'There's only one thing I must tell you. If Jane Fowler is still here I shall have to put it off.'
'Who is Jane Fowler?' I asked.
Mrs Tower gave a rueful smile.
'Jane Fowler is my cross.'
'Oh!'
'Do you remember a photograph that I used to have on the piano before I had my room done, of a woman in a tight dress with tight sleeves and a gold locket, with her hair drawn back from a broad forehead and her ears showing and spectacles on a rather blunt nose? Well, that was Jane Fowler.'
'You had so many photographs about the room in your unregenerate days,' I said, vaguely.
'It makes me shudder to think of them. I've made them into a huge brown-paper parcel and hidden them in an attic.'
'Well, who is Jane Fowler?' I asked again, smiling.
'She's my sister-in-law. She was my husband's sister and she married a manufacturer in the North. She's been a widow for many years, and she's very well-to-do.'
'And why is she your cross?'
'She's worthy, she's dowdy, she's provincial. She looks twenty years older than I do and she's quite capable of telling anyone she meets that we were at school together. She has an overwhelming sense of family affection and because I am her only living connection she's devoted to me. When she comes to London it never occurs to her that she should stay anywhere but here – she thinks it would hurt my feelings – and she'll pay me visits of three or four weeks. We sit here and she knits and reads. And sometimes she insists on taking me to dine at Claridge's and she looks like a funny old charwoman and everyone I particularly don't want to be seen by is sitting at the next table. When we are driving home she says she loves giving me a little treat. With her own hands she makes me tea-cosies that I am forced to use when she is here and doilies and centrepieces for the dining-room table.'
Mrs Tower paused to take breath.
'I should have thought a woman of your tact would find a way to deal with a situation like that.'
'Ah, but don't you see, I haven't a chance. She's so immeasurably kind. She has a heart of gold. She bores me to death, but I wouldn't for anything let her suspect it.'
'And when does she arrive?'
'Tomorrow.'
But the answer was hardly out of Mrs Tower's mouth when the bell rang. There were sounds in the hall of a slight commotion and in a minute or two the butler ushered in an elderly lady.
'Mrs Fowler,' he announced.
'Jane,' cried Mrs Tower, springing to her feet. 'I wasn't expecting you today.'
'So your butler has just told me. I certainly said today in my letter.'
Mrs Tower recovered her wits.
'Well, it doesn't matter. I'm very glad to see you whenever you come. Fortunately I'm doing nothing this evening.'
'You mustn't let me give you any trouble. If I can have a boiled egg for my dinner that's all I shall want.'
A faint grimace for a moment distorted Mrs Tower's handsome features. A boiled egg!
'Oh, I think we can do a little better than that.'
I chuckled inwardly when I recollected that the two ladies were contemporaries. Mrs Fowler looked a good fifty-five. She was a rather big woman; she wore a black straw hat with a wide brim and from it a black lace veil hung over her shoulders, a cloak that oddly combined severity with fussiness, a long black dress, voluminous as though she wore several petticoats under it, and stout boots. She was evidently short-sighted, for she looked at you through large gold-rimmed spectacles.
'Won't you have a cup of tea?' asked Mrs Tower.
'If it wouldn't be too much trouble. I'll take off my mantle.'
She began by stripping her hands of the black gloves she wore, and then took off her cloak. Round her neck was a solid gold chain from which hung a large gold locket in which I felt certain was a photograph of her deceased husband. Then she took off her hat and placed it neatly with her gloves and cloak on the sofa corner. Mrs Tower pursed her lips. Certainly those garments did not go very well with the austere but sumptuous beauty of Mrs Tower's redecorated drawing-room. I wondered where on earth Mrs Fowler had found the extraordinary clothes she wore. They were not old and the materials were expensive. It was astounding to think that dressmakers still made things that had not been worn for a quarter of a century. Mrs Fowler's grey hair was very plainly done, showing all her forehead and her ears, with a parting in the middle. It had evidently never known the tongs of Monsieur Marcel. Now her eyes fell on the tea-table with its teapot of Georgian silver and its cups in old Worcester.
