The Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth Part 8

{_Tipping_}

What an awful imposition tipping is. Servants won't look at small change now-a-days, and when I gave the boy who works the lift five s.h.i.+llings, his "Thank you" sounded just like "d.a.m.n you." Mrs. Chevington, who came over this afternoon, told me of an experience she had the last time she was in town, but I am sure I should never have had the courage to do what she did. She was only three days in some hotel in the West End; she had tipped the chamber-maid, the man in the lift, the _maitre d'hotel_, the waiter, and sent a half-sovereign in to the cook, and was waiting for a hansom, when up rushed a man she had never seen before to help her into it. He took off his hat and was very polite; hotel-porter was written all over him, and she supposed she ought to tip him, but said her gorge rose at it, as he had never done anything for her. However, she put a half-crown in his hat, and he never said "Thank you," which made her so savage that she took it back again. The result was that at Paddington the cabman thought she was stingy, and he was so abusive that she had to call a policeman, and compel the man to take the right fare.

But then Mrs. Chevington is masterful, and doesn't mind attracting a crowd and being insulted, while I should have fainted with mortification. I am sending you a cheque expressly for tips, for I know that in country houses they are even more grasping than in hotels. I wish Royalty would stop it, for I don't think any other means will ever avail.

{_Uneventful Things_}

Blanche came over to supper, and to spend the night, for she said she wanted to talk of the National and old times, and at home it was nothing but tennis, bicycles, and church. Things have been rather uneventful while we were away; we missed some races at Bath, to which the Parkers took a Pullman-full of people. Lady Beatrice gave a dance, and there was a Sunday-school feast at Braxome, when the boys pulled up all of Lady Beatrice's geraniums, and threw stones on the roof of the stables for the fun of hearing the horses plunge in the stalls, and, to Mr. Frame's terror, when Lady Beatrice scolded them, they made faces at her.

{_Monsieur Malorme_}

The Blaines have had to send away Monsieur Malorme; he made love to Daisy, and when she told him it was impertinent, he was so cut up that one of the footmen found him trying to hang himself with his handkerchief from a nail in the wall of his room, having first taken down a snow-storm that Mrs. Elaine had painted when she was twelve. But the only damage he succeeded in doing was to put his foot through the canvas, and pull down half the wall. The Blaines have since heard that he did a similar thing when coaching the Duke of FitzArthur. Since then, Daisy has received threatening letters in a female hand from Soho, giving her the choice between being summoned as a co-respondent, and paying ten guineas. Poor Mrs. Blaine has been awfully upset about it, and has put the matter in Mr. Rumple's hands.

I don't think there is any more gossip to tell you, save that Tom Carterville, who was at Eton with Charlie Carriston, and went out with the Yeomanry to South Africa, has come back. Lady Beatrice is so glad to have him home safe and sound that she intends to return thanks to the Almighty by entertaining a good deal.

{_Society Papers_}

Mrs. Chevington told me in the afternoon that she had read in one of the Society papers that the Smiths have taken a house in Park Lane, and that Mr. Wertz, the African millionaire you met at Nazeby, is engaged to marry Cushla O'Cork, the Irish agitatress. But then, you know, the Society papers will say anything to fill up their columns, and it must be so hard to find something new and true every week. I like your habit of always practising the _ingenue_, even in your letters to me, it helps you to act it the better. I hope you will meet Lord Valmond soon again, but of course you will, as he is sure to be visiting at the same houses.

Write me all that happens, just as I write to you. There is nothing so nice as a letter full of what other people are doing.--Your dearest Mamma.

LETTER XXI

MONK'S FOLLY, 29th October

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Hockey Season_}

The hockey season has begun here, and the game is played somewhere every day. Of course, I only go to look on, and can't imagine myself, in a short skirt and thick boots, rus.h.i.+ng about a damp field. Yesterday the Blaines had a party, and I have been having twinges of neuralgia all day from it, for it was awfully wet and cold. Mrs. Blaine and I sat on an iron roller, till we were chilled to the bone. There was a fog so thick that n.o.body knew which side they belonged to, and Lady Beatrice, who really at her age ought to stop, got a blow on her forehead just above the nose. The play only stopped a minute for people to shout, "Dear Lady Beatrice, hope you are not hurt!" and Tom Carterville took advantage of the momentary distraction to sneak a goal. Mrs. Blaine took Lady Beatrice indoors, and, as Lady Beatrice described it to me, she filled a basin with blood. She showed me her ankles, and there wasn't a bit of white skin from the knees down, but she said hockey was great fun, and kept her in health. They always put her to keep goal, for she is so fat it is only one chance in a hundred that a ball will pa.s.s her.

