We are all three rather tired this morning,--Salemina, Francesca, and
I,--for we went to one of the smartest balls of the London season last
night, and were robbed of half our customary allowance of sleep in
consequence.
It may be difficult for you to understand our weariness, when I confess
that the ball was not quite of the usual sort; that we did not dance
at all; and, what is worse, that we were not asked, either to tread a
measure, or sit out a polka, or take 'one last turn.'
To begin at the beginning, there is a large vacant house directly
opposite Smith's Private Hotel, and there has been hanging from its
balcony, until very lately, a sign bearing the following notice:--
THESE COMMANDING PREMISES
WITH A SUPERFICIAL AREA OF
10,000 FT. AND 50 FT.
FRONTAGE TO DOVERMARLE ST.
WILL BE SOLD BY AUCTION
ON TUESDAY, JUNE 28TH, BY
MESSRS. SKIDDY, YADDLETHORPE AND SKIDDY
LAND AGENTS AND SURVEYORS
27 HASTINGS PLACE, PALL MALL.
A few days ago, just as we were finishing a late breakfast, an elderly
gentleman drove up in a private hansom, and alighted at this vacant
house on the opposite side. Behind him, in a cab, came two men, who
unlocked the front door, went in, came out on the balcony, cut the wires
supporting the sign, took it down, opened all the inside shutters,
and disappeared through some rear entrance. The elderly gentleman went
upstairs for a moment, came down again, and drove away.
“The house has been sold, I suppose,” said Salemina; “and for my part I
envy the new owner his bargain. He is close to Piccadilly, has that bit
of side lawn with the superb oak-tree, and the duke's beautiful gardens
so near that they will seem virtually his own when he looks from his
upper windows.”
At tea-time the same elderly gentleman drove up in a victoria, with a
very pretty young lady.
“The plot thickens,” said Francesca, who was nearest the window. “Do you
suppose she is his bride-elect, and is he showing her their future home,
or is she already his wife? If so, I fear me she married him for his
title and estates, for he is more than a shade too old for her.”
“Don't be censorious, child,” I remonstrated, taking my cup idly across
the room, to be nearer the scene of action. “Oh, dear! there is a slight
discrepancy, I confess, but I can explain it. This is how it happened:
The girl had never really loved, and did not know what the feeling was.
She did know that the aged suitor was a good and worthy man, and her
mother and nine small brothers and sisters (very much out at the toes)
urged the marriage. The father, too, had speculated heavily in consorts
or consuls, or whatever-you-call-'ems, and besought his child not to
expose his defalcations and losses. She, dutiful girl, did as she was
bid, especially as her youngest sister came to her in tears and said,
'Unless you consent we shall have to sell the cow!' So she went to the
altar with a heart full of palpitating respect, but no love to speak of;
that always comes in time to heroines who sacrifice themselves and spare
the cows.”
“It sounds strangely familiar,” remarked Mr. Beresford, who was with us,
as usual. “Didn't a fellow turn up in the next chapter, a young nephew
of the old husband, who fell in love with the bride, unconsciously and
against his will? Wasn't she obliged to take him into the conservatory,
at the end of a week, and say, 'G-go! I beseech you! for b-both our
sakes!'? Didn't the noble fellow wring her hand silently, and leave her
looking like a broken lily on the-”
“How can you be so cynical, Mr. Beresford? It isn't like you!” exclaimed
Salemina. “For my part, I don't think the girl is either his bride or
his fiancee. Probably the mother of the family is dead, and the father
is bringing his eldest daughter to look at the house: that's my idea of
it.”
This theory being just as plausible as ours, we did not discuss it,
hoping that something would happen to decide the matter in one way or
another.
“She is not married, I am sure,” went on Salemina, leaning over the back
of my chair. “You notice that she hasn't given a glance at the kitchen
or the range, although they are the most important features of the
house. I think she may have just put her head inside the dining-room
door, but she certainly didn't give a moment to the butler's pantry or
the china closet. You will find that she won't mount to the fifth floor
to see how the servants are housed,--not she, careless, pretty creature;
she will go straight to the drawing-room.”
And so she did; and at the same instant a still younger and prettier
creature drove up in a hansom, and was out of it almost before the
admiring cabby could stop his horse or reach down for his fare. She flew
up the stairway and danced into the drawing-room like a young whirlwind;
flung open doors, pulled up blinds with a jerk, letting in the sunlight
everywhere, and tiptoed to and fro over the dusty floors, holding up her
muslin flounces daintily.
“This must be the daughter of his first marriage,” I remarked.
“Who will not get on with the young stepmother,” finished Mr. Beresford.
“It is his youngest daughter,” corrected Salemina,--“the youngest
daughter of his only wife, and the image of her deceased mother, who
was, in her time, the belle of Dublin.”
