MISS PERRY IS THE SOUL OF DISCRETION
The next morning at ten o’clock, when Jim Lascelles appeared for the
second time in Hill Street, he was received in the blue drawing-room by
the lilac frock and its wonderful canopy. Jim gave back a step before
the picture that was presented.
“My aunt!” said he.
“The frock is a sweet,” said Miss Perry. “Isn’t it? Muffin’s----”
“Goose Girl,” said Jim, “you are marvelous.”
“I think the hat must flop a little too much,” said Miss Perry, “in
places. It makes people turn round to stare at it.”
“Of course it does, you foolish person,” said Jim, with little guffaws
of rapture. “It is an absolute aboriginal runcible hat. How did you
come by it? It seems to me there are deep minds in this.”
“Lord Cheriton chose it,” said Miss Perry.
“My noble patron and employer. It does him infinite credit. That hat is
an achievement.”
“Aunt Caroline doesn’t like it,” said Miss Perry. “Especially in
church.”
“Aunt Caroline is a Visigoth,” said Jim. “Let us forget her. Sit there,
you Goose, where you sat yesterday. And if you don’t move and don’t
speak for an hour, you shall have a cream bun.”
It was bribery, of course, on the part of Jim Lascelles, but Miss Perry
made instant preparation to earn the promised guerdon.
“You are so marvelous,” said Jim, “that poor painting chaps ought not
to look at you. Oho! I begin to have light. I begin to see where that
lilac arrangement and that incredible headpiece came from. By the way,
Goose Girl, is it possible that Araminta, Duchess of Dorset, is one of
your grand relations?”
“She is my great-grandmamma,” said Miss Perry.
“She must be,” said Jim. “What has old Dame Nature been doing, I
wonder? Copying former successes. And old Sir President History, R.A.,
famous painter of genre, repeating himself like one o’clock.”
Jim Lascelles began to sketch the incredible hat with great vigor and
boldness.
“By all the gods of Monsieur Gillet,” said Jim, vaingloriously, “they
will want a rail to guard it at the Luxembourg.”
Yet Jim was really a modest young fellow. Could it be that already a
phial of the magic potion had been injected into the veins of that sane
and amiable youth?
“Goose Girl,” said Jim, “it is quite clear to me that if the Duchess
was your great-grandmamma, Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., was my old
great-granddad. Now, don’t move the Goose Piece. She wear-eth a
mar-vel-ous hat!” Jim’s charcoal was performing surprising antics.
“Chin Piece quite still. Wonderful natural angle. Can you keep good if
you take your paw out of your mouth?”
“I will try to,” said Miss Perry, with perfect docility.
“We will risk it,” said Jim. “Keep saying to yourself, ‘Only
thirty-five minutes more and I get a cream bun.’”
“Yes, Jim,” said Miss Perry, with a remarkable air of intelligence.
“Paws down,” said Jim. “Hold ’em thusly. Move not the Chin Piece, the
Young Man said. No, and not the Whole of the White and Pink and Blue
and Yellow Goose Piece neither.”
Perhaps it is not strictly accurate to state that Jim dropped into
poetry as he continued the study of his subject. But certainly he
indulged in a kind of language which assumed lyrical form.
“Paws down,” said Jim. “She approacheth her Mouth Piece upon pain of
losing her Bun. Paw Pieces quite quiet. Move not the Chin Piece, the
Young Man said.”
The blue eyes of Miss Perry were open to their limit. They seemed to
devour the slow-ticking clock upon the chimney-piece. At last virtue
was able to claim its reward.
“Cream bun, please,” drawled Miss Perry, in a manner that was really
ludicrous.
“It can’t possibly be an hour yet,” said Jim.
“It is,” said Miss Perry, with great conviction. “It is _honestly_.”
“Very good,” said Jim. “Young Man taketh Goose Girl’s word of honor.”
He produced a neat-looking white paper packet from his coat pocket.
“Goose Girl presenteth Paw Piece,” said he, “to receive Diploma of
Merit. A short interval for slight but well-deserved nourishment.”
Miss Perry lost no time in divesting the packet of its trappings. I
don’t say positively that her satisfaction assumed an audible form when
she beheld the seductive delicacy of its contents. But, at all events,
she lost no time in taking a very large bite out of a bun of quite
modest dimensions.
“Jim,” said she, “it is _quite_ as nice as the ones that come from
Buszard’s.”
“It is their own brother,” said Jim. “This comes from Buszard’s.”
“R-R-Really,” said Miss Perry, with a doubtful roll of the letter R.
