Sara Jeannette Duncan

“ It is almost worth while being brought up in Chicago to come fresh to cuckoos and cowslips, and learn their sweet meaning when you are grown up and can understand it. I mean, of course, entirely apart from the inestimable advantages of a Republican form of Government, female emancipation, and the climate of Illinois. We have no cowslips in Chicago, and no cuckoos; and the cable cars do not seem altogether to make up for them. I couldn't help wishing, as I leaned through my low little window into the fragrant peace outside, that Nature had taken a little more time with America. ”

“ Portheris's interior. This was very dark and very quiet, but what light there was fell richly, through a square, stained-glass window at the end of the hall, upon the red and blue of some old china above a door, and a collection of Indian spears, and a twisting old oak staircase that glowed with colour. Mrs. Portheris's exterior had prepared me for something different. I did not know then that in London everything is a matter of the inside—I had not seen a Duchess living crowded up to her ears with other people's windows. With us the outside counts so tremendously. ”

“ There is nothing, in shopping, like a friend's firm and outspoken opinion, to change your views. I began to think unfavourably of the cheapest place immediately, and during the twenty-five minutes of valuable time which Lady Torquilin spent, in addition to some small silver, upon a box of pink paper trimmings for pudding-dishes, I had arrived at a state of objection to the cheapest place, which intensified as we climbed more stairs, shared more air with the British Public of the cheapest place, and were jostled at more counters. ”

“ It was very nice, to my mind, that huddling together of pastry-cooks and gargoyles, of chapels and old china shops, of battered mediæval saints and those little modern errand-boys with their handcarts—of old times and new, preponderatingly old and respectfully new. Much more democratic, too, than a seat of learning would be in America, where almost every college of reputation is isolated in the sea of 'grounds,' and the only sound that falls upon the academic ear is the clatter of the lawn-mower or the hissing of the garden-hose. ”

“ The drops came streaming down outside the carriage windows; fewer people as we passed leaned out of hansoms to look at us. Inside the Mafferton carriage we were absurdly secure from the weather; we surveyed our trains, piled up on the opposite seat, with complacency; we took no thought even for the curl of our feathers. We counted, as we drove past them to take our place, and there were forty carriages in line ahead of us. Then we stopped behind the last, in the middle of a wide road, heavily bordered under the trees with damp people and dripping umbrellas—there for the spectacle. ”

“ I may say that Miss Corke took the matter in hand vigorously. It was probably a detail in the improvement of my mind and my manners which she could not conscientiously overlook. 'Since you have the audacity to wish to kiss the hand of a sovereign who is none of yours,' said she, with her usual twinkle, 'you'll kindly see that you do it properly, miss!' So she gave us explicit instructions as to the right florist, and glover, and laceman, and hairdresser, to which even Lady Torquilin listened with respect; 'and do not be persuaded,' said she, with mock-severe emphasis, 'to go to anybody else. ”

“ Miss Corke looked at me, amused and aghast. 'You see, I was quite right,' she said to Lady Torquilin. 'She never has! But I think this really ought to be reported to the Foreign Missions Society! I'll take you to the Abbey to-morrow,' she went on. 'You like "deaders," don't you? The time between might be profitably spent in fasting and meditation! Good-bye, dear love!'—to Lady Torquilin. ”

“ From what Lady Torquilin told me, I gathered that Bond Street was a regular haunt for dearest places; but it would be impossible for any stranger to suppose so from walking through it—it is so narrow and crooked and irregular, and the shops are so comparatively insignificant after the grand sweep of Regent Street and the wide variety of the circuses. For one, I should have thought circuses would be the best possible places for business in London, not only because the address is so easily remembered, but because once you get into them they are so extremely difficult to get out of. ”

“ It was not too much to say that those two Court dresses—Lady Torquilin was going in a cheme of pansy-coloured velvet and holiotrope—haunted our waking and sleeping hours for quite five days. Peter Corke, dropping in almost at the beginning, declared it a disgraceful waste of time, with the whole of Chelsea a dead-letter to me, and came again almost every afternoon that week to counsel and collaborate for an hour and a half. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Mr. Mafferton replied that he thought he preferred the darkness to looking through other people's windows; and this preference of Mr. Mafferton's struck me later as being interestingly English. And after that we both lapsed into meditation, and I thought about old London, with its Abbey, and its Tower, and its Houses of Parliament, and its Bluecoat boys, and its monuments, and its ten thousand hansom cabs, lying just over my head; and an odd, pleasurable sensation of undermining the centuries and playing a trick with history almost superseded the Underground smell. ”

