Far from the Maddening Girls/Chapter 3

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

With the express design of familiarizing myself with my new mode of life, I had no guests, and went but once or twice to town, during the first month of “Sans Souci.” I wished to get upon terms of intimacy with my rooms, to tame my chairs, to have my wall-papers come to me when I called them and feed out of my hand. As it was, everything in the place seemed to be standing at attention, prepared to salute me when I should pass. All my cushions behaved like débutantes: not one had the easy air of repose which comes with a second season or a third. The furniture, without exception, was formal in manner, and almost disapproving. I could not even fall back with confidence upon my bed, which as yet received me with a certain discouraging rigidity. I felt that each of the rooms was deliberately taking stock of me, and that from no one of them was I by any means sure of a favourable opinion.

Fortunately, this uncomfortable formality passed off, like the appalling embarrassment which characterizes the first half-hour of a children’s party, and before the month was up my rooms had decided that I was not an undesirable playmate; had formed, as it were, a circle around me, holding hands; and we were all on the best possible terms with each other and ourselves. But I think it was Galvin, rather than I, who caused “Sans Souci” to assume the reposeful appearance of an establishment long maintained.

Her methods of operation were those of the lowly but effectual mole; continuous and conscientious, that is to say, but invisible to the naked eye in all save results. From a distance I could hear her whirling through space, hot on the heels of some unapparent speck of dust, and ere I had summoned the courage to open my eyes of a morning, her broom was lisping along the base-board of my hall. I knew when she was at the wash-tub, too, because, when thus employed, she invariably raised her voice in what I at first mistook for a dirge, but mentally unmasked, at length, as “Bonnie Dundee” in adagio time. If you have never heard it thus rendered, a simple experiment will enable you to bear me out in the assertion that of all airs it is the most lamentable. But never, up to that time, had I realized how much cleaner than merely clean it is possible for a window, or a floor, or a table-cloth to be. Never had I known what it was to have whatever I might chance to mislay or disarrange restored to its proper position, the instant my back was turned, as unerringly and inevitably as those cheerful, weighted dolls which spring upright, no matter how or where you happen to hurl them. My somewhat meagre supply of silver was, fortunately, sterling, for assuredly no plate could ever have survived the polishings it received; and as for my feather dusters, they must have been made from the plumage of Mother Carey’s chickens, so incessantly were they on the wing. I said to myself, with vast satisfaction, that Galvin was a paragon. When I discovered — by degrees, as shall you — how many sides she had, I perceived that “octagon” was the word I should have used.

Thus far, I had experienced none of the actual cares of housekeeping — nor, to be frank, did I wish or expect to. I had no desire, for example, to have a hand in the marketing. I am as quick as another to take a hint. It was not for nothing that I had read innumerable paragraphs in the humourous weeklies, having to do with the inexperienced one who orders two yards of French chops or a pound of eggs, and I had no mind to present myself as a figure of fun to my grocer and my butcher. Not for three weeks was I even consulted as to my preferences in the matter of food, and I am frank to say I never fared better. But this was the calm before the storm. I had retired to my den, one morning, determined to commence the novel which I had long had in mind, and was scrupulously pointing a half-dozen pencils, when I was interrupted by the sound of some one knocking. It was Galvin.

I should no more have suspected Galvin of venturing to knock at a door than of presuming to discharge a howitzer; but Galvin it was, and, it required but a glance to show me, a very different Galvin from that to which I had become accustomed. She was the picture of chastened resignation. Submission to unmerited adversity shone meekly in her eyes. The humility of the early martyrs was in the droop of her lips.

“Well, Galvin?” said I.

At once the flood-gates of her speech were opened.

“If I make bold to disturb you, sir,” she said, in a tone wherein was not perceptible the most remote trace of cheerfulness, or even hope, “it is because I cannot — no one could — you might ask an angel and they wouldn’t —not in houses where there are four and five in help— much less only — and there are many and many and many houses — and of course when things are not properly done— not that any one has ever said of me — I’ve a very sensitive character, Mr. Sands — even my own sister used to say — not that I want to boast — but to feel that, hard as I may try — and when I saw that you didn’t eat — and the disappointment—my life has not been an easy one— I often feel as if — as if — I feel as if — “

At this point Galvin abruptly dissolved in tears.

