Chapter D: Appleton and Company (9)

“To-morrow, my dear, by the first train. I’m such a country mouse; and even one day in London makes a hole in one’s purse.”

“Well, I don’t think I can go to-morrow.”

“But of course you can.” Lady Violet was definite. “And you must. No scrimshanking. You must go down with my mother to-morrow morning by the 9:50 from Paddington, the best train of the day.”

Mame was still inclined to resist having her mind made up for her in this way, but Celimene was resolute. “My mother will be quite hurt if you back out now. Besides”--with a laugh--“it’ll be so much better to go and get it over.”

“But--” protested Mame.

However, it was not a bit of use. Lady Violet had such a powerful habit of making people’s minds up for them.

XLIV

It happened, therefore, that the very next morning Mame found herself travelling down to Shropshire in the company of Lady Kidderminster. Odd and unexpected as the journey was, she was a little inclined to be annoyed with herself for having allowed Mommer and Lady Violet to hustle her so peremptorily into undertaking it. There was weakness in such yielding. And to a practical go-getter who knew the value of the will, this was not a good sign. The first thing she would have to study as the wife of Bill must be the art of standing up to her in-laws.

These were clever women, not a doubt about it. Evidently they were versed in the most important of all problems, how to get your own way. They had force and they had skill had Mommer and Lady Violet; they didn’t let you see their hands, but just set quietly to work and made you do the things they wanted. She was a little simp to let them put one over on her like that.

Still, why worry? There was no reason why she should not be seated opposite Mommer in the darned old Great Western Pullman. She was real nice was Mommer. As easy as pie. All the same her daughter-in-law-to-be shrewdly guessed that she was not just the simple old shoe that she looked. Even before they had reached the first stop, which was Reading, Mame had made a private vow that as far as Mommer was concerned she would keep her eyes skinned and watch out.

The journey was quite pleasant. All the way from Paddington to Shrewsbury, where they left the express and took a local train to Millfield, the nearest station to Warlington Towers, the lady in whose charge Mame found herself persisted steadily in being charming. Mame could not help liking her. Seen as it were from a distance, Mommer’s stateliness was a little alarming; but at close range, in friendly and intimate talk all fear of it seemed to go.

There were no surprises. Everything went agreeably and well. It was when they got off the train finally at Millfield that the surprises began. There was a five-mile drive to the Towers, as Mame had been told; and she had rather confidently expected it to be performed in an elegant motor, with two servants. But nothing of the kind. In the Millfield station yard a one-horse brougham awaited them. It was decidedly well kept, but it looked out of date; and although the coachman wore a smart cockade and had the face of an ancestral portrait, no brisk footman shared the seat by his side.

An obsequious porter and a rural station master, who was even more obsequious, ushered them into the brougham’s rather stuffy interior. It was plain from the manner of these officials that even if Mommer did cling to the old modes of travel she was a power in this corner of the land. Still Mame continued to be a bit surprised by the one-horse brougham. Yet this was no more than a prelude to the far bigger surprise that was in store.

After the elderly horse had clip-clopped along the dusty by-roads for some little time, Mame caught a sudden glimpse of a noble set of towers “bosomed high in tufted trees” as a poetic john had expressed it in the office calendar. There was also a fine park full of deer with high stone walls around it.

“Warlington Towers, I guess.” There was a thrill in Mame’s voice as she pointed enthusiastically through the carriage window.

Lady Kidderminster said “yes.” The note in her voice sounded the reverse of enthusiastic.

At that moment they came upon some beautiful wrought iron gates with an ancient coat of arms in the middle, flanked by a pair of stone pillars, each with a fabulous winged monster upon the top. Beyond the gates was a porter’s lodge and then a vista of glorious trees in the form of a long avenue which led straight to the doors of the famous mansion.

“It’s just too lovely.” Mame clapped her hands.

She quite expected the one-horse brougham to stop at those magnificent gates, all picked out in black and gold, and turn into that wonderful avenue. But it did nothing of the kind. It went on and on by the side of the high stone walls which shut out the view of the Towers completely.

“Don’t you live there?” Mame was a little puzzled and perhaps a shade anxious.

Lady Kidderminster sighed gently. “We don’t live there now, my dear.”

“Oh,” breathed Mame. Somehow she felt rather let down.

The old horse clip-clopped along by the grassy marge of the interminable and forbidding stone walls until they reached a tiny village. In the middle was a neat public house, with a roof of straw thatch, and its ancient sign the Treherne Arms much stained by the weather. Past this the brougham went, a couple of hundred yards or so, and then turned in on the left, through a swing gate and along a carriage drive.

At the end of the drive was a house built of stone. It was a good, honest-looking place and by its style was old. But compared with the pomp and glory of the Towers it was quite small. Nay, as Mame was forced to view it, this house was a trifle poor. Here the brougham stopped. It was the end of their journey.

The place which Lady Kidderminster had occupied for the last five years was called the Dower House. It was comfortable enough and everything in it was in such perfect taste that it was only Mame’s lively anticipation of the Towers and their magnificence which lent it an aura of inferiority. Really the Dower House was charming. It had the loveliest things. There was a view of distant hills from its bedroom windows; and at the back of the house was an old-world garden, a rare pleasaunce of plants and shrubs and very ancient trees. If the Towers had not caught Mame’s imagination she would have considered the Dower House just elegant.

