VI

I DROVE straight back to the Métropole, very thankful indeed that that

was evidently the thing to do next. If there had been no evident thing

to do next, I was so depressed in my mind that I think I would have

taken a ticket to Liverpool that night, and my passage to New York on

the first steamer that was leaving. I won't say what I did in the cab,

but I spoilt a perfectly new veil doing it. London seemed dingy and

noisy, and puzzling and unattractive, and always going to rain. I

thought of our bright clear air in Chicago, and our nice clean houses,

and our street-cars, and our soda-water fountains, and poppa and momma,

and always knowing everybody and what to do under every circumstance;

and all the way to the Métropole I loved Chicago and I hated London.

But there was the Métropole, big and solid and luxurious, and a fact

I understood; and there was the nice respectful housemaid on my

corridor--it would be impossible to convince you how different servants

are with us--and a delightful little fire in my room, and a tin pitcher

of hot water smoking in the basin, and a sort of air of being personally

looked after that was very comforting to my nerves. While I was

getting ready for dinner I analysed my state of mind, and blamed myself

severely, for I found that I could not justify one of the disagreeable

things I had been thinking in any philosophical way. I had simply

allowed the day's experiences, capped by my relation in the morning, to

overcome my entire nerve-system, which was childish and unreasonable. I

wished then, and often since, that Providence had given us a more useful

kind of nerve-system on our side of the Atlantic--something constructed

solidly, on the British plan; and just as I was wishing that there came

a rap. A rap has comparatively no significance until it comes at your

bedroom door when you are alone in a big hotel two thousand five hundred

miles from home. Then it means something. This one meant two cards on a

salver and a message. One of the cards read: 'Mrs. Cummers Portheris,'

with 'Miss Purkiss' written under it in pencil; the other, 'Mr. Charles

Mafferton,' with '49, Hertford Street. Mayfair,' in one corner, and 'The

Isthmian Club' in the other.

'Is she there now?' I asked the servant in acute suspense.

'No, miss. The ladies, they called about 'alf-past three, and we was to

say that one lady was to be 'ere again to-morrow mornin' at ten, miss.

The gentleman, he didn't leave no message.'

Then my heart beat again, and joyfully, for I knew that I had missed my

relation and Miss Purkiss, and that the way of escape was still open to

me, although ten o'clock in the morning was rather early to be obliged

to go out. I must say I thought it extremely foolish of Miss Purkiss to

have mentioned the hour--it was like a fox making an appointment with

a rabbit, a highly improbable thing for the rabbit to keep. And I went

downstairs feeling quite amused and happy, and determined to stay

amused and happy. My unexpected reward for this came at dinner, when

I discovered my neighbours to be two delightful ladies from St.

Paul, Minn., with whom I conversed sociably there, and later in the

drawing-room. They had known Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes; but what to my

eyes gave them an added charm was their amiable readiness to know me.

I was made to promise that I would send them my address when I was

settled, and to this day I suffer from unquieted pangs of conscience

because I failed to keep my word.

By ten o'clock next morning I was in Cockspur Street, Pall Mall, looking

for the 'Lady Guides' Association.' The name in white letters on the

window struck me oddly when I found it. The idea, the institution it

expressed, seemed so grotesquely of to-day there in the heart of old

London, where almost everything you see talks of orthodoxy and the

approval of the centuries. It had the impertinence that a new building

has going up among your smoky old piles of brick and mortar. You will

understand my natural sympathy with it. The minute I went in I felt at

home.

There were several little desks in several little adjoining

compartments, with little muslin curtains in front of them, and ladies

and ink-bottles inside, like a row of shrouded canary-cages. Two or

three more ladies, without their things on, were running round outside,

and several others, with their things on, were being attended to. I saw

only one little man, who was always getting out of the ladies' way, and

didn't seem properly to belong there. There was no label attached, so

I couldn't tell what use they made of him, but I should like to have

known.

