Not the puny domestic brand of our own faulty and deficient land, mind
you, but the large, super-extra-fine export, golden-russet adenoid of
that favored island whose boast is that Britons never shall be slaves
except to catarrh. And he's as solemn as a Masonic funeral. And he
stepped right out of a book by way of the stage. He ought to be serving
strawberries and Devonshire cream on the terrace to the curate of St.
Ives and the dear old Dowager Duchess of What-you-may-call-'em, while
the haw-haw blooms in the hedgerow. He ought to be coming on at the
beginning of Act One to answer the telephone and pat the sofa pillows
smooth and fold up 'The Pink 'Un,' and sigh deeply because the Young
Marster is going to the dogs. He ought to be outlining the plot to a
housekeeper in rustling black silk named Meadows."
"Ollie Braid, are you delirious?"
"Not at all. I am dazed, dazzled, blinded, but I am not delirious. I
can half shut my eyes and see him in his hours of ease sitting in our
buttery perusing that sprightly volume with full-page illustrations
entitled 'The Stately Homes of Old England.' Sounds pretty good, eh
what? Good--hell! He's perfect. He certainly ought to do a lot for us
socially over there in Ingleglade. I can half shut 'em again and see
the local peasantry turning a lovely pea-green with envy as he issues
forth on the front lawn to set up the archery butts so that we may
practice up on our butting. That's another place where the buttery will
come in handy."
"He was willing to come out, then?"
"Well, at first he did balk a little on the idea of demeaning himself
by accepting a position with the lower or commuting classes. The
country, yes; the town, perhaps, but the environs--well, hardly. That
was his attitude. But with my lilting love-song I won him, he-siren
that I am. I told him Ingleglade was not really suburban but merely
outlying, if one gets what one means. That wasn't deception, that was
diplomacy. Anyhow, haven't we got some of the outlyingest real-estate
dealers in the entire state of New Jersey? Do we not combine all
the drawbacks of the city with few or none of the advantages of the
country? I often sit and wonder whence comes this magic power of mine
for bending strong natures to my will. The crowning stroke was when
I told him Boyce-Upchurch was so shortly to honor us. That won him.
He admires Boyce-Upchurch tremendously. Not his books--he hasn't read
'em--but it seems he knows Boyce-Upchurch's uncle, who's an archduke or
a belted earl or something well up among the face-cards."
"You talk too much, Oliver. You think you're funny and you aren't."
"Oh, but, madam--"
"Shut up a minute! He has references, of course?"
"Fair lady, sweet dame, I plight you my solemn word that with the
references he's got from noble British families he could be our
ambassador to the Court of St. James the day after he took out his
naturalization papers. He's temporarily unattached but that's because
he hasn't been able to find anybody worthy of him. He's only taking us
on trial. Why hark ye, lass, he used to work for the 'Un'rable 'Urrible
'Ubbs. He's got the documents to prove it."
"The what?"
"I'm merely telling you what he said. It didn't sound like a name to
me, either, at first. But now it's beginning to grow on me; I may make
a song out of it."
"When will he be out?"
"This very night. I'm chaperoning him personally. We are to meet at
the ferry, and I'm to wear a primrose in my buttonhole in case he's
forgotten how I look. I'm reading up now on the history of the Norman
Conquest. I want to be prepared to meet him on his own ground should he
care for conversation."
"Ollie, you always were an idiot."
"Dear wench, 'tis a family failing. I have a sister, a flower-like slip
of a thing, but, alas, she suffers from pollen in the pod."
"And what's more, she's going to give you a hard slap the first
chance." Over the line her voice took on an uncertain tone. "Of course
I know you're exaggerating frightfully but--"
"As regards Launcelot, you couldn't exaggerate. He confounds the powers
of description. He baffles the most inventive imagination. He--"
"Oh, do listen! All at once I'm beginning to worry about Norah. I
hadn't thought of her until right now."
"What of Norah?"
"Well, from what you say and even making allowances for your romancing,
this man must be very English. And Norah's so--so Irish. Delia is, too,
for that matter. But especially Norah."
"Strange, but I had noticed that myself about our Norah."
"Notice it?--I should say. She calls the English--what is it she calls
them?"
"Black-and-Tans. Also Saxon oppressors. Also a name which is pronounced
by hissing first and then gritting the teeth in a bitter manner. I
think it's an old Gaelic word signifying Oliver Cromwell. You may
recall having heard that Norah has a brother who had some personal
misunderstanding with the authorities in Dublin in the year 1916.
