[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 110.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
THE ETHICS OF HOUSEKEEPING.
The cry is everywhere the same—the badness of our modern servants. But
who is really to blame—the mistresses or the maids? the masters or
the employed? The one class are educated, the other are comparatively
ignorant; and influence filters downwards—it does not permeate the
social mass from below. We cast longing looks backward to the bygone
times when servants were the humble friends of the family, ready to
serve for love and bare maintenance if bad times came, and identifying
themselves with the fortunes of their masters. But we forget that
we ourselves have changed even more than they, since the days when
mistresses overlooked the maids in closer companionship than is
warranted now by the conditions of society—when daily details were
ordered by the lady, and the execution of her orders was personally
supervised—when housekeeping was at once an art and a pleasure, a
science and a source of pride. Then young servants were trained
immediately under the eye of the mistress and by her direct influence;
as now they are trained under the head servant of their special
department. And in this change of teachers alone, if no other cause
were wanting, we could trace the source of the deterioration complained
of.
The lady who, two generations ago, taught the still-room maid the
mysteries of sirups and confections, of jams and jellies and dainty
sweetmeats—who knew the prime joints, and the signs of good meat,
tender poultry, and fresh fish, as well as the cook herself—who could
go blindfold to her linen press and pick out the best sheets from
the ordinary, and knew by place as well as by touch where the finer
huckaback towels were to be found and where the coarser—who could
check as well as instruct the housemaid at every turn—such a mistress
as this, for her own part diligent, refined, truthful, God-fearing,
was likely to give a higher tone, infuse a more faithful and dutiful
spirit into her servants, than is possible now, when the thing is
reduced to a profession like any other, and the teacher is only
technically, not morally, in advance of the pupil. It is the mistresses
who have let the reins slip from their hands, not the maids who have
taken the bit between their teeth; or, rather, the latter has been
in consequence of the former; and when we blame our servants for the
‘heartlessness’ of their service—for the ease with which they throw up
their situations, on the sole plea of want of change, or of bettering
themselves, to the infinite disturbance of things and trouble to the
household—we must remember that we ourselves first broke the golden
links, and that to expect devotion without giving affection is to
expect simply slavishness. The advantage of the present system of mere
professional and skilled technicality is to be found in the greater
comfort and regularity of the household; in the more finished precision
and perfection of the service; in the more complete systemisation of
the whole art and practice of attendance. But these gains have been
bought with a price—not only in the increased cost of housekeeping,
but in the deterioration of the moral character of servants, and in
the annihilation of the friendly and quasi-family feeling which once
existed between the mistress and her domestics.
In large cities and in the houses of the rich, the upper men-servants
are practically their own masters. They make their own stipulations as
to hours, food, allowances, liberties; and compound for the nervous
exhaustion of perpetual worry which does not include hard work, by a
scale of feeding which is more savage than civilised, in the quantity
of flesh-meat included. They can make the house pleasant or intolerable
to a guest; and in a thousand sly mysterious ways they cause the
mistress annoyances which cannot be brought home to them, and of which
they enjoy the effect produced. In the kitchen, the cook is absolute
mistress, and holds her lady as merely the superscriber of her own
_menu_ for the day, as well as the bank whence is drawn the money for
the bills—which she pays. And in the payment of those bills, as well as
in dealing with remnants—of which woe betide the mistress who should
recommend the home consumption!—the cook doubles and trebles her wages,
and feathers her own nest with the down plucked from her employers.
Can we wonder at this? We put a half-educated person into a place of
trust and temptation; we neither check nor overlook her; we trust all
to her abstract honesty and sense of justice; there is no danger of
discovery, still less of punishment; she has before her the additional
temptation of pleasing her fellow-servants with whom she lives in
hourly contact, rather than of saving the pockets of her rich employers
whom she scarcely knows and rarely sees; and then we lift up our hands
at the depravity of human nature, when we find that the tradesmen give
back a percentage on their bills, and that whole pounds of wax candles
swell the perquisite of the grease-pot handsomely. But next door, the
rich merchant is a fraudulent bankrupt; the respectable family lawyer
over the way absconds after having dealt with his clients’ securities;
master’s friend, the banker, puts up the shutters to the ruin of
thousands on thousands, while his wife has a secured jointure which
enables them to live in princely style; and the stockjobber, who dines
with us on Sundays, makes use of private information to sell to his
best friend shares which, up to their highest point to-day, he knows
will collapse like a burst balloon to-morrow. Are we not a little hard
on the kitchen, seeing what is done in the parlour?
Go from the rich to the poor among our gentry—from the gilded upper
stratum to the lower base and barren subsoil—and here again we find
that mistresses are as much to blame as the maids, whose shortcomings
they bewail and resent. In a household of this kind, the _res angusta
domi_ prevents the hiring, because rendering impossible the payment, of
good and well-trained servants; and the mistress has to be content with
young girls whom she must teach, and whose untutored services she buys
at small cost. But here, again, the modern spirit of the age spoils
what else might seem to be a return to old and wholesome conditions.
Nine times out of ten, the mistress is as incapable of teaching as the
maid is slow of learning; for we must remember that untrained girls
of this sort are generally taken from the most humble class, and that
they come into service with but little natural brightness of wit and
less educational sharpening. The mistress expects too much from them.
For the most part aching under her own burden, disliking her duties,
and envying her richer sisters, she does the least she can in the
house, and gives the heavy end of the stick to the hired help. And,
forgetful of the maxim of ‘line upon line and precept upon precept,’
and of the necessity of reiteration, patient and continual, if a dull
brain has to be impressed and a new method learned, she is impatient
and angry when orders are forgotten—ways of doing things bungled—and
chaos, disorder, and confusion are the result. Perhaps she herself is
unpunctual and inexact; but she expects from her seventeen-old little
Betty the punctuality of the sun and the regularity of the clock.
