We saw Mr. Perry into his tram, and started to walk through the town.
My observation as to the behaviour and appearance of the well-dressed people was confirmed. The men slouched along with their hands in their pockets, and the women, although they wore fine clothes, had a very ungraceful bearing. The most expensively dressed were the worst in this respect, and the poorer sort of people hustled them off the pavements and treated them with every mark of contempt.
As we were going through a narrow street between two wide ones, a stout old lady, covered with jewels, and dressed in heliotrope velvet, with some beautiful lace on her gown and enormous ostrich feathers in her hat, walked in the gutter by my side, and said in the hoarse whine of a beggar: "Do take a sovereign from a rich woman, kind gentleman. I 'aven't lef' off eating for two days, and the larder's full at 'ome."
I was about to comply with her request, for I have no prejudices against indiscriminate charity, but young Perry told her to be off, or he'd give her in charge. She slunk away to where a carriage with two fine horses and a coachman and footman was standing at the end of the street, and drove off.
"These beggars are becoming a regular pest," said Perry. "It is because we have old clothes on. There aresomecompensations in going about like a rich man."
"Could I buy a few clothes cheap?" I asked him. "I want to do the thing thoroughly while I am with you."
He laughed at me. "I don't know why you should want to buy themcheap," he said. "But, of course, you can get what you want. Do you really mean you would like to be dressed like a rich man?"
"Yes, I should," I said. "I should like to have quite a large new wardrobe."
"I think you're splendid!" he said admiringly. "I only hope you won't regret it when you come to experience actual wealth."
"I hope not," I said modestly. "But whatever it costs me I am prepared to carry it through, and I should like to begin at once."
"Well, you might get what you want to play your part at the Stores. Then, if you want to do the thing thoroughly, later on you can go to a good tailor and bootmaker, and so on, and have things made for you."
I said the Stores would do for the present. I was not quite clear in my mind as yet how the question of payment would work out, but it did not seem to be difficult to get hold of money in Culbut.
However, as a precautionary measure, I asked the price of the first article shown me, which was a ready-made flannel suit—dark green with a purple stripe in it, quite smart-looking.
The shopman looked at a secret mark on the label, and said: "Three pounds."
"Oh, come now!" said Perry at once. "We're not paupers, you know. You can't treat us in that way."
The man explained that the material wore exceptionally badly for that class of goods; but to us he would make it three pounds ten.
"Not a penny less than four pounds," said Perry, and I confounded his officiousness.
"I'll pay his price," I said. "I hate haggling."
"No," said Perry. "I'm not going to see you bestowed upon. He'll have to let you pay four pounds for it."
The man said he would go and see the manager, and when he had left the counter Perry said: "Don't you give way to him. These people are always open to a bargain, although they profess to sell dear. Why, that suit would last you for ever so long! If we hadn't come in like this he would havelet us pay six pounds for it."
"Do they give credit?" I asked.
"They think themselves very lucky if they're allowed to," he said, with a laugh. "I shouldn't trust them too far, if I were you; they might forget to send in their bill."[4]
"Oh, I'll see to that all right," I said. "I think I'll get a lot of things. What would happen if I didn't pay for them at all?"
"Well, you would be conferring a benefit on the shareholders of this company which they would thank you for pretty heartily. The business lost only ten per cent last year, and it used to lose twenty when it first started. This new manager is no good. You'll see, he'll give way about this."
He was right. I was allowed to owe four pounds for the flannel suit, and when I had been through all the departments, and set myself up thoroughly, with several suits, and with hats, boots, hosiery, and everything I could possibly want for some time to come, I was in debt to the Stores for something considerably over a hundred pounds. But under the circumstances that did not trouble me, and I determined to do a little more shopping on credit in Culbut, but without young Perry, whowas always trying to beat things up, and telling me that I didn't need this, and could do quite well without that.
We each took a parcel, and left the rest to be forwarded to Mr. Perry's house.
As we walked on through the streets I asked Perry to point me out any people of note whom we might meet, and as I spoke he lifted his hat to a woman who passed us.
"That is Lady Rumborough, a cousin of my mother's," he said.
I should not have picked out Lady Rumborough from a crowd as being anyone in particular, although she was a good-looking woman, and held herself well. She was dressed in a print gown, and wore a hat of plain black straw. She carried a string bag bulging with packages, and had a large lettuce under her arm.
"Is Lady Rumborough a leader of society?" I asked.
"Well, she is in a way," he said, "although she is not very poor. Lord Rumborough is a greengrocer in a fair way of business, and they hate the dirty set and all their ways."
He then explained that the dirty set was inclined to usurp the lead in the aristocratic society of Culbut. Aristocrats of extreme poverty, such as Lord Potter, belonged to it, but it was largely recruited from amongst those who were nobodies by birth and had not infrequently risen from the opulent and leisured classes. They made a parade of their poverty, and were ashamed to be thought to possess the smallest thing, even a cake of soap.
We next passed a cheerful active young man in an old but well-cut serge suit who went by in a great hurry.
"That," said Perry, "is Albert White, the great newspaper proprietor. He has made himself a most extraordinary career."
It seemed that Mr. Albert White was the son of a man of good family, but one possessing considerable wealth. At an early age, when other young men in his position were preparing for a life of dull idleness, he decided that he would raise himself to a high position amongst the workers. He started a weekly paper which few people could read, and lost a good deal of money over it. Using this as a stepping-stone, he started other papers, each more unreadable than the last. He developed a positive genius for discovering what the people didn't want, and in a very few yearshad lost more than any other newspaper proprietor had dropped in a lifetime. Now he was one of the poorest men in Upsidonia, and had made his family, and many others whom he had picked out to help him, poor too.
"Others have since followed in his footsteps," said Perry, "but none have had the success that he has. His daily paper has by far the smallest circulation of any in Upsidonia. People refuse to read it in enormous numbers, and it is the worst advertising medium in journalism."
"Why?" I asked. "What is its character?"
