While Herndon was lecturing them on the beauties of the church—with rather more than a hint about the iron-bound chest in which tourists, particularly American tourists, were permitted to deposit funds for the restoration of the roof—the vicar came in, a man innocent and enthusiastic at forty-five, tall, stooped, much spectacled, speaking an Oxonian English so thick that Sam could understand nothing beyond “strawdnerly well-proportioned arches,” which did not much enlighten him.
As they ambled home he saw candles in cottage windows.
They stopped to greet a porcelain-cheeked little old woman with a wreck of a black hat, a black bag of a suit, and exquisite gloves and shoes, whom Herndon introduced as Lady Somebody-or-other—
“But,” Sam reflected, “it isn’t real! It’s fiction! The whole thing, village and people and everything, is an English novel—and I’m in it! This is Chapter Two, and it’s lovely. But I wonder about Chapter Twenty. Will there be the deuce to play? … Just because life is more easy and human here, I feel more out of it. So accustomed to having my office and the boys to boss around—Now that I’ve quit, I’ve got nothing but myself—and Fran, of course—to keep me busy. These people, Lockert and Lord Herndon, they can live in themselves more. They don’t need a movie palace and a big garage to be content. I’ve got to learn that, but—Oh, I enjoyed seeing that church, and yet I feel lonely for old Tub making a hell of a racket.”
The glow in him faded as he trudged with Lockert, both of them silent, behind the chattering Fran and Herndon.
And he was irritated when Herndon turned back to crow, in the most flattering way, “You know, I should never in the world have taken Mrs. Dodsworth and you for Americans. I should have thought you were an English couple who had lived for some time in the Colonies.”
Sam grumbled within, childishly, “I suppose that’s an Englishman’s notion of the best compliment he can pay you!”
But Herndon was so cordial that he could not hint his resentment. He would, just that moment, have preferred rudeness and the chance of an enlivening row. But his loneliness, his uncharted apprehension, vanished with the whisky and soda which both Herndon and Lockert deemed it necessary for him to take before dinner, to ward off all possible colds and other ills. As he stalked up to their bedroom (the reddest red and the shiniest brass and the most voluble little fire), Sam fretted, “I’m getting to be as touchy and fanciful and changeable as an old maid. Yet I never was cranky in the office … never very cranky. Am I too old to learn to loaf? I will!” And he said, as he entered the room and was startled anew at Fran’s shiningness in a combination of white glove silk, “Oh, honey, speaking of old churches, you fitted into that stone aisle as if you were the lady of the manor!”
“And you were so big and straight! Lockert and the General are sweet but—Oh, you old sweet stone statue!”
He remembered for weeks their warm shared affection in the warm red room, as they laughed and dressed. His slight jealousies disappeared at the thought of Lockert off somewhere dressing alone, probably in a room as chill as the drafty corridor.
X
There came in for dinner only a neighbor, whose name was Mr. Alls or Mr. Aldys or Mr. Allis or Mr. Hall or Mr. Aw or Mr. Hoss, with his wife and spinster sister. Because of the British fetish of unannotated introductions, Sam never did learn the profession of Mr. Alls (if that was his name) and naturally, to an American, the profession of a stranger is a more important matter than even his income, his opinion of Socialism, his opinion of Prohibition, or the make of his motor car. Listening to the conversation, Sam concluded at various times that Mr. Alls was a lawyer, an investment banker, a theatrical manager, an author, a Member of Parliament, a professor, or a retired merchant whose passions were Roman remains and racetrack gambling.
For Mr. Alls was full of topics.
And all through the evening Sam kept confusing Mrs. Alls and Miss Alls.
They were exactly alike. They were both tall, thin, shy, pleasant, silent, and clad in lusterless black evening frocks of no style or epoch whatever. Against their modest dullness, Fran was a rather theatrical star in her white satin with a rope of pearls about her gesticulatory right arm … and she was also a little strident and demanding.
When Sam was introduced to Mrs. Alls (or it may have been Miss Alls), she said, “Is this your first visit to England? Are you staying long?”
Contrariwise, when he was introduced to Miss Alls (unless it was Mrs. Alls), she murmured, “How d’you do. How long are you staying in England? I believe this is your first visit.”
So far as he could remember, they said nothing else whatever until they went home.
But Herndon, Lockert, Fran, and Mr. Alls made up for that silence. The General liked an audience, and considered Fran an admirable one. When she thought anyone worth the trouble, she could be a clown, a great lady, a flirt, all in one. She was just irreverent enough to rouse Herndon, yet her manner hinted that all the while she really regarded him as greater than Napoleon and
