THE FINE LADY FARMER. COUNTRY GIRLS
A pair of well-matched bays in silver-plated harness, and driven by a
coachman in livery, turn an easy curve round a corner of the narrow
country road, forcing you to step on the sward by the crimson-leaved
bramble bushes, and sprinkling the dust over the previously glossy surface
of the newly fallen horse chestnuts. Two ladies, elegantly dressed, lounge
in the carriage with that graceful idleness--that indifferent
indolence--only to be acquired in an atmosphere of luxury. Before they
pass out of sight round another turn of the road it is possible to observe
that one at least possesses hair of the fashionable hue, and a complexion
delicately brilliant--whether wholly natural or partly aided by art. The
other must be pronounced a shade less rich in the colours of youth, but is
perhaps even more expensively dressed. An experienced observer would at
once put them down as mother and daughter, as, indeed, they are.
The polished spokes of the wheels glitter in the sun, the hoofs of the
high-stepping pair beat the firm road in regular cadence, and smoothly the
carriage rolls on till the brown beech at the corner hides it. But a sense
of wealth, of social station, and refinement--strange and in strong
contrast to the rustic scene--lingers behind, like a faint odour of
perfume. There are the slow teams pulling stolidly at the ploughs--they
were stopped, of course, for the carters to stare at the equipage; there
are the wheat ricks; yonder a lone farmstead, and black cattle grazing in
the pasture. Surely the costly bays, whose hoofs may even now be heard,
must belong to the lordly owner of these broad acres--this undulating
landscape of grass and stubble, which is not beautiful but evidently
fertile!
A very brief inquiry at the adjacent market town disposes of this natural
conclusion. It is the carriage of a tenant farmer--but what a tenant! The
shopkeepers here are eloquent, positively gratefully eloquent, in the
praise of his wife and daughter. Customers!--no such customers had been
known in the old borough from time immemorial. The tradesman as he speaks
involuntarily pulls out his till, glances in, and shuts it up with a
satisfied bang. The old style of farmer, solid and substantial enough,
fumbling at the bottom of his canvas bag for silver and gold, was a crusty
curmudgeon where silk and satin, kid gloves, and so forth were concerned.
His wife had to look sharp after her poultry, geese and turkeys, and such
similar perquisites, in order to indulge in any innocent vanity,
notwithstanding that the rent was paid and a heavy balance at the bank.
Then he would have such a length of credit--a year at least--and nowadays
a shopkeeper, though sure of his money, cannot wait long for it. But to
ask for the account was to give mortal offence. The bill would be paid
with the remark, intended to be intensely sarcastic, 'Suppose you thought
we was a-going to run away--eh?' and the door would never again be
darkened by those antique breeches and gaiters. As for the common run of
ordinary farmers, their wives bought a good deal, but wanted it cheap and,
looking at the low price of corn and the 'paper' there was floating about,
it did not do to allow a long bill to be run up. But the Grange
people--ah! the Grange people put some life into the place. 'Money! they
must have heaps of money' (lowering his voice to a whisper). 'Why, Mrs.
---- brought him a fortune, sir; why, she's got a larger income than our
squire' (as if it were, rank treason to say so). 'Mr. ---- has got money
too, and bless you, they holds their heads as high as their landlord's,
and good reason they should. They spend as much in a week as the squire do
in a month, and don't cheapen nothing, and your cheque just whenever you
like to ask for it. That's what I calls gentlefolks.' For till and counter
gauge long descent, and heraldic quarterings, and ancestral Crusaders, far
below the chink of ready money, that synonym for all the virtues.
The Grange people, indeed, are so conspicuous, that there is little
secrecy about them or their affairs. The house they reside in--it cannot
be called a farmstead--is a large villa-like mansion of recent erection,
and fitted with every modern convenience. The real farmstead which it
supplanted lies in a hollow at some distance, and is occupied by the head
bailiff, for there are several employed. As the architecture of the villa
is consonant with modern 'taste,' so too the inferior is furnished in the
'best style,' of course under the supervision of the mistress. Mrs. ----
has filled it with rosewood and ormolu, with chairs completely gilt, legs,
back, seat, and all, with luxurious ottomans, 'occasional' tables inlaid
with mother-o'-pearl, soft carpets, polished brazen grate-fittings,
semi-ecclesiastical, semi-mediaeval, and so forth.