This whole matter, so unspeakably tragic in seeming, consisted in the fact that I had eaten so lightly of the meals which she provided that she felt I must disapprove of her selection. Protests were without avail. She proposed to have me arrange a schedule of my fare, whereby the burden of responsibility should be shifted from her shoulders to mine. This, to assuage her desperation, I agreed to do, and having my pencils fortuitously pointed, forthwith set to work to map out meals for a fortnight ahead. Thus to provide for forty-two meals would seem to be simplicity itself, said my mind to me.

First in order, I set down the meats: roast beef, beefsteak … chops … lamb … mutton —

As I live, I could think of no more!

I did better with the vegetables, which mounted up to twelve; but that was not even one a day for my fortnight, and, what was worse, at least four out of the dozen were excessively distasteful to me.

I was most unfortunate of all in regard to the desserts. I thought of pie — which, on one occasion in early life, saluted my confiding indulgence with such unexampled harshness that any sympathy between us has been out of the question ever since — and of Charlotte Russe, which, from its striking resemblance to a shaving-mug in full blast, has never seemed to me inviting — and of something called Sally Lunn, upon which I did not care to venture, because I could not in the least remember what manner of thing it was. Then and there I came to a full halt, and, by way of finale to the first dinner on my schedule, feebly wrote “Assorted Fruit.” I may add at once that I never succeeded in getting beyond the second day’s luncheon, and that Galvin, duly reassured as to my appreciation, continued to do the ordering, after all. The sole virtue of the episode was in showing me that she had another side in addition to the vanishing and the melodious. I was yet in blissful ignorance of the remaining five which cropped up later to complete my human octagon. In justice to myself, however, I am bound to say that, after I had definitely abandoned my attempt to make a schedule, I thought of a considerable number of other meats, such as Irish stew, and hash, and minced beef. But there are fewer vegetables in the world than I had supposed.

There was but one incident in connection with the earlier stages of my bachelor house- keeping which I found more humiliating to my self-esteem than this. I have in mind my visit, at the instance of Galvin, to the notion counter of Messrs. Wimple, Gabardine & Vale, who keep the largest department store in town. Galvin handed me a list of her wants in this particular, as I was leaving “Sans Souci” that morning, and this I perused with interest on my way up in the train. It ran as follows:

White spool cotton (80)

Black spool cotton (80)

Needles (8)

Tape (1 inch)

Shoe buttons (3)

That was all. Could anything have been more simple in appearance? Well, I solemnly avow that the most intricate cryptogram was the veriest child’s play in comparison!

I will not dwell upon that most painful fifteen minutes at the notion counter. (They call it that because the girls behind it have more notion than you of what you want.) I knew what I wanted — though, to be sure, it did not turn out to be what Galvin wanted — and, after a brief but severe struggle, I obtained it. It was a shocking experience. Homer speaks of the “ever-laughing sea,” but I am in a position to show that, in the matter of laughter, the sea is a poor performer beside the girl at the notion counter. It was all very unjust, very unreasonable. How was I to know that all these commodities are numbered and measured in direct opposition to every law of logic? — needles and spool cotton by quality instead of quantity, tape by width instead of length, buttons by cards instead of individuals! Suffice it to say that I returned to “Sans Souci” with one hundred and sixty spools of cotton, eight needles of the largest size, one inch of tape, and three shoe buttons, and that I could not bring myself to tolerate the presence of Galvin for a full week thereafter.

The first full month of my new existence had elapsed when I suddenly found myself confronted with the necessity of engaging Darius. He arrived as I was finishing break- fast one morning, bearing a note from Miss Berrith, the most expansive smile I have ever seen, and the greatest number of freckles which it was possible to accommodate within the limited compass of his countenance. This was Miss Berrith’s note, which I read at the front door, while he waited:

“Dear Mr. Sands:

“I do not know if you have any need of a boy about the place, but, if you have, I hope you will give one of my Sunday-school scholars, Darius Doane, a trial. He is very willing and anxious to please, and besides finding him useful, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are enabling him to aid his mother in supporting an invalid husband.

