinner I have mentioned above, I was seated next to a somewhat insignificant-looking young man of true English spick-and-spanness, and with a delightful drawl, almost like the one written as dialect in international novels.
Perhaps in consideration of my probable American attitude toward British humor, he good-naturedly amused me with jokes directed against his national peculiarities.
He described graphically an Englishman who was blindly groping about in his brain for a good story which he had heard and stored away there. “Ah, yes,” said the supposed would-be jester; “the man was ill; and he said his physician advised that he should every morning take a cup of coffee and take a walk around the place.”
“He had missed the point, do you see,” explained my amusing neighbor, “and the joke should have been ‘take a cup of coffee, and take a walk on the grounds,’ do you see?”
So pleased was the young man with the whole story, that I laughed in sympathy, and he went on to say:
“But you Americans make just the same mistakes about our jokes. Now only last week Punch had a ripping line asking why the Americans were making such a fuss about Bishop Potter, and said any one would think he was a meat-potter. Now one of your New York daily papers borrowed the thing, and made it read, ‘What’s the matter with Bishop Potter? Any one would think he was a meat packer.’ ’Pon my honor, Miss Emmins, I know that for a fact!”
“Then I think,” I replied, “that we ought never again to throw stones at the British sense of humor.”
In the pause that followed, a bulky English lord across the table was heard denouncing the course taken by a certain political party. So energetic were his gestures, and so forceful his speech, that he had grown very red and belligerent-looking, and fairly hammered the table in his indignation.
The young man next to me looked at him, as an indulgent father might look at a naughty child. “Isn’t he the saucy puss?” said my neighbor, turning to me with such a roguish smile that his remark seemed the funniest thing I had ever heard.
I frankly told my attractive dinner partner that the men of London society were far more entertaining than the women. He did not seem surprised at this, but seemed to look upon it as an accepted condition.
I glanced across the table at a young Englishwoman. She was an “Honorable,” and possessed of a jointed surname. She was attired with great wealth and unbecomingness, and, to sum her up in a general way, she looked as if she did not write poetry.
“Yes,” she was saying, “cabs are cheap with us, but if you ride a lot in a day, they count up.” This is a stock remark with London women and I was not surprised to hear it again.
I glanced at my young man. He too had heard, and he quickly caught my mental attitude.
“Yes,” he said, “Englishwomen and girls are very fit; they’re good form, accomplished, and all that. But, though they know a lot, somehow, er, – their minds don’t jell.”
As this exactly expressed my own opinion, I was delighted at his clever phrasing of it.
But if the Englishman is charming as a dinner guest, he is even more so when he is host, as he often is at afternoon tea. And though I attended many teas presided over by London men, all others fade into insignificance beside the one given me at the Punch office.
I was the only guest, the host was the genial and miraculously clever Editor of Punch.
The tea was of the ordinary London deliciousness, the cakes and thin bread-and-butter were, as always, over there, the best in the world; but it was served to us on the historic Punch table, the great table where every Friday night, since the beginning of that publication, its editorial staff has dined.
And as each diner at some time cut his monogram into the table, the semi-polished surface shows priceless memorials of the great British authors, artists, and illustrators.
I was informed by my kind host that I might sit at any place I chose. I hesitated between Thackeray’s and Mark Lemon’s, but finally by a sudden impulse I dropped into a chair in front of the monogram of George du Maurier.
The Editor of Punch smiled a little, but he only said, “You Americans are a humorous people.”
VI
The Light on Burns’s Brow
My own subjective London was achieving itself. I have always remembered pleasantly, how, and, with emulative ease, I blew a beautiful, impalpable, iridescent sphere and called it London.
Without a bit of trouble,
Arabella blew a bubble,
To be sure, a single interrogation point from an earnest Tourist would have burst my bubble, for my whole London hadn’t a Tower or a British Museum in it.
Nor was this an oversight. Calling to my aid a moral courage that was practically a moral hardihood, I had deliberately concluded I would do no sightseeing. Not that I objected to seeing a sight, now and then, but the sight would have to put itself in my way, and the conditions would have to be such that I should prefer to go through the sight rather than around it.
Indeed, it was largely the word sightseeing that I took exception to. Such a very defective verb! Who would voluntarily put herself in a position to say, “I sightsaw the National Gallery yesterday,” or “I have sightseen the whole City,” and then have no proper parts of speech to say it with?
