Part 2

The good old _Independent_ looked 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, Cowbarn _Independent_. 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 die rather 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 Cowbarn _Independent_. 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 the _Independent_ office, 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 Cowbarn _Independent_ was 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. She set 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 with the 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 Valance was 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 manner of 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 the _Sidonia_ she had read in the New York _Herald_ of 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 bandit than 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 accent you 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 admission _was_ damaging.

“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 Toogood and 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 very difficult 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:

+-----------------------------------------+ | MISS AMETHYST DU RANCE | | | | New York City, U. S. A. | | | | European Correspondent | | | | Cowbarn _Independent_ | +-----------------------------------------+

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 Cowbarn _Independent_.

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.

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 of its 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 a _démodé_ black 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-looking bread 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. Bunch of 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.