Hodge and His Masters Part 8

They read the so-called social journals, and absorb the gossip, t.i.ttle-tattle, and personalities--absorb it because they have no means of comparison or of checking the impression it produces of the general loose tone of society. They know all about it, much more than you do. No turn of the latest divorce case or great social exposure has escaped them, and the light, careless way in which it is the fas.h.i.+on nowadays to talk openly of such things, as if they were got up like a novel--only with living characters--for amus.e.m.e.nt, has penetrated into this distant circle. But then they have been to half the leading watering-places--from Brighton to Scarborough; as for London, it is an open book to them; the railways have long dissipated the pleasing mysteries that once hung over the metropolis.

Talk of this sort is, of course, only talk; still it is not a satisfactory sign of the times. If the country girl is no longer the hoyden that swung on the gates and romped in the hay, neither has she the innocent thought of the olden days.

At the same time our friends are greatly devoted to the Church--old people used to attend on Sundays as a sacred and time honoured duty, but the girls leave them far behind, for they drive up in a pony carriage to the distant church at least twice a week besides. They talk of matins and even-song; they are full of vestments, and have seen 'such lovely things'

in that line. At Christmas and Easter they are mainly instrumental in decorating the interior till it becomes perfectly gaudy with colour, and the old folk mutter and shake their heads. Their devotion in getting hothouse flowers is quite touching. One is naturally inclined to look with a liberal eye upon what is capable of a good construction. But is all this quite spontaneous? Has the new curate nothing at all to do with it? Is it not considered rather the correct thing to be 'High' in views, and even to manifest an Ultramontane tendency? There is a rather too evident determination to go to the extreme--the girls are clearly bent upon thrusting themselves to the very front of the parish, so that no one shall be talked of but the Misses ----. Anything is seized upon, that will afford an opening for posing before the world of the parish, whether it be an extreme fas.h.i.+on in dress or in ritual.

And the parish is splitting up into social cliques. These girls, the local leaders of fas.h.i.+on, hold their heads far above those farmers' sons who bear a hand in the field. No one is eligible who takes a share in manual work: not even to be invited to the house, or even to be acknowledged if met in the road. The Misses ----, whose papa is well-to-do, and simply rides round on horseback to speak to the men with his steam-plough, could not possibly demean themselves to acknowledge the existence of the young men who actually handle a fork in the haymaking time. Nothing less than the curate is worthy of their smile. A very great change has come over country society in this way. Of course, men (and women) with money were always more eligible than those without; but it is not so very long ago that one and all--well-to-do and poor--had one bond in common. Whether they farmed large or small acres, all worked personally. There was no disgrace in the touch of the plough--rather the contrary; now it is contamination itself.

The consequence is that the former general goodwill and acquaintances.h.i.+p is no more. There are no friendly meetings; there is a distinct social barrier between the man and the woman who labours and the one who does not. These fas.h.i.+onable young ladies could not possibly even go into the hayfield because the sun would spoil their complexion, they refresh themselves with aerated waters instead. They could not possibly enter the dairy because it smells so nasty. They would not know their father's teams if they met them on the road. As for speaking to the workpeople--the idea would be too absurd!

Once on a time a lift in the waggon just across the wet turf to the macadamised road--if it chanced to be going that way--would have been looked upon as a fortunate thing. The Misses ---- would indeed stare if one of their papa's carters touched his hat and suggested that they should get up. They have a pony carriage and groom of their own. He drives the milk-cart to the railway station in the morning; in the afternoon he dons the correct suit and drives the Misses ---- into the town to shopping. Now there exists a bitter jealousy between the daughters of the tradesmen in the said town and these young ladies. There is a race between them as to which shall be first in fas.h.i.+on and social rank. The Misses ---- know very well that it galls their rivals to see them driving about so grandly half the afternoon up and down the streets, and to see the big local people lift their hats, as the banker, with whom, of course, the large farmer has intimate dealings. All this is very little; on paper it reads moan and contemptible: but in life it is real--in life these littlenesses play a great part. The Misses ---- know nothing of those long treasured recipes formerly handed down in old country houses, and never enter the kitchen.

No doubt, if the fas.h.i.+on for teaching cooking presently penetrates into the parish, they will take a leading part, and with much show and blowing of trumpets instruct the cottager how to boil the pot. Anything, in short, that happens to be the rage will attract them, but there is little that is genuine about them, except the eagerness for a new excitement.

What manner of men shall accept these ladies as their future helpmates?