“Sincerely yours,

“Susie Berrith.”

As I finished this epistle I was conscious of a swishing sound, and looked up to find Darius sweeping the piazza. To this day I cannot imagine where he found the broom. He replied to my questioning glance with what I should have supposed an impossible enlargement of his former grin.

“I t’ought I might uz well git roight ter woik,” he observed, and forthwith I perceived that there was no way out of it but to give Darius Doane a trial. At the moment, I had no suspicion of how many trials Darius Doane was destined to give me.

How Darius did not perform his duties there is not space to tell. His age was twelve, his height inconsiderable, and his principal employments were polishing my boots, sauntering on errands, and endeavouring, with the utmost assiduity, to ascertain the greatest amount of sound and the least amount of melody which it is possible to extract from a mouth-organ at one and the self-same time. The result of his activities on an open fire would have done credit to a chemical engine. The arabesques of soap upon a window which he had “washed” would have put the artistic labours of Jack Frost to shame. He was able to drench himself more thoroughly by manipulating a garden hose than the average person could do by standing in front of the nozzle. He could lose more things in a given space of time than Robert Houdin. He could forget more messages, make more mistakes, come later of a morning and take his departure earlier — but why multiply examples? These were not the tenth part of his accomplishments.

Twenty times in the course of the first week I essayed to discharge the boy, but on each occasion he missed firing. He was so cheerful, so beamingly unconscious of his own short- comings, that it was impossible to get beyond a certain point of severity. He reminded me of a fox-terrier pup, once of my acquaintance, who always imagined that an infuriated attempt to get at him with a stick and beat him to a pulp was part of some new game. After a short detour he would come romping back in an ecstasy, smiling and wagging his rudiment of a tail, and the man who could have found it in his heart to strike him thus I should have suspected of being able to parboil a babe-in-arms without a qualm. So with Darius. I felt that if ever, when maddened by the mouth-organ, I could creep upon him from behind, I might discharge him. But if he turned upon me, before the odious deed was done, all smiles, all eagerness to please, I knew that I was lost.

It was not until Darius had been a fortnight in my employ that I saw Miss Berrith again. The occasion was a dinner — the first at “Sans Souci.” Arbuthnot came down from town to spend the night, and I invited Mr. Berrith and his daughter over to make up a four. I particularly desired to show Miss Berrith the manner in which I had worked out the sublime conception of celibate domesticity at which she had seen fit to tilt her nose. I wished her to know that when she had said “Then there is no chance for me,” it was one of the many true words spoken in jest. I intended to have her understand that, among all the rooms in my bungalow, there was no room for a wife. I was prepared deliberately to direct her attention to the absence of closet space and a bath-tub. In short, I designed this dinner as a “house-warning.”

Mr. Berrith was the kind of man into whom one can stick an infinite number of interesting remarks without securing any return whatever — as if one were filling a pin-cushion, which you may have remarked is a very one-sided operation. At an early stage of the dinner I turned him over to Arbuthnot, who, with a faculty which I do not possess, immediately discovered him to be an enthusiast on military history, and set him chattering like a jackdaw. There are many people who thus resemble one-half of a Seidlitz powder. So long as you don’t know what particular topic to mix with their intelligence, it remains flat and lifeless; but once stir it up with the proper ingredient and it promptly begins to effervesce. The other half of the Berrith powder was Napoleon, and as Arbuthnot is something of a Bonapartisan himself, the two of them got on famously — and left Miss Berrith to me.

“And how do you manage to get along with Darius?” said she.

“I’m sure I can’t imagine,” I answered doubtfully. “He has many accomplishments, but I am not sure that they are precisely applicable to the situation. He is very expert upon the mouth-organ.”

“That is hardly in the line of your needs, I suppose,” said Miss Berrith gravely, “but I am very glad you could give him the place. It is always a satisfaction to feel that one is helping another to earn a livelihood.”

“His is the liveliesthood,” said I, “that ever a boy earned yet.”

“Still, it is steady work,” observed Miss Berrith.

