Part 5

But the great statesman-author-orator gave me no guide to correct form or English social customs. Instead I grew so interested in the history of his work in England and France and in his inspiring achievement in obtaining recognition and credit for the United States that dinner time arrived before I realized I had not discovered what language was spoken at court, nor what one talked about, nor if one talked at all.

Tom roared when I made my confession. With his boyish good humor he promised to answer all my questions on board ship.

So, without a care in those delicious days that followed, I wandered down Sixth Avenue to New York's then most correct shops, buying clothes and clothes and clothes. I bought practical and impractical gifts for the twins back in Wisconsin and for all the family and those good friends who had helped me through Madison.

The week before we sailed my husband said, out of a clear sky: “Be sure you have the right clothes, Mary. The English are a conservative lot.” Suddenly I was conscious again that I did not know the essential things the wife of a diplomat ought to know--what to wear and when, a million and one tremendous social trifles.

The moment our magnificent liner left the dock I heaved a sigh of relief. Tom would be mine for two whole weeks, and all the questions I had saved up would be answered. That evening he announced: “We don't dress for dinner the first night out.”

“Dress for dinner?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

And then very gently he gave me my first lesson. I had never seen anything bigger than a ferry-boat. How could I guess that even on an ocean liner we did not leave formality behind? The “party dresses”, so carefully selected, the long, rich velvet cape I had thought outrageously extravagant, and the satin slippers and the suede--I had packed them all carefully in the trunk and sent them to the hold of the ship. But, with the aid of a little cash, the steward finally produced my treasure trunk, and thereafter I dressed for dinner.

The two weeks I had expected my husband to give me held no quiet hours. There is no such thing, except when one is seasick, as being alone aboard a ship. Tom was popular, good at cards and deck games, always ready to play. And the fourth day out I was too ill to worry about the customs at the Court of St. James.

It was not until just before we reached England that I began to feel myself again. I stood on deck, thrilled with the tall ships and the steamers, the fishing smacks and the smaller craft in Southampton harbor.

“What will be the first thing you do in London?” somebody asked me.

“Go to Mayfair to find the home of Becky Sharp,” I answered. Becky Sharp was as much a part of English history to me as Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn or William the Conqueror. When my husband and I were alone he said: “I think they have picked out No. 21 Curzon Street as the house where Becky Sharp is supposed to have lived. But what a funny thing for you to want to see first!”

I remembered what old Lord Steyne had said to Becky: “You poor little earthen pipkin. You want to swim down the stream with great copper kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving for what is not worth the having.”

I was quite sure I did not want to drift down the stream with copper kettles. I only wanted to be with Tom, to see England with him, to enjoy Dr. Johnson's haunts, to go to the “Cheddar Cheese” and the Strand, to Waterloo Bridge, and down the road the Romans built before England was England.

I wanted to see the world without the world seeing me. In my heart was no desire to be a copper kettle. But I had been cast into the stream, and down it I must go, like a little fungus holding to the biggest copper kettle I knew.

I told my husband this. It was the first time he had been really irritated with me. “Why do you worry about these things?” he protested. “You have a good head and a good education. You are the loveliest woman in England. Be your own natural self and the English will love you.” But I remembered another occasion when he had told me to be my own natural sweet self.

“How about what happened to Becky?” I asked.

Tom went into a rage. “Why do you insist on comparing yourself with that little ------!” The word he used was an ugly one. I did not speak to him again until after we had passed the government inspectors.

I shall never forget my first day in London, the old, quiet city where everybody seemed so comfortable and easy-going. There was no show, no pretense. The people in the shops and on the street bore the earmarks of thrift. I understood where New England got its spirit.

The first morning at the Alexandra Hotel, Tom fell naturally into the European habit of having coffee and fruit and a roll brought to his bed. I wanted to go down to the dining room. My husband said it was not done and I would be lonesome. The days of ranch life had taught me to get up with the chickens. But it was not done in London. The second morning the early sun was too much for me. I dressed, left the hotel, and walked for several hours before a perfect servant brought shining plates and marmalade, fruit and coffee to my big husky football player's bedside. I have lived many years in Europe, but I have never grown used to having breakfast brought to my room.

That second rainy morning Tom left me alone with the promise of being back for luncheon. I picked up a London morning paper and glanced at the personal column. I have read it every day since when I could get hold of the London Times. All of human nature and the ups and downs of man are there, from secondhand lace to the mortgaged jewels of broken-down nobility, from sporting games and tickets for sale to relatives wanted, and those mysterious, suggestive, unsigned messages from home or to home. I read the news of the war. We in America did not know there was a war. But Greece and Crete were at each other's throats, and Turkey was standing waiting to crowd the little ancient nation into Armenia or off the map. There was the Indian famine--We did not talk about it at home, but it had first place in the London paper. And the Queen's birthday,--it was to be celebrated by feeding the poor of East London and paying the debts of the hospitals. There was something so humane, so kindly, so civilized about it all! “I love England,” I said, and that first impression balanced the scale many a time later when I did not love her.

The third or fourth day brought an invitation to dine at a famous house on Grosvenor Square--with a duke!

I pestered my husband with questions. What should I wear? What should I talk about? He just laughed.

The paper had reported a “levee ordered by the queen”, describing the gowns and jewels worn by the ladies.

I had little jewelry--a diamond ring, which Tom gave me before we were married, a bracelet, two brooches, and a string of gold beads, which were fashionable in America. I put them all on with my best bib and tucker. When we were dressed, Tom gave me one look and said, “Why do you wear all that junk?” I took off one of the brooches and the string of gold beads.

When our carriage drew up to the house on Grosvenor Square, liveried servants stood at each side of the door, liveried servants guided us inside. There was a gold carpet, paintings of ladies and gentlemen in gorgeous attire, and murals and tapestries in the marble halls. But I quickly forgot all of this grandeur listening to the names of guests being called off as they entered the drawing-room: Mr. Gladstone and Mrs. Gladstone, Lord Rosebery and the Marquis of Salisbury, Mrs. Humphry Ward, looking fatter and older than I had expected, officers, colonels, viscounts, and ladies, and then Tom and Mary--but they were not called off that way. I wanted to meet Mr. Gladstone, and hoped I might even be near him at dinner; but I sat between a colonel and a young captain of the Scots Greys.

Mr. Gladstone was on the other side of the table. It was a huge table, more than five feet wide and very long. My husband was somewhere out of sight at the other end. Mr. Gladstone mentioned the fund being raised for the victims of the Paris Opera Comique fire. It is good form to be silent in the presence of death, especially when death is colossal, and the English never fail to follow good form. There was a sudden lull at our end of the table.

It was I who broke that silence. I was touched by the generosity of England, and said so. Since my arrival I had daily noted that England was giving to India, sending relief to Greece and Armenia, raising a fund for the fire sufferers, and celebrating the Queen's Jubilee by feeding the poor. I addressed my look and my admiring words to Mr. Gladstone.

Either my sincerity or the embarrassment he knew would follow my disregard of “the thing that is done” moved Mr. Gladstone's sympathy. He smiled across the table at me and answered, “I am so glad you see these good points of England.” It was about the most gracious thing that was ever done to me in my life. In England it is bad form to speak across the table. One speaks to one's neighbor on the right or to one's neighbor on the left; but the line across the table is foreign soil and must not be shouted across.