Chapter XXV: The County Families

John should be writing this, but he says he is tired. I am sure he must be. But there is another reason, which is that he is cross, poor dear, and you, no doubt, will think with good reason when you hear what he has been through.

On leaving Sharrow--the Sanfords' place--we drove to the village where still stands the inn known as "The Maypole" in "Barnaby Rudge." Willit is dead, and I saw nothing as attractive as Dolly Varden, nor anything as horrible, I am thankful to say, as Hugh. In other words, we felt as Thackeray says he felt when he visited Tours--it had none of the charm which he had expected after reading "Quentin Durward"!

I urged John to leave the car at the Maypole and go to town by train, for I knew it would be an exhausting experience to drive through the city. But no. He was determined to see if he was enough of a chauffeur to accomplish a feat which tries the nerve of a professional! So we started.

The road led us to the east side of the city, which we entered with the late market-carts. No words can describe the congestion. It was not only the innumerable wagons of every description which made progress almost impossible, but the swarms of creatures which I suppose one must call "human," though there was little indication of their humanity except the power of speech, and when one had heard that, one was tempted to wish they were without it! There are veritably two Englands, the one we had just left, of green fields and clear brooks and kind hearts and noble deeds, and now this sink of iniquity. There is nothing in New York to compare with it, for, shocking as our tenement-house district is, one is comforted by the thought that it is temporary, that there is an upward trend, and that the children of the tenements--almost exclusively of foreign-born parentage--are destined to escape. But these poor creatures are predestined to "damnation" before they are born. There is all the difference between the East Side of New York and the East End of London that there is between a stream which has been defiled by the drainage of factories, but which will purify itself after it has flowed a certain number of miles, and a malarial swamp, whose stagnant waters have no power of movement and, therefore, no hope of cleansing, but will breed sickness from generation to generation. This is the reverse of the medal inscribed "As it was in the beginning," etc.

Through this seething mass, then, we made our way into White Chapel, the nursery of crime, into Cannon Street, where the great wholesale houses distribute the wealth of the empire, and where the great dray-horses, almost as large as elephants, block the way, past St. Paul's, the silent witness to a faith which the life around seems to have forgotten--if it ever heard of it!--into Holborn, with its restaurants and shops and law-courts, and at last into Leicester Square, with its foreign population and its palatial music-halls.

It has taken but a few moments to write this, but it took hours to drive it, and I confess when it was over I felt like the Irishman in the bottomless Sedan chair: "If it wasn't for the honor of the thing, I'd as lief walk." I had the good sense not to ask John how he felt. I could tell by looking at him: his face was white and drawn.

Before we started from the Maypole, John had suggested wiring to the "Holland" for rooms, but I induced him to come here--"Garvin's Private Hotel"--instead, and now I wish I had not!

The Slocums had advised me to come here rather than to one of the great caravansaries, which they said are so "Cooksy." They told me that they always stopped here, and that I should like the class of people one meets here--the county families--and also that one received that personal attention which formerly made English hotels unique, and which Americans and Germans were killing.

Well, I found it good enough. The bedrooms may have been dingy--to speak the truth they were--but the maid was pleasant and efficient, and the dinner, if not exciting, was palatable. But John said it "had nothing on a Lexington Avenue boarding-house." The truth is, he was tired out, and vexed because a telegram, which he had expected to find here, had not arrived.

The next day he went to the manager, and an investigation was begun which led to the discovery that the telegram, which had arrived the day before, was in the porters' rack! It seems that Garvin's has doors on two streets, and the porter of the door by which we did _not_ enter had received it. When John asked why it had not been sent to his room, he was informed, first, that no one had told _that_ porter that we were in the house, and, second, that telegrams were sent only to private sitting-rooms! I don't know which excuse made him the more angry. It was then he made his remark about the Lexington Avenue boarding-house. Not that he knows anything about them, for he has never stayed in one in his life, but because it was the first thing he thought of. It was an example of what I once heard you call "the universe of discourse." But, "you bet," I didn't tell him so!

At dinner John looked round the dreary dining-room and asked where were the "county families"?

I also was feeling the strain of the day, and said "I hoped to meet them later."

He replied he hoped he might be out when they called.

By this time I was well-nigh desperate, and suggested that he go outside and smoke his cigar in the street, for I had caught a glimpse of the "Smoke Room," which looks out on a mews, and is more like a dog-kennel than a room, and I did not feel I could stand any more remarks about "private hotels"! _Entre nous_, I advise you never to go to one. I have no doubt if you were a "county family," and came up every year as your father had done before you, and took the "first floor front," with a private sitting-room, they would "do you well." But it is no place for transients.

