can you believe I could be such a wicked little girl as to play tricks?
It was an old fairy that gave me the gift. I'm sure I don't know
why--unless she thought that I was a good child and deserved to be
encouraged.'
'By Jove!' cried Dick, 'I never knew you were half such fun!'
'I am not fun, Dick. I think fun is generally so very vulgar, and oh, I
wish you wouldn't say "by Jove!" Surely you know he was a heathen god!'
'I seem to have heard of him in some such capacity,' said Dick. 'I say,
Prissie, what a ripping big ruby!'
'Ah, Dick, Dick, you are like the others! I'm afraid you think more of
the jewels than of any words I may say--and yet _jewels_ are common
enough!'
'They seem to be with you. Pearls, too, and such fine ones! Here,
Priscilla, take them; they're your property.'
Priscilla put her hands behind her: 'No, indeed, Dick, they are of no
use to me. Keep them, please; they may help to remind you of what I have
said.'
'It's awfully kind of you,' said Dick, looking really touched.
'Then--since you put it in that way--thanks, I will, Priscilla. I'll
have them made into a horse-shoe pin.'
'You mustn't let it make you too fond of dress, then,' said Priscilla;
'but I'm afraid you're that already, Dick.'
'A diamond!' he cried; 'go on, Priscilla, I'm listening--pitch into me,
it will do me a _lot_ of good!'
But Priscilla thought it wisest to say no more just then.
That night, after Priscilla and Cathie and Belle had gone to bed, Dick
and his mother sat up talking until a late hour.
'Is dear little cousin Priscilla to be a permanency in this
establishment?' began her cousin, stifling a yawn, for there had been a
rather copious flow of precious stones during the evening.
'Well, I shall keep her with us as long as I can,' said Mrs. Hoyle,
'she's such a darling, and they don't seem to want her at home. I'm
sure, limited as my means are, I'm most happy to have such a visitor.'
'She seems to pay her way--only her way is a trifle trying at times,
isn't it? She lectured me for half an hour on end without a single
check!'
'Are you sure you picked them all up, dear boy?'
'Got a few of the best in my waistcoat-pocket now. I'm afraid I
scrunched a pearl or two, though: they were all over the place, you
know. I suppose you've been collecting too, mater?'
'I picked up one or two,' said his mother; 'I should think I must have
nearly enough now to fill a bandbox. And that brings me to what I wanted
to consult you about, Richard. How are we to dispose of them? She has
given them all to me.'
'You haven't done anything with them yet, then?'
'How could I? I have been obliged to stay at home: I've been so afraid
of letting that precious child go out of my sight for a single hour,
for fear some unscrupulous persons might get hold of her. I thought that
perhaps, when you came home, you would dispose of the jewels for me.'
'But, mater,' protested Dick, 'I can't go about asking who'll buy a
whole bandbox full of jewels!'
'Oh, very well, then; I suppose we must go on living this hugger-mugger
life when we have the means of being as rich as princes, just because
you are too lazy and selfish to take a little trouble!'
'I know something about these things,' said Dick. 'I know a fellow who's
a diamond merchant, and it's not so easy to sell a lot of valuable
stones as you seem to imagine, mother. And then Priscilla really
overdoes it, you know--why, if she goes on like this, she'll make
diamonds as cheap as currants!'
'_I_ should have thought that was a reason for selling them as soon as
possible; but I'm only a woman, and of course _my_ opinion is worth
nothing! Still, you might take some of the biggest to your friend, and
accept whatever he'll give you for them--there are plenty more, you
needn't haggle over the price.'
'He'd want to know all about them, and what should I say? I can't tell
him a cousin of mine produces them whenever she feels disposed.'
'You could say they have been in the family for some time, and you are
obliged to part with them; I don't ask you to tell a falsehood,
Richard.'
'Well, to tell you the honest truth,' said Dick, 'I'd rather have
nothing to do with it. I'm not proud, but I shouldn't like it to get
about among our fellows at the bank that I went about hawking diamonds.'
'But, you stupid, undutiful boy, don't you see that you could leave the
bank--you need never do anything any more--we should all live rich and
happy somewhere in the country, if we could only sell those jewels! And
you won't do that one little thing!'
'Well,' said Dick, 'I'll think over it. I'll see what I can do.'
And his mother knew that it was perfectly useless to urge him any
further: for, in some things, Dick was as obstinate as a mule, and, in
others, far too easy-going and careless ever to succeed in life. He had
promised to think over it, however, and she had to be contented with
that.
