Manners and Rules of Good Society Part 32

The c.o.c.kade worn by the servants of the members of the Royal Family, and by all who claim to be of Royal descent, is slightly different in shape from that known as the badge of the reigning dynasty, _i.e._ the Hanoverian badge, and is round in shape and without a fan. The military c.o.c.kade is of an oval shape, terminating in a fan. The civil c.o.c.kade is of an oval shape also, but without the fan. The naval c.o.c.kade is identical with the civil c.o.c.kade.

The white c.o.c.kade is the badge of the House of Stuart. The black c.o.c.kade that of the House of Hanover. The servants of foreign amba.s.sadors wear c.o.c.kades in colour according to their nationalities. Black and white for Germany; black and yellow for Austria; the tricolour for France; scarlet for Spain; blue and white for Portugal; and black and yellow for Belgium.

The word c.o.c.kade, according to a well-known authority, was borrowed from the French _cocarde_, having originally been applied to the plumes of c.o.c.k's feathers worn by Croatian soldiers serving in the French army.

Some such plume, or in its place a bunch of ribbons, came to be used in pinning up the flaps of the hat into a c.o.c.ked position, and thus gradually the word pa.s.sed for the name of the "c.o.c.ked" hat itself.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

COUNTRY-HOUSE VISITS

September is actually the commencement of the country visiting season, the few visits that are paid in August are but a prelude to the programme that is to follow during the succeeding five months.

=The visitors received in August= are princ.i.p.ally relatives. The exceptions to the August family parties are the August cricket parties in the counties where cricket is made a great feature during that month, where the cricket weeks and consequent large country-house parties are of annual recurrence, and where b.a.l.l.s and private theatricals form part of the week's amus.e.m.e.nt. It often follows that people visit at the same houses year after year, they arrange their tour of visits with regard to those invitations which they annually receive; new acquaintances and new houses whereat to visit are added to the list from time to time and take the place of those which, as a matter of course, drop out of it.

Sometimes the invitations fit into each other admirably, like the pieces of a puzzle; at others there is an awkward interval of a day, or two or three days, to be filled up between leaving one house and arriving at another. If the hostess is, in either case, a relation or an intimate friend, this difficulty is easily surmounted by staying on at one house until the day fixed for arrival at another, or _vice versa_; but if a guest is on ceremony with her hostess, or if, as is often the case, new arrivals are expected for the following week, the alternative is to spend a few days in town, as although the house where the next visit to be paid might be within twenty or thirty miles of the house the visitor is about to leave, it would be unusual to spend the interval at an hotel in the adjacent town, as to do so might reflect upon the hospitality of the hostess. On the other hand, invitations are sometimes given independently of dates, but this friendly style of invitation is not given when a large party is invited, and it is understood to mean that the hostess may be quite alone, or may have guests staying with her, as the case may be. This form of invitation is frequently given to people visiting in Scotland, on account of the great distance from town.

It is a very general custom to give shooting parties the third week in September, harvest permitting. If the harvest is late on account of unfavourable weather the shooting parties are postponed until the first week in the ensuing month. The guests, or at least the crack guns, are usually invited for partridge driving, which is what partridge shooting now actually amounts to.

There are large shooting parties and small shooting parties, shooting parties to which royalty is invited and shooting parties restricted to intimate friends or relations, but in either case the period is the same, three days' shooting.

=If a party is limited to five guns=, seven ladies is the average number invited, the hostess relying upon a neighbour or a neighbour's son to equalise the balance at the dinner-table. The success of house-parties mainly depends upon people knowing each other, or fraternising when they are introduced or have made each other's acquaintance. The ladies of a country-house party are expected, as a rule, to amuse themselves, more or less, during the day. After luncheon there is usually a drive to a neighbouring town, a little shopping to be done there, or a call to be paid in the neighbourhood by some of the party, notably the married ladies, the young ladies being left to their own resources.

At the close of a visit game is offered to those of the shooters to whom it is known that it will be acceptable.