Everywhere the glitter of glass, mirrors over the mantelpieces, mirrors
let into panels, glass chiffoniers, and pendent prisms of glass round the
ornamental candlesticks. Mixed with this some of the latest productions of
the new English Renaissance--stiff, straight-back, plain oak chairs, such
as men in armour may have used--together with Japanese screens. In short,
just such a medley of artistic styles as may be seen in scores of suburban
villas where money is of little account, and even in houses of higher
social pretensions. There is the usual illustrated dining-room literature,
the usual _bric-à-brac_, the usual cabinet series of poets. There are oil
paintings on the walls; there is an immense amount of the most expensive
electroplate on the dinner table; the toilet accessories in the guest
chambers are 'elegant' and _recherché_. The upholsterer has not been
grudged.
For Mrs. ---- is the daughter of a commercial man, one of the principals
of a great firm, and has been accustomed to these things from her youth
upwards. She has no sympathies with the past, that even yet is loth to
quit its hold of the soil and of those who are bred upon it. The ancient
simplicity and plainness of country life are positively repulsive to her;
she associates them with poverty. Her sympathies are with warm,
well-lighted rooms, full of comfort, shadowless because of the glare of
much gas. She is not vulgar, just the reverse--she is a thorough lady, but
she is not of the country and its traditions. She is the city and the
suburb transplanted to the midst of corn, and grass, and cattle. She has
her maid, skilled in the toilet, her carriage and pair and pony carriage,
grooms, footmen, just exactly as she would have done had she brought her
magnificent dowry to a villa at Sydenham.
In the season, with her daughter, she goes to town, and drives daily in
the park, just the same as to-day she has driven through the leaf-strewn
country-lane to the market town. They go also to the sea-side, and now and
then to the Continent. They are, of course, invited to the local balls,
and to many of the best houses on more private occasions. The
ramifications of finance do not except the proudest descendants of the
Crusaders, and the 'firm' has its clients even among them. Bonnets come
down from Madame Louise, boxes of novels from Mudie's; 'Le Follet' is read
in the original, and many a Parisian romance as well. Visitors are
continually coming and going--the carriage is perpetually backwards and
forwards to the distant railway station. Friends come to the shooting, the
hunting, the fishing; there is never any lack of society.
The house is full of servants, and need be, to wait upon these people.
Now, in former days, and not such a great while since, the best of
servants came from the country. Mistresses sought for them, and mourned
when, having imbibed town ways and town independence, they took their
departure to 'better' themselves. But that is a thing of the past; it is
gone with the disappearance of the old style of country life. Servant
girls in farmhouses when young used to have a terribly hard life: hard
work, hard fare, up early of a morning, stone flags under foot by day,
bare boards under foot upstairs, small pay, and hard words too often. But
they turned out the best of women, the healthiest and strongest, the most
sought after. Now they learn a great deal about Timbuctoo, and will soon,
no doubt, about Cyprus; but the 'servant from the country' is no more.
Nothing less will suit them to begin with than the service of the parish
clergyman, then they aspire to the Grange, get there, and receive a
finishing education, and can never afterwards condescend to go where a
footman is not kept. They become, in short, fine ladies, whose fathers are
still at the plough--ladies who at home have been glad of bread and bacon,
and now cannot possibly survive without hot butcher's meat every day, and
game and fish in their seasons.
But to return. Mrs. ---- and her daughter have also their saddle horses.
They do not often hunt, but frequently go to the meet. They have, it is
true, an acceptable excuse for preferring riding to walking--the fashion
of tying the dress back so tightly makes it extremely difficult for a lady
to get over a country stile. The rigours of winter only enable them to
appear even yet more charming in furs and sealskin. In all this the Grange
people have not laid themselves open to any reproach as to the
extravagance or pretension of their doings. With them it is genuine, real,
unaffected: in brief, they have money, and have a right to what it can
purchase.