At dinner, which was at eight o’clock, and to Mame’s robust appetite was a meal at once meagre and inadequate, there was only one other besides the hostess. This was a Miss Carruthers, a young-old body, tall and faded and thin, who spoke in a slow, rather peeved voice which sounded frightfully aristocratic. She seemed kindly and well meaning, but she was dull, terribly dull. Even Lady Kidderminster seemed inclined to yield to the atmosphere of Miss Carruthers. Anyhow, by dinner time, a good deal of her metropolitan sparkle had fled.

Mame hoped, as she swallowed the thin soup and the minute portions of fish and chicken the regular old john of a butler, with wonderful manners and side whiskers, handed to her at carefully regulated intervals, that the absence of sparkle was only going to be temporary. But there was nothing on the table stronger than lemonade to excite it. And zip of some kind was certainly needed. However, it was not forthcoming at the table or in the drawing room afterwards, where no fire was in the rather cavernous grate, although mid-September evenings in Shropshire are apt to be chill.

There was neither electricity nor gas throughout the house, and when Mame, following the example of the other ladies, chose a candle from among a number laid out on a table in the hall, and ascended solemnly to her bed, she felt desolate. Somehow things were not as she had expected to find them. Just what those expectations had been she was unable to say. But they had certainly included the Towers.

All the same she slept. She was young and healthy and the pulse of life beat high. And she had a forward-looking mind. But in the present case the habitual hope of a morrow more alluring came to nought. The Dower House did not seem to improve on acquaintance. It was dull. No use mincing it--it was dull. Lady Kidderminster continued to be kindness itself; Miss Carruthers was also kind; but they seemed only to converse on formal subjects and in a rather perfunctory way. Then the food! It was beautifully cooked and served, and what there was of it was of the best quality, yet in Miss Du Rance it left a void.

A factor in their dulness, no doubt, was the absence of Lady Kidderminster’s family. Violet, of course, was in London; and of the two young ones, Doris was in her first year at Cambridge and Marjorie at school at Worthing. “When those two pickles come here for the holidays we are much more lively, aren’t we, Mildred?”

Mildred, Miss Carruthers, who agreed with Lady Kidderminster in most things, agreed in this.

After a rather dispiriting breakfast in which Mame had to be content with a boiled egg, some poor coffee, some thin toast and an elegant spoonful of jam, she took the air of the domain with Miss Carruthers. Like everything else about the place, the air of the domain was good in quality, yet it did not seem to be exhilarating. Mame felt inclined to fix some of the responsibility upon Miss Carruthers. She was as good as gold, but she wanted pep.

In the course of this ordeal in the garden, Mame’s great disappointment once more recurred. She could not forget the Towers; their absence filled her with a sense of grievance.

“Why don’t Lady K. live at the big house?” She put the question frankly. “Some place that. I guess I’d want to live there if I owned it.”

Miss Carruthers hesitated a moment and then said in that plaintive voice which already was beginning to get on Mame’s nerves. “Cousin Lucy can’t afford to do that. She’s been so hit by the War. The Towers eats money. One has to be rich to keep up a place of that kind.”

“She isn’t rich, then?”

“Dear, no.”

“What’ll she do with that old place?” There was keen disappointment in Mame’s tone.

“Cousin Lucy, I believe, has not decided yet. At present the Towers is let to some rich Americans.”

“Any I know?” asked Mame. From her manner it might have been a hobby of hers to specialise in rich Americans. It would do this dame no harm to think so anyway.

The slow, plaintive answer of Miss Carruthers was unexpected and it was startling. “You may know them. I believe they go about in London a good deal. Some people called Childwick.”

“Childwick.” Mame gave a slight gasp. “Have they a girl named Gwendolen?” Yet there was no need to ask. She knew.

So plaintive grew the voice of Miss Carruthers that Mame longed to shake her. “Gwendolen is their only child. A great heiress.”

Mame felt something turn inside her heart. She bit her lip; and then she gave a little snort of defiance. Miss Carruthers sighed long and grievously.

XLV

The knowledge which came in its fulness to Mame in an after-luncheon talk with Lady Kidderminster, that the Towers was let to the Childwicks on a lease of seven years with an option of purchase, did nothing to stem the growing tide of her gloom. She might have guessed. But the recognised fact hit her hard. The Childwicks of all people! That supercilious queen to get away with the whole bag of tricks.

Lady K. was quite candid. She had the same openness in discussing high finance as in less intimate affairs of life. Since the War they had simply been hanging on by their eyelids as it were. The Scotch property had gone; so had the property in Lancashire; the town house was let, also to the Childwicks, those providential folk, who had lately decided to make England their home. Everybody thought it _so_ fortunate to have such _good_ tenants for the Towers; people who could not only afford to keep up the place in the old way, but who were likely to take a permanent interest in it.

Miss Du Rance was constrained to think so too. As she peered into the eyes of Bill’s mother she could not help admiring her fortitude. How this dame must loathe her, little interloper! What plans she had wrecked! Yet there was nothing about this woman, and there never had been, to give the least inkling of what her real feelings were towards her.

