CHAPTER XVIII"Love of our Lives"Elma in the privacy of her best confidences had called Isobel a bounder. The iniquity, viewed even only in the light of a discourtesy, alarmed her, and made her more than anything "buck up" to being "nice" to her cousin.Isobel had been quite taken aback by the news of Mabel's departure. She had bargained for almost anything rather than that. Jean had continually rubbed it in that Mabel was no use for going anywhere away from home. And now she was being sent to succour Jean. Isobel had gone out with the news for everybody that Mr. and Mrs. Leighton would be leaving in the morning. She had even made some plans. Now, what she looked upon as the tutelage of Mr. and Mrs. Leighton remained, and Mabel, whom she already regarded as the most useful companion where her own interests were concerned, was going off to London.She could not avoid looking very black about it. To be left there with two children, Elma and Betty, chained hand and foot to that kindergarten! One could hardly believe that so dark a cloud could sit on so clearly calm, so immobile a countenance. Mabel detected the storm, and it had the effect of making her the more relieved and willing to be off.She had many thoughts for Elma."Don't be hustled out of your rights, dear," she whispered. "Remember, you are the head."Elma had to remember almost every hour of the day. The rule of Isobel was subtle, and it was most exceedingly sure. She did not take the pains to hide her methods from Elma and Betty, as she had done from Mabel and Jean. She openly used the telephone, not always with the door shut. It brought her plenty of engagements. When a dull day offered itself, Isobel invariably was called up by telephone to go out. She never dreamed of inviting Elma. Mrs. Leighton she looked after in a protecting way which was very nice and consoling to that lady stranded of her Jean. Many plans were made for Mrs. Leighton's sake, which Elma considered must have often surprised her. It did not seem necessary that Mrs. Leighton should attend tea at the golf club for instance, but Isobel insisted on seeing her go there. Everybody congratulated the Leightons on having such a charming girl to keep them company while Mabel and Jean were away. Isobel had certainly found a vocation.She came in to Mrs. Leighton and Elma in the drawing-room one day in her prettiest tweeds with rather fine furs at her throat."Hetty Dudgeon has just rung me up, asking me to go to see her this afternoon," she said calmly. "I don't suppose you care for the walk," she asked Mrs. Leighton.Mrs. Leighton roused herself from the mental somnolence of some weeks."Miss Hetty! Why, I was speaking to her half an hour ago. She wanted to send an introduction to Jean. She--she, why, it's very strange that she didn't tell me she wanted you to come. And you've dressed since. In fact, she said----"Mrs. Leighton got no further."She must have changed her mind," said Isobel in a careless manner. "Well, good-bye, everybody, I'm off."Mrs. Leighton sat a little speechless for the moment."I don't think I quite like that of Isobel," she said. "Miss Hetty did not want any one this afternoon. She told me why--she's so frank. Vincent is coming."Elma sat debating in her mind, should she tell her mother or should she not. It was hardly right that Isobel should drag in the telephone, anything, under her mother's unsuspecting eyes, for her own ends. It was wildly impertinent to her mother."Mummy, Isobel knew that Vincent was going and she made up her mind to go too!""Made up her mind!""Yes--she almost half arranged it with Vincent at the golf club the other day.""Then--then what about telephoning!""She never telephoned at all," said Elma.Mrs. Leighton would willingly have had that unsaid."It is dreadful to think that any one would take the trouble to do such a thing for the sake of going to the Dudgeons," she said. "Are you sure you are not mistaken?""Oh, Miss Meredith is happy for a week if she can squeeze in an excuse for going to the Dudgeons," replied Elma. "The Dudgeons are such 'high steppers,' you know.""I don't like it," said Mrs. Leighton, "I really don't. None of you were brought up to go your own way like that, and I don't admire it in other people.""Isobel believes in grabbing for everything one wants with both hands. She doesn't mean to do anything wicked. She simply means to be on the spot," said Elma."But what about loyalty, and friendship, and--and honour?" said poor Mrs. Leighton."Oh, when you are grabbing with both hands for other things you haven't time for these.""My precious child! What in the wide world are you saying!" Mrs. Leighton was quite horrified."Nothing that I mean, or believe in, mummy. Only what Isobel believes in. She thinks we are fools to bother about loyalty and that kind of thing. She hasn't had any one, I think, who cared whether she was honourable or not. And it must be distracting to know that all the time she can be perfectly beautiful. It must make you think that everything ought to come to you, no matter how."Elma was really scourging herself now for that iniquity of "the bounder.""Why didn't you tell me before?" said Mrs. Leighton."Oh, mummy, I'm almost sorry I told you now. Except that it lifts the most awful weight from my mind. I've been so afraid that while Isobel went on being so sweet and graceful that we should all get bad-tempered if you believed in her very much. She countermands my orders to the servants often and often, and they never think of disobeying her. That's one thing I want to ask you about. If I insist on their obeying me, will you back me up? I simply crinkle before Isobel, I hate so to appear to be against her in any way. But Mabel told me I'm to play up as head of the house, and I'm not doing it while Isobel upsets any order of mine with a turn of her little finger. It's awfully weak of me, but I've always said I was made to be bullied, I do so hate having rows with people."The murder was out then.Mabel had been gone four weeks, and the housekeeping which had gradually drifted into her hands was now of course in the command of Elma, or ought to be. Mrs. Leighton saw at last where Isobel had been getting hold of the reins of government."You must not be jealous of Isobel's attractions," she said. "And you know, Elma, any little squabble with your cousin would be a rather dreadful thing.""Awful," said Elma."Your father would never forgive us.""He would understand, though," said Elma. There was always such a magnificence of justice about her father."He is feeling being without the girls so much," said Mrs. Leighton."Yes," said Elma. "But, oh! mother, he is so pleased now that they are getting on. And isn't it magnificent of Mabel! That's what makes me think I must play up here. Miss Grace says it's very weak to give in on a matter of principle. She says that whether I'm wrong or right, the servants ought to obey me."Mrs. Leighton debated for a long time."I quite see your difficulty," she said. "But above all things, we must never let Isobel think she hasn't her first home with us. You understand that, don't you?""Yes, mummy," said Elma. "If only you will back me upon the servant question once. Then I don't believe we shall have any more trouble with Isobel. I don't mind about whom she telephones to or whom she doesn't, but I do mind about the housekeeping. She thinks I'm such a kid, you know. And I mustn't for the credit of the family remain a kid all my days."There was a far stronger motive to account for Elma's determination than any mere slight to herself. It was that Isobel had known about Robin and yet appropriated him as though he were a person whom one might make much of. The treatment of Mabel turned her from a child into a woman blazing for justice.As they sat down to dinner that night, she noticed that her own little scheme for table decoration had been changed. At dessert she asked, with her knees trembling in the old manner, "Who changed my table centre?"Nobody answered till Isobel, finding the silence holding conspicuously, said in a careless way, "Oh, I found Bertha putting down that green thing." Elma flushed dismally. (If she could only keep pale.)She simulated a careless tone, however."Oh, Isobel," she said, "I wish you wouldn't. When I give directions to the servants, it's very difficult for me if some one else gives them others." It was lame, but it was there, the information that she was in control."Very distracting for the servants, too," said Mrs. Leighton calmly, and ratified Elma's venture with her approval.She ate a grape with extreme care.Isobel did not answer. She froze in her pink gown however, and a storm gathered kindling to black anger in her eyes.She looked Elma over, her whole bearing carrying a threat. It was a pose which generally produced some effect.But Elma was fighting for something more than her own paltry little authority. She was bucking up "for Mabel's sake."She pretended to treat it as a joke now that Isobel "knew.""So after this I'm in undisputed authority," she exclaimed, and wondered at herself for her miraculous calmness. "And if you, Betty, endeavour to get more salt in the soup or try on any other of your favourite dodges, I shall--"--she also ate a grape quite serenely--"I shall half kill you.""Oh, Betty," she said afterwards, "I feel as though I had gone in for a bathe in mid-winter. Did you see her eye!""I did," said Betty. "So did papa. You'll find it will be easier for us now. How calm you were! I should have fainted.""My knees were knocking like castanets," said Elma. "If I had had them japanned, you would have heard quite a row. But it's very stimulating." It occurred to her that now she could write in a self-respecting manner to Mabel.Isobel after this entirely blocked off Elma from any of her excursions. Even the visits to Miss Grace were over so far as Isobel was concerned, and Elma once more had that dear lady to herself.She would not tell Miss Grace how it had happened that her cousin no longer accompanied her. Occasionally, however, Isobel stepped in herself and found her former audience in Miss Annie.None of it affected Elma as it might have done. Isobel hardly spoke to her, certainly never when they were alone. It alarmed Elma how she could light up when anybody was present, any one who counted, and be quite companionable to Elma.This all faded before the success of Mabel and Jean, who