AN ORGY OF SHOPPING!
OH, what an afternoon we've had!
Talk about "one crowded hour of glorious life." Well, Million and I have
had from two to six; that is, four crowded glorious hours of shopping! I
scarcely know where we've been, except that they were all the most
expensive places. Any woman who reads this story will understand me when
I say I made a bee-line for those shops that don't put very much in the
show-window.
Just one perfect gown on a stand, perhaps, one filmy dream of a lingerie
blouse, a pair of silk stockings that looked as if they'd been fashioned
by the fairies out of spun sunset, and a French girl's name splashed in
bold white letters across the pane--that was the sort of decoration of
the establishments patronised by Miss Million and her maid.
As before, the maid (myself) had to do all the ordering, while the
heiress shrank and slunk and cowered in the background. For poor little
Million was really too overawed for words by those supercilious and slim
young duchesses in black satin, the shop assistants who glided towards
us with a haughty "What may I show you, Moddom?" From "undies" (all
silk) to corsets (supple perfection!), through ready-made costumes to
afternoon frocks and blouses and hats and evening-gowns I made my
relentless way.
After the first few gasps from Million of "Oh, far too expensive.... Oh,
Miss!... Haven't they any cheaper than.... Twenty? Lor'! Does she mean
twenty shillings, Miss Beatrice? What! Twenty pounds? Oh, we can't----"
I left off asking the prices of things. I simply selected the garments
or the hats that looked the sweetest and harmonised the best with my new
employer's black hair and bright grey frightened eyes. I heard myself
saying with a new note of authority in my voice: "Yes! That'll do. And
the little shoes to match. And two dozen of these. And put that with the
others. I will have them all sent together." What did money matter, when
it came to ordering an outfit for a millionairess?
I grew positively intoxicated with the mad joy of choosing clothes under
these conditions. Isn't it the day-dream of every human being who wears
a skirt? Isn't it "what every woman wants?" A free hand for a trousseau
of all new things! To choose the most desirable, to materialise every
vision she's ever had of the Perfect Hat, the Blouse of Blouses, and to
think "never mind what it costs!"
And this, at last, had fallen to my lot. I quite forgot that I was not
the millionairess for whom all this many-coloured and soft perfection
was to be sent "home"--"to the Hotel Cecil, I'll trouble you." I only
remembered that I was the millionairess's maid when one of the
black-satin duchesses, in the smartest hat shop, informed me that I
"could perfectly wear" the little Viennese hat with the flight of
jewelled humming-birds, and I had had to inform her that the hat was
intended for "the other lady."
"We'll do a little shopping for me, now," I decided, when we left that
hat-shop divinity with three new creations to pack up for Miss Million
at the Cecil. I said: "I'm tired of people not knowing exactly what I
am. I'm going to choose a really 'finished' kit for a superior
lady's-maid, so that everybody shall recognise my 'walk in life' at the
first glance!"
"Miss! Oh, Miss Beatrice, you can't," protested Million, in shocked
tones. "You're never going to wear--livery, like?"
"I am," I declared. "A plain black gown, very perfectly cut, an
exquisite muslin apron with a little bib, and a cap like----"
"Miss! You can't wear a cap," declared little Million, standing stock
still at the top of Bond Street and gazing at me as if I had planned the
subversion of all law and order and fitness. "All very well for you to
come and help me, as you might say, just to oblige, and to be a sort of
companion to me and to call yourself my maid. But I never, never
bargained for you, Miss Beatrice, to go about wearing no caps! Why,
there's plenty of young girls in my own walk of life--I mean in what
used to be my own walk! Plenty of young girls who wouldn't dream of
being found drowned in such a thing as a cap! Looks so menial, they
said. Several of the girls at the Orphanage said they'd never put such a
thing on their heads once they got away. And a lady's-maid, well,
'tisn't even the same as a parlour-maid! And you with such a nice head
of hair of your own, Miss Beatrice!" Million expostulated with almost
tearful incoherence. "A reel lady's-maid isn't required to wear a cap,
even if she does slip on an apron!"
"You shut up," I gaily commanded the employer upon whom I now depend for
my daily bread. "I am going to wear a cap. And to look rather sweet in
it."
And I did.
For when I'd spent the two quarters' salary that I'd ordered Million to
advance to me, I looked at myself in a long glass at the establishment
where they seem particularly great on "small stock sizes"--my size. I
beheld myself a completely different shape from the lumpy little bunch
of a girl that I'd been in blue serge that seemed specially designed to
hide every decent line of her figure. I was really quite as graceful as
the portrait of Lady Anastasia herself! This was thanks to the
beautifully built, severely simple gown, fitted on over a pair of
low-cut, glove-like, elastic French stays. The dead-black of it showed
up my long, slim throat (my one inheritance from my great-grandmother!),
which seemed as white as the small, impertinently befrilled apron that I
tied about my waist. The cap was just a white butterfly perched upon the
bright chestnut waves of my hair.
And the general effect of Miss Million's maid at that moment was of
something rather pretty and fetching in the stage-lady's maid line, from
behind the footlights at Daly's. I'm sorry to have to blow my own
trumpet like this, but after all it was the first time I'd ever seen
myself look so really nice. I thought it was quite a pity that there was
no one but Million and the girl in the "maids' caps department" to
admire me! Then, for some funny, unexplained reason, I thought of
somebody else who might possibly catch a glimpse of me looking like
this. I thought of the blue-eyed, tall, blonde manager of the bank where
Million has opened her account; Mr. Reginald Brace, who lives next door
to where we used to live; the honest, pleasant-voiced person whom I look
upon as such a good match for Million; the young man who's arranged to
come and have tea with her at her hotel next Thursday.
He will be the very first caller she's had since she ceased to be little
Nellie Million, the maid-of-all-work.