CHAPTER XVII: THE BUTLER
We had at last struggled up to such heights above the sorrows of the Palmerston Road that we were able to buy a butler. The main reason for this important social advance was that Clara had married a traveller in sewing machines and, like a lady with a pet canary, I could never, never care for another; a bullfinch perhaps, but not a canary. With a butler I should have a new and therefore possibly interesting set of vices to contend with, but to bring out again my old quack remedies for morning blindness and ubiquity would be beyond my strength. I could not face the explanations about table-napkins, and “ladies first,” and unpunctual tea-kettles, nor, above all, the black cloud of displeasure which would be sure to billow from under the pantry door and pervade the house after my ruthless destruction of lifelong habits. Agood manservant never mentions what he has been accustomed to. If you differ from him he puts up with you if he can, and if not, he says that he finds the air is not so healthy as that of Herefordshire and, sorry though he is to leave you, he prefers to make a change and try gravel soil.
Perrin liked me, I am glad to say. He thought that I was inexperienced, but shaped well to become a good mistress if I would be a little more particular in some things; he relied on himself to teach me his ways in time. He told me rather pointedly, within the first days of our acquaintance, that he had been obliged to leave his last place because there was too much freedom. The master had been on a ranch all his life and come suddenly into the property and, as was to be expected, hardly understood his position. “It was very awkward for me,” he added, “as you will understand, being obliged to mention what was expected.”
“And what was expected?” I asked.
“Well, of course, ma’am, it is difficult tosay exactly, but there were many little things. His late lordship was always very particular that at least three of us should sit up for him when he came home late.” I blushed nervously as I remembered how James and I had always let ourselves in with a latch-key and had eaten our sandwiches and heated our soup on the gas-ring. It was just possible this had reached Perrin’s ears through Ruth and he was deliberately warning me not to go too far.
“That is what one would expect, of course,” I said. “Mr. Molyneux gives a great deal of trouble and is most fanciful and inconsiderate. You will have to be very careful.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he answered. (How soothing that is after the female “yes’m,” I thought.) “How many shall I bring tea for?”
“Oh, about forty,” I said airily.
“Very good, ma’am. In the woods, I suppose?” Clara used barely to answer when I asked for tea on the lawn, and she always brought it all on one tray, with the cakes piled on the top of the bread andbutter and scones; moreover, she staggered and panted to impress me with its weight, and held up her dress and suffered for the rest of the week from sore throat, “owing to wetting me feet on the grass.”
The woods were at least a quarter of an hour’s walk from the house and across a ditch.
“Certainly, in the woods,” I said, “and if by any chance I should be alone for tea after all, you can come round a longer way. That will give you almost as much trouble.”
I wondered at first how I should explain my way of living to Perrin, and whether he would make me give up much that I held dear. Would he allow many of what Clara called the “goings on” of my house? But, to my surprise, he did not mind at all; in fact, I understood that he preferred many of the people whom Mrs. Van Dieman so much disliked to Mrs. Van Dieman herself. I could see that he thought most of the stars of the neighbourhood a poor lot. “His late lordship never thought much of them he let his place to each year,” he told me. I shouldhave liked to hear about these objectionable tenants, but I saw that Perrin’s gems must be gathered when and where they fell; he gave nothing of value for the asking. However, with patience and care, I learned by and by some of the reasons why the usurpers had failed to please. He told me once, in a fit of irritation, that a young commercial gentleman from Sheffield, who took his late lordship’s place one year, seemed to have very little idea of how things should be. He seemed, for instance, to think that the place belonged to him. This seemed to me rather hard when I remembered how little James and I heeded the ownership of the frowsy creature to whom we paid rent for our delightful house in Palmerston Road. If it had not been for James’s uncle, I should not have dared to put forward this view. As it was, I said timidly: “But, after all, I suppose they were owners for the time being, Perrin.” He was not offended, on the contrary he gave the idea his indulgent consideration, but it would not do.
“We hardly regard the town builders, ma’am, as on a par with the families as have owned the property for generations.”
