Chapter X: Husband and Wife

It was not till later in the day that I had an opportunity of continuing my conversation with Maud, and when I did I took it up where we had left it, and said: "Well, at any rate there is no 'under side' to the Miles 'pancake'! Miles, I should explain, is the 'Nanny' or nurse.

"Really," said she, "that is almost literally true. She is wonderful."

"Why is it," I asked, "that we have never been able to get anything like that at home? When I think of the Irish nurses who are kind and faithful, no doubt, but quite untruthful, and speak with an Irish-American accent which is making the English language, as spoken in America, the most unmusical tongue in the world, and then see how these English children are taught, almost from the cradle, to speak clearly, softly, and musically, I am ashamed of the way in which we have wasted our heritage. Why is it we cannot find women like our trained nurses who would undertake the task of training the children to speak the language of Shakespeare, of which we hear so much and speak so little? Why is it not as interesting to teach good manners to the leaders of our future society as to keep their pampered little bodies healthy? Why are the girls who are starving on the pay of a school-teacher unwilling to undertake the fundamental education of the favored classes, not as menials, but as honored and respected friends, treated exactly as our trained nurses are? Why is it?"

"For mercy's sake stop," cried Maud. "You make my head swim with your 'whys'! If I try to answer any of your questions you will say I am talking like Thomas."

"Never mind whom you talk like, if only you answer them," I replied.

"Well, I don't believe any one can answer them all, but one difficulty in the importation of the 'Nanny' is that you do not understand the secret spring of English life, _i.e._, of people of a certain position. Of course a nursery like this cannot be found in a house of people of small means. The head nurse is waited on by the second nurse, and is obeyed by the other servants. She does not take her meals in the servants' hall, but is served in the nursery. She holds the position of an N.C.O. in the army. The whole American household would have to be changed to make way for the English nurse."

"Very likely," I said, "but why should that not be done? Look how the rich at home ape the English with their silly footmen and insolent butlers! Surely they could find a place for such a nurse as Miles, who would teach their children to be interested in simple things and to use their voices so that speaking would be like singing. Why, I know English children of nine years of age who have a vocabulary which a sophomore with us might envy! Only yesterday when I stopped Edward when he was on his way to work in his garden, he said: 'Excuse me, Aunt Ruth, but my business is rather urgent!' 'Urgent!' Could President Eliot have said better? And yet he is far from being a prig. Indeed, to speak frankly, he is a limb! I tell you what the American home would have to do first: it would have to dispense with the services of the trained nurse! I wouldn't admit it to an Englishwoman, but the trained nurse is an American institution because so many women 'enjoy ill health.' Think how many houses there are where, if the mother needs a holiday, say for a week or so, the trained nurse is installed, and the temperature of a healthy child is taken three times a day! Think of the 'homes' where the trained nurse is kept by the year! Is it any wonder Christian Science makes headway? It is the inevitable reaction from all this fussing about disease. I hope the day will come when it will be an 'unseemly' thing to speak of sickness. We spread contagion with our tongues!"

"Whose talking like some one now?" said Maud. "You sound like John." Then, when she had finished laughing at her own wit, she continued: "After all, you are talking about a very limited class, what papa used to call 'fluff.'"

"That may be; still there are many people who could well afford to pay an English nurse what they are paying a trained nurse and save money by so doing."

"Yes, but it is more than a question of money--indeed, money has nothing to do with it. The truth is the 'Nanny' is the last blooming of the feudal system. These women have the hearts of the old retainers. They identify themselves with the families they serve, and are as proud of the children as if they were their own. Can you imagine Miles taking a place with the Rosenthals? No, she is a part of this family, and the children no more think of parting with her than with me. As long as she lives she will be a part of their lives. The mails from all over the world bring letters to the 'Nannies' from men whose names the whole world knows. So, while you might import Miles, you could not graft her into a social democracy! A certain noble lord was once accused of being a 'snob.' He laughingly replied: 'You should see my Nanny!'

"Then there is another difficulty--such people as Alice Burns and Elsie Graham, who do not see their children once a week, who meet the doctor, for whom the trained nurse sent, as they leave the house to go to dinner or to the opera, and ask him if 'it' is contagious, but are afraid to go and see for themselves, might be willing to have such an one as Miles, if it became the fashion, but the typical American mother would not allow another woman to have such authority over her children as the English nurse has. It is she who decides whether the children shall be dosed, whether they should be punished, and whether their conduct has been such as to justify their appearance at lunch, or, if so, whether they deserve 'sweets'! Can you imagine Mrs. Sherburne allowing that--or Mr. Sherburne, either?"

