Life in Our Yard.

New Zealand Mail, 3 December 1896, Page 17

Life in Our Yard.

BY ITHURIEL. especially written for the New Zealand Mail.) UEOPE’S problem, dark perhaps vFs/? with the life-blood of many nations was, What shall be done in the East ? New Zealand’s problem, weighted with consequences to people and ages yet unborn, was, What wise and good men shall we now choose, to voice our wishes and frame our laws ? Hornet Crescent’s pr oblem, more absorbing to Hornet Crescent than the electoral struggle of a country or the bloody warfare of a continent, was, Who has taken the end house ? Hornet Crescent is the fashionable suburb of Waterloo, a town situated south of Cape Maria and north of the Bluff. It has bigger houses and notions, and commands a bigger expanse of God’s earth and air and sea and sky than any other part of Waterloo, so naturally it has aright to bigger problems.

The size and importance of this one proclaims itself in a telephone communication which took place on a particular morning between Mrs Gusher and Mrs Aspiring, her dearest friend in the close season, for, like oysters, Mrs Gusher’s friendships had a close season.

Mrs G.: ‘ Are you there, dear Mathilde ?’ (the baptismal prefix of the lady addressed was Matilda, but what’s in a name !) Mrs A.: ‘Yes, dear. I heard you ring, and was on the point of replying twice ; merely waiting to make out my washing list and give some orders to Mary, and each time those telephone gii-ls cut us off. So impertinent!’

‘ T should complain if I were you. I sometimes run upstairs on an errand while waiting for the answering ring, and the same thing happens. They’re getting more careless at the Exchange every day. Are you perfectly well, dear ? I haven’t seen you for such a century. You looked a dream in that new alpaca yesterday. Mine is to be shot green and gold merveilleux—my dressmaker is waiting for the new fashions. She considers anything made just now antediluvian. Oh, by the way, dear, shall we call on the arrival at the end house. I can’t make up my mind.’ ‘ So glad you admire my new gown, Lucie’ (spelt with an ‘ie ’ and emphasised on the last syllable). ‘ It’s silk, not alpaca. What a pity you chose a shot. Madame assures me shots are doomed. I can’t decide about calling either. Who is Mrs X ? Nobody seems to know her. We can’t he too careful, dear. Can you ever forget the Joneses, whose husband was found to keep a shop!’ Mrs Aspiring’s grammar left it doubtful whether bigamy did not further swell the enormities of the Joneses’ husband.

‘A pork shop, too, somebody said it was. Good heavens! I never saw that Jones woman afterwards without smelling sausages.’

As a matter of fact the Joneses’ husband earned his worldly success as the best bookseller and stationer in Sydney, in the early days, bnt facts don’t count in Hornet Crescent.

* Ah, indeed yes, that was a sad lesson. I think dearest Mathilda, we’d better wait. If Lady Flamingo calls, I suppose there

can be no objection. Such a clever, discerning woman. I hear her next “At Home ” is to be simply exquisite. Shall you wear your alpaca—l mean your silk, dear ? But how stupid of me—the invitations aren’t out yet.’

‘They say it’s to be more select than ever, Lucie. I suppose you w T on’t risk having your new shot made up on the chance of an invite. It would be a pity to lose the new fashions for nothing, wouldn’t it, dear ? Good-bye. Come over this afternoon. I receive, you know. I’ve quite the latest thing in table decorations. You will come, won’t you ? Goodbye, dear.’

‘So sorry, dearest, I can’t possibly. A previous engagement—the Bobinsons, you know.’

‘ What a pity. Mrs Toney-Smith promised to drop in after her drive with the Countess. I am sorry you have an engagement/

‘ Dear Mathilde, I do hate to disappoint you like this. I’ll try and wriggle out of the Bobinsons, just to please you, darling. Good-bye.’ That afternoon a fashionable’and elegant assemblage squeezed itself into Mrs Aspiring’s gas-lit rooms. It looked very hot and noisy, and consumed more tea and cake than persons less well-bred could have comfortably digested; yet its exceedingly large laugh about nothing in particular, its particularly small talk about nothing at all, spelt high society in Waterloo. And concerning society, as demonstrated by this gathering in Hornet Crescent, it looked what it was—a party of hot, talkative, mostly stout and somewhat uninteresting women, enjoying cream cakes and gossip in an atmosphere somewhere about 90deg. The nature of the gossip—the end house and its new occupant. ‘We happened to discuss her only this morning/ observed Mrs Aspiring, in a casual manner, as though discussing her neighbours incessantly were not part of her religion. ‘We think it risky to call just yet, don’t we, dear ?’ This to Mrs Gusher who, by some extraordinary gymnastic feat known only to herself, had succeeded in wriggling out of the Bobinsons.

