Part 20

Bitter thoughts accompanied Mame through the nobly proportioned rooms, up the majestic staircase and then down again to the noblest room of all. It seemed vast, that particular room; the sense of its magnitude came out and hit you as you entered. The view from its great windows was unforgettable, but it was the room itself and the things it contained that made it so memorable. Tapestries, sofas, cabinets, chairs, tables, lovely bric-a-brac and candelabra, all were perfect in their kind and united in ministry to the higher perfection of which they formed a part.

It was the pictures on the walls that gave perhaps the biggest thrill. Portraits mostly: Lelys, Knellers and those old johns of the eighteenth century who knew how to put historical folks upon canvas. Among the famous guys in steel breastplates and periwigs and contemporary janes in ruffs and powder and what not, was a picture of a young man in knee-breeches and silk stockings and a stiff flounced coat with a sword, who might have been Bill. The resemblance was astonishing. Had Bill exchanged his modern tailor for that funny yet superbly picturesque rig that is just how he would have looked.

Mame was so struck by this likeness that she stopped to gaze at the words at the foot of the gilt frame:

“William, third marquis of Kidderminster. By Sir Peter Lely.”

Yes, it was the real thing, this picture. But what, after all, was it compared to the room it was in and the harmony of which it was a symbol? History, romance, power seemed all around. Again the spirit of place got Mame thinking.

It was the gentle, low voice of Lady Kidderminster that brought her slowly back to the present and to her own self. “Shall we rest a moment, my dear? Here in the sun. This is always my favourite spot; how one loves a room facing south! There is more real warmth here than anywhere else in the house.”

As Lady Kidderminster spoke she sat down on a large, high-backed sofa, very choicely carved, which was placed immediately below Lely’s third marquis. She made a place beside her for Mame, who sat down too. There the sun was very pleasant, as it streamed in through the great window opposite. The trees of the park could be seen and the deer browsing under them. Not so much as the ticking of a clock broke the rapt stillness. What a peace there was upon everything, what order, what a hushed solemnity! It was like being in a cathedral. The aura of this room in its grandeur and stateliness was overpowering.

Mame was seldom at a loss for words. But seated on this sofa by the side of Lady Kidderminster she felt a little shy of the sound of her own voice. Somehow it didn’t seem to belong. She waited for her companion to say something. Those sweet and quiet tones went so much better with the carpets and the pictures and the scene beyond those windows.

Suddenly Mame grew aware that the hand next hers had taken it in its clasp. Then very softly and quietly Bill’s mother began to talk. Her beautiful low voice in its ordered perfection was as much a part of those surroundings as all the other lovely things of which Mame could not help being sensible. Yet the words it wove soon began to press upon her heart.

In a fashion of curious simplicity, which revealed everything in the most practical and matter-of-fact way, Bill’s mother showed what an effort she had made to hold on to this inheritance. Everybody had hoped that he would marry Miss Childwick. She was deeply in love with him, and there was a time, only a short month or so ago, when it was thought that he was in love with her. A marriage had been almost arranged for the early summer, yet for some trivial reason it had been deferred. And now, and now, the gentle tones deepened into tragedy, it would never take place, and Bill would have to give up the last and dearest of his possessions.

Great sacrifices had been made to keep things going against the time when he should marry. They owed it to him to do that. And he, dear fellow, owed it, not to those who were proud to make sacrifices, but to the order of things, so long established, of which he was the _clou_, to marry in a direction that would ensure their maintenance.

“You see, my dear,” said Lady Kidderminster, and for the first time a faint gleam of humour lit that lovely voice of ever-deepening tragedy, “it is not that we own places like the Towers. They own us. It is Bill’s duty to those who have made this old house what it is”--she waved a gentle hand to those solemn assenting walls “to keep it in the state to which it has pleased providence to call it. I hope you appreciate, my dear, what a dreadful wrench it is going to be, not only for us, but for this old house, with so many historical associations, to pass into other hands.”

Only too well was Mame able to appreciate that. The streak of imagination in her had never been so uncomfortable as at that painful moment.

“I simply cannot bear to think of his losing all this,” Bill’s mother went on. “I simply cannot bear to think of all this losing him. They need each other; they were created for each other; they can never be as they were if they are allowed to drift apart. The Childwicks are excellent people and they have a lien on this house, which may be exercised if dear Gwendolen does not marry Bill. They will, I am sure, do the place no dishonour, but I, for one, cannot bear to think of such a break in a long tradition. The Towers expects the head of the family to do his duty by it, in the way of his forbears who made it the thing it is.”

Mame did not speak. Not only was she seeing certain things at a new angle, she was also seeing the world in general in a new way. The process was distinctly irksome.