Perhaps she herself is undutiful, and shirks all that she can transfer
on to another’s hands; but she looks for devotion, self-sacrifice, the
unfailing performance of her duty, from this comparative child, and
feels entitled to sit in the seat of the judge, when these virtues
run dry and the shallow stream of conscientiousness fails. From the
nurse-girl, herself a mere child, hired to wheel the perambulator
and look after the children, she expects such patience, forbearance,
and understanding of child-nature, as she herself, mother as she is,
cannot command. If Jacky is rude and Jenny is rebellious, if Tommy is
unmanageable and Katie is defiant, she, the mother, whose temper would
be in a blaze on the moment, demands that the nursemaid shall bear all
with a calm and equable mind, and, without the power of punishing,
be able to reduce to obedience these little rebels, whom she herself
cannot always control with the help of the rod and the dark-closet to
boot. Furthermore, she lays the blame of these naughty tempers on the
girl, to excuse the children. They are always good with _her_, she says
angrily, and it must be Mary’s fault that they are so often tiresome
when _she_ has them. And when she says this, she does not remember the
old adage about the little pitchers and long ears, and never realises
the fact that by her own words she gives the children their cue, and
encourages them to be rude to one who, they know beforehand, will be
made the scapegoat for their sins. That overpowering maternal love—that
_storgë_, of which poets make so much account, and which is the primal
necessity for the preservation of the race—is at times the cause of
great injustice, especially when dealing with those unprotected young
nursemaids to whom no authority can be given, from whom all controlling
influence is expected, and who have neither moral force nor mental
enlightenment enough to control themselves, still less others. If they
stand in the attitude of accusers, the mother rejects them as traducers.
Sometimes, in small households, the master interferes like a woman, and
adds to the confusion by putting his masculine fingers into the already
over-stocked domestic pie. There are men who are simply maddening in
a house. They watch behind the window-blind and count the number of
seconds Betty gives to the baker’s boy, and how she smirks and smiles
at the handsome young greengrocer or the smart Mr Butcher. That Betty
should have any pleasure in the gallant words or flattering looks of
one or all of these, seems to them a sin, a dereliction of duty, and,
in some queer way, a wrong and a robbery done to them. For were they
to be completely candid, most masters and mistresses would say that
they expected the whole of a servant’s nature to be given to them—all
her thoughts as well as her abilities—all her interests as well as
all her time; and that to fall in love is a kind of petty treason and
a quasi-dishonest transfer of energy. Put in this crude way, this
theorem would be denied; and a dozen other reasons would be given for
the confessed dislike felt by employers for a love-sick maid. Reduced
to its elements, it would come to what we have said—impatience of the
inevitable troubler of the conditions being one of the proofs on our
side. In matters of this kind, the ‘molly-man,’ who stays at home,
peeps from behind the blind and puts his fingers into all the pies
aboard, is a harsher and less sympathetic person to deal with than is
the average mistress, to whom a girl’s love affairs carry an echo that
awakens old dreams in her own soul and gain a little compassion for the
sufferer. For, after all, Betty’s love for the baker’s young man is
very much the same kind of thing as Ada’s for the captain and Mabel’s
for the curate; and neither the cut nor the material of the gown
influences the beating of the heart which throbs beneath!
In all this, as we had occasion in a recent paper to observe, we do
not excuse the faulty side of modern servants, but we should like
to see inaugurated a better method of dealing with it. We should
like to see the mistresses go back to the old friendly feeling and
friendly intercourse with those who live under their roof, and make
their happiness, by the conscientious discharge of duty—that old
friendly feeling which made of the household one family, and brought
the servants in line with the masters by the golden cord of human
sympathy. People say that this is impossible; that the spirit of the
age prevents it; that servants themselves refuse to recognise anything
like personal interest from their employers; that the whole tone and
character of service are changed, and that it is now only a profession,
where the employed live under the roof of their employers, instead of
out of the house, as with mill-hands and the like. It may be so; but
if even so, we contend that the higher natures could influence the
lower if they would; that knowledge could direct ignorance; and that it
depends on the masters and mistresses to get good out of these changed
conditions—human nature, on the whole, seeking the light, and society,
like a broken crystal, mending its fractures with fresh material, to
the maintenance of form and beauty.
IN ALL SHADES.
BY GRANT ALLEN,
AUTHOR OF ‘BABYLON,’ ‘STRANGE STORIES,’ ETC. ETC.
CHAPTER VII.
The morning when Edward and Marian were to start on their voyage to
Trinidad, with Nora in their charge, was a beautifully clear, calm, and
sunny one. The tiny steam-tender that took them down Southampton Water,
from the landing-stage to the moorings where the big ocean-going Severn
lay at anchor, ploughed her way merrily through the blue ripplets
that hardly broke the level surface. Though it was a day of parting,
nobody was over-sad. General Ord had come down with Marian, his face
bronzed with twenty years of India, but straight and erect still like
a hop-pole, as he stood with his tall thin figure lithe and steadfast
on the little quarter-deck. Mrs Ord was there too, crying a little, of
course, as is only decorous on such occasions, yet not more so than a
parting always demands from the facile eyes of female humanity. Marian
didn’t cry much, either; she felt so safe in going with Edward, and
hoped to be back so soon again on a summer visit to her father and
mother. As for Nora, Nora was always bright as the sunshine, and
could never see anything except the bright side of things. ‘We shall
take such care of dear Marian in Trinidad, Mrs Ord!’ she said gaily.