Mr. ---- is not a tenant farmer from necessity; personally he is not a
farmer at all, and knows no more of shorthorns than the veriest 'City'
man. He has a certain taste for country life, and this is his way of
enjoying it--and a very acute way, too, when you come to analyse it. The
major portion of his capital is, with his wife's, in the 'firm'; it is
administered and employed for him by men whose family interests and his
are identical, whose knowledge of business is profound, whose own capital
is there too. It is a fortunate state of things, not brought about in a
day, but the growth of more than one generation. Now this man, as has been
remarked, has a taste for country life--that is to say, he is an
enthusiast over horses--not betting, but horses in their best form. He
likes to ride and drive about, to shoot, and fish, and hunt. There is
nothing despicable in this, but, after the manner of men, of course he
must find an excuse.
He found it in the children when they were young--two boys and one girl.
It was better for them to have country air, to ride about the country
lanes, and over the hills. The atmosphere altogether was more healthy,
more manly than in the suburbs of a city. The excuse is a good one. Now
come the means; two plans are open to him. He can buy an estate, or he can
rent a large farm, or rather series of farms. If he purchases a fine
estate he must withdraw his capital from business. In the first place,
that would be inconvenient to old friends, and even unjust to them; in the
second place, it would reduce his income most materially. Suppose we say,
not for absolute exactness, but for the sake of present contrast, that
capital well invested in business brings in ten per cent. The same capital
invested in land brings in, say, three per cent. nominally; but is it as
much in reality if you deduct those expensive improvements upon which
tenants insist nowadays, and the five per cents, and ten per cents,
allowed off the rent in bad years? At all events, it is certain that
landlords, as a class, are investing more and more every year in business,
which looks as if they did not consider land itself sufficiently
remunerative. In addition, when you have bought your estate, should you
subsequently wish to realise, the difficulties and delays are very trying.
You cannot go down to your broker and say, 'Sell me a thousand acres this
morning.' Capital in land is locked up.
Mr. ----, having been trained in traditions of ready money and easy
transfer, does not like this prospect. But as the tenant of a great farm
it is quite another matter. The larger part of his capital still remains
in the 'firm,' and earns him a handsome income. That which is invested in
stock, cattle, horses, implements, &c., is in a sense readily negotiable
if ever he should desire to leave. Instead of having to pet and pamper
discontented tenants, his landlord has to pet and pamper him. He has, in
fact, got the upper hand. There are plenty of landlords who would be only
too glad to get the rich Mr. ---- to manure and deep-plough their lands;
but there are comparatively few Mr. ----'s whose rent-day payments can be
implicitly relied on. Mr. ----, in point of fact, gets all the sweets of
the country gentleman's life, and leaves the owner all the sour. He has no
heir presumptive to check his proceedings; no law of entail to restrain
him; no old settlements to bind him hand and foot; none of those hundred
and one family interests to consult which accumulate in the course of
years around a landed estate, and so seriously curtail the freedom of the
man in possession, the head of the family. So far as liberty and financial
considerations go, he is much better off than his landlord, who perhaps
has a title.
Though he knows nothing of farming, he has the family instinct of accounts
and figures; he audits the balance-sheets and books of his bailiff
personally, and is not easily cheated. Small peculations of course go on,
but nothing serious. The farms pay their way, and contribute a trifle
towards the household expenses. For the rest, it is taken out in liberty,
out-of-door life, field sports, and unlimited horses. His wife and
daughter mix in the best society the county affords, besides their annual
visits to town and the sea-side: they probably enjoy thrice the liberty
and pleasure they would elsewhere. Certainly they are in blooming health.
The eldest son is studying for the law, the younger has the commercial
instinct more strongly developed, and is already with the 'firm.' Both of
them get the full benefit of country life whenever they wish; both of them
feel that there is plenty of capital behind them, and not the slightest
jealousy exists on account of primogeniture. Of course they have their
troubles--what family has not its troubles?--but on the whole their
position is an enviable one.
When Mrs. ---- and her daughter rustle into their pew at church--placed
next in honour to that of the proprietor of the soil--all eyes are turned
upon them. The old-fashioned farmer's wife, who until her years pressed
heavily upon her made the cheese and butter in her husband's dairy, is not
so old but that her eyes can distinguish the colour of a ribbon. She may
talk of such things as vanities, and unknown in her day, but for all that
a pair of keen eyes criticise skirt, and trimmings, and braidings, and so
forth, as displayed up in the Grange pew. Her daughter, who is quite
young--for in her mother's time farming people did not marry till late in
life--brings a still keener pair of eyes to bear in the same direction.