“Any girl who really cares for him,” Lady K. went on with that candour which to Mame was so surprising, “will understand what life exacts of him, will understand where his duty lies.”

In the silence that followed these words Mame hardly ventured to look at the face of the woman who sat by her side. But she saw that Lady Kidderminster’s eyes were wet. This was a brave woman. It was impossible not to respect her point of view. Indeed, seated in that room, with all those associations clustering about it, there seemed to be only one way of looking at things. And that was the way of Bill’s mother.

XLVI

Mame returned to London after an absence of exactly one week. Seldom had she been more eager for anything than to exchange the rather dreary stuffiness of the Dower House for the life and bustle of the town. Yet the Mame Durrance who had left Paddington a week ago was not the same person who came back to that terminus. Something had happened to her in the meantime. As yet she did not quite know what the something was. But there were the beginnings of a new habit of introspection in her; and from this she learned that she was in the throes of change.

Life, somehow, was not quite as she had left it. She seemed to see it with new eyes. Even the buses and the taxis and the faces of the passers-by were different from what they had been a week ago. They seemed to strike her in a new way. It was as if the rather trite and funny old world she had always lived in had become suddenly enlarged. Everything had grown more complex. The inner nature of things, about which she was troubling for the first time, was full of deep and mysterious meaning.

This state of mind did not make for happiness, as Mame soon discovered. For one thing it was out of harmony with the mentality of a practical go-getter. But as she expressed the phenomenon to herself, that old house had put one over on her. It was absurd that a mere inanimate collection of sticks and stones should have the power to do anything of the kind, yet it was not a bit of use shirking the fact that it had done so.

There were two Mame Durrances now. Perhaps there always had been, but the one the old house in Shropshire had evoked had lain dormant. And now that it was aroused it promised to become a mighty inconvenient yoke fellow. Hitherto it had been the go-getter who had held command of the ship; a common-sensible, up-and-coming, two-and-two-makes-four sort of unit, who saw its duty a dead sure thing and went and did it. But the sleeper, whom one week of Shropshire had awakened, was a very different kind of bird.

No doubt, the new and tiresome entity that had sprung to birth was what the world meant by an idealist. It appeared to judge by another standard. There were the things you could do and the things you couldn’t do. The business part of Mame knew nothing of this. It only did the things it wanted to do.

A week of the Dower House had rather handed a haymaker to Mame’s utilitarian world. To such an extent had it mixed its values that she did not quite know where she stood in it. Yet amid the chaos she retained in a high degree her natural clearness of vision.

It was nearing the dinner hour when Mame’s taxi deposited her and her neat luggage at 16b Half Moon Street. Lady Violet, wearing her smartest evening frock, was on the point of going out. She greeted Mame with the air of bright cheerfulness that never seemed to desert her. But the returned traveller had only to glance at the eyes of her friend to learn that she was not feeling so very bright or so very cheerful. She surprised that look of never-say-die she had seen in the eyes of Lady Kidderminster. It was impossible not to respect the pluck of these women.

“Had a good time?”

“Ye-es.” Mame’s answer was a trifle dubious even if she did her best not to make it so.

“What did you think of the Towers?”

“Bully!” said Mame. And then she asked, less out of a sense of duty than from a desire to change the subject, “How’s the work been getting on?”

“Gerty Smith is splendid. She’s such a worker.” Lady Violet sighed humorously. “Oh, how I hate work!”

Mame fully believed her. Girls of her special type must long ago have overlaid the habit. The conviction in Celimene’s voice did not lessen Mame’s respect for her. She had real grit, this girl, to be able to buckle to in the way she did.

“There’s a letter for you from New York.” Lady Violet pointed to the table. “I hope there’s no complaint of the firm. We’ve not been sending many _bonnes bouches_ in the way of news lately.”

“No, we haven’t,” agreed Mame, as she opened the letter. It merely contained the monthly cheque.

“That’ll come in very useful.”

“I’ll say yes, honey,” was Mame’s comment to herself.

Lady Violet then went off. She was dining with the Childwicks and going on with them to Covent Garden to the Russian ballet, and so did not expect to be home till rather late. Mame was left to a lonely meal round the corner at the Ladies Imperium. She had made a certain number of friends there, but she was not in a mood for promiscuous conversation; therefore she returned to an early bed.

She was very tired, bodily and mentally, but she had a restless and wakeful night. The go-getter and the idealist seemed to be quarrelling like fury all through the small hours. If there just wasn’t the money to keep things going and she really cared for Bill, wasn’t it her duty to stand aside?

Never heard such bunkum in my life, said the Go-getter.

