"THE GANPIES"
"Father's mother," living alone far away in the Forest of Dean, rarely
came to Redmarley, and the children never went to visit her. A frail
old lady to whom one was never presented save tidily clad and fresh
from the hands of nurse for a few moments, with injunctions still
ringing in one's ears as to the necessity for a quiet and decorous
demeanour.
This was grandmother, a shadow rather than a reality.
The Ganpies were something very different. The name, an abbreviation
for grandparents, was invented by Grantly when he was two years old,
and long usage had turned it into a term of endearment. People who
knew them well could never think of General and Mrs Grantly apart, each
was the complement of the other; and for the Ffolliot children they
represented a dual fount of fun and laughter, understanding and
affection. They were the medium through which one beheld the
never-ending pageant unrolled before the entrancéd eyes of such happy
children as happened to "belong" gloriously to one "commanding the R.A.
Woolwich." And intercourse with the Ganpies was largely leavened by
concrete joys in the shape of presents, pantomimes, tips, and all
things dear to the heart of youth all the world over.
Such were the Ganpies. Nothing shadowy about them. They were a
glorious reality; beloved, familiar, frequent.
They were still comparatively young people when their daughter married,
and Mrs Grantly was a grandmother at forty-one. They would have liked
a large family themselves, but seeing that Providence had only seen fit
to bestow on them one child, they looked upon the six grandchildren as
an attempt to make amends.
Mrs Grantly's one quarrel with Marjory Ffolliot was on the score of
what she called her "niggardliness and greed," in refusing to hand over
entirely one of the six to their grandparents.
It is true that the large house on the edge of Woolwich Common was
seldom without one or two of the Ffolliot children. Mr Ffolliot was
most accommodating, and was more then ready to accept the General's
constant invitations to his offspring; but in spite of these
concessions Mrs Grantly was never wholly satisfied, and it was
something of a grievance with her that Marjory was so firm in her
refusal to "give away" any one of the six.
Casual observers would have said that Mrs Grantly was by far the
stronger character of the two, but people who knew General Grantly
well, realised that his daughter had her full share of his quiet
strength and determination. Mrs Ffolliot, like her father, was
easy-going, gentle, and tolerant; it was only when you came "up
against" either of them that you realised the solid rock beneath the
soft exterior.
Now there was nothing hidden about Mrs Grantly. She appeared exactly
what she was. Everything about her was definite and decided, though
she was various and unexpected as our British weather. She was an
extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic
courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of
impulsiveness and caution. In very truth a delightful bundle of
paradox. Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration
for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness
quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband. But the
snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift
at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily. She spoke
her mind with the utmost freedom on every possible occasion, and as she
had plenty of brains and considerable shrewdness her remarks were
generally illuminating.
The villagers at Redmarley adored her, for, from her very first visit
she made her presence felt.
It had long been the custom at Redmarley for the ladies in the village
and neighbourhood to meet once a week during the earlier winter months
to make garments for presentation to the poor at Christmas, and the
first meeting since the Manor House possessed a mistress took place
there under Mrs Ffolliot's somewhat timid presidency. It coincided
with Mrs Grantly's first visit since her daughter's marriage, and she
expressed her willingness to help.
At Mrs Ffolliot's suggestion it had already been arranged that a blouse
instead of a flannel petticoat should this year be given to the younger
women. The other ladies had fallen in graciously with the idea (they
were inclined to enthuse over the "sweet young bride"), and according
to custom one Miss Tibbits, a spinster of large leisure and masterful
ways, had undertaken to procure the necessary material. For years
donors and recipients alike had meekly suffered her domination. She
chose the material, settled what garments should be made and in what
style, and who should receive them when made.
On the afternoon in question Miss Tibbits duly descended from her
brougham, bearing a parcel containing the material for the blouses
which Mrs Grantly volunteered to cut out. Miss Tibbits undid the
parcel and displayed the contents to the nine ladies assembled round
the dining-room table.
Mrs Grantly was seen to regard it with marked disapproval, and hers was
an expressive countenance.
"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own
family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor
should be dressed in dusters?"
The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material
which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by
drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced."
"It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to
consider utility, not ornament."
Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material,
gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so
that it fell draped about her.
