The conductors do all in their power to mitigate the lot of unhappy strangers, and it is only now and again that you hear an absent-minded or logical one call out, ‘Castoria! all the w’y for a penny.’
We claim for our method of travelling, not that it is authoritative, but that it is simple—suitable to persons whose desires are flexible and whose plans are not fixed. It has its disadvantages, which may indeed be said of almost anything. For instance, we had gone for two successive mornings on a Cadbury’s Cocoa ‘bus to Francesca’s dressmaker in Kensington. On the third morning, deceived by the ambitious and unscrupulous Cadbury, we mounted it and journeyed along comfortably three miles to the east of Kensington before we discovered our mistake. It was a pleasant and attractive neighbourhood where we found ourselves, but unfortunately Francesca’s dressmaker did not reside there.
If you have determined to take a certain train from a certain station, and do not care for any other, no matter if it should turn out to be just as interesting, then never take a Lipton’s Tea ‘bus, for it is the most unreliable of all. If it did not sound so learned, and if I did not feel that it must have been said before, it is so apt, I should quote Horace, and say, ‘Omnibus hoc vitium est.’ There is no ‘bus unseized by the Napoleonic Lipton. Do not ascend one of them supposing for a moment that by paying fourpence and going to the very end of the route you will come to a neat tea station, where you will be served with the cheering cup. Never; nor with a draught of Cadbury’s cocoa or Nestle’s milk, although you have jostled along for nine weary miles in company with their blatant recommendations to drink nothing else, and though you may have passed other ‘buses with the same highly-coloured names glaring at you until they are burned into the grey matter of your brain, to remain there as long as the copy-book maxims you penned when you were a child.
These pictorial methods doubtless prove a source of great financial gain; of course it must be so, or they would never be prosecuted; but although they may allure millions of customers, they will lose two in our modest persons. When Salemina and I go into a cafe for tea we ask the young woman if they serve Lipton’s, and if they say yes, we take coffee. This is self-punishment indeed (in London!), yet we feel that it may have a moral effect; perhaps not commensurate with the physical effect of the coffee upon us, but these delicate matters can never be adjusted with absolute exactitude.
Sometimes when we are to travel on a Pears’ Soap ‘bus we buy beforehand a bit of pure white Castile, cut from a shrinking, reserved, exclusive bar with no name upon it, and present it to some poor woman when we arrive at our journey’s end. We do not suppose that so insignificant a protest does much good, but at least it preserves one’s individuality and self-respect.
Chapter IX. A Table of Kindred and Affinity
On one of our excursions Hilda Mellifica accompanied us, and we alighted to see the place where the Smithfield martyrs were executed, and to visit some of the very old churches in that vicinity. We found hanging in the vestibule of one of them something quite familiar to Hilda, but very strange to our American eyes: ‘A Table of Kindred and Affinity, wherein whosoever are related are forbidden in Scripture and our Laws to Marry Together.’
Salemina was very quiet that afternoon, and we accused her afterwards of being depressed because she had discovered that, added to the battalions of men in England who had not thus far urged her to marry them, there were thirty persons whom she could not legally espouse even if they did ask her!
I cannot explain it, but it really seemed in some way that our chances of a ‘sweet, safe corner of the household fire’ had materially decreased when we had read the table.
“It only goes to prove what Salemina remarked yesterday,” I said: “that we can go on doing a thing quite properly until we have seen the rule for it printed in black and white. The moment we read the formula we fail to see how we could ever have followed it; we are confused by its complexities, and we do not feel the slightest confidence in our ability to do consciously the thing we have done all our lives unconsciously.”
“Like the centipede,” quoted Salemina:—
“The Table of Kindred and Affinity is all too familiar to me,” sighed Hilda, “because we had a governess who made us learn it as a punishment. I suppose I could recite it now, although I haven’t looked at it for ten years. We used to chant it in the nursery schoolroom on wet afternoons. I well remember that the vicar called one day to see us, and the governess, hearing our voices uplifted in a pious measure, drew him under the window to listen. This is what he heard—you will see how admirably it goes! And do not imagine it is wicked: it is merely the Law, not the Gospel, and we framed our own musical settings, so that we had no associations with the Prayer Book.”
Here Hilda chanted softly, there being no one in the old churchyard:—
“A woman may not marry with her Grandfather. Grandmother’s Husband, Husband’s Grandfather.. Father’s Brother. Mother’s Brother. Father’s Sister’s Husband.. Mother’s Sister’s Husband. Husband’s Father’s Brother. Husband’s Mother’s Brother.. Father. Step-Father. Husband’s Father.. Son. Husband’s Son. Daughter’s Husband.. Brother. Husband’s Brother. Sister’s Husband.. Son’s Son. Daughter’s Son. Son’s Daughter’s Husband.. Daughter’s Daughter’s Husband. Husband’s Son’s Son. Husband’s Daughter’s Son .. Brother’s Son. Sister’s Son. Brother’s Daughter’s Husband.. Sister’s Daughter’s Husband. Husband’s Brother’s Son. Husband’s Sister’s Son.”
“It seems as if there were nobody left,” I said disconsolately, “save perhaps your Second Cousin’s Uncle, or your Enemy’s Dearest Friend.”
“That’s just the effect it has on one,” answered Hilda. “We always used to conclude our chant with the advice:—
“And if there is anybody, after this, in the universe. left to. marry.. marry him as expeditiously. as you. possibly. can.. Because there are very few husbands omitted from this table of. Kindred and. Affinity.. And it behoveth a maiden to snap them up without any delay. willing or unwilling. whenever and. wherever found.”
“We were also required to learn by heart the form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used Yearly upon the Fifth Day of November for the happy deliverance of King James I. and the Three Estates of England from the most traitorous and bloody-intended Massacre by Gunpowder; also the prayers for Charles the Martyr and the Thanksgiving for having put an end to the Great Rebellion by the Restitution of the King and Royal Family after many Years’ interruption which unspeakable Mercies were wonderfully completed upon the 29th of May in the year 1660!”