An American Girl in London

XVII

A GREAT many other people were going to Aldershot the day we went there – so many that the train, which we were almost too late for, had nowhere two spare seats together. Just at the last minute, after Lady Torquilin had decided that we must travel separately, the guard unlocked the door of a first-class carriage occupied by three gentlemen alone. It afforded much more comfortable accommodation than the carriage Lady Torquilin was crowded into, but there was no time to tell her, so I got in by myself, and sat down in the left-hand corner going backward, and prepared to enjoy the landscape. The gentlemen were so much more interesting, however, that I am afraid, though I ostensibly looked at the landscape, I paid much more attention to them, which I hope was comparatively proper, since they were not aware of it.

They were all rather past middle age, all very trim, and all dressed to ride. There the similarity among them ended; and besides being different from one another, they were all different from any American gentlemen I had ever met. That is the reason they were so deeply interesting.

One, who sat opposite me, was fair, with large blue eyes and an aquiline nose, and a well-defined, clean-shaven face, all but his graceful moustache. He was broad-shouldered and tall, and muscular and lean, and he lounged, illuminating his conversation with a sweet and easy smile. He looked very clever, and I think he must have been told all his life that he resembled the Duke of Wellington. The one in the other corner, opposite, was rosy and round-faced, with twinkling blue eyes and a grey moustache, and he made a comfortable angle with his rotund person and the wall, crossing his excellent legs.

The one on my side, of whom I had necessarily an imperfect view, was very grey, and had a straight nose and a pair of level eyes, rather pink about the edges, and carefully-cut whiskers and sloping shoulders. He did not lounge at all, or even cross his legs, but sat bolt upright and read the paper. He looked like a person of extreme views upon propriety, and a rather bad temper. The first man had the 'Times,' the second the 'Standard,' and the third the 'Morning Post.' I think they all belonged to the upper classes.

They began to talk, especially the two opposite, the lean man throwing his remarks and his easy smiles indolently across the valises on the seat between them. He spoke of the traffic in Piccadilly, where 'a brute of an omnibus' had taken off a carriage-wheel for him the day before. He was of opinion that too many omnibuses were allowed to run through Piccadilly – 'a considerable lot' too many. He also found the condition of one or two streets in that neighbourhood 'disgustin,' and was 'goin' to call attention to it.' All in cool, high, pleasant, indolent tones.

'Write a letter to the "Times,"' said the other, with a broad smile, as if it were an excellent joke. 'I don't mind reading it.'

The first smiled gently and thoughtfully down upon his boot. 'Will you guarantee that anybody else does?' said he. And they chaffed. My neighbour turned his paper impatiently, and said nothing.

'What'r'you goin' to ride to-day?' asked the first. His voice was delightfully refined.

'Haven't a notion. Believe they've got something for me down there. Expect the worst' – which also, for some unknown reason, seemed to amuse them very much.

'You've heard 'bout Puhbelow, down heah year befoh last – old Puhbelow, used to c'mand 25th Wangers? A.D.C. wides up t' Puhbelow an' tells him he's wanted at headquahtehs immediately. "That case," says Puhbelow, "I'd better walk!" An' he did,' said my vis-à-vis.

'Lord!' returned the other, 'I hope it won't come to that.'

'It's the last day I shall be able to turn out,' he went on, ruefully.

'For w'y?'

'Can't get inside my uniform another year.'

'Supuhfluous adipose tissue?'

'Rather! Attended the Levée last week, an' came away black in the face! At my time o' life a man's got to consider his buttons. 'Pon my word, I envy you lean dogs.' He addressed both his neighbour and the pink-eyed man, who took no notice of the pleasantry, but folded his paper the other way, and said, without looking up, that that had been a very disastrous flood in the United States.

'They do everything on a big scale over thayah,' remarked the man across from me, genially, 'includin' swindles.'

The round-faced gentleman's eye kindled with new interest. 'Were you let in on those Kakeboygan Limiteds?' he said. 'By Jove! – abominable! Never knew a cooler thing! Must have scooped in fifty thousand!'

'It was ve'y painful,' said the other, unexcitedly. 'By th' way, what d'you think of Little Toledos?'

'Don't know anything about 'em. Bought a few – daresay I've dropped my money.'

'Wilkinson wanted me to buy. Lunched the beast last week, expectin' to get a pointer. Confounded sharp scoundrel, Wilkinson!' And this gentleman smiled quite seraphically. 'Still expectin'. I see Oneida Centrals have reached a premium. Bought a lot eight months ago for a song. Cheapah to buy 'em, I thought, than waste more money in somethin' I knew as little about! There's luck!' This stage of the conversation found me reflecting upon the degree of depravity involved in getting the better of the business capacity which made its investments on these principles. I did not meditate a defence for my fellow-countrymen, but I thought they had a pretty obvious temptation.

