Part 14

There was a weight of meaning in the interjection. Not for the eighth of an instant had Mrs. Moss dreamed that the supremely exclusive Duchess of Armingham could truly sympathize or co-operate in those corporate efforts. She knew, only too well, that the "certain pages" she condescended to read had mentioned the Duchess as one of the dissentient minority, and because of that very abstention had herself refrained from joining the movement, and had infected her followers with a similar intention.

Now had come a new change. Her keen, shrewd wits were absolutely bewildered. What should she do? She answered her question by doing nothing, by listening.

"I am sorry to hear you say so," the Duchess repeated, "because it is a unique effort on the part of all. Never before have we had such a union of people of all degrees and classes, as are joined in making this effort."

"But--but--forgive me, Duchess--surely you?" The question was not verbally completed, but it shone in the lady's eye.

"Were recently not in sympathy with the movement?"

"Yes, Duchess, that is my inquiry put into plain English."

"I confess that is so. It was wrong of me to decide as I did, but it is never too late to mend. I am going to help now with all my powers, as my husband has done. Will you join and help too? My request to you to come and meet me to-day was directly due to my zeal for the movement. ('Dear me!' thought the Duchess. 'Was that so?') It seemed such a pity that so noble and practically unanimous an effort should be ignored by anyone who could help it--especially by people of standing." The flattery, though unintended, was not without effect. "I knew you did not purpose to participate in it; neither did I. I have changed my mind, and given up my unsocial intention. Will you, Mrs. Moss?"

"No, Duchess, I cannot!"

"I am sorry you say so, but why?"

"It would make me the laughing-stock of my set."

June motioned to the gnome. He clung to a hanging watch-chain, and held the wand to the recalcitrant lady's lips. She resisted its power. Her mouth was obstinate.

"Surely not, Mrs. Moss. I have heard you are the social queen of an influential following. Those people, whoever they are, would surely come with you, and so render our festivity representative and complete."

More flattery, insidious and unintentional--such tactics being as foreign to the Duchess as grease-paint. Oh, those fairies, the diplomatists!

"It seems so unreasonable. So like--so like a scene in a pantomime or fairy-play."

"Exactly, that--that is the joy of it!"

June, delighted, kissed the Duchess.

"It is against reason and common-sense!"

"Oh no, Mrs. Moss. It is the best kind of reason, and is absolute common-sense!"

"But, please tell me; it's beyond me--what good can the meeting, in such manner, of all sorts of people--noble and shady folk--do?"

"Every kind of good. It will teach the reality of human brotherhood, and tend to make the shady folk--and the noble folk--nobler."

"To be utterly forgotten on the morrow!"

"I think not. I hope not. Once get representatives of all classes and conditions to meet in considerate fraternal intercourse, dining together fifty at one table, and gulfs of mutual suspicion, indifference, dislike, will be crossed never, I hope, to be completely divided again. It is a great idea, hazardous at first, daring always, but now reasonable and most promising. A real step forward in human progress. A large fact of hope."

Her Grace was eloquent. The fairy crown had certainly worked wonders.

Mrs. Moss hesitated still, and Bim lowered the wand with despair. A thick crust of vanity and pride in material things had to be dissolved. She pursed her lips obstinately, and looked at the fire. June thereupon flew across and dumped the crown on her head.

It worked.

"Yes, on consideration, I agree," was the declaration. "I shall be delighted to co-operate. It will mean money--never mind that! My husband and I can afford to give. It will mean service--devoted service. That, too, shall be gladly given by both of us. It is an object worth living for! I will come, and make my friends come, too; but, Duchess"--June removed the crown, and herself donned it--"I must make one condition, please."

"Yes?"

"That you and the Duke come to my New Year's party!"

"If you will invite us--with pleasure!"

"I do invite you--now!"

"Then I accept."

So the compact was made.

When the Duchess and Mrs. Moss were at last alone, each asked herself this question: "What is the world coming to?"

