'Her fiance 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 grave, 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, cleanshaven, 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 fiance (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 fiance'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 dare say 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.