by R S Surtees
Character is often shown in trifles, and perhaps a copy of a letter from Mrs Watkins to Mrs Scarsdale about a cook will elucidate that of Mrs Watkins better than anything we can write. Mrs Scarsdale, we may observe, was a quiet, unassuming lady, who with her husband were people of very old family. They, however, unfortunately, were not so rich as they had been. Thus the letter ran:—
TO MRS SCARSDALE,
Manor House.
Dalberry Lees,
Tuesday.
“Madam,—Mrs Lubbins, your late cook and housekeeper, has referred me to you for a character in those capacities, though indeed I only require her in the former one, as my establishment requires the constant supervision of an experienced housekeeper.
“I shall therefore feel obliged if you will inform me if you can recommend Lubbins as an honest, trustworthy, sober, steady person, alto a thoroughly good cook, sending up dinners in good style for eighteen or twenty, and in her everyday dinners attentive to send up nicely; understands soups well, made dishes, sweets, and confectionery. The head gardener makes the ices. I am particular in inquiring about soups, as we require them daily and good. Indeed, we want everything good, as we keep a great deal of company, and that good. May I ask if Lubbins does her own work fairly and well, not trusting too much to the kitchen-maids, of which we keep two, besides a dairy-maid, who helps on emergencies. I should like to have Lubbins’s last character, if you have it. “I am, Madam, yours truly,
“Letitia Watkins.
“An early answer is requested.”
It will be observed that in this document Mrs Watkins speaks of “my establishment,” ignoring friend Willy until she comes to the eating part of the inquiry, and that was pretty much the way she treated him on all occasions, hitching him in as a sort of contingent, and because she thought it looked better to have a man with her than to go bowling about the country with her daughter alone. Willy, however, always had to sit with his back to the horses. Besides eating, dressing, and, as Independent Jimmy said, “brushin’ his hair,” Willy had no sort of occupation. He neither farmed, nor gardened, nor hunted (except he couldn’t help it), nor coursed, nor shot, nor walked, nor rode. He read as little as possible. He said it was bad for the eyes. Willy, poor, empty-headed Willy! was thrown on dress and equipage as his only resource. He got himself up elaborately every day—not in what is called the “ditto” style, coat, waistcoat, and trousers all of a piece, but in the colour-matching, colour-choosing, cut-varying, velvet-facing, silk-lining order of former times. This changing with the season, coupled with an extensive wardrobe, enabled him to appear differently every day. Now in a fine tightly-fitting surtout, with white vest and bloodstone buttons; next in a red-and-yellow-ribboned deer-stalker hat, with a tie to match, silk-velvet shooting-jacket, white flannel-looking trousers, turned up at the ankles to show his red stockings and Balmoral boots. His dressing-room was like a museum. Every species of coat, costume, and raiment that could be devised, varied with skull-caps, slippers, and dressing-gowns without end. He dressed four times a day. Morning déshabille, Turkish trousers and dressing-gown; luncheon, a sort of etching of what he was to come out after; then, grand costume for the carriage-drive; after which, full or moderate evening attire, according as they had company or not. And as they paced the weary turnpike-roads, the pompous grey horses propounding their magnanimous legs with the true airing action, the whole party thought they were the envy and admiration of the world. They little knew what the Independent Jimmies said of them.
Such swells coming into the country, sporting two crests and a portentous coat-of-arms on their carriage, the man swell giving his £100 a-year to the hounds, were sure to get into a certain society; but the neighbours, having mastered the Watkins’ establishment, gradually withdrew from the plate, linen, and china contest, and the longer the Watkinses lived at Dalberry Lees the less they were visited. Lubbins had very little to do—very few “uproars,” as she elegantly called parties, to provide. Each fresh dinner was only a repetition of the last, and people got tired of the same thing over and over again. That is the case in most countries. Railways have gone far to annihilate that sort of society. London now has the monopoly.
