Last night after I went to bed I thought and thought. At last I am
really “in the world.” I had read so often of Mrs. Lien in the society
news in the city papers, that to be actually living in the house with
one who would dare to attack her is cheering. And Mumsie is so glorious
and dignified. Hers is a native dignity. I still feel as if her kindness
were all about me like a glorious cloak. I wish I could put my present,
overflowing happiness into cold storage, so that I could enjoy it bit by
bit in after years.
Immediately after breakfast this morning Mumsie told me she was giving
the day to the work of preparing for the Ragamuffins’ Feast. Mumsie is a
woman of capacity and makes no false moves.
The first thing she did was to go to the telephone.
“Mrs. Mount, this is Belle Somers speaking. I wish you to give me some
lettuce from your conservatories for the poor boys’ feast.”
* * * * *
“Six heads.”
* * * * *
“Oh! I’m sorry. I’ll tell Mrs. Lien,” and she banged on the receiver,
and sat on the seat beside me, her face twitching with annoyance.
“What is it?” I asked impulsively.
“Wait a minute.”
The telephone rang again.
“Yes.” Mumsie answered.
* * * * *
“Yes, Mrs. Lien is managing it this year.”
* * * * *
“All right, you’ll send them to the hall to my care.”
* * * * *
And again the receiver was put back on the hook and Mumsie, trembling
with agitation, sat again beside me.
“I know how to fix that woman,” she declared. “I told her I would report
to Mrs. Lien, and then, my dear, she promised not only to send the six
heads of lettuce I asked for, but a turkey and a dozen Charlotte russes
as well.” In delivering the last sentence Mumsie’s chin protruded in a
manner I judged to be an unconscious imitation of Mrs. Mount.
We went to the hall where a great many ladies were working among hampers
of food. They all seemed nice and genially kind as Mumsie introduced me.
We all got to work, laid tables, and arranged the food. One of the women
who seemed to take a special interest in me was Mrs. Bassett. She has a
large nose with prominent eyebrows, her chin is pointed, and her mouth
drawn into a perpetual smile. I suppose she is daily described as
aristocratic looking. But I know what she will look like at eighty with
her teeth gone—a witch. In the old days she’d have hardly escaped
burning. She told me she had two daughters; one my age, Ethel, and hoped
we would be friends.
I found the good ladies very uninteresting, though Mrs. Bassett, with
her sharp eyes, is capable of humour at times. Nothing was said about
society—which is growing my chief interest—and they dressed dowdily.
Mrs. Lien in all her grandeur, came in while we worked, asked a few
questions and departed. She did not even nod to me, though she must have
seen me. I am inclined to believe that to be kind means to be
commonplace. Mrs. Lien seems to be _neither_.
I was waiting with impatience to talk to Uncle on the subject of Mrs.
Mount, but succeeded in restraining myself until Uncle had finished his
first helping of meat. My idea was that, his hunger appeased, I could
get him off to a better start. I asked innocently enough: “Uncle, do you
know Mrs. Mount?”
His eyes met mine and then settled on his wife.
“Mrs. Mount! Do I know Mrs. Mount? Belle, why do you not introduce Elsie
to someone milder than that old battle-axe?”
“I have not introduced her,” replied Mumsie promptly. “I asked Mrs.
Mount over the ’phone for some lettuce for our feast and had to bring in
Mrs. Lien before I could get it.”
Uncle roared with laughter.
“Elsie, during your stay with us, you will get an insight into human
nature if into nothing else,” was his severe comment. “Mrs. Mount” he
went on, “is a social-climber; the term is self-explanatory and she and
her notions are illuminating. Her past history would make a compendium
on the process of social climbing, and the progress of snobbery
invaluable to those who have the mean ambition to inflict themselves
upon their betters, or, perhaps it were more correct to say, intrude
where they are not wanted.”
I was surprised and piqued by his harshness. I think that “pique” looks
well.
“Is it wrong,” I asked “to try and get into society?”
“Not wrong, Elsie, but probably unworthy. Of course much depends upon
the society aimed at. Ambition is, as the poets have often taught us, a
fruitful source of woe, humiliation, and remorse, and social ambition is
to my mind the pettiest of vanities. It is as pernicious to-day as when
Greece produced—and slew—Socrates.”