The talk drifted upon clubs, and the gentlemen expressed their preferences. 'Hear you're up for the Army and Navy,' said the rosy-faced one.

'Ye-es. Beastly bore getting in,' returned he of the aquiline nose, dreamily.

'How long?'

''Bout two years, I believe. I'm up again for the United Service, too. Had a fit of economy in '85 – year of the Tarantillas smash – you were in that, too, wehn't you? – an' knocked off five o' six o' my clubs. They make no end of a wow about lettin' you in again.'

'Well, the Rag's good enough for me, and the Lyric's convenient to take a lady to. They say the Corinthian's the thing to belong to now, though,' said the round gentleman, tentatively.

'If you have a taste for actresses,' returned the other, with another tender glance at his boot.

Then it appeared, from a remark from the pink-eyed one, that he dined at the Carlton four nights out of seven – stood by the Carlton – hoped he might never enter a better club – never met a cad there in his life. Fairly lived there when he wasn't in Manchester.

'D'you live in Manchester?' drawled the thin gentleman, quite agreeably. Now, what was there in that to make the pink-eyed one angry? Is Manchester a disreputable place to live in? But he was – as angry as possible. The pink spread all over, under his close-trimmed whiskers and down behind his collar. He answered, in extremely rasping and sub-indignant tones, that he had a 'place near it,' and retired from the conversation.

Then the rotund gentleman stated that there were few better clubs than the Constitutional; and then, what a view you could get from the balconies! 'Tremendous fine view,' he said, 'I tell you, at night, when the place is lighted up, an' the river in the distance – '

'Moon?' inquired his companion, sweetly. But the stout gentleman's robust sentiment failed him at this point, and he turned the conversation abruptly to something else – a 'house-party' somewhere.

'Have you got what they call a pleasant invitation?' the other asked; and the portly one said Yes, in fact he had three, with a smile of great satisfaction. Just then the train stopped, and we all changed cars, and I, rejoining Lady Torquilin, lost my entertaining fellow-passengers. I was sorry it stopped at that point, because I particularly wanted to know what a house-party and a pleasant invitation were – they seemed to me to be idiomatic, and I had already begun to collect English idioms to take home with me. In fact, I should have liked to have gone on observing the landscape from my unobtrusive corner all the way to Aldershot if I could – these gentlemen made such interesting incidents to the journey – though I know I have told you that two or three times before, without making you understand in the least, I am afraid, how or why they did. There was a certain opulence and indifference about them which differed from the kind of opulence and indifference you generally see in the United States in not being in the least assumed. They did not ignore the fact of my existence in the corner – they talked as if they were not aware of it. And they had worn the conventionalism of England so long that it had become assort of easy uniform, which they didn't know they had on. They impressed you as having always before them, unconsciously, a standard of action and opinion – though their perception of it might be as different as possible – and as conducting themselves in very direct relation to that standard. I don't say this because none of them used bad language or smoked in my presence. The restraint was not to be defined – a delicate, all-pervasive thing; and it was closely connected with a lack of enthusiasm upon any subject, except the approach to it the rounded gentleman made with reference to the Constitutional view. They could not be considered flippant, and yet their talk played very lightly upon the surface of their minds, making no drafts upon any reserve store of information or opinion. This was odd to me. I am sure no three Americans who knew each, other could travel together in a box about six by eight without starting a theory and arguing about it seriously, or getting upon politics, or throwing themselves into the conversation in some way or other.

But I have no doubt that, to be impressed with such things as these, you must be brought up in Chicago, where people are different. Lady Torquilin was unable to tell me anything about the gentlemen from my description of them; she said they were exactly like anybody else, and as for gambling in stocks, she had no sympathy with anybody who lost – seeming to think that I had, and that that was what had attracted my attention.

The young officer was at Aldershot Station to meet us, looking quite a different person in his uniform. I can't possibly describe the uniform, or you would know the regiment, and possibly the officer, if you are acquainted with Aldershot – which he might not like. But I may say, without fear of identifying him, that he wore a red coat, and looked very handsome in it – red is such a popular colour among officers in England, and so generally becoming. He was a lieutenant, and his name was Oddie Pratte.

