Francesca wishes to get some old hall-marked silver for her home
tea-tray, and she is absorbed at present in answering advertisements of
people who have second-hand pieces for sale, and who offer to bring them
on approval. The other day, when Willie Beresford and I came in from
Westminster Abbey (where we had been choosing the best locations for
our memorial tablets), we thought Francesca must be giving a 'small and
early'; but it transpired that all the silver-sellers had called at the
same hour, and it took the united strength of Dawson and Mr. Beresford,
together with my diplomacy, to rescue the poor child from their
clutches. She came out alive, but her safety was purchased at the cost
of a George IV. cream-jug, an Elizabethan sugar-bowl, and a Boadicea
tea-caddy, which were, I doubt not, manufactured in Wardour Street
towards the close of the nineteenth century.
Salemina came in just then, cold and tired. (Tower and National Gallery
the same day. It's so much more work to go to the Tower nowadays than
it used to be!) We had intended to take a sail to Richmond on a penny
steamboat, but it was drizzling, so we had a cosy fire instead, slipped
into our tea-gowns, and ordered tea and thin bread-and-butter, a basket
of strawberries with their frills on, and a jug of Devonshire cream.
Willie Beresford asked if he might stay; otherwise, he said, he should
have to sit at a cold marble table on the corner of Bond Street and
Piccadilly, and take his tea in bachelor solitude.
“Yes,” I said severely, “we will allow you to stay; though, as you are
coming to dinner, I should think you would have to go away some time,
if only in order that you might get ready to come back. You've been here
since breakfast-time.”
“I know,” he answered calmly, “and my only error in judgment was that I
didn't take an earlier breakfast, in order to begin my day here sooner.
One has to snatch a moment when he can, nowadays; for these rooms are
so infested with British swells that a base-born American stands very
little chance!”
Now I should like to know if Willie Beresford is in love with Francesca.
What shall I do--that is what shall we do--if he is, when she is in love
with somebody else? To be sure, she may want one lover for foreign and
another for domestic service. He is too old for her, but that is always
the way. When Alcides, having gone through all the fatigues of life,
took a bride in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose
Hebe.
I wonder why so many people call him 'Willie' Beresford, at his age.
Perhaps it is because his mother sets the example; but from her lips
it does not seem amiss. I suppose when she looks at him she recalls
the past, and is ever seeing the little child in the strong man, mother
fashion. It is very beautiful, that feeling; and when a girl surprises
it in any mother's eyes it makes her heart beat faster, as in the
presence of something sacred, which she can understand only because she
is a woman, and experience is foreshadowed in intuition.
The Honourable Arthur had sent us a dozen London dailies and weeklies,
and we fell into an idle discussion of their contents over the teacups.
I had found an 'exchange column' which was as interesting as it was
novel, and I told Francesca it seemed to me that if we managed wisely we
could rid ourselves of all our useless belongings, and gradually amass
a collection of the English articles we most desired. “Here is an
opportunity, for instance,” I said, and I read aloud--“'S.G., of
Kensington, will post “Woman” three days old regularly for a box of cut
flowers.'”
“Rather young,” said Mr. Beresford, “or I'd answer that advertisement
myself.”
I wanted to tell him I didn't suppose that he could find anything too
young for his taste, but I didn't dare.
“Salemina adores cats,” I went on. “How is this, Sally, dear?--
'A handsome orange male Persian cat, also a tabby, immense coat,
brushes and frills, is offered in exchange for an electro-plated
revolving covered dish or an Allen's Vapour Bath.'”
“I should like the cat, but alas! I have no covered dish,” sighed
Salemina.
“Buy one,” suggested Mr. Beresford. “Even then you'd be getting a
bargain. Do you understand that you receive the male orange cat for the
dish, and the frilled tabby for the bath, or do you get both in exchange
for either of these articles? Read on, Miss Hamilton.”
“Very well, here is one for Francesca--“'A harmonium with seven stops
is offered in exchange for a really good Plymouth cockerel hatched in
May.'”
“I should want to know when the harmonium was hatched,” said Francesca
prudently. “Now you cannot usurp the platform entirely, my dear Pen.
Listen to an English marriage notice from the Times. It chances to be
the longest one to-day, but there were others just as remarkable in
yesterday's issue.
“'On the 17th instant, at Emmanuel Church (Countess of Padelford's
connection), Weston-super-Mare, by the Rev. Canon Vernon, B.D., Rector
of St. Edmund the King and Martyr, Suffolk Street, uncle of bride,
assisted by the Rev. Otho Pelham, M.A., Vicar of All Saints, Upper
Norwood, Dr. Philosophial Konrad Rasch, of Koetzsenbroda, Saxony,
to Evelyn Whitaker Rake, widow of the late Richard Balaclava Rake,
Barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple and Bombay, and third surviving
daughter of George Frederic Goldspink, C.B., of Sydenham House, Craig
Hill, Commissioner of Her Majesty's Customs, and formerly of the War
Office.'”
By the time this was finished we were all quite exhausted, but we
revived like magic when Salemina read us her contribution:--
“'A NAME ENSHRINED IN LITERATURE AND RENOWNED IN COMMERCE,--Miss
Willard, Waddington, Essex. Deal with her whenever you possibly can.
When you want to purchase, ask her for anything under the canopy of
heaven, from jewels, bijouterie, and curios to rare books and high-class
articles of utility. When you want to sell, consign only to her, from
choice gems to mundane objects. All transactions embodying the germs
of small profits are welcome. As a sample of her stock please note:
A superlatively exquisite, essentially beautiful, and important lace
flounce for sale, at a reasonable price. Also a bargain of peerlessly
choice character.--Six grandly glittering paste cluster buttons, of
important size, emitting dazzling rays of incomparable splendour and
lustre. Don't readily forget this or her name and address,--Clara (Miss)
Willard (the Lady Trader), Waddington, Essex. Immaculate promptitude and
scrupulous liberality observed: therefore, on these credentials, ye must
deal with her; it is the duty of intellect to be reciprocal.'”
Just here Dawson entered, evidently to lay the dinner-cloth, but, seeing
that we had a visitor, he took the tea-tray and retired discreetly.
“It is five-and-thirty minutes past six, Mr. Beresford,” I said. “Do you
think you can get to the Metropole and array yourself and return in less
than an hour? Because, even if you can, remember that we ladies have
elaborate toilets in prospect,--toilets intended for the complete
prostration of the British gentry. Francesca has a yellow gown which
will drive Bertie Godolphin to madness. Salemina has laid out a soft,
dovelike grey and steel combination, directed towards the Church of
England; for you may not know that Sally has a vicar in her train, Mr.
Beresford, and he will probably speak to-night. As for me-”
Before these shocking personalities were finished Salemina and Francesca
had fled to their rooms, and Mr. Beresford took up my broken sentence
and said, “As for you, Miss Hamilton, whatever gown you wear, you are
sure to make one man speak, if you care about it; but, I suppose, you
would not listen to him unless he were English”; and with that shot he
departed.
I really think I shall have to give up the Francesca hypothesis, and,
alas! I am not quite ready to adopt any other.
We discussed international marriages while we were at our toilets,
Salemina and I prinking by the light of one small candle-end, while
Francesca, as the youngest and prettiest, illuminated her charms with
the six sitting-room candles and three filched from the little table in
the hall.
I gave it as my humble opinion that for an American woman an English
husband was at least an experiment; Salemina declared that for that
matter a husband of any nationality was an experiment. Francesca ended
the conversation flippantly by saying that in her judgment no husband at
all was a much more hazardous experiment.