were now writing in the best of spirits.And oh! "Love of our lives," Adelaide Maud, who was now in London, had called on them. It opened up a fairyland to both, for she took them to her uncle's house, and fêted them generally. Good old Adelaide Maud.There was no one like her for bringing relief to the rich, and helping the moderately poor.So Elma described her.It seemed odd that it should be difficult to know Adelaide Maud except in an emergency. Elma, on the advice of Miss Grace, merely had to send her one little note when in London, with Mabel's address, and Adelaide Maud had called.There were great consolations to the life she now led with Isobel. Cuthbert vowed he would come down to Elma's first dance. How different it was to what she had anticipated! She would go with Isobel and Isobel would be sweetly magnificent, and Elma would feel like a babe of ten. She longed to refuse all invitations until Mabel came home. Then the unrighteousness of this aloofness from Isobel beset her, and they accepted an invitation jointly.Isobel ordered a dream of a dress from London. Elma was in white. Mabel and Jean sent her white roses for her hair, the daintiest things. Cuthbert played up, and George Maclean found her plenty of partners. Isobel was quite kind. Mr. Leighton had looked sadly on Elma on seeing her off."Another bird spreading its wings," said he.She looked very small and delicately dainty. Whereas Isobel, "Isobel was like a double begonia in full bloom," said Betty.The begonia bloomed till a late hour effulgently.Elma simply longed all the time for Mabel and Jean, and oh! "Love of our Lives," Adelaide Maud.It was Lance who christened her "Love of our Lives.""What's that idiot going on about," asked Cuthbert, as he swung Elma off on the double hop of a polka."He is talking about Adelaide Maud. I'm so dull because she isn't here.""You are?" asked Cuthbert.There was a curious inflection on the "you" as though he had said, "You also?""Yes," said Elma, "though it's so often 'so near and yet so far' with Adelaide Maud, she is really my greatest friend."Cuthbert seemed impressed."She doesn't need to make so much of the 'so far' pose," he said gruffly."Oh yes, she does," replied Elma. "It's her mother. She withers poor Adelaide Maud to a stick. It's a wonder she's such a duck. Adelaide Maud, I mean. Cuthbert, when are you coming home for a long visit?" she asked."Next summer. I shall tell you a great secret. I think I am to get a lectureship, quite a good thing. Can you keep it from the pater until I'm sure?""Rather," said Elma."Then," he said, "if it isn't all roses here next summer, you'll only have one person to blame.""One?" asked Elma.Visions of Isobel cut everything from her mind."Is it Isobel?" she asked mildly."Isobel!" Cuthbert looked so disgusted that she could have kissed him.She saw Isobel at that moment. She was swaying round the room in the perfection of rhythm with no less an old loyalist than George Maclean. Ah, well--all their good friends might drift over there, but she still had Cuthbert. The joy of it lent wings to her little figure. It always had been and always remained difficult for her to adapt her small stride to men of Cuthbert's build. This night she suddenly acquired the strength and ease--the knowledge which really having him gave her, to make dancing with him become a facile affair."Oh, Cuthbert, this is ripping," she sighed at last. "If it isn't Isobel, who is it?" she asked him."Why, Elma, you are a little donkey! Who could it be, but 'Love of our Lives,' Adelaide Maud?"He swung her far into the middle:--where the floor became as melted wax, and life opened out to Elma like a flower."Oh, Cuthbert dear, how ripping," said little Elma.CHAPTER XIXHerr SlavskaMabel had discovered that a woman with a mission hasn't such a bad time of it. She set out on her journey to Jean without one of her usual misgivings. It was jolly to think that she might be able to be of some use in the world. The tediousness of a long journey of changes till she reached the main-line and thundered direct to London did not pall on her as it had done before. Throughout she thought, "I'm getting nearer to Jean, and I shall put her on her feet."She prepared to hate the girls' club, but to be quite uninfluenced by it. She would take Jean out, till neither of them cared what the club was like at all. She forgot Robin and Isobel and everything except one thing which she would never forget, and Jean.She drove up to the door of the club in the most energetic and independent mood she had ever experienced. She didn't care whether the secretary looked her up and down or not. She merely went straight to Jean's room. Jean didn't at all pretend that it was a downcome. She simply wept with delight at the sight of Mabel."And I never shed a tear, not one, till you came," said she. "I'm so glad you came just when I began to get better."Mabel did not dare to tell her that she had only been home-sick."If I tell her that, she will lie in bed to convince me that she is really ill," she thought.Girls' voices were heard screaming volubly."What's that?" asked Mabel, thinking that some accident had occurred."Oh nothing. They call out for each other from their different rooms. I thought it was a parrot house when I came, but I'm getting accustomed to it. They've been so decent, you can't think, Mabel. I never knew girls could be so comforting.""Poor Jean," said Mabel."You'll stay, won't you," said Jean."Of course I shall. Just imagine, papa wanted to come and take you home. It would have been so stale for you after you got there, with those little presents people gave you and all that kind of thing, if you had gone right back home again, wouldn't it?""Imagine Aunt Katharine alone," said Jean solemnly."So, if you possibly can, Jean, get up as soon as you feel able to crawl. So that I can say you are all right. Papa says I may stay for a week or two if you are.""Oh, Mabs, I wish you would stay right on!""Where's my room?" asked Mabel. "What rickety furniture!""The room is next door, isn't it nice? And the furniture's bought for girls. They think we like rickets.""Wickets," corrected Mabel. "You could use that chair at a match.""Oh, Mabs, how jolly it is to have you here to laugh at it. Mabs, I do feel better."Mabel saw her up in three-quarters of an hour.Jean had still to be treated seriously however."You know, Mabs, I had the most dreadful feeling. I could quite understand how poor girls without friends go and drown themselves.""That's more like depression than appendicitis," Mabel ventured."I hadn't been sleeping," explained Jean with dignity.Mabel thought of some sleepless nights."The best cure is always to believe that it can't last," said she. "Do you remember papa's telling us how Carlyle comforted Mrs. Carlyle when she had toothache? He said it wouldn't be permanent.""What a brute," said Jean."Well, it sent me to sleep once or twice when I remembered that," said Mabel. "But you never were ill like this before. You couldn't believe in getting well, could you?""I was sure I was going to die," said Jean in a hushed voice.Mabel's heart had ached. Could she tell Jean of that ache and how she had been obliged to cover it up by making herself believe that it could not possibly be permanent."Jean, do you know, I think it's so jolly being here, getting to know the best way of doing things, and all that sort of thing, I think I shall ask papa to let me stay longer. Do you think they would let me?""Well, they let me--and then I didn't want to," said Jean."And I didn't want to and now I do," said Mabel. "Let's try it for a week or two anyhow."A great depression had been lifted from her shoulders. She found herself in the midst of girls who had all something to do in the world. They got up in the morning and came tearing down to breakfast and made off to various definite occupations, as though they had nineteen parties in one day to attend. Some were studying, others "arrived" and working, only a few playing. Yet even the last had some excuse in the way of a problematical career in front of them. Here one saw where the desire to be something has quite as hygienic an effect on one, as the faculty of attainment. Mabel had not been three days in the house till she was as feverish as any to be getting on. Going with Jean for her first lesson finished her. Jean was still of the opinion that she was an invalid, and she certainly was overwrought and nervous. She would have backed out of her lesson, except that Mabel accompanied her.They found a magnificent man, well groomed and of fierce but courtly manners. He shook hands with the air of an arch-duke."And which is the fortunate mademoiselle?" he asked. "Not that I prefer 'fortunate' because that she happens to be about to be taught by myself, but she has a voice? Hn?" It was a sound that had only the effect of asking a question, but how efficiently!He glared at Mabel, who produced Jean, as it were, by a motion of the hand."It is my sister who wants lessons," she said. This sounded like something out of a grammar book, and both girls saw the humour of it. But timidly, because Herr Slavska then invited them to sit, while he turned to the piano. He threw some music aside from the desk and cleared a place at the side for his elbow, as he sat down for a moment."They do not all have voices! No. But som, they have the sōll. You have the sōll? Hn?"It did not seem necessary to inform Herr Slavska. He was walking up and down now, flinging out more sentences before they had time to answer the last."For myself. I had the voice and I had the sōll. That is why I ask 'and who is the mademoiselle who is so fortunate?' I am a voice, and look at me! I am a drudge to the great public. I gif lessons to stupids who do not love music. For what! For money to keep the stomach alive! Yes, that is it. And yet I say--which is the mademoiselle which is fortunate? For vit a voice and vit the sōll, and vit the art which I shall gif her, what does it matter about the stupid public? or the stomach?"Herr Slavska waited for no answers."For years I was wrong. I had no art. None. I sang to the stupids and they applauded. At last I make great discovery, I find the art. Now I sing to the few."Herr Slavska paused for a moment."My sister has had no training at all, except as a pianist," said Mabel."Hn? Then I haf her, a flower, a bud unplucked!"Herr Slavska grew