{_Father Ribbit_}

Father Ribbit came to look on, and walked back to the house with me when the match was over. He said tea was the best part of hockey, and I agreed with him; he tried nearly everything on the tea-table, and talked with his mouth full of chocolate cake about the price of incense. I really can't understand how the Blaines go to his church, but Blanche says it is on account of her mother, who thinks Low Church schismatic.

You should have seen Father Ribbit glare at Mr. Frame when he came into the room, looking in his hockey things as if he had been mending the roads. Father Ribbit wears a silk neckcloth with I.H.S. embroidered on it, and Blanche says he puts ashes on his head in Holy Week. Mrs.

Dorking, who is a Roman Catholic, told me nothing made her laugh so much as a High Church Anglican; they were always doing odd things, which the Low Church people called "Popish Practices," but in reality nothing was more erroneous, and that she had heard that no two Ritualist priests did the same things. Mrs. Blaine had induced her once to go to Father Ribbit's, and a.s.sured her she wouldn't find any difference between her own service and his. Mrs. Dorking said she stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to keep from shrieking, for Father Ribbit seemed to be making up rites as he went along, and didn't at all look or act like a real priest. Lady Beatrice, who happened to overhear us, and looks on Rome and Ritualism as the abomination of abomination, said she wished Henry the Eighth was alive, and that she would as soon think of inviting "that Ribbit to Braxome as a play-actor."

Tom Carterville is much improved since he went to South Africa. Before he went out he was only an overgrown boy, but the experience has made him quite manly. His mother is always telling people in his hearing what dangers he ran, and how brave he was. Like everybody else, she likes to play Aunt Sally with the poor War Office, but her grievance is that Tom hasn't been recommended for the V.C. Tom declares he never ran any danger at all, for he was never sent to the front, and never saw a Boer the whole time; and he didn't even get enteric, or kicked by a horse.

But Lady Beatrice fairly beams, and says it's his modesty, and she wishes he had been shut up in Ladysmith, for she knows he would have found a way to raise the siege, and Tom looks quite foolish, and says, "d.a.m.n!"

{_A Maid's Audacity_}

One of the maids at Braxome dressed up in his khaki uniform the other day, and went into the kitchen, where she frightened the servants out of their wits at her audacity. It seems Lady Beatrice went to the servants'

hall that day, a thing she has never been known to do before, and arrived there in time to hear the butler say to the maid:

"What would you do if Mr. Tom should catch you in his uniform?" To which the girl replied, suiting the action to her words, "I should salute him!"

Tom, who told me the story and put a _double entendre_ in it, like a horrid boy, said it would be hard to say whether the servants were more horrified to see his mother, or his mother at the unheard-of fastness of the upper housemaid, who, he added, was a pretty little wench, and brought him his tea in the mornings before he got out of bed.

{_Troublesome Servants_}

I am almost inclined to make my peace with those bores who are always talking servants. Mine have been troubling me so much lately that I feel quite martyrised. I ordered the carriage to go to Taunton the other morning, and got myself ready, when, would you believe, that Perkins sent in to say that I couldn't go, as the roads were too heavy and the horses would slip! I sent for him and implored him to relent, and he finally let Alfred drive me in the dog-cart, and Alfred drove so fast, I thought I should be pitched out. I call it quite unkind of Perkins, and he has been with us ten years too. Then, again, the other morning Tom Carterville came to ask me if I could lend him any golf b.a.l.l.s, and Therese told me afterwards that she found James peeping through the keyhole, and when she remonstrated, he threatened to blackmail me; now I know why Lord Froom got rid of him, and I have given him notice. But the worst of all, Elizabeth, is the new page. You know how hard it is to get one at all. Well, finally, in despair, I followed Mrs. Chevington's advice and sent to the workhouse in Bath for a boy. They sent me such a pretty little fellow, about twelve years old. I had him measured for his livery, and he looked such a dear in it, and was picking up his duties so quickly, but I have had to send him back to Bath to his workhouse.

The kitchen cat had kittens, and cook, very foolishly, gave them to the boy, and told him to get rid of them. Some little while later, I heard a horrid miaouing on the lawn, and went to the window to see what it was.

I found the new page digging a hole in the geranium beds, and something sputtering about in the earth. Fancy, Elizabeth, he was burying the poor little kittens _alive_, the little monster! Of course I couldn't keep him after that, could I?

So you see, darling, even if you are a pretty and rich widow, and only live for Paquin and a good time, you still have your troubles. Lady Beatrice says the question of servants is more troublesome than Home Rule, and I agree with her.

Give my love to Lady Theodosia, but don't tell her that I am glad she doesn't live in this part of the country.--Your dearest Mamma.

