~ CHAPTER VII. ~

How they cross the Atlantic—What the ladies of 2000 do—Miss Adams—Has the female sex degenerated?—The picture gallery—Miss Adams again, a little too much of her this time

When we had arrived home I made my way to my bedroom, had a wash, and changed my clothes. Adams, you know, had let me into the secret of the wardrobe. Then I went down to the morning-room, where we had had breakfast. There were a lot of papers lying about, and I took up one to pass the time. The first thing that caught my eye was a heading, “A Fast Trip to America.” I wonder what they have reduced the Atlantic record to now, I thought; I expect it will almost be under the five days. You can judge of my astonishment when I read:

“The fastest trip yet made to America by the Transatlantic Tubular Railway was achieved yesterday. The 10 o’clock car from London arrived at New York at 12:32, thus taking only two hours and thirty-two minutes, and beating the last record by thirteen minutes. The stoppage at the half-way station was abolished, which saved some minutes. It will be some time before this record is broken.”

“So I should expect,” I said to myself, laying down the papers as Adams joined me.

“Been amusing yourself with the papers?” he said.

“Yes,” I replied. “I see they have been making a very fast trip to America.”

“Oh, they are always at that,” he answered; “anything under three hours is good.”

“But, by Jove, I would not like to risk myself for three hours under the Atlantic,” I said. “Is that tubular railway quite safe?”

“Safe?—yes, there has not been an accident since it started. The world is a very small place now. You can go right round it in a day, and feel as if you had never left your own house. What do you think of that?”

“Well, I told you I was not going to be surprised at anything more. So I’m not. I won’t be astonished even if you inform me you take a trip to the moon occasionally for change of air. But, I forgot, they’ve got no air there, have they?”

“No, we’ve not got that length,” he replied, “we’ll leave that for another generation or two. The legacy left in your own day for that purpose hasn’t been claimed yet. By the by, my sister has come home. I saw her and explained about you. She is quite agreeable to let you remain incog. for the present, but is very anxious to see you. You mustn’t be surprised when you see her, however; for women, I must tell you, don’t dress as they did in your days, but clothe themselves just as we men do. You can’t tell the difference between the sexes at a glance, as in your day.”

“That will account for my not seeing any ladies, as I thought, in the street.”

“Yes, that’s it, you would not be able to distinguish them from men; and, in fact, in a business capacity, they are on an equality with men. More than half of all our eminent lawyers, ministers, and doctors are women; there are more women in Parliament than men, and in the public offices, such as banks, & c., all the clerks are women. There is not such a thing as a male clerk now. All we men have got to do is to play golf, while the women do all the work.”

“What!” I cried, slapping my knee, “the dream of my former existence come true! I am, indeed, a lucky man to see it. The women working while the men play golf! Splendid! The world is evidently getting things ship-shape. But you have the nineteenth century to thank for it. ’Twas we first began to give golf its proper position as a chief end of man; for generations it has been developing, and you now reap the fruits. Oh, how I would like to wake up some of my old chums! I know a few who would appreciate the arrangement.”

“Come along in the meantime,” said Adams, with a smile at my enthusiasm, “and I will introduce you to my sister.”

We went up to what I may call the pink drawing-room. Seated at a table, writing, we found what I took to be another man. She—for I rightly concluded this was my host’s sister—rose on our approach.

“Allow me to introduce you to my sister, Mr. Gibson,” said my companion.

She held out her hand.

“I am very pleased to see you once more in the full possession of all your faculties, Mr. Gibson. Yours has, indeed, been a wonderful case. We have been so accustomed to see you lying as if you were dead. In fact, I used to think you were really dead, in spite of what the doctors said; but I am very glad to see you restored to health instead. How do you like the way we live now?”

“You are very kind, Miss Adams,” I said. “I am charmed with everything I either hear or see in this wonderful age. In my days we did not live as it seems to me now. And yet they were happy days too; the memory of some of them I would not exchange for anything in this new and wonderful world.”

“Ah, true!” she replied. “Old associations cling to one. Yours has been a unique experience, to have lived in two ages. And yours was a queer old hum­drum world compared with this.”

“Indeed, I can assure you,” I said, “we did not consider it a queer old humdrum world, but quite the reverse. Who knows but that in another hundred years or so you too will be out of date? But I am very pleased with the position the ladies occupy now. I was always a women’s rights man. I used to say if they wanted to take upon them a share in matters we thought they knew nothing about, and so relieve us of our responsibilities, why, let ’em. Then we shall have all the more leisure for golf and amusement. Why should their sweet voices not be heard in public, and if they were allowed to speak more in public, they might take it into their contrary little heads to speak less in private. You must not think me rude though,” I added, “it’s an old-world argument. The ladies of the present day are all that is charming, I am sure; even this wonderful age cannot change that.”

She smiled.

“That is an old-world compliment,” she said; “men do not pay compliments now-a-days, they have no time, or, rather, the women have none to spare for listening to them. And you are a golfer? My brother will be able to show you plenty that will interest you in that line. It is all the men can employ themselves with—golf, golf, golf, is the one cry.”

“Ah,” I said, “they play golf in a way that was never even dreamt of in my day. The clubs quite confuse me, and the scoring is extraordinary. And the caddies!—”

She held up her hands in protest—the gesture at least was feminine.

“Ah,” she said; “there it begins. And I have such a quantity of work to get through before dinner!” Therewith she withdrew—rather abruptly I thought.

