Lady Maude Diphoos sat in her dressing-room in Portland Place with her
long brown hair let down and spread all around her like some beautiful
garment designed by nature to hide her soft white bust and arms, which
were crossed before her as she gazed in the long dressing-glass draped
with pink muslin.
For the time being that dressing-glass seemed to be a framed picture in
which could be seen the sweet face of a beautiful woman, whose blue eyes
were pensive and full of trouble. It was the picture of one greatly in
deshabille; but then it was the lady's dressing-room, and there was no
one present but the maid.
The chamber was charmingly furnished, enough showing in the glass to
make an effective background to the picture; and to add to the charm
there was a delicious odour of blended scents that seemed to be exhaled
by the principal flower in the room--she whose picture shone in the
muslin-draped frame.
There is nothing very new, it may be presumed, for a handsome woman to
be seated before her glass with her long hair down, gazing straight
before her into the reflector; but this was an exceptional case, for
Maude Diphoos was looking right into her mirror and could not see
herself. Sometimes what she saw was Charley Melton, but at the present
moment the face of Dolly Preen, her maid, as that body stood half behind
her chair, brushing away at her mistress' long tresses, which crackled
and sparkled electrically, and dropping upon them certain moist pearls
which she as rapidly brushed away.
Dolly Preen was a pretty, plump, dark girl, with a certain rustic beauty
of her own such as was found sometimes in the sunny village by the
Hurst, from which she had been taken to become young ladies' maid, a
sort of moral pincushion, into which Mademoiselle Justine Framboise, her
ladyship's attendant, stuck venomed verbal pins.
But Dolly did not look pretty in the glass just now, for her nose was
very red, her eyes were swollen up, and as she sniffed, and choked, and
uttered a low sob from time to time, she had more the air of a severely
punished school-girl than a prim young ladies' maid in an aristocratic
family.
Dolly wept and dropped tears on the beautiful soft tangled hair at which
Sir Grantley Wilters had often cast longing glances. Then she brushed
them off again, and took out her handkerchief to blow her nose--a nose
which took a great deal of blowing, as it was becoming overcharged with
tears.
"Oh, Dolly, Dolly," said her mistress at last, "this is very, very sad."
At this moment through the open window, faintly heard, there floated,
softened by distance, that delicious, now forgotten, but once popular
strain--"I'm a young man from the country, but you don't get over me."
Dorothy Preen, Sussex yeoman's daughter, was a young woman from the
country, and was it because the air seemed _apropos_ that the maiden
suddenly uttered an ejaculation which sounded like _Ow_! and dropping
the ivory-backed brush, plumped herself down upon the carpet, as if
making a nursery cheese, and began to sob as if her heart would break?
Was it the appropriate nature of the air? No; it was the air producer.
"Oh, Dolly, Dolly, I don't know what to say," said Lady Maude gently, as
she gave her hair a whisk and sent it all flying to one side. "I don't
want to send you back home."
"No, no, no, my lady, please don't do that," blubbered the girl.
"But her ladyship is thinking very seriously about it, Dolly, and you
see you were found talking to him."
"Ye--ye--yes, my lady."
"But, you foolish girl, don't you understand that he is little better
than a beggar--an Italian mendicant?"
"Ye-ye-yes, my lady."
"Then how can you be so foolish?"
"I--I--I don't know, my lady."
"You, a respectable farmer's daughter, to think of taking up with a low
man who goes about the streets turning the handle of an organ. Dolly,
Dolly, my poor girl, what does it mean?"
"I--I--I don't know, my lady. Ow! I am so miserable."
"Of course you are, my good girl. There, promise me you'll forget it
all, and I'll speak to her ladyship, and tell her you'll be more
sensible, and get her to let you stay."
"I--I can't, my lady."
"Cannot what?"
"Forget him, my lady."
"Why not?"
"Be-be-because he is so handsome."
"Oh, Dolly, I've no patience with you."
"N-n-no, my lady, because you--you ain't--ain't in love," sobbed the
girl with angry vehemence, as she covered her face with her hands and
rocked herself to and fro.
"For shame, Dolly," cried Maude, with her face flamingly red. "If a
woman is in love that is no reason for her degrading herself. I'm
shocked at you."
"Ye-ye-yes, my lady, bu-bu-but you don't know; you--you--you haven't
felt it yet. Wh-wh-when it comes over you some day, you--you--you'll be
as bad as I am. Ow! ow! ow! I'm a wretched, unhappy girl."
"Then rouse yourself and think no more of this fellow. For shame of
you!"
"I--I can't, my lady. He--he--he's so handsome, and I've tried ever so
to give him up, but he takes hold of you like."
"Takes hold of you, Dolly? Oh, for shame!"
"I--I d-d-d-don't mean with his hands, my lady, b-b-but with his great
dark eyes, miss, and--and he fixes you like; and once you're like I am
you're always seeing them, and they're looking right into you, and it
makes you--you--you feel as if you must go where he tells you to, and--
and I can't help it, and I'm a wretched, unhappy girl."