Not once, it was true, since Mame’s arrival at the Dower House, had Lady Kidderminster mentioned Bill. The other queer old pet, that Miss Carruthers, had also refrained from mentioning him. Otherwise all was ease and charm and friendliness, although it sure had a trick of fizzling into the dead alive.

This quality of not being quite on the earth, so to speak, was not confined to the inmates of the Dower House. It was shared by the friends and neighbours. Screams of all kinds seemed to make a point of turning up about teatime. Almost invariably they were of Mame’s own sex. And such clothes as they wore! And such comic one-horse shays as for the most part they came in! Frightfully well-bred they were with real Court manners, full of ceremonial. Had good Lady K. been England’s queen these dear old buzzards could not have treated her with more deference.

It was the air these callers had of being half alive that most impressed Mame. Her mind went back to the tabbies of Fotheringay House, at whose hands she had endured long weeks of boredom. These friends of the family were a different breed of tabby; they were politer, gentler, less inclined to scratch, but their faces were just as pinched and bloodless and their style of dressing quite as odd. Such drolls as they were with their long tailor-mades and stiff boned net collars, and their queer hats and trinkets and stout boots with very flat heels.

They looked depressing. And they were depressing. Their talk in the main was of bulbs. Mame was not in the least interested in bulbs. She could raise no enthusiasm over what these funniments were going to put in in the spring. These gardeners, inoffensive and well meaning though they were, bored Mame to tears. If this was the social life of an English county, she opined she was the sort of mouse that would stay in the town.

Three days of the Dower House began to tell on Miss Du Rance. It may have been the food, the people, a peculiarity of the air, but she began to feel as lacking in zip as the friends and neighbours. At the mere sight of them she had an inclination to weep; and strange to say at the sight of her one or two of these old things, who evidently were pretty deep in the family confidence, seemed inclined to do the same. One old pet, indeed, with just a shade more kick than the rest--Miss Carruthers said she had been a Bedchamber-woman to Queen Victoria--managed to convey a hint to Miss Du Rance that the friends and neighbours could only regard her in the light of a national calamity.

All this was discouraging. Even had there been no thoughts of Gwendolen Childwick to disturb Mame o’nights, this visit to Bill’s mother would hardly have been a bed of roses. She missed sadly the brisk life, the gay companionship of London. Here was nothing doing. From early morn till dewy eve there was nothing doing. She dipped into a few old-fashioned novels; she read the _Morning Post_, which was not delivered until the afternoon; she was initiated into various games of patience by the kindly but mournful Miss Carruthers; she strolled about the garden with Lady Kidderminster and learned to give an opinion on the few remaining asters, chrysanthemums and dahlias, but somehow you could not call it being alive.

By now, moreover, there was beginning to arise in Mame a feeling of remorse. It was not an emotion she would ever have suspected herself of harbouring. Practical go-getters have not, as a rule, much time for remorse. They are usually too busy. Besides, where was the use? Remorse never cut ice since the world began.

To make matters worse, on the morning of the fifth day came a letter from Bill. He wrote with far less than his usual optimism. In fact he was just a bit troubled. He had been talking things over with his mother, whom he had seen when she came up to town; and she had said the family finances were in such a tangle that if he married Mame there would be absolutely no money for a separate establishment. She took rather a gloomy view of the whole matter, but personally, he was quite willing “to chance it” if Mame was. He sent her heaps of love and he was counting the hours for her return and he thought that in the circumstances the sooner they were “spliced” the better.

The letter was full of affection and humour, yet Mame could not rid her mind of the feeling that breakers were ahead. She was perturbed. And something which happened in the course of that very afternoon deepened a sense of unrest.

“Do you care to come and see the Towers, my dear?” asked Lady Kidderminster, as they lingered over their afternoon luncheon coffee. “The Childwicks are away, but I’m sure the housekeeper, Mrs. Norris, will not mind your looking over the house if it will interest you.”

Nothing would interest Mame more.

“So glad. We will go along presently. It is such a good day for a walk.”

The day was really good, one of those soft, mildly sunny days of late September that lure one so genially into the open. From the Dower House to the Towers, door to door, was just a mile; and Mame, sauntering with Lady Kidderminster, found the pilgrimage rather enjoyable. Her hostess was still very kind and friendly even if an inward weight seemed to be bearing her down. Mame longed to speak of Bill. She would like to have drawn Mommer on the subject of when they would be able to marry; yet to butt in upon that vexed question might entirely spoil the pleasure of their stroll.

Mame was impressed by the Towers. She felt justified in calling it a palace. It certainly was a wonderful house; one of the oldest and finest in England and very well kept. A lovely park of many rich woodland acres gave it just the setting that it needed. In spite of Mame’s determination to remain a democrat at heart, she could not overcome a slight feeling of awe as they passed through the lodge gates, so impressively emblazoned, and walked slowly along the glorious avenue that led to the Treherne home. The place had such an air. Fancy having it for one’s very own to live in.

