Someone has said: “You can never tell from the way the wind blows how
the baby will look in the photograph.” Mumsie, Sister Mary and I walked
demurely into town escorted by Mr. Bang. Could anything be less
promising?
Nothing would do our cavalier but that we must enjoy his hospitality at
the Green Tree Restaurant for lunch. “They have a decent orchestra and
the grub is not half bad,” he pleaded.
We entered a confectionery shop and passed up a handsome stairway to the
first floor, where we were met by a head waiter, and shown to a table
from which, through the large window, we commanded a view of the street.
As we approached our table, I recognized at the next one Mrs. Mount and
her daughter, and at a table over against the wall Iris Carey and Basil
Locke. I kept my eyes away from these last and prepared my best smile
for Mrs. Mount, and with Mumsie bowed my acknowledgments. I took a seat
that would place my back to Iris and her swain.
Mr. Bang pressed me to supplement my modest order with several dainties
and we settled down to await the arrival of a generous lunch. I felt the
place very hot, though the air was not close.
Mumsie set her eyes on the young creatures and said to Sister Mary,
“There’s the Carey girl having lunch with Basil Locke, and drinking wine
too—the brats.”
“Isn’t it awful, and so young?” agreed Sister Mary.
“They belong to the fastest of the fast—such a pity! The Careys are
such a good old family———”
“And the boy is doing his best to add his people to the ranks of the
genteel poor,” added Mr. Bang.
“Too bad!” muttered Sister Mary.
“How’s that?” I asked, feeling I might safely appear curious. “Why
poor?”
“He’s supposed to be a mining broker. What of his father’s money he
can’t lose trying to rig the market, he loses playing poker,” explained
Mr. Bang.
Yesterday I won some of his money, but our game was only bridge,
eminently more respectable than poker.
The Mounts were the first to rise. Condescendingly her ladyship
approached our table. Mr. Bang rose deferentially; his manners are
certainly excellent. Sister Mary was introduced.
“And how are the dear people in Ottawa, Lady Lawson, Lady Matthews, and
dear Sir Charles? Do you know, really, I think Sir Charles Matthews is
the most _delightful_ man; really charming manners—so rare now-a-days.
Lady Matthews—Clair I always call her—has asked me down for the
Opening of Parliament, and, do you know, really, Doris has _never_
attended a Drawing-room yet! You know we go to Europe so often, or to
Bermuda, for the winter.”
“Are you not leaving on the 15th by the _Carmania_ from New York?” asked
Mumsie.
“No, do you know, really, it is the March winds I feel the most, if
_only_ I can get away for March, and you know I always do,” she put in
parenthetically with a glance at Sister Mary and me; and then continued,
accompanying her words, by nodding her head, and advancing her chin in
her own peculiar way. “I think I shall this year take Doris to the
Drawing-room, and then to St. Agathe or Algonquin Park for winter sport.
And then you know Clair—that is Lady Matthews—is so pressing in her
invitation—Why!”
For some moments before Mrs. Mount broke off her conversation I noticed
Mr. Bang’s eyes directed towards Iris and Basil. A slight rustle behind
me and Mr. Bang jumping to his feet, caused the interruption. Mr. Bang
made a bolt towards where his eyes had been directed, and I wheeled
round and saw him bending over the form of Iris, while beside him stood
Basil, looking on more or less stupidly. Of course, we all rushed to
help. Mr. Bang grabbed a tumbler of water and threw it in the face of
the unconscious girl. The waiters came crowding round, and some of the
other guests.
“I think we had better take her to one of the Reception-rooms,” said Mr.
Bang.
“What—Oh, what—is the matter, with her?” cried Mrs. Mount.
“She’s fainted,” answered Mr. Bang, “Don’t you think I had better take
her into the Reception-room?”
“Oh, no, no, let her come out of it,” protested Mrs. Mount.
“But it may be a long time before she does,” Mr. Bang objected.
“Perhaps we had,” agreed Basil at last.
So without more ceremony Mr. Bang gathered her in his arms, and,
followed by Basil, made his way through a portico into what I believe
was a Reception-room.