excited."No nasty finger mark, no petal fallen. Ah! it is luck, it is luck for mademoiselle. Come, mademoiselle."He struck a note."Will you sing ze!"Jean sang "ze." She sang "zo." Then he ran her voice into the top and bottom registers."You have the comprehension. It is the great matter," said Herr Slavska.Then he blazed at her.His "the," quite English when he remained polished and firm, degenerated into a "ze" at times such as these."You haf not ze breath, none," said he, as though Jean had committed an outrage.Jean, however, had begun to glow with the ardour of future accomplishment."That's what I came to learn," she said promptly."Aha, she has charac*tere*."Herr Slavska was delighted, but Jean found this constant dissection of herself trying.Then the real work began. Herr Slavska breathed, made Jean breathe, hammered at her, expostulated, showed his own ribs rising and falling while his voice remained even, tender, beautiful.Mabel sat clasping her hands over one another."Oh, Herr Slavska, what a beautiful voice you have," she burst out at last.He looked at her with the greatest surprise."Ah! You are her sister? Hn? And you sit there listening to us?"He had forgotten her existence."And you are not of the stupids, no! You say I haf a beautiful voice? Hn? It is ze art, mademoiselle, zat you hear now. Sixty-five, I am zat age! And I still fight for ze stomach wit my beautiful voice. But you are of ze few, is it not? I vil sing to you, mademoiselle, just once. Your sister goes. Ten minutes, mademoiselle--only ten minutes. Zen a rest. And every day to me for two weeks! Hn? Is it not so?"Then he cast up his arms in despair."Helas! It is my accompaniste. Heisnot!"Jean the direct stepped in."Oh, Mabel will play," she said.Herr Slavska took one of his deepest breaths."I say I shall sing to you--I Herr Slavska. Ant you say 'Mabel will play.' Hn? Mabel? Who is dis grand Mademoiselle Mabel?"The humour of it suddenly appeared to come upper-most, and Herr Slavska became wickedly, cunningly suave."Ah yes, then if mademoiselle will," he said blandly.He produced music.Mabel was rooted with fear to the couch. Never in her life before had she been nervous."Jean, how could you," whispered she.Oh, fortune and the best of luck! He turned to a song of Brahms'. How often had Mabel tried to drum that song into the willing but uncultured Robin! That Robin in his lame way should help her now seemed the funniest freak of fate. She played the first bars hopefully, joyfully. Sheknewshe couldn't do anything silly there."But what!"Herr Slavska had caught her by the shoulders, and looked in her eyes."Mademoiselle Mabel! From ze country! Mademoiselle plays like zat! Hn?"He bowed grandly."My apologies, Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. We vill haf a rehearsal."He sang through part of his programme for a concert. Mabel energetically remarked afterwards to Jean that she had never really felt heavenly in her life before."Oh, Jean," she said, "Jean.""What would you," said Herr Slavska. "You must also study a little Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. You have great talent. Ah, if you could study in ze Bohemian school, Mees Mademoiselle. Hav I not said for years to these stupids stupids public, there is no school like to that of Prague? Now all ze violinists tumble tumble over ze one another to Sevcik to go. See, it is ze fate. If you could go to Prague, mademoiselle. Prague would make a great artiste of you."Here was living, wonderful life for Mabel! If Herr Slavska thought so much of her, why should she not have lessons in London?Mr. Leighton never received such a letter as he had from her next day. If was full of thanks for his having made her play so much and go to concerts when she was young. "Now I really know the literature of music. It's the little slippy bits of technique that I'm not up in. I saw every one of them come out and hit me in the eye when I played for Herr Slavska. Do you think I could really stay and take lessons, dear papa? It would prime me for such a lot. I've often thought about Cuthbert for instance, that it must be so jolly for him to feel primed. And after knowing life here, I'd only be more contented at home. It isn't that one can't be bored in London. I think you can far far more than anywhere. If you saw that girl with the pink bow! She only dresses and dresses, one costume for the morning, another for the afternoon and so on. I suppose she has been taught to be a perfect lady. The girls in our house aren't the crowd that believe in being like men or anything of that sort. They want to get married if they meet a nice enough husband. But nobody wants to get left, and it's so nice to be primed for that. I've sometimes felt I might one day be 'left,' and it's awful. I shouldn't mind so much if I had a profession. Jean is like a new girl. She's full of breathings and 'my method' and all that kind of thing. And she has to have an egg flip every morning at eleven if you please. I'm longing to have a master who orders me egg flip, but they don't do that for piano, do they?"Oh, please, papa, say you don't care for us for six months, and let us do you some credit at last. We were just littlepottyplayers at Ridgetown...."Mr. Leighton took a mild attack of influenza on the strength of this, but he was infinitely pleased at the enthusiasm of Mabel. Mrs. Leighton got into the Aunt Katharine mood, where such "goings on" seemed iniquitous."I don't see why you should pay so much money to keep them out of their own home," said she.By next post, she sent a hamper of cakes to the girls.Then came a letter from Mr. Leighton, which Mabel locked in a little morocco case along with some other treasures, "to keep for ever.""I am to stay, and I'm to have lessons from any Vollendollenvallejowski I like to name," she cried to Jean. The two rocked on a bamboo chair in happy abandonment till some explosive crackling sounds warned them that joy had its limits.Every girl in the house was invited into the tea "with cakes from home.""What a love of a father and a duck of a mother we've got," said the convalescent homesick Jean.CHAPTER XXThe Shilling SeatsJean owed a great debt to Isobel for having told her of Slavska, and acknowledged it extravagantly in every letter. Now there was the difficulty of finding a piano teacher; but here Mabel explained to Jean as nearly as she could why she could not seek the advice of Isobel. Isobel, if they knew, already lamented that she had given away Slavska, it was such an opening to the girls for being independent of her experience. Herr Slavska would recommend no one in London."They all play for the stupids," he declared. At last in a better mood, he remembered a certain "Monsieur, Monsieur--Green."Mabel laughed at the drop to a plain English name."Ah no! Smile not," said Herr Slavska. "His mother, of the Latin race, and his father, mark you, a Kelt! What wonder of a result! I will introduce you to the Sir, Herr, Monsieur Green. He is young, but of Leschetitzky. I recommend him."There seemed nothing more to be said, except that two girls in the club knew Mr. Green's playing and said that no one else really existed in London. A great deal underlay Herr Slavska's "I recommend him."Mabel met one of the keenest enthusiasts of her life when she met Mr. Green."Isn't it queer," said Jean afterwards, who, in spite of egg flips and methods, was in a dejected mood that day, "isn't it queer that an old boy like Herr Slavska and a young one like Mr. Green should both have the same delusions. About music, I mean, being so keen on it.""You can't call that voice of Herr Slavska's a delusion."Mabel had been much impressed by what Mr. Green had said."Mark you, at such an age, there is no voice like Slavska's in existence. Your sister is fortunate in learning his method.""That's what Mr. Slavska said," Jean had answered amiably, and it had started Mr. Green off on his lessons with Mabel in a cheerful mood."The Herr is not sparing of his compliments when it is himself that is concerned," he said, laughing loudly. "But he can afford to tell the truth."It seemed lovely to Mabel, this tribute from one man to another."More than your old Slavska said of my man," she told Jean.Mr. Green was a distracting teacher. He pulled Mabel's playing down to decimals. Where she had formerly found her effects by merely feeling them, he subtracted feeling until she imagined she could not play piano at all. Then he began to build up her technique like a builder adding bricks to a wall."You must imagine that you have eaten of the good things of life until you are a little ill, so that good or bad taste very much alike. Then you come to me for the cure. I diet you with uninteresting things, which you do not like, and you imagine I am hard because I do not allow you to eat. Then one day I give you a little tea and toast. Now, Miss Leighton, you have worked to curve the third finger a trifle more than you did. Will you play that study of Chopin which you once performed to me."Mabel had practised dry technique and had kept cheerfully away from all "pieces" as directed. She played the study."Bravo," said Mr. Green. It was his first encouragement."Why," said Mabel, "how nice it is to be able to play it like that.""It is your tea and toast," said Mr. Green.Into their hard-working life came delightfully Adelaide Maud. Their enthusiasm carried her into scenes she had never visited. She attended concerts in the shilling seats, and took tea once at an A.B.C. The shilling seats fascinated Adelaide Maud. The composite crowd of girls, with excited interest; of budding men musicians, groomed and ungroomed, the latter disporting hair which fell on the forehead in Beethoven negligence, the dark, lowering musician's scowl beneath--what pets they all were! Pets in the zoological sense some of them, but yet what pets! She caught the infection of their ardour when a great or a new performer appeared. Had any crowd ever paid such homage to one of her set, never! Fancy inflaming hearts to that extent. Adelaide Maud could feel her pulses responding."Oh," she said after one of these experiences when they were in Fuller's and ate extravagantly of walnut cream cake, "it's as much fun to me to go to these concerts, as it would be for you to--to.