IN FANCY DRESS
Van Buren had had many pleasures, many gratifications since he had been
in London; his dreams--the dreams inspired by Du Maurier's drawings when
he was a little boy--had been very nearly realised. Perhaps the greatest
triumph that he had had yet was the evening of the Artists' Fancy Ball.
He had succeeded in making up a party to go in costume. He was always
making up parties, and he had for many years been obsessed by a longing
to dress up.
Harry, in mockery of his passion for everything English, had advised him
to go as an Ancient Briton, with a coat of blue paint. Scorning such
ribald chaff, he had ordered a magnificent costume of chain armour.
Greatly to his satisfaction he had persuaded Hereford Vaughan to go as
Shakespeare, Valentia and Daphne respectively as Portia in scarlet and
Rosalind in green.
A large party were to dine at Van Buren's rooms before the ball. Fancy
dress has the effect of bringing out odd, unexpected little
characteristics in people. For example, Harry, good-looking and a dandy,
quite a romantic type, hated dressing up, and cared nothing whatever
about his costume; while Romer, the sober and serious, enjoyed it
immensely, and appeared to think his appearance of the utmost
importance--almost a matter of life and death.
The women were far less self-conscious in costume than the men, and
cared far less how they looked, probably because women are always more
or less in fancy dress, and it was not so much of a novelty to them.
Valentia had pointed out that Shakespeare, to be quite correct, should
wear ear-rings; so Vaughan called at her house on the way to Van
Buren's, as she had promised to lend him some.
"He won't know how to put them on," said Daphne, drawing on her long
boots. "Probably he hasn't had his ears pierced; you must go and screw
them on for him."
Valentia ran down. Just as she was screwing the long coral and pearl
ear-rings with rather painful energy on to the unfortunate young man's
ears, the servant, with a slight expression of terror that could not be
concealed, announced--
"Mrs. Wyburn."
The situation was really rather comic. Romer's mother, who was going to
a dinner-party in the same street, could not forgo the pleasure of
calling unexpectedly on them at half-past seven, vaguely hoping that it
might be inconvenient to them, and that she would catch them in
something they didn't want her to know--a true mother's instinct. But
not in her wildest dreams had she expected what she saw when she entered
the drawing-room--her daughter-in-law in her red mortar-board, red cloak
and bands, with, apparently, her arms round the neck of a young man in
purple silk stockings and jewelled embroidered gloves with rings outside
them.
Mrs. Wyburn literally sank into a chair.
Valentia was perfectly equal to the occasion. She thoroughly enjoyed the
baffling of Mrs. Wyburn.
"I can't think why Romer didn't tell you," she repeated several times,
"that Van Buren is giving a dinner for the fancy ball!" and she rang and
gave orders that her husband and sister were to come down immediately.
Romer had been four hours dressing; Daphne about ten minutes.
"I do think you ought to have a little make-up. Will you?" said Valentia
to Vaughan.
"I should love to," he answered, to Mrs. Wyburn's disgust and horror,
looking in the glass and taking very little notice of the indignant old
lady.
"He _does_ need just a touch of lip-salve and a little black under the
eyes, don't you think so?" Valentia asked, caressingly, pretending to
consult Mrs. Wyburn.
"I can't say, I'm sure. I've no idea what he wants," said Mrs. Wyburn
with a snap.
"But don't you think it would improve him, darling?" Valentia went on,
holding her head on one side and holding up her hand as if she were
looking at a picture.
"Not at all," said Mrs. Wyburn.
"Then do you think his lips are red enough already?" asked Valentia.
Vaughan hastily interrupted the absurd discussion.
"The human lip is never red enough," he said decidedly; "they ought to
be bright, light scarlet."
"That's just what I think. I've got some lovely scarlet stuff--the
colour of sealing-wax. Shall I fetch it for you?"
"Yes, do," he said.
"But won't it look rather----"
"No; merely decent," said the young man decidedly.
"And what does Romer say to _all this_?" said Mrs. Wyburn with a forced
smile and a voice trembling with uncontrollable rage.
"Oh, he likes it, darling. He loves it. No one's been so keen about
their dress as Romer. I'll go and fetch him, and my roll of parchment--I
had forgotten my roll of parchment."
She ran upstairs and came down saying--
"Romer won't be a minute, dear; he's awfully anxious for you to see his
dress. He's just darkening his eyelashes. That's all. He's Louis XIX or
something, you know."
