Penelope's Progress Part 3

"That was a remarkable touch about the black-faced chop," laughed Salemina, when Miss Diggity-Dalgety had retired; "not that I believe they ever say it."

"I am sure they must," I a.s.serted stoutly, "for I pa.s.sed a flesher's on my way home, and saw a sign with 'Prime Black-faced Mutton' printed on it. I also saw 'Fed Veal,' but I forgot to ask the cook for it."

"We ought really to have kept house in Edinburgh," observed Francesca, looking up from "The Scotsman." "One can get a 'self-contained residential flat' for twenty pounds a month. We are such an enthusiastic trio that a self-contained flat would be everything to us; and if it were not fully furnished, here is a firm that wishes to sell a 'composite bed' for six pounds, and a 'gent's stuffed easy' for five. Added to these inducements there is somebody who advertises that parties who intend 'displenishing' at the Whit Term would do well to consult him, as he makes a specialty of second-handed furniture and 'cyclealities.' What are 'cyclealities,' Susanna?" (She had just come in with coals.)

"I couldna say, mam."

"Thank you; no, you need not ask Mrs. M'Collop; it is of no consequence."

Susanna Crum is a most estimable young woman, clean, respectful, willing, capable, and methodical, but as a Bureau of Information she is painfully inadequate. Barring this single limitation she seems to be a treasure-house of all good practical qualities; and being thus clad and panoplied in virtue, why should she be so timid and self-distrustful?

She wears an expression which can mean only one of two things: either she has heard of the national tomahawk and is afraid of violence on our part, or else her mother was frightened before she was born. This applies in general to her walk and voice and manner, but is it fear that prompts her eternal "I couldna say," or is it perchance Scotch caution and prudence? Is she afraid of projecting her personality too indecently far? Is it the influence of the "catecheesm" on her early youth? Is it the indirect effect of heresy trials on her imagination?

Does she remember the thumb-screw of former generations? At all events, she will neither affirm nor deny, and I am putting her to all sorts of tests, hoping to discover finally whether she is an accident, an exaggeration, or a type.

Salemina thinks that our American accent may confuse her. Of course she means Francesca's and mine, for she has none; although we have tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can scarcely understand each other any more. As for Susanna's own accent, she comes from the heart of Aberdeenshire, and her intonation is beyond my power to reproduce.

We naturally wish to identify all the national dishes; so, "Is this c.o.c.kle soup, Susanna?" I ask her, as she pa.s.ses me the plate at dinner.

"I couldna say."

"This vegetable is new to me, Susanna; is it perhaps sea-kail?"

"I canna say, mam."

Then finally, in despair, as she handed me a boiled potato one day, I fixed my searching Yankee brown eyes on her blue-Presbyterian, non-committal ones and asked, "What is this vegetable, Susanna?"

In an instant she withdrew herself, her soul, her ego, so utterly that I felt myself gazing at an inscrutable stone image, as she replied, "I couldna say, mam."

This was too much! Her mother may have been frightened, very badly frightened, but this was more than I could endure without protest. The plain boiled potato is practically universal. It is not only common to all temperate climates, but it has permeated all cla.s.ses of society. I am confident that the plain boiled potato has been one of the chief const.i.tuents in the building up of that frame in which Susanna Crum conceals her opinions and emotions. I remarked, therefore, as an apparent afterthought, "Why, it is a potato, is it not, Susanna?"

What do you think she replied, when thus hunted into a corner, pushed against a wall, driven to the very confines of her personal and national liberty? She subjected the potato to a second careful scrutiny, and answered, "I wouldna say it's no!"

Now there is no inherited physical terror in this. It is the concentrated essence of intelligent reserve, caution, and obstinacy; it is a conscious intellectual hedging; it is a dogged and determined attempt to build up barriers of defense between the questioner and the questionee: it must be, therefore, the offspring of the catechism and the heresy trial.

Once again, after establishing an equally obvious fact, I succeeded in wringing from her the reluctant admission, "It depends," but she was so shattered by the bulk and force of this outgo, so fearful that in some way she had imperiled her life or reputation, so anxious concerning the effect that her unwilling testimony might have upon unborn generations, that she was of no real service the rest of the day.

I wish that the Lord Advocate, or some modern counterpart of Braxfield, the hanging judge, would summon Susanna Crum as a witness in an important case. He would need his longest plummet to sound the depths of her consciousness.

I have had no legal experience, but I can imagine the scene.

"Is the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?"

"I couldna say, my lord."

"You have not understood the question, Susanna. Is the prisoner your father?"

"I couldna say, my lord."

"Come, come, my girl! you must answer the questions put you by the court. You have been an inmate of the prisoner's household since your earliest consciousness. He provided you with food, lodging, and clothing during your infancy and early youth. You have seen him on annual visits to your home, and watched him as he performed the usual parental functions for your younger brothers and sisters. I therefore repeat, is the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?"

"I wouldna say he's no, my lord."

"This is really beyond credence! What do you conceive to be the idea involved in the word 'father,' Susanna Crum?"

"It depends, my lord."

And this, a few hundred years earlier, would have been the natural and effective moment for the thumb-screws.

I do not wish to be understood as defending these uncomfortable appliances. They would never have been needed to elicit information from me, for I should have spent my nights inventing matter to confess in the daytime. I feel sure that I should have poured out such floods of confessions and retractations that if all Scotland had been one listening ear it could not have heard my tale. I am only wondering if, in the extracting of testimony from the common mind, the thumb-screw might not have been more necessary with some nations than with others.