‘You’ll see her home again on a visit in another twelvemonth, with more
roses on her cheek than she’s got now, when she’s had a taste of our
delicious West Indian mountain air.’
‘And if Trinidad suits Miss Ord—Mrs Hawthorn, I mean—dear me, how
stupid of me!’ Harry Noel put in quietly, ‘half as well as it seems
to have suited you, Miss Dupuy, we shall have no cause to complain of
Hawthorn for having taken her out there.’
‘Oh, no fear of that,’ Nora answered, smiling one of her delicious
childish smiles. ‘You don’t know how delightful Trinidad is, Mr Noel;
it’s really one of the most charming places in all Christendom.’
‘On your recommendation, then,’ Harry answered, bowing slightly and
looking at her with eyes full of meaning, ‘I shall almost be tempted
to go out some day and see for myself how really delightful are these
poetical tropics of yours.’
Nora blushed, and her eyes fell slightly. ‘You would find them very
lovely, no doubt, Mr Noel,’ she answered, more demurely and in a
half-timid fashion; ‘but I can’t recommend them, you know, with any
confidence, because I was such a very little girl when I first came
home to England. You had better not come out to Trinidad merely on the
strength of my recommendation.’
Harry bowed his head again gravely. ‘As you will,’ he said. ‘Your word
is law. And yet, perhaps some day, I shouldn’t be surprised if Hawthorn
and Mrs Hawthorn were to find me dropping in upon them unexpectedly for
a scratch dinner. After all, it’s a mere nothing nowadays to run across
the millpond, as the Yankees call it.’
They reached the _Severn_ about an hour before the time fixed for
starting, and sat on deck talking together with that curious sense of
finding nothing to say which always oppresses one on the eve of a long
parting. It seems as though no subject of conversation sufficiently
important for the magnitude of the occasion ever occurred to one: the
mere everyday trivialities of ordinary talk sound out of place at
such a serious moment. So, by way of something to do, the party soon
began to institute a series of observations upon Edward and Marian’s
fellow-passengers, as they came on board, one after another, in
successive batches on the little tender.
‘Just look at that brown young man!’ Nora cried, in a suppressed
whisper, as a tall and gentlemanly looking mulatto walked up the
gangway from the puffing tug. ‘We shall be positively overwhelmed with
coloured people, I declare! There are three Hottentot Venuses down in
the saloon already, bound for Haiti; and a San Domingo general, as
black as your hat; and a couple of walnut-coloured old gentlemen going
to Dominica. And now, here’s another regular brown man coming on board
to us. What’s his name, I wonder? Oh, there it is, painted as large
as life upon his portmanteau! “Dr Whitaker, Trinidad.” Why, my dear,
he’s actually going the whole way with us. And a doctor too! goodness
gracious. Just fancy being attended through fever by a man of that
complexion!’
‘Oh, hush, Nora!’ Marian cried, in genuine alarm. ‘He’ll overhear you,
and you’ll hurt his feelings. Besides, you oughtn’t to talk so about
other people, whether they hear you or whether they don’t.’
‘Hurt his feelings, my dear! O dear, no, not a bit of it. I know them
better than you do. My dear Marian, these people haven’t got any
feelings; they’ve been too much accustomed to be laughed at from the
time they were babies, ever to have had the chance of acquiring any.’
‘Then the more shame,’ Edward interrupted gravely, ‘to those who have
laughed them out of all self-respect and natural feeling. But I don’t
believe, for my part, there’s anybody on earth who doesn’t feel hurt at
being ridiculed.’
‘Ah, that’s so nice of you to think and talk like that, Mr Hawthorn,’
Nora answered frankly; ‘but you won’t think so, you know, I’m quite
certain, after you’ve been a month or two on shore over in Trinidad.’
‘Good-morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ the captain of the _Severn_
put in briskly, walking up to them as they lounged in a group on the
clean-scrubbed quarter-deck—‘good-morning, ladies and gentlemen. Fine
weather to start on a voyage. Are you all going with us?—Why, bless my
heart, if this isn’t General Ord! I sailed with you, sir, fifteen years
ago now or more, must be, when I was a second officer in the P. and O.
service.—You don’t remember me; no, I daresay not; I was only a second
officer then, and you sat at the captain’s table. But I remember you,
sir—I remember you. There’s more folks know Tom Fool, the proverb says,
than Tom Fool knows; and no offence meant, general, nor none be taken.
And so you’re going out with us now, are you?—going out with us now?
Well, you’ll sit at the captain’s table still, sir, no doubt, you and
your party; and as I’m the captain now, you see, why, I shall have a
better chance than I used to have of making your acquaintance.’
The captain laughed heartily as he spoke at his own small wit; but
General Ord drew himself up rather stiffly, and answered in a somewhat
severe tone: ‘No, I’m not going out with you this journey myself; but
my daughter, who has lately married, and her husband here, are just
setting out to their new home over in Trinidad.’
‘In Trinidad,’ the jolly captain echoed heartily—‘in Trinidad! Well,
well, beautiful island, beautiful, beautiful! Must mind they don’t
take too much mainsheet, or catch yellow Jack, or live in the marshes,
that’s all; otherwise, they’ll find it a delightful residence. I took
out a young sub-lieutenant, just gazetted, last voyage but two, when
they had the yellow Jack awfully bad up at cantonments. He was in a
deadly funk of the fever all the way, and always asking everybody
questions about it. The moment he landed, who does he go and meet but
an old Irish friend of the family, who was going home by the return
steamer. The Irishman rushes up to him and shakes his hand violently
and says he—“Me dear fellow,” says he, “ye’ve come in the very nick of
time. Promotion’s certain; they’re dying by thousands. Every day, wan
of ’em drops off the list; and all ye’ve got to do is to hould yer
head up, keep from drinking any brandy, and don’t be frightened; and,
be George, ye’ll rise in no time as fast as I have; and I’m going home
this morning a colonel.”’
