The Gay, Gilded Scene
Mrs. Day, being told that her daughters proposed to go unchaperoned to the
Assembly Rooms that night, declared that for them to do so was unheard-of
and not to be sanctioned. But, under the strain of adversity the poor
woman's will, never a strong one, had weakened. She was painfully
conscious of her own helplessness in the grip of circumstances, and was
always troubled with doubts as to the wisdom of her own judgment. By the
time her day's work was over she was too tired to stand up against any
power she came into collision with. In all that concerned Bessie she was
absolutely feeble. Bessie was victor always, not by reason of superior
strength but through fractiousness, through stubbornness, through a
hysterical determination to talk the opposing voices down, through her
habit of crying like a baby when contradicted, and flinging things about.
So, on this particular occasion, the elder daughter avowing in a high,
excited voice that not many pleasures came in her way, and that when one
did come she meant to take it, let her mother be pleased or let her be
teased, the objections were speedily silenced.
Leaving the shop for once in the care of Mr. Pretty, Mrs. Day went
upstairs for the pleasure of seeing her girls once more in gala attire.
"I have taken the liberty of ordering a fly for the young ladies," Mr.
Gibbon said as he and the mother sat awaiting the appearance of the pair.
"Oh, Mr. Gibbon, if you would go with them, and see them safe to the
Assembly Rooms I should be so much obliged."
Mr. Gibbon, with great solemnity of mien, thoroughly realising the
responsibility of the office, undertook to do so. He, for his part, was
going to take his chance of hearing the great singer with the expenditure
of a shilling only. He would be in the Promenade, but his eyes should be
on the Miss Days, and if protection were required by them he would be at
hand.
Mrs. Day was by no means sure in her anxious heart that her daughters
might not need the strong arm of the male to defend them. She thought as
she surveyed them while they awaited the arrival of the fly that no mother
had ever possessed such treasures to guard. Bessie was always especially
comely in evening dress. Her plump, clearly pale cheeks were now pink with
excitement. Her white skin against the black ribbon round her throat and
threaded through the lace over her ample young bosom was dazzlingly fair.
"Mama, I'm afraid my frock is dreadfully short; even now that Emily has
let down the hem," Deleah said, looking anxiously toward her extremities.
"It shows _all_ my feet!"
It showed the ankles too, truth to say; but what did that _matter_ when
the feet were so small and pretty, and the ankles so elegantly slim?
The wonder to the mother was to see how, since that white silk dress had
been worn before, the girl's beauty had grown to perfection.
"Do you think it looks ridiculous, mama?" referring anxiously to the
scantiness of the skirt and the unblushing exposure of the feet.
"Not at all ridiculous, my dear." What did any imperfection of raiment
matter with a face and head like Deleah's; as exquisitely moulded, as
delicately poised on her slender throat as a flower on its stalk? "There's
a tiny bit of hair awry," the mother said, caught the girl's little chin
in her hand and passed her fingers over the shadowy black hair for the
mere pleasure of caressing it.
When Mr. Gibbon came in presently it was seen he had changed into
dress-clothes, in which attire he had never before appeared.
"But, Mr. Gibbon, you need not have taken the trouble to dress for the
shilling places!" Mrs. Day told him.
"I am to have the honour of escorting the two young ladies," he said.
He was red in the face, and appeared bashful and ill at ease in the
costume which they saw was a new one.
"To think of his a-gettin' hisself up like that!" Emily said with an
amused scorn of the poor man as the cab containing the three drove off.
"There's no doubt what he've set his mind on, 'm. But Miss Bessie ain't
for such as him. She'll look higher."
When Mr. Reginald Forcus came into the Assembly Rooms with his brother and
the sister who since the death of Lady Forcus kept house at Cashelthorpe,
and made his way to seats not very far removed from those the sisters
occupied, Bessie impulsively seized a bit of Deleah's bare arm in her
finger and thumb. She pinched it unconsciously but with such painful
emphasis that in the morning Deleah discovered the place to be black and
blue.
"There he is! Quite close to us! _Now_ perhaps you will believe! I always
knew it was he who sent the tickets, and sent all the flowers and things!
and he sent them for me--only you always took them to yourself, Deda."
She was very smiling, very happy and excited and flushed, through the
concert. She looked so pretty, so like the Bessie of the "party" days of
old, that Deleah thought not only Reginald Forcus but every man who saw
her must admire her pretty sister.
When the "half" arrived, and the ten minutes in which the audience is
permitted to stretch its legs and crane its neck, and acknowledge the
presence of its acquaintance, behold the younger Forcus eagerly
recognising the sisters, and bowing in response to Miss Bessie's delighted
smiles and nods.
"Oh, what a pretty girl!" a woman's voice said. There had come a sudden
lull in the buzz of talk, and the exclamation reached the ears of many
more than his for whom it was intended.
Deleah felt sure it was Bessie who was being admired. She looked quickly
at the speaker. It was that middle-aged sister with the pleasant, kind
face who had come to take the place of Sir Francis Forcus's dead wife. It
was to Sir Francis she had spoken, but she might have been proclaiming the
fact of her discovery of a pretty girl, for the general benefit; so
complete had been the temporary calm into which her speech had broken.
Heads were turned, and several pairs of eyes were fixed upon Deleah.
By a good many present the sisters were recognised, and here and there a
smile was turned on them, and here and there a cool, discreet little bow
was made. And more often the people who knew them, having involuntarily
looked, looked away again; for them the girls' presence there, in a
fashionable company and the most expensive seats, was an offence.
"People we were asked a little time ago to keep from starving!" they said
to themselves. "If Mrs. Day's daughters can afford this sort of thing, we
might as well have kept our guineas in our pockets."
