Kitabı oku: «Marge Askinforit», sayfa 5
Sixth Extract
TESTIMONIALS—ROYAL APPRECIATION
Being what I am, it may readily be supposed that I have received many tributes to the qualities that I possess. I have already exposed many of these to the public gaze, still have some left, and it seems to me a pity that my readers should miss any of the evidence. The first testimonial is from my sister Casey, and a melancholy interest is attached to it. It was the last one she wrote for me before I took the momentous step which will be described in my last chapter:
“Marge Askinforit has been in my service for eight years. I should not be parting with her but for the fact that I am compelled by reasons of health to leave England. Askinforit is clean, sober, honest, an early riser, an excellent plate-cleaner and valet, has perfect manners and high intelligence, takes a great pride in her work, and is most willing, obliging and industrious. She was with me as parlour-maid (first of two), and now seeks temporary employment in that capacity; but there is no branch of domestic service with which she is not thoroughly well acquainted, and when the occasion has arisen she has always been willing to undertake any duties, and has done so with unfailing success. She is tall, of good appearance, Church of England (or anything else that is required), and anybody who secures such a treasure will be exceptionally fortunate. I shall be pleased at any time to give any further information that may be desired.
“(Mrs.) C. Morgenstein.”
I do not say that dear Casey’s estimate had the arid accuracy of the pedant, but she had a rich and helpful imagination. In rare moments of depression and unhappiness I have found that by reading one of her testimonials I can always recover my tone. And they were effective for their purpose. By this time I was accepting no situations except with titled people; and some of the language that I heard used suggested to me that the reclamation of baronets during their dinner-hour might after all be my life’s work.
The next exhibit will be a letter from a famous author, a complete stranger to me, whose work I had long known and admired:
“Dear Madam, For a long time past it has been my privilege to express in the daily newspapers my keen and heartfelt appreciation of a certain departmental store. I thought that I knew my work. I believe even that it gave satisfaction. I could begin an article with fragments of moral philosophy, easily intelligible and certain of general acceptance, modulate with consummate skill into the key of crêpe de chine, and with a further natural and easy transition reach the grand theme of the glorious opportunities offered by a philanthropical Oxford Street to a gasping and excited public. Or I would adopt with grace and facility the attitude of a prejudiced and hostile critic, show how cold facts and indisputable figures reversed my judgment, and end with a life-like picture of myself heading frantically in a No. 16 ’bus for the bargain basement, haunted by the terror that I might be too late. With what dignity—even majesty—did I not invest an ordinary transaction in lingerie, when I spoke of ‘the policy of this great House’! Yes, I believed I knew what there was to know of the supreme art of writing an advertisement.
“But now the mists roll away and I see as it were remote peaks of delicate and implicating advertising the existence of which I had never suspected. It is to you I owe it. You have a theme that you probably find inexhaustible. Fired by your example I shall turn to my own subject (Government linen at the moment) with a happy consciousness that I shall do a far, far better thing than I have ever done before.
“Your obedient servant,“Callisthenides.”
Of this letter I will only say that few have the courage and candour to acknowledge an inferiority and an indebtedness, and fewer still could have done it in the vicious and even succulent style of the above. It is a letter that I read often and value highly. The only trouble about it is that I sometimes wonder if it was not really intended for another lady whose name has one or two points of similarity with my own.
I cannot refrain from quoting also one of the many letters that I received from my dear old friend, Mr. J. A. Bunting:
“And now I must turn to your request for a statement of my opinion of you, to be published in case an autobiography should set in. It was I who introduced you to a certain circle. That circle, though to me an open sessimy, was no doubt particular, and I confess that I felt some hesitation. Through no fault of your own, you were at that time in a position which was hardly up to our level. But I admired your spirit and thought your manners, of which I can claim to be a good judge, had the correct cashy, though with rather too much tendency to back-chat. At any rate, I took the step, and I have never regretted it. You soon made your way to the front, and it is my firm belief that if you had been dropped into a den of raging lions you would have done the same thing. You are much missed. You have my full permission to make what use you please of this testimonial, which is quite unsolicited, and actuated solely by an appreciation of the goods supplied.
