One and Only Compleat Mother: Things have happened. I felt them coming in my bones--not my funny-bones this time. For the things may turn out to be not at all funny.
Mr. Richard Burden has been introduced to the alleged Miss Lethbridge. I wonder if he can know she is merely "the alleged"? He is certainly changed, somehow, both in his manner, and in his way of looking at one. I thought in Paris he hadn't at all a bad face, though rather impudent--and besides, even Man is a fellow being! But last night, for a minute, he really had an incredibly wicked expression; or else he was suppressing a sneeze. I couldn't be quite sure which--as you said about Aubrey Beardsley's weird black-and-white women.
It was at a restaurant--a piteous restaurant, where the waiters looked like enchanted waiters in the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. He--Mr. Dicky Burden--came in, with an aunt. Such an aunt! I could never be at home with her as an aunt if I were a grown-up man, though she might make a bewitching cousin. She's quite beautiful, dear, and graceful; but I don't like her at all. I think Sir Lionel does, though. They knew each other in Bengal, and she kept saying to him in a cooing voice, "Do you remember?"
You can see she's too clever to be always clever, because that bores people; but she says witty, sharp things which sound as if they came out of plays, or books, and you think back to see whether she deliberately led up to them. For instance, she asked Sir Lionel, apropos of woman's suffrage, whether, on the whole, he preferred a man's woman, or a woman's woman?
"What's the difference?" he wanted to know.
"All the difference between a Gibson girl and an Ibsen girl," said she. I wonder if she'd heard that, or made it up? Anyhow, when Sir Lionel threw back his head and laughed, in an attractive way he has, which shows a dent in his chin, I wished I'd said it. But the more she flashed out bright things, the more of a lump I was. I do think the one unpardonable sin is dulness, and I felt guilty of it. She simply vampired me. Sucked my wits dry. And, do you know, I'm afraid she's going on the motor trip with us?
Sir Lionel doesn't dream of such a thing, but she does. And she's the sort of person whose dreams, if they're about men, come true. Of course, I don't know her well enough to hate her, but I feel it coming on.
In books, all villainesses who're worth their salt have little, sharp teeth and pointed nails. Mrs. Senter's teeth and nails are just like other women's, only better. Book villainesses' hair is either red or blue-black. Hers is pale gold, though her eyes are brown, and very soft when they turn toward Sir Lionel. Nevertheless, though I'm not cattish, except when absolutely necessary, I know she's a pig, never happy unless she has the centre of the stage, whether it's her part or not--wanting everyone to feel the curtain rises when she comes on, and falls when she goes off. She looks twenty-eight, so I suppose she's thirty-five; but really she's most graceful. Standing up for Sir Lionel to take off her cloak, her trailing gray satin dress twisted about her feet, as some charming, slender trees stand with their bark spreading out round them on the ground, and folding in lovely lines like drapery.
She managed to draw Mrs. Norton into conversation with her and Sir Lionel, and to let Dick talk to me, so they must have arranged beforehand what they would do. At first, when he had got his wish and been introduced, he spoke of ordinary things, but presently he asked if I remembered his saying that he wished to go into a certain profession. I answered "Yes," before I stopped to think, which I'm afraid flattered him, and then he wanted me to guess what the profession was. When I wouldn't, he said it was that of a detective. "If I succeed, my mother will give up her objections," he explained. "And I think I shall succeed." It was when he said this, that he looked so wicked--or else as if he wanted to sneeze--as I told you. What can he mean? And what has he found out? Or is it only my bad conscience? Oh, dear, I should like to give it a thorough spring cleaning, as one does in Lent! I'm afraid that's what is needed. I've had plenty of blacks on it since Ellaline made me consent to her plan, and I began to carry it out. But now I have more. I have lots of dresses and hats on it, too--lovely ones. And petticoats, and such things, etc., etc. Did Dragons of old insist on their fairy princess-prisoners having exquisite clothes, and say "hang the expense"? This Dragon has done so with his Princess, and I had to take the things, because, you see, I have engaged to play the part, and this apparently is his rich conception of it. He says that I--Ellaline--can afford to have everything that's nice; so what can I do? The worst of it is, much of my new finery is so delicate, it will be défraiche by the time the real Ellaline can have it, even if it would fit or suit her, which it won't. But probably the man was ashamed to be seen with a ward in gray serge and a sailor hat, so I couldn't very well violate his feelings. Perhaps if I'd refused to do what he wanted, all his hidden Dragon-ness would have rushed to the surface; but as I was quite meek, he behaved more like an angel than a dragon.
It really was fun buying the things, in a fascinating shop where the assistants were all more refined than duchesses, and so slender-waisted they seemed to be held together only by their spines and a ladylike ligament or two. But if Providence didn't wish women to lace, why weren't our ribs made to go all the way down? The way we were created, it's an incentive to pinch waists. It seems meant, doesn't it?
