Christmas Eve: fine, bright, frosty weather; for a time hatred, malice, and uncharitableness seem to be dying away. Some purses are heavy. more are light, but the hearts of their owners seem alike touched by thoughts that bring all that is best in them to the surface.
Fathers, who perhaps in the ordinary way would seek employment at the public-house to-night, assist their wives with the shopping. Plum puddings are a recognised Christmas institution, but in many families new pinafores for the little girls are almost as much so.
“I want to see some pinafores,” says a customer. Then going to the shop door, she sings out, “Come in, Joe.”
Joe appears doubtfully but when the pinafores are produced his shyness wears off, and his interest is keen. Nellie’s eleven, Marjorie’s eight, Jane is three, and baby’s 9 months. “We want one for each of them.” says the mother. They look at several.
“I say, mother, wouldn’t Nell look fine in that?” says Joe.
“Too dear.” says the careful housewife.
“’Ow much?” asks Joe.
The price quoted, and the generous father declares it is not a ha’penny too much. The selection is completed, and away they go happy. A minute or two after Joe reappears alone–left his stick, he says. “I say, show me some haprons, quick, miss, to fit the missus.” He buys a good one, and, cramming it into his pocket, goes out flourishing his recovered stick, left for the purpose.
Later his wife will dodge in and purchase a tie for Joe, bright enough to dispel a fog of the “London particular” variety.
Such is the pleasant scene enacted again and again in many a fancy shop on Christmas Eve, telling of a fund of affection which seldom finds expression.
Bashful young men appear to buy gloves, fur necklets, or silk ties for their sweethearts. Many come for gloves with no idea of size. One blushing swain informed me that her waist was 23 inches, but didn’t know her size in gloves. A few years ago girls were fond of buying braces and tobacco pouches, which they would embroider with their own fair hands for their beloved ones, but these are not so greatly favoured now, mufflers and silk handkerchiefs having replaced them. And. indeed, generally in present giving there seems to have been a movement in favour of the useful as opposed to the purely ornamental.
One Christmas Eve incident to close with. I was once employed in a shop the proprietor of which his assistants generally spoke of as the “Curmudgeon”–a name his character apparently justified. Just as we were close upon closing time a poor woman in widow’s weeds who had been a good customer in happier times came in and asked for pinafores. There had been a great rush of business, and all the cheap ones of the size she required had been sold. Her eyes tilled with tears to think that her little one must be disappointed.
Just as she was going the “Curmudgeon” came forward with a pinafore, saying. “This has been badly inked. and if it is of any use you may have it for six-pence.” The widow went away happy. The “Curmudgeon” had deliberately inked one of the best pinafores, knowing that she would not accept a big reduction as a matter of charity.
I am persuaded that the half-sovereign he gave me that night was meant to close my lips about the incident, but I refused to be bribed, and his name is no longer the “Curmudgeon.”
Waikato [NZ] Times 24 December 1903: p. 2
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil is always pleased to hear of kindly and generous fathers and husbands and of Scrooge-like employers who show unexpected flashes of liberality in the Christmas season. One hopes that the missus was pleased with her apron and Joe was delighted with his brilliant cravat. The Curmudgeon receives a reverential tip of a figurative cap for his delicate handling of a situation that called for the nicest diplomacy.
A “movement in favour of the useful as opposed to the purely ornamental,” was certainly all to the good. Young men groaned under the weight of the fancy-work inflicted on them by industrious young ladies and longed for a misfit holiday gift exchange where one could trade six pairs of nicely embroidered slippers for a serviceable jacket or cap. Even better would be if the ladies would not send the fad du jour done up in tissue. Mrs Daffodil shudders as she remembers a certain “singing fish” that was all the rage one Christmas.
THE CHRISTMAS FAD.
I would put forth a yearning prayer
That these, the loving ones, and fair,
Who keep unworthy me in view
As one for Christmas presents due.
Might each, though generously inclined.
A separate inspiration find.
One year with handkerchiefs I’m showered.
The next by neckties overpowered:
Again more slippers than I’d need
Had I been born a centipede.
Another year, both maids and wives
Embower me in paper knives.
Then gloves came in, pair after pair
Of every sort— from everywhere—
And smoking caps, whose sizes strange
From infants’ up to giants’ range!
Sweethearts, I pray you. list to me!
Whatever gift is said to be
The proper thing to send— the “fad”—
If you would make my poor heart glad
And cause my bosom joyous swells—
Don’t send it–please, send something else.
Feilding [NZ] Star 24 December 1901: p. 8
Of course, some gentlemen, driven to extremes by an excess of fancy-work might do as this man did:
For this man, who as a terrible fellow with the girls, no less than seven fair creatures manufactured pairs of slippers, all delicious things of embroidery, ribbons and velvet, and presented them to the lucky favorite at Christmas.
This was an embarrassment of riches, and the wretched man, having picked out the finest pair for his own use, quietly placed the remaining six pairs of slippers in the show window of a drygoods store downtown for sale. And they fetched fancy prices, I am told.
Pittsburg [PA] Dispatch 7 May 1890: p. 4
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Linley was fond of collecting what he called “raw material” and, as a fairly successful barrister, he had good opportunity for doing so. He despised novelists and romancists, yet one day he hoped to become one of these gentry himself, hence his collection of the raw material…however, after some years he became disgusted and overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” (as he termed it) which he had gathered together—scenes, episodes, characters, dialogues, descriptions and decorations for all or any possible type of tale; he remained, he declared, surprised at the poverty of invention of the professional story-tellers who gave so little for the public’s money in the way of good, strong, rousing drama, such as he, Robert Linley, had come across, well, more times than he cared to count…
“There isn’t anything,” he declared with some vehemence, “of which I haven’t had experience.”
“Ghosts?” I asked, and he smiled contemptuously.
“Yes, of course, I’ve had any amount of experiences with ghosts, with people who’ve seen ’em, and people who think they’ve seen ’em, and with the ghosts themselves…”
“Well,” I asked, “have you come across a real Christmas ghost story—what we used to call the old-fashioned kind? They’re getting a bit threadbare now, you know; they’ve been told over and over again, year after year; have you got a novelty in that direction?” Linley, after a moment’s pause, said that he had.
“There’s some raw material for you,” he cried, waxing enthusiastic, “the story of the Catchpoles and Aunt Ursula Beane, there’s some raw material—why, there’s everything in it—comedy, tragedy, drama, satire, farce—”
“Hold on!” I cried, “and just tell us as briefly as possible what your ‘raw material’ consists of. I’m out for a Christmas ghost story, you know, and I shall be disappointed if you don’t give us something of that kind.”
Linley made himself extremely comfortable and, with a lawyer’s relish of the right phrase and the correct turn of sentence, gave us the history of Aunt Ursula Beane, with the usual proviso, of course, that the names and places had been altered. Before he began his narration Linley insisted on the novelty of the story, and before he had finished we all of us (those select few who were privileged to hear him hold forth) agreed that it was very novel indeed.
The case of Aunt Ursula Beane, as he called her, had come under his notice in a professional way and in the following manner, commonplace enough from a lawyer’s point of view, although the subsequent case was one which the papers endeavored to work up into what is described by that overworked word “sensational.” As far as the lawyers and the public were concerned it began with an inquest on Mrs. Ursula Beane. In Linley’s carefully selected phrases the case was this:
“Mrs. Ursula Beane had died suddenly at the age of seventy-five. The doctor who had been intermittently attending her—she was an extremely robust and healthy old woman—had not been altogether satisfied with her symptoms. He had refused a death certificate, there had been an autopsy, and it was discovered that Mrs. Ursula Beane had died from arsenical poisoning. The fact established, an enquiry followed, eliciting the following circumstances. Mrs. Ursula Beane had lived for forty years in a small house at Peckham Rye which had belonged to her father and his father before him. The house had been built in the days when Peckham Rye—well, was not quite like it is now. She resided with a nephew and niece—James and Louisa Catchpole. Neither of them had ever married, neither of them had ever left Peckham Rye for more than a few weeks at a time, and the most minute investigation did not discover that either of them had had the least adventure or out-of-the-way event in their lives. They enjoyed a small annuity from a father who had been a worthy and fairly prosperous tradesman. James was, at the time of the inquest, a man over sixty and had been for many years a clerk—’confidential clerk’ as he emphasized it—with a large firm of tea merchants. He received a sufficient, if not a substantial salary and was within a year or two of a pension. His sister, Miss Louisa Catchpole, was younger—fifty or so; she also had a substantial, if not a brilliant, position as a journalist on one of those few surviving monthlies which rather shun publicity and cater for the secluded and the virtuous. She wrote occasional short stories in which the hero was always a clergyman and the heroine sans peur et sans reproche. She also wrote little weekly causeries—as I believe they are called—’Meditations in a Garden’; they were headed and adorned with a little cut of an invalid in a basket-chair gazing at a robin. In these same causeries Miss Louisa Catchpole affected month after month, year after year, with unfaltering fortitude, a vein of Christian cheerfulness, and encouraged her readers with such maxims as ‘Character is stronger than Destiny,’ ‘A man is only as strong as his faith in himself,’ and chirpings about the recurring miracle of spring, together with quotations from the more minor poets—you know the type of thing.