She might well have been that, we all agreed; for this young beauty was
quite the Irish type, such black hair, grey-blue eyes, and wonderful
lashes, and such a merry, arch, winsome face, that one loved her on the
instant.
She was delighted with the place, and we did not wonder, for the
sunshine, streaming in at the back and side windows, showed us rooms
of noble proportions opening into one another. She admired the balcony,
although we thought it too public to be of any use save for flowering
plants; she was pleased with a huge French mirror over the marble
mantle; she liked the chandeliers, which were in the worst possible
taste; all this we could tell by her expressive gestures; and she
finally seized the old gentleman by the lapels of his coat and danced
him breathlessly from the fireplace to the windows and back again, while
the elder girl clapped her hands and laughed.
“Isn't she lovely?” sighed Francesca, a little covetously, although she
is something of a beauty herself.
“I am sorry that her name is Bridget,” said Mr. Beresford.
“For shame!” I cried indignantly. “It is Norah, or Veronica, or
Geraldine, or Patricia; yes, it is Patricia,--I know it as well as if I
had been at the christening.--Dawson, take the tea-things, please; and
do you know the name of the gentleman who has bought the house on the
opposite side?”
“It is Lord Brighton, miss.” (You would never believe it, but we find
the name is spelled Brighthelmston.) “He hasn't bought the 'ouse; he has
taken it for a week, and is giving a ball there on the Tuesday evening.
He has four daughters, miss, and two h'orphan nieces that generally
spends the season with 'im. It's the youngest daughter he is bringing
out, that lively one you saw cutting about just now. They 'ave no
ballroom, I expect, in their town 'ouse, which accounts for their
renting one for this occasion. They stopped a month in this 'otel last
year, so I have the honour of m'luds acquaintance.”
“Lady Brighthelmston is not living, I should judge,” remarked Salemina,
in the tone of one who thinks it hardly worth while to ask.
“Oh, yes, miss, she's alive and 'earty; but the daughters manages
everythink, and what they down't manage the h'orphan nieces does. The
'ouse is run for the young ladies, but m'ludanlady seems to enjoy it.”
Dovermarle Street was so interesting during the next few days that we
could scarcely bear to leave it, lest something exciting should happen
in our absence.
“A ball is so confining!” said Francesca, who had come back from the
corner of Piccadilly to watch the unloading of a huge van, and found
that it had no intention of stopping at Number Nine on the opposite
side.
First came a small army of charwomen, who scrubbed the house from top
to bottom. Then came men with canvas for floors, bronzes and jardinieres
and somebody's family portraits from an auction-room, chairs and sofas
and draperies from an upholsterer's.
The night before the event itself I announced my intention of staying in
our own drawing-room the whole of the next day. “I am more interested in
Patricia's debut,” I said, “than anything else that can possibly happen
in London. What if it should be wet, and won't it be annoying if it is a
cold night and they draw the heavy curtains close together?”
But it was beautiful day, almost too warm for a ball, and the heavy
curtains were not drawn. The family did not court observation; it was
serenely unconscious of such a thing. As to our side of the street, I
think we may have been the only people at all interested in the affair
now so imminent. The others had something more sensible to do, I fancy,
than patching up romances about their neighbours.
At noon the florists decorated the entrance with palms, covered the
balcony with a gay awning, and hung the railing with brilliant masses
of scarlet and yellow flowers. At two the caterers sent silver, tables,
linen, and dishes, and a Broadwood grand piano was installed; but at
half-past seven, when we sat down to dinner, we were a trifle anxious,
because so many things seemed yet to do before the party could be a
complete success.
Mr. Beresford and his mother were dining with us, and we had sent
invitations to our London friends, the Hon. Arthur Ponsonby and Bertie
Godolphin, to come later in the evening. These read as follows:--
Private View
The pleasure of your company is requested
at the coming-out party of
The Hon. Patricia Brighthelmston
July --- 189-
On the opposite side of the street.
Dancing about 10-30. 9 Dovermarle Street.
At eight o'clock, as we were finishing our fish course, which chanced
to be fried sole, the ball began literally to roll, and it required the
greatest ingenuity on Francesca's part and mine to be always down in our
seats when Dawson entered with the dishes, and always at the window when
he was absent.
An enormous van had appeared, with half a dozen men walking behind it.
In a trice, two of them had stretched a wire trellis across one wall
of the drawing-room, and two more were trailing roses from floor to
ceiling. Others tied the dark wood of the stair railing with tall
Madonna lilies; then they hung garlands of flowers from corner to corner
and, alas! could not refrain from framing the mirror in smilax, nor
from hanging the chandeliers with that same ugly, funereal, and
artificial-looking vine,--this idea being the principal stock-in-trade
of every florist in the universe.
We could not catch even a glimpse of the supper-rooms, but we saw a man
in the fourth story front room filling dozens of little glass vases,
each with its single malmaison, rose, or camellia, and despatching them
by an assistant to another part of the house; so we could imagine from
this the scheme of decoration at the tables.--No, not new, perhaps, but
simple and effective.
