III
“SAY, Jackie Coogan, there’s no sugar.”
The polite boy in the button suit gazed at Miss Durrance with mild surprise. New stars constantly swam into his ken. Few had better opportunities than he of testing the simple truth that all sorts of people are needed to make a world. It was this, no doubt, which gave depth to his character. Nothing could have exceeded the grace of his regret for the sugar’s omission and of his promise to bring some.
“That kid’s fierce,” was the mental comment of the traveller to the English scene as this by-product gently closed the door upon her. She had a very keen and lively sense of things and the air and manner of the button suit’s wearer gave it a jolt.
Mame Durrance had certain preconceived ideas about the land she had come to and the odd folks who peopled it, derived in the main from exquisitely humorous writers, usually with Irish names, in her favourite magazines. The British, if not given to mirth themselves, were yet the cause of mirth in others. An obvious back number, the land of George Washington’s forebears was a mass of weary pomposities; it took itself so seriously that it couldn’t raise a smile to save its soul. Up till now she had not had much opportunityof judging it, but the funny little toy of a train in which she was puffing along to London, the tame scenery—what she could see of it—through which it passed, the little cubbyhole in which she sat alone, and the comic child with oiled hair and the manner of a senator who ministered to her wants, all seemed to fit neatly into the theory.
Buttons came back with two small pieces of sugar on a large tray.
“Say, son, does it hurt you any to look that way?”
“Beg your pardon, moddam?”
“All right, Mr. Asquith. On’y my ignorance. You can beat it.”
“Thank you, moddam.” Gently and gravely, without a ghost of a smile, the polite child went.
It was well for Mame Durrance that she had these resources within herself. For at the moment she was not on good terms with life. The railway company’scafé au lait, for which it had the nerve to charge a quarter, allowing for the rate of exchange, was not very stimulating either. And Detective Addelsee had shaken her considerably. It surely looked as if the bad luck which had dogged her ever since she left Cowbarn, Iowa, six months ago was going to cling.
It was just six months ago that Mame Durrance had heard the call of ambition in rather strange circumstances. At that time she was a stenographer, earning a few dollars a week, in the office of the CowbarnIndependent. But her Aunt Lou, a sister of herlong dead mother, having left her a legacy of two thousand dollars, she at once turned her face east.
These providential dollars must be invested in seeing life. And as native wit had carried her already from a farm kitchen to a stenographer’s chair, she saw no reason why, with money in her purse, that priceless quality should not take her much further. Anyhow it should not be for lack of trying.
She would see life. And in moments of optimism, of which at the start she had many, she went on to describe what she saw. The seeing, alas, proved easier than the writing; or rather the seeing and the writing were easier than to persuade editors “to fall” for her copy. Too many were at the game in the bright city of New York; wisenheimers of both sexes, who instead of coming via Poppa’s pig-farm had been through College.
There was the rub. At Cowbarn the folks didn’t set much store by College. But New York was different.
She was a shrewd girl and it did not take long for her to realise that she was some way behind the game. Human nature was always human nature, when you came down to cases, but there was no denying that she lacked experience. Back of everything was faith in herself, but so wide was the gulf between Cowbarn, Iowa, and the banks of the Hudson that no amount of faith could bridge it.
New York had laughed at her, scorned her, humiliated her deeply and cruelly in more ways than one. Shehad been advised by newspaper men and also by police officers, professing a disinterested care for rustic ignorance playing a lone hand, to go back to dad and the pigs. These experts were confident that Miss Mame Durrance would get no good of New York.
However, they didn’t know quite so much about Mame Durrance as she knew about herself. She might be down but she was not out. New York had no use for her, but there were other places on the map. For instance, there was London. No, not London, Ontario. As far as the big stuff was concerned, that burg was in the Cowbarn class. London, England, was the spot. She heard that London, England, offered scope for ambition. A few years in Europe might even stop the gaps in her education. It would be like putting herself through College. Hers was a forward-looking mind. And as with set lips and ten fingers on a purse, which in spite of Aunt Lou’s legacy, was not so heavy as her heart, she put off in theSidonia, she determinedly envisaged the future return of Mame Durrance to the land of her fathers with at least three trunks of real Paris frocks and an English accent. New York would laugh then at the little mucker on the other side of its mouth.
