Читать книгу Over Here: Impressions of America by a British officer - Hector MacQuarrie - Страница 12

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Bethlehem, December 20, 1917.

A Country Club seems to be an American institution. We don't seem to have them. They are primarily for the folk who live in towns. American folk like to get together as much as possible and to be sociable. Please remember that all my friends here are steel people and generally rich. Some belong to quite old families, but whatever they are they have all got something attractive about them.

It would be quite possible for most of them to build huge castles in the country, and to live there during the summer, away out from the noise and dirt; but they don't. They like to be all together, so they build beautiful houses quite close up to the street, with no fences around them. Pleasant and well kept lawns go right down to the road, and anyone can walk on the grass. A single street possibly contains the houses of several wealthy families. They all rush about together and give wonderful dinners. As their number is not great, the diners ought to get a little tired of one another, but they don't seem to. I have had the honour of attending many of these dinners. They are fine. The women dress beautifully, and often tastefully and the dinner goes merrily on, everyone talking at once. We are all fearfully happy and young. No one grows up here in America. It's fine to feel young. We start off in quite a dignified fashion, but before the chicken or goose arrives we are all happy and cheerful.

It is impossible to be bored in Bethlehem at a good dinner. I suppose the object of a hostess is to make her guests happy. Most men here in Jericho work fearfully hard. Men in England often go to Paris or London to have a really hilarious time. In Bethlehem a man can be amused at home with his own wife and friends, and he certainly is. He may be fifty and a king of industry, but that does not prevent him from being the jolliest fellow in the world and brimming over with fun.

Perhaps Bethlehem is a little different from most towns in this country. A man here becomes rich; he has attained riches generally because he is a thundering good fellow—a leader of men. That is the point. One used to think of a wealthy American man as a rather vulgar person with coarse manners. American men have good manners, as a rule. They have better manners than we have, especially towards women.

Now the folk like to be in the country at times, but they don't care to be alone in enjoying it. Also, they like golf and tennis, so a club is established about six miles out from a town. The actual building is large and tastefully decorated. It displays American architecture at its very best. There are generally three large rooms with folding doors or portiéres, and beautifully carpeted. The whole floor can be turned into a dancing room with tables all around, so that one may both dance and eat. Dinner starts off mildly; one gets through the soup, looks at one's partner and mentally decides how many dances one will have with her. She may be fat, slender, skinny, beautiful; she may be old, middle aged, or a flapper, but whatever she is she can dance. It is all interesting. If one's partner is nineteen or twenty she can dance well, and it behooves a new man to be careful.

I can dance the English waltz, I believe, but I can't at present dance anything else but the one-step. I find this exhilarating, but I have to confine myself to ladies of thirty-five and upwards, who realize the situation, and we dash around in a cheerful manner, much to the annoyance of the débutante. I have not danced with any very young people yet. I would not dare.

If you are a particularly bad dancer, after the first halt, caused by the orchestra stopping, a young male friend of hers will "cut in" on you, and you are left, and your opportunity of dancing with mademoiselle for more than one length of the room is gone. American young men will never allow a débutante to suffer. In any case she arranges with a batch of young friends to "cut in" if you are seen dancing with her. It is all done very gracefully. To dance with an American débutante requires skill. She dances beautifully. Her body swings gracefully with the music, her feet seem to be elastic. At all costs you must not be at all rough. You must let your feet become as elastic as hers and delicately and gently swing with the music.

Although the fox-trot and the one-step are now in vogue, there is nothing that is not nice about these dances when danced by two young people. If your partner is a good dancer it is impossible to dance for very long with her. A sturdy swain approaches with a smile and says to you, "May I cut in?" She bows gracefully and you are lost. At all costs this must be taken cheerfully. The first time it occurred to me I replied, "Certainly not." I now know that I was guilty of a breach of etiquette.

If you are dancing with an indifferent dancer, there is no danger of being "cut in" on. If your object in dancing with a lady is purely a matter of duty, you shamelessly arrange with several friends to "cut in" on you, meanwhile promising to do likewise for them. Ungallant this, but it ensures the lady having a dance with several people which perhaps she would not otherwise get, and she understands. Generally speaking there are no "wall flowers." They retire upstairs to powder their noses.

There is the mature lady, fair, fat and forty, who dances about with a cheery fellow her own age. Enjoyment shines from their faces as they one-step, suggesting a quick stately march let loose. The lady wears a broad hat suitably decorated and a "shirtwaist" of fitting dimensions. A string of pearls encircles her neck. One sees charming stockings, and beautiful shoes covering quite small feet. This must be a great compensation to a woman at her prime—her feet. They can be made charming when nicely decorated. The face is generally good looking and sometimes looks suitably wicked. It is well powdered, and perhaps just a little rouged. One sees some wonderful diamonds, too.

Perhaps I have seen things just a little vaguely owing to American cocktails. We can't make cocktails in England as they do in America, and that is a fact. The very names given to them here are attractive: Jack Rose, Clover Club, Manhattan, Bronx, and numerous others. They are well decorated, too.