By the time we had finished our entree, which happened to be lamb
cutlets and green peas, and had begun our roast, which was chicken and
ham, I remember, they had put wreaths at all the windows, hung Japanese
lanterns on the balcony and in the oak-tree, and transformed the house
into a blossoming bower.
At this exciting juncture Dawson entered unexpectedly with our sweet,
and for the first and only time caught us literally 'red-handed.' Let
British subjects be interested in their neighbours, if they will (and
when they refrain I am convinced that it is as much indifference as good
breeding), but let us never bring our country into disrepute with an
English butler! As there was not a single person at the table when
Dawson came in, we were obliged to say that we had finished dinner,
thank you, and would take coffee; no sweet to-night, thank you.
Willie Beresford was the only one who minded, but he rather likes cherry
tart. It simply chanced to be cherry tart, for our cook at Smith's
Private Hotel is a person of unbridled fancy and endless repertory. She
sometimes, for example, substitutes rhubarb for cherry tart quite out
of her own head; and when balked of both these dainties, and thrown
absolutely on her own boundless resources, will create a dish of stewed
green gooseberries and a companion piece of liquid custard. These
unrelated concoctions, when eaten at the same moment, as is her
intention, always remind me of the lying down together of the lion and
the lamb, and the scheme is well-nigh as dangerous, under any other
circumstances than those of the digestive millennium. I tremble to think
what would ensue if all the rhubarb and gooseberry bushes in England
should be uprooted in a single night. I believe that thousands of cooks,
those not possessed of families or Christian principles, would drown
themselves in the Thames forthwith, but that is neither here nor there,
and the Honourable Arthur denies it. He says, “Why commit suicide? Ain't
there currants?”
I had forgotten to say that we ourselves were all en grande toilette,
down to satin slippers, feeling somehow that it was the only proper
thing to do; and when Dawson had cleared the table and ushered in the
other visitors, we ladies took our coffee and the men their cigarettes
to the three front windows, which were open as usual to our balcony.
We seated ourselves there quite casually, as is our custom, somewhat
hidden by the lace draperies and potted hydrangeas, and whatever we saw
was to be seen by any passer-by, save that we held the key to the whole
story, and had made it our own by right of conquest.
Just at this moment--it was quarter-past nine, although it was still
bright daylight--came a little procession of servants who disappeared
within the doors, and, as they donned caps and aprons, would now and
then reappear at the windows. Presently the supper arrived. We did
not know the number of invited guests (there are some things not even
revealed to the Wise Woman), but although we were a trifle nervous about
the amount of eatables, we were quite certain that there would be no
dearth of liquid refreshment.
Contemporaneously with the supper came a four-wheeler with a man and a
woman in it.
Sal. “I wonder if that is Lord and Lady Brighthelmston?”
Mrs. B. “Nonsense, my dear; look at the woman's dress.”
W.B. “It is probably the butler, and I have a premonition that that is
good old Nurse with him. She has been with family ever since the birth
of the first daughter twenty-four years ago. Look at her cap ribbons;
note the fit of the stiff black silk over her comfortable shoulders; you
can almost hear her creak in it!”
B.G. “My eye! but she's one to keep the goody-pot open for the
youngsters! She'll be the belle of the ball so far as I'm concerned.”
Fran. “It's impossible to tell whether it's the butler or paterfamilias.
Yes, it's the butler, for he has taken off his coat and is looking at
the flowers with the florist's assistant.”
B.G. “And the florist's assistant is getting slated like one o'clock!
The butler doesn't like the rum design over the piano; no more do I.
Whatever is the matter with them now?”
They were standing with their faces towards us, gesticulating wildly
about something on the front wall of the drawing-room; a place quite
hidden from our view. They could not decide the matter, although the
butler intimated that it would quite ruin the ball, while the assistant
mopped his brow and threw all the blame on somebody else. Nurse came in,
and hated whatever it was the moment her eye fell on it. She couldn't
think how anybody could abide it, and was of the opinion that his
ludship would have it down as soon as he arrived.
Our attention was now distracted by the fact that his ludship did
arrive. It was ten o'clock, but barely dark enough yet to make the
lanterns effective, although they had just been lighted.
There were two private carriages and two four-wheelers, from which
paterfamilias and one other gentleman alighted, followed by a small
feminine delegation.
“One young chap to brace up the gov'nor,” said Bertie Godolphin. “Then
the eldest daughter is engaged to be married; that's right; only three
daughters and two h'orphan nieces to work off now!”
As the girls scampered in, hidden by their long cloaks, we could
not even discover the two we already knew. While they were divesting
themselves of their wraps in an upper chamber, Nurse hovering over them
with maternal solicitude, we were anxiously awaiting their criticisms of
our preparations.