V

Invitations had been pouring in upon us since the delivery of our letters of introduction, and it was now the evening of our debut in Edinburgh society. Francesca had volunteered to perform the task of leaving cards, ordering a private victoria for the purpose, and arraying herself in purple and fine linen.

"Much depends upon the first impression," she had said. "Miss Hamilton's 'party' may not be gifted, but it is well dressed. My hope is that some of our future hostesses will be looking from the second-story front windows. If they are, I can a.s.sure them in advance that I shall be a national advertis.e.m.e.nt."

It is needless to remark that as it began to rain heavily as she was leaving the house, she was obliged to send back the open carriage, and order, to save time, one of the public cabs from the stand in the Terrace.

"Would you mind having the lamiter, being first in line?" asked Susanna of Salemina, who had transmitted the command.

When Salemina fails to understand anything, the world is kept in complete ignorance,--least of all would she stoop to ask a humble maid servant to translate the vernacular of the country; so she replied affably, "Certainly, Susanna, that is the kind we always prefer. I suppose it is covered?"

Francesca did not notice, until her coachman alighted to deliver the first letter and cards, that he had one club foot and one wooden leg; it was then that the full significance of "lamiter" came to her. He was covered, however, as Salemina had supposed, and the occurrence gave us a precious opportunity of chaffing that dungeon of learning.

He was tolerably alert and vigorous, too, although he certainly did not impart elegance to a vehicle, and he knew every street in the court end of Edinburgh, and every close and wynd in the Old Town. On this our first meeting with him, he faltered only when Francesca asked him last of all to drive to "Kildonan House, Helmsdale;" supposing, not unnaturally, that it was as well known an address as Morningside House, Tipperlinn, whence she had just come. The lamiter had never heard of Kildonan House nor of Helmsdale, and he had driven in the streets of Auld Reekie for thirty years. None of the drivers whom he consulted could supply any information; Susanna Crum couldna say that she had ever heard of it, nor could Mrs. M'Collop nor Miss Diggity-Dalgety. It was reserved for Lady Baird to explain that Helmsdale was two hundred and eighty miles north, and that Kildonan House was ten miles from the Helmsdale railway station, so that the poor lamiter would have had a weary drive even had he known the way.

The friends who had given us letters to Mr. and Mrs. Jameson-Inglis (Jimmyson-Ingals) must have expected us either to visit John o'

Groats on the northern border, and drop in on Kildonan House _en route_, or to send our note of introduction by post and await an invitation to pa.s.s the summer. At all events, the anecdote proved very pleasing to our Edinburgh acquaintances. I hardly know whether, if they should visit America, they would enjoy tales of their own stupidity as hugely as they did the tales of ours, but they really were very appreciative in this particular, and it is but justice to ourselves to say that we gave them every opportunity for enjoyment.

But I must go back to our first grand dinner in Scotland. We were dressed at quarter past seven, when, in looking at the invitation again, we discovered that the dinner-hour was eight o'clock, not seven-thirty. Susanna did not happen to know the exact or approximate distance to Fotheringay Crescent, but the maiden Boots affirmed that it was only two minutes' drive, so we sat down in front of the fire to chat.

It was Lady Baird's birthday feast to which we had been bidden, and we had done our best to honor the occasion. We had prepared a large bouquet tied with the Maclean tartan (Lady Baird is a Maclean), and had printed in gold letters on one of the ribbons, "Another for Hector," the battle-cry of the clan. We each wore a sprig of holly, because it is the badge of the family, while I added a girdle and shoulder-knot of tartan velvet to my pale green gown, and borrowed Francesca's emerald necklace, persuading her that she was too young to wear such jewels in the old country.

Francesca was miserably envious that she had not thought of tartans first. "You may consider yourself 'gey an' fine,' all covered over with Scotch plaid, but I wouldn't be so 'kenspeckle' for worlds!" she said, using expressions borrowed from Mrs. M'Collop; "and as for disguising your nationality, do not flatter yourself that you look like anything but an American. I forgot to tell you the conversation I overheard in the tram this morning, between a mother and daughter, who were talking about us, I dare say. 'Have they any proper frocks for so large a party, Bella?' asked the mother.

"'I thought I explained in the beginning, mamma, that they are Americans.'

"'Still, you know they are only traveling,--just pa.s.sing through, as it were; they may not be familiar with our customs, and we do want our party to be a smart one.'

"'Wait until you see them, mamma, and you will probably feel like hiding your diminished head! It is my belief that if an American lady takes a half-hour journey in a tram she carries full evening dress and a diamond necklace, in case anything should happen on the way. I am not in the least nervous about their appearance. I only hope that they will not be too exuberant; American girls are so frightfully vivacious and informal, I always feel as if I were being taken by the throat!'"

"A picturesque, though rather vigorous expression; however, it does no harm to be perfectly dressed," said Salemina consciously, putting a steel embroidered slipper on the fender and settling the holly in the silver folds of her gown; "then when they discover that we are all well bred, and that one of us is intelligent, it will be the more credit to the country that gave us birth."

"Of course it is impossible to tell what country did give _you_ birth," retorted Francesca, "but that will only be to your advantage--away from home!"

Francesca is inflexibly, almost aggressively American, but Salemina is a citizen of the world. If the United States should be involved in a war, I am confident that Salemina would be in front with the other Gatling guns, for in that case a principle would be at stake; but in all lesser matters she is extremely unprejudiced. She prefers German music, Italian climate, French dressmakers, English tailors, j.a.panese manners, and American--American something,--I have forgotten just what; it is either the ice-cream soda or the form of government,--I can't remember which.