“Oh my! Oh my! poor Mrs. Carey! What will she say, how can she bear it?
And Iris has been talked about quite a lot, too. Do you know really, if
it had been Doris here———”
“But Mrs. Mount,” protested Mumsie, “Iris Carey became overcome by the
heat and fainted.”
Mrs. Mount looked steadily out of the window, advanced her chin, drew up
her mouth into the grimmest of grim expressions, and said slowly and
deliberately, “Yes, Iris Carey fainted,” and then under her voice, in
the thinnest of tones, “and Mr. Bang is a fool.”
Mumsie, Sister Mary and myself moved sadly back to our table. Mrs. Mount
said good-afternoon, and rustled away.
Naturally the incident was a shock and particularly to me. I have not
yet got over the fright Uncle gave me by his remark about the
Henry-the-Eighth Palm-room. Now I have this added stress. But I have
this consolation, Mumsie does not know that I know Iris.
Mr. Bang came back to his place.
“What ailed the girl?” asked Mumsie.
“A combination of things, I fancy.”
“Of what?”
“Wine, heat, and possibly, chiefly, a cigarette in which there was a
little too much opium.”
“Poor girl,” muttered Sister Mary.
“I smelled her breath,” added Mr. Bang, “and it was strong with
alcohol.”
“I’m afraid Mrs. Mount suspects,” said Mumsie.
“Sort of trained knowledge, as it were. Yes, I suppose a tavern-keeper’s
daughter ought to be able to distinguish between a case of acute
intoxication and a fainting fit.” His voice was sarcastic.
With that our luncheon came to an end.
I felt relieved when the discussion of the affair at lunch, which as I
knew, would prove a topic at dinner, was ended. I made a remark about
the _Vicar of Wakefield_.
I was still curious to know why Mr. Bang had given the copy of it to me.
What was the idea behind the offering?
“Have you read the copy Jack gave you?” Uncle asked.
“Only a little here and there to see how much of the story comes back to
me.”
“I always think the _Vicar of Wakefield_ such a delightful story,” and
Sister Mary smiled sweetly upon me.
“That is true,” said Uncle, “but the feature of the tale is that the
social ‘bug’ seems to have been active in Goldsmith’s time too, and
perhaps was then just as prevalent as it is to-day. Don’t you think,
Elsie, you can find a suspicion of very fine satire here and there?”
“Really, Uncle, I read the story so long ago, I have quite forgotten the
impression it made on me. I was so young and now I have only glanced
through it and read the story told by George, the vicar’s son.”
“That is a page out of Goldsmith’s own life.”
“Poor Poet Noll!” said Mumsie. “Except Charles Lamb, wasn’t he the
dearest?”
“Because he ‘wrote like an angel,’” suggested Uncle.
“Goldsmith was a loveable, weak character with whom starchy,
business-like people often lost patience. He was anyhow better than his
judges.”
“His heart was too soft,” suggested Sister Mary.
“And he had vanities,” said Uncle, “but he was of the salt of the earth.
A born Irishman! When he died old Samuel Johnson wept, and Joshua
Reynolds said he could do no more work that day. These are testimonies
to worth. I have always suspected Bozzy of being jealous of Goldy.”
“What I meant,” said Mr. Bang, whose strong point is evidently not
literature, “was that Goldsmith was one of the kind who are easily
misunderstood.”
“So are we all,” cried Uncle. “Your aunt invariably misunderstands me.”
“Oh pooh!” said Mumsie.
“And I think his contemporary Dr. Johnson a most interesting character,”
smiled Mary in her drawing-room manner.
“At any rate he knew the Yankee,” put in Mr. Bang.
I looked at Uncle and smiled. Uncle smiled too, then drew his face into
a fearful frown and bringing his clenched fist down on the table
thundered—in what must have been meant for the Johnsonian manner—“Sir!
they are a race of convicts.”
“Yes, that’s it,” cried Jack and burst out laughing. So did I.
“What’s the joke?” demanded Sister Mary.
Poor Mr. Bang! I’m quite sure he gave me the _Vicar of Wakefield_
because he thought it might do me good. How kind of him! Pooh! as Auntie
says.