When the audience resumed their seats Bessie kept her eyes pretty
constantly directed upon the smooth fair head of Reggie Forcus. Perhaps he
was conscious of her gaze and found it a compelling one, for again and
again he turned round to look at the sisters, and always Bessie's eyes
caught and held his.
Except to the accompaniment of the singing of her own heart the poor girl
was unconscious of the music. If it was to the evening's nightingale she
listened or to the twittering of the inferior songstresses of the grove
who lifted up their voices when the queen was silent she could hardly have
said; the melody her heart was chanting triumphantly drowned every note of
theirs.
"It has been heavenly," she said, when it was all over, and they stood up
for the singing of "God Save the Queen." "In all my life, Deleah, I have
never enjoyed a concert so much before."
While she said it she was lingering in her place, stopping the gangway for
people anxious to make their way out, pretending to arrange her own cloak
and her sister's, in the endeavour to time their exit to that of the
Forcus family. She did manage it too; and in the crush as they all
approached the door Bessie's happy shoulder was rubbing against the
shoulder of the attractive Reggie.
"It's been first-rate, hasn't it?" he said, as if the two years in which
he had had no speech with the girl were as nothing, and they had parted
yesterday. "Wasn't _She_ fine! Glad I came. I wouldn't have missed her for
anything."
"Heavenly!" Bessie acquiesced, then quickly introduced the personal note.
"I wonder you knew me! I thought I was quite forgotten, and was surprised
when you bowed."
"Ages since we met, isn't it? I did think about coming to call, but I
suppose Mrs. Day is busy?"
"I'm not busy. And I'm always at home. Do come."
"Rather! Shall I call your carriage?"
"Will you?"
So the words "Miss Days' carriage" were passed from mouth to mouth; men
yelled it in the street, the officials in the porch of the Hall bawled it
to one another, a man in the crowd nearer the door turned his head and
shouted "Miss Days' carriage" into the concert room. The air was
reverberating with the cry, it seemed to poor Deleah. How could Bessie
have made them conspicuous in that way!
Sir Francis Forcus had been looking with some curiosity at the girl to
whom his brother was speaking, wedged into the crowd just in front of him;
the younger girl at her sister's back was by his side. He glanced at her
now, and saw it was she to whose loveliness his sister had called public
attention. The Days, of course! He remembered when he heard the name
called; remembered all about them.
"Good-evening. How do you do?" he said, looking down upon Deleah.
And Deleah, recalling the last occasion on which she had heard his voice,
lifted a pale and speechless face to him, for all her answer.
Some big and important Person at the back, impatient of the delay, here
attempted to battle her way through the crowd congested by the too narrow
doors. Sir Francis turned and looked at her reprovingly.
"It's no good, Lady Elizabeth. You'll have to wait like the rest of us.
It's only a matter of a few minutes."
"Oh, do hurry up in front there!" Lady Elizabeth called back to him,
laughing, but imperious. The pressure she and her party were making still
continued, with the result that Deleah was driven roughly forward.
"Gently! Gently!" Sir Francis called again, and Deleah felt that his hands
were on her shoulders and he was shielding her with his arms as much as
possible from the crushing of the crowd.
A minute, and they were through the doorway into the spacious porch, where
individual movement was possible, and the fresh night air blew, and Deleah
could see the light from the big lamp over the archway flaring on the top
of her shabby old fly, while behind it was a long line of handsome
carriages whose drivers vituperated the driver of the cab, in his broken
hat. At the window was Bessie's face. Bessie's excited voice was heard
shrilly calling on Deleah's name.
"Deda! Deda! Where _on earth_ have you got to?"
"Miss Days' carriage stops the way"--the cry which made one Miss Day long
to hide her minished head in the earth--woke the echoes again.
Deleah half turned her head on its long neck, whispered a shy "thank you"
to the tall gentleman at her back; and darted away.
"Oh here you are, Deleah! Come along," Reggie Forcus cried, appearing
before her. "We thought we'd lost you. Take my arm."
But before Deleah could comply another arm was proffered, and proffered in
a manner so brusque and so determined that the young Forcus fell back
involuntarily.
"Thank you. Miss Deleah is in my charge," a voice said; and Deleah felt
herself dragged through the crowded porch, and over the pavement to the
cab-door, on the arm of Mr. Charles Gibbon.
"You'll excuse me," he said, looking in upon the sisters through the cab
window when the door was shut. "I hope you young ladies did not think I
intruded. But your mother had asked me to keep an eye on you."
"And pray why didn't you come with Reggie?" Bessie demanded indignantly as
the fly at last moved on.
Deleah laughed hysterically. "I was torn away from him," she said. "He all
but knocked Reggie down, and seized upon me." She indicated the form of
Mr. Gibbon, dimly seen, seated sentinel on the box beside the
broken-hatted driver.
"Impertinence!" Bessie said. "We have to be civil to him at home, but when
we are among other people I think he might leave us to our friends."
"Reggie Forcus hasn't been much of a friend."
"He is going to be for the future. He asked leave to call. It is a little
awkward as you are always at the school, and mama is always
downstairs"--(Bessie had never yet brought herself to say "Mother is in
the shop") "I would have asked him to come in the evenings, but _he_"
(again a nod towards the figure of the guardian-angel on the box-seat) "is
always there."
"Well, why not?"
"Can't you understand that Reggie might not care to meet a young man out
of a draper's shop?"
"But he comes to call on people in a gro--"
"That's different," Bessie quickly announced. "We weren't always there,
remember."
"Wednesday afternoons I am at home after three. Saturdays I am at home all
day."
"I know," Bessie said, but did not promise to avail herself of the
protection offered by her sister's presence on those occasions.