Part 27 (1/2)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Launched now upon a business venture that would require my unremitting attention if it were to prosper, it may be imagined that I had little leisure for the social vagaries of the Honourable George, shocking as these might be to one's finer tastes. And yet on the following morning I found time to tell him what. To put it quite bluntly, I gave him beans for his loose behaviour the previous evening, in publicly ogling and meeting as an equal one whom one didn't know.
To my amazement, instead of being heartily ashamed of his licentiousness, I found him recalcitrant. Stubborn as a mule he was and with a low animal cunning that I had never given him credit for.
”Demosthenes was the son of a cutler,” said he, ”and Napoleon worked on a ca.n.a.l-boat, what? Didn't you say so yourself, you juggins, what?
Fancy there being upper and lower cla.s.ses among natives! What rot! And I like North America. I don't mind telling you straight I'm going to take it up.”
Horrified by these reckless words, I could only say ”n.o.blesse oblige,”
meaning to convey that whatever the North Americans did, the next Earl of Brinstead must not meet persons one doesn't know, whereat he rejoined tartly that I was ”to stow that piffle!”
Being now quite alarmed, I took the further time to call upon Belknap-Jackson, believing that he, if any one, could recall the Honourable George to his better nature. He, too, was shocked, as I had been, and at first would have put the blame entirely upon the shoulders of Cousin Egbert, but at this I was obliged to admit that the Honourable George had too often shown a regrettable fondness for the society of persons that did not matter, especially females, and I cited the case of the typing-girl and the Brixton millinery person, with either of whom he would have allied himself in marriage had not his lords.h.i.+p intervened. Belknap-Jackson was quite properly horrified at these revelations.
”Has he no sense of 'n.o.blesse oblige'?” he demanded, at which I quoted the result of my own use of this phrase to the unfortunate man. Quite too plain it was that ”n.o.blesse oblige!” would never stop him from yielding to his baser impulses.
”We must be tactful, then,” remarked Belknap-Jackson. ”Without appearing to oppose him we must yet show him who is really who in Red Gap. We shall let him see that we have standards which must be as rigidly adhered to as those of an older civilization. I fancy it can be done.”
Privately I fancied not, yet I forbore to say this or to prolong the painful interview, particularly as I was due at the United States Grill.
The _Recorder_ of that morning had done me handsomely, declaring my opening to have been a social event long to be remembered, and describing the costumes of a dozen or more of the smartly gowned matrons, quite as if it had been an a.s.sembly ball. My task now was to see that the Grill was kept to the high level of its opening, both as a social ganglion, if one may use the term, and as a place to which the public would ever turn for food that mattered. For my first luncheon the racc.o.o.ns had prepared, under my direction, a steak-and-kidney pie, in addition to which I offered a thick soup and a pudding of high nutritive value.
To my pleased astonishment the crowd at midday was quite all that my staff could serve, several of the Hobbs brood being at school, and the luncheon was received with every sign of approval by the business persons who sat to it. Not only were there drapers, chemists, and shop-a.s.sistants, but solicitors and barristers, bankers and estate agents, and all quite eager with their praise of my fare. To each of these I explained that I should give them but few things, but that these would be food in the finest sense of the word, adding that the fault of the American school lay in attempting a too-great profusion of dishes, none of which in consequence could be raised to its highest power.
So sound was my theory and so nicely did my simple-dished luncheon demonstrate it that I was engaged on the spot to provide the bi-monthly banquet of the Chamber of Commerce, the president of which rather seriously proposed that it now be made a monthly affair, since they would no longer be at the mercy of a hotel caterer whose ambition ran inversely to his skill. Indeed, after the pudding, I was this day asked to become a member of the body, and I now felt that I was indubitably one of them--America and I had taken each other as seriously as could be desired.
More than once during the afternoon I wondered rather painfully what the Honourable George might be doing. I knew that he had been promised to a meeting of the Onwards and Upwards Club through the influence of Mrs. Effie, where it had been hoped that he would give a talk on Country Life in England. At least she had hinted to them that he might do this, though I had known from the beginning that he would do nothing of the sort, and had merely hoped that he would appear for a dish of tea and stay quiet, which was as much as the North Side set could expect of him. Induced to speak, I was quite certain he would tell them straight that Country Life in England was silly rot, and that was all to it. Now, not having seen him during the day, I could but hope that he had attended the gathering in suitable afternoon attire, and that he would have divined that the cattle-person's hat did not coordinate with this.
At four-thirty, while I was still concerned over the possible misadventures of the Honourable George, my first patrons for tea began to arrive, for I had let it be known that I should specialize in this.
Toasted crumpets there were, and m.u.f.fins, and a tea cake rich with plums, and tea, I need not say, which was all that tea could be.
Several tables were filled with prominent ladies of the North Side set, who were loud in their exclamations of delight, especially at the finished smartness of my service, for it was perhaps now that the profoundly serious thought I had given to my silver, linen, and gla.s.sware showed to best advantage. I suspect that this was the first time many of my guests had encountered a tea cozy, since from that day they began to be prevalent in Red Gap homes. Also my wagon containing the crumpets, m.u.f.fins, tea cake, jam and bread-and-b.u.t.ter, which I now used for the first time created a veritable sensation.
There was an agreeable hum of chatter from these early comers when I found myself welcoming Mrs. Judge Ballard and half a dozen members of the Onwards and Upwards Club, all of them wearing what I made out to be a baffled look. From these I presently managed to gather that their guest of honour for the afternoon had simply not appeared, and that the meeting, after awaiting him for two hours, had dissolved in some resentment, the time having been spent chiefly in an unflattering dissection of the Klondike woman's behaviour the evening before.
”He is a naughty man to disappoint us so cruelly!” declared Mrs. Judge Ballard of the Honourable George, but the coquetry of it was feigned to cover a very real irritation. I made haste with possible excuses. I said that he might be ill, or that important letters in that day's post might have detained him. I knew he had been astonis.h.i.+ngly well that morning, also that he loathed letters and almost practically never received any; but something had to be said.
”A naughty, naughty fellow!” repeated Mrs. Ballard, and the members of her party echoed it. They had looked forward rather pathetically, I saw, to hearing about Country Life in England from one who had lived it.
I was now drawn to greet the Belknap-Jacksons, who entered, and to the pleasure of winning their hearty approval for the perfection of my arrangements. As the wife presently joined Mrs. Ballard's group, the husband called me to his table and disclosed that almost the worst might be feared of the Honourable George. He was at that moment, it appeared, with a rabble of cow-persons and members of the lower cla.s.s gathered at a stockade at the edge of town, where various native horses fresh from the wilderness were being taught to be ridden.
”The wretched Floud is with him,” continued my informant, ”also the Tuttle chap, who continues to be received by our best people in spite of my remonstrances, and he yells quite like a demon when one of the riders is thrown. I pa.s.sed as quickly as I could. The spectacle was--of course I make allowances for Vane-Basingwell's ignorance of our standards--it was nothing short of disgusting; a man of his position consorting with the herd!”
”He told me no longer ago than this morning,” I said, ”that he was going to take up America.”
”He _has_!” said Belknap-Jackson with bitter emphasis. ”You should see what he has on--a cowboy hat and chapps! And the very lowest of them are calling him 'Judge'!”
”He flunked a meeting of the Onwards and Upwards Society,” I added.
”I know! I know! And who could have expected it in one of his lineage?