'Quite well, miss,' he replied, with the note of interrogation a little
more obvious.
'I should like to see her. Is she in?'
'I'll h'inquire, miss, 'n 'Oo shall I sai, miss?'
I thought I would prepare my relation gradually. 'A lady from Chicago,'
said I.
'Very well, miss. Will you walk upstairs, miss?'
In America drawing-rooms are on the ground-floor. I thought he wanted to
usher me into Mrs. Portheris's bedroom.
'No, sir,' I said; 'I'll wait here.' Then I thought of Mr. Mafferton,
and of what he had said about saying 'sir' to people, and my sensations
were awful. I have never done it once since.
The footman reappeared in a few minutes with a troubled and apologetic
countenance. 'Mrs. Portheris says as she doesn't want anythink, miss! I
told her as I didn't understand you were disposin' of anythink; but that
was 'er message, miss.'
I couldn't help laughing--it was so very funny to think of my being
taken for a lady-pedlar in the house of my relation. 'I'm very glad
she's in,' I said. 'That is quite a mistake! Tell her it's Miss Mamie
Wick, daughter of Colonel Joshua R. Wick, of Chicago; but if she's lying
down, or anything, I can drop in again.'
He was away so long that I began to wonder if my relation suspected
me of dynamite in any form, and he came back looking more anxious than
ever. 'Mrs. Portheris says she's very sorry, miss, and will you please
to walk up?' 'Certainly,' I said, 'but I hope I won't be disturbing
her!'
And I walked up.
It was a big square room, with a big square piano in it, and long
lace curtains, and two or three gilt-framed mirrors, and a great
many old-fashioned ornaments under glass cases, and a tinkling glass
chandelier in the middle. There were several oil-paintings on the
walls--low-necked portraits and landscapes, principally dark-green
and black and yellow, with cows, and quantities of lovely china. The
furniture was red brocade, with spindly legs, and there was a tall palm
in a pot, which had nothing to do with the rest of the room, by itself
in a corner. I remembered these things afterwards.
At the time I noticed chiefly two young persons with the pinkest cheeks
I ever saw, out of a picture-book, sitting near a window. They were
dressed exactly alike, and their hair hung down their backs to their
waists, although they must have been seventeen; and they sat up very
nicely indeed on two of the red chairs, one occupied with worsted work,
and the other apparently reading aloud to her, though she stopped when I
came in. I have seen something since at Madame Tussaud's--but I daresay
you have often noticed it yourself. And standing in the middle of the
room, with her hand on a centre-table, was Mrs. Portheris.
My first impression was that she had been standing there for the last
hour in that immovable way, with exactly that remarkable expression; and
it struck me that she could go on standing for the next without altering
it, quite comfortably--she seemed to be so solidly placed there, with
her hand upon the table. Though I wouldn't call Mrs. Portheris stout,
she was massive--rather, of an impressive build. Her skirt fell in a
commanding way from her waist, though it hitched up a little in front,
which spoiled the effect. She had broad square shoulders, and a lace
collar, and a cap with pink ribbons in it, and grey hair smooth on each
side of her face, and large well-cut features, and the expression I
spoke of. I've seen the expression since among the Egyptian antiquities
in the British Museum, but I am unable to describe it. 'Armed
neutrality' is the only phrase that occurs to me in connection with it,
and that by no means does it justice. For there was curiosity in it,
as well as hostility and reserve--but I won't try. And she kept her
hand--it was her right hand--upon the table.
'Miss Wick' she said, bowing, and dwelling upon the name with strong
doubt. 'I believe I have a connection of that name in America. Is your
father's name Joshua Peter?'
'Yes, Mrs. Portheris,' I replied; 'and he says he is your nephew. I've
just come. How do you do?' I said this because it was the only thing the
situation seemed to warrant me saying.
'Oh, I am quite in my usual health, thank you! My nephew by marriage--a
former marriage--a very distant connection.'
'Three thousand five hundred miles,' said I; 'he lives in Chicago. You
have never been over to see us, Mrs. Portheris. At this point I walked
across to one of the spindly red chairs and sat down. I thought then
that she had forgotten to ask me; but even now, when I know she hadn't,
I am not at all sorry I sat down. I find it is possible to stand up too
much in this country.
The old lady gathered herself up and looked at me. 'Where are your
father and mother?' she said.
'In Chicago, Mrs. Portheris. All very well, thank you! I had a cable
from them this morning, before I left the hotel. Kind regards to you.'
