It was about a week after I had been welcomed into the Perry family that
we were all asked to take high tea at the house of Mrs. Perry's sister,
the Countess of Blueberry.
The most important thing that had happened in the meantime was that I
had fallen deeply in love with Miriam. We had been much together, and
our conversations had largely concerned themselves with the curious
state of things obtaining in the country from which I had come. Miriam
was deeply interested in what I told her, but I had to be very careful.
In some respects she became more and more inclined to approve of a
country in which wealth might be used to lessen care, instead of
increasing it, and in which even the richest were under no cloud of
inferiority. The pictures I painted of English life under conditions of
monetary ease appealed alike to her natural tastes, of which in
Upsidonia she had to be ashamed, if she were to show right feeling, and
to the philanthropic ideals in which she had been brought up. She could
never get it out of her mind that we showed great nobility of behaviour
in treating rich people with a total absence of contempt, and I did not
desire that she should, although I insisted upon the fact itself.
But every now and again I came up against a painful shrinking. I had to
be extraordinarily careful how I dealt with the subject of food, for
instance, and I think that if I had ever described to her a city
banquet, or even a college feast, I should have wiped out at a stroke
all the admiration she was inclined to show for the habits and customs
of my beloved country.
But short as had been the time since I had come to Magnolia Hall, I had
already adapted myself somewhat to the Upsidonian point of view--indeed,
a good deal more than I should have thought possible.
In the matter of food and drink, I was now inclined to despise the
delicate living that I had at first taken such pleasure in. I can only
say on my own behalf--if I have seemed to represent myself as greedier
than I will confess to being--that I had been living a hard active life
for some weeks past, and was in the most abounding physical health; also
that Mrs. Lemon, the Perrys' cook, was a supreme artist.[26] After all,
my usual life was necessarily abstemious, and it had happened to me
before to get very tired of luxurious living, when I had been staying
with friends accustomed to it, and to go back to my own moderate habits
with relief.
So I now ate and drank sparingly at Magnolia Hall, and was inclined to
feel the same disgust towards those who did neither as was commonly
expressed around me. And it did not any longer seem curious to me that
contempt for luxury should be a general and genuine feeling in
Upsidonia. It was encouraged by constant expression, and those who might
be temperamentally inclined towards what is called "doing themselves
well," were ashamed of indulging their inclinations out of respect for
public opinion.[27]
In the matter of clothes I had also somewhat changed my point of view.
It is gratifying to feel one's self well-dressed, if everyone is
well-dressed around one; but if one is not suitably dressed as well, the
gratification disappears. It was not long before I began to feel,
walking about the streets of Culbut, in the excellent clothes for which
I still owed money to the Universal Stores, that I was not in the
fashion. It was rather as if I had turned out to shoot, amongst a crowd
of men in tweeds and woollens, wearing a shiny silk hat, varnished
boots, and striped trousers with creases down them. I discovered that it
was only in the most exclusive set, of which Lord Potter was one of the
leaders, that it was the fashion to go ragged and dirty. The ordinary
members of the educated classes were as clean as we are. But they liked
old clothes, and didn't want to be bothered with large collections of
them, or of anything else. Those who spent the day in bodily toil always
changed in the evening, wearing the newer of their two suits, which took
the place of the other one when that was entirely worn out.
The mention of Lord Potter reminds me of an encounter I had with that
nobleman a few days after I had hoped I had seen the last of him, in the
police court.
I was walking along the road from Culbut to Magnolia Hall, and had
reached the point at which the villas were beginning to get larger and
to stand in gardens of some extent, when I saw a filthy-looking tramp
crossing the road from one gate to the other, and recognised him as I
passed as Lord Potter.
He did not look at me, but when I had gone on a few yards, he called
out: "Hi, you fellow!" in an authoritative voice.
I took no notice, and he called out again more loudly, so I turned round
to see what he wanted.
"Didn't you hear me call?" he asked angrily. "Which is Hoggenschlick's
house?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Well, just run in and ask if Hoggenschlick lives here, and tell him
that Lord Potter wants to see him. I think this is the house. If it
isn't, it is the one across the road."
"Don't you think you might find out which it is for yourself?" I asked.
"I'm not your servant."
His face changed as he recognised me. "Oh, it's you!" he exclaimed
disagreeably; "and dressed like the cad I knew you were when I first saw
you. If you give me any of your impudence you'll find yourself in
trouble again, and I'll take care you don't get off this time. I shall
keep my eye on you. Where are you living?"
"Where I can get a wash sometimes," I replied. "You don't seem to be so
fortunate."
Then I turned round and walked on, leaving him very angry.
But to return to Miriam. England, and English life, was a little secret
between us; I did not talk about them to anybody else, and asked her not
to do so. The fact that she entered willingly into this understanding,
which I found so agreeable, being in that state of mind in which _any_
understanding with her would have pleased me, was very gratifying, as
tending to show that she had something of the same feeling about it as I
had. Oh, we were getting on very well! But she had not yet invited me
into her garden.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] She was also an extremely nice woman--the widow of a well-known
musician, and herself no mean performer, on the harp.
[27] The same sort of thing holds amongst us, in matters of art, for
instance. Perhaps the majority of us prefer chatty pictures with a
strong love interest to the works of Holbein and Rembrandt; but we would
not make the same fuss if there were a danger of their being taken out
of the country.