The Helpmate Part 26

Edith looked up at her sister-in-law, startled by the hardness in her voice. She had meant to spare Anne's pride the worst blow, but something in her question stirred the fire that slept in Edith.

"No," she said, "he hasn't. He was going to, but Mr. Hannay cancelled the debt, in order that he might marry--that he might marry you."

Anne drew back as if Edith had struck her bodily. She, then, had been bought, too, with Mr. Hannay's money. Without it, Walter could not have afforded to marry her; for she was poor.

She sat silent, until her self-appointed hour with Edith ended; and then, still silently, she left the room.

And Edith turned her cheek on her cus.h.i.+ons and sobbed weakly to herself.

"Walter would never forgive me if he knew I'd told her that. It was awful of me. But Anne would have provoked the patience of a saint."

Anne owned that Edith was a saint, and that the provocation was extreme.

In the afternoon, Edith, at her own request, was forgiven, and Anne, by way of proving and demonstrating her forgiveness, announced her amiable intention of calling on Mrs. Hannay on her "day."

The day fell within a week of the dinner. It was agreed that Majendie was to meet his wife at the Hannays, and to take her home. There was a good mile between Prior Street and the Park; and Anne was a leisurely walker; so it happened that she was late, and that Majendie had arrived a few minutes before her. She did not notice him there all at once. Mrs. Hannay was a sociable little lady; the radius of her circle was rapidly increasing, and her "day" drew crowds. The lamps were not yet lit, and as Anne entered the room, it was dim to her after the daylight of the open air. She had counted on an inconspicuous entrance, and was astonished to find that the announcement of her name caused a curious disturbance and division in the a.s.sembly. A finer ear than Anne's might have detected an ominous sound, something like the rustling of leaves before a storm. But Anne's self-possession rendered her at times insensible to changes in the social atmosphere. In any case the slight commotion was no more than she had come prepared for in a whole roomful of ill-bred persons.

"p.u.s.s.y," said a lady who stood near Mrs. Hannay. Mrs. Hannay had her back to the doorway. The lady's voice rang on a low note of warning, and she brought her mouth close to Mrs. Hannay's ear.

The hostess started, turned, and came at once towards Mrs. Majendie, rolling deftly between the persons who obstructed her perturbed and precipitate way. The perfect round of her cheeks had dropped a little; it was the face of a poor cherub in vexation and dismay.

"Dear Mrs. Majendie,"--her voice, once so triumphant, had dropped too, almost to a husky whisper,--"how very good of you."

She led her to a sofa, the seat of intimacy, set back a little from the central throne. (Majendie could be seen fairly immersed in the turmoil, struggling desperately through it, with a plate in his hand.)

Mrs. Hannay was followed by her husband, by the other lady, and by Gorst. She introduced the other lady as Mrs. Ransome, and they seated themselves, one on each side of Anne. The two men drew up in front of the sofa, and began to talk very fast, in loud tones and with an unnatural gaiety. The women, too, closed in upon her somewhat with their knees; they were both a little confused, both more than a little frightened, and the manner of both was mysteriously apologetic.

Anne, with her deep, insulating sense of superiority, had no doubt as to the secret of the situation. She felt herself suitably protected, guarded from contact, screened from view, distinguished very properly from persons to whom it was manifestly impossible, even for Mrs. Hannay, to introduce her. She was very sorry for poor Mrs. Hannay, she tried to make it less difficult for her, by ignoring the elements of confusion and fright. But poor Mrs. Hannay kept on being frightened; she refused to part with her panic and be natural. So terrified was she, that she hardly seemed to take in what Mrs. Majendie was saying.

Anne, however, conversed with the utmost amiability, while her thoughts ran thus: "Dear lady, why this agitation? You cannot help being vulgar.

As for your friends, what do you think I expected?"

The other lady, Mrs. d.i.c.k Ransome, could not be held accountable for anything but her own private vulgarity; and it struck Anne as odd that Mrs. d.i.c.k Ransome, who was not responsible for Mrs. Hannay, seemed, if anything, more terrified than Mrs. Hannay, who was responsible for her.

Mrs. d.i.c.k Ransome did not, at the first blush, inspire confidence. She was a woman with a great deal of blonde hair, and a fresh-coloured, conspicuously unspiritual face; coa.r.s.e-grained, thick-necked, ruminantly animal, but kind; kind to Mrs. Hannay, kind to Anne, kinder even than Mrs. Hannay who was responsible for all the kindness.