June knew. Bim knew. Oberon in Fairyland had an inkling.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*NEW YEAR'S DAY*

Croakers croaked, of course, but the Christmas Festival, accomplished, was a great success, and no one enjoyed it more than the croakers--when they knew themselves unnoticed. It was a roaring win for optimists. The expectations were everywhere excelled. The dinner was worthy of the intention. The conversations, music, songs, and games, went with a ring. Not a dissentient note was heard. High and humble, rich and poor, met for that occasion as comrades, and the good effects of their coming together remained. The world was, henceforward, better humoured, gentler, more considerate than ever it had been.

It was a triumph to fairies and to the less fortunate folk who are human. There let us leave it!

New Year--the Feast of Good Resolutions--arrived with its loads of customary high intentions. That day brought an opportunity which the fairies meant to make the most of. But the task was not entirely easy, for old habit would be potent.

A New Year's resolution in the past had generally, almost invariably, two necessary distinct parts--the making and the breaking. That was its history. If New Year's Day was the Feast of its Creation, Twelfth Night might certainly be called the funeral day, belated. The building and the forgetting of good resolutions had become such a time-honoured process that each of the stages was as easy as breathing. Lightly entered into, the intention could be even more lightly lost. That was the fairies' difficulty. It would be simple enough to get people to resolve well; but to prevent their having a Twelfth Night of forgetfulness would be a task Titanic in comparison. Still, they must try.

June, by means of her myrmidons, hunted up the ex-Lord Mayor, Sir Titus Dods--now a baronet in the courts of Edward and Oberon--and caused him to come from his retirement at Hampstead to lead in the particular effort.

He induced every newspaper as its special New Year supplement to give away an attractive card on which practicable good resolutions could be written. The cards, inscribed, would be preserved until this New Year was old and out. It was the Mansion House procedure of last May-time repeated, spread over a very far wider area, destined to be similarly successful.

A change came over casual converse. Instead of using such old phrases and time-worn tags as "How d'ye do?" or "Cold day, isn't it?" people greeting each other asked, "Resolutions going strong?"

It was surprising how much more interesting meetings became, and how invariably the answer was "Yes." Self-respect struggled to attain the affirmative answer.

So there was progress in all ways, splendid progress.

June's company was growing so rapidly--every hour of the night and day bringing at least one recruit--that her mighty mimic ladyship was able to concentrate attention on the so-called Smart Set. She remembered the New Year's party to be held at Liberty Hall and went to it, taking a regiment of elf-folk with her--Bim the only gnome.

The fairies clustered about the door and stairways, and made fun of the white-headed footmen.

"Why did these voluminous mortals wear that mess?" The night was bright with their satire.

Regularly and rapidly the company of guests arrived. They came with their usual boisterousness, and then--and then----

The influence of the elves had a curious effect on hosts and on guests. It proved strangely restraining. Barnett Q. felt like a Sunday-school superintendent at a too-French French play, a humid pink of uncomfortable propriety. Mrs. Moss was, as usual, nervously fluttered with a new anxiety frightening her heart--how would her guests, destined to bask in ducal radiance, behave?

Liberty Hall was metamorphosed. The noise, display, and wildness which heretofore had made its functions famous were rapidly replaced by a superfine straightness--a Bowdlerized bonhomie, self-conscious and constrained. The rabble of Comus was muzzled.

Hoary sinners and flaxen-headed _mondaines_ were prim, simpering, moralizing, painfully on their goodily-good behaviour. They were nerve-fettered, with spirits weighed down. They knew it, they felt it, and could not comprehend or complain. The fairies held them in thrall. From the elves' point of view it was supremely funny. Those spirit-masters of the revels laughed till many of them became bright scarlet.

The Duke and Duchess of Armingham, accompanied by Geoffrey--who had done his best to induce his mother not to go--arrived at ten. Mrs. Moss breathed a sigh of relief. Now, come what might, her party was justified. Whatever the ultimate verdict might be, Vanity Fair must approve something. She had got the Duchess!

