CHAPTER XIV. HOW I 'FELL IN' AND 'OUT' WITH THE WIDOW DAVIS
For the sake of conciseness in this veracious history, I prefer making the reader acquainted at once with facts and individuals, not by the slow process in which the knowledge of them was acquired by myself, but in all the plenitude which intimate acquaintance now supplies; and although this may not seem to accord with the bit-by-bit and day-by-day narrative of a life, it saves a world of time, some patience, and mayhap some skipping too. Under this plea, I have already introduced Sir Dudley Broughton to the reader; and now, with permission, mean to present Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis, relict of Thomas John Davis, was a character so associated with Quebec that to speak of that city without her would be like writing an account of Newfoundland and never alluding to the article “cod-fish.” For a great number of years her house had been the rendezvous of everything houseless, from the newly come “married” officer to the flash commercial traveller from the States; from the agent of an unknown land company to the “skipper” of a rank pretentious enough to dine at a boarding-house. The establishment—as she loved to style it—combined all the free-and-easy air of domesticity with the enjoyment of society. It was an “acted newspaper,” where paragraphs, military and naval, social, scandalous, and commercial, were fabricated with a speed no “compositor” could have kept up with. Here the newly arrived subaltern heard all the pipeclay gossip, not of the garrison, but of the Province; here the bagman made contracts and took orders; here the “French Deputy” picked up what he called afterwards in the Chamber “l'opinion publique;” and here the men of pine-logs and white deal imbibed what they fervently believed to be the habits and manners of the “English aristocracy.” “To invest the establishment with this character,” to make it go forth to the world as the mirror of high and fashionable life, had been the passion of Mrs. D.'s existence. Never did monarch labor for the safeguard that might fence and hedge round his dynasty more zealously; never did minister strive for the guarantees that should insure the continuance of his system. It was the moving purpose of her life; in it she had invested all her activity, both of mind and body; and as she looked back to the barbarism from which her generous devotion had rescued hundreds, she might well be pardoned if a ray of self-glorification lighted up her face. “When I think of Quebec when T. J.”—her familiar mode of alluding to the defunct Thomas John—“and myself first beheld it,” would she say, “and see it now, I believe I may be proud.” The social habits were indeed at a low ebb. The skippers—and there were few other strangers—had a manifest contempt for the use of the fork at dinner, and performed a kind of sword-exercise while eating, of the most fearful kind. Napkins were always misconstrued,—the prevailing impression being that they were pocket-handkerchiefs. No man had any vested interest in his own wine-glass; while thirsty souls even dispensed with such luxuries, and drank from the bottle itself.
Then sea-usages had carried themselves into shore life. The company were continually getting up to look out of windows, watching the vessels that passed, remarking on the state of the tide, and then, resuming their places with a muttering over the “half ebb,” and that the wind was “northing-by-west,” looked for change. All the conversation smacked of salt-water; every allusion had an odor of tar and seaweed about it.
Poor Mrs. Davis! How was she to civilize these savages; how invest their lives with any interest above timber? They would not listen to the polite news of “Government House;” they would not vouchsafe the least attention to the interesting paragraphs she recited as table-talk,—how the Prince of Hohenhumbughousen had arrived at Windsor on a visit to Majesty, nor how Royalty walked in “The Slopes,” or sat for its picture.
Of the “Duke of Northumberland,” they only knew a troopship of the name, and even that had been waterlogged! The “Wellington” traded to Mirimachi, and the “Robert Peel” was a barque belonging to Newfoundland, and employed in general traffic, and not believed very seaworthy.
Some may make the ungracious remark that she might have spared herself this task of humanizing; that she could have left these “ligneous Christians,” these creatures of tar and turpentine, where she found them. The same observation will apply equally to Cooke, to Franklin, to Brooke of Borneo, and a hundred other civilizers: so Mrs. D. felt it, and so she labored to make T. J. feel it; but he would n't. The ungrateful old bear saw the ordinary grow daily thinner; he perceived that Banquo might have seated himself at any part of the table, and he actually upbraided his wife with the fact. Every day he announced some new defection from the list of their old supporters. Now it was old Ben Crosseley, of the “Lively Biddy,” that would n't stand being ordered to shake out his canvas—that is, to spread his napkin—when he was taking in sea store; then it was Tom Galket grew indignant at not being permitted to beat “to quarters” with his knuckles at every pause in the dinner. Some were put out by being obliged to sit with their legs under the table, being long habituated to dine at a cask with a plank on it, and of course keeping their limbs “stowed away” under the seat; and one, an old and much-respected river pilot, was carried away insensible from table, on hearing that grog was not a recognized table beverage throughout the British dominions.