As we had no sitting-room, I went to the dreary parlor to read and, if possible, to quiet my mind before going to bed. But instead of reading, I began to think of John, and the more I thought of him the sadder I grew. I know no one who bears the great troubles of life more patiently than he, but a petty thing, like this telegram, poisons him as the black flies poisoned me in the Adirondacks! They only bite most people, but they send me to bed with a temperature! And the worst of it is he suffers such remorse after one of these attacks. Why should we laugh at Mrs. Gummage? There are people who "feel it more than others." However, I reflected that there was nothing I could do about it, and so turned to my book.

It was one of those dreary books of Benson's, which are conducive to intellectual and moral indigestion--wallowing in imaginary emotions--and I did not see how I could read it in the frame of mind I was then in. But I did not have to, for I was suddenly startled by a voice saying: "If you won't think me rude, I _should_ like to know where you got that hat?"

My first thought was that Garvin's was another sort of private institution, but peering into the dim corner, I saw a typical "county family," or rather the head of one. He was a hale and hearty old man, somewhat over sixty, and had the ruddy complexion which only English country life can give. I saw he was not dangerous, and also that he was unquestionably a "gentleman," so I replied: "I am glad you like it. I got it at Bonwit Teller's."

"I don't know the shop," he said, in a disappointed tone.

"Well, that is not surprising, for it is in New York."

"Really! And are you an American? I never should have," etc.

"Did you want a hat like this for yourself?" I demurely asked.

"Oh, I say! Now you are trying to pull my leg."

I looked at the solid limb in question, and assured him I had no such purpose.

"No, I didn't want it for myself. The truth is, I saw you at dinner--by the way, why do they call that leather they served to-night 'mutton'? I wonder if they have ever tasted mutton? Awful food they give one at these hotels nowadays! Poison, I call it! I always stop at my club when I come up to town, but this time I have my wife and daughter with me. Couldn't take them to the club, of course, so came here. Family been coming here forever, I should say; came when the father of this man had it. This man married the French maid, and she has put on the table a lot of kickshaws, and calls them a '_menu_.' Silly stuff. There was no such nonsense in the father's time. One just called the waiter and said, 'What's the joint?' and that was all there was to it. But, as I was saying, I saw you at dinner, and said to my daughter: 'That's a deuced pretty-looking girl over there, and I wish you had a hat like hers.' You don't mind my telling you this? Wouldn't do for a young man, but an old man has his privileges."

I assured him I was flattered, and the simple-hearted old squire replied: "Not at all. The simple truth."

I was rather confused at this and, not quite thinking what I was saying, asked what his daughter said.

"'Why,' she said, 'if you admire the lady's hat, you had better ask her where she got it.' And, by George, I said I would, never dreaming, you understand, that I should really ever speak to you.

"You see, they have gone to the play, but as I have taken a cold, something I never have at home, I thought I would stop in and write some letters. But the fire in my sitting-room (though it is August, the evenings are chill) smokes so I came in here, and no sooner got settled down than I heard some one come in and, looking round, saw it was you. Matilda _will_ be surprised when she learns that I have asked about the hat." And he chuckled to himself at the thought.

I turned again to my book but the old man was not done with me. "So you are an American. Is it true that Americans have baths in their drawing-rooms?"

"I have never seen one there, but as they have them generally about the house, I should not be surprised."

"Oh, you must not take me too seriously," he said in a sorrowful tone; "I was only ragging you a bit!"

I laughed, not, I fear, with, but at, the simple old soul.

"I have never understood this craze for bathrooms myself," he continued; "I think it far more comfortable to have the maid bring the tub into the room at the same time she draws the curtains and lights the fire, for then one takes one's bath in comfort, rather than go into a cold closet. Nor do I like to lie down in a tub. It makes me feel as if I were ill--at Harrowgate or some such place, don't you know. More than that, I suspect there is a lot of talk about bathing that does not amount to much. There is a daughter of one of my tenants who went as housemaid to one of the great hotels in Chicago--the Blackamoor, I think it is called. She came home to visit her mother a year ago, and I asked her if it were true that many rooms had private baths. She said that every room in the place had its own bathroom, and that the very bag-men, if you please, would swagger in and say, 'Room with bath,' but that days would go by without their being used! Just ordered them to put on side. She is a very shrewd girl, and she explained to me why it was that Americans have so many bathrooms. She said the ladies insisted upon it because they did not wish to be seen going along the passages in the flannel gowns they all wear. She said if they had handsome bath-robes, such as English ladies wear, they would not be ashamed to be seen going to the bath."

Don't you think that girl earned a good tip? But perhaps you, like my garrulous old friend, will think I am trying to "pull your leg," but I give you my word it is all true. I am not sure whether you will say "Aren't they the limit?" or "Can you beat it?" I said both!

John came in in a penitent mood, as I knew he would, and brought me a superb bunch of roses--a sort of "sin-offering." What should I have done had I married a saint!