She was entitled, in a sense, to a feeling of proprietorship, yet only too well did she know that she did not in the least match up with Warlington Towers. After all, she could not help thinking ruefully as they came up to the main entrance, with doors of solid black oak, she was the merest nobody, a little newspaper girl, a sharp-witted adventuress who had not even put herself through college. Who was Mame Durrance, the rejected of New York and London, that she should fix herself into such a frame. It was wrong for a go-getter to have these ideas, but there was something in the grandeur, the style, the solidity of this mansion which had stood just like that since the time of the Tudors, which kind of put one over on you. If you had any feelings at all, if you had a streak of imagination, however slight, a vein of idealism, however weak, a tendency to uplift or inconveniences of that kind, this house was bound to get you thinking.

They learned from the housekeeper that the Childwicks were expected next week, when a large party would assemble for the shooting. But Mame was not much impressed by the news. That girl Gwendolen, for all her dollars and her airs, was almost as much an interloper. What was Three Ply Flannelette anyway? Not so much better, was it, than writing for the press?

Bitter thoughts accompanied Mame through the nobly proportioned rooms, up the majestic staircase and then down again to the noblest room of all. It seemed vast, that particular room; the sense of its magnitude came out and hit you as you entered. The view from its great windows was unforgettable, but it was the room itself and the things it contained that made it so memorable. Tapestries, sofas, cabinets, chairs, tables, lovely bric-a-brac and candelabra, all were perfect in their kind and united in ministry to the higher perfection of which they formed a part.

It was the pictures on the walls that gave perhaps the biggest thrill. Portraits mostly: Lelys, Knellers and those old johns of the eighteenth century who knew how to put historical folks upon canvas. Among the famous guys in steel breastplates and periwigs and contemporary janes in ruffs and powder and what not, was a picture of a young man in knee-breeches and silk stockings and a stiff flounced coat with a sword, who might have been Bill. The resemblance was astonishing. Had Bill exchanged his modern tailor for that funny yet superbly picturesque rig that is just how he would have looked.

Mame was so struck by this likeness that she stopped to gaze at the words at the foot of the gilt frame:

“William, third marquis of Kidderminster. By Sir Peter Lely.”

Yes, it was the real thing, this picture. But what, after all, was it compared to the room it was in and the harmony of which it was a symbol? History, romance, power seemed all around. Again the spirit of place got Mame thinking.

It was the gentle, low voice of Lady Kidderminster that brought her slowly back to the present and to her own self. “Shall we rest a moment, my dear? Here in the sun. This is always my favourite spot; how one loves a room facing south! There is more real warmth here than anywhere else in the house.”

As Lady Kidderminster spoke she sat down on a large, high-backed sofa, very choicely carved, which was placed immediately below Lely’s third marquis. She made a place beside her for Mame, who sat down too. There the sun was very pleasant, as it streamed in through the great window opposite. The trees of the park could be seen and the deer browsing under them. Not so much as the ticking of a clock broke the rapt stillness. What a peace there was upon everything, what order, what a hushed solemnity! It was like being in a cathedral. The aura of this room in its grandeur and stateliness was overpowering.

Mame was seldom at a loss for words. But seated on this sofa by the side of Lady Kidderminster she felt a little shy of the sound of her own voice. Somehow it didn’t seem to belong. She waited for her companion to say something. Those sweet and quiet tones went so much better with the carpets and the pictures and the scene beyond those windows.

Suddenly Mame grew aware that the hand next hers had taken it in its clasp. Then very softly and quietly Bill’s mother began to talk. Her beautiful low voice in its ordered perfection was as much a part of those surroundings as all the other lovely things of which Mame could not help being sensible. Yet the words it wove soon began to press upon her heart.

In a fashion of curious simplicity, which revealed everything in the most practical and matter-of-fact way, Bill’s mother showed what an effort she had made to hold on to this inheritance. Everybody had hoped that he would marry Miss Childwick. She was deeply in love with him, and there was a time, only a short month or so ago, when it was thought that he was in love with her. A marriage had been almost arranged for the early summer, yet for some trivial reason it had been deferred. And now, and now, the gentle tones deepened into tragedy, it would never take place, and Bill would have to give up the last and dearest of his possessions.

Great sacrifices had been made to keep things going against the time when he should marry. They owed it to him to do that. And he, dear fellow, owed it, not to those who were proud to make sacrifices, but to the order of things, so long established, of which he was the _clou_, to marry in a direction that would ensure their maintenance.

“You see, my dear,” said Lady Kidderminster, and for the first time a faint gleam of humour lit that lovely voice of ever-deepening tragedy, “it is not that we own places like the Towers. They own us. It is Bill’s duty to those who have made this old house what it is”--she waved a gentle hand to those solemn assenting walls “to keep it in the state to which it has pleased providence to call it. I hope you appreciate, my dear, what a dreadful wrench it is going to be, not only for us, but for this old house, with so many historical associations, to pass into other hands.”

Only too well was Mame able to appreciate that. The streak of imagination in her had never been so uncomfortable as at that painful moment.

“I simply cannot bear to think of his losing all this,” Bill’s mother went on. “I simply cannot bear to think of all this losing him. They need each other; they were created for each other; they can never be as they were if they are allowed to drift apart. The Childwicks are excellent people and they have a lien on this house, which may be exercised if dear Gwendolen does not marry Bill. They will, I am sure, do the place no dishonour, but I, for one, cannot bear to think of such a break in a long tradition. The Towers expects the head of the family to do his duty by it, in the way of his forbears who made it the thing it is.”