“But those that Gobo brings me are larger.”
“They grow more than one size at Buszard’s,” said Jim. “Gobo is a bit
of a duke, I dare say.”
“He _is_ a duke,” said Miss Perry.
“If I were a duke,” said Jim, “I should bring you the large size. But
as I am only Jim Lascelles who lives at Balham with his old mother, you
will have to be content with the small ones.”
It may have been that Miss Perry was a little disappointed, because the
small ones only meant a bite and a little one. But she contrived to
conceal her disappointment very successfully. Although brought up in
the country she had excellent breeding.
“Jim,” said Miss Perry, “where is Balham?”
“Quite a ducal question,” said Jim.
“Is it as far from London as London is from Slocum Magna?” said Miss
Perry.
“I acquit you of _arrière pensée_,” said Jim. “Here is Lord Cheriton.
You had better ask him where Balham is.”
That nobleman in resplendent morning attire entered with an air that
was fatherly.
“Is it my privilege to make you known to one another?” said he, with
an air of vast benevolence. “My ward, Miss Perry. Mr. Lascelles, the
coming Gainsborough.”
“Oh, I’ve known Jim----” Miss Perry began blurting, when it is grievous
to have to inform the gentle reader that Jim Lascelles dealt her a
stealthy but absolutely unmistakable kick on the shin in quite the old
Widdiford manner.
“Can you tell me where Balham is?” Miss Perry inquired of Lord Cheriton
with really wonderful presence of mind. But there was a real honest
tear in her eyes; and tears are known to be an excellent old-fashioned
specific for the wits.
“Certainly I can,” said he, with courtly alacrity. “Balham is an
outlying part of the vast metropolis. It is a most interesting place
with many honorable associations.”
“Jim,” the luckless Miss Perry was beginning, but happily on this
occasion Jim Lascelles had no need to do more than show her his boot,
while Cheriton’s sense of hearing was by no means so acute as it might
have been; “Mr. Lascelles,” Miss Perry contrived to correct herself,
“lives at Balham.”
“Then we are able,” said Cheriton, “to congratulate Mr. Lascelles and
also to congratulate Balham. But tell me, Lascelles, why you live in an
outlying part of the vast metropolis when the center calls you?”
“We live at Balham,” said Jim, “my mother and I, because it is cheap
and respectable.”
“A satisfying combination,” said Cheriton. “I trust the presence of my
ward, Miss Perry, does not retard the progress of your artistic labors?”
“Quite the contrary, I assure you,” said Jim, with excellent politeness.
“I am glad of that,” said Cheriton. “But as you may have already
discovered, Miss Perry has quite the feeling for art.”
“Yes,” said Jim, perhaps conventionally, “I am sure she has.”
“It is a very remarkable case of heredity. You see, my dear Lascelles,
Gainsborough painted her great-grandmamma.”
“So I understand,” said Jim, with great solemnity.
“It is a great pleasure to me, my dear Lascelles, that Miss Perry’s
taste in art is so sure. We go to the National Gallery together,
hand-in-hand as it were, to admire the great Velasquez.”
“He is a sweet,” said Miss Perry.
“And, my dear Lascelles, we profoundly admire the great Rembrandt also.”
“He is a sweet too,” said Miss Perry.
“And, my dear Lascelles, together we share--Miss Perry and I--a slight
distrust of the permanent merit of Joseph Wright of Derby. The fact
is, Joseph Wright of Derby somehow fails to inspire our confidence.
One can understand Joseph Wright of Sheffield perfectly well; or even
perhaps--mind, I do not say positively--Joseph Wright of Nottingham;
but I put it to you, Lascelles, can one accept Joseph Wright of Derby
as belonging to all time?”
“I agree with you,” said Jim. “Yet was there not once an immortal born
at Burton-on-Trent?”
“I never heard that there was,” said Cheriton, with an air of pained
surprise. “And that is a matter upon which I am hardly open to
conviction. By the way, Lascelles, which of England’s luscious pastures
had the glory of giving birth to your genius?”
As a preliminary measure Jim Lascelles showed Miss Perry his boot.
“I was born,” said Jim, modestly, yet observing that the blue eyes of
Miss Perry were adequately fixed on his boot, “at a little place called
Widdiford, in the north of Devon.”
“Yes, of course,” said Cheriton, graciously; “I ought to have
remembered, as your father and I were at school together. I remember
distinctly that it was the opinion of the fourth form common room that
the finest clotted cream and the finest strawberry jam in the world
came from Widdiford.”
