The Behaviour of Mrs. BrooKs.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 149, 20 December 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Behaviour of Mrs. BrooKs.

By W. PETT RIDGE (Author of "Mord Em'ly," etc.). [Aw. Rights Reserved.] It's all very well to say that none of us girls ought to have stayed on, but when you come to think of it, it isn't every house where you can do just as you like. Besides, the wages were good and the place was close to Hyde Park — that is no particular catch, though, in the winter months — and there were several families we were acquainted with in the neighbourhood. We were all taken j over with the house, me and cook and Matthews and Wilhelm. v Mrs. Brooks, drove up in a. four-wheeler, wifh s her husband, and the driver told Wilhelm that he had brouglt them from Peckham. I , had never heard of the place before, be- j cause, being tall and rather a good figure, I as figures go, I have always been in houses in the West End, but cook had 1 a, sister living near there, and she said it was somewhere in the south-east part of London. Dreadful place, evidently. I "I shall want to see all you servants d'rectly," said Mrs. Brooks. Matthews helped her with her furs as she stood in the hall, and Wilhelm took Mr. Brooks's new silk hat and overcoat. "I must give you ull a good talking to the very first thing. Eh, James?" "You're right, my dear," agreed her husband. , > "As we begin," said the old lady, "so we must go on. I know what servants are, and what is wanted in ruling over^ them is a glove of steel under — eh, James?" "Some'ing like that," said Air. Brooks. "Gently with that new topper of mine, ; my lad ; I don't want the nap rubbed , the wrong way first thing." ]' "Madam," remarked Wilhelm, "loonch he is retty." "Lunch," exclaimed Mr. Brooks, "Why this is my dinner hower." 1 "Loonch," said Wilhelm, "at one. Dinner, he arrive at eight."

"The German chap's , quite right, I James," said the old lady. "You're put- j. ting both feet in it already. We must [ be- prepared to eat twice as much as we've been in the 'abit of doing." } "I'd forgot," said her husband apolo- i getically. "Remind me, Maria, if you see mo making any little slips, and I'll , remind you.!' "I shall have . my work cut out," she said. Wilhelm waited at lunch and I helped ; ' you would have found it difficult to keep a straight face to see the old couple from leckham, one seated at each end and "calling out to each other and saying' what they thought of the food. They were very much puzzled over the cutlery at the side of their plates and the general rule that they worked on sesmed to be to use a fork when a knife was wanted, to take a knife 'when a fork waa required, and in moments of difficulty to fall back on a spoon ; watching the old fellow chasing food all over his plate wilii a piece of bread was as good as looking at a music-hall turn. When lunch was over ire all had to go up into tha dining-room and stand in a line; cook was against this, but we persuaded her to fall in jv-st for the lark .of the thing. ">,ow," said old Mrs. Brooks, rubbing he: nose with the serviette, "I want to talk to you. I want to make everything quite clear so that there shall be no sort of misunderstanding. James, you mustn't light up yet, and when you do light up it's got to b9 a cigar." Her husband sighed and replaced his ' briar pipe in his pocket. ( "Me and Mr. Brooks.'" she went on, ! "have been 'rrd working people nil our lives, and when we began "wo hadn't more than about thirty-live -hillings i:< tho savings bank to bless ourselves with." ' ".Thirty-five and nine," said her .husband fiom tho other eiid of the table. ! "But we nr.idc up our minds that come what might we'd always work shoulder to shoulder. We've had mis-words bow

