DISAPPOINTMENT.
How they should dress themselves for Mrs. Aarons's Friday was a
question as full of interest for our girls as if they had been brought
up in the lap of wealth and fashion. They were not so ignorant of the
habits and customs of "the world" as not to know that evening dress
was required of them on this occasion, and they had not seen so many
shop windows and showrooms without learning something of its general
features as applied to their sex and to the period. Great were the
discussions that went on over the momentous subject. Even their studies
at the Public Library lost their interest and importance, it is to be
feared, for a day or two, while they were anxiously hesitating, first,
whether they should accept the invitation, and, secondly, in what
costume they should make their first appearance in polite society.
The former of these questions was settled without much trouble.
Elizabeth's yearning for "friends," the chance of discovering whom
might be missed by missing this unusual opportunity; Patty's thirst
for knowledge and experience in all available fields, and Eleanor's
habit of peaceably falling in with her sisters' views, overcame the
repugnance that all of them entertained to the idea of being patronised
by, or beholden for attentions that they could not reciprocate to, Mrs.
Aarons, against whom they had conceived a prejudice on the first day of
contact with her which a further acquaintance had not tended to lessen.
But the latter question was, as I have said, a matter of much debate.
Could they afford themselves new frocks?--say, black grenadines that
would do for the summer afterwards. This suggestion was inquired into
at several shops and of several dressmakers, and then relinquished,
but not without a struggle. "We are just recovering ourselves," said
Elizabeth, with her note-book before her and her pencil in her hand;
"and if we go on as we are doing now we shall be able to save enough to
take us to Europe next year without meddling with our house-money. But
if we break our rules--well, it will throw us back. And it will be a
bad precedent, Patty."
"Then we won't break them," said Patty valiantly. "We will go in our
black frocks. Perhaps," she added, with some hesitation, "we can find
something amongst our mother's things to trim us up a little."
"She would like to see us making ourselves look pretty with her
things," said Eleanor.
"Yes, Nelly. That is what I think. Come along and let us look at
that bundle of lace that we put in the bottom drawer of the bureau.
Elizabeth, does lace so fine as that _go_ with woollen frocks, do you
think? We must not have any incongruities if we can help it."
Elizabeth thought that plain white ruffles would, perhaps, be best,
as there was so much danger of incongruities if they trusted to their
untrained invention. Whereupon Patty pointed out that they would have
to buy ruffles, while the lace would cost nothing, which consideration,
added to their secret wish for a little special decoration, now that
the occasion for it had arisen--the love of adornment being, though
refined and chastened, an ingredient of their nature as of every other
woman's--carried the day in favour of "mother's things."
"And I think," said Patty, with dignity, when at last Friday came
and they had spread the selected finery on their little beds, "I
think that ladies ought to know how to dress themselves better than
shop-people can tell them. When they want to make themselves smart,
they should think, first, what they can afford and what will be
suitable to their position and the occasion, and then they should think
what would look pretty in a picture. And they should put on _that_."
Patty, I think, was well aware that she would look pretty in a picture,
when she had arrayed herself for the evening. Round the neck of her
black frock she had loosely knotted a length of fine, yellow-white
Brussels lace, the value of which, enhanced by several darns that
were almost as invisibly woven as the texture itself, neither she nor
her sisters had any idea of. Of course it did not "go" with the black
frock, even though the latter was not what mourning was expected to
be, but its delicacy was wonderfully thrown up by its contrast with
that background, and it was a most becoming setting for the wearer's
brilliant face. Patty had more of the priceless flounce sewn on her
black sleeves (the little Vandal had cut it into lengths on purpose),
half of it tucked in at the wrists out of sight; and the ends that
hung over her breast were loosely fastened down with a quaint old
silver brooch, in which a few little bits of topaz sparkled. Elizabeth
was not quite so magnificent. She wore a fichu of black lace over her
shoulders--old Spanish, that happened just then to be the desire and
despair of women of fashion, who could not get it for love or money;
it was big enough to be called a shawl, and in putting it on Patty had
to fold and tack it here and there with her needle, to keep it well
up in its proper place. This was fastened down at the waist with a
shawl-pin shaped like a gold arrow, that her grandmother had used to
pin her Paisley over her chest; and, as the eldest daughter, Elizabeth
wore her mother's slender watch-chain wound round and round her neck,
and, depending from it, an ancient locket of old red gold, containing
on its outward face a miniature of that beautiful mother as a girl,
with a beading of little pearls all round it. Eleanor was dressed up
in frills of soft, thick Valenciennes, taken from the bodice of one
of the brocaded gowns; which lace, not being too fragile to handle,
Elizabeth, ignorant as yet of the artistic excellence of the genuine
coffee-colour of age, had contrived to wash to a respectable whiteness.
And to Eleanor was given, from the little stock of family trinkets,
a string of pearls, fastened with an emerald clasp--pearls the size
of small peas, and dingy and yellow from never having been laid out
on the grass, as, according to a high authority, pearls should be.
Upon the whole, their finery, turned into money, would probably have
bought up three of the most magnificent costumes worn in Melbourne that
night; yet it can scarcely be said to have been effective. Neither Mrs.
Aarons nor her lady friends had the requisite experience to detect
its quality and understand what we may call its moral value. Only one
person amongst the company discovered that Eleanor's pearls were real,
and perhaps only that one had been educated in lace, save rudimentally,
in the Melbourne shops. And amongst the _nouveaux riches_, as poor
gentlefolks well know, to have no claims to distinction but such as are
out of date is practically to have none.
Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this
particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what
he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist
the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and
when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had
prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who
obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged
to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking
neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin
gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance
was enough to satisfy _him_ that there had been no fear of their not
looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe
little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and
bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart
and distinct from all the faces in the room--or in the world, for that
matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position
was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to
the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so
modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk
mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man
could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several
hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but
the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them
up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them
altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs.
Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed
the case--people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace
of unfashionable connections) not to own to them more than she could
help.
He withdrew from their neighbourhood before they saw him, and went to
seek his hostess, swelling with remonstrant wrath. He found her on a
sofa at the other end of the room, talking volubly (she was always
voluble, but now she was breathless in her volubility) to a lady who
had never before honoured her Fridays, and who, by doing so to-night,
had gratified an ambition that had long been paramount amongst the many
ambitions which, enclosed in a narrow circle as they were, served to
make the interest and occupation of Mrs. Aarons's life. She looked up
at Paul as he approached her, and gave him a quick nod and smile, as if
to say, "I see you, but you must be perfectly aware that I am unable
to attend to you just now." Paul understood her, and, not having the
honour of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance himself, fell back a little
behind the sofa and waited for his opportunity. As he waited, he could
not help overhearing the conversation of the two ladies, and deriving a
little cynical amusement therefrom.
"And, as soon as I heard of it, I _begged_ my husband to go and see if
it was _really_ a genuine example of Derby-Chelsea; and, you see, it
_was_," said Mrs. Aarons, with subdued enthusiasm--almost with tears of
emotion.
"It was, indeed," assented Mrs. Duff-Scott earnestly. "There was the
true mark--the capital D, with the anchor in the middle of it. It is
extremely rare, and I had no hope of ever possessing a specimen."
"I _knew_ you would like to have it. I said to Ben. '_Do_ go and snatch
it up at once for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.' And he was so pleased
to find he was in time. We were so afraid someone might have been
before us. But the fact is, people are so ignorant that they have no
idea of the value of things of that sort--fortunately."
"I don't call it fortunate at all," the other lady retorted, a little
brusquely. "I don't like to see people ignorant--I am quite ready to
share and share." Then she added, with a smile, "I am sure I can never
be sufficiently obliged to Mr. Aarons for taking so much trouble on my
account. I must get him into a corner presently, and find out how much
I am in his debt--though, of course, no money can represent the true
worth of such a treasure, and I shall always feel that I have robbed
him."
"Oh, pray, pray don't talk of _payment_," the hostess implored, with a
gesture of her heavily-ringed hands. "You will hurt him _dreadfully_
if you think of such a thing. He feels himself richly paid, I assure
you, by having a chance to do you a little service. And such a mere
_trifle_ as it is!"
"No, indeed, it is not a trifle, Mrs. Aarons--very far from it. The
thing is much too valuable for me to--to"--Mrs. Duff-Scott hesitated,
and her face was rather red--"to deprive you of it in that way. I don't
feel that I can take it as a present--a bit of _real_ Derby-Chelsea
that you might never find a specimen of again--really I don't."
"Oh, _please_"--and Mrs. Aarons's voice was at once reproachful and
persuasive--"_please!_ I know you wouldn't wish to hurt us."
A little more discussion ensued, which Paul watched with an amused
smile; and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave in.
"Well, if you insist--but you are really too good. It makes me quite
uncomfortable to take such a treasure from you. However, perhaps, some
day I may be able to contribute to _your_ collection."
Like her famous model, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins, Mrs. Aarons stalked
her big game with all kinds of stratagems, and china was the lure with
which she had caught Mrs. Duff-Scott. This was a lady who possessed
not only that most essential and valuable qualification of a lady,
riches, but had also a history that was an open page to all men. It
had not much heraldic emblazonment about it, but it showed a fair
and honourable record of domestic and public circumstances that no
self-respecting woman could fail to take social credit for. By virtue
of these advantages, and of a somewhat imperious, though generous
and unselfish, nature, she certainly did exercise that right to be
"proud" which, in such a case, the most democratic of communities will
cheerfully concede. She had been quite inaccessible to Mrs. Aarons,
whom she was wont to designate a "person," long after that accomplished
woman had carried the out-works of the social citadel in which she
dwelt, and no doubt she would have been inaccessible to the last. Only
she had a weakness--she had a hobby (to change the metaphor a little)
that ran away with her, as hobbies will, even in the case of the most
circumspect of women; and that hobby, exposed to the seductions of a
kindred hobby, broke down and trampled upon the barriers of caste. It
was the Derby-Chelsea specimen that had brought Mrs. Duff-Scott to
occupy a sofa in Mrs. Aarons's drawing-room--to their mutual surprise,
when they happened to think of it.
She rose from that sofa now, slightly perturbed, saying she must go
and find Mr. Aarons and acknowledge the obligation under which he had
placed her, while all the time she was cudgelling her brains to think
by what means and how soon she could discharge it--regretting very
keenly for the moment that she had put herself in the way of people
who did not understand the fine manners which would have made such a
dilemma impossible. Her hostess jumped up immediately, and the two
ladies passed slowly down the room in the direction of the corner
where our neglected girls were sitting. Paul followed at a respectful
distance, and was gratified to see Mrs. Duff-Scott stop at the piano,
in place of hunting for her host (who was never a conspicuous feature
of these entertainments), and shake hands cordially with a tall German
in spectacles who had just risen from the music-stool. He had come
to Mrs. Aarons's Friday in a professional capacity, but he was a
sufficiently great artist for a great lady to make an equal of him.
"Ah, my dear Herr Wüllner," she said, in a very distinct voice, "I
was listening, and I thought I could not be mistaken in your touch.
Heller's _Wanderstunden_, wasn't it?" And they plunged head first into
musical talk such as musical people (who never care in the least how
much unmusical people may be bored by it) love to indulge in whenever
an occasion offers, while Mrs. Aarons stood by, smiling vaguely, and
not understanding a word of it. Paul Brion listened to them for a few
minutes, and a bright idea came into his head.