He became at that time very seriously antagonized toward them. And
it looks to me as though Norah was inclined to take sides in the
controversy."
"Naturally. But she may make trouble. I hadn't thought of that before.
And if he should happen to do anything or say anything to arouse her or
if she should take one of her grudges against Mr. Boyce-Upchurch--oh,
I'm scared, Oliver!"
"Prithee be blithe and gay. Norah and I understand each other. We have
a bond between us or will have one as soon as I tell her privately that
I'm contributing to a fund for financing an uprising on the part of
those poor down-trodden Hindus. Immediately on my arrival this evening
I'll take Norah apart and--"
"You'll do what?"
"Don't worry. I'm going to put her back together again, so you'd never
notice it. But I'll take her apart and beg her for my sake to remain
calm, cool, and collected. You leave Norah to me."
"I suppose I'll have to; there's nothing else to be done. And, Oliver,
you may be a born idiot but just the same you're a dear for going to
all this trouble on my account and I do appreciate it. There--I'm
throwing you a kiss by wire."
"Kindly confine yourself to appreciating Launcelot--that, God wot, will
be reward enough for me, fond heart. And in case either our butler or
our guest, or both of them, should desire to call the tenants in from
the estate, all to stand and join in singing the Royal Anthem, please
remember how it goes--God Save the King until Norah's Brother Can Get
at Him!"
* * * * *
Ditto shifted from civilian garb and served dinner that evening. It
became a meal that was more than a meal; it became a ceremonial. There
was a formalism to it, there was pomp and circumstance. The passing
of a dish was invested with a ritualistic essence. Under Ditto's
ministrations so simple a dessert as cold rice pudding took on a new
meaning. One wondered what Ditto could have done with a fancy ice. One
felt that merely with a loaf of bread and a jug of wine and none of
the other ingredients of Old Omar's recipe for a pleasant evening, he
nevertheless could have fabricated the plausible illusion of a banquet
of courses. Mrs. Gridley was thrilled to her marrows--possibly a trifle
self-conscious but thrilled.
After dinner and a visit to the service wing, Mr. Braid sought out
his sister on the veranda where she was doing what most of her
sister-villagers of parched Ingleglade were doing at that same
hour--wishing for rain.
"Well, Dumplings," he said, "you may continue to be your own serene
self. In me behold a special plenipotentiary doing plenipotenching by
the day, week, or job, satisfaction guaranteed or money refunded. I've
just had a little heart-to-heart chat with Norah and there isn't a
cloud in the sky as large as a man's hand."
"I wish there were--this terrible drought!" she said, her thoughts
divided between the two concerns uppermost in her mind. "What did you
say to her?"
"I approached the subject with my customary tact. With a significant
glance toward the visiting nobleman I reminded Norah that blood was
thicker than water, to which she piously responded by thanking God for
three thousand miles of the water. Still, I think she's going to keep
the peace. For the moment, she's impressed, or shall I say fascinated.
Ditto is high-hatting her something scandalous, and she's taking
it. For all our Norah's democratic principles she evidently carries
in her blood the taint of a lurking admiration for those having an
aristocratic bearing, and Ditto is satisfying the treasonable instinct
which until now she has had no chance to gratify--at least, not while
living with us. As for Delia, that shameless hussy is licking the spoon
and begging for more. She's a traitor to United Ireland and the memory
of Daniel O'Connell.
"Mind you, I'm not predicting that the spell will endure. The ancient
feud may blaze up. We may yet have a race war in our kitchen. For
all you know, you may at this moment be sitting pretty on a seething
volcano; but unless something unforeseen occurs I think I may safely
promise you peace and harmony, during the great event which is about to
ensue in our hitherto simple lives.
"For, as I said just now, Norah is under a thrall--temporary perhaps
but a thrall just the same. Well, I confess to being all thralled-up
myself. That certainly was a high-church dinner--that one tonight
was. Several times I was almost overcome by a well-nigh irrepressible
temptation to get up and ask Ditto to take my place and let me pass a
few things to him."
"I don't believe there ever has been such a drought," said Mrs. Gridley.
"Ho, hum, well, I suppose we'll all get used to this grandeur in time,"
said Mr. Braid. "I wonder if he is going to put on the full vestments
every night no matter whether we have company or not? I wish on nights
when we do have very special company he'd loan me his canonicals and
wear mine. I expect he'd regard it as presuming if I asked for the
address of his tailor? What do you think, Dumplings?"
"I wish it would rain," said Mrs. Gridley. "And I hope and pray
Norah doesn't fly off into one of her tantrums. I wonder does Mr.