“It is irrelevant to our story to go into why Aunt Ursula Beane lived with those two; they seemed to be the only surviving members of their very unimportant family, and they had lived together in the house at Peckham Rye for forty years, ever since Louisa was quite a small child and had gone there to live with Aunt Ursula who, on her husband’s death, had retired to this paternal abode. Nobody could think of them as apart one from the other. During those forty years James had gone to and fro his work, Louisa had written her articles and stories, and at first had been looked after by, and afterwards had looked after, Aunt Ursula Beane. Their joint earnings kept the tiny establishment going; they were considerably helped by the fact that there was no rent to pay and they lived in modest comfort, almost with (what James would have called) ‘every luxury.’ Besides giving them the house to live in, Mrs. Beane paid them at first thirty shillings, then, as the cost of living went up, two pounds a week for what she called ‘her keep.’ What, you will say, could have been more deadly commonplace than this? But there was just one touch of mystery and romance. Aunt Ursula was reputed to be of vast wealth and a miser—this was one of those family traditions that swell and grow on human credulity from one generation to another. The late Mr. Beane was spoken of with vague awe as a very wealthy man, and it appeared that the Catchpoles believed that he had left his widow a considerable fortune which she, a true miser, had concealed all those years, but which they might reasonably hope to inherit on her death, as a reward for all their faithful kindness. Investigation proved that what had seemed rather a fantastic delusion had some startling foundation. Mrs. Ursula Beane employed a lawyer and his evidence was that her late husband, who had been a tobacconist, had left her a tidy sum of money when he had died forty years ago, amounting to fifteen thousand pounds, which had been safely invested and not touched till about five years before. What Mrs. Beane lived on came from another source—a small capital left by her father that brought her in about a hundred and fifty pounds a year; therefore this main sum had been, as I have said, untouched and had accrued during those thirty-five years into a handsome sum of nearly fifty thousand pounds. The lawyer agreed that the old lady was a miser, nothing would induce her to draw out any of this money, to mention its existence to a soul, or to make a will as to its final disposal. The lawyer, of course, was pledged to secrecy. He knew that the Catchpoles guessed at the existence of the hoard, he also knew that they were not sure about it and that they had no idea as to its magnitude. Five years before her death the old lady had drawn out all her capital—forty-eight thousand pounds—without any explanation whatever to the lawyer, and had taken it away in a black bag, going off in a taxicab from the lawyer’s office in Lincoln’s Inn. It might have been the Nibelung hoard flung into the Rhine for all the mystery that was attached to it, for nobody saw or heard of it again. Both the Catchpoles swore that they had no knowledge whatever of the old woman realizing her capital; she had certainly not banked it anywhere, she must have taken that very large sum of money in notes and, I believe, a few bonds, to that small house at Peckham Rye and in some way disposed of it. A most exhaustive search revealed not so much as a five-pound note. In the bank was just the last quarterly installment of her annuity—barely enough, as Louisa Catchpole remarked with some passion, ‘to pay the doctor and the funeral expenses.’
“There you have the situation. This old woman dead in what was almost poverty, the disappearance of this large sum of money she had realized five years previously, and the fact that she had died from arsenical poisoning. To explain this there were the usual symptoms, or excuses, whatever you like to call them; she had been having medicine with arsenic in it, and she might have taken an overdose. There had been arsenic in the house in the shape of powders for an overgrown and aged dog, and in the shape of packets of weed-killer, James had always taken an industrious interest in the patch of garden that sloped to the Common. The old lady might have committed suicide, she might have taken some of the stuff in mistake, or the Catchpoles might have been murderers. The only possible reason for suspecting foul play would have been that the Catchpoles knew of her hoard and wished to get hold of it. But this it was impossible to prove. I was briefed to watch the case for the Catchpoles. There was, of course, a certain sensation and excitement over the fact of the large sum of money, the only startling and brilliant fact about the whole commonplace, drab and rather depressing story. I myself thought it rather absurd that any question of suspicion should attach to the Catchpoles. After forty years of placid uninspired devotion to Aunt Ursula Beane, why should they suddenly decide to put her out of the way when, in the nature of things, she could not have had more than a few years to live? Their demeanor, too, impressed me very favorably. There was none of the flaunting vanity, posing or vehement talk of the real criminal, they seemed slightly bewildered, not very much disturbed, and to trust wholly in their undeniable innocence, they almost found the whole thing grotesque and I could understand their point of view. The verdict, however, was rather surprising. It was confidently expected that it would be Death from misadventure,’ but instead, the verdict was ‘Death from arsenical poisoning not self-administered.’ This is really about as near as we can get in England to the Scottish verdict ‘Not proven,’ and I was rather indignant, for it seemed to me to attach a great deal of wholly unmerited suspicion to the two Catchpoles. Still, of course, they were quite free and no direct blame was laid on them. In fact, the coroner had remarked on their devoted care of an old lady who must have been, from the various facts proved by the doctors, ‘very trying and difficult,’ as the saying goes. They conducted themselves very well after the inquest, still with that slightly bewildered patient air of resignation. It seemed to me that they did not realize the ghastly position in which they stood and, as I knew when I heard the verdict, the very narrow escape they had had from being arrested on a charge of murder. They paid all the expenses connected with the inquest at once and without any trouble. They had, as James explained with a certain mild pride, ‘savings.’ I was interested in them, they were so meek and drab, so ordinary and repressed; there was something kindly and amiable about them and they were very attached to each other. I questioned them about this mysterious hoard, the existence of which would have been difficult to believe but for the evidence of the lawyer. They did not seem very concerned, they had always known that Aunt Ursula Beane had money and, said Louisa without passion, they had always guessed that she had tried to do them out of it—she had been an extraordinarily malicious old woman, they complained, and it was quite likely that the money was buried somewhere, or had been destroyed. She was capable of feeding the fire with it, of sticking it in a hole in the ground, of throwing it into the water in a bag weighed down with stones, in fact of doing anything in the world with it except putting it to some profitable use. She was undoubtedly not right in her head.
“‘She ought to have been certified years ago,’ I declared.
“James Catchpole shook his head. ‘She was never bad enough for that,’ he announced with resignation.
“They had really been slaving and ‘bearing’ things for forty years for that money, and they took the loss of it, I thought, with extreme gallantry.
“They returned to the little house in Peckham Rye which came to them as next-of-kin. The little annuity, which was all that Aunt Ursula had left of her worldly goods after she had disposed of her main fortune, perished with her. James and Louisa would have to live on his clerkship and her journalism.”
At this point Linley stopped to ask me if we did not perceive a real strong drama in what he had told us—”A whole novel, in fact,” he added triumphantly.
“Well,” I replied, “one might make it into a whole novel by inserting incidents and imagining this and that and the other. As you have given it, it seems a dreary stretch of nothingness with a rather damp squib at the end. After all, there was no murder, I suppose the old woman took an overdose of medicine by mistake. Where,” I asked, “does the Christmas ghost story come in?”
“I will tell you if you will have just a little more patience. Well, I have said that I was interested in the Catchpoles, I even went to see them once or twice. They seemed to me to be what used to be called ‘human documents’—the very fact that they had such blank faces made me want to study them. I know there must be some repression somewhere, some desire, some hope, something beside what there appeared on the surface—this blank negation. They did not betray themselves. Louisa said she missed the old lady and that she was having quite a handsome headstone put on her grave in the vast London cemetery where she had been laid to rest. James spoke of the old lady with a certain deference, as if the fact of her being dead had made a saint of Aunt Ursula Beane.
“I continually asked them if they had had any news of the money. They shook their heads with a compassionate smile at my hopefulness. They were convinced that during those five years Aunt Ursula Beane had completely destroyed the forty-eight thousand pounds—easily destroyed, for most of it had been in hundred- and thousand-pound notes. Of course the garden had been dug over and every brick and plank in the house disturbed, with no result.
“‘And if she never left the house and garden?’ I asked.
“They told me she had. She was a robust old woman, as I said before, and she used to take long walks and every year during those five years she went away for a fortnight—sometimes with Louisa, sometimes with James, sometimes to the seaside and sometimes to lodgings in a farmhouse, and on all these different occasions she had had plenty of opportunity of getting rid of her money. Of course these five several lodgings had been searched and the country round about them, but always with no result.
“‘You see, sir,’ said James, with his meek and placid smile, his pale faded eyes gleaming at me behind the glasses, ‘she was far too cunning for all of us.’
“One winter evening about a year after the inquest the mood took me to go and visit these two curious specimens. I found them with a planchette, their eyes goggling at the sprawling writing that appeared on the piece of paper beneath. James informed me without excitement that they had ‘taken up’ spiritualism, and Miss Louisa chirped in that they were getting ‘the most wonderful results.’
“Aunt Ursula Beane had ‘come through,’ as they put it, almost at once, and was now in constant communication with them. “‘Well, I hope she can tell you what she did with the money.’ “They answered me quite seriously that that was what they were trying to find out, but that the old lady was just as tricky and malicious on the other side, as they termed it, as she had been on this, luring them on with false scents and wayward suggestions. At the same time, they declared, placidly but with intense conviction, they believed that sooner or later she would disclose to them her secret.
“I soon began to lose interest in them after this. When people of the type of the Catchpoles get mixed up with this spiritualistic business they cease to be—well, almost cease to be ‘human documents.’ I thought I’d leave ’em to it, when I received a rather urgent invitation from Miss Louisa Catchpole, begging me to be present at a ‘demonstration’ at which Aunt Ursula Beane would undoubtedly appear in person.
“I went to the little house in Peckham where the furniture, the wallpaper, even the atmosphere did not appear to have been changed all those monotonous forty years—forty-one now to be exact. There was a medium present and no one else save myself and the brother and sister. We sat round the table. The medium who beamed with a rather fussy kindness went off with surprising celerity into a trance, and soon the ‘demonstration’ took place.
“At first I was cynical, secondly I was disgusted, and thirdly, I was rather disturbed, finding myself first in the midst of farce, low charlatanry and chicanery, then suddenly in the presence of something which I could not understand. The ‘demonstration’ began by groans and squeaks issuing from the lips of the medium, greetings to Louisa and James (presumably in the voice of the defunct Aunt Ursula), various jovial references to a bottle containing poison, a few other crude remarks of that nature, and then several knocks from different parts of the room—rappings loud and quick, and then beating time, as if to a piece of music, then a sudden clatter on the table in the middle of us as if the old lady were dancing there with heavy boots on. James and Louisa sat side by side, their hands clasped, listening to all this without a shade of expression on their blank faded faces. The hideous little room was the last resort of the antimacassar, and presently these began to fly about, scraps of the horrible white crocheted tatting gliding through the air in a way which would have been very funny if it hadn’t been rather dreadful. Of course I knew that many mediums have these powers and there is nothing much in them—I mean, it can all be explained in a perfectly practical and satisfactory fashion. At the same time I did not greatly care about the exposition, and I begged the Catchpoles to bring it to an end, particularly as the old lady had nothing definite to say. James whispered that the medium must not be disturbed while she was in trance. Aunt Ursula Beane then began to sing a hymn, but with a very unpleasant inflection, worse than any outspoken mockery. While the hymn was being sung I gained the impression far more vividly than I had ever received before that Aunt Ursula Beane had been a rather terrible person. When she had finished the hymn she began in an old half-broken voice softly to curse them all in a language that was not at all agreeable to listen to, coming as it did in those querulous, ancient feminine tones. This was rather too much for me, and I shook the medium violently. She came out of her trance. Louisa and James did not seem in the least affected, drank tea, ate biscuits, and discussed in banal terms the doings of those on ‘the other side.’
