IN WHICH A WONDERFUL BIT OF LUCK COMES OUT OF MISS POUNCE’S BANDBOX FOR
SOMEBODY ELSE
Miss Pamela Pounce, having inadvertently marred a most desirable
alliance and incidentally assisted a mad elopement, told herself that
it was a sad, tiresome world in which love brought trouble to high and
low, and that the best thing a woman of intelligence could do, was to
put such stuff out of her head and be grateful that she could work.
“Dear, to be sure,” Pamela wondered, “how did people get along at
all who hadn’t some honest occupation to keep their silly minds off
themselves?”
’Twas only to be expected that she should have such fretful faces to
suit with heads and hats; disappointed mothers coming to complain that
Miss’s toque was the wrong shade of blue, passionate damsels vowing
that the very sight of a pink rosette made them sick.
Pamela could read “as if it was wrote in print,” as she said herself,
the fluctuations of many an _amourette_, many a well-laid matrimonial
scheme. Where her art might help she was ready with the most obliging
disinterestedness; when failure had followed on her best efforts she
took the despite of her disappointed clients with the utmost philosophy.
It was well that she was philosophic, for her own poor misplaced
romance was going singularly ill; so ill, indeed, that it might be said
to have dwindled down to nothing at all.
After his tender and respectful farewell to her on the night of Sir
Jasper Standish’s Christmas ball, Pamela had hardly seen anything
more of her once too ardent admirer. She told herself that ’twas all
as it should be; he now understood the kind of girl she was; and his
present attitude showed more true affection for her than his former
light-minded persecution.
If she had been born his equal, or if she had not been, humble as she
was, a creature of principle, what could have parted them? for if ever
there had been love----
Pamela was very valiant, and kept her courage up with such reflections.
And she found considerable distraction in her work, and quite a fund
of consolation in the increased success which it was bringing to her.
But when events enabled her to coax a bit of happiness to someone else,
through the witchery of her talents, it was more real satisfaction to
her than the tot of the weekly accounts.
* * * * *
“Hats for these young ladies, Madam? Yes, Madam.”
“A hat for this young lady,” said Lady Amelia Vibart, severely.
She looked disapprovingly at Miss Pamela Pounce. She disapproved on
principle of anyone whom she considered her inferior, and when a person
belonging to the working classes was presuming enough, not only to have
good looks, but to make the most of them, Lady Amelia considered it a
direct attack on the prerogatives of those destined by Providence to
hold a higher station. Only that she had been recommended to Madame
Mirabel’s shop as the one place positively, in the whole town, where
any self-respecting woman of fashion could get herself a hat to be
called a mode, she would have walked out of the showroom at the mere
sight of this creature, so tall and self-possessed, so white and
ruddy, clothed in garments that fitted an indecently fine figure to
positively scandalous nicety, a creature who moved as if _she_ were
the condescending party, and carried taper hands each side of her
waist-ribbon, not exactly akimbo, but with an air--yes, in very truth,
an air of independence.
Miss Pounce looked at her visitors reflectively; a high-nosed, haughty,
short, stout lady, flanked on either side by two tall daughters, the
one beautiful, astoundingly so, a perfect miracle of loveliness;
and the other--plain. No doubt about that; pleasant, bright-eyed,
witty-looking, but plain.
“A hat for Miss?” said the milliner, her glance resting upon the less
favoured but unmistakably the elder damsel.
The high-nosed lady tossed her head.
“Certainly not,” she said with a glare. Here she pushed the beauty
forward, “For this young lady.”
She looked round for a chair, let herself subside on a velvet stool,
obsequiously advanced by Polly Popple, and began to talk very volubly
and pompously.
“I have been told that you have very good taste. What can you suggest
for my daughter? Perhaps I had better tell you I am Lady Amelia Vibart.
The Duchess of Queensberry has recommended you. I am sure that I shall
find that you deserve her kind recommendation. I trust that you will.
It is not my custom to come to shops myself, I generally expect to be
served in my own house, but the Duchess advised me--this is Miss Jane
Vibart. I think you must have heard of Miss Jane Vibart.”
She paused, inflating her nostrils and fixing an ox-like stare upon the
young woman, who really seemed quite independent.
Pamela turned her attentive gaze upon Miss Jane Vibart. It was
perfectly true that she had heard of her, for there was a great
deal of talk in the particular distinguished circle that patronised
Madame Mirabel on the subject of the beautiful Miss Vibart. Something
superlative, overwhelming, an absolute miracle, she was proclaimed to
be; but the head milliner preferred something with a little more life
and mind in it, herself. She betrayed by no sign that she recognised
the overwhelming favour and opportunity that was here bestowed upon
her, but inclined her head sideways, after the most elegant millinery
convention, and said: “Indeed, Madam? Certainly, my Lady,” as if these
were any ordinary new customers.
Lady Amelia snorted, took an immense breath, and burst into fresh
volubility with, if possible, an increased pompousness.
“It is of high importance, you understand, that Miss Jane Vibart should
be suited in the finest taste, I must request you to give your earnest
attention to the matter. Stand forward, Jane, have I not already told
you to stand forward? And you, sit down, Sarah. You’re in everybody’s
way. Now, young woman, what do you suggest? I want something of
distinction; girlish, you understand, but absolutely elegant. Everyone
will be looking to see what Miss Jane Vibart is wearing. ’Tis Miss Jane
Vibart’s first appearance upon the Windsor Walk. I think it will be
very good business for you if you suit her. It will bring you a great
many orders. I trust you will consider that, young woman, and represent
it to your employer.”
“Excuse me, your Ladyship,” said Miss Pounce, when Lady Amelia stopped
for want of breath, “I am sure, speaking for Madame Mirabel, that she
will be duly conscious of your Ladyship’s land patronage, which we
shall do our best to deserve--Miss Popple, bring me the primrose set,
if you please,” and as the assistant sped away, Pamela looked out of
the window and remarked that it was a fine day. Now it was exactly
according to the best tradition of shop etiquette that the customer’s
attention should be respectfully distracted during an enforced wait, by
some polite conversation; and, indeed, most of Miss Pounce’s ladies had
a good deal to say and a good deal to listen to, when fortune favoured
them with a quiet moment in Miss Pounce’s company, but Lady Amelia
gazed upon the milliner with an arrogance that marked her repressive
intention, and then turned her head away and told Sarah to give her
seat to Jane or the child would look a fright for the rout to-night.
“Dear, to be sure,” thought Miss Pounce, “to see that poor piece jump
up, and her younger sister take her seat, all as if it were the most
natural thing in the world, if _that_ don’t tell a tale! I wish ’twas
the plain one I had the hatting of, I’d get some credit out of it.
Why, if you put a sun bonnet on the beauty there, she’d look out of
it, no more nor less than the same handsome doll--you’ve dropped your
_mouchoir_, Miss.”
Pamela handed the elder Miss Vibart back her useful linen handkerchief
with a movement as deferential as if it had been the finest gossamer
and valenciennes; and that young person took it with a pleasant smile,
blew her nose in it lustily, and thrust it into her reticule, no whit
ashamed of its sensible quality.
“That’s the girl for my money,” thought the observant shopwoman.
What a world in miniature was this showroom of hers! Pamela had already
seen many a comedy, many a drama played out in it. Here was a case of
Cinderella on the wrong sister. A shame it was to treat a nice young
lady so, because she happened to have a little pug nose and a wide
mouth.
“La! Miss Popple, give me that. (One would think you’d had to go to
Paris for it.) And straight from Paris it is, my Lady, and all the
trouble in the world to get it through, things being as they are over
there--as straight,” said Miss Pounce, turning up her fine eyes, “as
any confection in this establishment. The newest idea, Madam. Hat, robe
and trimmings, down to the parasol all complete, all in harmony, as you
perceive. The ve--ry lat--est id--e--a,” said the milliner, dropping
her syllables one by one, spreading the flounces and frills over a
chair and poising the hat on her clenched hand. “Ex--qui--site, that’s
the word, isn’t it, Miss? O, it will become either of your young ladies
to perfection. The embroidered lawn, very delicate, very girlish,
Madam. Absolutely correct for a young lady that’s a _débutante_. Not
white, Oh, no, your Ladyship, cream. Pull up the blinds over there,
Miss Popple.--Cream, a shade deeper than ivory, and the pale green
ribbons, the blonde, your Ladyship sees, just flung over the hat and
fastened with this bunch of primroses. Did your Ladyship ever behold
anything more fanciful and pretty? I would not put a bit of ribbon
or set another pin into that hat,” said Miss Pounce, “not if you was
to offer me a thousand pounds to do it! Oh, Paris ma’m. Yes, ma’am.
