The Brightener

								

a museum were common, every-day objects to my childish eyes. None of
these things could be sold--or the Abbey--for they were all heirlooms
(of our branch of the Courtenayes, not the Americanized ex-cowboy's
insignificant branch, be it understood!). But the place could be let,
with everything in it; and when Mr. Carstairs was first engaged to
unravel Grandmother's financial tangles, he implored her permission to
find a tenant. That was before the war, when I was seventeen; and
Grandmother refused.
"What," she cried (I was in the room, all ears), "would you have me
advertise the fact that we're reduced to beggary, just as the time has
come to present Elizabeth? I'll do nothing of the kind. You must stave
off the smash. That's your business. Then Elizabeth will marry a title
with money, or an American millionaire or someone, and prevent it from
ever coming."
This thrilled me, and I felt like a Joan of Arc out to save her family,
not by capturing a foe, but a husband.
Mr. Carstairs did stave off the smash, Heaven or its opposite alone
knows how, and Grandmother spent about half a future millionaire
husband's possible income in taking a town house, with a train of
servants; renting a Rolls-Royce, and buying for us both the most divine
clothes imaginable. I was long and leggy, and thin as a young colt; but
my face was all right, because it was a replica of Grandmother's at
seventeen. My eyes and dimples were said to be Something to Dream About,
even then (I often dreamed of them myself, after much flattery at
balls!), and already my yellow-brown braids measured off at a yard and a
half. Besides, I had Grandmother's Early Manner (as one says of an
artist: and really she was one), so, naturally, I received proposals:
lots of proposals. But--they were the wrong lots!
All the good-looking young men who wanted to marry me had never a penny
to do it on. All the rich ones were so old and appalling that even
Grandmother hadn't the heart to order me to the altar. So there it
was! Then Jim Courtenaye came over from America, where, after an
adventurous life (or worse), he'd made pots of money by hook or by
crook, probably the latter. He stirred up, from the mud of the past, a
trumpery baronetcy bestowed by stodgy King George the Third upon an
ancestor in that younger, less important branch of the Courtenayes. Also
did he strive expensively to prove a right to Courtenaye Abbey as well,
though not one of his Courtenayes had ever put a nose inside it and I
was the next heir, after Grandmother. He didn't fight (he kindly
explained to Mr. Carstairs) to snatch the property out of our mouths. If
he got it, we might go on living there till the end of our days. All he
wanted was to own the place, and have the right to keep it up
decently, as we'd never been able to do.
Well, he had to be satisfied with his title and without the Abbey; which
was luck for us. But there our luck ended. Not only did the war break