Conflicting opinions had been expressed to Miss Durrance about London. But in her small circle only one was able to speak from first-hand knowledge. Paula Wyse Ling had been there. The others spoke from hearsay, and in one or two cases with a little help from the imagination. But Paula Ling had livedin London a year. This rising columnist, who in the view of Mame was “the goods,” had taken pains to impress the traveller with the stark truth that in the Strand ten cents went no further than they did on Broadway.
Miss Ling had provided the adventurous Mame with the address of a cheap but respectable boarding house in Bloomsbury, where she had stayed herself, where, all things considered, she had received value for her money, and could conscientiously recommend. This enterprising girl had also given the traveller a letter of introduction to the editor ofHigh Life, a weekly journal with an address in Fleet Street, whose ostensible business was to record the doings and sayings of Society with a large S.
As the train sped on the practical Mame began to arrange certain things in her mind. First she opened the small bag which was attached to her wrist, to make sure that the sinews of war were really there; and then, in spite of having made all sorts of calculations already, she did one more sum in her head to find out just how far Aunt Lou’s legacy would carry her. Then she searched for the address of Miss Ling’s boarding house and found it written on an envelope: Beau Sejour, 56 Carvell Street, Bloomsbury, London, W. C. Sole Proprietress Miss Aimee Valance. Termsen pension.
Somehow the information in its fulness and dignity was quite reassuring. Next the pilgrim reverently fingered the sealed envelope which bore the address: Walter Waterson, Esq., c/oHigh Life, 9 Tun Court,Fleet Street, London, E. C. That was reassuring too. Finally she took in her fingers her own private card and they thrilled as she did so.
Her own private card, which had been engraved just before she had sailed in theSidonia, had a cosmopolitan air. The world was going to be impressed by it.
card
Miss Amethyst Du RanceNew York City, U. S. A.European CorrespondentCowbarnIndependent
The good oldIndependentlooked quite class tucked away in the left-hand corner. But it would have raised a sure smile in New York. That city of four-flushers had taken a lot of pains to impress upon her that Cowbarn, Iowa, was at best a one-horse burg. Perhaps London might not be quite so good at geography. And it might not be quite so set up with itself, although as far as Miss Durrance could learn that was a subject upon which opinion varied.
However, there it was. European Correspondent, CowbarnIndependent. At the sight of the magic words the thoughts of Mame Durrance went rather wistfully back to the hard and dull and uncomfortable place in which she had been born and reared. After all it was home. And even if she was ready to dierather than go back to live there for keeps, it was nothing to be ashamed of, for there was no place like it.
The card looked so well in the hand of Mame that she decided to mail one as soon as she reached London, to Elmer P. Dobree, the young and aspiring editor of the CowbarnIndependent. Good old Elmer P.! It would simply tickle him to pieces. But it would show him the stuff she was made of. He had tried to dissuade her from quitting the safe anchorage of her stool in theIndependentoffice, and when unable to do so, like the sport he was, had told her to send along a weekly letter of New York news, and if able to print it he would pay the top rate of four dollars a thousand words. The CowbarnIndependentwas an influential journal, but it had never paid President Harding more than four dollars a thousand words.
Mame took the editor at his word. Sometimes her stuff was printed. Sometimes it wasn’t. But Elmer P.’s kindly interest in her had continued. She had been encouraged to let him know that she was going to Europe and that it would help her considerably if she could depend on his keeping a corner for her London Impressions which she would mail every Friday. Elmer P., before all things the man of affairs and the cautious editor, would not be drawn into a rash promise, but he would do his best. To this end he gave a bit of advice. Let her see to it that the doggone Britishers didn’t take the pep out of her style.
So far Miss Durrance had not realised that she had a style. Anyhow she had never aspired to one. Sheset down what she saw and heard and read in words that came just naturally. And she had a kind of hunch that the slick-a-lick New Yorkers always found something funny in the way those words came.