----" It dawned on her that any comparison might not be polite."To go to court," said Mabel."Oh,haveyou ever been presented?" asked Jean of Adelaide Maud.Mabel stared at her. All their life they had followed Adelaide Maud's career, and Jean forgot that she had been presented. Adelaide Maud herself might have been a little hurt, but she was only amused."I was--in Queen Victoria's time. I'm an old stager, you know," she said."Wasn't it lovely," asked Jean, who had once called her past."I don't think so," said Adelaide Maud. "At least I happened to enjoy the wrong part, that was all. I loved going out with the sunshine pouring into the carriage and everybody staring at us. It was very hot and the windows had to be down, and I heard things. One girl said 'Oh, lollipops, look at 'er 'air. Dyed that is.' Another quite gratified me by ejaculating in an Irish voice, 'Oh, the darlint.' 'You mustn't,' said her friend, 'she'll 'ear you.' 'I mean the horses, stupid,' said the girl. She had her eye on the Life Guards. Mamma was disgusted. But in the palace it was not nearly so distinguished. Nobody admired one at all, just hustled one by. I think we were cross all the time.""I think it would be lovely to be cross in Buckingham Palace," sighed Jean.They all laughed. Adelaide Maud in particular seemed to be thinking about something which interested her."Would it be fun for you to see some of the people who are going to the great ball," she asked. "I don't mean to go to the ball, but Lady Emily is to be at home for the early part of that evening and some people are coming in on the way. I asked her if I might have you to dinner--and she's quite pleased about it."Mabel and Jean sat in a blissful state of rapture. ("Lady Emily! The gorgeous and far-away Lady Emily!")"Oh," said Jean, "Elma would say, 'I should be terrified.'""And I should say we'll be perfectly delighted," said Mabel.It cost her no tremor at all to think of going. This reminded Adelaide Maud of Miss Grace's prophecy that there was no sphere in life which Mabel could not enter becomingly."Put on that pretty pink thing you wore in Ridgetown, lately," she said.The name of Ridgetown brought them closer to realities. This was Miss Dudgeon of The Oaks with whom they ate cream cake. Jean said, "I'm sure to give the wrong titles. You don't mind I hope.""No," said Adelaide Maud. At the same time she was dying with the desire that they should do her infinite credit. Carefully she thought over the matter and then spoke. "In any case it's so much a matter of one's manner in doing it. I remember when Lady Emily was ill once, she had a very domineering nurse, who tossed her head one time and said to me, 'I suppose she wants me to be humble and "my lady" her, but not a bit of me.' Then one of the most distinguished surgeons in England was called in, and his first words were, 'And how d'ye do, my lady.' He called her 'my lady' throughout, quite unusual you know, and yet in so dignified and kind a manner, as though he were saying, 'I know, but I prefer my own way in the matter.'""What a drop to the nurse," said Mabel.Jean looked reflective."Do you know, you've told me something I didn't know," she said. "I never quite knew how one ought to address Lady Emily. It's so different at Ridgetown," she exclaimed.Adelaide Maud seemed a little confused, but answered heartily."Oh, none of it's a trouble when you really meet people. They are so much simpler than one would think."Mabel saw that Adelaide Maud had given them her first tip. It was sweetly done, but then----! Anyhow, they had given Adelaide Maud plenty of tips about getting in early to seats in the Queen's Hall and minor affairs of that sort. Why shouldn't the benefits work both ways?It was about the time of Elma's ball, when they sent the white roses, and Adelaide Maud said she would help them to choose."I should like to send little Elma a crown of pearls, but I daren't," said she with a sigh. "She's such a pet, isn't she!""Timorous, but a pet," said Jean with a broad smile."She is holding the fort just now at any rate," responded Mabel.They thought it would be all right to tell Adelaide Maud something of what Elma had written."I trembled, of course," Elma had said; "but the thing had to be done. I wouldn't for a moment let you think that you couldn't come home and slip in to the places that belong to you. Isobel would have possessed the whole house if I hadn't played up. I don't know why she wants to. It must be so much nicer not to have to bother about servants and table centres. But she has never squeaked since I spoke about it. In fact, she won't even speak to me unless some one is about, passes me without a word.""Poor darling," said Adelaide Maud; "what a worm your cousin must be.""No, I don't think she's that," said Mabel; "it's just that she simply must rule, you know. She must have everything good that is going.""H'm," answered Adelaide Maud. "Why doesn't that brother of yours go slashing about a little, and keep her from bullying Elma.""Oh, Elma would never tell Cuthbert. Don't you see it mightn't be fair to prejudice him against Isobel. Isobel thinks such a lot of Cuthbert.""Oh."A long clinging silence depreciated the conversational prowess of Adelaide Maud."Well," she said, in a conventional voice, "We've had a lovely day. Let me know when you are going to another concert. And I shall send you full particulars about Lady Emily."They were walking along Regent Street to find their shop for the flowers. It seemed that Adelaide Maud was about to desert them. She beckoned for a hansom and got inside. Mabel and Jean felt that they said good-bye to Miss Dudgeon of The Oaks. In another second they had gone on and Adelaide Maud had had her hansom pulled up beside them again."Jean, Jean," she called, quite radiant again. "I forgot the most important thing. It's about lessons. Do you think that your Splashkaspitskoff would condescend to give me some?"It was rather mad of Adelaide Maud, but she got out and paid off the hansom."It isn't so late as I thought it was," she said lamely. But Mabel knew that she came to make up.Jean only thought of the lessons."You will find him so splendid," she said, "and such a gentleman.""I like that," said Mabel. "Why--he talks about the most revolting things.""It's his manners that are so wonderful," said Jean in a championing manner. They had found their shop by this time and were looking at white roses. When Mabel said, "Do you think these are nice?" Jean might be heard explaining, "It's the method you know that is so wonderful."And when at last they had decided about roses and arranged about the lessons, Adelaide Maud thought she must immediately buy a hat."I quite forgot that I wanted a hat," she said gravely.They went to one of the best shops, and sat in three chairs, with Adelaide Maud surrounded by mirrors. Tall girls sailed up like swans and laid a hat on her bright hair and walked away again. Adelaide Maud turned and twisted and looked lovely in about a dozen different hats. After looking specially superb in one, she would say. "Take that one away, I don't like it at all."Occasionally the swans would put on a hat and sail about in order to show the effect. Then Adelaide Maud would look specially languid and appear more dissatisfied than ever. At last she fixed on one which contained what she called "a dead seagull.""Why you spoil that pretty hat with a dead bird, I can't think," she exclaimed to the attendant. "Look at its little feet turned up."Then, "You must take this bird out, and give me flowers."She began pinning on her own hat again. In a second the bird was gone, and the swanlike personages sailing over the grey white carpet, brought charming bunches of which they tried the effect "for modom.""Oh, do get heliotrope," said Mabel. "It's so gorgeous with your hair."Adelaide Maud swung round."And I've been making up my mind to white for the last half-hour. How can you, Mabel!"She chose a mass of white roses, "dreaming in velvet."Adelaide Maud rose, gave directions about sending, and prepared to leave."Don't you want to know the price?" asked Mabel in great amazement."Oh, of course."Adelaide Maud asked the price.The total took Mabel's breath away."You must never marry a poor man," said she as they passed out. Adelaide Maud stopped humbly in a passage of grey velvet and silver gilt."Well, I never," she said. Then walking on, she asked in a very humble, mocking tone, "Will you teach me, Mabs, how to shop so that I may marry a poor man."Mabel laughed gaily."Thank you," said she. "That sounds as though you think that I ought to know. Am I to marry a poor man?"Adelaide Maud laughed outright, and took her briskly by the arm."I didn't mean that. I believe you will marry a duke. But you see--you think me so extravagant, and I might have to be poor.""That dead seagull going cost you a guinea alone," said Mabel accusingly."And they kept the seagull," said Adelaide Maud. "How wanton of me!""I've had a very nice hat for a guinea," said Mabel, with a smirk of suppressed laughter."And yet you won't marry a poor man," said Adelaide Maud. "How unjust the world is."They parted in better form than they had done an hour earlier."Wasn't she queer," said Jean, "to go off like that?""Queerer that she came back," said Mabel. "Do you know what I think? I believe Adelaide Maud bought that hat simply--simply----""To kill time," said Jean."No. To stay with us a little longer," said Mabel."It's more than any of the Dudgeons ever thought of doing before--if it's true!" said blunt, robust Jean."But I don't believe it is," said she. "Let's scoot for that bus or we'll lose it."So they scooted for the bus.
CHAPTER XVIII
"Love of our Lives"
Elma in the privacy of her best confidences had called Isobel a bounder. The iniquity, viewed even only in the light of a discourtesy, alarmed her, and made her more than anything "buck up" to being "nice" to her cousin.
Isobel had been quite taken aback by the news of Mabel's departure. She had bargained for almost anything rather than that. Jean had continually rubbed it in that Mabel was no use for going anywhere away from home. And now she was being sent to succour Jean. Isobel had gone out with the news for everybody that Mr. and Mrs. Leighton would be leaving in the morning. She had even made some plans. Now, what she looked upon as the tutelage of Mr. and Mrs. Leighton remained, and Mabel, whom she already regarded as the most useful companion where her own interests were concerned, was going off to London.
