Her Royal Highness Woman Part 16

'Grannie,' she said, 'I am not to have any pudding; you ought not to have your cream-cheese.'

'But, darling,' pleaded grandmamma, throwing a loving glance at the little dish of her predilection, 'I haven't been naughty.'

'Never mind; you ought not to have any when your little girl cannot have any pudding.' And the little tyrant cried more bitterly than ever.

Grannie rang the bell, ordered the favourite cream-cheese to be taken away, and, drying the little girl's tears, supped that night off a bit of bread-and-b.u.t.ter.

Antiquity has not recorded anything like it.

People say that mothers are prejudiced in favour of their children. Of course they are. We are all of us prejudiced in favour of what belongs to us, especially if it is of our own manufacture. But for the opinion held of a child, give me grannie's--that is sublime.

Once a lady of my acquaintance, on a visit to her mother, was in the drawing-room with her own little girl on her knees. Grandmamma, in ecstasy, was worshipping baby, challenging the world to produce such another. A lady called, took some notice of the child, and talked a great deal about her own baby, a great deal too much to please grandmamma, at any rate. When the visitor had gone, the dear old lady gave expression to her feelings:

'How silly women are, to be sure! Did you hear that woman talk and talk about her child? Good heavens! one would imagine, to hear her praise her baby, that there was no such a one in the world.'

And she laughed heartily at the presumption of that silly, conceited young mother.

'But, grandmamma,' quickly said my lady friend, 'you must forgive her.

I have heard you many times declare that this, our baby, was by far the best and finest the world has ever seen.'

'Ah, my dear,' replied grannie, not in the least disconcerted and in absolute earnestness, 'that's _quite_ different. In our case it's the truth, and no one could deny it.'

Certainly not! Who would dare?

The love of a grandmother, with its delightful weaknesses, with that complete collapse of all power of resistance to a child, is no sign of senility; it is only the love of a mother multiplied by two.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

ON MOTHERS-IN-LAW

How to deal with them--Difference between a misfortune and an accident--'That will spoil the whole thing'--Shoot her!

Adam, they say, must have been a happy man: he had no mother-in-law.

I once heard a Frenchman give the following definition of the difference that exists between an accident and a misfortune. Suppose you walk along the bank of a river in the company of your mother-in-law. If she should fall into the water and be drowned, it is an accident; if she fall into the water and be pulled out alive, it is a misfortune.

The mother-in-law is not dreaded in England. An English mother has no authority over her son: how could she dream of having any over a son-in-law? The mother-in-law is an object of terror in France, where the ascendancy of woman over man is a powerful factor in the social life of the country.

The French woman leads her husband by the nose, and her sons are submissive to her as long as they remain unmarried, and even when they are married they remain more or less under her influence until she dies. That French mother is queen at home, and when she sees that her daughter has started an establishment of her own, she generally at once goes there to settle for a little while, sometimes for a long while, to put her daughter up to a few points about the management of man.

That often causes difficulties and spoils the game; but as nine times out of ten the young wife will take her mother's part in any little unpleasantness that may arise, the husband submits. He knows that the mother-in-law is the drawback of matrimony. He has taken his wife for better and for worse, and 'worse' includes mamma. The bargain is fair.

He has signed, and he honours his signature. Besides, he has a consolation, that of knowing that his mother-in-law will give his wife plenty of good and useful advice on housekeeping, teach her economy, and be ever ready to come to her help in times of need.

I know very little of private life in America, but I know, at all events, the supremacy of woman in social and family life, and, therefore, I should feel inclined to suspect the American mother-in-law to be as unpopular as the French one. The most striking point of resemblance between America and France is the way in which women treat men and are treated by them.

Was it not in America that I heard the following story? A man enjoyed the possession of a beautiful and loving wife and a very uncongenial mother-in-law. The latter fell ill, and her daughter went to nurse her.

At last the husband one day received the following telegram: 'Mother dead; shall we have her embalmed, cremated, or buried?' The husband wired back: 'Do the three; take no chance.'

How like the following, which is French: A man loses his wife. As the funeral is about to leave the house he is ushered into the first mourning-carriage. His mother-in-law is there. 'I cannot, I will not go in that carriage!' he exclaims. 'My mother-in-law is in it.' 'But you must,' he is told; 'you are the husband of the corpse.' 'Must I?' he says. 'Well, if I must I will, but it will spoil the whole thing.'

I have always wondered how it is that men so much complain of their mothers-in-law and that women so seldom do. Poor, dear little women!

They do have mothers-in-law, too--mothers-in-law to find fault with their housekeeping, and to remind them that before they married their sons were attended at home by most devoted sisters. The mother-in-law of a man, no doubt, is often in the way. You sometimes wish she was not there, but with a little diplomacy you can manage her, and even get rid of her.

I recommend the following plan; it proved a big success with a friend of mine. A short time after his marriage his mother-in-law arrived and installed herself in his house. My friend welcomed her, and lavished the most a.s.siduous attentions upon her. He was not a church-goer; he went to church, and insisted on carrying the excellent lady's books of devotion. When a walk was taken, it was to her he offered his arm.

'Your mother is old,' he said to his wife, 'and so kind, too! I am getting awfully fond of her.' In the evening, after his wife had retired, he sat up with his mother-in-law and took a hand at piquet. At the end of the week the mamma-in-law had vanished as if by magic. The young and neglected wife had managed the affair.

But for a woman to get rid of her mother-in-law I am afraid I have no advice to offer, not even that offered by the greatest French dramatist, Victorien Sardou, who says in that delightful play 'Seraphine': 'If ever you have to choose between living with your mother-in-law or shooting yourself, do not hesitate a single moment--shoot her.'

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

ON WIDOWS

Women do have grievances--Various specimens of widows--The jolly widow--The inconsolate widow--The plump widow--Marriageable widows--Mourning and black--Last wills and testaments--How long should a widow mourn her husband?--'You should have seen me yesterday!'

Mothers-in-law are for ever a target for men's sarcasms. Stepmothers are supposed to be the embodiment of everything that is mean. On the other hand, I have never heard fathers-in-law turned into ridicule, and stepfathers are invariably painted by novelists as unselfish, devoted men who come to the rescue of widows, and help them to bring up their children in comfort and happiness.

Poor women do have grievances, and no mistake!

And the widows--oh, the widows! Now, what have they done that they should be the b.u.t.ts for the jokes that are made at their expense? Why should they provoke the sarcasms and excite the scorn of men instead of their pity or, at all events, their kind sympathy?

If a widow's grief is great and she wears the deepest mourning, she is called an 'inconsolable, desolate widow,' and people smile, saying with a sneer: 'She will soon be cured.' If she bears up bravely and well, she is called a 'jolly widow,' and people say: 'She is already better.'

If she remains amiable and attractive, she is immediately baptized a 'wily widow,' and if her good const.i.tution is such that even her sorrows and worries do not make her get thin, but the contrary, she is called a 'plump widow,' and people wink. And all the time the widower escapes scot-free. Men respect his sadness, are prepared to write odes about him if he remain faithful to the memory of his wife, and send him hearty congratulations if he remarry. Never a smile; no sarcasm, no scorn!

What awful cowards men are! And what surpa.s.ses me is that, as a rule, women are to be found who join them in all the jovial remarks that are pa.s.sed on widows.

However, widows are not altogether without their revenge. They get many advantages. They have the best of young girls in the matrimonial market. The most-courted woman in the world is the rich young widow.

She has a fascination that very few unmarried women possess, and many men prefer her. Why? Don't ask me. Widows know the world, have experience in dealing with men. There are teachers, dest.i.tute of patience, who prefer advanced pupils to beginners. Mere laziness, my dear friends, nothing else!

Men are so conceited, too! If they were not, how would they dare marry a widow and constantly run the risk of being found far less loving, pleasant, and attractive than number one was? It is true that if, after a quarrel, a man's wife should exclaim, 'How I do regret my first husband!' he would have a chance to cure her of that expression, by remarking quietly: 'My dear, you will never regret him as much as I do!' But all this does not suggest to the mind a happy condition of matrimonial affairs.

Widows are less marriageable in England than in other countries, for this reason: that their husbands, in their wills, almost invariably stipulate that they leave so much to their wives on the condition that they will not remarry. If they do, they forfeit everything. Of course, to a certain extent, I understand that a man does not feel anxious to know that if, by his industry and carefulness, he has succeeded in ama.s.sing a plump little fortune, Smith, Brown, or Robinson will one day enjoy it in the company of his wife. Still, why not? What does it matter? If his wife has been good to him and she is still young when he dies, why should he condemn her to solitude for the rest of her days?

What good does it do to him, when he is under the gra.s.s, to have his wife lonely and miserable? If I were a woman ever so fond of my husband, I would so much resent that stipulation that I would tear his will in pieces and marry the first respectable and attractive man who sought my hand.

Compared to the Englishman who makes such a will, how I admire that Frenchman who penned the following one: 'I leave to my dear wife, for her sole and absolute use, everything I possess and everything I may become possessed of. She may remain a widow or remarry, just as she pleases. I am not afraid of compet.i.tion!' I cannot help thinking that this is the proper way to treat a woman who has been a true friend to you, the partaker of your pleasures, of your joys and sorrows, and that, on leaving her, you may as well pay her the compliment of taking it for granted that she will know what is best for her and act accordingly.

In France, a widow wears deep mourning for her husband during a year, and half mourning during another year. Many a French widow wears mourning during her lifetime. For that matter, there is no country in the world where mourning is worn so long as in France, in the provinces especially, where half the population is in black for somebody or other. This outside show of grief may be exaggerated, for real mourning is worn in the heart, not in the clothes; yet if a French widow in a small provincial town should shorten her widow's veil by an inch, people would say: 'If she never cared for her husband, she might have the decency not to advertise the fact and fish already for another!'