Pride and Principle CHAPTER 1.
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O, no, my dear! Never go to the hall-door. That's the waiter's business," said Mrs. Pimlico, laying her hand, as she spoke, upon the arm of her daughter Helen.
"But it's only Jane and Lizzy Malcolm, and John is away up in the fourth story. I can let them in before he gets half way down."
"No, my dear!" the mother replied, with dignity. "It's the waiter's place to answer the bell. No lady or gentleman ever goes to the door to admit a visitor!"
"Mrs. Henry does, sometimes, for he opened the door for me the last time I called at her house to see Mary."
"Then Mrs. Henry was not raised a lady, that's all I have to say."
"I don't know how that is, mother; everybody seems to like Mrs. Henry; and I have heard some speak of her as a perfect lady. But why in the world doesn't John answer the bell? He certainly hasn't heard it. I will go and call him." And Helen made a movement to leave the room, but her mother again checked her, saying, "Why don't you keep quiet, child? A lady never runs after the waiter to tell him that visitors are at the door. It's his place to hear the bell."
"But, suppose, Mother, as in the present case, he does not hear it, and you do?"
"Let the visitors ring again, as ours are doing at this moment."
Nearly a minute passed after the bell had been rung a second time, and yet John did not go to the door. He was engaged up in the fourth story, and did not hear the sound.
"Strange that John does not come!" Helen said "Doesn't you think I'd better let the girls in, Mother. I'm afraid they'll go away, and I want to see them very much. And, besides, you know it is a long walk up here for them, and especially fatiguing for Lizzy, who has only been out once or twice since her severe illness. I would not have them go away for anything."
"No, Helen, you cannot! Haven't I already told you that no lady ever answers the door-bell. That reason, one would think sufficient."
"But surely, Mother, there are certain circumstances under which the violation of such a rule, would be no treason against social etiquette."
"No lady, I tell you, Helen, ever breaks that rule, and you must not. But ring the bell, dear, for a servant."
The bell was rung, and to the servant who appeared a few moments after, Mrs. Pimlico said,
"Go and see where the waiter is, and tell him to attend the street door."
But, before John could be found, the young ladies had departed. They lived in a part of the city distant from that in which Mrs. Pimlico resided, and had come out expressly to call upon Helen. Lizzy Malcolm, as was intimated by Miss Pimlico, had but recently recovered from a very severe illness. She was still weak, and able to bear but little fatigue.
"There is no one at the door," John said, entering the parlor, nearly five minutes after the direction to call him had been given by Mrs. Pimlico.
"Very well, John. But another time be more attentive. Through your negligence of duty, our visitors have been forced to go away. This must not occur again."
"Just as I feared," Helen said, with disappointment and concern, as soon as John had left the room. "I wished to see Lizzy Malcolm, particularly. But that is a matter of little importance, compared with the consequences to herself that may be occasioned by excessive fatigue. To walk this far, and her health so feeble as it is, must have been a great effort. How will she possibly be able to get home, without either rest or refreshment? Indeed, Mother, etiquette or no etiquette--I think we were wrong! It seems to me, that one leading characteristic of a lady, is to be considerate of others to seek the happiness and the good of others--not to be all deference to mere external rules and forms, to the death of genuine lady-like principles."
"How foolish you talk, Helen! If you expect to move in well-bred society, you must show yourself to be a well-bred woman. And no well-bred woman ever violates theprescribed rules of etiquette. I am as sorry as you can be, that necessity compelled us to let the Misses Malcolm go away from our door without admission. But I would not admit the President's daughter myself, nor allow you to do it, even if the waiter could not be found. No lady, as I have often tried to impress upon your mind, ever opens her own door to admit anyone. Let visitors go away, if necessary, but stand by the good customs of your station."
"But what harm could have arisen from my just opening the door, and letting in Lizzy and her sister. No one from the street would have seen me."
"Would the Misses Malcolm have seen you?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Don't you suppose they would have blazoned it about? Certainly they would, to your loss of social standing!"
"I am, no doubt, exceedingly dull, and exceedingly vulgar, Mother. But, for my life, I cannot understand how the mere opening of a door, or the calling of a servant, can in any way affect a lady or a gentleman's social standing among sensible people, who are supposed to have the faculty of discriminating moral worth, and the virtue to estimate every one according to his real inner quality. Certainly, as far as I am concerned, I would not have the slightest objection to its being known everywhere that I visit, that I have opened the front door a dozen times every week during the last four years!"
Thus far the conversation had been conducted, on the part of the mother, in a perfectly calm and dignified manner. The avoidance of all appearance of excitement was as much a rule of external observance, as the cutting of a lemon or coconut pudding with a spoon, or the saturating of her bread in the gravy and sauce of her dinner plate, and thus conveying them to the masticatory cavity, instead of using so ungenteel an instrument as a knife in eating. But the bold declaration of such unheard-of opinions in genteel society, and that from her own daughter, broke down the spell of composure that had been so well assumed.
"Fool! Fool that I was!" ejaculated Mrs. Pimlico, rising quickly to her feet, and walking backwards and forwards in an agitated manner, "ever to have permitted you to become the guest of your Aunt Mary's family! I always knew that she was a woman of no breeding, but I forgot that her lack of gentility might, unhappily, be transferred to my own daughter."
"Mother!" said Helen, in a firm voice, "if there ever was a lady--Aunt Mary is one!"
Mrs. Pimlico stopped suddenly in her nervous ramble, and stared at her daughter with a look of blank amazement.
