XV
THE next morning, when Mame drew up her blind, there was abundant promise of royal weather. The great day was ushered in by one of those light mists which mask a sky of flawless blue. In London, England, this phenomenon is rarely seen before noon. But when it does appear the whole of that world which lies between the White Stone Pond at Hampstead and Sydenham Hill, with its weird crown, the Crystal Palace, may be said to raise a pæan.
This morning as Mame dealt faithfully with her matutinal kipper and coffee and marmalade, she felt inclined to raise a pæan also. She had slept well in spite of a growing pressure of deep anxieties. Never had she felt more full of zip. To-day was to offer the chance of her life.
The firmness of the barometer and the optimism of theDaily Mailso fully confirmed the prospect from her bedroom window, that a second consecutive day of fine weather was almost a certainty. She would be able to do the function of the afternoon under the best possible conditions.
For nearly a fortnight the wedding had been sedulously boomed by the newspapers. Mame was willing to take their word for it that the celebration of thenuptials of the Marquis of Belfield and Miss Van Alsten of New York was one of the events of the social year. Also she was ready to accept their prediction of an immense gathering at the Church of Saint Margaret, Westminster, and around the railings of Clanborough House, Mayfair.
She decided to forego the ceremony and to concentrate on the reception. By this means she would save the expense of a taxi; and perhaps of fighting her way through the mob. New York had taught her what that meant at a really smart wedding. Besides, having had such luck, she was sure of seeing the second part of the show at close range. If she got to Clanborough House early, she would be able to choose a good position. She wanted to rub shoulders with Royalty and the grandees. It was not so much she was a little snob, although she dared say that really and truly she was, as that she was out to hear and to see, to mark and to learn.
She didn’t take much luncheon. A sort of excitement had been gnawing at her all the morning, and the nearer the time approached to set out for Mayfair, the worse it became. She would have despised herself for lack of coolness had she been equal just then to despising herself for anything. What was there to fuss over? Had it been her fool self that was going to marry the Marquis of Belfield she could not have felt more completely cuckoo.
“Pull your doggone self together, Mame Durrance,”something whispered to her as she shook a little Worcester sauce over the mid-day hash.
Sound advice, but not easy to follow. Even when she put down the bottle of Worcester sauce her hand continued to shake. Yes, she was cuckoo. A highbrow had declared in the office calendar for 1921 that he was the captain of his soul. His exact words should have been easy to remember, for they had been learned sedulously by heart; but the poor old think-box seemed out of business just now. And that was a pity, for that highbrow might have been helpful.
Lack of appetite seemed to add to a feeling of “nerves.” It was absurd. Her job would not be a whit more difficult than a visit to the movies or the play. But she was in a regular twitter. Luncheon hardly touched, she got up from the table and went to her room. The business of dressing took a full hour. Never in her life had she taken such pains with her appearance. She arched her eyebrows with a pencil, she dabbed her face with cream and rose and she artfully brushed her hair, a pretty burnished brown, over what she considered her weakest feature, a pair of slightly nondescript ears.
At last she stood in her camisole to receive her best afternoon frock of blue marocain. Then she slipped about her slender neck a string of pearls even slenderer, whose make-believe, she hoped, would not be visible to the naked eye. Silk stockings, very choice and gossamer, and a cunning pair of shoes with high heels and large buckles completed the picture.
As she gazed at herself in the wretched lodging-house mirror, she wondered why she was taking these pains. Not a soul in the smart mob was likely to glance at her twice. But she looked so pale that she could not tear herself away from the glass without one extra touch of rose. That accomplished, she had recourse to a neat oblong box, which since yesterday morning had graced the top of the chest of drawers. With a little nervous, thrill she produced a pair of folding eyeglasses, the cutest thing out, which with the help of a long tortoise-shell handle you held up to your nose.
The only drawback to this slick contrivance was that for seeing purposes she simply did not need it. Her eyes were like a goshawk’s. The problem was to hold the tortoise-shell folders so as to peer over the top without detracting from their effect.
Conscious that she was a veritable Paula Wyse Ling in action, she moved slowly forth from her room and down the stairs. The tightness of the new shoes required caution. It was a mistake to have them fit so close; a pity, too, that the heels were so horribly high. She had to be careful also with the tortoise-shell folders. If they were not kept at just the right angle going down those dark stairs she might miss a step, pitch down the lot and fetch up with a crash against the drawing room door.
Fashionable life is not all chocolate éclairs and ice-cream sodas. Mame nearly tripped over herself twice in the course of the perilous descent to the first-floor landing. She had just achieved it with a thankfulheart, when the door of the drawing room opened, and lo! who should emerge like some old cat from a wicker basket but the queen of the tabbies, the bishop’s niece.
No love was lost between Mame and this lady. She was a species of four-flusher, Mame was sure. Very set up with herself, yet without so much as one shilling to rub against another. To judge by the novels Mame had been reading, to get to know as it were the lie of this comic land, she was convinced that in the cathedral towns and the inland spas the nieces of bishops were three a penny.
She had dignity of a sort, this dame, but when she came full upon Mame, who seemed at the point of falling on to her tortoise-shell folders, she almost let a whoop.
Howbeit, the fact that she was a bishop’s niece had the power to save her. Suddenly she gazed over Mame’s head and then muttered how glad she was that it was such a fine day. But Mame, in spite of tight shoes and a generalmalaise, felt the cold and stern joy of battle.
By a discreet use of the tortoise-shell folders she was able to peer not so much through the middle as over the top. Then she lifted her good chin, which she knew to be one hundred per cent American, and said in that clear high voice which she had practised in secret from the hour she had first heard poor Mr. Falkland Vavasour put it over, “I’ll give your mother-love to King George.”