and again, but it's alwaye been, my fault." "Or mine," he remarked. "Be that as it may, we both went at it, 'orse, foot, and artillery, as you may Bay, and the shop would never have prospered if he hadn't took oft his coat and if I hadn't rolled up my sleeves." Matthews, intimated that she was shocked. "You must take something for that cough of yours, my girl," said 'the old lady, looking at her pointedly. "I had a aunt once who neglected' a cold, and she's in Honor ' Park cemetery, and a very nice funeral it waa, too. I was asked and my sister wasn't. You remember, James?" "Get on with your sermon," he suggested from the other end of the table. "Now my 'usband's elder brother," she said, holding a dessert knife impressively, "went out to Australia, wherever that may be — " "It's on, the map somewhere," remarked her husband. "And he seems to have made money and we've come to it. See? It's no credit to us, but at the same time it's no fault of ours. Now, you've all been used to good families, and I daresay you'll find that me and Mr. Brooks — him especially — will now and again behave as though we're not exactly to the manner born. See?" Cook, on behalf of the rest of us, nodded. "But I'm not going to have him laughed at, and Brooks is not going to let anybody sneer at me, sol want you to understand, all of • you, that we'ro going to fill our new position as well as we can, and we shall learn gradually all the -tricks of the trade, but meanwhile" — here she pointed the dessert knife at us separately and. individually — "meanwhile, no larks, if you please. You'll all go jest aa you did under the late management, so to speak,, and there's going to be no taking advantage of us if we have 'itherto been what you may call ordinary people. See? 1 ' Cook made an appropriate reply, and ■p-hen she finished Mrs. Brooks said,

I "Ear-ear" . and we marched but of the j*6om. I would have given my, savings [ bank book to have been able to laugh whilst I was in the, rpora ; I made up i for it when I got downstairs. "Don't i let anybody talk of giving notice, "I recommended. "We're going to have I rare lark with "these two old dodderers." And rare larks, believe me, or believe mo not, rare larks we had. Matthews lis one of those girls that can never ' originate anything, but she can, act on ideas once they are given to her, and the way wo inducad the old lady to dress up when the went out, with her husband for a drire was enough to thaw the ice on the Serpontine. She looked Hkb something off a Twelfth Cake. When I told her how to behave at the table she always pretended that -> she had known quite well but had forgotten ; I believe ii" 1 had suggested she should ; take liei boup with, a fork she would i have tried it, for the poor old scml was . quite willing to believe that whatever j was diflicult was right. Mr. Brooks used j to 50 into the library and pretend to lead books, but I noticed tliat when I went in he smuggled away a copy of Tit-Bits rather hurriedly ; he confessed one morning at breakfast that he could i never gat on with The Times, and his wife told him rather ahaiply that lie would have to learn. One dny I found . on a wiiling-dctk a lot of billheads he | had filled up, just, I suppose, to occupy his time. "Bo't of T. W. Brooks and [ (Jo." they were headed, "Cash Drapers, j Tho oldest established in South London." j 1 "Be:j your pardon, sir." I said, ''but ■ you did want these kept?" i "Oh, no, my girl," he replied, taking them and tearing them into pieces. He seemed very much confused. "I've only — only bean having a little game of ' ' shops. Don't say anything to her about . it." x ; ! T s.iid nothing to Mr a Brooks, but I naturally told them downstairs, and cook said if you \v2le to ask her die r-liould judge that the old chap was -unhappy

at having to- give up business, and probably wished himself, times out of mind, back again in Peckham. They arranged for a dinner party, and Matthews wrote out the cards of invitation — "I'm not very 'andy with the pen," explained the old lady. — And when the evening came not one of the guests arrived ; it turned out afterwards that some had objected to being patronised, and others had taken offence jat the letters R.S.V.P. Old Mrs. Brooks cried that night, *and her husband came up from tha other end of the long dinner table to pat her hand and comfort her, and she threw her arms round his neck and cried, "Oh, James! This is a rough world for people who've got too much money !" She hunted all through the bouse for books on etiquette, but of course our late people did not want books to tell them anything on this subject, and she had to send Wilhelm along into Oxfordstreet. Wilhelm brought back one on "The Sins of Society," which the old lady after looking at threw into the fire: the other, called "You musn't," she studied , until she seemed to become quite dazed at the number of things which one was not allowed to do. She bought the weekly fashion papers and spelt out the I rules in the Department Column about ' leaving cards ; I heard her tell Mr. Brooks once that she would as lief try to learn -whist), and when the t)ld gentleman advised her not to trouble about it, ' she fired up and told him that it was their duty to live up to the new position, and as he did nothing in this way it was necessary • f ox her to do all the more. I "I don't know, my dear," he said, "I've given up my pipe." M "But you haven't learned to smoke cigars," she retorted. "And I wear a silk hat week-days." "It comes right down on your e.ars." "I dress for dinner eveiy evening." ' "And a pretty guy you 'look," said the old lady crossly. "Reminds me of I nothing so much as the waiters in Tea I Pot Row close to Greenwich Park." "It will all dry straight, my dear,"