The new guests, followed by the fairies, trooped into the ballroom. The band struck up a barn-dance, which was footed with decorum. Everybody was surprised, the Duchess agreeably so.

The Duke put on pince-nez, and went in search of the prettiest possible partner he could find. He had come to his second youth, and meant to enjoy it. He found himself murmuring complimentary epigrams to Lalage and Chloe, written by himself during college days when under the glamour of Horace. He wondered if they would do.

Geoffrey talked of New-Year reforms to Barnett Q. with the seriousness of a budding legislator, and remembered his previous experience at Liberty Hall. What a difference! Then had been riot; this was the other extreme. Where was the reason why?

The company consisted--he saw--mostly of the same people who previously had wrought vulgar tumult there; every face was more or less familiar to him; but their manners, hitherto blatant, were now positively mealy-mouthed. Roaring lions expressed themselves with the modesty of penny whistles. What did it mean? Bounders, ninnies, minxes had left off their meannesses and become decently human.

Any attempt at vulgarity was instantly hushed and checked. Lame efforts at ostentation were remorselessly snubbed. Geoffrey had learned several things during the last few days; his eyes had been better opened. He put this condition of strained propriety down to its right source, the fairies; but her Grace, his mother, had also something to do with it. Mrs. Moss was positive it was mainly due to the dear Duchess.

The coming of the Arminghams was certainly an event in the social history of Liberty Hall. If it had not been for the strange sense of constraint which held her, Mrs. Moss would have exulted, pleased as a young redskin with his first scalp. As it was, she fluttered like a nervous hen round an ostrich-egg, knowing she had not lived in vain.

It was the Duke who, the fairies willing, broke down the barriers of undue restraint. The elf-atmosphere, which subdued the loud rich, roused and awakened him. He was inclined to rollick. Breaking through the established order of things, he induced Barnett Q. to start an old country dance. The experiment took. Feet which earlier in the evening had been lamely waltzing or half-heartedly two-stepping became lively with Sir Roger de Coverley. It was a revolution, transformation complete.

Clean simplicity came to people who had always deemed it folly to be simple. Whole-heartedly the guests joined in the dance--they hurried to take places in long laughing rows--the Duchess herself came down from the proud mountains to go trotting through a smiling avenue with her partner, Barnett Q. The fairies, too, made shimmering lines, and improved on the movements of the human-folk. There were no more unsocial or ugly dances that night. The party was for all the world like one played by happy children.

Girls of blasee eighteen became young for the first time since they left the nursery; gilded youths resisted tendencies towards brainless talk and inelegant posing; oldsters, whose dyed hair and waxed moustaches whispered grey stories, forgot affectations and selfishness; ladies of middle age declined to be wall-flowers longer. They asked idlers to partner them in a natural feminine way. Hilarity was alive. The card-room was abandoned. Fairies were helping lovers along the happy pathway. The clock most musically clanged twelve in sympathy.

"My love," declared Barnett Q., panting, to his wife, "this is the best we have ever had."

"The dear Duchess!" said she. There was little credit for the fairies from her.

The dance and the party went on, and momentarily grew brighter with joy.

Supper-time came. The meal was to have been a series of snacks, fizz and rushes as usual; but June ruled otherwise. She had learned that the time men are more likely to be serious, and are certainly most easily influenced, is meal-time; so she ordained that the whole company of guests should go to the supper-room together, and although this necessitated some give-and-take and a great deal of squeezing--borne by young couples with a patience beyond their years--it was managed. Plates and cutlery were soon a-clatter, and the hum of happy conversation arose. Meanwhile, the elves distributed themselves amongst the company. Their time had come.

June, with Bim marching behind her, went along the tables to make sure that her helpers were in their places. Wine-glasses were touched with magic. The champagne sparkled with extra enchantment.

June danced back to her place at the head of the chief table, and rapped the knuckles of Mr. Moss. He rose, raised a glass, and proposed a loyal toast. It was drunk with cordiality. The company, sipping their wine, absorbed magic.

