The Letters of Her Mother to Elizabeth

October

Monk's Folly, 29th October

Darling Elizabeth:

The Hockey Season

The hockey season has begun here, and the game is played somewhere every day. Of course, I only go to look on, and can't imagine myself, in a short skirt and thick boots, rushing about a damp field. Yesterday the Blaines had a party, and I have been having twinges of neuralgia all day from it, for it was awfully wet and cold. Mrs. Blaine and I sat on an iron roller, till we were chilled to the bone. There was a fog so thick that nobody knew which side they belonged to, and Lady Beatrice, who really at her age ought to stop, got a blow on her forehead just above the nose. The play only stopped a minute for people to shout, "Dear Lady Beatrice, hope you are not hurt!" and Tom Carterville took advantage of the momentary distraction to sneak a goal. Mrs. Blaine took Lady Beatrice indoors, and, as Lady Beatrice described it to me, she filled a basin with blood. She showed me her ankles, and there wasn't a bit of white skin from the knees down, but she said hockey was great fun, and kept her in health. They always put her to keep goal, for she is so fat it is only one chance in a hundred that a ball will pass her.

Father Ribbit

Father Ribbit came to look on, and walked back to the house with me when the match was over. He said tea was the best part of hockey, and I agreed with him; he tried nearly everything on the tea-table, and talked with his mouth full of chocolate cake about the price of incense. I really can't understand how the Blaines go to his church, but Blanche says it is on account of her mother, who thinks Low Church schismatic. You should have seen Father Ribbit glare at Mr. Frame when he came into the room, looking in his hockey things as if he had been mending the roads. Father Ribbit wears a silk neckcloth with I.H.S. embroidered on it, and Blanche says he puts ashes on his head in Holy Week. Mrs. Dorking, who is a Roman Catholic, told me nothing made her laugh so much as a High Church Anglican; they were always doing odd things, which the Low Church people called "Popish Practices," but in reality nothing was more erroneous, and that she had heard that no two Ritualist priests did the same things. Mrs. Blaine had induced her once to go to Father Ribbit's, and assured her she wouldn't find any difference between her own service and his. Mrs. Dorking said she stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to keep from shrieking, for Father Ribbit seemed to be making up rites as he went along, and didn't at all look or act like a real priest. Lady Beatrice, who happened to overhear us, and looks on Rome and Ritualism as the abomination of abomination, said she wished Henry the Eighth was alive, and that she would as soon think of inviting "that Ribbit to Braxome as a play-actor."

Tom Carterville is much improved since he went to South Africa. Before he went out he was only an overgrown boy, but the experience has made him quite manly. His mother is always telling people in his hearing what dangers he ran, and how brave he was. Like everybody else, she likes to play Aunt Sally with the poor War Office, but her grievance is that Tom hasn't been recommended for the V.C. Tom declares he never ran any danger at all, for he was never sent to the front, and never saw a Boer the whole time; and he didn't even get enteric, or kicked by a horse. But Lady Beatrice fairly beams, and says it's his modesty, and she wishes he had been shut up in Ladysmith, for she knows he would have found a way to raise the siege, and Tom looks quite foolish, and says, "Damn!"

A Maid's Audacity

One of the maids at Braxome dressed up in his khaki uniform the other day, and went into the kitchen, where she frightened the servants out of their wits at her audacity. It seems Lady Beatrice went to the servants' hall that day, a thing she has never been known to do before, and arrived there in time to hear the butler say to the maid:

"What would you do if Mr. Tom should catch you in his uniform?" To which the girl replied, suiting the action to her words, "I should salute him!"

Tom, who told me the story and put a double entendre in it, like a horrid boy, said it would be hard to say whether the servants were more horrified to see his mother, or his mother at the unheard-of fastness of the upper housemaid, who, he added, was a pretty little wench, and brought him his tea in the mornings before he got out of bed.