"It is mostly written by very learned men. White does not mind how little he pays to get the right people. He makes a frank appeal to the literate, and, of course, there are fewer of them than of any class. The odd thing is that nobody ever seems to have realised before what a great field for newspaper enterprise there is amongst those whowillhave the best and nothing but it. White has taught us that you can drop more money over it, and in a shorter time, than with almost anything else."
"I suppose your learned men are amongst the poor?" I asked.
"Yes. Aren't yours?"
"We keep them fairly poor as a rule."
"It is the only possible way. The mind is of much more importance than the body, and it cannot do fullest justice to itself if it is hampered by the distractions of wealth, or clogged by luxury. For that reason, I take it, in both countries, we keep our learned men poor, and strive after what knowledge we can."
"I can't say that in my country weallstrive after it," I said. "We don't like to let our learned men feel that we are cutting them out."
"Ah, I think that is a mistake; but perhaps it is not a bad one. If there is one thing that our upper classes lack, it is humility. I suppose, though, that all your peopledoearnestly desire the best gifts in life—knowledge, high character, and so on!"
"Most of us, of course. But there are some who seem to prefer to be merely well off."
"Ah, I'm afraid that there will always be those; but I rather gather from things that you have let fall that you don't despise them quite as much as we do."
"Possibly a shade less. We are charitable in that respect."
"Then you are always ready to relieve a rich man of his wealth, I suppose?"
"There are quite a large number of people amongst us who are anxious to do so."
"My dear Howard, what a happy state of things! Your country must be a Utopia. Do you see that man over there? That is John De Montmorency, the popular actor-manager."
He pointed to a very seedy-looking unkempt man who, however, held his head high, and gazed around him as he walked for admiring looks, which he got in plenty, especially from the young girls.
"They say," said Perry, "that his dresser once pressed a crease into the trousers in which he was to play a lord, out of revenge for some slight, and he went on to the stage in them without noticing. It took him a long time to recover from the blow."
"Am I to believe," I asked when Mr. De Montmorency had passed us, "that in Upsidonia the chief things that are desired are, as you say, high character and knowledge and poverty?"
"There can be no difficulty in believing that, can there? Those are the best things in life, and everyone naturally desiresthe best things. Well, of course, poverty in itself isn't one of the best things; it is only a means to an end. Still, we are none of us perfect, and I don't deny that there are many who desire poverty for its own sake. I am interested to learn that among you there is not the fierce race for it that we have here."
"Why should anybody desire it for itself?" I asked.
"My dear fellow, if you had seen as much of the grinding bitterness of wealth as I have," he said, "you would not ask that question. To be at the mercy of your possessions, never to be free from the deadening weight of idleness, never——"
"But surely," I interrupted, "your rich people can amuse themselves. They needn't be idle. Don't they play games, for instance?"
"Yes, the young do. We make them. But how terrible tohaveto kill time with cricket and golf and lawn-tennis, and when the game is finished to feel that nothing has been done to further the good of mankind!"
"Why do you make them play, then?"
"To keep them in health. We have the Upsidonian race to think of. We can't afford to deteriorate bodily as a nation."
"And do you mean to say that the rich and healthy young man really dislikes exercising his body and amusing his mind by playing games, simply because nothing comes of it?"
"Not, perhaps, when he is quite young. But to look forward to a life of it—! Besides, he can seldom afford to do even that for long."
"Can't afford it?"
"No. It isn't expensive enough. He has to set about his business of spending money, sometimes—if his parents are very rich—at an early age, and the desire for healthy exercise soon leaves him. Why, after a day of idleness it is sometimes as much as he can do to drag himself to bed, and then very often he can't sleep."
"But surely there is nothing very difficult about spending money, if you really set out to do it! In my country rich men buy fine pictures, and things of that sort."
"Well, unless the fine pictures in your country cost more than the poor ones, I don't see how that's to help them."
"They do cost more. They cost enormous sums."
"Yours seems a very funny sort of country, and I shouldn't say too much about it if I were you, or people will think you are romancing. Everything here that is worth having is cheap, and everything that isn't is dear. The rich aren't educated up to appreciating the good things."
"What do they learn in their schools?"[5]
"The education is good as far as it goes. In fact, some old-fashioned people say it is too good, and unfits the rich for the serious business of their lives, which is to spend money that the poor earn; although, of course, they would not put it in that way. There was a good deal of grumbling when the last government permitted science to be taught in the public schools. It was felt that the children of rich parents would be much better employed in learning expensive habits, so as to fit them for their station in life. But I, for one, should certainly not give in to that view."
"Well then, couldn't the rich get rid of some of their wealth by building hospitals, or endowing research, or something of that sort?"
"Endowing research?" he repeated in a puzzled way. "How could they do that? Only the poor can endow research—by relieving suitablemen of the wealth that might hamper them in their work."
"Well then, building hospitals, or picture galleries, public works—anything?"
"But the state does all that. Of course, the rich contribute their share of the rates and taxes, and there is a good deal of grumbling amongst them at present, because the party that was lately elected to bring about profusion has turned out more economical than the party it defeated. No; it is the overplus of wealth that makes the social difficulty. Itmustbe used, of course, and theremust, unless we limit supply,[6]be a submerged class on whose shoulders rests the burden of using it."
"I still don't see why it shouldn't be wasted, or merely hoarded. Don't the rich men hoard their wealth?"
"How could they? The Government auditors would be down on them at once."
"How would they know?"
"Well, everybody has to keep accounts, and the auditors are quite sharp enough to stop any serious defalcation."[7]
"But why take all this trouble to see that wealth isn't wasted! Itiswasted if it keeps a large class of people in idle luxury, when the state has made up its mind that idle luxury is a bad thing for mankind."
"Ah, my dear Howard! There you sum up the selfishness of human nature. As long as the poor have power they will put their burdens on the rich."
"Yes, the burdens of wealth. But why should they object to the rich getting rid of the overplus of wealth in any way they please? It wouldn't make any difference to their own enjoyment of work and poverty."
