XXXV
MAME had received a sort of hint that one or two nice plums were in the matrimonial basket.
For some weeks to come she had every opportunity of judging how nice the plums in the basket really were. No matter where the ripe fruit clustered, there to be seen was la belle Américaine. Not that, strictly speaking, she took rank as “a looker.” Really and truly she did not pretend to beauty. But she had a way with her. She had the charm of one not afraid to be herself. And that as much as anything was what people liked about her. She was not afraid to be herself. So many of her more sophisticated compatriots were shy of giving nature a chance.
Perhaps they hardly realised that what passes for aristocracy in England is essentially barbarous; it counts freedom and frankness and don’t-care-a-damness as second only to dollars. Mame had her share of the first and was reputed to have more than her share of the second. Thus, to the annoyance of a coterie among her countrywomen, who were blessed with girls of their own, she was likely to cut rather more ice than their privately tutored-and-governessed, trained-to-the-minute offspring. She was such an Original, while they conformed to a type. Where they were all prunes and prisms, little Miss Chicago was forcible and unexpected.
By the time Miss Du Rance had been seen at the Embassy on the evening of the Fourth of July and she had been seen again in the grounds of Buckingham Palace on the afternoon of the Fifth, the coterie began “to get the wind up.” Was it really a fact that dear Emily had invited Miss Thingamy to Dunkeldie for the last week in August and the first week in September? If so, it was almost a scandal. Polly Childwick certainly thought so; likewise Marcella Creber Newsum. Moreover, they both agreed that it would be doing dear, simple-hearted Emily an act of Christian kindness to say so. And the more forcibly it was said the more kind and the more Christian the act would be.
Dunkeldie hung in the balance. If Mame could bring off that it would be a coup. Such was Lady Violet’s considered opinion and she knew every blade of grass on the course.
Still, the remnant of the prehistoric Four Hundred, a sort of prætorian Old Guard, was mustering every ounce that it possessed in the way of “influence.” Dunkeldie would be a bit too much, when people like those really nice Perkinses with a villa on the Lido and their eldest boy in the Blues were still out in the cold. Dear Emily was so conservative in some ways; and yet in others, like ordinary mortals, so apt to be taken in.
It was that wicked Violet who was really to blame. She had an atrocious and ill-bred habit of pulling legs. One never quite knew how one stood with her. She seemed to have a down on certain people who were considerably richer than herself; she was very unconventional; and quite uncomfortably clever. Why she was running this Miss Du Rance nobody knew; but the opinion was growing that at the back of the mind of the freakish Violet was a desire to make Clanborough House look foolish.
Somebody ought to warn dear Emily. It was a Christian duty. Besides, if persons like Miss Du Rance were given the run of the garden what was the use of trying to remain exclusive? With the whole world topsy-turvy, people in the position of dear Emily could not be too careful.