“Say, Jackie Coogan, there’s no sugar.”
The polite boy in the button suit gazed at Miss Durrance with mild
surprise. New stars constantly swam into his ken. Few had better
opportunities than he of testing the simple truth that all sorts of
people are needed to make a world. It was this, no doubt, which gave
depth to his character. Nothing could have exceeded the grace of his
regret for the sugar’s omission and of his promise to bring some.
“That kid’s fierce,” was the mental comment of the traveller to the
English scene as this by-product gently closed the door upon her. She
had a very keen and lively sense of things and the air and manner of
the button suit’s wearer gave it a jolt.
Mame Durrance had certain preconceived ideas about the land she
had come to and the odd folks who peopled it, derived in the main
from exquisitely humorous writers, usually with Irish names, in her
favourite magazines. The British, if not given to mirth themselves,
were yet the cause of mirth in others. An obvious back number, the land
of George Washington’s forebears was a mass of weary pomposities; it
took itself so seriously that it couldn’t raise a smile to save its
soul. Up till now she had not had much opportunity of judging it,
but the funny little toy of a train in which she was puffing along to
London, the tame scenery--what she could see of it--through which it
passed, the little cubbyhole in which she sat alone, and the comic
child with oiled hair and the manner of a senator who ministered to her
wants, all seemed to fit neatly into the theory.
Buttons came back with two small pieces of sugar on a large tray.
“Say, son, does it hurt you any to look that way?”
“Beg your pardon, moddam?”
“All right, Mr. Asquith. On’y my ignorance. You can beat it.”
“Thank you, moddam.” Gently and gravely, without a ghost of a smile,
the polite child went.
It was well for Mame Durrance that she had these resources within
herself. For at the moment she was not on good terms with life. The
railway company’s _café au lait_, for which it had the nerve to charge
a quarter, allowing for the rate of exchange, was not very stimulating
either. And Detective Addelsee had shaken her considerably. It surely
looked as if the bad luck which had dogged her ever since she left
Cowbarn, Iowa, six months ago was going to cling.
It was just six months ago that Mame Durrance had heard the call
of ambition in rather strange circumstances. At that time she was
a stenographer, earning a few dollars a week, in the office of the
Cowbarn _Independent_. But her Aunt Lou, a sister of her long dead
mother, having left her a legacy of two thousand dollars, she at once
turned her face east.
These providential dollars must be invested in seeing life. And
as native wit had carried her already from a farm kitchen to a
stenographer’s chair, she saw no reason why, with money in her purse,
that priceless quality should not take her much further. Anyhow it
should not be for lack of trying.
She would see life. And in moments of optimism, of which at the start
she had many, she went on to describe what she saw. The seeing, alas,
proved easier than the writing; or rather the seeing and the writing
were easier than to persuade editors “to fall” for her copy. Too many
were at the game in the bright city of New York; wisenheimers of both
sexes, who instead of coming via Poppa’s pig-farm had been through
College.
There was the rub. At Cowbarn the folks didn’t set much store by
College. But New York was different.
She was a shrewd girl and it did not take long for her to realise that
she was some way behind the game. Human nature was always human nature,
when you came down to cases, but there was no denying that she lacked
experience. Back of everything was faith in herself, but so wide was
the gulf between Cowbarn, Iowa, and the banks of the Hudson that no
amount of faith could bridge it.
New York had laughed at her, scorned her, humiliated her deeply and
cruelly in more ways than one. She had been advised by newspaper men
and also by police officers, professing a disinterested care for rustic
ignorance playing a lone hand, to go back to dad and the pigs. These
experts were confident that Miss Mame Durrance would get no good of New
York.
However, they didn’t know quite so much about Mame Durrance as she knew
about herself. She might be down but she was not out. New York had no
use for her, but there were other places on the map. For instance,
there was London. No, not London, Ontario. As far as the big stuff was
concerned, that burg was in the Cowbarn class. London, England, was the
spot. She heard that London, England, offered scope for ambition. A few
years in Europe might even stop the gaps in her education. It would
be like putting herself through College. Hers was a forward-looking
mind. And as with set lips and ten fingers on a purse, which in spite
of Aunt Lou’s legacy, was not so heavy as her heart, she put off in
the _Sidonia_, she determinedly envisaged the future return of Mame
Durrance to the land of her fathers with at least three trunks of real
Paris frocks and an English accent. New York would laugh then at the
little mucker on the other side of its mouth.