The Northwestern express steamed at last into Euston and Mame found herself up against the raw reality of London. From Crewe on the fog had been getting more and more businesslike. By the time the metropolis was reached a very fair imitation of a “London particular” was on the platform to receive her. It was almost the famous “pea-soup” variety, but not quite, which was just as well for Miss Durrance. All traffic would have been at a standstill had she been greeted by that luxury and the troubles of a stranger in a land of strangers increased a hundred-fold. Even as it was, for one used to clear skies the fog was pretty thick, yet the seasoned Cockney would have described it as not a bad day for the time of year.
A Cockney of that genus, in the person of a luggage porter, opened the carriage door. He took charge of Miss Durrance’s gear; also he took charge of Miss Durrance. Slow he was, very slow, to her way of thinking. As yet the alert traveller had not got the tempo of this nation of mossbacks; but the porter, if not exactly an Ariel, was sure as a rock. An earthquake or a landslide would not have hurried him and Mame had the wisdom not to try.
He got her trunk out of the van and put it on a taxi. She gave the address, 56 Carvell Street, Bloomsbury, in a tone of crisp importance; the taximan, who vied withthe porter in deference, touched his cap and off they trundled into the fog. For London it was really nothing to speak of, but the acrid vapour caused the eyes of Mame to sting and her throat to tickle; and the combination of raw air, grimy buildings, and an endless mud-churning sea of vehicles, slow-moving and enormous in their bulk and mass, somehow filled her with an odd depression.
In spite of all checks to progress it was not long before they reached Carvell Street. The taxi stopped at 56. Mame sprang out and boldly attacked six bleak stone steps, at the top of which was a door in sore need of paint. Her ring was answered by a comic sort of hired girl, with cap and apron complete. When Mame asked if she might see Miss Valance she was very politely invited to come in.
As Mame went in she made a mental note that her first impression must record the civility of these Londoners. Somehow it had a quality riper and mellower than any brand she had met with on her native continent. Whether it came from the heart or was merely a part of the day’s work of a people addicted to “frills” or just a candid admission of the superiority of the race to which Mame herself belonged, must be left to the future to determine; but so far the critic was pleased with the universal Cockney politeness and she hoped it would pan out as good as it seemed.
The observer had not time to do justice to the small gas-heated anteroom into which she was shown before she was joined by the lady of the house. Miss Valancewas a replica of all the Cockney landladies that ever were. Thin, angular, severe, a false front and an invincible red tip to a freely powdered nose masked immense reserves of grim respectability. In the view of Miss Durrance she was “a regular he-one.” All the same the pilgrim declined to be impressed by Miss Valance. It was part of her creed to be impressed by nothing that wore skirts. But had an exception been allowed to this article of faith Miss Valance would sure have put one over on her.
A disappointment was in store. Beau Sejour was full. Miss Valance was awfully sorry but she had no vacancy. This was a blow. Mame’s experience, brief though it was, had been chequered; and she had duly impressed upon herself that if she adventured as far as London, England, she must keep her eyes skinned, for like every cosmopolitan city it was a natural home of the crook. Therefore she informed Miss Valance that she was a very respectable girl and wasn’t going to take a chance on any old boarding house.
From the peak of her own respectability the châtelaine of Beau Sejour applauded Mame’s wisdom. She was helpful besides. Round the corner in Montacute Square was an establishment she could recommend. It was called Fotheringay House and was kept by a lady of the name of Toogood and Miss Valance had heard her well spoken of. She might have a room to let. Anyhow there would be no harm in trying Mrs. Toogood.
Mame felt let down. It was clear from the mannerof Miss Valance that she was not very hopeful that the worthy Mrs. Toogood would be able to take her in. However, Mame warmly thanked Miss Valance for her helpfulness; and then buttoning up her coat she made a resolute dive through a passage dark and narrow towards the foggy street.
In the very act of doing so, a pang keen as the blade of a knife drove through Mame. Her luggage! All she had in the world had been left outside in the taxi. The villainous looking guy who had fawned on her with a wolf’s smile as he had taken her trunk, her grip, her mackintosh, her umbrella and herself aboard his machine, had only to trundle away into the fog and she would be left high and dry with the clothes she stood up in. So sharp was the thought that Mame nearly groaned aloud. A fool trick to take a chance of that kind in a foreign city.
