I N the far-off days when I was a good-looking typist,
dependent for my job on sex-appeal alone (I have never been able to spell), I sometimes thought it might be nice to have a title. Even then I realised it would have no effect on pleasant people, but I guessed that it might have delight- fully funny results on the behaviour towards me of less pleasant People. And how right 1 was I Only I didn't imagine the half of it.
Now that I've had one for about four years, I wouldn't be without a title in England for anything. It's an unending source of amusement.
I still grin inwardly, thinking, ' Who—nie? ' when head Waiters, the people it most impresses, apparently, talk to me in the third person, and usually in the conditional tense. (' If her Ladyship would be so kind . . . . perhaps her Ladyship would not mind. . .?) I trust that none suspects what a lot of things her Ladyship has just not had to mind in her time.
Two of my favourite experiences took place in shops. One Was at my grocer's: I was waiting to be served when a woman pushed her way to the counter ahead of me. I said 'Oi! ' mildly. She turned round and glared. ' Call yourself a lady? ' The grocer bowed over his clasped hands behind the counter. `Her Ladyship doesn't need to,' he said reprovingly. Lovely. An attitude 1 could never have foreseen is that once you've got it. it doesn't matter how you use it.
The other occasion I cherish in memory is one of which I still enjoy repercussions every time I go into my butcher's. While rationing was on, I left all my family's ration-books on the counter one day. They had our surname only on the title- Page. The next time I went in, the girl in the cash de,k said, ' I've got them safely for you, Mrs. X—It is. Mrs. X. isn't it? ' This is always a little tricky. I said, ' Well, not exactly, but never mind.' She turned bright scarlet and drew herself UP. ' I can assure you. Madam,' she said coldly, ` that my customers' private lives are no concern of mine. So far as in/ concerned, you will always be Mrs. X.' To show her broadmindedness she calls me Mrs. X loudly and often every time I go into the shop. Nice girl. 1 do hope no well-informed busybody interferes. It might stop her being so broadminded on the next occasion when broadmindedness is needei. hand, if you politely let it pass, you may find the strangest rumours about your behaviour abroad current in your own country when ,you return. My dear, d'you know what they call themselves when they think no one can check on it ?
If you are at all sensitive about other people's feelings, there is one drawback to a title in England which, again, I should never have foreseen, logical as it is. You can't shake off dull acquaintances half so easily without wounding them. Very few People can face the fact that they are bores, if they are. (To Mc. the saddest funny story in the world is the one about the man who cured his halitosis and then found that people just didn't like him anyway.) And whereas in my typist days I dropped people without a qualm if they didn't interest me, I can't do it now. Then they said, to themselves anyway, that I was a frivolous little fool who couldn't appreciate decent Company or intelligent conversation. Whatever the reason for my unfriendliness, it reflected on me, not on them. Now they say I think I'm too good for them, and it damages their self- esteem. I have to be a lot more matey with the dreary than I am by inclination, or ever used to be.
You think that's ridiculous? You think England, thank goodness, isn't so snobbish in these days?—You get a title, never mind how unimportant, and see! Get it anyway, if you can. I do assure you, though this is not often admitted, that nothing—or very little—is jollier to have.
Previous page