By the time I found this out, which was afterwards, when Mr. Pratte had occasion to write two or three letters to me, which he signed in that way, I had noticed how largely pet names cling to gentlemen in England – not only to young gentlemen in the Army, but even to middle-aged family men. Mr. Winterhazel's name is Bertram, and I should be interested to hear what he would say if any one addressed him as 'Bertie.' I think he would be mad, as we say in America. If I had ever called him anything but Mr. Winterhazel – which I have not – I would do it myself when I return, just for an experiment. I don't think any gentleman in the United States, out of pinafores, could be called 'Bertie' with impunity. We would contract it into the brutal brevity of 'Bert,' and 'Eddie' to 'Ed,' and 'Willie' to 'Will,' and 'Bobby' to 'Bob.' But it is a real pleasing feature of your civilisation, this overlapping of nursery tenderness upon maturer years, and I hope it will spread. What 'Oddie.' was derived from I never got to know Mr. Pratte well enough to ask, but he sustained it with more dignity than I would have believed possible. That is the remarkable – at any rate a remarkable – characteristic of you English people. You sustain everything with dignity, from your Lord Mayor's Show to your farthing change. You are never in the least amused at yourselves.

XVIII

AWF'LY glad you've been able to come!' said Mr. Pratte, leading the way to his dogcart, 'quite a marked figure, in his broad red shoulders, among the dark-coloured crowd at the station. 'There's so much going on in the village I was afraid you'd change your mind. Frightful state of funk, I assure you, every time the post came in!' Mr. Pratte spoke to Lady Torquilin, but looked across at me. We are considerably more simple than this in America. If a gentleman wants to say something polite to you, he never thinks of transmitting it through somebody else. But your way is much the most convenient. It gives one the satisfaction of being complimented without the embarrassment of having to reply in properly negative terms. So it was Lady Torquilin who said how sorry we should have been to miss it, and I found no occasion for remark until we were well started. Then I made the unavoidable statement that Aldershot seemed to be a pretty place, though I am afraid it did not seriously occur to me that it was.

'Oh, it's a hole of sorts!' remarked Mr. Pratte. 'But to see it in its pristine beauty you should be here when it rains. It's adorable then!' By that time I had observed that Mr. Pratte had very blue eyes, with a great deal of laugh in them. His complexion you could find in America only at the close of the seaside season, among the people, who have just come home, and even then it would be patchy – it would not have the solid richness of tint that Mr. Pratte's had. It was a wholesome complexion, and it went very well with the rest of Mr. Pratte. I liked its tones of brown and red, and the way it deepened in his nose and the back of his neck. In fact, I might as well say in the beginning that I liked Mr. Pratte altogether – there was something very winning about him. His manner was variable: sometimes extremely flippant, sometimes – and then he let his eyeglass drop – profoundly serious, and sometimes, when he had it in mind, preserving a level of cynical indifference that was impressively interesting, and seemed to stand for a deep and unsatisfactory experience of life. For the rest, he was just a tall young subaltern, very anxious to be amused, with a dog.

Mr. Pratte went on to say that he was about the only man in the place not on parade. There was some recondite reason for this, which I have forgotten. Lady Torquilin asked him how his mother and sisters were, and he said: 'Oh, they were as fit as possible, thanks, according to latest despatches,' which I at once mentally put down as a lovely idiom for use in my next Chicago letter. I wanted, above all things, to convince them at home that I was wasting no time so far as the language was concerned; and I knew they would not understand it, which was, of course, an additional pleasure. I would express myself very clearly about it though, I thought, so as not to suggest epilepsy or anything of that sort.

Americans are nearly always interested in public buildings. We are very proud of our own, and generally point them out to strangers before anything else, and I was surprised that Mr. Pratte mentioned nothing of the sort as we drove through Aldershot. So the first one of any size or importance that met my eye I asked him about. 'That, I suppose, is your jail?' I said, with polite interest, as we came in sight of a long building with that simplicity of exterior that always characterises jails. Our subaltern gave vent to a suppressed roar. 'What is she saying now?' asked Lady Torquilin, who had not been paying attention.

'She says – oh, I say, Auntie, what a score! Miss Wick has just pointed out that building as Aldershot jail!'

'Isn't it?' said I.

'I'm afraid Miss Wick is pullin' our leg, Auntie!'

Now, I was in the back seat, and what could have induced Mr. Pratte to charge me with so unparalleled and impossible a familiarity I couldn't imagine, not being very far advanced in the language at the time; but when Mr. Pratte explained that the buildings I referred to were the officers' quarters, with his own colonel's at one end – and 'Great Scott!' said Mr. Pratte, going off again, 'What would the old man say to that?' – I felt too much overcome by my own stupidity to think about it. I have since realised that I was rather shocked. It was, of course, impossible to mention public buildings again in any connection, and, although I spent a long and agreeable day at Aldershot, if you were to ask me whether it had so much as a town pump, I couldn't tell you. But I must say I am not of the opinion that it had. To speak American, it struck me as being rather a one-horse town, though nothing could be nicer than I found it as a military centre.

