The days that followed were dark and difficult for Mame. Nor did Lady
Violet find them particularly easy. At heart she was kindly and honest
and she could not help fixing upon herself a good deal of the blame for
what had occurred. She it was who had introduced this little marauder;
she had been wilfully and stupidly blind to the consequences; and her
only excuse was that not for a moment could she believe that Bill would
be so weak. Yet she had deliberately thrown them together. She had
bestowed upon Mame a spurious eligibility. This bitterly humiliating
business was an object lesson in the sheer folly of playing the fool.
It was decidedly painful all round. First of all, poor Mame really
suffered. The part she had undertaken to play was superhumanly big.
Very few girls could have gone back in that way on their whole
philosophy of life; and to Violet’s good heart it was hateful to have
to ask her to do it. She must have loved Bill, perhaps as no other
woman was likely to do, to nerve herself to a sacrifice so high.
Much diplomacy was called for in the days that followed. Bill could be
a stubborn fellow. His family had always humoured his whims. It looked
at first as if there would be no handling him. Irresponsible, not to
say flabby, as his nature was, had he had the wit to realise clearly
that poor Mame had got a blow over the heart, he would not have taken
the thing lying down.
Violet, hating intensely the rôle her own folly had doomed her to play,
yet proved herself, when fairly put to it, a consummate tactician. Bill
must not guess, must not come near guessing, how much this good and
brave child really cared for him. He must be rather a “dud,” his sister
thought, not to see it for himself. Instinct ought to have told him
how the little brick was steeling her heart. Even while Violet threw
dust in his eyes with a subtlety and a success for which she loathed
herself, she yet clung to the paradoxical view that had Bill been
worthy of Mame he would have been less obtuse. “She can’t bear your
losing the Towers and giving up the Army.” That phrase was Violet’s
strongest weapon. It admitted two interpretations and his sister was
not in the least proud of Bill when he allowed it to suggest the wrong
one. “Of course she considers the gilt will be off the gingerbread.”
That was Machiavellian. The end seemed to justify the means; at any
rate Violet had so persuaded herself; but it really was rather low
down. And she could not, womanlike, help resenting Bill’s denseness and
lack of character which made the unpleasant task of throwing dust in
his eyes so much less difficult than it ought to have been.
The weeks went by and Mame set herself stoically to forget. There was
pride in her as well as grit. She was determined to stand up to life
and make something of the mighty difficult business of living it. To
stanch her wounds she threw herself into her work with new ardour. Back
of everything was rare common sense. She must have the strength to bear
the self-inflicted blow without flinching.
One morning, however, just before Christmas, an incident occurred that
reopened the closing wounds. Mame and Celimene were discussing the
make-up of the weekly cable to New York, when Celimene said with an
odd change of tone, “There’s one bit of news that may not be without
interest on the other side. It’s not yet announced, so we shall be the
first in the field.”
“What is the news?” asked Mame keenly. Her flair for a choice tit-bit
was not less than of yore.
“A marriage has been arranged, the date of which will be shortly
announced, between the Marquis of Kidderminster and Gwendolen, the only
child of Giles Childwick, Esquire, and Mrs. Childwick, formerly of
Treville, New Jersey.”
“Oh!” Mame gave a little gasp. Celimene saw her turn very white.
“We are none of us worthy of you, my dear. In the end you’ll find
yourself well rid of people like us.” Violet’s tone had a note of pain
that for her was something new. Life had not been exactly a bed of
roses lately. She had discovered, a little late in the day perhaps,
that she had a conscience. A share of the hurt she was inflicting had
to be borne by herself.
When Mame was able to speak she said: “You’d have been good enough for
me. I like you all. You are some of the nicest folks I’ve met.” The
whimsical frankness of this good child brought back the laugh, if not
too readily, to the worldly wise Violet. What a piece of luck, they
both had a sense of humour!
“We owe you more than perhaps you realise.” Violet did not find the
words easy, but they had to be said. “You showed how terribly dangerous
was delay as far as that brother of mine is concerned. He might have
been snapped up by some pretty little prowler, with a nice taste in
dicky birds, who short of death and destruction could never have been
persuaded to unclasp her claws.”
“That’s so,” assented Mame. “And you’re wise to have hustled on that
marriage.” And then whimsically, to ease the aching of her heart: “Some
other little cat might have got that bird.”
She was so real and so true, this brave child, that Violet felt she
would like to have taken her in her arms and hugged her. “My mother and
I both realise that you have done a big thing. She has sent you all
sorts of kind messages. We are going to see that Gwendolen plays the
game so far as you are concerned. And no matter how long you stay over
here you will always have friends.”
“Gwendolen will make him a good wife.”
“Yes, she will. She is a very sensible girl, with a strong will. I am
sure she will keep him on the rails. And she really cares for him.”
“Perhaps he’ll get to care for her after a while.”
“I think he may. Gwendolen is a very good sort. But I’m afraid Bill’s
feelings don’t run deep.” And the note of pain crept again into the
voice of his sister.
L
The marriage ceremony was fixed for the second week of the new year.
All London was invited. The Childwicks liked to do things well, and
however well they did them made no impact on their wealth. They were
really rich people and of late years their stock had been going
continually up.
Still it was generally felt that Gwendolen had done very well. She
was a cut and polished jewel, but a setting was needed for her. What
choicer setting could mortal girl desire than an old and distinguished
marquisate and that beautiful and historical place Warlington Towers?
These things would supply the essential background her millions lacked.
Then, too, Bill was a popular young man. His feelings, as his sister
said, might not run deep, but in his way he was immensely attractive.
Everybody liked Bill. Even his fecklessness was a point in his favour.