"It ought not to, perhaps, considering what an evil riches are. But what is it that makes the chief satisfaction of work? Surely, that you are producing something—something useful to mankind. If you knew that a considerable proportion of what you produced would be thrown away, why you might just as well work a treadmill, or play golf, instead of ploughing or sowing, or making useful things, such as clothes or furniture. The dignity of labour would disappear."
"Still, if the overplus of food, for instance, makes eating and drinking hateful, as it seems to do here, and the overplus of other things becomes a burden to a large proportion of thepeople, the result would seem to be about the same as actual waste."[8]
"Well, it is worse, of course, for the rich. But, unfortunately, the poor do not consider that enough. In your happy country, where the upper classes, from what you tell me, act as much for the benefit of the lower classes as for themselves, you escape these problems.
"But we will discuss these things further, and you shall see for yourself. Here we are at Magnolia Hall; allow me to give you a warm welcome to our rich abode."
We had long since left the business streets of the city behind, and had come, first through a district of mean-looking houses occupied chiefly, as Perry told me, by the aristocrats of Culbut, then through a more spacious suburb of large and small villas, where he said those of a decent degree of poverty resided. The tram-line had borne us company to the edge of this quarter, and we had walked for the best part of a mile along a country road, bordered by walls or fences enclosing the gardens of larger houses.
We now turned in at a pair of gates flanked by a pretty lodge, and went along a winding drive banked on either side with rhododendrons, now in full flower, until we came out into a beautiful and open garden, whose verdant lawns were ringed by a great variety of flowering shrubs and trees. This charming garden seemed a suitable setting for the long two-storied white-painted house, with its deep eaves, old-fashioned bow windows, and creeper-grown verandah. A giant magnolia, delicately flushed with pink, was in full flower over the front of the house. The still summer air brooded peacefully over all, and the tinkle of water from a fountain in a yew-enclosed rose-garden opening out of the drive fell gratefully on the ear.
"And this," I exclaimed, "your educated classes despise, and prefer to coop themselves up in those wretched little houses we passed!"
He looked at me in surprise. "Oh, you don't understand in the least," he said.
There was no time for further explanation, for we had now reached the front door, which stood hospitably open, affording a glimpse beyond the lobby of a cool spacious hall, paved with black and white marble.
We did not, however, enter at once. Perry rang the bell, and we waited until a butler and a footman in livery[9]appeared, who relieved us of the parcels we carried and showed us into a pleasant morning-room, beautifully furnished and full of flowers.
"Mr. John Howard and Mr. Edward Perry," said my friend to the butler, and we were left to ourselves.
"Excuse my asking," I said, "but do you have to observe strict formalities in your own house?"
"Oh, yes," he said. "No good servants would engage us unless we undertook to give them plenty of work. It is one of the many penalties of wealth."
At this point Mr. Perry came into the room, dressed as Ihad first seen him, and having shaved since we had parted. He renewed his welcome warmly, and introduced me to his wife, a comely grey-haired lady with agreeable manners, who said that she was delighted to see me, and to hear that I was ready to take them as I found them. I was also introduced to Miss Miriam Perry, whom I took to at once, as she was exceptionally pretty, and had a very frank and pleasing way with her. There was also a younger sister, Mollie, a pretty child of thirteen or so, and Tom, a boy of about a year older, who alone of the family was dressed in old and shabby clothes. But he had a merry freckled face and excellent manners.
"Here," said Mr. Perry, "you see us all, except my married daughter; and I hope you will like us."
I liked them already, with one exception, and I thought it possible that I might even come to like Mr. Perry himself in time, for he showed to better advantage surrounded by his family and in his own beautiful home than he had done outside.
"Mr. Howard," said Edward, "wants to live as we do while he is with us, and to study the conditions of wealth from the inside. He has even bought a great many clothes, and perhaps he would like to put some of them on before luncheon."
This announcement, I could see, brought gratification to my hosts, but Tom looked rather disgusted. He was being educated at a day school, I learnt afterwards, where many of his companions were the sons of very poor men, and he was not yet of an age to sympathise deeply with the family taste for philanthropy.
Edward took me up to my room, and apologised for its air of comfort. The footman was unpacking the parcels we had brought, and it was possibly for his benefit that Edward said: "We keep one or two barely furnished attics for people like yourself who come to see us; but I thought that as you wanted to live for a time as the rich do, you would put up with this. We can always move you."
I said that certainly under the circumstances I preferred this room to an attic. It had a wide view of the largest slope of lawn and a well-wooded landscape beyond. There was a big bed in it, a well-furnished writing-table, and an easy chair by the window, through which the open flowers of the magnolia outside wafted a sweet perfume.
"Well then, I will go and change my clothes," said Edward. "Lord Arthur will show you the bathroom, and where my room is, if you want to come in to me at any time."
He went out, and I took a closer look at the footman, who seemed to have been indicated as Lord Arthur.
He was a handsome, rather disdainful-looking young man, and when Edward had left the room he said familiarly: "Then you're one of us, eh? Why do you want to rig yourself out in this sort of kit! Which will you wear? I should recommend the white flannel, if you want to do the thing thoroughly."
"The white flannel will do very well," I said. "I am studying social conditions, and, as you say, want to do it thoroughly."
"Well, I think you're rather a fool," he said. "You can see all you want of the rich by taking service with them as I have done. You needn't live like them."
"I rather like making myself comfortable," I said tentatively.
His lip curled. "Is your mind comfortable when your body is comfortable?" he asked.
"It is more likely to be so," I replied.
"There are a good many people with low tastes in the world," he said, "but they don't generally acknowledge them in that unblushing way. If you want a life of comfort because you like it, why don't you say so? You'll find plenty of swabs[10]in your own class to join in with, who don't pretend to be social students."
"I was only chaffing," I said. "Have you got a good place here?"