The tenant farmers are few and far between that could support their expenditure upon dress, the servants they would require, and last, but not least, the waste which always accompanies ignorance in household management. Nor, indeed, do they look for tenant farmers, but hope for something higher in the scale.

The Misses ---- are fortunate in possessing a 'papa' sufficiently well-to-do to enable them to live in this manner. But there are hundreds of young ladies whose fathers have not got so much capital in their farms, while what they have is perhaps borrowed. Of course these girls help cheerfully in the household, in the dairy, and so forth? No. Some are forced by necessity to a.s.sist in the household with unwilling hands: but few, indeed, enter the dairy. All dislike the idea of manual labour, though never so slight. Therefore they acquire a smattering of knowledge, and go out as governesses. They earn but a small stipend in that profession, because they have rarely gone through a sufficiently strict course of study themselves. But they would rather live with strangers, accepting a position which is often invidious, than lift a hand to work at home, so great is the repugnance to manual labour. These, again, have no domestic knowledge (beyond that of teaching children), none of cooking, or general household management. If they marry a tenant farmer of their own cla.s.s, with but small capital, they are too often a burden financially.

Whence comes this intense dislike to hand work--this preference for the worst paid head work? It is not confined, of course, to the gentler s.e.x.

No more striking feature of modern country life can be found.

You cannot blame these girls, whether poor or moderately well-to-do, for thinking of something higher, more refined and elevating than the cheese-tub or the kitchen. It is natural, and it is right, that they should wish to rise above that old, dull, dead level in which their mothers and grandmothers worked from youth to age. The world has gone on since then--it is a world of education, books, and wider sympathies. In all this they must and ought to share. The problem is how to enjoy the intellectual progress of the century and yet not forfeit the advantages of the hand labour and the thrift of our ancestors? How shall we sit up late at night, burning the midnight oil of study, and yet rise with the dawn, strong from sweet sleep, to guide the plough? One good thing must be scored down to the credit of the country girls of the day. They have done much to educate the men. They have shamed them out of the old rough, boorish ways; compelled them to abandon the former coa.r.s.eness, to become more gentlemanly in manner. By their interest in the greater world of society, literature, art, and music (more musical publications probably are now sold for the country in a month than used to be in a year), they have made the somewhat narrow-sighted farmer glance outside his parish. If the rising generation of tenant farmers have lost much of the bigoted provincial mode of thought, together with the provincial p.r.o.nunciation, it is undoubtedly due to the influence of the higher ideal of womanhood that now occupies their minds. And this is a good work to have accomplished.

CHAPTER X

MADEMOISELLE, THE GOVERNESS

A country 'roadside' railway station seemed deserted upon a warm August afternoon. It was all but concealed on that level ground by the hedges and trees of the fields with which it was surrounded. There was no sound of man or wheels, and nothing moving upon the platform. On the low green banks of the rail, where the mast-like telegraph poles stood, the broad leaves of the coltsfoot almost covered the earth, and were dusty with the sand whirled up an hour since behind the rus.h.i.+ng express. By the footpath, higher up under the close-cropped hedge, the yarrow flourished, lifting its white flower beside the trodden soil. The heavy boots of the platelayers walking to and fro to their work on the permanent way brushed against it, and crushed the venturous fibres of the creeping cinquefoil that stretched into the path. From the yellow standing wheat the sparrows rose in a bevy, and settled upon the hedge, chirping merrily. Farther away, where a meadow had been lately mown, the swallows glided to and fro, but just above the short gra.s.s, round and round, under the shadow of the solitary oaks. Over the green aftermath is the swallows' favourite haunt when the day, though pa.s.sing fair, does not look like settled weather. For lack of such weather the reapers have not yet entered the ripening corn.

But, for the hour, the sun s.h.i.+nes brightly, and a narrow line along the upper surfaces of the metals, burnished by the polis.h.i.+ng friction of a thousand wheels, glints like silver under the rays. The red brick of the booking-office looks redder and more staring under the fierce light. The door is locked, and there is no waiting-room in which to take shelter; nothing but a projecting roof over a part of the platform. On the lintel is the stationmaster's name painted in small white letters, like the name of the landlord over the doorway of an inn. Two corded boxes lie on the platform, and near them stand half a dozen rusty milk tins, empty. With the exception of a tortoisesh.e.l.l cat basking in the suns.h.i.+ne, there seems nothing living in the station, and the long endless rails stretching on either side in a straight line are vacant. For hours during the day the place slumbers, and a pa.s.senger gliding by in the express may well wonder why a station was built at all in the midst of trees and hedges without so much as a single visible house.

