The Revolt of the Oyster

by Don Marquis

Slowly, and with the assured raps of one whose social position is defined, fixed, and secure in whatever state of existence she may chance to find herself, the ghost spelled out, “Lady Agatha Pelham.”

I hope I am not snobbish. Indeed, I think I have proved over and over again that I am not, by frankly confessing that I am an American. But at the same time I could not repress a little exclamation of pleasure at the fact that we were haunted by the ghost of a member of the English aristocracy. You may say what you will, but there is a certain something—a manner—an air—I scarcely know how to describe it, but it is there; it exists. In England, one meets it so often—I hope you take me.

My gratification must have revealed itself in my manner. Lady Agatha rapped out, if anything with more haughtiness than she had previously employed—yes, even with a touch of defiance:

“I was at one time a governess.”

I gradually learned that while her own family was as good as the Pelham family, Lady Agatha's parents had been in very reduced circumstances, and she had had to become a governess. When Sir Arthur Pelham had married her, his people acted very nasty. He hadn't any money, and they had wanted him to marry some. He got to treating her very badly before he died. And during his lifetime, and after it, Lady Agatha had had a very sad life indeed. Still, you know, she was an aristocrat. She made one feel that as she told her story bit by bit. For all this came very gradually, as the result of many conversations, and not at once. We speedily agreed upon a code, very similar to the Morse telegraphic code, and we still further abbreviated this, until our conversations, after a couple of weeks, got to be as rapid as that of a couple of telegraph operators chatting over the wires. I intimated that it must be rather rough on her to be haunting Americans, and she said that she had once lived in our cottage and liked it.

In spite of her aristocracy, I don't suppose there ever was a more domestic sort of ghost than Lady Agatha. We all got quite fond of her, and I think she did of us, too, in spite of our being American. Even the children got into the habit of taking their little troubles and perplexities to her. And Marian used to say that with Lady Agatha in the house, when Uncle Bain-bridge and I happened to be away, she felt so safe somehow.

I imagine the fact that she had once been a governess would have made it rather difficult for Lady Agatha in the house of an English family of rank. On the other hand, her inherent aristocratic feeling made it quite impossible for her to haunt any one belonging to the middle or lower classes. She could haunt us, as Americans, and not feel that the social question mattered so much, in spite of what the American ghost had hinted. We Americans are so unclassified that the English often take chances with individuals, quite regardless of what each individual's class would naturally be if he had a class. Even while they do this they make us feel very often that we are hopelessly American; but they do it, and I, for one, am grateful. Lady Agatha sympathized with our desire to become as English as possible, she could quite understand that. I find that many Englishmen approve the effort, although remaining confident that it will end in failure.

Lady Agatha helped us a great deal. We used to have lessons in the evenings in the library. For instance, the children would stand at attention in front of the bookcase, and repeat a bit of typical English slang, trying to do it in an absolutely English way. They would do it over and over and over, until finally Lady Agatha would give a rap of approval. Or I would pretend that I was an Englishman in a railway carriage, and that an American had just entered and I was afraid he would speak to me. I got rather good at this, and made two or three trips to London to try it out. I found that Americans were imposed on, and actually in one instance I made one Englishman think that I was an Englishman who thought he was an American. He was a nobody, however, and didn't really count. And then, I am afraid, I spoiled it all. We Americans so often spoil it all! I enjoyed it so that I told him. He looked startled and said, “But how American!” He was the only Englishman I ever fooled.

But Lady Agatha's night classes were of great benefit to us. We used to practise how to behave toward English servants at country houses, and how to act when presented at court, and dozens of things like that: not that we had been asked to a country house, or expected to be presented at court soon. Marian and I had agreed that the greater part of this information would be quite useless while Uncle Bainbridge was still spared to us. Even in Brooklyn Uncle Bainbridge had been something of a problem at times. But we thought it just as well to prepare ourselves for the sad certainty that Uncle Bainbridge would pass into a better world before many years.

Uncle Bainbridge, who is very wealthy indeed, affects more informality than the usual self-made man. He used to attend our evening classes with a contemptuous expression upon his face, and snort at intervals. Once he even called me “Puppy!” Then he thrust his telephone arrangement before my face and insisted that I tell him whether I was sane or not.