Set in Silver
But the stewardess has just said we shall be in, in five minutes. I had
to come down to the ladies' cabin with Mrs. N. Now I haven't time to
tell you any more, except that they both (Sir L. and his sister, I mean)
wanted to get to England as soon as possible. I know _she_ was
disappointed not to fling her brother's ward back to Madame de Maluet,
and probably wouldn't have come over to Paris if she hadn't hoped to
bring it off; but she resigns herself to things easily when a man says
they're best. It was Sir Lionel who wanted particularly to cross
to-night, though he didn't urge it; but she said, "Very well, dear. I
think you're right."
So here we are. A large bell is ringing, and so is my heart. I mean it's
beating. Good-bye, dearest. I'll write again to-morrow--or rather
to-day, for it's a lovely sunrise, like a good omen--when we get settled
somewhere. I believe we're going to a London hotel. Yes, stewardess. Oh,
I ought to have said that to her, instead of writing it to you. She
interrupted.
Love--love.
_Your_ Audrie,
_Their_ Ellaline.
V
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Ritz Hotel, London_,
_July 8th_
Angel: May your wings never moult! I hope you didn't think me
extravagant wiring yesterday, instead of writing. I was too busy baking
the yeasty dough of my impressions to write a letter worth reading; and
when one has practically _no_ money, what's the good of being
economical? You know the sole point of sympathy I ever touched with
"Sissy" Williams was his famous speech: "If I can't earn five hundred a
year, it's not worth while worrying to earn anything"; which excused his
settling down as a "remittance man," in the top flat, at forty francs a
month.
Dearest, the Dragon hasn't drag-ged once, yet! And, by the way, till he
does so, I think I won't call him Dragon again. It's rather gratuitous,
as I'm eating his bread--or rather, his perfectly gorgeous _a la
cartes_, and am literally smeared with luxury, from my rising up until
my lying down, at his expense.
I know, and you know, because I repeated it word for word, that Ellaline
said she thought he must have been well paid for undertaking to
"guardian" her, as his hard, selfish type does nothing for nothing; and
she has always seemed so very rich (quite _the_ heiress of the school,
envied for her dresses and privileges) that there might be temptations
for an unscrupulous man to pick up a few plums here and there.
But--well, of course Ellaline ought to know, after being his ward ever
since she was four, and hearing things on the best authority about the
horrid way he treated her mother, as well as suffering from his cruel
heartlessness all these years. Never a letter written to herself; never
the least little present; never a wish to hear from her, or see her
photograph; all business carried on between himself and Madame de
Maluet, who is too discreet to prejudice a ward against a guardian. And
I--I saw him only day before yesterday for the first time. What _can_ I
know about him? I've no experience in reading characters of men. The
dear old Abbe and a few masters in the school are the only ones I have a
bowing acquaintance with--except "Sissy" Williams, who doesn't count.
It's dangerous to trust to one's instincts, no doubt, for it's so
difficult to be sure a wish isn't disguising itself as instinct, in
rouge and a golden wig.
But then, there's the man's profile, which is of the knight-of-old,
Crusader pattern, a regular hook to hang respect upon, though I'd be
doing it injustice if I let you imagine it's _shaped_ like a hook. It
isn't; it's quite beautiful; and you find yourself furtively,
semi-consciously sketching it in air with your forefinger as you look at
it. It suggests race, and _noblesse oblige_, and a long line of soldier
ancestors, and that sort of thing, such as you used to say survived
visibly among the English aristocracy and English peasantry (not in the
mixed-up middle classes) more markedly than anywhere else. That must
mean some correspondence in character, mustn't it? Or can it be a mask,
handed down by noble ancestry to cover up moral defects in a degenerate
descendant?
Am I gabbling school-girl gush, or am I groping toward light? You know
what I want to say, anyhow. The impression Sir Lionel Pendragon makes on
me would be different if he hadn't been described by Ellaline. I should
have supposed him quite easy to read, if he'd happened upon me,
unheralded--as a big ship looms over a little bark, on the high sea. I'd
have thought him a simple enough, straightforward character in that
case. I should have put him in the class with his own Tudor castle--not
that I've ever yet seen a Tudor castle, except in photographs or on
postcards. But I'd have said to myself: If he'd been born a house
instead of a man, he'd have been built centuries and centuries ago, by
strong barons who knew exactly what they wanted, and grabbed it. He'd
have been a castle, an _early_ Tudor castle, battlemented and surrounded
by a moat, fortified, of course, and impregnable to the enemy, unless
they treacherously blew him up. He would have had several secret rooms,
but they would contain chests of treasure, not nasty skeletons.
Now you understand exactly what I'd be thinking of the alleged Dragon,
if it weren't for Ellaline. But as it is, I don't know what to think of
him. That's why I describe him as elaborate and complicated, because, I
suppose, he must be totally different inside from what he seems outside.
Anyhow, I don't care--it's lovely being at the Ritz. And we're in the
newspapers this morning, Emily and I shining by reflected light; mine
doubly reflected, like the earth's light shining on to the moon, and
from that being passed on to something else--some poor little chipped
meteorite strayed out of the Milky Way.