The bonnets from Regent Street are things to think over and talk of. The
old lady disinters her ancient finery; the girl, by hook or crook, is
determined to dress in the fashion. If one farmer's wife is a fine lady,
why not another? Do not even the servant girls at the Grange come out
twenty times finer than people who have a canvas bag full of sovereigns at
home, and many such bags at the bank? So that the Grange people, though
they pay their way handsomely, and plough deep and manure lavishly, and
lead the van of agriculture, are not, perhaps, an unmixed good. They help
on that sapping and undermining of the ancient, sturdy simplicity, the
solid oak of country character, replacing it with veneer. It is not, of
course, all, or a tenth part, their fault, or in any way traceable to
them. It is part and parcel of the wide-spread social changes which have
gradually been proceeding.
But the tenant farmer's wife who made the butter and cheese, and even
helped to salt bacon, where is she now? Where are the healthy daughters
that used to assist her? The wife is a fine lady--not, indeed, with
carriage and pair, but with a dandy dog-cart at least; not with
three-guinea bonnets, but with a costly sealskin jacket. There are kid
gloves on her hands; there is a suspicion of perfume about her; there is a
rustling of silk and satin, and a waving of ostrich feathers. The daughter
is pale and interesting, and interprets Beethoven, and paints the old
mill; while a skilled person, hired at a high price, rules in the dairy.
The son rides a-hunting, and is glib on the odds. The 'offices'--such it
is the fashion to call the places in which work was formerly done--are
carefully kept in the background. The violets and snowdrops and crocuses
are rooted up, all the sweet and tender old flowers ruthlessly eradicated,
to make way for a blazing parterre after the manner of the suburban
villa--gay in the summer, in the spring a wilderness of clay, in the
autumn a howling desert of musty evergreens..
The 'civilisation' of the town has, in fact, gone out and taken root
afresh in the country. There is no reason why the farmer should not be
educated; there is no reason why his wife should not wear a sealskin
jacket, or the daughter interpret Beethoven. But the question arises, Has
not some of the old stubborn spirit of earnest work and careful prudence
gone with the advent of the piano and the oil painting? While wearing the
dress of a lady, the wife cannot tuck up her sleeves and see to the
butter, or even feed the poultry, which are down at the pen across 'a
nasty dirty field.' It is easy to say that farming is gone to the dogs,
that corn is low, and stock uncertain, and rents high, and so forth. All
that is true, but difficulties are nothing new; nor must too much be
expected from the land.
A moderate-sized farm, of from 200 to 800 acres, will no more enable the
mistress and the misses to play the fine lady to-day than it would two
generations ago. It requires work now the same as then--steady,
persevering work--and, what is more important, prudence, economy,
parsimony if you like; nor do these necessarily mean the coarse manners of
a former age. Manners may be good, education may be good, the intellect
and even the artistic sense may be cultivated, and yet extravagance
avoided. The proverb is true still: 'You cannot have your hare and cook
him too.' Now so many cook their hares in the present day without even
waiting to catch them first. A euphuism has been invented to cover the
wrongfulness of this system; it is now called 'discounting.' The fine lady
farmers discount their husbands' corn and fat cattle, cheese and butter,
before they reach the market. By-and-by the plough stops in the furrow,
and the team is put up to auction, and farewell is said to the old
homestead for evermore.
There was no warmer welcome to be met with in life than used to be
bestowed upon the fortunate visitor to an old house in the country where
the people were not exactly farmers in the ordinary sense, because they
were sufficiently well off to be independent, and yet made no pretence to
gentility. You dropped in quite unexpectedly and informally after a
pleasant stroll about the fields with a double-barrel, untrammelled by any
attendant. The dogs were all over cleavers sticking to their coats, and
your boots had to be wiped with a wisp of straw; your pocket was heavy
with a couple of rabbits or a hare, and your hands black enough from
powder and handling gates and stiles. But they made you feel immediately
that such trifles were not of the slightest account.