“I received no more invitations from the Catchpoles and did not go near them for a considerable time. In fact, I think I had rather forgotten about them, as I had had a great many other interesting cases and a good many other interesting specimens had come my way. I had heard a vast number of stories as good as the story of Aunt Ursula Beane, but it did happen one day that I had to pass through Peckham and could not resist the passing impulse of curiosity that urged me to go and look at the house on the Common. It was ‘To Let’ or ‘To be Sold,’ according to two or three estate agents’ blatant boards on the front railing. I called next door and was received with the inevitable suspicion with which the stranger is usually regarded in small places. I did, however, discover what I had set out to discover, namely, that the Catchpoles had left the neighborhood about six months ago, and no one knew where they were. I took the trouble to go to one of the estate agents whose address was given on the board, to make further enquiries. The house was to be let or sold, it did not seem to have been considered a great prize, and it certainly had not gone off very quickly, though it was cheap enough; the neighborhood, even the estate agent admitted, ‘was not what it had been.’ Then, of course, one couldn’t deny that the Ursula Beane case and the fact that the old lady had died there, and of poison, had given a slightly sinister air to the modest stucco building. As to the Catch-poles, the estate agent did not know where they had gone; all he had was the address of a bank, nor was it any of my business, so I decided to dismiss the whole thing from my mind.
“Good raw material, no doubt, but none of it worked up sufficiently to be of much interest.”
Linley glanced round at us all triumphantly as he said this.
“But it was all rounded off as neatly as any novelist could do it. Let me tell you,” he added with unction.
“Five years afterwards I ran over to Venice for Christmas—I don’t know why, except just the perverse desire to see the wrong place at the wrong time, instead of forever the right place at the right time. I like Venice in the winter fogs, with a thin coat of ice on the canals, and if you can get a snowstorm—well, so much the better—St. Marco, to me, looks preferable with the snowflakes in front of the blue and the bronze instead of that eternal sunshine…Well, there I was in Venice, and I’m not going to bore you with any more local color or picturesque details. I was in Venice, very well satisfied with myself, very comfortable and alone. I was tolerably familiar with the city and I always stay at the same hotel. One of the first things I noticed was that a large and very pretentious palace near by had recently been handsomely and expensively ‘done up’; I soon elicited the fact that the place which I had always envied had been bought by the usual rich American who had spent a great deal of money in restoring and furnishing it, but who did not very often live there, he only came and went after the fashion of all Americans, and was supposed to travel considerably in great luxury. Once or twice I saw this American going past in a gondola, wrapped in a foreign, rather theatrical-looking cloak, lounging with a sort of ostentation of ease on the cushions. He was an elderly man with a full grey beard, and wore, even now in the winter, blue sunglasses. On two separate occasions when I was sitting on the hotel balcony in the mild winter sunlight and he was being rowed past underneath I had the impression that he was looking at me sharply and keenly behind those colored spectacles, and also the impression, which was likely enough to be correct, that I had seen him before. I meet, of course, a great many people, but even with a memory on which I rather pride myself, cannot immediately place everyone. The hotel at which I was staying—and this was one of the reasons I always selected it—did not have any of those ghastly organized gaieties at Christmas; we were left to ourselves in a poetic gloom best suited to the season and the city. I was seated by myself enjoying a delicious kind of mournful repose, piquantly in contrast with my usual life, when I received a message and a very odd one: the gentleman, Signor Hayden, the American from next door, would very much like to see me. He had observed me on the balcony, knew my name and my profession, and requested the honor of my company. Attracted by anything queer or the least out of the way, I at once accepted, and in ten minutes or so found myself in the newly-restored palace which I had so often admired and envied. The place was furnished with a good deal of taste, but rather, I suspected, the orthodox taste of the professional decorator. Mr. Hayden was not immediately visible, but, I understood, in bed ill; I expressed my willingness to go to his bedside and was shortly conducted there. The room was very handsome, the servants very well trained, and I was impressed by the fact that this rich American must be very rich indeed. One knows, of course, what these out-of-the-way little caprices of newly-restored palaces in Venice cost. The owner of this up-to-date luxury was in bed, propped up with pillows and shaded by old-fashioned mauve velvet curtains. He still wore the colored glasses, and I concluded that he had some defect in his sight. He appeared to see me perfectly well, however, and beckoned to me to approach his bedside. As I did so he removed his glasses; there was an electric standard lamp on an antique table by the bedside and the light of it was turned full on to the sick man’s face, which I immediately recognized. I was looking down into the faded, mild, light-blue eyes of James Catchpole.
“‘Very odd that you should be here,’ he smiled at me, ‘very odd indeed. You’ve always been interested in us and I thought perhaps you’d like to hear the end of the story, that is, if any story ever does end; there’s a pause in ours at this point, anyway.’
“I expressed due surprise and gratification at seeing him. In truth, I was considerably amazed. I was startled, too, to see how ill he was. He asked me to help him up in bed. He declared, without emotion, that he knew himself to be dying.
“‘Where’s Miss Louisa?’ I asked; ‘where is your sister?’
“‘She died last year,’ he answered placidly. ‘She had a thoroughly good time for four years and I suppose it killed her, you know; but, of course, it was worth it, she always said so.’
“The inevitable conclusion had jumped to my mind.
“‘You found Miss Ursula Beane’s hoard?’ I suggested.
“James Catchpole, passing his hand over the full grey beard which had so changed his face, replied simply:
“‘We never lost it—we had it all the time.’
“‘You mean you?’ I asked dubiously, and he nodded and replied:
“‘Exactly!’
“‘That you—?’ I suggested, and this time he nodded and said:
“‘Precisely!’
“‘Louisa persuaded her to realize her capital,’ he continued with childish calm. ‘She was a proper miser and she rather fretted not having the actual stuff in her hands. It wasn’t difficult to make her get it—she liked a real hoard, a thing you can put under the hearthstone or in the mattress, you know. We thought we should get hold of it easier that way when she came to die. You never knew with anyone like that what she might do in the way of a will, she was keen on lost cats and Christians. We thought she would enjoy herself playing with it, and then we’d get it if we were patient enough.’
“He blinked up at me and added, with the faintest of ironic smiles—We’d been patient for forty years, don’t you suppose we spent some part of that time planning what we would do with the money? We were both engaged, to start with, but her young man and my young woman couldn’t wait all those years…We read a good deal, we made lists of things we wanted, and places we wanted to go to…We had quite a little library of guide-books, you may have noticed them on the bookshelf—one of them was a guide to Venice. Louisa, writing her piffling articles, and I at my piffling job, to and fro—well, you don’t suppose we didn’t have our ideas?’
“‘I see,’ I said doubtfully, ‘and then, when there was that little misfortune about the arsenic, I suppose you didn’t care to mention the hoard?’
“‘It wouldn’t have been altogether wise, sir, would it?’ smiled James Catchpole simply. It would have thrown a lot of suspicion on us, and we’d been very careful. There wasn’t any proof, not a shred. We had to wait until the case had blown over a bit, and then we—well, we did the best we could with the time that was left us. We lived at the rate of ten thousand a year. We had the best of everything…Of course it was the pace—don’t you call it?—that killed. We were neither of us young, and we knew we couldn’t stand it for long, so we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, believe me, sir, thoroughly.’
“He paused and added reflectively:
“‘But it’s a good thing we made a move when we did, we shouldn’t have been able to get about at seventy; she—she might have gone on to a hundred and ten.’
“‘Do you mean that you—?’ I suggested quietly.
“‘It was the easiest thing in the world,’ he smiled, ‘to drop a couple of those dog powders into her milk…’
“I’d always been intensely interested in murderers. I tried to question James Catchpole as to his motives, his sensations, his possible remorse; he appeared to have had none of any of these…
“‘You didn’t regret it afterwards, you haven’t felt the Furies behind you, or anything of that sort?’
“He replied, as far as his feeble strength would permit:
“‘I have enjoyed myself thoroughly. I wish we hadn’t waited so long.’
“I was puzzled. They had always seemed such very nice people.
“‘I am dying now,’ said James Catchpole, ‘and it’s about time, for I’ve spent all the money. The doctor said my next heart attack would be fatal, and I’ve done my best to bring one on. I couldn’t go back to lack of money.’
“‘Who are you going to leave all this to?’ I asked with professional interest. I glanced round the handsome room.
“He smiled at me with what I thought was compassion.
“‘I haven’t been so silly as all that,’ he replied. ‘Everything that I possess wouldn’t pay half of my debts. I have had full value, I can assure you. After all, I had a right to it, hadn’t I? I’d waited long enough.’
“‘What about the planchette and the demonstrations?’ I asked. ‘I suppose all that was a fake to throw us off the scent?’
“‘Not at all,’ he declared, in what seemed to be hurt surprise, ‘that was perfectly genuine. We made up our minds to get in touch with Aunt Ursula Beane, to find out what she thought about it all.’
“‘And what did she think?’ I asked, startled.
“‘She said we were a couple of fools not to have done it sooner.’
“‘Come, come, Mr. Catchpole,’ I cried, something shocked, ‘this is unseemly jesting.’
“‘No jesting at all,’ he assured me. ‘Aren’t I dying myself? I shall be in the old girl’s company in a few minutes, I daresay. You heard her yourself, sir, dancing on the table that evening. She said she’d been a perfect fool herself, and now that she’d “got over” she realized it. She said if we didn’t have a good time, or someone didn’t have a good time with that damn money, she’d never forgive us. You see, sir, at first we began to have that miserly feeling too and didn’t want to spend it. We thought we’d go on hoarding it, living just the same and knowing it was there. She used to scribble out on the planchette saying what idiots we were. That’s why she used all that strong language. “You’ve got it—now use it!” That was what she always said. “I’ll go with you and share in your good time”—and so she has, sir, believe me. We’ve often seen her sitting at the table with us, nodding over the champagne; she’d have been fond of champagne if she’d allowed herself…We’ve seen her dancing in some of those jazz-halls, we’ve seen her in boxes listening to opera, we’ve seen her sitting in the Rolls-Royce revelling in the cushions and the speed…Remorse? Why, I tell you we’ve given the old girl the good time she ought to have had years ago.’