Moreover, I was not willing to go about my London carrying a Baedeker. In truth, my soul was possessed of conflicting emotions toward that little red book. As a directory it was invaluable. Never did I get an invitation to a place of mysterious sound, such as Kensington Gore, or Bird-in-Bush Road, but I ran to my Baedeker and quickly found therein the location, description, and directions for reaching the same. I soon mastered the pink and gray maps, with their clever contrivance of corresponding numbers, and with my Baedeker back of me I could have found the most obscure and bewildering address that even a Londoner is capable of devising.
But the pages devoted to “Sights which Should on No Account be Omitted,” and the kindly advice on “Disposition of Time for the Hurried Visitor,” I avoided with all the strength of my unsightseeing soul.
I was often amused at the ingenious efforts of tourists to disguise their Baedekers. One tailor-made American girl had hers neatly covered with bright blue paper, quite oblivious of the fact that the marbled edges and fluttering red and black tapes are unmistakable. Another, a pedagogic Bostonian, had hers wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. Another had a leather case which exactly fitted the volume. And I thought that as the nude in art is far less suggestive than the semi-draped figure, so the uncovered red book was really less noticeable than these futile attempts at disguise.
Having, then, definitely decided that I should eventually return to America without having set foot in the Tower, the Bank or the Charter-house, I drew a long breath of content, and gave myself up to the delight of just living in the atmosphere of my own London.
And yet, I wanted to go to the Tower, the Bank, and the Charter-house. I wanted to go to Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul’s and the National Gallery. But I did not want to go for the first time. I wanted to revisit these places, and how could I do that when I had never yet visited them?
First impressions of Piccadilly or Hyde Park are all very well, but first impressions are incongruous in connection with Westminster Abbey. What has crude admiration to do with experienced sublimity? How absurd to let the gaze of surprise rest upon age-accustomed glory! What presumption to look at solemn ancient grandeur as at a novelty! I wished that I had been to Westminster Abbey many, many times, and that I could drift in again some lovely summer afternoon to revive old memories and renew old emotions.
But as this might not be, then would I keep away from it entirely, and study it from books as I had always done.
One day a departing caller carelessly left behind her a pamphlet entitled The Deanery Guide to Westminster Abbey. With a natural curiosity I picked it up and opened it.
But I got no farther than the first fly-leaf, for that bore an advertisement of Rowland’s Macassar Oil! I promptly forgot the existence of Westminster Abbey in the delight of finding that my London contained such a desirable commodity. Not that I wished to purchase the lotion, but I was absorbingly interested to learn that there really was such a thing. I had never heard of it before except in connection with the Aged, aged man, a-sitting on a gate, who manufactured Rowland’s Macassar Oil from mountain rills which he chanced to set ablaze. The remembrance of that dear old white-haired man, placidly going his ways, and content with the tuppence ha’-penny that rewarded his toil, filled my soul to the exclusion of all else, and he made a welcome addition to the census of my own London. It was pleasant, too, to reflect on the sound logic of the English people when they coined the word “anti-macassar.” How much more restrictedly definite than our word “tidy”!
Well, then next it came about that I went for a walk.
And, as was bound to happen sooner or later, I was strolling unthinkingly along, when I found myself with the Houses of Parliament on my right hand and Westminster Abbey on my left. I was fairly caught, and surrendered at discretion. The only question was which way to turn. As I had no choice in the matter, I should logically have gone, like John Buridan’s Ass, straight ahead, and so missed both; but the Abbey, with an almost imperceptible nod of invitation, compelled me to turn that way, and involuntarily, though not at all unwillingly, I entered.
Whereupon I made the startling discovery that I was in the Poets’ Corner! Now, I had definitely planned that if ever I did visit the Abbey, I would enter by the North Transept, and gradually accustom myself to the atmosphere of the place. I would go away after a short inspection, and return several times to revisit it, before I even approached the Poets’ Corner. And to find myself thus unexpectedly and somewhat informally introduced to an inscription attesting the rarity of Ben Jonson, took me unawares, and my eyes rested coldly on the words, and then passed on, still uninterestedly, to Spencer, Milton, and Gray.
Uncertain whether to advance or retreat I took a few tentative steps, which brought me to the bust of our own Longfellow. The dignified and old-school New Englander is here represented as a plump-faced and jovial gentleman with very curly hair. The marble is excessively white and new-looking, and altogether the monument suggests the Longfellow who wrote “There was a little girl, who had a little curl,” rather than the author of Evangeline. But if not of poetic effect, the bust is satisfactory as a fine type of American manhood, so I smiled back at it, and passed on.
