XLIV
IT happened, therefore, that the very next morning Mame found herself travelling down to Shropshire in the company of Lady Kidderminster. Odd and unexpected as the journey was, she was a little inclined to be annoyed with herself for having allowed Mommer and Lady Violet to hustle her so peremptorily into undertaking it. There was weakness in such yielding. And to a practical go-getter who knew the value of the will, this was not a good sign. The first thing she would have to study as the wife of Bill must be the art of standing up to her in-laws.
These were clever women, not a doubt about it. Evidently they were versed in the most important of all problems, how to get your own way. They had force and they had skill had Mommer and Lady Violet; they didn’t let you see their hands, but just set quietly to work and made you do the things they wanted. She was a little simp to let them put one over on her like that.
Still, why worry? There was no reason why she should not be seated opposite Mommer in the darned old Great Western Pullman. She was real nice was Mommer. As easy as pie. All the same her daughter-in-law-to-be shrewdly guessed that she was not justthe simple old shoe that she looked. Even before they had reached the first stop, which was Reading, Mame had made a private vow that as far as Mommer was concerned she would keep her eyes skinned and watch out.
The journey was quite pleasant. All the way from Paddington to Shrewsbury, where they left the express and took a local train to Millfield, the nearest station to Warlington Towers, the lady in whose charge Mame found herself persisted steadily in being charming. Mame could not help liking her. Seen as it were from a distance, Mommer’s stateliness was a little alarming; but at close range, in friendly and intimate talk all fear of it seemed to go.
There were no surprises. Everything went agreeably and well. It was when they got off the train finally at Millfield that the surprises began. There was a five-mile drive to the Towers, as Mame had been told; and she had rather confidently expected it to be performed in an elegant motor, with two servants. But nothing of the kind. In the Millfield station yard a one-horse brougham awaited them. It was decidedly well kept, but it looked out of date; and although the coachman wore a smart cockade and had the face of an ancestral portrait, no brisk footman shared the seat by his side.
An obsequious porter and a rural station master, who was even more obsequious, ushered them into the brougham’s rather stuffy interior. It was plain from the manner of these officials that even if Mommer did clingto the old modes of travel she was a power in this corner of the land. Still Mame continued to be a bit surprised by the one-horse brougham. Yet this was no more than a prelude to the far bigger surprise that was in store.
After the elderly horse had clip-clopped along the dusty by-roads for some little time, Mame caught a sudden glimpse of a noble set of towers “bosomed high in tufted trees” as a poetic john had expressed it in the office calendar. There was also a fine park full of deer with high stone walls around it.
“Warlington Towers, I guess.” There was a thrill in Mame’s voice as she pointed enthusiastically through the carriage window.
Lady Kidderminster said “yes.” The note in her voice sounded the reverse of enthusiastic.
At that moment they came upon some beautiful wrought iron gates with an ancient coat of arms in the middle, flanked by a pair of stone pillars, each with a fabulous winged monster upon the top. Beyond the gates was a porter’s lodge and then a vista of glorious trees in the form of a long avenue which led straight to the doors of the famous mansion.
“It’s just too lovely.” Mame clapped her hands.
She quite expected the one-horse brougham to stop at those magnificent gates, all picked out in black and gold, and turn into that wonderful avenue. But it did nothing of the kind. It went on and on by the side of the high stone walls which shut out the view of the Towers completely.
“Don’t you live there?” Mame was a little puzzled and perhaps a shade anxious.
Lady Kidderminster sighed gently. “We don’t live there now, my dear.”
“Oh,” breathed Mame. Somehow she felt rather let down.
The old horse clip-clopped along by the grassy marge of the interminable and forbidding stone walls until they reached a tiny village. In the middle was a neat public house, with a roof of straw thatch, and its ancient sign the Treherne Arms much stained by the weather. Past this the brougham went, a couple of hundred yards or so, and then turned in on the left, through a swing gate and along a carriage drive.
At the end of the drive was a house built of stone. It was a good, honest-looking place and by its style was old. But compared with the pomp and glory of the Towers it was quite small. Nay, as Mame was forced to view it, this house was a trifle poor. Here the brougham stopped. It was the end of their journey.
