The light in the drawing room was dim. It half concealed a glory of aspidistra, lace curtains, anti-macassars and wax fruits. There was a solemnity about it which by some means had been communicated to a unique collection of old women who upon sofas and chairs were collected in a semi-circle round an apology for a fire. Mame could not repress a shiver as one sibyl after another looked up from her wool-work or her book and gave the firm-footed and rather impulsive intruder the benefit of a frozen stare from a glacial eye.
By the time Mame had subsided on the only unoccupied seat within the fire’s orbit, she felt that a jury of her sex having duly marked and digested her had come to the unanimous conclusion that she was guilty of presumption in being upon the earth at all. The detachment of this bunch of sibyls gave density and weight to the feeling. Their silence was uncanny. It was only disturbed by the click click of knitting pins and the occasional creak of the fire.
Mame had been five minutes in a situation which every second made more irksome, since for the first time in her life she was at a total loss for speech, when, as Mrs. Toogood had predicted, tea appeared. That lady, in a démodé black silk dress, which looked like an heirloom, preceded a metal urn, a jug of hot water, an array of cracked saucers and cups, some doubtful-looking bread and butter, and still more doubtful-looking cake. All these things were borne upon a tray by the prim maid who had first admitted Mame to Fotheringay House.
The sight of “the eats” cheered Mame up a bit. And in conjunction with Mrs. Toogood’s arrival, they certainly went some way towards unsealing the frozen atmosphere of the witches’ parlour. A place was found for the hostess near the fire; the small maid set up a tea-table; the cups and saucers began to circulate.
Mame was served last. By then the brew, not strong to begin with, had grown very thin. “Rather weak, Miss Du Rance, I fear,” loftily said its dispenser. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Mame, for whom that peculiarly British function which the French speak of as “le five-o’clock” was a new experience, promptly said she didn’t mind at all. Her voice was so loud that it fairly shattered the hush; it was almost as if a bomb had fallen into a prayer-meeting. Every ear was startled by the power of those broad nasal tones.
“This is Miss Du Rance of America.” The hostess spoke for the benefit of the company. It was not so much an introduction as an explanation; a defence and a plea rather than an attempt at mixing.
Some of the sibyls glared at Mame, some of them scowled. No other attention was paid her. Yet they were able to make clear that her invasion of the ancient peace of Fotheringay House was resented.
Little cared the visitor. Set of old tabbies. Bunch of fossilised mossbacks. She was as good as they. And better. In drawing comparisons, Miss Du Rance was not in the habit of underrating herself or of overrating others. And she was a born fighter.
Was it not sheer love of a fight that had brought her to Europe? She already saw that London was going to be New York over again: a city of four-flushers, with all sorts of dud refinements and false delicacies, unknown to Cowbarn, Iowa. Of course she was a little hick. But cosmopolitan experience was going to improve her. And cuteness being her long suit, these dames had no need to rub her rusticity into her quite so good and hearty.