CHAPTER XXIII
THE WAYS OF MAYFAIR
“THEY say,” announced Dormer Greetland, with the seriousness befitting an important pronouncement, “that Countess Alexia is going to marry Herriard.”
“One is scarcely surprised to hear it,” Lady Rotherfield commented in a non-committal tone. Having once got down on the wrong side of the fence, she had climbed up again to her perch, and was disposed to sit there and argue that her rash descent had not been altogether unwise. “But is it true?”
“Quite proper,” laughed the shrill voice of Baron de Daun, “that Perseus should marry Andromeda. It is true? Of course it is the natural thing for people to say.”
“I have it on the best authority,” was the Mayfair newsman’s somewhat vague reply. “Naturally it was the first thing we should be told. But one would hardly accept the banal chatter of irresponsible outsiders. No, dear lady, you will find it authentic now. I might have told you the news a fortnight ago, but then it was merely in the air. To-day——” He gave a shrug as though they would discredit his imprimatur at their peril.
“Well, I should say there is something in it,” Sir Perrott Aspall declared. “I was talking to Dick Josselyn at the Club just now, and he tells me that Herriard is returning all his briefs.”
“Really?” exclaimed Lady Rotherfield, trying to gauge the significance of the last piece of news.
“That looks as though something were in the wind,” de Daun suggested.
“Yes,” put in Greetland. “Herriard wouldn’t accept a brief for poor Lady Ranower. She had set her heart upon retaining him for her appeal.” This was pure invention; but its author could not have it supposed that Sir Perrott’s announcement was news to him.
“I suppose it will be a quiet affair?” Lady Rotherfield was alluding to Alexia’s marriage, not to Lady Ranower’s appeal.
“I should hope so,” Greetland replied charitably. “Between ourselves, one can scarcely call the Countess quite re-established.”
“Ah, well,” observed Lady Rotherfield, still hedging, “a very suitable match. Mr. Herriard is quite a somebody.”
“Oh, yes,” said de Daun, who had taken recent opportunities of cultivating Herriard on the strength of his coming position in the world. “But why should he return his briefs, eh? Is that the fashion here when one is to be married?”
“Hardly,” laughed Sir Perrott. “Unless one is in a great hurry.”
“Ah, that is it, you may depend,” said Greetland. “It is coming off at once. By to-night I shall know all about it. A long honeymoon to wear out an attenuating scandal.”
“I wish,” said Lady Rotherfield presently to Greetland in a confidential corner, “one knew exactly what to do about poor Countess Alexia. It is so very awkward. What line are people taking? Do advise me.”
“Lady Kilvinton calls,” the smart authority declared, somewhat with the air of a dogmatic stockbroker advising a client as to her investments. “And yesterday when I was in Green Street I saw two carriages outside the house. I was on the other side, but I think—I’m pretty sure—the Ramplingham crest was on one of them.”
“H’m!” Lady Rotherfield pursed her lips meditatively. “You don’t go there yourself?” she asked shrewdly.
He shrugged. “I haven’t had a moment to go anywhere, except where I have been booked; and then, as it is, have been able to keep only half my engagements,” he replied, with weary plausibility. “You know, dear lady, what a rush there always is towards the end of the season. Oh, no; I don’t mean to drop the von Rohnburgs. Count Prosper is a very decent fellow; and I always liked Lady Alexia. She is so interesting, and her breeding is perfect, which is more than one can say for all foreigners. That appalling Lady Beeman, for instance, née Goldknecht, who, I should say, came out of the Judengasse originally. No; when one comes back from Homburg and the country-house round, which, by the way, promises to be severely trying this autumn, I shall certainly give our friends in Green Street a call. They will hardly expect a busy man to do more this side of November than leave a card.”
“Then you think,” Lady Rotherfield said, with a certain clearing of doubt, “that one may venture to take them up again?”
“I see no risk now, dear lady, or I would not let you do it,” the cotillon-expert assured her, this time with the air of a doctor pronouncing a patient at last free from infection. “You see, Herriard is bound to come on; he is quite pointed out and listened to in the House; and the Countess is bound to have a large dot. Yes; they will have to be reckoned with when they have settled down, and the nine days’ wonder is conveniently forgotten. With her style and nous theirs is quite likely to be one of the smart houses to go to, and if he got to the front Bench her receptions might attain the dignity of a salon.”
Lady Rotherfield was beginning to wonder whether she had not sat too long on the fence. “You really think that?” she murmured uncomfortably. Then went on almost beseechingly, “Mr. Greetland, you know one hates to do the wrong thing. Do you think it would look odd if one sent these dear people a card for next Tuesday? You know I am having some music; Marzoni has promised to sing, and I am trying to get Tarbosch; only these tiresome musical people give themselves such provoking airs. Is it too late?”
