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Page 121
It has been said by those who have been through fires,
earthquakes and shipwrecks that in such times of stress the
social barriers are temporarily broken down, and the spectacle
may be seen of persons of the highest social standing speaking
quite freely to persons who are not in society at all; and of
quite nice people addressing others to whom they have never been
introduced. The news of Aline Peters' elopement with George
Emerson, carried beyond the green-baize door by Slingsby, the
chauffeur, produced very much the same state of affairs in the
servants' quarters at Blandings Castle.
It was not only that Slingsby was permitted to penetrate into the
housekeeper's room and tell his story to his social superiors
there, though that was an absolutely unprecedented occurrence;
what was really extraordinary was that mere menials discussed the
affair with the personal ladies and gentlemen of the castle
guests, and were allowed to do so uncrushed. James, the
footman--that pushing individual--actually shoved his way into
the room, and was heard by witnesses to remark to no less a
person than Mr. Beach that it was a bit thick.
And it is on record that his fellow footman, Alfred, meeting the
groom of the chambers in the passage outside, positively prodded
him in the lower ribs, winked, and said: "What a day we're
having!" One has to go back to the worst excesses of the French
Revolution to parallel these outrages. It was held by Mr. Beach
and Mrs. Twemlow afterward that the social fabric of the castle
never fully recovered from this upheaval. It may be they took an
extreme view of the matter, but it cannot be denied that it
wrought changes. The rise of Slingsby is a case in point. Until
this affair took place the chauffeur's standing had never been
satisfactorily settled. Mr. Beach and Mrs. Twemlow led the party
which considered that he was merely a species of coachman; but
there was a smaller group which, dazzled by Slingsby's
personality, openly declared it was not right that he should take
his meals in the servants' hall with such admitted plebeians as
the odd man and the steward's-room footman.
The Aline-George elopement settled the point once and for all.
Slingsby had carried George's bag to the train. Slingsby had been
standing a few yards from the spot where Aline began her dash for
the carriage door. Slingsby was able to exhibit the actual half
sovereign with which George had tipped him only five minutes
before the great event. To send such a public man back to the
servants' hall was impossible. By unspoken consent the chauffeur
dined that night in the steward's room, from which he was never
dislodged.
Mr. Judson alone stood apart from the throng that clustered about
the chauffeur. He was suffering the bitterness of the supplanted.
A brief while before and he had been the central figure, with his
story of the letter he had found in the Honorable Freddie's coat
pocket. Now the importance of his story had been engulfed in that
of this later and greater sensation, Mr. Judson was learning, for
the first time, on what unstable foundations popularity stands.
Joan was nowhere to be seen. In none of the spots where she might
have been expected to be at such a time was she to be found. Ashe
had almost given up the search when, going to the back door and
looking out as a last chance, he perceived her walking slowly on
the gravel drive.
She greeted Ashe with a smile, but something was plainly
troubling her. She did not speak for a moment and they walked
side by side.
"What is it?" said Ashe at length. "What is the matter?"
She looked at him gravely.
"Gloom," she said. "Despondency, Mr. Marson--A sort of flat
feeling. Don't you hate things happening?"
"I don't quite understand."
"Well, this affair of Aline, for instance. It's so big it makes
one feel as though the whole world had altered. I should like
nothing to happen ever, and life just to jog peacefully along.
That's not the gospel I preached to you in Arundell Street, is it!
I thought I was an advanced apostle of action; but I seem to have
changed. I'm afraid I shall never be able to make clear what I do
mean. I only know I feel as though I have suddenly grown old.
These things are such milestones. Already I am beginning to look
on the time before Aline behaved so sensationally as terribly
remote. To-morrow it will be worse, and the day after that worse
still. I can see that you don't in the least understand what I
mean."
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