Set in Silver Part 1

Set in Silver.

by Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson.

I

AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER AT CHAMPEL-LES-BAINS, SWITZERLAND

_Rue Chapeau de Marie Antoinette_, _Versailles_, _July 4th_

Darling Little French Mother: Things have happened. Fire-crackers!

Roman candles! rockets! But don't be frightened. They're all in my head.

Nevertheless I haven't had such a Fourth of July since I was a small girl in America, and stood on a tin pail with a whole pack of fire-crackers popping away underneath.

Isn't it funny, when you have a lot to tell, it's not half as easy to write a letter as when you've nothing at all to say, and must make up for lack of matter by weaving phrases? Now, when I'm suffering from a determination of too many words to my pen, they all run together in a torrent, and I don't know how to make them dribble singly to a beginning.

I think I'll talk about other things first. That's the way dear Dad used to do when he had exciting news, and loved to dangle it over our heads, "cherry ripe" fashion, harping on the weather or the state of the stock-market until he had us almost dancing with impatience.

Yes, I'll dwell on other things first--but not irrelevant things, for I'll dwell on You--with a capital Y, which is the only proper way to spell You--and You are never irrelevant. You couldn't be, whatever was happening. And just now you're particularly relevant, though you're far off in nice, cool Switzerland; for presently, when I come to the Thing, I'm going to ask your advice.

It's very convenient having a French mother, and I do appreciate dear Dad's Yankee cleverness in securing you in the family. You say sometimes that I seem all American, and that you're glad; which is pretty of you, and loyal to father's country, but I'm not sure whether I shouldn't have preferred to turn out more like my mamma. You're so _complete_, somehow--as Frenchwomen are, at their best. I often think of you as a kind of pocket combination of Somebody's Hundred Best Books: Romance, Practical Common Sense, Poetry, Wit, Wisdom, Fancy Cookery, etc., etc.

Who but a Frenchwoman could combine all these qualities with the latest thing in hair-dressing and the neatest thing in stays? By the way, can one's stays be a quality? Yes, if one's French--even half French--I believe they can.

If I hadn't just got your letter of day before yesterday, a.s.suring me that you feel strong and fresh--almost as if you'd never been ill--I shouldn't worry you for advice. Only a few weeks ago, if suddenly called upon for it, you'd have shown signs of nervous prostration. I shall never forget my horror when you (quite uncontrollably) threw a spoon at Philomene who came to ask whether we would have soup _a croute_ or _potage a la bonne femme_ for dinner!

Switzerland was an inspiration; mine, I flatter myself. And if, in telling me that you're in robust health again, you're hinting at an intention to sneak back to blazing Paris before the middle of September, you don't know your Spartan daughter. All that's American in me rises to shout "No!" And you needn't think that your child is bored. She may be boiled, but never bored. Far from it, as you shall hear.

School breaks up to-morrow--breaks into little blond and brunette bits, which will blow or drift off to their respective homes; and I should by this time be packing to visit the Despards, where I'm supposed to teach Mimi's young voice to soar, as compensation for holiday hospitality; but--I'm not packing, because Ellaline Lethbridge has had an attack of nerves.

You won't be surprised that I stopped two hours over-time to-day to hold the hand and to stroke the hair of Ellaline. I've done that before, when she had a pain in her finger, or a cold in her little nose, and sent you a _pet.i.t bleu_ to announce that I couldn't get home for dinner and our happy hour together. No, you won't be surprised at my stopping--or that Ellaline should have an attack of nerves. But the reason for the attack and the cure she wants me to give her: these will surprise you.

Why, it's almost as hard to begin, after all, as if I hadn't been working industriously up to it for three pages. But here goes!

Dearest, you've often said, and I've agreed with you (or else it was the other way round), that _nothing_ I could ever do for Ellaline Lethbridge would be too much; that she couldn't ask any sacrifice of me which would be too great. Of course, one does say these things until one is tested.

But--I wonder if there is a "but"?

Of course you believe that your one chick has a glorious voice, and that it's a cruel shame she should be doing nothing better than teaching other people's chicks to squall, whether their voices are worth squalling with or not. Perhaps, though, mine mayn't be as remarkable an organ as we think; and even if you hadn't made me give up trying for light opera, because I received one Insult (with a capital I) while I was Madame Larese's favourite pupil, I mightn't in any case have turned into a great prima donna. I was rather excited and amused by the Insult myself--it made me feel so interesting, and so like a heroine of romance; but you didn't approve of it; and we had some hard times, hadn't we, after all our money was spent in globe-trotting, and lessons for me from the immortal Larese?

