"Bunny" and "Theo" and "Chris" all pricked up their ears when they heard about Mrs. Sawyer. It was another house for them to lunch or dine at; and, of course, they were expected to come to the old houses primed with all the gossip they could pick up about her. I don't know whether any of them thought seriously that they had a chance with her; they must surely realize that a woman prefers a man of some spirit... And, if they do, they have no excuse for standing in a ring and keeping every one else away. Of course, they were useful to her. Major Blanstock found her a house in South Audley Street and helped her furnish it and found servants for her and so forth and so on. He even introduced her to Connie Maitland—as a short cut to knowing everybody, which I gather was her ambition.
Certainly there is no one to equal Connie for that. You have seen men in the street, unloading bricks from a cart and tossing them, three or four at a time, from one to another? Should Connie ever sustain a reverse, she will always have a second string to her bow... Major Blanstock tossed this Mrs. Sawyer to Connie, Connie tossed her to me... I was expected, I presume, to toss her on to some one else, but I happen to have been brought up in a different school; before I undertake the responsibility of introducing a complete stranger, I like to know something about her. Goodness me, I don't suggest that my recommendation counts for anything, but for my own peace of mind, when somebody says "Oh, I met her at Lady Ann's"—there is an implied guarantee—, I want to feel that my friends' confidence is not misplaced.
"Now, Major Blanstock," I said, "I want you to tell me all about your lovely young divinity, the rich widow. If I am to befriend her, I must know a little about her."
I imagine that I was not the first enquirer, for he answered with an impatience which in other days some of us might have considered uncivil.
"Is she rich?," he asked. "I know nothing about her. I don't even know she's a widow. I met her on the boat coming home from Buenos Aires; and, as she'd never been in London, I tried to make her feel at home and asked Lady Maitland to give her a helping hand."
And that was literally all I got out of him—the fountain-head. Connie knew nothing and wanted to know nothing. It was enough that Mrs. Sawyer was presentable in herself and would attach her name to any subscription-list for any amount. The others—people who are usually well-informed—simply handed on the gossip which they had themselves made up overnight. It was then that I approached my diplomatic friends.
The difficulty was to know where to start. I couldn't commit myself, I felt, by one dinner, so when my Will came back... From the north, yes. You knew that he was home? Oh, yes! Well, at the moment he is not doing anything. The Morecambe experiment was not a success; the place didn't suit him, and he didn't suit the place. That is all I care to say on the subject. Half-truths are always misleading; and I cannot tell you the full story, because I do not know it. Should it not be enough to know that for days my spirit was crucified? And the end is not yet... I have lost the thread... Ah, yes. We dined à trois: Will and Mrs. Sawyer and I. She was fascinating, magnetic. For the first time Will forgot all about the odious clergyman's odious daughter... No, it slipped out. That belongs to the unhappy Morecambe episode, and I really do not think it very kind of you to keep trying to pump me when I have said I prefer not to discuss it... When he returned after seeing her home, Will wanted to know all about her, and in such a way... I mean, if his voice and manner meant anything, they meant that he had met his fate, as it were. I could tell him little. For one thing, I didn't know; for another, his excitement had gone to my head, I saw ten things at once and, breaking through them all, this splendid, untamed creature with the flashing eyes walking side by side with my Will. Such a contrast ... and such a combination...
"Well, hadn't you better find out something about her?," said Will.
I promised to do my best, but one was sent from pillar to post in a quite too ridiculous way. I thought some one had told me she came from Buenos Aires (perhaps it was only Major Blanstock's saying he had met her on the boat coming home from there); I tried the Argentine colony and the Legation, only to be referred to the Brazilian Embassy; and there, though I am sure they had never heard of her, they were certain that she came from Peru. Until then, I had never realized how many republics there were in South America; I went from Colombia to the Argentine and from Ecuador to Chili. Invariably the first question was: "What was her name before she became Mrs. Sawyer?" And that, of course, I did not know.
There is such a thing as trop de zèle, sometimes hardly distinguishable from making oneself ridiculous...