VELVET
Constance created quite a sensation when she came down dressed for church
on Christmas Day in a dark blue velvet jacket, deeply trimmed with silver
fox, and a hat and muff _en suite_, matching with her serge dress, and
though unpretending, yet very handsome.
Up jumped Ida, from lacing her boots by the fire. 'Well, I never! They
are spoiling you! Real velvet, I declare, and real silk-wadded lining.
Look, ma. What made them dress you like that?'
'It wasn't them,' said Constance, 'it was Lady Adela. One Sunday in
October it turned suddenly cold, and I had only my cloth jacket, and she
sent up for something warm for me. This was just new before she went
into black, when husband died, and she had put it away for Amice, but it
fitted me so well, and looked so nice, that she was so kind as to wish me
to keep it always.'
'Cast-off clothes! That's the insolence of these swells,' said Ida. 'I
wonder you had not the spirit to refuse.'
'Sour grapes,' muttered Herbert; while her mother sighed--'Ah, that's
what we come to!'
'Must not I wear it, mamma?' said Constance, who had a certain attachment
to the beautiful and comfortable garment. 'She told me she had only worn
it once in London, and she was so very kind.'
'Oh, if you call it kindness,' said Ida, 'I call it impertinence.'
'If you had only heard--' faltered Constance.
'No, no,' said their mother, 'you could not refuse, of course, my dear,
and no one here will know. It becomes her very well too. Doesn't it,
Ida?'
Ida made a snort. 'If people choose to make a little chit of a
schoolgirl ridiculous by dressing her out like that!' she said.
'There isn't time now before church,' said Constance almost tearfully,
'or I would take it off.'
'No such thing,' said Herbert. 'Come on, Conny. You shall walk with me.
You look stunning, and I want Westhaven folk to see for once what a lady
is like.'
Constance was very glad to be led away from Ida's comments, and resolved
that her blue velvet should not see the light again at Westhaven; but she
did not find this easy to carry out; for, perhaps for the sake of teasing
Ida, Herbert used to inquire after it, and insist on her wearing it, and
her mother liked to see her, and to show her, in it. It was only Ida who
seemed unable to help saying something disagreeable, till, almost in
despair, Constance offered to lend the bone of contention; but Lady Adela
was a small woman, and Constance would never be on so large a scale as
her sister, so that the jacket refused to be transferred except at the
risk of being spoilt by alteration; and here Mrs. Morton interfered, 'It
would never do to have them say at Northmoor that "Lady Morton's" gift
had been spoilt by their meddling with it.' Constance was glad, though
she suspected that Lady Adela would never have found it out.
Then Ida consulted Sibyl Grover, who was working with a dressmaker, and
with whom she kept up a sort of patronisingly familiar acquaintance, as
to making something to rival it, and Sibyl was fertile in devices as to
doing so cheaply, but when she consulted her superior, she was told that
without the same expensive materials it would evidently be only an
imitation, and moreover, that the fashion was long gone out of date.
Which enabled Ida to bear the infliction with some degree of philosophy.
This jacket was not, however, Constance's only trouble. Her conscience
was already uneasy at the impossibility of getting to evensong on
Christmas Day. She had been to an early Celebration without asking any
questions, and had got back before Herbert had come down to breakfast,
and very glad she was that she had done so, for she found that her mother
regarded it as profane 'to take the Sacrament' when she was going to have
a party in the evening, and when Constance was in the midst of the party
she felt that--if it were to be--her mother might be right.
It was a dinner first--at which Constance did not appear--chiefly of
older people, who talked of shipping and of coals. Afterwards, if they
noticed the young people, joked them about their imaginary lovers--beaux,
as the older ladies called them; young men, as the younger ones said.
One, the most plain spoken of all, asked Herbert how he felt, at which
the boy wriggled and laughed sheepishly, and his mother had a great
confabulation with various of the ladies, who were probably condoling
with her.
Later, there were cards for the elders, and sundry more young people came
in for a dance. The Rollstones were considered as beneath the dignity of
the Mortons, but Herbert had loudly insisted on inviting Rose for the
evening and had had his way, but after all she would not come. Herbert
felt himself aggrieved, and said she was as horrid a little prig as
Constance, who on her side felt a pang of envy as she thought of Rose
going to church and singing hymns and carols to her father and mother,
while she, after a struggle under the mistletoe, which made her hot and
miserable, had to sit playing waltzes. One good-natured lady offered to
relieve her, but she was too much afraid of the hero of the mistletoe to
stir from her post, and the daughter of her kindly friend had no scruple
in exclaiming--
'Oh no, ma, don't! You always put us out, you know, and Constance Morton
is as true as old Time.'
