CHAPTER TWELVE
About this time all the papers were giving considerable attention in the columns which they headed variously: "Social Doings," "Among the Four Hundred,"—a phrase just then coming into notoriety,—"The Society Calendar," etc., to Mrs. Pallinder's house-party. That lady herself, her establishment, her clothes, her diamonds had provided us with gossip, as I have endeavoured to show, for the past two years. But if we were inured to Mrs. Pallinder, Miss Muriel Ponsonby-Baxter was something new. Everyone entertained for her; it was a matter of pride with us to give our English girl-visitor an unapproachably "good time," to prove to her how much the best country in this best of all possible worlds America was for the young, well-born, well-mannered, good-looking, and happy—ourselves, in short. Not one of us had the slightest acquaintance with English society; but we were confident our own was immeasurably better. Twenty-five years ago, it must be remembered, there was a chillier feeling between the two countries; and, of course, our provincialism accented it. The eagle ramped upon his perch; the lion suffered a deal of tail-twisting; hands across the sea were not quite so fervent in their clasp then as now. Our demagogues flung about dark hints concerning the machinations of the "Cobden Club." American protectionists, American free-traders bellowed themselves purple in the face from the stump in defence of their several creeds, and strangely enough, found in England equally an awful example, and a beacon-light of progress! The last, for obvious reasons, was a very unpopular view; in those Arcadian days the main diversion of a certain class of our politicians was the ferocious baiting of perfidious Albion. The Oriental-war scares, the race-problems, the anti-trust, and anti-railroad agitations of to-day must cause these amiable jingoes—a name, by the way, which they never heard—to turn in their graves. Bless thee, Bottom, how art thou translated! In that year, the Pendleton Civil-Service Reform Bill was the most important measure before the two Houses; and "to the victors belong the spoils," was the cry most frequently raised against it. That admirable argument, at once so condensed and so forcible, what respectable person would dare to utter it to-day? Blaine was alive; Tilden was alive; Ben Butler was governor of Massachusetts, he of fragrant memory, house-cleaner of New Orleans, promulgator of Regulation 19—or was it 29? Iram indeed is gone with all his rose, and Ben and all the rest along with him; and we have ceased, at a woeful expense, to be provincial. We were not bothering our heads then, about tropical canals and the Philippines—oh, all-but-forgotten Golden Age!
We were not always certain what sort of impression we were making on Muriel; and, however eager we might have been to find out, there are some questions any girl would go to the scaffold rather than ask. But I know that on one point we were intolerably vain; perhaps that vanity was the most honest, creditable, endearing quality we possessed; and something of the same feeling stirs me even now. Where, where on this globe, we asked ourselves triumphantly, would Muriel find anything to match the ready deference, the kind, half-humorous, wholly charming devotion of the American man to his womankind? Indeed, it was plain to see she was unused to this Sir Walter Raleigh attitude; she was as much puzzled as pleased by it. I think we were somewhat disposed to patronise her; and Kitty Oldham declared openly she didn't believe Miss Baxter had ever had an offer in her life. She was an exceptionally handsome girl; she must have had a far wider social experience than ours; but, for all that, and in spite of her size and the splendid unconscious ease of her bearing, we detected in her a curious timidity. It suited her. Had she attempted to imitate the brisk, fearless, autocratic American girl, she would have been merely a big hoyden. There was, after all, something sweet in her naïve tactlessness, her awkward conscientious efforts at adapting herself to ways she could not understand, and perhaps at heart, did not really like. To one of us, at least, the association was not without profit. I used to feel that someone ought in conscience to explain Mrs. Botlisch to Muriel, to apologise for that really terrible old woman; the irritating thing was that Muriel accepted her without comment, exactly as she accepted the rest of us—as if, I thought with annoyance, we were all freaks together! "Mazie's grandmother is not—well—er—she's not at all—you know?" I said, feeling, notwithstanding this public-spirited effort, a little embarrassed under Muriel's direct, serious gaze. "Mrs. Botlisch is—well, she's really not—er—very good style, nobody else here is like her—you must have noticed it. She's awfully common—of course, we didn't know much about the Pallinders before they came here—nobody knows how they—they got in, you see——"
"I shouldn't think you'd come to the house so much if you feel that way," said Muriel. "I wouldn't."