he iiirged. "Everything does in this world if you only give it time." '•I wißn to goodness some one had given your brother lime| and prevented him from leaving his money to us. We were 'appy enough as \re-Arere." "The servants are lhtenin.' " "See what nice Christmascs we used to 'aye at Peckham! See how friendly every one used to be, sending us bits ol their plum pudding and what not, and me sending back a bit of mir»e in exchange. See how we used to up on our first floor after tha company had gone and have our little drop of something and talk about old times ! If you were 'alf a man, James, you'd take the blessed money and throw it all over Westminster Bridge into the- river." "A man," said Mr. Brooks fti a stolid way, "has got to do the best he can : in the station that it pleases Providence 'to call Urn. Same thing may be said o£ i a women ! ,to a. certain extent." I I asked them about Christmas. They j were not going anywhere, they said, they would be at home all day, but the old lady told me that we were to do just what we had been in the habit of doing, and if ie was customary for us to ask ' a few friends in, and have a sort of Farty, why we were to do so this time, told her this was the usual thing, and ■ downstairs cook and me made all the I neces?ary arrangements. "My idea," said cook, "under all the , circumstances is simply this : no stint !" J We were so much our own masters ; and our own mistresses that we did, I ' admit, make raflur generous preparations. Matthews asked her young man, who was an inspectqr on the Underground. Cook asked her sister, and her sister's two daughters and their young ' men. Wilhelm invited a German clerk . in the city, who had come over with him > fiom SluiTaburg, and I should have asked | a ceuuin young gentleman, only that ho was under the impression that I was in ' indspendent circunutjr.ees, and it would nere:* have done for him to have come

