Ruggles of Red Gap

by Harry Leon Wilson

CHAPTER TEN

I need hardly say that this public ridicule left me dazed. Desperately I recalled our calm and orderly England where such things would not be permitted. There we are born to our stations and are not allowed to forget them. We matter from birth, or we do not matter, and that’s all to it. Here there seemed to be no stations to which one was born; the effect was sheer anarchy, and one might ridicule any one whomsoever. As was actually said in that snarky manifesto drawn up by the rebel leaders at the time our colonies revolted, “All men are created free and equal”—than which absurdity could go no farther—yet the lower middle classes seemed to behave quite as if it were true.

And now through no fault of my own another awkward circumstance was threatening to call further attention to me, which was highly undesirable at this moment when the cheap one-and-six Hobbs fellow had so pointedly singled me out for his loathsome buffoonery.

Some ten days before, walking alone at the edge of town one calm afternoon, where I might commune with Nature, of which I have always been fond, I noted an humble vine-clad cot, in the kitchen garden of which there toiled a youngish, neat-figured woman whom I at once recognized as a person who did occasional charring for the Flouds on the occasion of their dinners or receptions. As she had appeared to be cheerful and competent, of respectful manners and a quite marked intelligence, I made nothing of stopping at her gate for a moment’s chat, feeling a quite decided relief in the thought that here was one with whom I need make no pretence, her social position being sharply defined.

We spoke of the day’s heat, which was bland, of the vegetables which she watered with a lawn hose, particularly of the tomatoes of which she was pardonably proud, and of the flowering vine which shielded her piazza from the sun. And when she presently and with due courtesy invited me to enter, I very affably did so, finding the atmosphere of the place reposeful and her conversation of a character that I could approve. She was dressed in a blue print gown that suited her no end, the sleeves turned back over her capable arms; her brown hair was arranged with scrupulous neatness, her face was pleasantly flushed from her agricultural labours, and her blue eyes flashed a friendly welcome and a pleased acknowledgment of the compliments I made her on the garden. Altogether, she was a person with whom I at once felt myself at ease, and a relief, I confess it was, after the strain of my high social endeavours.

After a tour of the garden I found myself in the cool twilight of her little parlour, where she begged me to be seated while she prepared me a dish of tea, which she did in the adjoining kitchen, to a cheerful accompaniment of song, quite with an honest, unpretentious good-heartedness. Glad I was for the moment to forget the social rancors of the town, the affronted dignities of the North Side set, and the pernicious activities of the Bohemians, for here all was of a simple humanity such as I would have found in a farmer’s cottage at home.

As I rested in the parlour I could not but approve its general air of comfort and good taste—its clean flowered wall-paper, the pair of stuffed birds on the mantel, the comfortable chairs, the neat carpet, the pictures, and, on a slender-legged stand, the globe of goldfish. These I noted with an especial pleasure, for I have always found an intense satisfaction in their silent companionship. Of the pictures I noted particularly a life-sized drawing in black-and-white in a large gold frame, of a man whom I divined was the deceased husband of my hostess. There was also a spirited reproduction of “The Stag at Bay” and some charming coloured prints of villagers, children, and domestic animals in their lighter moments.

Tea being presently ready, I genially insisted that it should be served in the kitchen where it had been prepared, though to this my hostess at first stoutly objected, declaring that the room was in no suitable state. But this was a mere womanish hypocrisy, as the place was spotless, orderly, and in fact quite meticulous in its neatness. The tea was astonishingly excellent, so few Americans I had observed having the faintest notion of the real meaning of tea, and I was offered with it bread and butter and a genuinely satisfying compote of plums of which my hostess confessed herself the fabricator, having, as she quaintly phrased the thing, “put it up.”

And so, over this collation, we chatted for quite all of an hour. The lady did, as I have intimated, a bit of charring, a bit of plain sewing, and also derived no small revenue from her vegetables and fruit, thus managing, as she owned the free-hold of the premises, to make a decent living for herself and child. I have said that she was cheerful and competent, and these epithets kept returning to me as we talked. Her husband—she spoke of him as “poor Judson”—had been a carter and odd-job fellow, decent enough, I dare say, but hardly the man for her, I thought, after studying his portrait. There was a sort of foppish weakness in his face. And indeed his going seemed to have worked her no hardship, nor to have left any incurable sting of loss.