We drove straight out of town to the parade-ground, over a road that wound through rugged-looking, broken fields, yellow with your wonderful flaming gorse and furze, which struck me as contrasting oddly with the neatness of your landscapes generally. When I remarked upon their uncultivated state, Mr. Pratte said, with some loftiness, that military operations were not advantageously conducted in standing corn – meaning wheat – and I decided for the rest of the day to absorb information, as far as possible, without inquiring for it.

It was a lovely day – no clouds, no dust, nothing but blue sky, and sunshine on the gorse; and plenty of people, all of whom seemed to have extreme views upon the extraordinary fineness of the weather, were on their way to the parade-ground, chiefly driving in dogcarts. Whenever we passed a lady in anything more ambitious, Mr. Pratte invariably saluted very nicely indeed, and told Lady Torquilin that she was the wife of Colonel So-and-so, commanding the somethingth something. And I noticed all through the day what a great deal of consideration these ladies received from everybody, and what extraordinary respect was accorded to their husbands. I have no doubt it is a class distinction of yours, and very proper; but I could not help thinking of the number of colonels and their families we have at home, and how little more we think of them on that account. Poppa's head man in the baking-powder business for years was a colonel – Colonel Canister; so is poppa himself – and I never knew either of them show that they thought anything of it. I suppose momma's greatest friend is Mrs. Colonel Pabbly, but that is because their tastes are similar and their families about the same age. For that matter, I daresay one-third of the visiting-cards momma receives have 'Colonel' between the 'Mrs.' and the last name. It is really no particular distinction in America.

We were rather late, and all the best places had been taken up by the dogcarts of other people. They formed an apparently unbroken front, or, more properly, back, wherever we wanted to get in. By some extraordinary means, however, more as a matter of course than anything else – it couldn't have been done in America – Mr. Pratte inserted his dogcart in an extremely advantageous position, and I saw opposite, and far off, the long, long double line of soldiers, stretching and wavering as the country dipped and swelled under the sky. 'In a minute,' said Mr. Pratte, 'you'll hear the "furious joy"' – and an instant later there came splitting and spitting against the blue, from east to west, and from west to east, the chasing white smoke-jets of the feu de joie. You have a few very good jokes in England.

It seemed to me that two of the bands which defied each other for the rest of the morning began playing at that instant to prevent any diminution in the furious joy, while the long line of soldiers broke up into blocks, each block going off somewhere by itself; and Mr. Pratte told Lady Torquilin about a dance in town the night before, where he met a lot of people he loved.

'Was the fair and only one there?' Lady Torquilin inquired with archness; and Mr. Pratte's countenance suddenly became rueful as he dropped his eyeglass. 'Yes,' he said; 'but there's a frost on – we don't play with each other any more!' And I believe other confidences followed, which I did not feel entitled to hear, so I divided my attention between the two bands and the parade. One band stood still at a little distance, and played as hard as possible continually, and every regiment sent its own band gloriously on ahead of it with the colonel, generally getting the full significance out of a Scotch jig, which Mr. Pratte said was the 'march-past.' It made a most magnificently effective noise.

I hope the person for whose benefit that parade was chiefly intended – I believe there is always some such person in connection with parades – was as deeply impressed with it as I was. It was the first time I had ever seen English soldiers in bulk, and they presented a threatening solidity which I should think would be very uninteresting to the enemy. There are more interstices in our regiments – I think it must be admitted that we are nationally thinner than you are. Besides, what we are still in the habit of calling 'our recent unpleasantness' happened about a quarter of a century ago, and I shouldn't think myself that a taste for blood could survive that period of peace and comfort, to be very obvious. Certainly, Chicago parades had not prepared me for anything so warlike as this. Not that I should encourage anybody to open hostilities with us, however. Though we are thin, we might be found lively.

The cavalry regiments were splendid, with the colonel's horse as conscious as anybody of what was expected of him, as the colonel's horse, stepping on ahead; and particularly the Lancers, with their gay little pennons flying; but there was not the rhythmic regularity in their movement that was so beautiful to see in the infantry coming after. Lady Torquilin found it very absurd – there were so admirable – that the parade was that long, saw from the rear as once; but it seemed to of martial order in it. That, and the swing of gleam of the sun on many points to notice that were more thing I liked best in the whole quick, instant crinkle that we every man bent his knee at me to have the whole essence and to hold great fascination, the Highlanders' kilts, and the their philabegs, and the pride of their marching.