“Society in London is very so-so at present, and we leave for Scotland at the end of the week. His lordship’s had one fit of his tantrums, but I had a look in my eye that ipsum factum soon put an end to it. I wish it was as easy to put a stop to his leaning to third-class company. Three ordinary M.P.’s at dinner last night and one R.A. I always did hate riff-raff, and should say it was in my blood.”
Unfortunately, it is not everybody who will put into writing, with the simple manliness of Mr. Bunting, the very high opinion of me which they must inevitably have formed. Even George Leghorn has proved a disappointment. But in his case I am inclined to think there was a misunderstanding.
I asked him to send his opinion of me as I thought of making a book. He replied on a postcard: “Don’t approve of women in the profession, and you’d better cut it out. It’s hard enough for a man bookmaker to scrape a living, with everybody expecting the absurd prices quoted in the press.”
Many of the contemporary testimonials that I have received are so cautiously framed and so wanting in warmth that I decline to make any use of them. I have always hated cowardice. I have the courage of my opinions. Why cannot others have the same.
However, I have through my sister Chlorine succeeded in securing the opinions of some of the greatest in another century. I can only say that they confirm my belief in her powers as a medium, and in her wonderful system of wireless telephony.
The first person that I asked her to ring up was Napoleon. She had some difficulty in getting through. He spoke as follows:
“Yes, I am Napoleon. Oh, that’s you, Chlorine, is it?… Quite well, thank you, but find the heat rather oppressive.... You want my opinion of your sister Marge? She is wonderful—wonderful! Tell her from me that if I had but married her when I was a young man, I am confident that Wellington would have met his Waterloo.”
I think he would have liked to say more, but unfortunately the receiver fused. I think it showed such nice feeling in him that he spoke English. Poor Chlorine knows no French.
After the apparatus had been repaired, Chlorine got into communication with Sir Joshua Reynolds. She said that his voice had a fruity ceremoniousness, and I wish I could have heard it. But I have not Chlorine’s gift of mediumship. Sir Joshua said:
“The more I see of your sister Marge, the more I regret the time that I spent on Mrs. Siddons, who was also theatrical; my compliment that I should go down to posterity on the hem of her garment was not ill-turned, but she is more likely to go down to posterity as the subject of my art. Why, even Romney would have been good enough for her. Could I but have painted Marge, my fame had been indeed immortal. Who’s President?… Well, you surprise me.”
To prevent any possibility of incredulity, I may add that I wrote those words down at the time, added the date and address, and signed them; so there can be no mistake.
But far more interesting is the important and exclusive communication which Chlorine next received. It was only after much persuasion that I got her to ring him up; she said it was contrary to etiquette. However, she at last put through a call to Sir Herbert Taylor, who kindly arranged the matter for us.
He—not Sir Herbert—showed the greatest readiness to converse. Chlorine says that he spoke in a quick staccato. He was certainly voluble, and this is what he said:
“What, what, what? Want my opinion of marriage, do you, Miss Forget-your-name? I had a long experience of it. Estimable woman, Charlotte, very estimable, and made a good mother, though she showed partiality. If I’d had my own way though—between ourselves, what, what?—I should have preferred Sarah. More lively, more entertaining. Holland would have been pleased. But it couldn’t be done. Monarchs are the servants of ministers now. Never admitted that doctrine myself. Kicked against it all my life. Ah, if North had been the strong man I was! But as to marriage....
“What, what? You said ‘Marge’—not ‘marriage’—your sister Marge? You should speak more clearly. Get nearer the receiver—age plays havoc with the hearing. Fine woman, Marge, and you can tell her I said so. Great spirit. Plenty of courage. Always admired courage. If I were a young man and back on earth again, I might do worse, what, what?”
And then I am sorry to say he changed the subject abruptly. He went on:
“What’s this about King Edward potatoes? Stuff and nonsense! I knew all about potatoes. Grew them at Windsor. Kew too. Wrote an article about them. Why can’t they name a potato after me? What?”
Here Chlorine interposed: “Do you wish for another three minutes, sir, or have you finished?”
