She Inhaled The Fog With A Sense Of Intoxication That
The East Winds Of New England Had Never Given Her, And A Great Throb
Of Patriotism Swelled In Her Breast When She First Met The Princess
Of Wales In Hyde Park.
As for me, I get on charmingly with the English nobility and
sufficiently well with the gentry, but the upper servants strike
terror to my soul.
There is something awe-inspiring to me about an
English butler. If they would only put him in livery, or make him
wear a silver badge; anything, in short, to temper his pride and
prevent one from mistaking him for the master of the house or the
bishop within his gates. When I call upon Lady DeWolfe, I say to
myself impressively, as I go up the steps: 'You are as good as a
butler, as well born and well bred as a butler, even more
intelligent than a butler. Now, simply because he has an
unapproachable haughtiness of demeanour, which you can respectfully
admire, but can never hope to imitate, do not cower beneath the
polar light of his eye; assert yourself; be a woman; be an American
citizen!' All in vain. The moment the door opens I ask for Lady
DeWolfe in so timid a tone that I know Parker thinks me the parlour-
maid's sister who has rung the visitors' bell by mistake. If my
lady is within, I follow Parker to the drawing-room, my knees
shaking under me at the prospect of committing some solecism in his
sight. Lady DeWolfe's husband has been noble only four months, and
Parker of course knows it, and perhaps affects even greater hauteur
to divert the attention of the vulgar commoner from the newness of
the title.
Dawson, our butler at Smith's private hotel, wields the same
blighting influence on our spirits, accustomed to the soft
solicitations of the negro waiter or the comfortable indifference of
the free-born American. We never indulge in ordinary democratic or
frivolous conversation when Dawson is serving us at dinner. We
'talk up' to him so far as we are able, and before we utter any
remark we inquire mentally whether he is likely to think it good
form. Accordingly, I maintain throughout dinner a lofty height of
aristocratic elegance that impresses even the impassive Dawson,
towards whom it is solely directed. To the amazement and amusement
of Salemina (who always takes my cheerful inanities at their face
value), I give an hypothetical account of my afternoon engagements,
interlarding it so thickly with countesses and marchionesses and
lords and honourables that though Dawson has passed soup to
duchesses, and scarcely ever handed a plate to anything less than a
baroness, he dilutes the customary scorn of his glance, and makes it
two parts condescending approval as it rests on me, Penelope
Hamilton, of the great American working class (unlimited).
Apropos of the servants, it seems to me that the British footman has
relaxed a trifle since we were last here; or is it possible that he
reaches the height of his immobility at the height of the London
season, and as it declines does he decline and become flesh? At all
events, I have twice seen a footman change his weight from one leg
to the other, as he stood at a shop entrance with his lady's mantle
over his arm; twice have I seen one stroke his chin, and several
times have I observed others, during the month of July, conduct
themselves in many respects like animate objects with vital organs.
Lest this incendiary statement be challenged, levelled as it is at
an institution whose stability and order are but feebly represented
by the eternal march of the stars in their courses, I hasten to
explain that in none of these cases cited was it a powdered footman
who (to use a Delsartean expression) withdrew will from his body and
devitalised it before the public eye. I have observed that the
powdered personage has much greater control over his muscles than
the ordinary footman with human hair, and is infinitely his superior
in rigidity. Dawson tells me confidentially that if a footman
smiles there is little chance of his rising in the world. He says a
sense of humour is absolutely fatal in that calling, and that he has
discharged many a good footman because of an intelligent and
expressive face.
I tremble to think of what the powdered footman may become when he
unbends in the bosom of the family. When, in the privacy of his own
apartments, the powder is washed off, the canary-seed pads removed
from his aristocratic calves, and his scarlet and buff magnificence
exchanged for a simple neglige, I should think he might be guilty of
almost any indiscretion or violence. I for one would never consent
to be the wife and children of a powdered footman, and receive him
in his moments of reaction.
Chapter III. Eggs a la coque.
Is it to my credit, or to my eternal dishonour that I once made a
powdered footman smile, and that, too, when he was handing a
buttered muffin to an earl's daughter?
It was while we were paying a visit at Marjorimallow Hall, Sir Owen
and Lady Marjorimallow's place in Surrey. This was to be our first
appearance in an English country house, and we made elaborate
preparations. Only our freshest toilettes were packed, and these
were arranged in our trunks with the sole view of impressing the
lady's-maid who should unpack them. We each purchased dressing-
cases and new fittings, Francesca's being of sterling silver,
Salemina's of triple plate, and mine of celluloid, as befitted our
several fortunes. Salemina read up on English politics; Francesca
practised a new way of dressing her hair; and I made up a portfolio
of sketches. We counted, therefore, on representing American
letters, beauty, and art to that portion of the great English public
staying at Marjorimallow Hall. (I must interject a parenthesis here
to the effect that matters did not move precisely as we expected;
for at table, where most of our time was passed, Francesca had for a
neighbour a scientist, who asked her plump whether the religion of
the American Indian was or was not a pure theism; Salemina's partner
objected to the word 'politics' in the mouth of a woman; while my
attendant squire adored a good bright-coloured chromo.
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