A Great Success | Page 5

a child too--lazy, wilful, and sensuous--that, too, she had known for some time. And she loved him with all her heart.
"But I won't have him spoilt by those fine ladies!" she said to herself, with frowning clear-sightedness. "They make a perfect fool of him. Now, then, I'd better write to Lady Dunstable. Of course she ought to have written to me!"
So she sat down and wrote:
Dear Lady Dunstable,--We have much pleasure in accepting your kind invitation, and I will let you know our train later. I have no maid, so--
But at this point Mrs. Meadows, struck by a sudden idea, threw down her pen.
"Heavens!--suppose I took Jane? Somebody told me the other day that nobody got any attention at Crosby Ledgers without a maid. And it might bribe Jane into staying. I should feel a horrid snob--but it would be rather fun--especially as Lady Dunstable will certainly be immensely surprised. The fare would be only about five shillings--Jane would get her food for two days at the Dunstables' expense--and I should have a friend. I'll do it."
So, with her eyes dancing, Doris tore up her note, and began again:
Dear Lady Dunstable,--We have much pleasure in accepting your kind invitation, and I will let you know our train later. As you kindly permit me, I will bring a maid.
Yours sincerely, DORIS MEADOWS.
* * * * *
The month which elapsed between Lady Dunstable's invitation and the Crosby Ledgers party was spent by Doris first in "doing up" her frock, and then in taking the bloom off it at various dinner-parties to which they were already invited as the "celebrities" of the moment; in making Arthur's wardrobe presentable; in watching over the tickets and receipts of the weekly lectures; in collecting the press cuttings about them; in finishing her illustrations; and in instructing the awe-struck Jane, now perfectly amenable, in the mysteries that would be expected of her.
Meanwhile Mrs. Meadows heard various accounts from artistic and literary friends of the parties at Crosby Ledgers. These accounts were generally prefaced by the laughing remark, "But anything I can say is ancient history. Lady Dunstable dropped us long ago!"
Anyway, it appeared that the mistress of Crosby Ledgers could be charming, and could also be exactly the reverse. She was a creature of whims and did precisely as she pleased. Everything she did apparently was acceptable to Lord Dunstable, who admired her blindly. But in one point at least she was a disappointed woman. Her son, an unsatisfactory youth of two-and-twenty, was seldom to be seen under his parents' roof, and it was rumoured that he had already given them a great deal of trouble.
"The dreadful thing, my dear, is the games they play!" said the wife of a dramatist, whose one successful piece had been followed by years of ill-fortune.
"_Games?_" said Doris. "Do you mean cards--for money?"
"Oh, dear no! Intellectual games. _Bouts-rimés;_ translations--Lady Dunstable looks out the bits and some people think the words--beforehand; paragraphs on a subject--in a particular style--Pater's, or Ruskin's, or Carlyle's. Each person throws two slips into a hat. On one you write the subject, on another the name of the author whose style is to be imitated. Then you draw. Of course Lady Dunstable carries off all the honours. But then everybody believes she spends all the mornings preparing these things. She never comes down till nearly lunch."
"This is really appalling!" said Doris, with round eyes. "I have forgotten everything I ever knew."
As for her own impressions of the great lady, she had only seen her once in the semi-darkness of the lecture-room, and could only remember a long, sallow face, with striking black eyes and a pointed chin, a general look of distinction and an air of one accustomed to the "chief seat" at any board--whether the feasts of reason or those of a more ordinary kind.
As the days went on, Doris, for all her sturdy self-reliance, began to feel a little nervous inwardly. She had been quite well-educated, first at a good High School, and then in the class-rooms of a provincial University; and, as the clever daughter of a clever doctor in large practice, she had always been in touch with the intellectual world, especially on its scientific side. And for nearly two years before her marriage she had been a student at the Slade School. But since her imprudent love-match with a literary man had plunged her into the practical work of a small household, run on a scanty and precarious income, she had been obliged, one after another, to let the old interests go. Except the drawing. That was good enough to bring her a little money, as an illustrator, designer of Christmas cards, etc.; and she filled most of her spare time with it.
But now she feverishly looked out some of her old books--Pater's