And he would be all the better for having a shrewd and clever American
wife to keep him up to the mark.
Mame received an invitation from the Childwicks; her friends saw to
that. It was duly accepted; yet when the day came she did not feel
equal to facing the music. Lady Violet did her best to persuade her to
come to the church and to the reception in Berkeley Square, until she
realised that it would not be kind to persist. Good, brave little puss!
Those quaint furry paws had been rather nastily trapped. She was still
suffering. For all her wonderful grit, when the day came she could not
help groaning a bit over the throbbing of her wounds.
It went to Lady Violet’s heart to leave her behind. But there was no
help for it. The child could not face the music. And it was hardly
reasonable to expect that she should.
Even as Lady Violet stood in her regalia, which emphasised her fine
points, and took a tender and affectionate leave of poor Mame, she
could not help saying in her frank way: “I’m not going to enjoy this
one bit. We’re shown up too badly. I wish now I hadn’t interfered.”
It was no more than the truth. She felt on a low plane. Compared with
her friend and business partner she had a sense of inferiority which
was new and decidedly unwelcome.
“You were quite right, honey.” Mame was brave and magnanimous to the
end. “Had I been you I’d just have done that. It’s nature. And it’s no
use trying to go against nature.”
But Mame’s eyes were so tragic, that her friend, without venturing to
say another word, made a sort of bolt for the door and for the lift
beyond it. No, Lady Violet did not feel that she was going to enjoy her
day.
The day, for Mame, was very far from being one of enjoyment either.
A great deal of it was spent walking about London. Now the pinch had
really come it was the go-getter who mounted to the saddle and took
command. The practical side of a dual nature was not slow to inform her
that she had gone back on herself. She had betrayed, at the beck of a
mere whim, all that she had stood for.
Life had always been against her until a few months ago. She had had
to fight so hard for bare existence that she might at least have had
the sense to ensure the future when opportunity arose. But no, she had
denied her luck. There was a Tide. Well, the Tide had come and she had
deliberately ignored it. A great position, social security had been
offered her. She had even accepted her chance and then, just for a
whim, had passed it on to her enemy and rival.
The go-getter spared her nothing. It had a royal time. She had been a
fool. The lot of the fool was suffering. “You’ve broken a paw, honey.
Always you’ll be a little mucker now. You’ll never be able to fix on
anything again. No more will you be able to mark down your bird and fly
at it. You’ll be unsettled for the rest of your days. Not always will
you be brisk and quick; your looks, such as they are, and they’ve never
been much to bank on, honey, are going already. These folks in London,
England, who mocked at you and pulled your leg, you could have handed
them a haymaker. But no, you must get fanciful and highfalutin.”
Yes, the go-getter with the sardonic voice and a flow of rather
second-rate conversation had a royal time. He spared her nothing. She
was unworthy of herself, of her breed, of her clan. Idealism. The
hearty fellow landed his simp of a partner a blow on the point. If
some of these honest-to-God Americans didn’t watch out, Idealism was
going to be their ruin. You didn’t catch the dyed-in-the-wool Britisher
playing around with flams of that kind. He was a pretty successful
merchant, the Britisher, but he was content to leave idealism to other
people. As a business man he was a model for the world. And why?
Because with all his lip service he knew how to keep the soft stuff
apart from the hard.
Poor Mame! She trudged half the day about the streets of a hostile
city. With that pressure upon her spirit it was impossible to stay
quiet indoors. Her very soul seemed to ache. Every syllable was true
that was whispered in her overwrought ear. She had gone back on all
she had ever stood for. They had put one over on her, these hard-roed
Britishers. Yes, she must be cuckoo. You came over to pull big stuff,
whispered the relentless voice. And by cripes, Mame Durrance, you’ve
pulled it!
Tired out at last with tramping the West End parks and squares, she
took a little food in a restaurant in a by-street of Soho. There she
was likely to meet no one she knew. She was not in a mood to face her
kind. As she ate her soup a nostalgia came upon her. After all, she was
in a strange land, an alien. Their ways were not her ways; they had a
different viewpoint; their method of doing things was not the same.
She began to long for the sight and the sound of the homely, hearty,
warm-blooded folks she had known; the folks who spoke the same language
as herself, in the curious drawl that lately she had been taking such
pains to get rid of.
Her thoughts went back to the land where she belonged. In the bitterest
hour she had known since she had started out from her home town to see
life, she had a craving for the friendly easy-goingness of her own
kind. She had crowded a lot of experience into her European pilgrimage;
in certain ways her luck had been truly remarkable. Mame Durrance had
made good at her job; but this evening with a very large size “black
monkey” upon her, she had a sudden yearning for the larger and freer
air of her native continent.
Miserably unhappy she returned to the flat about nine o’clock. Lady
Violet had been home from the revels, had inquired for her anxiously,
but had changed her dress and gone out to dinner. Evidently she was
making a day of it. Mame was not sorry. She had no wish to be caught
in this mood. Yet she had no desire for bed. She would not be able to
sleep if she turned in. The ache in her heart was terrible. If she
could not learn to subdue it, for the first time in her life she would
be driven to take a drug.
Suddenly her eye lit on a package on the writing table. It bore
the label of a New York publisher and was addressed to herself.
Perfunctorily she tore off the wrapper. A novel in a gay jacket was
revealed. It was called _Prairie City_; and the name of the author was
Elmer Pell Dobree.
Mame’s heart leaped. Coincidence has an arm notoriously long, but
nothing could have been more timely than the arrival of this book. Her
thoughts rushed back to the source of its being. And as if to speed
them on their way, a letter had been enclosed in the parcel.
Characteristically it ran: