CHAPTER IV
WHEN my father had been extravagant, he used to say gaily in self-defence that "one owed something to one's ancestors." Certainly, if it had not been for several of his ancestors, he would not have owed so much to his contemporaries. But in spite of their agreeable vices, or because of them, I was brought up in the cult of ancestor worship, as religiously as if I had been Chinese.
To be a d'Angely was a privilege, in our eyes, which not only supplied gilding for the gingerbread, but for the most economical substitutes.
"Ne roi je suis,
Ne prince aussi,
Je suis le Sire d'Angely,"
calmly remarked the gentleman of Louis XI.'s time, who became famous for hanging as many retainers as he liked, and defending his action by originating the family motto.
Mother also had ancestors who began to take themselves seriously somewhere about the time of the Mayflower, though for all we know they may have secured their passage in the steerage.
"A Courtenay can do anything," was their rather ambiguous motto, which suggested that it might have been started in self-defence, if not as a boast; and it (the name, not the motto) had been thoughtfully sandwiched in between my Lys and my d'Angely by my sponsors in baptism, that if necessary I might ever have an excuse at hand for any dark deed or infra dig-ness.
I used often to murmur the consoling mottoes to myself when pattering through muddy streets, too poor to take an omnibus, on the way to sell—or try to sell—my translations or my menus. But now, after all that 's happened, if it is to strike conviction to my soul, I shall be obliged to yell it at the top of my mental lungs.
(That expression may sound ridiculous, but it is n't. We could not talk to ourselves as we do, in all kinds of voices, high or low, if we had n't mental lungs, or at the least, sub-conscious-self lungs.)
Je suis the daughter of the last Sire d'Angely; and a Courtenay can do anything; so of course it 's all right; and it 's no good my ancestors turning in their graves, for they 'll only make themselves uncomfortable without changing my mind.
I, Lys d'Angely, am going to be a lady's-maid; or rather, I am going to be the maid of an extremely rich person who calls herself a lidy.
It 's perfectly awful, or awfully comic, according to the point of view, and I swing from one to the other, pushed by my fastidiousness to my sense of humour, and back again, in a way to make me giddy. But it 's settled. I 'm going to do it. I had almost to drag the suggestion out of Lady Kilmarny, who turned red and stammered as if I were the great lady, she the poor young girl in want of a situation.
There was, said she, a quaint creature in the hotel (one met these things abroad, and was obliged to be more or less civil to them) who resembled Monsieur Charretier in that she was disgustingly rich. It was not Corn Plasters. It was Liver Pills, the very same liver pills which had dropped into the mind of Lady Kilmarny when I hesitated to put into words the foundation of my pretendant's future. It was the Liver Pills which had eventually introduced into her brain the idea she falteringly embodied for me.
The husband of the quaint creature had invented the pills, even as Monsieur Charretier had invented his abomination. Because of the pills he had been made a Knight; at least, Lady Kilmarny did n't know any other reason. He was Sir Samuel Turnour (evolved from Turner), just married for the second time to a widow in whose head it was like the continual frothing of new wine to be "her ladyship."
Lady Turnour had lately quarrelled with a maid and dismissed her, Lady Kilmarny told me. Now, she was in immediate need of another, French (because French maids are fashionable) able to speak English, because the Turnour family had as yet mastered no other language. Lady Kilmarny believed that this was the honeymoon of the newly married pair, and that, after having paused on the wing at Cannes, for a little billing and cooing, they intended to pursue their travels in France for some weeks, before returning to settle down in England. "Her Ladyship" was asking everybody with whom she had contrived to scrape acquaintance (especially if they had titles) to recommend her a maid. Lady Kilmarny, as a member of the League against Cruelty to Animals, had determined that nothing would induce her to throw any poor mouse to this cat, even if she heard of a mouse plying for hire; but here was I in a dreadful scrape, professing myself ready to snap at anything except Corn Plasters; and she felt bound to mention that the mousetrap was open, the cheese waiting to be nibbled.
"Do you think she'd have me?" I asked—"the quaint creature, her ladyship?"
