Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition?
Look you, we travel along, in the railway-carriage or steamer,
And _pour passer le temps_, till the tedious journey be ended,
Lay aside paper or book to talk with the girl that is next one;
And, _pour passer le temps_, with the terminus all but in prospect,
Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven.
_Amours de Voyage._
"Sally, Sally, what are you doing? For pity's sake come here and lace
me! I shall never be ready. What a time you are with Wyn!"
Jacqueline, in all the daintiness of white embroidered petticoat,
satin-smooth shoulders, and deftly-arranged hair with a spray of lilies
of the valley somewhere among its coils, hung over the balustrade in an
agony of impatience.
"Wyn, Wyn, what are you keeping Sal for? She has been twenty minutes
over your bodice."
A voice of agony from below responded.
"Tag has come off my lace."
"Oh!" A pause of consternation; then, encouragingly, "try a hair-pin."
"It's all right now. I have actually found my bodkin. I shan't be five
minutes."
"Five minutes! My dear child, _Osmond has actually gone for the cab_!"
cried Jac, in tones tragic enough to suit the most lamentable occasion.
"Jac, come here, and don't make such a fuss," said the calm voice of
Hilda, as she emerged from her room, ready down to the minutest detail,
fan, gloves, and wrap over her arm.
With a scream of joy at such unlooked-for relief, Jac darted into her
room again, and her slender form was soon encased by her sister's deft
fingers in its neatly-fitting fresh and captivating bodice.
"What a wonder _your_ tags are not both off! They generally are," was
Hilda's withering comment, as she performed her task.
"Yes, it is a wonder, isn't it?" returned Jacqueline, complacently. "Oh,
there you are, Sal. I'm ready now, so you can go back to your beloved
Wyn."
"You can't think 'ow nice Miss Wyn looks to-night," observed Sally, as
she busied herself in collecting some of the scattered articles of
wearing apparel which strewed the floor of Jacqueline's small chamber.
"I am so glad. I thought that dress would become her," said Hilda, in a
pleased voice. "Oh, Jac, stand still, my beloved, one moment: there is
Osmond back again."
"Very good; I am ready. Sally, where are my gloves? And my bracelet, and
my fan, and my small brooch, and--oh, dear! Run and tell Wyn she must
lend me a lace handkerchief and some elastic for my shoes. Do hurry,
Sally, please, I quite forgot the elastic. Why didn't you remind me,
Hilda? Oh, did you get it for me? You darling, what a blessing you are!
There have I got everything? Oh, Sally, do I look as nice as Hilda?"
"You ain't so neat," observed Sally, with grim humor; "but neither of
you looks bad, though I don't want to make you conceited."
"Are you girls coming?" shouted Osmond.
"Oh, yes; wait just a second, my dear boy. _Is_ my front hair right,
Hilda? Yours does go so beautifully to-night. You don't look like a
governess, somehow." She threw a daring, tempting glance and laugh over
her shoulder at the brilliant reflection in the mirror. "I wonder if I
do," she said.
At the foot of the stairs stood Wyn, in her new white silk, with a
little crescent of diamonds, which had belonged to their mother, in her
hair.
"My dear girls, I am at peace," she remarked, gravely. "I stand at last
inside a gown which _hangs_ to perfection!"
"Oh, isn't it nice?" said Jac, with a deep sigh of longing. "Really,
Wyn, you do look well; you pay for dressing. Why don't you give more
attention to your clothes?"
"There's Osmond fidgetting downstairs, run!" cried Hilda, and the three
flew off, pursued by Sally's warning cries.
"Miss Jac, Miss Jac, don't let that fresh skirt sweep the stair carpets!
Miss 'Ilda, cover your 'ead over, you've got a cold, you know you 'ave!
Miss Wyn, see that Mr. Osmond crosses his comforter over his chest,
there's a dear!"
"Innisfallen. The Avenue," said Osmond to the cabman; and the four were
really off at last.
"For how many dances are you engaged, Jac?" asked the brother,
teazingly.
"Little boys," was the frigid rejoinder, "should ask no questions, and
then they would hear no stories;" after which, silence reigned in the
fourwheeler.
Every Londoner knows, or has heard of, the celebrated house of Mr.
Miles, R.A. It is one of the show-houses of London, and views of its
interior appear from time to time in the art magazines, with an
accompanying article full of praise for and wonder at the wealth and
taste which devised such an abode. With our nineteenth-century habit of
writing biographies in the life-time of their subject, of forming
societies to interpret the work of living poets, and publishing
pamphlets to explain the method of living painters, why not also extol
the upholstery of living academicians? It is surely more satisfactory
that people should admire your taste and wonder at your income in your
lifetime than after you have gone the way of all flesh. Nowadays one is
nothing if not in print. What! Furnish at untold cost; have your carpets
imported from the East, and your wall papers specially designed, merely
that these facts should go about as a tradition, a varying statement
bandied from mouth to mouth and credited at will?