On the evening following this conversation cousin Dick entered the
sitting-room the moment after his return from the City, and found his
mother to all appearances alone.
'What a dear sweet little guileless angel cousin Priscilla is, to be
sure!' was his first remark.
'Then you _have_ sold some of the stones!' cried Aunt Margarine. 'Sit
down, like a good boy, and tell me all about it.'
'Well,' said Dick, 'I took the finest diamonds and rubies and pearls
that escaped from that saintlike child last night in the course of some
extremely disparaging comments on my character and pursuits--I took
those jewels to Faycett and Rosewater's in New Bond Street--you know the
shop, on the right-hand side as you go up----'
'Oh, go on, Dick; go on--never mind _where_ it is--how much did you get
for them?'
'I'm coming to that; keep cool, dear mamma. Well, I went in, and I saw
the manager, and I said: "I want you to make these up into a horse-shoe
scarf-pin for me."'
'You said that! You never tried to sell one? Oh, Dick, you are too
provoking!'
'Hold on, mater; I haven't done yet. So the manager--a very gentlemanly
person, rather thin on the top of the head--not that that affects his
business capacities; for, after all----'
'Dick, do you want to drive me frantic!'
'I can't conceive any domestic occurrence which would be more
distressing or generally inconvenient, mother dear. You do interrupt a
fellow so! I forgot where I was now--oh, the manager, ah yes! Well, the
manager said, "We shall be very happy to have the stones made in any
design you may select"--jewellery, by the way, seems to exercise a most
refining influence upon the manners: this man had the deportment of a
duke--"you may select," he said; "but of course I need not tell you that
none of these stones are genuine."'
'Not genuine!' cried Aunt Margarine excitedly. 'They must be--he was
lying!'
'West-end jewellers never lie,' said Dick; 'but naturally, when he said
that, I told him I should like to have some proof of his assertion.
"Will you take the risk of testing?" said he. "Test away, my dear man!"
said I. So he brought a little wheel near the emerald--"whizz!" and away
went the emerald! Then he let a drop of something fall on the ruby--and
it fizzled up for all the world like pink champagne. "Go on, don't mind
_me_!" I told him, so he touched the diamond with an electric
wire--"phit!" and there was only something that looked like the ash of a
shocking bad cigar. Then the pearls--and they popped like so many
air-balloons. "Are you satisfied?" he asked.
'"Oh, perfectly,"' said I, "you needn't trouble about the horse-shoe pin
now. Good evening," and so I came away, after thanking him for his very
amusing scientific experiments.'
'And do you believe that the jewels are all shams, Dick?--do you
really?'
'I think it so probable that nothing on earth will induce me to offer a
single one for sale. I should never hear the last of it at the bank. No,
mater, dear little Priscilla's sparkling conversation may be unspeakably
precious from a moral point of view, but it has no commercial value.
Those jewels are bogus--shams every stone of them!'
Now, all this time our heroine had been sitting unperceived in a corner
behind a window-curtain, reading 'The Wide, Wide World,' a work which
she was never weary of perusing. Some children would have come forward
earlier, but Priscilla was never a forward child, and she remained as
quiet as a little mouse up to the moment when she could control her
feelings no longer.
'It isn't true!' she cried passionately, bursting out of her retreat and
confronting her cousin; 'it's cruel and unkind to say my jewels are
shams! They are real--they are, they _are_!'
'Hullo, Prissie!' said her abandoned cousin; 'so you combine
jewel-dropping with eaves-dropping, eh?'
'How dare you!' cried Aunt Margarine, almost beside herself, 'you odious
little prying minx, setting up to teach your elders and your betters
with your cut and dried priggish maxims! When I think how I have petted
and indulged you all this time, and borne with the abominable litter you
left in every room you entered--and now to find you are only a little,
conceited, hypocritical impostor--oh, _why_ haven't I words to express
my contempt for such conduct--why am I dumb at such a moment as this?'
'Come, mother,' said her son soothingly, 'that's not such a bad
beginning; I should call it fairly fluent and expressive, myself.'
'Be quiet, Dick! I'm speaking to this wicked child, who has obtained our
love and sympathy and attention on false pretences, for which she ought
to be put in prison--yes, in _prison_, for such a heartless trick on
relatives who can ill afford to be so cruelly disappointed!'