I probed delicately for more horrible details.
“He spoke of the Master of the Hounds, ma’am, as the Captain of the Dogs.”
There was a solemn silence. I could do nothing but murmur expressions of sympathy and disgust; but my thoughts took suddenly a fantastic turn and I mentally christened our present leader of county society the “Mistress of the Cats,” hunting impossible birds to a well-deserved social death. I awoke from my dream of delight and waited. “Mr. Huggins” (that was the name of the commercial gentleman) “went so far as to request me to bring the gramophone on to the lawn on Sunday afternoon. Fortunately, I had disabled my arm at the time and the doctor considered it inadvisable for me to attempt weights of any kind, so the second footman obliged them; otherwise I should have been in great difficulty.”
I still think that Perrin did the poor things injustice, and that if his late lordship had ordered a barouche full of gramophones to be brought on to the lawn, my friend would have adjusted his prejudices and his arm to meet the case. His dislike was due to a primitive suspicion of an alien tribe whose size and shape and smell offended him. Just as I feel about Mrs. Simpson—I am not running her down in any way.
There was an awful moment of anxiety when it occurred to me that Perrin might want me to play games, but, on thinking it over, I decided that he would not wish it unless I played very well indeed, and that I knew was an impossibility. I could not face the idea of tennis while he was bringing out the tea or announcing visitors. My legs would be sure to get entangled in his eye and then all would be over between us. We were obliged to get a victoria and a pair of horses soon after he arrived, as he disliked my coming in tired and dusty from paying visits. Of course, that meant a footman too,as I hate a victoria with one horse, and nothing would induce me to drive behind two horses and one man—if there is only one man to two horses the man’s hat gets fluffy at once, also it is impossible to make one man’s coat fit properly; so long as there are two horses, it is always loose behind the shoulders and his white collar behaves like the setting sun. So there we were, involved in endless expense and all because of Perrin. But oh! the relief of it! The mere fact that he did not wear cuffs that came off, and rattled, and were left about on tables, gave me much peace of mind, and, best of all, I basked in the certainty that although he might direct my actions, he would never interfere with my thoughts as Clara did. I could hear her thinking and having feelings all over the house; but Perrin did all his thinking in the pantry, never permitting himself to indulge his brain in my presence. I knew that when Clara said she “hadn’t an idea,” it meant that her mind was so seething with folly that it was likely to burst forthinto reproach at any moment. When I asked Perrin where my thimble and scissors were, he said that he would ascertain, which meant that he withdrew respectfully to the pantry and there brought his mind to bear on all the places where an addle-headed female was most likely to have left such things, and then he looked until he found them. He helped me a great deal in the training of young George, the footman. I told George one day that he must not gather his coat-tails round him and leap from the box as if it were a burning building. “Thank you, ma’am,” he replied shyly, “Mr. Perrin has already mentioned it. I was not going to do it after to-day.” But even then it was not quite right, and I had to appeal for help to Perrin. “George’s descent from the box is not quite right yet, Perrin, and I don’t know how to explain. Only, I am not sure whether he reminds me most of a chimpanzee or a sailor.”
“Quite so, ma’am. I will see that he practises from the shelves of the pantrycupboard,” said Perrin; and in a week it was impossible to detect how George reached the ground. Once, Perrin was ill, and we all moped like sick canaries. George lost his head and forgot the coffee spoons, the silver and glass lost their sparkle and sat about all anyhow on the table. But behind the scenes the gloom was lightened, although the meals were irregular and bad owing to Ruth preparing soup and jelly for Perrin which she carried to him herself. The housemaids stole into the garden for flowers for the invalid’s room, and, one day, delighted cackles announced the fact that Mr. Perrin felt well enough to shave himself, and that Ruth and Lizzie held the glass while Mr. George prepared the soap. I sent him books and papers of a masculine kind, such as I thought he looked as if he would read. He sent his duty and found them most enjoyable, but I believe now that in the kingdom downstairs where Perrin reigns the habits of the Court are less Victorian than I supposed, and the sceptre is garlanded with flowers.