"You are indeed," said Maude with spirit. "It is degrading in the
extreme. An organ-grinder--pah!"
"It--it--it don't matter what he is, my lady," sobbed Dolly. "It's the
man does it. And--and some day wh-wh-when you feel as I do, miss,
you'll--"
"Silence," cried Lady Maude. "I'll hear no more such nonsense. Get up,
you foolish girl, and go on brushing my hair. You shall think no more
of that wretched creature."
Just at that moment, after a dead silence, an air from _Trovatore_ rang
out from the pavement below, and Dolly, who had picked up the brush,
dropped it again, and stood gazing toward the window with so comical an
expression of grief and despair upon her face that her mistress rose,
and taking her arm gave her a sharp shake.
"You silly girl!" she cried.
"But--but he's so handsome, my lady, I--I can't help it. Do--do please
send him away."
"Why, the girl's fascinated," thought Maude, whose cheeks were flushed,
and whose heart was increasing its speed as she eagerly twisted up her
hair and confined it behind by a spring band.
"If--if you could send him away, my lady."
"Send him away! Yes: it is disgraceful," cried Maude, and as if moved
by some strange influence she rapidly made herself presentable and
looked angrily from the window.
There was an indignant look in her eyes, and her lips parted to speak,
but at that moment the mechanical music ceased, and the bearer of the
green baize draped "kist of whustles" looked up, removed his soft hat,
smiled and displayed his teeth as he exclaimed in a rich, mellow voice--
"Ah, signora--ah, bella signora."
Maude Diphoos' head was withdrawn rapidly and her cheeks paled, flushed,
and turned pale again, as she stood gazing at her maid, and wondering
what had possessed her to attempt to do such a thing as dismiss this
man.
"Ah, signora! Ah, bella signora!" came again from below; and this
seemed to arouse Maude to action, for now she hastily closed the window
and seated herself before the glass.
"Undo my hair and finish brushing it," she said austerely; "and, Dolly,
there is to be no more of this wicked folly."
"No, my lady."
"It is disgraceful. Mind, I desire that you never look out at this man,
nor speak to him again."
"No, my lady."
"I shall ask her ladyship to look over your error, and mind that
henceforth you are to be a very good girl."
"Yes, my lady."
"There: I need say no more; you are very sorry, are you not?"
"Ye-yes, my lady."
"Then mind, I shall expect you to do credit to my interference, for her
ladyship will be exceedingly angry if anything of this kind occurs
again. Now, you will try?"
"Ye-yes, my lady," sobbed poor Dolly, "I'll try; but you don't know,
miss, how hard it is. Some day you may feel as I do, and then you'll be
sorry you scolded me so much."
"Silence, Dolly; I have not scolded you so much. I have only interfered
to save you from ruin and disgrace."
"Ruin and disgrace, my lady?"
"Yes, you foolish girl. You could not marry such a man as that. There,
now go downstairs--no, go to your own room and bathe your eyes before
you go down. I feel quite ashamed of you."
"Yes, my lady, so do I," sobbed Dolly. "I'm afraid I'm a very wicked
girl, and father will never forgive me; but I can't help it, and--Ow--
ow--ow!"
"Dolly! Dolly! Dolly! There, do go to your room," cried Maude
impatiently, and the poor girl went sobbing away, leaving her mistress
to sit thinking pensively of what she had said.
Lady Maude Diphoos should have continued dressing, but she sat down by
her mirror with her head resting upon her hand thinking very deeply of
the weak, love-sick girl who had just left the room. Her thoughts were
strange, and it seemed to her that so soon as she began to picture the
bluff, manly, Saxon countenance of Charley Melton, the dark-eyed,
black-bearded face of the Italian leered at her over his shoulder, and
so surely as she made an effort to drive away the illusion, the face
disappeared from one side to start out again upon the other.
So constant was this to the droning of the organ far below that Maude
shivered, and at last started up, feeling more ready now to sympathise
with the girl than to blame as she hurriedly dressed, and prepared to go
downstairs to join her ladyship in her afternoon drive.
"Are you aware, Maude, that I have been waiting for you some time?"
"No, mamma. The carriage has not yet come."
"That has nothing whatever to do with it," said her ladyship. "You have
kept me waiting. And by the way, Maude, I must request that you do not
return Mr Melton's very particular bows. I observed that you did
yesterday in the Park, while directly afterwards, when Sir Grantley
Wilters passed, you turned your head the other way."
"Really, mamma, I--"
"That will do, child, I am your mother."
"The carriage is at the door, my lady," said Robbins, entering the room;
and soon afterwards the ladies descended to enter the barouche and enjoy
the air, "gravel grinding," in the regular slow procession by the side
of the Serpentine, where it was not long before Maude caught sight of
Charley Melton, with his ugly bull-dog by his legs.
He bowed, but Lady Barmouth cut him dead. He bowed again--this time to
Maude, who cut him alive, for her piteous look cut him to the heart; and
as the carriage passed on the remark the young man made concerning her
ladyship was certainly neither refined nor in the best of taste.