Set in Silver — Story, Setting & Ideas

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 _petit 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 nobody 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 coarsely 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 circumstances. 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 Honoré 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 scrape, and doesn't know what will become of her and "darling Honoré," 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 Honoré'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 Honoré is _very_ good looking (she has his picture in a locket, with _such_ a turned-up moustache--I mean Honoré, 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 Honoré 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 (Honoré'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, Honoré 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. Honoré was ordered off for a month's manoeuvres before he could even ask for leave; and as he's known to be destitute 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 Honoré 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 Honoré, 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 Honoré 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.

She's certain she can persuade Madame de Maluet to let her leave school, to go to the station and meet the Dragon (that's the course he himself suggests: too much trouble even to run out to Versailles and fetch her) with only me as chaperon. I dare say she's right about Madame, for all the teachers will be gone day after to-morrow, and Madame herself invariably collapses the moment school breaks up: she seems to break up with it, and to have to lie in bed for at least half a week to be mended.

Madame has really quite a flattering opinion of my discretion. She's told me so several times. I suppose it's the way I do my hair for school, which does give me a look of incorruptible virtue, doesn't it? Fortunately she doesn't know I always change it (if not too tired) ten minutes after I get home to you.

Well, then, taking Madame's permission for granted, Ellaline points out that all stumbling-blocks are removed, for she won't count moral ones, or let me count them.

I'm to see her off for St. Cloud, and wait to receive the Dragon. "Sir, behold the burnt-offering--I mean, behold your ward!"

And I'm to go on being a burnt-offering till it's convenient for the real Ellaline to scrape my ashes off the smoking altar.

It's all very well to make fun of the thing like that. But to be serious--and goodness knows it's serious enough--what's to be done, little mother? Ellaline has (because I insisted) given me till to-morrow morning to answer. I explained that my consent must depend on your consent. So that's why I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast. I rushed home to write this immense letter to you, and get it off to catch the post. It will arrive in the morning with your coffee and _petits pains_--how I wish I were in its place! You can take half an hour to make up your mind (I'm sure with your lightning wits you wouldn't ask longer to decide the fate of the Great Powers of Europe) and then telegraph me simply "Yes," or "No." I will understand.

For my own sake, naturally, I should prefer "No." That goes unsaid, doesn't it? I should then be relieved of responsibility; for even Ellaline, knowing that you and I are all in all to each other, could hardly expect me to fly in your face, just to please her. But, on the other hand, if you did think I could do this dreadful thing without thereby becoming myself a Dreadful Thing, it would be a glorious relief to pay my debt of gratitude to Ellaline, yes, and even _over_-pay it, perhaps. One likes to over-pay a debt that's been owing a long time, for it's like adding an accumulation of interest that one's creditor never expected to get.

When, gasping after the first shock, I pleaded that I'd do anything else, make any other sacrifice for Ellaline's sake, except this _one_, she flashed out (with the odd shrewdness which lurks in her childishness like a bright little garter-snake darting its head from a bed of violets), saying that was always the way with people. They were invariably ready to do for their best friends, to whom they were grateful, anything on earth except the only thing wanted.

Well, I had no answer to make; for it's true, isn't it? And then Ellaline sobbed dreadfully, clutching at me with little, hot, trembling hands, crying that she'd _counted_ on me, that she'd been sure, after all my promises, I wouldn't fail her. She'd felt so _safe_ with me! Are you surprised I hadn't the heart to refuse? I confess, dear, that if I were quite alone in the world (though the world wouldn't be a world without you) I should certainly have grovelled and consented then and there.

She says she won't close her eyes to-night, and I dare say she won't, in which case she'll be as pathetic as a broken flower to-morrow. I don't think I shall sleep much either, wondering what your verdict will be.

I really haven't the remotest idea whether it will be Yes or No. Usually I imagine that I can pretty well guess what your opinion is likely to be, but I can't this time. The thing to decide upon is in itself so fantastic, so monstrous, that one moment I tell myself you won't even consider it. The next minute I remember what a dear little "crank" you are on the subject of gratitude--your "favourite virtue," as you used to write in old-fashioned "Confession Albums" of provincial American friends when I was a child.

If people do anything nice for you, you run your little high-heeled shoes into holes to do something even nicer for them. If you're invited out to tea, you ask your hostess to lunch or dinner, in return: that sort of thing invariably; and you've brought me up with the same bee in my bonnet. So what _will_ your telegram be?

Whatever you say, you may count on a meek "Amen, so be it," from

Your most admiring subject,

P. S.--Of course, it isn't as if this man were an ordinary, nice, inoffensive human man, is it? I do think that almost any treatment is too good for such a cold-blooded, supercilious old Dragon. And you needn't reprove me for "calling names." With singular justice Providence has ticketed him as appropriately as his worst enemy would have dared to do. They have such weird names in Cornwall, don't they?--and it seems he's a Cornishman. Until lately he was plain Mister, now he's Sir Lionel Pendragon. Somebody has been weak enough to die and leave him a title, and also an estate (though not in Cornwall) which he's returning to England in greedy haste to pounce upon. So characteristic, after living away all these years; though Madame de Maluet has tried to make Ellaline believe he's coming back to settle down because of a letter _she_ wrote, reminding him respectfully that after nineteen it's almost indecent for a girl to be kept at school.

Don't fear, however, if your telegram casts me to the Dragon, that I shall be in danger of getting eaten up. His Dragonship, among other stodgy defects, has that of eminent, well-nigh repulsive, respectability. He is as respectable as a ramrod or a poker, and very elderly, Ellaline says. From the way she talks about him he must be getting on for a hundred, and he is provided with a widowed sister, a Mrs. Norton, whom he has dug up from some place in the country to act as chaperon for his ward. All other women he is supposed to detest, and would, if necessary, beat them off with a stick.

AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER

_Rue Chapeau de Marie Antoinette_, _Versailles_, _July 5th_

My Spartan Angel: Now the telegram's come, I feel as if I'd known all along what your decision would be.

I'm glad you were extravagant enough to add "Writing," for to-morrow morning I shall know by exactly what mental processes you decided. Also, I'm glad (I think I'm glad) that the word is "Yes."