Mrs. Balfame: A Novel, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  The "smart set" of Elsinore was composed of the twelve women that couldafford to lose most at bridge. Mrs. Balfame, who could ill afford tolose anything, but who was both a scientific and a lucky player,insisted upon moderate stakes. The other members of this inner exclusivecircle were the wives of two bankers, three contractors, two prosperousmerchants, one judge, one doctor, and two commuters who made theirincomes in New York and slept in Elsinore. These ladies made it a pointof honor to dine at seven, dress smartly and appropriately for alloccasions, attend everything worth while to which they could obtainentrance in New York, pay an occasional visit to Europe, read the newnovels and attend the symphony concerts. It is superfluous to add thatthe very foundation of the superior social status of each was a largehouse of the affluent type peculiar to the prosperous annexes of oldcommunities, half brick and half wood, shallow, characterless,impersonal; and a fine car with a limousine top. The house stood in themidst of a lawn sloping to the street, unconfined by even the box hedgeand undivided from the neighbouring grounds. The garage, little lesspretentious than the mansion, also faced the street, for all to see.There was hardly a horse left in Elsinore; taxi cabs awaited thetraveller at the station, and people that could not afford handsome carspurchased and enjoyed the inexpensive runabout.

  Mrs. Balfame had segregated her smart set for strategic reasons, butthat did not mean that both she and they were not kindness itself to theless favoured. Obviously, an imposing party cannot be given by twelvefamilies alone, especially when almost half their number are childless.On all state occasions the list of invited numbered several hundred, inthat town of some five thousand inhabitants.

  It said much for the innate nobility of these wealthier dames ofElsinore, who read the New York society papers quite as attentively asthey did the war news, that they submitted without a struggle to thedominance of a woman who never had possessed a car and whose husband'sincome was so often diverted from its natural course; but Mrs. Balfamenot only outclassed them in inflexibility of purpose, but her family wasas old as Brabant County; the Dawbarns had never been in what might becalled the cavalry regiment, consisting of those few chosen ones livingin old colonial houses set in large estates and with both roots andbranches in the city of New York; but no one disputed their right to becalled Captains of the infantry. And Mrs. Balfame, sole survivor in thedirect line, had two wealthy cousins in Brooklyn.

  Once in a while Dr. Anna, a privileged character, and born at least inBrabant County, took a hand at bridge, but she was a poor player, and,upon the rare occasions when she found time to spend a Saturdayafternoon at the Country Club, preferred to rest in a deep chair andwatch the young folks flirt and dance until the informal supper wasready. Never had she tripped a step, but she loved youth, and it gaveher an acute old maid's delight to observe the children grow up;snub-nosed, freckled-faced awkward school girls develop at a flying leapinto slim American prettiness, enhanced with every late exaggeration ofstyle. She also approved heartily, on hygienic grounds, of the friendsof her own generation dancing, even in public, if their partners werenot too young and their forms too cumbersome.

  Mrs. Balfame and Dr. Anna arrived at the Club shortly after fouro'clock. Young people swarmed everywhere, within and without; perhapstwenty older matrons were sitting on the veranda knitting thoseindeterminate toilette accessories for the Belgians which always seemedto be about to halt at precisely the same stage of progress.

  Mrs. Balfame, who had set the fashion, had not brought her needlesto-day. She went directly to the card room; but her partner for thetournament not having arrived, she entertained her impatient friendswith a recent domestic episode.

  "I have a German servant, you know," she said, removing her wraps andtaking her seat at the table. "A good creature and a hard worker, butleaden-footed and dull beyond belief. Still, I suppose even the dullestpeasant has spite in her make-up. I have been reading tomes of books onthe war, as you learned from painful experience yesterday; most of them,as it happened--a good joke on Anna that, as she gave me the list--quiteantagonistic to Germany. One day when Frieda should have been dusting Icaught her scowling over the chapter heads of one of them. Of course shereads English--she has been here several years. Day before yesterday,when I was knitting, she asked me whom I was knitting for, and I toldher--for the Belgians, of course. She asked me in a sort of growl why Ididn't knit for the homeless in East Prussia--it seems that is where shecomes from and she has been having letters full of horrors. I seldombandy words with a servant, for you can't permit the slightestfamiliarity in this country if you want to get any work out of them. Butas she scowled as if she would like to explode a shrapnel under me, andas she is the third I have had in the last five months, I saidsoothingly that the newspaper correspondents had neglected the easterntheatre of war, but had harrowed our feelings so about the Belgians thatwe felt compelled to do what we could for them. Then I asked her--I wasreally curious--if she had no sympathy for those thousands of afflictedwomen and children, merely because they were the victims of the Germans.She has a big soft face with thick lips, little eyes, and a rudimentarynose; generally as expressionless as such a face is bound to be. Butwhen I asked her this question it suddenly seemed to turn to wood--notactively cruel; it merely expressed the negation of all human sympathy.She turned without a word and slumped--pardon the expression--out of theroom. But the breakfast was burned this morning--I had to cook anotherfor poor David--and I know she did it on purpose. I am afraid I shallhave to let her go."

  "I would," said Mrs. Battle, wisely. "She is probably a spy and quiteclever."

  "Yes, but such a worker!" Mrs. Balfame sighed reminiscently. "And whenyou have but one servant--"

  The tardy partner bustled in and the game began.