It was the air these callers had of being half alive that most impressed Mame. Her mind went back to the tabbies of Fotheringay House, at whose hands she had endured long weeks of boredom. These friends of the family were a different breed of tabby; they were politer, gentler, less inclined to scratch, but their faces were just as pinched and bloodless and their style of dressing quite as odd. Such drolls as they were with their long tailor-mades and stiff boned net collars, and their queer hats and trinkets and stout boots with very flat heels.
They looked depressing. And they were depressing. Their talk in the main was of bulbs. Mame was not in the least interested in bulbs. She could raise no enthusiasm over what these funniments were going to put in in the spring. These gardeners, inoffensive and well meaning though they were, bored Mame to tears. If this was the social life of an English county, she opined she was the sort of mouse that would stay in the town.
Three days of the Dower House began to tell on Miss Du Rance. It may have been the food, the people, a peculiarity of the air, but she began to feel as lacking in zip as the friends and neighbours. At the mere sight of them she had an inclination to weep; and strange to say at the sight of her one or two of these old things, who evidently were pretty deep in the family confidence, seemed inclined to do the same. One old pet, indeed, with just a shade more kick than the rest—Miss Carruthers said she had been a Bedchamber-woman to Queen Victoria—managed to convey a hint to Miss Du Rance that the friends and neighbours could only regard her in the light of a national calamity.
All this was discouraging. Even had there been no thoughts of Gwendolen Childwick to disturb Mame o’nights, this visit to Bill’s mother would hardly have been a bed of roses. She missed sadly the brisk life, the gay companionship of London. Here was nothing doing. From early morn till dewy eve there was nothing doing. She dipped into a few old-fashioned novels; she read the Morning Post, which was not delivered until the afternoon; she was initiated into various games of patience by the kindly but mournful Miss Carruthers; she strolled about the garden with Lady Kidderminster and learned to give an opinion on the few remaining asters, chrysanthemums and dahlias, but somehow you could not call it being alive.
By now, moreover, there was beginning to arise in Mame a feeling of remorse. It was not an emotion she would ever have suspected herself of harbouring. Practical go-getters have not, as a rule, much time for remorse. They are usually too busy. Besides, where was the use? Remorse never cut ice since the world began.
To make matters worse, on the morning of the fifth day came a letter from Bill. He wrote with far less than his usual optimism. In fact he was just a bit troubled. He had been talking things over with his mother, whom he had seen when she came up to town; and she had said the family finances were in such a tangle that if he married Mame there would be absolutely no money for a separate establishment. She took rather a gloomy view of the whole matter, but personally, he was quite willing “to chance it” if Mame was. He sent her heaps of love and he was counting the hours for her return and he thought that in the circumstances the sooner they were “spliced” the better.
The letter was full of affection and humour, yet Mame could not rid her mind of the feeling that breakers were ahead. She was perturbed. And something which happened in the course of that very afternoon deepened a sense of unrest.
“Do you care to come and see the Towers, my dear?” asked Lady Kidderminster, as they lingered over their afternoon luncheon coffee. “The Childwicks are away, but I’m sure the housekeeper, Mrs. Norris, will not mind your looking over the house if it will interest you.”
Nothing would interest Mame more.
“So glad. We will go along presently. It is such a good day for a walk.”