VII
The excitement of Muriel's début at the Club was not repeated. She certainly went often enough, and once or twice Godfrey Neale spoke to her. She did not, however, play with him again, but sat for most afternoons on the steps of the Pavilion until asked to join a Ladies' Double with Nancy Cartwright and Sybil Mason and poor Rosie Harpur, who had also just left school, and who could play tennis no better than she danced. Then the tennis season closed, and Connie returned to school, and Muriel learnt how to order joints from the butcher's and stores from the grocer's, and passed cakes at her mother's tea-parties, and helped her with the accounts for the Mother's Union and the G.F.S., and wondered when her real Life was going to begin.
Then came November and the Lord Mayor's dance, and Muriel woke up next morning to remember that she had come out.
It would all have been wonderful, if only her hair had kept tidy. Next morning she sat before her looking-glass and wrestled with aching arms to cure her hair of its irresistible tendency to fall in heavy locks upon her shoulders. It had spoilt everything, the band, the supper, the confused medley of names upon her programme. From her first ball, Muriel brought home only the memory of a scrambling rush to the cloak-room, and of her mother's worried face bending above hers in the long mirror.
She rested her chin on her hands and gazed at her thin, solemn face in the glass, wondering whether she was really very plain, or whether she would improve with time, as Mrs. Cartwright said that Adelaide had done.
She was so much absorbed by these reflections that she did not at first hear Annie, the housemaid, who knocked and came straight in with the ostentatious familiarity of the old servant.
"Miss Muriel, a telegram for you."
"For me?" People were not in the habit of sending telegrams to Muriel. She was not that kind of person.
"It's addressed to Muriel Hammond," remarked Annie stolidly. She, too, found something unbecoming in the sending of telegrams to Miss Muriel.
Muriel took the envelope and fingered it. "Where's Mother?" she asked slowly.
"Mrs. Hammond's in the kitchen."
"Oh."
For a moment, Muriel's training fought with her curiosity. Then her training conquered. She seized her rope of hair, twisted it lightly round her head, and fled downstairs with the unopened envelope.
Mrs. Hammond was alone in the kitchen writing up the menu for the day. She raised her eyebrows at Muriel's flying entrance.
"Well, dear? Oh, Muriel, what have you been doing to your hair?"
"Doing it. Oh, Mother, there's a telegram."
"For me, dear?"
"No. It's for me." She hesitated, still afraid lest her mother should consider the receipt of telegrams by her improper.
To her surprise, Mrs. Hammond took it quite calmly.
"Well, Muriel, who is it from?"
Muriel opened the envelope and read: "Can you have me week or longer harribels have measles Felix not due England till 24th no money to go Italy Duquesne."
She read it to herself. She read it aloud to her mother. She could not believe her eyes.
"What does it mean?" asked Mrs. Hammond.
Muriel explained. "It's Clare, Clare Duquesne. You remember, my great friend at Heathcroft, at least she wasn't exactly my friend, but I always wanted her to be. She went to Germany to learn singing."
"Yes, but I don't understand. Does she want to come here?"
"Well—I—she—I think. It looks as though she had been going to stay with the Harribels, and they had measles."
"But, who is Félix?"
"Félix is her father, Félix Duquesne, you know, the writer; he writes in French, and it's Clare's mother who insists that he shall be called Félix because 'Mother' and 'Father' make her feel so old and when you are on the stage you have to keep young because of the dear public," Muriel explained, feeling that somehow she was not being as clear as she might have wished.
"But, my dear child, you can't expect her to come here on her own invitation like this at a moment's notice. I never heard of such a thing. And uninvited. Really, I don't know what girls are coming to."
"But I did say—I mean I didn't ever think that she'd come, only I did say that I knew we should be pleased to see her. You see——"
Mrs. Hammond frowned. "Now Muriel, this is really too bad of you. Can't you see what a position you put me into? You know how much I want you to have the things that you like, and I should have been glad enough to let you have a school friend to stay at some proper time, but you know that Father doesn't like just anyone, and just now——"
"Well, mother, of course if we can't have her—I mean if it's inconvenient——"
Hope died from Muriel's grey eyes. Four months at home had taught her that argument, when not wicked, was futile. It meant not just difference of opinion, but a way of making things difficult for Mrs. Hammond, who had to see that the house ran smoothly.
"Well, dear, of course you must see how impossible it all is. I don't know anything about this girl. I'm very busy just now, and surely she must have other friends in England? It's a queer name. Is she French or something?"
"Half French, half Irish, I think. I don't think that she has any relatives in England. The nearest that I know of are the Powells at Eppleford in Donegal." Muriel's voice was sullen with resignation. She had turned from her mother and stood, smoothing out the creases from the telegram, while an enchanting vision of Clare faded into the limbo of impossibilities.
"Powells, at Eppleford? Surely, where have I heard that? Why, is this the girl of whom Mrs. Hancock spoke, Lord Powell's niece?"
"Yes. Did she tell you about her?" sighed Muriel, still without hope and rather wishing that her mother would close a painful conversation. She had been good. She had not pressed Clare's claims. For her mother's sake, no one should ever know how bitter a disappointment she had swallowed down, there by the kitchen table.
"But, dear, you never told me that she was a particular friend of yours. I thought that that Janet somebody or other——"
"Oh, Clare wasn't exactly my friend." These things could not be explained even to somebody as sweet and beautiful as Muriel's mother. "She was so lovely and so popular. She knew all the—all the people I didn't know."
In spite of her resolute stoicism, Muriel gulped. Her mother looked sharply at her averted face.
"You really want her so much, then?"
"Oh, mother!"
"Well, I must talk to your father. It just might be arranged. But I do wish that you had told me about this before, dear. You make things so difficult for me. Why didn't you tell me, dear?"
"There didn't seem to be anything to tell until now," said Muriel. "I thought that she had quite forgotten me. She never answered my letters; I thought that she hadn't liked me much."
"Dear, you mustn't be so—so backward. People will take you at your own valuation, you know, and there is nothing more objectionable than the pride that apes humility. Now run away. Have you done the flowers yet? I thought not. And for goodness' sake tidy your hair, and tell me when your father comes in."
"Then—then, will you ask him?"
"Yes, yes, I'll ask him, though I can't say what—— Why, my dear child! What? Now don't crush my dress!"
For Muriel had flung her arms round her mother's waist in an ecstasy of gratitude for her sympathetic understanding.