The age is sceptical; it will not believe what it hears, it will not
even believe documents of more than a certain age--the Gospels, for
instance. But it will believe anything which it sees printed in a
society journal, or a fashionable magazine. If your name be blazoned
there, it is equivalent to having it graven with an iron pen, and lead
in rock forever; on which account Mr. Miles did not object in the least
to the appearance of delicately-executed engravings representing "Hall,
and portion of staircase at Innisfallen, residence of H. Miles, Esq.,
R.A." "Interior of studio, looking west." "Drawing-room, and
music-gallery, showing the great organ, &c., &c." He was wise in his
generation, and thoroughly enjoyed the caressing and honors which
accrued to him from this form of advertisement. Moreover, he was a
kindly man, and much given to hospitality. Nothing pleased him better
than to throw open his magnificent rooms to large assemblies of very
various people on an occasion like the present.
An interesting theme for observation was presented by the extraordinary
variety of toilettes worn by the guests of both sexes.
First there was the artistic section of the community, drawn from all
classes of society. By an odd paradox, these were they whose costumes
were the most aggressively inartistic of any. Dirt and slovenliness are
neither of them picturesque, yet it would seem that this singular clique
held that to cultivate both was the first duty of man. They seemed to be
one and all anxious to impress upon the observer the fact that they had
taken no trouble at all to prepare for this party. A few had washed
their faces. None had gone to the length of arranging their hair.
Another feature which all possessed in common was their inability to
dance, though some of them tried. Perhaps their large boots and
ill-fitting garments incapacitated them for the display of grace in
motion. They leaped, shuffled and floundered, but they did not waltz.
These were, of course, only the younger section. Nearly everyone of them
had distinguished him or herself in their own particular line; which
fact seems to argue that to give especial attention to one sort of
observation is to destroy the faculty for observing anything else: a
saddening theory, and one which makes one tremble for the value of
Professor Huxley's judgment on all matters outside his own province. Be
that as it may, the fact remains that this concourse of young people,
who could all admire beauty, grace, and refinement in the canvasses of
the old masters, yet were themselves so many living violations of every
law of beauty, and kept their refinement strictly for internal use.
The moneyed clique was also much _en evidence_. These were blazing with
diamonds as to the women, commonplace and vacant as to the men. The
latter seemed, in fact, to still further illustrate the theory of the
evil of giving too close an attention to one thing. They were only
faintly interested in what was going forward; they had no conversation
unless they met a kindred spirit, who was willing to discuss the state
of affairs east of Temple Bar. Their wives were for the most part
handsome, and were all over-dressed, but this extreme was not so painful
as that of the artists, because these clothes were as a rule well-made
and composed of beautiful materials.
Then there was a large sprinkling of professional people--barristers,
journalists, critics, _savants_, lady-doctors, strong-minded females,
singers, reciters, actors. Also there were the great gems of the art
world: academicians, who, having made their name, had promptly turned
Philistine, with their wives and families, dressed like the rest of the
world, built big houses, went into society, and painted pot-boilers;
and, lastly, there was a fair sprinkling of the aristocracy: well-born
people, not so handsome as the millionaires' wives, but with that subtle
air of breeding which diamonds cannot give. All these were simply
dressed, and unobtrusive in manner; and a stranger watching the Allonbys
enter the room would have fearlessly classed them with these latter.
They all four looked what the Germans call "born." A certain way of
carrying their heads distinguished them, and as they followed the
announcement of their names, and shook hands with their hostess, more
than one eager voice assailed the young men of the house with clamors
for an introduction.
Mr. and Mrs. Miles were fond of the four orphans. They had known them
for years, and watched with kindly interest the development of their
fortunes. Wynifred's success had made her quite a small celebrity in the
neighborhood, and she owed many introductions to the benevolent zeal of
the academician's plain, homely wife.
"My dear," said Mrs. Miles, in a whisper, "I don't know when I've seen
you look so nice."
This was a charming beginning. It raised Wynifred's spirits, which were
already high. She had come that evening determined to enjoy herself. She
intended to cast every remembrance of last summer to the winds. Claud
Cranmer was to be forgotten--the one weakness in her life. She would
wrench back her liberty by main force, and be free once more--free as on
the hot June day when she had journeyed down to Devonshire, and found
the slight trim figure waiting for her on the platform.
She knew plenty of people here to-night--people who were only too ready
and anxious for her notice. When Wynifred had been working at the
Woodstead Art School, before her novels began to pay, it had been said
of her that she might have had the whole studio at her feet had she so
chosen. She was an influence--a power. She had not been two minutes in
the room before her ball-programme began to fill rapidly--too rapidly.
