When my father had been extravagant, he used to say gaily in
self-defence that "one owed something to one's ancestors." Certainly, if
it had not been for several of his ancestors, he would not have owed so
much to his contemporaries. But in spite of their agreeable vices, or
because of them, I was brought up in the cult of ancestor worship, as
religiously as if I had been Chinese.
To be a d'Angely was a privilege, in our eyes, which not only supplied
gilding for the gingerbread, but for the most economical substitutes.
"Ne roi je suis,
Ne prince aussi,
Je suis le Sire d'Angely,"
calmly remarked the gentleman of Louis XI.'s time, who became famous for
hanging as many retainers as he liked, and defending his action by
originating the family motto.
Mother also had ancestors who began to take themselves seriously
somewhere about the time of the _Mayflower_, though for all we know they
may have secured their passage in the steerage.
"A Courtenay can do anything," was their rather ambiguous motto, which
suggested that it might have been started in self-defence, if not as a
boast; and it (the name, not the motto) had been thoughtfully
sandwiched in between my Lys and my d'Angely by my sponsors in baptism,
that if necessary I might ever have an excuse at hand for any dark deed
or infra dig-ness.
I used often to murmur the consoling mottoes to myself when pattering
through muddy streets, too poor to take an omnibus, on the way to
sell--or try to sell--my translations or my _menus_. But now, after all
that's happened, if it is to strike conviction to my soul, I shall be
obliged to yell it at the top of my mental lungs.
(That expression may sound ridiculous, but it isn't. We could not talk
to ourselves as we do, in all kinds of voices, high or low, if we hadn't
mental lungs, or at the least, sub-conscious-self lungs.)
_Je suis_ the daughter of the last Sire d'Angely; and a Courtenay can do
anything; so of course it's all right; and it's no good my ancestors
turning in their graves, for they'll only make themselves uncomfortable
without changing my mind.
I, Lys d'Angely, am going to be a lady's-maid; or rather, I am going to
be the maid of an extremely rich person who calls herself a lidy.
It's perfectly awful, or awfully comic, according to the point of view,
and I swing from one to the other, pushed by my fastidiousness to my
sense of humour, and back again, in a way to make me giddy. But it's
settled. I'm going to do it. I had almost to drag the suggestion out of
Lady Kilmarny, who turned red and stammered as if I were the great lady,
she the poor young girl in want of a situation.
There was, said she, a quaint creature in the hotel (one met these
things abroad, and was obliged to be more or less civil to them) who
resembled Monsieur Charretier in that she was disgustingly rich. It was
not Corn Plasters. It was Liver Pills, the very same liver pills which
had dropped into the mind of Lady Kilmarny when I hesitated to put into
words the foundation of my _pretendant's_ future. It was the Liver Pills
which had eventually introduced into her brain the idea she falteringly
embodied for me.
The husband of the quaint creature had invented the pills, even as
Monsieur Charretier had invented his abomination. Because of the pills
he had been made a Knight; at least, Lady Kilmarny didn't know any other
reason. He was Sir Samuel Turnour (evolved from Turner), just married
for the second time to a widow in whose head it was like the continual
frothing of new wine to be "her ladyship."
Lady Turnour had lately quarrelled with a maid and dismissed her, Lady
Kilmarny told me. Now, she was in immediate need of another, French
(because French maids are fashionable) able to speak English, because
the Turnour family had as yet mastered no other language. Lady Kilmarny
believed that this was the honeymoon of the newly married pair, and
that, after having paused on the wing at Cannes, for a little billing
and cooing, they intended to pursue their travels in France for some
weeks, before returning to settle down in England. "Her Ladyship" was
asking everybody with whom she had contrived to scrape acquaintance
(especially if they had titles) to recommend her a maid. Lady Kilmarny,
as a member of the League against Cruelty to Animals, had determined
that nothing would induce her to throw any poor mouse to this cat, even
if she heard of a mouse plying for hire; but here was I in a dreadful
scrape, professing myself ready to snap at anything except Corn
Plasters; and she felt bound to mention that the mousetrap was open, the
cheese waiting to be nibbled.
"Do you think she'd have me?" I asked--"the quaint creature, her
ladyship?"
"Only too likely that she would," said Lady Kilmarny. "But remember, the
worst is, she doesn't _know_ she's a quaint creature. She is quite happy
about herself, offensively happy, and would consider you the 'creature.'
