The adventurous lady

by J. C. Snaith

Girlie took a long while to array herself for that evening’s dreaded meal. The crisis of her fate was now at hand. Realizing to the full all that was involved in the coming of Mr. Montagu Jupp, she had not the courage to ask Mrs. Minever whether that Old Man of the Sea was really on the point of arrival. Only too soon would the fact be known. In her present state of mind she was quite unable to face the dire consequences that must attend his visit; she chose, therefore, to bury her head ostrich-wise in sand by indulging the pitifully vain hope that he was not coming after all.

How frail that hope was the momentous hour of eight revealed very surely. Hardly had she entered the drawing room, striving heroically for a show of composure which her wretched nerves denied her, when lo! amid a cascade of chaff with an undercurrent of laughter and applause, the great and admired Montagu came in his own person upon the scene.

Sir Toby, as usual, led the way. It was his fixed rule of life to lead the way everywhere, under all conditions, in all circumstances, if only he was allowed to do so. At the back of his mind he always seemed to feel that the stars in their courses had ordained that he should be the master of every ceremony. But, in comparison with the mountain of geniality who alternately rolled and grinned as he followed in his wake, Sir Toby was the merest pigmy. Mr. Jupp had the art of monopolizing the attention of all the world, of catching every eye, of dominating every assembly he entered.

Still, the mere arrival of the great man was in the nature of a triumph for Sir Toby. Odds had been freely laid by despondent members of the cast that Montagu would not appear. But his magnetic presence was just what was needed to “pull things together.” However, as far as the luckless leading lady was concerned, no one envied him his task.

Quite a thrill seemed to pervade the air of the drawing room at the moment of their greeting. But Girlie, in the toils of sheer desperation, was able for once to muster an inhuman stoicism. Already she had undergone so much that she was now determined to die fighting. Yes, whatever happened, she would die fighting. Heroically, with bright eyes, with set lips, she came forward a pace, as the hostess triumphantly convoyed the great man towards her. “How do you do?” she said, holding out her hand.

The sublime Original, who at that fell moment was consuming cold mutton and mixed pickles in the outer darkness of the nursery at The Laurels, whither she had been banished in disgrace, could not have “played up” better. Mr. Jupp, a little fatigued by travel and with a forward looking mind in regard to his dinner, bowed over the hand that was offered. He did not scrutinize the little lady closely, at any rate just then. He took it for granted that she was what she was. Besides, apart from the fact that the clock on the chimney piece had already struck eight, there was a reason, known only to himself, why he should be in no hurry to traverse the personality of Lady Elfreda Catkin, much less to challenge her identity.

Truth to tell, and the dark secret was locked securely in the bosom of Mr. Montagu Jupp, he had only met Lady Elfreda once, for a few brief moments, so that the faculty of observation not being his long suit, he was not so clear as he might have been as to what she really looked like. The skeleton in Montagu’s cupboard which some of his friends, the malicious Garden to wit, shrewdly suspected to be the case, was that he was inclined “to talk through his hat”; in other words, he was prone to claim an intimacy with all the world that the crude facts did not always justify. He had said once in Sir Toby’s hearing over an after-dinner whisky and cigar, that “he had taught Lady Elfreda Catkin all the acting she knew,” but that incautious statement had been less in response to sober truth than to her highly effective portrait in the Society Pictorial. It was sufficient for un homme du monde that he had talked with her once for five minutes at a garden party. The fact was typical of the man, even a part of his picturesqueness, but at this moment, had the luckless Girlie been aware of it, here was a card incredibly in her favor.

Girlie, alas, did not know that. She went in to dinner and took her accustomed place at the right hand of the host with a growing conviction that she was about to be hanged in public, to say nothing of the drawing and quartering to follow. She felt it was only a question of minutes before Mr. Jupp denounced her. Every time her guilty eye strayed furtively across to his side of the table she perceived his eye, in its degree hardly less guilty, furtively upon her. But she did not know, she could not guess the strength of her own position. She could only marvel as course succeeded course, as her wine glass grew empty and then grew full again, that the inevitable thunderbolt did not descend.

As the meal went on and exposure grew ever more imminent in the mind of the Deputy—a dramatic scene was surely reserved for the drawing room!—she grew increasingly bold. After her glass had been replenished three times she did not care what happened. She would die “game.” This was her very last hour of vicarious splendor, but she had now an intense desire to live it to the full. Her tongue was loosened, her laugh rose higher and more frequent, her eyes grew wonderfully bright. All this harmonized with the spirit of the others, for, as usual, Mr. Jupp had brought an infectious gayety upon the scene. Everybody laughed at everybody else; all were in a mood of festive enjoyment; the almost perilous light-heartedness of “the little Catkin puss” excited no comment—or, if it did, it counted to her for virtue. Certainly her host, who for a week now had endured “heavy cake” with a noble fortitude, was charmed by the change. There might be something in the little noodle after all.

When dinner was over other people began to think so, too. Living in the very crater of Vesuvius with an eruption long overdue, keyed up beyond a self that was rather undercharged, for the first time in her life Girlie let herself go. Somehow it seemed the only course to take. Amid the hilarity the mere presence of Mr. Jupp had induced, that remarkable man sat down at the piano and began to do it considerable violence. Thereupon one of the younger “bloods” began to fox-trot with Mrs. Spencer-Jobling. Sir Toby Philpot, not to be outdone, immediately commandeered the hostess, Mr. Minever promptly laid siege to another lady, and then Girlie grew alive to the fact that Lord Duckingfield was smiling at her and moving resolutely in her direction.