“If only you could see it!” I exclaimed.

“I mean,” she answered, with a little smile, “that he was only doing odd jobs before he came to you.”

“He has been doing odder ones ever since,” said I. “But I must thank you for thinking of me.”

“That reminds me that I owe you an apology,” said Miss Berrith. “I met Galvin one day not long ago, as she was taking an airing, and had a little chat with her. She — she complained about your appetite, Mr. Sands. She said you ate so little that she felt you were not satisfied with what she provided, and so I asked her why she didn’t get you to do the ordering. Later, I was sorry that I had interfered. After all, it was none of my business, was it?”

“No,” said I. (After all, it wasn’t.)

“I am very sorry,” said Miss Berrith, quietly.

We were finishing the cheese course and I was eating my last biscuit — one of the soda kind that is so dry and hard to swallow. It was that which made me choke a little.

“That was rude of me,” I added presently, “but I didn’t mean it to be. Of course it was very nice of you to take an interest.”

Then, on an impulse which I should have found it hard to explain, I gave her the details of my misadventures with the bill-of-fare and at the notion counter. It was another mark of feminine inconsistency that she manifested no evidence of being amused. Even I, victim of the untoward circumstances as I was, could perceive in these episodes elements distinctly humourous, but Miss Berrith appeared to be less enlivened than depressed by my recital. At the end, she looked up at me in a curious manner which was almost compassionate.

“I am very sorry,” she said, again.

“Oh, it was nothing,” I answered cheerfully. “They were only little things.”

“But, in a man’s home-life.” said she, “it is the little things that count — both ways.”

Then Arbuthnot engaged her attention, and, as Mr. Berrith was gobbling the remainder of his cheese and biscuit at a rate which suggested coaling a ship at sea, I had a moment in which to reflect upon her words. It was with considerable reluctance that I allowed my candour to carry me to the point of acknowledging to myself that there were drawbacks to life as I had planned it at “Sans Souci.” For one thing, the leisure which I had contemplated as likely to prove its chief advantage was not only less ample than I had pictured it but was daily more curtailed. And, as Miss Berrith had said, it was the little things which were responsible.

“Yes,” I agreed, as she turned to me again, “it is the little things which count —the grains of sand which make the mighty land where the mighty least expected to. To the making of a house there is no end. Somebody seems to have been dropping stitches all along, and I am constantly forced to go labouriously back and pick them up.”

“Can’t Galvin attend to the little details?” asked Miss Berrith.

“Galvin,” said I, “is a very competent first mate, but you must know that there are occasions when it is imperative that the captain should be on deck. Galvin, for example, could hardly be expected to issue instructions to the carpenter.”

“The carpenter?” repeated Miss Berrith. “But I thought you were through with carpenters long ago.”

“I am convinced,” I replied, “that just as spirits are supposed to frequent the scenes which were most familiar to them in life, so the unhappy householder will find his premises haunted more or less regularly by the masons, plumbers and painters who made the dwelling what it is, and have to be constantly recalled to make it what it ought to be. When it rains, Miss Berrith, the water comes down through my roof and up through my cellar floor — thereby proving its ability to flow in two directions at once. The water in my bathroom escapes from the faucet which is designed to keep it from flowing, and keeps from flowing down the exhaust pipe which is designed to let it escape. My doors have warped. I can’t shut those which I can open, and I can’t open those which I can shut. These, and many others of the kind, are things which not only call for the services of the mason, the plumber and the carpenter, but for my personal supervision, as well.”

“I see,” said Miss Berrith. “All the petty annoyances which a wife takes off her husband’s hands.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that, in all probability, the least petty annoyance on a husband’s hands would be the wife herself, but, somehow — I didn’t. My principal mistake in regard to Miss Berrith had lain in attaching a hidden significance to everything she said. I think we men are too apt to over-estimate the subtlety of women. In the present instance, her remark was undoubtedly quite without mental reservation.

