IV
FIVE minutes later Miss Amethyst Du Rance and all her worldly goods were assembled in a small musty bedroom at the top of Fotheringay House. It smelt of damp. There was no grate or stove or any means of heating. The floor was shod with a very cold-looking brand of lino. Only a thin layer of cement divided the ceiling from the tiles of the roof—so thin, indeed, that the all-pervading yellow fog could almost be seen in the act of percolating through them.
Mrs. Toogood, who had personally conducted her new guest up three pairs of stairs, lit the gas and drew the curtains across the narrow window. She then informed Miss Du Rance that dinner was at half-past seven, but there would be afternoon tea in the drawing room on the first floor in about half an hour.
Mame took off her coat and hat, removed the stains of travel from a frank and good-humoured countenance, re-did her hair and applied a dab of powder to a nose which had a tendency to freckle; and then she went downstairs. Stirred by a feeling of adventure she forgot how cold she was; also she forgot the chill that had gathered about her heart. London, England, was a long, long way from home. Its climate was thoroughly depressing and the same could be said ofits landladies. Whether the climate produced the landladies or the landladies produced the climate she had not been long enough in the island to say.
The light in the drawing room was dim. It half concealed a glory of aspidistra, lace curtains, anti-macassars and wax fruits. There was a solemnity about it which by some means had been communicated to a unique collection of old women who upon sofas and chairs were collected in a semi-circle round an apology for a fire. Mame could not repress a shiver as one sibyl after another looked up from her wool-work or her book and gave the firm-footed and rather impulsive intruder the benefit of a frozen stare from a glacial eye.
By the time Mame had subsided on the only unoccupied seat within the fire’s orbit, she felt that a jury of her sex having duly marked and digested her had come to the unanimous conclusion that she was guilty of presumption in being upon the earth at all. The detachment of this bunch of sibyls gave density and weight to the feeling. Their silence was uncanny. It was only disturbed by the click click of knitting pins and the occasional creak of the fire.
Mame had been five minutes in a situation which every second made more irksome, since for the first time in her life she was at a total loss for speech, when, as Mrs. Toogood had predicted, tea appeared. That lady, in adémodéblack silk dress, which looked like an heirloom, preceded a metal urn, a jug of hot water, an array of cracked saucers and cups, some doubtful-lookingbread and butter, and still more doubtful-looking cake. All these things were borne upon a tray by the prim maid who had first admitted Mame to Fotheringay House.
The sight of “the eats” cheered Mame up a bit. And in conjunction with Mrs. Toogood’s arrival, they certainly went some way towards unsealing the frozen atmosphere of the witches’ parlour. A place was found for the hostess near the fire; the small maid set up a tea-table; the cups and saucers began to circulate.
Mame was served last. By then the brew, not strong to begin with, had grown very thin. “Rather weak, Miss Du Rance, I fear,” loftily said its dispenser. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Mame, for whom that peculiarly British function which the French speak of as “le five-o’clock” was a new experience, promptly said she didn’t mind at all. Her voice was so loud that it fairly shattered the hush; it was almost as if a bomb had fallen into a prayer-meeting. Every ear was startled by the power of those broad nasal tones.
“This is Miss Du Rance of America.” The hostess spoke for the benefit of the company. It was not so much an introduction as an explanation; a defence and a plea rather than an attempt at mixing.
Some of the sibyls glared at Mame, some of them scowled. No other attention was paid her. Yet they were able to make clear that her invasion of the ancient peace of Fotheringay House was resented.
Little cared the visitor. Set of old tabbies. Bunchof fossilised mossbacks. She was as good as they. And better. In drawing comparisons, Miss Du Rance was not in the habit of underrating herself or of overrating others. And she was a born fighter.
Was it not sheer love of a fight that had brought her to Europe? She already saw that London was going to be New York over again: a city of four-flushers, with all sorts of dud refinements and false delicacies, unknown to Cowbarn, Iowa. Of course she was a little hick. But cosmopolitan experience was going to improve her. And cuteness being her long suit, these dames had no need to rub her rusticity into her quite so good and hearty.