"Well, it's rather a bore to have to mix socially with your employers, although the Perrys are very nice people really, and if it weren't for all this philanthropic nonsense as good as anybody. Still, you can't treat them exactly as you would other rich people, and we often have to do ourselves a good deal better than we want to in the servants' hall, simply because we can't foist all the best food on to them and see that they get through it themselves. We're really helping them all the time in their silly experiment, and although the between maid and the head coachman and one or two more are reformers, most of us aren't, and simply want to be let alone to live a hard life, as we should anywhere else."
"Yes, I see. I suppose most of you are of good family and that sort of thing?"
"One of the undergardeners is a baronet, but he's got more hard work to do than you can get indoors. I'm the only other fellow with a title, but I was never very strong. All my brothers are navvies, and it's hard luck that I was pilled in my medical examination. Oh, yes, we're a pretty good lot on the whole. Still, domestic service isn't what it used to be. It is so crowded as a profession that it's difficult to get a place where there's enough work to do. The women are better off, because they can go out as generals. But for men it is getting more and more difficult, owing to the spread of education amongst the lower classes. The masters and mistresses are often so independent that if you don't let them live as poorly as you do yourselves they'll just give you notice. Well, I think that's all. The bathroom is just opposite. I'll go and turn on the water."
"Thanks," I said. "Quite cold, please."
An indulgent smile illumined Lord Arthur's aristocratic features. "It's plain that you've never learnt how to treat servants," he said. "If you weren't a gentleman, I should turn you on a stewing hot one for that, and see that you got into it."
The luncheon to which we presently sat down was everything that it should have been from my point of view. It is true that Mrs. Perry had thoughtfully provided some large hunks of bread and cold bacon, with some beer in a tin can, for my especial benefit; but I made it quite clear thatI wanted no difference made on my account. My request to be treated as one of themselves made an excellent impression on all of them except Tom, who made a frugal meal of bread and cheese, and went off to school before we were halfway through. I thought it rather remarkable that a boy of his age should be able to refuse all the delicacies provided, apparently without flinching, but there was no mistaking his look of pained disgust when I refused the cold bacon.[11]
I noticed that all the rest of the family ate sparingly, except Mr. Perry, who asked for second supplies of omelette, asparagus, and strawberries, on the ground that he must do his duty. They left a good deal on their plates, while making it look as little as possible, and for every fruit that was not quite perfect they rejected at least three, saying that they were bad. This was done with an eye on the servants, who took their share in the conversation, and whose business it appeared to be to see that everyone ate and drank as much as possible. I was hungry, and did what I could to oblige them. But I could see that I was not really pleasing them, for both butler and footman treated my handsome appetite as an indelicate thing, while doing all they could to satisfy it.
Towards the end of luncheon, the butler, whose name was Blother, said to Mrs. Perry: "Duff has sent in to say that the carriage horses want exercise, and you had better pay a good long round of calls this afternoon."
Mrs. Perry's face fell. "I rather wanted to stay at home this afternoon," she said. "It is very hot, and I thought I would read a book in the garden. Can't Mr. Duff have the horses exercised by one of the grooms this afternoon?"
"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Perry," said Blother. "He says he gave you an afternoon off yesterday, and two last week. It is not fair to refuse him employment. He is in rather an excited state about it. I should go if I were you."
"I suppose I must," she said with a sigh. "What are you going to do, Samuel?"
"I thought of having a little nap," said Mr. Perry piously. "One must not let one's little luxuries drop, or one loses sympathy with the rich. At half-past three I have a committee meeting of the Society for the Belief of Company Promoters, and at five o'clock I am to introduce a deputation of brewers[12]to the Chancellorof the Exchequer. I shall go to the club after that for an hour, and I thought, perhaps, Mr. Howard would like to join me there."
I said I should like to do so, and it was settled that I should be driven into Culbut to join Mr. Perry at half-past five.
"That will make three carriages then, Blother," said Mr. Perry. "There needn't be any grumbling in the stables this afternoon, at any rate."
Mrs. Perry retired to dress for her afternoon's occupation, Mr. Perry sought the seclusion of the library, and Mollie went off to her governess. This left Edward and Miss Miriam, and I rather hoped that Edward might have some work to do.
My hopes were realised. He had a strenuous programme marked out. He was to instruct a class of millionaires' sons in the principles of breeding and running race-horses for loss, to audit the accounts of the Orchid-Growers' Defence Association, and to prepare a lecture he had undertaken to deliver at a meeting of the Young Poker-Players' Mutual Improvement Society on "A Good Prose Style." This would take him all the afternoon, and I begged him earnestly not to vary his plans on my account.
He seemed obviously relieved. "If I had known you would be here," he said, "I should not have set myself so much to do; but you will find plenty of improving books in the library, and some uncomfortable chairs, and I am sure that Miriam will talk to you if you wish to converse, or play lawn-tennis with you if you would like to do that."
Miriam then offered, with a charming frankness, to make herself responsible for my entertainment for the afternoon, and I was quite pleased to have it so.[13]
"Would you like to play tennis?" she asked me, "or shall we talk on the verandah? If you really want to suit yourself to your surroundings you can smoke."
"We might sit on the verandah for a bit," I said, "and I will certainly smoke. After that I should like to see the garden, if you will show me round. And then I shall be quite ready for lawn-tennis."
For some reason, which I did not understand, she blushed when Iasked her to show me the garden, and turned her head away; but she only said: "Come along, then," and led the way on to the shady verandah, from the roof of which hung long trusses of wistaria, and from which the beautiful garden could be seen spread in front of us with all its colour and cool verdure.
There were basket chairs on the verandah, and I took the most comfortable of them, after Miriam had chosen hers, which I should have said was the least comfortable of all.
"This is very delightful," I said. "After all, there are some compensations in being rich."
I cast a glance at her as I said this. In her pretty cool white dress, which fitted her beautifully, and with her abundant fair hair, carefully and becomingly braided, she looked just like any other girl, the daughter of well-to-do parents, who had been brought up to a life of wealth and ease. For my part I like to see young girls having a good time, and am not averse to sharing it with them. I was inclined to wonder how far this very charming young girl was permitted to enjoy naturally the good things provided for her, and how far she was affected by the economic curiosities that surrounded her.
