To-day I had an experience which, in a way, reminded me of my
policeman. Once or twice I had noticed about the house a stout straight
freckled-faced girl, a daughter of a villager on an outer spur of the
mountains who was pressed into service by our invaluable Quick when the
house-maid he engaged in New York deserted him in the earlier stages
of the journey. As I came out of the woods this morning our rural
handmaiden marched up to me with an almost defiant air, a very high
colour, and said:
“I’d like to speak to a dook, ma’am, I mean lady.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yes, I’m going away. It’s the first place I’ve ever lived in where the
hired girls didn’t eat with the family, and I haven’t felt nice since
I’ve bin here. I don’t see any reason why you should be so terrible
proud if you are English; and all the help sayin’ ‘your grace’ and
‘your ladyship,’ makes my flesh crawl.”
“We are not proud,” I began, but she interrupted me passionately.
“Oh, yes you are. You hold your head as if the ground warn’t good
enough for you to walk on. I can’t help lookin’ at you because you’re
so beautiful with your black hair and your blue eyes and white skin,
and your nose is just lovely! That there Lady Agatha don’t look so
very different from any other old maid that I can see, and I’m sure
she dresses wors’n anything I _ever_ seen. I don’t mind her, but
_you_--_you_--make me feel like dirt. I just stare and stare at you
and hate myself because I can’t keep from wishin’ I was you----” Here
she made a struggle to control her voice and keep down her tears. “I
went to school till a year ago,” she continued, “and I’ve paid lots of
visits to well-to-do farmers in this county, whose daughters has had a
year’s schoolin’ in Utica, and I call them all by their first names--so
I can’t bear to feel the way you and all these high-toned help make me
feel----”
Here I felt so sorry for her, she was so plainly suffering in her dumb
lacerated pride, that I took her hand and patted it. “Don’t worry
about all that,” I said. “We belong to different countries, that is
all. Everything is on quite another plan in England. I can imagine how
absurd our old-fashioned titles must seem to you over here. You see how
wise your ancestors were to drop them. I cannot help mine, but I can
assure you that I am not proud--I never have thought of such a thing.
It is you who are proud, and I think your pride very fine. Why do you
wish to see my brother?”
She was somewhat mollified by this time and answered with a flash of
anticipation in her eyes:
“Because I’ve read about dooks and I’d give my eyes to speak to one.
I didn’t kinder believe there were such things outside of books and
noospapers.”
“Well, you shall speak to my brother,” I said. “Come with me.” I led
the way to the veranda, not without misgivings, for I did not know what
sort of humour our invalid would be in. And he _was_ in a wax about
something.
“Bertie,” I said, “here is a young person, native to this beautiful
wilderness, who wants to speak to you, being under the delusion that
Dukes are quite unlike ordinary mortals.”
Bertie, who was muffled up in a horrid old overcoat, with white mits on
his hands, glowered over his book.
“What rot!” he exclaimed. “What infernal rot. I should think you would
have more sense. I wish you’d get me a decent novel. I hate these
American things--all analysis, epigrams, scenery and virtue. America
must be a provincial hole. Fetch me----”
But I had hastened the maiden away. As she was about to retire to the
back regions, she stopped and turned her head.
“Well,” she remarked, “I guess I’m as good as he is, anyway. White
mits! My land! _He_ don’t make me feel nobody, only tired.” And she
looked quite pleased as she flirted her skirts through the doorway.
This letter should go by parcel post!
My love to you.