Mrs. Portheris looked at me in absolute silence. Then she deliberately
arranged her back draperies and sat down too--not in any amiable way,
but as if the situation must be faced.
'Margaret and Isabel,' she said to the two young pink persons, 'go to
your rooms, dears!' And she waited till the damsels, each with a little
shy smile and blush, gathered up their effects and went, before she
continued the conversation. As they left the room I observed that
they wore short dresses, buttoned down the back. It began to grow
very interesting to me, after the first shock of finding this kind of
relation was over. I found myself waiting for what was to come next
with the deepest interest. In America we are very fond of types--perhaps
because we have so few among ourselves--and it seemed to me, as I
sat there on Mrs. Portheris's spindly red chair, that I had come
into violent contact with a type of the most valuable and pronounced
description. Privately I resolved to stay as long as I could, and lose
no opportunity of observing it. And my first observation was that Mrs.
Portheris's expression was changing--losing its neutrality and beginning
to radiate active opposition and stern criticism, with an uncompromising
sense of duty twisted in at the corners of the mouth. There was no
agitation whatever, and I thought with an inward smile of my relation's
nerves.
'Then I suppose,' said Mrs. Portheris--the supposition being of the
vaguest possible importance--'that you are with a party of Americans.
It seems to be an American idea to go about in hordes. I never could
understand it--to me it would be most obnoxious. How many are there of
you?'
'One, Mrs. Portheris--and I'm the one. Poppa and momma had set their
hearts on coming. Poppa thought of getting up an Anglo-American Soda
Trust, and momma wanted particularly to make your acquaintance--your
various Christmas cards have given us all such a charming idea of
you--but at the last minute something interfered with their plans and
they had to give it up. They told me to tell you how sorry they were.'
'Something interfered with their plans! But nothing interfered with your
plans!'
'Oh, no; it was some political business of poppa's--nothing to keep me!'
'Then do I actually understand that your parents, of their own free
will, permitted you to cross the Atlantic alone?'
'I hope you do, Mrs. Portheris; but if it's not quite clear to you, I
don't mind explaining it again.'
'Upon my word! And you are at an hotel--which hotel?' When I told Mrs.
Portheris the Métropole, her indignation mounted to her cap, and one of
the pink ribbons shook violently.
'It is very American!' she said; and I felt that Mrs. Portheris could
rise to no more forcible a climax of disapproval.
But I did not mind Mrs. Portheris's disapproval; in fact, according to
my classification of her, I should have been disappointed if she had not
disapproved--it would have been out of character. So I only smiled as
sweetly as I could, and said, 'So am I.'
'Is it not very expensive?' There was a note of angry wonder as well as
horror in this.
'I don't know, Mrs. Portheris. It's very comfortable.' 'I never heard of
such a thing in my life!' said Mrs. Portheris. 'It's--it's outrageous!
It's--it's not customary!
I call it criminal lenience on the part of my nephew to allow it, he
must have taken leave of his senses!'
'Don't say anything nasty about poppa, Mrs. Portheris,' I remarked; and
she paused.
'As to your mother----'
'Momma is a lady of great intelligence and advanced views,' I
interrupted, 'though she isn't very strong. And she is very well
acquainted with me.'
'Advanced views are your ruin in America! May I ask how you found your
way here?'
'On a 'bus, Mrs. Portheris--the red Hammersmith kind. On two 'buses,
rather, because I took the wrong one first, and went miles straight away
from here; but I didn't mind it--I liked it.'
'In an omnibus I suppose you mean. You couldn't very well be on
it, unless you went on the top!' And Mrs. Portheris smiled rather
derisively.
'I did; I went on the top,' I returned calmly. 'And it was lovely.'
Mrs. Portheris very nearly lost her self-control in her effort to grasp
this enormity. Her cap bristled again, and the muscles round her mouth
twitched quite perceptibly.
'Careering all over London on the top of an omnibus!' she ejaculated.
'Looking for my house! And in that frock!' I felt about ten when she
talked about my 'frock.' 'Couldn't you feel that you were altogether too
smart for such a position?'
'No, indeed, Mrs. Portheris!' I replied, unacquainted with the idiom.
'When I got down off the first omnibus in Cheapside I felt as if I
hadn't been half smart enough!'
She did not notice my misunderstanding. By the time I had finished my
sentence she was rapping the table with suppressed excitement.
'Miss Wick!' she said--and I had expected her to call me Mamie, and say
I was the image of poppa!--'you are the daughter of my nephew--which can
hardly be called a connection at all--but on that account I will give
you a piece of advice. The top of an omnibus is not a proper place for
you--I might say, for any connection of mine, however distant! I would
not feel that I was doing my duty toward my nephew's daughter if I did
not tell you that you must not go there! Don't on any account do it
again! It is a thing people never do!'