Conflicting opinions had been expressed to Miss Durrance about
London. But in her small circle only one was able to speak from
first-hand knowledge. Paula Wyse Ling had been there. The others spoke
from hearsay, and in one or two cases with a little help from the
imagination. But Paula Ling had lived in London a year. This rising
columnist, who in the view of Mame was “the goods,” had taken pains to
impress the traveller with the stark truth that in the Strand ten cents
went no further than they did on Broadway.
Miss Ling had provided the adventurous Mame with the address of a cheap
but respectable boarding house in Bloomsbury, where she had stayed
herself, where, all things considered, she had received value for her
money, and could conscientiously recommend. This enterprising girl had
also given the traveller a letter of introduction to the editor of
_High Life_, a weekly journal with an address in Fleet Street, whose
ostensible business was to record the doings and sayings of Society
with a large S.
As the train sped on the practical Mame began to arrange certain things
in her mind. First she opened the small bag which was attached to her
wrist, to make sure that the sinews of war were really there; and then,
in spite of having made all sorts of calculations already, she did one
more sum in her head to find out just how far Aunt Lou’s legacy would
carry her. Then she searched for the address of Miss Ling’s boarding
house and found it written on an envelope: Beau Sejour, 56 Carvell
Street, Bloomsbury, London, W. C. Sole Proprietress Miss Aimee Valance.
Terms _en pension_.
Somehow the information in its fulness and dignity was quite
reassuring. Next the pilgrim reverently fingered the sealed envelope
which bore the address: Walter Waterson, Esq., c/o _High Life_, 9 Tun
Court, Fleet Street, London, E. C. That was reassuring too. Finally
she took in her fingers her own private card and they thrilled as she
did so.
Her own private card, which had been engraved just before she had
sailed in the _Sidonia_, had a cosmopolitan air. The world was going to
be impressed by it.
+-----------------------------------------+
| MISS AMETHYST DU RANCE |
| |
| New York City, U. S. A. |
| |
| European Correspondent |
| |
| Cowbarn _Independent_ |
+-----------------------------------------+
The good old _Independent_ looked quite class tucked away in the
left-hand corner. But it would have raised a sure smile in New York.
That city of four-flushers had taken a lot of pains to impress upon her
that Cowbarn, Iowa, was at best a one-horse burg. Perhaps London might
not be quite so good at geography. And it might not be quite so set up
with itself, although as far as Miss Durrance could learn that was a
subject upon which opinion varied.
However, there it was. European Correspondent, Cowbarn _Independent_.
At the sight of the magic words the thoughts of Mame Durrance went
rather wistfully back to the hard and dull and uncomfortable place in
which she had been born and reared. After all it was home. And even if
she was ready to die rather than go back to live there for keeps, it
was nothing to be ashamed of, for there was no place like it.
The card looked so well in the hand of Mame that she decided to mail
one as soon as she reached London, to Elmer P. Dobree, the young and
aspiring editor of the Cowbarn _Independent_. Good old Elmer P.! It
would simply tickle him to pieces. But it would show him the stuff
she was made of. He had tried to dissuade her from quitting the safe
anchorage of her stool in the _Independent_ office, and when unable
to do so, like the sport he was, had told her to send along a weekly
letter of New York news, and if able to print it he would pay the top
rate of four dollars a thousand words. The Cowbarn _Independent_ was an
influential journal, but it had never paid President Harding more than
four dollars a thousand words.
Mame took the editor at his word. Sometimes her stuff was printed.
Sometimes it wasn’t. But Elmer P.’s kindly interest in her had
continued. She had been encouraged to let him know that she was going
to Europe and that it would help her considerably if she could depend
on his keeping a corner for her London Impressions which she would mail
every Friday. Elmer P., before all things the man of affairs and the
cautious editor, would not be drawn into a rash promise, but he would
do his best. To this end he gave a bit of advice. Let her see to it
that the doggone Britishers didn’t take the pep out of her style.
So far Miss Durrance had not realised that she had a style. Anyhow she
had never aspired to one. She set down what she saw and heard and read
in words that came just naturally. And she had a kind of hunch that the
slick-a-lick New Yorkers always found something funny in the way those
words came.