I hoped he would say, “Don’t cut us off,” but, possibly from habits of economy, he did not. I have not given his name, for fear of being thought indiscreet, but possibly those who are deeply read in history may guess it.
It is the greatest tribute but one that I have ever received, and I think brings me very nearly up to the level of my Great Example. If I could only feel that for once I had done that, I could fold my little hands and be content.
But it is not quite the greatest tribute of all. The greatest is my own self-estimate of me myself. It demands and shall receive a chapter all to itself. Wipe your feet, take off your hat, assume a Sunday expression, and enter upon it reverently.
After all, the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us is not to be desired. In your case for certain it would cause you the most intense depression. Even in my own case I doubt if it would give me the same warm, pervading glow of satisfaction that obtain from a more Narcissan procedure.
By the way, ought one to say “self-estimate” or “self-esteem”? What a silly girl I am! I quite forgot.
Seventh Extract
SELF-ESTIMATE
More trouble. Determined to give an estimate of myself based on the best models, I turned to the pages of my Great Example, and ran into the following sentence:
“I do not propose to treat myself like Mr. Bernard Shaw in this account.”
Does this mean that she does not propose to treat herself as if she were Mr. Bernard Shaw? It might. Does it mean that she does not propose to treat herself as Mr. Bernard Shaw treats her? It is not impossible.
What one wants it to mean is: “I do not propose to treat myself as Mr. Bernard Shaw treats himself.” But if she had meant that, she would have said it.
I backed away cautiously, and, a few lines further on, fell over her statement that she has a conception of beauty “not merely in poetry, music, art and nature, but in human beings.” No doubt. And I have a conception of slovenly writing not merely in her autobiography, but in its seventeenth chapter.
I had not gone very much further in that same chapter before I was caught in the following thicket:
“I have got china, books, whips, knives, matchboxes, and clocks given me since I was a small child.”
If these things were given her since she was a small child, they might have been given her on the day she wrote—in which case it would not have been remarkable that she still possessed them. The nearest way out of the jungle would be to substitute “when” for “since.” But it is incredible that she should have thought of two ways of saying the same thing, let them run into one another, and sent “The Sunday Times” the mess resulting from the collision.
She must be right. Mr. Balfour said she was the best letter-writer he knew. With generous reciprocity she read Mr. Balfour’s books and realized without external help “what a beautiful style he wrote.”
And for goodness sake don’t ask me how you write a style. You do it in precisely the same way that you cook a saucepan—that is, by the omission of the word “in.”
Yet one more quotation from the last column of the last extract:
“If I had to confess and expose one opinion of myself which might differentiate me a little from other people, I should say it was my power of love coupled with my power of criticism.”
No, never mind. The power of love is not an opinion; and in ending a sentence it is just as well to remember how you began it. But I absolutely refuse to let my simple faith be shaken. She records the bones that she has broken, but John Addington Symonds told her that she retained “l’oreille juste.” Her husband said she wrote well, and he must know. Besides, am I to be convinced in my penultimate chapter that anything can be wrong with the model I have followed? Certainly not. It would be heartbreaking.
Besides, the explanation is quite simple. When she wrote that last instalment in “The Sunday Times,” the power of criticism had gone to have the valves ground in.
I will now ask your kind attention for my estimate of me, Marge Askinforit, by myself.
There is just one quality which I claim to have in an even greater degree than my prototype. She is unlike real life—no woman was ever like what any woman supposes herself to be—but I am far more unlike real life. I have more inconsistency, more self-contradiction, more anachronism, more impossibility. In fact, I sometimes feel as if some fool of a man were just making me up as he went along.
And the next article? Yes, my imagination.
I have imagination of a certain kind. It has nothing to do with invention or fancy. It is not a mental faculty at all. It is not physical. Neither is it paralysis, butterscotch, or three spades re-doubled. I should so much like to give some idea of it if I had any. Perhaps an instance will help.
I remember that I once said to the Dean of Belial that I thought the naming of a Highland hotel “The Light Brigade” showed a high degree of imagination.
“Half a moment,” said the Dean. “I think I know that one. No—can’t get it. Why was the hotel called that?”