Troublesome Servants

I am almost inclined to make my peace with those bores who are always talking servants. Mine have been troubling me so much lately that I feel quite martyrised. I ordered the carriage to go to Taunton the other morning, and got myself ready, when, would you believe, that Perkins sent in to say that I couldn't go, as the roads were too heavy and the horses would slip! I sent for him and implored him to relent, and he finally let Alfred drive me in the dog-cart, and Alfred drove so fast, I thought I should be pitched out. I call it quite unkind of Perkins, and he has been with us ten years too. Then, again, the other morning Tom Carterville came to ask me if I could lend him any golf balls, and Th r se told me afterwards that she found James peeping through the keyhole, and when she remonstrated, he threatened to blackmail me; now I know why Lord Froom got rid of him, and I have given him notice. But the worst of all, Elizabeth, is the new page. You know how hard it is to get one at all. Well, finally, in despair, I followed Mrs. Chevington's advice and sent to the workhouse in Bath for a boy. They sent me such a pretty little fellow, about twelve years old. I had him measured for his livery, and he looked such a dear in it, and was picking up his duties so quickly, but I have had to send him back to Bath to his workhouse. The kitchen cat had kittens, and cook, very foolishly, gave them to the boy, and told him to get rid of them. Some little while later, I heard a horrid miaouing on the lawn, and went to the window to see what it was. I found the new page digging a hole in the geranium beds, and something sputtering about in the earth. Fancy, Elizabeth, he was burying the poor little kittens alive, the little monster! Of course I couldn't keep him after that, could I?

So you see, darling, even if you are a pretty and rich widow, and only live for Paquin and a good time, you still have your troubles. Lady Beatrice says the question of servants is more troublesome than Home Rule, and I agree with her.

Give my love to Lady Theodosia, but don't tell her that I am glad she doesn't live in this part of the country.-Your dearest Mamma.

Monk's Folly, 31st October

Darling Elizabeth:

Tom Carterville Calls

Tom Carterville came again this morning to ask if I would lend him Jerry to ride to Wellington, as the equestrian cook has lamed the three saddle-horses at Braxome. I sent to ask Perkins for permission, and after I got it, Tom didn't seem in a hurry to go, and stopped so long that I had to ask him to lunch, and then he waited till tea. He is an amusing boy, but I wish he didn't look so much like his mother. When he is a little older he is going to be enormous. You know he was at Eton with Charlie Carriston, and declares there wasn't a greater sneak in the school.

Daintree Affair

I told him about Cora de la Haye and the diamond necklace, and Tom says she is just the sort of woman to make trouble, and that Lady Carriston had better put on her life-preserver, for there is going to be a storm of Charlie's brewing. He told me all about the Daintree affair; he called Daintree a rotter, and says he will never marry the girl.

You know Lady Daintree went to the War Office herself, and refused to leave till they promised to order Daintree out to South Africa at once. The girl is suing for breach of promise,-ten thousand pounds damages,-Tom says that the Daintree barony will never stand it, for it hasn't recovered from the late lord's plunging on the turf. He says that Connie Metcalfe is good enough for Daintree, who is an awful mug, and that a Gaiety girl would make as good a ladyship as a coryph e at the Empire. It seems to me that Lady Daintree is herself to blame for it all; if she had used tact with her son and brought him up sensibly, she wouldn't have to eat her pride now.

I asked Tom if he intended to follow the fashion and marry in the theatrical world, and have Lady Beatrice begging the War Office to send him to the Front, so that he might die sooner than disgrace her. He looked at me with a queer expression and said he preferred to follow the other fashion now in vogue, and marry a beauty twice his age. I told him I believed he was thinking of Miss Tancred of Exeter, the temperance lecturer, who read "L'Assommoir" to the Braxome tenantry last week, and who wears short hair, green goggles and a bicycle skirt, and is fifty, if she is a day. Tom laughed, and said I had hit the right nail on the head. A jolly youngster, and might do for you, Elizabeth, if Valmond turns sour. He will have Braxome and twenty thousand a year when Lady Beatrice dies.

Dinner at Astley Court

To-night I dined at Astley Court; the Parkers have a large house-party. Miss Parker is to marry Clandevil in ten days, the invitations have been out some time; it is to be a very grand affair. Both she and the Duke appear bored with one another already, and Mr. Parker has been heard to say to a compatriot that his daughter had made him promise her a title, and that he had bought her an English duke; it was a bit off colour, but good at the price.