'Do they upset?' I asked.
'They might. But apart from that, I must ask you, on personal--on family
grounds--always to go inside. In Chicago you may go outside as much as
you like, but in London----'
'Oh, no!' I interrupted, 'I wouldn't for the world--in Chicago!' which
Mrs. Portheris didn't seem to understand.
I had stayed dauntlessly for half an hour--I was so much interested in
Mrs. Portheris--and I began to feel my ability to prolong the interview
growing weaker. I was sorry--I would have given anything to have heard
her views upon higher education and female suffrage, and the Future
State and the Irish Question; but it seemed impossible to get her
thoughts away from the appalling Impropriety which I, on her spindly
red chair, represented I couldn't blame her for that--I suppose no
impropriety bigger than a spider had ever got into her drawing-room
before. So I got up to go. Mrs. Portheris also rose, with majesty. I
think she wanted to show me what, if I had been properly brought up, I
might have expected reasonably to develop into. She stood in the midst
of her red brocaded furniture, with her hands folded, a model of what
bringing up can do if it is unflinchingly persevered in, and all the
mirrors reflected the ideal she presented. I felt, beside her, as if I
had never been brought up at all.
'Have you any friends in London?' she asked, with a very weak solution
of curiosity in her tone, giving me her hand to facilitate my going, and
immediately ringing the bell.
'I think not,' I said with, decision.
'But you will not continue to stay at the Métropole! I beg that you
will not remain another day at the Métropole! It is not usual for young
ladies to stay at hotels. You must go to some place where only ladies
are received, and as soon as you are settled in one communicate at
once with the rector of the parish--alone as you are, that is quite a
necessary step, lights and fires will probably be extra.'
'I thought,' said I, 'of going to the Lady Guides' Association--we have
heard of it in Chicago through some friends, who went round every day
for three weeks with lady-guides, and found it simply fascinating--and
asking them to get me a private family to board with. I particularly
wished to see what a private family is like in England.'
Mrs. Portheris frowned. 'I could never bring myself to approve of
lady-guides,' she said. 'There is something in the idea that is
altogether too--American.' I saw that the conversation was likely to
grow personal again, so I said: 'Well, good-bye, Mrs. Portheris!' and
was just going, when 'Stop!' said my relation, 'there is Miss Purkiss.'
'Is there?' said I.
'Certainly--the very thing! Miss Purkiss is a very old friend of mine,
in reduced circumstances. I've known her thirty-five years. She is an
excellent woman, with the most trustworthy views upon all matters. In
so far as our widely different social positions have permitted, Miss
Purkiss and I have been on terms, I may say, of sisterly intimacy
since before you were born. She has no occupation now, having lost her
position as secretary to the Home for Incurable Household Pets through
ill-health, and a very limited income. She lives in an excessively
modest way in Upper Baker Street--very convenient to both the omnibuses
and Underground--and if you cast in your lot with hers while you are in
England, Miss Wick'--here Mrs. Portheris grew almost demonstrative--'you
need never go out alone. I need not say that she is a lady, but her
circumstances will probably necessitate her asking you rather more
than the usual rate for board and lodging, in compensation for her
chaperonage and companionship. All I can say is, that both will be very
thorough. I will give you Miss Purkiss's address at once, and if you
drive there immediately you will be sure to find her in. John, call
a hansom!' And Mrs. Portheris went to her writing-table and wrote the
address.
'There!' she said, folding it up and giving it to me. 'By all means try
to arrange with Miss Purkiss, and she, being a friend of my own, some
afternoon, perhaps--I must think about it--I may ask her to bring you to
tea! Good-bye!'
As the door closed behind me I heard Mrs. Portheris's voice on the
landing. 'Margaret and Isabel,' it said, 'you may come down now!'
'Ware to, miss?' said the driver.
'Hôtel Métropole,' said I. And as we turned into Piccadilly a little
flutter of torn white paper went back on the wind to Mrs. Portheris. It
was Miss Purkiss's address.
After lunch I made careful notes of Mrs. Portheris, and then spent half
an hour in the midst of my trunks, looking in the Board and Lodging'
column of the 'Morning Post' for accommodation which promised to differ
as radically as possible from Miss Purkiss's.