Depends on how much you care for the boy, said the Idealist.

The Go-getter snorted.

You may snort, said the Idealist. But that’s the case as I see it.

XLVII

They had arranged to meet in the park, the next morning at eleven. Bill was at the tryst, looking a picture of health with the genial sun of St. Martin’s summer upon him. He really was good to gaze at; most girls would have thought so, anyway. There he was in his smart morning suit; bright as a new pin; and as gaily amusing as ever. He might not have had a care in the world. Indeed, as he greeted Mame with a flourish of hat and cane, it was hard to believe that he could have.

A week’s absence had, if anything, endeared them to each other. Mame felt immensely proud of Bill as she came upon him by the railings of the Row, where he stood watching its numerous and decidedly miscellaneous collection of riders. Yes, he was a picture. As Mame beheld him, her mind went rather inconveniently back to the portrait of the third marquis, under which she had sat in that wonderful room at the Towers.

“Good to see you, Puss.”

Low the voice and so beguiling. There was a tremendous fascination in this young man. They moved up towards Alexandra Gate and found two lonely chairs among the trees.

“And now for a good old pow wow.” He began to write her name on the grass with the tip of his cane. “You’re looking just a wee bit chippy, aren’t you? Air of Shropshire take some digesting, eh? My mother is a clinker, isn’t she? And Cousin Mildred. But their young lives are not exactly a beanfeast, what? And then the friends and neighbours. Did you meet the friends and neighbours?”

“Bushels.”

At the look on Mame’s shrewd and piquant countenance Bill cried “What ho!” in a fashion which startled a number of sparrows into sitting up and taking notice. “Then that funny old Dower House. I expect it rather gave you the pip.”

As a matter of fact the Dower House had rather given Mame the pip but it hardly seemed good manners to do so.

“Own up. Honest Injun.” Bill coolly surveyed the expressive countenance of Mame. “It always does me. But tell me, now, what do you think of the Towers? That’s a bit of a landmark, isn’t it?”

“Bully!” was Mame’s formula for the Towers. It didn’t quite express her feelings, but it seemed wise to keep to that inclusive simplicity.

“That’s the word,” Bill agreed.

Suddenly Mame took him up. “Bully isn’t at all the word for a place like the Towers.” To her own ear her voice grew harsh and strident. “It wants a better word than that. Doesn’t carry the meaning, that word. There’s an atmosphere about that place and it gets you.”

“Hadn’t occurred to me.”

“No.” Mame looked at him sideways. She was a shade incredulous. “If I owned all that, just by right of birth, I’d see that nobody ever took it from me.”

“Rather depend on your bank-book, wouldn’t it?” Somehow Bill’s casualness was almost like a blow. “You see the trouble with us as a family is that we haven’t a bob.”

Mame was fully informed of that. But why not get around and collect a few? She put the question frankly. To Bill, however, it had the merit of being new. It had simply never occurred to him.

“Why not?” In Mame’s voice was a certain sternness.

“Haven’t the savvee for one thing.” Bill spoke lightly and easily. “Enormous brains you must have these days to hustle around. Vi is the only one of us with any mind at all. If she had been a man I believe she might have kept the Towers going. But it would have needed doing, you know. That place swallows money. Not a penny less than ten thousand a year would have been a bit of use.”

“I’ll say not. But isn’t it worth while, don’t you think, to take off your coat and go around and see if you can raise it?”

Bill began to whistle merrily. His sense of humour was sharply touched. “See me raising ten thousand a year with this old think-box. I’m the utterest ass that ever happened. Why, I can’t even tot up a row of figures.”

“I guess I’d learn. If my folks had had the Towers for five hundred years, do you suppose I’d let people like the Childwicks come along and take it off me?”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” Bill gazed in admiration at the determined face.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

To that forcible question Bill seemed quite unable to find an answer. Mame did not disguise that an answer was called for. “Your Mommer says that if you marry me you’ll have to quit the Pinks.”

“I know she does.”

“And that you’ll lose the Towers.”

Bill owned ruefully that he knew that too.

“Doesn’t it worry you any?”

Bill was silent a moment, then shook his head and said cheerfully, no.

“Well, it worries me, I’ll tell the world.”

He frowned a little. Something in the nature of a cloud passed over his sunny mind. Mame this morning hardly seemed to be quite so entertaining as usual. “Why worry,” he said, “over things one can’t help?”

It was Mame’s turn to be silent. The frown that gathered about her honest face was more portentous than the one upon Bill’s. “Things have got to be helped, it seems to me.” She spoke slowly. It was as if the words tore her lips.

“I don’t quite see how at the moment.”

“There’s just one way. I’ve been thinking it out. We mustn’t marry.” The serious depth of Mame’s tone added detonating power to this thunderbolt.

“But that’s ridiculous.” Bill was no longer casual.

“As I figure it out, it’ll be more ridiculous if we do.”

“My dear girl, we shall be able to rub along. There’ll be a certain amount of money, even if the Towers does go and even if I have to leave the Army.”

Mame shook a stern little head. She certainly was not as amusing this morning as usual. “Not if you keep your engagement with Gwendolen Childwick.”

“I’ve never been engaged to Gwendolen Childwick,” he indignantly broke in.

“Vi says you were as good as engaged to her. And so does your mother.”

“These meddlesome women!” Bill spoke vexedly. “I see what it is. You’ve been letting ’em put the wind up.”

A flush of crimson showed this to be a palpable hit.

“I give you my word there’s been no engagement between Gwendolen and me,” Bill earnestly added.

She knew there had not been. But it did not alter her view that if he was as sensible as he ought to be, there would be an engagement between them soon.

“Somebody’s been getting at you.” He was rather startled by the turn affairs were taking. “You’re not yourself this morning. Tell me, Puss, don’t you care for me any more?”

He looked into her troubled face with an anxiety which made her feel that she wanted to cry. In fact she had to bite her lip pretty hard to save herself from exposing a most regrettable weakness. “It’s because I care for you so much that I can’t let you make a fool of yourself.” The quaint voice trembled oddly. “If you marry me it’s ruin and--and that’s all there is to it.”

He took a little white-gloved paw--she was looking most charmingly spick and span this morning--into his great brown fist. “Rot! A promise is a promise. I won’t give you up.”

“Don’t be a fool.” Pain, sheer and exquisite, drove her to speak bluntly and harshly. “I’d be a cuckoo in the nest. I don’t belong. I won’t amuse you always. And then you’d be sorry about the Towers. And you’d curse yourself for quitting the Army.”

“I’ll risk all that.”

Mame had a struggle to keep her lip stiff. But she had enough will to say, “There’s other folks to think of, you see.”

“Rot! Why let ’em come spoiling the sport?”

“_I’d_ be spoiling the sport. You and Gwendolen were getting on like a house on fire till I came by.”

“What’s come over you!” This was pure Quixotism. Slow in the uptake as he was, he knew how she hated Gwendolen.

“You don’t know what a friend Vi has been to me. I owe just everything to her. If I butted in and spoiled it all, I’d never be able to look her in the face again. Then there’s your Mommer. She’s been so sweet to me, I’d just hate to go back on her.”

Bill had to own that such feelings did Mame real credit. But her attitude seemed to puzzle him a goodish bit; it was rather beyond the order of nature.

“You’re the nicest and best little girl I’ve met.” He was dogged, defiant. “And I mean to hold on to you for all I’m worth.”

Mame was horribly near tears, yet she still contrived to keep them in check. It was the bitterest moment life so far had given her. But this thing had to be.

XLVIII

After a painful hour they parted and went their ways. Bill, in dudgeon, back to barracks; Mame with a heartache to Half Moon Street. All the way up Piccadilly she was accompanied by two voices. Mame Durrance you are a blame fool, said one. Stick it, girl, said the other. You are throwing away the chance of your life, said the Go-getter. If you really care for the boy, you just can’t marry him, said the Idealist.

Never had she felt so miserable as when she let herself into the flat. Luckily Violet was not there. She was able to relieve her overwrought feelings with a little private howl. Then she felt better. In fact she was able to sit down and compose a few halting lines to Bill embodying her final decision and giving her reasons for it. That achieved, she went to her bedroom and fetched the engagement ring which ten days ago had given her such joy.

I must have been cuckoo to have accepted it

Not half so cuckoo as you are now, you silly elf.

Miserably she packed it in its neat box and was in the act of enclosing the farewell letter when Violet came in. She had been taking the air.

One glance Violet gave to the red and swollen lids and the face of tragedy. “Why, my dear, dear child!” The vein of kindness in her was deep and true. Those piteous eyes, that piteous mouth very surely roused it. “Do tell me.” A naughty, dangerous little witch, but she was genuinely distressed to see Mame suffer. Something must have hurt her rather horribly. “Tell me, what is it?”

“I’ve let some of you folks put one over on me.” Mame fiercely brushed aside new tears.

It was not a moment for a smile. Yet it was hard to resist one at that whimsical and quaint defiance. Even in the hour of desolation the minx was like no one else. She had an odd power of attraction. It was by no means easy to dislike her. After all she had only acted in strict accordance with her nature.

“What is it? Tell me.”

Mame suddenly handed Celimene the letter she had written.