[Illustration: 0281]
The recognised Church charities of Broadminster are numerous and
constantly increasing. To be connected in some way with a charitable
organisation seems to offer an irresistible attraction to some people,
chiefly ladies; and every now and again a new lady starts up in Church
circles with a new scheme of compelling people to accept alms or the
equivalent, or of increasing the usefulness of the Church. The amount of
time these masterful persons expend in reading papers embodying the
most appalling of platitudes of sentiment, and betraying even a more
astounding ignorance of political economy than a Chancellor of the
Exchequer has ever revealed in a Budget speech, is astounding. All these
papers, so far as I can gather, assume that only what their patrons call
“the lower classes” stand in need of the reforms they suggest. They take
it for granted that a cottage-mother, who has had perhaps thirty years'
experience of making a pound a week do duty for twenty-five shillings,
stands in need of instruction at the hands of a mansion-mother who
cannot keep out of debt with an income of a thousand a year.
If I were a person in authority with a voice in framing the conditions
which must be conformed with by all ladies who put themselves forward in
the advocacy of some of these great social schemes, I would decree that
no lady who uses a tortoiseshell lorgnette with a long handle should
be permitted to read a paper, or to receive the _laissez-passer_ of any
organisation to a house the valuation of which is less than twenty-five
pounds a year. As a medium of insulting patronage, nothing that has
ever been invented approaches in power this particular weapon in the
well-gloved hands of a well-furred, middle-aged lady who studies with
some reason all advertisements addressed to those with a tendency
to stoutness. (I have gone a long way about to avoid hurting the
susceptibilities of any one.)
Only once did I see an attack with this weapon successfully repulsed.
There was an extremely pretty girl in the centre of the drawing-room,
when a couple of those ladies whose existence I have hinted at entered
and immediately began a frontal attack through the glazed tortoiseshell
with the long handles, and the little forced smiles that accompanied the
movement showed them to be old campaigners. They brought the pretty
girl into focus, conning her from head to foot and exchanging whispered
comments upon the result of their scrutiny. The girl saw them, and, to
paraphrase the poet, they “by tact of trade were well aware that that
girl knew they were looking at her”; but that fact had no effect upon
them. They continued their scrutiny and their whisperings, and I saw the
girl's face become rosy. But then I saw that she was “limbering up” and
would go into action in a moment.
She did. She was talking to an elder lady, who might have been her
mother, and the latter had one of the same long-handled glasses lying on
her muff. In an instant the girl had possessed herself of it, slipped
it off its swivel, and was using it precisely as the others were using
theirs, only returning their fire, so to speak. Then she whispered
something over her hand to her companion, who laughed outright. That was
enough for the attacking force: their battery was silenced; but the girl
refused to withdraw, and for quite five minutes, I think, they were well
aware that her eyes were upon them. Wherever they went they felt that
they were still within her range, and that her innocent smile was
playing about them. I never saw two more uneasy ladies in my life, and I
trust that they learned their lesson.
The most singular point in this connection is that the girl was known
to her friends as shy and retiring by nature--a less self-assertive
girl could not be imagined. It seems to me that there is a lesson to be
learned from this fact in addition to that which it is to be hoped she
taught her elders, who certainly did not possess her shyness: it is
the lesson of the rousing of a feminine instinct of defence, which is
exhibited in another form when the defence is that of offspring. Even
the most timid feminine thing will act in direct opposition to its
reputed nature when called on to defend its young; and even the most
retiring girl may assume an offensive attitude under the provocation of
poised tortoiseshell and elevated eyebrows.
But I am pretty sure that that nice girl, when she went home and was
alone in her room, sang no song of Miriam as she recalled her triumph.
No, if she did not shed some tears at the thought of how she had behaved
in so unaccountable away, I am greatly mistaken.
The comedy of the administration of charity has yet to be written; but
when such a work is taken in hand I trust that a chapter will be devoted
to the self-denying industry of the Misses Gifford. These two elderly
ladies are the daughters of a deceased jerry-builder, and they enjoy a
large income, the greater portion of which is derived from insanitary
house property; and they are devoted to good works, including the
amelioration of the condition of the poor. Every year they issue
invitations to a show of their good works at their own house, and these
are found to take the form of coarsely knitted woollen socks, thick
mufflers made of the cheapest materials, petticoats constructed out of
blankets that have been consigned to the rag-basket, and aprons out
of tablecloths that have been rescued from the dustbin. Some of
the articles of clothing seem to represent in themselves the
heterogeneousness of a jumble sale, and all are cheap, shoddy, and
shapeless. And yet this pair of feminine philanthropists show all comers
round the room where they are exhibited with sparkling eyes and faces
glowing with proper pride at the result of their industry. They worry
the local newspapers for a paragraph that shall make all the world
acquainted with their benevolence, and now and again their importunity
is rewarded.
What becomes of the conglomeration of horrors which they create in the
name of charity no one seems to know; but it is impossible to imagine
any self-respecting family so far forgetting what is due to themselves
as to wear such things. For themselves, it is well known that the Misses
Gifford never forget what is due to them, or to insist on its payment on
the day that it becomes due. They have a brother who, without being an
active philanthropist, is well worthy of them. He collects the rents
from their insanitary tenements, and he does so with a ruthless hand.
There is no measure of bluff or bluster of which he is not a master. But
there are scores of people in their own town who see the dear old
maiden ladies in church and say that they remind them of _Cranford_ and
_Quality Street!_
But knowing as I did a good deal about them, I was reminded more of an
earlier work still in which the devourers of widows' houses were said to
be Pharisees as well. Such a pair of feminine Pharisees as those whom I
call the Misses Gifford--Gifford is not, of course, their real name--are
hardly to be found outside their own town.