Coming over in theSidoniashe had read in the New YorkHeraldof a girl who had just arrived in Paris having done what she had just done; and the girl had never seen her luggage again. And here was Mame Durrance, fed to the teeth with wise resolutions, walking into a trap with open eyes!
However, the taxi stood by the kerb just as she had left it, with her box strapped on to the front. Twopences were being registered by the meter at an alarming rate while the driver was placidly dozing. But the relief of Miss Durrance was considerable as she jumped in, after ordering Jehu, who was much less of a banditthan he looked, to trek round the corner into Montacute Square as far as Fotheringay House.
La pension Toogood was curiously like Beau Sejour, except that it had five stone steps instead of six and that one of its area railings was missing. For the rest it was able to muster a similar air of tired respectability. Painted over the fanlight of the front door, in letters that once had been white, was the historical name Fotheringay House, yet even this did not cause the mansion to look inspiring. But Mame, obsessed by the knowledge that she was literally burning money, did not pause to study details.
As she sprang out of the taxi and ran up the steps of Fotheringay House she hoped that this time she would meet better luck.
A hired girl, the twin in every detail of the slave of Beau Sejour, opened the door. Miss Durrance was in a hurry, but she could not help being amused and interested. It was her attitude to life to be amused and interested; but then who would not have been with such an apron and such a cap, with such prim politeness, with such a way of speaking? Evidently the Britishers had standardised the hired girl. She might have been a flivver or a motor cycle.
The theory applied with equal force to the London landlady. Mrs. Toogood was Miss Valance over again. But if anything, she was raised to a slightly higher power. The same dignity, the same wariness, the same ironclad gentility; but she was a widow with two children, whereas Miss Valance was a spinster with none.Her attributes, therefore, were fuller and firmer, a little more clearly defined. Mame did not make the comparison, but it was the difference between the Barbizon school and Picasso or Augustus John.
With the taxi outside ticking off twopences with quiet fury Mame felt she was getting down to the real meaning of her favourite maxim, Time is Money. She cut out, therefore, all preliminaries. Without troubling to remark that it was a nice day, as for London it was no doubt, she began in a tone of strict business, spot cash only. “Say, ma’am, can you let me a hall bedroom?”
From the chill mountain height of her disdain the landlady gave Mame a once-over. No matter what the case with her visitor she was in no hurry. The châtelaine of Fotheringay House had never heard of a hall bedroom. Her icy gaze travelled from Mame’s rather crushed hat via her seal plush coat to her tarnished rubbers with a quietly stiffening reserve. Clearly a foreigner. Picturesque creatures no doubt. The late Mr. Toogood was partial to them, but he, though of pure English blood, was of a romantic mind and an Italian warehouseman. His widow preferred to order her life on the sound old plan of giving a wide berth to aliens.
Christian people never knew quite where they were with aliens. Some of them paid, some of them didn’t. Mrs. Toogood’s experience had been mainly among the latter. And in her view, this sharp-eyed slip of a girl who asked for something outlandish in an accentyou could cut with a knife, had the look and air of the didn’t.
It might have been racial prejudice, but that was the landlady’s feeling.
“From the Isle of Man, I presume,” said Mrs. Toogood loftily. Although she was the widow of an Italian warehouseman she was not in the least imaginative. The Isle of Man was her Ultima Thule, the farthest eagle flight of which her mind was capable.
Mame knew as much about the Isle of Man as the landlady knew about a hall bedroom. But she smiled broadly.
“I’m from New York.” Her voice went up a little as she made that damaging admission. For the admissionwasdamaging.
“That would be America, would it not?” The growing gloom of the landlady began to verge upon melancholia.
Mame allowed that it would be.
The landlady sniffed. Mame knew by that sniff that the home of her fathers was in the discard.
Mrs. Toogood, if not a travelled woman, or a widely read or highly informed, was yet an educated one. She had been educated by the movies. That form of hyperculture which aims to instruct as well as to amuse and delights to draw together the nations of the earth had put this good lady wise on the subject of America.
