Esmeralda, as she took off her jacket and hat, looked round Lady
Wyndover’s dressing-room with amazed curiosity. She had never
before been in or imagined such a room. Like Lady Wyndover, it
was a marvel of artistic taste. The decorations and the soft
silk hangings were of the approved crushed strawberry hue, the
furniture of the daintiest kind, and in tone like that of a
sparrow’s egg, the chairs were of divan-like comfort, the carpet
a thick Turkish pile. A satin tea-gown of the palest hue hung
over one of the chairs; the dressing-tables were covered with
scent-bottles, ivory and silver-backed brushes, silver pots,
containing some pink and red stuff, whose use Esmeralda was
ignorant of; and jewelry of an exquisite kind lay about amongst
silver pots and bottles, and even on the chairs.
The room overlooked the square, and Esmeralda gazed down at the
carriages, with their high-stepping horses and liveried servants,
with interest.
She was at last in the heart of that London of which she had heard.
She seemed to be in a dream.
She opened the door and went into the next room. Lady Wyndover was
seated in a low chair beside the fire, with a dainty tea-service,
of silver and Sèvres, before her, and she greeted Esmeralda with a
smile, and motioned her to draw up a chair on the other side of the
fire.
“You must be dying for your tea, my dear,” she said, taking in all
the points of Esmeralda’s plain traveling-dress, and yet without
even seeming to glance at her.
“What a great deal we must have to tell each other,” she continued,
sweetly. “I really don’t know where to begin! By the way, Mr.
Pinchook was obliged to hurry away, and asked me to say good-bye to
you for him. He is a very nice old gentleman, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” said Esmeralda, with a faint smile. “He has been very kind
to me, and I expect I have given him a great deal of trouble.”
“Oh, that I am sure you haven’t, my dear,” said Lady Wyndover. “He
must have been only too delighted to chaperon a charming young
girl.”
“He didn’t seem very delighted sometimes,” said Esmeralda in her
downright fashion.
Lady Wyndover gracefully glided away from the subject.
“And did you have a pleasant journey?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, very,” said Esmeralda. “It was great fun on board the
ship.”
“It must have been,” said Lady Wyndover, suavely, and with a little
twitch of the corners of her carmine lips, as she remembered Mr.
Pinchook’s moaning. “And what do you think of London?--but how
ridiculous of me! You’ve not seen it yet!”
“No; only just as we drove through from the docks,” said
Esmeralda. “It seems very big, and looks very dirty, until we came
here. Are the trees always black, like those outside? And is it
always as smoky as this, or has there been a big fire somewhere
near?”
Lady Wyndover leaned back and laughed.
“How fresh you are!” she said. “You will be delightful--too
delightful--I can see!”
“Why?” asked Esmeralda.
Lady Wyndover laughed again, but did not explain.
“I am sure we shall get on very well together,” she said. “They say
I am one of the best-tempered women in London, and I really am not
bad, and I am certain that you are perfectly sweet.”
“I don’t know,” said Esmeralda, looking rather doubtful.
“Won’t you have some bread and butter?” asked Lady Wyndover: “or
perhaps you’d like some cake.”
“I’ll have some cake,” said Esmeralda, and she cut herself a huge
slice--so huge that Lady Wyndover had hard work to repress a
shudder.
“I never thought to ask if you were hungry, dear,” she said. “We
dine at eight. Will you have something more--more substantial?”
“No, thanks; this will do,” said Esmeralda, looking at the
remainder of the cake. “I’m nearly always hungry. They used to
laugh at me on board the ship, and the captain said that he was
afraid he should have to put in somewhere and lay in a fresh stock
of provisions.”
There was a touch of envy in Lady Wyndover’s eyes as she watched
her.
“I hope you won’t lose your appetite in London. It’s a very trying
place. And now tell me all about yourself. Of course, I know how
you have been living in that place with the curious name, and
how Mr. Pinchook found you. Tell me about your guardian and your
friends; in fact, anything you can think of.”
Esmeralda munched her cake with her white, even teeth, and looked
thoughtfully at the fire. Although she had left Three Star only so
short a time ago, she had begun to understand why Varley Howard
had advised her not to be too communicative about him and her past
life; and, although she was ashamed neither of him nor it, she
shrunk from speaking of him to this dainty lady, who would, no
doubt, regard him unfavorably.
