THE FIRST LITTLE VANITIES
We are often blamed for not speaking out as soon as a doubt enters
our mind, yet oftentimes the reticence which such a doubt begets
is a saving grace which redeems and sanctifies our whole
character.
It was with quite a cheerful countenance that Regina went through the
rest of her day's work. Arriving home at Ye Dene in time for dinner she
changed her dress for a cool and light tea-gown, in which, I am bound to
confess, she looked more than anything like a gigantic perambulating
baby's bassinette. She laved her face with a little scented water, and,
for the first time in her life, she dusted her countenance with a little
powder. She did not herself possess such things as a powder-box and
puff, but in Maudie's deserted bedroom she found on her dressing-table
the one which she had used up to the morning of her marriage, for she
had naturally taken with her on her wedding-tour the smartly fitted
dressing-case which had been among her husband's wedding presents to
her. It was with quite unaccustomed hands that Regina sought for the
powder-box, and she used the powder too thickly. Maudie had had a pretty
taste in powder, and prided herself on never using a common kind. Being
so very fair she used that of a pure white tint, and when Mrs. Whittaker
had finished her application of it I must confess she looked ghastly.
"How dreadful!" her thoughts ran. "How can women ever use this stuff?"
Then she took a towel from the towel-rail and rubbed her face
vigorously, shook the puff out of the window, and started again,
succeeding this time in merely making herself of a delicate pallor. As
she descended the stairs her husband turned in at the gate and came
along the covered way to the porch. He noticed at once that there was
something unusual in her appearance.
"Well, Regina, my love," he remarked, "have you been grilling in town
this hot day?"
"Yes, I have been to town, Alfred," she replied, trying hard to make her
tone quite an ordinary one.
"You must have over-tired yourself, my dear; you are as pale as a
sheet," he remarked, looking at her keenly. "Here, come with me." He led
the way into the dining-room, that large, cool, pleasant apartment in
which Regina had so often sat admiring him, and, going to the sideboard,
poured her out a glass of port.
"Here, drink this down at once. I am sure you have been over-doing it.
Have you been to any of those beastly meetings?"
"I have not been to a meeting, though I looked in at the offices of the
S.R.W."
"I feel very much inclined to say 'Damn the S.R.W.,'" said Alfred
Whittaker, warmly. "I can't bear to see you looking so jaded and
worn-out as you do now. Here, drink this down; it will pull you together
better than anything else."
He was an old-fashioned man, who believed in a glass of port, and
Regina, with unwonted meekness and the same happy feeling of being
ministered to that she had felt in the pastry-cook's shop, obediently
swallowed the pleasant potion.
"I shall be very glad," Alfred Whittaker continued, "when we are off on
our holiday, for I never felt the need of one so badly as I do this
year. I suppose it is the excitement of Maudie's wedding, but I can't
bear to see you looking as you do now."
"I am better--I feel better," said Regina, nervously. It was hard for
her to resist the inclination to fling herself upon Alfred's broad bosom
and tell him everything that was in her mind. It would have been better
if she had done so, but she resisted the inclination from a desire not
to give way to unusual weakness.
"Now sit down quietly by the window and rest while I run up and change
my coat."
It was his habit to make what might be called a half-toilette for
dinner--to take off his frock-coat and substitute for it a sort of
smoking-jacket, quite a glorified garment, in which Regina admired him
as some women admire their husbands when they get drunk, with that
curious admiration for the breaking off of shackles, even merely
conventional ones. It was a delight to Regina, strong-minded,
commanding, magnetic, almost eccentric nature that she was, to give her
husband's behests instant obedience, and she sat down in the huge
armchair by the window with a sigh of relief. Well, some hussy might
have got hold of him, yes--but his heart was with her.
She owned to herself that there was a little bit of the hypocrite in
her, but she forgave herself the infinitesimal sin because Alfred had
noticed instantly that she was paler than usual. Ought she to have told
him that she had been using powder, and that she was not really more
worn-out than usual? Perhaps so, and yet, she told herself, no woman on
earth could have forced herself to be so strictly just. Then there was a
sound of the gong in the hall, and Alfred came down, Julia coming with
him.
"I'm afraid, my bird," he was saying, as they crossed the threshold,
"that you miss Maudie more every day that goes by, and soon you'll be
marrying yourself, and there'll only be old Darby and Joan to jog along
together."
"I've not gone yet, daddy," said Julia. "Maudie had what we may call
adequate temptation. I may go on for years before I meet anybody who
takes my fancy as completely as Harry took hers."
