CHAPTER XVIII
"Love of our Lives"
Elma in the privacy of her best confidences had called Isobel a bounder.The iniquity, viewed even only in the light of a discourtesy, alarmedher, and made her more than anything "buck up" to being "nice" to hercousin.
Isobel had been quite taken aback by the news of Mabel's departure. Shehad bargained for almost anything rather than that. Jean hadcontinually rubbed it in that Mabel was no use for going anywhere awayfrom home. And now she was being sent to succour Jean. Isobel had goneout with the news for everybody that Mr. and Mrs. Leighton would beleaving in the morning. She had even made some plans. Now, what shelooked upon as the tutelage of Mr. and Mrs. Leighton remained, andMabel, whom she already regarded as the most useful companion where herown interests were concerned, was going off to London.
She could not avoid looking very black about it. To be left there withtwo children, Elma and Betty, chained hand and foot to thatkindergarten! One could hardly believe that so dark a cloud could siton so clearly calm, so immobile a countenance. Mabel detected thestorm, and it had the effect of making her the more relieved and willingto be off.
She had many thoughts for Elma.
"Don't be hustled out of your rights, dear," she whispered. "Remember,you are the head."
Elma had to remember almost every hour of the day. The rule of Isobelwas subtle, and it was most exceedingly sure. She did not take thepains to hide her methods from Elma and Betty, as she had done fromMabel and Jean. She openly used the telephone, not always with the doorshut. It brought her plenty of engagements. When a dull day offereditself, Isobel invariably was called up by telephone to go out. Shenever dreamed of inviting Elma. Mrs. Leighton she looked after in aprotecting way which was very nice and consoling to that lady strandedof her Jean. Many plans were made for Mrs. Leighton's sake, which Elmaconsidered must have often surprised her. It did not seem necessarythat Mrs. Leighton should attend tea at the golf club for instance, butIsobel insisted on seeing her go there. Everybody congratulated theLeightons on having such a charming girl to keep them company whileMabel and Jean were away. Isobel had certainly found a vocation.
She came in to Mrs. Leighton and Elma in the drawing-room one day in herprettiest tweeds with rather fine furs at her throat.
"Hetty Dudgeon has just rung me up, asking me to go to see her thisafternoon," she said calmly. "I don't suppose you care for the walk,"she asked Mrs. Leighton.
Mrs. Leighton roused herself from the mental somnolence of some weeks.
"Miss Hetty! Why, I was speaking to her half an hour ago. She wantedto send an introduction to Jean. She--she, why, it's very strange thatshe didn't tell me she wanted you to come. And you've dressed since.In fact, she said----"
Mrs. Leighton got no further.
"She must have changed her mind," said Isobel in a careless manner."Well, good-bye, everybody, I'm off."
Mrs. Leighton sat a little speechless for the moment.
"I don't think I quite like that of Isobel," she said. "Miss Hetty didnot want any one this afternoon. She told me why--she's so frank.Vincent is coming."
Elma sat debating in her mind, should she tell her mother or should shenot. It was hardly right that Isobel should drag in the telephone,anything, under her mother's unsuspecting eyes, for her own ends. It waswildly impertinent to her mother.
"Mummy, Isobel knew that Vincent was going and she made up her mind togo too!"
"Made up her mind!"
"Yes--she almost half arranged it with Vincent at the golf club theother day."
"Then--then what about telephoning!"
"She never telephoned at all," said Elma.
Mrs. Leighton would willingly have had that unsaid.
"It is dreadful to think that any one would take the trouble to do sucha thing for the sake of going to the Dudgeons," she said. "Are you sureyou are not mistaken?"
"Oh, Miss Meredith is happy for a week if she can squeeze in an excusefor going to the Dudgeons," replied Elma. "The Dudgeons are such 'highsteppers,' you know."
"I don't like it," said Mrs. Leighton, "I really don't. None of you werebrought up to go your own way like that, and I don't admire it in otherpeople."
"Isobel believes in grabbing for everything one wants with both hands.She doesn't mean to do anything wicked. She simply means to be on thespot," said Elma.
"But what about loyalty, and friendship, and--and honour?" said poorMrs. Leighton.
"Oh, when you are grabbing with both hands for other things you haven'ttime for these."
"My precious child! What in the wide world are you saying!" Mrs.Leighton was quite horrified.