The banishment of lobscouse and sea-pie, pork, with its concomitant cataplasm of peas, and other similar delicacies from the bill of fare, completed the defection; and at last none remained of the “once goodlie company,” save an old attenuated Guernsey skipper too much in debt to leave, but who attributed his fealty to the preference he entertained for “les usages de la bonne société et la charmante Mde. Davis.” T. J. could never hold up his head again; he moped about the docks and quays, like the restless spirit of some Ancient Mariner. Every one pitied him; and he grew so accustomed to condolence—so dependent, in fact, on commiseration—that he spent his days in rowing from one ship to the other in the harbor, drinking grog with the skippers, till, by dint of pure sympathy, he slipped quietly into his grave, after something like a two years' attack of delirium tremens.
The same week that saw T. J. descend to the tomb saw his widow ascend to the “Upper Town,”—the more congenial locality for aspirations like hers. If no eulogistic inscription marked his resting-place, a very showy brass plate adorned hers. From that hour she was emancipated; it seemed, indeed, as if she had turned a corner in life, and at once emerged from gloom and darkness into sunshine. It chanced that the barracks were at that very moment undergoing repair, and several officers were glad to find, at a convenient distance, the comforts and accommodations which a plausible advertisement in the “Quebec Messenger” assured them were to be obtained for one pound one shilling weekly.
There are people who tell you that we live in a heartless, selfish, grabbing, grasping age, where each preys upon his neighbor, and where gain is the spirit of every contract; and yet, in what period of the world was maternal tenderness, the comforts of a home, the watchful anxieties of parental love, to be had so cheaply? Who ever heard of bachelors being admitted into families, where music and the arts formed the evening's recreation, in the Middle Ages? Does Herodotus inform us that “young and attractive ladies would take charge of a widower's household, and superintend the care of his family”? Not a bit of it! On this point, at least, the wisdom of our ancestors has no chance with us. There is not a wish of the heart, there is not a yearning of the affections, that a three-and-sixpenny advertisement in the “Times” will not evoke a remedy for. You can make love, or a book, or a speech, by deputy; for every relative you lose, there are fifty kind-hearted creatures to supply the place; and not only may you travel over half the globe without more personal exertion than it costs you to go to bed, but you can be measured either for a wife or a suit of clothes without ever seeing the lady or the tailor.
The “Hotel Davis,” so said the newspaper, “was situated in the most airy and healthful locality of the Upper Town.” No one ever rung the bell of the hall-door from the first of October to May, but would acknowledge the truth of the first epithet. The society, for admission to which the most particular references are required, embraces all that is intellectual, high-bred, and refined. The table, where preside the 'feast of reason and the flow of soul,' combines the elegance and delicacy of the French, with the less sophisticated succulence of English cookery. Intellectual resources,—the humanizing influences of song and poetry,—the varied pleasures of cultivated and kindred spirits, which have won for this establishment the epithet of the Davisian Acropolis, continue to make it the chosen retreat of gentlemen connected with civil and military pursuits, who are lodged and boarded for one guinea weekly.
“Receptions every Thursday. Balls, during the winter, on the first Monday of each month.”
Such was one among many—I select it as the shortest—announcements of this cheap Elysium; and now, two words about Mrs. D. herself. She was a poor, thin, shrivelled-up little woman, with a rugged, broken-up face, whose profile looked like a jagged saw. Next to elegance of manner, her passion was personal appearance,—by which she meant the adventitious aid of false hair, rouge, and cosmetics; and these she employed with such ever-varying ingenuity that her complexion changed daily from classic pallor to Spanish richness, while the angle of incidence of her eyebrows took in everything, from forty-five degrees to the horizontal. Her style was “sylph,” and so she was gauzy and floating in all her drapery. A black veil to the back of her head, a filmy, gossamer kind of scarf across her shoulders, assisted this deception, and when she crossed the room, gave her the air of a clothes'-line in a high wind.
Black mittens, over fingers glowing in all the splendor of imitation rings, and a locket, about the size of a cheese-plate, containing the hair—some said the scalp—of the late T. J., completed a costume which Mrs. D. herself believed Parisian, but to which no revolution, democratic or social, could reduce a Frenchwoman.
She borrowed her language as well as her costume from the “Grande Nation,” and with this comfortable reflection, that she was not likely to be asked to restore the loan. Her French was about as incongruous as her dress; but Quebec, fortunately, was not Paris, and she drove her coach-and-six through “Adelow,” with a hardihood that outstripped, if it did not defy, criticism.