'I am sure Constance is only too happy to oblige her friends,' said Mrs.
Morton. 'And she is not out yet,' she added, as a tribute to high life.
If Constance at times felt unkindly neglected, at others she heard surges
of giggling, and suppressed shrieking and protests that made her feel the
piano an ark of refuge.
The parting speech from a good-natured old merchant captain was, 'Why,
you demure little pussy cat, you are the prettiest of them all! What
have yon lads been thinking about to let those little fingers be going
instead of her feet? Or is it all Miss Ida's jealousy, eh?'
All this, in a speaking-trumpet voice, put the poor child into an agony
of blushes, which only incited him to pat her on the cheek, and the rest
to laugh hilariously, under the influence of negus and cheap champagne.
Constance could have cried for very shame, but when she was waiting on
her mother, who, tired as she was, would not go to bed without locking up
the spoons and the remains of the wine, Mrs. Morton said kindly, 'You are
tired, my dear, and no wonder. They were a little noisy to-night. Those
are not goings-on that I always approve, you know, but young folk always
like a little pleasure extra at Christmas. Don't you go and get too
genteel for us, Conny. Come, come, don't cry. Drink this, my love,
you're tired.'
'Oh, mamma, it is not the being genteel--oh no, but Christmas Day and
all!'
'Come, come, my dear, I can't have you get mopy and dull; religion is a
very good thing, but it isn't meant to hinder all one's pleasure, and
when you've been to church on a Christmas Day, what more can be expected
of young people but to enjoy themselves? Come, go to bed and think no
more about it.'
To express or even to understand what she felt would have been impossible
to Constance, so she had to content herself with feeling warm at her
heart, at her mother's kind kiss.
All the other parties she saw were much more decorous, even to
affectation, except that at the old skipper's, and he was viewed by the
family as a subject for toleration, because he had been a friend and
messmate of Mrs. Morton's father. All the good side of that lady and Ida
came out towards him and his belongings. He had an invalid
granddaughter, with a spine complaint and feeble eyesight, and Ida spent
much time in amusing her, teaching her fancy works and reading to her.
Unluckily it was only trashy novels from the circulating library that
they read; Ida had no taste for anything else, and protested that Louie
would be bored to death if she tried to read her the African adventures
which were just then the subject of enthusiasm even with Herbert! Ida
was not a dull girl. Unlike some who do not seem to connect their books
with life, she made them her realities and lived in them, and as she
hardly ever read anything more substantial her ideas of life and society
were founded on them, though in her own house she was shrewd in practical
matters, and though not strong was a useful active assistant to her
mother whenever there was no danger of her being detected in doing
anything derogatory to one so nearly connected with the peerage.
Indeed, she seemed to regard her sister's dutiful studies as proofs of
dulness and want of spirit. She was quite angry when Constance objected
to _The Unconscious Impostor_,--very yellow, with a truculent flaming
design outside--that 'she did not think she ought to read that kind of
book--Aunt Mary would not like it.'
'Well, if I would be in bondage to an old governess! You are not such a
child now.'
'Don't, Ida. Uncle Frank would not like it either.'
'Perhaps not,' said Ida, with an ugly, meaning laugh as she glanced again
at the title.
Constance might really have liked to read more tales than she allowed
herself. _The House on the Marsh_ tempted her, but she was true to the
advice she had received, and Rose Rollstone upheld her in her resolution.
Ida thought it rather 'low' in Herbert and Constance to care for the old
butler's daughter, but their mother had a warm spot in the bottom of her
heart, and liked a gossip with Mrs. Rollstone too much to forbid the
house to her daughter, besides that she shrank from inflicting on her so
much distress.
So during the fortnight that Rose spent at home the girls were together
most of the morning. After Constance, well wrapped up, had practised in
the cold drawing-room, where economy forbade fires till the afternoon,
she sped across to Rose in the little stuffy parlour where Mr. Rollstone
liked to doze over his newspaper to the lullaby of their low-voiced
chatter. Often they walked together, and were sometimes joined by
Herbert, who on these occasions always showed that he knew how to behave
like a gentleman.
Herbert was faithfully keeping his promise not to bet, though, as he
observed, he had not expected to be in for it so long. But it was
satisfactory to hear that his present fellow-pupils did not go in for
that sort of thing, and Constance felt sure that her uncle and aunt would
be pleased with him and think him much improved.