Upsidonia Part 22

He had no sooner gone than the performance was repeated with a grocer, then with a poulterer, and at intervals with other tradespeople. Mr.

Bolster kept the minimum of sustenance for himself and his wife, and used everything else as a projectile; and I think he must have gone rather short afterwards, for he was evidently enjoying himself, and seemed to keep back very little.

Whilst the various tradespeople were thus being ignominiously driven off the field, the coachmen and footmen and chauffeurs, who were waiting in full view of what was happening, not only took no part in the fray, but affected to ignore it completely.[32] They showed, however, a mild degree of interest, and there was a considerable stir amongst the now rapidly increasing crowd, as a squad of police marched on to the ground, and with them seven or eight men and women in the dress of indoor servants. It presently appeared that these had come, not to insist upon being taken back again, or to demand their wages, which, no doubt, they were pleased to go without, but to get such clothes as they wanted from the house.

But Mr. Bolster was ready for them. Whenever they congregated somewhere to make an entrance, he appeared at a window above them, and poured down water on their heads. And the police, who had evidently come to put an end to the whole business, were no more successful in forcing a way into the house. The lower part was built to resemble a mediaeval prison, and stout iron bars and ma.s.sive oak met them everywhere and defied their efforts.

At last they marched off, drenched to the skins to get reinforcements; but the inspector in charge of them remained, and in an authoritative voice ordered the crowd to disperse.

The crowd, now greatly encouraged by Mr. Bolster's determined resistance, refused to do so, though it showed a disposition to avoid the inspector's eye; and he got angry, and threatened to make arrests when his men returned.

He came up to Edward and said: "I would advise you not to mix yourself up in this, Mr. Perry. I mean business, and if you are here when my men come back, it will be my duty to arrest you first of all."

Edward hesitated a moment, and then turned abruptly on his heel and walked off. I followed him, and he said as we went down the drive: "I shan't s.h.i.+rk being arrested when the time comes, but it will be for something more serious than refusing to move on when I am told to."

As we left the garden I turned back and saw Mr. Bolster showering from an upper window articles of feminine apparel, which, floating amply down the breeze, roused the crowd to renewed merriment.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] It would not have been etiquette for them to show any interest whatever in the doings of their masters and mistresses, or to unbend in any way while on duty. The second coachman whom we had just heard about was behaving unprofessionally in talking to his own friends from the box, although his fellow-servants would not blame him for inconveniencing his master and mistress by so doing.

CHAPTER XXIII

As we walked away, Edward said contemptuously: "Isn't that just like the race of servants all over? To come back for their _things_! Despicable race of parasitical humbugs! If I were ever so poor I should be ashamed of going out to service. I would sooner be the man who can hardly rise from his chair through over-feeding, than the man who busies himself in seeing that he consumes more than his share. The one is at any rate trying to do his duty, with all the forces of poverty and oppression ranged against him; the other merely wants to live in rich surroundings without undergoing any of the disadvantages."

"I have rather suspected that," I said. "Still, they do live simply, as far as I have observed. They are not like Lord Charles Delagrange, and that sort of person, who likes luxury for its own sake."

"I am not at all sure that some of them don't," said Edward. "But, at any rate, they all enjoy the contrast between their state and that of their masters and mistresses. You have no idea what servants are, Howard, by only knowing them at Magnolia Hall. Would you like to come with me to a few houses where, I think, I may get recruits for this movement? You will see then what the servants of the rich are really like."

It was still early in the morning, and I did not want to call on Mr.

Hobson until later, so I accepted Edward's invitation. "But I hope you are not going to run yourself up against the law," I said. "Your father won't like that, nor any of your family."

"My dear Howard," said Edward obstinately, "I am a reformer. Now the opportunity has come I must not be found wanting."

The first house we called at was a smaller one than either Magnolia Hall or Mr. Bolster's palace-prison-fortress. Edward told me that it was the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Slabb, who suffered much under the tyranny of a houseful of female servants. He had strong hopes that they could be worked up to revolt.

As we walked up the garden path, we observed some of the furniture grouped awkwardly round the front door, and had to pick our way through a barricade of chairs before we reached it, and rang the bell.

It was answered by an elderly maid, with her head tied up in a duster, and a broom in her hand. She did not look at all pleased to see us, and said at once: "We can't admit any callers to-day. The downstairs rooms are being turned out."

Then she recognized Edward, and said more amiably: "Oh, it's you, Mr.

Perry! If you have come district-visiting, I don't so much mind. They're in bed. We can't have them about when we are busy. Perhaps you and your friend would like to go up and sit with them for half an hour. Poor things, they'll be glad of a little company. We can't expect them to enjoy these turning-out days as much as we do."

She led the way upstairs, and Edward threw an expressive look at me as we were shown into a large bedroom, where Mr. and Mrs. Slabb were lying side by side in a large bed, with a breakfast tray on a table by their side.

"Here is Mr. Perry come to see you, with a friend," said the maid.

"You'll be glad to have a little chat. We're getting on very well downstairs, but I'm afraid you won't be able to get up to-day, as we have decided to have all the carpets beaten, and I'm not certain we shan't have the sweep in to-morrow. But I mustn't stand here talking."