By the military and naval people she was deemed the best “fun” going; her pretension, her affectation, her shrewdness, and her simplicity, her religious homage to fashion, her unmerciful tyranny towards what she thought vulgarity, made her the subject of many a joke and much amusement. The other classes, the more regular habitués of the “house,” thought she was a princess in disguise; they revered her opinions as oracles, and only wondered how the court-end could spare one so evidently formed to be the glass of fashion.
If I have been too prolix in my sketch, kind reader, attribute it to the true cause,—my anxiety to serve those who are good enough to place themselves under my guidance. Mrs. D. still lives; the establishment still survives; at five o'clock each day—ay, this very day, I have no doubt—her table is crowded by “the rank and fashion” of the Quebec world; and the chances are, if you yourself, worthy reader, should visit that city, that you may be glad to give your blank days to the fare of Madam Davis.
It was ten o'clock in the forenoon as I arrived at her door, and sent in Captain Pike's letter, announcing my arrival. I found Mrs. D. in what she called her own room,—a little den of about eleven feet square, shelved all round, and showing an array of jars and preserve-pots that was most imposing,—the offerings of skippers from the West India Islands and Madeira, who paid a kind of black-mail in preserved ginger, guavas, yams, pepper-pots, chili, and potted crabs that would have given liver complaints to half the Province.
Mrs. D. was standing on a step-ladder, arranging her treasures by the aid of a negro boy of about twelve years old, as I entered; and not feeling that I was of consequence sufficient to require a more formal audience, she took a steady and patient observation of me, and then resumed her labors. The little window, about six feet from the ground, threw a fine Rembrandt light upon me as I stood in my showy habiliments, endeavoring, by an imposing attitude, to exhibit myself to the best advantage.
“Forty-seven; Guava jelly, Sambo!—where is forty-seven?”
“Me no see him,” said Sambo; “missus eat him up, perhaps.”
“Monsonze! you filthy creature; look for it, sirrah!” So saying, Mrs. Davis applied her double eye-glass to her eyes, and again surveyed me for some seconds.
“You are the”—she hesitated—“the young person my friend Pike brought out, I believe?”
“Yes, my lady,” said I, bowing profoundly.
“What's your name? The captain has not written it clearly.”
“Cregan, my lady,—Con Cregan.”
“Con—Con,” repeated she twice or thrice; “what does Con mean?”
“It's the short for Cornelius, my lady.”
“Ah, the abbreviation for Cornelius! And where have you lived, Cornelius?”
“My last place, my lady, was Sir Miles O'Ryan's, of Roaring Water.”
“What are you doing, you wretch? Take your filthy fingers out of that pot this instant!” screamed she, suddenly.
“Me taste him, an' he be dam hot!” cried the nigger, dancing from one foot to the other, as his mouth was on fire from tasting capsicum pods.
I thought of my own mustard experience, and then, turning a glance of ineffable contempt upon my black friend, said, “Those creatures, my lady, are so ignorant, they really do not know the nature of the commonest condiments.”
“Very true, Cornelius. I would wish, however, to observe to you that although my family are all persons of rank, I have no title myself,—that is to say,” added she, with a pleasing smile, “I do not assume it here; therefore, until we return to England, you need n't address me as ladyship.”
“No, my lady,—I beg your ladyship's pardon for forgetting; but as I have always lived in high families, I 've got the habit, my lady, of saying, 'my lady.'”
“I am Madam, plain Madam Davis. There, I knew you 'd do it, you nasty little beast, you odious black creature!” This sudden apostrophe was evoked by the nigger endeavoring to balance a jam-pot on his thumb, while he spun it round with the other hand,—an exploit that ended in a smash of the jar, and a squash of the jam all over my silk stockings.
“It's of no consequence, my lady; I shall change them when I dress for dinner,” said I, with consummate ease.
“The jam is lost, however. Will you kindly beat him about the head with that candlestick beside you?”
I seized the implement, as if in most choleric mood. But my black was not to be caught so easily; and with a dive between my legs he bolted for the door, whilst I was pitched forward against the step-ladder, head foremost. In my terror, I threw out my hands to save myself, and caught—not the ladder, but Madam Davis's legs; and down we went together, with a small avalanche of brown jars and preserve-pots clattering over us.
As I had gone headforemost, my head through the ladder, and as Mrs. Davis had fallen on the top of me,—her head being reversed,—there we lay, like herrings in a barrel, till her swoon had passed away. At last she did rally; and, gathering herself up, sat against the wall, a most rueful picture of bruises and disorder, while I, emerging from between the steps of the ladder, began to examine whether it were marmalade or my brains that I felt coming down my cheek.
“You'll never mention this shocking event, Cornelius,” said she, trying to adjust her wig, which now faced over the left shoulder.
