Louise

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

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"The tea will be quite cold, you'd better ring for some more," said theDowager Lady Beanford.Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted withimaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; Clovis Sangrailirreverently declared that she had caught a chill at the Coronation ofQueen Victoria and had never let it go again. Her sister, JaneThropplestance, who was some years her junior, was chiefly remarkable forbeing the most absent-minded woman in Middlesex."I've really been unusually clever this afternoon," she remarked gaily,as she rang for the tea. "I've called on all the people I meant to callon; and I've done all the shopping that I set out to do. I evenremembered to try and match that silk for you at Harrod's, but I'dforgotten to bring the pattern with me, so it was no use. I really thinkthat was the only important thing I forgot during the whole afternoon.Quite wonderful for me, isn't it?""What have you done with Louise?" asked her sister. "Didn't you take herout with you? You said you were going to.""Good gracious," exclaimed Jane, "what have I done with Louise? I musthave left her somewhere.""But where?""That's just it. Where have I left her? I can't remember if theCarrywoods were at home or if I just left cards. If there were at home Imay have left Louise there to play bridge. I'll go and telephone to LordCarrywood and find out.""Is that you, Lord Carrywood?" she queried over the telephone; "it's me,Jane Thropplestance. I want to know, have you seen Louise?""'Louise,'" came the answer, "it's been my fate to see it three times. Atfirst, I must admit, I wasn't impressed by it, but the music grows on oneafter a bit. Still, I don't think I want to see it again just atpresent. Were you going to offer me a seat in your box?""Not the opera 'Louise'--my niece, Louise Thropplestance. I thought Imight have left her at your house.""You left cards on us this afternoon, I understand, but I don't think youleft a niece. The footman would have been sure to have mentioned it ifyou had. Is it going to be a fashion to leave nieces on people as wellas cards? I hope not; some of these houses in Berkeley-square havepractically no accommodation for that sort of thing.""She's not at the Carrywoods'," announced Jane, returning to her tea;"now I come to think of it, perhaps I left her at the silk counter atSelfridge's. I may have told her to wait there a moment while I went tolook at the silks in a better light, and I may easily have forgottenabout her when Ifound I hadn't your pattern with me. In that case she'sstill sitting there. She wouldn't move unless she was told to; Louisehas no initiative.""You said you tried to match the silk at Harrod's," interjected thedowager."Did I? Perhaps it was Harrod's. I really don't remember. It was oneof those places where every one is so kind and sympathetic and devotedthat one almost hates to take even a reel of cotton away from suchpleasant surroundings.""I think you might have taken Louise away. I don't like the idea of herbeing there among a lot of strangers. Supposing some unprincipled personwas to get into conversation with her.""Impossible. Louise has no conversation. I've never discovered a singletopic on which she'd anything to say beyond 'Do you think so? I dare sayyou're right.' I really thought her reticence about the fall of theRibot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her dear mother usedto visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far too thin; it crumblesaway long before you can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd,snapping at one's food in mid-air, like a trout leaping at may-fly.""I am rather surprised," said the dowager, "that you can sit there makinga hearty tea when you've just lost a favourite niece.""You talk as if I'd lost her in a churchyard sense, instead of havingtemporarily mislaid her. I'm sure to remember presently where I lefther.""You didn't visit any place of devotion, did you? If you've left hermooning about Westminster Abbey or St. Peter's, Eaton Square, withoutbeing able to give any satisfactory reason why she's there, she'll beseized under the Cat and Mouse Act and sent to Reginald McKenna.""That would be extremely awkward," said Jane, meeting an irresolute pieceof bread and butter halfway; "we hardly know the McKennas, and it wouldbe very tiresome having to telephone to some unsympathetic privatesecretary, describing Louise to him and asking to have her sent back intime for dinner. Fortunately, I didn't go to any place of devotion,though I did get mixed up with a Salvation Army procession. It was quiteinteresting to be at close quarters with them, they're so absolutelydifferent to what they used to be when I first remember them in the'eighties. They used to go about then unkempt and dishevelled, in a sortof smiling rage with the world, and now they're spruce and jaunty andflamboyantly decorative, like a geranium bed with religious convictions.Laura Kettleway was going on about them in the lift of the Dover StreetTube the other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what aloss it would have been if they'd never existed. 'If they had neverexisted,' I said, 'Granville Barker would have been certain to haveinvented something that looked exactly like them.' If you say thingslike that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like epigrams.""I think you ought to do something about Louise," said the dowager."I'm trying to think whether she was with me when I called on AdaSpelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself there. Ada was trying, as usual, toram that odious Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing perfectly wellthat I detest her, and in an unguarded moment she said: 'She's leavingher present house and going to Lower Seymour Street.' 'I dare say shewill, if she stays there long enough,' I said. Ada didn't see it forabout three minutes, and then she was positively uncivil. No, I amcertain I didn't leave Louise there.""If you could manage to remember where you _did_ leave her, it would bemore to the point than these negative assurances," said Lady Beanford;"so far, all we know is that she is not at the Carrywoods', or AdaSpelvexit's, or Westminster Abbey.""That narrows the search down a bit," said Jane hopefully; "I ratherfancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay's. I know I wentto Mornay's, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm What's-his-name there--you know whom I mean. That's the great advantage ofpeople having unusual first names, you needn't try and remember whattheir other name is. Of course I know one or two other Malcolms, butnone that could possibly be described as delightful. He gave me twotickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square. I've probablyleft them at Mornay's, but still it was awfully kind of him to give themto me.""Do you think you left Louise there?""I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the tea-thingsaway I wish you'd ring up Mornay's, in Regent Street, and ask if I lefttwo theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon.""A niece, ma'am?" asked the footman."Yes, Miss Louise didn't come home with me, and I'm not sure where I lefther.""Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, ma'am, reading to thesecond kitchenmaid, who has the neuralgia. I took up tea to Miss Louiseat a quarter to five o'clock, ma'am.""Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I asked her to read the_Faerie Queene_ to poor Emma, to try to send her to sleep. I always getsome one to read the _Faerie Queene_ to me when I have neuralgia, and itusually sends me to sleep. Louise doesn't seem to have been successful,but one can't say she hasn't tried. I expect after the first hour or sothe kitchenmaid would rather have been left alone with her neuralgia, butof course Louise wouldn't leave off till some one told her to. Anyhow,you can ring up Mornay's, Robert, and ask whether I left two theatretickets there. Except for your silk, Susan, those seem to be the onlythings I've forgotten this afternoon. Quite wonderful for me."

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