The dogs were allowed to rush in anyhow and set to work to lick their paws
by the fire as if the house was their own. Your apology about your boots
and general state of disorder was received with a smile by the mistress,
who said she had sons of her own, and knew their ways. Forthwith one
sturdy son seized the double-barrel, and conveyed it to a place of safety;
a second took the rabbits or the hare, that you might not be incommoded by
such a lump in your pocket, and sent the game on home to your quarters by
a labourer; a third relieved you of your hat. As many tall young ladies
rose to offer you a seat, so that it was really difficult to know which
way to turn, besides which the old grandfather with silvery hair pressed
you to take his chair by the fire.
They had just sat down to the old-fashioned tea at half-past four, and in
a moment there was a cup and plate ready. The tea had a fragrant scent,
warm and grateful after the moist atmosphere of the meadows, smelling of
decaying leaves. The mistress suggested that a nip of brandy might improve
it, thinking that tea was hardly strong enough for a man. But that was,
declined; for what could be more delicious than the sweet, thick cream
poured in by a liberal hand? A fine ham had already been put on the table,
as if by magic--the girls really seemed to anticipate everything you could
possibly want. As for the butter, it was exquisite, and so, too, the
home-baked bread, the more so, because only touched in the processes of
preparing by the whitest and softest of hands. Such simple things become
luxuries when brought to perfection by loving care. The old dog on the
hearthrug came thrusting his nose into your hands, making almost too great
friends, being perfectly well aware (cunning old fellow) that he could
coax more out of a visitor than one of the family, who knew how he had
stuffed all day.
Over all there was an atmosphere of welcome, a genial brightness. The
young men were anxious to tell you where the best sport could be got. The
young ladies had a merry, genuine, unaffected smile--clearly delighted to
see you, and not in the least ashamed of it. They showed an evident desire
to please, without a trace of an _arriére pensée_. Tall, well-developed,
in the height of good health, the bloom upon the cheek and the brilliant
eyes formed a picture irresistibly charming. But it was the merry laugh
that so long dwelt in the memory--nothing so thoroughly enchants one as
the woman who laughs from her heart in the joyousness of youth. They
joined freely in the conversation, but did not thrust themselves forward.
They were, of course, eager for news of the far away world, but not a hint
was breathed of those social scandals which now form our favourite gossip.
From little side remarks concerning domestic matters it was evident that
they were well acquainted with household duties. Indeed, they assisted to
remove the things from the table without any consciousness that it was a
menial task.
It was not long after tea before, drawing round the fire, pipes were
produced, and you were asked to smoke. Of course you declined on account
of the ladies, but it was none the less pleasant to be asked. There was
the great secret of it all-the genuine, liberal, open-handed and
open-hearted proffering of all the house contained to the guest. And it
was none the less an amusing conversation because each of the girls
candidly avowed her own opinions upon such topics as were started--blushing
a little, it is true, if you asked the reason for the opinion, for ladies
are not always quite ready with the why and wherefore. But the contrast of
character, the individuality displayed, gave a zest and interest to the
talk; so that the hour wore late before you were aware of it. Then, if you
would go, two, at least, of the three boys piloted you by the best and
cleanest route, and did not wish you farewell till you were in the
straight road. This was not so many years ago.
Today, if you call at such a country house, how strangely different is the
reception! None of the family come to the door to meet you. A servant
shows you into a parlour--drawing-room is the proper word now--well
carpeted and furnished in the modern style. She then takes your name--what
a world of change is shown in that trifling piece of etiquette! By-and-by,
after the proper interval, the ladies enter in morning costume, not a
stray curl allowed to wander from its stern bands, nature rigidly
repressed, decorum--'Society'--in every flounce and trimming. You feel
that you have committed a solecism coming on foot, and so carrying the
soil on your boots from the fields without into so elegant an apartment
Visitors are obviously expected to arrive on wheels, and in correct trim
for company. A remark about the crops falls on barren ground; a question
concerning the dairy, ignorantly hazarded, is received with so much
_hauteur_ that at last you see such subjects are considered vulgar. Then a
touch of the bell, and decanters of port and sherry are produced and our
wine presented to you on an electro salver together with sweet biscuits.
It is the correct thing to sip one glass and eat one biscuit.
