“Do you know where we are going?” he groaned. “To one of the grandest
houses in England! Oh, Lord! I ought to have told you. You 'll need
all the clothes you have down here. And--and a valet and maid will
unpack the bags--oh, hell!” After more of the same kind of talk, he
began to cook up some yarn to tell the valet.
Suddenly all that is free-born in me rose to the surface. “Is it the
thing for gentlemen to be afraid of the valet?” I asked my husband.
“Does a servant regulate your life and set your standards?”
Tom was quiet for several moments; then he took my hand and said very
earnestly: “Mary, don't you ever lose your respect for the real things.
It will save both of us.” After a while he added: “Just the same, I 'll
have to lie out of this baggage hole.”
He did, in a very casual, laughing way--such a positive set of lies that
I marveled and began to wonder how much of Tom was acting and how much
was real.
Tom went back to London on the next train, and reached the “farm” with
our baggage before it was time to dress for the eight-o'clock dinner.
The dinner was long and stupid. After dinner the women went into the
drawing-room and gossiped about politics and personalities until the men
joined them, when they sat down to cards. I did not know how to play
cards, and so was left with a garrulous old woman who had eaten and
drunk over-much.
It had been a long day for me. I was ill and tired. Suddenly sleep
began to overpower me. I batted my eyes to keep them open. I tried
looking at the crystal lights, but my leaden eyes could not face them.
The constant drone of that old woman was putting me to sleep. I tried
to say a few words now and then to wake myself. I felt myself slipping.
Once my head dropped and came up with a jerk. I watched the great
French clock. Its hands did not seem to move. I looked at Tom. He was
absorbed in his game. I could not endure it another minute. I went
over and said good night to my hostess who had spoken to me only once
since my arrival.
Drowsy as I was, I noticed she seemed surprised. “Oh, no,” I told her;
“I am not ill, only very sleepy.”
How good my pillow felt!
The next morning Tom was cross. I had made a _faux pas_. I had shown I
was bored and peeved and had gone to bed before the hostess indicated it
was bedtime. It “was n't done” in England.
“What do you do if you can't keep awake?” I asked. “You slip out
quietly, go to your room ask a maid to call you after you have had forty
winks, then you go back and pretend you are having a good time,” said
Tom.
There were some bitter hours after we got back to London. But Tom won,
and I promised to get a companion. Then there came into my life the
most wonderful of friends. She was the widow of a British Army officer
who had been killed in India, and her only child was dead. She was a
woman of education and heart; she understood my needs, all of them, and
I interested her. She had seen great suffering; she had a deep feeling
for humanity and an honest desire to be of use in the world. In the
English register my companion was listed as the Honorable Evelyn, but we
quickly got down to Mary and Eve. We loved each other. Eve went to
France with us a few months later. She made me talk French with her.
My first formal dinner in France was a pleasant surprise. It was like a
great family party--not dull and quiet like the English dinner, and ever
so much more fun. Everybody participated. If there was one lion at the
table, everybody shared him.
[Illustration: p060.jpg MY FIRST FORMAL DINNER IN FRANCE]
There is something in being born on a silken couch. Nothing surprises
you. You are at ease anywhere in the world. Eve fitted into Paris as
naturally as in her native London, I began to feel at home there myself.
It was a city of happy people--care free, natural, sympathetic. There
was a lack of restraint which, after the oppressive dignity of London,
was a rare treat. No one was critical. Every one accepted my halting
and faulty French without ridicule or condescension. The amiability and
the friendliness of the French people thawed my heart and began to lift
me out of my slough of homesickness. Happiness came back to me.
There had been hours in England when only the knowledge that a woman's
rarest gift was coming to me, and that Tom was proud and happy about it,
kept me from running away--back to the simple life of my own United
States.
I was homesick for mother. Babies were a mystery to me, although I had
helped mother with all of hers. We had buried three of them in homemade
coffins--pioneering is a ruthless scythe, and only the fit survive. I
began to understand my mother and the glory in the character which never
faltered, although she was alone and life had been hard. How could I
whine when I had Tom and a good friend--and life was like a playground?
I loved the French. They regard life with a frankness which sometimes
shocked my reserved Boston husband. He never accepted intimacy. The
restraint of old England was still in his blood. The free winds of the
prairie had swept it from mine.
