“Thank you!” said Madeline fervently, as if Bertha had promised her a box of chocolates or a present of some kind.
“Lady Kellynch!” announced the servant.
CHAPTER II
LADY KELLYNCH
A TALL, stately, handsome woman, slow and quiet in movement, dressed in velvet and furs, came deliberately into the room. The magnificent, imposing Lady Kellynch had that quiet dignity and natural ease and distinction sometimes seen in the widow of a knight, but unknown amongst the old aristocracy. It was generally supposed, or, at all events, stated, that the late Sir Percy Kellynch had been knighted by mistake for somebody else; through a muddle owing to somebody’s deafness. The result was the same, since his demise left her with a handle to her name, but no one to turn it (to quote the mot of a well-known wit), and she looked, at the very least, like a peeress in her own right. Indeed, she was the incarnation of what the romantic lower middle classes imagine a great lady;—a dressmaker’s ideal of a duchess. She had the same high forehead, without much thought behind it, so noticeable in her son Percy, and the same clearly cut features; and it was true, as Bertha had said, that she firmly believed the whole of the world, of the slightest importance, consisted of her late husband, herself, her married son Percy, and her boy Clifford at school; the rest of the universe was merely an audience, or a background, for this unique family.
If anyone spoke of a European crisis that was interesting the general public, she would reply by saying what Percy thought about it; if a more frivolous subject (such as You Shut Up, or some other popular Revue) was mentioned, she would answer, reassuringly, that she knew Clifford had a picture post-card of one of the performers, implying thereby that it must be all right. She loved Bertha mildly, and with reservations, because Percy loved her, and because Bertha wished her to; but she really thought it would have been more suitable if Bertha had been a little more colourless, a little plainer, a little stupider and more ordinary; not that her attractions would ever cause any trouble to Percy, but because it seemed as if a son of hers ought to have a wife to throw him up more. Percy, however, had no idea that Bertha was anything but a good foil to him, intellectually—and, as I have said, he regarded her (or believed he regarded her) a good deal like a pet canary.
“Percy will soon be home, I suppose? To-day is not the day he goes to the Queen’s Hall, is it?” asked Lady Kellynch, who thought any hall was highly honoured by Percy’s presence, and very lucky to get it. She gave a graceful but rather unrecognising bow to Madeline, whom she never knew by sight. She really knew hardly anyone by sight except her sons; and this was the more odd as she had a particularly large circle of acquaintances, and made a point of accepting and returning every invitation she received, invariably being amongst those present at every possible form of entertainment, and punctiliously calling on people afterwards. She was always mounting staircases, going up in lifts, and driving about leaving cards, and was extremely hospitable and superlatively social. Bertha always wondered at her gregariousness, since one would fancy she could have got very little satisfaction in continual intercourse with a crowd of people whom she forgot the instant they were out of her sight. Lady Kellynch really knew people chiefly by their telephone numbers and their days, when they had any. She would say: “Mrs. So-and-so? Oh yes, six-three-seven-five Gerrard, at home on Sundays,” but could rarely recollect anything else about her. She was at once vague and precise, quite amiable, very sentimental and utterly heartless; except to her sons.
“No, Percy won’t be home till dinner-time. To-day he’s playing squash rackets.”
“That’s so like his father,” said Lady Kellynch admiringly. “He was always so fond of sports, and devoted to music. When I say sports, to be strictly accurate I don’t mean that he ever cared for rude, rough games like football or anything cruel like hunting or shooting, but he loved to look on at a game of cricket, and I’ve often been to Lord’s with him.” She sighed. “Dominoes! he was wild about dominoes! I assure you (dear Percy would remember), every evening after dinner he must have his game of dominoes, and sometimes even after lunch.”