At this juncture came the Romfords. Mr Romford, a single man—master of hounds—living at Lord Lovetin’s—enough to stamp him with respectability; Beldon Hall, just a nice drive from Dalberry Lees. And there was Miss Watkins, a charming young lady, longing to be settled, with a most enterprising mamma to guide her in the right course. Mrs Watkins saw her opportunity, and determined to improve it. She knew that by dashing at the new comer she might gain an ascendency that it would be difficult to dispossess her of; and, moreover, appearing to be intimate, might ward off invidious detraction, which it is always desirable to do. So they brought out their cards to call at Beldon Hall at the earliest possible moment—rather, indeed, as it happened, before Mr Romford was ready to receive them; though, if they had waited for that event, they would never have got there at all. Facey did not hoist the flag of reception, though there was one attached to the dome of the house.
XXIV
THE MORNING CALL
IT WAS A FINE BRIGHT winter’s day, slightly inclining to frost, that our friends at Dalberry Lees, having taken an early lunch and got themselves up with extra care, stepped into their well-appointed London barouche, to shed their cards at Beldon Hall. The greys had on new rosettes. Spanker, the swell coachman, sported a well-curled wig, and John Thomas showed his quivering calves in pink silk gauze. Mrs and Miss were radiant; Mrs all ermine and feathers, Miss exhibiting a grand floricultural trophy on her head, the produce of her great London milliner, Madame Mirabel Marvellouslongbille, of Upper Grosvenor Street.
Country calling requires a good deal more tact and consideration than it does in London, where ten minutes will make up the difference anywhere, and people get nothing but a grin or a shake of the hands when they come. First, there is the distance to be considered; then the state of the roads; next, perhaps, the state of the horses. Then comes the grand question,—to lunch or not to lunch; for if you don’t mean to lunch, the call should be postponed till such a time as to prevent any mistake as to your intentions, else you may have the lady ringing the bell, and without giving an order letting you in for a second lunch, whether you will or not; a penance only to be equalled by that of a second breakfast at a lawn meet. Well, then, if you don’t lunch, there is the second calculation as to whether the time of year will allow of your getting there and back before dark, with the state of the roads, the state of the horses,—the old subject over again. But ladies’ horses can do anything, so here let the Watkinses go. Let us suppose them in and away.
Spanker, the coachman, tired of the six miles an hour monotony of airing, seemed glad of an excuse for springing his horses, and put them over the intervening miles in double-quick time. Gasper, the road-man, who worked by the day and spent half his time in gossiping with the passersby, wondered what had happened. He had never seen the Lees folk, as he called them, having some doubt of their quality, in such a hurry before.
Arrived at the still pipe-decorated lodges, the opposing gates flew open with the rapidity due to such an exalted equipage, and the greys were coaxed into a canter against the now rising ground.
Mr Willy Watkins looked at his watch to see that they were not anticipating the revised dress of the Romford footmen, and Mrs and Miss began feeling their hair, adjusting their gloves, and arranging their company faces. They were presently under the portico of the front door. John Thomas, who, like all the Watkins’ men, was a London servant (working-up a lost character in the country), having alighted from his seat, rang an amazing peal at the bell, and was instantly alongside the carriage for orders, in anticipation of an immediate outburst of servants,—butler, groom of the chamber, footmen, &c.
“Mrs Somerville,” said Mrs Watkins, calmly, slightly removing the rich sable coverlid from her side of the carriage, as if to get out. But John Thomas stood listening at the hall-door, li
ke a terrier at a rat-hole, without receiving any internal response to his summons. The fact was, these were the first callers the Romfords had had, and nobody seemed to know what to do. If the master and mistress were not at home, however, it was clear the servants were, for a bunch of uncropped, Friezeland hen-like heads were seen clustering in a second-floor window of the opposite wing, after the manner of well-conducted establishments. These we need scarcely say, were the Dirties,—Dirty No.1, Dirty No.2, and Dirtiest of the Dirty,—who all seemed more bent on admiring the unwonted equipage than desirous of affording the inmates of it any information. Thus they talked:—
Dirty No.2—“Can it be for us?”
Dirtiest of the Dirty—“Wonder who it is.”
Dirty No.1—“Oh! those Watkins folks.”
Dirty No.2—“No doubt come to look after the Squire;” meaning Mr Romford.
“Better ring again,” at length muttered the coachman, who saw what was passing in front; and forthwith John Thomas gave another astonishing peal, that almost pulled the bell-handle out of the socket.