"Only too likely that she would," said Lady Kilmarny. "But remember, the worst is, she doesn't know she's a quaint creature. She is quite happy about herself, offensively happy, and would consider you the 'creature.' A truly awful person, my dear. A man in this hotel— the little thing you saw me talking to this morning, knows all about them both. I think they began in Peckham or somewhere. They would, you know, and call it 'S. W.' She was a chemist's daughter, and he was the humble assistant, long before the Pill materialized, so she refused him, and married a dashing doctor. But unfortunately he dashed into the bankruptcy court, and afterward she probably nagged him to death. Anyway he died—but not till long after Sam Turner had taken pity on some irrelevant widow, as his early love was denied him. The widow had a boy, to whom the stepfather was good—(really a very decent person according to his lights!) and kept on making pills and millions, until last year he lost his first wife and got a knighthood. The old love was a widow by this time, taking in lodgers in some neighbourhood where you do take lodgers, and Sir Samuel found and gathered her like a late rose. Naturally she puts on all the airs in the world, and diamonds in the morning. She 'll treat you like the dirt under her feet, because that 's her conception of her part—and yours. But I 'll introduce you to her if you like."
After a little reflection, I did like; but as it seemed to me that there 'd better not be two airs in the family, I said that I 'd put on none at all, and make no pretensions.
"She 's the kind that doesn't know a lady or gentleman without a label," my kind friend warned me. "You must be prepared for that."
"I 'll be prepared for anything," I assured her. But when it came to the test, I was n't quite. Lady Kilmarny wrote a line to Lady Turnour, and asked if she might bring a maid to be interviewed—a young woman whom she could recommend. The note was sent down to the bride (who of course had the best suite in the hotel, on the first floor) and presently an answer came—saying that Her Ladyship would be pleased to receive Lady Kilmarny and the person in question.
Suddenly I felt that I must go alone. "Please leave me to my fate," I said. "I should be too self-conscious if you were with me. Probably I should laugh in her face, or do something dreadful."
"Very well," Lady Kilmarny agreed. "Perhaps you 're right. Say that I sent you, and that, though you 've never been with me, friends of mine know all about you. You might tell her that you were to have travelled with the Princess Boriskoff That will impress her. She would kiss the boot of a Princess. Afterward, come up and tell me how you got on with 'Her Ladyship.' " I was stupid to be nervous, and told myself so; but as I knocked at the door of the suite reserved for Millionaires and other Royalties, my heart was giving little ineffective jumps in my breast, like—as my old nurse used to say—"a frog with three legs."
"Come in!" called a voice with sharp, jagged edges.
I opened the door. In a private drawing-room as different as the personality of one woman from another, sat Lady Turnour. She faced me as I entered, so I had a good look at her, before casting down my eyes and composing my countenance to the self-abnegating meekness which I conceived fitting to a femme de chambre comme il faut.
She was enthroned on a sofa. One could hardly say less, there was so much of her, and it was all arranged as perfectly as if she were about to be photographed. No normal woman, merely sitting down, with no other object than to be comfortable, would curve the tail of her gown round in front of her like a sickle; or have just the point of one shoe daintily poised on a footstool; or the sofa-cushions at exactly the right angle behind her head to make a background; or the finger with all her best rings on it, keeping the place in an English illustrated journal.
I dared not believe that she had posed for me. It must have been for Lady Kilmarny; and that I alone should see the picture was a bad beginning.
She is of the age when a woman can still tell people that she is forty, hoping they will exclaim politely, "Impossible!"
It is not enough for her to be a Ladyship and a millionairess. She will be a beauty as well, or at all costs she will be looked at. To that end are her eyebrows and lashes black as jet, her undulated hair crimson, her lips a brighter shade of the same colour, and her skin of magnolia pallor, like the heroines of the novels which are sure to be her favourites. Once, she must have been handsome, a hollyhock queen of a kitchen-garden kingdom; but she would be far more attractive now if only she had "abdicated," as nice middle-aged women say in France.
Her dress was the very latest dream of a neurotic Parisian modiste, and would have been seductive on a slender girl. On her—well, at least she would have her wish in it—she would not pass unnoticed!
She looked surprised at sight of me, and I saw she did n't realize that I was the expected candidate.
"Lady Kilmarny could n't come," I began to explain, "and ⸺"
"Oh!" she cut me short. "So you are the young person she is recommending as a maid."
I corrected Miss Paget when she called me a "young woman," but times have changed since then, and in future I must humbly consent to be a young person, or even a creature.