The Northwestern express steamed at last into Euston and Mame found
herself up against the raw reality of London. From Crewe on the fog had
been getting more and more businesslike. By the time the metropolis
was reached a very fair imitation of a “London particular” was on the
platform to receive her. It was almost the famous “pea-soup” variety,
but not quite, which was just as well for Miss Durrance. All traffic
would have been at a standstill had she been greeted by that luxury
and the troubles of a stranger in a land of strangers increased a
hundred-fold. Even as it was, for one used to clear skies the fog was
pretty thick, yet the seasoned Cockney would have described it as not a
bad day for the time of year.
A Cockney of that genus, in the person of a luggage porter, opened
the carriage door. He took charge of Miss Durrance’s gear; also he
took charge of Miss Durrance. Slow he was, very slow, to her way of
thinking. As yet the alert traveller had not got the tempo of this
nation of mossbacks; but the porter, if not exactly an Ariel, was sure
as a rock. An earthquake or a landslide would not have hurried him and
Mame had the wisdom not to try.
He got her trunk out of the van and put it on a taxi. She gave the
address, 56 Carvell Street, Bloomsbury, in a tone of crisp importance;
the taximan, who vied with the porter in deference, touched his cap
and off they trundled into the fog. For London it was really nothing to
speak of, but the acrid vapour caused the eyes of Mame to sting and her
throat to tickle; and the combination of raw air, grimy buildings, and
an endless mud-churning sea of vehicles, slow-moving and enormous in
their bulk and mass, somehow filled her with an odd depression.
In spite of all checks to progress it was not long before they reached
Carvell Street. The taxi stopped at 56. Mame sprang out and boldly
attacked six bleak stone steps, at the top of which was a door in sore
need of paint. Her ring was answered by a comic sort of hired girl,
with cap and apron complete. When Mame asked if she might see Miss
Valance she was very politely invited to come in.
As Mame went in she made a mental note that her first impression must
record the civility of these Londoners. Somehow it had a quality riper
and mellower than any brand she had met with on her native continent.
Whether it came from the heart or was merely a part of the day’s work
of a people addicted to “frills” or just a candid admission of the
superiority of the race to which Mame herself belonged, must be left
to the future to determine; but so far the critic was pleased with the
universal Cockney politeness and she hoped it would pan out as good as
it seemed.
The observer had not time to do justice to the small gas-heated
anteroom into which she was shown before she was joined by the lady of
the house. Miss Valance was a replica of all the Cockney landladies
that ever were. Thin, angular, severe, a false front and an invincible
red tip to a freely powdered nose masked immense reserves of grim
respectability. In the view of Miss Durrance she was “a regular
he-one.” All the same the pilgrim declined to be impressed by Miss
Valance. It was part of her creed to be impressed by nothing that wore
skirts. But had an exception been allowed to this article of faith Miss
Valance would sure have put one over on her.
A disappointment was in store. Beau Sejour was full. Miss Valance
was awfully sorry but she had no vacancy. This was a blow. Mame’s
experience, brief though it was, had been chequered; and she had
duly impressed upon herself that if she adventured as far as London,
England, she must keep her eyes skinned, for like every cosmopolitan
city it was a natural home of the crook. Therefore she informed Miss
Valance that she was a very respectable girl and wasn’t going to take a
chance on any old boarding house.
From the peak of her own respectability the châtelaine of Beau Sejour
applauded Mame’s wisdom. She was helpful besides. Round the corner
in Montacute Square was an establishment she could recommend. It was
called Fotheringay House and was kept by a lady of the name of Toogood
and Miss Valance had heard her well spoken of. She might have a room to
let. Anyhow there would be no harm in trying Mrs. Toogood.
Mame felt let down. It was clear from the manner of Miss Valance that
she was not very hopeful that the worthy Mrs. Toogood would be able
to take her in. However, Mame warmly thanked Miss Valance for her
helpfulness; and then buttoning up her coat she made a resolute dive
through a passage dark and narrow towards the foggy street.
In the very act of doing so, a pang keen as the blade of a knife
drove through Mame. Her luggage! All she had in the world had been
left outside in the taxi. The villainous looking guy who had fawned
on her with a wolf’s smile as he had taken her trunk, her grip, her
mackintosh, her umbrella and herself aboard his machine, had only to
trundle away into the fog and she would be left high and dry with the
clothes she stood up in. So sharp was the thought that Mame nearly
groaned aloud. A fool trick to take a chance of that kind in a foreign
city.