‘ Has she measles ?’ enquired Miss Euphemia, carelessly. Miss Euphemia was the hope of the house of Aspiring. She lounged over two chairs, with arms and legs crossed and her mouth perpetually screwed up in an idle, indifferent, scarcely-subdued whistle, expressing absolute boredom of her mother’s drawing-room and her mother’s guests. ‘Of course not; what a question/ cried mamma, shaking her frizzled head playfully, * only it is better to wait and see who calls, you know, before one takes her up.’ ‘ Supposing, when you go, she takes you down,’ quoth Miss Euphemia, with a grin at her own wit and her mother’s discomfiture.

‘ It’s all so mysterious/ cried Mrs Gusher, clapping her hands in kittenish glee. * She’s come to quite the most fashionable part of the town, yet I hear she only keeps one servant. Isn’t it awful ?’

Mrs Coldstarch, the lady next her, said nothing. Mrs Coldstarch never said anything. She merely looked, and her look had the effect that sitting directly on top of a refrigerator in a strong draught will produce. Once encounter her chilling gaze and you sneezed for a week !

‘ Where’s her husband ?’ asked somebody, severely, for in Hornet Crescent a husband is the placard that announces, ‘ No inferior goods kept here/ ‘Dead, I believe.’

The enquirer sat back looking only half appeased. She questioned the deceased gentleman’s right to die. ‘ By the way, is he dead ?’ said another. ‘ Didn’t I hear the other day that she’s got a husband somewhere stayed behind somewhere, I fancy.’

‘ What’s that ?’ queried a fussy old dame in the outer ring, to her neighbour. * She left her husband somewhere/ ‘Left her husband! dear, dear, did she really ! How dreadful! What did she leave him for ? Another man in the case, I suppose. What a creature she must be!’ and the fussy old dame presently hurried away, to carry her news, with fresh colouring matter, to another house. ‘Were one only cognisant with her history, her character, her antecedents/ remarked Mrs Verbose, mouthing the dictionary words with a deliberation and relish that sustained her reputation for learning. ‘ Were one certain of not committing a social indiscretion, one might call ; otherwise—it makes such a difference, doesn’t it ?’

Mrs Verbose’s endings were disappointing. She carried her listener, on winged words, to Olympian heights of expectancy, only to drop them feebly to earth again, with some mere ordinary commonplace. She paused so long for effect that the intended peroration usually slipped her memory.

At this point in the discussion, enter Mrs Toney-Smith, late, of course, as befitted her social superiority, and with her —oh, ye Aspirings, what a red-letter day ! with her walked in Lady Flamingo. Mrs Toney-Smith leaned back languidly, loosened her furs, refused tea which had been specially made for her, and condescended to be talked to.

Lady Flamingo took the floor. Her opinions were always emphatic, always infallible. From bonnet to boots she was one big positive assertion. ‘ When I ope my lips let no dog bark,’ breathed from every curl of her Princess May bang. Hornet Crescent never dreamed of barking. It couldn’t even whine, unless in chorus, and that—approval. ‘ Call!’ she said, on Mrs Aspiring explaining the subject under discussion, ‘ of course I shall call. If she can afford ,£l5O a year rent she won’t steal your watch. If she’s got a husband somewhere she can’t kidnap another, and I don’t suppose she’s a convict or an escaped lunatic. Certainly, I shall call. If she’s an impossible, unpresentable sort of a person, why, one can go

home and take an antidote. Most decidedly I’ll call.’ That settled it. Hornet Crescent listened in respectful silence, and knew that, to a woman, it would leave cards at the end house. CHAPTER 11. They came in shoals, and the little plainly-dressed woman received them, each and everyone, with quiet courtesy and simple friendliness. She had no different sizes in smile, kept to match respective incomes and positions. Perhaps she didn’t know who was who; perhaps she- was eccentric enough not to care. She received them all, Mrs Toney-Smith and Lady Flamingo included, as a matter of course, made no sort of palaver or ostentation with any of them, and didn’t even consider it necessary to apologise for opening the front door herself when her inaid was busy in the kitchen. Hornet Crescent couldn’t decide whether to feel indignant at this calm acceptance of its patronage, or pity the ignorance which prompted it. It felt outraged, when it arrived (in instalments), at the fashionable calling hour, and discovered her in the garden in an old gardening hat and gloves.

To persist in fresh air, sunshine and healthful occupation, when Society ordered stuffy rooms, strong tea and scandal, was little short or criminal.

She was a simple, unpretentious little woman. * Unpresuming,’ Hornet Crescent called it, and added, * She knows better.’ She never talked about herself. ‘Good reasons, you may be sure,’ said Hornet Crescent. Yet she listened patiently to all they had to say, and if their vaporous maunderings sometimes brought a tired looJr into her eyes, and their snobbishness produced a faint curve at the corners of her resolute little mouth, Hornet Crescent was too full of its own importance to notice it.

Then why, you will ask, did this pleasant little woman fail to ingratiate herself with the very fashionable neighbourhood that had condescended to call, and then resolved to drop her. The solution is simple. She was weighed in the Hornet Crescent balance of qualification for Society and found wanting. She did her own work, slopped about gardens and liked it ; considered calling a waste of time. She was not wealthy, so no coming dinners cast their odour before, as a sop to Cerberus. There wasn’t even the virtue of a mysterious husband in her favour, for when the unbelieving female aforementioned put out an inquisitive feeler concerning him, a spasm of pain crossed the little woman’s face, and she said very quietly, ‘My husband is dead.’

She had none of that nice discrimination that deposits the most important visitor in the softest chair and addresses itself exclusively to her entertainment until such time as she chooses to shake the dust of the house off her aristocratic feet. Upon Toney-Smith, Flamingo and Co. arriving, in accordance with their usual habit, half an hour later than everybody else, the little hostess met them at the door.

‘ I’m afraid I can’t give you seats, the room is so full. Would you mind sitting here in the hall for just a moment, until somebody goes ?’ If there was a tiny, malicious twinkle in her eye as she turned away, no one saw it.

Her inability to feel impressed with their condescension to herself, a stranger and a nobody, was lamentable. They piped their importance to her, and she would not dance. For all of which Hornet Crescent ordered excommunication. The incident that severed her last link with society was in this wise—

Mrs Aspiring ‘ dropped in ’ one morning. She had an amiable object in doing this. Persons caught unawares sometimes afford material for gossip afterwards.

‘ I happened to be passing, dear Mrs X , and couldn’t resist the temptation of a little chat. Pardon me for noticing it—a coil of your hair is coming down, and there are three hair-pins falling out.’ Now the little woman had been busy over housework all morning, and although naturally hospitable, felt the inconvenience of a visitor at such an hour. The other’s obvious satisfaction at her ruffled appearance annoyed her, but she replaced the refractory curl, bit her lip, and said nothing.

Then Mrs Aspiring opened fire, bringing all her guns to bear on this insignificant little nobody, who refused to be impressed with her magnificence. She distributed her ample dimensions in their costly covering over the largest and strongest chair the room contained, threw back her furs to give herself free lung power, and fbr an hour and a half talked twaddle that would have been only pitiable had it not reeked with snobbery from beginning to end. The listener's head grew heavy and her heart sick. Was this shallow, foolish woman before her, the type of New Zealand womanhood and motherhood, that must inevitably and irrevocably stamp its ignoble weakness, vanity and folly on future generations, and blight the individual and national life of a country that is so beautiful, and might be made so strong and pure and good ? These women had an individual responsibility, whether they accepted it, or thrust it from them in the moulding and fashioning of a new nation. The thought of what women might be and do, and are not and do not, smote upon her consciousness with a keen, almost physical pain. A mad impulse seized upon her to snatch a cushion, a chair, anything, and stop this talk that degraded the womanhood of the woman who uttered it.

‘And as I was saying just now, the Countess gives a tremendous “ At Home ” on the 30th—all the best people, you know, to which she specially desired me to bring Euphemia—so sweet of her; and of course I consented, and the dear child is to wear ivory satin trimmed with Honiton and real pearls, that her father brought her for an almost fabulous sum, my dear Mrs X ,

though that of course is strictly between you and me. (It was strictly between Mrs Aspiring and every inhabitant of Hornet Crescent.) The ball is in honour of the Duchess of Dover (how the words rolled out!), who arrives shortly from England. Naturally, the dear Countess is anxious to introduce her to her New Zealand friends. As she remarked to Lady Flamingo and myself only the other day ’ 4 Pardon me for interrupting you,’ said her hostess rising, her face just a trifle pale. ‘ From all you have said to me, Mrs Aspiring - , I feel sure you are here in my house imder a false impression. Otherwise you would not be here at all. You have talked society to me for an hour and a half. Now I don’t care a straw for society, and possibly I have no right to care. My mother was a cook.’

It was the grand coup. Mrs Aspiring’s jaw dropped ; her mouth, her eyes, opened in an unaffected, horror-struck stare. She struggled for utterance, and at last managed to gasp—- * Dear, deal', how terrible.’

‘ Not at all,’ the little woman said proudly. ‘ If she had been a lazy, or a vain, or a dishonest cook, it would have been terrible, but she was hard-working, and honest, and conscientious and’—once again that malicious twinkle— ‘ gave every satisfaction.’ Mrs Aspiring shuddered. ‘ Cook or countess, humble or high-born, what does it matter ?’ the little woman persisted boldly, ‘ so long as one is true to oneself—does the work allotted—as far as possible, serves one’s kind.’

‘Ah yes, to be sure—l must go,’ said Mrs Aspiring. Her one practical service to her kind had been—Euphemia. ‘ The sphere is nothing-. Wealth, rank, position are merely the accessories to service, of which those who possess them will one day have to give an account.’ ‘ Good-bye, I must go,’ said Mrs Aspiring • —and she went.

CHAPTER 111

And amidst all these jarring discords, did not one note strike sweetness at the player’s touch P

Euphemia Aspiring, sent one day on an errand, before Hornet Crescent ‘dropped’ its latest arrival, presented herself, collar, tie, shirt front, walking stick, and all, at the end house.

‘ Mater sent me,’ she explained, kicking one heel against the other, and flicking her cane with masculine dexterity. ‘ The old girl is having an “At Home ” to-morrow — hen scratches I call ’em. Lord! they do make me ill. Cackle, cackle, cackle, till you wonder how the roof holds up. Look here’— Euphemia became confidential — ‘ I’d shoot myself sooner than get like some of those old frumps—true bill ! Now, what I call A 1 is a good hop, plenty of Johnnies you know, and cham. and all that sort of thing—it’s ripping; or a race-meeting, say—with a few quid to go on the “ tote ” —prime !’

Invited in, Miss Euphemia took the hall in one stride, the drawing-room in two, sprawled over the sofa, crossed her legs over a chair, and twirled her stick.

She thought her hostess peculiar. Tlio little woman seemed unable to retain her gravity.

‘ What’s tlxo joke ? You’re not getting at a fellow, are you ?’ Euphemia asked suspiciously. ‘My dear, my dear!’ her hostess cried merrily, ‘ I was only wondering where you grew ! Are you masculine, feminine or neuter gender ? Why not cork a moustache and bo a man outright.’ She walked over to Euphemia, took the girl’s face in her hands, and kissed it tenderly. ‘ You are pretty/ she said, ‘ and will he beautiful. A beautiful woman is the greatest power on earth. Isn’t that enough ? Why aren’t you contented ? Why do you Tvant to be a man ?’ Euphemia held out her hand.

‘I liko you,’ she said. ‘You don’t preach, but you talk straight. Let’s be pal—er—l mean, friends.’ So it was Euphemia—Euphemia Aspiring —who “ took up ” the little woman in the end house, when everybody else dropped her.

‘ Her mother may have been a cook/ she exclaimed with flashing eyes; ‘ she acts like a lady. Some people pretend' to he ladies, and behave liko cooks.’ Thus, while the little woman pottered happily.amongst her flowers, Euphemia, a self-constituted watch-dog, was always at her side. The girl talked eagerly of the ball on the 20th, which wa3 now the chief excitement of Hornet Crescent.

‘ I wish you’d come,’ she began once, then stopped abruptly, vexed at her own. thoughtlessness. Probably her friend had not been invited. She never appeared now in Hornet Crescent houses, and in the matter of invitations to ‘ big ’ balls at Government House, Hornet Crescent gave the cue.