She then deliberately and openly drew Vaughan to the window where there
was still bright June daylight and painted his lips a brilliant scarlet
to their mutual satisfaction and Mrs. Wyburn's unspeakable horror.
"Mad," murmured Mrs. Wyburn, half to herself, "quite mad! I shall be
quite upset for the Trott-Hellyers' dinner-party. It's Dr.
Trott-Hellyers' birthday. He only _lives_ three doors from you" (she
said this rather reproachfully), "and I dine with him _every_ year on
his birthday! And to think I only came in to see my son for a minute or
two, because I couldn't bear to pass his door ... his very door...."
"Sweet of you," said Valentia.
... "And then to think I should find----" She screamed suddenly.
Daphne had come in, in her green cloak, doublet and hose, and little
green cap, Romer in paint and powder, patches and lace ruffles, sword
and snuffbox. There was a lavish amount of rouge on his cheeks and his
eyes were blacked almost to the temples.
Hearing that his mother was there he had finished the left eye rather
hurriedly, the result being that he looked as if he had been fighting.
While the poor lady was trying to adjust herself to this sight, and
explaining for the sixth time why she was there, and making bitter
remarks about a young girl going to a ball in what she (Mrs. Wyburn)
called trousers, and while Daphne kept on wrapping herself in the folds
of her cloak and then undoing them again to show her nice high boots,
she was still more distressed at the arrival of her _bête noire_ and
mortal enemy, Harry de Freyne.
Van Buren had sent his motor for them, containing Harry.
Had his name not been announced by the servant, Mrs. Wyburn would
certainly not have recognised Harry. He was a pierrot in white satin,
with a violet tulle ruffle round his neck and a black velvet mask. One
would know him solely by his single eye-glass, his pleasant voice, and
fluent conversation.
Pretending to be a clown he jumped in, bowed low to Mrs. Wyburn, and
kissed first Daphne and then Valentia.
With a last-straw expression Mrs. Wyburn drew herself up to her full
height.
"Give me my cloak, Romer. I must go. No, don't come to the carriage with
me. Suppose the Trott-Hellyers were to see you--they'd never get over
it!"
"Why, it's all right, mother," Romer answered. "I'm all right. I'm a
courtier--of the tenth century--you know. I'm all right."
"And you approve of your young sister-in-law going to a public ball
dressed up as a man?"
"Rosalind wasn't a man, mother. You forget; you must read the _Midsummer
Night's Dream_ again. You've forgotten it."
"I shan't find Rosalind there. But that's not the point. When I came in
I found Valentia with that man--the man who writes in purple
knickerbockers----"
"No, he doesn't--he never writes in purple knickerbockers."
"Is this meant to be witty?" she asked with a freezing glare.
"What? No, I shouldn't think so."
"I found _your wife_," she said in a low hissing voice, as they passed
through the hall where there was a large looking-glass--Romer's
attention wandered--"within an inch of that young man's face, putting
ear-rings in his ears!"
"Well, she couldn't put them in a mile off," said Romer absently.
He was now frankly turning his back on his mother, and staring at his
face in the glass.
"Hang it all! I don't look so bad, do I?"
"You look a gentleman," she answered coldly; "any son of mine must look
a gentleman. Of course, you look ridiculous--and, as far as that goes,
you _are_ ridiculous; but that doesn't matter quite so much as long as
you look a gentleman."
"Oh, rot!"
Romer was trying to move a patch from one corner of his eye to the
other.
"But as to Harry de Freyne?... And shall you allow your wife to dance
with him in that costume?"
"Of course--why not? And--_doesn't_ Valentia look--jolly?"
"I think the scarlet with her golden hair is rather too--striking," she
answered spitefully.
"Oh, _she's_ all right!"
"I think you're all mad!" she answered as she reached the door.
The servant opened it.
"Oh, we're all right. Good night, mother. You'll be late for the
Trott-Hellyers."
Drawing her cloak over her narrow shoulders, Mrs. Wyburn stepped angrily
into the brougham.
Although it was only three doors from her son's house, she would not for
the world have walked.
When she arrived there, still in a very bad temper at all she had seen,
she nevertheless boasted to her neighbour about how remarkably
distinguished and handsome her son and daughter-in-law had looked in
costume, and of their success, charm, perfect domestic happiness, and
importance and perfection generally.
She succeeded in depressing the fossils on both sides of her, but they
smiled at each other, indulgent to the feminine weakness of so amiable
and devoted a mother.