But, though I spoke jestingly of them, these self-same little things were far from contributing to my comfort. The name, too, was legion of the things which I found I had to buy. On one occasion Galvin put in a plea for a colander, and whether a colander was animal, mineral or vegetable, animate or inanimate, I had less idea than a babe unborn, although it was manifestly impossible to confess so much to Galvin. It was only by the merest good fortune that I happened to ask for it in the hardware department of Messrs. Wimple, Gabardine & Vale, instead of at the notion counter.

Again, Galvin was hemming napkins and asked if I desired to have her “turn in the selvage.” A selvage? A selvage? I remember answering weakly:

“We are too hospitable, Galvin, to turn out even a selvage.”

This seemed to satisfy her, but I realized that it was by sheer luck. Which reminds me that I have never remembered from that hour to consult the dictionary upon a selvage.

In fine, I was daily pestered with numberless details which it was impossible to resent and still more impossible to avoid. I was forced to make an acquaintance with a whole new vocabulary, wherein such mysteries as “bias,” “hemstitching,” “crocking,” and “second raising,” were constantly looming up, clamourous for elucidation. I began to think that I should be obliged to engage an interpreter, and was of a mind to formulate an appeal to Mistress S. T. Rorer.

It is an ill thing to be forced to confess oneself at fault, and yet to this admission was I constrained by the candour which is my most admirable quality. There was something amiss about life at “Sans Souci!” There was a curious stillness in the house, which, to be sure, I had hoped to find, but wherein I was disappointed. There was lacking an element of liveliness, and I said as much to Miss Berrith the next time we met.

“But doesn’t Darius supply that?” she inquired.

“You may be sure it is not the noise of children I am after,” said I. “If that were the case, Miss Berrith, I should not be living in a marriage-proof Paradise.”

“What is it, then?” she asked.

“I’m not sure that I know,” I answered, somewhat lamely, as I was aware.

Miss Berrith looked at me suddenly, as she had done on the night of my “house-warning.”

“When you talk of Paradise,” she said, a little unevenly, “you remind me of Milton.”

“Why Milton?” I asked.

“By reason of a pitiful infirmity,” said she, and that was all I could get out of her. I suppose I had hurt her feelings by the energy of my expressions. There, again, you have an instance of the personal note in a woman. She has no conception of generalities.

“Sometimes I may seem a little bitter,” I ventured, “but, believe me, I’m not. Marriage is like a cold bath — beneficial to some men and fatal to others. I am one of the latter class, that’s all. I am far from denying a woman’s utility in the household — mind you, I say a woman, not a wife! Why, the episode of Galvin and the bill-of-fare taught me that much. I am not so prejudiced or dogged as you think. Miss Berrith. I can learn a lesson as well as the next man.”

“Can you?” said she. “If you will allow me to say so, Mr. Sands, I think your capacity in that line is likely to be severely taxed. So far as the scope of a woman’s utility is concerned, there is only one individual who knows less about it than a bachelor.”

“And that is?” I asked.

“A married man,” said Miss Berrith.

Arbuthnot came again, two Sundays later, but I was not so pleased to see him as I had been on the first occasion. It is to be presumed that a man would always be gratified to act as host to angels; but as for ordinary mortals, if their visits are to be really desirable, they must be —

“Like those of angels, short and far between.”

As a rule, the man whom you invite with pleasure, because he appreciates your wit, you dismiss with pleasure, because he takes exception to your politics. There is not one in a hundred who leaves your house as admirable in your eyes as when he entered it. Little eccentricities crop out to annoy you, little tricks of manner or of speech manifest themselves, and, in general, you are disappointed in him. You can’t resent them — that’s the worst of it. There is only one situation more trying than entertaining, and that is being entertained.

Yes, although it is said that to be an ideal host is hard, I think that to be an ideal guest is harder. The host end of the problem is comparatively simple, after all. You have only to find out what your guest wants to do, and let him do it. But as a guest you must first find out what your host is accustomed to do, and then do it yourself. Let me not be thought pedantic if I here set down ten rules for guests. The knowledge was painfully attained, and so is worthy of respect.

1. Make clear the date of your departure, diplomatically, but with promptitude. The most generous host would fain be sure his note has not been misunderstood.

2. Order the room assigned to you as if it were your own — or even more so. The servants have several other things to do.

