“Did you visit Cowbarn?” Mame asked for politeness’ sake. To the best of her information, Cowbarn, like herself, had not been invented in ’89.
“I seem to remember playing the Duke there to Henry Irving’s Shylock at a one-night stand,” said the grandee also for politeness’ sake. He had never heard of Cowbarn, he had never been to Iowa, and in ’89 Henry the August had given up the practice of playing one-night stands. But the higher amenities of the drawing room are not always served by a conservative handling of raw fact.
Mame, with that sharp instinct of hers, knew the old chap was lying. But it didn’t lessen her respect. He had an overwhelming manner and when he gave the miserable fire a simple poke he used the large gesture of one who feels that the eyes of the universe are upon him. Still, with every deduction made, and a homely daughter of a republic felt bound to make many, he was the most human thing she had met so far in her travels.
His name was Falkland Vavasour. And in confiding to Mame this bright jewel of the English theatre, which his pronunciation of it led her to think it must be, he yet modestly said that its lustre was nought compared with the blinding effulgence of the divine Henry.
“Some ac-torr, old man Henry Irv,” Mame was careful to pronounce the sacred word “actor” in the manner of this old-timer.
“My de-ah young lady, Henry Irving was a swell. Never again shall we look upon his like.”
“I’ll say not.” And then with an instinct to hold the conversation at the level to which it had now risen Mame opened the door of fancy. “Come to think of it, I’ve heard my great-uncle Nel speak of Henry Irving. You’ve heard, I guess, of Nelson E. Grice, the Federal general, one of the signatures to the peace of Appomattox. He was the brother of my mother’s mother. Many’s the time I’ve set on Great-uncle’s knee and played with the gold watch and chain that his old friend General Sherman give him the day after the battle of Gettysburg.”
Great-uncle Nel had really nothing to do with the case, but Mame felt he was a sure card to play in this high-class conversation. The old Horse had not been a general, he had not signed the peace of Appomattox, and there was a doubt whether General Sherman, whose friend he certainly was, had ever given him a gold watch and chain; but he was a real asset in the Durrance family. Apart from this hero there was nothing to lift it out of the rut of mediocrity. Quite early in life Mame had realized the worth of great-uncle Nel.
Mr. Falkland Vavasour had the historical sense. He rose to General Nelson E. Grice like a trout to a may fly. The old buck refixed his eyeglass and recalled the Sixties. He was playing junior lead at the Liverpool Rotunda when the news came of President Lincoln’s assassination. He remembered— But what did he not remember? Yes, great-uncle Nel was going to be a sure card in London, England.
Mame was getting on with the old beau like a house on fire when the clock on the chimneypiece struck half-past seven. Mr. Falkland Vavasour gave a little sigh and said he must go. Mame, quickened already by a regard for this charming old man, who lit the gloom of Fotheringay House, expressed sorrow that he was not dining in.