This scattered the Dirties; and Lucy—Mrs Somerville—who had whipped a pair of stockings, on which she was engaged, into an ottoman at the first alarm, now met the flying group in the back passage, and rallying them while censuring their flight, she desired that one of them would go and open the door directly.
And as on this occasion Dirtiest of the Dirty being again the cleanest of the three, she went circling along in her palpable hoops showing her well-shaped legs as she went. She opened the door, and exhibited herself in its portals.
But that she was pretty, John Thomas would have felt rather demeaned at being thus confronted with a female. As it was, he looked benignly at her, and said, with a simpering smile,
“Missis at ’ome, Miss?”
And Dirtiest of the Dirty, having no orders to the contrary, and not exactly understanding the meaning of the term, dropped a curtsy, and incontinently answered “Yes;” whereupon John Thomas reapproached the carriage to liberate the party, instead of taking the cards, which they had been sorting in full expectation of a different answer. Out got Willy, followed by the ladies, piloting their petticoats, to the admiration of the remaining Dirties, who had again congregated at the opposite window.
Oh, what fine ladies the Dirties thought them, and how they envied their smart clothes.
Our visitors looked rather disconcerted at the escort, but attributing the deficiency to the confusion of shifting, they followed Dirtiest of the Dirty across the lofty black and white marble-floored hall, through the vestibule, to the breakfast-room, where Lucy, nothing loath to see what was up, had subsided at an elegant work-table, with a strip of book-muslin in her hand.
“The ladies,” now said Dirtiest of the Dirty, opening the door; an forthwith Lucy arose, and with a profound stage curtsy to each, welcomed mother and daughter, and then, with a somewhat slighter curtsy and a graceful wave of her right hand, indicated a couple of advanced chairs, on which she begged they would be seated.
“MISTER WATKINS” now announced Mrs Watkins, slowly and distinctly bringing her flash man forward, so that there might be no mistake as to who they were. And Lucy gave a still more modified curtsy to him, and begged that he too would take a chair. All four having thus at length got themselves seated, Mrs Watkins adjusted her fine lace-fringed kerchief, and arranged her company-smile for a task
It is a great advantage to have trod the stage—to have played at kings and queens. It gives people wonderful composure under company circumstances. But for Lucy’s experience that way, she, might have felt rather awkward in the presence of two such highly dressed ladies, she only in a plain semi-mourning costume, waited upon by a woman—“Mamma,” we may say, was busy baking, and did not show. Still Lucy’s quiet, graceful manner, coupled with her aristocratic residence, completely deceived Mrs Watkins, and deprived the latter of her usual condescending patronage, making her think that Lucy was a person to look up to. So, instead of bringing out her Court card of the greatest personage she knew, as people in the country generally do, or talking about the splendour of Dalberry Lees, she began toadying, and apologising for this early intrusion on the score of their anxiety to be the first to pay their respects to Mrs Somerville; all of which Lucy received with great propriety, and many bows and thanks for their neighbourly consideration. They then indulged in a slight dissertation on the weather—in the course of which Lucy considered whether to offer them any luncheon, but thinking they looked like people who could eat at any time, and recollecting the dilapidated state of the establishment—nothing but Dirties—she wisely refrained, and entered with great glee on that safe, sure-footed subject of the climate, hoping the fine weather might continue, frost and snow were so very disagreeable—particularly snow, which put an end to everything, and made the country like a great prison. The snow question soon brought them to the subject of hunting, and Mrs Watkins continuing her toadyism at high pressure, by expressing their great delight with having got Mr Romford to take the hounds—the country was so dull without them—for though, she said, Mr Watkins only hunted for conformity, still it was a great advantage to everybody having hounds, not only in showing sport to the gentlemen who liked to have their faces scratched, but in promoting sociality, balls and parties, and making everything pleasant.
To this Lucy, who knew Facey’s forte was not capering in a ball-room, made no reply; but Mrs Watkins followed up the charge briskly by saying, she supposed Mr Romford had an excellent set of dogs.
Lucy said he had, and spared no expense in procuring them. And Mrs Watkins heard he was an excellent sportsman too. Lucy replied that he was.
