The next morning Mame received her second lesson in the art of golf.
On this occasion the reluctant Gwendolen’s mashie was commandeered. As
the amount of “pretty” at the edge of the putting green was strictly
limited--the whole thing was no part of a _bona fide_ course, but a
makeshift affair--Bill thought, dear fellow, that Miss Du Rance had
better start with the serious business of “the short approach.”
Her faculty for the short approach was marvellous. Physical power was
not required. Mental concentration it was that did the trick. You kept
your eye on the ball, you sort of coaxed it right up to the hole, then
you took a putter and there you were. Just as easy as falling off the
Monument, as Miss Du Rance drolly remarked.
Bill took so much interest in the development of her latent skill that
a morning lesson of at least one hour became a permanent daily feature.
In seven days she had seven lessons. And she was such a sport, and so
keen to learn, and Bill took such a pride in her progress and she was
altogether so jolly that before half the period was through he was
calling her Mame. This course of lessons was quite the most thriving
study he had ever undertaken.
Little Miss Chicago’s success was not confined to golf. After dinner
there was generally music of one kind or another. Sometimes, if the
day’s sport had not been too strenuous, there was dancing for the
younger guests. Mame’s intelligence and lightness of foot made her
an admirable pupil for several gentlemen wise in the native arts.
Sometimes there were foxtrots to the strains of the victrola. In these
Miss Du Rance needed no instruction. Nay, she was in a position to
impart it. And there was competition to receive the same.
When the day’s stalk on the purple hills had been too fatiguing, as
was sometimes the case, for even the junior sportsmen to take the
floor after dinner, a piano was brought into use and comic songs were
sung. Natural comedians were of the party. Bill was one. He could
imitate certain music-hall stars to the life. Then there was a young
chap in the Foreign Office who was so giftedly impecunious that he was
seriously considering the question of exchanging a career in diplomacy
which means so little in the way of lucre, for a contract with an
Anglo-American syndicate to do a single on the big time. He could
conjure and sing and play the fool “like old boots.” And he was so
popular in consequence that he was asked to half the great houses in
the kingdom.
After all was said and done, however, the biggest success in this
kind was reserved for little Miss Chicago. That was the name she went
by with everybody. Somehow the title seemed to fit her. Even stately
Uncle John and statelier Aunt Emily, striving always for a sense of
humour, that one real asset of which they had nothing to spare, alluded
to her as little Miss Chicago. It was she who made the biggest hit of
all.
As Lady Violet said, it was when the minx sat down to the piano that
she really got away with it. Her great song, which she had heard in one
of the few successful New York revues that had not yet reached London,
was called “I’m the Beautest Little Cutie in the Burg of Baltimore.”
And she sang it with such conviction and spirit and drollery that “the
folks” seemed never to tire of listening. The music was topping and
the words had a swing; while Miss Du Rance’s rendering of this gem of
humour was such that, had it not been for Pop’s dollars, his reputed
heiress might have turned to “the halls” as a means of livelihood.
Indeed, Mame had the conviction of that within her in the Cowbarn days.
She had quite a reputation at the homely parties and sing songs of that
small town. And when Elmer P. had crystallised the local feeling in the
words, “Mame Durrance is a kind of natural droll,” that lady had spent
a whole fortnight gravely considering whether she could not make good
in vaudeville.
It was gratifying to know that the early Cowbarn success could be
repeated in the highlands of Scotland. To be sure, the audience was
much more easily pleased. It appeared to consider her lightest word
funny. Even her way of just sitting down to the piano and picking out
the notes with one finger seemed to give some of them fits.
Strange to say, however, among an audience which was so sympathetic,
were one or two who seemed to be left quite cold by “The Beautest
Little Cutie” and that other Broadway gem, which became only slightly
less popular, “How’s Tricks?” These critics belonged, oddly enough,
to Miss Du Rance’s own sex, and still more oddly, considering the
great and deserved reputation for humour of the American people, they
belonged, or had once belonged, at least their forebears had, to that
up-and-coming nation.
For instance, there was that Miss Childwick--Gwendolen she was called.
If ever there was one, that was a hard girl. She seemed to have no use
at all for the clever and lively Miss Du Rance. Indeed, Mame, whose
power of ear was so acute, overheard her saying to a sister compatriot,
Mrs. Prance Horton, a social leader who had been recently imported from
over the water, “that privately she considered that style of singing
rather vulgar.” And Mrs. Prance Horton, whose home town was Boston,
quite agreed with her.
It was not so much what Miss Childwick said, it was the way she said
it. She was always trying to put one over on Mame, or what came to
the same thing, Mame thought she was. There was a certain amount of
provocation, no doubt. All the world knew it was only a question of
time for the fair Gwendolen’s engagement to Bill to be announced. Why
it had not yet been made public and the day fixed, even Bill’s sister,
who was so informed upon every subject, was at a loss to understand.
Towards the end of the first week Miss Childwick’s attitude to “the
little American”--as though she were not American herself, dear
soul!--grew so marked in Mame’s sight, that she felt it would not
take much for her to begin seeing red. The airs of Miss Three Ply
Flannelette grew so insufferable that Mame was inclined seriously to
ask herself the question whether she ought to take them lying down.
_Cet animal est très méchant. Quand on l’attaque, il se défend._ Having
regard to what happened the problem arises: Was it really necessary for
Miss Du Rance to defend herself in the way that she did? Opinions may
differ. Yet few will deny that only a little fool would have missed
such a chance.
It was after a week of highland magic that Mame felt the fierce impact
of poetry and romance. Hitherto in her twenty-two years of existence
precious little of those elements had come her way. But life at
Dunkeldie was so different from any she had known. This was a new
kingdom. And in the heart of it was the queer thing that makes some
guys ramp and rage with rapture and those more worldly shrug and smile
and shake their polls.