and read that Sir Harry Vibart accepted with pleasure Lady Grant's kind
invitation for Wednesday, February 14th, to detect herself the prey of a
sudden impulse to go to this dance at all costs. She debated with
herself whether she should not ask Miss Hemmings, the little dressmaker
in Marylebone High Street who made most of her things, to make her an
evening frock on the understanding that she should be paid for it next
quarter. At first Jasmine was rather timid about embarking upon such an
adventure into extravagance; but she decided to do so, and when she had
a moment to herself she slipped out of the house and hurried round to
Miss Hemmings' little shop. Alas, Miss Hemmings; like Sir Hector, was
also in bed with a bronchial cold; she was dreadfully sorry, but quite
unable to oblige Miss Grant by the 14th.
"Oh, well, it's evidently not to be," Jasmine decided.
She got home in time to meet Selina coming up the area steps, dressed
this time in a brilliant peacock blue blanket coat and an emerald green
hat.
"Selina!" exclaimed Jasmine. "You seem to go in for nothing but clothes
nowadays."
"You must dress a bit if you belong to the Church of England," said
Selina sharply. "It's as different from the chapel as the stalls are
from the pit. Don't forget that."
"Well, I've just been trying to get a frock for a dance on Wednesday,
but my dressmaker's ill and...." Jasmine broke off; she did not wish to
make Selina think that she was in need of money, for she felt that if
she did, Selina would immediately offer to lend her some. And if she
accepted Selina's charity it would be more than ever difficult to refuse
to occupy those three rooms at Catford.
"Well, that's awkward," said Selina. "But I'll lend you anything you
want."
"Oh, thank you very much, but it's an evening frock."
"Ah! That I don't go in for, and never shall. Low necks I shall never
come to. Do you want to go to this party very much?"
"I do rather," Jasmine admitted.
"There's my bus," said Selina suddenly; and without a word of farewell
she vanished round the corner shouting and waving her umbrella.
The next morning, which was Tuesday and the day before the dance,
Jasmine received a postcard on which was printed the current price of
coal. She thought at first that it had been put in her place by mistake;
but looking at it again she saw written in a fine small hand between the
Wallsends and the Silkstones _Come to Rouncivell Lodge to-morrow at
eleven o'clock_; and between the Silkstones and the Cobbles the initials
M. R.
Aunt May failed to understand how Uncle Matthew could be so
inconsiderate as to invite Jasmine to Muswell Hill on the very day
before she was giving a dance, and particularly when it would have been
advisable in any case that Jasmine should be at home that morning in
case her uncle wanted something.
"You must write and tell him you will go later on in the week."
Jasmine agreed to do so, but she added that she should have to give
Uncle Matthew a reason for refusing to go and see him, and Aunt May,
realizing that such a reason would involve herself with the old
gentleman, gave a grudging assent to Jasmine's going that day. Jasmine
had difficulty in escaping from Harley Street early enough to be
punctual to her appointment with Uncle Matthew, but she managed it
somehow, although at one time it seemed as if Sir Hector was wanting so
many things which only Jasmine could provide that she should never get
away. In the end when Lady Grant was calling 'Jasmine!' from the first
landing, Hopkins replied 'Yes, my lady,' and before Lady Grant had time
to explain that she did not want Hopkins, her niece was hurrying on her
way north.
Jasmine wondered in what gay colours she should find Selina when she
reached Rouncivell Lodge; but Selina met her at the gate in her
customary black, and advised her sharply to make no allusions to her
clothes in front of the old gentleman.
"Why haven't you been to see me before?" Uncle Matthew demanded as the
clocks all over the house chimed eleven o'clock.
"I never go anywhere unless I'm asked."
"Well, don't put on your hoity-toity manners with me, miss. Do you
expect me, at my age, to come trotting after you? I told your aunt
several times I should like to see you."
"She never gave me your message."
"No, I suppose she didn't," said the old gentleman with a grim chuckle.
"Now what's all this about wanting a dress for a ball? Do you expect me
to provide you with dresses for balls?"
"Of course I don't," said Jasmine, looking angrily round to where Selina
had been standing a moment ago. But the yellow-faced housekeeper had
gone.
"Well, I've borrowed Eneas' carriage for the day, and I'll take you for
a drive. I don't know how that fellow can afford to keep a carriage. I
can't. At least, I can't afford to keep a carriage for other people to
use, and that's what always happens. Oh, yes, they'd like me to have a
carriage, I've no doubt. But I'm not going to have one."
"It's at the door, Mr. Rouncivell," said Selina, putting her head into
the room.
Uncle Matthew was so voluminously wrapped up for this expedition that it
seemed at first as if he would never be able to squeeze through the door
of the brougham; but by unwinding himself from a plaid shawl he managed
it.
"Where am I to drive to?" asked Uncle Eneas' gardener in an injured
voice. He evidently disapproved of being lent to other people.
"Drive to London," said the old gentleman.
"Where?" the coachman repeated.
"To London, you idiot! Don't you know where London is?"
"London's a large place," said the coachman.
"I don't need you to tell me that. Drive to Regent Street."
The drive was spent in trying to accommodate Uncle Matthew's wraps to
the temperature of the inside of the brougham, and in an attempt to
calculate how much it cost Eneas to keep a horse, carriage, and
coachman. This was a complicated calculation, because it involved
deducting from the cost per week not merely the amount saved in
artificial manures, but also the amount saved by growing bigger
vegetables than would otherwise have been grown.
"But whatever way you look at it," said Uncle Matthew finally, "it's a
dead loss!"
When they reached Regent Street, Uncle Matthew told Jasmine to stop the
carriage at the first shop where women's clothes were sold.
"Women's clothes?" repeated Jasmine.
"Yes, women's clothes. I'm told you want a gown for a ball to-morrow.
Well, I'm going to buy you one."
Jasmine could scarcely believe that it was Uncle Matthew who was
talking, and her expression of amazement roused the old gentleman to ask
her what she was staring at.
"Think I've never bought gowns for women before?" he asked. "I used to
come shopping every day with my poor wife, fifty years ago."
The brougham had stopped at a famous and fashionable dressmaker's, and
Jasmine wonderingly followed the old gentleman into the shop.
"I want a gown," said the old gentleman fiercely to the first lady who
wriggled up to him and asked what he required.
They were accommodated with chairs in the showroom, and presently a
young woman emerged from a glass grated door and walked past them in an
Anglo-Saxon attitude.
"You needn't be shy of me," said Uncle Matthew. "I'm old enough to be
your grandfather." The show-woman tittered politely at what she supposed
was Uncle Matthew's joke.
"Do you like that model?" she said.
"Model?" echoed the old gentleman.
"That gown?" the show-woman enquired.
"Gown?" echoed Uncle Matthew. "What gown?"
"Miss Abels," the show-woman called, "would you mind walking past once
more?"
"You don't mean to tell me that what she's wearing is an evening gown
you propose to sell me?" asked Uncle Matthew, on whom an explanation of
the young woman's behaviour was beginning to dawn. "Why, I never thought
she was dressed at all."
The show-woman again tittered politely.
"We consider that one of our most becoming gowns," she said. "So simple,
isn't it? Don't you like the lines? And it's quite a new shade. Angel's
blush."
"It's very pretty," said Jasmine.
"Well," said Uncle Matthew, "I suppose you know what you want, and I
daresay you're right to choose something simple. It's no good wasting
money on a lot of frills. How much is that?"
"That gown," said the show-woman. "Let me see. That's a Paris model.
Quite exclusive. Thirty-five guineas."
"What?" the old gentleman yelled. "Come out of the shop, come out of the
shop!" he commanded Jasmine.
"I never heard of anything so monstrous in my life," he said indignantly
to Jasmine on the pavement outside. "Thirty-five guineas! For a piece of
stuff the size of three pocket-handkerchiefs! No wonder you can't afford
to go to parties! Well, I made a mistake."
"But, Uncle Matthew," Jasmine explained, "I didn't want to go to a
fashionable shop like this. There are lots of other shops where evening
frocks don't cost so much."
"You can't have a dress made of less than that," he said.
"It isn't a question of amount. It's a question of cut and material."
But the old gentleman could not bring himself to go to another shop. He
had suffered a severe shock, and he wished to be alone.
"I'll drive home by myself," he said. "You can get back to Harley Street
quite easily from here. Thirty-five guineas! Why, poor Clara's bridal
dress didn't cost that."
They were all very curious at Harley Street to know why Uncle Matthew
had sent for Jasmine. She did not feel inclined to tell them the real
reason, and she merely said that he wanted to see her. Aunt May,
however, was feeling bitterly on the subject, and she was suspicious of
Jasmine's reticence.
"It's a pity he should have fetched you all that way for nothing," she
said. "You had better have done as I suggested and gone the day after
the dance. We have all been so busy this morning that poor Uncle Hector
has been rather neglected, and I've had to leave a great deal undone
which will have to be done this afternoon, and I'm afraid he'll still
feel a little neglected, so really, Jasmine, I don't know.... I suppose
you'd be very disappointed if you didn't come to the dance, but really I
don't know but that it may be necessary for you to stay at home
to-morrow and look after Uncle Hector."
"I'll stay at home with pleasure," said Jasmine.
Her aunt looked at her. "Oh, you don't object to staying at home?"
"Why should I? I haven't got a frock fit to wear."
"Not got a frock fit to wear? Really, my dear, how you do exaggerate
sometimes! That's a very becoming little yellow frock you wear. A very
becoming little frock. You must be very anxious to impress somebody if
you are not content to wear that."
Jasmine turned away without answering. She would not give her aunt the
pleasure of seeing that the malicious allusion had touched her.
The following afternoon it was definitely decided that Sir Hector was
too ill to be left in the hands of servants, and, very regretfully as
she assured her, Lady Grant told her niece that she must ask her to stay
at home.
"You mustn't be too disappointed, because perhaps I shall give another
dance in April or May, and perhaps out of my own little private savings
bank I may be able to add something to your March allowance that will
enable you to get a frock which you do consider good enough to wear."
Jasmine thought that it would probably annoy her aunt if she looked as
if she did not mind staying at home; so she very cheerfully announced
her complete indifference to the prospect of going to the dance, and her
intention of reading Sir Hector to sleep. Dinner was eaten in the
feverish way in which dinners before balls are always eaten. Before
starting Pamela called Jasmine into her room to admire her frock, and
Jasmine took a good deal of pleasure in telling her that she was not
sure, but she thought she liked Lettice's frock better; and to Lettice,
whom she presently visited, she said after a suitable pause that she was
afraid Pamela's frock suited _her_ better than her own did. Hargreaves
and Hopkins, who were both indignant at Jasmine's being left behind,
took the cue from her and they both praised so enthusiastically the
other's dress to each sister, that the two girls went off to the dance
feeling thoroughly ill-tempered.
"What would you like me to read you, Uncle Hector?" asked Jasmine when
the house was silent.
"Well, really, I don't know," he said. "I don't think there's anything
nowadays worth reading. I don't care about these modern writers. I don't
understand them. But if they came to me as patients, I should know how
to prescribe for them."
"Shall I read you some Dickens?" Jasmine suggested.
"It's hardly worth while beginning a long novel at this time of the
evening."
"I might read you _The Christmas Carol_."
"Oh, I know that by heart," said Sir Hector.
"Well, what shall I read you? Shall I read you something from
Thackeray's _Book of Snobs_?"
"No, I know that by heart, too," said Sir Hector.
"If you don't like modern writers, and you know all the other writers by
heart...."
"Well, if you want to read something," said Sir Hector at last, as if he
were gratifying a spoilt child, "you had better read me Mr. Balfour's
speech in the House last night."
It was lucky for Mr. Balfour that Sir Hector had not been present when
he made the speech, for at every other line he ejaculated: "Rot!
Unmitigated rot! Rubbish! The man doesn't know what he's talking about!
What an absurd statement! Read that again, will you, my dear? I never
heard such piffle!"
In spite of Sir Hector's interruptions, Jasmine stumbled through Mr.
Balfour's speech, and she was just going to begin Mr. Asquith's reply
when the door of the bedroom opened and Uncle Matthew walked in.
Sir Hector's first instinct when this apparition presented itself was to
grab the thermometer and take his temperature; but perceiving that
Jasmine was as much surprised as himself and that it was certainly not a
feverish delusion, he stammered out a greeting.
"I don't advise you to come into the room, though," he said. "I've got a
dreadful cold."
"I thought you were never ill," said Uncle Matthew.
"Well, I'm not. It's a most extraordinary thing. Where I got this cold I
cannot imagine," Sir Hector was declaiming when Uncle Matthew cut him
short. Jasmine always felt like giggling when Sir Hector was talking to
his uncle, because she could not get used to the idea that both Sir
Hector and herself should address him as Uncle Matthew. She was still
young enough to conceive all people over fifty merged in contemporary
senility.
"I thought you were going to a dance," said Uncle Matthew to Jasmine.
"Oh, Jasmine very kindly offered to stay behind and look after me," Sir
Hector explained.
"Well, I'll look after you," said Uncle Matthew.
His nephew stared at him.
"Yes, I'll look after you," the old gentleman repeated. "What time do
you take your medicine? _You_ had better get along to the dance," he
said to Jasmine.
"But Jasmine can't go off to a dance by herself," Sir Hector protested.
"Can't she?" said Uncle Matthew. "Well, then I'll go with her, and
Selina shall look after you."
He went to the door and called downstairs to his housekeeper.
"I never heard anything so ridiculous," Sir Hector objected.
"Didn't you?" said the old gentleman sardonically. "I'm surprised to
hear that. You've been listening to the sound of your own voice for a
good many years now, haven't you?"
Perhaps Sir Hector's cold was worse than one was inclined to think, from
his grumbling, for if he had not been feeling very ill the prospect of
being left in charge of Selina must have cured him instantly.
"When do you take your medicine?" asked Uncle Matthew.
The old gentleman was evidently determined that whatever else was left
undone for his nephew's comfort, he should have his full dose of
medicine at the hands of the housekeeper. Selina came into the room and
settled herself down by the bed with an air of determination that
plainly showed the patient what he was in for. Selina's new and more
optimistic creed would probably not tend so far as to include Sir Hector
Grant among the saved, and what between the patient's pessimism about
his state in this world and Selina's pessimism about his state in the
world to come, Jasmine felt that if she was ever going to be appreciated
by Uncle Hector she should be appreciated by him that night. Meanwhile
Uncle Matthew, after settling his nephew, was hurrying her downstairs.
"I have found you a gown after all," he announced, "and a much prettier
gown than anything you could find in London nowadays. If that gown
yesterday cost thirty-five guineas, the one I have got for you would
have cost a hundred and thirty-five guineas."
"Where is it?"
"Where is it?" her uncle repeated. "Why waiting upstairs in your
bedroom, of course, for you to put it on. Now be quick, because I don't
want to be kept up all night by this ball. I have not been out as late
as this for thirty-one years. I'll give you a quarter of an hour to get
ready."
Jasmine ran upstairs to her room, where she found Hargreaves and Hopkins
standing in astonishment before the dress which Uncle Matthew had
brought her. The fragrance of rosemary and lavender pervaded the air,
and Jasmine realized that it came from the frock. Uncle Matthew was
right when he said that it was unlike any frock that could be found
nowadays.
"Wherever did he get it?" wondered Hargreaves.
"It's beautiful material," said Hopkins.
Jasmine was not well enough versed in the history of feminine costume to
know how exactly to describe the frock; but she saw at once that it
belonged to a bygone generation, and she divined in the same instant
that it was a frock belonging to Uncle Matthew's dead wife, one of the
frocks that all these years had been kept embalmed in a trunk that was
never opened except when he was alone. It was an affair of many flounces
and furbelows, the colour nankeen and ivory, the material very fine
silk with a profusion of Mechlin lace.
"Whoever saw the like of it?" demanded Hargreaves.
"Whoever did?" Hopkins echoed.
"It would be all right if it had been a fancy dress ball," said
Hargreaves.
"Of course, it would have been lovely if it had been fancy dress,"
Hopkins agreed.
"Well, though it isn't a fancy dress ball," said Jasmine, "I am going to
wear it."
The maids held up their hands in astonishment. But Jasmine knew that the
crisis of her life had arrived. If she failed in this crisis she saw
before her nothing but fifteen dreary years stretching in a vista that
ended in the sea front at Bognor. She realized that, if she rejected
this dress and failed to recognize what was probably the first
disinterested and kindly action of Uncle Matthew since his wife's death,
she should forfeit all claims to consideration in the future. Along with
her sharp sense of what her behaviour meant to her in the future, there
was another reason for wearing the dress, a reason that was dictated
only by motives of consideration for Uncle Matthew himself. It seemed to
her that it would be wicked to reject what must have cost him so much
emotion to provide. What embarrassment or self-consciousness was not
worth while if it was going to repay the sympathy of an old man so long
unaccustomed to show sympathy? What if everyone in the ballroom did turn
round and stare at her? What if her aunt raged and her cousins decided
that she had disgraced them by her eccentric attire? What if Harry
Vibart muttered his thanks to Heaven for having escaped from a mad girl
like herself? Nothing really mattered except that she should be brave,
and that Uncle Matthew should be able to congratulate himself on his
kindness.