An Odious Man

I went in to dinner with an odious man, a Mr. Sweetson; he is Mr. Parker's partner in America, and was so patronising. He wore a button with the American flag on it, just like Mr. Wertzelmann the night of the ball at Schloss Gessler, and underneath it there was another one of white enamel with "Let her go, Gallagher," in black letters on it. I wonder what it could have meant; I would have asked him, but I thought it might seem rude. The people at Croixmare couldn't have eaten worse than Mr. Sweetson; he put his napkin in his collar, and it was well he did, for he spilled his soup all over it, and he sucked his teeth when he had finished. I asked him what he thought of England, and he replied that he preferred to spend his money in his own country, and couldn't see how a man like Mr. Parker, who had the brains to make the big fortune he had, could settle down in one of the effete countries of the Old World. And he added if he had his way he would put the Monroe Doctrine into force and drive Europe altogether out of America. He became quite farouche, and I am sure he is an Irish-American, for they say they hate us more than the other Americans. Algy Chevington told me that Mr. Sweetson is a Tammany Tiger, whatever that is; at any rate it isn't anything nice, and I am sure Mr. Parker had better put him to eat in the servants' hall hereafter. He is some relation to Mrs. Parker, for he called her Cousin Petunia; Clandevil looked as if he could have strangled him, and Algy says Mr. Parker must have put down millions in hard cash, or Clandevil would never go through with the marriage.

Mr. Sweetson stepped on Lady Beatrice's yellow brocade after dinner, and ripped out fully a yard of stitches. You should have seen the glance she gave him; it was more terrible than the one she bestowed on Mr. Frame the day he was unlucky enough to beat her at tennis. Mr. Sweetson was awfully embarrassed; if it had been anyone less objectionable, I should have felt sorry for him. He only made matters worse by asking her what it cost, for he would send her ladyship a dress the following day at double the price. Lady Beatrice put up her pince-nez, and stared at him without uttering a word; then she sailed across the room and sat down beside Mrs. Chevington. "Cousin Petunia" told Mr. Sweetson that if he wanted to smoke, he would find the gentlemen in the billiard-room. He took the hint.

Mrs. Dot

Tom Carterville came and sat down next to me, and made me nearly choke with the funny things he said about the Parkers, and he believes his mother will drop them. There is such a garrulous old lady stopping at Astley, Mrs. Dot; Tom took her in to supper. She came across the room and joined us. She began to talk about the nobility, and told us she considered she belonged to it, for though she was an American, she could trace her ancestry back to the Scottish Chiefs, and she asked Tom what he thought it would cost to have Burke put her in the peerage among the collateral branches. Then she told us she was descended also from Admiral Coligny. Poor dear Coligny, she called him, and she certainly would have been a Roman Catholic, if it hadn't been for Coligny. Tom asked her quite innocently if she had left Coligny in America, and when he intended to come over. "When he comes to Astley, Mrs. Dot," he said, "be sure you let me know, I'll give him a run with the West Somerset Harriers."

"He's dead! Mr. Carterville," she fairly shrieked.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said. "I thought from the way you spoke that he was in New York or Chicago, making money like all nice Americans."

"Oh, is it possible, Mr. Carterville," she went on, "that you have never heard of Coligny, poor dear Coligny, who was killed in the St. Bartholomew m******e!"

"With all due respect to your relation," Tom said, "I never heard of the sad catastrophe; I don't read any but the sporting papers. I suppose the what-do-you-call-it m******e was in one of your little wars on the frontier. I hope they didn't get his scalp, Mrs. Dot."

Miss Parker, who was sitting quite near and heard every word, turned round and said, "Don't you see they are making fun of you, Aunt?" Mrs. Dot turned very red and simpered, and Tom and I felt as if we were looking for the North Pole.

I do call it unkind for people to make you feel uncomfortable in their houses. These Parkers are not at all like the Wertzelmanns and the other Americans I met at Lucerne. And I am sure if Lady Beatrice does call on them, that Lady Archibald Fairoaks and the Marchioness of Runymede, who are the nicest kind of Americans, wouldn't. Good-night, darling, I shall expect to hear from you to-morrow.-Your dearest Mamma.

Novel-reading Servants

P. S.-When I got back from Astley to-night, I had the greatest difficulty to get into the house. No one answered the bell, and finally Perkins, who has a key to the kitchen, let me in that way. I went into the dining-room and rang and called; still no one came. I then went upstairs and found Th r se, the two maids, the cook, and the new page, sitting round a blazing wood fire in my bed-room, and cook was reading "The Master Christian" to them aloud!

I cried from pure vexation, for one can't send all one's servants away at the same time. I am sure I can't see why the lower classes should have novelists, but they have everything just like us now-a-days. And when I was in town last month, at Claridge's, the Duchess of Rougemont told me she didn't know what the world was coming to, for her maid belonged to a Corelli Society, and she had actually sat next her own footman at a Paderewski Recital the last time the pianist was in London.