The head gamekeeper is usually instructed to put up a couple of brace of pheasants and a hare. But in some houses even this custom is not followed, and the whole of the game killed, with the exception of what is required for the house, finds its way into the market, both the local market and the London market.

Shooting parties as a rule give a hostess little anxiety on the score of finding amus.e.m.e.nt for the ladies of the party, as so many aids out of doors are at her command at this season of the year. This is a great advantage, as although some few ladies possessing great strength of nerve have taken up shooting as an amus.e.m.e.nt and pastime and acquit themselves surprisingly well in this manly sport, yet ladies in general are not inclined for so dangerous a game, and even those intrepid ladies who have learnt how to use their little gun would never be permitted to make one or two of a big shooting party, even were they so inclined.

The hostess and the ladies of the party invariably join the shooters at luncheon, and some of the ladies go out with the shooters in the morning to watch their prowess in the field; but this entails a great deal of walking where partridge shooting is concerned, which is quite another thing to covert shooting in November and December.

=A good hostess has great opportunities= for distinguishing herself when entertaining a country-house party, from the arrival of the first motor-car to the departure of the last. Her consideration and tact are so successfully exerted that somehow her guests always find themselves doing exactly what they like best and in company with those who are most congenial to them, to say nothing of the comfort of the general domestic arrangements, which seem to have been arranged exclusively for their convenience. If they wish to drive, there is a carriage or motor-car at their disposal; if they prefer a const.i.tutional, there is some one very agreeable desirous of walking with them. The daily papers are always to be found, the post-bag goes out at a most convenient hour by the hand of a special messenger, the dinner is of the best, and the evening is of the cheeriest. Bridge as a rule is played in most houses, and several tables are arranged in the drawing-room to accommodate the would-be players.

Occasionally, when the birds are wild and sport is slack, a sort of picnic luncheon is held in the vicinity of a keeper's lodge, under the shade of some wide-spreading trees, when the ladies join the party; but in September keen sportsmen rather despise this playing at shooting, and resent the interruption caused by the company of ladies at luncheon, and prefer to take it in the rough and smoke the while. Every day of the week is not thus given up to shooting, and there are few owners of manors who would care to provide five days' consecutive sport for their guests, and two days' hard shooting is probably followed by what is called an idle day. On these off days in September the hostess often gives a garden-party, or takes her guests to one given by a neighbour at some few miles distant; or she holds a stall at a bazaar and persuades her guests to a.s.sist her in disposing of her stock; or she induces her party to accompany her to some flower-show in which she takes a local interest; or the host and one or two of the best shots start early after breakfast to shoot with a neighbour, and the remainder of the guests drive over to a picturesque ruin, where they picnic, and return home in time for the eight-o'clock dinner. If the owner of a mansion has a coach the whole party is conveyed on it, otherwise the motor-cars are brought into requisition, while saddle horses are provided for those who care to ride. A country-house party occasionally resolves itself into two or more cliques, as far as the ladies are concerned; gentlemen, as a rule, are not much given to this sort of thing. On the first evening, as soon as the ladies have left the dining-room for the drawing-room, these little cliques are tacitly formed, and continue unbroken until the close of the visit. There are many reasons which call these cliques into existence--old intimacies revived, new acquaintanceships to be strengthened, unwelcome acquaintanceships to be avoided, and so on.

These cliques are by no means agreeable to the hostess, indeed, quite the contrary--but she is powerless to prevent their being formed, and she is herself sometimes drawn into one or other of them, and sometimes altogether excluded from them. Any one who is at all conversant with country-house visiting is aware how thoroughly the influence of the clique pervades the atmosphere of the drawing-room; and yet, perhaps, at country-house parties more friendships are formed and intimacies cemented than at any other gatherings.

=The evening amus.e.m.e.nts= at country-house parties vary very much according to the proclivities of the hostess or those of her daughters.

At some houses dancing is the order of things for a couple of hours or so after dinner, but this mode of spending the evening does not always commend itself to the gentlemen, who, after a long day's walking through wet turnips and over heavy ploughed land, or a hard day's riding over stiff fences, rather incline towards the _dolce far niente_ of a luxurious armchair than to the pleasures of the mazy valse, and are proportionately grateful to a hostess who does not call upon them to undergo any further exercise than what they have already gone through for their own pleasure.

In most country-house parties bridge forms the chief if not the only amus.e.m.e.nt, and is played not only after dinner but in the afternoon also. Amateur theatricals and _tableaux vivants_, impromptu charades, thought reading, conjuring, etc., are fashionable amus.e.m.e.nts and easy of accomplishment: the first-named of these demands considerable study and plenty of time for rehearsal, therefore theatricals are generally engaged in when the party is composed of relatives rather than of acquaintances, and when the visit would be perhaps prolonged to ten days or a fortnight.

Some hostesses prefer keeping late hours to early hours, and do not retire until after twelve; this does not commend itself to the gentlemen, as they are not supposed to adjourn to the smoking-room until the ladies have left the drawing-room, and gentlemen like to spend a couple of hours in the smoking-room after dinner.

=In hunting counties= the breakfast is usually an early one, varying from nine o'clock to half-past nine, according to whether the ride to covert is likely to be a long or a short one; but, as a rule, the nominal breakfast hour is 9.30 o'clock. A certain amount of lat.i.tude is allowed to guests as regards coming down to breakfast; they do not a.s.semble in the morning-room, but all make their way to the breakfast-room, and seat themselves at once at table, while many ladies breakfast in their own rooms.

=In Scotland, an invitation to shoot= often means a visit of three weeks. The accommodation of the shooting-box or lodge may be limited or primitive, and it is very often both of these; but it matters very little to the sportsman what sort of bed he sleeps on, or how he is made to rough it, providing the grouse are plentiful. On some of the moors there are but cottages and farmhouses for the occupation of the sportsmen, but on others the houses are excellent, and let with the moors, as many take a moor season after season and invite their friends to shoot between the 12th of August and October. The grand shooting parties that are annually given in Scotland by owners of large estates and fine shootings extends throughout the whole of the shooting season, and guests come and go without intermission; as one leaves another arrives. Certain houses or castles are much gayer than others; to some very few ladies are asked, the majority of the guests being gentlemen--probably the hostess and two ladies and eight men--in others, the numbers are more equal; in others, again, the party sometimes consists entirely of men with a host and no hostess. Ladies generally ask their most intimate friends to Scotland rather than acquaintances, as they are left to themselves the whole of the day, dinner being often postponed until nine o'clock, on account of the late return of the sportsmen.

=South of the Tweed, September invitations= are usually given for three or four days, from Tuesday till Sat.u.r.day; married couples, young ladies, and young men, are all asked, and the ladies find amus.e.m.e.nt in lawn-tennis, or in attending or a.s.sisting at some neighbouring bazaar or fancy fair, as in this month county bazaars are very popular, and the visitors at one house lend their services in conjunction with the visitors at another, to hold stalls at a bazaar got up by a third influential lady; and thus the stalls are well stocked, and the fashionable stall-holders give an impetus to the whole affair.

Ladies see very little of the gentlemen between breakfast and dinner.

The shooters start about eleven, and seldom return much before seven.

When it is dark at four, those who prefer ladies' society and tea to the smoking-room and billiards, make themselves presentable and join the ladies.

=As regards the Etiquette of Visiting at Bachelors' Houses.=--It is thoroughly understood that ladies should be accompanied by their husbands, and young ladies by their father and mother, or by a married couple with whom they are on terms of great intimacy, in which case the married lady acts as chaperon to the young ladies. Young ladies cannot stay at the house of a bachelor unless chaperoned by a married lady, or by a female relative of their host. A widow and her daughter could of course join a party of ladies staying at a bachelor's house, or stay on a visit to him were he alone, or entertaining bachelor friends.

When a bachelor gives a country-house party, and nominally does the honours himself, occasionally one of the married ladies of the party tacitly takes the lead.