She did not reply directly to my endeavours to draw her out. "It is very kind of you to make the best of us," she said a little coldly.
"Please don't be offended at my ignorance of the way things go here," I said. "I have lived all my life in different surroundings, and it is all quite new to me."
This speech did nothing to alter her slight air of coolness. "We don't live in this way for fun," she said; and I made haste to explain further.
"I don't mean that at all," I said. "I mean that the whole life of Upsidonia is new to me, poor as well as rich. In my country things are different altogether."
"How do you mean—in your country?" she asked with a puzzled air.
"I come from England," I said. "It is very much like Upsidonia in some ways; in others it is quite different."
She received my information in the same way as Edward had done. "England!" she repeated. "Where is that? I thought I was rather good at geography; I took a prize in it at school. But I have never heard of England. What direction is it in, and how did you come here?"
"I walked over the moors," I said. "I have been walking for some days. I found myself yesterday evening in a wood just the other side of Culbut."
A light seemed to break in on her. "Oh, I see!" she exclaimed. "You came over the hills. You are a Highlander! That is very interesting. No wonder you look down a little on us Culbutians! But what made you leave that paradise to come here? And why didn't you tell us before that you were a Highlander? I am sure my father and mother would have been very flattered."
She seemed quite excited, and regarded me with curiosity not unmixed with reverence.[14]
"Well, I have never called myself a Highlander, exactly," I said. "InEngland we call the Scotch Highlanders."
"England! Scotch!" she repeated. "How extraordinary it is! I must get you to show it to me on a map."
"Yes, I should like to see a map," I said. "You see, everything is very different with us."
"Oh, I know it is. You are the most fortunate people in the world. All this must seem very extraordinary to you, and I'm afraid rather painful. I wonder you take it all as naturally as you do. I suppose you have never seen a house like this before?"
"It is certainly a very charming house," I said, "but it is not altogether unlike the one I was brought up in near London."
Her air of bewilderment returned. "London!" she said. "I have never heard of any of the places you mention. Is England a district?"
"Yes; a pretty large one."
"There are many districts in the Highlands that we know very little of, but I had no idea that there were houses like this anywhere.I thought you all lived so very simply, and were spared all the difficulties that our rich have to undergo."
"In some parts of the Highlands that may be so. But in England it is different. People who lived in a house like this would be considered very fortunate, and they would certainly prefer it to a little house in a street."
"How very extraordinary!" she said again. "But wouldn't they be looked down upon?"
"Not at all. The people who live in the little houses are apt to be looked down upon."
"But don't the upper classes all live in little houses?"
"No, they live mostly in the bigger ones, some of them in much bigger ones than this; and the bigger they are the better they like them."
She became more and more interested. "I never heard anything like that before," she said. "I should think it must be rather nice, if all of them do it. Does the dirty set live in big houses? Oh, but I forgot, you don't have a dirty set in the Highlands."
"We do in England," I said. "But we don't kow-tow to them as people seem to do here. If Lord Potter were to show his face there he would be liable to be locked up. We consider dirt a disgrace."
"Oh, so do we," she said hastily. "My aunt, Lady Blueberry, who isreallya great lady, won't have anything to do with the dirty set. My Uncle Blueberry says that the old tradition of Upsidonia was not even extreme poverty, but only just so much as to escape the horrible burdens of wealth."
"Is your uncle——?"
"He is the Earl of Blueberry. He is a postman."
"Well, in England he would not be likely to be that. At least, he might be Postmaster-General. Our nobility is for the most part rich, and they live in the finest houses, although some of them are obliged to work for their living."
"Obliged!" she echoed. "Don't they all exercise their right to work?"
"It is a right that has somewhat fallen into abeyance, but some of them do. Others prefer to amuse themselves. In fact, to make a clean breast of it, we all like to have plenty of money in England, so that we can live in nice houses, and go about and enjoy ourselves, and wear nice clothes, and eat and drink nice things."
A shade of disgust crossed her face. "Howvery different it all is to what I have been told!" she said. "But I am glad you told me about the eating and drinking. I thought you did what you did at lunch to please Mrs. Lemon, our cook."
I was a trifle disturbed at this speech. "Well, of course, that was partly the reason," I said. "And you mustn't run away with the idea that we encourage greediness. But surely, now, you must like living in a pretty house like this, with this lovely garden, better than being cooped up in a street!"
"Perhaps, if all one's friends did it," she said thoughtfully. "Don't your upper classes live in towns at all? Oh, but I forgot, there are no towns in the Highlands."
"There are in England. There is London. It is rather a big town. Our upper classes live there part of the year, if they can afford it. Some of them have country houses and town houses as well."
"At what time of the year do they go to their town houses?"
"Late spring and early summer are the times when things are at their gayest."
"But that is when the country is at its loveliest. What do they do with their country houses?"
"They shut them up—leave a few servants in them."
"Ah! I suppose they have to consider their servants. Otherwise it seems absurd for people who like the country to leave it when it is at its best."
"There are very pretty parks in London."
"So there are here. So we are not so very different in our tastes, you see."
"Tell me truthfully," I said, leaving this point; "don't you like wearing pretty clothes?"
She blushed, and laughed. "Perhaps I should if all my friends did," she said, but added a little primly: "You can be prettily dressed when you are poor, and you don't have to change your clothes two or three times a day to please your maid."
"You wouldn't have to please your maid in England," I said. "She would have to please you, and if she didn't you would get rid of her and have another one."
She looked at me incredulously. "That is the most extraordinary thing you have told me yet," she said. "Servants here are the greatest nuisance in the world. They won't let you do a thing for yourself if they can possibly stop you, and you can't call your life your own. How I envy my cousins sometimes, who can go where they like and do what they like without for ever being obliged to think of finding work for a lot of disagreeable superior servants!"
"But can't you do what you like?" I asked. "Aren't you and I going to do what we like this afternoon? Your servants haven't bothered us much so far."