The conversation is so insipid, so entirely confined to the merest
platitudes, that it becomes absolutely a relief to escape. You are not
pressed to stay and dine, as you would have been in the old days--not
because there is a lack of hospitality, but because they would prefer a
little time for preparation in order that the dinner might be got up in
polite style. So you depart--chilled and depressed. No one steps with you
to open the gate and exchange a second farewell, and express a cordial wish
to see you again there. You feel that you must walk in measured step and
place your hat precisely perpendicular, for the eyes of 'Society' are upon
you. What a comfort when you turn a corner behind the hedge and can thrust
your hands into your pockets and whistle!
The young ladies, however, still possess one thing which they cannot yet
destroy--the good constitution and the rosy look derived from ancestors
whose days were spent in the field under the glorious sunshine and the
dews of heaven. They worry themselves about it in secret and wish they
could appear more ladylike--i.e. thin and white. Nor can they feel quite
so languid and indifferent, and _blasé_ as they desire. Thank Heaven they
cannot! But they have succeeded in obliterating the faintest trace of
character, and in suppressing the slightest approach to animation. They
have all got just the same opinions on the same topics--that is to say,
they have none at all; the idea of a laugh has departed. There is a dead
line of uniformity. But if you are sufficiently intimate to enter into the
inner life of the place it will soon be apparent that they either are or
wish to appear up to the 'ways of the world.'
They read the so-called social journals, and absorb the gossip,
tittle-tattle, and personalities--absorb it because they have no means of
comparison or of checking the impression it produces of the general loose
tone of society. They know all about it, much more than you do. No turn of
the latest divorce case or great social exposure has escaped them, and the
light, careless way in which it is the fashion nowadays to talk openly of
such things, as if they were got up like a novel--only with living
characters--for amusement, has penetrated into this distant circle. But
then they have been to half the leading watering-places--from Brighton to
Scarborough; as for London, it is an open book to them; the railways have
long dissipated the pleasing mysteries that once hung over the metropolis.
Talk of this sort is, of course, only talk; still it is not a satisfactory
sign of the times. If the country girl is no longer the hoyden that swung
on the gates and romped in the hay, neither has she the innocent thought
of the olden days.
At the same time our friends are greatly devoted to the Church--old people
used to attend on Sundays as a sacred and time honoured duty, but the
girls leave them far behind, for they drive up in a pony carriage to the
distant church at least twice a week besides. They talk of matins and
even-song; they are full of vestments, and have seen 'such lovely things'
in that line. At Christmas and Easter they are mainly instrumental in
decorating the interior till it becomes perfectly gaudy with colour, and
the old folk mutter and shake their heads. Their devotion in getting
hothouse flowers is quite touching. One is naturally inclined to look with
a liberal eye upon what is capable of a good construction. But is all this
quite spontaneous? Has the new curate nothing at all to do with it? Is it
not considered rather the correct thing to be 'High' in views, and even to
manifest an Ultramontane tendency? There is a rather too evident
determination to go to the extreme--the girls are clearly bent upon
thrusting themselves to the very front of the parish, so that no one shall
be talked of but the Misses ----. Anything is seized upon, that will
afford an opening for posing before the world of the parish, whether it be
an extreme fashion in dress or in ritual.
And the parish is splitting up into social cliques. These girls, the local
leaders of fashion, hold their heads far above those farmers' sons who
bear a hand in the field. No one is eligible who takes a share in manual
work: not even to be invited to the house, or even to be acknowledged if
met in the road. The Misses ----, whose papa is well-to-do, and simply
rides round on horseback to speak to the men with his steam-plough, could
not possibly demean themselves to acknowledge the existence of the young
men who actually handle a fork in the haymaking time. Nothing less than
the curate is worthy of their smile. A very great change has come over
country society in this way. Of course, men (and women) with money were
always more eligible than those without; but it is not so very long ago
that one and all--well-to-do and poor--had one bond in common. Whether
they farmed large or small acres, all worked personally. There was no
disgrace in the touch of the plough--rather the contrary; now it is
contamination itself.