Boyce-Upchurch like Thousand Islands dressing or the Russian better?
What were you just saying, Ollie?"
Mr. Braid tapped his skull with his forefinger.
"Ah, the family failing," he murmured, "that dread curse which afflicts
our line! With some of the inmates it day by day grows worse. And
there's nothing to be done--it's congenital."
"I expect the best thing to do is just to take a chance on the
Russian," said Mrs. Gridley. "If he doesn't like it, why he doesn't
like it and I can't help myself, I didn't catch what you said just
then, Ollie?"
"Abstraction overcomes the victim; the mind wanders; the reason
totters," said Mr. Braid. "By the way, I wonder if Ditto would care to
have his room brightened with a group view of the Royal Family--the
King in shooting costume, the Queen wearing the sort of hat that the
King would probably like to shoot; the lesser members grouped about?
You know the kind of thing I mean."
"Would you start off tomorrow night with clams or a melon?" asked Mrs.
Gridley.
"Or perhaps he'd prefer an equestrian photograph of the Prince of
Wales," said Mr. Braid. "I know where I can pick up one second hand.
I'll stop by tomorrow and price it. It's a very unusual pose. Shows the
Prince _on_ the horse."
"Melon, I guess," said Mrs. Gridley. "Most Englishmen like cantaloups,
I hear. They're not so common among them."
"My duty being done I think I shall retire to my chamber to take a
slight, not to say sketchy bath in a shaving mug," said Mr. Braid.
"I wish it would rain," said Mrs. Gridley.
* * * * *
Numbers of friendly persons met Mr. Boyce-Upchurch at the boat that
Wednesday afternoon. Miss Titworthy inevitably was there and riding
herd, so to speak, on a swaying flock of ewes of the Ingleglade
Woman's Club. She organized a sort of impromptu welcoming committee at
the ferry-house. Mrs. Gridley missed this, though. She had to stay
outside with her runabout. Her husband and brother--the latter had
escorted Mr. Boyce-Upchurch to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street
from the University Club where he had been a guest of someone since
finishing his New England swing the week before--were with the visiting
celebrity. They surrendered him over to Miss Titworthy, who made him
run the gantlet of the double receiving line and introduced him to all
the ladies. Of these a bolder one would seek to detain him a minute
while she told him how much she admired his books and which one of them
she admired most, but an awed and timider one would merely say she was
_so_ glad to meet him, having heard of him _so_ often. Practically
every timider one said this. It was as though she followed a memorized
formula. Now and then was a bolder bold one who breasted forward at him
and cooed in the manner of a restrained but secretly amorous hen-pigeon.
Mr. Boyce-Upchurch bore up very well under the strain of it all.
Indeed, he seemed rather to expect it, having been in this country for
several months now and having lectured as far west as Omaha. He plowed
along between the greeters, a rather short and compact figure but very
dignified, with his monocle beaming ruddy in the rays of the late
afternoon sun and with a set smile on his face, and he murmuring the
conventional words.
The ceremonial being concluded, the two gentlemen reclaimed him and
led him outside, and there he met Mrs. Gridley, who drove him up the
Palisades Road, her husband and brother following in a chartered taxi
with Mr. Boyce-Upchurch's luggage. There was quite a good deal of
luggage, including a strapped steamer-rug and two very bulging, very
rugged-looking kit bags and a leather hat-box and a mysterious flat
package in paper wrappings which Mr. Braid told Mr. Gridley he was sure
must contain a framed steel engraving of the Death of Nelson.
Mr. Braid pattered on:
"For a truly great and towering giant of literature, our friend seems
very easy to control in money matters. Docile--that's the word for it,
docile. He let me tip the porter at the club for bringing down these
two tons of his detachable belongings, and on the way up Madison Avenue
he deigned to let me jump out and go in a shop and buy him an extra
strap for his blanket roll, and he graciously suffered me to pay for a
telegram he sent from the other side, and also for that shoe-shine and
those evening papers he got on the boat. Told me he hadn't learned to
distinguish our Yankee small change. Always getting the coins mixed up,
he said. Maybe he hasn't had any experience."
"Rather brusk in his way of speaking to a fellow," admitted Mr.
Gridley. "You might almost call it short. And rather fussy about
getting what he wants, I should say. Still, I suppose he has a great
deal on his mind."
"Launcelot will fairly dote on him," said Mr. Braid. "Mark my words,
Launcelot is going to fall in love with him on the spot."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Gridley was endeavoring to explain to Mr. Boyce-Upchurch
why it was that in a town lying practically on a river so large and so
wide as the Hudson there could be a water shortage. He couldn't appear
to grasp it. He declared it to be extraordinary.