She was too experienced a dancer not to make a point of reserving
several dances "for contingencies."
"Don't introduce me to anyone else--please," she said to Arthur Miles,
who was standing by her, inscribing his name on her card. "I shall have
too many strangers on my hands, and I get so tired of strangers."
"There's North, the dramatic author, imploring me to introduce him--he
wants to dramatise 'Cicely Montfort.' How that book has taken! I hope
you are reaping substantial benefits, Miss Allonby?"
"Yes, pretty well, as times go, thank you," she answered, laughing a
little as she remembered that her pretty gown had been earned by the
industrious and popular "Cicely."
"I don't think it's much use my talking to him," she went on. "I have as
good as promised to help Mr. Hollis dramatize it for the Corinthian."
"Then you and Mr. Hollis had better make haste, or North will have the
start of you. He's the fastest writer I know, and I believe he has it
already arranged in a prologue and three acts."
"Yes, there must be a prologue--that is the drawback," said Wyn, slowly.
"But," with a sudden bright look, "you are making me talk 'shop,' Mr.
Miles!"
"Am I? Very sorry. Here comes Dick Arden to take you off. I must go and
find out if the beauty is here--she is fashionably late."
"The beauty? Has Mr. Miles a new beauty on view to-night?"
"I should just think he has, and no mistake about it this time. Have you
not heard about her? She is a great heiress, and all London is to go mad
over her. The _pater_ is doing her picture in oils for the R.A. He says
she is simply the most beautiful creature he has ever seen. She is
coming to-night, under the escort of Lady Somebody-or-other. Hallo!
There are the Ortons!"
"Where?" Wynifred turned her head swiftly. She knew them slightly, on
account of the business relations between Osmond and Frederick. She
watched with some interest as her brother, who was standing near the
door, shook hands and entered into conversation with them. Ottilie was
looking excessively handsome, in a black velvet dress, cut very low in
the bodice, a profusion of jewels decorating her neck, arms, and head.
She had grown somewhat thinner in the months she had lately spent
abroad, but her color was as rich and vivid as ever. Wyn saw Osmond ask
her to dance, and lead her away, and then Dick Arden, the pleasant
looking young artist at her elbow, broke in with,
"When your meditation is quite finished, Miss Allonby, I am longing for
a turn."
With a laughing apology she laid her hand on his arm, and followed him
into the dancing-room.
The drawing-room at Innisfallen adjoined the studio, separated by
enormous sliding-doors, and voluminous curtains of amethyst velvet.
To-night the doors were folded back, the curtains looped in masses of
dusky light and shade, so that the guests standing in the drawing-room
could see the couples as they circled round.
Wyn began to enjoy herself. The floor was perfect, the band, as Hilda
had prophesied, Willoughby's. She liked dancing, and she liked Dick
Arden. Everyone knows that Woodstead is the suburb of London most famed
for its dancing and its pretty girls. In Woodstead the dismal cry of "No
dancing men!" is a thing unknown. On this particular night, the dancers
were drawn from hundreds of neighborhoods, so that the waltzing was not
so faultless as it was wont to be at the Town Hall; but Wyn knew whom to
choose and whom to avoid, and her present partner left little to be
desired.
Who could be sentimentally afflicted, she cried in her heart, with a
good floor, a good band, and a good partner? The vivid memory of the
weeks at Edge Combe seemed paler than it had ever been before. After
all, it had only been an episode, and it was in the past now. Every day
it receded further back; it was dying out, fading, disappearing.
The dancers flashed past. Osmond and Ottilie Orton, tall and commanding;
Jacqueline and young Haldane, both talking as fast as they could, and
laughing into each other's eyes; Hilda, quiet and queenly, with an
adoring partner. It seemed a bright, hopeful world, a world full of
people interested in other people. Was there no one in it who had a
tender thought for her--for Wynifred? She did not want admiration, or
fame, or notice, or favorable criticism. She was a woman, and she wanted
love.
But no! This would not do. The stream of her reflections would carry her
the wrong way. Forward must she look--never back, on past weakness and
shortcoming. The music ceased with a long-drawn chord of strings. The
waltz was over.
Wyn and her partner were at the lower end of the vast studio. As they
turned to walk up the floor towards the archway, the girl caught sight
of a head--a fair head thrown into relief against the dark background of
the amethyst curtain. For a moment she felt sick, faint, and cold. Then
she rallied, in a little burst of inward rage. What! Upset by a chance
likeness?
They moved on. A crowd of intervening people shut out that suggestive
head from view. Wyn unfurled her crimson fan, and smiled at Dick Arden.
"That _was_ delightful," he was saying, warmly. "Won't you give me
another? Do say you will. An extra--anything--only do give me one more."
The next instant she was face to face with Claud Cranmer.