"Nothing that I mean, or believe in, mummy. Only what Isobel believesin. She thinks we are fools to bother about loyalty and that kind ofthing. She hasn't had any one, I think, who cared whether she washonourable or not. And it must be distracting to know that all the timeshe can be perfectly beautiful. It must make you think that everythingought to come to you, no matter how."
Elma was really scourging herself now for that iniquity of "thebounder."
"Why didn't you tell me before?" said Mrs. Leighton.
"Oh, mummy, I'm almost sorry I told you now. Except that it lifts themost awful weight from my mind. I've been so afraid that while Isobelwent on being so sweet and graceful that we should all get bad-temperedif you believed in her very much. She countermands my orders to theservants often and often, and they never think of disobeying her.That's one thing I want to ask you about. If I insist on their obeyingme, will you back me up? I simply crinkle before Isobel, I hate so toappear to be against her in any way. But Mabel told me I'm to play up ashead of the house, and I'm not doing it while Isobel upsets any order ofmine with a turn of her little finger. It's awfully weak of me, butI've always said I was made to be bullied, I do so hate having rows withpeople."
The murder was out then.
Mabel had been gone four weeks, and the housekeeping which had graduallydrifted into her hands was now of course in the command of Elma, orought to be. Mrs. Leighton saw at last where Isobel had been gettinghold of the reins of government.
"You must not be jealous of Isobel's attractions," she said. "And youknow, Elma, any little squabble with your cousin would be a ratherdreadful thing."
"Awful," said Elma.
"Your father would never forgive us."
"He would understand, though," said Elma. There was always such amagnificence of justice about her father.
"He is feeling being without the girls so much," said Mrs. Leighton.
"Yes," said Elma. "But, oh! mother, he is so pleased now that they aregetting on. And isn't it magnificent of Mabel! That's what makes methink I must play up here. Miss Grace says it's very weak to give in ona matter of principle. She says that whether I'm wrong or right, theservants ought to obey me."
Mrs. Leighton debated for a long time.
"I quite see your difficulty," she said. "But above all things, we mustnever let Isobel think she hasn't her first home with us. Youunderstand that, don't you?"
"Yes, mummy," said Elma. "If only you will back me upon the servantquestion once. Then I don't believe we shall have any more trouble withIsobel. I don't mind about whom she telephones to or whom she doesn't,but I do mind about the housekeeping. She thinks I'm such a kid, youknow. And I mustn't for the credit of the family remain a kid all mydays."
There was a far stronger motive to account for Elma's determination thanany mere slight to herself. It was that Isobel had known about Robinand yet appropriated him as though he were a person whom one might makemuch of. The treatment of Mabel turned her from a child into a womanblazing for justice.
As they sat down to dinner that night, she noticed that her own littlescheme for table decoration had been changed. At dessert she asked,with her knees trembling in the old manner, "Who changed my tablecentre?"
Nobody answered till Isobel,
finding the silence holding conspicuously,said in a careless way, "Oh, I found Bertha putting down that greenthing." Elma flushed dismally. (If she could only keep pale.)
She simulated a careless tone, however.
"Oh, Isobel," she said, "I wish you wouldn't. When I give directions tothe servants, it's very difficult for me if some one else gives themothers." It was lame, but it was there, the information that she was incontrol.
"Very distracting for the servants, too," said Mrs. Leighton calmly, andratified Elma's venture with her approval.
She ate a grape with extreme care.
Isobel did not answer. She froze in her pink gown however, and a stormgathered kindling to black anger in her eyes.
She looked Elma over, her whole bearing carrying a threat. It was apose which generally produced some effect.
But Elma was fighting for something more than her own paltry littleauthority. She was bucking up "for Mabel's sake."
She pretended to treat it as a joke now that Isobel "knew."
"So after this I'm in undisputed authority," she exclaimed, and wonderedat herself for her miraculous calmness. "And if you, Betty, endeavourto get more salt in the soup or try on any other of your favouritedodges, I shall--"--she also ate a grape quite serenely--"I shall halfkill you."
"Oh, Betty," she said afterwards, "I feel as though I had gone in for abathe in mid-winter. Did you see her eye!"
"I did," said Betty. "So did papa. You'll find it will be easier forus now. How calm you were! I should have fainted."
