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I had noticed the vast and splendid club-houses in the best places in thecity, and I had often wondered about their life, which seemed to me ablind groping towards our own, though only upon terms that forbade it tothose who most needed it. The clubs here are not like our groups, thefree association of sympathetic people, though one is a little moreliterary, or commercial, or scientific, or political than another; butthe entrance to each is more or less jealously guarded; there is aninitiation-fee, and there are annual dues, which are usually heavy enoughto exclude all but the professional and business classes, though thereare, of course, successful artists and authors in them. During the pastwinter I visited some of the most characteristic, where I dined andsupped with the members, or came alone when one of these put me down, fora fortnight or a month.
They are equipped with kitchens and cellars, and their wines and dishesare of the best. Each is, in fact, like a luxurious private house on alarge scale; outwardly they are palaces, and inwardly they have everyfeature and function of a princely residence complete, even to a certainnumber of guest-chambers, where members may pass the night, or stayindefinitely in some cases, and actually live at the club. The club,however, is known only to the cities and larger towns, in this highlydeveloped form; to the ordinary, simple American of the country, or ofthe country town of five or ten thousand people, a New York club would beas strange as it would be to any Altrurian.
"Do many of the husbands left behind in the summer live at the club?" Iasked.
"All that _have_ a club do," he said. "Often there's a very goodtable d'hote dinner that you couldn't begin to get for the same priceanywhere else; and there are a lot of good fellows there, and you cancome pretty near forgetting that you're homeless, or even that you'remarried."
He laughed, and his wife said: "You ought to be ashamed, Dick; and meworrying about you all the time I'm away, and wondering what the cookgives you here. Yes," she continued, addressing me, "that's the worstthing about the clubs. They make the men so comfortable that they sayit's one of the principal obstacles to early marriages. The young men tryto get lodgings near them, so that they can take their meals there, andthey know they get much better things to eat than they could have in ahouse of their own at a great deal more expense, and so they simply don'tthink of getting married. Of course," she said, with that wonderful,unintentional, or at least unconscious, frankness of hers, "I don't blamethe clubs altogether. There's no use denying that girls are expensivelybrought up, and that a young man has to think twice before taking one ofthem out of the kind of home she's used to and putting her into the kindof home he can give her. If the clubs have killed early marriages,the women have created the clubs."
"Do women go much to them?" I asked, choosing this question as a safeone.
"_Much_!" she screamed. "They don't go at all! They _can't_!They won't _let_ us! To be sure, there are some that have roomswhere ladies can go with their friends who are members, and have lunch ordinner; but as for seeing the inside of the club-house proper, wherethese great creatures"--she indicated her husband--"are sitting up,smoking and telling stories, it isn't to be dreamed of."
Her husband laughed. "You wouldn't like the smoking, Dolly."
"Nor the stories, some of them," she retorted.
"Oh, the stories are always first-rate," he said, and he laughed morethan before.
"And they never gossip at the clubs, Mr. Homos--never!" she added.
"Well, hardly ever," said her husband, with an intonation that I did notunderstand. It seemed to be some sort of catch-phrase.
"All I know," said Mrs. Makely, "is that I like to have my husband belongto his club. It's a nice place for him in summer; and very often inwinter, when I'm dull, or going out somewhere that he hates, he can godown to his club and smoke a cigar, and come home just about the time Iget in, and it's much better than worrying through the evening with abook. He hates books, poor Dick!" She looked fondly at him, as if thiswere one of the greatest merits in the world. "But I confess I shouldn'tlike him to be a mere club man, like some of them."
"But how?" I asked.
"Why, belonging to five or six, or more, even; and spending their wholetime at them, when they're not at business."
There was a pause, and Mr. Makely put on an air of modest worth, which hecarried off with his usual wink towards me. I said, finally, "And if theladies are not admitted to the men's clubs, why don't they have clubs oftheir own?"
"Oh, they have--several, I believe. But who wants to go and meet a lot ofwomen? You meet enough of them in society, goodness knows. You hardlymeet any one else, especially at afternoon teas. They bore you to death."
Mrs. Makely's nerves seemed to lie in the direction of a prolongation ofthis subject, and I asked my next question a little away from it. "I wishyou would tell me, Mrs. Makely, something about your way of provisioningyour household. You said that the grocer's and butcher's man came up tothe kitchen with your supplies--"
"Yes, and the milkman and the iceman; the iceman always puts the ice intothe refrigerator; it's very convenient, and quite like your own house."
"But you go out and select the things yourself the day before, or in themorning?"
"Oh, not at all! The men come and the cook gives the order; she knowspretty well what we want on the different days, and I never meddle withit from one week's end to the other, unless we have friends. Thetradespeople send in their bills at the end of the month, and that's allthere is of it." Her husband gave me one of his queer looks, and she wenton: "When we were younger, and just beginning housekeeping, I used to goout and order the things myself; I used even to go to the big markets,and half kill myself trying to get things a little cheaper at one placeand another, and waste more car-fare and lay up more doctor's bills thanit would all come to, ten times over. I used to fret my life out,remembering the prices; but now, thank goodness, that's all over. I don'tknow any more what beef is a pound than my husband does; if a thing isn'tgood, I send it straight back, and that puts them on their honor, youknow, and they have to give me the best of everything. The bills averageabout the same, from month to month; a little more if we have companybut if they're too outrageous, I make a fuss with the cook, and shescolds the men, and then it goes better for a while. Still, it's a greatbother."
I confess that I did not see what the bother was, but I had not thecourage to ask, for I had already conceived a wholesome dread of themystery of an American lady's nerves. So I merely suggested, "And that isthe way that people usually manage?"
"Why," she said, "I suppose that some old-fashioned people still do theirmarketing, and people that have to look to their outgoes, and know whatevery mouthful costs them. But their lives are not worth having. EvelethStrange does it--or she did do it when she was in the country; I dare sayshe won't when she gets back--just from a sense of duty, and because shesays that a housekeeper ought to know about her expenses. But I ask herwho will care whether she knows or not; and as for giving the money tothe poor that she saves by spending economically, I tell her that thebutchers and the grocers have to live, too, as well as the poor, and soit's as broad as it's long."
Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance Page 11