Part 21

“You--you are sending back the ring?” There was a note in the voice of Bill’s sister which suggested that it feared to be other than incredulous. “You--you are breaking off the engagement?”

“I’ll say yes.”

Perhaps for the first time in their intercourse real emotion flooded the face of the more accomplished woman of the world. “Dear child!” she said softly. And then abruptly turning aside as the bleak face of Mame became more than she could bear, “You--you make one feel indescribably mean.”

It was perfectly true. She undoubtedly did, the little go-getter. Under all the surface crudity, which month by month was ceasing to be anything like as crude as it had been, was something big, vital, true.

Lady Violet was not given to self-depreciation. She knew her power of displacement only too well, even in the queer muss of a modern world. She might have been tempted to laugh at this rather pathetic thing; she might have played her off successfully against certain pretentious people, yet somehow the minx was riding off with all the honours. Mame already had taught her a pretty sharp lesson. It was one she would never forget. Lady Violet for the future would always remember that the player of unlawful games must keep an eye on the policeman. And now Mame was teaching her something else.

Seldom had this woman of the world found herself quite so much at a loss. Face to face with Mame’s heroism, for her self-sacrifice amounted to that, mere words became an impertinence. The thing to strike her about this good child when she set eyes on her first was the extraordinary grit that was in her; and it was that quality which spoke to her now.

Abruptly she forced a laugh to keep herself from tears. “My dear, you make one feel like thirty cents.”

It was one of the choicest phrases of the little go-getter, one among the many that had appealed to her friend. Somehow that phrase seemed to save the situation. Yet not altogether.

“I guess you don’t, honey.” Mame spoke bitterly. “And I guess you never will. You and your Mommer and the friends and neighbours and that old house will see to that. I’m the one to feel like thirty cents.”

The voice was so desolate that even Lady Violet, who did not care much for the practice, could not forbear from giving her a kiss. “I remember your saying that you had come over to pull the big stuff. Well, I rather think you’ve pulled it.” And her friend laughed again to keep her courage up.

“I didn’t come to pull this sort of stuff.” Mame snorted as she brushed her eyes fiercely. “I’ve gone cuckoo. And to-morrow I’ll think so.”

“One has to go cuckoo, as you call it, hasn’t one, to do the things worth doing? I could no more have let go that foolish bird, had I been you, than I could have jumped over the moon.”

“No, I guess not. And even now, if you don’t want to lose him you had better watch the cage.”

“How can we help you to keep your little paws off the foolish creature?”

“By not letting me see him again.” Mame was stoical. As she spoke she wrapped up the box containing the ring and the letter she had written in a piece of brown paper; and then applied red sealing wax. “And if you are wise you’ll just see that he gets married pretty soon to--to--” Even her bravery was not quite equal to the task of pronouncing the hated name. “I think I’ll go to the post office and send this back in a registered parcel.”

She quitted the room abruptly, leaving her friend to some very sharp-edged thoughts.

XLIX

The days that followed were dark and difficult for Mame. Nor did Lady Violet find them particularly easy. At heart she was kindly and honest and she could not help fixing upon herself a good deal of the blame for what had occurred. She it was who had introduced this little marauder; she had been wilfully and stupidly blind to the consequences; and her only excuse was that not for a moment could she believe that Bill would be so weak. Yet she had deliberately thrown them together. She had bestowed upon Mame a spurious eligibility. This bitterly humiliating business was an object lesson in the sheer folly of playing the fool.

It was decidedly painful all round. First of all, poor Mame really suffered. The part she had undertaken to play was superhumanly big. Very few girls could have gone back in that way on their whole philosophy of life; and to Violet’s good heart it was hateful to have to ask her to do it. She must have loved Bill, perhaps as no other woman was likely to do, to nerve herself to a sacrifice so high.

Much diplomacy was called for in the days that followed. Bill could be a stubborn fellow. His family had always humoured his whims. It looked at first as if there would be no handling him. Irresponsible, not to say flabby, as his nature was, had he had the wit to realise clearly that poor Mame had got a blow over the heart, he would not have taken the thing lying down.

Violet, hating intensely the rôle her own folly had doomed her to play, yet proved herself, when fairly put to it, a consummate tactician. Bill must not guess, must not come near guessing, how much this good and brave child really cared for him. He must be rather a “dud,” his sister thought, not to see it for himself. Instinct ought to have told him how the little brick was steeling her heart. Even while Violet threw dust in his eyes with a subtlety and a success for which she loathed herself, she yet clung to the paradoxical view that had Bill been worthy of Mame he would have been less obtuse. “She can’t bear your losing the Towers and giving up the Army.” That phrase was Violet’s strongest weapon. It admitted two interpretations and his sister was not in the least proud of Bill when he allowed it to suggest the wrong one. “Of course she considers the gilt will be off the gingerbread.” That was Machiavellian. The end seemed to justify the means; at any rate Violet had so persuaded herself; but it really was rather low down. And she could not, womanlike, help resenting Bill’s denseness and lack of character which made the unpleasant task of throwing dust in his eyes so much less difficult than it ought to have been.

The weeks went by and Mame set herself stoically to forget. There was pride in her as well as grit. She was determined to stand up to life and make something of the mighty difficult business of living it. To stanch her wounds she threw herself into her work with new ardour. Back of everything was rare common sense. She must have the strength to bear the self-inflicted blow without flinching.

One morning, however, just before Christmas, an incident occurred that reopened the closing wounds. Mame and Celimene were discussing the make-up of the weekly cable to New York, when Celimene said with an odd change of tone, “There’s one bit of news that may not be without interest on the other side. It’s not yet announced, so we shall be the first in the field.”

“What is the news?” asked Mame keenly. Her flair for a choice tit-bit was not less than of yore.

“A marriage has been arranged, the date of which will be shortly announced, between the Marquis of Kidderminster and Gwendolen, the only child of Giles Childwick, Esquire, and Mrs. Childwick, formerly of Treville, New Jersey.”

“Oh!” Mame gave a little gasp. Celimene saw her turn very white.

“We are none of us worthy of you, my dear. In the end you’ll find yourself well rid of people like us.” Violet’s tone had a note of pain that for her was something new. Life had not been exactly a bed of roses lately. She had discovered, a little late in the day perhaps, that she had a conscience. A share of the hurt she was inflicting had to be borne by herself.

When Mame was able to speak she said: “You’d have been good enough for me. I like you all. You are some of the nicest folks I’ve met.” The whimsical frankness of this good child brought back the laugh, if not too readily, to the worldly wise Violet. What a piece of luck, they both had a sense of humour!

“We owe you more than perhaps you realise.” Violet did not find the words easy, but they had to be said. “You showed how terribly dangerous was delay as far as that brother of mine is concerned. He might have been snapped up by some pretty little prowler, with a nice taste in dicky birds, who short of death and destruction could never have been persuaded to unclasp her claws.”

“That’s so,” assented Mame. “And you’re wise to have hustled on that marriage.” And then whimsically, to ease the aching of her heart: “Some other little cat might have got that bird.”

She was so real and so true, this brave child, that Violet felt she would like to have taken her in her arms and hugged her. “My mother and I both realise that you have done a big thing. She has sent you all sorts of kind messages. We are going to see that Gwendolen plays the game so far as you are concerned. And no matter how long you stay over here you will always have friends.”

“Gwendolen will make him a good wife.”

“Yes, she will. She is a very sensible girl, with a strong will. I am sure she will keep him on the rails. And she really cares for him.”

“Perhaps he’ll get to care for her after a while.”

“I think he may. Gwendolen is a very good sort. But I’m afraid Bill’s feelings don’t run deep.” And the note of pain crept again into the voice of his sister.

L

The marriage ceremony was fixed for the second week of the new year. All London was invited. The Childwicks liked to do things well, and however well they did them made no impact on their wealth. They were really rich people and of late years their stock had been going continually up.

Still it was generally felt that Gwendolen had done very well. She was a cut and polished jewel, but a setting was needed for her. What choicer setting could mortal girl desire than an old and distinguished marquisate and that beautiful and historical place Warlington Towers? These things would supply the essential background her millions lacked. Then, too, Bill was a popular young man. His feelings, as his sister said, might not run deep, but in his way he was immensely attractive. Everybody liked Bill. Even his fecklessness was a point in his favour. And he would be all the better for having a shrewd and clever American wife to keep him up to the mark.

Mame received an invitation from the Childwicks; her friends saw to that. It was duly accepted; yet when the day came she did not feel equal to facing the music. Lady Violet did her best to persuade her to come to the church and to the reception in Berkeley Square, until she realised that it would not be kind to persist. Good, brave little puss! Those quaint furry paws had been rather nastily trapped. She was still suffering. For all her wonderful grit, when the day came she could not help groaning a bit over the throbbing of her wounds.

It went to Lady Violet’s heart to leave her behind. But there was no help for it. The child could not face the music. And it was hardly reasonable to expect that she should.

Even as Lady Violet stood in her regalia, which emphasised her fine points, and took a tender and affectionate leave of poor Mame, she could not help saying in her frank way: “I’m not going to enjoy this one bit. We’re shown up too badly. I wish now I hadn’t interfered.”

It was no more than the truth. She felt on a low plane. Compared with her friend and business partner she had a sense of inferiority which was new and decidedly unwelcome.

“You were quite right, honey.” Mame was brave and magnanimous to the end. “Had I been you I’d just have done that. It’s nature. And it’s no use trying to go against nature.”

But Mame’s eyes were so tragic, that her friend, without venturing to say another word, made a sort of bolt for the door and for the lift beyond it. No, Lady Violet did not feel that she was going to enjoy her day.

The day, for Mame, was very far from being one of enjoyment either. A great deal of it was spent walking about London. Now the pinch had really come it was the go-getter who mounted to the saddle and took command. The practical side of a dual nature was not slow to inform her that she had gone back on herself. She had betrayed, at the beck of a mere whim, all that she had stood for.

Life had always been against her until a few months ago. She had had to fight so hard for bare existence that she might at least have had the sense to ensure the future when opportunity arose. But no, she had denied her luck. There was a Tide. Well, the Tide had come and she had deliberately ignored it. A great position, social security had been offered her. She had even accepted her chance and then, just for a whim, had passed it on to her enemy and rival.

The go-getter spared her nothing. It had a royal time. She had been a fool. The lot of the fool was suffering. “You’ve broken a paw, honey. Always you’ll be a little mucker now. You’ll never be able to fix on anything again. No more will you be able to mark down your bird and fly at it. You’ll be unsettled for the rest of your days. Not always will you be brisk and quick; your looks, such as they are, and they’ve never been much to bank on, honey, are going already. These folks in London, England, who mocked at you and pulled your leg, you could have handed them a haymaker. But no, you must get fanciful and highfalutin.”

Yes, the go-getter with the sardonic voice and a flow of rather second-rate conversation had a royal time. He spared her nothing. She was unworthy of herself, of her breed, of her clan. Idealism. The hearty fellow landed his simp of a partner a blow on the point. If some of these honest-to-God Americans didn’t watch out, Idealism was going to be their ruin. You didn’t catch the dyed-in-the-wool Britisher playing around with flams of that kind. He was a pretty successful merchant, the Britisher, but he was content to leave idealism to other people. As a business man he was a model for the world. And why? Because with all his lip service he knew how to keep the soft stuff apart from the hard.

Poor Mame! She trudged half the day about the streets of a hostile city. With that pressure upon her spirit it was impossible to stay quiet indoors. Her very soul seemed to ache. Every syllable was true that was whispered in her overwrought ear. She had gone back on all she had ever stood for. They had put one over on her, these hard-roed Britishers. Yes, she must be cuckoo. You came over to pull big stuff, whispered the relentless voice. And by cripes, Mame Durrance, you’ve pulled it!

Tired out at last with tramping the West End parks and squares, she took a little food in a restaurant in a by-street of Soho. There she was likely to meet no one she knew. She was not in a mood to face her kind. As she ate her soup a nostalgia came upon her. After all, she was in a strange land, an alien. Their ways were not her ways; they had a different viewpoint; their method of doing things was not the same. She began to long for the sight and the sound of the homely, hearty, warm-blooded folks she had known; the folks who spoke the same language as herself, in the curious drawl that lately she had been taking such pains to get rid of.

Her thoughts went back to the land where she belonged. In the bitterest hour she had known since she had started out from her home town to see life, she had a craving for the friendly easy-goingness of her own kind. She had crowded a lot of experience into her European pilgrimage; in certain ways her luck had been truly remarkable. Mame Durrance had made good at her job; but this evening with a very large size “black monkey” upon her, she had a sudden yearning for the larger and freer air of her native continent.

Miserably unhappy she returned to the flat about nine o’clock. Lady Violet had been home from the revels, had inquired for her anxiously, but had changed her dress and gone out to dinner. Evidently she was making a day of it. Mame was not sorry. She had no wish to be caught in this mood. Yet she had no desire for bed. She would not be able to sleep if she turned in. The ache in her heart was terrible. If she could not learn to subdue it, for the first time in her life she would be driven to take a drug.

Suddenly her eye lit on a package on the writing table. It bore the label of a New York publisher and was addressed to herself. Perfunctorily she tore off the wrapper. A novel in a gay jacket was revealed. It was called _Prairie City_; and the name of the author was Elmer Pell Dobree.

Mame’s heart leaped. Coincidence has an arm notoriously long, but nothing could have been more timely than the arrival of this book. Her thoughts rushed back to the source of its being. And as if to speed them on their way, a letter had been enclosed in the parcel.

Characteristically it ran:

DEAR MAME,

You are such a girl now, among your slick friends in London, and you are pulling such big stuff with your weekly columnising, that I daresay you have forgotten your obscure Cowbarn epoch, and the junk whose early chapters you had the honour (sic) of typing for your first and most distinguished (sic) editor, with which the boob filled in his spare hours. You used to tell him how good these opening chapters were and the boob used to believe you. The consequence is ... well, this is the consequence. By the way, it was clever you that invented the title, after we had shaken a leg--and you were always some dancer--at that dive at the top of Second Street, one wet afternoon.

Well, Mame, that title was lucky. _Prairie City_ has made good. It has, if I may say it modestly, made quite surprisingly good. ’Tis hardly six weeks since it was first issued here by Allardyce, Inc., but already it’s gone big. Early next month their London house will publish it, and if it can repeat in England what it has done in New York, the undersigned Elmer Pell Dobree is a permanent whale. So go to it, Mame, you little go-getter. Corral the big drum and get around the comic town of your adoption--worse luck!--and see if for the sake of old times--good times they were, too, I’ll tell the world--you can’t put one over, in the name of an old friend, on the doggone Britisher.

P.S. When do we see you again here? As I’ve told you more than once, this continent is a poorer place for your absence. If you’ve left us for keeps it’s a great, great shame; and there’s one young man who won’t forgive you.

When, at a decidedly late hour, or, rather, an early one, Lady Violet returned from the festivities, she invaded Mame’s bedroom. She wanted to see if the child had come back and that she was all right. In spite of the excitements of the day her thoughts had been pretty constantly with her little friend. She was a good deal concerned about Mame. And now it was something of a relief to find her propped up in bed, simply devouring a book with a red cover.

It was so good to see a smile on a countenance which a few hours ago looked as if it would never smile again, that the intruder exclaimed, “Why, why, whatever have you there?”

“Elmer’s written a book.” A glow of excitement was in Mame’s tone and in her eyes. “It’s all about Cowbarn and the folks we used to know.”

“True to life, I hope.” Mame’s friend, gazing at her furtively, sought to read what lay behind that rather hectic air.

“Better than life ever was or ever will be. It just gets you feeling good. And it keeps you feeling good all the time.”

“He must be a clever man, your friend Elmer P.”

“Clever is not the name for Elmer.” Mame spoke excitedly. “A genius--that baby! All the Cowbarn folks are in it. I’m in it. And I’ll say he’s let me down light.”

“I hope he’s made you the heroine of the piece. Anyhow, he ought to have. You are fit to be the heroine of the best piece ever written.”

“Say now, honey,” expostulated Mame in the way her friend had learned to love, “that’s where you get off. Heroine-ism and that fancy jake is no use to me. I’ll never be able to get away with it. But Elmer has let me down light.”

“You must let me read it.”

Mame laughed. She actually laughed. “Why, you shall so. It’s the goods. That boy has an eye to him. He can see into things. And he knows a lot about human nature, does that boy.”

Already Lady Violet was feeling a lively sense of gratitude towards the famous and legendary Elmer P. The poor child was transformed. Her own people, for whose homely and abounding kindliness she had in her misery been longing, were alive in those magic pages. Yes, they were alive and they were dancing, Mame declared. And half America was dancing with them.

The mirth of the simple creatures she loved so well had lifted a weight from her heart. The relief might only be temporary, but Lady Violet was very willing to do homage to the wizardry of Elmer P.

“There’s his letter.” Mame tossed it excitedly across the bright green expanse of counterpane.

Lady Violet read with a smile. And then suddenly there came a mischievous little clutch at her heart. Yes, why not? It was an idea. The brilliantly clever woman of the world again glanced furtively at Mame. This intoxicating moment, which was doing so much to heal the child and to keep her sane, must, if possible, be held. But how? Like all things in time it was fleeting, transitory. With the coming of daylight it would surely pass. A pitiless January dawn would throw her back upon hard and cruel reality. Yet this moment of happiness might be extended; perhaps there was a chance of making it permanent.