'But, aunt!' expostulated poor Priscilla, 'you always said you only kept
the jewels as souvenirs, and that it did you so much good to hear me
talk!'
'Don't argue with _me_, miss! If I had known the stones were wretched
tawdry imitations, do you imagine for an instant----?'
'Now, mother,' said Dick, 'be fair--they were uncommonly good
imitations, you must admit that!'
'Indeed, indeed I thought they were real, the fairy never told me!'
'After all,' said Dick, 'it's not Priscilla's fault. She can't help it
if the stones aren't real, and she made up for quality by quantity
anyhow; didn't you, Prissie?'
'Hold your tongue, Richard; she _could_ help it, she knew it all the
time, and she's a hateful, sanctimonious little stuck-up viper, and so I
tell her to her face!'
Priscilla could scarcely believe that kind, indulgent, smooth-spoken
Aunt Margarine could be addressing such words to her; it frightened her
so much that she did not dare to answer, and just then Cathie and Belle
came into the room.
'Oh, mother,' they began penitently, 'we're _so_ sorry, but we couldn't
find dear Prissie anywhere, so we haven't picked up anything the whole
afternoon!'
'Ah, my poor darlings, you shall never be your cousin's slaves any more.
Don't go near her, she's a naughty, deceitful wretch; her jewels are
false, my sweet loves, false! She has imposed upon us all, she does not
deserve to associate with you!'
'I always said Prissie's jewels looked like the things you get on
crackers!' said Belle, tossing her head.
'Now we shall have a little rest, I hope,' chimed in Cathie.
'I shall send her home to her parents this very night,' declared Aunt
Margarine; 'she shall not stay here to pervert our happy household with
her miserable _gewgaws_!'
Here Priscilla found her tongue. 'Do you think I _want_ to stay?' she
said proudly; 'I see now that you only wanted to have me here
because--because of the horrid jewels, and I never knew they were false,
and I let you have them all, every one, you know I did; and I wanted you
to mind what I said and not trouble about picking them up, but you
_would_ do it! And now you all turn round upon me like this! What have I
done to be treated so? What have I done?'
'Bravo, Prissie!' cried Dick. 'Mother, if you ask me, I think it serves
us all jolly well right, and it's a downright shame to bullyrag poor
Prissie in this way!'
'I _don't_ ask you,' retorted his mother, sharply; 'so you will kindly
keep your opinions to yourself.'
'Tra-la-la!' sang rude Dick, 'we are a united family--we are, we are, we
_are_!'--a vulgar refrain he had picked up at one of the burlesque
theatres he was only too fond of frequenting.
But Priscilla came to him and held out her hand quite gratefully and
humbly. 'Thank you, Dick,' she said; '_you_ are kind, at all events. And
I am sorry you couldn't have your horse-shoe pin!'
'Oh, _hang_ the horse-shoe pin!' exclaimed Dick, and poor Priscilla was
so thoroughly cast down that she quite forgot to reprove him.
She was not sent home that night after all, for Dick protested against
it in such strong terms that even Aunt Margarine saw that she must give
way; but early on the following morning Priscilla quitted her aunt's
house, leaving her belongings to be sent on after her.
She had not far to walk, and it so happened that her way led through the
identical lane in which she had met the fairy. Wonderful to relate,
there, on the very same stone and in precisely the same attitude, sat
the old lady, peering out from under her poke-bonnet, and resting her
knotty old hands on her crutch-handled stick!
Priscilla walked past with her head in the air, pretending not to
notice her, for she considered that the fairy had played her a most
malicious and ill-natured trick.
'Heyday!' said the old lady (it is only fairies who can permit
themselves such old-fashioned expressions nowadays). 'Heyday, why,
here's my good little girl again! Isn't she going to speak to me?'
'No, she's not,' said Priscilla--but she found herself compelled to
stop, notwithstanding.
'Why, what's all this about? You're not going to sulk with me, my dear,
are you?'
'I think you're a very cruel, bad, unkind old woman for deceiving me
like this!'
'Goodness me! Why, didn't the jewels come, after all?'
'Yes--they came, only they were all horrid artificial ones--and it is a
shame, it _is_!' cried poor Priscilla from her bursting heart.
'Artificial, were they? that really is very odd! Can you account for
that at all, now?'
'Of course I can't! You told me that they would drop out whenever I said
anything to improve people--and I was _always_ saying _something_
improving! Aunt had a bandbox in her room quite full of them.'