If it hadn't been for meeting Ellaline, and Ellaline falling a victim to my modest charms, and insisting upon Madame de Maluet's taking me as a teacher of singing for her "celebrated finishing school for Young Ladies," what would have become of us, dearest, with you so delicate, me so young, and both of us so poor and alone in a big world? I really don't know, and you've often said you didn't.

Of course, if it hadn't been for Ellaline--Madame's richest and most important girl--persisting as she did, in her imperious, spoiled-child way, Madame wouldn't have dreamed of engaging a young girl like me, without any experience as a teacher, no matter how much she liked my voice and my (or rather Larese's) method. I suppose no one would else have risked me; so I certainly do owe to Ellaline, and n.o.body but Ellaline, three happy and (fairly) prosperous years. To be sure, because of my position at Madame de Maluet's, I have got a few outside pupils; but that's indirectly through Ellaline, too, isn't it?

I'm reminding you of all these things so that you may have it clearly before your mind just how much we do owe Ellaline, and judge whether the payment she now asks is too big or not.

That's the way she puts it, not coa.r.s.ely or crudely; but I know how she feels.

She sent me a little note yesterday, while I was giving a lesson, to say she'd a horrid headache, had gone to bed, and would I come to her room as soon as I could. Well, I went at lunch time, for I hated to keep her waiting, and thought I could eat later. As it turned out, I didn't eat at all. But that's a detail.

She had on a perfectly divine nighty, with low neck and short sleeves (no girl would be _allowed_ to wear such a thing in any but a French school, I'm sure, even if she were a "parlour boarder") and her hair was in curly waves over her shoulders. Altogether she looked adorable, and about fourteen years old, instead of nearly nineteen, as she is.

"You don't show your headache a bit," said I.

"I haven't got one," said she.

Then she explained that she'd been dying for a chance to talk with me alone, and the headache was the only thing that occurred to her in the circ.u.mstances. She doesn't mind little fibs, you know. Indeed, I believe she rather likes them, because any "intrigue," even the smallest, is exciting to her.

You would never guess anything like what has happened.

That dragon of a guardian of hers is coming back at last from Bengal, where he's been governor or something. Not that his coming would matter particularly if it weren't for complications, but there are several, the most formidable of which is a Young Man.

The Young Man is a French young man, and his name is Honore du Guesclin.

He is a lieutenant in the army (Ellaline mentioned the regiment with pride, but I've forgotten it already, there was so much else to remember), and she says he is descended from the great Du Guesclin. She met him at Madame de Blanchemain's--you remember the Madame de Blanchemain who was Ellaline's dead mother's most intimate friend, and who lives at St. Cloud? Ellaline has spent all her holidays there ever since I've known her; but though I thought she told me everything (she always vowed she did), not a word did she ever breathe about a young man having risen over her horizon. She says she didn't dare, because I'm so "queer and prim about some things." I'm not, am I? But now she's driven to confess, as she's in the most awful sc.r.a.pe, and doesn't know what will become of her and "darling Honore," unless I'll consent to help them.

She met him only last Easter. He's a nephew of Madame de Blanchemain's, it seems; and on coming back from foreign service in Algeria, or somewhere, he dutifully paused to visit his relative. Of course it occurs to me, did Madame de Blanchemain write and intimate that she would have in the house a pretty little Anglo-French heiress, with no inconvenient relatives, unless one counts the Dragon? But Ellaline says Honore's coming was quite a surprise to his aunt. Anyway, he proposed on the third day, and Ellaline accepted him. It was by moonlight, in a garden, so who can blame the poor child? I always thought if even a moderately good-looking young man proposed to me by moonlight, in a garden, I would say "Yes--yes!" at once, even if I changed my mind next day.

But Honore is _very_ good looking (she has his picture in a locket, with _such_ a turned-up moustache--I mean Honore, not the locket), and so Ellaline didn't change her mind next day.

Not a word was said to Madame de Blanchemain (as far as Ellaline knows), for they decided that, considering everything, they must keep their secret, and eventually run away to be married; because Honore is poor, and Ellaline's an heiress guarded by a Dragon.