Coming over in the _Sidonia_ she had read in the New York _Herald_ of
a girl who had just arrived in Paris having done what she had just
done; and the girl had never seen her luggage again. And here was Mame
Durrance, fed to the teeth with wise resolutions, walking into a trap
with open eyes!
However, the taxi stood by the kerb just as she had left it, with her
box strapped on to the front. Twopences were being registered by the
meter at an alarming rate while the driver was placidly dozing. But
the relief of Miss Durrance was considerable as she jumped in, after
ordering Jehu, who was much less of a bandit than he looked, to trek
round the corner into Montacute Square as far as Fotheringay House.
La pension Toogood was curiously like Beau Sejour, except that it had
five stone steps instead of six and that one of its area railings was
missing. For the rest it was able to muster a similar air of tired
respectability. Painted over the fanlight of the front door, in letters
that once had been white, was the historical name Fotheringay House,
yet even this did not cause the mansion to look inspiring. But Mame,
obsessed by the knowledge that she was literally burning money, did not
pause to study details.
As she sprang out of the taxi and ran up the steps of Fotheringay House
she hoped that this time she would meet better luck.
A hired girl, the twin in every detail of the slave of Beau Sejour,
opened the door. Miss Durrance was in a hurry, but she could not help
being amused and interested. It was her attitude to life to be amused
and interested; but then who would not have been with such an apron and
such a cap, with such prim politeness, with such a way of speaking?
Evidently the Britishers had standardised the hired girl. She might
have been a flivver or a motor cycle.
The theory applied with equal force to the London landlady. Mrs.
Toogood was Miss Valance over again. But if anything, she was raised
to a slightly higher power. The same dignity, the same wariness, the
same ironclad gentility; but she was a widow with two children, whereas
Miss Valance was a spinster with none. Her attributes, therefore, were
fuller and firmer, a little more clearly defined. Mame did not make the
comparison, but it was the difference between the Barbizon school and
Picasso or Augustus John.
With the taxi outside ticking off twopences with quiet fury Mame felt
she was getting down to the real meaning of her favourite maxim, Time
is Money. She cut out, therefore, all preliminaries. Without troubling
to remark that it was a nice day, as for London it was no doubt, she
began in a tone of strict business, spot cash only. “Say, ma’am, can
you let me a hall bedroom?”
From the chill mountain height of her disdain the landlady gave Mame
a once-over. No matter what the case with her visitor she was in no
hurry. The châtelaine of Fotheringay House had never heard of a hall
bedroom. Her icy gaze travelled from Mame’s rather crushed hat via her
seal plush coat to her tarnished rubbers with a quietly stiffening
reserve. Clearly a foreigner. Picturesque creatures no doubt. The late
Mr. Toogood was partial to them, but he, though of pure English blood,
was of a romantic mind and an Italian warehouseman. His widow preferred
to order her life on the sound old plan of giving a wide berth to
aliens.
Christian people never knew quite where they were with aliens. Some
of them paid, some of them didn’t. Mrs. Toogood’s experience had been
mainly among the latter. And in her view, this sharp-eyed slip of a
girl who asked for something outlandish in an accent you could cut
with a knife, had the look and air of the didn’t.
It might have been racial prejudice, but that was the landlady’s
feeling.
“From the Isle of Man, I presume,” said Mrs. Toogood loftily. Although
she was the widow of an Italian warehouseman she was not in the least
imaginative. The Isle of Man was her Ultima Thule, the farthest eagle
flight of which her mind was capable.
Mame knew as much about the Isle of Man as the landlady knew about a
hall bedroom. But she smiled broadly.
“I’m from New York.” Her voice went up a little as she made that
damaging admission. For the admission _was_ damaging.
“That would be America, would it not?” The growing gloom of the
landlady began to verge upon melancholia.
Mame allowed that it would be.
The landlady sniffed. Mame knew by that sniff that the home of her
fathers was in the discard.
Mrs. Toogood, if not a travelled woman, or a widely read or highly
informed, was yet an educated one. She had been educated by the movies.
That form of hyperculture which aims to instruct as well as to amuse
and delights to draw together the nations of the earth had put this
good lady wise on the subject of America.