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “Three Star was just a diggers’
camp, and Varley--I mean, Mr. Howard”--for she remembered that Mr.
Pinchook had told her to speak of Varley as “Mr. Howard”--“took
care of me. He was very good to me; as good to me as any father
could be.” Her long lashes quivered. “And so were all the boys--I
mean, the men in the camp. We call them boys. Some of them are
quite old, you know.”
“I see,” said Lady Wyndover. “And had you no lady friend?”
“There was Mother Melinda there,” said Esmeralda, “and black-eyed
Polly, and one or two others.”
Lady Wyndover again tried not to shudder.
“How strange it must seem to you!” she said.
“What?” asked Esmeralda.
“This sudden change in your circumstances, my dear; from a diggers’
camp to London; from poverty--I beg your pardon, dear. I suppose
you were poor?”
“I suppose so,” said Esmeralda, naïvely. “Sometimes there was
plenty of money, and sometimes there wasn’t; it just depended upon
Varley’s luck.”
“Oh!” said Lady Wyndover, who, not having been informed of Mr.
Howard’s profession, did not understand in the least.
“Yes,” said Esmeralda, “when he was in luck we had plenty of
things--fruit and wine from Melbourne, and new clothes; when he
wasn’t in luck--well, we didn’t.”
“And now you are very rich,” said Lady Wyndover, “and can have wine
and fruit and new clothes as often as you like. I suppose you don’t
really understand how rich you are?” she said, looking at Esmeralda
curiously.
Esmeralda shook her head indifferently, and cut herself another
huge slice of cake.
Lady Wyndover leaned back, and laughed softly, with a kind of comic
despair.
“Oh, you are ridiculously, wickedly rich,” she said. “I don’t know
how to make you understand. Well, see here, dear, there’s scarcely
anything that you couldn’t afford to buy.”
“Yes; so Mr. Pinchook told me,” said Esmeralda, coolly; so coolly,
that Lady Wyndover stared at her speechlessly for a moment.
“Don’t you feel dying to spend some of this money?” she said.
Esmeralda laughed.
“I don’t know. I have spent some. I bought some clothes at
Melbourne. I had to, because I only brought one change with me, in
front of the saddle.”
Lady Wyndover stared at her.
“Let us go and see them,” she said. “In front of the saddle? Do you
mean to say that you carried all your clothes in a bundle? Oh! I
shall _never_ understand it! Let us go and see what you’ve bought.”
She led the way to the apartment set apart for Esmeralda, and
Esmeralda, following her, entered a room almost as dainty as that
which she’d left. In a dressing-room adjoining they found a maid
gazing in a kind of despairing astonishment at a huge wooden box
clamped with iron.
“This is your maid, dear,” said Lady Wyndover. “I didn’t know
whether you would bring one, so I engaged her. Barker, this is Miss
Chetwynde.”
Esmeralda, with a smile, held out her hand. The carefully trained
Barker crimsoned to the roots of her neatly arranged hair, and
looked appealingly at Lady Wyndover, who shrugged her shoulders
helplessly.
Barker pretended not to see the outstretched hand, and knelt at the
box, as if looking for some means of opening it.
“Here’s the key,” said Esmeralda, who couldn’t understand why the
girl refused to shake hands.
Barker opened the box, and proceeded to disentomb its contents.
Lady Wyndover glanced at them, found it impossible this time to
repress a shudder, and faintly dismissed Barker, who fled down to
the servants’ hall to recount her strange experiences with the new
young lady.
Lady Wyndover touched with the tips of her fingers the dresses
which Esmeralda had purchased.
“Very nice--very nice, indeed, dear,” she said, heroically.
“But--but not quite suitable for London, or for a girl of your
position.”
“No?” said Esmeralda, quite calmly. “I thought they were rather
pretty. But you know, of course.”
“Yes, I think I know,” said Lady Wyndover. “And I think we’d better
go down to Madame Cerise at once. We might go this afternoon; that
is, if you are not tired. Perhaps you’d like to go and lie down for
a little while.”
Esmeralda looked at her with open-eyed surprise.
“Tired? Why should I be tired? I haven’t done anything except ride
in a cab, and I never lie down till I go to bed. Is it far, this
place? How many miles?”
“Miles!” said Lady Wyndover, faintly. “It’s quite close, my dear
child.”
“All right,” said Esmeralda, “I’m quite ready. But what shall we do
with these things?”