“ But it was about this time that another invitation from relatives of Mr. Mafferton's living in Berkshire gave me my one always-to-be-remembered experience of the country in England. Lady Torquilin was invited too, but the invitation was for a Tuesday and Wednesday particularly full of engagements for her.
'Couldn't we write and say we'd rather come next week?' I suggested.
Lady Torquilin looked severely horrified. 'I should think not!' she replied. 'You're not in America, child. I hardly know these people at all; moreover, it's you they want to see, and not me in the least. ”

“ A massive butler let me into the usual narrow, high-ceiled Mayfair hall, richly lighted and luxurious; the usual convenient maid in a white cap appeared at the first landing to show the way to the proper room for my wraps. After Lady Torquilin's expression of interest in how they behaved, I had been wondering whether the Maffertons had any idiosyncrasies, and I did not waste any unnecessary time in final touches before going down to see. I like people with idiosyncrasies, and lately I had been growing accustomed to those of the English nation ”

“ In a crowd like that in Chicago everybody would have hustled, and nobody would have minded it.
'Where is Charing Cross?' I asked one of the flower-women sitting by the big iron entrances to the station. 'Right'ere, miss, ware you be a-standin'! Buy a flower, miss? Only a penny! an' lovely they are! Do buy one, laidy!' It was dreadfully pathetic, the way she said it, and she had frightful holes in her shawl, and no hat or bonnet on. I had never seen a woman selling things out of doors with nothing on her head before, and it hurt me somehow. ”

“ Words have such an inspiring effect upon the imagination. All this had emanated from the 'dear ones,' and I felt confident and pleased and happy beforehand to be a dear one. I wore one of my plainest walking-dresses—I love simplicity in dress—so as to mitigate the shock to my relation as far as I could; but it was a New York one, and it gave me a great deal of moral support. It may be weak-minded in me, but I simply couldn't have gone to see my relation in a hat and gloves that didn't match. Clothes and courage have so much to do with each other. ”

“ I noticed the same universal look of concentration, the same firm or nervous intention of properly discharging the responsibilities of the evening and the numbers of the programme, on the face of the sweet, fresh debutante, steadily getting pinker; of the middle-aged, military man, dancing like a disjointed foot-rule; of the stout old lady in crimson silk, very low in the neck, who sat against the wall. The popular theory seemed to be that the dancing was something to be Done—the consideration of enjoyment brought it to a lower plane. ”

“ We went down in the lift one at a time, with Charlotte as train-bearer, and the other maids furtively admiring from the end of the hall. Almost everybody in Cadogan Mansions seemed to be going out at about the same time, and a small crowd had gathered on each side of the strip of carpet that led from the door to the carriage. It was Lady Mafferton's carriage, lent for the occasion, and the footman and coachman were as impressive as powder and buff and brass buttons would make them. ”

“ It is not safe, in English localisms, to assume that you know anything.
'Boffin's is a pastry-cook's,' Lady Torquilin informed me, and I immediately elected for Boffin's. It was something idyllic, in these commonplace days, when Dickens has been so long dead, that Boffin should be a pastry-cook, and that a pastry-cook should be Boffin. Perhaps it struck me especially, because in America he would have been a 'confectioner,' with some aesthetic change in the spelling of the original Boffin that I am convinced could not be half so good for business. ”

“ We think it a city, of course—no place could grow to such fame without being a city—and with us the importance of a city naturally invests itself in large blocks of fine buildings chiefly devoted to business, in a widely-extended and highly-perfected telephone system, and in avenues of Queen Anne residences with the latest modern conveniences. And Lady Torquilin, on the way, certainly talked a great deal about 'the High'—which she explained to be Oxford's principal thoroughfare—and the purchases she had at one time or another made on it, comparing Oxford with London prices. ”