3. Rise when you are called. Time waits for no man, and there is less reason why a hot oven should.

4. If you don’t see what you want, ask for it, for nothing flatters more the vanity of a host. But first be sure he has it in the house.

5. Laugh unaffectedly at his jokes. He does not tell them for the pleasure of perceiving that you have heard them before.

6. Praise the cooking while the waitress is in the room. Compared to her, Marconi is a novice in the transmission of news, and every cook is a friend worth having.

7. Always allege that you have never slept better in your life. Your host did not stuff the pillows, nor is he responsible for your conscience.

8. Tip the servants liberally. If necessary, remember that you did not have to pay for your room.

9. Do not fail, before leaving, to remark upon the beauty of the surroundings. They may be the most odious in the world, but your host would not be living there if he thought so.

10. Write a civil note to say you enjoyed yourself — even if that was all you did enjoy.

While I am about it, I see no reason why I should not set down ten rules for hosts. Equally with the foregoing, were they born out of bitter experience: hence, equally with the foregoing, are they entitled to respect.

1. Meet your guest at the station. It is charity, not hospitality, that begins at home.

2. Don’t force second helpings upon him. It is easier to propose food than to dispose of it.

3. Don’t discuss the shortcomings of your neighbours. It was probably to escape neighbours that he accepted your invitation.

4. Don’t dispose of every moment of his time before he arrives. Too many visits resemble three days in Rome on a Cook ticket.

5. Beware of showing him collections of photographs of your relations. It is an attack on an unarmed man.

6. Talk less than you listen. He does his listening at home.

7. Remember you invited him. Blame yourself if a visit which augured well at the beginning bores badly at the end.

8. Don’t make excuses. He can see without a magnifying glass, and you won’t have time to get them all in, anyhow.

9. Make it as easy for him to go as it was to come. Fly-paper is not hospitality.

10. Ask him to come again. It is a perfectly safe risk so long as you don’t put it in writing.

It is proper, at this point, to speak briefly of my garden. I felt it to be appropriate to my condition of country gentleman that I should have a garden, though from the first I very sensibly decided to limit it to flowers, being aware that it is harder to raise vegetables than the money to buy them. To this intent, I had a florist down from town, and we went around the place together and selected the most favourable spots for beds. He dealt with the question from a purely technical stand-point, and, as I had very foolishly intimated at the outset that I was more or less of an expert on horticulture, it was impossible for me to confess to him that I understood nothing whatever of the uncouth jargon in which he saw fit to express himself. There was some talk of perennial and deciduous, and a string of Latin similar to that in which one’s physician is accustomed to issue instructions to a druggist over one’s head, and I assented, with the sudden inspiration that nothing could be more diverting than not to know what manner of flowers you were to have until they made their appearance.

Four days later arrived a number of pansy and heliotrope plants, which were duly bedded, and passed into a long and painful decline on the following afternoon. The rest was a matter of seeds, which I am constrained to believe were inadvertently planted upside down, and will some day make beautiful the gardens of Hong Kong. Certain it is that they never came my way.

A more bitter disappointment I have never experienced. Having no idea of the length of time necessary for germination I did not cease to expect the arrival of my unknown flowers until late in the following autumn. It was not until the first snow fell that I forever lost my faith in florists.

This fiasco also I reported to Miss Berrith.

“And so,” I said, “it seems I am to have no flowers, after all.”

“It is the first, and, let us hope, not the greatest of the disappointments of ‘Sans Souci,’” she answered.

There was in her voice that little note of compassion which I had had occasion to remark before, and which irritated me immeasurably, although I could not have said why.

“You have a curious air of pitying me, at times,” I said, “which I am at a loss to understand. Was ever a man less pitiable than I? I have everything I want, and not a tie nor a responsibility in the world. I have found for myself what I conceive to be as close to perfect happiness as is humbly attainable. I am perfectly satisfied. And yet, once or twice, you have looked at me, spoken to me, as if —as if — “

“As if?” she repeated.

“As if I were a cripple!” I burst out, in a sudden excess of annoyance.

“Oh, Mr. Sands,” she exclaimed impulsively, “I think you are the most pathetic figure I have ever seen!”