Mame did not speak. Not only was she seeing certain things at a new angle, she was also seeing the world in general in a new way. The process was distinctly irksome.

“Any girl who really cares for him,” Lady K. went on with that candour which to Mame was so surprising, “will understand what life exacts of him, will understand where his duty lies.”

In the silence that followed these words Mame hardly ventured to look at the face of the woman who sat by her side. But she saw that Lady Kidderminster’s eyes were wet. This was a brave woman. It was impossible not to respect her point of view. Indeed, seated in that room, with all those associations clustering about it, there seemed to be only one way of looking at things. And that was the way of Bill’s mother.

XLVI

Mame returned to London after an absence of exactly one week. Seldom had she been more eager for anything than to exchange the rather dreary stuffiness of the Dower House for the life and bustle of the town. Yet the Mame Durrance who had left Paddington a week ago was not the same person who came back to that terminus. Something had happened to her in the meantime. As yet she did not quite know what the something was. But there were the beginnings of a new habit of introspection in her; and from this she learned that she was in the throes of change.

Life, somehow, was not quite as she had left it. She seemed to see it with new eyes. Even the buses and the taxis and the faces of the passers-by were different from what they had been a week ago. They seemed to strike her in a new way. It was as if the rather trite and funny old world she had always lived in had become suddenly enlarged. Everything had grown more complex. The inner nature of things, about which she was troubling for the first time, was full of deep and mysterious meaning.

This state of mind did not make for happiness, as Mame soon discovered. For one thing it was out of harmony with the mentality of a practical go-getter. But as she expressed the phenomenon to herself, that old house had put one over on her. It was absurd that a mere inanimate collection of sticks and stones should have the power to do anything of the kind, yet it was not a bit of use shirking the fact that it had done so.

There were two Mame Durrances now. Perhaps there always had been, but the one the old house in Shropshire had evoked had lain dormant. And now that it was aroused it promised to become a mighty inconvenient yoke fellow. Hitherto it had been the go-getter who had held command of the ship; a common-sensible, up-and-coming, two-and-two-makes-four sort of unit, who saw its duty a dead sure thing and went and did it. But the sleeper, whom one week of Shropshire had awakened, was a very different kind of bird.

No doubt, the new and tiresome entity that had sprung to birth was what the world meant by an idealist. It appeared to judge by another standard. There were the things you could do and the things you couldn’t do. The business part of Mame knew nothing of this. It only did the things it wanted to do.

A week of the Dower House had rather handed a haymaker to Mame’s utilitarian world. To such an extent had it mixed its values that she did not quite know where she stood in it. Yet amid the chaos she retained in a high degree her natural clearness of vision.

It was nearing the dinner hour when Mame’s taxi deposited her and her neat luggage at 16b Half Moon Street. Lady Violet, wearing her smartest evening frock, was on the point of going out. She greeted Mame with the air of bright cheerfulness that never seemed to desert her. But the returned traveller had only to glance at the eyes of her friend to learn that she was not feeling so very bright or so very cheerful. She surprised that look of never-say-die she had seen in the eyes of Lady Kidderminster. It was impossible not to respect the pluck of these women.

“Had a good time?”

“Ye-es.” Mame’s answer was a trifle dubious even if she did her best not to make it so.

“What did you think of the Towers?”

“Bully!” said Mame. And then she asked, less out of a sense of duty than from a desire to change the subject, “How’s the work been getting on?”

“Gerty Smith is splendid. She’s such a worker.” Lady Violet sighed humorously. “Oh, how I hate work!”

Mame fully believed her. Girls of her special type must long ago have overlaid the habit. The conviction in Celimene’s voice did not lessen Mame’s respect for her. She had real grit, this girl, to be able to buckle to in the way she did.

“There’s a letter for you from New York.” Lady Violet pointed to the table. “I hope there’s no complaint of the firm. We’ve not been sending many _bonnes bouches_ in the way of news lately.”

“No, we haven’t,” agreed Mame, as she opened the letter. It merely contained the monthly cheque.

“That’ll come in very useful.”

“I’ll say yes, honey,” was Mame’s comment to herself.

Lady Violet then went off. She was dining with the Childwicks and going on with them to Covent Garden to the Russian ballet, and so did not expect to be home till rather late. Mame was left to a lonely meal round the corner at the Ladies Imperium. She had made a certain number of friends there, but she was not in a mood for promiscuous conversation; therefore she returned to an early bed.

She was very tired, bodily and mentally, but she had a restless and wakeful night. The go-getter and the idealist seemed to be quarrelling like fury all through the small hours. If there just wasn’t the money to keep things going and she really cared for Bill, wasn’t it her duty to stand aside?

Never heard such bunkum in my life, said the Go-getter.

Depends on how much you care for the boy, said the Idealist.

The Go-getter snorted.

You may snort, said the Idealist. But that’s the case as I see it.