“Never, my lady. Am I to consider myself engaged?”
“Yes, on the terms of Captain Pike's note,—ten pounds—, no wine nor tea-money, no passage-fare out, no livery, no—” I was afraid she was going to add, “No prog;” but she grew faint, and merely said, “Bring me a glass of water.”
“I'll put you in charge of the lamps and plate tomorrow,” said she, recovering.
“Very well, madam,” said I, aloud; while to myself I muttered, “They might easily be in better hands.”
“You'll wait at table to-day.”
“Yes, my lady—madam, I mean.”
“Soup always goes first to Mrs. Trussford,—black velvet, and very fat; then to the lady in blue spectacles; afterwards Miss Moriarty. Ah, I 'm too weak for giving directions; I 'm in what they call 'un état de fuillete;'” and with these words Mrs. Davis retired, leaving me to the contemplation of the battle-field and my own bruises.
My next care was to present myself below stairs; and although some may smile at the avowal, I had far more misgivings about how I should pass muster with the underlings than with the head of the department. Is the reader aware that it was a farrier of the Emperor Alexander's guard who first predicted the destruction of the “grand army” in Russia? A French horseshoe was shown to him, as a curiosity; and he immediately exclaimed, “What! not yet frost-roughed? These fellows don't know the climate; the snows begin to-morrow!” So is it: ignorance and pretension are infallibly discovered by “routine” people; they look to details, and they at once detect him who mistakes or overlooks them.
Resolving, at all events, to make my “Old World” habits stand my part in every difficulty, and to sneer down everything I did not understand, I put on a bold face, and descended to the lower regions.
Great people, “Ministers” and Secretaries for the “Home” and “Foreign,” little know how great their privilege is that in taking office they are spared all unpleasant meetings with their predecessors. At least, I conclude such to be the case, and that my Lord Palmerston, “stepping in,” does not come abruptly upon Lord Aberdeen “going out,” nor does an angry altercation arise between him who arrives to stay and he who is packing his portmanteau to be off. I say that I opine as much, and that both the entrance and the departure are conducted with due etiquette and propriety; in fact, that Lord A. has called his cab and slipped away before Lord P. has begun to “take up” the “spoons,”—not a bad metaphor, by the way, for an entrance into the Foreign Office.
No such decorous reserve presides over the change of a domestic ministry. The whole warfare of opposition is condensed into one angry moment, and the rival parties are brought face to face in the most ungracious fashion.
Now, my system in life was that so well and popularly known by the name of M. Guizot, “la paix à tout prix;” and I take pride to myself in thinking that I have carried it out with more success. With a firm resolve, therefore, that no temptation should induce me to deviate from a pacific policy, I entered the kitchen, where the “lower house” was then “in committee,”—the “cook in the chair”!
“Here he com, now!” said Blackie; and the assembly grew hushed as I entered.
“Ay, here he comes!” said I, re-echoing the speech; “and let us see if we shall not be merry comrades.”
The address was a happy one; and that evening closed upon me in the very pinnacle of popularity.
I have hesitated for some time whether I should not ask of my reader to enroll himself for a short space as a member of “the establishment,” or even to sojourn one day beneath a roof where so many originals were congregated; to witness the very table itself, set out with its artificial fruits and flowers, its pine-apples in wax, and its peaches of paper,—all the appliances by which Mrs. D., in her ardent zeal, hoped to propagate refinement and abstemiousness; high-breeding and low diet being, in her esteem, inseparably united. To see the company, the poor old faded and crushed flowers of mock gentility,—widows and unmarried daughters of tax-collectors long “gathered;” polite storekeepers, and apothecaries to the “Forces,” cultivating the Graces at the cost of their appetites, and descending, in costumes of twenty years back, in the pleasing delusion of being “dressed” for dinner; while here and there some unhappy skipper, undergoing a course of refinement, looked like a bear in a “ballet,” ashamed of his awkwardness, and even still more ashamed of the company wherein he found himself; and, lastly, some old Seigneur of the Lower Province,—a poor, wasted, wrinkled creature, covered with hair-powder and snuff, but yet, strangely enough, preserving some “taste of his once quality,” and not altogether destitute of the graces of the land he sprung from;—curious and incongruous elements to make up society, and worthy of the presidency of that greater incongruity who ruled them.