LETTER XXII

MONK'S FOLLY, 31st October

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Tom Carterville Calls_}

Tom Carterville came again this morning to ask if I would lend him Jerry to ride to Wellington, as the equestrian cook has lamed the three saddle-horses at Braxome. I sent to ask Perkins for permission, and after I got it, Tom didn't seem in a hurry to go, and stopped so long that I had to ask him to lunch, and then he waited till tea. He is an amusing boy, but I wish he didn't look so much like his mother. When he is a little older he is going to be enormous. You know he was at Eton with Charlie Carriston, and declares there wasn't a greater sneak in the school.

{_Daintree Affair_}

I told him about Cora de la Haye and the diamond necklace, and Tom says she is just the sort of woman to make trouble, and that Lady Carriston had better put on her life-preserver, for there is going to be a storm of Charlie's brewing. He told me all about the Daintree affair; he called Daintree a rotter, and says he will never marry the girl.

You know Lady Daintree went to the War Office herself, and refused to leave till they promised to order Daintree out to South Africa at once.

The girl is suing for breach of promise,--ten thousand pounds damages,--Tom says that the Daintree barony will never stand it, for it hasn't recovered from the late lord's plunging on the turf. He says that Connie Metcalfe is good enough for Daintree, who is an awful mug, and that a Gaiety girl would make as good a ladys.h.i.+p as a _coryphee_ at the Empire. It seems to me that Lady Daintree is herself to blame for it all; if she had used tact with her son and brought him up sensibly, she wouldn't have to eat her pride now.

I asked Tom if he intended to follow the fas.h.i.+on and marry in the theatrical world, and have Lady Beatrice begging the War Office to send him to the Front, so that he might die sooner than disgrace her. He looked at me with a queer expression and said he preferred to follow the other fas.h.i.+on now in vogue, and marry a beauty twice his age. I told him I believed he was thinking of Miss Tancred of Exeter, the temperance lecturer, who read "L'a.s.sommoir" to the Braxome tenantry last week, and who wears short hair, green goggles and a bicycle skirt, and is fifty, if she is a day. Tom laughed, and said I had hit the right nail on the head. A jolly youngster, and might do for you, Elizabeth, if Valmond turns sour. He will have Braxome and twenty thousand a year when Lady Beatrice dies.

{_Dinner at Astley Court_}

To-night I dined at Astley Court; the Parkers have a large house-party.

Miss Parker is to marry Clandevil in ten days, the invitations have been out some time; it is to be a very grand affair. Both she and the Duke appear bored with one another already, and Mr. Parker has been heard to say to a compatriot that his daughter had made him promise her a t.i.tle, and that he had bought her an English duke; it was a bit off colour, but good at the price.

{_An Odious Man_}

I went in to dinner with an odious man, a Mr. Sweetson; he is Mr.

Parker's partner in America, and was so patronising. He wore a b.u.t.ton with the American flag on it, just like Mr. Wertzelmann the night of the ball at Schloss Gessler, and underneath it there was another one of white enamel with "Let her go, Gallagher," in black letters on it. I wonder what it could have meant; I would have asked him, but I thought it might seem rude. The people at Croixmare couldn't have eaten worse than Mr. Sweetson; he put his napkin in his collar, and it was well he did, for he spilled his soup all over it, and he sucked his teeth when he had finished. I asked him what he thought of England, and he replied that he preferred to spend his money in his own country, and couldn't see how a man like Mr. Parker, who had the brains to make the big fortune he had, could settle down in one of the effete countries of the Old World. And he added if he had his way he would put the Monroe Doctrine into force and drive Europe altogether out of America. He became quite _farouche_, and I am sure he is an Irish-American, for they say they hate us more than the other Americans. Algy Chevington told me that Mr. Sweetson is a Tammany Tiger, whatever that is; at any rate it isn't anything nice, and I am sure Mr. Parker had better put him to eat in the servants' hall hereafter. He is some relation to Mrs. Parker, for he called her Cousin Petunia; Clandevil looked as if he could have strangled him, and Algy says Mr. Parker must have put down millions in hard cash, or Clandevil would never go through with the marriage.

Mr. Sweetson stepped on Lady Beatrice's yellow brocade after dinner, and ripped out fully a yard of st.i.tches. You should have seen the glance she gave him; it was more terrible than the one she bestowed on Mr. Frame the day he was unlucky enough to beat her at tennis. Mr. Sweetson was awfully embarra.s.sed; if it had been anyone less objectionable, I should have felt sorry for him. He only made matters worse by asking her what it cost, for he would send her ladys.h.i.+p a dress the following day at double the price. Lady Beatrice put up her _pince-nez_, and stared at him without uttering a word; then she sailed across the room and sat down beside Mrs. Chevington. "Cousin Petunia" told Mr. Sweetson that if he wanted to smoke, he would find the gentlemen in the billiard-room. He took the hint.

{_Mrs. Dot_}