As Mame toyed with a cup of tea that was mere coloured water and took a chance with the last surviving piece of “spotted dog,” which had just one raisin beneath a meagre scrape of butter, her quick mind brought her right up against the facts of the case. Somehow she wasn’t in the picture. She must study how to fit herself into her surroundings. That was what she was there for; to see the world and to put herself right with it.
When in Rome you must do like the Romans, or you’ll bite granite. Paula Wyse Ling had sprung that. And Paula knew, for she had travelled. What she really meant was that Mame Durrance must unlearn most of what she had learned at Cowbarn, Iowa, if she was going to fire the East.
Cowbarn was the home of the roughneck. But in New York City and London, England, highbrowsswarmed like bees. These places were the native haunts of that Culture in which Mame had omitted to take a course.
She was soon convinced this was the dullest party she had ever been at. But it didn’t prevent her mind from working. Never in her life had she been more cast down. These people made her feel like thirty cents. They spoke in hushed and solemn voices. If this was Europe it would have been wiser to stay on her native continent.
Presently the small maid bore away the teapot and the crockery. With massive dignity the mistress followed her out. The landlady’s withdrawal seemed, if it were possible, to add new chills to the gloom, and Mame having reached the point where she could stand it no longer, had just decided to make a diversion by going up to her bedroom and unpacking her trunk when a new interest was lent to the scene. A man entered the room. Mame’s first thought was that he must have a big streak of natural folly to venture alone and unprotected into this nest of sleeping cats.
Strange to say, the temerarious male was made welcome. The density of the atmosphere lessened as soon as he came in. One old tabby after another began to sit up and take notice; and Mame, while busily engaged in watching the newcomer, had a feeling of gratitude towards him for having cast by his mere presence a ray of light upon that inspissated gloom.
Certainly he was no common man. As well as Mame could tell he was as old as the tabbies to whom he madehimself so agreeable. Yet he was old with a difference. His abundant hair, which was snow white, was brushed in a dandified way, and the note of gallantry was repeated in every detail of his personality. His clothes, though not strikingly smart, were worn with an air. There was style in the set of his necktie, and if his trousers might bag a little at the knees they somehow retained the cut of a good tailor. Also he wore a monocle in a way that seemed to add grace and charm to his manner and to cancel his curious pallor and his look of eld.
Mame was at once deeply interested in this new arrival. No doubt he was one of the blood-peers, of whom she had read. Down on his luck perhaps, and for all his pleasant touch of swank, he somehow suggested it. Besides it stood to reason that a real blood-peer, used to the best that was going, as this old beau plainly was, would not be spending his time in a dead-alive hole playing purry-purry puss-puss if he were not up against it.
All the same there was absolutely nothing in his manner to suggest a shortage of dough. It was so grand that it seemed to banish any vulgar question of ways and means. To judge by the way he dandled his eyeglass while he entertained the tabbies with his measured yet copious and genial talk, he might have been the King of England with his beard off.
When the clock on the chimneypiece struck seven the ladies rose in a body and withdrew to prepare for the evening meal. Their example was followed by Mame.She would have liked to stay and get into conversation with the intriguing stranger, but dinner was in half an hour and it would take some little time to unpack her trunk in which was a new one-piece dress she was going to wear. Besides there would be a chance later in the evening, no doubt, of making his acquaintance.
As it happened this pleasure had to be postponed. To Mame’s disappointment the old boy did not appear at dinner. But she did not blame him. The food was meagre and those who ate it were quite the dullest set she had ever seen. Some of the guests were accommodated with small separate tables. One of these had been provided for Miss Du Rance. It was in a draughty corner, exposed to a strong current of air between two open doors which led to a large and antiquated lift whereby the meal ascended from the basement.
Mame felt small-town, but she had come to Europe to learn. Even if the seclusion of a private table had its conveniences she would have much preferred to mingle with her fellow p.g.’s. She was social by nature. Besides, she was determined to be a mixer. All these folks had it in their power to teach her something, duds though they were. Britain must give up all its secrets to Miss Amethyst Du Rance. Judging by the dead-beats who swarmed in this fog-bound isle they might amount to nothing; at the same time one cannot know too much of one’s subject. For some little time to come the subject for Miss Du Rance was going to be London, England.