Every Saturday afternoon it was the custom of a modern and progressive mother to take her twin sons, ætat nine years and two months, Horatio Nelson Toogoodand Victor Emanuel Toogood by name—the Italian warehouseman had insisted on the Victor Emanuel in honour of his calling—to the Britannia Picture Palace in the Euston Road. In that centre of light they had learned that America was not quite what she gave herself out to be. God’s Own Country was a truly wicked place. The crook, the vamp, the dope-fiend, the cattle-rustler, the bootlegger, the forger, the slick duck, the run amok quick shooter, the holder-up of mails was as thick on the floor of those United States as the white and yellow crocus in a Thames meadow in the middle of February. And as London is to the virtuous island of Britain, so is New York to the infamous land of the free.
The English are a moral race. They honestly believe their morals are purer than any upon the wide earth. That is why the Pictures are not only educational, but popular. They exhibit Cousin Yank in the buff. And even if the sight embarrasses the pious cheek of Euston Road, N. W., it is pleasant sometimes to spare a blush for one’s rich relations.
In the dour eye that regarded Mame was sorrow. The girl looked harmless even if her speech was odd. But appearances are not things to bank on; at least in Mrs. Toogood’s experience.
“Any old box’ll do for me, so long as it’s clean and ain’t beyond my wad.”
“I have a small room on the top floor.” The landlady was guarded. It was next the servants and verydifficult to let; the p.g.’s of Fotheringay House were persons of clearly defined social status.
Mame welcomed with enthusiasm the prospect of a small room on the top floor. The landlady repeated the once-over without enthusiasm. Should she? Or should she not? An outlandish girl, American to the bone, but this attic would be none the worse for a tenant, provided, of course, that she was really a paying one.
Elmer P. Dobree had told Mame more than once that “she was cute as a bag of monkeys.” The zoölogical resources of five continents could not have exceeded the flair with which Miss Durrance opened her vanity bag and produced an impressive roll of Bradburys.
“I’ll be happy to pay a fortnight in advance.” It was Mame’s best Broadway manner. “Here is the money. I am a very respectable girl.”
Reassured by the sight of the Bradburys rather than by the Broadway manner, which to the insular taste had a decidedly cosmopolitan flavour, the landlady went so far as to ask for a name and references.
“I’m a special European correspondent.” Mame gave a slow and careful value to each word.
A faint beam pierced the landlady’s gloom. She had feared “an actress”; although to be just to the girl she didn’t look that sort.
“Here is my card,” Broadway cold drawn and pure, with a dash of Elmer P. talking over the phone.
The châtelaine of Fotheringay House adjusted a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses and read:
card
Miss Amethyst Du RanceNew York City, U. S. A.European CorrespondentCowbarnIndependent
The card was returned to its owner with polite thanks. A subtle gesture indicated that a sudden rise had occurred in the stock of Miss Amethyst Du Rance.
“I’m not quite sure, Miss Du Rance, but I may be able to find you a bedroom on the second floor.”
Victory! The roll had begun the good work, but the card had consummated it. One up for the CowbarnIndependent.
Iowa’s shrewd daughter had realized already that it would not do to make a poor mouth in Europe. All the same Aunt Lou’s legacy was melting like snow. Money must appear to be no object as far as Miss Amethyst Du Rance was concerned; yet she must watch out or a whole dollar would not pull more than fifty cents.
“Top floor’ll fix me.” Mame it was who spoke, yet with the lofty voice of Miss Amethyst Du Rance. “Tariff’ll be less, I reckon, but”—haughtily detaching a second Bradbury from the wad—“I’ll be most happy to pay spot cash in advance for a fortnight’s board and residence.”
Money is quite as eloquent in London, England, as it is in New York or Seattle or Milpitas, Cal. Mame’s air of affluence combined with a solid backing of notes did the trick, although the well-bred fashion in which a dyed-in-the-wool British landlady glossed over the fact seemed to render it non-existent.
“You have luggage, I presume?”
There was a trunk outside on the taxi.
“The porter will take it up to your room. I will ring for him now.”
Mrs. Toogood suited the word to the action, the action to the word. She was crisp and decisive, final and definite. Mame felt this lady was wasted in private life. She ought to have been in Congress.