Well, through letters which E. has been receiving at a teashop where she and the other older girls go, rigorously chaperoned, twice a week, it was arranged to do the deed as soon as school should close; and if they could have carried out their plan, Ellaline would have been Madame du Guesclin before the Dragon could have appeared on the scene, breathing fire and rattling his scales. They were going to Scotland to be married (Honore's idea), as a man can't legally marry a girl under age in France without the consent of everybody concerned. Once she'd got away with him, and had had any kind of hole-in-the-corner wedding, Honore was of opinion that even the most abandoned Dragon would be thankful to sanction a marriage according to French law; so it could all be done over again properly in France.

I suppose this appealed immensely to Ellaline's love of intrigue and kittenish tricksiness generally. Anyway, she agreed; but young officers propose, and their superiors dispose. Honore was ordered off for a month's manoeuvres before he could even ask for leave; and as he's known to be dest.i.tute of near relatives, he couldn't rake up a perishing grandmother as an excuse.

What he did try, I don't know; but anyhow, he failed, and the running away had to be put off. That was blow number one, and could have been borne, without blow number two, which fell in the shape of a letter. It said that the wicked guardian was just about to start for home, and intended to pick up Ellaline on his way to England, as if she were a parcel labelled "to be kept till called for."

She's certain he won't let her marry Honore if he has the chance to say "no" beforehand, because he cares nothing about her happiness, or about her, or anything else except his own selfish ambitions. Of course, Ellaline is a girl who takes strong prejudices against people for no particular reason, except that she has a "feeling they are horrid"; but she does appear to be right about this man. He's English, and though Ellaline's mother was half French, they were cousins, and I believe her dying request was that he should take care of her daughter and her daughter's money. You would have thought that that must have softened even a hard heart, wouldn't you? But the Dragon's was evidently sentiment-proof, even so many years ago, when he must have been comparatively young--if Dragons are ever young.

He accepted the charge (Ellaline thinks her money probably influenced him to do that; and perhaps he was paid for his trouble); but, instead of carrying out his engagements, like a faithful guardian, he packed the poor four-year-old baby off to some pokey, prim people in the country, and promptly went abroad to enjoy himself. There Ellaline would no doubt have been left to this day, dreadfully unhappy and out of her element, for the people were an English curate and his wife; but, luckily, her mother had stipulated that she was to be sent to the same school in France where she herself had been educated--Madame de Maluet's.

Never once has her guardian shown the slightest sign of interest in Ellaline: hasn't asked for her photograph or written her any letters.

They've communicated with each other only through Madame de Maluet, four times a year or so; and Ellaline doesn't feel sure that her fortune has been properly administered, so she says she ought to marry young and have a husband to look after her interests.

When I ventured to hope that the Dragon wasn't quite so scaly and taily as she painted him, she proved her point by telling me that he'd been censured lately in the English Radical papers for killing a lot of poor, defenceless Bengalese in cold blood. Somebody must have sent her the cuttings, for Ellaline hardly knows that newspapers exist. I dare say it was Kathy Bennett, one of Madame's few English pupils. Ellaline has chummed up with her lately. And that news does seem to settle the man's character, doesn't it? He must be a perfect brute.

Ellaline says that she'd rather die than lose Honore, also that he'll kill himself if he loses her. And now, dearest--now for the Thunderbolt!

She vows that the only thing which can possibly save her is for _me to take her place for five or six weeks_, until her soldier's manoeuvres are over and he can get leave to whisk her off to Scotland for the wedding.

You're the quickest-witted darling in the world, and you generally know all that people mean even before they speak. Yet I can see you looking puzzled as well as startled, and muttering to yourself: "Take Ellaline's place? Where--how--when?"

I was like that myself while she was trying to explain. I stared with an owlish stare for about five minutes, until her real idea in all its native wildness, not to say enormity, burst upon me.

She wants to go day after to-morrow to Madame de Blanchemain's, as she'd expected to do before she heard that the Dragon was coming to gobble her up. She wants to stay there quietly until Honore can take her, and she wants _me to pretend to be Ellaline Lethbridge_!

I nearly fell off my chair at this point, but I hope you won't do anything like that--which is the reason why I've been working up to the revelation with such fiendish subtlety. Have you noticed it?

Ellaline has plotted the whole scheme out. I shouldn't have thought her capable of it; but she says it's desperation.