“‘Come, come, James Catchpole,’ I said, ‘you’re delirious. I’d better fetch the doctor.’
“He smiled at me with compassion and some contempt.
“‘You’re a clever lawyer,’ he said, ‘but there are a lot of things you don’t understand.’
“Even as he spoke he seemed to fall into a peaceful sleep and I thought it was my responsibility to fetch a doctor. Of course I believed hardly anything he said—I thought it was quite likely that he hadn’t poisoned Aunt Ursula Beane, but that he had invented the story. At the same time there was the hard concrete evidence of the palace, the servants, the furniture—he had got money from somewhere.
“‘Good raw material, eh? Think what you could make of it if you wrote it up!’
“I went downstairs, telephoned on my own responsibility to the address of one of the English doctors. It was Christmas Eve and I could not find him at home. I was quite uncertain what to do. I stood hesitant at the foot of the wide magnificent staircase, when I observed a dreadful old woman creeping up the stairs with a look of intense enjoyment on her face—Mrs. Ursula Beane—not a doubt of it—Aunt Ursula Beane! I saw her so clearly that I could have counted the stitches in the darns at the elbows of her black sleeves. I ran up after her, but of course she was there before I was. When I came up to the bedside James Catchpole was dead, with an extremely self-satisfied smug smile on his face.
“There’s my Christmas Eve ghost! An hallucination, of course, but you can give it all the usual explanation. There’s the story, you can put it together as you will. There’s plenty of stuff in it—good raw material, eh, take it how you will?”
We all agreed with Linley.
Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales, Marjorie Bowen
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: While one sympathises with the Catchpoles in their long wait for the terrible and malicious Aunt Ursula’s hoard, Mrs Daffodil has particular animus for Miss Louisa Catchpole. The image of “a little cut of an invalid in a basket-chair gazing at a robin” and those “chirpings about the recurring miracle of spring” are particularly damning. One wonders that some literary critic did not slip a couple of dog powders into her milk.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Six children were left destitute in one of the few poor families in a wealthy and fashionable suburb. It was near Christmas. A benevolent lady, Miss Scripp, had the children on her mind, but was not able personally to do much to gladden them at the joyful Christmastide for she herself was not rich. Her neighbors were, however, and Miss Scripp determined to make a canvass among them and secure gifts of food, clothing, and money—anything that could be spared from a wealthy household to make Christmas merry for the Hobb children.
Miss Scripp gave notice to her neighbors of her charitable intention. All the ladies replied that they would rejoice to contribute. Two days before Christmas Miss Scripp sent a boy around with a pushcart to make collections. He returned with an assortment of bundles as large as that of a laundryman on Monday morning and not unlike it in outward appearance.
With pleased anticipation, Miss Scripp had the boys carry the parcels into her pretty little dining room. Then she began to overhaul their contents. She began with the largest parcel. She uttered an exclamation of disappointment, vexation, even, as there unfolded before her the remains of that ivory white chiffon gown which had done duty at parties two winters for Mrs. J. Van Blinker De Whytte. Its multitudinous flouncings hung in festoons; its accordion plaiting was battered and bulging like an antique umbrella; its front was stained with particles of feasts ranging from heavy dinners of state to after theatre “snacks.”
“How can that be cut down into warm coats and stockings of the poor little Hobbs?” murmured Miss Scrip as she laid it aside with a deep sigh.
Few of the parcels were marked with the name of the donor. Evidently the fair and generous givers wished to do their alms in secret. It may have been that, but Miss Scripp concluded as she proceeded to go through a pile that they were ashamed to be known and for this reason had refrained from attaching their names to their respective donations. Unfortunately for this amiable precaution, however, Miss Scripp recognized most of the articles. Mrs. Thrifty had sent her old rain coat. It was out of fashion; it was also bedraggled; it also let the rain through in spots. Again Miss Scripp shoved the unpleasant article aside, with a sigh, and murmured:
“How can I make that available for keeping the poor little Hobbs warm?”
Miss Florence De Whytte sent a pair of pink satin slippers run over at the heel. She tucked into the tiny toe of one of them a necktie of her brother’s that had been worn so long it could never by any possibly be used again. Mrs. Pynchem sent, indeed, a woollen rug. It had lain at the threshold of her husband’s bedroom almost time out of mind. It had become worn into holes just where each of Pynchem’s substantial feet had pressed it, so that more than once he had tripped upon it and come near falling. Opportunely the very night before the boy called with the collecting pushcart Mr. Pynchem had said, with divers unconventional expressions, that if he ever found that old rag there again he would “histe” it out the front window. Thus perforce Mrs. Pynchem removed it, skilfully working it off on charity. But the gem of the collection for the destitute little Hobbs was Mrs. Sparing’s last winter’s calling hat. It had been a perfect dream when the milliner first turned it out, all silken, spangled gauze, and radiant rainbow tinted panne, with a sparkling buckle that had become so tarnished that Mrs. Sparing could never use it again. In this pristine perfectness there had been likewise real ostrich plumes upon that calling hat, but these Mrs. Sparing had prudently ripped off that she might have them renovated for another winter.
Such were some of the items in Miss Scripp’s charity collection for the destitute Hobb children’s Christmas.
Tabitha Sourgrapes.
The Rockford [IL] Daily Register-Gazette 24 December 1904: p. 11
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: One is rather reminded of Dicken’s Mrs Jellyby and her despised tracts. And of the many useless items made and urged upon visitors to charity bazaars. One hopes that Miss Scripps sold the hand-cart of useless items to the rag-and-bone man for a goodly sum and was able to purchase the desired goods herself.
Mrs Daffodil will charitably assume that the donors wished to remain anonymous because of the Biblical injunction: “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.”
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Thanksgiving Day is the one national festival which is peculiarly and thoroughly American. Other nations undergo annual sufferings from noise and gunpowder which are analogous to those which are associated in our minds with Fourth of July. Christmas is the common property of the Christian world, although Russia celebrates her Christmas some weeks later than other nations, in order that Russians residing in foreign countries may obtain a double supply of Christmas presents. Thanksgiving Day, however, was the invention of the New England colonists, and though it has since been universally adopted by the American people, no other nation has imitated it. We alone express our annual gratitude by the sacrifice of turkeys, and it is, hence, greatly to be desired that the one exclusively American festival should be in all respects perfect and beyond reproach.
It is impossible to deny that in active practice our method of celebrating the day is open to one serious objection. In spite of the progress which we have made towards a higher morality than that of the last century, we still adhere, on Thanksgiving Day, to one barbarous and demoralizing ceremony. To a great extent the hot New-England rum of our forefathers is banished from our dinner-tables, but the no less deadly and demoralizing pie forms part of every Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how moral and intelligent its consumers may believe themselves to be.
The Thanksgiving array of pie is usually of so varied, as well as lavish a nature, that it seems cunningly devised to entrap even the most innocent palate. If mince-pie alone were set before a virtuous family, it is quite probable that many of its members would have the courage to turn in loathing from the deadly compound, but the Thanksgiving mince-pie is always accompanied or preceded by lighter pies, in which weak-minded persons think they can indulge without injury. The thoughtless matron—for thoughtlessness, and not deliberate wickedness, is indicated by the presence of Thanksgiving pie—urges her guests to take a little chicken-pie, assuring them that it cannot injure a child. The guest who tampers with the chicken-pie is inevitably lost. The chicken-pie crust awakens an unholy hunger for fiercer viands, and when the meats are removed, he is ready and anxious for undiluted apple or pumpkin pie. From that to mince-pie the transition is swift and easy, and in nine cases out of ten the man who attends a Thanksgiving dinner and is lured into touching chicken-pie abandons all self-restraint and delivers himself up to the thraldom of a fierce longing for strong and undisguised mince-pie. Hundreds of men and women who had emancipated themselves by a tremendous effort of the will from the dominion of pie, have backslidden at the Thanksgiving dinner, and have returned to their former degradation with a fiercer appetite than ever, and with little hope that they can find sufficient strength for a second effort towards reformation.
The chief evil of the Thanksgiving display of pie is, however, its terrible influence upon the young. It is a well-known fact, however revolting it may seem when rehearsed in cold blood, that on Thanksgiving Day many a foolish mother has herself pressed pie to the lips of her innocent offspring. To the taste thus created thousands of victims of the pie habit ascribe their ruin. It is a common spectacle on Thanksgiving evening to see scores of children, mere babes in years, writhing under the influence of pie, and making the night hideous with their outcries. Physicians can testify to the appalling results of the pie orgies in which children are thus openly encouraged to take part. The amount of drugs which is consumed by the unhappy little victims on the day following Thanksgiving Day would fill the public with horror were the exact figures to be published. How can we wonder that children who are thus tempted to acquire the taste for pie by their own parents grow up to be shameless and habitual consumers of pie! The good matron who sees a haggard and emaciated man slink into a public pie shop, and presently emerge brushing the tell-tale crumbs from his beard, shudders to think that the unhappy wretch was once as young and innocent as her own darling children. And yet that very matron will sit at the foot of a Thanksgiving table groaning with pie, and will deal out the deadly compound to her children without a thought that she is awakening in them a depraved hunger that will ultimately lead them straight to the pie shop.
All the efforts of good men and women to stay the torrent of pie which threatens to engulf our beloved country will be in vain, unless the reform is begun at the Thanksgiving dinner-table. Pie must be banished from that otherwise innocent board, or it is in vain that we try to banish it from shops, restaurants, and hotels. May we not hope for a great moral crusade which will sweep pie from every virtuous table, and unite all the friends of morality in a vigorous and persistent attack upon the great evil of the land.
The Banker and the Typewriter, 1905: pp. 154-155
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: A shocking indictment of the American Thanksgiving pie, hitherto thought to be an innocent holiday indulgence! In England, of course, one of the footmen would read this aloud at tea-time to the accompaniment of hearty laughter. The Temperance-tract language of the parody is quite spot-on. There are, of course, food reformists who rail against pie as the fons et origo of spots and dyspepsia, but those of us who enjoy a nice, flakey lard-based crust consider them cranks. Heaven knows what horrors they would conjure up about Christmas puddings and hard sauce.
Mrs Daffodil wishes all of her American readers the happiest of Thanksgivings with as much pie as they like.
This post was originally published in 2016.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Paisley shawl remade into a dress, coat and bag, 1889 Museum at FIT
The Cashmere Shawl.
