Ladies and Gentlemen

by Irvin S. Cobb

To a considerable extent, three of these events were interrelated. The drought which had brought on the shortage in the village reservoir was the isolated exception, a manifestation of freaky nature and of absolutely unprecedented weather conditions. But the others were more or less coordinated. If their old waitress had not quit on them the Gridleys would not have been in the market for a new servant to fill the vacancy, and if Mr. Boyce-Upchurch had not been coming to stay with them it was possible she might not have quit at all. There was a suspicion that she was influenced by a private objection to so much company in the heat of the summer, Mrs. Gridley’s mother and sister from Baltimore, the latter bringing her little boy with her, having just concluded a two weeks’ stay; and if it had not been Mr. Boyce-Upchurch who was coming, but some less important person, the Gridleys would have been content with hiring for the succession one who also was a female and home-grown, or if not exactly home-grown, one belonging to almost any of the commoner Nordic stocks—say Scandinavian or Celtic—whereas it was felt that the advent of a Boyce-Upchurch called for something of an especially rich and fruity imported nature in the line of butlers. At least, such was the language employed by Mrs. Gridley’s brother, Mr. Oliver Braid, in describing, this phase of the issue. He—young Mr. Braid—was the only member of the household who declined to take the situation seriously. In this regard he stood quite alone. Mr. Gridley took it seriously, as, to a more or less degree, did the neighbors also. But Mrs. Gridley took it most seriously of all.

Its seriousness began to lay hold upon her in the morning on a Monday, which proverbially is a bothersome day for housewives anyhow, when Miss Rena Belle Titworthy, the recording secretary of the Ingleglade Woman’s Club and its only salaried officer, called to break the news to her, it being that in the judgment of a majority of the active workers in the club Mrs. Gridley should have the distinguished pleasure of entertaining Mr. Boyce-Upchurch on the occasion of his impending visit. In a more vulgar circle of life the same thing has been termed passing the buck.

“But,” expostulated Mrs. Gridley, “but—of course I feel flattered and I am sure Henry will, too, when he comes home tonight and hears about it—but I’m afraid we couldn’t make such a prominent man comfortable. Our house is rather small and all that, and besides there’s Olga having packed up and left only last night and all that. Really, don’t you think, Miss Rena Belle, that he would prefer to go to the hotel where he could be—you know—quieter and more to himself? Or to Mrs. Wainwright’s? She’s the president of the club and she’s the madam chairman of the executive committee besides, and naturally the pleasure of having Mr. Boyce-Upchurch should go to her. Her house is a mansion, almost, while we—”

Miss Titworthy caught her up right there.

“No,” said Miss Titworthy firmly. Miss Titworthy had authority about her and a considerable distinction. She was large and deep-chested and combined in her manner the magisterial and the managerial and, subtly, the maternal. She had all that a motherly woman should have, except children. And, as just stated, she was large, while on the other hand Mrs. Gridley was slight and, upon the whole, plastic by temperament, not to say bordering on the yielding. And bulk, in such cases, counts.

“Pardon me,” said Miss Titworthy still more firmly, “pardon me, my dear, but no. Madam Chairman Wainwright is closing up their place to go to their other place in the Berkshires; you must have known that. Probably you forgot it. And the hotel is quite out of the question. I had a letter only yesterday from Mr. Boyce-Upchurch, written by him personally—it seems he doesn’t carry a secretary with him on his tour—saying he preferred stopping at some private home. He mentioned the inconveniences of American hotels and something about their exceedingly high rates. I’m going to keep it as a souvenir. And so, what with Madam Chairman Wainwright closing up and you being the first vice-president—well, there you are, aren’t you?” concluded Miss Titworthy with a gesture which was meant to be a death blow to further argument.

“And then the water being shut off—I’m thinking of that, too,” said Mrs. Gridley, but in a weakening tone. “Henry had the plumber come and disconnect all three of the bathtubs. He said he wasn’t going to put temptation in the way of his own family or himself, either. I know lots of people are doing it on the sly—using a hose, too—but I can’t even have a little water in a sprinkling can for my poor withered flowers. Look at them out of that window there—just literally drying up. And we’re sending all the wash, even the flat pieces, to the Eagle Laundry. And Henry is going to his club in town for a bath every day, and I’m doing the best I can with the wash-basin and a sponge, and the way Nora—that’s my cook’s name—and Delia, the waitress—now that Olga has gone, Delia’s the only other girl we’ve got left—the way those two carry on and complain you’d think I was personally responsible for the fact that not a drop of rain has fallen in over two months. And the English being such great hands for their tubs and all, and Mr. Boyce-Upchurch being an Englishman and all, why, I’m honestly afraid, Miss Rena Belle, that he’ll be awfully put out.

“I dessay he’ll be able to accommodate himself to a condition over which none of us has any control,” stated Miss Titworthy. “He’ll arrive Wednesday afternoon on the five o’clock boat. He asked that he be met with a car. I dessay you’ll be wanting to give a little dinner to him Wednesday evening. I don’t know what he’ll want to do Thursday morning—be driven around, I imagine. And Thursday afternoon there’s the reception at the Woman’s Club, and his lecture is that night, and Friday he leaves for Trenton where he has his next date on Saturday. He did write something about preferring to be ridden over to Trenton.”