As Others See Us: Being the Diary of a Canadian Debutante

DECEMBER 15TH.

Mumsie is a dear, and I am going to put all about her in this diary. Mumsie says I am an old-fashioned girl (how little she knows me!), but I’ll be old-fashioned enough anyhow to keep a diary. It will be useful to read about the people, and parties, and things I’m going to enjoy. Yes, enjoy is the word. Dances and afternoon teas, and those things the rich people do, I’m going to have my share of. I’m glad I’m a girl, especially when one has such a good aunt as Mumsie. She was nothing more than a friend of my mother—the mother I never knew. And, I am sure, the best of friends!

Just to think I am really to spend a winter in this great Canadian City! I shall call it the City of Mammon. After my village home that seems the only name for it, and there is evidence of wealth everywhere. I almost gasp when I think of what some things I see must have cost, the silk dresses, the great hats with ostrich plumes, the motors. And I must confess to being dazed when I came out of the station. The bells clanged so loudly and the engines puffed as if they wished to specially frighten me; but they didn’t, that is, not much. Perhaps it is that the station held the noises in under its great, glass roof; but the noise and the buffeting, and the many people in a hurry made a strange confusion. At home the station roof is the vault of Heaven, so that we score sometimes in our village. And when we got into the street the cars, the motors, and the lights flashing here and there—it was all so fairy-like and heavenly that—Oh! it is good to be alive.

Mumsie has given me such a big room with an outlook over the street. I feel almost as Cinderella must have felt when at the Prince’s Ball before the midnight bell. I wonder if I shall be asked to any balls! But of course I shall. If Uncle should try to be an old fogey—but he won’t.

That is enough to write about for the first day. No, I must put down more about Mumsie. When she met me at the station and took me in her arms and kissed me, it seemed as if her heart opened and I fell right in; and when she spoke I felt as if I had known her voice all my life. She had a hundred things to ask about myself: how she thought of them all I can’t imagine. She is full of fun, with lots of amusing stories, or at least she seems to make fun out of almost anything. She has reddish hair—a poet would no doubt call it golden—which she does like the Queen, and her voice when she gets talking is generally loud, though the louder it gets the nicer it sounds, it is so cheery. My uncle, her husband, Mr. George Somers, is a largish man with roast-beef cheeks and gray hair, though he is not the least bit old looking. He has a straight nose, a full and polished forehead, and a cropped, white moustache. He is a lawyer, and has a voice for humbugging with. I like him, and there is a twinkle in his eye.

P.S. I am so happy!

DECEMBER 16TH.

I looked out of my window this morning and the trees glistened prettily in the sunlight. I could not help thinking of the Fairy Godmother. But I mustn’t think these thoughts. I am a grown-up person of eighteen. Though it doesn’t matter what I write here, as I am never going to show this diary to anybody, not even to the beloved Mumsie.

After breakfast we, that is, Mumsie and I, set out on a shopping expedition. I knew them all by name: Horace’s, Lewis’s, and Carlisle’s; I had at home pored over their advertisements so often. And just to think I was really going to visit them and buy lots of things! Dad had given me one hundred dollars, saying I must dress myself properly. One hundred dollars! I have never before had so much money to spend. Poor Dad! he must find it so dull living in the country, and his patients are such poor pay.

We went to Lewis’s first and bought an evening dress and the duckiest little hat that ever was, and after that we went to Horace’s. This I knew was really the fashionable shop. Mumsie said we were to buy a suit; she said I would need one. Indeed, I already felt I was shabby, and was sorry I had not put on my new hat at Lewis’s and had my old one sent home.

I gasped as we entered Horace’s, the dresses were all so grand, and there were so many ladies present. No person paid any attention to us at first; but when they did they looked at Mumsie first and then at me, and their eyes (I think) lingered on me.

After we had made our purchases, Mumsie took me to a ribbon counter, not far away from a most beautifully dressed woman. Her ermine stole did not hide a diamond and sapphire brooch at her throat. Her blue velvet suit was in the latest fashion. She was large and dark. Her face was rounded, and lofty eyebrows made her eyes appear prominent. A cold, deliberate manner gave the impression of absolute control. She bowed to Mumsie and my heart went into my mouth. I am silly to be so fluttered and shy. The strange lady advanced and held her hand out to Mumsie.

“How do you do Mrs. Somers? How is Mr. Somers? I hope you are all well.”

“Quite well, thank you,” replied Mumsie, not too genially I thought.

“You will take a hand in our Ragamuffins’ Feast, won’t you?”

“Certainly, I would not miss for the world,” answered Auntie.

Mumsie’s manner was more formal than I had yet known her use, and it struck me the lady had something on her mind.

“I suppose you are doing your Christmas shopping early out of consideration for the help.”

“No, not exactly,” replied Mumsie, “I am helping my friend here. Elsie, let me introduce you to Mrs. Lien. This is my niece, Elsie Travers, who is to spend the winter with me. She is a debutante.”

Mrs. Lien flashed me a critical glance, and said rather grandly: “I have no doubt Miss Travers will enjoy herself. It must be very interesting getting her outfit.”

When she had gone I wondered whether her manner had wounded or gladdened me. I had received something of a shock.

At dinner I said to Uncle: “Who is Mrs. Lien?”

Uncle repeated the question with a smile growing on his lips and the merriest twinkle in his eyes.

“My dear, one would think you were Mrs. Grundy herself,” laughed Mumsie, “by the severe way in which you asked the question.”

“Mrs. Lien is a Yankee; so we know nothing of her antecedents. She is the wife of Stephen Lien, who on his part,” said Uncle slowly “is the son of his father.”

I suppose I showed I was puzzled.

“Mr. Lien, senior,” continued Uncle, “was an English attorney who came to this country in the forties and accommodated the farmers by lending them money.”

“How very considerate of him,” I claimed, while Auntie looked oddly at Uncle.

“Yes, he used consideration and discrimination also, for he was a master hand at selecting those farmers whose lands were good, and who were themselves less capable.”

There was now a curious smile, cynical I think it should be called, on Uncle’s lips. I did not know what to say, so I said nothing, which I have decided is sometimes the wisest thing to say.

“He soon owned the farm,” continued Uncle.

“That is a very clever way of making money—” I began.

“Elsie!” cried Mumsie in horror.

What had I said to startle her?

“There was a period of bad crops,” said Uncle, reflectively. “A humane man who would lend money to farmers, a man with a heart and a conscience would be a godsend in a new country, but unfortunately Lien pere was not a humane man, and his son, and his son’s wife, and their bright boy, Charlie——”

“Hush!” said Auntie.

I wonder why!

“Elsie,” said Uncle gravely, “we owe a debt of gratitude to our forefathers. This land is to-day drunk with prosperity, yet every foot of our broad acres, these miles and miles of fertile fields, have been won by the sweat of toiling manhood, supported by the tears of trusting, oftentimes gentle, womanhood. I am afraid the fruit of all these sacrifices are not falling into the hands of those who are worthiest of them.”

“That might be said of any land,” objected Mumsie. “I suppose all land was wild once upon a time.”

“In Europe the land was cleared two or three thousand years ago; our land has been cleared within the last few generations,” retorted Uncle. “I don’t suppose our ancestors in the British Isles or in Normandy found it much hardship to live in log huts, to do their own washing, or to forego their morning paper.”