When Mame returned to the drawing room she was dressed for the evening
meal. It was only seven o’clock and she counted on having the place to
herself, since at that hour the tabbies would be occupied with their
own preparations. But as it happened the room was not quite empty.
There was just one person in it.
The old elegant, who had already excited Mame’s curiosity, stood before
the meagre fire warming his thin hands. As soon as she came in he
turned towards her with a little bow of rare politeness.
“I am told,” he said in the deepest, most measured tone Mame had ever
heard, “you are an American.”
Mame owned to that in the half-humorous manner she had already adopted
for the benefit of these islanders. Some folks might have been abashed
by this obvious grandee. Not so Miss Amethyst Du Rance. She was as good
as the best and she was in business to prove it. These bums were not to
be taken at their own valuation. Back of everything her faith in her
own shrewd wits was unshakable.
“I have a very warm corner in my heart for all Americans.”
“Have you so?” said Mame.
There was not a hint of patronage in the old buck’s manner, yet
in spite of his air of simple kindness, Mame somehow felt the
King-of-England-with-his-beard-off feeling creeping upon her. He was
the goods all right, this old john, but she was determined to take him
in her stride as she would have taken President Harding or any other
regular fellow.
“Won’t you tell me your name?”
Mame opened the small bag which she never parted with, even at meal
times, and took out her card. The old man fixed his eyeglass and
scanned it with prodigious solemnity. “Cowbarn.” A bland pause. “Now
tell me, what state is that in? It’s very ignorant not to know,” he
apologetically added.
“No, it ain’t.” Mame was captivated by the air of humility, although
not sure that it was real. “Cowbarn’s in the state of Iowa. On’y a
one-horse burg.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure, Iowa.” The grandee made play with his eyeglass.
“I remember touring the Middle West with Henry Irving in ’89.”
So long was ’89 before Mame was born that she was a trifle vague upon
the subject of Henry Irving. But she knew all about Lloyd George,
Arthur, Earl of Balfour, and even Old Man Gladstone of an earlier day.
She surmised that Henry was one of these.
“A senator, I guess?”
“My dear young lady, no.” The tone of surprise was comically tragic.
“Henry Irving was the greatest ac-torr Eng-laand ever produced.”
“You don’t say!” The awe in Mame’s voice was an automatic concession
to the awe in the voice of the speaker.
“Yes, Eng-laand’s greatest ac-torr.” There was a note of religious
exaltation in the old grandee. “I toured the United States three times
with Henry Irving.”
“Did you visit Cowbarn?” Mame asked for politeness’ sake. To the best
of her information, Cowbarn, like herself, had not been invented in ’89.
“I seem to remember playing the Duke there to Henry Irving’s Shylock
at a one-night stand,” said the grandee also for politeness’ sake. He
had never heard of Cowbarn, he had never been to Iowa, and in ’89 Henry
the August had given up the practice of playing one-night stands. But
the higher amenities of the drawing room are not always served by a
conservative handling of raw fact.
Mame, with that sharp instinct of hers, knew the old chap was lying.
But it didn’t lessen her respect. He had an overwhelming manner and
when he gave the miserable fire a simple poke he used the large gesture
of one who feels that the eyes of the universe are upon him. Still,
with every deduction made, and a homely daughter of a republic felt
bound to make many, he was the most human thing she had met so far in
her travels.
His name was Falkland Vavasour. And in confiding to Mame this bright
jewel of the English theatre, which his pronunciation of it led her
to think it must be, he yet modestly said that its lustre was nought
compared with the blinding effulgence of the divine Henry.
“Some ac-torr, old man Henry Irv,” Mame was careful to pronounce the
sacred word “actor” in the manner of this old-timer.
“My de-ah young lady, Henry Irving was a swell. Never again shall we
look upon his like.”
“I’ll say not.” And then with an instinct to hold the conversation at
the level to which it had now risen Mame opened the door of fancy.
“Come to think of it, I’ve heard my great-uncle Nel speak of Henry
Irving. You’ve heard, I guess, of Nelson E. Grice, the Federal general,
one of the signatures to the peace of Appomattox. He was the brother
of my mother’s mother. Many’s the time I’ve set on Great-uncle’s knee
and played with the gold watch and chain that his old friend General
Sherman give him the day after the battle of Gettysburg.”
Great-uncle Nel had really nothing to do with the case, but Mame
felt he was a sure card to play in this high-class conversation. The
old Horse had not been a general, he had not signed the peace of
Appomattox, and there was a doubt whether General Sherman, whose friend
he certainly was, had ever given him a gold watch and chain; but he was
a real asset in the Durrance family. Apart from this hero there was
nothing to lift it out of the rut of mediocrity. Quite early in life
Mame had realized the worth of great-uncle Nel.
Mr. Falkland Vavasour had the historical sense. He rose to General
Nelson E. Grice like a trout to a may fly. The old buck refixed his
eyeglass and recalled the Sixties. He was playing junior lead at
the Liverpool Rotunda when the news came of President Lincoln’s
assassination. He remembered-- But what did he not remember? Yes,
great-uncle Nel was going to be a sure card in London, England.
Mame was getting on with the old beau like a house on fire when the
clock on the chimneypiece struck half-past seven. Mr. Falkland Vavasour
gave a little sigh and said he must go. Mame, quickened already by a
regard for this charming old man, who lit the gloom of Fotheringay
House, expressed sorrow that he was not dining in.
But it seemed that Mr. Falkland Vavasour never did dine in. This
applied, in fact, to all his meals. All his meals were taken out.
“But why?” asked Mame disappointedly.
“My dear young lady”--the old-timer’s shrug was so whimsical yet so
elegant it sure would have made Henry Irving jealous--“one has nothing
against the cook of our hostess-- But!”
Until that moment Mame had not realized what a world of meaning a
simple word can hold.
She was keenly disappointed. As the first tabby invaded the drawing
room Mr. Falkland Vavasour passed out. A glamour, a warmth, passed out
with him. Everything grew different. It was a change from light to
darkness; it was like a swift cloud across the sun.