Every Saturday afternoon it was the custom of a modern and progressive
mother to take her twin sons, ætat nine years and two months, Horatio
Nelson Toogood and Victor Emanuel Toogood by name--the Italian
warehouseman had insisted on the Victor Emanuel in honour of his
calling--to the Britannia Picture Palace in the Euston Road. In that
centre of light they had learned that America was not quite what she
gave herself out to be. God’s Own Country was a truly wicked place. The
crook, the vamp, the dope-fiend, the cattle-rustler, the bootlegger,
the forger, the slick duck, the run amok quick shooter, the holder-up
of mails was as thick on the floor of those United States as the white
and yellow crocus in a Thames meadow in the middle of February. And
as London is to the virtuous island of Britain, so is New York to the
infamous land of the free.
The English are a moral race. They honestly believe their morals are
purer than any upon the wide earth. That is why the Pictures are not
only educational, but popular. They exhibit Cousin Yank in the buff.
And even if the sight embarrasses the pious cheek of Euston Road, N.
W., it is pleasant sometimes to spare a blush for one’s rich relations.
In the dour eye that regarded Mame was sorrow. The girl looked harmless
even if her speech was odd. But appearances are not things to bank on;
at least in Mrs. Toogood’s experience.
“Any old box’ll do for me, so long as it’s clean and ain’t beyond my
wad.”
“I have a small room on the top floor.” The landlady was guarded.
It was next the servants and very difficult to let; the p.g.’s of
Fotheringay House were persons of clearly defined social status.
Mame welcomed with enthusiasm the prospect of a small room on the top
floor. The landlady repeated the once-over without enthusiasm. Should
she? Or should she not? An outlandish girl, American to the bone, but
this attic would be none the worse for a tenant, provided, of course,
that she was really a paying one.
Elmer P. Dobree had told Mame more than once that “she was cute as a
bag of monkeys.” The zoölogical resources of five continents could not
have exceeded the flair with which Miss Durrance opened her vanity bag
and produced an impressive roll of Bradburys.
“I’ll be happy to pay a fortnight in advance.” It was Mame’s best
Broadway manner. “Here is the money. I am a very respectable girl.”
Reassured by the sight of the Bradburys rather than by the Broadway
manner, which to the insular taste had a decidedly cosmopolitan
flavour, the landlady went so far as to ask for a name and references.
“I’m a special European correspondent.” Mame gave a slow and careful
value to each word.
A faint beam pierced the landlady’s gloom. She had feared “an actress”;
although to be just to the girl she didn’t look that sort.
“Here is my card,” Broadway cold drawn and pure, with a dash of Elmer
P. talking over the phone.
The châtelaine of Fotheringay House adjusted a pair of gold-rimmed
eyeglasses and read:
+-----------------------------------------+
| MISS AMETHYST DU RANCE |
| |
| New York City, U. S. A. |
| |
| European Correspondent |
| |
| Cowbarn _Independent_ |
+-----------------------------------------+
The card was returned to its owner with polite thanks. A subtle gesture
indicated that a sudden rise had occurred in the stock of Miss Amethyst
Du Rance.
“I’m not quite sure, Miss Du Rance, but I may be able to find you a
bedroom on the second floor.”
Victory! The roll had begun the good work, but the card had consummated
it. One up for the Cowbarn _Independent_.
Iowa’s shrewd daughter had realized already that it would not do to
make a poor mouth in Europe. All the same Aunt Lou’s legacy was melting
like snow. Money must appear to be no object as far as Miss Amethyst Du
Rance was concerned; yet she must watch out or a whole dollar would not
pull more than fifty cents.
“Top floor’ll fix me.” Mame it was who spoke, yet with the lofty
voice of Miss Amethyst Du Rance. “Tariff’ll be less, I reckon,
but”--haughtily detaching a second Bradbury from the wad--“I’ll be
most happy to pay spot cash in advance for a fortnight’s board and
residence.”
Money is quite as eloquent in London, England, as it is in New York or
Seattle or Milpitas, Cal. Mame’s air of affluence combined with a solid
backing of notes did the trick, although the well-bred fashion in which
a dyed-in-the-wool British landlady glossed over the fact seemed to
render it non-existent.
“You have luggage, I presume?”
There was a trunk outside on the taxi.
“The porter will take it up to your room. I will ring for him now.”
Mrs. Toogood suited the word to the action, the action to the word. She
was crisp and decisive, final and definite. Mame felt this lady was
wasted in private life. She ought to have been in Congress.