The general shuddered slightly. ‘Not a pleasant introduction to the
country, certainly,’ he answered in his driest manner. ‘But I suppose
Trinidad’s fairly healthy at present?’
‘Healthy! Well, yes, well enough as the tropics go, general.—But don’t
you be afraid of your young people. With health and strength, they’ll
pull through decently, not a doubt of it.—Let me see—let me see; I
must secure ’em a place at my own table. We’ve got rather an odd lot
of passengers this time, mostly; a good many of ’em have got a very
decided touch o’ the tar-brush about ’em—a touch o’ the tar-brush.
There’s that woolly-headed nigger fellow over there who’s just come
aboard; he’s going to Trinidad too; he’s a doctor, he is. We mustn’t
let your people get mixed up with all that lot, of course; I’ll keep
’em a place nice and snug at my own table.’
‘Thank you,’ the general said, rather more graciously than
before.—‘This is my daughter, captain, Mrs Hawthorn. And this is my
son-in-law, Mr Edward Hawthorn, who’s going out to accept a district
judgeship over yonder in Trinidad.’
‘Ha!’ the jovial captain answered in his bluff voice, doffing his hat
sailor-fashion to Marian and Edward. ‘Going to hang up the niggers
out in Trinidad, are you, sir? Going to hang up the niggers! Well,
well, they deserve it all, every man-Jack of ’em, the lazy beggars;
they all deserve hanging. A pestering set of idle, thieving, hulking
vagabonds, as ever came around to coal a ship in harbour! I’d judge
’em, I would—I’d judge ’em.’ And the captain pantomimically expressed
the exact nature of his judicial sentiments by pressing his own stout
bull-neck, just across the windpipe, with his sturdy right hand,
till his red and sunburnt face grew even redder and redder with the
suggested suspension.
Edward smiled quietly, but answered nothing.
‘Well, sir,’ the captain went on as soon as he had recovered fully from
the temporary effects of his self-inflicted strangulation, ‘and have
you ever been in the West Indies before, or is this your first visit?’
‘I was born there,’ Edward answered. ‘I’m a Trinidad man by birth; but
I’ve lived so long in England, and went there so young, that I don’t
really recollect very much about my native country.’
‘Mr Hawthorn’s father you may know by name,’ the general said, a little
assertively. ‘He is a son of the Honourable James Hawthorn, of Agualta
Estate, Trinidad.’
The captain drew back for a moment with a curious look, and scanned
Edward closely from head to foot with a remarkably frank and maritime
scrutiny; then he whistled low to himself for a few seconds, and
seemed to be ruminating inwardly upon some very amusing and unusual
circumstance. At last he answered slowly, in a more reserved and
somewhat embarrassed tone: ‘O yes, I know Mr Hawthorn of Agualta—know
him personally; well-known man, Mr Hawthorn of Agualta. Member of the
Legislative Council of the island. Fine estate, Agualta—very fine
estate indeed, and has one of the largest outputs of rum and sugar
anywhere in the whole West Indies.’
‘I told you so,’ Harry Noel murmured parenthetically. ‘The governor
is coiny. They’re all alike, the whole breed of them. Secretiveness
large, acquisitiveness enormous, benevolence and generosity absolutely
undeveloped. When you get to Trinidad, my dear Teddy, bleed him, bleed
him!’
‘Well, well, Mrs Hawthorn,’ the captain said gallantly to Marian,
who stood by rather wondering what his sudden change of demeanour
could possibly portend, ‘you shall have a seat at my table—certainly,
certainly; you shall have a seat at my table. The general’s an old
passenger of mine on the P. and O.; and I’ve known Mr Hawthorn of
Agualta Estate ever since I first came upon the West India liners.—And
the young lady, is she going too?’ For Captain Burford, like most
others of his craft, had a quick eye for pretty faces, and he had not
been long in picking out and noticing Nora’s.
‘This is Miss Dupuy of Orange Grove,’ Marian said, drawing her young
companion a little forward. ‘Perhaps you know her father too, as you’ve
been going so long to the island.’
‘What! a daughter of Mr Theodore Dupuy of Orange Grove and Pimento
Valley,’ the captain replied briskly. ‘Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter!
Lord bless my soul, Mr Theodore Dupuy! O yes, don’t I just know him!
Why, Mr Dupuy’s one of the most respected and well-known gentlemen
in the whole island. Been settled at Orange Grove, the Dupuys have,
ever since the old Spanish occupation.—And so you’re taking out Mr
Theodore Dupuy’s daughter, are you, Mrs Hawthorn? Well, well! Taking
out Mr—Theodore Dupuy’s daughter. That’s a capital joke, that is.—O
yes, you must all sit at the head of my table, ladies; and I’ll do
everything that lies in my power to make you comfortable.’
Meanwhile, Edward and Harry Noel had strolled off for a minute towards
the opposite end of the deck, where the mulatto gentleman was standing
quite alone, looking down steadily into the deep-blue motionless
water. As the captain moved away, Nora Dupuy gave a little start, and
caught Marian Hawthorn’s arm excitedly and suddenly. ‘Look there!’
she cried—‘oh, look there, Marian! Do you see Mr Hawthorn? Do you
see what he’s doing? That brown man over there, with the name on the
portmanteau, has turned round and spoken to him, and Mr Hawthorn’s
actually held out his hand and is shaking hands with him!’