"My knees were knocking like castanets," said Elma. "If I had had themjapanned, you would have heard quite a row. But it's very stimulating."It occurred to her that now she could write in a self-respecting mannerto Mabel.
Isobel after this entirely blocked off Elma from any of her excursions.Even the visits to Miss Grace were over so far as Isobel was concerned,and Elma once more had that dear lady to herself.
She would not tell Miss Grace how it had happened that her cousin nolonger accompanied her. Occasionally, however, Isobel stepped inherself and found her former audience in Miss Annie.
None of it affected Elma as it might have done. Isobel hardly spoke toher, certainly never when they were alone. It alarmed Elma how shecould light up when anybody was present, any one who counted, and bequite companionable to Elma.
This all faded before the success of Mabel and Jean, who were nowwriting in the best of spirits.
And oh! "Love of our lives," Adelaide Maud, who was now in London, hadcalled on them. It opened up a fairyland to both, for she took them toher uncle's house, and feted them generally. Good old Adelaide Maud.
There was no one like her for bringing relief to the rich, and helpingthe moderately poor.
So Elma described her.
It seemed odd that it should be difficult to know Adelaide Maud exceptin an emergency. Elma, on the advice of Miss Grace, merely had to sendher one little note when in London, with Mabel's address, and AdelaideMaud had called.
There were great consolations to the life she now led with Isobel.Cuthbert vowed he would come down to Elma's first dance. How differentit was to what she had anticipated! She would go with Isobel and Isobelwould be sweetly magnificent, and Elma would feel like a babe of ten.She longed to refuse all invitations until Mabel came home. Then theunrighteousness of this aloofness from Isobel beset her, and theyaccepted an invitation jointly.
Isobel ordered a dream of a dress from London. Elma was in white. Mabeland Jean sent her white roses for her hair, the daintiest things.Cuthbert played up, and George Maclean found her plenty of partners.Isobel was quite kind. Mr. Leighton had looked sadly on Elma on seeingher off.
"Another bird spreading its wings," said he.
She looked very small and delicately dainty. Whereas Isobel, "Isobelwas like a double begonia in full bloom," said Betty.
The begonia bloomed till a late hour effulgently.
Elma simply longed all the time for Mabel and Jean, and oh! "Love of ourLives," Adelaide Maud.
It was Lance who christened her "Love of our Lives."
"What's that idiot going on about," asked Cuthbert, as he swung Elma offon the double hop of a polka.
"He is talking about Adelaide Maud. I'm so dull because she isn'there."
"You are?" asked Cuthbert.
There was a curious inflection on the "you" as though he had said, "Youalso?"
"Yes," said Elma, "though it's so often 'so near and yet so far' withAdelaide Maud, she is really my greatest friend."
Cuthbert seemed impressed.
"She doesn't need to make so much of the 'so far' pose," he saidgruffly.
"Oh yes, she does," replied Elma. "It's her mother. She withers poorAdelaide Maud to a stick. It's a wonder she's such a duck. AdelaideMaud, I mean. Cuthbert, when are you coming home for a long visit?" sheasked.
"Next summer. I shall tell you a great secret. I think I am to get alectureship, quite a good thing. Can you keep it from the pater untilI'm sure?"
"Rather," said Elma.
"Then," he said, "if it isn't all roses here next summer, you'll onlyhave one person to blame."
"One?" asked Elma.
Visions of Isobel cut everything from her mind.
"Is it Isobel?" she asked mildly.
"Isobel!" Cuthbert looked so disgusted that she could have kissed him.
She saw Isobel at that moment. She was swaying round the room in theperfection of rhythm with no less an old loyalist than George Maclean.Ah, well--all their good friends might drift over there, but she stillhad Cuthbert. The joy of it lent wings to her little figure. It alwayshad been and always remained difficult for her to adapt her small strideto men of Cuthbert's build. This night she suddenly acquired thestrength and ease--the knowledge which really having him gave her, tomake dancing with him become a facile affair.
"Oh, Cuthbert, this is ripping," she sighed at last. "If it isn'tIsobel, who is it?" she asked him.
"Why, Elma, you are a little donkey! Who could it be, but 'Love of ourLives,' Adelaide Maud?"
He swung her far into the middle:--where the floor became as melted wax,and life opened out to Elma like a flower.
"Oh, Cuthbert dear, how ripping," said little Elma.