"Look at me!" she exclaimed. "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff
like this, I should go straight to the Devil!"
And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the
downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had
selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced.
The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into
helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in
yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit
abashed.
"Look at me, Mr Molyneux," she cried. "Can you conceive any
self-respecting young woman ever taking any pleasure in a garment made
of _this_?"
"A garment," the vicar repeated in wonderment, "is it for a garment?"
"Yes, and not an undergarment either," Mrs Grantly retorted. "Now you
are here, you shall tell us plainly . . . are the things we are to make
supposed to give any pleasure to the poor creatures or not."
"I should say so most assuredly," the vicar replied, his eyes twinkling
with fun. "What other purpose could you have?"
Miss Tibbits cleared her throat. "I have always understood," she said
primly, "that the sewing club was instituted to make useful garments
for deserving persons, who were, perhaps, so much occupied by family
cares that they had little time available for needle-work."
"That is," said the vicar solemnly, "the laudable object of the sewing
club."
"But I don't suppose," Mrs Grantly remarked briskly, still standing
draped in the obnoxious material, "that there is any bye-law to the
effect that the garments should be of an odious and humiliating
description."
"Of course not," the ladies chorussed, smiling. They were beginning,
all but Miss Tibbits, who was furious, to enjoy Mrs Grantly.
"Then let us," Mrs Grantly's voice suddenly became soft and seductive,
and she flung the folds of material from her, "give them something
pretty. They don't have much, poor things, and it's just as easy to
make them pretty as ugly. Ladies, I've been to a good many sewing
meetings in my life, and I always fight for the same thing, a present
should be just a little bit different--don't you think--not hard and
hideous and ordinary. . . ."
"That material is bought and paid for," Miss Tibbits interrupted, "it
must be used."
"It shall be used," cried Mrs Grantly, "I'll buy it, and I'll make it
into dusters for which purpose it was obviously intended, and every
woman in Redmarley shall have two for Christmas as an extra. A good
strong duster never comes amiss."
"Perhaps," Miss Tibbits said coldly, "you will undertake to procure the
material."
"Certainly," said Mrs Grantly, "but I'll buy it in blouse lengths, and
every one different. Why should a whole village wear the same thing as
though it was a reformatory?"
It appeared that the vicar had called with his list of the "deserving
poor." In five minutes Mrs Grantly had detached each person, and made
a note of her age and circumstances. She had only been in the village
a week, and she already knew every soul in it.
She whirled off the vicar in a gale of enthusiasm, nobody else got a
word in edgewise. Finally she departed with him into the hall, and saw
him out at the front door, and her last whispered words were
characteristic:
"You've let that Tibbits woman bully you for twenty years, now I'm
going to bully you for a bit instead, and between us we'll give those
poor dears a bit of cheer this Christmas."
From that moment the vicar was Mrs Grantly's slave.
Nobody knew how the affair leaked out, but the whole thing was known in
the village before a week had passed, with the result that fifteen
women visited the vicar, one after the other, and after much
circumlocution intimated that "If so be as 'e would be so kind, they'd
be glad if 'e'd 'int to the ladies as they 'adn't nearly wore out last
Christmas petticoat, and, if it were true wot they'd 'eard as they was
talkin' of givin' summat different, might Mrs Mustoe, Gegg, Uzzel, or
Radway, etc., have anything they did choose to make as warn't a
petticoat."
There was a slump in petticoats.
In despair he went to Mrs Grantly, and she undertook to see the matter
through.
"It's absurd," Mrs Grantly remarked to her daughter, "in a little place
like this where one knows all the people, and exactly what they're
like, to make things all the same size. Fancy me trying to get into a
blouse that would fit that skinny Miss Tibbits! A little common sense
is what's needed in this sewing society, and, Marjory, my dear, I'm
going to do my best to supply it."
* * * * * *
Throughout the years that followed, Mrs Grantly continued to supply
common sense to the inhabitants of Redmarley. She found places for
young servants, both in her own household and those of her friends,
till gradually there were many links between the village and "'Orse and
Field and Garrison."
More than one Redmarley damsel married a gunner "on the strength." Had
the intending bridegroom been anything else, Mrs Grantly would herself
have forbidden the banns!