Although the ball bore the name of the Bachelors’, it was generally
known to be an entertainment got up by the unmarried members of the
leading clubs. As was their wont, no expense would be spared.
Invitations had been comparatively restricted; many had been
disappointed who had made certain of the privilege. All this, of
course, made the happy possessors of the tickets still more
gratified by their good fortune. The finest hall in the city had
been secured for the occasion. The ornamentation was said to be
unparalleled, the supper without precedent for style and
expensiveness. A celebrated European band, then on a tour through
Australia, had been engaged. Sailors from a man-of-war anchored in
the harbour were kindly lent to hold a rope which served to divide
the ball-room. It was questionable whether so truly magnificent a
ball had ever been given in Sydney, or perhaps would be given again.
The weather was evidently “set fair”—there would be no deduction
from comfort on that account. It was weeks since a great society
entertainment had been given. The _haute volée_ of Sydney was
manifestly fluttered. Some of the younger feminine members openly
stated that, after tasting to the full of its delights, they would
be ready to lie down and die.
At length the long-expected day arrived, on the night of which the
fondly-anticipated Bachelors’ Ball was to take place. All feminine
adult Sydney—that is to say, the fortunate section which was
entitled to the _entrée_—was moved to its centre. No statistics are
to hand of the number of dressmakers who temporarily became of
unsound mind because of the terrific call upon their fingers and
brains, tempers and tongues. Nevertheless, according to the doctrine
of averages, there must have been a certain number of the managers
and of the young persons whose passage to an early grave was thereby
accelerated.
Mrs. Stamford, wisely forecasting, had carried out arrangements for
her own and the girls’ dresses at a comparatively early period, had
got them home with all necessary alterations and trimmings decided
upon long before the real crush of the thoughtless began, or the
panic of the dangerously late set in.
Simple as were the materials, few the ornaments, and unobtrusive the
accordance with the prevailing fashion, the full measure of
satisfactory fitting was not completed without several interviews
and divers alterations. The sum total of her milliner’s bill
astonished, even alarmed, Mrs. Stamford.
But her husband, when giving her _carte blanche_, had intimated that
he did not wish trifling economies to be studied, that his wife and
daughters must look their best; all the world was to be there, and
as it was to be a rare occasion, they had better take full advantage
of it.
When the hour sounded, Laura had been dressed and finished to the
last lace; had indeed been sitting quietly reading, awaiting the
arrival of their carriage. But Linda could not contain her
impatience. She walked up and down the sitting-room spreading out
her dress occasionally, and requesting her mother to say if it was
“straight,” whether her flowers were exactly in their places,
whether it would not have been better for her to have worn another
colour. This conversation was varied by wondering whether she would
get any partners, or have to sit on a seat the whole evening;
whether Mr. Hope would find them out, or be so occupied with his
duties as steward that he would not observe them or have time to
dance with them. To which inquiries her parents either were unable
to reply satisfactorily or said she would see when she got there.
“Do you know, Laura,” she suddenly added, “impartially speaking, you
are really a pretty girl! I am sure if I were a stranger I should
think so; I should indeed. Your features are not perfection, except
your eyes, I mean—I don’t think any one could say they were not
first class. But you have a very taking look when you are interested
about anything; and then you are tallish and slight—not too tall
either. You could look dignified too, if you liked, which is a great
advantage to a woman, while I am afraid I never could. If I were to
set my mouth and knit my brows and say ‘Sir! I fail to understand
you,’ people would only laugh and pat me on the back. It would never
freeze the blood in their veins, or anything of that sort. Now
‘father, dearest father!’ as the Wanderer in the play says, don’t
you think Laura looks perfectly splendid to-night?”
“Bless her heart!” said Mr. Stamford, answering the question while
he gazed at his eldest daughter with fond admiration, “she looks
like a—like a queen in a book, like a princess in the _Arabian
Nights_; like her father’s own dear girl. I trust she will enjoy
herself as much as she deserves; and you too, Linda, darling.”
Laura Stamford without doubt did look a most perfect incarnation of
innocent, girlish beauty. And, indeed, when is a maiden more likely
to present that appearance than on the night of the first ball of
note and importance to which she has been bidden? Her cheek slightly
flushed with the excitement of untasted pleasure, her eyes sparkling
with innocent excitement; her red-rose lips; her rounded arms; her
ivory neck; her slender, supple form; her free, elastic step—if
these attributes do not, in combination, make up the wondrous,
God-given, crowning gift of beauty, then have the grateful eyes of
mankind never been gladdened with the vision.