'What have you done with the tea-cosy I gave you last time I came up, Marion?' she asked. 'Don't you use it?'
'Yes, I used it every day, Jane,' answered Mrs Tower glibly. 'Unfortunately we had an accident with it a little while ago. It got burnt.'
'But the last one I gave you got burnt.'
'I'm afraid you'll think us very careless.'
'It doesn't really matter,' smiled Mrs Fowler. 'I shall enjoy making you another. I'll go to Liberty's tomorrow and buy some silks.'
Mrs Tower kept her face bravely.
'I don't deserve it, you know. Doesn't your vicar's wife need one?'
'Oh, I've just made her one,' said Mrs Fowler brightly.
I noticed that when she smiled she showed white, small and regular teeth. They were a real beauty. Her smile was certainly very sweet.
But I felt it high time for me to leave the two ladies to themselves, so I took my leave.
Early next morning Mrs Tower rang me up and I heard at once from her voice that she was in high spirits.
'I've got the most wonderful news for you,' she said. 'Jane is going to be married.'
'Nonsense.'
'Her fiancé is coming to dine here tonight to be introduced to me and I want you to come too.'
'Oh, but I shall be in the way.'
'No, you won't. Jane suggested herself that I should ask you. Do come.'
She was bubbling over with laughter.
'Who is he?'
'I don't know. She tells me he's an architect. Can you imagine the sort of man Jane would marry?'
I had nothing to do and I could trust Mrs Tower to give me a good dinner.
When I arrived Mrs Tower, very splendid in a tea-gown a little too young for her, was alone.
'Jane is putting the finishing touches to her appearance. I'm longing for you to see her. She's all in a flutter. She says he adores her. His name is Gilbert and when she speaks of him her voice gets all funny and tremulous. It makes me want to laugh.'
'I wonder what he's like.'
'Oh, I'm sure I know. Very big and massive, with a bald head and an immense gold chain across an immense tummy. A large, fat, clean-shaven, red face and a booming voice.'
Mrs Fowler came in. She wore a very stiff black silk dress with a wide skirt and a train. At the neck it was cut into a timid V and the sleeves came down to the elbows. She wore a necklace of diamonds set in silver. She carried in her hands a long pair of black gloves and a fan of black ostrich feathers. She managed (as so few people do) to look exactly what she was. You could never have thought her anything in the world but the respectable relict of a North-country manufacturer of ample means.
'You've really got quite a pretty neck, Jane,' said Mrs Tower with a kindly smile.
It was indeed astonishingly young when you compared it with her weather-beaten face. It was smooth and unlined and the skin was white. And I noticed then that her head was very well placed on her shoulders.
'Has Marion told you my news?' she said, turning to me with that really charming smile of hers as if we were already old friends.
'I must congratulate you,' I said.
'Wait to do that till you've seen my young man.'
'I think it's too sweet to hear you talk of your young man,' smiled Mrs Tower.
Mrs Fowler's eyes certainly twinkled behind her preposterous spectacles.
'Don't expect anyone too old. You wouldn't like me to marry a decrepit old gentleman with one foot in the g
rave, would you?'
This was the only warning she gave us. Indeed there was no time for any further discussion, for the butler flung open the door and in a loud voice announced:
'Mr Gilbert Napier.'
There entered a youth in a very well-cut dinner jacket. He was slight, not very tall, with fair hair in which there was a hint of a natural wave, clean-shaven and blue-eyed. He was not particularly good-looking, but he had a pleasant, amiable face. In ten years he would probably be wizened and sallow; but now, in extreme youth, he was fresh and clean and blooming. For he was certainly not more than twenty-four. My first thought was that this was the son of Jane Fowler's fiancé (I had not known he was a widower) come to say that his father was prevented from dining by a sudden attack of gout. But his eyes fell immediately on Mrs Fowler, his face lit up, and he went towards her with both hands outstretched. Mrs Fowler gave him hers, a demure smile on her lips, and turned to her sister-in-law.