A truly awful person, my dear. A man in this hotel--the little thing you
saw me talking to this morning, knows all about them both. I think they
began in Peckham or somewhere. They _would_, you know, and call it
'S.W.' She was a chemist's daughter, and he was the humble assistant,
long before the Pill materialized, so she refused him, and married a
dashing doctor. But unfortunately he dashed into the bankruptcy court,
and afterward she probably nagged him to death. Anyway he died--but not
till long after Sam Turner had taken pity on some irrelevant widow, as
his early love was denied him. The widow had a boy, to whom the
stepfather was good--(really a very decent person according to his
lights!) and kept on making pills and millions, until last year he lost
his first wife and got a knighthood. The old love was a widow by this
time, taking in lodgers in some neighbourhood where you _do_ take
lodgers, and Sir Samuel found and gathered her like a late rose.
Naturally she puts on all the airs in the world, and diamonds in the
morning. She'll treat you like the dirt under her feet, because that's
her conception of her part--and yours. But I'll introduce you to her if
you like."
After a little reflection, I did like; but as it seemed to me that
there'd better not be two airs in the family, I said that I'd put on
none at all, and make no pretensions.
"She's the kind that doesn't know a lady or gentleman without a label,"
my kind friend warned me. "You must be prepared for that."
"I'll be prepared for anything," I assured her. But when it came to the
test, I wasn't quite.
Lady Kilmarny wrote a line to Lady Turnour, and asked if she might bring
a maid to be interviewed--a young woman whom she could recommend. The
note was sent down to the bride (who of course had the best suite in the
hotel, on the first floor) and presently an answer came--saying that Her
Ladyship would be pleased to receive Lady Kilmarny and the person in
question.
Suddenly I felt that I must go alone. "Please leave me to my fate," I
said. "I should be too self-conscious if you were with me. Probably I
should laugh in her face, or do something dreadful."
"Very well," Lady Kilmarny agreed. "Perhaps you're right. Say that I
sent you, and that, though you've never been with me, friends of mine
know all about you. You might tell her that you were to have travelled
with the Princess Boriskoff. That will impress her. She would kiss the
boot of a Princess. Afterward, come up and tell me how you got on with
'Her Ladyship.'"
I was stupid to be nervous, and told myself so; but as I knocked at the
door of the suite reserved for Millionaires and other Royalties, my
heart was giving little ineffective jumps in my breast, like--as my old
nurse used to say--"a frog with three legs."
"Come in!" called a voice with sharp, jagged edges.
I opened the door. In a private drawing-room as different as the
personality of one woman from another, sat Lady Turnour. She faced me as
I entered, so I had a good look at her, before casting down my eyes and
composing my countenance to the self-abnegating meekness which I
conceived fitting to a _femme de chambre comme il faut_.
She was enthroned on a sofa. One could hardly say less, there was so
much of her, and it was all arranged as perfectly as if she were about
to be photographed. No normal woman, merely sitting down, with no other
object than to be comfortable, would curve the tail of her gown round in
front of her like a sickle; or have just the point of one shoe daintily
poised on a footstool; or the sofa-cushions at exactly the right angle
behind her head to make a background; or the finger with all her best
rings on it, keeping the place in an English illustrated journal.
I dared not believe that she had posed for me. It must have been for
Lady Kilmarny; and that I alone should see the picture was a bad
beginning.
She is of the age when a woman can still tell people that she is forty,
hoping they will exclaim politely, "Impossible!"
It is not enough for her to be a Ladyship and a millionairess. She will
be a beauty as well, or at all costs she will be looked at. To that end
are her eyebrows and lashes black as jet, her undulated hair crimson,
her lips a brighter shade of the same colour, and her skin of magnolia
pallor, like the heroines of the novels which are sure to be her
favourites. Once, she must have been handsome, a hollyhock queen of a
kitchen-garden kingdom; but she would be far more attractive now if only
she had "abdicated," as nice middle-aged women say in France.
Her dress was the very latest dream of a neurotic Parisian modiste, and
would have been seductive on a slender girl. On her--well, at least she
would have her wish in it--she would not pass unnoticed!
She looked surprised at sight of me, and I saw she didn't realize that I
was the expected candidate.
"Lady Kilmarny couldn't come," I began to explain, "and--"
"Oh!" she cut me short. "So you are the young person she is recommending
as a maid."
I corrected Miss Paget when she called me a "young woman," but times
have changed since then, and in future I must humbly consent to be a
young person, or even a creature.