The consequence is that the former general goodwill and acquaintanceship
is no more. There are no friendly meetings; there is a distinct social
barrier between the man and the woman who labours and the one who does
not. These fashionable young ladies could not possibly even go into the
hayfield because the sun would spoil their complexion, they refresh
themselves with aërated waters instead. They could not possibly enter the
dairy because it smells so nasty. They would not know their father's teams
if they met them on the road. As for speaking to the workpeople--the idea
would be too absurd!
Once on a time a lift in the waggon just across the wet turf to the
macadamised road--if it chanced to be going that way--would have been
looked upon as a fortunate thing. The Misses ---- would indeed stare if
one of their papa's carters touched his hat and suggested that they should
get up. They have a pony carriage and groom of their own. He drives the
milk-cart to the railway station in the morning; in the afternoon he dons
the correct suit and drives the Misses ---- into the town to shopping. Now
there exists a bitter jealousy between the daughters of the tradesmen in
the said town and these young ladies. There is a race between them as to
which shall be first in fashion and social rank. The Misses ---- know very
well that it galls their rivals to see them driving about so grandly half
the afternoon up and down the streets, and to see the big local people
lift their hats, as the banker, with whom, of course, the large farmer has
intimate dealings. All this is very little; on paper it reads moan and
contemptible: but in life it is real--in life these littlenesses play a
great part. The Misses ---- know nothing of those long treasured recipes
formerly handed down in old country houses, and never enter the kitchen.
No doubt, if the fashion for teaching cooking presently penetrates into
the parish, they will take a leading part, and with much show and blowing
of trumpets instruct the cottager how to boil the pot. Anything, in short,
that happens to be the rage will attract them, but there is little that is
genuine about them, except the eagerness for a new excitement.
What manner of men shall accept these ladies as their future helpmates?
The tenant farmers are few and far between that could support their
expenditure upon dress, the servants they would require, and last, but not
least, the waste which always accompanies ignorance in household
management. Nor, indeed, do they look for tenant farmers, but hope for
something higher in the scale.
The Misses ---- are fortunate in possessing a 'papa' sufficiently
well-to-do to enable them to live in this manner. But there are hundreds
of young ladies whose fathers have not got so much capital in their farms,
while what they have is perhaps borrowed. Of course these girls help
cheerfully in the household, in the dairy, and so forth? No. Some are
forced by necessity to assist in the household with unwilling hands: but
few, indeed, enter the dairy. All dislike the idea of manual labour,
though never so slight. Therefore they acquire a smattering of knowledge,
and go out as governesses. They earn but a small stipend in that
profession, because they have rarely gone through a sufficiently strict
course of study themselves. But they would rather live with strangers,
accepting a position which is often invidious, than lift a hand to work at
home, so great is the repugnance to manual labour. These, again, have no
domestic knowledge (beyond that of teaching children), none of cooking, or
general household management. If they marry a tenant farmer of their own
class, with but small capital, they are too often a burden financially.
Whence comes this intense dislike to hand work--this preference for the
worst paid head work? It is not confined, of course, to the gentler sex.
No more striking feature of modern country life can be found.
You cannot blame these girls, whether poor or moderately well-to-do, for
thinking of something higher, more refined and elevating than the
cheese-tub or the kitchen. It is natural, and it is right, that they
should wish to rise above that old, dull, dead level in which their
mothers and grandmothers worked from youth to age. The world has gone on
since then--it is a world of education, books, and wider sympathies. In
all this they must and ought to share. The problem is how to enjoy the
intellectual progress of the century and yet not forfeit the advantages of
the hand labour and the thrift of our ancestors? How shall we sit up late
at night, burning the midnight oil of study, and yet rise with the dawn,
strong from sweet sleep, to guide the plough? One good thing must be
scored down to the credit of the country girls of the day. They have done
much to educate the men. They have shamed them out of the old rough,
boorish ways; compelled them to abandon the former coarseness, to become
more gentlemanly in manner. By their interest in the greater world of
society, literature, art, and music (more musical publications probably
are now sold for the country in a month than used to be in a year), they
have made the somewhat narrow-sighted farmer glance outside his parish. If
the rising generation of tenant farmers have lost much of the bigoted
provincial mode of thought, together with the provincial pronunciation, it
is undoubtedly due to the influence of the higher ideal of womanhood that
now occupies their minds. And this is a good work to have accomplished.