I was a dream to look at when we went to supper at that restaurant; which was one comfort. Mrs. Senter's things were no nicer than mine, and she was so interested in what I wore. Only she was a good deal more interested in Sir Lionel.
"Everywhere I go, people are talking of you," she said. "You have given them exciting things to talk about."
"Really, I wasn't aware of it," returned the poor Dragon, as apologetically as if she'd waked him up to say he'd been snoring.
Since I wrote you, I've heard more things about his past from Mrs. Norton, who is as proud of her brother, after a fashion, as a cat of its mouse, and always wanting to show him off, in just the same way. (We all have our "mouse," haven't we? I'm yours. Just now, the new hats are mine.) She has told me a splendid story about a thing he did in Bengal: saved twelve people's lives in a house that was on fire in the middle of the night--the kind of house which blazes like a haystack. And, according to her, he thinks no more of rescuing drowning persons who jump off ships in seas swarming with sharks than we think of fishing a fly out of our bath. Now, is it possible for a man like that to be treacherous to women, and to accept bribes for being guardian to their children? I do wish I knew what to make of it all--and of him.
He has taken the funny little Bengalese valet, who has been, and is to be, his chauffeur, to try the new car this morning. He meant to have gone before this to look at his partly burnt castle in Warwickshire, but he says London has captivated him, and he can't tear himself away; that he will go in a day or two, when he has trotted Mrs. Norton and me about to see a few more sights. Of course, we could quite well see the sights by ourselves. Mrs. Norton has seen them all, anyhow, and only revisits them for my sake; while as for me, you and I "did" London thrillingly together in the last two months of our glory. But Sir Lionel has an interesting way of telling things, and he is as enthusiastic as a boy over his England. Not that he gushes; but one knows, somehow, what he is feeling. I can't imagine his ever being tired, but he is very considerate of us--seems to think women are frail as glass. I suppose women are a sex by themselves, but we aren't as different as all that.
Once in a while he threw a sideways glare at Dick Burden, when D. B. was talking with a confidential air to me. I know from Ellaline and Mrs. Norton that Sir Lionel dislikes women; but all the same I believe he thinks we ought to be kept indoors unless veiled, and never allowed to talk to men, except our relatives.
Mrs. Norton is so funny, without knowing it. She asked her brother as gravely as possible at breakfast this morning: "Had you a harem in Bengal, dear?"
"Good heavens, no!" he answered, turning red. "What put such a ghastly idea into your head?"
"Oh, I only thought perhaps it was the thing, and you were obliged to, or be talked about," she explained, calmly.
He went on to tell her that it was not at all necessary to have harems, and she was quite surprised. You would think that she'd have taken pains to find out every detail of her brother's life in a country where he was one of the head men, wouldn't you? But she hardly feels that any country except her own is worth serious inquiries. She has the impression that "heathen" are all alike, and mostly naked, but not as embarrassing to meet as if they were white.
Good-bye, dearest. I'm afraid I write very disconnected letters. But I feel "disconnected" myself, somehow, like a telephone that's been "cut off."
Your loving and well-dressed
Deceiver.
P. S. It's to-morrow, for I forgot to post this, there were so many things "doing." Please forgive me. The car's splendid, and I am to christen her. We're going to have a kind of ceremony like a launching, and I have to think of a name for her, and throw wine on her bonnet. Sir Lionel is longing to get off on the tour, he says; and as he's to leave town for Warwickshire to-morrow, turning me over temporarily to the tender mercies of the good--(his sister)--I almost hope that after all Mrs. Senter mayn't have time to "sweedle" him into taking her with us, as I know she hopes to do.
We, by the way, are not to see his place until the burnt bit is mended. We're to avoid Warwickshire in starting out, go away up North as far as the Roman Wall, visit Bamborough Castle, where he thinks friends of his, who own it, will actually invite us to lunch, or something (it seems like a dream), and then stop in Warwickshire at the end of the tour, when all the dilapidations have been made good. The Dragon naturally expects me, not only to finish the trip, but to take up my residence at Graylees until next spring, when his plan is that his ward shall be presented. Oh, mice and men, and dragons, how aft your plans gang agley! Of course, mine depend altogether upon Ellaline. I hold myself ready for marching orders from her. But I must confess to you that, whether right or wrong, I don't look forward to the weeks of my duties as understudy with the same feelings I had when I was engaged to perform them.
Little did Sir Lionel guess what was in my mind this morning, when I asked if one could see most of England in a few weeks when motoring! But I may have to take my flight from the car, so to speak, unless Ellaline be detained for some reason. I'm expecting a letter from her any day now, and there may be definite news.