It was Mrs. Norton who discovered the article about Sir Lionel--half a
column--in the _Morning Post_ and she sent out for lots of other papers
without saying anything to her brother, for--according to her--he "hates
that sort of thing."
I didn't have time to tell you in my last that she was sick crossing the
Channel (though it was as smooth as if it had been ironed, and only a
few wrinkles left in), but apparently she considers it good form for a
female to be slightly ill in a ladylike way on boats; so, of course, she
is. And as I was decent to her, she decided to like me better than she
thought she would at first. For some reason they _both_ seemed
prejudiced against me (I mean against Ellaline) to begin with. I can't
think why; and slowly, with unconcealable surprise, they are changing
their minds. Changing one's mind keeps one's soul nice and clean and
fresh; so theirs will be well aired, owing to me.
Emily has become quite resigned to my existence, and doles me out small
confidences. She has not a rich nature, to begin with, and it has never
been fertilized much, so it's rather sterile; but no noxious weeds,
anyhow, as there _may_ be in Sir Lionel's more generous and cultivated
soil. I think I shall get on with her pretty well after all, especially
motoring, when I can take her with plenty of ozone. She is a little
afraid of her brother, though he's five years younger than she (I've now
learned), but extremely proud of him; and it was quite pathetic, her
cutting out the stuff about him in the papers, this morning, and showing
every bit to me, before pasting all in a book she has been keeping for
years, entirely concerned with Sir Lionel. She says she will show that
to me, too, some day, but I mustn't tell him. As if I would!
But about the newspapers. She didn't order any Radical ones, because she
said they were always down on the aristocracy, and unjust as well as
stupid; but she got one by mistake, and you've no idea how delighted the
poor little woman was when it praised her brother up to the skies. Then
she said there were _some_ decent Radicals, after all.
Of course, one knows the difference between "Mirabeau judged by his
friends and Mirabeau judged by the people," and can make allowances (if
one's digestion's good) for points of view. But there's one thing
certain, whether he's angel or devil, or something hybrid between the
two, Sir Lionel Pendragon is a man of importance in the Public Eye. I
wonder if Ellaline realizes his importance in that way? I can't think
she does, or she would have mentioned it, as it needn't have interfered
with her opinion of his private character.
It's a little through Emily, but mostly from the newspaper cuttings,
that I've got my knowledge of what he's done, and been, and is expected
to be.
He's forty. I know that, because the _Morning Post_ gave the date of his
birth, and he's rather a swell, although only a baronet, and not even
that till a short time ago. It appears that the family on both sides
goes back into the mists of antiquity, in the days when legend, handed
down by word of mouth (_can_ you hand things out of your mouth? Sounds
rude), was the forerunner of history. His father's ancestors are
supposed to be descended from King Arthur; hence the "Pendragon";
though, I suppose, if it's true, King Arthur must really have been
married several times, as say the vulgar records of which Tennyson very
properly takes no notice. There have been dukes and earls in the family,
but they have somehow disappeared, perhaps because in those benighted
days there were no American heiresses to keep them up.
It seems that Sir Lionel was a soldier to begin with, and was dreadfully
wounded in some frontier fight in India when he was very young. He
nearly lost the use of his left arm, and gave up the army; but he got
the Victoria Cross. Ellaline didn't say a word about that. Maybe she
doesn't know. After I'd read his "dossier" in the paper, I couldn't
resist asking him at lunch what he had done to deserve the V. C.
"Nothing to deserve it," he answered, looking surprised.
"To get it, then?" I twisted my question round.
"Oh, I don't know--almost forget. Pulled some silly ass out of a hole, I
believe," said he.
That's what you get for asking this sort of Englishman questions about
his past. I thought it was only widows with auburn hair you mustn't talk
to about their pasts.
"A grateful Government" (according to the _Morning Post_) "sent young
Pendragon, at the age of twenty-five, to East Bengal, as private
secretary to Sir John Hurley, who was lieutenant-governor at that time";
and it's an ill Governor, so to speak, who blows no one any good. Sir
John's liver was so tired of Bengal, that he had to take it away, and
Lieutenant Pendragon (as he was then) looked after things till another
man could arrive. He looked after them so brilliantly, that when the
next lieutenant-governor did something silly, and was asked to resign,
our incipient Sir Lionel was invited to take on the job. He was only
thirty, and so he has been lieutenant-governor for ten years. Now he's
going to see whether he likes being a baronet better, and having castles
and motor-cars. All the papers I saw praised him tremendously, and said
that in a crisis which might have been disastrous he had averted a
catastrophe by his remarkable strength of character and presence of
mind. I suppose that was the time when the other papers accused him of
abominable cruelties. I wonder which was right? Perhaps I shall be able
to judge, sooner or later, if I watch at the loopholes of his character
like a cat watching for a mouse to come out for a walk.
As for money, if one can believe newspapers, he has plenty without
shaking pennies from the slot of Ellaline Lethbridge's bank, and was
fairly well off even before he came in for his title or his castle.
However, as a very young man, he may have been poor--about the time he
went into guardianship.