Then, by chance, I turned into the South Transept.
It was about five o’clock on a midsummer afternoon, the hour, as I have often since proved, when the spell of the Poets’ Corner is most potent – the hour when a prismatic shaft of sunlight strikes exactly on the marble forehead of Burns, and flickering sun-rays light up the face of Southey. There, above the mortal remains of Henry Irving, I stood, and as I looked up, I knew that at last Westminster Abbey and I were at one.
For I saw Shakespeare.
It was not the emotional atmosphere of the place, for that had not as yet affected me. It was not historic association, for I knew Shakespeare’s bones did not rest there. It was not the inherent, artistic worth of the sculptured figure, for I knew that it has never been looked upon as a masterpiece, and that Walpole, or somebody, called it “preposterous.” But it was Shakespeare, and from his eyes there shone all the wonder, the beauty, and the immortality of his genius.
I am told the whole monument is wrong in composition and in execution, but that is merely
A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines, —
Its body, so to speak; its soul is right.
Or at least it was to me, and from that moment I felt at home in Westminster Abbey.
Without leaving the United States, I could have found a more magnificent statue of Shakespeare in our own Library of Congress, but no other representation of him, in paint or stone, has ever portrayed to my mind the personality of the poet as does the Abbey monument.
I invited emotions and they accepted with thanks. They came in crowds, rushing, and soon I was unqualifiedly certain that I would rather be dead in Westminster Abbey than alive out of it. Having reached this important decision, I broke off my emotions at their height and went home.
The next day, as the sunlight touched Burns’s uplifted brow, I was there again, and the next, and the next.
The first impressions being comfortably over, Shakespeare and I became very good friends, without the necessity for heaving breast and suppressed tears on my part.
I had affable feelings, too, toward many of the other great and near-great. It amused me to learn how many succeeded in getting into the Abbey by the mere accident of dying while there was plenty of room.
John Gay, they tell me, is one of the interlopers, and his epitaph, is dubbed irreverent.
Life is a jest and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it,
But to my mind the irreverence is not in the sentiment, but in the fact that it is placed upon his tomb, the responsibility therefore, even though Gay requested it, lying with his survivors. Surely the man who wrote Trivia is as much entitled to honor as many others whose virtues are set forth in stone.
But if any one is disturbed by Gay’s irreverence, he has only to step through the door which is close at hand, into the little chapel of St. Faith.
For some indefinable reason, this chapel breathes more the spirit of reverence and holiness than any other in the Abbey. There is no especial beauty of decoration here, but he who can enter the solemn little room without putting up the most fervent prayer of his life must be of an unresponsive nature indeed.
It did not seem to me inharmonious to visit the Chapels of the Sanctuary in charge of a verger. The Abbey guide is also a philosopher and friend. His intoned information is pleasantly in keeping with the chiselled epitaphs, and his personality is invariably delightful; and he so dominates the group of tourists he conducts that they often show signs of almost human intelligence. The guide answers questions, not perfunctorily, but with an air of personal interest. To be sure, he passes lightly over many of the most impressive figures and proudly exhibits the fearsome Death who jabs a dart at Lady Nightingale, while her husband politely endeavors to protect her. But after becoming acquainted with the chapels one may return on free days and visit, unescorted, the tomb of Sir Francis Vere.
The Waxen Effigies greatly took my fancy. Hidden away in an upper room, they are well worth the extra fee which it costs to see them. The verger describes them with a show of real affection, and indeed, I felt strangely drawn to the ghastly puppets, which are, undoubtedly, very like the kings and queens they represent. William and Mary are easily lodged in a case by themselves, and their brocades and velvets and real laces are beautiful to look upon, though stiffened by age and dirt. Elizabeth is a terror, and Charles the Second a horror, but vastly fascinating in their weird dreadfulness. Again and again I returned to my waxen friends, and found that they gave me more historic atmosphere than their biographies or tombs.
Hanging round the outside of the Abbey, I one day stumbled into St. Margaret’s. The window is wonderful, of course, but I was more interested in remembering that here Mr. Pepys married the wife of whom he later naïvely chronicled:
“She finds, with reason, that in the company of other women that I love, I do not value her or mind her as I ought.”
Having seen the church where Pepys was married, I felt an impulse to visit the house where he died. But I was relieved rather than otherwise to learn that no trace of the house now remains.
And, anyway, the house where he died wasn’t the house where he made the pathetic entry in his Diary:
“Home, and, being washing day, dined upon cold meat.”