Adams apologised, becomingly, speaking of his sister at the same time with a very deferential air, and in quite a tone of pride.

“She is a member of Parliament, you see, and a very rising one too. Women make very good legislators but for one thing, and that is, for a paltry victory over a rival, or to pay off a private spite, they would let the country go to the dogs. Though every generation produces cleverer women than the last, that narrow-minded rivalry or jealousy seems to be ingrained in the sex, and though they improve in other respects, in that respect they get worse; it seems to get intensified as the race gets older. For that reason few ladies get into the Cabinet, and we have never yet had a female Prime Minister; though, to be sure, there is a great talk that the next Prime Minister will be a woman. However, we men don’t take much interest in these things; we leave the ladies to fight it out among themselves, and they don’t betray our trust, they do fight it out.”

“From what you have said,” I replied, “it seems to me that the female sex, if you will excuse me saying so, has degenerated. The ladies in my day did not bother themselves about politics—though, to be sure, they were all great home rulers. Home was their kingdom, and right well they used to govern it. They shared our joys and sorrows; in success, they were the first we turned to; in adversity, we went to them. What would a sick room have been without a woman to anticipate our every want, to smooth the pillow, and to give us a feeling of security that what could be done would be done? From the time they bring us into the world till we leave it they look after us; and after our course is run, who is it but a woman who performs those last sad offices, and leaves us at rest for ever?” And as I finished I remembered one, one whom I had loved; ah, me, she must have died about seventy years ago, and perhaps a grandmother for all I know.

“Ah, well,” he added, “I daresay it strikes you women have changed scarcely for the better. Yet, do you know, from their point of view, it is we who have degenerated! and” (this was said with a sigh) “we certainly are no longer the lords of creation that you were in your generation, I can assure you.”

Just then the gong sounded, and with an air which let me see that the change of subject was not altogether unpleasant.

“Ah,” said Adams, “there is dinner at last. I have no doubt you will be quite ready for it—St. Andrews air was always a good appetiser.”

We went down to the dining-room, and fed in the same style as before. They may invent a new way of bringing the food to you, I reflected, as the dishes came and went, but they can’t invent a new way of eating it.

After dinner we had a look at my host’s pictures—photographs rather—elaborate productions, which Adams descanted on at length, though it needed not that to compel my admiration. Among the portraits were, what seemed to me, most novel and ingenious curiosities. There was, for instance, a life-size figure of a golfer playing a shot. As we looked he was addressing himself to the ball. He looked up once and then swung his club, and the ball at the same moment disappeared. No sooner was the one swing over than he began another. That was a likeness of Peter Gullane, a famous golfer of the period, my host told me.

“It is certainly a very fine picture,” I said, “I could spend days in this wonderful gallery of yours.”

“But come along,” said Adams, “my sister will think we are lost; you can come back here whenever you like; the whole house, you know, is at your disposal.”

Afterwards we went along to the pink room, where we found Miss Adams again engaged in writing.

“What do you think of the pictures?” she asked.

“They are splendid,” I answered “I never even dreamt that photography could be brought to such perfection. You must have thought us almost savages, who lived in that barbarous nineteenth century.”

“Not at all,” she replied. “As much credit is due to you as to us. You laid the foundation stones, we have only continued the building. Some think that once the progression is completed, and “perfection” written above the door, the world will cease. But it is not by new inventions we shall get that perfection. We want the perfection of the mind and the body, as well as of the things that minister to the mind and the body; and while the men will think of nothing but golf, how can it be done? We women are always trying to awaken them to a sense of their responsibilities. They were not put into this world to play golf, though, I believe, they think so.”

“Well,” said Adams, breaking in, “I, for one, don’t want the world to cease, and I think we’re doing you a service in keeping it going. For if you don’t think you’ll get what you call perfection—though as to what that is I don’t think you seem very clear yourself—till we stop golf, then I think the world will go on for some considerable time. And as for the next world, the savage red man of the prairie looked forward to his happy hunting ground. Why should the savage white man not look forward to his happy golfing ground?”

“Ah,” she said, “that is well said. The savage white man! You are savages, and Golf is the god you worship. Yet what does he do for you but wreck your tempers? When you have played a bad game and lost the match, you come home and sulk and sulk till you have played a good one and got yourself in a good humour. I would not worship such a god—one day all smiles and the next all frowns and you poor weak deluded men worship on. When he frowns to-day you hope he will smile to-morrow. I pity you.”

“But do ladies not play golf now?” I ventured to interpose. “In my time they were as keen about it as the men, and some of them were very good players.”

“No, Mr. Gibson,” replied Miss Adams, “the ladies of to-day do not play golf. They have more to do. Their time is taken up in discharging the duties that the men leave undone. We find there is more in life than golf.”

“Ah, well,” her brother interrupted, “it’s very kind of you to pity our sad state, but I’m afraid it’s lost upon us. But Gibson here is looking sleepy. You must be tired,” he added, turning to me, “after that round of St. Andrews, and you know you have not been used to much exertion lately. Let’s retire.”

“I do feel sleepy,” I admitted; and with a “good­night” to Miss Adams and her brother I made my way to my room.

Humph, I thought to myself, I don’t think that Miss Adams improves on acquaintance. Doesn’t seem as if we’d get on. I think I’ll avoid her in future. A little of her goes a very long way. And thus meditating I found myself in bed, and was soon fast asleep dreaming of men coming out of pictures and playing golf, and somebody always yelling “fore” in my ear.

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