‘Well,’ Marian answered in some surprise, ‘I see he is. Why not?’
‘Why not? My dear, how can you ask me such a question! Why, of course,
because the man’s a regular mulatto—a coloured person.’
Marian laughed. ‘Really, dear,’ she answered, more amused than angry,
‘you mustn’t be so entirely filled up with your foolish little West
Indian prejudices. The young man’s a doctor, and no doubt a gentleman
in education and breeding, and, for my part, I can’t for the life of me
see why one shouldn’t shake hands with him as well as with any other
respectable person.’
‘Oh, but Marian, you know—a brown man!—his father and mother!—the
associations—no, really!’
Marian smiled again. ‘They’re coming this way,’ she said; ‘we shall
soon hear what they’re talking about. Perhaps he knows something about
your people, or Edward’s.’
Nora looked up quite defiant. ‘About _my_ people, Marian!’ she said
almost angrily. ‘Why, what can you be thinking of! You don’t suppose,
do you, that _my_ people are in the habit of mixing casually with
woolly-headed mulattoes?’
She had hardly uttered the harsh words, when the mulatto gentleman
walked over towards them side by side with Edward Hawthorn, and lifted
his hat courteously to Marian.
‘My wife,’ Edward said, as Marian bowed slightly in return: ‘Dr
Whitaker.’
‘I saw your husband’s name upon his boxes, Mrs Hawthorn,’ the mulatto
gentleman said with a pleasant smile, and in a soft, clear, cultivated
voice; ‘and as my father has the privilege of knowing Mr Hawthorn of
Agualta, over in Trinidad, I took the liberty of introducing myself
at once to him. I’m glad to hear that we’re to be fellow-passengers
together, and that your husband has really decided to return at last to
his native island.’
‘Thank you,’ Marian answered simply. ‘We are all looking forward much
to our life in Trinidad.’ Then, with a little mischievous twinkle in
her eye, she turned to Nora. ‘This is another of our fellow-passengers,
Dr Whitaker,’ she said demurely—‘my friend, Miss Dupuy, whom I’m taking
out under my charge—another Trinidadian: you ought to know one another.
Miss Dupuy’s father lives at an estate called Orange Grove—isn’t it,
Nora?’
The mulatto doctor lifted his hat again, and bowed with marked
politeness to the blushing white girl. For a second, their eyes met. Dr
Whitaker’s looked at the beautiful half-childish face with unmistakable
instantaneous admiration. Nora’s flashed a little angrily, and her
nostrils dilated with a proud quiver; but she said never a word; she
merely gave a chilly bow, and didn’t attempt even to offer her pretty
little gloved hand to the brown stranger.
‘I have heard of Miss Dupuy’s family by name,’ the mulatto answered,
speaking to Marian, but looking askance at the same time toward the
petulant Nora. ‘Mr Dupuy of Orange Grove is well known throughout the
island. I am glad that we are going to have so much delightful Trinidad
society on our outward passage.’
‘Thank him for nothing,’ Nora murmured aside to Harry Noel, moving away
as she spoke towards Mrs Ord at the other end of the vessel. ‘What
impertinence! Marian ought to have known better than to introduce me to
him.’
‘It’s a pity you don’t like the coloured gentleman,’ Harry Noel put in
provokingly. ‘The appreciation is unfortunately not mutual, it seems.
He appeared to me to be very much struck with you at first sight, Miss
Dupuy, to judge by his manner.’
Nora turned towards him with a sudden fierceness and haughtiness that
fairly surprised the easy-going young barrister. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said in
a tone of angry but suppressed indignation, ‘how dare you speak to me
so about that negro fellow, sir—how dare you? How dare you mention him
and me in the same breath together? How dare you presume to joke with
me on such a subject? Don’t speak to me again, pray. You don’t know
what we West Indians are, or you’d never have ventured to utter such a
speech as that to any woman with a single drop of West Indian blood in
her whole body.’
Harry bowed silently and bit his lip; then, without another word, he
moved back slowly toward the other group, and allowed Nora to join Mrs
Ord by the door of the companion-ladder.
In twenty minutes more, the first warning bell rang for those who
were going ashore, to get ready for their departure. There was the
usual hurried leave-taking on every side; there was the usual amount
of shedding of tears; there was the usual shouting and bawling, and
snorting and puffing; and there was the usual calm indifference of the
ship’s officers, moving up and down through all the tearful valedictory
groups, as through an ordinary incident of humanity, experienced
regularly every six weeks of a whole lifetime. As Marian and her mother
were taking their last farewells, Harry Noel ventured once more timidly
to approach Nora Dupuy and address a few parting words to her in a low
undertone.
‘I’m sorry I offended you unintentionally just now, Miss Dupuy,’ he
said quietly. ‘I thought the best apology I could offer at the moment
was to say nothing just then in exculpation. But I really didn’t mean
to hurt your feelings, and I hope we still part friends.’
Nora held out her small hand to him a trifle reluctantly. ‘As you have
the grace to apologise,’ she said, ‘I shall overlook it. Yes, we part
friends, Mr Noel; I have no reason to part otherwise.’
‘Then there’s no chance for me?’ Harry asked in a low tone, looking
straight into her eyes, with a searching glance.
‘No chance,’ Nora echoed, dropping her eyes suddenly, but speaking very
decidedly. ‘You must go now, Mr Noel; the second bell’s ringing.’
Harry took her hand once more, and pressed it faintly. ‘Good-bye, Miss
Dupuy,’ he said—‘good-bye—for the present. I daresay we shall meet
again before long, some day—in Trinidad.’