That Aldershot Highland regiment, with its screaming bagpipes, seemed, to my Chicago imagination, to have marched straight out of Inkermann. Then came the South Wales Borderers, and I heard the story of the Isandula colours, with the Queen's little gold wreath above them, that went, preciously furled, in the middle. I wished then – though it is not consistent with the Monroe doctrine – that we had a great standing army, with traditions and a constant possibility of foreign fighting. It may be discouraging to the increase of the male population, but it encourages sentiment, and is valuable on that account.

So they all came and passed and went, and came and passed and went again, three times – the whole ten thousand cavalry, infantry, artillery, commissariat, ambulance, doctors, mules, and all – with a great dust, and much music, and a tremendous rattling and bumping when the long waggons came, at the rear of which a single soldier sat in each, with his legs hanging down looking very sea-sick and unhappy. And they showed me a prince-subaltern, walking through the dust beside his company with the others. Nobody seemed to see anything remarkable in this but me, so I thought it best to display no surprise. But the nominal nature of some privileges in England began to grow upon me. I also saw a mule – a stout, well-grown, talented mule – who did not wish to parade. I was glad of the misbehaviour of that mule. It reduced to some extent the gigantic proportions of my respect for the British Army.

I met some of the colonels, and their wives and daughters, afterwards, and in most cases I was lost in admiration of the military tone of the whole family. Chicago colonels often have very little that is strikingly military about them, and their families nothing at all. But here the daughters carried themselves erect, moved stiffly but briskly, and turned on their heels as sharply as if they were on the parade-ground. I suppose it would be difficult to live in such constant association with troops and barracks, and salutes and sentries, and the word of command, without assimilating somewhat of the distinctive charm of these things; and the way some of the colonels' ladies clipped their sentences, and held their shoulders, and otherwise identified themselves with their regiments, was very taking. It explained itself further when I saw the 'quarters' in which one or two of them kept house – very pleasant quarters, where we received most interesting and delightful hospitality. But it would be odd if domesticity in a series of rooms very square and very similar, with 'C. O.' painted in black letters over all their doors, did not develop something a little different from the ordinary English lady accustomed to cornices and portières.

Then came lunch at the mess, at which, as the colonel took care of Lady Torquilin, I had the undivided attention of Mr. Oddie Pratte, which I enjoyed. Mr. Pratte was curious upon the subject of American girls at home – he told me he began to believe himself misinformed about them – seriously, and dropping his eyeglass. He would like to know accurately – under a false impression one made such awkward mistakes – well, for instance, if it were true that they were up to all sorts of games at home, how was it they were all so deucedly solemn when they came over here? Mr. Pratte hoped I wouldn't be offended – of course, he didn't mean that I was solemn – but – well, I knew what he meant – I must know! And wouldn't I have some more sugar for those strawberries? 'I like crowds of sugar, don't you?' said Mr. Oddie Pratte. Another thing, he had always been told that they immediately wanted to see Whitechapel. Now he had asked every American girl he'd met this season whether she had seen Whitechapel, and not one of'em had.

He wasn't going to ask me on that account. They didn't, as a rule, seem to see the joke of the thing. Mr. Pratte would like to know if I had ever met the M'Clures, of New York – Nellie M'Clure was a great pal of his – and was disappointed that I hadn't. The conversation turned to India, whither Mr. Pratte's regiment was ordered to proceed immediately, and I received a good deal of information as to just how amusing life might be made there from Mr. Pratte. 'They say a man marries as soon as he learns enough Anglo-Indian to propose in!' he remarked, with something like anticipative regret. 'First dance apt to be fatal – bound to bowl over before the end of the season. Simla girl is known to be irresistible.' And Lady Torquilin, catching this last, put in her oar in her own inimitable way. 'You're no nephew of mine, Oddie,' said she, 'if you can't say "No."' Whereat I was very sorry for Oddie, and forgave him everything.

There was tea on the lawn afterwards, and bagpipes to the full lung-power of three Highlanders at once, walking up and down, and beating time on the turf with one foot in a manner that was simply extraordinary considering the nature of what they were playing; and conversation with more Aldershot ladies, followed by an inspection in a body of Mr. Pratte's own particular corner of the barracks, full of implements of war, and charming photographs, and the performance of Mr. Pratte's intellectual, small dog. That ended the Aldershot parade. We have so few parades of any sort in America, except when somebody of importance dies – and then they are apt to be depressing – that I was particularly glad to have seen it.