Hot from Paris if one can use such a word for a thing so cool and
April-like. Any young girl,” said Miss Pounce, not without a spice of
malice, “would be noted in such attire.”
“O Mamma,” said Jane. It was the first time she had spoken. She was
gazing at her reflection in the mirror, crowned by the wonderful hat.
Her voice was awestruck, as if she were overwhelmed by the sight of her
own loveliness.
Lady Amelia pursed her lips, and then with some tartness bade her
daughter turn round. As she obeyed, Miss Pounce seized the vapoury
gown and cunningly held it up against the young lady’s figure. A kind
of maternal greed obviously struggled with prudence in Lady Amelia’s
heart. She gaped meltingly, then frowned, put her finger to her lip.
“Miss could try them all on,” insidiously suggested Pamela Pounce.
“O Mamma,” said Miss Jane Vibart, and:
“O Mamma,” cried her sister. “Jenny looks a perfect picture in that
hat, and I’m sure the dress is the most lovely thing I’ve ever laid
eyes on. It would be a sin and a shame not to get them for her.”
But Lady Amelia was not so swiftly moved to decision. The garment
was tried on and the beautiful Jane was turned and twisted in every
direction; while her mother hummed and ha-ed and criticised.
“I’m not so sure I like the green waist-ribbon, no, nor the primroses,
neither, mere hedgerow flowers. A nice artificial garden rose, now,
and a good blue taffety sash.”
“O Mamma,” protested the plain Miss Vibart in tones of anguish.
“I couldn’t do it, your Ladyship,” said Pamela, with a slightly
heightened colour, deftly whisking the hat from the fair head and
motioning her underling to conduct the patient back behind the screen.
“It’s the primrose and the green--your Ladyship will excuse me--that
makes the real Parisian elegance of this gown. If your Ladyship
requires ordinary English taste, there’s Madame Flouncer’s in Clarges
Street, a very respectable firm, very respectable indeed, as I’ve heard
tell, where your Ladyship would find herself better suited.”
“Upon my word, young woman!” spluttered Lady Amelia.
“Yes, you may toss your old head, and sniff and snort, my Lady Amelia,”
thought the shopwoman, remaining herself quite imperturbable, save for
that deepening colour, “but you’ll not come it over me with your high
nose and your country taste, and you needn’t think it.”
They gazed upon each other steadily for nearly a minute, then the
dowager’s glare wavered.
“It’s an original effect of colour, I’ll say that,” she said weakly,
“and--does that parasol go with it?”
Miss Pounce took up the minute article in question, shook out the
fringe, opened it, and held it gracefully at divers angles.
“An ivory handle, your Ladyship perceives, cream _poult de soie_ of
the first quality, the sarcenet lining beautifully gathered, isn’t it,
Miss? a deeper shade of primrose, so becoming to the complexion, and
such a background for the powder--really as never was.”
“An ivory handle,” said Lady Amelia, pulling a long upper lip, “and
fringe and what not! Absurd extravagance for a girl.”
“It goes with the whole inspiration, my Lady. A cheap parasol or a
wrong colour would--Foh! would destroy it all.”
After which Lady Amelia fell to haggling. She demanded a personal
interview with Madame Mirabel. She declared that the advantage to the
firm of clothing the beautiful Miss Jane Vibart, if not sufficient
compensation in itself, ought to make a considerable difference in the
charges made.
Miss Pounce regretted that Madame Mirabel was not visible. Madame
Mirabel could not be troubled on these matters. She who spoke was
solely responsible for the department. She regretted that she could
not regard the favour of clothing Miss Jane Vibart otherwise than
as a business transaction. What was the price? Nothing! Twenty-five
guineas--given away! Oh, no, my Lady, she did not think she could
use up a square of her ladyship’s old Honiton instead of the blonde.
No, nor make it twenty guineas and throw in the parasol. It was
a tremendous contest. Lady Amelia haggled with a zest and energy
that spoke of long practice and an actual enjoyment of the process.
Miss Pounce’s cheeks were flaming when the transaction was at last
concluded, and she had after all gracefully conceded a reduction of
five pounds.
(“And let it be a lesson to you, my dear,” she said to Miss Popple
afterwards. “And when you see a customer come in with that kind of an
air about her, put it up to her at once. What was the set marked at,
Miss Popple, dear? Eighteen? You don’t say? Well, let that be a lesson
to you.”)