'Ah, you've been very industrious, evidently; it's unfortunate your
jewels should all have been artificial--most unfortunate. I don't know
how to explain it, unless'--(and here the old lady looked up queerly
from under her white eyelashes), 'unless your goodness was artificial
too?'
'How do you mean?' asked Priscilla, feeling strangely uncomfortable.
'I'm sure I've never done anything the least bit naughty--how can my
goodness possibly be artificial?'
'Ah, that I can't explain; but I know this--that people who are really
good are generally the last persons to suspect it, and the moment they
become aware of it and begin to think how good they are, and how bad
everybody else is, why, somehow or other, their goodness crumbles away
and leaves only a sort of outside shell behind it. And--I'm very old,
and of course I may be mistaken--but I think (I only say I _think_,
mind) that a little girl so young as you must have some faults hidden
about her somewhere, and that perhaps on the whole she would be better
employed in trying to find them out and cure them before she attempted
to correct those of other people. And I'm sure it can't be good for any
child to be always seeing herself in a little picture, just as she likes
to fancy other people see her. Very many pretty books are written about
good little girls, and it is quite true that children may exercise a
great influence for good--more than they can ever tell, perhaps--but
only just so long as they remain natural and unconscious, and not
unwholesome little pragmatical prigesses; for then they make themselves
and other people worse than they might have been. But of course, my
dear, you never made such a mistake as that!'
Priscilla turned very red, and began to scrape one of her feet against
the other; she was thinking, and her thoughts were not at all pleasant
ones.
'Oh, fairy,' she said at last, 'I'm afraid that's just what I _did_ do.
I was always thinking how good I was and putting everybody--papa, mamma,
Alick, Betty, Aunt Margarine, Cathie, Belle, and even poor cousin
Dick--right! I have been a horrid little hateful prig, and that's why
all the jewels were rubbish. But, oh, shall I have to go on talking sham
diamonds and things all the rest of my life?'
'That,' said the fairy, 'depends entirely on yourself. You have the
remedy in your own hands--or lips.'
'Ah, you mean I needn't talk at all? But I must--sometimes. I couldn't
bear to be dumb as long as I lived--and it would look so odd, too!'
'I never said you were not to open your lips at all. But can't you try
to talk simply and naturally--not like little girls or boys in any
story-books whatever--not to "show off" or improve people; only as a
girl would talk who remembers that, after all, her elders are quite as
likely as she is to know what they ought or ought not to do and say?'
'I shall forget sometimes, I know I shall!' said Priscilla
disconsolately.
'If you do, there will be something to remind you, you know. And by and
by, perhaps, as you grow up you may, quite by accident, say something
sincere and noble and true--and then a jewel will fall which will really
be of value!'
'No!' cried Priscilla, 'no, _please_! Oh, fairy, let me off that! If I
_must_ drop them, let them be false ones to punish me--not real. I don't
want to be rewarded any more for being good--if I ever am really good!'
'Come,' said the fairy, with a much pleasanter smile, 'you are not a
hopeless case, at all events. It shall be as you wish, then, and perhaps
it will be the wisest arrangement for all parties. Now run away home,
and see how little use you can make of your fairy gift.'
Priscilla found her family still at breakfast.
'Why,' observed her father, raising his eyebrows as she entered the
room, 'here's our little monitor--(or is it _monitress_, eh,
Priscilla?)--back again. Children, we shall all have to mind our p's and
q's--and, indeed, our entire alphabet, now!'
'I'm sure,' said her mother, kissing her fondly, 'Priscilla knows we're
all delighted to have her home!'
'_I'm_ not,' said Alick, with all a boy's engaging candour.
'Nor am I,' added Betty, 'it's been ever so much nicer at home while
she's been away!'
Priscilla burst into tears as she hid her face upon her mother's
protecting shoulder. 'It's true!' she sobbed, 'I don't deserve that you
should be glad to see me--I've been hateful and horrid, I know--but, oh,
if you'll only forgive me and love me and put up with me a little, I'll
try not to preach and be a prig any more--I will truly!'
And at this her father called her to his side and embraced her with a
fervour he had not shown for a very long time.
* * * * *
I should not like to go so far as to assert that no imitation diamond,
ruby, pearl, or emerald ever proceeded from Priscilla's lips again.