She was joyfully surprised when her friend, reading her thoughts said quietly—■ ‘ Yes, it’s all right dear, I’m invited, and a 3 it doesn’t do to become a hermit, I’ve decided to go.’ * Oh, how jolly!’ Euphemia cried, but in her heart of hearts she found herself wondering what new blends in ice the little woman would experience at the hands of Hornet Crescent.

The days passed and the time drew near. The little woman made no sort of preparation. ‘ I have a ball dress,’ she said to Euphemia, and, at the girl’s request, let her see it.

It was a brocaded satin, of a richness and texture such as Euphemia, accustomed to a lavish display of wealth all her life had never seen the like. Its colour she could not decide. The golden, pearly sheen reminded her of the inside of an oyster shell. The rich train shimmered and shone across the dark carpet in glorioua iridescent folds. But what caused the girl to stagger to a seat and actually grow pale, was a necklace and tiara of diamonds, which her friend took from a casket, and,

laid, a mass of gleaming, dazzling glory, on the rich, satin.

‘Oh! oh ! oh!’ Euphemia said, and said no more, but gazed, "with her soul in her ey es. How could she explain the thoughts that hammered confusingly in her brain. The dress alone must have cost over a hundred guineas, and the diamonds ! The little woman pinched her cheek merrily. • It doesn’t fit into one servant, your own cooking, and no gardener, does it ? Well, my dear, we live in a topsy-turvy world, and must just put up with the topsyturviness.’

The day arrived, and Euphemia paid her friend a morning visit. She was quite excited.

‘ What a rattling time we’re going to ha«vo,’ she said. * I shall take yon and introduce you to the Countess. SLe’s awfully nice, and rather nuts on —I mean she likes me, you know. And perhaps we’ll meet this English duchess; what fun! I’ve never seen, much less spoken to, a duchess in my life. Oh, we’ll have a great time, and no mistake.’

Government House on the night of that memorable 20th was a brilliant scene. Their Excellencies were naturally anxious to do honour to their illustrious English ■visitor, and the best that New Zealand could offer of fashion and wealth, and beauty and power was there to pay her homage. The flagship with the Admiral and four men-of-war were in port. The officers’ gay uniforms helped to swell the radiant throng that bowed and smiled, and chatted and laughed amidst flags, ferns and a profusion of clematis blossom, for it was early spring. The Aspirings were fashionably late, of course. Eupliemia, all impatience to seek her little friend, followed her mother eagerly into the ballroom, too absorbed in scanning the groups to notice that an intense excitement pervaded them all. Disjointed sentences fell on her ears, of which two words only were intelligible —‘ the Duchess.* She moved on impatiently. She saw Lady Flamingo, Mrs Toney-Smith and Mrs Gusher in a semi-circle, talking excitedly. They beckoned to her mother. Mi-3 Aspiring inclined her head, smiled seraphically, and swept on. She must speak to .the Countess, be introduced to the Duchess —the lesser luminaries could come after. They neared the dais where Her Excellency stood receiving, and Euphemia caught a glimmer of pearly, shell-tinted satin. Her heart fluttered joyfully. Her little friend then was not being neglected: Instead, she stood within the Vice-Regal circle, and the Countess herself was addressing her. Could it be the dress, she thought ; and then she stopped thinking, and became conscious only that her mother’s face had turned to beetroot, and that she herself stood staring in a vague, helpless fashion at a little woman who smiled happily at her, under a diamond tiara. The Countess was laughing, too, and saying : ‘You have met the Duchess of Dover already, I think. She is writing a book on social life in the colonies, and in order to get an unprejudiced and accurate insight into the existing state of society in New Zealand, determined to reside here for three months, under an assumed name, as a stranger and lady of small means. No one knew but ourselves, and we kept the secret well. She went to extraordinary pains to conceal her identity. I believe you once declared your mother a cook, didn’t you, my dear ? You spoke the truth, at all events, for if the late Marchioness had a hobby, it was for fancy cooking. It was daring and plucky, but then you were always plucky, Alice, in pursuit of your art.’ The Countess turned sweetly to Euphemia’s mother. ‘I know it will give you pleasure to learn that my friend the Duchess of Dover has succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations, and hopes to give an accurate picture of city social life in New Zealand.’

You say Hornet Crescent was snubbed ? Dear me, no ! It talks now, with quite touching affection, of the ‘dear, sweet Duchess!’