Greetland appeared to reflect. “H’m! How long have the cards been out?”
“Nearly a month,” the lady answered, with a little rueful grimace. “One has to make refusals as difficult as possible in these days of competition.”
“Just so,” Greetland assented. “Poor Mrs. Pelham Steinthal never sends her cards out less than six weeks ahead.”
“Naturally. A deplorable woman like that. I’m afraid even that precaution does not prevent the refusals.”
“No. But if she gets one acceptance in eight she considers she has done extremely well. And the poor woman is really improving. I have edited her list for her.”
“A pleasant task! But you are always so sweet.”
“It was a labour of Hercules; especially as one had never heard of quite two-thirds of the people; and when I enquired who in the world they were, the tiresome woman would hold a brief for the distressing unknowns.”
“She might have concluded,” observed Lady Rotherfield graciously, “that any one unknown to Mr. Dormer Greetland was not worth knowing.”
The arbiter of social pretension accepted the compliment as no more than his due. “Well, I had at last to act on that assumption,” he said acquiescently. “Arguing the value of various unknown quantities became fatiguing. It took me quite half-an-hour’s hard lecturing to make the absurd woman understand that a merely rich hostess, to be a success, must never receive any but her social superiors. Equals and inferiors in such a case give away the show at once.”
“Ah, yes,” Lady Rotherfield agreed, with a half sigh; “people of that sort cannot be too careful. Unfortunately they will not realize the fact that it is as much as we can do to tolerate them singly; in battalions they are utterly overpowering. Now, Mr. Greetland, about the poor Countess Alexia. Do you think one might venture?”
With a slightly obvious effort Greetland brought his mind back to the subject from which it had strayed. “Well,” he said judicially, “I think you might. You must chance their not having heard of your reception, with other things to occupy their minds. You might scribble an excuse for short notice; say you have had unheard-of difficulties with your fiddler.”
“Oh, thank you so much, dear Mr. Greetland; it is truly sweet of you. I’ll do that at once. Yes; these wretched fiddlers and their exasperating ways have their uses sometimes. I hope you are coming, Mr. Greetland?”
A cloud crossed the face which was to so many hostesses the social sun. “I am engaged a hundred deep for Tuesday,” he smiled protestingly, “but I’ll do my best. You might let me know, dear lady, if Tarbosch is really coming to play for you. I just missed him at Lady Llanthony’s the other night, and one must be able to say one has heard him.”
“I’ll make the wretch decide, and then send you a wire,” she promised.
Greetland rose. He had given Lady Rotherfield more of the light of his complacent countenance than was quite her due, and should be moving round in his orbit to illuminate and attract the rest of the world. A man passed him with a nod and a casual remark. Greetland turned back to Lady Rotherfield.
“Talking of our friends in Green Street,” he said, “that man has been having an uncomfortable time over the Vaux House affair.”
“He? Who?” the lady asked, putting up her glasses.
Greetland looked up at her with a suspicion of pitying contempt. Really she was, considering her position, very stupid and ill-informed. He had indeed been wasting his time with her, and made a mental note that he would try and hear Tarbosch somewhere else than under her irritating auspices.
“Don’t you know?” he asked, almost tartly. “Aubrey Playford. It is an open secret that he denounced the Countess Alexia to the Daily Comet. Had recognized the dagger hair-pin as being hers, and so got them into all this trouble. They say he and Brailsford nearly came to blows in the Park last Sunday over the affair. Of course Brailsford is trying to whitewash himself with the mob, and particularly to get back into certain houses where he is no longer asked. They say old Lord Clovelly threatened to kick him into Piccadilly if he showed his face at Bude House again. So he thought the best move would be to horsewhip Playford, just to show his bona fides.”
“How amusing!” Lady Rotherfield made a mental tick against that enterprising editor’s name. “But, tell me, why did Mr. Playford accuse the poor Countess Alexia?”
Greetland smiled significantly. “Surely you can guess the reason, dear lady,” he replied, with a trace of impatience. “No need to chercher la femme when she is already there.”
“Ah, just so. A case of pique. But what bad form.”
“So every one thinks.”
“I believe I have asked him for Tuesday. How awkward! Still, he is here. I always thought Lady Polloxfen so particular.”
Greetland gave a smile of superior insight. “So she is, dear lady; but you must remember that Aubrey Playford is heir presumptive to his cousin’s title, and the Stainford property is practically bound to go with it.”
“To be sure!” Lady Rotherfield’s brow cleared once more. And presently when, by accident or design, she encountered that eligible sneak, she begged him with her sweetest smile not to forget he was engaged to her for Tuesday when that delightful Tarbosch was positively going to play.