A new use for the pine-patterned cashmere shawls that have been handed down from the great-grandmother to the modern woman is now found in covering handbags and the numerous variety of the vanity bag with this fascinating Indian fabric. The subdued richness of the coloring has a fascinating effect, and to bring the scheme of the contrasting hues into harmony with the rest of the dress it is modish to introduce perhaps a belt, covered with the patterned fabric or revers and cuffs of the like material on the coat.
To complete the bag very long handles or knotted silk cord are used, finished with corded fringe, and by way of variety some women are introducing here and there a touch of a glittering cabochon in barbaric colors.
The antique pine-patterned shawls that show signs of wear in one or two places can be thus used for a variety of purposes in the fashioning of accessories for the autumn toilet. The borders may be cut off and applied on the skirt of a cloth gown, or a short waistcoat may be introduced between the shawl like revers of an autumn coat of velvet.
Use for Paisley.
So popular was the old-time Paisley shawl last winter, in its various adaptations, that it seems quite impossible to conceive of any new ways of using the garment of our grandmother’s day. However, those who know predict the vogue of the Paisley muff as well as of the Paisley bag this winter.
Norwich [CT] Bulletin 13 October 1910: p. 4
House of Lanvin (French, founded 1889)
Evening bag, 192535
French,
silk, metal Silk, metallic; 14 in. (35.6 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of the executors of the estate of Clara M. Blum in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Blum, 1966 (2009.300.2543)
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/157382
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: The exotic patterns of the cashmere shawl have had many lives. Although Mrs Daffodil flinches at the very idea, one finds the massive shawls of the 1860s cut into mantles, visites, and even gowns, in the 1870s and 1880s.
Paisley shawl remade into a mantle, early 1870s, The John Bright Collection
1910 was a particularly good year for the paisley-revival.
Old Paisley Shawls Are Valuable.
The Paisley shawl is coming back into its own. In the old days the Paisley was one of the necessary units of every stylish outlay. After two generations the shawl’s vogue is returning. At present there is a decided fad for both cashmere and Paisley. It must be admitted, however, that it is the fabric and not the shawl itself which attracts. Paisley is now being substituted for leather in women’s handbags, card cases, belts and other novelties. The belts are especially popular. They are edged with patent leather and demand a good price at the stores which make a specialty of women’s wear. Even folding slippers are being made of Paisley. They are well adapted to travelers and very comfortable, although, as in the case of the belts, they are an expensive luxury.
Frank Leslie’s Weekly, 20 October 1910
Although Mrs Daffodil has not found an image of the historic shawl in this next article, she is grateful that Mr Thanhouser recognized its value before his mother chopped it into handbags or belts or it was sold to the rag collector.
TREASURE IN AN OLD TRUNK.
A Rare Paisley Shawl Worn at Victoria’s Coronation Found by Accident.
From the Milwaukee Sentinel.
A shawl valued at over $1,000 and worn by the great grandmother of Edwin Thanhouser, manager of the Academy theater at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838, was found the other morning by Mrs. Julia Thanhouser, the manager’s mother, in one of her old trunks which she had not rummaged in years. Mr. Thanhouser happened to be in the house when the garment was brought to light and knew at once that the piece of goods was of more than ordinary value.
This prize among shawls was made in Paisley, Scotland, and bought by Mrs. Bertha Emmonds, great grandmother of Mr. Thanhouser, in London, while attending the coronation of Queen Victoria, for which purpose she came from her home in Germany. At her death the shawl passed into the possession of Mr. Thanhouser’s grandmother, and fifteen years ago while his mother, the present owner, was living in Fort Wayne, Ind., it was given to her. Mr. Thanhouser had often heard his mother speak of the shawl, but it was not until he saw it that he realized what a valuable piece of goods it was.
Threads almost as fine as it is possible to spin them are the material of which the shawl is made, and there are so many colors and shades of colors that it is almost impossible to count them. The design is exceedingly intricate and was undoubtedly the result of considerable hard study. The shawl measures about 10 by 5 feet.
The Kansas City [MO[ Star 14 June 1902: p. 5
There was also a brief vogue for the fabric in the 1920s, and again, in the psychedelic ’60s. In 1964, a Norwich shawl gave its life for this lounge suit with a fashionable Nehru jacket.
Paisley “Nehru jacket” 1964 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
The cat had been put out, the children were in bed, and Lysander John Appleton, worn out with the terrors of another day, was prepared to spend an evening in peace.
“Dear, dear, dear,” said Mrs. Lysander John, looking up from her paper. “Isn’t it horrible?”
“What?” snorted her husband.
“Seventy-five people killed by a flood in Italy! Just think of the poor little orphans’.”
(Silence for two minutes.) “Oh, my, how can the Lord permit such terrible things. A man shot his wife and five of her sisters in Laurel, Del., last night. The rooms looked like a slaughter house when he got through. I am glad he killed himself and saved the people the expense of trying such a brute. His poor, poor wife! What she must have endured living with a man of that disposition.”
(The clock ticks about ten times.) “Oh listen to this. Oh, Lysander John, my heart aches so I can scarcely read it. Oh, my, oh my, this life is a troubled vale! Just think, five people killed in a train wreck in Georgia. The sorrow that goes into their homes to-night reaches my heart.”
Silence while Mrs. Appleton wiped the tears from her eyes, and turned the page. Then a scream, “A bride and groom killed on their wedding trip! The poor dears. Just think of the happiness with which they started out, and now the journey ends in two coffins. Maybe they will be buried In one coffin. I think that would be so sweet.”
(Silence for two minutes that was finally broken by violent sobbing.) “A girl of sixteen poisoned her own sister in Massillon, Ohio. It is too horrible to be true. Oh, Lysander John, how grateful we should be that none of our children ever did a thing like that! The poor, Poor, POOR mother!”
Mrs. Lysander John reached blindly for her apron to wipe away her tears, her handkerchief having been soaked in previous enjoyment of the news, and then she turned tearful eyes toward Lysander John, only to find his chair vacant. Upstairs there was a sound of heavy shoes being kicked off viciously to the floor.
“The men,” said Mrs. Lysander John to herself, picking up her newspaper and preparing to read some more, “are SO Unfeeling.”
The Atchison [KS] Weekly Globe 31 March 1910: p. 4
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Indeed. The press in the nineteenth century, particularly in the United States, was avid for a sensation. “If it bleeds, it leads,” about sums it up. Mrs Daffodil has previously examined some of the blood-thirsty themes of the press in this post: “Poison! Arson! Death His Bride!”
It was traditionally the role of the pater familias to read the newspaper to the family gathered round the fireside, eliding or pruning judiciously, when the gore or the body count was deemed harmful to the sensibilities of his listeners. Mrs Daffodil wonders at the patience of Mr Appleton at having his newspaper snatched away by a woman so lacking in womanly delicacy. She suspects that, one day, particularly when Mr Appleton longs to read of the outcome of some sporting contest, he will snap and there will be yet another horrid murder for the unfeeling public to slaver over in the morning edition.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
1909 House of Paquin evening frock. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ask any American woman you meet if she has been in Paris, and if she cannot answer yes, she will say, with brightening eyes, “No, not yet, but I expect to go,” or, if the trip across looks doubtful, “No; but I do hope to go some time!”
I have never met an American woman who had not either been to Paris was expecting to go, or “hoping” to go. And one of the principal reasons why she expects to go or hopes to go is to shop. She has this ambition to shop in Paris, whether she lives away out on a Western farm on the outskirts of nowhere, in the town of Kalamazoo, the village of Some-thingsburg, or the city of New York. I suppose this is the foundation for the orthodox belief that all good Americans go to Paris when they die.
I am not particularly surprised that American women who have not shopped in Paris have the keenest desire to do so, since the majority of American women who have shopped in Paris are so continually writing or talking about it. “O, the Paris shops!” they say, adding nothing more, as though the delights of a shopping tour in the gay city were too wonderful to be described in English.
**
La Samaritaine, vintage silver print, eBay listing by photovintagefrance
I have yet to meet an American woman who seemed willing to tell what I believe she knows in her heart of hearts is the truth about the Paris shops, and therefore I will here essay to tell the truth for her–that there is not in all Paris one solitary large shop worthy of comparison with the great department stores of New York, and not being myself a New Yorker, I do not think I can be accused of undue prejudice in favor of a native city.
When I say the Paris shops do not bear comparison with the New York stores, I speak after having just spent the autumn months in Paris, where I saw whatever was latest in the way of prices and fittings and goods. Take, for example, the matter of window dressing. In the large “magasins” the Parisians do not display the slightest taste when it comes to making their windows attractive. Only in the smaller shop windows does one find an arrangement of goods and colors that does not offend the eye. Along the Avenue de l’Opera there are a few jewelers who make an attractive display in their small windows, and over in the little streets of the “Quarter” one occasionally comes upon a dealer in antiques, who shows taste in displaying his wares behind glass.
But I speak now of the large establishments which are to Paris what the department stores of Broadway, Sixth avenue, Twenty-third and Fourteenth streets and Fifth avenue are to New York. Take the “Louvre,” the “Galerie Lafayette,” “Princeton,” “Samaritaine” and “Bon Marche,” for example. At first approaching them it seems to me any New Yorker must at once be reminded of Baxter street and other such parts of New York, for all the pavement surrounding these large “magasins” is lined with little booths where sundry garments of the most horrifying aspect are displayed for sale, and the clerks in attendance are calling your attention to their wares. These booths, let it be remembered, are a part of the great magasin. Back of the booths are the windows of the store, and how any New Yorker can find them attractive is beyond my comprehension. Paris knows nothing of the art of large window dressing. Indeed, if one were to judge of the contents of the store by those of the windows, one would certainly pass it by. However, it is a tradition in Paris that you must not judge of a shop by its outside appearance, so let us enter and examine the bargain tables and the regular counters. Here are coarse handkerchiefs, 75 centimes, or 15 cents. Handkerchiefs 10 times more beautiful and much finer may be bought in any of the Sixth avenue department stores for 12 cents. Here are gloves–yes, let me admit, they are very much cheaper than one can find them in New York, and, therefore, if one is over in Paris, one should lay in a good stock of gloves if she can evade the customs inspectors.