For a minute I forgot, and almost sat down. It would have been the end
of me if I had! Luckily I remembered What I was, and stood before my
mistress, trying to look like Patience on a monument with butter in her
mouth which mustn't be allowed to melt.
"What is your name?" began the catechism (and the word was "nime,"
according to Lady Turnour).
"N or M," nearly slipped out of my mouth, but I put Satan with all his
mischief behind me, and answered that I was Lys d'Angely.
"Oh, the surname doesn't matter. As you're a French girl, I shall call
you by your first name. It's always done."
(The first time in history, I'd swear, that a d'Angely was ever told his
name didn't matter!)
"You seem to speak English very well for a French woman?" (This almost
with suspicion.)
"My mother was American."
"How extraordinary!"
(This was apparently a _tache_. Evidently lady's-maids are expected
_not_ to have American mothers!)
"Let me hear your French accent."
I let her hear it.
"H'm! It seems well enough. Paris?"
"Paris, madame."
"Don't call me 'madame.' Any common person is madame. You should say
'your ladyship'."
I said it.
"And I want you should speak to me in the third person, like the French
servants are supposed to do in good houses."
"If mad--if your ladyship wishes."
(Thank heaven for a sense of humour! My one wild desire was to laugh.
Without that blessing, I should have yearned to slap her.)
"What references have you got from your last situation?"
"I have never been in service before--my lady."
"My word! That's bad. However, you're on the spot, and Lady Kilmarny
recommends you. The poor Princess was going to try you, it seems. I
should think she wouldn't have given much for a maid without any
experience."
"I was to have had two thousand francs a year as the Princess's com--if
the Princess was satisfied."
"Preposterous! I don't believe a word of it. Why, what can you _do_? Can
you dress hair? Can you make a blouse?"
"I did my mother's hair, and sometimes my cousin's."
"_Your_ mother! _Your_ cousin! I'm talking of a lidy."
My sense of humour _did_ almost fail me just then. But I caught hold of
it by the tail just as it was darting out of the window, spitting and
scratching like a cross cat.
It was remembering Monsieur Charretier that brought me to my bearings.
"I think your ladyship would be satisfied," I said. "And I make all my
own dresses."
"That one you've got on?--which is _most_ unsuitable for a maid, I may
tell you, and I should never permit it."
"This one I have on, also."
"I thought maybe it had been a present. Well, it's _something_ that you
speak both English and French passably well. I'll try you on Lady
Kilmarny's recommendation, if you want to come to me for fifty francs a
month. I won't give more to an _amateur_."
I thought hard for a minute. Lady Kilmarny had said it would not be many
weeks before the Turnours went to England. There, if Miss Paget (who
seemed extremely nice by contrast and in retrospect) were still of the
same mind, I might find a good home. If not, she was as kind as she was
queer, and would help me look further. So I replied that I would accept
the fifty francs, and would do my best to please her ladyship.
She did not express herself as gratified. "You can begin work this
evening," she said. "I was obliged to send away my last maid yesterday,
and I'm _lost_ without one." (This was delightful from a "lidy" who had
kept lodgers for years, with the aid perhaps of one smudgy-nosed
"general"!) "But have you no more suitable clothes? I can't let a maid
of mine go flaunting about, like a Mary-Jane-on-Sunday."
I mentioned a couple of plain black dresses in my wardrobe, which might
be made to answer if I were allowed a few hours' time to work upon them,
and didn't add that they remained from my mourning for one dearly loved.
"You can have till six o'clock free," said Lady Turnour. "Then you must
come back to lay out my things for dinner, and dress me. What about your
room? Had the Princess taken something for you in the hotel?"
I evaded a direct answer by saying that I had a room; and was inwardly
thankful that, evidently, the Turnours had not noticed me in the
restaurant at luncheon, otherwise things might have been awkward.
"Very well, you can keep the same one, then," went on her ladyship, "and
let the hotel people know it's Sir Samuel who pays for it. To-morrow
morning we leave, in our sixty-horse-power motor car. We are making a
tour before going back to England. Sir Samuel's stepson joins us in
Paris or perhaps before and travels on with us. He is staying now with
some French people of very high title, who live in a château. You will
sit on the front seat with the chauffeur."
This was a blow! I hadn't thought of the chauffeur. "But," thought I,
"chauffeur or no chauffeur, it's too late now for retreat."
Talk of Prometheus with his vulture, the Spartan boy with his decently
concealed wolf! What of Lys d'Angely with an English chauffeur in her
pocket?