"Meantime, I think you ought to go out with your mother a little more.
She looks worn-out to-day."
"Do you, darling?" looking toward the large white figure at the window.
"I declare you do. Why, you told me that you would be busy all day and
wouldn't want me."
"Did I?" said Regina. "I do not think quite that, dearest. But it was
true, I did not want you with me to-day; I was full of business of one
sort or another."
"Well, well, come to dinner," said Alfred, genially, "come to dinner. We
needn't live to eat, but we must eat to live, and here is a bit of
salmon that would gladden the heart of a king."
He was very full of joke that night, telling wife and daughter of one or
two little incidents which had happened to him during the day, and
making merry exceedingly.
"You're very mischievous and gay to-night," said Julia. "What have you
been doing to-day?"
Regina looked across the table involuntarily.
"Oh, I have been doing the usual thing, my dear--making money for you to
spend. By the way, I have had an excellent offer for the house."
"For the house!" cried Julia. "Have you taken it?"
"I've not taken it; I shouldn't think of doing so until I have consulted
your mother. It is a good offer, and I have a week to think it over in.
The question is, Do we really want to leave the Park?"
"Yes," said Julia.
"What do you say, Queenie?"
"I do not know."
"But, mother, you find it such a fag and such a drag getting to and fro
to your committees."
For a moment Regina did not speak; she put her fish knife and fork down
upon her plate.
"I don't know that we need consider my committees," she said quietly. "I
am thinking of giving them all up."
"Your committees!" cried Julia in a tone that was almost frightened.
"My dear--!" said Alfred.
"I have worked for others during the last ten years, Alfred," said
Regina, leaning back in her chair and looking at her husband, "but I am
not sure if I've done quite the right thing in giving up so much of my
time to outside work."
"My dear, I have never complained."
"No, dear, you have never complained. I do not know that you might not
have done."
"My dear girl, what does it matter to me how you amuse yourself while I
am at business?"
"No, there's something in that. On the other hand, in a sense it does
matter. I have worked long enough; I think I want to be a little more in
my own home--I'm not so young as I was."
"You're worn-out, that's about the English of it," said Alfred
Whittaker, putting his knife and fork on his plate and sitting back. "As
long as it amused you it was all right; it was as good as spending your
life in running from one hot, stuffy party to another. Cut it, my dear,
cut it. There's one axiom in business that never fails, 'cut your
loss'--at least, I have never known it fail yet. By-the-bye," he said,
"I have brought you a little present."
Regina almost screamed aloud. So she had been wrong all the time; there
was no hussy, his solicitude for her pale looks had been the solicitude
of the old affectionate Alfred who had been ever and always her _beau
ideal_ of what a husband should be. She gasped a little. "Yes," she said
faintly.
"Something nice?" said Julia. "Jewelry?"
"Well," said Alfred Whittaker, and his face wore a curious little smile,
"yes--it's jewelry. I came by it in an odd fashion. I had some business
up west this morning, a very unexpected bit of business; it took me
right out of my regular track. I was going along a little street at the
back of Manchester Square and I saw something in a little shop that
attracted my attention. It was a quaint little shop, half jeweler's and
half curiosity dealer's."
"And you stopped and bought it?"
"Not at all; I stopped and looked at it. It was a tea-service of that
scale blue Worcester which fetches such tremendous prices at Christie's,
only I don't think that particular set will ever have a show at
Christie's, handsome as it is, and while I was looking at it I noticed
this. I haven't seen such a thing for ages, and I've never seen anything
like it at the price before, so I bought it and paid for it, and here it
is." He took a little parcel from his pocket wrapped in tissue paper,
and pushed it along the table to Julia. "Give that to your mother. No, I
did not buy anything for you."
"Then you did not go to Templeton's for it?" said Regina, as her fingers
closed over the little parcel.
"Templeton's? Oh, no, this is not modern; it is an antique. The people
haven't the faintest idea of its value; it is worth ten times what I
gave for it. It happened to be one of the things in which I am
interested and which I understand. No, when I want jewels, I go to
Templeton's. I don't understand gems and I can trust them."
"And their discretion?" said Regina.
"Yes, if it were necessary I would trust their discretion too. Now, what
do you think of that?"
Regina opened the parcel with fingers which visibly trembled. He had
bought her a present; his mind, at the moment of looking into that
little shop, half jeweler's, half curiosity shop, on seeing something in
which he was personally interested, had instantly flown to her. He might
have given a bracelet to a hussy, but his interest had remained with
Regina.