V
MY principal idea was to get away as soon as possible from the
Métropole. So long as I was located there I was within the grasp of my
relation; and as soon as she found out my insubordination in the matter
of her advice, I had no doubt whatever that my relation would appear,
with Miss Purkiss, all in rusty black, behind her--a contingency I
wished to avoid. Miss Purkiss, I reflected, would probably be another
type, and types were interesting, but not to live with--my relation
had convinced me of that. And as to Mrs. Portheris herself, while I had
certainly enjoyed what I had been privileged to see of her, her society
was a luxury regarding which I felt that I could exercise considerable
self-denial. I did not really contemplate being forced into Miss Purkiss
and Upper Baker Street by Mrs. Portheris against my will, not for
a moment; but I was afraid the situation would be presented on
philanthropic grounds, which would be disagreeable. Miss Purkiss as a
terror I felt equal to, but Miss Purkiss as an object of charity might
cow me. And Miss Purkiss in any staying capacity was not, I felt, what
I came to Great Britain to experience. So I studied the columns of the
'Morning Post' diligently for a haven of refuge from Miss Purkiss.
I found it difficult to make a selection, the havens were so very
different, and all so superior. I believe you talk about the originality
of American advertising. I never in my life saw a newspaper page to
compare in either imagination or vocabulary with the one I scanned that
day at the Métropole. It seemed that I could be taken all over London,
at prices varying from one 'g.' to three 'gs.' per week, although the
surprising cheapness of this did not strike me until I had laboriously
calculated in dollars and cents the exact value of a 'g.' I know now
that it is a term of English currency exclusively employed in Bond
Street, Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford Streets--they never give you a
price there in any other. And the phrases descriptive of the various
homes which were awaiting me were so beautiful. 'Excellent meat
breakfast,' 'a liberal and charmingly-refined home,' 'a mother's devoted
supervision,' 'fresh young society,' 'fashionably situated and
elegantly furnished,' 'just vacated by a clergyman,' 'foreign languages
understood'--which would doubtless include American--'a lofty standard
of culture in this establishment.' I wondered if they kept it under
glass. I was struck with the number of people who appeared in print
with 'offerings' of a domiciliary nature. 'A widow lady of cheerful
temperament and artistic tastes offers----' 'The daughter of a late
Civil Servant with a larger house than she requires offers----' This
must have been a reference put in to excite sympathy, otherwise, what
was the use of advertising the gentleman after he was dead? Even from
the sympathetic point of view, I think it was a mistake, for who would
care to go and settle in a house the minute the crape was off the door?
Nobody.
Not only original advertisements of the kind I was looking for, but
original advertisements of kinds I wasn't looking for, appealed to my
interest and took up my time that afternoon.
'Would any one feel disposed to lend an actress five pounds?
'Temporary home wanted, with a family of quiet habits, in a healthful
neighbourhood, who can give best references, for a Persian cat.' 'An
elderly country rector and his wife, in town for a month's holiday,
would be glad of a little pleasant society.'
'A young subaltern, of excellent family, in unfortunate circumstances,
implores the loan of a hundred pounds to save him from ruin. Address,
care of his solicitors.' 'A young gentleman, handsome, an orphan, of
good education and agreeable address, wishes to meet with elderly couple
with means (inherited) who would adopt him. Would make himself pleasant
in the house. Church of England preferred, but no serious objection to
Nonconformists.'
We have nothing like this in America. It was a revelation to me--a most
private and intimate revelation of a social body that I had always been
told no outsider could look into without the very best introductions. Of
course, there was the veil of 'A. B.' and 'Lurline,' and the solicitors'
address, but that seemed as thin and easily torn as the 'Morning Post,'
and much more transparent, showing all the struggling mass, with its
hands outstretched, on the other side. And yet I have heard English
people say how 'personal' our newspapers are!
My choice was narrowed considerably by so many of the addresses being
other places than London, which I thought very peculiar in a London
newspaper. Having come to see London, I did not want to live in Putney,
or Brixton, or Chelsea, or Maida Vale. I supposed vaguely that there
must be cathedrals or Roman remains, or attractions of some sort, in
these places, or they would not be advertised in London; but for the
time being, at any rate, I intended to content myself with the capital.
So I picked out two or three places near the British Museum--I should be
sure, I thought, to want to spend a great deal of time there--and went
to see about them.
They were as much the same as the advertisements were different,
especially from the outside. From the outside they were exactly
alike--so much so that I felt, after I had seen them all, that if
another boarder in the same row chose to approach me on any occasion,
and say that she was me, I should be entirely unable to contradict her.