The desks were all lettered plainly--one 'Lady Guides,' the next

'Tickets for the Theatre,' and so on; but, of course, I went to the

first one to inquire, without taking any notice of that--people always

do. I think, perhaps, the lady was more polite in referring me to

the proper one than the man would have been. She smiled, and bowed

encouragingly as she did it, and explained particularly, 'the lady with

the eyeglasses and her hair done up high--do you see?' I saw, and went

to the right lady. She smiled too, in a real winning way, looking up

from her entrybook, and leaning forward to hear what I had to say. Then

she came into my confidence, as it were, at once. 'What you want,'

she said, 'is a boarding-house or private hotel. We have all the best

private hotels on our books, but in your case, being alone, what I

should advise would be a thoroughly well-recommended, first-class

boarding-house.'

I said something about a private family--'Or a private family,' added

the lady, acquiescently. 'Now, we can give you whichever you

prefer. Suppose,' she said, with the kindly interested counsel of

good-fellowship, dropping her voice a little, 'I write you out several

addresses of both kinds, then you can just see for yourself'--and the

lady looked at me over her eyeglasses most agreeably.

'Why, yes!' I said. 'I think that's a very good idea!'

'Well now, just wait a minute!' the lady said, turning over the pages

of another big book. 'There's a great deal, as you probably know,

in locality in London. We must try and get you something in a nice

locality. Piccadilly, for instance, is a very favourite locality--I

think we have something in Half-Moon Street---'

'Gracious!' I said. 'No! not Half-Moon Street, please. I--I've been

there. I don't like that locality!'

'Really!' said the lady, with surprise. 'Well, you wouldn't believe what

the rents are in Half-Moon Street! But we can easily give you something

else--the other side of the Park, perhaps!'

'Yes.' I said, earnestly. 'Quite the other side, if you please!'

'Well,' returned the lady, abstractedly running her finger down the

page, 'there's Mrs. Pragge, in Holland Park Gardens--have you any

objection to children?--and Miss Camblewell, in Lancaster Gate, very

clean and nice. I think we'll put them down. And then two or three

private ones--excuse me one minute. There! I think among those,' with

sudden gravity, 'you ought to find something suitable at from two to

three-and-a-half guineas per week; but if you do not, be sure to come in

again. We always like to give our clients satisfaction.' The lady smiled

again in that pardonable, endearing way; and I was so pleased with her,

and with myself, and with the situation, and felt such warm comfort as

the result of the interview, that I wanted badly to shake hands with her

when I said Good-morning. But she was so engaged that I couldn't, and

had to content myself with only saying it very cordially. As I turned to

go I saw a slightly blank expression come over her face, and she coughed

with some embarrassment, leaning forward as if to speak to me again.

But I was too near the door, so one of the ladies who were running about

detained me apologetically.