"Now," he said, as June put the compelling crown upon him, "I'm going to ask you to drink another toast, what I will call the toast of the evening, 'The Fairies'!"

The outburst of enthusiasm that followed reminded June of the banquet at the Mansion House. New wine, enchanted, was poured into glasses wand-touched. The liquor carried fresh inspiration to the human lips.

"The Fairies! The Fairies! Oberon! Titania!" the guests cried.

June and Company--all except wingless Bim, who perforce must stay squatting on a bunch of purple grapes--flew above and about, pouring charms on the mortals; singing a song whilst flying which the men-things nearly heard.

The flying procession went gaily trailing thrice round the room; then the fairies dropped back to their proper places. The shouting now must wait a while. June gave Barnett Q. a peremptory command. He was obedient as a marionette.

"May I make a speech?" he asked his guests.

"You must!" was the unanimous answer.

He struck the attitude of oratory, and successfully overcame his lingering tendency to Yankee mannerisms.

"As we age," he began sententiously, "not many of us really grow wiser. So, if you please, we will--every one of us--be young again--and immediately. That way, and that way only, can we do what the fairies demand of us. Those careless youths, the children, have amazingly good opportunities, if only they knew it."

"Go right on, Barnett!" counselled his wife, who, even in this swelter of excitement, was keeping anxious eyes on the Duchess, hoping she would not be bored. There was little fear of that happening, however bald the new Moss philosophy might be.

The Duchess was, indeed, a fine picture of genial benevolence. She beamed and, practically a presiding presence there, enjoyed something of the satisfaction felt by a patron saint. Her former enemies would not have known her had they dreamed of scrutinizing her in the old cruel way.

"Are you in the mood for elf-wisdom?" the millionaire asked.

"We are!" Geoffrey answered, voicing the general feeling.

"Are you willing--ladies and gentlemen both--to be knights-errant, to go on a quest for the sake of the fairies?"

"We are! We are!"

Every one of them--men and women, boys and girls--answered this time. Would-be Britomarts and Calidores were plentiful as mushrooms in October; but the Blatant Beast they were to pursue was their own vanities, selfishness, vices. "Very well. The first requirement is that you at once write on your dance-programmes some such resolution as this: 'Not a day in this new year shall pass without my having made someone in the world happier by my works.' Phrase it as you please, my friends, but don't mistake my meaning."

"But what kind of works?" asked Sir Gussie, the calculating and precise, as he screwed in a heavy-rimmed monocle, to stare at this re-maker of manners.

"Use your eyes, my boy, and decide for yourself," was the prompt answer. "Look at the every-day sights of London, and then carry comfort to those who need."

Barnett Moss was in his element. He was the born manager. He ruled that assembly--by gracious permission of June--as effectually as he would have dominated a Board meeting. He would carry this thing through.

The pencils attached to the programmes were busily inscribing the fine promise. The butler and footmen attending the table supplied cards to those without them, and themselves surreptitiously wrote down similar good intentions. June, gratified by this pleasant spirit of theirs, made them a little better-looking--rather a good form of reward.

Enchantment was potent everywhere in the large excited room.

"Is it down?" Barnett asked. His little eyes glittered with excitement, as they always glittered when he was governing a masterly transaction.

"It is," was after a while the general answer.

"Now how to keep it. May I ask the Duchess of Armingham to assist the fairies in this?"

The Duchess bowed assent. The company clapped hands delightedly. Her Grace seemed changed. Could that smiling presence be she who had for so long been their bugbear? Many of that company, had they not been caught by the glamour of the occasion, would have doubted their senses as to her identity. The Duke poised his glasses and pursed his lips, studying her. He hardly knew his own wife.

"Good!" commented Barnett Q., confirming her assent; "this is how the Quest you knights are to follow shall be kept. Once every month, by call or by letter, every person here who has made and signed this promise must report to the Duchess its fulfilment; and let no one"--his voice took on accents of tremendous seriousness--"let no one who, by breaking this exacting resolution, proves unworthy, presume to darken the doorsteps of Armingham House!"