XLVII

They had arranged to meet in the park, the next morning at eleven. Bill was at the tryst, looking a picture of health with the genial sun of St. Martin’s summer upon him. He really was good to gaze at; most girls would have thought so, anyway. There he was in his smart morning suit; bright as a new pin; and as gaily amusing as ever. He might not have had a care in the world. Indeed, as he greeted Mame with a flourish of hat and cane, it was hard to believe that he could have.

A week’s absence had, if anything, endeared them to each other. Mame felt immensely proud of Bill as she came upon him by the railings of the Row, where he stood watching its numerous and decidedly miscellaneous collection of riders. Yes, he was a picture. As Mame beheld him, her mind went rather inconveniently back to the portrait of the third marquis, under which she had sat in that wonderful room at the Towers.

“Good to see you, Puss.”

Low the voice and so beguiling. There was a tremendous fascination in this young man. They moved up towards Alexandra Gate and found two lonely chairs among the trees.

“And now for a good old pow wow.” He began to write her name on the grass with the tip of his cane. “You’re looking just a wee bit chippy, aren’t you? Air of Shropshire take some digesting, eh? My mother is a clinker, isn’t she? And Cousin Mildred. But their young lives are not exactly a beanfeast, what? And then the friends and neighbours. Did you meet the friends and neighbours?”

“Bushels.”

At the look on Mame’s shrewd and piquant countenance Bill cried “What ho!” in a fashion which startled a number of sparrows into sitting up and taking notice. “Then that funny old Dower House. I expect it rather gave you the pip.”

As a matter of fact the Dower House had rather given Mame the pip but it hardly seemed good manners to do so.

“Own up. Honest Injun.” Bill coolly surveyed the expressive countenance of Mame. “It always does me. But tell me, now, what do you think of the Towers? That’s a bit of a landmark, isn’t it?”

“Bully!” was Mame’s formula for the Towers. It didn’t quite express her feelings, but it seemed wise to keep to that inclusive simplicity.

“That’s the word,” Bill agreed.

Suddenly Mame took him up. “Bully isn’t at all the word for a place like the Towers.” To her own ear her voice grew harsh and strident. “It wants a better word than that. Doesn’t carry the meaning, that word. There’s an atmosphere about that place and it gets you.”

“Hadn’t occurred to me.”

“No.” Mame looked at him sideways. She was a shade incredulous. “If I owned all that, just by right of birth, I’d see that nobody ever took it from me.”

“Rather depend on your bank-book, wouldn’t it?” Somehow Bill’s casualness was almost like a blow. “You see the trouble with us as a family is that we haven’t a bob.”

Mame was fully informed of that. But why not get around and collect a few? She put the question frankly. To Bill, however, it had the merit of being new. It had simply never occurred to him.

“Why not?” In Mame’s voice was a certain sternness.

“Haven’t the savvee for one thing.” Bill spoke lightly and easily. “Enormous brains you must have these days to hustle around. Vi is the only one of us with any mind at all. If she had been a man I believe she might have kept the Towers going. But it would have needed doing, you know. That place swallows money. Not a penny less than ten thousand a year would have been a bit of use.”

“I’ll say not. But isn’t it worth while, don’t you think, to take off your coat and go around and see if you can raise it?”

Bill began to whistle merrily. His sense of humour was sharply touched. “See me raising ten thousand a year with this old think-box. I’m the utterest ass that ever happened. Why, I can’t even tot up a row of figures.”

“I guess I’d learn. If my folks had had the Towers for five hundred years, do you suppose I’d let people like the Childwicks come along and take it off me?”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” Bill gazed in admiration at the determined face.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

To that forcible question Bill seemed quite unable to find an answer. Mame did not disguise that an answer was called for. “Your Mommer says that if you marry me you’ll have to quit the Pinks.”

“I know she does.”

“And that you’ll lose the Towers.”

Bill owned ruefully that he knew that too.

“Doesn’t it worry you any?”

Bill was silent a moment, then shook his head and said cheerfully, no.

“Well, it worries me, I’ll tell the world.”

He frowned a little. Something in the nature of a cloud passed over his sunny mind. Mame this morning hardly seemed to be quite so entertaining as usual. “Why worry,” he said, “over things one can’t help?”

It was Mame’s turn to be silent. The frown that gathered about her honest face was more portentous than the one upon Bill’s. “Things have got to be helped, it seems to me.” She spoke slowly. It was as if the words tore her lips.

“I don’t quite see how at the moment.”

“There’s just one way. I’ve been thinking it out. We mustn’t marry.” The serious depth of Mame’s tone added detonating power to this thunderbolt.

“But that’s ridiculous.” Bill was no longer casual.

“As I figure it out, it’ll be more ridiculous if we do.”

“My dear girl, we shall be able to rub along. There’ll be a certain amount of money, even if the Towers does go and even if I have to leave the Army.”

Mame shook a stern little head. She certainly was not as amusing this morning as usual. “Not if you keep your engagement with Gwendolen Childwick.”

“I’ve never been engaged to Gwendolen Childwick,” he indignantly broke in.

“Vi says you were as good as engaged to her. And so does your mother.”

“These meddlesome women!” Bill spoke vexedly. “I see what it is. You’ve been letting ’em put the wind up.”

A flush of crimson showed this to be a palpable hit.

“I give you my word there’s been no engagement between Gwendolen and me,” Bill earnestly added.