"Our servants are very kind to us. Of course it is not as though we really belonged to the rich. But I must say that I am rather surprised at their having left us alone for so long."
As if in answer to her, the butler, Mr. Blother, and the footman, Lord Arthur, came out of the house at that moment, carrying a tray on which was a large jug of iced cup of some sort, and a dish of strawberries and cream.
"Oh, Mr. Blother!" exclaimed Miriam. "You can't be so cruel as to expect us to eat and drink any more now!"
"My dear Miriam," said Mr. Blother, in a fatherly manner, "you must eat a few strawberries,or what is the good of the gardener picking them? I will let you off the hock cup until you have had a set or two; but I thought that both you and Mr. Howard would be able to drink it after you had got hot. It is quite time you began to play. Arthur and I are ready to field the balls now, and we want some exercise out of doors badly."
He and the footman bustled away to put up the net, and I went upstairs to put on a pair of tennis shoes. When I came down again the net was up and the racquets and balls were ready for us.
Lord Arthur looked at me with some displeasure. "I don't know why you couldn't have asked me to fetch your shoes," he said. "You and I will fall out if you bring your airs of poverty and independence here."
"I'll give you some work to do, if that is what you want," I said. "I'm not very good at this game, and I am a hard and rather wild hitter."
But it was Mr. Blother who fielded the balls behind Miriam, and it pleased me to see him running about here and there in his swallowtail coat, and getting into a terrible state of perspiration and breathlessness.
When we had played a couple of sets it was Mr. Blother who stopped us.
"I think you have done enough for the present," he said, wiping his heated brow. "Thank you very much, Mr. Howard, for playing so badly. I have seldom enjoyed a game more. Now I think you can both manage to polish off some of that hock cup."
I was quite ready to do so. I rather spoilt the good impression I had made on Mr. Blother by asking if he did not feel inclined for a drink himself. He withered me with his eye, and stalked off indoors, followed by the indignant Lord Arthur, who said to me as he passed:
"You seem to have brought very queer ideas of behaviour with you, wherever you have come from."
Miriam too looked at me doubtfully when we were once more left alone together. "I know you only meant it for fun," she said, "but Mr. Blother is so kind and good that it is a shame to tease him."
"But don't you think he would like a drink?" I asked. "You saw how awfully hot he was."
"Of course he would like it," she said. "That is why I think it is too bad to tease him."
I enjoyed my own drink a good deal. Mr. Blother was a king of cup-makers.
Miriam sipped only half a glass, and I was careful not to press her to drink any more. I was quite capable of emptying the rest of the jug myself, and poured out a second glass, with the remark that I had not meant to offend Mr. Blother, and I would now try to make it up to him.
This pleased her, and she said, with her delightful frank and friendly smile: "You are really awfully good, and I am sure the servants will adore you. We do our best to treat them well, but I am afraid we do grumble a lot, and you seem to do things to please them quite naturally."
"We are brought up to be unselfish in England," I said modestly, and filled a third glass, emptying the jug.
"Are you ready to play again?" Miriam asked. "We might get two of the maids to field the balls. They would be pleased if we were to ask them."
"I have had a good deal of exercise lately," I said, "and it is very hot. What I should really like to do would be to sit here a little longer, and then have a wander round the garden. I am very fond of gardens, and I should like to see this one, which looks lovely."
Again, to my great surprise, Miriam blushed deeply. She rose from her chair, and said, looking away from me: "I am going in now. Mollie will be out in a minute, and she will take you round the garden if you want to see it."
Then she went indoors, leaving me to wonder what on earth I had said to cause her such confusion.
I was not left alone long. Mollie came out of the house, and greeted me in friendly childish fashion.
"Lessons over for the day," she said, throwing herself into a chair. "I suppose you will be awfully shocked if I say that I am glad of it."
She shook her thick mass of curls at me, with a challenging laugh.
"I am not shocked in the least," I said. "I think lessons on a hot afternoon must be a great bore for little girls."
"What an awful thing to say! I am afraid you are a very wicked man, but, of course, you don't mean it. Miriam is rather tired of talking to you, and asked me to come and take her place. What shall we do?"
I was rather disturbed at the information so frankly delivered, and said boldly: "I want to see the garden. Will you take me round?"
The request, which had driven Miriam away, seemed to make no disagreeable impression on Mollie. She jumped up at once and said: "Yes, come along; and after that we will play tennis, unless you're too tired. Tom won't play with me,[15]and I hardly ever get a game."
We went round the garden, which was beautifully laid out and beautifully kept. We came across three or four gardeners, all toiling as if for their lives, and one of them, I supposed, was the baronet of whom Lord Arthur had told me, although none of them looked in the least like a baronet.
There was a lovely rose-garden, in a cornerby itself, and as roses were rather a hobby of mine I examined each of the beds with some care. In one of them I stooped down to pick up a weed. It was the first I had seen anywhere.
"Oh, you mustn't do that," said Mollie, with round eyes expressive of horror. "Thank goodness none of the gardeners saw you! Can't you plant it again to look as if it had not been pulled up?"
I replanted the weed as if it had been something rare.
"That looks all right," said Mollie, with her head on one side. "Let's go and find Mr. Hobbs and tell him."
We went in search of the head gardener, whom we found digging in a corner of the vegetable garden. He was an austere man, and drew himself up with displeasure when Mollie told him that we had found a weed in the bed of white roses.
"White roses!" he repeated. "What white roses?"
"The big ones," said Mollie. "I don't know their name."
"Don't know their name!" exclaimed Mr. Hobbs in a withering tone. "That's a nicething to acknowledge! What is your brain for unless you learn the names of things? The big white rose is a Frau Karl Druschki, and don't you forget it. But you are a good girl to come and tell me about the weed. What weed was it now?"
"It was a dandelion," said Mollie promptly.
But as we went away she confided to me that she onlyhopedit was a dandelion.[16]"I don't know anything about flowers," she said, "and don't want to. I shan't have to bother about all that sort of thing until I get older, and have to have a garden of my own."