Condemned to eat food they did not relish, and discuss themes they did not comprehend,—what a noble zeal was theirs! What sacrifices did they not make to the genius of “gentility”! If they would sneer at a hash, Mrs. D.'s magic wand charmed it into a “ragout;” when they almost sneezed at the sour wine, Mrs. D. called for another glass of “La Rose.” “Rabbits,” they were assured, were the daily diet of the Duke of Devonshire, and Lady Laddington ate kid every day at dinner. In the same way, potatoes were vulgar things, but “pommes de terre à la maître d'hôtel” were a delicacy for royalty.
To support these delusions of diet, I was everlastingly referred to. “Cregan,” would she say,—placing her glass to her eye, and fixing on some dish, every portion of which her own dainty fingers had compounded,—“Cregan, what is that?”
“Poulet à la George Quatre, madame! “—she always permitted me to improvise the nomenclature,—“the receipt came from the Bishop of Beldoff's cook.”
“Ah, prepared with olives, I believe?”
“Exactly, madame,” would I say, presenting the dish, whose success was at once assured.
If a wry face or an unhappy contortion of the mouth from any guest announced disappointment, Mrs. D. at once appealed to me for the explanation. “What is it, Cregan?—Mrs. Blotter, I fear you don't like that 'plat'?”
“The truffles were rather old, madame;” or, “the anchovies were too fresh;” or, “there was too little caviar;” or something of the kind, I would unhesitatingly aver: for my head was stocked with a strong catalogue from an old French cookery-book which I used to study each morning. The more abstruse my explanation, the more certain of its being indorsed by the company,—only too happy to be supposed capable of detecting the subtle deficiency; all but the old French Deputy, who on such occasions would give a little shake of his narrow head, and mutter to himself, “Ah, il est mutin, ce gaillard-là!”
Under the influence of great names, they would have eaten a stewed mummy from the Pyramids. What the Marquis of Aeheldown or the Earl of Brockmore invariably ordered, could not without risk be despised by these “small boys” of refinement. It is true, they often mourned in secret over the altered taste of the old country, which preferred kickshaws and trumpery to its hallowed ribs and sirloins; but, like the folk who sit at the Opera while they long for the Haymarket, and who listen to Jenny Lind while their hearts are with Mrs. Keeley, they “took out” in fashion what they lost in amusement,—a very English habit, by the way. To be sure, and to their honor be it spoken, they wished the Queen would be pleased to fancy legs of mutton and loins of veal, just as some others are eager for royalty to enjoy the national drama; but they innocently forgot, the while, that “they” might have the sirloin, and “the others” Shakspeare, even without majesty partaking of either, and that a roast goose and Falstaflf can be relished even without such august precedent. Dear, good souls they were, never deviating from that fine old sturdy spirit of independence which makes us feel ourselves a match for the whole world in arms, as we read the “Times” and hum “Rule Britannia.”
All this devout homage of a class with whom they had nothing in common, and with which they could never come into contact, produced in me a very strange result; and in place of being ready to smile at the imitators, I began to conceive a stupendous idea of the natural greatness of those who could so impress the ranks beneath them. “Con,” said I to myself, “that is the class in life would suit you perfectly. There is no trade like that of a gentleman. He who does nothing is always ready for everything; the little shifts and straits of a handicraft or a profession narrow and confine the natural expansiveness of the intellect, which, like a tide over a flat shore, should swell and spread itself out, free and without effort. See to this, Master Con; take care that you don't sit down contented with a low round on the ladder of life, but strive ever upwards; depend on it, the view is best from the top, even if it only enable you to look down on your competitors.”
These imaginings, as might be easily imagined, led me to form a very depreciating estimate of my lords and masters of the “establishment.” Not only their little foibles and weaknesses, their small pretensions and their petty attempts at fine life, were all palpable to my eyes, but their humble fortunes and narrow means to support such assumption were equally so; and there is nothing which a vulgar mind—I was vulgar at that period—so unhesitatingly seizes on for sarcasm as the endeavor of a poor man to “do the fine gentleman.”
If no man is a hero to his valet, he who has no valet is never a hero at all,—is nobody. I conceived, then, the most insulting contempt for the company, on whom I practised a hundred petty devices of annoyance. I would drop gravy on a fine satin dress, in which the wearer only made her appearance at festivals, or stain with sauce the “russia ducks” destined to figure through half a week. Sometimes, by an adroit change of decanters during dinner, I would produce a scene of almost irremediable confusion, when the owner of sherry would find himself taking toast-and-water, he of the last beverage having improved the time and finished the racier liquid. Such reciprocities, although strictly in accordance with “free-trade,” invariably led to very warm discussions, that lasted through the remainder of the evening.
Then I removed plates ere the eater was satisfied, and that with an air of such imposing resolve as to silence remonstrance. When a stingy guest passed up his decanter to a friend, in a moment of enthusiastic munificence, I never suffered it to return till it was emptied; while to the elderly ladies I measured out the wine like laudanum. Every now and then, too, I would forget to hand the dish to some one or other of the company, and affect only to discover my error as the last spoonful was disappearing.