“Father is perfectly just in his opinion of dear Laura’s appearance
to-night,” said Mrs. Stamford, with a mother’s guarded approval;
“and my little girl here, too, looks extremely nice. I might say
more, were I not afraid of making her vain. I can only tell her not
to be anxious about herself; to trust to the course of events, and
all will go well. We must have a grand talk over it all to-morrow
morning.”
“Here comes the carriage at last, I am thankful to say,” said Laura,
as the grand London-made barouche rolled up to the door, while the
footman rang the bell sufficiently long to make a nervous inmate
conclude it to be a fire.
“Muffle up and run down, my dears! We must not keep three hundred
guineas’ worth of horseflesh waiting at night,” said her father.
Mrs. Grandison and Josie were in the carriage. The former made room
beside her for Mrs. Stamford, saying, “You girls must sit together
on the back seat. It’s large enough to hold four of you now there’s
no crinoline—at least, none to speak of. Perhaps Mr. Stamford won’t
mind sitting on the box—once upon a time two people would have
filled this carriage. How did you get on with your dresses, girls?
Mine and Josie’s only came late in the afternoon, after that
infamous Madame Rocheretti promising to have them fitted on and
everything done in the way of trimmings yesterday. However, she
threw herself on my mercy, as she said the Government House people
had come down upon her at the last moment.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Josie. “However, I have made up
my mind to have my dresses made at Justine’s in future. She is
dearer, but she has twice as much originality. What have you got on,
Laura?”
“Nothing very wonderful. We went to mother’s old dressmaker, Madame
Schlesinger, that she used to have when she was first married. She
is behind the times, I dare say, but a ball is a ball with Linda and
me. We shall enjoy ourselves, I dare say. If we are much disfigured
this time, we shall gradually advance to a knowledge of high
millinery.”
“You’ll see when you go into the room how the other women are
dressed,” said Josie authoritatively. “If you’re dowdy, it will make
you so miserable that you’ll be more careful next time. I would have
come down and given you a hint or two, but I make it a rule never to
stir out on the day of a ball, and all yesterday I was too busy.”
“It is very kind of you,” said Laura, warmly, “and we were uncertain
about several things, but it doesn’t matter particularly.”
“Laura must make up by freshness and youth what she wants in style,”
said Mrs. Grandison good-humouredly. “I dare say she and Linda will
do very well, though I really believe Josie’s will be the best dress
in the room. And indeed it ought to be. Mr. Grandison’s cheque, and
it was a large one, didn’t nearly pay for it.”
“Laura is only a year younger than I am, mamma,” said Josie, rather
sharply. “One would think I was getting quite an old hag. I wonder
if all the best men are going? Is that good looking Mr. Hope sure to
be there?”
“Yes,” said Linda; “he told us he was one of the committee.”
Further conversation was rendered difficult by the dashing of the
carriage into the “line.” The string of ball-ward carriages, of
which they now formed a part, compelled them to proceed at a walk
until the foremost vehicles drove up and deposited their occupants.
The novelty of making a part of such an astonishing procession
almost roused Linda’s spirits to the point of expressing the
admiration of everything which she felt. But, recalling her mother’s
advice and the responsibility of decorous demeanour now cast upon
her, she refrained, at great personal cost and self-denial. She was
rewarded in turn by the arrival of the carriage at the magic portal,
from the interior of which a blaze of lamps and fairy splendour was
visible.
A few moments saw them safely ushered into the dressing-room,
provided with all accessories needful for repairing temporary damage
or partial disarray. Small stay, however, was made here, and after
Josie had gazed at herself in the mirrors from every conceivable
point, and had herself adjusted by her obedient mother in several
different modes, they bent their steps towards the main entrance to
the ball-room, where they found Mr. Stamford awaiting them. By a
curious coincidence, Mr. Barrington Hope chanced to come that way,
when, giving his arm to Mrs. Stamford and Laura, he walked up to the
top of the enormous room, leaving Mr. Stamford to bring up the rear
with Mrs. Grandison and the two girls.
The latter lady lost no time in locating herself next to the wife of
a well-known member of Parliament, and at no great distance from the
wife and daughter of the Governor.
She signed to Mrs. Stamford to sit next to her, and being thus
within the Vice-regal circle, as it were, considered the seating and
rendezvous part of the business to be settled for the night.
Mr. Barrington Hope immediately possessed himself of Laura’s card,
upon which he inscribed his name for two waltzes and said something
about an extra as well. Josie was surrounded by several of the
_jeunesse dorée_, who appropriated a large share of the dances not
marked engaged. Of these there were several unnamed, and yet not
open. When questioned, she declined to give the names of her
partners, merely remarking that she reserved them for friends. As
for Linda, she sat down in a state of wonder and admiration at the
whole splendid array, to her astonished gaze supernal in glory and
dazzling in brilliancy. The magnificent and lofty hall, the crowd of
well-dressed men and women, the glass-like floor, the melodious
crash of the band, which filled the room with the music of the
spheres, as it seemed to her, the hall divided by a rope held by
picturesque tars modelled upon the lines of the nautical melodrama;
the swing and sway of the immortal dance-music of Johann
Strauss—which had for some time commenced—the uniforms of the naval
and military officers, all these wonders and splendours for a time
obscured in her mind the fact that nobody had as yet asked her to
dance.