"Haven't you got a garden of your own?" I asked her.
She looked at me with eyes full of surprise. "Why, I'm only twelve," she said.
Something in her expression, and the memory of Miriam's look when I had mentioned the garden, warned me not to pursue the subject. There was some mystery here—it would almost seem some mystery of sex. I must reserve my enquiries for Edward.
We came to a large pool in the lower part of the garden. It was bordered with irises and reeds and other water-loving plants.
"I say!" exclaimed Mollie, "would you like to fish?"
I thought the suggestion a good one. I wanted to get some information out of Mollie, and I could not expect a child of her age to sit down in a chair and talk, even if the servants should permit us to do so undisturbed.
"I'll go and ask Sir Herbert to get us some worms and rods," she said, and ran off on her active black-stockinged legs.
She came back presently with the under-gardener, who carried a couple of rods and a tin of bait, and looked at me a little suspiciously as he said: "Now, Mollie, if you catch anything, you've got to eat it. There's to be no throwing back of fish into the pond."
Mollie promised that we would eat anything that we might catch, and Sir Herbert went back to his work.
When we were fairly settled, watching our floats, I said: "This is rather jolly, isn't it? Do your cousins, who are poor, have such a good time as you do?"
"Oh, much better," she replied. "They can go and fish in the parks if they want to, with their schoolfellows. I wish mother would let me go to school. Tom does, and I don't see why I shouldn't."
"But you can have your friends to play with you here, can't you?"
"I do sometimes. But they are not allowed to come very often; their mothers don't like it."
"Why not?"
"Oh, they think they might get to likeluxury!"
She said this with an air of scorn, such as children use towards ideas of their elders which strike them as absurd.
"But they don't get to like luxury," I hazarded.
"As if they would! Fancy liking to be always changing your clothes, and having to keep them clean![17]Why, they tease me about it, and offer to take away my toys!"
"Take away your toys!"
"Just as if I were really the child of rich parents, and they had to becharitableto me!"
"But don't you like having toys of your own, Mollie?"
"Not too many of them. Think of the rich little children whose nurses make them play with hundreds of dolls, when they only want to play with one! and are always telling them how sad the doll-makers would be if they saw them crying at having to play with the dolls they had taken such pains to make!"
She said this in imitation of a nurse's rebuke, of which she had evidently had experience.
"But I'm sure little girls like to have something of their very own," I said. "And they like new toys sometimes."
"Perhaps they may when they are very young. But they soon get tired of it when they know what it means. Why, Cynthia,[18]my cousin, once said that she would like to be rich, and have as many toys as she wanted, and her mother simply filled the house with expensive toys, and she had to play with them all. By the time she had worn them out she was jolly glad to get back to her old wooden doll, which she could dress just as she liked, and always take to bed with her. She was very careful not to say anything more about wanting to be rich after that."
So that was the system! Children were shown the satiety that comes from wealth, andtaught early to shun it.
"It's such a bore having to be charitable," Mollie went on to confide in me. "When I go visiting with mother I always have to bring home something that some rich child or other has got tired of. Still, if it pleases them——! Oh, look! I've got a bite!"
But it was only a nibble.
I tried again. "Have you got a pony?" I asked.
"Yes; he's a dapple-grey; his name is Bobby. I will show him to you."
"Thank you. I like looking at ponies. I suppose your cousins haven't got ponies to ride."
"They can ride in butchers' and bakers' carts. That's much more fun. Besides, they have ponies in the parks for poor children.
"Of course I love Bobby," she went on, as I digested this piece of information. "But it is rather hard not to be allowed to ride the park ponies, or to go and play in the parks at all, just because you have a garden and a pony of your own."
"Oh, you are not allowed to go into the parks?"[19]
"Not unless I go to tea with somebody. I do wish mother and father wouldleave off pretending to be rich."
"Then you would have to leave this pretty house and garden and go and live in a street."
"I should like that. There would be lots of other girls and boys to play with. I say, what time is it?"
When I looked at my watch and told her it was ten minutes past five, she jumped up in consternation, and exclaimed: "Oh, come along quickly. I didn't know it was five yet."
We hurried up through the garden, and met Mr. Hobbs, who stopped us, and said severely: "Didn't you hear the clock strike?"
"No," said Mollie. "We were busy talking. I'm so sorry, Mr. Hobbs, I won't be late again."
"You said that yesterday," said Mr. Hobbs. "And last week I caught you out here when it was nearly six. The next time it happens I'll give you a great big box of chocolate creams, and see that you eat them all."
The explanation of this awful threat, as I learnt later, was that the gardens of the rich were given up to those who looked after them, and their friends, after certain hours, and it was not permitted to their owners to enter them.
As we went across the lawn, Sir Herbert was stringing up the tennis net, and two of the maids were standing talking to him. All three of them looked at us with displeasure as we scuttled by, and Mollie said: "I shall catch it for this when I get in."
It was quite time for me to go and get ready to join Mr. Perry. Indeed, it was more than time, as I found when I went upstairs, and was greeted by Lord Arthur with the remark that if I wasn't in the hall ready for the carriage when it came round I should hear about it.
But I found him a good deal more anxious to be friendly than before, and presently discovered that the reason for this was that it had got about in the household that I was a "Highlander." I did not contradict the report, but refrained from giving him any information about where I really had come from, for one thing because I didn't think he would believe me, and for another because I thought it might not be a bad thing to be looked upon as the altogether superior being which the dwellers in that remote part of Upsidonia were evidently considered to be.
Fortunately, I was just ready to step into the carriage when it came round, and thus escaped an expression of censure from the coachman, who drove off quickly towards Culbut.
We picked up Mr. Perry, and as we drove on to his club I managed to bring into the conversation a reference to the Highlands. He expressed considerable surprise to hear that I was an inhabitant of that region, which was not altogether gratifying. But he explained that, having first met me on the opposite side of the city, it had not occurred to him that I was a Highlander, otherwise he would certainly have guessed it from my perfect manners.