Nor did my liberties end here. I was constantly introducing innovations in the order of dinner, that produced most ludicrous scenes of discomfiture,—now insisting on the use of a fork, now of a spoon, under circumstances where no adroitness could compensate for the implement; and one day I actually went so far as to introduce soap with the finger-glasses, averring that “it was always done at Devonshire House on grand occasions.” I thought I should have betrayed myself as I saw the efforts of the party to perform their parts with suitable dignity; all I could do was to restrain a burst of open laughter.
So long as I prosecuted my reforms on the actual staff of the establishment, all went well. Now and then, it is true, I used to overhear in French, of which they believed me to be ignorant, rather sharp comments on the “free-and-easy tone of my manners; how careless I had become,” and so on,—complaints, however, sure to be be met by some assurance that “my manners were quite London;” that what I did was the type of fashionable servitude,—apologies made less to screen me than to exalt those who invented them, as thoroughly conversant with high life in England.
At last, partly from being careless of consequences, for I was getting very weary of this kind of life,—the great amusement of which used to be repeating my performances for the ear of Captain Pike, and he was now removed with his regiment to Kingstown,—and partly wishing for some incidents, of what kind I cared not, that might break the monotony of my existence, I contrived one day to stretch my prerogative too far, or, in the phrase of the Gulf, I “harpooned a bottle-nose,”—the periphrasis for making a gross mistake.
I had been some years at Mrs. Davis's,—in fact, I felt and thought myself a man,—when the last ball of the season was announced,—an entertainment at which usually a more crowded assemblage used to congregate than at any of the previous ones.
It was the choice occasion for the habitués of the house to invite their grand friends; for Mrs. D. was accustomed to put forth all her strength, and the arrangements were made on a scale of magnificence that invariably occasioned a petty famine for the fortnight beforehand. Soup never appeared, that there might be “bouillon” for the dancers; every one was on a short allowance of milk, eggs, and sugar; meat became almost a tradition; even candles waned and went out, in waiting for the auspicious night when they should blaze like noonday. Nor did the company fail to participate in these preparatory schoolings. What frightful heads in curl-papers would appear at breakfast and dinner! What buttoned-up coats and black cravats refuse all investigation on the score of linen! What mysterious cookings of cosmetics at midnight, with petty thefts of lard and thick cream! What washings of kid gloves, that when washed would never go on again! What inventions of French-polish that refused all persuasions to dry, but continued to stick to and paint everything it came in contact with! Then there were high dresses cut down, like frigates razeed; frock-coats reduced to dress ones; mock lace and false jewelry were at a premium; and all the little patchwork devices of ribbons, bows, and carnations, gimp, gauze, and geraniums, were put into requisition,—petty acts of deception that each saw through in her neighbor, but firmly believed were undetectable in herself.
Then what caballings about the invited; what scrutiny into rank and station,—“what set they were in,” and whom did they visit; with little Star-chamber inquisitions as to character, all breaches of which, it is but fair to state, were most charitably deemed remediable if the party had any pretension to social position; for not only the saint in crape was twice a saint in lawn, but the satin sinner was pardonable where the “washing silk” would have been found guilty without a “recommendation.”
Then there was eternal tuning of the pianoforte, which most perversely insisted on not suiting voices that might have sung duets with a peacock. Quadrilles were practised in empty rooms; and Miss Timmock was actually seen trying to teach Blotter to waltz,—a proceeding, I rejoice to say, that the moral feeling of the household at once suppressed. And then, what a scene of decoration went forward in all the apartments! As in certain benevolent families, whatever is uneatable is always given to the poor, so here, all the artificial flowers unavailable for the toilet were generously bestowed to festoon along the walls, to conceal tin sconces, and to wreathe round rickety chandeliers. Contrivance—that most belauded phenomenon in Nature's craft—was everywhere. If necessity be the mother of invention, poor gentility is the “stepmother.” Never were made greater efforts, or greater sacrifices incurred, to make Mrs. D. appear like a “West-end” leader of fashion, and to make the establishment itself seem a Holderness House.
As for me, I was the type of a stage servant,—one of those creatures who hand round coffee in the “School for Scandal.” My silk stockings were embroidered with silver, and my showy coat displayed a bouquet that might have filled a vase.
In addition to these personal graces, I had long been head of my department; all the other officials, from the negro knife-cleaner upwards, besides all those begged, borrowed, and, I believe I might add, stolen domestics of other families, being placed under my orders.