For a minute I forgot, and almost sat down. It would have been the end of me if I had! Luckily I remembered What I was, and stood before my mistress, trying to look like Patience on a monument with butter in her mouth which must n't be allowed to melt.
"What is your name?" began the catechism (and the word was "nime," according to Lady Turnour).
"N or M," nearly slipped out of my mouth, but I put Satan with all his mischief behind me, and answered that I was Lys d'Angely.
"Oh, the surname doesn't matter. As you're a French girl, I shall call you by your first name. It 's always done."
(The first time in history, I 'd swear, that a d'Angely was ever told his name did n't matter!)
"You seem to speak English very well for a French woman?" (This almost with suspicion.)
"My mother was American."
"How extraordinary!"
(This was apparently a tache. Evidently lady's-maids are expected not to have American mothers!)
"Let me hear your French accent."
I let her hear it.
"H'm! It seems well enough. Paris?"
"Paris, madame."
"Don't call me 'madame.' Any common person is madame. You should say 'your ladyship'."
I said it.
"And I want you should speak to me in the third person, like the French servants are supposed to do in good houses."
"If mad—if your ladyship wishes."
(Thank heaven for a sense of humour! My one wild desire was to laugh. Without that blessing, I should have yearned to slap her.)
"What references have you got from your last situation?"
"I have never been in service before—my lady."
"My word! That's bad. However, you're on the spot, and Lady Kilmarny recommends you. The poor Princess was going to try you, it seems. I should think she would n't have given much for a maid without any experience."
"I was to have had two thousand francs a year as the Princess's com—if the Princess was satisfied."
"Preposterous! I don't believe a word of it. Why, what can you do? Can you dress hair? Can you make a blouse?"
"I did my mother's hair, and sometimes my cousin's."
"Your mother! Your cousin! I'm talking of a lidy."
My sense of humour did almost fail me just then. But I caught hold of it by the tail just as it was darting out of the window, spitting and scratching like a cross cat.
It was remembering Monsieur Charretier that brought me to my bearings. "I think your ladyship would be satisfied," I said. "And I make all my own dresses."
"That one you 've got on?—which is most unsuitable for a maid, I may tell you, and I should never permit it."
"This one I have on, also."
"I thought maybe it had been a present. Well, it 's something that you speak both English and French passably well. I 'll try you on Lady Kilmarny's recommendation, if you want to come to me for fifty francs a month. I won't give more to an amateur."
I thought hard for a minute. Lady Kilmarny had said it would not be many weeks before the Turnours went to England. There, if Miss Paget (who seemed extremely nice by contrast and in retrospect) were still of the same mind, I might find a good home. If not, she was as kind as she was queer, and would help me look further. So I replied that I would accept the fifty francs, and would do my best to please her ladyship.
She did not express herself as gratified. "You can begin work this evening," she said. "I was obliged to send away my last maid yesterday, and I 'm lost without one." (This was delightful from a "lidy" who had kept lodgers for years, with the aid perhaps of one smudgy-nosed "general"!) "But have you no more suitable clothes? I can't let a maid of mine go flaunting about, like a Mary-Jane-on-Sunday."
I mentioned a couple of plain black dresses in my wardrobe, which might be made to answer if I were allowed a few hours' time to work upon them, and did n't add that they remained from my mourning for one dearly loved.
"You can have till six o'clock free," said Lady Turnour. "Then you must come back to lay out my things for dinner, and dress me. What about your room? Had the Princess taken something for you in the hotel?"
I evaded a direct answer by saying that I had a room; and was inwardly thankful that, evidently, the Turnours had not noticed me in the restaurant at luncheon, otherwise things might have been awkward.
"Very well, you can keep the same one, then," went on her ladyship, "and let the hotel people know it's Sir Samuel who pays for it. To-morrow morning we leave, in our sixty-horse-power motor car. We are making a tour before going back to England. Sir Samuel's stepson joins us in Paris or perhaps before and travels on with us. He is staying now with some French people of very high title, who live in a château. You will sit on the front seat with the chauffeur."
This was a blow! I had n't thought of the chauffeur. "But, thought I, chauffeur or no chauffeur, it 's too late now for retreat."
Talk of Prometheus with his vulture, the Spartan boy with his decently concealed wolf! What of Lys d'Angely with an English chauffeur in her pocket?