“We--we might give them to Barker,” said Lady Wyndover, who knew
full well that that remarkably well-dressed young woman would
rather die than wear them.
“All right,” said Esmeralda, cheerfully. “She seems a very nice
girl, though she’s rather proud, isn’t she? She wouldn’t shake
hands with me just now.”
Lady Wyndover almost groaned.
“It’s not usual--in England--to shake hands with one’s servants,
dear,” she said. “But you’ll learn all that in time, and--other
things. Go and put your things on, and we’ll go down to Madame
Cerise’s.”
Esmeralda ran down-stairs, and Lady Wyndover, as she listened to
her, sunk into a chair--collapsed perhaps would be the better
word--for a few minutes, until she recovered from the series of
shocks which Esmeralda had, all unconsciously, administered.
Esmeralda slipped on her hat and jacket, and then went into the
_boudoir_ and waited, for, what seemed to her, hours. At last Lady
Wyndover appeared, in the latest of Redfern’s outdoor costumes,
and Esmeralda, as she looked at her, began to understand why the
dresses she had bought in Melbourne were unsatisfactory.
They went down-stairs, where a perfectly appointed brougham awaited
them. A footman stood at the bottom of the stairs, a porter held
the door open, another footman stood by the open door of the
brougham, and touched his hat as the ladies appeared.
“I thought you said it wasn’t far?” said Esmeralda, as they went
off.
“Nor is it,” said Lady Wyndover. “It is only in the next
street--Mount Street.”
“Oh!” said Esmeralda, with puzzled surprise; “then why did we want
this carriage and these two men?”
“I don’t know,” said Lady Wyndover, helplessly. “Would you rather
have walked? I never walk anywhere, if I can help it.”
“Are you lame? Is there anything the matter with you?” asked
Esmeralda.
“No,” said Lady Wyndover, faintly.
The brougham pulled up at what looked like a private house, and
they entered, and were shown into a room on the ground floor. It
would have looked like an ordinary sitting-room, but for two or
three dresses and costumes which lay about on the chairs and sofas.
Madame Cerise entered. It is scarcely necessary to say that she was
an English woman--or, rather, an Irish woman. She was short and
fat, with a round, good-natured face, and she and Lady Wyndover
greeted each other almost as if they were friends.
She looked at Esmeralda with intent interest and admiration, and
when Lady Wyndover mentioned Esmeralda’s name, Madame Cerise’s
interest grew quite vivid, for the story of Esmeralda’s fortune had
already got into the society papers.
Lady Wyndover conferred with Madame Cerise for some time, in
whispers, during which madame glanced at Esmeralda, and nodded
intelligently.
“She is superb! She is magnificent!” she exclaimed in hushed
staccato. “She will do your ladyship credit. Ah! what a sensation
she will create! You leave it to me!”
She called an assistant, and they measured Esmeralda, and produced
a variety of materials, the richness of which filled Esmeralda with
amazement.
“I shall never wear all these dresses,” she said.
Lady Wyndover and Madame Cerise smiled indulgently.
“Madame Cerise knows,” said Lady Wyndover. “We can trust ourselves
to her.”
“You can trust yourself to me,” said Madame Cerise, with a mixture
of French accent and Irish brogue. “I will see that Miss Chetwynde
is properly dressed. She is magnificent, superb!” she again
whispered to Lady Wyndover, as the two ladies took their departure.
“There is time for a turn in the park,” said Lady Wyndover; “that
is, dear, if you are sure you’re not tired.”
Esmeralda only laughed. She thought of the long tramps, the longer
rides, over the hills above Three Star, and the idea of being tired
amused her.
Although the season was only just beginning, Lady Wyndover, as she
leaned forward in her brougham, was recognized by numbers of her
acquaintances; and as she bowed and smiled, Esmeralda said:
“You seem to know a great many people.”
“My dear, I know everybody,” said Lady Wyndover, plaintively. “And
so will you.”
“Shall I?” said Esmeralda.
“Yes; you don’t understand. You are now my ward. You are the rich
Miss Chetwynde, and quite a personage. You are the great catch of
this coming season.”
“Catch?” said Esmeralda. “I don’t understand.”
“You will soon, very soon,” said Lady Wyndover.
