Set in Silver
You will laugh at me, perhaps, for my long "harping" on my ward; but
anyhow, don't misunderstand. It's not because she is pretty and engaging
(one would say that of a kitten), but because of the startling contrast
between the real girl and the girl of my imagination. I can't help
thinking about her a good deal for this reason, and what I think of I
have generally talked of or written of fully to you, my best and oldest
friend. It's a habit nearly a quarter of a century old, and I don't mean
to break it now, particularly as you have made rather a point of my
continuing it on my return "home" after all these years.
London has got hold of me. I am fascinated by it. Either it has improved
as it has grown, or I am in a mood to be pleased with anything English.
Do you remember dear old Ennis's Rooms, which you and I used to think
the height of luxury and gaiety? I've promised myself to go there again,
and I mean to take Ellaline and Emily to supper after the theatre
to-night. I think I shall keep this letter open to tell you how the old
place impresses me.
Midnight and a half.
I've had a shock. Ennis's is dead as a doornail. We entered, after the
theatre, and galvanized the Rooms into a kind of dreadful life. They
"don't serve many suppers now, sir," it seems. "It's mostly luncheons
and dinners."
The waiters resented us as intruders. We were the only ones, too, which
made it worse, as all their rancour was visited on us; but we hadn't
been for many minutes at our old favourite table (the one thing
unchanged), trying to keep up a spurious gaiety, when another party of
two ventured in.
They were young Dick Burden and his aunt, Mrs. Senter.
Now, you mayn't see it, but this was rather odd. It wouldn't have been
odd in the past, to meet your most intimate friend from round the
corner, and the Shah of Persia, at Ennis's. But evidently the "people
who amuse themselves" don't come now. It's not "the thing." Why,
therefore, should this couple choose Ennis's for supper? _They_ haven't
been out of England for fifteen years, like me. If Mrs. Senter
occasionally spends Saturday to Monday in India, or visits the Sphinx
when the Sphinx is in season, she always returns to London when
"everybody is in town," and there does as everybody does.
I immediately suspected that Burden had brought her with an object: that
object, to gain an introduction to Ellaline. The suspicion may seem
far-fetched; but you wouldn't pronounce it so if you could have seen the
young man's face, in the railway station at Paris, the other day. I had
that privilege; and I observed at the time his wish to know my ward,
without feeling a responsive one to gratify it. I don't know why I
didn't feel it, but I didn't, though the desire was both pardonable and
natural in the young fellow. He has a determined jaw; therefore perhaps
it's equally natural that, when disappointed, he should persist--even
follow, and adopt strong measures (in other words, an aunt) to obtain
his object. You see, Ellaline is an extremely pretty girl, and I'm not
alone in thinking so.
My idea is that, having found us in the newspapers, staying at the Ritz,
the boy must have somehow informed himself as to our movements, awaiting
his opportunity--or his aunt. I bought my theatre tickets in the hotel.
He may have got his information from there; and the rest was easy--as
far as Ennis's. I'm afraid the rest was, too, because Mrs. Senter
selected the table nearest ours, and after we had exchanged greetings
proposed that we join parties. The tables were placed together, and
introductions all round were a matter of course. Young England expects
that every aunt will do her duty!
They still give you very good food at Ennis's, but it's rather like
eating "funeral baked meats."
Mrs. Senter is exactly what she was some years ago. Perhaps it would be
ungallant to recall to your memory just _how_ many years ago. She is, if
anything, younger. I believe there's a maxim, "Once a duchess, always a
duchess." I think women of to-day have another: "Once thirty, always
thirty"; or, "Once thirty, always twenty-nine." But, joking apart, she
is a very agreeable and rather witty woman, sympathetic too, apparently,
though I believe you used to think, when she was out smiting hearts at
our Back o' Beyond, that in nature she somewhat resembled a certain
animal worshipped by the Egyptians and feared by mice. She seems very
fond of her nephew Dick, with whom she says she goes about a good deal.
"We chaperon each other," she expressed it. She pities me for my fire at
Graylees, but envies me my motoring trip.
We shall be off in a few days, now, I hope, as soon as Ellaline has been
shown a few "features" of London. I went to see the car to-day, and she
is a beauty. I shall try her for the first time to-morrow.
Ever Yours,
Pen.
VII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Ritz Hotel, London_,
_July 9th_
One and Only Compleat Mother: Things have happened. I felt them
coming in my bones--_not_ my funny-bones this time. For the things may
turn out to be not at all funny.
Mr. Richard Burden has been introduced to the alleged Miss Lethbridge. I
wonder if he _can_ know she is merely "the alleged"? He is certainly
changed, somehow, both in his manner, and in his _way of looking at
one_. I thought in Paris he hadn't at all a bad face, though rather
impudent--and besides, even Man is a fellow being! But last night, for a
minute, he really had an incredibly wicked expression; or else he was
suppressing a sneeze. I couldn't be quite sure which--as you said about
Aubrey Beardsley's weird black-and-white women.
It was at a restaurant--a piteous restaurant, where the waiters looked
like enchanted waiters in the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. He--Mr.