She could not avoid looking very black about it. To be left there with two children, Elma and Betty, chained hand and foot to that kindergarten! One could hardly believe that so dark a cloud could sit on so clearly calm, so immobile a countenance. Mabel detected the storm, and it had the effect of making her the more relieved and willing to be off.
She had many thoughts for Elma.
"Don't be hustled out of your rights, dear," she whispered. "Remember, you are the head."
Elma had to remember almost every hour of the day. The rule of Isobel was subtle, and it was most exceedingly sure. She did not take the pains to hide her methods from Elma and Betty, as she had done from Mabel and Jean. She openly used the telephone, not always with the door shut. It brought her plenty of engagements. When a dull day offered itself, Isobel invariably was called up by telephone to go out. She never dreamed of inviting Elma. Mrs. Leighton she looked after in a protecting way which was very nice and consoling to that lady stranded of her Jean. Many plans were made for Mrs. Leighton's sake, which Elma considered must have often surprised her. It did not seem necessary that Mrs. Leighton should attend tea at the golf club for instance, but Isobel insisted on seeing her go there. Everybody congratulated the Leightons on having such a charming girl to keep them company while Mabel and Jean were away. Isobel had certainly found a vocation.
She came in to Mrs. Leighton and Elma in the drawing-room one day in her prettiest tweeds with rather fine furs at her throat.
"Hetty Dudgeon has just rung me up, asking me to go to see her this afternoon," she said calmly. "I don't suppose you care for the walk," she asked Mrs. Leighton.
Mrs. Leighton roused herself from the mental somnolence of some weeks.
"Miss Hetty! Why, I was speaking to her half an hour ago. She wanted to send an introduction to Jean. She--she, why, it's very strange that she didn't tell me she wanted you to come. And you've dressed since. In fact, she said----"
Mrs. Leighton got no further.
"She must have changed her mind," said Isobel in a careless manner. "Well, good-bye, everybody, I'm off."
Mrs. Leighton sat a little speechless for the moment.
"I don't think I quite like that of Isobel," she said. "Miss Hetty did not want any one this afternoon. She told me why--she's so frank. Vincent is coming."
Elma sat debating in her mind, should she tell her mother or should she not. It was hardly right that Isobel should drag in the telephone, anything, under her mother's unsuspecting eyes, for her own ends. It was wildly impertinent to her mother.
"Mummy, Isobel knew that Vincent was going and she made up her mind to go too!"
"Made up her mind!"
"Yes--she almost half arranged it with Vincent at the golf club the other day."
"Then--then what about telephoning!"
"She never telephoned at all," said Elma.
Mrs. Leighton would willingly have had that unsaid.
"It is dreadful to think that any one would take the trouble to do such a thing for the sake of going to the Dudgeons," she said. "Are you sure you are not mistaken?"
"Oh, Miss Meredith is happy for a week if she can squeeze in an excuse for going to the Dudgeons," replied Elma. "The Dudgeons are such 'high steppers,' you know."
"I don't like it," said Mrs. Leighton, "I really don't. None of you were brought up to go your own way like that, and I don't admire it in other people."
"Isobel believes in grabbing for everything one wants with both hands. She doesn't mean to do anything wicked. She simply means to be on the spot," said Elma.
"But what about loyalty, and friendship, and--and honour?" said poor Mrs. Leighton.
"Oh, when you are grabbing with both hands for other things you haven't time for these."
"My precious child! What in the wide world are you saying!" Mrs. Leighton was quite horrified.
"Nothing that I mean, or believe in, mummy. Only what Isobel believes in. She thinks we are fools to bother about loyalty and that kind of thing. She hasn't had any one, I think, who cared whether she was honourable or not. And it must be distracting to know that all the time she can be perfectly beautiful. It must make you think that everything ought to come to you, no matter how."
Elma was really scourging herself now for that iniquity of "the bounder."
"Why didn't you tell me before?" said Mrs. Leighton.
"Oh, mummy, I'm almost sorry I told you now. Except that it lifts the most awful weight from my mind. I've been so afraid that while Isobel went on being so sweet and graceful that we should all get bad-tempered if you believed in her very much. She countermands my orders to the servants often and often, and they never think of disobeying her. That's one thing I want to ask you about. If I insist on their obeying me, will you back me up? I simply crinkle before Isobel, I hate so to appear to be against her in any way. But Mabel told me I'm to play up as head of the house, and I'm not doing it while Isobel upsets any order of mine with a turn of her little finger. It's awfully weak of me, but I've always said I was made to be bullied, I do so hate having rows with people."
The murder was out then.
Mabel had been gone four weeks, and the housekeeping which had gradually drifted into her hands was now of course in the command of Elma, or ought to be. Mrs. Leighton saw at last where Isobel had been getting hold of the reins of government.
"You must not be jealous of Isobel's attractions," she said. "And you know, Elma, any little squabble with your cousin would be a rather dreadful thing."
"Awful," said Elma.
"Your father would never forgive us."
"He would understand, though," said Elma. There was always such a magnificence of justice about her father.
"He is feeling being without the girls so much," said Mrs. Leighton.
"Yes," said Elma. "But, oh! mother, he is so pleased now that they are getting on. And isn't it magnificent of Mabel! That's what makes me think I must play up here. Miss Grace says it's very weak to give in on a matter of principle. She says that whether I'm wrong or right, the servants ought to obey me."
Mrs. Leighton debated for a long time.
"I quite see your difficulty," she said. "But above all things, we must never let Isobel think she hasn't her first home with us. You understand that, don't you?"
"Yes, mummy," said Elma. "If only you will back me upon the servant question once. Then I don't believe we shall have any more trouble with Isobel. I don't mind about whom she telephones to or whom she doesn't, but I do mind about the housekeeping. She thinks I'm such a kid, you know. And I mustn't for the credit of the family remain a kid all my days."
There was a far stronger motive to account for Elma's determination than any mere slight to herself. It was that Isobel had known about Robin and yet appropriated him as though he were a person whom one might make much of. The treatment of Mabel turned her from a child into a woman blazing for justice.
As they sat down to dinner that night, she noticed that her own little scheme for table decoration had been changed. At dessert she asked, with her knees trembling in the old manner, "Who changed my table centre?"
Nobody answered till Isobel, finding the silence holding conspicuously, said in a careless way, "Oh, I found Bertha putting down that green thing." Elma flushed dismally. (If she could only keep pale.)
She simulated a careless tone, however.
"Oh, Isobel," she said, "I wish you wouldn't. When I give directions to the servants, it's very difficult for me if some one else gives them others." It was lame, but it was there, the information that she was in control.
"Very distracting for the servants, too," said Mrs. Leighton calmly, and ratified Elma's venture with her approval.
She ate a grape with extreme care.
Isobel did not answer. She froze in her pink gown however, and a storm gathered kindling to black anger in her eyes.
She looked Elma over, her whole bearing carrying a threat. It was a pose which generally produced some effect.
But Elma was fighting for something more than her own paltry little authority. She was bucking up "for Mabel's sake."
She pretended to treat it as a joke now that Isobel "knew."
"So after this I'm in undisputed authority," she exclaimed, and wondered at herself for her miraculous calmness. "And if you, Betty, endeavour to get more salt in the soup or try on any other of your favourite dodges, I shall--"--she also ate a grape quite serenely--"I shall half kill you."
"Oh, Betty," she said afterwards, "I feel as though I had gone in for a bathe in mid-winter. Did you see her eye!"
"I did," said Betty. "So did papa. You'll find it will be easier for us now. How calm you were! I should have fainted."
"My knees were knocking like castanets," said Elma. "If I had had them japanned, you would have heard quite a row. But it's very stimulating." It occurred to her that now she could write in a self-respecting manner to Mabel.
Isobel after this entirely blocked off Elma from any of her excursions. Even the visits to Miss Grace were over so far as Isobel was concerned, and Elma once more had that dear lady to herself.
She would not tell Miss Grace how it had happened that her cousin no longer accompanied her. Occasionally, however, Isobel stepped in herself and found her former audience in Miss Annie.
None of it affected Elma as it might have done. Isobel hardly spoke to her, certainly never when they were alone. It alarmed Elma how she could light up when anybody was present, any one who counted, and be quite companionable to Elma.
This all faded before the success of Mabel and Jean, who were now writing in the best of spirits.
And oh! "Love of our lives," Adelaide Maud, who was now in London, had called on them. It opened up a fairyland to both, for she took them to her uncle's house, and fêted them generally. Good old Adelaide Maud.
There was no one like her for bringing relief to the rich, and helping the moderately poor.
So Elma described her.
It seemed odd that it should be difficult to know Adelaide Maud except in an emergency. Elma, on the advice of Miss Grace, merely had to send her one little note when in London, with Mabel's address, and Adelaide Maud had called.