The position of a young widower is similar to that of a bachelor as regards society. Later in life, the contrary is the case; a widower with grown-up daughters gives entertainments for them, and the eldest daughter does the honours, thus reducing the position again to that of host and hostess.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

HUNTING AND SHOOTING

=Ladies in the Hunting-Field.=--There is no arena better fitted to display good riding on the part of women than the hunting-field, and no better opportunity for the practice of this delightful accomplishment and for its thorough enjoyment. It is urged, however, that it argues cruelty of disposition and unwomanly feeling to join in the pursuit of a poor, miserable, hunted fox, and worse still to be in at the death, and that women are liable to be carried away by the enthusiasm of the hour to applaud and to witness what they would otherwise shrink from. This argument has a certain weight, and deters many from actually hunting who would otherwise join in the sport, and they make a compromise by regularly attending the meets, and even witnessing a throw-off of a fox-break covert. Every strong point that a rider possesses is brought out in the field. The canter in the Row, the trot through the country-lanes, or the long country ride are very feeble subst.i.tutes for the intense enjoyment experienced when taking part in a good run; the excitement felt and shared in by the whole field exhilarates and stimulates, and renders fatigue a thing out of the question, not to be thought of until the homeward ride is well over.

Considering the number of ladies who hunt, the accidents that occur are surprisingly few, for the obvious reason that ladies do not attempt to hunt unless their skill as good horsewomen is beyond all question. Their husbands, their fathers, their brothers would not allow them to jeopardise their lives, unless their riding and experience, their courage, their nerve, and their instruction justified the attempt.

There are also two other weighty considerations necessary to success--a good mount, and a good lead. The father or husband invariably selects the one, and the friend--either of the fair rider or of the husband or brother--gives the all-important lead, without which few ladies venture upon hunting, save those few who are independent enough to cut out their own work.

Ladies, who are naturally fond of riding, cannot always indulge in the pleasure of hunting, on the ground of expense, for instance. A lady may possess a fairly good horse for ordinary purposes, to ride in the Row, or for country exercise, but very few gentlemen of moderate means can afford to keep hunters for the ladies of their families as well as for themselves, although, in fiction, this is freely done. If a lady has one good hunter of her own, she may expect two days' hunting a week, providing the country is not too stiff, and the meets are fairly convenient. Occasionally, a mount may be obtained from a good-natured friend, whose stud is larger than his requirements; but this is not to be depended upon in every-day life, and popular ladies and first-rate riders are more in the way of receiving these attentions than the general run of ladies.

As regards the presence of young ladies in the hunting-field, there are two opinions respecting its advisability, apart from the question of whether it is or is not a feminine pursuit. The long ride home in the November and December twilight, in the company of some member of the hunt, who has become the young lady's cavalier for the time being, is not to the taste of many parents; chaperonage must of necessity be greatly dispensed with in the hunting-field, and this is an objection which many fathers advance against their daughters hunting.

Some husbands entertain equally strict views on this head, and are of opinion that the boldest rider and the best lead to follow in the field is not always the guest they would most desire to see at their own firesides.

=Hunt-Breakfasts.=--A lady should not go to a hunt-breakfast at the house of a country gentleman if unacquainted with him, or some member of his family, unless asked to do so by a mutual acquaintance. All gentlemen riding to hounds, whether strangers to the host or not, have the privilege of entering any house where a hunt-breakfast is given and accepting the hospitality offered. The breakfast, which is in reality a cold collation, with the addition of wine, liqueurs, ale, etc., is usually laid out in the dining-room, and no ceremony whatever is observed; the gentlemen come and go as they please.

The mistress of the house should either be present at a hunt-breakfast and receive the ladies who arrive in the hall or dining-room, or she should receive them in the drawing-room, where refreshments should be brought to them.

When a hostess intends riding to hounds, she is often mounted before her neighbours arrive, in which case she invites them to enter the house for refreshments, if they care to do so.