Dicky Burden--came in, with an aunt. Such an aunt! I could never be at
home with her as an aunt if I were a grown-up man, though she might make
a bewitching cousin. She's quite beautiful, dear, and graceful; but I
don't like her at all. I think Sir Lionel does, though. They knew each
other in Bengal, and she kept saying to him in a cooing voice, "_Do_ you
remember?"
You can see she's too clever to be _always_ clever, because that bores
people; but she says witty, sharp things which sound as if they came out
of plays, or books, and you think back to see whether she deliberately
led up to them. For instance, she asked Sir Lionel, apropos of woman's
suffrage, whether, on the whole, he preferred a man's woman, or a
woman's woman?
"What's the difference?" he wanted to know.
"All the difference between a Gibson girl and an Ibsen girl," said she.
I wonder if she'd heard that, or made it up? Anyhow, when Sir Lionel
threw back his head and laughed, in an attractive way he has, which
shows a dent in his chin, I wished _I'd_ said it. But the more she
flashed out bright things, the more of a lump I was. I do think the one
unpardonable sin is dulness, and I felt guilty of it. She simply
vampired me. Sucked my wits dry. And, do you know, I'm afraid she's
going on the motor trip with us?
Sir Lionel doesn't dream of such a thing, but she does. And she's the
sort of person whose dreams, if they're about _men_, come true. Of
course, I don't know her well enough to hate her, but I feel it coming
on.
In books, all villainesses who're worth their salt have little, sharp
teeth and pointed nails. Mrs. Senter's teeth and nails are just like
other women's, only better. Book villainesses' hair is either red or
blue-black. Hers is pale gold, though her eyes are brown, and very soft
when they turn toward Sir Lionel. Nevertheless, though I'm _not_
cattish, except when absolutely necessary, I know she's a _pig_, never
happy unless she has the centre of the stage, whether it's _her_ part or
not--wanting everyone to feel the curtain rises when she comes on, and
falls when she goes off. She looks twenty-eight, so I suppose she's
thirty-five; but really she's most graceful. Standing up for Sir Lionel
to take off her cloak, her trailing gray satin dress twisted about her
feet, as some charming, slender trees stand with their bark spreading
out round them on the ground, and folding in lovely lines like drapery.
She managed to draw Mrs. Norton into conversation with her and Sir
Lionel, and to let Dick talk to me, so they must have arranged
beforehand what they would do. At first, when he had got his wish and
been introduced, he spoke of ordinary things, but presently he asked if
I remembered his saying that he wished to go into a certain profession.
I answered "Yes," before I stopped to think, which I'm afraid flattered
him, and then he wanted me to guess what the profession was. When I
wouldn't, he said it was that of a detective. "If I succeed, my mother
will give up her objections," he explained. "And I think I shall
succeed." It was when he said this, that he looked so wicked--or else as
if he wanted to sneeze--as I told you. What can he mean? And what has he
found out? Or is it only my bad conscience? Oh, dear, I should like to
give it a thorough spring cleaning, as one does in Lent! I'm afraid
that's what is needed. I've had plenty of blacks on it since Ellaline
made me consent to her plan, and I began to carry it out. But now I have
more. I have lots of dresses and hats on it, too--lovely ones. And
petticoats, and such things, etc., etc. Did Dragons of old insist on
their fairy princess-prisoners having exquisite clothes, and say "hang
the expense"? _This_ Dragon has done so with his Princess, and I had to
take the things, because, you see, I have engaged to play the part, and
this apparently is his rich conception of it. He says that
I--Ellaline--can afford to have everything that's nice; so what _can_ I
do? The worst of it is, much of my new finery is so delicate, it will be
_defraiche_ by the time the real Ellaline can have it, even if it would
fit or suit her, which it won't. But probably the man was ashamed to be
seen with a ward in gray serge and a sailor hat, so I couldn't very well
violate his feelings. Perhaps if I'd refused to do what he wanted, all
his hidden Dragon-ness would have rushed to the surface; but as I was
quite meek, he behaved more like an angel than a dragon.
It really was fun buying the things, in a fascinating shop where the
assistants were all more refined than duchesses, and so slender-waisted
they seemed to be held together only by their spines and a ladylike
ligament or two. But if Providence didn't wish women to lace, why
weren't our ribs made to go all the way down? The way we were created,
it's an _incentive_ to pinch waists. It seems _meant_, doesn't it?
I was a dream to look at when we went to supper at that restaurant;
which was _one_ comfort. Mrs. Senter's things were no nicer than mine,
and she was so interested in what I wore. Only she was a good deal more
interested in Sir Lionel.
"Everywhere I go, people are talking of you," she said. "You have given
them exciting things to talk about."
"Really, I wasn't aware of it," returned the poor Dragon, as
apologetically as if she'd waked him up to say he'd been snoring.
Since I wrote you, I've heard more things about his past from Mrs.
Norton, who is as proud of her brother, after a fashion, as a cat of its
mouse, and always wanting to show him off, in just the same way. (We all
have our "mouse," haven't we? I'm yours. Just now, the new hats are
mine.) She has told me a splendid story about a thing he did in Bengal:
saved twelve people's lives in a house that was on fire in the middle of
the night--the kind of house which blazes like a haystack. And,
according to her, he thinks no more of rescuing drowning persons who
jump off ships in seas swarming with sharks than we think of fishing a
fly out of our bath. Now, _is_ it possible for a man like that to be