There were great consolations to the life she now led with Isobel. Cuthbert vowed he would come down to Elma's first dance. How different it was to what she had anticipated! She would go with Isobel and Isobel would be sweetly magnificent, and Elma would feel like a babe of ten. She longed to refuse all invitations until Mabel came home. Then the unrighteousness of this aloofness from Isobel beset her, and they accepted an invitation jointly.
Isobel ordered a dream of a dress from London. Elma was in white. Mabel and Jean sent her white roses for her hair, the daintiest things. Cuthbert played up, and George Maclean found her plenty of partners. Isobel was quite kind. Mr. Leighton had looked sadly on Elma on seeing her off.
"Another bird spreading its wings," said he.
She looked very small and delicately dainty. Whereas Isobel, "Isobel was like a double begonia in full bloom," said Betty.
The begonia bloomed till a late hour effulgently.
Elma simply longed all the time for Mabel and Jean, and oh! "Love of our Lives," Adelaide Maud.
It was Lance who christened her "Love of our Lives."
"What's that idiot going on about," asked Cuthbert, as he swung Elma off on the double hop of a polka.
"He is talking about Adelaide Maud. I'm so dull because she isn't here."
"You are?" asked Cuthbert.
There was a curious inflection on the "you" as though he had said, "You also?"
"Yes," said Elma, "though it's so often 'so near and yet so far' with Adelaide Maud, she is really my greatest friend."
Cuthbert seemed impressed.
"She doesn't need to make so much of the 'so far' pose," he said gruffly.
"Oh yes, she does," replied Elma. "It's her mother. She withers poor Adelaide Maud to a stick. It's a wonder she's such a duck. Adelaide Maud, I mean. Cuthbert, when are you coming home for a long visit?" she asked.
"Next summer. I shall tell you a great secret. I think I am to get a lectureship, quite a good thing. Can you keep it from the pater until I'm sure?"
"Rather," said Elma.
"Then," he said, "if it isn't all roses here next summer, you'll only have one person to blame."
"One?" asked Elma.
Visions of Isobel cut everything from her mind.
"Is it Isobel?" she asked mildly.
"Isobel!" Cuthbert looked so disgusted that she could have kissed him.
She saw Isobel at that moment. She was swaying round the room in the perfection of rhythm with no less an old loyalist than George Maclean. Ah, well--all their good friends might drift over there, but she still had Cuthbert. The joy of it lent wings to her little figure. It always had been and always remained difficult for her to adapt her small stride to men of Cuthbert's build. This night she suddenly acquired the strength and ease--the knowledge which really having him gave her, to make dancing with him become a facile affair.
"Oh, Cuthbert, this is ripping," she sighed at last. "If it isn't Isobel, who is it?" she asked him.
"Why, Elma, you are a little donkey! Who could it be, but 'Love of our Lives,' Adelaide Maud?"
He swung her far into the middle:--where the floor became as melted wax, and life opened out to Elma like a flower.
"Oh, Cuthbert dear, how ripping," said little Elma.
CHAPTER XIX
Herr Slavska
Mabel had discovered that a woman with a mission hasn't such a bad time of it. She set out on her journey to Jean without one of her usual misgivings. It was jolly to think that she might be able to be of some use in the world. The tediousness of a long journey of changes till she reached the main-line and thundered direct to London did not pall on her as it had done before. Throughout she thought, "I'm getting nearer to Jean, and I shall put her on her feet."
She prepared to hate the girls' club, but to be quite uninfluenced by it. She would take Jean out, till neither of them cared what the club was like at all. She forgot Robin and Isobel and everything except one thing which she would never forget, and Jean.
She drove up to the door of the club in the most energetic and independent mood she had ever experienced. She didn't care whether the secretary looked her up and down or not. She merely went straight to Jean's room. Jean didn't at all pretend that it was a downcome. She simply wept with delight at the sight of Mabel.
"And I never shed a tear, not one, till you came," said she. "I'm so glad you came just when I began to get better."
Mabel did not dare to tell her that she had only been home-sick.
"If I tell her that, she will lie in bed to convince me that she is really ill," she thought.
Girls' voices were heard screaming volubly.
"What's that?" asked Mabel, thinking that some accident had occurred.
"Oh nothing. They call out for each other from their different rooms. I thought it was a parrot house when I came, but I'm getting accustomed to it. They've been so decent, you can't think, Mabel. I never knew girls could be so comforting."
"Poor Jean," said Mabel.
"You'll stay, won't you," said Jean.
"Of course I shall. Just imagine, papa wanted to come and take you home. It would have been so stale for you after you got there, with those little presents people gave you and all that kind of thing, if you had gone right back home again, wouldn't it?"
"Imagine Aunt Katharine alone," said Jean solemnly.
"So, if you possibly can, Jean, get up as soon as you feel able to crawl. So that I can say you are all right. Papa says I may stay for a week or two if you are."
"Oh, Mabs, I wish you would stay right on!"
"Where's my room?" asked Mabel. "What rickety furniture!"
"The room is next door, isn't it nice? And the furniture's bought for girls. They think we like rickets."
"Wickets," corrected Mabel. "You could use that chair at a match."
"Oh, Mabs, how jolly it is to have you here to laugh at it. Mabs, I do feel better."
Mabel saw her up in three-quarters of an hour.
Jean had still to be treated seriously however.
"You know, Mabs, I had the most dreadful feeling. I could quite understand how poor girls without friends go and drown themselves."
"That's more like depression than appendicitis," Mabel ventured.
"I hadn't been sleeping," explained Jean with dignity.
Mabel thought of some sleepless nights.
"The best cure is always to believe that it can't last," said she. "Do you remember papa's telling us how Carlyle comforted Mrs. Carlyle when she had toothache? He said it wouldn't be permanent."
"What a brute," said Jean.
"Well, it sent me to sleep once or twice when I remembered that," said Mabel. "But you never were ill like this before. You couldn't believe in getting well, could you?"
"I was sure I was going to die," said Jean in a hushed voice.
Mabel's heart had ached. Could she tell Jean of that ache and how she had been obliged to cover it up by making herself believe that it could not possibly be permanent.
"Jean, do you know, I think it's so jolly being here, getting to know the best way of doing things, and all that sort of thing, I think I shall ask papa to let me stay longer. Do you think they would let me?"
"Well, they let me--and then I didn't want to," said Jean.
"And I didn't want to and now I do," said Mabel. "Let's try it for a week or two anyhow."
A great depression had been lifted from her shoulders. She found herself in the midst of girls who had all something to do in the world. They got up in the morning and came tearing down to breakfast and made off to various definite occupations, as though they had nineteen parties in one day to attend. Some were studying, others "arrived" and working, only a few playing. Yet even the last had some excuse in the way of a problematical career in front of them. Here one saw where the desire to be something has quite as hygienic an effect on one, as the faculty of attainment. Mabel had not been three days in the house till she was as feverish as any to be getting on. Going with Jean for her first lesson finished her. Jean was still of the opinion that she was an invalid, and she certainly was overwrought and nervous. She would have backed out of her lesson, except that Mabel accompanied her.
They found a magnificent man, well groomed and of fierce but courtly manners. He shook hands with the air of an arch-duke.
"And which is the fortunate mademoiselle?" he asked. "Not that I prefer 'fortunate' because that she happens to be about to be taught by myself, but she has a voice? Hn?" It was a sound that had only the effect of asking a question, but how efficiently!
He glared at Mabel, who produced Jean, as it were, by a motion of the hand.
"It is my sister who wants lessons," she said. This sounded like something out of a grammar book, and both girls saw the humour of it. But timidly, because Herr Slavska then invited them to sit, while he turned to the piano. He threw some music aside from the desk and cleared a place at the side for his elbow, as he sat down for a moment.
"They do not all have voices! No. But som, they have the sōll. You have the sōll? Hn?"
It did not seem necessary to inform Herr Slavska. He was walking up and down now, flinging out more sentences before they had time to answer the last.
"For myself. I had the voice and I had the sōll. That is why I ask 'and who is the mademoiselle who is so fortunate?' I am a voice, and look at me! I am a drudge to the great public. I gif lessons to stupids who do not love music. For what! For money to keep the stomach alive! Yes, that is it. And yet I say--which is the mademoiselle which is fortunate? For vit a voice and vit the sōll, and vit the art which I shall gif her, what does it matter about the stupid public? or the stomach?"
Herr Slavska waited for no answers.
"For years I was wrong. I had no art. None. I sang to the stupids and they applauded. At last I make great discovery, I find the art. Now I sing to the few."
Herr Slavska paused for a moment.
"My sister has had no training at all, except as a pianist," said Mabel.
"Hn? Then I haf her, a flower, a bud unplucked!"
Herr Slavska grew excited.
"No nasty finger mark, no petal fallen. Ah! it is luck, it is luck for mademoiselle. Come, mademoiselle."