This matter of a water shortage apparently lingered in his mind, for
half an hour later following tea, as he was on the point of going
aloft to his room to dress for dinner he called back to his host from
half-way up the stairs:
"I say, Gridley, no water in the taps, your wife tells me.
Extraordinary, what? Tell you what: I'll be needing a rub-down
tonight--stuffy climate here and all that. So later on just let one of
your people fetch up a portable tub to my room and bring along lots of
water, will you? The water needn't be hot. Like it warm, though. Speak
about it, will you, to that slavey of yours."
Mrs. Gridley gave a quick little wincing gasp and a hunted look about
her. But Delia had gone to carry Mr. Boyce-Upchurch's waistcoat
upstairs. The episode of the waistcoat occurred a few minutes before,
immediately after the guest had been ushered into the house.
"Frightfully warm," he remarked on entering the living-room. "Tell me,
is America always so frightfully warm in summer?" Then, without waiting
for an answer, he said: "Think I must rid myself of the wescut. All
over perspiration, you know." So saying, he took off first his coat and
next his waistcoat and hung the waistcoat on a chair and then put the
coat back on again. Still, as Mr. Braid remarked in an undertone to
nobody in particular, it wasn't exactly as though Mr. Boyce-Upchurch
had stripped to his shirt-sleeves because, so Mr. Braid pointed out to
himself, the waistband of the trousers came up so high, especially at
the back, and the suspenders--he caught himself here and mentally used
the word "braces" instead--the braces were so nice and broad that you
didn't see enough of the shirt really to count.
Dinner was at seven-thirty, with twelve at the table and place cards,
and Delia impressed to aid Ditto at serving, and the finest show of
flowers that Mrs. Gridley's dusty and famished garden could yield. She
had spent two hours that afternoon picking the least wilted of the
blossoms and designing the decorative effects. Little things occurred,
one or two of them occurring before the dinner got under way.
Ditto approached the lady of the house. "Madame," he said throatily, in
the style of one who regally bears yet more regal tidings, "madame, Mr.
Boyce-Upchurch doesn't care for cocktails. 'E would prefer a sherry and
bittez."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Gridley in a small panic of dismay. "Oh, I'm so
sorry but I'm afraid there isn't any sherry."
"There's cooking sherry out in the kitchen, sis," said Mr. Braid, who
stood alongside her smiling happily about nothing apparently. "Tackled
it myself the other day when I was feeling daredevilish."
"But the bitters--whatever they are!"
"Give him some of that cooking sherry of yours and he'll never miss the
bitters."
"Sh-h-h," she warned, "he might hear you."
He didn't, though. At that moment Mr. Boyce-Upchurch was in conversation
with Mrs. Thwaites and her husband from two doors away. He was speaking
to them of the hors d'oeuvres which had just been passed, following the
cocktails. The Thwaites were fellow countrymen of his; their accent had
betrayed them. Perhaps he felt since they spoke his language that he
could be perfectly frank with them. Frankness appeared to be one of his
outstanding virtues.
It now developed that the relish attracted him and at the same time
repelled. Undeniably, Norah's fancy ran to the concoction of dishes,
notably, appetizers and salads, which one read about in certain
standard women's magazines. Her initial offering this night had novelty
about it, with a touch of mystery. Its general aspect suggested that
Norah had drowned a number of inoffensive anchovies in thick mayonnaise
and then, repenting of the crime, had vainly endeavored to resuscitate
her victims with grated cheese.
"Messy-looking, eh?" Mr. Boyce-Upchurch was pointing an accusing
finger at the coiled remains on a bit of toast which Mrs. Thwaites had
accepted, and he was speaking in a fairly clear voice audible to any
who might be near at hand. "Glad I didn't take one. Curious fancy, eh
what, having the savory before dinner instead of afterwards--that is,
if the ghastly thing is meant to be a savory?"
Major Thwaites mumbled briefly in a military way. It might have been
an affirmative mumble or almost any other variety of mumble; you could
take your choice. Mrs. Thwaites, biting at her lower lip, went over
and peered out of a front window. She had an unusually high color, due
perhaps to the heat.
That, substantially, was all that happened in the preliminary stages of
the dinner party. There was one more trifling incident which perhaps is
worthy to be recorded but this did not occur until the second course
was brought on. The second course was terrapin. Mrs. Gridley was a
Marylander and she had been at pains to order real diamond-backs from
down on the Eastern Shore and personally to make the stew according to
an old recipe in her family. Besides, the middle of July was not the
regular season for terrapin and it had required some generalship to
insure prime specimens, and so naturally Mrs. Gridley was proud when
the terrapin came on, with the last of her hoarded and now vanishing
store of Madeira accompanying it in tiny glasses.
