Marge Askinforit Part 2

After this I had a long succession of different situations. It is possible for a girl to learn the work of any branch of domestic service in a week, if she wishes to do it, with the exception of the work of a cook or a personal maid. But then, it is quite possible to take a situation as a cook, and to keep it, without knowing anything appreciable about the work. Thousands of women have done it, and are still doing it. I never went as personal maid--I dislike familiarity--but with that exception I played, so to speak, every instrument in the orchestra.

I acquired an excellent stock of testimonials, of which some were genuine. The others were due to the kindly heart and vivid imagination of my sister Casey, now Mrs. Morgenstein.

I rarely kept my places, and never kept my friends. The only thing I did keep was a diary. A diary is evidence. So if you see anything about anybody in these pages, you can believe it without hesitation.

Do, please. You see, if you hesitate, you may never believe it.

I well remember the first and only time that I met Gladstone. I was staying with Lady Bilberry at the time at her house in Half Moon Street. She was a woman with real charm and wit, but somewhat irritable.

Most of the people I've met were irritable or became so, and I can't think why. I may add that I only stayed out my month as too much was expected. Besides, I'd been told there was a boy for the rough work and there never was.

But to return to Gladstone. I wrote down every precious word of my conversation with him at the time, and the eager and excited reader may now peruse it in full.

GLADSTONE: Lady Bilberry at home?

MARGE: Yes, sir.

GLADSTONE: Thanks.

MARGE: What name, please?

He gave me his name quite simply, without any attempt at rudeness or facetiousness. I should say that this was typical of the whole character of the man. With a beautiful and punctilious courtesy he removed his hat--not a very good hat--on entering the house. I formed the impression from the ease with which he did this that the practice must have been habitual with him.

The only thing that mars this cherished memory is that it was not the Gladstone you mean, nor any relative of his, but a gentleman of the same name who had called to see if he could interest her ladyship in a scheme for the recovery of some buried treasure. He did not stay long, and Lady Bilberry said I ought to have known better.

About this time I received by post a set of verses which bear quite a resemblance to the senile vivacity of the verses which the real Gladstone addressed to my ill.u.s.trious example of autobiographical art.

The verses I received were anonymous, and as a matter of fact the postmark on the envelope was Beaconsfield. Still, you never know, do you?

MARGE.

When Pentonville's over and comes the release, With a year's supervision perhaps by the p'lice, Your longing to meet all your pals may be large, But make an exception, and do not ask Marge.

She's Aspasia, Pavlova, Tom Sayers, Tod Sloan, Spinoza, and Barnum, and Mrs. Chapone; For a bloke that has only just got his discharge, She's rather too dazzling a patchwork, is Marge.

Never mind, never mind, you have got to go slow, One section a year is the most you can know;

If you study a life-time, you'll jest on the barge Of Charon with madd'ningly manifold Marge.

By the way, whenever we change houses a special pantechnicon has to be engaged to take all the complimentary verses that have from time to time been addressed to me. Must be a sort of something about me somehow, don't you think?

I cannot pretend that I was on the same terms of intimate friendship with Mr. Lloyd George. I spoke to him only once.

It was when we were in Downing Street. There was quite a crowd of us there, and it had been an evening of exalted and roseate patriotism. I gazed up at the window of No. 10 and said, as loudly as I could:

"Lloyd George! Lloyd George!"

Most of the others in the crowd said the same thing with equal force.

Then an uneducated policeman came up to me and asked me to pa.s.s along, please, adding that Mr. Lloyd George was not in London. So, simply replying "All right, face," I pa.s.salongpleased.

However, in spite of all that bound me so closely to the great political world, I could not help feeling the claims of literature. I am sensitive to every claim. It is the claim of history, for example, that compels me to write my autobiography. I seem to see all around me a thousand human arts and activities crying for my help and interest. They seem to say "Marge, Marge, more Marge!" in the words that Goethe himself might have used. And whenever I hear the call I have to give myself.

I doubt if any girl ever gave herself away quite as much as I have done.

One day in November I met Chummie Popbright in the neighbourhood of Cambridge Circus. He was a man with very little _joie de vivre_, _ventre a terre_, or _esprit de corps_. He had fair hair and no manners, and was very, very fond of me. He held a position in the Post Office, and was, in fact, emptying a pillar-box when I met him. I record the conversation.

CHUMMIE: Blessed if it ain't Marge! And what would you like for a Christmas present?

MARGE: I want to spend a week or so at the house of the great poet, Lord Inmemorison. If you really wish to please me, you will use your influence to get me a job there. Your uncle being Inmemorison's butler, you ought to be able to work it.

CHUMMIE: Might. What would you go as?

MARGE: Anything--but temporary parlour-maid is my strong suit.

CHUMMIE: And what's your game?

MARGE: I'm sick of patronizing politicians and want to patronize a poet. When all's said and done, Inmemorison is a proper certificated poet. Besides, I want to put something by for my rainy autobiography.

CHUMMIE: Oh, well. I'll try and lay a pipe for it. May come off or may not.

Chummie managed the thing to perfection. My sister Casey wrote me one of the best testimonials I have ever had, and by Christmas I was safely installed for a week. Chummie's uncle treated me with the utmost consideration, and it is to him that I owe many of the thrilling details that I am now able to present to the panting public. Although there was a high leather screen in the drawing-room which was occasionally useful to me, my opportunities for direct observation were limited.

Lord Inmemorison had a magnificent semi-detached mansion (including a bath-room, h. and c.) in one of the wildest and loneliest parts of Wandsworth Common. The rugged beauty of the scenery around is reflected in many of his poems.

There were, as was to be expected, several departures from ordinary convention in the household. Dinner was at seven. The poet went to bed immediately after dinner, and punctually at ten reappeared in the drawing-room and began reading his poems aloud.

The family generally went to bed at ten sharp.

I heard him read once. There were visitors in the house who wished to hear the great man, and it was after midnight before a general retirement could take place. He had a rich, sonorous, over-proof, pre-war voice, considerable irritability, and a pretty girl sitting on his knee. The last item was, of course, an instance of poetical licence.

The girl had asked him to read from "Maud" and he had consented. He began with his voice turned down so low that in my position behind the screen I could only just catch the opening lines:

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert..."

He opened the throttle a little wider when he came to the pa.s.sage:

"His head was bare, his matted hair Was buried in the sand."

He read that last line "was serried in the band," but immediately corrected himself. And the poignant haunting repet.i.tion of the last lines of the closing stanza were given out on the full organ:

"And everywhere that Mary went-- And everywhere that Mary went-- And everywhere that Mary went-- The lamb was sure to go."

It was a great--a wonderful experience for me, and I shall never forget it.

I have spoken of his irritability. It is not unnatural in a great poet.

He must live with his exquisite sentient nerves screwed up to such a pitch that at any moment something may give.

For example, one evening he was sitting with a girl on his knee, and had just read to her these enchanting lines in which he speaks of hearing the cuckoo call.