He struck a note.
"Will you sing ze!"
Jean sang "ze." She sang "zo." Then he ran her voice into the top and bottom registers.
"You have the comprehension. It is the great matter," said Herr Slavska.
Then he blazed at her.
His "the," quite English when he remained polished and firm, degenerated into a "ze" at times such as these.
"You haf not ze breath, none," said he, as though Jean had committed an outrage.
Jean, however, had begun to glow with the ardour of future accomplishment.
"That's what I came to learn," she said promptly.
"Aha, she has charac*tere*."
Herr Slavska was delighted, but Jean found this constant dissection of herself trying.
Then the real work began. Herr Slavska breathed, made Jean breathe, hammered at her, expostulated, showed his own ribs rising and falling while his voice remained even, tender, beautiful.
Mabel sat clasping her hands over one another.
"Oh, Herr Slavska, what a beautiful voice you have," she burst out at last.
He looked at her with the greatest surprise.
"Ah! You are her sister? Hn? And you sit there listening to us?"
He had forgotten her existence.
"And you are not of the stupids, no! You say I haf a beautiful voice? Hn? It is ze art, mademoiselle, zat you hear now. Sixty-five, I am zat age! And I still fight for ze stomach wit my beautiful voice. But you are of ze few, is it not? I vil sing to you, mademoiselle, just once. Your sister goes. Ten minutes, mademoiselle--only ten minutes. Zen a rest. And every day to me for two weeks! Hn? Is it not so?"
Then he cast up his arms in despair.
"Helas! It is my accompaniste. Heisnot!"
Jean the direct stepped in.
"Oh, Mabel will play," she said.
Herr Slavska took one of his deepest breaths.
"I say I shall sing to you--I Herr Slavska. Ant you say 'Mabel will play.' Hn? Mabel? Who is dis grand Mademoiselle Mabel?"
The humour of it suddenly appeared to come upper-most, and Herr Slavska became wickedly, cunningly suave.
"Ah yes, then if mademoiselle will," he said blandly.
He produced music.
Mabel was rooted with fear to the couch. Never in her life before had she been nervous.
"Jean, how could you," whispered she.
Oh, fortune and the best of luck! He turned to a song of Brahms'. How often had Mabel tried to drum that song into the willing but uncultured Robin! That Robin in his lame way should help her now seemed the funniest freak of fate. She played the first bars hopefully, joyfully. Sheknewshe couldn't do anything silly there.
"But what!"
Herr Slavska had caught her by the shoulders, and looked in her eyes.
"Mademoiselle Mabel! From ze country! Mademoiselle plays like zat! Hn?"
He bowed grandly.
"My apologies, Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. We vill haf a rehearsal."
He sang through part of his programme for a concert. Mabel energetically remarked afterwards to Jean that she had never really felt heavenly in her life before.
"Oh, Jean," she said, "Jean."
"What would you," said Herr Slavska. "You must also study a little Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. You have great talent. Ah, if you could study in ze Bohemian school, Mees Mademoiselle. Hav I not said for years to these stupids stupids public, there is no school like to that of Prague? Now all ze violinists tumble tumble over ze one another to Sevcik to go. See, it is ze fate. If you could go to Prague, mademoiselle. Prague would make a great artiste of you."
Here was living, wonderful life for Mabel! If Herr Slavska thought so much of her, why should she not have lessons in London?
Mr. Leighton never received such a letter as he had from her next day. If was full of thanks for his having made her play so much and go to concerts when she was young. "Now I really know the literature of music. It's the little slippy bits of technique that I'm not up in. I saw every one of them come out and hit me in the eye when I played for Herr Slavska. Do you think I could really stay and take lessons, dear papa? It would prime me for such a lot. I've often thought about Cuthbert for instance, that it must be so jolly for him to feel primed. And after knowing life here, I'd only be more contented at home. It isn't that one can't be bored in London. I think you can far far more than anywhere. If you saw that girl with the pink bow! She only dresses and dresses, one costume for the morning, another for the afternoon and so on. I suppose she has been taught to be a perfect lady. The girls in our house aren't the crowd that believe in being like men or anything of that sort. They want to get married if they meet a nice enough husband. But nobody wants to get left, and it's so nice to be primed for that. I've sometimes felt I might one day be 'left,' and it's awful. I shouldn't mind so much if I had a profession. Jean is like a new girl. She's full of breathings and 'my method' and all that kind of thing. And she has to have an egg flip every morning at eleven if you please. I'm longing to have a master who orders me egg flip, but they don't do that for piano, do they?
"Oh, please, papa, say you don't care for us for six months, and let us do you some credit at last. We were just littlepottyplayers at Ridgetown...."
Mr. Leighton took a mild attack of influenza on the strength of this, but he was infinitely pleased at the enthusiasm of Mabel. Mrs. Leighton got into the Aunt Katharine mood, where such "goings on" seemed iniquitous.
"I don't see why you should pay so much money to keep them out of their own home," said she.
By next post, she sent a hamper of cakes to the girls.
Then came a letter from Mr. Leighton, which Mabel locked in a little morocco case along with some other treasures, "to keep for ever."
"I am to stay, and I'm to have lessons from any Vollendollenvallejowski I like to name," she cried to Jean. The two rocked on a bamboo chair in happy abandonment till some explosive crackling sounds warned them that joy had its limits.
Every girl in the house was invited into the tea "with cakes from home."
"What a love of a father and a duck of a mother we've got," said the convalescent homesick Jean.
CHAPTER XX
The Shilling Seats
Jean owed a great debt to Isobel for having told her of Slavska, and acknowledged it extravagantly in every letter. Now there was the difficulty of finding a piano teacher; but here Mabel explained to Jean as nearly as she could why she could not seek the advice of Isobel. Isobel, if they knew, already lamented that she had given away Slavska, it was such an opening to the girls for being independent of her experience. Herr Slavska would recommend no one in London.
"They all play for the stupids," he declared. At last in a better mood, he remembered a certain "Monsieur, Monsieur--Green."
Mabel laughed at the drop to a plain English name.
"Ah no! Smile not," said Herr Slavska. "His mother, of the Latin race, and his father, mark you, a Kelt! What wonder of a result! I will introduce you to the Sir, Herr, Monsieur Green. He is young, but of Leschetitzky. I recommend him."
There seemed nothing more to be said, except that two girls in the club knew Mr. Green's playing and said that no one else really existed in London. A great deal underlay Herr Slavska's "I recommend him."
Mabel met one of the keenest enthusiasts of her life when she met Mr. Green.
"Isn't it queer," said Jean afterwards, who, in spite of egg flips and methods, was in a dejected mood that day, "isn't it queer that an old boy like Herr Slavska and a young one like Mr. Green should both have the same delusions. About music, I mean, being so keen on it."
"You can't call that voice of Herr Slavska's a delusion."
Mabel had been much impressed by what Mr. Green had said.
"Mark you, at such an age, there is no voice like Slavska's in existence. Your sister is fortunate in learning his method."
"That's what Mr. Slavska said," Jean had answered amiably, and it had started Mr. Green off on his lessons with Mabel in a cheerful mood.
"The Herr is not sparing of his compliments when it is himself that is concerned," he said, laughing loudly. "But he can afford to tell the truth."
It seemed lovely to Mabel, this tribute from one man to another.
"More than your old Slavska said of my man," she told Jean.
Mr. Green was a distracting teacher. He pulled Mabel's playing down to decimals. Where she had formerly found her effects by merely feeling them, he subtracted feeling until she imagined she could not play piano at all. Then he began to build up her technique like a builder adding bricks to a wall.
"You must imagine that you have eaten of the good things of life until you are a little ill, so that good or bad taste very much alike. Then you come to me for the cure. I diet you with uninteresting things, which you do not like, and you imagine I am hard because I do not allow you to eat. Then one day I give you a little tea and toast. Now, Miss Leighton, you have worked to curve the third finger a trifle more than you did. Will you play that study of Chopin which you once performed to me."
Mabel had practised dry technique and had kept cheerfully away from all "pieces" as directed. She played the study.
"Bravo," said Mr. Green. It was his first encouragement.
"Why," said Mabel, "how nice it is to be able to play it like that."
"It is your tea and toast," said Mr. Green.
Into their hard-working life came delightfully Adelaide Maud. Their enthusiasm carried her into scenes she had never visited. She attended concerts in the shilling seats, and took tea once at an A.B.C. The shilling seats fascinated Adelaide Maud. The composite crowd of girls, with excited interest; of budding men musicians, groomed and ungroomed, the latter disporting hair which fell on the forehead in Beethoven negligence, the dark, lowering musician's scowl beneath--what pets they all were! Pets in the zoological sense some of them, but yet what pets! She caught the infection of their ardour when a great or a new performer appeared. Had any crowd ever paid such homage to one of her set, never! Fancy inflaming hearts to that extent. Adelaide Maud could feel her pulses responding.