Mr. Boyce-Upchurch sniffed at the fragrance arising from the dish
which had been put before him. He sniffed rather with the air of a
reluctant patient going under the ether, and with his spoon he stirred
up from the bottom fragments of the rubbery black meat and bits of the
queer-shaped little bones and then he inquired what this might be. He
emphasized the '_this_.'
"It's terrapin," explained Mrs. Gridley, who had been fluttering
through a small pause for him to taste the mixture and give his
verdict. "One of the special dishes of my own state."
"And what's terrapin?" he pressed. She told him.
"Oh," he said, "sort of turtle, eh? I shan't touch it. Take it away,
please,"--this to the reverential Ditto hovering in the immediate
background.
From this point on, the talk ceased to be general. In spots, the dinner
comparatively was silent, then again in other spots conversation
abounded. From his seat near the foot, Mr. Braid kept casting
interpolations in the direction of the farther end of the table.
Repeatedly his sister squelched him. At least, she tried to do so.
He seemed to thrive on polite rebuffs, though. He sat between the
Thwaites, and Major Thwaites was almost inarticulate, as was usual with
him, and Mrs. Thwaites said very little, which was not quite so usual
a thing with her, and Mr. Braid apparently felt that he must sow his
ill-timed whimsicalities broad-cast rather than bestow them upon the
dead eddy of his immediate neighborhood.
For instance, when Miss Rachel Semmes, who was one of Ingleglade's most
literary women, bent forward from her favored position almost directly
opposite the guest of honor and said, facing eagerly toward him over
the table, "Oh, Mr. Boyce-Upchurch, talk to me of English letters," Mr.
Braid broke right in:
"Let's all talk about English letters," he suggested. "My favorite one
is 'Z.' Well, I like 'H,' too, fairly well. But to me, after all, 'Z'
is the most intriguing. What's your favorite, everybody?"
Here, as later, his attempted levity met deservedly the interposed
barrier of Miss Semmes' ignoring shoulders. She twisted in her place,
turning her back on him, the more forcibly to administer the reproof
and with her eyes agleam behind her glasses and her lips making
little attentive sucked-in gasping sounds, she harkened while Mr.
Boyce-Upchurch discoursed to her of English letters with frequent
references to his own contributions in that great field.
As the traveled observer in his own time may have noted, there is a
type of cultured Britisher who regards it as stupid to appear smart
in strange company, and yet another type who regards it as smart to
appear stupid. Mr. Boyce-Upchurch fell into neither grouping. He spoke
with a fluency, with an authoritative definiteness, with a finality,
which checked all counter-thoughts at their sources. In his criticisms
of this one and that one, he was severe or he was commendatory, as
the merits of the individual case required. He did not give opinions
so much as he rendered judgments. There was about him a convincing
firmness. There was never even a trace, a suggestion of doubt. There
were passages delivered with such eloquence that almost it seemed
to some present as though Mr. Boyce-Upchurch must be quoting from a
familiar manuscript. As, if the truth must be known, he was. Still, had
not all of intellectual America as far west as Omaha acclaimed "Masters
of the Modern English Novel, with Selected Readings from the Author's
Own Books" as a noteworthy platform achievement?
Thus the evening passed, and the Gridleys' dinner party. All had
adjourned back again to the living-room, where coffee and cigarettes
were being handed about, when from without came gusts of a warm swift
wind blowing the curtains and bringing a breath of moistness.
"Oh, I believe it's really fixing to rain," declared Mrs. Gridley,
hopefully, and on this, as if in confirmation, they all heard a grumble
of distant summer thunder off to the northwest.
At that, Mrs. Thwaites said she and the Major really must run
home--they'd come away leaving all the windows open. So they bade
everybody good night--the first ones to go.
Mr. Braid saw them to the door. In fact he saw them as far as the front
porch.
"Coming to the lecture tomorrow night, I suppose," he said. "Rally
around a brother Briton, and all that sort of thing?"
"I am not," said little Mrs. Thwaites, with a curious grim twist in her
voice. "I heard it tonight."
"Perishing blighter!" said the Major; which was quite a long speech for
the Major.
"I'm ashamed!" burst out Mrs. Thwaites in a vehement undertone. "Aren't
you ashamed, too, Rolf?"