“ It came that afternoon. 'I am going to take you,' said Lady Torquilin at lunch, 'to Mrs. Fry Hamilton's "at home." She likes Americans, and her parties—"functions," as society idiots call it—disgusting word—are generally rather "swagger," as they say. I daresay you'll enjoy it. Make yourself as tidy as possible, mind. Put on your pretty grey; tuck in that "fringe" of yours a bit too, my dear; and be ready by five sharp.'
'Don't you like my bangs, Lady Torquilin?'
'Say your fringe, child; people don't "bang" in England—except doors and the piano. ”

“ Privately, I should think that the number of us that come over here every summer to see the Tower of London and the National Gallery, and visit Stratford-upon-Avon, to say nothing of those who marry and stay in England, would have made you familiar with the kind of young women we are long ago; and to me it is very curious that you should go on talking about us. I can't say that we object very much, because, while you criticise us considerably as a class, you are very polite to us individually, and nobody minds being criticised as a noun of multitude. ”

“ And when I found out just how much the Lord Chamberlain had to say in the matter—how he arranged the exact length of my train and cut of my bodice, and what I wore in my hair—the whole undertaking, while it grew in consequence, grew also in charm. It was interesting in quite a novel way to come within the operation of these arbitrary requirements connected with the person of royalty. I liked getting ready to go to Court infinitely better than if I had been able to do it quite my own way, and the Lord Chamberlain had had nothing to do with it. ”

“ Mafferton was usually elegant to a degree in his choice of terms; but I should not be now. I have found nothing plainer in England than the language. Its simplicity and directness are a little startling at first, perhaps, to the foreign ear; but this soon wears off as you become accustomed to it, and I dare say the foreigner begins to talk the same way—in which case my speech will probably be a matter of grave consideration to me when I get back to Chicago. In America we usually put things in a manner somewhat more involved. ”

“ Kitty, we must see whether they have forgotten us, mustn't we?'—and he and Kitty advanced upon two very much-accented fair ladies in frilled muslins and large flowery hats. They were dressed as fashionably as Bond Street could dress them, and they were as plump and pretty as could be, but perhaps just a little too big and blue of eye and pink-and-white of complexion quite to satisfy the Bangley Coffin idea of 'form.' It would be difficult to account otherwise for what they did. ”

“ Thus admonished, I endeavoured to give the noble river Isis my respectful consideration, but the barges occupied so much space in it that I was still unable to understand how a boat-race of any importance could come between us and the opposite bank without seriously inconveniencing somebody.
It did, however, and such was the skill displayed by the coxes in charge that nobody was hurt. It came off amid demonstrations of the most extraordinary nature, tin whistles predominating, on the opposite bank, where I saw a genuine bishop capering along with the crowd, waving his hat on his stick. ”

“ I have gone very patiently ever since to the happy medium, partly to acquire the beautiful composure of the lady-in-waiting, partly to enjoy the respect which all Americans like so much in a well-conducted English shop, and partly because at the happy medium they understand how to turn shopping into the pleasant artistic pastime it ought to be, which everybody in America is in far too much of a hurry to make a fortune and retire to do for his customers. ”

“ Every head wore its three white feathers and its tulle extension, and the aggregation of plumes and lappets and gentle movements made one in the rear think of a flock of tame pigeons nodding and pecking—it was very 'quaint,' as Lady Torquilin said when I pointed it out. The dresses of these ladies immediately became a source of the liveliest interest to us, as ours were apparently to those who sat near us. ”

“ Mafferton took the parasol with a slightly clouded expression, which deepened when one of two gentlemen who had just come on the platform bowed to him. 'I think, if you don't mind, Miss Wick, we had better go farther along the platform—it will be easier to get the carriage,' he said, in a manner which quite dashed my amiable intention of telling him how even the truth was cheaper in this country than in America, for our weighing-machines wouldn't work for less than a nickel, which was twice and a-half as much as a penny. ”

“ Lord Symonds asked me, as we sat in one end enjoying the sun—you get to like it in England, even on the back of your neck—what I thought of punting. I told him I thought it was immoderately safe. It was the most polite thing I could think of at the spur of the moment. I do not believe punting would ever become popular in America. We are a light-minded people; we like an element of joyous risk; we are not adapted to punt.
The people were beginning to come down upon the barges when we returned from this excursion, and it was thought best that we should take our places. ”