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The Pretext
by
Lady Caroline made no attempt to take this up. “And so much of it,” she carried on her sentence, “has been wasted in talking to people I really hadn’t the slightest desire to see, that you must excuse me if I go straight to the point.”
Margaret felt a sudden tension of the heart. “Of course,” she said while a voice within her cried: “He is dead–he has left me a message.”
There was another pause; then Lady Caroline went on, with increasing asperity: “So that–in short–if I could see Mrs. Ransom at once–“
Margaret looked up in surprise. “I am Mrs. Ransom,” she said.
The other stared a moment, with much the same look of cautious incredulity that had marked her inspection of the drawing-room. Then light came to her.
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I should have said that I wished to see Mrs. Robert Ransom, not Mrs. Ransom. But I understood that in the States you don’t make those distinctions.” She paused a moment, and then went on, before Margaret could answer: “Perhaps, after all, it’s as well that I should see you instead, since you’re evidently one of the household–your son and his wife live with you, I suppose? Yes, on the whole, then, it’s better–I shall be able to talk so much more frankly.” She spoke as if, as a rule, circumstances prevented her giving rein to this propensity. “And frankness, of course, is the only way out of this–this extremely tiresome complication. You know, I suppose, that my nephew thinks he’s in love with your daughter-in-law?”
Margaret made a slight movement, but her visitor pressed on without heeding it. “Oh, don’t fancy, please, that I’m pretending to take a high moral ground–though his mother does, poor dear! I can perfectly imagine that in a place like this–I’ve just been driving about it for two hours–a young man of Guy’s age would have to provide himself with some sort of distraction, and he’s not the kind to go in for anything objectionable. Oh, we quite allow for that–we should allow for the whole affair, if it hadn’t so preposterously ended in his throwing over the girl he was engaged to, and upsetting an arrangement that affected a number of people besides himself. I understand that in the States it’s different–the young people have only themselves to consider. In England–in our class, I mean–a great deal may depend on a young man’s making a good match; and in Guy’s case I may say that his mother and sisters (I won’t include myself, though I might) have been simply stranded–thrown overboard–by his freak. You can understand how serious it is when I tell you that it’s that and nothing else that has brought me all the way to America. And my first idea was to go straight to your daughter-in-law, since her influence is the only thing we can count on now, and put it to her fairly, as I’m putting it to you. But, on the whole, I dare say it’s better to see you first–you might give me an idea of the line to take with her. I’m prepared to throw myself on her mercy!”
Margaret rose from her chair, outwardly rigid in proportion to her inward tremor.
“You don’t understand–” she began.
Lady Caroline brushed the interruption aside. “Oh, but I do–completely! I cast no reflection on your daughter-in-law. Guy has made it quite clear to us that his attachment is–has, in short, not been rewarded. But don’t you see that that’s the worst part of it? There’d be much more hope of his recovering if Mrs. Robert Ransom had–had–“
Margaret’s voice broke from her in a cry. “I am Mrs. Robert Ransom,” she said.
If Lady Caroline Duckett had hitherto given her hostess the impression of a person not easily silenced, this fact added sensibly to the effect produced by the intense stillness which now fell on her.
She sat quite motionless, her large bangled hands clasped about the meagre fur boa she had unwound from her neck on entering, her rusty black veil pushed up to the edge of a “fringe” of doubtful authenticity, her thin lips parted on a gasp that seemed to sharpen itself on the edges of her teeth. So overwhelming and helpless was her silence that Margaret began to feel a motion of pity beneath her indignation–a desire at least to facilitate the excuses which must terminate their disastrous colloquy. But when Lady Caroline found voice she did not use it to excuse herself.