Here are ready-made collar supports, with whalebone and ruchings, all prepared to sew in the neck of a bodice and reach quite to the ears. These also are 75 centimes each, 15 cents, while they may be bought two for a quarter in Twenty-third street, or Broadway. Last September I bought a set of combs for the coiffure. I had mislaid my good London set and wanted something cheap on the spur of the moment, I paid 4f. for them, or 80 cents. I find prettier and stronger ones for 69 cents.
**
French trousseau petticoat, c. 1900. Metropolitan Museum of Art
Of course, everybody looks at handmade underwear when in Paris–it is the only kind worth looking at. No body would ever dream of buying machine-made lingerie or blouses in Paris. They are simply impossible. The handmade garments are dainty and attractive and comparatively cheap. That is to say, if a woman is able to pay $15 for a lingerie blouse, or $5 for a chemise or nightgown, she can do very much better in Paris than in New York. The $15 blouse will be $10 in Paris, and the $10 nightgown will be $5 or $6. But the woman who is accustomed to paying $1.50 each for her dainty surplice-shaped nightgowns and $2 for her smart machine-made summer blouse should not dream of buying these garments in Paris. For those prices, she cannot find anything she will be willing to wear. The fact is that there is no city in the world where such dainty machine-made garments of all sorts can be found at such low prices as in New York.
Do you want a pair of pretty little slippers for the opera or a party? If you have only $2 to pay for them, buy them in New York. If you can afford more than that, try Paris. Do you always wear silk stockings? Then by all means get them in Paris when you are over there–unless you will listen to my advice and get them in Regent street, London. If you are accustomed to wearing cotton hose always, and want to get the finest and daintiest possible stockings for your quarter of a dollar, buy them in New York.
Do you want dress goods by the yard? If you wish cotton goods, don’t fail to get it in New York. It is daintier and cheaper here. If you are going across and must have yards and yards of cloth or silk–still I say don’t get them in Paris. London is the place for your purchases. Do you anticipate going over in the summer and remaining till the chilly October weather will necessitate a good heavy steamer coat which you can wear in New York when you return here? Of all things, don’t waste your time hunting for that coat in Paris unless you have a large amount of money to spend for it. You will find what you want in St. Paul’s Churchyard or Oxford street. London, but not in Paris at your price.
1909 lampshade hat, Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art
In thinking of Paris one’s thoughts turn instinctively to hats and gowns. Certainly it is the place where the fashions originate and whence they are imitated, but come you and walk along the principal shopping streets of Paris and look in the windows during the months when Americans most congregate there. Let us fancy it is August, and we must return to New York in September. I defy any American woman with good taste and with mind not warped with the idea that anything that comes from Paris must be right, to find displayed in any Paris window a hat marked below 25f. that she would wear in the backest of New York’s back streets and not feel ashamed to meet her friends. Now 25f. is the equivalent of $5, and the shop windows of New York are bursting with beautiful $5 hats at this season and at all other seasons. I say at once these hats are not “exclusive.” Buying one, I would not feel at all sure that wearing it to the matinee I would not become amazed and dazed by seeing myself in exact duplicate sitting in front of me. But the same thing could happen in Paris. The point is that the $5 “window hat” of New York is to be preferred to the same thing in Paris.
The only way to procure a hat in Paris is to go inside a shop that does not look like a shop, and tell the madame in charge that you have been sent there by Mrs. So-and-So, who bought her hats there last year. Then you will have brought forth from secret receptacles wonderful specimens of millinery that fairly turn your head, and if you are able to pay $15 or more, you will obtain a real “creation” for which you would pay a third more in New York.
In the matter of gowns one has the same experience. Really well-made and attractive gowns are not often displayed in the windows, nor can you see them in the shops except by special maneuvering. If you can afford to patronize the shops of the Rue de la Paix (and you must be a millionaire to be able to do so), you will certainly see gowns that are gowns, although even those that are shown to you–if you speak with an American accent–are not at all like the gowns that are displayed for the inspection of Madame la France. A special line of gowns is originated for Americans, as any American woman would soon see who, after having bought her gown in August, should go back to Paris in November and note what is being worn by the real Parisienne.
**
Oh, yes, I know all about those “little dressmakers” and those “little milliners” of Paris. That is to say, I know nothing whatever about them, except by hearsay, and have never been able to find them, though I have taken a half dozen taximeters in hot pursuit of them, thrusting the addresses given me by my English and American friends in the very faces of the red-faced cabbies and demanding to be driven to them instantly. Somehow they have always moved away from the addresses that have been given me, or their prices have increased tremendously since the foregoing summer, or I have made a mistake, indeed I have. Madame never, no, never, made a gown for the American mademoiselle under 300f., nevaire, no, nevaire!
Myself, I came back to New York recently without the gowns I had intended to buy, and am now rejoicing in the fittings of my little Irish-American dressmaker, who, though she knows it not, is quite as clever as the “little French dressmaker,” and is able to do me very well indeed for the American equivalent of 300f.
I do not depreciate Paris as a center of art and fashion. I think that every American woman who is able to do so should visit Paris. Certainly she ought to go through the principal shops, visit the great opera house, the art galleries and wander about the fascinating streets. Paris gets a hold on one, and to her one returns again and again. So great is that hold that, with but a few hundred dollars, many an American and English girl will remain there and suffer untold discomforts for the mere sake of living and perhaps, “studying” in Paris. She will eat one-franc dinners, that are a horror to remember, sleep on beds that for their hardness penetrate into the very bones and marrow and cause a lifelong ache. She will wander about the Louvre Museum, copying pictures for the price of a Latin quarter meal. She will climb seven flights of stairs to her attic abode and sleep five in a room, each on a four-folded quilt in a corner, and go bathless for a fortnight at a time. She will, under these circumstances, write home letters to the old folk by the country fire side or the city radiator, telling of the glories of Paris, her ambitions, her chance for success. And surely Paris has her glories, her chances, and sometimes her fulfillment of ambitions.
But Paris is not cheap. If one desires ordinary comforts one cannot live there more cheaply than in New York. The far-famed flats of the Latin quarter, where one gets four rooms with a kitchenette for $12 a month, are comfortless, desolate and dirty when compared with the cheap tenement house apartments of New York.
Paris is the city for those who have learned, or are sure they are willing and able to learn, the art of “doing without.” All its conveniences are expensive, most especially such conveniences as baths, laundry work, good beds, cleanliness.
There is no food so deliciously cooked and served as one finds in Paris, but food of this sort is not particularly cheap. Your American art-student may find many a one-franc dinner served in the open air along the boulevards (including “wine,” if she is fond of vinegar), but it is the sort of dinner she would not eat at home. She can find rooms in the Latin quarter for 25f. a month that is to say, for $5. She must climb many stairs to them, dress by the light of a solitary candle (for which she will pay five times as much as she will pay in New York), and shiver during the winter for want of a fire. She will either wash her own clothes or wear them soiled, unless she can pay an exorbitant price to have them laundered. She can put up with these discomforts and many other things too many to mention, while she “sees Paris” and “studies art.” If she is made of the right stuff and does not break down physically, it will do her good and perhaps make a strong, capable woman of her, destroying certain provincial notions that are death to advancement. Unless she becomes so wedded to Paris that she cannot leave it, she will return to her native land and her own people all the better and more interesting for the experience she has had. She can laugh over it afterward and warn her friends what they have to expect if they go to Paris without a really snug little income.
I do not discourage any American girl or woman from going to Paris. I hope I merely lift my voice against the strangely prevalent notion that Paris is a surprisingly cheap city, that its shops are especially attractive, that one can really get more for one’s money than in New York or in other large American cities. For this is a delusion.
Pittsburgh [PA] Daily Post 21 March 1909: p. 33
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Well. That is “telling them,” as they say in the States. Blunt Yankee candour. Or perhaps the author was paid for this “puff piece” by the New York Chamber of Commerce.
The author is cynical about the “little dressmakers” of Paris, but does not breath a word about the salons of the House of Worth, Paquin, Poiret, Lanvin, Doucet, or Callot Soeurs. Mrs Daffodil raises a skeptical eye-brow. Perhaps those establishments felt that their client lists were filled and they did not feel it necessary to pay to be “puffed.”
While Mrs Daffodil has heard of exploitation in the work-rooms of couture houses, she wonders how it compared with the sweat-shops of New York for making dainty surplice-shaped nightgowns and smart machine-made summer blouses.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Mary, Duchess of Birchester sat in her boudoir in the Birchester town house, which is on the west side of Berkeley Square. She was in a peculiarly dissatisfied mood. Circumstances had combined to ruffle what usually was a complacent personality. She had been on a visit to Burnay— sufficient cause for considerable ruffling. Lord Burnay was a cousin of Birchester’s. It is a well-known truism that the relatives with whom one is hampered by birth are bad, but the relatives forced into one’s reluctant bosom by marriage are infinitely worse. Burnay, in addition to being an acquired relative, was a Cabinet Minister with a theological bent, a cumulation of horrors sufficient to depress the lightest-hearted Duchess. And Mary, Duchess of Birchester was that growing anomaly, a well-born Peeress, and had no humour of the music-hall with which to leaven dull decorum. Bridge was taboo at Burnay—another grievous thing. And, above all, on the way down her jewel-case containing the famous Birchester tiara had been stolen.
The manner of the theft followed the usual custom. It had no spark of originality to relieve its crudeness. There was some bustle at the railway terminus; the footman whose duty it was to look after the precious case had had his attention momentarily distracted, a substitution had been effected, and nothing had been discovered until the arrival at Burnay. The substituted case was a marvel of exactness. The Duchess herself had no apprehension until it was opened in her presence by her maid. A few stones—not precious— were all it contained.
Burnay had contrived to see in this unoriginal theft an intervention of Providence not unconnected with bridge.
“My dear Mary, I hope it will be a lesson,” he had said. “No doubt it is intended as a warning.” Being unconvincing, he invariably spoke impressively.
There had followed interviews with detectives, alert men who persisted in suspecting the unlikeliest people and demanded particulars of her Grace’s occupations, which her Grace found very inconvenient to give.
“My dear Burnay,” she had said, “why do we fuss? The tiara is insured. The What-d’You-Call-‘Em Burglary Insurance people will pay the amount—it was insured for a little more than its actual value, in deference to our family pride. And that’s an end to it. The thing is not very old—not two hundred years. Besides, by now they’ve melted it down or cut it up or done whatever they do to these things.”