'This is my young man, Marion,' she said.
He held out his hand.
'I hope you'll like me, Mrs Tower,' he said. 'Jane tells me you're the only relation she has in the world.'
Mrs Tower's face was wonderful to behold. I saw then to admiration how bravely good breeding and social usage could combat the instincts of the natural woman. For the astonishment and then the dismay that for an instant she could not conceal were quickly driven away, and her face assumed an expression of affable welcome. But she was evidently at a loss for words. It was not unnatural if Gilbert felt a certain embarrassment and I was too busy preventing myself from laughing to think of anything to say. Mrs Fowler alone kept perfectly calm.
'I know you'll like him, Marion. There's no one enjoys good food more than he does.' She turned to the young man. 'Marion's dinners are famous.'
'I know,' he beamed.
Mrs Tower made some quick rejoinder and we went downstairs. I shall not soon forget the exquisite comedy of that meal. Mrs Tower could not make up her mind whether the pair of them were playing a practical joke on her or whether Jane by wilfully concealing her fiancé's age had hoped to make her look foolish. But then Jane never jested and she was incapable of doing a malicious thing. Mrs Tower was amazed, exasperated and perplexed. But she had recovered her self-control, and for nothing would she have forgotten that she was a perfect hostess whose duty it was to make her party go. She talked vivaciously; but I wondered if Gilbert Napier saw how hard and vindictive was the expression of her eyes behind the mask of friendliness that she turned to him. She was measuring him. She was seeking to delve into the secret of his soul. I could see that she was in a passion, for under her rouge her cheeks glowed with an angry red.
'You've got a very high colour, Marion,' said Jane, looking at her amiably through her great round spectacles.
'I dressed in a hurry. I daresay I put on too much rouge.'
'Oh, is it rouge? I thought it was natural. Otherwise I shouldn't have mentioned it.' She gave Gilbert a shy little smile. 'You know Marion and I were at school together. You would never think it to look at us now, would you? But of course I've lived a very quiet life.'
I do not know what she meant by these remarks; it was almost incredible that she made them in complete simplicity; but anyhow they goaded Mrs Tower to such a fury that she flung her own vanity to the winds. She smiled brightly.
'We shall neither of us see fifty again, Jane,' she said.
If the observation was meant to discomfit the widow it failed.
'Gilbert says I mustn't acknowledge to more than forty-nine for his sake,' she answered blandly.
Mrs Tower's hands trembled slightly, but she found a retort.
'There is of course a certain disparity of age between you,' she smiled.
'Twenty-seven years,' said Jane. 'Do you think it's too much? Gilbert says I'm very young for my age. I told you I shouldn't like to marry a man with one foot in the grave.'
I was really obliged to laugh and Gilbert laughed too. His laughter was frank and boyish. It looked as though he were amused at everything Jane said. But Mrs Tower was almost at the end of her tether and I was afraid that unless relief came she would for once forget that she was a woman of the world. I came to the rescue as best I could.
'I suppose you're very busy buying your trousseau,' I said.
'No. I wanted to get my things from the dressmaker in Liverpool I've been to ever since I was first married. But Gilbert won't let me. He's very masterful, and of course he has wonderful taste.'
She looked at him with a little affectionate smile, demurely, as though she were a girl of seventeen.
Mrs Tower went quite pale under her make-up.
'We're going to Italy for our honeymoon. Gilbert has never had a chance of studying Renaissance architecture and of course it's important for an architect to see things for himself. And we shall stop in Paris on the way and get my clothes there.'
'Do you expect to be away long?'
'Gilbert has arranged with his office to stay away for six months. It will be such a treat for him, won't it? You see, he's never had more than a fortnight's holiday before.'
'Why not?' asked Mrs Tower in a tone that no effort of will could prevent from being icy.
'He's never been able to afford it, poor dear.'
'Ah!' said Mrs Tower, and into the exclamation put volumes.