While Jasmine was driving from Harley Street to the Empress Rooms, she
felt like an actress before the first night that was to be the
turning-point of her career. She was amused to find that Uncle Matthew
had again borrowed the Eneas Grants' brougham, and she could almost have
laughed aloud at the thought of Uncle Hector's being dosed by Selina;
but presently the silent drive--Uncle Matthew was more voluminously
muffled than ever--deprived her of any capacity for being amused, and
the thought of her arrival at the dance now filled her with gloomy
apprehension. The brougham was jogging along slowly enough, but to
Jasmine it seemed to be moving like the fastest automobile, and the
journey from Marylebone to Kensington seemed a hundred yards. When they
pulled up outside the canopied entrance, Jasmine had a momentary impulse
to run away; but the difficulty of extracting Uncle Matthew from the
brougham and of unwrapping him sufficiently in the entrance hall to
secure his admission as a human being occupied her attention; and almost
before she knew what was happening, she had taken the old gentleman's
arm and they were entering the ballroom, where the sound of music, the
shuffle of dancing feet, the perfume and the heat, the brilliance and
the motion, acted like a sedative drug.
And then the music stopped. The dancers turned from their dancing. A
thousand eyes regarded her. Lady Grant's nose grew to monstrous size.
"Hullo!" cried a familiar voice. "I say, I've lost my programme, so
you'll have to give me every dance to help me through the evening."
Jasmine had let go Uncle Matthew's arm and taken Harry Vibart's, and in
a mist, while she was walking across the middle of the ballroom, she
looked back a moment and saw Uncle Matthew, like some pachydermatous
animal, moving slowly in the direction of her aunt's nose.
THE END
* * * * *
PRINTED BY W M. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND
SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF
POOR RELATIONS
_By_ COMPTON MACKENZIE
_SUNDAY TIMES:_ "'Poor Relations' is a book that from cover to cover is
informed with wit, humour and high spirits, and is yet in its own way a
mordant criticism of life."
_OBSERVER:_ "The vitality that is Mr. Compton Mackenzie's tremendous
gift makes the book as tonic as a spring day.... In vividness, in sheer
colour and variety, Mr. Compton Mackenzie is unmatchable."
_WORLD:_ "One of the drollest books written for years."
_DAILY NEWS:_ "Here is an imagination almost Dickens-like in its
abundance."
_DAILY CHRONICLE:_ "Nothing could be more effective, nothing more
persistently and ineffably droll."
_EVENING NEWS:_ "It is all rich comedy; it exudes humours on every
page."
_LAND AND WATER:_ "Three hundred pages of charming and farcical
light-heartedness."
_STAR:_ "A book of high spirits without pause."
_DAILY EXPRESS:_ "Irresistibly funny."
MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI
SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF
SYLVIA SCARLETT
_By_ COMPTON MACKENZIE
_PALL MALL GAZETTE:_ "A vital and stimulating work, full of the joy of
life and much of its sorrow; and Sylvia Scarlett herself is one of the
few really great women in fiction--can indeed hold her own with Beatrix
Esmond and Becky Sharp."
_PUNCH:_ "In several respects it is the best thing Mr. Mackenzie has yet
done...."
_SCOTSMAN:_ "Amazing dexterity of workmanship--every figure is instinct
with vitality."
_MORNING POST:_ "There is no question about the rightness and brightness
and delightfulness of the adventures."
_LIVERPOOL COURIER:_ "Amazing inventiveness, Dickens-like prodigality
and humour in characterization, youthful daring and clean candour."
LIVERPOOL POST:_ "His observation dissects humanity and entrances the
student with its amazing cleverness and its astonishing penetration."
_ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS:_ "The inimitable exponent of joyous youth--a
certain Cockney humour--as gaily witty as anything the world can show."
_BIRMINGHAM POST:_ "In sheer brilliance may well be thought to excel
even its predecessor."
EVE in _THE TATLER:_ "Such a riot and rush of adventures and contrasts,
such a breathless scramble, such rainbow emotions...."
MR. ST. JOHN ADCOCK in _THE SKETCH:_ "Nothing really happens."
MR. FRANK SWINNERTON in _THE BOOKMAN:_ "An exhibition of talent
perversely employed."
MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI
SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF
SYLVIA & MICHAEL
_By_ COMPTON MACKENZIE
_EVENING STANDARD:_ "That originality and depth of thought which we
associate with his name. Often startling as are his ideas, they have a
way of melting very quickly into and taking their place in the scheme of
things, the world of truth and reality."
_THE SCOTSMAN:_ "The book is one which holds the reader in thrall."
_DAILY MAIL:_ "A master story-teller."
_GLASGOW HERALD:_ "As fine as anything that even Mr. Mackenzie has
accomplished."
_PUNCH:_ "An exhilarating, even intoxicating entertainment."
LIVERPOOL COURIER:
"One may cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge the brilliancy ... its
absorbing interest, its sustained intellectual strength, and the
splendour of its moral implications."