“Did you drink it?” asked Mrs. Chesley.
Mrs. Hudson’s social position was triumphant and secure. She could sit on the top rung of the steep and slippery ladder (if one finds an apt metaphor in so comfortless a recreation) and look down upon a mass of struggling, straining, pushing microcosms who clutched, and climbed, and slid and fell in an effort to reach the pinnacle she had attained; for just what reason or by what right, no one was prepared to explain. True, she was a frank snob, which was partially accountable. Also, she was wealthy, and “entertained” in a pleasantly formal manner that lent an air of importance to the least important sort of functions.
Had breakfast been served in Mrs. Hudson’s small but well-regulated ménage, indubitably it would have been announced with an impressive opening of double doors, and served by respectful, liveried attendants. Moreover, there would have been a correctly morning-coated gentleman for each lady of the party, for the express and especial purpose of offering her his arm and escorting her to the card-marked table!
Nor was that all. There were those who called Mrs. Hudson a “bug specialist,” and attributed her social success to this interesting form of enthusiasm. Her entomological research was conducted with considerable originality and on lines that differed radically from the method of the late Dr. Gordon Hewitt, similarly called by a large group of affectionate and admiring associates. In Mrs. Hudson’s case, “bug specialising” signified an ardent (and inconstant) pursuit of a fad, or a person, or a combination of both. Rarely did a stranger with any claim whatever to renown, escape from Ottawa without enjoying her hospitality, and it must not be forgotten that she frequently dragged absolute obscurities out of their gloom and played most happily with them for a time.
Azalea Deane said that Mrs. Hudson was the most recent development of The Big Game Hunter—game and bug being interchangeable, if not synonymous in her mind. The truth of the matter was, she made a serious study of the state of being termed Society. She attacked the problems and the methods of succeeding in it, with the same energy and concentrated purpose that a man gives to a great commercial enterprise. It was her business and she made it pay. Mob psychology and regimentation of thought were the fountains from which she derived her source of supply, and judicious investment added to her power. People often wondered how Mrs. Hudson had achieved social eminence when women with superior claims had failed. The answer lies just here—her life was spent in a conscious striving for it. Never a move, an invitation, an acceptance, a salutation on the street, was made without forethought. She made Society her tool. Most people are tools, themselves. Usually, Mrs. Hudson was described as a “character”, which meant that she was different from ordinary people. Her peculiarities—and she wore them consciously, like a crown—were called odd; her vulgarities, original. She was clever enough to keep the fact that she was clever from being realised, and many people were sorry for her! She had married a man several years her junior, and loved to confess that he was an answer to prayer!
“I saw him first at a concert,” she was wont to remark, “and the moment my eyes fell upon his dear, unsuspecting head, I said to myself, ‘Thank God! I have found the man I intend to marry, and need look no further!’ I went home, and prayed for him, and I got him!”
What effect this disclosure may have had upon the spiritual trend of the community, what intensity of supplication or increase of attendance at the churches, there is, unfortunately, no means of estimating. It can scarcely have failed, however, to have exerted some marked influence upon the spinsters of the Capital, and many a married woman, I am told, bent a devout knee because of it, arguing hopefully, that if the Lord could give, He could also take away!
Mrs. Hudson loved her husband with a sort of cantankerous affection that was like the rubbing of a brass bowl to make it shine. She was always prodding him, or polishing him, or smacking at him with her hands or her tongue. Marriage had robbed her of the joy of believing him a genius, but she was fond of him in her peculiar, rasping way.
“Is anyone else here?” she enquired, wiping out the hundreds of people about her with a gesture.
“Mrs. Long,” she was told, “and a strange man.”