“And do you want nothing for Miss?” enquired the astute milliner,
turning with a kind smile to the plain girl. “I’ve a positive sweet of
a Tuscan straw with cornflowers, and a blue muslin. It would suit Miss
to a charm. Very reasonable.”
Lady Amelia, one stout foot poised for departure--she had a high
aristocratic action suited to her nose--paused.
“Cheap? did you say?” she questioned.
“Miss Popple, the blue muslin and the assorted _chapeau_.”
Lady Amelia gazed through her eyeglass and Pamela rejoiced to see that
she hesitated. Colour and sparkle had risen to the plain Miss Vibart’s
cheeks, and the flash of joy brought out all kinds of beauties;
dimples, and tiny smile waves, and an archness in the curve of that too
wide mouth over milk white teeth.
“_Chapeau_ and _robe_,” she said emphatically, “for you, my Lady, since
your Ladyship has already so generously patronised us, and not to
disappoint the young lady, eight guineas. Pray Miss, let my Lady see
you in the hat.”
Her hands lifted to her country straw, Sarah Vibart paused, looked at
her mother, and the light died out of her eyes.
“Jane, you will want another gown,” muttered Lady Amelia. “And blue was
always your colour.”
“O Mamma,” said Jane, with a smile of joy that made her for the moment
quite exasperatingly lovely.
It was that smile that settled her in Miss Pounce’s opinion.
“Of all the mean, unnatural girls! ’Tis a shame, I call it, a shame!”
thought she.
If her business conscience would have allowed her, she would have
placed the Tuscan on the beauty’s head, and contrived to give the curls
a good tweak as she did so. But as it was, she masked her feelings
by handing the garments to her underling, loftily commanding: “You
carry on with the order, Miss Popple. Regretting Madam, I have an
appointment,” and sweeping majestically away.
As she did so, she in her turn dropped a pocket handkerchief, quite a
dainty little article with an embroidered P. and a delicate edge of
lace, smelling too of the lavender with which the Kentish mother kept
her elegant town daughter liberally supplied.
The plain Miss Vibart made a plunge and picked it up.
“Good God, Sarah!” cried Lady Amelia, the exclamation jerked out of her
by a proceeding so very unbecoming.
“Thank you, Miss,” said Pamela, looking into the candid green eyes,
that refused to acknowledge the rising tears. “I hope some day I’ll
have the dressing of you, and ’twill be a pleasure and privilege.”
“Jane,” cried her mother angrily, “don’t stand staring, and if you poke
like that I might as well throw all the money into the sea. Try on
the hat this minute, and you may tell Madame Mirabel--you--you young
woman--that I consider it very impertinent of the person who presides
over the department to go away like this; a vast bit of disrespect, and
I’ve half a mind to cancel my orders. Hold your tongue, Jane. I would,
if it were not that it might hurt the Duchess’s feelings.”
* * * * *
In spite of Lady Amelia’s censure, it was scarce a fortnight afterwards
when a very small page boy brought a very large folded sheet to Madame
Mirabel’s shop, marked immediate, which he was enjoined to deliver
straight into the hands of Miss Pounce. This document ordered with
equal imperativeness and urgency, that Madame Mirabel’s principal woman
should instantly proceed to 6a, Queen Street, bringing a selection of
heads suitable for Miss Jane Vibart’s wear that night at the masked
ball at Hampshire House. “_It is very important that the principal
woman should come HERSELF._” This was heavily underlined. “_Lady Amelia
Vibart must insist on her personal attendance._”
“Hoighty, Toighty,” said Miss Pounce, and stood looking down at the
page with one hand on her hip, eyelids drooping, a quizzical smile, and
a tilted chin.
“And how’d it be if I can’t give up my Duchesses and Marchionesses
to whom I’ve been engaged for goodness gracious knows how long?
There, trot along, and tell my Lady I’ll do my best, seeing she’s so
pressing! Yes, yes. I’ll come. And shut your mouth, little boy, in the
name of Heaven, or you’ll be picked up for a frog and brought to the
Royal Aquarium.”
Number 6a, Queen Street was a small narrow house wedged in between
two larger residences; one of those domiciles that seem made for the
impecunious fashionable. Miss Pounce serenely preceded Madame Mirabel’s
liveried porter who negotiated an alarming array of bandboxes, not
without some bumpings, up the narrow stairs, in the wake of the country
footman. On the second floor landing she ordered the important chattels
to be deposited, and bidding the porter have a hackney in half an hour,
stood a monument of composure while the country footman knocked at the
panels of the door.
