Mrs. Clephane looked about her with new eyes. Save for their hostess, the Consul’s wife and Mrs. Langly, “things” had been said of all the women; even concerning Mrs. Parley Plush, the older inhabitants (though they all went to her teas at the Villa Mimosa) smiled and hinted. And they all knew each other’s stories, or at least the current versions, and affected to disapprove of each other and yet be tolerant; thus following the example of Mrs. Merriman, who simply wouldn’t listen to any of those horrors, and of Mr. Merriman, whose principle it was to “believe the best” till the worst stared him in the face, and then to say: “I understand it all happened a long while ago.”
To all of them the Rectory was a social nucleus. One after another they had found their way there, subscribed to parochial charities, sent Mrs. Merriman fruit and flowers, and suppressed their yawns at Mothers’ Meetings and Sewing Circles. It was part of the long long toll they had to pay to the outraged goddess of Respectability. And at the Rectory they had made each other’s acquaintance, and thus gradually widened their circle, and saved more hours from solitude, their most dreaded enemy. Kate Clephane knew it all by heart: for eighteen years she had trodden that round. The Rector knew too; if ever a still youngish and still prettyish woman, in quiet but perfect clothes with a scent of violets, asked to see him after service, he knew she was one more recruit. In all the fashionable Riviera colonies these ladies were among the staunchest supporters of their respective churches. Even the oldest, stoutest, grimmest of his flock had had her day; Mr. Merriman remembered what his predecessor had hinted of old Mrs. Orbitt’s past, and how he had smiled at the idea, seeing Mrs. Orbitt, that first Sunday, planted in her front pew like a very Deborah.
Some of the prettiest—or who had been, at least—exchanged parishes, as it were; like that sweet Lady de Tracey, who joined the American fold, while Miss Julia Jettridge, from New York, attended the Anglican services. They both said it was because they preferred “the nearest church”; but the Rector knew better than that.
Then the war came; the war which, in those bland southern places and to those uprooted drifting women, was chiefly a healing and amalgamating influence. It was awful, of course, to admit even to one’s self that it could be that; but, in the light of her own deliverance, Kate Clephane knew that she and all the others had so viewed it. They had shuddered and wept, toiled hard, and made their sacrifices; of clothes and bridge, of butter and sweets and carriage-hire—but all the while they were creeping slowly back into the once impregnable stronghold of Social Position, getting to know people who used to cut them, being invited to the Préfecture and the Consulate, and lots of houses of which they used to say with feigned indifference: “Go to those dreary people? Not for the world!” because they knew they had no chance of getting there.
Yes: the war had brought them peace, strange and horrible as it was to think it. Kate’s eyes filled as she looked about the table at those haggard powdered masks which had once glittered with youth and insolence and pleasure. All they wanted now was what she herself wanted only a few short hours ago: to be bowed to when they caught certain people’s eyes; to be invited to one more dull house; to be put on the Rector’s Executive Committees, and pour tea at the Consuless’s “afternoons”.
“May I?” a man’s voice fluted; and a noble silver-thatched head with a beak-like nose and soft double chin was thrust into the doorway.
“Oh, Mr. Paly!” cried Mrs. Merriman; and murmured to the nearest ladies: “For the music— I thought he’d better come today.”
Every one greeted Mr. Paly with enthusiasm. It was poky, being only women and the Rector. And Mr. Paly had the dearest little flat in one of the old houses of the “Vieux Port”, such a tiny flat that one wondered how any one so large, manly and yet full of quick womanish movements, managed to fit in between the bric-a-brac. Mr. Paly clasped his hostess’s hand in a soft palm. “I’ve brought my young friend Lion Carstairs; you won’t mind? He’s going to help me with the programme.”
But one glance at Mr. Carstairs made it clear that he did not mean to help any one with anything. He held out two lax fingers to Mrs. Merriman, sank into an armchair, and let his Antinous-lids droop over his sullen deep gray eyes. “He’s awfully good on Sicilian music ... noted down folk-songs at Taormina....” Mr. Paly whispered, his leonine head with its bushy eye-brows and silver crown bending confidentially to his neighbour.
“Order!” rapped the Rector; and the meeting began.