There was a great flutter and babble of talk as the serious words and their full purport sank into the minds of those addressed. To these worldlings, even in this sublimer mood, no more acceptable bait could be offered than the opportunity of a visiting friendship with the Duchess. The front-door of Armingham House was to them as the entrance to Paradise. To consort with such as she--a real leader of high-placed people--was a passport to supreme society, worth achieving, worth enjoying, worth retaining--the thing they most desired. It was the best effective means for securing good behaviour and destroying vulgarity that could be devised. But the Duchess, what did she think of this definite proposal?

The Duke, in his shrewd mind, had a good deal of doubt about it. He leaned forward to study the Duchess's face, to read her intention; and was amazed. She rose to her feet to make pronouncement.

"I shall be willing and glad to do what Mr. Moss has asked of me. He is the mouthpiece of the fairies, I understand that. I accept the task from them; and shall be proud to number amongst my personal friends the kind ones here who, by inscribing and signing their cards, as bidden, have taken what may be called a vow of personal service, following the quest of a social purpose. The first Tuesday afternoon in every month will be my reception day, when in town or at Armingham Castle. Will my new friends remember that?"

She resumed her seat. The interlude was ended. With new zest the assembly returned to the ball-room, and enjoyed their games and play. The artificial restraint that had held them earlier was gone. They had become gentle.

Some of them began their Quest that very night.

Sir Gussie, to whom gambling had been a profitable passion, and cards the first of pastimes, resolved in future to play for counters; and, as amends for past misgains, went along a dingy street and dropped a sovereign into five-and-twenty shabby letter-boxes.

Ladies'-maids, who, yawning and jaded, had waited till dawn for their mistresses, were greeted with smiles and thanks--a welcome change from the wonted shrill-tempered crossness which almost invariably had been their recompense hitherto.

One bright youth--with the earnestness of a beginner, which even when misguided is something splendid--devoted his powers to helping a drunken man homeward. Another sparkling boy at once totted up a list of his debts and made plans of economy whereby he might redeem them. Another went off post-haste to write an apology to a family he--through selfishness--had wronged. A fourth--Mr. Harris, a motorist, with whom Geoffrey Season had half an acquaintance--vowed to walk five miles daily for two months along a car-infested road, to see for himself what road-hog tyranny meant.

And so on, and so forth, in all manner of ways, wise and unwise, but always sincere and determined, the beginnings of the amelioration of the Smart Set began.

It worked well, after a little while, as every movement launched by the fairies is bound to do. The coming together of the sudden plutocracy with true aristocrats had good effects--broadening and strengthening--on both. It taught restraint, consideration, responsibility. Social organizations increased in numbers, sway and influence. No hospital or charitable purpose was now hampered for lack of funds. Processions of the unemployed ceased to be. There were fewer children in the streets of poverty: the childless rich had adopted them.

Humanity was linked closer, with cords of great kindness. No one was better affected by it than the Duchess of Armingham. She remained genial, a power persuasive; and grew in bounty, charm and kindness. She felt something of a fairy queen herself.

So June won the stronghold. The poor and the rich, the weak, the proud and the great, were with her now. She was leading a host, human and immortal. Her madness was justified.

*CHAPTER XX*

*IN PARLIAMENT*

February arrived, succeeding a period of immense elf-activity. Mankind was rapidly waking up to the improved condition of things; more and more recruits were coming from Fairyland to keep men's purposes kind and bright; the metropolis was cleaning itself vigorously, and putting on colour, so that from all parts of the world people journeyed to its streets, to gather aesthetic inspiration and delight.

Londoners realized at last that they were people of a majestic city, that the grime and sordid ugliness which for ages had shrouded their buildings veiled a world rich with poetry and beauty. With their civic soul requickened, they studied and were proud of the thousand years of living history--their heritage. They wore their hats with a cock. Their stride lengthened. Their chins showed disdain for the gutter. The ancient Romans, the Venetians and Florentines of medieval Italy, were not more truly town-patriotic than were the inhabitants of the rediscovered London.