Habits are not cured in a day, and fairies--however old they may be--are
still fairies; so it _did_ occasionally happen that a mock jewel made an
unwelcome appearance after one of Priscilla's more unguarded utterances.
But she was always frightfully ashamed and abashed by such an accident,
and buried the imitation stones immediately in a corner of the garden.
And as time went on the jewels grew smaller and smaller, and frequently
dissolved upon her tongue, leaving a faintly bitter taste, until at last
they ceased altogether and Priscilla became as pleasant and unaffected a
girl as she who may now be finishing this history.
Aunt Margarine never sent back the contents of that bandbox; she kept
the biggest stones and had a brooch made of them, while, as she never
mentioned that they were false, no one out of the family ever so much
as suspected it.
But, for all that, she always declared that her niece Priscilla had
bitterly disappointed her expectations--which was perhaps the truest
thing that Aunt Margarine ever said.
_A MATTER OF TASTE_
PART I
It is a little singular that, upon an engagement becoming known and
being discussed by the friends and acquaintances of the persons
principally concerned, by far the most usual tone of comment should be a
sorrowing wonder. That particular alliance is generally the very last
that anybody ever expected. 'What made him choose _her_, of all people,'
and 'What on earth she could see in _him_,' are declared insoluble
problems. It is confidently predicted that the engagement will never
come to anything, or that, if such a marriage ever does take place, it
is most unlikely to prove a success.
Sometimes, in the case of female friends, this tone is even perceptible
under their warmest felicitations, and through the smiling mask of
compliment shine eyes moist with the most irritating quality of
compassion. 'So glad! so delighted! But why, _why_ didn't you consult
_me_?'--this complicated expression might be rendered: 'I could have
saved you from this--I _was_ so pleased to hear of it!'
And yet, in the majority of cases, these unions are not found to turn
out so very badly after all, and the misguided couple seem really to
have gauged their own hearts and their possibilities of happiness
together more accurately than the most clear-sighted of their
acquaintances.
The announcement that Ella Hylton had accepted George Chapman provoked
the customary sensation and surprise in their respective sets, and
perhaps with rather more justification than usual.
Miss Hylton had undeniable beauty of a spiritual and rather _exalte_
type, and was generally understood to be highly cultivated. She had
spent a year at Somerville, though she had gone down without trying for
a place in either 'Mods.' or 'Greats,' thereby preserving, if not
increasing, her reputation for superiority. She had lived all her life
among cultured people; she was devoted to music and regularly attended
the Richter Concerts, though she could seldom be induced to play in
public; she had a feeling for art, though she neither painted nor drew;
a love of literature strong enough to deter her from all amateur efforts
in that direction. In art, music and literature she was impatient of
mediocrity; and, while she was as fond as most girls of the pleasures
which upper middle-class society can offer, she reverenced intellect,
and preferred the conversation of the plainest celebrity to the
platitudes of the mere dancing-man, no matter how handsome of feature
and perfect of step he might be.
George Chapman was certainly not a mere dancing-man, his waltzing being
rather conscientious than dreamlike, and he was only tolerably
good-looking. On the other hand, he was not celebrated in any way, and
even his mother and sisters had never considered him brilliant. He had
been educated at Rugby and Trinity, Cambridge, where he rowed a fairly
good oar, on principle, and took a middle second in the Moral Science
Tripos. Now he was in a solicitor's office, where he was receiving a
good salary, and was valued as a steady, sensible young fellow, who
could be thoroughly depended upon. He was fond of his profession, and
had acquired a considerable knowledge of its details; apart from it he
had no very decided tastes; he lived a quiet, regular life, and dined
out and went to dances in moderation; his manner, though he was nearly
twenty-six, was still rather boyishly blunt.
What there was in him that had found favour in Ella Hylton's fastidious
eyes the narrator is not rash enough to attempt to particularise. But it
may be suggested that the most unlikely people may possess their fairy
rose and ring which render them irresistible to at least one heart, if
they only have faith to believe in and luck to perceive their power.
So, early in the year, George had plucked up courage to propose to Miss
Hylton, after meeting and secretly adoring her for some months past, and
she, to the general astonishment, had accepted him.
He had a private income--not a large one--of his own, and had saved out
of it. She was entitled under her grandmother's will to a sum which made
her an heiress in a modest way, and thus there was no reason why the
engagement should be a long one, and, though no date had been definitely
fixed for the marriage, it was understood that it should take place at
some time before the end of the summer.