She took the breakfast tray and went out of the room, and the old lady and gentleman brightened up a good deal as Edward sat down and began to talk to them.

"We do so 'ate these days in bed," said Mrs. Slabb pathetically, "and they won't even let us 'ave no books to read, because Augusta likes to arrange them all in colours on the shelves downstairs, and she won't 'ave 'em took out. It do seem rather 'ard, don't it?"

When I heard of this "turning-out" process taking place regularly twice a week--once for the downstairs rooms and once for the upstairs--and that each floor took one whole day, and sometimes more, I thought it _was_ rather hard. Mr. and Mrs. Slabb kept four maids, all demons for cleanliness and order. Sunday was the only day on which they could count, with certainty, on not being kept in bed or confined to one room downstairs; and even then they were only allowed to sit on certain chairs, and might not amuse themselves in any way, for the four maids were strict Sabbatarians.

But in spite of their much-hampered life neither Mr. nor Mrs. Slabb received with any favour Edward's invitation to them to dismiss the whole of their household and join the revolt of the masters and mistresses. Their faces grew longer and longer as he described the battle already joined.

"They are very good to us on the 'ole," said Mrs. Slabb. "We are more like friends than mistress and servants--not like some. Sometimes they even asks us to sit with them in the kitchen on Sunday evenings and sing 'ymns. I shouldn't like to do nothink to offend them. And Augusta's 'ad trouble, too. Her 'usband took and run off with 'is master's daughter, when they was butler and cook together in a big 'ouse. No, Mr. Perry, I shouldn't like to seem ungrateful to them. And, after all, it _is_ nice to 'ave your 'ouse lookin' as clean as a new pin, always, ain't it? It's worth givin' up somethink for."

"P'raps they'll let us get up for a little this afternoon and 'ave a walk in the garden," said Mr. Slabb hopefully. "The carpets was beat only las' week, and they can't take so long. We'd be careful not to get in the way."

As Edward said afterwards, what could you do with people like that? They hugged their chains.

In one of the houses we visited we came across a man who had suffered a great disappointment. He had seen an advertis.e.m.e.nt of somebody's self-digesting food, and had ordered in a large supply of it. But his idea that it would digest itself if you left it alone long enough had turned out to be erroneous, and his servants were forcing him to go through the preliminary process of swallowing it.

He joined Edward's league.

It was in the larger houses that Edward gained the few adherents that were the meagre result of the morning's visiting. Most of these houses were so crammed with furniture and foolish and tasteless ornaments that it was almost impossible to move in them, for their owners were compelled to go on buying. I noticed that Edward's mention of Mr.

Bolster's glorious breaking of gla.s.s had more effect than any of his arguments. I would mark the eyes of the man--it was nearly always a man to whom he was speaking--brighten, as he looked furtively round the room, and fed his imagination on one glorious crowded ten minutes, in which he would demolish every detested article around him. And indeed one gentleman, in a vast saloon containing several hundreds of China and gla.s.s ornaments, began then and there. We left him whooping with joy as he made a determined onslaught on them with a poker.

Edward was frankly disappointed at the result of his campaign. "What is the good of trying to help them?" he asked. "They will not help themselves. I sometimes ask myself if most of them really desire to be poor, and to gain all the benefits of character that come from poverty."

"Probably not," I replied. "If you were to take away the obligation of over-stuffing themselves with food and their houses with furniture, and give them servants they could order about, I should think they would consider themselves well-off."

"I am afraid you are right," said Edward, with a sigh. "I verily believe that if we had offered to take money from all the people we have visited, instead of asking them to bestir themselves to gain their own freedom, our morning would have been a triumphant success."

"Well, shall we try?" I suggested. "There is still time."

But Edward scoffed at the idea of mere indiscriminate charity. "It would only be tinkering at the disease," he said. "I want to cure it."

CHAPTER XXIV

Edward now announced his intention of going in to Culbut to call on a Cabinet Minister of advanced Radical views.

"I have great hopes of him," he said. "The poor hate him, because they say he is trying to foist property on to them by removing their taxes one after the other, and piling them on the rich, and that if he goes on in this way much longer he will wreck the Const.i.tution, and that that is really what he wishes to do. They say he is on the side of capital because he has none himself; but, as a matter of fact, he has sprung from the rich, and has a very tender heart for their sufferings; I have often heard him say so. If he will put himself at the head of this movement its success will be a.s.sured."

I wished Edward good luck, and when I had seen him safely round the corner set out to find Mr. Hobson's house.

According to Upsidonian ideas, this unfortunate man had certainly been brought to a pa.s.s of great misery. He lived in a large and handsome mansion surrounded by some acres of ground, and kept up an imposing establishment.

I was shown into a library very richly furnished, but in far better taste than any of the rooms I had been in on my visits that morning. The effect was somewhat spoiled to my eye by a plain deal-topped table and three or four Windsor chairs, which were mixed up with the rest of the furniture; but tears came into my eyes--or should have done--when I reflected that these were probably the few articles that Mr. Hobson had been able to save from the wreck of his fortunes, and must be very dear to him as reminders of his former simple and happy life. Probably they would have to go soon, for he would not be able to take up room with them which might be filled with more expensive articles.