'Well, well.' The woman was looking at me and Ellie said quietly, 'Let me introduce – Mr. Rogers, Mrs. Bennington.'
'How d'you do. How long are you here for?'
'I'm leaving tomorrow,' said Ellie.
'Oh dear! My, I'll lose my party if I don't go, and I just don't want to miss a word of the lecture and the descriptions. They do hustle one a bit, you know. I'm just dead beat at the end of the day. Any chance of meeting you for a drink?'
'Not today,' said Ellie, 'we're going on an excursion.'
Mrs. Bennington rushed off to rejoin her party. Ellie, who had been going with me up the steps of the Acropolis, turned round and moved down again.
'That rather settles things, doesn't it,' she said to me.
'What does it settle?'
Ellie did not answer for a minute or two and then she said with a sigh, 'I must write tonight.'
'Write to whom?'
'Oh, to Nora, and to Uncle Frank, I suppose, and Uncle Andrew.'
'Who's Uncle Andrew? He's a new one.'
'Andrew Lippincott. Not really an uncle. He's my principal guardian or trustee or whatever you call it. He's a lawyer – a very well known one.'
'What are you going to say?'
'I'm going to tell them I'm married. I couldn't say suddenly to Nora Bennington 'Let me introduce my husband'. There would have been frightful shrieks and exclamations and 'I never heard you were married. Tell me all about it, darling' etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's only fair that my stepmother and Uncle Frank and Uncle Andrew should be the first to know.' She sighed. 'Oh well, we've had a lovely time up to now.'
'What will they say or do?' I asked.
'Make a fuss, I expect,' said Ellie, in her placid way. 'It doesn't matter if they do and they'll have sense enough to know that. We'll have to have a meeting, I expect. We could go to New York. Would you like that?' She looked at me inquiringly.
'No,' I said, 'I shouldn't like it in the least.'
'Then they'll come to London probably, or some of them will. I don't know if you'd like that any better.'
'I shouldn't like any of it. I want to be with you and see our house going up brick by brick as soon as Santonix gets there.'
'So we can,' said Ellie. 'After all, meetings with the family won't take long. Possibly just one big splendid row would do. Get it over in one. Either we fly over there or they fly over here.'
'I thought you said your stepmother was at Salzburg.'
'Oh, I just said that. It sounded odd to say I didn't know where she was. Yes,' said Ellie with a sigh, 'we'll go home and meet them all. Mike, I hope you won't mind too much.'
'Mind what – your family?'
'Yes. You won't mind if they're nasty to you.'
'I suppose it's the price I have to pay for marrying you,' I said. 'I'll bear it.'
'There's your mother,' said Ellie thoughtfully.
'For heaven's sake, Ellie, you're not going to try and arrange a meeting between your stepmother in her frills and her furbelows and my mother from her back street. What do you think they'd ever have to say to each other?'
'If Cora was my own mother they might have quite a lot to say to each other,' said Ellie. 'I wish you wouldn't be so obsessed with class distinctions, Mike!'
'Me!' I said incredulously. 'What's your American phrase – I come from the wrong side of the tracks, don't I?'
'You don't want to write it on a placard and pin it on yourself.'
'I' don't know the right clothes to wear,' I said bitterly. 'I don't know the right way to talk about things and I don't know anything really about pictures or art or music. I'm only just learning who to tip and how much to give.'
'Don't you think, Mike, that that makes it all much more exciting for you? I think so.'
'Anyway,' I said, 'you're not to drag my mother into your family party.'
'I wasn't proposing to drag anyone into anything, but I think, Mike, I ought to go and see your mother when we go back to England.'
'No,' I said explosively.
She looked at me rather startled.
'Why not, Mike, though. I mean, apart from anything else, I mean it's just very rude not to. Have you told her you're married?'
'Not yet.'
'Why not?'
I didn't answer.
'Wouldn't the simplest way be to tell her you're married and take me to see her when we get back to England?'
'No,' I said again. It was not so explosive this time but it was still fairly well underlined.
'You don't want me to meet her,' said Ellie, slowly.
I didn't, of course. I suppose it was obvious enough but the last thing I could do was to explain. I didn't see how could explain.
'It wouldn't be the right thing to do,' I said slowly. 'You must see that. I'm sure it would lead to trouble.'
'You think she wouldn't like me?'
'Nobody could help liking you, but it wouldn't – oh I don't know how to put it. But she might be upset and confused. After all, well, I mean I've married out of my station. That's the old-fashioned term. She wouldn't like that.'
Ellie shook her head slowly.
'Does anybody really think like that nowadays?'
'Of course they do. They do in your country too.'
'Yes,' she said, 'in a way that's true but – if anyone makes good there -'
'You mean if a man makes a lot of money.'
'Well, not only money.'
'Yes,' I said, 'it's money. If a man makes a lot of money he's admired and looked up to and it doesn't matter where he was born.'
'Well, that's the same everywhere,' said Ellie.
'Please, Ellie,' I said. 'Please don't go and see my mother.'
'I still think it's unkind.'
'No it isn't. Can't you let me know what's best for my own mother? She'd be upset. I tell you she would.'
'But you must tell her you've got married.'
'All right,' I said. 'I'll do that.'
It occurred to me it would be easier to write to my mother from abroad. That evening when Ellie was writing to Uncle Andrew and Uncle Frank and her stepmother Cora van Stuyvesant, I, too, was writing my own letter. It was quite short.
'Dear Mum,' I wrote. 'I ought to have told you before but I felt a bit awkward. I got married three weeks ago. It was all rather sudden. She's a very pretty girl and very sweet. She's got a lot of money which makes things a bit awkward sometimes. We're going to build ourselves a house somewhere in the country. Just at present we're travelling around Europe. All the best, Yours, Mike.'
The results of our evening's correspondence were somewhat varied. My mother let a week elapse before she sent a letter remarkably typical of her.
'Dear Mike. I was glad to get your letter. I hope you'll be very happy. Your affectionate mother.'