near the house. Cook arranged for a person she knew to come in on Christmas night and play for us to dance, and a chap I never cared for (although at one time he was very keen on me) who served in a music shop Netting Hill way, arranged to lend a pianoforte on the understanding that we paid for the cartage. Old Mrs. Brooks took a great interest in all these preparations, and I never went into the room but she- asked how everything was going on. She bought some holly and stuck it about the frames of the pictures in the diningroom ; Matthews told her this was rather bad form, and the old lady said that bad form or good form she was going to keep Christmas somehow ; both she and Mr Brooks had always been strict Wesleyans, and if they ignored Christmas they might as well ignore exerything. I talked it over rather seriously with cook because I personally had never before been in a family which was not | either Church of England or nothing ; cook said that try as one would one never found a place you could call absoi lutely perfect, and annoying as it might bo to be in service under Dissenters, her advice "was to simply make light of it. There waa fog about that Christmas, I remember ; the post deliveries -were all late, trains were delayed, and we had to light the gas in the kitchen to see to decorate the place. We had "Weicome" just above the dust covers and "Goodwill to all men" near the area window ; cook said this would please tha gentlemen. When Wilhelm and I took up lunch the old couple were standing at the window looking out at nothing, their arms around each other's waists ; I think Mrs. Brooks had been crying. • I couldn't help feeling sorry for them, they seemed so lonely, and when I handed her the fish I said 'that all of us downstairs ventured to wish her a Merry Christmas. "Now that is kind of you," she cried thankfully. "James, do you hear that?" "Very nice indeed," said the old gentleman from the other end of the table. "Very thoughtful, I must say." "Was there any post this morning?" she asked. "Not for you, ma'am," I sajd. She sighed, and took up the wrong knife and fork. I put her right, and Bhe sighed again. "Letters so often g"o astray, my dear," remarked old Mr. Brooks. "Not if people don't write them. Ishould have thought somebody at Peckham would have remembered — " "Shall I light up, ma'am?" I asked. "No," she said in a desolate sort of way, "We never have lit up for Christmas yet and we won't begin now. James, did you say grace?" "Slipped my memory, my love," admitted her husband. ¥ ''Oh dear, oh dear," she wailed, "what are we coming to, Christmas, day and all?" "For what we are about to receive," said the old gentleman bending his head, "Lord make us truly thankful for — " "Amen," said Mrs. Brooks. "There's many a poor, soul would be glad of food like this, James." __ "Wish they'd come and eat my share, then. 1 used to be a pretty good 'and with tho knife and fork in the old days." "Everything's changed," said his wife sadly, "everything's changed since ,the old days." t "Cheer up, old girl," he urged, "cheer up. Be merry and bright-," here liis voice quavered ; "be merry and bright like I am. If it was a fine day we'd have the horses out ai\d take a nice drive round Peckham." l "Buit it isn't a fine day." . "Fog's bound to clear, off," he said encouragingly, "sooner or later." It was uniortunate, so far as our party downstairs was concerned, because everybody who did come was late, and full of long accounts ot their adventures in the fog, and matthews's young man, the Underground inspector,' never came at all because of some silly accident on the line. Then ju.it as we began cur first quadrille— wo were rather' unfashionable, to tell the truth, and started at uW— there come a ring at the door, and Wilholin had to go up and answer. "Who was it?" we asked, when he returned, and wo prepared to make a iresh start. "Gentlpmans from the city," said Wilhelm. "Nonsense," I said. "Gentlemen don't go to the city, and they don't come from the city, on Christmas Day." "I don't know sornesing about it," replied Wilhelm. "I only know he say he wish Mr. Brqoks to see onimbortant business. He would have been here earlier already only the train he was delayed for hours." '"Whatever can it be," said cook. " 'Pon me word, it's quite upsetting. Ido wish people would have a iittle more tact." YVe were trying to make up a set for the Lancers (it's very awkward when there are not enough gentlemen to go round) when a- tap came at the door. We stopped and cook opened it. Old Mrs. Brooks stood tiieie, more cheerful than she had ever, looked since the time she coma into the house. "Don't let me disturb you, my dears," she said brightly. "We've let the lawyer man out, and James and I thought you would all like to hear tha good news." Cook was always dead against mistresses coming, into her kitchen, but she made an .'exception in this case, and asked Mrs. Brooks whether she wouldn't take a seat just for a moment. - Mrs. Brooks called to her husband, who, it appeared, was waiting on the stairs, and he came 4n. He, too, was looking like twenty shillings in the pound. "Go on with your dancing," said the old woman, cheerfully. "All I wanted to toll you was that they've found my j prown-up niece over in Melbourne — Mr. Bfooks's poor brother wouldn't take any notice of her after she married a newspaper man — and we're going to hand all the money over to her arid we're going back to Peckham. Ain't we, James?" "If you guessed again," said- Mr. j Brooks, "you'd be wrong." Cook's opinion was that the time came' with most people when they had found out the chair that suited them best, an-d that it was a pity then if anything occurred to disturb them. Cook said there was no use in being ambitious just for the sake of being ambitious, and few people could persuade themselves they were happy when they were not happy* Cook further declared she was sorry we had ever made fun of N the old couple, and cook &aid it would be a better world and a wiser world if every one were as honest and simple and straightforward as Mr. and Mrs. Brooks. For once, I agreed with cook.