"Oh," she said after one of these experiences when they were in Fuller's and ate extravagantly of walnut cream cake, "it's as much fun to me to go to these concerts, as it would be for you to--to.----" It dawned on her that any comparison might not be polite.
"To go to court," said Mabel.
"Oh,haveyou ever been presented?" asked Jean of Adelaide Maud.
Mabel stared at her. All their life they had followed Adelaide Maud's career, and Jean forgot that she had been presented. Adelaide Maud herself might have been a little hurt, but she was only amused.
"I was--in Queen Victoria's time. I'm an old stager, you know," she said.
"Wasn't it lovely," asked Jean, who had once called her past.
"I don't think so," said Adelaide Maud. "At least I happened to enjoy the wrong part, that was all. I loved going out with the sunshine pouring into the carriage and everybody staring at us. It was very hot and the windows had to be down, and I heard things. One girl said 'Oh, lollipops, look at 'er 'air. Dyed that is.' Another quite gratified me by ejaculating in an Irish voice, 'Oh, the darlint.' 'You mustn't,' said her friend, 'she'll 'ear you.' 'I mean the horses, stupid,' said the girl. She had her eye on the Life Guards. Mamma was disgusted. But in the palace it was not nearly so distinguished. Nobody admired one at all, just hustled one by. I think we were cross all the time."
"I think it would be lovely to be cross in Buckingham Palace," sighed Jean.
They all laughed. Adelaide Maud in particular seemed to be thinking about something which interested her.
"Would it be fun for you to see some of the people who are going to the great ball," she asked. "I don't mean to go to the ball, but Lady Emily is to be at home for the early part of that evening and some people are coming in on the way. I asked her if I might have you to dinner--and she's quite pleased about it."
Mabel and Jean sat in a blissful state of rapture. ("Lady Emily! The gorgeous and far-away Lady Emily!")
"Oh," said Jean, "Elma would say, 'I should be terrified.'"
"And I should say we'll be perfectly delighted," said Mabel.
It cost her no tremor at all to think of going. This reminded Adelaide Maud of Miss Grace's prophecy that there was no sphere in life which Mabel could not enter becomingly.
"Put on that pretty pink thing you wore in Ridgetown, lately," she said.
The name of Ridgetown brought them closer to realities. This was Miss Dudgeon of The Oaks with whom they ate cream cake. Jean said, "I'm sure to give the wrong titles. You don't mind I hope."
"No," said Adelaide Maud. At the same time she was dying with the desire that they should do her infinite credit. Carefully she thought over the matter and then spoke. "In any case it's so much a matter of one's manner in doing it. I remember when Lady Emily was ill once, she had a very domineering nurse, who tossed her head one time and said to me, 'I suppose she wants me to be humble and "my lady" her, but not a bit of me.' Then one of the most distinguished surgeons in England was called in, and his first words were, 'And how d'ye do, my lady.' He called her 'my lady' throughout, quite unusual you know, and yet in so dignified and kind a manner, as though he were saying, 'I know, but I prefer my own way in the matter.'"
"What a drop to the nurse," said Mabel.
Jean looked reflective.
"Do you know, you've told me something I didn't know," she said. "I never quite knew how one ought to address Lady Emily. It's so different at Ridgetown," she exclaimed.
Adelaide Maud seemed a little confused, but answered heartily.
"Oh, none of it's a trouble when you really meet people. They are so much simpler than one would think."
Mabel saw that Adelaide Maud had given them her first tip. It was sweetly done, but then----! Anyhow, they had given Adelaide Maud plenty of tips about getting in early to seats in the Queen's Hall and minor affairs of that sort. Why shouldn't the benefits work both ways?
It was about the time of Elma's ball, when they sent the white roses, and Adelaide Maud said she would help them to choose.
"I should like to send little Elma a crown of pearls, but I daren't," said she with a sigh. "She's such a pet, isn't she!"
"Timorous, but a pet," said Jean with a broad smile.
"She is holding the fort just now at any rate," responded Mabel.
They thought it would be all right to tell Adelaide Maud something of what Elma had written.
"I trembled, of course," Elma had said; "but the thing had to be done. I wouldn't for a moment let you think that you couldn't come home and slip in to the places that belong to you. Isobel would have possessed the whole house if I hadn't played up. I don't know why she wants to. It must be so much nicer not to have to bother about servants and table centres. But she has never squeaked since I spoke about it. In fact, she won't even speak to me unless some one is about, passes me without a word."
"Poor darling," said Adelaide Maud; "what a worm your cousin must be."
"No, I don't think she's that," said Mabel; "it's just that she simply must rule, you know. She must have everything good that is going."
"H'm," answered Adelaide Maud. "Why doesn't that brother of yours go slashing about a little, and keep her from bullying Elma."
"Oh, Elma would never tell Cuthbert. Don't you see it mightn't be fair to prejudice him against Isobel. Isobel thinks such a lot of Cuthbert."
"Oh."
A long clinging silence depreciated the conversational prowess of Adelaide Maud.
"Well," she said, in a conventional voice, "We've had a lovely day. Let me know when you are going to another concert. And I shall send you full particulars about Lady Emily."
They were walking along Regent Street to find their shop for the flowers. It seemed that Adelaide Maud was about to desert them. She beckoned for a hansom and got inside. Mabel and Jean felt that they said good-bye to Miss Dudgeon of The Oaks. In another second they had gone on and Adelaide Maud had had her hansom pulled up beside them again.
"Jean, Jean," she called, quite radiant again. "I forgot the most important thing. It's about lessons. Do you think that your Splashkaspitskoff would condescend to give me some?"
It was rather mad of Adelaide Maud, but she got out and paid off the hansom.
"It isn't so late as I thought it was," she said lamely. But Mabel knew that she came to make up.
Jean only thought of the lessons.
"You will find him so splendid," she said, "and such a gentleman."
"I like that," said Mabel. "Why--he talks about the most revolting things."
"It's his manners that are so wonderful," said Jean in a championing manner. They had found their shop by this time and were looking at white roses. When Mabel said, "Do you think these are nice?" Jean might be heard explaining, "It's the method you know that is so wonderful."
And when at last they had decided about roses and arranged about the lessons, Adelaide Maud thought she must immediately buy a hat.
"I quite forgot that I wanted a hat," she said gravely.
They went to one of the best shops, and sat in three chairs, with Adelaide Maud surrounded by mirrors. Tall girls sailed up like swans and laid a hat on her bright hair and walked away again. Adelaide Maud turned and twisted and looked lovely in about a dozen different hats. After looking specially superb in one, she would say. "Take that one away, I don't like it at all."
Occasionally the swans would put on a hat and sail about in order to show the effect. Then Adelaide Maud would look specially languid and appear more dissatisfied than ever. At last she fixed on one which contained what she called "a dead seagull."
"Why you spoil that pretty hat with a dead bird, I can't think," she exclaimed to the attendant. "Look at its little feet turned up."
Then, "You must take this bird out, and give me flowers."
She began pinning on her own hat again. In a second the bird was gone, and the swanlike personages sailing over the grey white carpet, brought charming bunches of which they tried the effect "for modom."
"Oh, do get heliotrope," said Mabel. "It's so gorgeous with your hair."
Adelaide Maud swung round.
"And I've been making up my mind to white for the last half-hour. How can you, Mabel!"
She chose a mass of white roses, "dreaming in velvet."
Adelaide Maud rose, gave directions about sending, and prepared to leave.
"Don't you want to know the price?" asked Mabel in great amazement.
"Oh, of course."
Adelaide Maud asked the price.
The total took Mabel's breath away.
"You must never marry a poor man," said she as they passed out. Adelaide Maud stopped humbly in a passage of grey velvet and silver gilt.
"Well, I never," she said. Then walking on, she asked in a very humble, mocking tone, "Will you teach me, Mabs, how to shop so that I may marry a poor man."
Mabel laughed gaily.
"Thank you," said she. "That sounds as though you think that I ought to know. Am I to marry a poor man?"
Adelaide Maud laughed outright, and took her briskly by the arm.
"I didn't mean that. I believe you will marry a duke. But you see--you think me so extravagant, and I might have to be poor."
"That dead seagull going cost you a guinea alone," said Mabel accusingly.
"And they kept the seagull," said Adelaide Maud. "How wanton of me!"
"I've had a very nice hat for a guinea," said Mabel, with a smirk of suppressed laughter.
"And yet you won't marry a poor man," said Adelaide Maud. "How unjust the world is."
They parted in better form than they had done an hour earlier.
"Wasn't she queer," said Jean, "to go off like that?"
"Queerer that she came back," said Mabel. "Do you know what I think? I believe Adelaide Maud bought that hat simply--simply----"
"To kill time," said Jean.
"No. To stay with us a little longer," said Mabel.
"It's more than any of the Dudgeons ever thought of doing before--if it's true!" said blunt, robust Jean.
"But I don't believe it is," said she. "Let's scoot for that bus or we'll lose it."
So they scooted for the bus.