She knew there had not been. But it did not alter her view that if he was as sensible as he ought to be, there would be an engagement between them soon.

“Somebody’s been getting at you.” He was rather startled by the turn affairs were taking. “You’re not yourself this morning. Tell me, Puss, don’t you care for me any more?”

He looked into her troubled face with an anxiety which made her feel that she wanted to cry. In fact she had to bite her lip pretty hard to save herself from exposing a most regrettable weakness. “It’s because I care for you so much that I can’t let you make a fool of yourself.” The quaint voice trembled oddly. “If you marry me it’s ruin and--and that’s all there is to it.”

He took a little white-gloved paw--she was looking most charmingly spick and span this morning--into his great brown fist. “Rot! A promise is a promise. I won’t give you up.”

“Don’t be a fool.” Pain, sheer and exquisite, drove her to speak bluntly and harshly. “I’d be a cuckoo in the nest. I don’t belong. I won’t amuse you always. And then you’d be sorry about the Towers. And you’d curse yourself for quitting the Army.”

“I’ll risk all that.”

Mame had a struggle to keep her lip stiff. But she had enough will to say, “There’s other folks to think of, you see.”

“Rot! Why let ’em come spoiling the sport?”

“_I’d_ be spoiling the sport. You and Gwendolen were getting on like a house on fire till I came by.”

“What’s come over you!” This was pure Quixotism. Slow in the uptake as he was, he knew how she hated Gwendolen.

“You don’t know what a friend Vi has been to me. I owe just everything to her. If I butted in and spoiled it all, I’d never be able to look her in the face again. Then there’s your Mommer. She’s been so sweet to me, I’d just hate to go back on her.”

Bill had to own that such feelings did Mame real credit. But her attitude seemed to puzzle him a goodish bit; it was rather beyond the order of nature.

“You’re the nicest and best little girl I’ve met.” He was dogged, defiant. “And I mean to hold on to you for all I’m worth.”

Mame was horribly near tears, yet she still contrived to keep them in check. It was the bitterest moment life so far had given her. But this thing had to be.

XLVIII

After a painful hour they parted and went their ways. Bill, in dudgeon, back to barracks; Mame with a heartache to Half Moon Street. All the way up Piccadilly she was accompanied by two voices. Mame Durrance you are a blame fool, said one. Stick it, girl, said the other. You are throwing away the chance of your life, said the Go-getter. If you really care for the boy, you just can’t marry him, said the Idealist.

Never had she felt so miserable as when she let herself into the flat. Luckily Violet was not there. She was able to relieve her overwrought feelings with a little private howl. Then she felt better. In fact she was able to sit down and compose a few halting lines to Bill embodying her final decision and giving her reasons for it. That achieved, she went to her bedroom and fetched the engagement ring which ten days ago had given her such joy.

I must have been cuckoo to have accepted it

Not half so cuckoo as you are now, you silly elf.

Miserably she packed it in its neat box and was in the act of enclosing the farewell letter when Violet came in. She had been taking the air.

One glance Violet gave to the red and swollen lids and the face of tragedy. “Why, my dear, dear child!” The vein of kindness in her was deep and true. Those piteous eyes, that piteous mouth very surely roused it. “Do tell me.” A naughty, dangerous little witch, but she was genuinely distressed to see Mame suffer. Something must have hurt her rather horribly. “Tell me, what is it?”

“I’ve let some of you folks put one over on me.” Mame fiercely brushed aside new tears.

It was not a moment for a smile. Yet it was hard to resist one at that whimsical and quaint defiance. Even in the hour of desolation the minx was like no one else. She had an odd power of attraction. It was by no means easy to dislike her. After all she had only acted in strict accordance with her nature.

“What is it? Tell me.”

Mame suddenly handed Celimene the letter she had written.

“You--you are sending back the ring?” There was a note in the voice of Bill’s sister which suggested that it feared to be other than incredulous. “You--you are breaking off the engagement?”

“I’ll say yes.”

Perhaps for the first time in their intercourse real emotion flooded the face of the more accomplished woman of the world. “Dear child!” she said softly. And then abruptly turning aside as the bleak face of Mame became more than she could bear, “You--you make one feel indescribably mean.”

It was perfectly true. She undoubtedly did, the little go-getter. Under all the surface crudity, which month by month was ceasing to be anything like as crude as it had been, was something big, vital, true.

Lady Violet was not given to self-depreciation. She knew her power of displacement only too well, even in the queer muss of a modern world. She might have been tempted to laugh at this rather pathetic thing; she might have played her off successfully against certain pretentious people, yet somehow the minx was riding off with all the honours. Mame already had taught her a pretty sharp lesson. It was one she would never forget. Lady Violet for the future would always remember that the player of unlawful games must keep an eye on the policeman. And now Mame was teaching her something else.

Seldom had this woman of the world found herself quite so much at a loss. Face to face with Mame’s heroism, for her self-sacrifice amounted to that, mere words became an impertinence. The thing to strike her about this good child when she set eyes on her first was the extraordinary grit that was in her; and it was that quality which spoke to her now.

Abruptly she forced a laugh to keep herself from tears. “My dear, you make one feel like thirty cents.”