There was a clamour within, voices, among which Lady Amelia’s didactic
tones could easily be distinguished, objurgations, lamentations, sobs.
The footman invited Miss Pounce by a leer to share the joke, knocked
louder, and at an exasperated “Come in,” flung open the door. As Pamela
entered the long, dingy bedroom a silence fell.
The beauty was sitting in an arm-chair by the empty fire-place, her
face buried in her hands, evidently in tears; the elder sister was
bending over her with a countenance of concern, while in the background
stood a frightened-looking elderly maid, her finger to her lip.
“Come in, come in!” repeated Lady Amelia, bursting into speech. “Shut
the door. I’m sorry to have troubled you, I’m sure. No. I don’t want
the bandboxes. Miss Jane Vibart cannot possibly go out to-night. She
has most successfully contrived to make such a spectacle of herself
that I doubt if she will be able to show again for the rest of the
season.”
“Oh, Mamma!” exclaimed the elder daughter in reproachful accents.
“’Tisn’t Jenny’s fault!”
“You’ll not say it’s mine, I trust?” retorted a deeply annoyed parent,
and, as the beauty lifted her face, Pamela saw that it was indeed
disfigured almost out of recognition by that distressing if not
alarming complaint, the toothache. The poor girl’s left cheek was
swollen to comicality.
Jane Vibart, with a loud boo-hoo, buried her head in her handkerchief
again, and Sally, with a championship which Pamela thought the younger
ill deserved, protested: “But Mamma, Mr. Tugwell hurt her so dreadfully
last time, that poor Jenny was terrified----”
“Foh! I’ve no patience with her,” stormed the lady. “She’ll have to
have it out now, and ’twill hurt her a vast deal more. Provoking
creature, and it is so important, so particularly important that she
should go to-night. Well, Miss, if you lose your chance of the match
of the year, you’ve none but yourself to blame, and let that be a
comfort to you. Pray, young woman, did you not hear me say I should not
require your goods? O! I could shed tears of vexation, and it all so
neatly planned! The Duchess herself would have seen that you took the
floor with Mr. W., and says she to me: ‘The child has but to unmask
at supper, and I think we may say ’tis as good as done.’ Mr. W., his
uncle’s heir, and such a personable, worthy young man, by all accounts,
and looking to be settled. Well, well! Meeking, take Miss Jane to her
apartment, and tell Mrs. Martha to apply the leeches. ’Tis time for me
to be dressing.”
Whether rendered irritable by pain, or overwhelmed by disappointment at
the probable loss of Mr. W., or goaded by the thought of the leeches,
certain it is that the afflicted daughter broke out with a passion
which amazed Miss Pounce so much that she turned on the threshold to
stare, and perhaps even admire.
The beauty declared that Mamma was a nasty unkind thing, and that she
herself wished she was dead.
“Jane!” cried Lady Amelia, in a voice of thunder. “Sarah, take your
sister away.”
Ere the sobbing girl, advancing in three totters and a stop to gasp,
could reach the door, Lady Amelia bethought herself of a fitting
punishment which spoke volumes for the matron’s methods of education.
“Your sister shall go in your place to-night. Yes, Jane, not another
word. I have quite made up my mind. Sarah, get ready to accompany me.”
Pamela slipped out of the room after the girls, and was witness on
the landing of a small fraternal scene which confirmed her previous
opinion of the lovely Jane. This aggrieved maiden first nearly fell
over the bandboxes, and then was seized by such a convulsion of rage
and jealousy at sight of them, that, shaking herself free of Sarah’s
encircling arm, she slapped and pinched her sister, and then, at
Pamela’s horrified interference, dashed up the staircase to her own
chamber.
“’Pon my word,” thought the milliner, “Mr. W. may have had the
escape of his life! A doll lined with a vixen! ’Tis the most dismal
combination. Don’t cry, Miss,” she went on aloud, as Sarah sniffed
into her useful pocket handkerchief, “don’t cry, there’s a dear young
lady! Let me come in your room with you, and see what I’ve got in these
boxes. You shall look nice to-night, or my name’s not Pamela Pounce.”
Now Sarah’s chamber happened to be a narrow slit at the back of her
mother’s apartment, for of course Beauty had to be well lodged, no
matter how pokily plain Miss Sarah might fare.