But by night and very early in the morning there is bustle enough. Then the white painted cattle pen yonder, from which the animals are forced into the cattle trucks, is full of frightened beasts, lowing doubtfully, and only goaded in by the resounding blows upon their backs. Then the sheep file in in more patient ranks, but also doubtful and bleating as they go. An engine snorts to and fro, shunting coal waggons on to the siding--coal for the traction engines, and to be consumed in thres.h.i.+ng out the golden harvest around. Signalmen, with red and green lights, rush hither and thither, the bull's-eyes now concealed by the trucks, and now flas.h.i.+ng out brightly like strange will-o'-the-wisps. At intervals long and heavy goods trains go by, causing the solid earth to tremble.

Presently the sun rises over the distant hills, and the red arms of the signals stand out clearly defined, and then the noise of wheels, the shouts of the drivers, and the quick sound of hoofs betoken the approach of the milk carts with their freight for the early morning train. From the platform it is out of sight; but a few yards from the gate a small inn is hidden under the tall elms of the hedgerow. It has sprung up since the railway came, and is called the Railway Hotel. It proffers good stabling, and even a fly and posting for the pa.s.senger who finds himself set down at that lonely place--a mere road--without the certainty of a friendly carriage meeting him. The porter may, perhaps, be taking his gla.s.s within.

The inspector or stationmaster (whichever may be technically correct), now that the afternoon express has gone safely through, has strolled up the line to his garden, to see how his potatoes are getting on. He knows full well that the slow, stopping train despatched just after it will not reach his station for at least an hour.

Outside the 'Hotel' stands a pony cart--a gaily coloured travelling rug lies across the seat, and the pony, a perfect little beauty, is cropping the gra.s.s by the hedge side. By-and-by a countryman comes up the road, evidently a labourer dressed in his best--he hastens to the 'Hotel,'

instead of to the station, and finds from the porter that he is at least twenty minutes too soon. Then a waggon arrives, and stops while the carter drinks. Presently the porter and the labourer stroll together over to the platform, and after them a young fellow--a farmer's son, not yet a man but more than a boy--comes out and re-arranges the travelling rug in the pony cart. He then walks on to the platform, whistling defiantly with his hands in his pockets, as if he had got an unpleasant duty to perform, but was not going to be intimidated. He watches the stationmaster unlock the booking-office, and follows him in out of idle curiosity.

It is booking-office, parcel-office, waiting-room and all combined, and the telegraph instrument is there too, some of the needles blocked over with a sc.r.a.p of paper. The place is crammed with sacks, bags, boxes, parcels and goods mixed together, such as ironwork for agricultural machines, and in a corner lies a rick-cloth smelling strongly of tar like the rigging of a s.h.i.+p. On the counter, for there is no sliding window as usual at large stations, stands the ticket-stamping machine, surrounded with piles of forms, invoices, notices, letters, and the endless doc.u.ments inseparable from railway business, all printed on a peculiar paper with a faint shade of yellow.

Somebody says 'A' be coming,' and the young farmer walks out to watch the white steam now just visible far away over the trees. The train runs round the curve on to the straight, and the engine in front grows gradually larger and larger as it comes nearer, visibly vibrating till the brake draws it up at the platform.

Master Jack has no difficulty in identifying the pa.s.senger he has come to meet. His sister, a governess, coming home for a holiday, is the only person that alights, and the labourer, dressed for the occasion, is the only one who gets in. No sooner is he in than he gapes out of the window open-mouthed at Miss S----. She wears a light Ulster to protect her dress from the dust and dirt of travel. Her fas.h.i.+onable hat has an air of the West End; her gloved hand holds a dainty little bag; she steps as those must do who wear tight dresses and high heels to their boots. Up goes her parasol instantly to shade her delicate complexion from the glaring sun.

Master Jack does not even take her hand, or kiss her; he looks her up and down with a kind of contemptuous admiration, nods, and asks how much luggage? He has, you see, been repulsed for 'gush' on previous occasions.

Mademoiselle points to her luggage, which the porter, indeed, has already taken out. He worked in his boyhood on her father's farm, and attends upon her with cheerful alacrity. She gives him a small coin, but looks the other way, without a sign of recognition. The luggage is placed in the pony cart.

Mademoiselle gets in without so much as patting the beautiful little creature in the shafts. Her ticket is the only first-cla.s.s ticket that has been given up at that lonely station all the week. 'Do make haste,' she remarks petulantly as her brother pauses to speak to a pa.s.sing man who looks like a dealer. Master Jack turns the pony cart, and away they go rattling down the road. The porter, whilom an agricultural labourer, looks after them with a long and steady stare. It is not the first time he has seen this, but he can hardly take it in yet.