‘O no!’ Nora cried in a low voice, as he turned to leave her. ‘Don’t
do that, Mr Noel; don’t come out to Trinidad. I told you it’d be quite
useless.’
Harry laughed one of his most teasing laughs. ‘My father has property
in the West Indies, Miss Dupuy,’ he answered in his usual voice of
light badinage, paying her out in her own coin; ‘and I shall probably
come over some day to see how the niggers are getting on upon it—that
was all I meant. Good-bye—good-bye to you.’
But his eyes belied what he said, and Nora knew they did as she saw him
look back a last farewell from the deck of the retreating little tender.
‘Any more for the shore—any more for the shore?’ cried the big sailor
who rang the bell. ‘No more.—Then shove off, cap’n’—to the skipper of
the tug-boat.
In another minute, the great anchor was heaved, and the big screw began
to revolve slowly through the sluggish water. Next moment, the ship
moved from her moorings and was fairly under weigh. Just as she moved,
a boat with a telegraph-boy on board rowed up rapidly to her side, and
a voice from the boat shouted aloud in a sailor’s bass: ‘_Severn_,
ahoy!’
‘Ahoy!’ answered the ship’s officer.
‘Passenger aboard by the name of Hawthorn? We’ve got a telegram for
him.’
Edward rushed quickly to the ship’s side, and answered in his loudest
voice: ‘Yes. Here I am.’
‘Passenger aboard by the name of Miss Dupuy? We’ve got a telegram for
her.’
‘This is she,’ Edward answered. ‘How can we get them?’
‘Lower a bucket,’ the ship’s officer shouted to a sailor.—‘You can put
’em in that, boy, can’t you?’
The men in the boat caught the bucket, and fastened in the letters
rudely with a stone taken from the ballast at the bottom. The screw
still continued to revolve as the sailors drew up the bucket hastily.
A little water got over the side and wet the telegrams; but they were
both still perfectly legible. Edward unfolded his in wondering silence,
while Marian looked tremulously over his right shoulder. It contained
just these few short words:
‘_From_ HAWTHORN, _Trinidad_, to HAWTHORN, R.M.S. _Severn_,
_Southampton_.—For God’s sake, don’t come out. Reasons by letter.’
Marian gazed at it for a moment in speechless surprise; then she
turned, pale and white, to her husband beside her. ‘O Edward,’ she
cried, looking up at him with a face of terror, ‘what on earth can it
mean? What on earth can they wish us not to come out for?’
Edward held the telegram open before his eyes, gazing at it blankly in
inexpressible astonishment. ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘my own darling, I
haven’t the very remotest notion. I can’t imagine why on earth they
should ever wish to keep us away from them.’
At the same moment, Nora held her own telegram out to Marian with a
little laugh of surprise and amusement. Marian glanced at it and read
it hastily. It ran as follows:
‘_From_ DUPUY, _Trinidad_, to MISS DUPUY, R.M.S. _Severn_,
_Southampton_.—Don’t come out till next steamer. On no account go on
board the _Severn_.’
TWO EVENINGS WITH BISMARCK.
IN TWO PARTS.—PART II.
Another week has elapsed. The month of May has arrived in all its glory
and beauty. The magnificent trees in the park of the Diet House form a
leafy arched avenue, and amid the branches of the venerable six hundred
year old yew-tree, beneath which Mendelssohn composed the overture to
his _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, feathered songsters of every kind hold
their gay revels. The spring, that wonderful season of longing and
restless desire, is, as usual, warring successfully against the stern
duties of the members of parliament. Even the hardest workers among
them, Prince Albrecht of Prussia, Moltke, and Steinmetz, ay, even those
most persevering of deputies, Wachler and Count Rennard, can no longer
remain indoors. The outcry about the bad ventilation of the House is
only a pretext to cover their retreat with honour, and all gradually
assemble beneath the giant yew, there to listen to the gay tales and
rare bits of scandal with which Hennig and Unruh regale the assembly.
Last year, when, during the intense heat, we sat out here in the cool
_pavillon_, discussing the wine duties with the help of some bottles
of rare old Rhenish, President Simson had a large telegraphic bell
placed on the top of the kiosk, which by its sudden peal so startled
our unconscious souls, like the voice of the last trumpet, that it
completely scared away the god Bacchus from these precincts for ever.
It was therefore with intense relief that all looked forward to the
legitimate parliamentary recreation of the week, Prince Bismarck’s
Saturday evening. This time, no constables were visible. Immediately
on entering the first reception room up-stairs, we saluted his lady,
and were welcomed by Bismarck himself, who at once entered into
conversation with us, only stopping occasionally to shake hands
with some fresh arrival. The crush gradually began to lessen as the
visitors dispersed into the various rooms. We were still standing in
the anteroom, near the great sideboard; the moment seemed favourable
for ascertaining the meaning of the stuffed hare; I therefore asked
Bismarck why it was placed there.
‘Oh, have you not noticed that this hare is brunette?’
‘Brunette?’
‘Yes. Look here—he has a dark-brown head and back, whereas he ought by
rights to be yellow. I ought to place an ordinary hare beside him to
show off this natural curiosity. He was the only “brunette” hare among
the fifteen hundred we killed that day.’
Most of the guests had gone to the billiard-room. There were not so
many present on this Saturday evening; a festival in commemoration
of the foundation of the Law Union had drawn nearly all the legal
celebrities of the House to Charlottenburg.
But what interested me most was Bismarck’s own room, the door of which
stood open.
‘May one enter?’ I ask of one of the house-servants.
‘Certainly, sir,’ is the reply.