Charlie Gorst hurried away to get Mrs. Majendie some tea, and Lawson's Hannay's large form moved into the gap thus made, blocking Anne's view of the room. He stood looking down upon her with an extraordinary smile of mingled apology and protection. Gorst's return was followed by Majendie, wandering uneasily with his plate. He smiled at Anne, too; and his smile conveyed the same suggestion of desperation and distress. It was as if he said to her: "I'm sorry for letting you in for such a crew, but how can I help it?" She smiled back at him brightly, as much as to say; "Don't mind. It amuses me. I'm taking it all in."

He wandered away, and Anne felt that the women exchanged looks across her shoulders.

"I think I'll be going, p.u.s.s.y dear," said Mrs. Ransome, nodding some secret intelligence. She elbowed her way gently across the room, and came back again, shaking her head hopelessly and helplessly. "She says I can go if I like, but she'll stay," said Mrs. Ransome under her breath.

"Oh-h-h," said Mrs. Hannay under hers.

"What am I to do?" said Mrs. Ransome, flurried into audible speech.

"Stay--stay. It's much better." Mrs. Hannay plucked her husband by the sleeve, and he lowered an attentive ear. Mrs. Ransome covered the confidence with a high-pitched babble.

"You find Scale a very sociable place, don't you, Mrs. Majendie?" said Mrs. Ransome.

"Go," said Mrs. Hannay, "and take her off into the conservatory, or somewhere."

"More sociable in the winter-time, of course." (Mrs. Ransome, in her agitation, almost screamed it.)

"I can't take her off anywhere, if she won't go," said Mr. Hannay in a thick but penetrating whisper. He collapsed into a chair in front of Anne, where he seemed to spread himself, sheltering her with his supine, benignant gaze.

Mrs. Hannay was beside herself, beholding his invertebrate behaviour.

"Don't sit down, stupid. Do something--anything."

He went to do it, but evidently, whatever it was, he had no heart for it.

A maid came in and lit a lamp. There was a simultaneous movement of departure among the nearer guests.

"Oh, heavens," said Mrs. Hannay, "don't tell me they're all going to go!"

Anne, serenely contemplating these provincial manners, was bewildered by the horror in Mrs. Hannay's tone. There was no accounting for provincial manners, or she would have supposed that Mrs. Hannay, mortified by the presence of her most undesirable acquaintance, would have rejoiced to see them go.

Their dispersal cleared a s.p.a.ce down the middle of the room to the bay-window, and disclosed a figure, a woman's figure, which occupied, majestically, a settee. The settee, set far back in the bay of the window, was in a direct line with Anne's sofa. That part of the room was still unlighted, and the figure, sitting a little sideways, remained obscure.

A servant went round lighting lamps.

The first lamp to be lit stood beside Anne's sofa. The effect of the illumination was to make the lady in the window turn on her settee.

Across the s.p.a.ce between, her eyes, obscure lights in a face still undefined, swept with the turning of her body, and fastened upon Anne's face, bared for the first time to their view. They remained fixed, as if Anne's face had a peculiar fascination for them.

"Who is the lady sitting in the window?" asked Anne.

"It's my sister." Mrs. Ransome blinked as she answered, and her blood ran scarlet to the roots of her blonde hair.

A cherub, discovering a horrible taste in his trumpet, would have looked like Mrs. Hannay.

"Do let me give you some more tea, Mrs. Majendie?" said she, while Mrs.

Ransome signalled to her husband. "Here, d.i.c.k, come and make yourself useful."

Mr. Ransome, a little stout man with a bald head, a pale puffy face, a twinkling eye and a severe moustache, was obedient to her summons.

"Let me see," said she, "have you met Mrs. Majendie?"

"I have not had that pleasure," said Mr. Ransome, and bowed profoundly.

He waited a.s.siduously on Mrs. Majendie. The Ransomes might have been responsible for the whole occasion, they so rallied around and supported her.

Hannay and Gorst, Ransome and another man were gathered together in a communion with the lady of the settee. There was a general lull, and her voice, a voice of sweet but somewhat penetrating quality, was heard.

"Don't talk to me," said she, "about women being jealous of each other.

Do you suppose I mind another woman being handsome? I don't care how handsome she is, so long as she isn't handsome in my style. Of course, I don't say I could stand it if she was the very moral of me."

"I say, supposing Toodles met the very moral of herself?"

"Could Toodles have a moral? I doubt it."