The days to follow wrought havoc with Aunt Lou’s legacy. Mame’s idea
had been to support herself with her pen during her stay in England.
She had a gift, or thought she had, for expressing herself on paper;
she had a sharp eye for things, she had energy and she had ideas; yet
soon was she to learn that as far as London went the market for casual
writing was no better than New York.
Times there were when she began to regret her safe anchorage at
Cowbarn. But she did not spend much time looking back. She was
determined to be a go-getter. Briskly she went about the town, seeing
and hearing and jotting down what she saw and heard. And every Friday
morning she mailed a packet of her observations to the Cowbarn
_Independent_.
Weeks went quickly by. No word came from the only friend she had in the
small and tight world of editors. Even Elmer P. Dobree, on whom she
had optimistically counted, had turned her down. And things were not
going well with her. She had not been able to earn a dollar in Europe,
yet daily the wad was growing less. The time was sure coming when she
would have to go home with her money spent and only a few chunks of raw
experience to show for it.
Perhaps she had tried to prise off a bit too much. Wiser, perhaps, to
have stuck to her job. She had been a fairly efficient stenographer and
typist. But her active mind was bored. Hovering around that hard stool
in the _Independent_ office it wanted all there was in the world. Yet
first New York and now London, in their sharp reality, had taught her
that the world was a bigger place than she had allowed for. And there
were more folks in it. There were simply millions of Mame Durrances
around: every sort of go-getter, all wanting the earth and with just
her chance of connecting up. But if the worst came, so she had figured
it out, and she failed to click in what these Britishers called
“journalism,” she would always be able to return to an office stool.
Now, however, she was not so sure. As far as London went, it had six
million people and half of them seemed to be looking for jobs. Just to
keep in touch she had applied for one or two vacancies advertised in
the papers. She had no real wish to get them. It would have been an
admission of defeat and it was early days for that. But it would be
well, in case the time really came, to know how to come in out of the
rain.
She had applied in person but results were not encouraging. Secretarial
work was badly paid in London and the struggle for it terrible. There
was nothing like enough to go round. Besides, when all was said, Miss
Amethyst Du Rance had not come to England to adorn an office stool.
It was not yet time to say good-bye to ambition. She still firmly
believed it was in her to make good as a newspaper girl. But it was
not easy to conquer the East. Compared with most of these high-flyers
and four-flushers she was up against, with their finesse and their
culture and their slick talk, Mame Durrance was a little hick. No use
disguising it; she was a little hick. “A sense of ignorance is the
beginning of knowledge” was one of the mottoes for 1921 in the office
calendar which had adorned the fly-walk at the back of her typewriter
and which, with an eye to the future, she had committed to memory in
her spare moments.
The beginning of knowledge for Mame Durrance meant covering up your
tracks. She must see that none of her fellow go-getters put one over on
her. But even that simple precaution was not easy. They smiled every
time she opened her face, these college boobs. And being as sharp as
a hawk she had soon decided that her first duty was to get rid of her
accent.
To this end she went freely about, she dressed to the limit of her
slim purse, she laid herself out to meet interesting folks. Her fellow
p.g.’s of Fotheringay House could not be considered interesting. But
there was one exception. Mr. Falkland Vavasour continued to show
himself much her friend. And he was quite the most interesting creature
she had met. He was, also, very useful. It was a joy to hear him speak
what he called the King’s English. She felt she could not do better
than model herself on this living fount of euphony.
First she must cast out the nasal drawl that raised a smile wherever
it was heard. Then she must mobilise the vowels and consonants of the
mother tongue in the style which gave Mr. Falkland Vavasour an assured
position in the drawing room of Fotheringay House. The tabbies, for
the most part man-haters, simply hung on the words of Mr. Falkland
Vavasour. This was mainly due, in Mame’s opinion, to his faultless
voice production; and she soon set to work to study it.
Paula Wyse Ling, the most accomplished go-getter of her acquaintance,
had said it was worth any girl’s while to visit London in order to
acquire an English accent. Mame had doubted this. What was good enough
for Cowbarn, Iowa, should have been good enough for the whole world.
But the world, it seemed, was some place. She now began to see what
Paula meant.
No sooner had Miss Amethyst Du Rance won the friendship of Mr. Falkland
Vavasour than she decided that something must be done in the matter.
She discreetly asked if he could tell her how to improve her voice. The
old man tactfully said it didn’t need improvement. In his opinion it
was a fine and powerful organ. Mame felt this was politeness. Her voice
didn’t lack force but force was the trouble. “It needs a soft pedal,”
said Mame. “Refinement, you know, and charm and all the frills of the
West End theatres, restaurants and shops.”
The old actor had a sense of humour and a kind heart. He was amused by
Mame, and he liked her. It would have been hard for an artist in life
not to like such naïveté, such enthusiasm, such concentration, such
fire. But this voice of hers was a problem. It had a natural punch that
treated brick walls as if they were brown paper.
Toying with his monocle, in all things the perfect john, he drawled:
“My de-ah young lady, if I may say so, your voice is mag-nif-i-cent,
simply mag-nif-i-cent.”
Mame’s smile crumpled under the sheer action-pressure of her mind.
“Some ways it ain’t. Some ways it’s wanting.”
“A shade more of--er, distinction perhaps?”
“Distinction.” Mame darted on the word like a bird on an insect. “You
said it. Distinction’s mine. And I’ll get it, too--if it kills me.”
“My de-ah young lady, perfectly simple for a girl of your talent.”
“Honest? You think that?” The good grey eye glowed hopefully. “I wish I
could say mag-nif-i-cent as poyfect as you can.”
“You will, my de-ah young lady, believe me, you will.”
“Well, I’ll start to learn right now.”
Mr. Falkland Vavasour smiled approval. He advised her to draw three
deep breaths from the lower chest and to pronounce the word syllable by
syllable.
Mame stood to her full height. She inflated. “Mag-nif-i-cent!
Mag-nif-i-cent! Mag-nif-i-cent!”
“My de-ah young lady, what could be better?”
This was vastly encouraging. But it was only a beginning and her nature
was to leave nothing to chance. A little later that day she acquired a
second-hand copy of Bell’s _Standard Elocutionist_ from a bookshop in
the Charing Cross Road. And then she arranged for Mr. Falkland Vavasour
to hear her say a little piece every morning, when the drawing room was
empty.