We arrived at the club very well pleased with one another. It was a large building, luxuriously furnished, but in very bad taste. There were some atrocious pictures on the walls, and the decorations were garish.
The big room into which we first went was full of opulent-looking gentlemen, lounging in easy chairs, drinking and smoking and talking to one another. We joined a group of them, and Mr. Perry introduced me to one or two, addressing them in a genially patronising manner. He did not tell them that I was a Highlander, and I suppose they took me for one of themselves, for their greeting was not ceremonious.
However, one of them was good enough to ask me what I would take, and I said a small whisky and soda. This was brought by a haughty-looking servant in a powdered wig and crimson plush breeches, who held out his salver, not to my entertainer but to me, and I paid for my drink and his as well, as it seemed to be expected of me.
The talk was all about money. One gentleman with thick lips and a hooked nose said that he had done good business that afternoon. He had bought ten thousand Northern Railways, having received private information that the men had decided to strike for an all-round decrease in wages, and they had fallen three points when the news had become public. He had dropped quite a tidy little sum.
Another man said that that sort of business was too risky for him. He believed in doing a steady safe business. If he lost fifteen per cent on his capital every year he was quite satisfied.
Another said he had been looking all his life for a safe investment that would lose ten per cent without your having to worry about it, and he didn't believe it was to be found.
All these men talked in quite an uneducated way, and their manners were not attractive. They wore a good deal of heavy jewellery, and clothes that looked as if they were new, but not one of them looked or spoke like a gentleman.
Mr. Perry, who had taken his part in the conversation, and had been treated with some deference, drew me away towards another group, saying as we crossed the room that he wanted me to see all sorts, and I must try to make myself as much one of them as possible. I should now be introduced to some racing men.
But before we reached them, Mr. Perry was hailed in a cheery but somewhat vinous voiceby a man who was reclining in the depths of an easy chair by an open window, with a table at his side on which was a bottle of Maraschino half empty, and a good-sized glass of the same half full. His appearance was not markedly different from that of dozens of elderly men whom you may see after lunch at any London club, taking their ease, and perhaps their little nap, and never far removed in point of time or space from refreshment of a spirituous nature. He was sleek and well-groomed, and the tint of his face was only a trifle more plum-coloured than might betoken abstemious living.
"Well, old Perry," said this cheerful gentleman in his mellow voice, but without shifting his semi-recumbent position, "what are you going to do to raise us this afternoon? Come and help me buzz this bottle, and show your sympathy with the rich."
Mr. Perry seemed to look at the speaker, the bottle, and me, all at the same time, but with a different expression for each.
"Allow me," he said, "to introduce my young friend, John Howard, who comes from the Highlands—Lord Charles Delagrange. He is anxious to see something of life amongstthe rich, and I am showing him round. Naturally, he has never been in a place like this before, and——"
"And we must behave ourselves, eh?" interrupted Lord Charles. "Come now, old Perry, don't pretend to be above your company. You don't like poverty any more than I do. Sit down and make yourself comfortable, and touch that bell for another glass—two more glasses, if Mr. Howard will join us."
Mr. Perry touched the bell, as requested, and said with an agreeable smile: "You will have your little joke, Lord Charles. You know very well that all self-indulgence is extremely distasteful to me; but in this place I do not wish to put myself on a pedestal."
"You put yourself in that chair, old Perry," said Lord Charles, indicating one only a little less deep and easy than his own, "and don't be a humbug. Well, Mr. Howard, this must be an agreeable change to you from the Highlands. You live on porridge and Plato there, I believe. You did well to put yourself into the hands of old Perry. He'll do you top notch—nobody knows how to better than he—and send you home to spread the gospel of high living and plain thinking among the benighted toilers with whom you have been brought up."
"I hope," said Mr. Perry, "that Mr. Howard will go back with no such lesson. If you are going to try to persuade him that my efforts to uplift the wealthy classes are a cloak for vicious desires of my own, Lord Charles, I shall not shrink from holding you up to him as an example of what to avoid."
Lord Charles hoisted himself up in his seat to pour out three glasses of the liqueur. "Fire away, old Perry," he said. "Tell him my awful story. But get outside this first; it will do you a world of good."
Mr. Perry got outside it, and began:
"Lord Charles is a younger son of the late Duke of Trumps, a man respected and beloved for his many virtues."
"A fine old boy, my governor," Lord Charles agreed, "and the best hedger and ditcher to be found in Upsidonia. But he liked his glass of beer, old Perry; don't forget that. Don't forget that he liked his glass of beer."
"I have no doubt that his Grace permitted himself moderate relaxation after the labours of the day were over," said Mr. Perry. "But it would have shocked him deeply to know thata son of his would ever sink to the level of glorying in a life of ease and sloth."
"I dare say it would," said Lord Charles indulgently. "I dare say it would. You're not smoking, old Perry. Try one of these weeds; they're in very good condition. I'll do the same by you some day."
Mr. Perry accepted a cigar, lit it, and continued:
"Lord Charles, here, was brought up to an agricultural career, which is a tradition in his family. There are no better farm-labourers in Upsidonia than the Delagranges, and his brother, the present Duke of Trumps, who is a carter, has several times taken the first prize at the May Day parade of cart-horses. But Lord Charles grew tired of that simple, uplifting life."
"Have you ever tried uplifting hay on to a stack all through a long summer day?" asked Lord Charles, "or getting up at five o'clock on a winter's morning to look after somebody else's horses? Yes, I got tired of it."
"His temptation came," said Mr. Perry, "when he went on to a farm on the Downs, near Pepsom, and attended his first race-meeting."
"Never touched a winner all day," said Lord Charles, "and came away with a pot ofmoney."
"Which, of course, he had to spend," said Mr. Perry. "It is often the beginning of such a downfall as his. He allowed himself to take a pleasure in surreptitious spending, and when his father, the duke, died, he threw up his situation and became a man about town."