VIII
THE days to follow wrought havoc with Aunt Lou’s legacy. Mame’s idea had been to support herself with her pen during her stay in England. She had a gift, or thought she had, for expressing herself on paper; she had a sharp eye for things, she had energy and she had ideas; yet soon was she to learn that as far as London went the market for casual writing was no better than New York.
Times there were when she began to regret her safe anchorage at Cowbarn. But she did not spend much time looking back. She was determined to be a go-getter. Briskly she went about the town, seeing and hearing and jotting down what she saw and heard. And every Friday morning she mailed a packet of her observations to the CowbarnIndependent.
Weeks went quickly by. No word came from the only friend she had in the small and tight world of editors. Even Elmer P. Dobree, on whom she had optimistically counted, had turned her down. And things were not going well with her. She had not been able to earn a dollar in Europe, yet daily the wad was growing less. The time was sure coming when she would have to go home with her money spent and only a few chunks of raw experience to show for it.
Perhaps she had tried to prise off a bit too much. Wiser, perhaps, to have stuck to her job. She had been a fairly efficient stenographer and typist. But her active mind was bored. Hovering around that hard stool in theIndependentoffice it wanted all there was in the world. Yet first New York and now London, in their sharp reality, had taught her that the world was a bigger place than she had allowed for. And there were more folks in it. There were simply millions of Mame Durrances around: every sort of go-getter, all wanting the earth and with just her chance of connecting up. But if the worst came, so she had figured it out, and she failed to click in what these Britishers called “journalism,” she would always be able to return to an office stool.
Now, however, she was not so sure. As far as London went, it had six million people and half of them seemed to be looking for jobs. Just to keep in touch she had applied for one or two vacancies advertised in the papers. She had no real wish to get them. It would have been an admission of defeat and it was early days for that. But it would be well, in case the time really came, to know how to come in out of the rain.
She had applied in person but results were not encouraging. Secretarial work was badly paid in London and the struggle for it terrible. There was nothing like enough to go round. Besides, when all was said, Miss Amethyst Du Rance had not come to England to adorn an office stool.
It was not yet time to say good-bye to ambition. She still firmly believed it was in her to make good as a newspaper girl. But it was not easy to conquer the East. Compared with most of these high-flyers and four-flushers she was up against, with their finesse and their culture and their slick talk, Mame Durrance was a little hick. No use disguising it; she was a little hick. “A sense of ignorance is the beginning of knowledge” was one of the mottoes for 1921 in the office calendar which had adorned the fly-walk at the back of her typewriter and which, with an eye to the future, she had committed to memory in her spare moments.
The beginning of knowledge for Mame Durrance meant covering up your tracks. She must see that none of her fellow go-getters put one over on her. But even that simple precaution was not easy. They smiled every time she opened her face, these college boobs. And being as sharp as a hawk she had soon decided that her first duty was to get rid of her accent.
To this end she went freely about, she dressed to the limit of her slim purse, she laid herself out to meet interesting folks. Her fellow p.g.’s of Fotheringay House could not be considered interesting. But there was one exception. Mr. Falkland Vavasour continued to show himself much her friend. And he was quite the most interesting creature she had met. He was, also, very useful. It was a joy to hear him speak what he called the King’s English. She felt she could not do better than model herself on this living fount of euphony.
First she must cast out the nasal drawl that raised a smile wherever it was heard. Then she must mobilise the vowels and consonants of the mother tongue in the style which gave Mr. Falkland Vavasour an assured position in the drawing room of Fotheringay House. The tabbies, for the most part man-haters, simply hung on the words of Mr. Falkland Vavasour. This was mainly due, in Mame’s opinion, to his faultless voice production; and she soon set to work to study it.
Paula Wyse Ling, the most accomplished go-getter of her acquaintance, had said it was worth any girl’s while to visit London in order to acquire an English accent. Mame had doubted this. What was good enough for Cowbarn, Iowa, should have been good enough for the whole world. But the world, it seemed, was some place. She now began to see what Paula meant.
No sooner had Miss Amethyst Du Rance won the friendship of Mr. Falkland Vavasour than she decided that something must be done in the matter. She discreetly asked if he could tell her how to improve her voice. The old man tactfully said it didn’t need improvement. In his opinion it was a fine and powerful organ. Mame felt this was politeness. Her voice didn’t lack force but force was the trouble. “It needs a soft pedal,” said Mame. “Refinement, you know, and charm and all the frills of the West End theatres, restaurants and shops.”
The old actor had a sense of humour and a kindheart. He was amused by Mame, and he liked her. It would have been hard for an artist in life not to like such naïveté, such enthusiasm, such concentration, such fire. But this voice of hers was a problem. It had a natural punch that treated brick walls as if they were brown paper.
Toying with his monocle, in all things the perfect john, he drawled: “My de-ah young lady, if I may say so, your voice is mag-nif-i-cent, simply mag-nif-i-cent.”
Mame’s smile crumpled under the sheer action-pressure of her mind. “Some ways it ain’t. Some ways it’s wanting.”
“A shade more of—er, distinction perhaps?”
“Distinction.” Mame darted on the word like a bird on an insect. “You said it. Distinction’s mine. And I’ll get it, too—if it kills me.”
“My de-ah young lady, perfectly simple for a girl of your talent.”
“Honest? You think that?” The good grey eye glowed hopefully. “I wish I could say mag-nif-i-cent as poyfect as you can.”
“You will, my de-ah young lady, believe me, you will.”
“Well, I’ll start to learn right now.”
Mr. Falkland Vavasour smiled approval. He advised her to draw three deep breaths from the lower chest and to pronounce the word syllable by syllable.
Mame stood to her full height. She inflated. “Mag-nif-i-cent! Mag-nif-i-cent! Mag-nif-i-cent!”
“My de-ah young lady, what could be better?”
This was vastly encouraging. But it was only a beginning and her nature was to leave nothing to chance. A little later that day she acquired a second-hand copy of Bell’sStandard Elocutionistfrom a bookshop in the Charing Cross Road. And then she arranged for Mr. Falkland Vavasour to hear her say a little piece every morning, when the drawing room was empty.