This in itself was prejudicial. In America, if there is one thing we are
particular about, it is our identity. Without our identities we are in
a manner nowhere. I did not feel disposed to run the risk of losing mine
the minute I arrived in England, especially as I knew that it is a thing
Americans who stay here for any length of time are extremely apt to do.
Nevertheless, I rang the three door-bells I left the Métropole with
the intention of ringing; and there were some minor differences inside,
although my pen insists upon recording the similarities instead. I spent
the same length of time upon the doorstep, for instance, before the same
tumbled and apologetic-looking servant girl appeared, wiping her hands
upon her apron, and let me into the same little dark hall, with the same
interminable stairs twisting over themselves out of it, and the smell of
the same dinner accompanying us all the way up. To be entirely just, it
was a wholesome dinner, but there was so much of it in the air that I
very soon felt as if I was dining unwarrantably, and ought to pay for
it. In every case the stair-carpet went up two flights, and after that
there was oilcloth, rather forgetful as to its original pattern, and
much frayed as to its edges--and after that, nothing. Always pails and
brushes on the landings--what there is about pails and brushes that
should make them such a distinctive feature of boarding-house landings
I don't know, but they are. Not a single elevator in all three. I
asked the servant-girl in the first place, about half-way up the fourth
flight, if there was no elevator? 'No, indeed, miss,' she said: 'I
wishes there was! But them's things you won't find but very seldom 'ere.
We've 'ad American ladies 'ere before, and they allus asks for 'em, but
they soon finds out they ain't to be 'ad, miss.'
Now, how did she know I was an 'American lady'? I didn't really mind
about the elevator, but this I found annoying, in spite of my desire
to preserve my identity. In the course of conversation with this young
woman, I discovered that it was not my own possibly prospective dinner
that I smelt on the stairs. I asked about the hour for meals. 'Aou, we
never gives meals, miss!' she said. 'It's only them boardin' 'aouses as
gives meals in! Mrs. Jones, she only lets apartments. But there's a
very nice restirong in Tottinim Court Road, quite convenient, an' your
breakfast, miss, you could 'ave cooked 'ere, but, of course, it would be
hextra, miss.'
Then I remembered all I had read about people in London living in
'lodgings,' and having their tea and sugar and butter and eggs consumed
unrighteously by the landlady, who was always represented as a buxom
person in calico, with a smut on her face, and her arms akimbo, and an
awful hypocrite. For a minute I thought of trying it, for the novelty
of the experience, but the loneliness of it made me abandon the idea. I
could not possibly content myself with the society of a coal-scuttle
and two candlesticks, and the alternative of going round sightseeing by
myself. Nor could I in the least tell whether Mrs. Jones was agreeable,
or whether I could expect her to come up and visit with me sometimes in
the evenings; besides, if she always wore smuts and had her arms akimbo,
I shouldn't care about asking her. In America a landlady might as likely
as not be a member of a Browning Society, and give 'evenings,' but that
kind of landlady seems indigenous to the United States. And after Mrs.
Portheris, I felt that I required the companionship of something human.
In the other two places I saw the landladies themselves in their
respective drawing-rooms on the second floor. One of the drawing-rooms
was 'draped' in a way that was quite painfully aesthetic, considering
the paucity of the draperies. The flower-pots were draped, and the
lamps; there were draperies round the piano-legs, and round the clock;
and where there were not draperies there were bows, all of the same
scanty description. The only thing that had not made an effort to clothe
itself in the room was the poker, and by contrast it looked very nude.
There were some Japanese ideas around the room, principally a paper
umbrella; and a big painted palm-leaf fan from India made an incident in
one corner. I thought, even before I saw the landlady, that it would be
necessary to live up to a high standard of starvation in that house, and
she confirmed the impression. She was a Miss Hippy, a short, stoutish
person, with very smooth hair, thin lips, and a nose like an angle of
the Pyramids, preternaturally neat in her appearance, with a long
gold watch-chain round her neck. She came into the room in a way that
expressed reduced circumstances and a protest against being obliged to
do it. I feel that the particular variety of smile she gave me with her
'Good morning!'--although it was after 4 P.M.--was one she kept for the
use of boarders only, and her whole manner was an interrogation. When
she said, 'Is it for yourself?' in answer to my question about rooms, I
felt that I was undergoing a cross-examination, the result of which Miss
Hippy was mentally tabulating.
'We have a few rooms,' said Miss Hippy, 'certainly.' Then she cast her
eyes upon the floor, and twisted her fingers up in her watch-chain, as
if in doubt. 'Shall you be long in London?'