“It is almost as nice at Slocum Magna,” said Miss Perry, in spite of
the covert threat that was still lurking in Jim’s outstretched boot.
“Quite so,” said Cheriton. “Ha, happy halcyon days of youth, when the
cream was really clotted and the strawberries were really ripe! But I
seem to remember that Widdiford is remarkable for something else.”
Miss Perry was prepared to enlighten Lord Cheriton, but Jim’s boot rose
ferociously.
“Stick paw in Mouth Piece,” Jim whispered truculently, “and merely
think of cream buns.”
“Widdiford,” said Cheriton, “let me see. In what connection
have I heard that charmingly poetic name? Ah, to be sure, I
remember--Widdiford is the place at which they have not quite got the
railway, don’t you know. Miss Araminta, is not that the case?”
“Yes,” said Miss Perry; “but it is only three miles away.”
“And what is the proximity,” said Cheriton, a little dubiously it is to
be feared, “of Widdiford to Slocum Magna?”
“The best part of two miles,” said Jim Lascelles, boldly taking the
bull by the horns. “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it, that we should
have lived at the Red House at Widdiford, and that Miss Perry’s papa
should have lived at the Parsonage, at Slocum Magna? In fact, I seem
to remember Miss Perry or one of her sisters as quite a tot of a girl
sitting as good as pie in the vicarage pew.”
It was here that Jim’s boot did wonders. Miss Perry was simply besieged
by voices from the upper atmosphere beseeching her to give the whole
thing away completely. She refrained, however. Her respect for Jim’s
boot enabled her to continue sitting as good as pie.
That being the case, let us offer this original piece of observation
for what it is worth. Cream buns are remarkably efficient in some
situations, while an uncompromising right boot is equally efficient in
others. To Jim Lascelles belongs the credit of having assimilated early
in life this excellent truth.
Cheriton turned to see what progress Jim Lascelles had made with his
labors.
“Very good progress, Lascelles,” said he. Yet something appeared to
trouble my lord. “Upon my word,” said he, “either my eyesight betrays
me or the color of your girl’s hair is yellow.”
“Is it?” said Jim Lascelles, innocently. “Yes, so it is, as yellow as
the light of the morning.”
“The duchess’s hair is auburn, unmistakably.”
“Why, yes,” said Jim; “but really, don’t you think yellow will be quite
as successful?”
Cheriton gazed at Jim Lascelles in profound astonishment.
“My dear fellow,” said he, “I hope you understand what you are
commissioned to do. You are commissioned to make a precise and exact
copy of Gainsborough’s Duchess of Dorset for Cheriton House, not to
perpetrate a _tour de force_ of your own. Upon my word, Lascelles, that
hair is really too much. And the set of the hat, as far as one may
judge at present, certainly differs from the original. I am sorry to
say so, Lascelles, but really I think in the interests of all parties
it would be well if you started again.”
Jim put his hands in his pockets. Upon his handsome countenance was a
very whimsical if somewhat dubious expression.
“Lord Cheriton,” said he, solemnly, “the truth is, if I could have
afforded to lose a cool hundred pounds, which I don’t mind saying
is more than the whole of what I made last year, I should not have
accepted this commission. As I have accepted it I shall do my best; and
if the results are not satisfactory I shall not look for remuneration.”
“Well, Lascelles,” said his patron, “that is a straightforward
proposition. I dare say it is this confounded French method of looking
at things that has misled you so hopelessly. ’Pon my word, I never saw
such hair, and Gillet never saw such hair either. It is enough to make
Gainsborough turn in his grave. It is most providential that I happened
to look in. Take a fresh piece of canvas and start again.”
Jim Lascelles laid his head to one side with a continuance of his
whimsical and dubious air. There was no doubt that the yellow was
extremely bold and that the hair of the duchess was auburn.
Yet what of the cause of the mischief? There she sat on the sofa in her
favorite pose, blissfully unconscious of the trouble she had wrought,
for there could be no doubt whatever that her thoughts were of cream
buns. And further, it seemed to Jim Lascelles that there could be
no doubt either that her hair had been painted by the light of the
morning. Cheriton, however, was too much preoccupied with the duchess
to observe that fact.
“My dear Miss Araminta,” said he, “as this is a really fine morning,
and this is really the month of May, let us stroll into the park and
watch young England performing maritime feats on the Serpentine. And
after luncheon, if the weather keeps fine, we will go to the circus.”
“What fun!” said Miss Perry.