The really exciting time at a country club is on Saturday night. In Bethlehem where there are no theatres, all the fashionable folk motor out to the country club for dinner. Generally the dancing space is fairly crowded and a little irritating for the débutantes. Still they are quite good-natured about it and only smile when a large freight locomotive in the form of mama and papa collides with them.

After about fifteen minutes, while one is eating an entrée, the music starts, and if your partner consents, you get up and dance for about ten minutes and then return to the entrée, now cold. This goes on during the whole dinner. I wonder if it aids digestion.

After dinner we all leave the tables and spread ourselves about the large rooms. The ladies generally sit about, and the men go downstairs. This presents possibilities. However, most of one's time is spent upstairs with the women folk. Dancing generally goes on until about midnight, and then the more fashionable among us go into the house of a couple of bachelors. Here we sit about and have quite diverting times. Finally at about two o'clock we adjourn to our respective homes and awake in the morning a little tired. However, this is compensated for by the cocktail party the next day.

What pitfalls there are for the unwary!

One night, during a party at the club, a very great friend of mine asked me to come over to her house at noon the next day. I took this, in my ignorance, to be an invitation to lunch, and the next morning I called her up and said that I had forgotten at what time she expected me to lunch. "Come along at twelve o'clock, Mac," she replied. I found crowds of people there and wondered how they were all going to be seated at the table, and then I understood. I tried to leave with the others at about twelve forty-five, but my hostess told me that she expected me to stay for lunch. Of course, she had to do this, owing to my mentioning lunch when I called up. Still it was a little awkward.

About cocktail parties—well, I don't quite know. I rather suspect that they are bad things. They always seem to remind me of the remark in the Bible about the disciples when they spake with tongues and some one said: "These men are wine bibbers." I rather think that cocktail parties are a form of wine bibbing. Still they play an important part in the life of some people, and I had better tell you about them. As a matter of fact, quite a large number of people at a cocktail party don't drink cocktails at all, and in any case, they are taken in a very small shallow glass. The sort one usually gets at a cocktail party is the Bronx or Martini variety. The former consists, I believe, largely of gin and orange juice and has a very cheering effect. People mostly walk about and chat about nothing in particular. They are generally on their way home from church and nicely dressed.

It is unpleasant to see girls drinking cocktails. Our breeding gives us all a certain reserve of strength to stick to our ideals. A few cocktails, sometimes even one, helps to knock this down and the results are often regrettable. People talk about things sometimes that are usually regarded as sacred and there are children about, for the next in power after madame in an American household is the offspring of the house. Still quite nice American girls drink cocktails, although nearly always their men folk dislike it. In Bethlehem, however, I have never seen a girl friend drink anything stronger than orangeade. That is what I love about my friends in Bethlehem. Some of them have had a fairly hard struggle to get on. They don't whine about it or even boast, but they are firmly decided in their effort to give their daughters every opportunity to be even more perfect gentlewomen than they are naturally. Still some quite young American girls drink cocktails and then become quite amusing and very witty, and one decides that they are priceless companions, but out of the question as wives.

When a Britisher marries a French or a Spanish girl, there are often difficulties before she becomes accustomed to her new environment. Neither American people nor English people expect any difficulties at all when their children intermarry. And yet they do occur, and are either humourous or tragic, quite often the latter. So I would say to the Britisher, if you ever marry an American girl, look out. She will either be the very best sort of wife a man could possibly have, or she will be the other thing. It will be necessary for you to humour her as much as possible. Like a horse with a delicate mouth, she requires good hands. Don't marry her unless you love her. Don't marry her for her money, or you will regret it. She is no fool and she will expect full value for all she gives. The terrible thing is that she may believe you to be a member of the aristocracy, and she will expect to go about in the very best society in London. If you are not a member of the smart set and take her to live in the country she may like it all right, but the chances are that she will cry a good deal, get a bad cold, which will develop into consumption, and possibly die if you don't take her back to New York. She will never understand the vicar's wife and the lesser country gentry, and she will loathe the snobbishness of some of the county people. In the process, she will find you out, and may heaven help you for, as Solomon said: "It is better to live on the housetop than inside with a brawling woman," and she will brawl all right. I have heard of some bitter experiences undergone by young American women.

There is, of course, no reason in the world why an English fellow should not marry an American girl if he is fond of her and she will have him. But it is a little difficult. Sometimes a Britisher arrives here with a title and is purchased by a young maiden with much money, possibly several millions, and he takes her back to Blighty. Some American girls are foolish. The people perhaps dislike her accent and her attitude towards things in general. He does not know it, of course, but she has not been received by the very nicest people in her own city, not because they despise her, but merely because they find the people they have known all their lives sufficient. You see it is a little difficult for the child. In America she has been, with the help of her mother perhaps, a social mountaineer. Social mountaineering is not a pleasing experience for anyone, especially in America, but we all do it a little, I suppose. It is a poor sort of business and hardly worth while. When this child arrives in England she may be definitely found wanting in the same way that she may have been found wanting in American society, and she is naturally disappointed and annoyed. When annoyed she will take certain steps that will shock the vicar's wife, and possibly she will elope with the chauffeur, all of which will be extremely distressing, though it will be the fellow's own fault. Of course, she may love him quite a lot, but she will probably never understand him. I am not sure that she will always be willing to suffer. Why should she?