“Birchester is my cousin. His only claim to fame was in the possession of that tiara, for as Dukes go nowadays a jewel two hundred years in the family is a notable adjunct to rank. And I like to have famous relatives. That also is unique in the Cabinet.” So had Burnay remonstrated, with other references to bridge “absurdly beside the point,” as the Duchess thought. In conclusion he had evinced some shrewdness. “Besides, my dear Mary, you have not yet received the cheque.”
That fact remained unaltered now, and was largely instrumental in rendering Mary, Duchess of Birchester dissatisfied. To her uncommercial mind the transaction should have been so simple. You insured your jewels against theft, your jewels were stolen, therefore you should at once receive a cheque for the amount. That happy simplicity of procedure had not obtained. She had received not a cheque but letters, admirably typewritten no doubt, but otherwise unsatisfactory. They had a clue, they were making all inquiries, and matters were progressing, were the brief epitomes of the insurance company’s lengthy epistles. She had written in answer that the details of their daily occupations were not at all interesting to her, and she would esteem a cheque by return. By return they had sent her a more than usually alert detective, who had suggested Birchester as the possible conjurer of the case, and had been more curious as to her Grace’s habits and customs than any of his predecessors.
Her Grace had been indignant.
“You don’t know his Grace!’” she had cried. “This theft required practice—it was uncommonly well done. My husband is on the board of only one company, and that does not pay even directors’ fees. You see how impossible it is that this could have been his work. Certainly I play bridge—I daresay you play draughts. But I hardly see how our predilections affect this matter.”
This last alert man had vacated her boudoir only half an hour ago. There were therefore admirable reasons why Mary, Duchess of Birchester was dissatisfied.
A rather peremptory knock at the door hardly roused her. She supposed vaguely that it was another alert detective who would insist upon suspecting the butler. She would have to be firm there. Such a butler as Miggs was not to be replaced. Husbands may be replaced, good butlers never.
The door opened, and a quiet, self-possessed woman of thirty entered. She was dressed in black, and she wore no hat. Her face was more shrewd than pretty, and more capable than handsome. She had a determined mouth and chin, and a certain pride was denoted by the way she carried her head.
“Ah, Parker,” Mary, Duchess of Birchester said, “I thought you had gone home. Surely your mother was dead, or your niece was to be christened? Something of a family nature, I know. It was on the eve of that annoying journey to Burnay, too, and I had to go without you. With a cousin-in-law’s maid one cannot–Positively, my complexion wore atrociously, Parker. Everyone remarked on my ill looks. And I gave you a fortnight’s leave. I remember I thought it a long time for a funeral or a christening: but I really know nothing of these functions in your sphere of life.”
“I am sorry that I inconvenienced your Grace. I do not think your Grace’s complexion is much the worse.” Her manner of speaking conveyed the impression that she was thinking of something else.
“Oh, my dear woman, I had it renovated directly I got back from that terrible place. Really, Parker, Cabinet Ministers grow more like Dissenting ministers every year. And their wives like Dissenting Ministers’ wives.”
“Never mind them, your Grace.” She spoke sharply.
“I don’t, Parker, I don’t. If I did, life would be unlivable.” Her Grace sighed. “The political woman of our set masquerades in the virtues of the lower orders, and the virtues don’t fit. If one might say it of virtues, they seem a trifle loose.”
“I wish to speak to your Grace.”
“Surely they haven’t suspected you, Parker? Ah, you have been away, but you have heard–?” She closed her eyes wearily.
“I have heard about your loss of the tiara.” There was a distinct note of acerbity in the maid’s voice.
“Ah, yes, you would. I was never in the newspapers before, Parker—never!” Her Grace became querulous. “I used to boast of my immunity from print. Now they have dragged in everything about me. One paper brazenly asserts that I am fond of muffins and eat three for tea. What has that to do with the theft? I ask you, Parker, what possible connection can it have?”
“I wish to speak to your Grace about it.”
“The muffins, Parker?”
“No, the theft. I have taken the liberty of telling Miggs that you are engaged, and will be so for an hour.”
“That was thoughtful of you, Parker. Really, I am being slowly talked to death by detectives.”
“It is a personal matter with me, your Grace.” An angry light gleamed in the eyes of the maid, generally so passively capable.
“Then they have suspected you!” cried her Grace. “Take no notice of it, Parker. It is a common affliction I assure you. They have suspected Birchester, and I am in hourly fear that Miggs will be the next.”
“No, they have not suspected me. I am the last person in the world they would suspect.”
“Why? I really don’t see why they should not. One man seriously suggested my brother Jack. He was so positive, and sketched out poor Jack’s probable course of action so graphically that I nearly believed he was guilty. I was quite relieved when I remembered Jack was dead.”
“The reason why they are not likely to suspect me is—that I stole the tiara.” The maid could not altogether restrain an accent of pride.
“You, Parker!” cried her Grace, in amazement. “Why?”
“It is my profession, your Grace.”
“But—but you are my maid! And an excellent maid.”
“In the same way that an actress is an excellent dairymaid. It is all a matter of professional training. I own that I have never before achieved so high a position as maid to a Duchess. My testimonials were hardly sufficient, I thought.”
“No—they were not.” Her Grace paused for a moment. “I think it was the name. It was so typical a name for a lady’s maid.”
“Your Grace has always been an admirer of the British drama.”
“Ah, was that it . . . But the tiara. Really, Parker, after what you have said I must ask you to ring the bell. I shall have to give you in charge. It’s all most annoying.”
“You will not give me in charge,” the maid answered confidently.
“If you are going to crave for mercy—”
“Oh, no ; I shall not do that.”
“You are a very remarkable person, Parker.”
“I am, your Grace.” The maid spoke modestly, but with a certain accent of honest pride. “Professionally, I have no equal.”
“As a maid?”
“As a thief. It is there that you have hurt me. When I think of it I feel so mortified that I could burst into tears.”
“I hope you won’t, Parker. Tears always depress me. On consideration, I think it is unwise of me to continue speaking to you. Please ring, Parker.” Her Grace became perceptibly severe.
“I really do not think your Grace appreciates the position. In the first place, I shall not ring; in the second place, I have given strict orders that you are not to be disturbed; and in the third place, you are—if I may respectfully say so—in my power. Above all, you have done me a wrong, and I know that your love of justice, inherent in all members of the hereditary ruling Peers—believe me, I insinuate nothing against those Scotch and Irish families which are unrepresentative—will insist upon your righting it.”
“I was under the impression that you had done me a wrong,” gasped Mary, Duchess of Birchester. “Surely the theft of the Birchester tiara—”
“Your impression is erroneous. I stole a tiara.–not the Birchester tiara. That is how you have humbled me—that is how you have hurt my professional pride.”
Mary, Duchess of Birchester would have grown pale if her recently renovated complexion had permitted such a feat. As it was, she fell back limply in the embrace of the cushions of her chair.
“What do you mean, Parker?” she demanded in a shaking voice.
“I stole a tiara from your case—or rather, I engineered it. The absolute details are, of course, left to subordinates. I arranged everything. I had the substituted case made to my own designs. I myself ascertained the exact weight of your jewel-case when packed. I am not sure whether you weighed the substituted case with the pebbles it contained. Possibly not. For my own sake, I could wish you had. It was quite accurate. The mere trick of substitution was carried out by my subordinates. You can imagine my extreme mortification when I found that a paste tiara had been substituted. I subjected the tiara to no tests—reprehensibly careless, no doubt; but I relied on you. I confess I have been deceived in you–grossly deceived.”
“I don’t—don’t understand, Parker,” her Grace said weakly.
“Shall I continue?’’ said the maid, firmly but respectfully. “I have ascertained that the Birchester tiara is pawned, and that the counterfeit was then made. That was some time before I came to you. Since then you have done pretty well at bridge. Had you been incurring losses I should have been more careful. You will perceive that it is useless to protest further, as I am acquainted with all the facts.”
Her Grace thought for a while. Then she sat forward a little. This action caused the maid something of uneasiness. She would have preferred dealing with a perfectly limp Duchess.
“The theft even of a paste tiara is a theft, and punishable, is it not?” the Duchess inquired. “I daresay you know more about such matters than I do, Parker; but I believe I am correct.”
“That is so. But the fact of the paste substitution would be made known.”
“It might—I throw this out as a suggestion, Parker—it might have been made by you for substitution.”
“That is ingenious—but it will hardly hold water. I am used to thinking these matters out. It is part of my professional equipment. You forget the pawnbroker.”
“It occurred to me,” said the Duchess, gradually becoming possessed of more backbone, “it distinctly occurred to me that Erickstein, having in his possession an article worth far more than the amount lent upon it, would respect my secret. Surely his business would suffer if he were known to betray family secrets?”
“There would be the difficulty of disposal. But I confess I do not rely upon this. Erickstein, no doubt, made the paste copy?”
“He did. I am not a business women, Parker, but—but there is no correspondence between us, not even an account. My father used to say it was beneath our position to write on business matters. A bad memory is then so useful.”
“So there is only Erickstein in the secret?”
“Exactly. And having no absolute proof of the transaction, he would hardly accuse me of—of ordering a substitute. You see, Parker, one can really trust no one nowadays. For all Erickstein knows I might say he had substituted the paste one for the real, which was sent to him for cleaning. The discovery of the real tiara in his safe might lend colour to the statement.”
The maid glanced at the Duchess with admiration.
“I do not think I ever appreciated your Grace at your true worth before,” she said. “If we could be partners—”
“No, no,” murmured the Duchess. “Noblesse oblige. Besides, it’s a risky business at the best. If I have to go into trade I prefer marriage brokerage.”
“Then–I grieve to say it, but I really have no alternative; the confidence of my subordinates is shaken, my position at the head of my profession is threatened—then I must remind you that his Grace does not know of this transaction with Erickstein, and that he will be informed.”
“Ah, my husband—I had forgotten him,” said the Duchess, “The habits of years are so difficult to eradicate quickly. Of course, Birchester would believe anything to my demerit. Such a gullible man otherwise. It is strange, is it not? Well, what do you propose?”
“You grant I have a strong card there?’’
“There are certainly reasons why at the present moment I am not anxious that Birchester should have the whip hand of me.”
“May I presume to guess at the reasons:” smiled the maid.
“It would be, as you say, presumption,” answered her Grace.
“You have done fairly well at bridge lately.”