"To think that I should ever hear a child of mine make such a declaration!" she at length said, half mournfully. "Your Aunt Mary, a lady! She is one neither by birth nor education, let me tell you, Helen. She never is, and never will be a lady, although a very good woman in her way. But if she were a saint, that would not constitute her a lady. I wish you would learn to make a just discrimination between a woman of kind feelings, excellent moral character, and intelligence, all of which my brother's wife possesses--and a lady. The former we meet with in all classes, but the thorough-bred lady is not of every-day occurrence."
"I would really like to know what constitutes a lady, Mother," Helen replied. "Since I have come home, I find that, on this subject, all my previous ideas go for nothing. I thought I had been fully instructed on this subject; but it seems I have been mistaken."
"Instructed? By whom?"
"By my aunt, and by my own common sense."
"By your aunt!" (with an expression of contempt). "Would you go to a blacksmith to learn music?"
"A residence of four years with my aunt has made me so well acquainted with her character, as to cause me to love her tenderly. I cannot, therefore, hear her lightly spoken of without pain," Helen said, with much feeling.
A cutting retort trembled upon Mrs. Pimlico's tongue; but she all at once remembered that to exhibit feeling of any kind, was unfitting in a well-bred woman. She therefore contented herself with merely saying, in a cold voice,
"I never admired your aunt; you must not, therefore, be offended, if I give my reasons for not liking her."
Mrs. Pimlico was a thorough-bred woman of the world. She was a lady, in the conventional sense of that term, and belonged to that portion of society which passes not over one jot or tittle of the law of etiquette. All were judged by one unvarying standard. No matter how virtuous, how high-minded, how self-sacrificing for the good of others, any person might be--they were looked upon by her as unfit to mingle in "good society," if they were detected in any deviation, through manifest ignorance, from the social statute. An instance or two of her rigid adherence to conventional rules, will illustrate her character.
"I want to introduce you to Mr. Lionel, my dear," said Mr. Pimlico to her one evening, while they were in a large company.
"You must excuse me, Mr. Pimlico," she replied, drawing herself up with dignity. "He is not a gentleman."
"Mr. Lionel not a gentleman!" said her husband, in surprise.
"No. Didn't you notice him at Mr. Elmwood's dinner party eating fish with a knife. Who ever heard of such a thing? And worse than that: when asked by Mr. Elmwood to carve a turkey, he actually pushed back his chair, and stood up to it!"
Mr. Pimlico said no more. He knew his wife well enough, to understand that she was in earnest.
On another occasion she refused to be introduced to a gentleman, because, at a dinner party, in handing his plate to a waiter, he had laid his knife and fork straight, instead of crossed, upon it; and, after concluding the meal, instead of placing his knife and fork in parallel lines beside his plate, he had been so vulgar as to leave both knife and fork upon his plate. The lady who presided at the table on the occasion, was likewise voted by her, as not a well-bred woman, because she used a knife instead of a spoon to serve a coconut pudding, which resembles a pie, and is so treated by nearly every one. The suspicion of lack of clear pretensions to gentility in both herself and husband, was corroborated in various ways. As, for instance, the carving-knives placed by the dishes containing fowls were not short-bladed, and of the peculiar construction required the dessert-knives were of fine polished steel, instead of silver; and, worse than all, steel forks were actually placed beside each plate, as well as silver ones, thus providing for thatmost vulgar practice, the use of a steel fork as a fork, instead of a silver one as a spoon, or a scoop-shovel.
Her only daughter, Helen, had resided for four years in the family of Mrs. Pimlico's brother, who lived in the city where she had been sent to a celebrated school for young ladies. How far, in thus permitting Helen to reside from home for so many years, Mrs. Pimlico had been governed by a simple regard for the good of her child, we cannot pretend to guess. She was a proud, cold-hearted woman of fashion--one who esteemed herself better than others, just in the degree that she possessed a more minute knowledge of thearbitrary rules of etiquette, and observed them with undeviating precision. Her sister-in-law, Mrs. Goodwin, as the reader has already learned, was no favorite with her, though she had been willing to let Helen remain an inhabitant of her family for four years. The reason of her lack of a very affectionate regard for Mrs. Goodwin, grew out of the fact of their characters and ends of action being diametrically opposite. Pride ruled the one Principle the other. One was ambitious of being considered a thorough-bred woman in high life--the other of doing good. The one thought of herself, and sought to be courted and admired--the other was humble-minded, seeking not her own glory, or the praise of men, but striving to bless all around her by kind acts, kind words, and cheerful smiles. Like oil and water, therefore, they could not mingle.
Helen had completed her period of instruction and returned home about six months previous to the time of the opening of our story. It was not long before Mrs. Pimlico discovered that she was alarmingly deficient in those fine points of observance by which a thorough-bred woman is at once distinguished. This was, to her, a source of great concern and mortification. Of the nature and strength of the principles which governed her, she thought but little. These were secondary to her external accomplishments.
From the time of her return to her father's house, Helen's fellowship with her mother had not been pleasant to her. She had lived long enough with her aunt to become familiar with and to love higher and nobler ends--than those which govern a mere woman of fashion, such as she discovered her mother to be. And as she was ever violating someunmeaning rule of so-called propriety, and meeting the penalty of censure, without being sufficiently conscious of wrong to repent and amend--her days passed far less happily than those which had been spent with her aunt, where some precept of true wisdom, or some living expression of true affection, marked each peaceful hour.
Still, she loved her mother, and, for her sake, strove to act by line and rule. But the impulses of a warm and generous heart, the habit of thinking little of herself, and of being governed by the rule of right under all circumstances--were constantly leading her into some little act or other, which provoked a maternal rebuke.
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