She did not mean it as a rebuke; she was only saying, as usual, precisely what she thought. But all at once, with the uncompromising harshness of youth, I saw and denounced myself inwardly for a petty groundling, eating people's bread with a covert sneer, and parading their shortcomings before a stranger. No, Muriel would not have done it. Noblesse oblige!
The Pallinders, to their honour be it said, never seemed to be ashamed of Mrs. Botlisch. They had their notions of noblesse oblige, too, strange as that may sound. Reflecting upon it now, I see certain a heroism in the respect they paid that dreadful, screeching, vile-tongued old termagant. I have known prosperous, reputable families, who paid the butcher and thought it a sin to play cards, wherein the unornamental older members were not treated with one-half the consideration these kind-hearted, conscienceless outlaws bestowed on Mrs. Botlisch. She was a fat harridan of seventy with a blotched red face, a great, coarse, husky voice like a man's and thick hands, the nails bitten down to the quick. She liked to go about without corsets or shoes in a shapeless gaberdine she called a double-gown—not too clean at that. She kept a bottle of whisky on her mantelpiece; she had a disconcerting habit of whisking out her teeth and laying them down wherever she chanced to be; you might come upon them grinning amongst Mazie's music on the piano, or under the sofa-cushions. She frankly enjoyed a loose story, and made a point of telling them in mixed companies of young people. She alternately bullied the servants and gossiped with them in the kitchen; once I most inopportunely happened upon Mrs. Botlisch engaged in a battle-royal with one of the chambermaids over some trifle—a broken dish, perhaps—in the pantry. Fortunately, I could not understand one word they uttered; and after a little, Mrs. Pallinder came, looking quite grey over her handsome resolute face, and took her mother away still shrieking hideous abuse. "Ma is so eccentric," she said to me afterwards, with a ghastly smile; and some feeling, of mingled horror and compassion, withheld me from reporting the wretched scene. In most households, these undesirable parents can be thrust, gently or not, into the background; in fact, very many parents retire thither of their own accord. But Mrs. Botlisch was not of that type.
"I like to set in the parlour an' see the young folks," she said. "Mirandy she don't want me to, but I says to her, 'Mirandy,' says I, 'don't you worry. I'm goin' ter keep my uppers an' lowers in, 'less I git a fish-bone er a hunk o' meat under the plate at dinner, an' I ain't a-goin' to no bed till I git sleepy,' says I. She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid you won't be comf'ble with your—you know—on all evenin'.'" (Here she gave J. B. a poke in the side and dropped her left eyelid). "'Lord love you, don't set there lookin' so innercent like you'd never saw a woman undress in yer life—don't come that over me, young feller. She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid you'll feel kinder tight an' uncomf'ble with 'em on all evenin' 'long as you ain't used to wearin' 'em much in the daytime,' she says. 'Land!' says I. 'Mirandy,' I ain't squoze inter my cloze by main stren'th the way Mazie is. 'F I feel uncomf'ble, I'll just undo the bottom buttons of my basque an' I'll be all right, you see.'"
And there she sat, true to her word, creaking in her black silk and bugles (with the bottom buttons undone!), perspiring greasily over her fat red face; and shouting rough, humorous, and frequently shrewd criticism at our amateurs during rehearsal until midnight, when we went out to the dining-room for oysters, egg-nogg, and the too lavish entertainment of Colonel Pallinder's sideboard. The first time this occurred Teddy Johns retreated precipitately from the table, and, being sought, was discovered at last, pallidly reclining on the library lounge.
"I'm all right, old man," he said feebly. "Just a minute, please. I couldn't stand seeing old Mrs. Botlisch wallop down those oysters, that's all."