My new friends in Paris discovered my happy secret. It was my
all-absorbing thought, and I was delighted to be able to discuss it
frankly. Motherhood is the great and natural event in the life of a
woman in France, and no one makes a secret of it. I was very happy in
Paris. And then--Tom had to go to Vienna.
Not even Tom, Eve, and the promised baby could make me happy there. In
all the world I had seen no place where the line of class distinction
was so closely drawn, where social customs were so rigid and court forms
so sacred, as at the Austrian capital. Learning the social customs of
Vienna seemed as endless as counting the pebbles on the beach--and about
as useful. The clock regulated our habits in Vienna. Up to eleven
o'clock certain attire was proper. If your watch stopped you were sure
to break a social law. I once saw a distinguished diplomat in distress
because he found himself at an official function at eleven-thirty with a
black tie--or without one, I have forgotten which!
At first it offended me to receive an invitation--or a command--to
appear at a formal function, with an accompanying slip telling exactly
what to wear. Then I laughed about it.
Finally I rebelled. On the plea of ill health, I made Tom do the social
honors for me, while Eve and I did the museums and the galleries and the
music fetes. Years later I went back to Vienna, and I did not discredit
my country. But I never loved the city. I enjoyed its art, its
fascinating shops, its picturesque streets and people, and its beautiful
women. But for me Vienna has the faults of France and England, the
poverty and arrogance of London, and the frivolity of Paris, without
their redeeming qualities.
So I was glad to return to England. The second day in London, Tom took
me to an exhibition important in the art world, or at least in the
official life of London. Everybody who was somebody was there. I saw
the Princess of Wales and the Marquis of Salisbury, who was then
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I saw Mr. Balfour, so handsome
and gracious that I refused to believe there had ever been cause to call
him “Bloody Balfour.” There was something kingly about him--yet he was
simply Mr. Balfour. Years afterward I realized that to know Mr. Balfour
is either to worship him or hate him. No one takes the middle course.
I had begun to have a beautiful time that afternoon.
I felt happy, acutely conscious of my blessings and of one coming
blessing in particular. Mr. Gladstone joined us, and Sir Henry Irving
came over to speak to Eve. She told him I had just said that England
had a mold for handsome men. Irving was interesting and striking,
though certainly not handsome; but he took the compliment to himself,
smiled, bowed his thanks, and said:
“And America for beautiful women.”
Mr. Gladstone, too, could indulge in small talk. “You should have seen
her rosy cheeks before she went to the Continent,” he said, and added
kindly that I looked very tired and should go down to Hawarden Castle
and rest.
“Oh,” I explained happily, “it is n't that--I 'm not tired. It is such
a happy reason!” I felt Eve gasp. Mr. Gladstone opened his kind eyes
very wide, and his heavy chin settled down in his collar. It was the
last bad break I made. But it was a blessing to me, for it robbed all
social form of terror. For the first time, I realized that custom is
merely a matter of geography. One takes off one's shoes to enter the
presence of the ruler of Persia. One wears a black tie until eleven
o'clock in Vienna--or does n't. One uses fish knives in England until
he dines with royalty--then one must manage with a fork and a piece of
bread. One dresses for dinner always, and waits for the hostess to say
it is time, and speaks only to one's neighbor at table. In France one
guest speaks to any or all of the others; all one's friends extend
congratulations if a baby is coming; one shares all his joys with
friends. But in England nobody must know, and everybody must be
surprised. No one ever speaks of himself in England. They are
sensitive about everything personal. But there is an underground and
very perfect system by which everything about everybody is known and
noised about and discussed with everybody except the person in question.
It is a mysterious and elaborate hypocrisy.
With the aid of Eve, I made a thorough study of the geography of social
customs. I learned the ways of Europe, of the Orient, and of South
America. It is easier to understand races if one understands the
psychology of their customs. I realized that social amenities are too
often neglected in America, and our manners sometimes truthfully called
crude. But I told myself with pride that our truly cultivated people
will not tolerate a social form that is not based on human, kindly
instincts. It was not until the World War flooded Europe with American
boys and girls that I realized the glory of our social standards and the
great need to have our own people understand those standards.