She had suddenly become aware of this fact, and was subsiding into a
plaintive and resigned condition, a prey to dismal anticipations,
when Mr. Hope suddenly appeared in company of a naval lieutenant,
whom he begged leave to introduce.
Linda bowed with acquiescence, and the next moment was whirling
around with the joyous throng, conscious that she danced well,
feeling herself to be one of the leading performers, and quite on a
par with all other individuals of her age and sex.
The young officer danced well, as do naval men generally. He talked
easily and agreeably, with that happy mixture of brusquerie and
refinement which renders the service so irresistible. Linda
apparently came up to his standard of a nice girl and a desirable
partner, since he begged leave to put down his name for two more
dances; he also brought up some brother officers, including a stout
doctor and a small but preternaturally cool and amusing midshipman,
so that when Mr. Hope came for his dance, he was nearly crowded out
by the naval brigade, who quite encompassed Linda, to the exclusion
of the most irreproachable civilians.
If Linda was a success, it seemed that Laura was destined to achieve
a genuine triumph.
Shortly after her first dance with Barrington Hope there appeared to
be an unusual amount of interest displayed in the vicinity of Mrs.
Grandison, who, of course, was extensively known in the _grande
monde_. A variety of entertaining conversation was indulged in with
that lady, generally ending with a respectful request for an
introduction to the young lady in white.
The good-natured matron did not grudge the girl her meed of praise;
still she occasionally remarked without satisfaction that the great
guns of the fashionable world, the inheritors of wealth and estates
of proverbial grandeur, the travelled and fastidious “elegants,”
contented themselves with a passing notice or a laughing exchange of
badinage with Josie while they struggled for Laura’s card, and
searched closely the lower figures of the programme, uncertain as
she declared it to be that her party would remain to conclude it.
Mr. Grandison, who had stayed rather late at the club over a
seductive hand of whist, now came up in time to glance at things
generally. He was extremely complimentary as to the appearance of
his young friends, and declared that Laura had been voted the belle
of the ball by several of the leading authorities of the club,
against whose decision there was manifestly no appeal.
“There’s a sort of freshness, and, well, I hardly know what to
call it,” he said, “about girls that come from the country that
fetches the men of taste. The town girls are better millinered and
so on; but they can’t get the colour and the innocent look,
the—ah—dew-drop, early morning sort of brightness,” continued Mr.
Grandison, who had refreshed liberally with the Heidsiek dry
monopole which the club imported, and was becoming poetical.
“That’s what there’s no standing against. Dash it, Stamford, old
fellow! Laura’s cut ’em all down to-night. White dress, rose in
her hair, and so on. It’s the real thing when the complexion will
stand it. There’s not a girl here to-night who’s a patch on her. I
heard Donald M’Intosh say so himself.”
This stupendous announcement produced no reply for the moment. That
_the_ bachelor eligible, _par excellence_, the man of estates and
establishments, who had travelled, had taken an English University
degree, distinguished equally for tennis play as for parliamentary
influence, who was generally an invited member of the Vice-regal
party at public demonstrations and amusements, that _he_ should have
awarded the golden pippin to the unknown provincial damsel, struck
Mrs. Grandison dumb with astonishment, and caused Josie to turn
paler with envy than even her ordinary complexion warranted.
When Mrs. Grandison recovered herself, she said, “Upon my word, Mr.
Grandison, you’re determined to make the girl vain—though she is
dancing now, and can’t hear. One would think you hadn’t a daughter
of your own. Not but what Laura does look very nice, Mrs. Stamford,
only it seems to me the champagne’s very good to-night.”
“What do people come to a ball for?” returned her husband,
gallantly. “Come over to the supper-table and have a glass yourself,
my dear. Stamford, you bring my wife and Josie. I’ll take Mrs.
Stamford, and we’ll drink Laura’s health. After that it’s time to go
home. Struck two, and the best of the fun’s over.”
“I’ve had enough,” said Josie, who had sat out the last two dances.
“For my part, I begin to hate balls; they get stupider every time, I
think. And, oh, how tired I am!”
So in ten minutes afterwards, Mr. Stamford and his wife marched down
the room and carried off their daughters, to the great and sincere
grief of their prospective partners.