“’Twas a good life when all was said,” she murmured, a good life, washed by the dews, freshened with the winds, sweetened by the flowers. She left a bank note at the poor-box of the little church, and returned to her grandeur and greatness, bearing in memory for many a day that pleasant sound of the cattle chewing the wet grasses in the dusk, smelling in memory for many a day the honey scent of the cowslips in the wide pastures by the river. Those memories were shut up in her heart in secret; she would not have dared to speak of them to her husband, or her daughter, but they were there, as the withered daisies were in the secret drawer of her dressing-case; and they kept a little corner of feeling alive in her poor puffed-out stiffened overstretched soul, so overweighted with its cares and honors.
It seemed wonderful to her that she should be a grand rich lady going to Court and wearing diamonds. Through all these years through which the millions had been accumulating she had not been allowed to know of their accumulation, or permitted to cease from privations and incessant labor. More than a quarter of a century had been to her a period of toil quite as severe in one way as the life as a dairy-girl had been here in another way. Often and often in the bitter winters and scorching summers of the Northwest she had thought as of a lost paradise of these peaceful pastures, where no greater anxiety had burdened her than to keep her cows in health and have her milking praised.
It was a fine thing to be a fine lady; yes, no doubt she was very proud of her new station in the world. But still, these white satin corsets of Paris which laced her in so tightly were less easy than the cotton jacket and the frieze coat; her hands laden with rings or imprisoned in gloves could not do the nimble work which they had been used to do; and the unconcealed contempt of the “smart society” in which she lived had not the warmth and comfort which had been in the jokes and the tears of the farm-girls when a cow upset the milk she had given or the boys came home fresh from a fair. It was all much grander of course in this, but ease was wanting.
“My dear Ronnie! Those new folk your sister’s running are too delicious for anything,” said Daddy Gwyllian to Hurstmanceaux in the smoking-room. “I took the woman into supper, and on my soul I never laughed more at the Coquelins! I’m going to dine there on Sunday; they’ve got Richemont.”
“More shame for you, Daddy!” said Hurstmanceaux. “I never thought you’d worship the golden calf.”
“Well, rich people are pleasant to know,” said Daddy Gwyllian. “They’re comfortable; like these easy chairs. Borrow of ’em? No, ’tisn’t that. I never borrowed, or wanted to borrow, half-a-crown in my life. But they’re indirectly so useful. And they’re pleasant. You can turn lots of things on to them. You can get lots of fun out of them. You can do such a deal for your friends with them. Rich people are like well-filled luncheon-baskets; they make the journey with ’em mighty pleasant. The wine’s dry and the game-pie’s good, and the peaches are hothouse, and it’s all as it should be and no bother.”
“I travel on cold tea,” said Hurstmanceaux with dry significance.
“Oh, lord, my dear Ronnie, I know you do,” said Gwyllian. “But I can’t stomach cold tea, and a good many other people can’t either. Now your poor folks are cold tea and my rich folks are dry sherry. Economy’s a damned ugly thing, you know, at its best. When I go down to shoot with poor folks I know they put me in a cold room and expect my servant to clean my gun. The wealth of my neighbor means my own comfort. The want of means of my friend means my own want of bien-être when I go to see him. Naturally I don’t go. Equally naturally I do go where I am sure to get all I want. I don’t want any bills backed, but I do want a warm house, a dry wine, and a good cook. The very good cooks only go nowadays to the very rich people; that is to the rôture. I dined at a royal palace last month execrably; I was ill afterwards for twenty-four hours. I know one of the chamberlains very well; I got to the bottom of this horrible mystery; the king pays so much a head for his dinners, wine included! I fled from that capital. The royal dynasty is very ancient, very chivalrous, very heroic, but I prefer the Massarenes.”
“I dare say you are right,” said Hurstmanceaux bitterly. “The adoration of new wealth is not so much snobbism as selfishness.”
“It is not snobbism at all in us,” said Gwyllian, “the snobbism is on their side. They kiss our boots when we kick ’em. Why shouldn’t we kick ’em if they like it?”