Esmeralda admired the park, and the promenaders, whom, in frock
coats and tall hats, and well-confectioned dresses, they passed
by. They made the circuit of the park, called at a fashionable
milliner’s, of whom Lady Wyndover ordered a number of hats and
bonnets, which astounded Esmeralda, and then drove home.
“We shall dine alone to-night,” said Lady Wyndover. “So you need
not dress.”
Now, Esmeralda was not altogether an idiot, as she chose from
her despised wardrobe--which was to go to Barker, all excepting
the habit, which, because of its associations, she intended to
retain--what she considered her prettiest dress, and was proceeding
to put it on, when Barker entered.
Esmeralda greeted her with a smile, but with some surprise, and
when Barker took the dress out of her hand, and began to assist her
to get into it, Esmeralda said:
“Don’t you trouble. I will put it on all right.”
“Oh! but, miss, I’ve got to help you,” said Barker.
“Help me?” said Esmeralda. “Why? I don’t want any help.”
Barker looked at her confusedly.
“Ladies always want to be helped by their maid, miss,” she said. “I
don’t suppose you could hook it properly.”
“Oh, yes, I can,” said Esmeralda. “I always put on my own dresses
at Three Star.”
“And do your hair, too, miss?” asked Barker, with wild astonishment.
“Of course,” said Esmeralda.
“You’d better let me help you, miss,” remarked Barker.
“Oh, very well,” said Esmeralda, contentedly.
Barker brushed her hair, and coiled it into the fashionable coil,
eying it with covert admiration.
“What lovely hair you’ve got, miss!” she said.
“Is it?” said Esmeralda, indifferently.
“Oh, yes,” said Barker; “and all your own, too.”
“Why, whose else should it be?” inquired Esmeralda, innocently.
Barker almost let her silver brush fall, and coughed.
“And it’s quite the right shade, too, miss; such a beautiful color.”
“Right shade?” said Esmeralda, puzzled.
“Yes, miss,” said Barker, passing the strands of golden copper over
her hands. “It is all the fashion now; but you seldom see it with
so much gold in it; none of the dyes can put the light on it you’ve
got; and if you buy the hair, even if it’s real hair, of the very
best quality, it hasn’t the sheen on it like this.” And she stroked
the thick tresses lovingly and enviously.
“I don’t think much of it,” said Esmeralda, indifferently. “Lady
Wyndover’s is ever so much prettier.”
Barker coughed again.
“Yes, miss,” she said, dryly. “It’s a matter of taste.” She sighed
as she looked at the dress, and Esmeralda took the opportunity to
remark:
“I am having some new things made by a lady named Cerise--Lady
Wyndover called her ‘madame,’ though I don’t know why--and I
sha’n’t want these. You can have them, if you like. _I_ think
they’re pretty enough, but Lady Wyndover doesn’t.”
Barker accepted the complete wardrobe with, at any rate, a show
of gratitude, consoling herself with the reflection that the new
Cerise dresses would also come to her in due course, and then put
the finishing touches to Esmeralda’s toilet.
“The dresses are certainly not _quite_ good enough for a lady like
you, miss,” she said. “But, there, it wouldn’t matter what you
wore!” she added.
“You mean that I’m so--so unfashionable and countrified?” said
Esmeralda, innocently.
Barker looked at her. To that knowing young person such innocence
and absence of self-consciousness seemed almost uncanny and quite
incredible.
“Didn’t they have any looking-glasses where she came from, I
wonder!” she said to herself.
Esmeralda went down-stairs, and a footman opened the door of the
drawing-room for her. Lady Wyndover had not come down yet, and
Esmeralda had time to look round the magnificent room. She had
thought it impossible that anything could be more beautiful than
the _boudoir_, but that dainty apartment paled into insignificance
before the stately _salon_, with its molded ceiling, brocaded
hangings, and Chippendale furniture.
She was still standing in the center of the room, looking round
her, when Lady Wyndover entered. She was in evening dress, though
not in full war-paint, and Esmeralda gazed with grave wonder at the
black lace frock, from which her ladyship’s neck and arms issued
like white marble. Lady Wyndover looked her ward up and down.
“You look very nice, dear,” she said; “though, of course, the dress
is not _quite_ right. But never mind; Cerise will send the things
home very soon--I made a point of it--and then--well, then,” with a
smile, “you will see.”
The solemn butler announced dinner, and Lady Wyndover, linking her
arm in Esmeralda’s, led her into the dining-room.