The place which Lady Kidderminster had occupied for the last five years was called the Dower House. It was comfortable enough and everything in it was in such perfect taste that it was only Mame’s lively anticipation of the Towers and their magnificence which lent it an aura of inferiority. Really the Dower House was charming. It had the loveliest things. There was a view of distant hills from its bedroom windows; and at the back of the house was an old-world garden, a rare pleasaunce of plants and shrubs and very ancienttrees. If the Towers had not caught Mame’s imagination she would have considered the Dower House just elegant.
At dinner, which was at eight o’clock, and to Mame’s robust appetite was a meal at once meagre and inadequate, there was only one other besides the hostess. This was a Miss Carruthers, a young-old body, tall and faded and thin, who spoke in a slow, rather peeved voice which sounded frightfully aristocratic. She seemed kindly and well meaning, but she was dull, terribly dull. Even Lady Kidderminster seemed inclined to yield to the atmosphere of Miss Carruthers. Anyhow, by dinner time, a good deal of her metropolitan sparkle had fled.
Mame hoped, as she swallowed the thin soup and the minute portions of fish and chicken the regular old john of a butler, with wonderful manners and side whiskers, handed to her at carefully regulated intervals, that the absence of sparkle was only going to be temporary. But there was nothing on the table stronger than lemonade to excite it. And zip of some kind was certainly needed. However, it was not forthcoming at the table or in the drawing room afterwards, where no fire was in the rather cavernous grate, although mid-September evenings in Shropshire are apt to be chill.
There was neither electricity nor gas throughout the house, and when Mame, following the example of the other ladies, chose a candle from among a number laid out on a table in the hall, and ascended solemnly to her bed, she felt desolate. Somehow things were notas she had expected to find them. Just what those expectations had been she was unable to say. But they had certainly included the Towers.
All the same she slept. She was young and healthy and the pulse of life beat high. And she had a forward-looking mind. But in the present case the habitual hope of a morrow more alluring came to nought. The Dower House did not seem to improve on acquaintance. It was dull. No use mincing it—it was dull. Lady Kidderminster continued to be kindness itself; Miss Carruthers was also kind; but they seemed only to converse on formal subjects and in a rather perfunctory way. Then the food! It was beautifully cooked and served, and what there was of it was of the best quality, yet in Miss Du Rance it left a void.
A factor in their dulness, no doubt, was the absence of Lady Kidderminster’s family. Violet, of course, was in London; and of the two young ones, Doris was in her first year at Cambridge and Marjorie at school at Worthing. “When those two pickles come here for the holidays we are much more lively, aren’t we, Mildred?”
Mildred, Miss Carruthers, who agreed with Lady Kidderminster in most things, agreed in this.
After a rather dispiriting breakfast in which Mame had to be content with a boiled egg, some poor coffee, some thin toast and an elegant spoonful of jam, she took the air of the domain with Miss Carruthers. Like everything else about the place, the air of the domain was good in quality, yet it did not seem to be exhilarating.Mame felt inclined to fix some of the responsibility upon Miss Carruthers. She was as good as gold, but she wanted pep.
In the course of this ordeal in the garden, Mame’s great disappointment once more recurred. She could not forget the Towers; their absence filled her with a sense of grievance.
“Why don’t Lady K. live at the big house?” She put the question frankly. “Some place that. I guess I’d want to live there if I owned it.”
Miss Carruthers hesitated a moment and then said in that plaintive voice which already was beginning to get on Mame’s nerves. “Cousin Lucy can’t afford to do that. She’s been so hit by the War. The Towers eats money. One has to be rich to keep up a place of that kind.”
“She isn’t rich, then?”
“Dear, no.”
“What’ll she do with that old place?” There was keen disappointment in Mame’s tone.
“Cousin Lucy, I believe, has not decided yet. At present the Towers is let to some rich Americans.”
“Any I know?” asked Mame. From her manner it might have been a hobby of hers to specialise in rich Americans. It would do this dame no harm to think so anyway.
The slow, plaintive answer of Miss Carruthers was unexpected and it was startling. “You may know them. I believe they go about in London a good deal. Some people called Childwick.”
“Childwick.” Mame gave a slight gasp. “Have they a girl named Gwendolen?” Yet there was no need to ask. She knew.
So plaintive grew the voice of Miss Carruthers that Mame longed to shake her. “Gwendolen is their only child. A great heiress.”
Mame felt something turn inside her heart. She bit her lip; and then she gave a little snort of defiance. Miss Carruthers sighed long and grievously.