Coffee was served and the ladies went upstairs. Gilbert and I began to talk in the desultory way in which men talk who have nothing whatever to say to one another; but in two minutes a note was brought in to me by the butler. It was from Mrs Tower and ran as follows:
'Come upstairs quickly and then go as soon as you can. Take him with you. Unless I have it out with Jane at once I shall have a fit.'
I told a facile lie.
'Mrs Tower has a headache and wants to go to bed. I think if you don't mind we'd better clear out.'
'Certainly,' he answered.
We went upstairs and five minutes later were on the doorstep. I called a taxi and offered the young man a lift.
'No thanks,' he answered. 'I'll just walk to the corner and jump on a bus.'
Mrs Tower sprang to the fray as soon as she heard the front door close behind us.
'Are you crazy, Jane?' she cried.
'Not more than most people who don't habitually live in a lunatic asylum, I trust,' Jane answered blandly.
'May I ask why you're going to marry this young man?' asked Mrs Tower with formidable politeness.
'Partly because he won't take no for an answer. He's asked me five times. I grew positively tired of refusing him.'
'And why do you think he's so anxious to marry you?'
'I amuse him.'
Mrs Tower gave an exclamation of annoyance.
'He's an unscrupulous rascal. I very nearly told him so to his face.'
'You would have been wrong, and it wouldn't have been very polite.'
'He's penniless and you're rich. You can't be such a besotted fool as not to see that he's marrying you for your money.'
Jane remained perfectly composed. She observed her sister-in-law's agitation with detachment.
'I don't think he is, you know,' she replied. 'I think he's very fond of me.'
'You're an old woman, Jane.'
'I'm the same age as you are, Marion,' she smiled.
'I've never let myself go. I'm very young for my age. No one would think I was more than forty. But even I wouldn't dream of marrying a boy twenty years younger than myself.'
'Twenty-seven,' corrected Jane.
'Do you mean to tell me that you can bring yourself to believe that it's possible for a young man to care for a woman old enough to be his mother?'
'I've lived very much in the country for many years. I daresay there's a great deal about human nature that I don't know. They tell me there's a man called Freud, an Austrian, I believe ...'
But Mrs Tower interrupted her without any politeness at all.
'Don't be ridiculous, Jane. It's so undignified. It's so ungraceful.
I always thought you were a sensible woman. Really you're the last person I should ever have thought likely to fall in love with a boy.'
'But I'm not in love with him. I've told him that. Of course I like him very much or I wouldn't think of marrying him. I thought it only fair to tell him quite plainly what my feelings were towards him.'
Mrs Tower gasped. The blood rushed to her head and her breathing oppressed her. She had no fan, but she seized the evening paper and vigorously fanned herself with it.
'If you're not in love with him why do you want to marry him?'
'I've been a widow a very long time and I've led a very quiet life. I thought I'd like a change.'
'If you want to marry just to be married why don't you marry a man of your own age?'
'No man of my own age has asked me five times. In fact no man of my own age has asked me at all.'
Jane chuckled as she answered. It drove Mrs Tower to the final pitch of frenzy.
'Don't laugh, Jane. I won't have it. I don't think you can be right in your mind. It's dreadful.'
It was altogether too much for her and she burst into tears. She knew that at her age it was fatal to cry, her eyes would be swollen for twenty-four hours and she would look a sight. But there was no help for it. She wept. Jane remained perfectly calm. She looked at Marion through her large spectacles and reflectively smoothed the lap of her black silk dress.
'You're going to be so dreadfully unhappy,' Mrs Tower sobbed, dabbing her eyes cautiously in the hope that the black on her lashes would not smudge.
'I don't think so, you know,' Jane answered in those equable, mild tones of hers, as if there were a little smile behind the words. 'We've talked it over very thoroughly. I always think I'm a very easy person to live with. I think I shall make Gilbert very happy and comfortable. He's never had anyone to look after him properly. We're only marrying after mature consideration. And we've decided that if either of us wants his liberty the other will place no obstacles in the way of his getting it.'