I had to admit that I should not like that side of it.

"Then," said Maud, "you had better give up all thoughts of Miles!"

"But how do English mothers like it?"

"They accept it as part of the universe, like vegetable marrow and cold rooms! But there is something more that I do not suppose you can understand. Englishwomen do not crave the society of their children as American women do, because they have the companionship of their husbands to a degree unknown at home."

"You must be crazy! There is more true companionship between husbands and wives in America than anywhere else in the world."

"Don't get excited," said Maud. "It is not the Fourth of July! I was not speaking of quality but of quantity. The management of the household is not left to women, as it is at home. The husband and wife consult about a thousand things that American husbands know nothing about. If the husband is in politics, as Thomas is, the wife visits the constituency and makes speeches as well as the man. At any dinner you will notice that the women talk politics as intelligently as the men do. Such intellectual companionship would be impossible if the woman were tied down to the nursery. How many really intelligent men does one meet at a dinner-party in Boston or New York? They will not accept such invitations, because the women are not their intellectual companions. They are beautifully gowned and lovely to look at, but they expect to be admired every minute! Then take the institution of 'the week-end.' If people are not stopping here, Thomas and I are off to some other house. I have a quiet mind because Miles is here. No, a 'Nanny' is as necessary in an English house as is an N.C.O. in the army, for the rules of the house are equally strict."

Some of those rules strike us as queer. For instance, even when only the family is present, dinner is a formal affair. Instead of gathering in the hall as before lunch, we assemble in the drawing-room, and when the hour strikes, the butler appears and announces: "Dinner is served, Sir Thomas!" I confess when I first heard that, my eyebrows went up a trifle. Maud saw it and laughed. "Yes," she said, "I felt that way at first, and told Thomas that if the butler thought he could ignore me, he was mistaken!"

"I think, my dear, what you said was that 'he had another guess coming,'" said Thomas, with a smile.

"I 'guess' I did," laughed Maud. "At any rate, now that I understand the reason, I submit, I hope, gracefully."

"You could not do anything otherwise," he replied.

"Well," I exclaimed, "when the billing and cooing are over, I too should like to know the reason."

"Every country has its customs," said Sir Thomas, I thought a bit stolidly. "America has hers and England hers. The difference is that the English can give a reason for theirs, whereas I doubt if Americans always can."

I saw he was trying to get a "rise" out of me and so answered: "Such as?"

"Well, for instance, if a man goes to church in America, he takes the aisle seat, and if a lady enters he steps out and allows her to pass, instead of moving up as an Englishman would do. Is there any reason for that?"

"Certainly," I answered. "That is a survival of the custom of the early days when the men went to church carrying their flintlocks, which they might be called upon to use against the Indians at any minute, and could not wait for the women and children to clear the way."

"That strikes me as an interesting explanation of the origin of a custom rather than as a reason for its continuance. Indeed, I would suggest that it is a custom that might be discontinued with advantage, for it seems to have been carried from the church to the trams, and is, I suppose, accountable for the existence of what I have seen in the American papers called 'the end-seat hog.'"

We all laughed at this, but I said it looked to me like a red herring.

But he said: "No, the English custom of having the host rather than the hostess notified of the serving of dinner is not merely a survival from the days when women counted for little, but has a practical value to-day. Inasmuch as the host is expected to 'take in' the lady of leading rank, it is of consequence that he, and not the hostess, who comes last, should be informed when the procession should start."

I must say that seems a reasonable explanation. And when I think of the confusion that is apt to follow at home when we try to be formal--as, for instance, when the host is talking to the prettiest girl in the room up to the last minute, and his wife has to inform him that dinner is ready, because his charmer has been so engrossing that he has not heard the butler, and he hastens to escort the "lady" of a congressman, I am inclined to think we had better follow the English way or else revert to the primitive custom of "choosing partners"!

You will think I have been reading the _Countess_, or one of the other papers which teach the middle classes to ape the aristocracy, and are probably muttering: "What earthly difference does it make to us what are the customs of a society which is soon to pass away?" But you are wrong. This particular thing is of no value, as you and I both know. The point is, we Americans are continually saying that the English do not understand us. Do we understand them? If we would take the trouble to learn the reason for some of our differences, would it not do more for the peace of the world than all those stupid banquets, with their talk about "our common blood," when every one knows that at least a third of those present have not a drop of English blood in their veins, and some of them, as Roosevelt is reported to have said, "thank God for it"?

John is calling to know if I intend to type all night, and you will long ago have wished that I would stop! Well, you will not be troubled by me soon again, for to-morrow we start on our trip, and John will want to tell you about it himself.