It was one of the choicest phrases of the little go-getter, one among the many that had appealed to her friend. Somehow that phrase seemed to save the situation. Yet not altogether.

“I guess you don’t, honey.” Mame spoke bitterly. “And I guess you never will. You and your Mommer and the friends and neighbours and that old house will see to that. I’m the one to feel like thirty cents.”

The voice was so desolate that even Lady Violet, who did not care much for the practice, could not forbear from giving her a kiss. “I remember your saying that you had come over to pull the big stuff. Well, I rather think you’ve pulled it.” And her friend laughed again to keep her courage up.

“I didn’t come to pull this sort of stuff.” Mame snorted as she brushed her eyes fiercely. “I’ve gone cuckoo. And to-morrow I’ll think so.”

“One has to go cuckoo, as you call it, hasn’t one, to do the things worth doing? I could no more have let go that foolish bird, had I been you, than I could have jumped over the moon.”

“No, I guess not. And even now, if you don’t want to lose him you had better watch the cage.”

“How can we help you to keep your little paws off the foolish creature?”

“By not letting me see him again.” Mame was stoical. As she spoke she wrapped up the box containing the ring and the letter she had written in a piece of brown paper; and then applied red sealing wax. “And if you are wise you’ll just see that he gets married pretty soon to--to--” Even her bravery was not quite equal to the task of pronouncing the hated name. “I think I’ll go to the post office and send this back in a registered parcel.”

She quitted the room abruptly, leaving her friend to some very sharp-edged thoughts.

XLIX

The days that followed were dark and difficult for Mame. Nor did Lady Violet find them particularly easy. At heart she was kindly and honest and she could not help fixing upon herself a good deal of the blame for what had occurred. She it was who had introduced this little marauder; she had been wilfully and stupidly blind to the consequences; and her only excuse was that not for a moment could she believe that Bill would be so weak. Yet she had deliberately thrown them together. She had bestowed upon Mame a spurious eligibility. This bitterly humiliating business was an object lesson in the sheer folly of playing the fool.

It was decidedly painful all round. First of all, poor Mame really suffered. The part she had undertaken to play was superhumanly big. Very few girls could have gone back in that way on their whole philosophy of life; and to Violet’s good heart it was hateful to have to ask her to do it. She must have loved Bill, perhaps as no other woman was likely to do, to nerve herself to a sacrifice so high.

Much diplomacy was called for in the days that followed. Bill could be a stubborn fellow. His family had always humoured his whims. It looked at first as if there would be no handling him. Irresponsible, not to say flabby, as his nature was, had he had the wit to realise clearly that poor Mame had got a blow over the heart, he would not have taken the thing lying down.

Violet, hating intensely the rôle her own folly had doomed her to play, yet proved herself, when fairly put to it, a consummate tactician. Bill must not guess, must not come near guessing, how much this good and brave child really cared for him. He must be rather a “dud,” his sister thought, not to see it for himself. Instinct ought to have told him how the little brick was steeling her heart. Even while Violet threw dust in his eyes with a subtlety and a success for which she loathed herself, she yet clung to the paradoxical view that had Bill been worthy of Mame he would have been less obtuse. “She can’t bear your losing the Towers and giving up the Army.” That phrase was Violet’s strongest weapon. It admitted two interpretations and his sister was not in the least proud of Bill when he allowed it to suggest the wrong one. “Of course she considers the gilt will be off the gingerbread.” That was Machiavellian. The end seemed to justify the means; at any rate Violet had so persuaded herself; but it really was rather low down. And she could not, womanlike, help resenting Bill’s denseness and lack of character which made the unpleasant task of throwing dust in his eyes so much less difficult than it ought to have been.

The weeks went by and Mame set herself stoically to forget. There was pride in her as well as grit. She was determined to stand up to life and make something of the mighty difficult business of living it. To stanch her wounds she threw herself into her work with new ardour. Back of everything was rare common sense. She must have the strength to bear the self-inflicted blow without flinching.

One morning, however, just before Christmas, an incident occurred that reopened the closing wounds. Mame and Celimene were discussing the make-up of the weekly cable to New York, when Celimene said with an odd change of tone, “There’s one bit of news that may not be without interest on the other side. It’s not yet announced, so we shall be the first in the field.”

“What is the news?” asked Mame keenly. Her flair for a choice tit-bit was not less than of yore.

“A marriage has been arranged, the date of which will be shortly announced, between the Marquis of Kidderminster and Gwendolen, the only child of Giles Childwick, Esquire, and Mrs. Childwick, formerly of Treville, New Jersey.”

“Oh!” Mame gave a little gasp. Celimene saw her turn very white.

“We are none of us worthy of you, my dear. In the end you’ll find yourself well rid of people like us.” Violet’s tone had a note of pain that for her was something new. Life had not been exactly a bed of roses lately. She had discovered, a little late in the day perhaps, that she had a conscience. A share of the hurt she was inflicting had to be borne by herself.

When Mame was able to speak she said: “You’d have been good enough for me. I like you all. You are some of the nicest folks I’ve met.” The whimsical frankness of this good child brought back the laugh, if not too readily, to the worldly wise Violet. What a piece of luck, they both had a sense of humour!