And crossing the threshold, I glance round the room. In the centre,
though somewhat nearer the two windows that lead on to the terrace,
stands Bismarck’s writing-table, a sort of long desk, provided on each
side with open pigeon-holes. The chair, without any lean, is a large
round seat of massive oak, which turns either way. On the right-hand
side are the shelves that hold the public documents. There were none
there now, but on the floor below lay several locked portfolios. The
light falls from the left, gently softened by white and crimson silk
curtains. Innumerable white gloves, and swords enough to arm a whole
division of generals, are piled up on a table facing the door through
which we entered. On the escritoire beside it, the Chancellor’s various
civil, military, and official head-coverings form quite a small
exhibition. The other half of the wall is completely filled up by a
couch of colossal dimensions, covered with blue brocade. It is almost
as broad as it is long, without back or side cushions, only at the head
a round bolster is placed, on which reposes an embroidered cushion
with this inscription: ‘In Memory of the Year 1866.’
The pictures on the walls consist of life-size engravings, portraits
of the great _Kurfürst_ Frederick the Great, Frederick-William III.,
and King William. Beside this latter hangs an engraving of Murillo’s
Madonna, looking somewhat surprised at her worldly companions.
Finally, on the wall behind the writing-table hangs a charming Swiss
cuckoo-clock; while just below the portrait of Frederick the Great,
and so placed that Bismarck can see it when he reposes on the couch,
hangs a small picture of his mother, whose memory, as is well known, he
treasures above everything else. Even taken from the simple stand-point
of man to man, it is satisfactory to find, by the various letters from
among his private papers that have of late years been made public, such
a fund of kindly feeling, such a bright and hearty nature, as one would
hardly have looked for in this daring and indomitable combatant.
‘In spite of all the hunting and raking-up of anecdotes of Bismarck’s
past life,’ said a Saxon deputy, ‘that has been going on now for some
years both by Sunday and week-day sportsmen, from the big journals
down to the tiny pamphlets, not one half of what he has really done,
said, and written, will ever be collected together; while those who
are at all honest will frankly admit that it would be impossible to
reproduce faithfully the peculiar form and fresh originality of his
sayings. Thus, I heard rather a characteristic anecdote of his meeting
with Councillor P——, from the Saxon town of M——, at the Berlin Railway
Station in Leipzig. Bismarck—it was in 1863—had been with the king in
Carlsbad, and was travelling back to Berlin, viâ Leipzig, in strict
incognito. It was noon, and there was more than an hour to wait before
the next train started. Our friend Councillor P——, who had been told
by the station-master who his travelling companion was, went into the
reserved dining saloon—Bismarck did the same—and soon the two merged
into amicable converse, while discussing their respective luncheons.
Bismarck praised the beauty of Saxony and the bravery and industry of
its people. Councillor P——, who did not belong to the blind worshippers
of Herr von Beust, asked his _vis-à-vis_ what he thought of the Saxon
government and policy. His _vis-à-vis_ continued his panegyric. P——,
determined not to be outdone, launched forth into raptures about
Prussia—not, however, including the Berliners.
“Well, you are quite right,” said Bismarck. “I daresay you have heard
the story of the Alpine host, who, after pointing out the glories of
his native land, asked a Berlin youth whether they had such mountains
as that in Berlin. ‘No,’ he replied; ‘we have not got such mountains;
but if we _had_, they would be far finer than these!’ Much the same
thing happened to me. I was living in Hanover for some time, and one
day I went, with a friend from Berlin, along the beautiful Herrenhauser
Allee. ‘Look at those magnificent trees!’ I said. ‘Where?’ was the
answer, as he looked round with contempt. ‘You mean _these_? Why,
they are not to be compared to the Linden of Berlin!’ The following
year, I walked with my friend Unter den Linden. They had their usual
summer aspect, which, as I daresay you all know, is sufficiently dreary
and melancholy. ‘Well, what say you now?’ I asked my companion. ‘Do
you still maintain that this is superior to the Herrenhauser Allee?’
‘Oh, leave me in peace with your Herrenhausers and Allees,’ he cried
testily; ‘it always makes me savage when I am shown anything better
than we have in Berlin.’ There you have a true picture of the Berliner.”
‘Bismarck then went on discussing the lower classes in Berlin,
especially the porters, and lamented that it was found almost
impossible to make them trustworthy. “You should do the same as we do,”
replied the councillor—“swear the men in before they take service.”
“Oh,” replied Bismarck, laughing, “that would not hold water with us.”
‘Meanwhile, the doors of the reserved dining-room were thrown open
to the great travelling public, who began to assemble preparatory
to the starting of the train. Among others, the well-known Leipzig
_colporteur_, Hartwig, utilised the moments to find a fresh market
for his wares. He had evidently also another motive—which he kept out
of sight—and that was to give the Prussian minister some unvarnished
truths and a piece of his mind about his political views, for of course
he knew Bismarck by sight.’
Now first I noticed the gigantic size of the bearskin that lay beneath
the billiard-table—it is almost as long as the table itself. Bismarck
shot the animal in Russia, after having watched and waited for it five
nights running.
The mighty Nimrod now joined our party, and leant up against the
billiard-table while talking. He then sat down _on_ the table, and
while keeping up a lively conversation with Hennig and the rest of us
about various points on the interior economy of the Diet, he every now
and then threw a billiard ball behind him, so that each time it hit
the two others that were on the table. After the discussion had lasted
some time, Bismarck said: ‘But come, gentlemen; I think it is time we
had some refreshment.’ So saying, he led the way, and we again passed
through the chamber with the yellow Gobelins, full of Chinese figures,
animals, and pagodas, on to the dining saloon. On our way, we passed
Deputy Kratz in deep confab with General von Steinmetz. They were still
continuing the discussion on the theory of light, with which the worthy
judge and the victor of Trautenau had entertained the House for over an
hour a few days ago.