'She do come the lady grandish, don't her?' the dealer remarks meditatively. 'Now her father----'

'Ay,' interrupts the porter, 'he be one of the old sort; but she----' he cannot get any further for lack of an appropriate ill.u.s.tration. The arrival of mademoiselle periodically takes their breath away at that little place.

As the pair rattle along in the pony trap there is for a time a total silence. Mademoiselle looks neither to the right nor the left, and asks after n.o.body. She does not note the subtle tint of bronze that has begun to steal over the wheat, nor the dark discoloured hay, witness of rough weather, still lying in the meadows. Her face--it is a very pretty face--does not light up with any enthusiasm as well-remembered spots come into sight. A horseman rides round a bend of the road, and meets them--he stares hard at her--she takes no heed. It is a young farmer, an old acquaintance, anxious for some sign of recognition. After he has pa.s.sed he lifts his hat, like a true countryman, unready at the moment. As for the brother, his features express gathering and almost irrepressible disgust.

He kicks with his heavy boots, he whistles, and once now and then gives a species of yell. Mademoiselle turns up her pretty nose, and readjusts her chevron gloves.

'Have you not got any cuffs, Jack?' she asks, 'your wrists look so bare without them.'

Jack makes no reply. Another silence. Presently he points with an expression meant to be sardonic at a distant farmhouse with his whip.

'Jenny's married,' he says, full well aware that this announcement will wake her up, for there had been of old a sort of semi-feud or rivalry between the two girls, daughters of neighbouring farmers, and both with pretensions to good looks.

'Who to?' she asks eagerly.

'To old Billy L----; lots of tin.'

'Pshaw!' replies mademoiselle. 'Why, he's sixty, a nasty, dirty old wretch.'

'He has plenty of money,' suggests Jack.

'What you think plenty of money, perhaps. He is nothing but a farmer,' as if a farmer was quite beneath her notice.

Just then a farmer rode out into the road from the gateway of a field, and Jack pulled up the pony. The farmer was stout, elderly, and florid; he appeared fairly well-to-do by his dress, but was none too particular to use his razor regularly. Yet there was a tenderness--almost a pathos--in the simple words he used:--'Georgie, dear, come home?' 'Yes, papa,' and she kissed his scrubby chin as he bent down from his horse. He would not go to the station to meet her; but he had been waiting about behind the hedge for an hour to see her come along. He rode beside the pony cart, but Georgie did not say anything more, or ask after any one else.

As they turned a corner the farmer pointed ahead. 'There's your mother, Georgie, looking over the garden wall.' The yearning mother had been there these two hours, knowing that her darling could not arrive before a certain time, and yet unable in her impatience to stay within. Those old eyes were dim with tears under the spectacles as Georgie quietly kissed her forehead, and then suddenly, with something like generous feeling, her lips.

They went in, an old pointer, whose days in the stubble were nearly over, following close at Georgie's heels, but without obtaining a pat for his loving memory. The table was spread for tea--a snowy cloth, the whitest of bread, the most delicious golden b.u.t.ter, the ham fresh cooked, as Georgie might be hungry, the thick cream, the silver teapot, polished for Georgie, and the bright flowers in the vase before her plate. The window was open, with its view of the old, old hills, and a breath of summer air came in from the meadow. The girl glanced round, frowned, and went upstairs to her room without a word, pa.s.sing on the landing the ancient clock in its tall case, ticking loud and slow.

And this was 'home.' The whole place jarred upon her, fresh as she was from a fine house in Belgravia. The sitting-room beneath, which she had so quickly left, looked cheerful and homely, but it was that very homeliness that jarred upon her. The teapot was real silver, but it was of old-fas.h.i.+oned shape. Solid as the furniture was, and still after so many years of service worth money, yet it was chipped by kicks from iron-shod boots, which had also worn the dingy carpet bare. There was an absence of the nick-nacks that strew the rooms of people in 'Society.' There was not even a bell-handle to pull; if you wanted the maid of all work, you must open the door and call to her. These little things, trifles as they may be, repelled her. It was a bitter cup to her to come 'home.'

Mr. S---- was a farmer of fair means, and, compared with many of his neighbours, well-to-do, and well connected. But he was still a yeoman only, and personally made pretensions to nothing more. Though he himself had received little or no education, he quite saw the value of it, and was determined that his children should be abreast of the times. Accordingly, so soon as Georgie grew old enough, a governess with high recommendations, and who asked what the farmer then thought a high price (he knows more about such things now!) was had down from London. Of course the rudimentary A B C of learning could just as well have been imparted by an ordinary person, but Mr. and Mrs. S---- had a feeling which they could not perhaps have expressed in words, that it was not so much the actual reading and writing, and French and music, and so on, as a social influence that was needed to gradually train the little country girl into a young lady fit to move in higher society.