“I have been fortunate in discovering some enthusiastic players. They have had little experience. I helped to correct that. This is an age of education, Parker.”
“Not always free, your Grace.”
“Well, well. There are no scholarships tenable at the University of the World.”
“Of course I could not ask you for the full value of the Birchester tiara. That is fifteen thousand, I believe.”
“You flatter me and it. Ten thousand is the outside price. Some of the stones are Brazilian.”
“What did you get on it with Erickstein?”
“Three thousand. It was all I needed just to tide over.”
“Are you in a position to redeem?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose we say that amount? I am really dealing lightly with you. In view of those reasons concerning your Grace and his Grace, about which it would be presumptuous to assert a knowledge, I think I am dealing very lightly with you.”
“I am right in presuming you have the counterfeit with you?”
“Yes. It is in a cardboard box done up in brown paper in the hall.”
“And that I shall retain it ”
“You will redeem it with the three thousand.”
“Very well. I must give you a cheque—I have no cash by me. Will you ring for Miggs and ask him to fetch the cardboard box and the brown paper?”
“I should prefer cashing the cheque first.”
Mary, Duchess of Birchester smiled as she rose slowly from her chair and crossed the room to a small davenport.
“Naturally. But I should prefer possession of the counterfeit first—also naturally. An exchange, Parker, will be an alteration of your methods, of course, for we are told it is no robbery. But you must do me the favour of pocketing your professional predilections for once.”
“Your signature to the cheque will be a safeguard.”
“You perceive I place myself in your hands,” agreed her Grace. “Please ring.”
The maid thought for a moment, then rang. When Miggs appeared, she gave the necessary directions. In the meantime, her Grace chose a pen with elaboration, and wrote a cheque with the deliberation characteristic of her. She blotted it carefully and thoughtfully, and then held it in her hand.
“Not until the exchange, Parker,” she said. “I am so unused to these little transactions that I force myself to be as careful as possible for my own protection.”
Miggs returned with a package, a slight expression of disdain at the plebeian brown paper visible upon his face.
“Thank you,” said her Grace and Parker simultaneously, both holding out hands. Miggs considered the demands with care, and deliberately chose the Duchess, for rank will tell, even with a butler. “Your Grace –” commenced Parker,
“Oh, Miggs,” said the Duchess, clasping the box thankfully, “you will be glad to hear that the tiara is quite safe. Parker has only just heard of my loss–-she has a cultivated distaste for newspapers quite remarkable in this age of literary dissipation–and has hurried to me at once. It appears that, owing to a misunderstanding, she returned the tiara to safe keeping.” Her hand closed more firmly on the box. “If any more alert detectives call, you may say that it was mislaid. You can go, Miggs.”
“Very good, your Grace,” said Miggs, and went.
“Oh, here is the cheque, Parker,” her Grace observed, laying it on the davenport, and stripping the cardboard box.
“There is a mistake, your Grace,” cried the maid. “You have made out the cheque for two guineas!”
“Exactly,” answered the Duchess—“in lieu of a month’s wages. You have taken great care of this, Parker,” she added, taking out the tiara. “Thank you so much. Good afternoon.”
The Sketch 30 January 1907: p. 88-90
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil is quite dizzy from the to-and-fro-ing of the above dialogue. It is usually the clever servant who prevails in these exchanges, so this is a refreshing change. Parker rightly deserved to have her professional pride humbled: any actual lady’s maid worth her pay would have known how to detect pastes by their temperature (paste is a poor conductor of heat) or their wear. Mrs Daffodil also wonders if the cheque was actually a good one. Of course, a neat twist would be if, in the sequel to this tale, the Duchess hired a lady’s maid, sent by Parker in response to the advertisement. Her Grace was fortunate that the code of the jewel thief precludes murder.
The theme of pastes substituted for real diamonds in aristocratic tiaras is a hackneyed one. One wonders what a random sampling of the tiaras of the Peerage would yield to-day.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
“Will you be my summer girl?” he asked, as she sat on the rail in front of him. her sailor hat aslant of her rippling locks and her pretty little feet swinging in front of her.
“Do you want me to be?” she asked.
“Do I want you to be? Yes, assuredly, I want you to be.”
“And what will you do for me if I am your summer girl?”
“Everything. I’ll dance attendance; I’ll be your slave. I will feed you with chocolates, and ice cream, and–”
“I will be your summer girl.” and she held out her little brown hand “Thank you; you’re very kind, and I am delighted.”
“But, tell me. what does being a summer girl consist of?”
“Why, the most delightful, unfettered companionship–nothing serious on either side no promises–no false hopes–just a sort of mutual attention, don’t you know.”
“That suits me perfectly–yes, I’ll be your summer girl.”
That was the way it began. And what a summer girl she was to be sure. How she tripped through green fields with him, picking wild flowers and singing her merry songs. How she pulled away at the oars of the little cedar boat, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, calling upon him to watch the rounded muscle as it swelled her pretty arms.
But if these things were attractive how infinitely more attractive was the way she fell into calling him “Harry, ‘ and the pleasant little familiarity with which she treated him. It was not a sisterly familiarity exactly, not friendly one, and not the familiarity of one jolly good fellow for another, yet it smacked of all three, with a little touch of sentiment thrown in and a certain off-handedness to tone it down.
“You are an ideal summer girl,” he said to her one evening in the moonlight–“absolutely ideal.”
“Thank you,” she returned demurely; “I am glad I suit your majesty.”
“You are not glad. You don’t care a bit.”
She laughed merrily.
“What does that make me out?” she asked.
“Oh, only a summer girl,” he responded.
Unfortunately, summer days cannot go on forever, and toward the end of August there comes a chilling breeze across the waves, which shrivels up summer things, and makes one begin to think of heavier flannels and felt hats.
He had passed through the chummy stage, the brotherly stage, even the cousinly stage, and he had now reached a point where all feeling of relationship ceases, and where the desire for relationship begins. The little sprite was going home. The rolling waves would resound no longer to the music of her voice.
“Kitty–don’t let it be good-bye. Don’t say it’s all over. I love you, Kitty. You’re not only a summer girl, are you?”
“But, Harry, you only asked me to be a summer girl.”
“I know, dear, but now I ask you to be something else.”
The sprite laughed and shook her head.
“Too, late, old fellow,” she murmured–“too late! Jack Hilton asked me to be his all-the-year-round girl, and I have consented. You’ve had what you asked for, Harry.”
New Castle [PA] Herald 27 July 1909: p. 7
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Well! The heartless minx! How dare she take Harry at his word and be merely the “ideal Summer Girl?” Mrs Daffodil wonders how long Harry nursed a grudge against Kitty. Obviously he assumed that she would, in the time-honoured tradition of newspaper short fiction, fall helplessly in love with him.
This next examination of the Summer Girl species is particularly distasteful about her “convenience” and her “cheapness”–attributes more suited to lauding washing-up powders than young ladies. It also likens her to a sweet, but transient fruit.
Mrs Daffodil will remain frigidly silent about the notion of “cling” kisses required of the Summer Girl.
THE SUMMER GIRL
Charming Creature Who Reigns Supreme During the Heated Term.
The summer girl is a peculiarly American product, says the Trenton Times. No other soil, so far as known, has ever produced her. She seems to have been discovered several years ago by some college students, and has since been cultivated to a large extent all over the country. She is a very popular creature in certain quarters, possesses undoubted charms and has her advantages. It might not be amiss just now to enumerate a few of her uses.
The summer girl is a good convenience. She does not expect to be fondled and fed on dainties that during the winter. The young man who cultivated her acquaintance knows just when and where to find her. He is not expected to become acquainted with her before strawberry time. She does not display her fairy charms, so to speak, until the cream season is thoroughly ripe. The hammock in which she swings and the perforated sleeves that she wears do not appear before June.
The Summer girl is sentimental. Having an active existence only during the warm months, it becomes necessary for her to lay in a stock of sentiment during the three months that will last throughout the year. Therefore she is very sweet, very tender, very caressable. The young mail who claims her for his own for June to September is believed to have a very “soft” time of it. He is supposed in sentimental slang, to have all the hugging and kissing he wants. The Summer girl always has a supply of kisses on hand. It is true some of her kisses are rather stale, having been lent all Winter, but when they are warmed up they pass very readily for fresh ones. The young man who cultivates Summer girls is not very particular what kind of kisses he gets so long as they are the cling kind.
The Summer girl is pretty. If she wasn’t pretty she wouldn’t be a Summer girl. She wears a pretty girl’s dress, has a pretty girl’s teeth, and puts on a pretty girl’s smiles. She also has a dimple or two to add to the picture. She is usually plump, but not stout; well formed, but not rotund. The young man who pays for her strawberries and cream, and takes her to picnics where they play Copenhagen [a game where the boys chase the girls and claim a kiss] is always proud of her. The Summer girl never gets soiled or looks dirty. She even manages to keep her back hair in good shape after a hugging match.
The Summer girl is not very expensive. Her wishes are few and cheap. A row on the river now and then, an occasional buggy ride, a plate of ice cream on a warm evening and an escort to a picnic about once in two weeks nearly sums up her wants. Being only a summer girl, she does not expect those presents and that devotion that belong to the regular every-day-in-the-week and twice-on-Sunday-all-the-year-round girl. The Summer girl is more like some luscious fruit that comes only for a time and is gone for the year, but it is peculiarly sweet while it lasts.
The Leavenworth [KS] Times 5 August 1883: p. 2
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Even without the citation, Mrs Daffodil would know that this is an American poem because, in England, the correct, and vastly more accurate term, is “bottling fruit.” It is jarring to hear the Americanism “canning,” when the container is glass.
To judge by the range of articles on “scientific canning,” and the perils of scalding fruit and exploding canning jars found in the vintage papers of the States, the subject was no joking matter.
Mrs Daffodil is indignant to report that she has found only one joke on the subject that meets her exacting standards of humour:
The Vermont housewife who read that English nobles have lots of hares in their preserves, says she tried it to the extent of putting a whole chignon into some blackberry jam, and the jam didn’t seem a bit better for it.
Kalamazoo [MI] Gazette 2 August 1881: p. 2
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
British Association for Victorian Studies Postgraduate Pages, hosted by Carys Hudson (Queen's University Belfast) and Hollie Geary-Jones (University of Chester)
Mrs Daffodil Digresses 