“Well, ma’am, from what Mr. Pierce tells me of the way he is shaping, according to to-day’s paper, I think I shall have a bit both ways; not very much, of course; half a crown, I dare say.”
“You didn’t pick the winner for me last Newmarket as I told you. There, I am sure that will do beautifully,” I say, trying to escape before her state of mind leads her to throw a blanket over my hind quarters. Some day she will do it, and I shall find it difficult to hit exactly the right note in what I say. On the actual day of the race I can get nothing done, from the time when she brings my tea in the morning and forgets the hot water until the evening when she sends me, by the altogether disapproving Perrin, a paper (with the day’s results marked in a trembling hand) which she and Pierce have walked three miles to buy. She begs to be excused, of course, and would I care to glance at the news.
That is one side of Louise’s character. The other side is very feminine: loves clothes, and scent, and money, and love-making. She will never make what is called a good servant because I cannot teach her not to enjoy her life, and I am bound to say I have not tried. There is only one serious flaw in her so far as I am concerned, and that is her passion for dogs. She began by throwing out hints that I should keep a dog and, when these failed to take effect, she frankly besought me to keep one. I said: “Louise, I have your master and the two children. That is quite as much as I care to undertake.”
“Lord love you, ma’am,” she replied, “poor little darlings! you could keep both, and I would look after him, indeed I would.”
“You can keep an entire pack if you like,” I said, “so long as you chain them to your bed, and don’t let them dribble and roll over me.” The poor thing was in ecstasies, and I learned that Mr. Pierce knew of a splendid bull pup that was wanting a home.
“Remember,” I cautioned her, “if he goes within a mile of the sewing-room he leaves the world, or at any rate this house, within the hour.” She promised faithfully and, I believe, spent a sleepless night planning how he should whittle away his noisy and disorderly days. She asked me to suggest a name for him, and I said that it would be a certain comfort and distraction to me if she called him Rose, but she would not have that, because, in the first place, Rose was a lady’s name, and he was nothing if not a real gentleman, and the smell would soon wear off—she had not noticed it, in fact. I then suggested “Gobble,” “Slop,” “Skid” (because I hated the way he slithered and skated on the polished floors), “Nebuchadnezzar” (because his nails were so long and dirty, and he was always choking over bits of grass), “Keating” (because he appeared to be troubled with them), but she rejected all these and called him Sam, because there was something in his bloodshot eyes that reminded her of a favourite cousin who had died.
“That’s a good idea,” I agreed, “let us hope there is something in a name after all. Did your cousin die of eating too much Limerick lace?”
“Oh, no, ma’am,” she said proudly, “he died of whooping-cough.” (I have often thought that may be the matter with Sam, was my private reflection.) “And as for the lace, I do hope, ma’am, you will overlook that; it was quite a mistake of the poor boy’s. He was after a rabbit just when I happened to have my work outside, and he was so excited he never stopped to think.”
“Well, he will have all eternity to study Natural History in next time he does it,” I remarked, and we changed the subject. I got to tolerate Sam after a time, because he finished up James’s cigar ends. An ash-tray full of horrors vanished in a moment before his all-embracing slobber—but enough—the dinner-gong will sound in vain for me if I allow my mind to dwell on Sam’s habits. The only dog I have ever loved is dear to me because he is less like a dog than anything else. He is known to his friends as the “occasional table,” because that is what he is like. He has a highly polished oblong surface, and stands on Chippendale legs, and people trip over him, which always amuses me. There is no high-class amusement like this to be got out of Sam; he merely barges into people like a drunken hippopotamus, which is not in the least funny. But the “occasional table” is the only dog I know who appears to possess a pocket-handkerchief and use it, and I have never seen him eat in public. Dearest quality of all, he knows that burglars are not announced in the drawing-room, even that they do not ring the front door bell. What a truly blessed thing life would be if he could spread these glad tidings amongst the rest of his shrieking brotherhood! This seems to be a chapter on race-meetings and dogs rather than on Louise, my maid; but there is very little Louise apart from horses, dogs, good temper and lace, and all these points have been touched upon. I now understand better why Perrin does not like her. As one of the young ladies she would have done well enough; he would have tucked her up in her high dog-cart with a certain admiration, and been pleased with her successes at the Agricultural and Kennel Club shows. But for his own after-dinner conversation he prefers something of a fluffier and less independent nature; something of the tea-making, “Lord, Mr. Perrin, be off with you!” sort.
Louise has excellent taste in clothes. She steers through yards of drapery with the delicate assurance of a surgeon finding his way amongst the cobweb creations of the human body, and she does it all in the same impersonal way. The Claras of this world suggest lumps of animated matter rolling about, spluttering, and disturbing things that would do very well as they are; the Louises seem to be furthering the end of some pleasant universal desire and disentangling the prejudices that cumber its path.