'There is a--a charge,' she said, 'of two-and-sixpence. You did not

know.' So I went back uncomfortably and paid. 'Thanks, yes!' said the

lady in the cage. 'Two-and-six! No, that is two shillings, a florin,

you see--and that is four--it's half-a-crown we want, isn't it?' very

amiably, considering all the trouble I was giving her. 'Perhaps you

are not very well accustomed to our English currency yet,' as I

finally counted out one shilling, two sixpences, a threepence, and six

halfpennies. If there is a thing in this country that needs reforming

more than the House of Lords--but there, it isn't to be supposed that

you would like my telling you about it. At all events, I managed in the

end to pay my very proper fee to the Lady Guides' Association, and

I sincerely hope that any of its members who may happen to read this

chapter will believe that I never endeavoured to evade it. The slight

awkwardness of the mistake turned out rather pleasantly for me, because

it led me into further conversation with the lady behind the eyeglasses,

in which she asked me whether I wouldn't like to look over their

establishment. I said Yes, indeed; and one of the outside ladies, a very

capable-looking little person, with a round face and short, curly hair,

was told off to take me upstairs. I hadn't been so interested for a long

time. There was the club-room, where ladies belonging to the Association

could meet or make appointments with other people, or write letters or

read the papers, and the restaurant, where they could get anything they

wanted to eat. I am telling you all this because I've met numbers of

people in London who only know enough about the Lady Guides' Association

to smile when it is mentioned, and to say, 'Did you go there?' in a

tone of great amusement, which, considering it is one of your own

institutions, strikes me as curious. And it is such an original,

personal, homelike institution, like a little chirping busy nest between

the eaves of the great unconcerned City offices and warehouses, that it

is interesting to know more about than that, I think. The capable little

lady seemed quite proud of it as she ushered me from one room into

the next, and especially of the bedrooms, which were divided from one

another by pretty chintz hangings, and where at least four ladies,

'arriving strange from the country, and elsewhere,' could be tucked away

for the night. That idea struck me as perfectly sweet, and I wished

very sincerely I had known of it before. It seemed to offer so many

more advantages than the Métropole. Of course. I asked any number of

questions about the scope and working of the Association, and the little

lady answered them all with great fluency. It was nice to hear of

such extended usefulness--how the Lady Guides engage governesses,

or servants, or seats at the theatre, and provide dinners and

entertainments, and clothes to wear at them, and suitable manners; and

take care of children by the day--I do not remember whether the

little lady said they undertook to bring them up--and furnish eyes

and understanding, certified, to all visitors in London, at 'a fixed

tariff'--all except gentlemen unaccompanied by their families. 'Such

clients,' the little lady said, with a shade of sadness, I fancied, that

there should be any limitation to the benevolence of the Association,

'the Lady Guide is compelled to decline. It is a great pity--we have so

many gentleman-applicants, and there would be, of course, no necessity

for sending young lady-guides out with them--we have plenty of

elderly ones, widows and so on; but'--and here the little lady grew

confidentially deprecating--'it is thought best not to. You see, it

would get into the papers, and the papers might chaff, and, of course,

in our position we can't afford to be made ridiculous. But it is a great

pity!'--and the little lady sighed again. I said I thought it was, and

asked if any special case had been made of any special entreaty. 'One,'

she admitted, in a justifying tone. 'A gentleman from Japan. He told

us he never would have come to England if he had not heard of our

Association, being a perfect stranger, without a friend in the place.'

'And unacquainted with English prejudices,' I put in.

'Quite so. And what could we do?'

'What did you do?' I inquired.

'We sent two!' responded the little lady, triumphing once more over the

situation. 'Nobody could say a thing to that. And he was such a pleasant

little man, and thanked us so cordially.'

'Did you find him intelligent?' I asked.

'Very.' But the little lady's manner was growing rather fidgety, and

it occurred to me that perhaps I was taking more information than I was

entitled to for two-and-six. So I went reluctantly downstairs, wishing

there was something else that the lady-guides could do for me. A little

black-eyed woman down there was giving some very businesslike orders.

'Half a day's shopping? I should say send Miss Stuart Saville. And tell

her to be very particular about her accounts. Has Mrs. Mason got that

private ward yet?'

'That,' said my little cicerone, in a subdued tone, 'is our manageress.

She planned the whole thing. Wonderful head!' 'Is that so? 'I remarked.

'I should like to congratulate her.'

'I'm afraid there isn't time,' she returned, looking flurried; 'and the

manageress doesn't approve of anybody wasting it. Will you write your

name in our visitors' book?'

'With pleasure,' I said; 'and I'll come again whenever I feel that I

want anything.' And I wrote my name--badly, of course, as people always

do in visitors' books, but with the lively satisfaction people always

experience in writing their names--why, I've never been able to

discover. I passed the manageress on my way out. She was confronting a

pair of ladies, an old and a young one, in black, who leaned on their

parasols with an air of amiable indecision, and falteringly addressed

her: 'I had a day and a half last week,' one of them said, rather

weakly; 'is there?--do you want me for anything this----?'

The manageress looked at her with some impatience. 'If I want you I'll

send for you, Miss Gypsum,' she said. The door closed upon me at that

moment, so I don't know how Miss Gypsum got away.

As for me, I walked through Cockspur Street and through Waterloo

Place, and so into Piccadilly, reflecting upon Mrs. Pragge, and Miss

Camblewell, and all their uncertainties. Standing in the lee of a large

policeman on one of your valuable iron refuges in the middle of the

street, a flounced black-and-white parasol suddenly shut down almost

in my face. The lady belonging to it leaned over her carriage and said:

'How d'ye do, Miss------? Dear me, how stupid I am about names! Miss

Chicago-young-lady-who-ran-away-without-getting-my-address? Now I've

found you, just pop in----'

'I must ask you to drive on, madam,' the policeman said.

'As soon as this young lady has popped in. There! Now, my dear, what did

the relation say? I've been longing to know.'

And before I realised another thing I was rolling up Regent Street

statefully in the carriage of Mrs. Torquilin.