The governess did her work thoroughly. Georgie was not allowed to walk in the wet gra.s.s, to climb up the ladder on to the half-completed hayrick, and romp under the rick-cloth, to paddle with naked feet in the shallow brook, or any other of the things that country children have done from time immemorial. Such things she was taught were not ladylike, and, above all, she was kept away from the cottage people. She was not permitted to enter their doors, to converse with the women, or to watch the carter with his horses. Such vulgar folk and their vulgar dialect were to be carefully avoided. Nor must she get into a hedge after a bird's-nest, lest she should tear her frock.

It was not long before the governess really ruled the house. The farmer felt himself totally unable to interfere in these matters; they were outside his experience altogether. His wife did not like it, but for Georgie's sake she gave up her former habits, and endeavoured to order the house according to the ideas of the governess from London. The traditions, as it were, of the place were upset. It was not a solitary instance, the same thing has happened in scores of farmhouses to a more or less degree.

Mr. S---- all his life had ridden on horseback, or driven a gig, which did very well for him and his wife. But the governess thought Georgie ought to learn to ride and drive, and gigs were so much out of fas.h.i.+on. So the pony cart and pony were purchased for her, and in this she went into the distant market town twice or more weekly. Sometimes it was for shopping, sometimes to fetch household goods, sometimes to see friends; any excuse answered very well. The governess said, and really believed, that it was better for Georgie to be away from the farm as much as possible, to see town people (if only a country town), and to learn their ways.

The many cheap ill.u.s.trated papers giving the last details of fas.h.i.+onable costumes were, of course, brought home to be carefully read in the evenings. These publications have a large circulation now in farmhouses.

Naturally Georgie soon began to talk about, and take an interest--as girls will do--in the young gentlemen of the town, and who was and who was not eligible. As for the loud-voiced young farmers, with their slouching walk, their ill-fitting clothes, and stupid talk about cows and wheat, they were intolerable. A banker's clerk at least--nothing could be thought of under a clerk in the local banks; of course, his salary was not high, but then his 'position.' The retail grocers and bakers and such people were quite beneath one's notice--low, common persons. The 'professional tradesmen'

(whatever that may be) were decidedly better, and could be tolerated. The solicitors, bank managers, one or two brewers (wholesale--nothing retail), large corn factors or coal merchants, who kept a carriage of some kind--these formed the select society next under, and, as it were, surrounding the clergy and gentry. Georgie at twelve years old looked at least as high as one of these; a farmhouse was to be avoided above all things.

As she grew older her mind was full of the local a.s.sembly ball. The ball had been held for forty years or more, and had all that time been in the hands of the exclusive upper circles of the market town. They only asked their own families, relations (not the poor ones), and visitors. When Georgie was invited to this ball it was indeed a triumph. Her poor mother cried with pleasure over her ball dress. Poor woman, she was a good, a too good, mother, but she had never been to a ball. There were, of course, parties, picnics, and so on, to which Georgie, having entered the charmed circle, was now asked; and thus her mind from the beginning centred in the town. The sheep-fold, the cattle-pen, the cheese-tub, these were thrust aside. They did not interest her, she barely understood the meaning when her father took the first prize at an important cattle show. What So-and-so would wear at the flower show, where all the select would come, much more nearly concerned her.

At the high-cla.s.s academy where her education was finished the same process went on. The other girls quickly made her thoroughly understand (a bitter knowledge) that the great people in the little market town, the very richest of them, were but poor in comparison with their papas. Their papas were in the 'City,' or on ''Change,' and had as many thousands a year as the largest farmer she knew could reckon hundreds. Georgie felt ashamed of her papa, recollecting his crumpled old hat, and his scrubby chin. Being really a nice girl, under the veneer that was so industriously placed upon her, she made friends among her fellow scholars, and was invited to more than one of their grand homes in Kensington and the suburbs of London. There she learned all the pomp of villa life, which put into the shade the small incomes which displayed their miserable vanities in the petty market town. Footmen, butlers, late dinners, wines, carriages, the ceaseless gossip of 'Society' were enough to dazzle the eyes of a girl born so near the cowshed. The dresses she had to wear to mix with these grand friends cost a good deal--her parents sacrificing their own comforts for her advantage--and yet, in comparison with the beautiful costumes she saw, they seemed shabby.