Marjorie’s hangings, chosen with the idea of giving a cheerful touch, looked somewhat as a collar of baby ribbon might have looked upon the neck of an elephant. Her Brussels rugs were suggestive of a postage stamp on a very large envelope, while the Mission furniture and mahogany What-not, added to the general air of discord. With several violent examples of the lithographers’ skill on the walls, there was completed a terrorising picture that might aptly have been labelled “The Carnage of Art”.
Marjorie stood in front of the cherry-wood fireplace and tried not to be nervous, but she couldn’t forget that immense issues depended upon the success of this tea—Raymond’s entire future, perhaps! It was a thought that almost petrified her.
Pamela de Latour was one of the first guests to arrive. She was early because she was assisting, and she was assisting because Lady Denby had made the matter a personal favour to herself. It was customary, in Ottawa, for unmarried ladies to “assist” in the dining-room, no matter what their age, while matrons, either old or young, officiated at the tea table. It therefore frequently developed that youthful matrons—brides, indeed—were comfortably seated behind the tea-urn, or that they cut interminable ices, while spinsters thrice their age, percolated kittenishly among the guests on high-heeled slippers, deprived by man’s short-sightedness, of the rest which their years were craving.
Miss Lily Tyrrell, aristocrat by inclination and democrat by necessity—a charming woman whose family had been both wealthy and conspicuous in an older generation—also assisted, as did the wholesome Misses McDermott. These latter were so much in demand that their “assistance” had become almost a profession, as had tea-pouring for Mrs. Chalmers, wife of the Black Rod, and presiding at meetings for Mrs. B. E. Tillson.
“I’m so pleased to see you,” said Marjorie to Miss de Latour, a little too precipitously, and spoiling the effect of Hawkin’s announcement.
Hawkins “announced” at every function of any importance, and infallibly employed the precise nuance of impressiveness with which to garnish each name.
“Miss de Latour,” he called, and in a tone which plainly said, “Here’s Somebody!”
“Missus ’Anover,” he droned, a moment later, looking over that lady’s shoulder, and taking a deep breath before booming,
“Lydy Denby!”
That was his way.