“Because of its terrific charges.”
“Yes,” he said wearily. “I’ve heard it. But”—more brightly—“can you tell me why a Highland regiment was called ‘The Black Watch’?”
“I can, Massa Johnson. Because there’s a ‘b’ in both.”
“Wrong again. It’s because there’s an ‘e’ in each.”
I gave him a half-nelson to the jaw and killed him, and the entire company then sung “Way down upon de Swannee Ribber,” with harmonium accompaniment, thus bringing the afternoon performance to a close. The front seats were half empty, but then it was late in the season, and looked like rain, and—
Certainly, I can stop if you like. But you do see what I mean, don’t you? The imagination is something that runs away with you. If I were to let mine get away with me, it would knock this old autobiography all to splinters.
But I do not appear to have the kind of imagination that makes me know what will hurt people’s feelings. If I love people I always tell them what their worst faults are, and repeat what everybody says about them behind their back. That ought to make people say: “Thank you, Marge, for your kind words. They will help me to improve myself.” It has not happened yet. It is my miraculous power of criticism that causes the trouble. Whenever I let it off the lead it seems to bite somebody; a muzzle has been suggested.
The other day I said to Popsie Bantam: “You’re quite right to bob your hair, Popsie. When you have not got enough of anything, always try to persuade people that you want less. But your rouge-et-noir make-up is right off the map. If you could manage to get some of the colours in some of the right places, people would laugh less. And I can never quite decide whether it’s your clothes that are all wrong, or if it’s just your figure. I wish you’d tell me. Anyhow, you should try for a job at a photographer’s—you’re just the girl for a dark-room.”
Really, that’s all I said—just affectionate, lambent, helpful criticism, with a little Tarragon in it. Yet next day when I met her on the staircase she said she didn’t want to talk to me any more. So I heaved her over the balustrade and she had a forty-foot drop on to the marble below. I am too impulsive—I have always said so. Rather a pathetic touch was that she died just as the ambulance reached the hospital. I have lost quite a lot of nice friends in this way.
With the exception of a few teeny-weeny murders, I do not think I have done anything in my life that I regret. And even the murders—such as they were—were more the fault of my circumstances than of myself. If, as I have always wished, I had lived alone on a desert island, I should never have killed anybody at all. But when you go into the great world (basement entrance) and have a bad night, or the flies are troublesome, you do get a feeling of passionate economy; you realize that there are people you can do without, and you do without them. This is the whole truth about a little failing of which my detractors have made the most. Calumny and exaggeration have been carried to such an extent that more than once I have been accused of being habitually irritable.
My revered model wrote that she had always been a collector “of letters, old photographs of the family, famous people and odds and ends.” I have not gone quite as far as this.
I have collected odds, and almost every autumn I roam over the moors and fill a large basket with them, but I have never collected ends.
I do want to collect famous people, but for want of a little education I have not been able to do it. I simply do not know whether it is best to keep them in spirits of wine, or to have them stuffed in glass cases—like the canaries and the fish that you could not otherwise believe in. I have been told that really the best way is to press them between the leaves of some very heavy book, such as an autobiography, but I fancy they lose much of their natural brilliance when treated in this way.
Another difficulty is that the ordinary cyanide bottles that you buy at the naturalist’s, though excellent for moths, are not really large enough to hold a full-sized celebrity. At the risk of being called a sentimentalist, I may say that I do not think I could kill famous people by any method that was not both quick and painless. If anything like cruelty were involved in their destruction, I would sooner not collect them at all, but just make a study of them in their wild state.
I am only a poor little girl, and I can find nothing whatever on the subject in any reference book in the public reading-room. I need expert advice. There is quite a nice collection of famous—and infamous—people near Baker Street Station, but I am told these are only simulacra. That would not suit me at all. I am far too genuine, downright, and truthful to put up with anything less than the real thing.
There must be some way of doing it. I should like to have a stuffed M.P. in a glass case at each end of the mantelpiece in my little boudoir. They need not be of the rarest and most expensive kinds. A pretty Labour Member with his mouth open and a rustic background, and a Coalitionist lightly poised on the fence, would please me.
