There is nothing that the best set in Mallingham so resent as
pretentiousness, or the semblance of pretentiousness, on the part of any
one who does not belong to the best set. A few years ago a Mrs. Latimer,
who lives in a delightful old house close to our village of Thurswell
and is a widow, married one of her two pretty and accomplished daughters
to a young man who was beginning to make a name for himself at the Bar.
He had been at Uppingham and Oxford, and was altogether the sort of
person by whose side the most fastidious young woman would not shrink
from meeting her enemy in the Gate. The wedding was made an event of
more than usual importance, for the girl and her mother were greatly
liked, and on the mother's side were connections of actual county rank.
The list of names in the county newspaper of the wedding guests and
of the numerous presents was an imposing one: among the former was the
widow of a Baronet, a County Court Judge, a Major-General (retired),
and a Master of Hounds; and among the latter, a diamond and sapphire
necklace (the gift of the bridegroom), a cheque (from the bride's
uncle), a silver-mounted dressing-bag (from the bride's sister), and the
usual silver-backed brushes, button-hooks, shoe-lifters, blotters, and
nondescript articles. When the late Dr. Schliemann exhibited the result
of his excavations at the supposed site of Troy, there were to be seen
several articles to which no use could possibly be assigned. No one
seemed to perceive that these must have been wedding presents.
It was, however, generally allowed that the wedding had been a very
pretty one, that the bride had looked her best, and that the bridegroom
appeared a good fellow; and in addition to the column and a half
devoted to the affair by a generous newspaper, there appeared the usual
announcement: Weston--Latimer.--On the 2nd inst., at Thurswell Church, by
the Rev. Theophilas Watson, B.A.Oxon, Vicar of Thurswell, late Incumbent
of St. Michael and All Angels, Bardswell, and Rural Dean, assisted
by the Rev. Anselm Sigurd Mott, M. A., late Fellow of King's College,
London, and Senior Curate of St. James the Less, Brindlington,
William Henry, eldest son of the late John Weston of King's Elms,
Leicestershire, to Ida Evelyn, elder daughter of the late George
Cruikshank Latimer, of Todderwell, and Susan Prescott Latimer, of Grange
Lodge, Thurswell.
This was the advertised notice in the _Telegraph_, as well as in the
local paper, on the day after the wedding.
Three or four days later, however, there appeared, in the
corresponding column of the _Post_, an amended version of the same
announcement--Weston--Latimer.--On the 2nd inst., at Thurswell Parish
Church, William Henry Weston, eldest son of the late John Weston,
Attorney's Clerk, King's Elms, Leicestershire, to Ida, daughter of the
late George C. Latimer, Farmer, Todderwell.
This piece of feline malevolence was easily traced to a lady with a
highly marriageable daughter who had been posing for several years as
one of the guardians of “exclusiveness” of Mallingham. An adroit lady
had only to pay her a visit, ostensibly to call her attention to the
delightful announcement--“the cleverest thing that had ever been done,”
she called it--to invite a return of confidence, and, with sparkling
eyes, the perpetrator accepted the credit of thinking out the scheme for
the humiliation of her neighbour for her arrogance in making so much of
the wedding.
And the most melancholy part of the contemptible affair was that the
greater number of the best set actually talked over it as a properly
administered blow to the Latimers, and chuckled over it for many days.
But the very next year Mrs. Latimer's other daughter got married to the
heir to a baronetcy; the wedding took place in St. George's, Hanover
Square, and the _Post_ gave an account of it to the extent of half a
column, and the _Mirror_ gave photographs of the bride and bridegroom.
It would scarcely be believed, except by some one acquainted with the
best society at Mallingham, that upon this occasion the lady who had
displayed her skill in snubbing the Latimers sent a two-guinea present
to the bride. It was understood that the list of presents would appear
in the _Post;_ but when this list appeared the name of the donor of this
special gift was absent from it: the two-guinea gift had been promptly
returned by the mother of the bride.
And here is another touch: the valuable cake basket was returned with a
heavy dinge in one place, which the jeweller affirms was not there
when he packed it in tissue paper and shavings in its box with the
card bearing the inscription: “To dear Constance, with best wishes
from--------” That is why he refused to take it back.
It was the son of this lady whose generosity was so spurned who, on
leaving the rather second-class public school at which he received a
sort of education, gravely said to another boy from Mallingham who had
also just been finished--
“I suppose I'll often see you at Mallingham, old chap, as we are both
living there, and I'm sure that I should be very glad to have a
chat with you now and then; but, of course, you won't expect me to
acknowledge you if I am walking with my mother or sister.”
“Why not?” asked the other boy.
“Oh, my dear fellow, can't you see that it would never do?” said the
first. “You know that your people are not in our set. You can't expect
that because we happen to have been three years in the same house,
we are in the same social position at home. But, as you know, there's
nothing of the snob about me, and any time that we meet in one of the
side streets, and even at the unfashionable end of High Street, I'll
certainly nod to you. But that's the farthest that I can be expected to
go.”
The other boy certainly expected him to go very much farther even than
the unfashionable end of the High Street, and ventured to delimitate the
boundaries of the place, and to say a word or two respecting its climate
and the fitness of his companions and all his family for a permanent
residence there. Being a biggish lad, and enjoying a reputation for
being opposed to peace at any price, he could express his inmost
feelings without being deterred by any inconvenient reprisals.
The other did not even respond to his exuberance upon this occasion. He
sulked in the corner of the railway carriage where the conversation took
place, and he has been sulking ever since.