Among the many functions committed to me, the drilling of these gentry stood first in difficulty, not only because they were rebellious under control, but because I had actually to invent “the discipline during parade.” One golden rule, however, I had adopted, and never suffered myself to deviate from, viz., to do nothing as it had been done before,—a maxim which relieved me from all the consequences of inexperience. Traditions are fatal things for a radical reformer; and I remembered having heard it remarked how Napoleon himself first sacrificed his dignity by attempting an imitation of the monarchy. By this one precept I ruled and squared all my conduct.
The most refractory of my subordinates was a jackanapes about my own age, who, having once waited on the “young gentlemen” in the cock-pit of a man-of-war, fancied he had acquired very extended views of life. Among other traits of his fashionable experience, he remembered that at a déjeuner given by the officers at Cadiz once, the company, who breakfasted in the gun-room, had all left their hats and cloaks in the midshipman's berth, receiving each a small piece of card with a number on it, and a similar one being attached to the property,—a process so universal now in our theatres and assemblies that I ask pardon for particularly describing it; but it was a novelty at the time I speak of, and had all the merits of a new discovery.
Smush—this was my deputy's name—had been so struck with the admirable success of the arrangement that he had actually preserved the pieces of card, and now produced them, black and ragged, from the recesses of his trunk.
“Mr. Cregan”—such was the respectful title by which I was now always addressed—“Mr. Cregan can tell us,” said he, “if this is not the custom at great balls in London.”
“It used to be so, formerly,” said I, with an air of most consummate coolness, as I sat in an arm-chair, regaling myself with a cigar; “the practice you allude to, Smush, did prevail, I admit. But our fashionable laws change; one day it is all ultra-refinement and Sybarite luxury,—the next, they affect a degree of mock simplicity in their manners: anything for novelty! Now, for instance, eating fish with the fingers—”
“Do they, indeed, go so far?”
“Do they! ay, and fifty things worse. At a race-dinner the same silver cup goes round the table, drunk out of by every one. I have seen strange things in my time.”
“That you must, Mr. Cregan.”
“Latterly,” said I, warming with my subject, and seeing my auditory ready to believe anything, “they began the same system with the soup, and always passed the tureen round, each tasting it as it went. This was an innovation of the Duke of Struttenham's; but I don't fancy it will last.”
“And how do they manage about the hats, Mr. Cregan?”
“The last thing, in that way, was what I saw at Lord Mudbrooke's, at Richmond, where, not to hamper the guests with these foolish bits of card, which they were always losing, the servant in waiting chalked a number on the hat or coat, or whatever it might be, and then marked the same on the gentleman's back!”
Had it not been for the imposing gravity of my manner, the absurdity of this suggestion had been at once apparent; but I spoke like an oracle, and I impressed my words with the simple gravity of a commonplace truth.
“If you wish to do the very newest thing, Smush, that's the latest,—quite a fresh touch; and, I 'll venture to say, perfectly unknown here. It saves a world of trouble to all parties; and as you brush it off before they leave, it is always another claim for the parting douceur!”
“I'll do it,” said Smush, eagerly; “they cannot be angry—”
“Angry! angry at what is done with the very first people in London!” said I, affecting horror at the bare thought. The train was now laid; I had only to wait for its explosion.
At first, I did this with eager impatience for the result; then, as the time drew near, with somewhat of anxiety; and, at last, with downright fear of the consequences. Yet to revoke the order, to confess that I was only hoaxing on so solemn a subject, would have been the downfall of my ascendency forever. What was to be done?
I could imagine but one escape from the difficulty, which was to provide myself with a clothes-brush, and, as my station was at the drawing-room door, to erase the numerals before their wearers entered. In this way I should escape the forfeiture of my credit, and the risk of maintaining it.
I would willingly recall some of the strange incidents of that great occasion, but my mind can only dwell upon one, as, brush in hand, I asked permission to remove some accidental dust,—a leave most graciously accorded, and ascribed to my town-bred habits of attention. At last—it was nigh midnight, and for above an hour the company had received no accession to its ranks; quadrilles had succeeded quadrilles, and the business of the scene went swimmingly on,—all the time-honored events of similar assemblages happening with that rigid regularity which, if evening-parties were managed by steam, and regulated by a fly-wheel, could not proceed with more ordinary routine. “Heads of houses” with bald scalps led out simpering young boarding-school misses, and danced with a noble show of agility, to refute any latent suspicion of coming age. There were the usual number of very old people, who vowed the dancing was only a shuffling walk, not the merry movement they had practised half a century ago; and there were lack-a-daisical young gentlemen, with waistcoats variegated as a hearth-rug, and magnificent breast-pins like miniature pokers, who lounged and lolled about, as though youth were the most embarrassing and wearying infliction mortality was heir to.