And now, Mrs Watkins having laid a foundation of flattery, proceeded to raise a superstructure of inquisitiveness upon it. She hoped Mrs Somerville was going to stay among them. Indeed, she didn’t see how Mr Romford could do without her, though Mrs Watkins inwardly thought he would do much better with her beautiful daughter Cassandra Cleopatra. Lucy parried this home-thrust, by saying that she would most likely stay till she saw her brother comfortably settled—an answer that might involve any period of time, seeing that the comfort is so much a matter of opinion. Some people might think the West-end Swell comfortable; others, again, might require the elegancies of the Clarendon or of the Lord Warden at Dover, before they returned a verdict to that effect.
“Well, but as the winter was so far advanced,” observed Mrs Watkins, returning again to the charge, “Mrs Somerville would most likely stay it out.”
“Lucy couldn’t say. It would depend a good deal upon the weather.
“Was she afraid of cold?”
“Not particularly,” replied Lucy, “only the country is always colder than the town.”
“But this seems a warm, comfortable house,” observed Mrs Watkins, looking round the well-furnished room. “Had they taken it for any length of time?”
Lucy couldn’t tell; didn’t know whether it was a lease, a loan, or what it was; Mr Romford and Lord Lovetin had managed the matter between them.
“His lordship’s a peculiar man, I th’osse,” now lisped Miss, who, at one time, thought she might perchance be Lady Lovetin.
“Is he?” said Lucy, who did not feel at all inclined to lead the charge against their noble landlord.
“Oh, very,” assented Mamma; “quite a recluse. Does he lock up all the things, and just let you have the bare walls?”
“Oh, no,” replied Lucy; “we have whatever we want.”
“Ah, then Mr Romford will be a friend,” suggested Mrs Watkins—“Mr Romford will be a friend. I know a party who wanted to take the place, and his lordship would hardly let them have anything for their money—wanted to be be paid extra for everything.”
“Indeed,” said Lucy; “he’s quite different with us—I mean with my brother. He has all he wants, and more.”
“It’s a good houth, I th’osse?” lisped Cassandra Cleopatra.
“Very,” assented Lucy; adding, “would you like to s
ee it?
Miss would, and so would mamma—the latter particularly, for, independently of the natural taste all ladies have for seeing over houses, she wanted to see what servants they had. So Lucy, handing Mr Watkins last week’s “Bell’s Life” (Facey’s sole instructor), to amuse himself with during their absence, opened the door and away they floated on the grand tour of the house—upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber. Whatever Mrs Watkins saw that was fine, she determined to have at Dalberry Lees.
Meanwhile friend Romford, who was busily engaged cleaning his gun in his shirt-sleeves in the butler’s pantry down below, was sorely put out by the repeated rings at the door bell, and severely objurgated all the Dirties for letting the callers in, telling them, as he met them on the wing after the mischief, always to say that they were “not at home,” when anybody came. And he then returned to his former occupation, now wishing the Watkinses were gone, now wondering why they came, next dreading lest they might eat his dinner for luncheon, then thinking how he came to miss his last woodcock that morning. “It was that confounded mountain-ash in the way,” said he.
In the midst of his speculations the rustle of robes and the sound of female voices came softened down below, and, listening attentively, friend Facey distinctly heard Lucy’s voice pioneering the marauders. “This is the servants’ hall,” said she, “and beyond it is the butler’s pantry,” the voice advancing that way.
“And, rot it, they’re comin’,” said he, depositing his gun and ramrod on the table, and making his escape by the opposite door. He got into the stillroom—no still room, however, for him, for the voices presently approached that door, driving him into the housekeeper’s room, from whence there was no escape save through the scullery and up by the coal-cellar grate. Determined not to be caught—especially in his shirt-sleeves—he dashed valiantly at the iron bars, and, mistaking the side of the cellars, crawled out right in front of the Watkins’ horses’ heads, to the astonishment of Mr Spanker and the magnificent footman, who at first thought it was the long-expected ale-jug coming. Not being, however, easily disconcerted, friend Facey just asked them, in a careless indifferent sort of way, if they had seen a rat come up, and, being answered in the negative, he turned in again at a side door as if nothing particular had happened, the Watkins’s men wondering if it was the gardener, or who it could be.