Close beside them stood the Hessian deputy Braun, talking to
Admiral Jachmann. It is incredible what an inordinate desire this
inland resident, who has never even heard the sound of the sea, has
for occupying himself with naval matters. Perhaps these constant
discussions with landsmen, who cannot know much of nautical affairs,
are the cause of the somewhat stereotyped smile that curves the worthy
admiral’s otherwise handsome lips. This time, however, he did _not_
smile. Braun had asked him the following simple but weighty question:
‘The papers and telegraphs have just informed us of the arrival at
Kiel, from England, of the _König Wilhelm_, the largest armour-plated
ship of the North German navy. They write in such a cool, indifferent
sort of manner, as if it were quite an everyday affair for us to pay
out over three million dollars for such a vessel. Has Your Excellency
already inspected the vessel?’ ‘No; I will do so to-morrow.’ And with
this answer the deputy had to be satisfied.
As I passed on, I again came across Bismarck, this time in conversation
with Albrecht, the town recorder of Hanover, who in the previous year
had had a sharp tussle about his right to the ox with which the guild
of butchers have, from time immemorial, every year presented the
recorder. The much-vexed question, _re_ the ox, was happily not now
in dispute, Albrecht having manfully fought for and gained his cause.
But the point under discussion was evidently nearly as delicate and
intricate, for I heard Bismarck say: ‘Well, both you and I have lost
some hair—we have therefore _one_ very important point in common—and
ought to understand one another all the better.’
The table in the dining saloon was again covered with all the
cold delicacies of a true North German kitchen; and again, like
last Saturday, a small side-table had been taken possession of by
some of the deputies, among whom I noticed the gentlemanly police
superintendent Devens of Cologne; the two noble sons of the soil, Evelt
and Hosius; and the honest but somewhat moody Günther of Saxony.
Ere long, Bismarck came up and seated himself between Devens and Evelt,
chatting pleasantly with them, while enjoying the cool and fragrant
_Maitrank_.
‘How do you like my _Maitrank_?’ he asked.
‘It is perfect, Your Excellency!’
‘Yes; I rather pride myself on it. Curiously enough, during all my
student days I never found any _Waldmeister_ further south than
Heidelberg. Our South German brethren were first initiated into the
delights of the _Maitrank_ by us northerners. You from Hohenzollern,
for instance, have no _Waldmeister_, I suppose?’
‘O yes, Your Excellency,’ replied Evelt. ‘It grows splendidly with
us. But I also may lay claim to the honour of having introduced the
Swabians to its magic powers.’
‘You have to thank your sterile Alps for that,’ returned Bismarck.
‘Were they more sheltered, no _Waldmeister_ would grow there.’
A group of deputies and several waiters with plates and glasses now
separated me from the speakers. When I again rejoined the party,
Bismarck was telling them the following story of General von Strotha:
‘He was at that time living quietly at Frankfort, in command of the
allied garrison there, when one day he received a telegram from the
then Minister President, Count von Brandenburg, to come at once to
Berlin and report himself to the minister. Strotha starts for Berlin in
hot haste, and thence immediately goes to Brandenburg.
“I have sent for Your Excellency to ask you to become War Minister,”
said Brandenburg.
“Me!” exclaimed Strotha. “For heaven’s sake, Your Excellency, what made
you think of such a thing? I am not in any way fitted for the post.”
“I am afraid that can’t be helped. See; here is the order from His
Majesty the king, requiring that you shall be War Minister.”
‘Strotha reads the order, looking greatly troubled, and then says: “Of
course, if His Majesty commands, I must obey.”
“Well, then, my dear colleague,” continues Brandenburg, “you will
attend the cabinet council at ten to-day.”
“Oh, I could not possibly do that.”
“I am afraid you will have to. See; here is another order from His
Majesty, expressly desiring you to undertake the War Department in the
cabinet.”
“Then I must of course obey,” said the new War Minister, with a deep
sigh of dejection.
‘He is just about to leave, in order to prepare himself for his
presumable maiden speech, when Brandenburg stops him: “I suppose you
know, general, that you must appear in _mufti_ [plain clothes] at the
council?”
‘Strotha stood speechless with amazement. This was the finishing
stroke. “I have none!” he at last managed to stammer forth.
“Well, you will have to get yourself some by ten o’clock—such are the
king’s commands.”
“Then of course I must obey,” replied Strotha, leaving the room in a
very crestfallen manner.
‘But he faced his difficulty valiantly. Jumping into a cab, he drove
off to the Mühlendamm, where all the old Jews congregate; and at ten
o’clock precisely, a strange figure, with an enormously nigh collar
and coat sleeves hanging right over his hands, was seated at the
ministerial table—this was the new War Minister!’
Günther, who never could hide what he felt, and who generally looked
at the dark side of most things, had followed the Chancellor’s story
with undisguised amusement. The circle became every moment more gay and
lively.
‘Take care, Günther,’ cried Mosig von Ahrenberg, holding up his finger
in mock-threat; ‘I see plainly that Bismarck has completely bewitched
you. I shall feel bound to make your apostasy known to a certain paper
in Leipzig.’
Whilst this merry chaff was going on, Bismarck’s wife and her daughters
had come in and had seated themselves at the table. The conversation
now became more general; and soon after, as it was getting late, the
party broke up. With a profound bow to the ladies, and a kindly shake
of the hand from our genial host, we took our departure, well pleased
with our second social evening at the hospitable dwelling of ‘Our
Chancellor.’
A GOLDEN ARGOSY.
_A NOVELETTE._
BY FRED. M. WHITE.