There were, besides, all the varieties of the class young lady, as seen in every land where muslin is sold, and white shoes are manufactured. There was the slight young lady, who floated about with her gauzy dress daintily pinched in two; then there was the short and dumpling young lady, who danced with a duck in her gait; and there were a large proportion of the flouncing, flaunting kind, who took the figures of the quadrille by storm, and went at the “right and left” as if they were escaping from a fire; and there was Mrs. Davis herself, in a spangled toque and red shoes, pottering about from place to place, with a terrible eagerness to be agreeable and fashionable at the same time.
It was, I have said, nigh midnight as I stood at the half-open door, watching the animated and amusing scene within, when Mrs. Davis, catching sight of me, and doubtless for the purpose of displaying my specious livery, ordered me to open a window, or close a shutter, or something of like importance. I had scarcely performed the service, when a kind of half titter through the room made me look round, and, to my unspeakable horror, I beheld, in the centre of the room, Town-Major McCan, the most passionate little man in Quebec, making his obeisances to Mrs. Davis, while a circle around were, with handkerchiefs to their mouths, stifling, as they best could, a burst of laughter; since exactly between his shoulders, in marks of about four inches long, stood the numerals “158,” a great flourish underneath proclaiming that the roll had probably concluded, and that this was the “last man.”
Of the major, tradition had already consecrated one exploit; he had once kicked an impertinent tradesman down the great flight of iron stairs which leads from the Upper Town to Diamond Harbor,—a feat, to appreciate which, it is necessary to bear in mind that the stair in question is almost perpendicular, and contains six hundred and forty-eight steps! My very back ached by anticipation as I thought of it; and as I retreated towards the door, it was in a kind of shuffle, feeling like one who had been well thrashed.
“A large party, Mrs. D.; a very brilliant and crowded assembly,” said the major, pulling out his bushy whiskers, and looking importantly around. “Now what number have you here?”
“I cannot even guess, Major; but we have had very few apologies. Could you approximate to our numbers this evening, Mr. Cox?” said she, addressing a spiteful-looking old man who sat eying the company through an opera-glass.
“I have counted one hundred and thirty-four, madam; but the major makes them more numerous still!”
“How do you mean, Cox?” said he, getting fiery red.
“If you'll look in that glass yonder, which is opposite the mirror, you 'll soon see!” wheezed out the old man, maliciously. I did not wait for more; with one spring I descended the first flight; another brought me to the hall; but not before a terrible shout of laughter apprised me that all was discovered. I had just time to open the clock-case and step into it, as Major McCan came thundering downstairs, with his coat on his arm.
A shrill yell from Sambo now told me that one culprit at least was “up” for punishment. “Tell the truth, you d—d piece of carved ebony! who did this?”
“Not me, Massa! not me, Massa! Smush did him!”
Smush was at this instant emerging from the back parlor with a tray of colored fluids for the dancers. With one vigorous kick the major sent the whole flying; and ere the terrified servitor knew what the assault portended, a strong grasp caught him by the throat, and ran him up bang! against the clock-case. Oh, what a terrible moment was that for me! I heard the very gurgling rattle in his throat, like choking, and felt as if when he ceased to breathe that I should expire with him.
“You confess it! you own it, then, you infernal rascal!” said the major, almost hoarse with rage.
“Oh, forgive me, sir! oh, forgive me! It was Mr. Cregan, sir, the butler, who told me! Oh dear, I'm—” What, he couldn't finish; for the major, in relinquishing his grasp, flung him backwards, and he fell against the stairs.
“So it was Mr.—Cregan,—the—butler,—was it?” said the major, with an emphasis on each word as though he had bitten the syllables. “Well! as sure as my name is Tony McCan, Mr. Cregan shall pay for this! Turn about is fair play; you have marked me, and may I be drummer to the Cape Fencibles if I don't mark you!” and with this denunciation, uttered in a tone, every accent of which vouched for truth, he took a hat—the first next to him—and issued from the house.
Shivering with terror,—and not without cause,—I waited till Smush had, with Sambo's aid, carried downstairs the broken fragments; and then, the coast being clear, I stepped from my hiding-place, and opening the hall-door, fled,—ay, ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I crossed the grass terrace in front of the barrack, not heeding the hoarse “Who goes there?” of the sentry; and then, dashing along the battery-wall, hastened down the stairs that lead in successive flights to the filthy “Lower Town,” in whose dingy recesses I well knew that crime or shame could soon find a sanctuary.