I then asked a question which in these new days has often occurred to
me.
“What is society? What would a philosopher call it? Let me see! Society
is an affiliation of friends mutually acceptable. If it remained so,
that would be good enough; unfortunately it has tended to the wealthy
gathering into a clique, whose doings are naturally the more spectacular
and so attract the weakling, the snob, the social-climber.”
Mustering up what I hope looked like world-wisdom, I said: “That Uncle,
is also, a natural process.”
He laughed at me, quite kindly.
“Undoubtedly, you wise miss, Mammon has always had his measure of
worshippers. But the point is that to enter such society was never a
worthy ambition. In the days of Charles II, society, as we use the word,
meant the court circle, and that was certainly a discreditable
institution. Queen Victoria, of course, made her circle one of a high
standard; but, society in her day no longer meant the circle nearest the
throne, nor does it convey that meaning to-day.”
“Of course,” continued Uncle in his kind tones. (He certainly is taking
trouble with me—dear man!) “I need not talk about society in England.
One may not know all about everything in England and the English after a
three month’s visit. But of Canada I do know much: and this—that both
this country and the United States are society mad. If there is any
greater snob on earth than the average Canadian, it is the average
citizen of that particular Land of the Free.”
I do not like the Yankees, or mind hearing them abused; but I object to
hearing the supposed failings of my own people set forth.
“Uncle, you are severe.”
“Elsie,” Uncle replied in tones that were low, and I thought bore an
echo of sadness, “you are on the threshold of life; your happiness is
largely your own to make or break. If you develop the society bug,—the
society craze—you kiss good-bye to your peace of mind, and peace is the
true foundation of happiness. When you choose your friends, imagine
yourself with them alone on a desert island. Under those circumstances
what sort of companions would they be? That’s the test.”
“Bosh!” cried Mumsie. “Isn’t the girl down here to see some life, to go
to balls and parties, and have as good a time generally as we can give
her?”
“I was just telling her—” he began, but was promptly cut short.
“You were just trying to fill her head with nonsense. A desert island.
Fiddlesticks!”
There was naturally a pause after this, but I was glad to see Uncle was
not completely down. I watched his face, rejoicing at the evident signs
of consideration before a new assault.
“I once knew a politician who came from Alberta. He made a lot of money,
his enemies said by shady means, but I believe by his native cleverness
in land speculation. His was a happy home, the family united by
affection. And then all went society mad. Paterfamilias took to horses
and the boys followed suit. To make a long story short, with the advent
of riches and horses, happiness flew out of the window, and there was
ruin.”
Uncle was now cracking nuts; in a minute he would be rising and going to
his den, and I had not yet heard about Mrs. Mount. So, I asked again.
“Mrs. Mount, my child, was the daughter of old Bustard, who—how
wonderful when we go back to the beginnings—kept a tavern at a
crossroads in the country. First he sold butter and sugar openly, and
grog on the sly; then he blossomed into keeping a tavern. He made money
fast and speculated. He dabbled in the Chicago wheat pit, and in real
estate. He appreciated the lessons of history and got out at the top of
several booms. In short, he was a successful money-maker, and collected
a pile, and then died. Mount, who was, what out west they call a
shyster, married the girl, Miss Bustard. That’s all.”
“And how did she with those disadvantages manage to climb into society?”
I asked.
“Money first; then the Church. She gave to charities, tinted her hair a
golden yellow, drove a fine pair of horses before the motor came chu-ing
along, carried impecunious dowagers home from meetings of the Women’s
Auxiliary. Oh, it was all easy, only a matter of persistence. The
dowagers had to ask her to tea, and when she was able to pay them back,
she took care that the papers made a splash of it. So Mrs. Mount got
thick with the old families.”
“But,” I objected (I can’t help asking questions), “if she was so
generous to charities, why did she wish to limit Mumsie to two heads of
lettuce?”
Uncle was, I think, needlessly scornful as he replied: “You don’t feed a
fish bait after you have caught him.”
That was all.