Nipping a bunch of bandboxes dexterously in each hand, Pamela bundled
after the astonished Cinderella into her dingy little cell.
“As for the price, Miss, bless you,” she whispered breathlessly, with
her back against the door. “You’ll pay me when you’re married.” Then
she smacked her lips as if the dish of her choice were spread before
her. “I don’t know when I’ve took to anyone as I’ve took to you. La!
We must have candles though, your window giving on a shaft as I see,
and being, so to speak, worse than none. But I’d rather dress a lady
by candlelight, any day in the year. And what was you thinking of
wearing, Miss?”
“O dear, I’m sure I don’t know!” cried Sarah. “My muslins are dreadful
washed out, and Mamma said I must do with her mauve Tabby made over,
for she couldn’t afford to dress two----”
Here there came a knock at the door, and Meeking, the drab elderly
maid, entered, carrying a white silk brocade gown, powdered over with
little rosebuds.
“My Lady says you’re to wear this, Miss Sally, and I’m mortal glad,”
added the woman, dropping her voice and looking, as if for support, at
the milliner, “that you should come to your rights once in a while! Too
bad the way this pore young lady’s put upon, Miss. There! I’ve said it
now, and I’m glad of it. Her Ladyship’s just given me notice. I wish I
could dress you, Miss Sally, I do indeed, but I’ve got to go back to
your Mamma this instant minute.”
“Don’t you put yourself out, Ma’am,” cried Miss Pounce, sweetly. “I’ll
help your young lady with all the pleasure in life! I was just about to
show her the heads I brought on approval.”
“Ah!” said the Abigail darkly, as she withdrew, “there’s heads enough
in this house to-night, and that’s the truth!”
“I hardly like, though,” exclaimed Sarah, “to wear poor Jenny’s
clothes.”
“Why, you’re a sweet creature!” The milliner shook out the glistening
folds. “’Twill suit you, Miss----”
“Oh, my ugly face!”
“Ugly! As far as that comes to, Miss Vibart, there’s ugly beauties,
and there’s charming--well, charming uglinesses, since that’s your own
word. I’d never call a lady ugly who’d so fine a figure, and so bright
an eye--and if your mouth is a bit wide, Miss, sure your teeth are a
picture; and if your nose is a trifle snub, there’s something so merry
and arch in the way it cocks when you smile, that I for one would not
have you different. I vow I would not!”
Pamela was in the act of passing the Beauty’s fine gown over
Cinderella’s shoulders, and as she twitched it into place she proceeded
with fresh energy.
“What’s the matter with you, Miss, is that you’ve been so set aside
that you’re afraid to smile and be merry. Let yourself go to-night, and
you’ll see----”
“Why, ’twill be right enough,” said Sarah ruefully, “so long as I’m
masked--all the dancing ladies are to be masked, you know. I’m not
afraid but I can hold my own then. ’Tis the thought that all the while
people are looking at me they’re saying ‘poor girl,’ and comparing me
with sister. However I may get on with my partner at the rout to-night,
the moment I take off my mask----”
“Now, don’t go for to say that, Miss! You haven’t seen the head
I’ve got in this bandbox. One would think,” cried the milliner
enthusiastically, “that your good angel had inspired me, for I’ve got
here the very mode to match Miss Jane’s brocade and to suit you. Well,
there! there won’t be no gentleman at the ball to-night, wishing you
was your sister. I’ll take my oath o’ that.”
And indeed, when some twenty minutes later the plain Miss Vibart
contemplated her image in the glass, she conceded that she might
very well hold her own. By a couple of twists of clever fingers,
Pamela Pounce had contrived to loosen and display her curls to an
advantage hitherto undreamt of. When a hairdresser was called in, his
services were not wasted on Sarah. And the “head”; what an exquisite
indescribable trifle, and how becoming! The twist of silver tissue as
light as the most delicate cloud, the single hint of blue, and the
one full pink rose! It lent an ethereal aspect to the flying curls of
powdered hair; Sarah’s small round face took a something elfin, and, as
she smiled at herself, roguish, that made the milliner clap her hands
and vow that she was delicious, and that her own anticipations were
far exceeded.
Sarah turned and hugged her unexpected friend before obeying her
mother’s call.
“I’ll come round to Madame Mirabel’s in the morning and tell you all
about it. See if I don’t.”
* * * * *
Miss Sarah Vibart looked so modest and inconspicuous as she slipped
into Madame Mirabel’s hat shop on the thundery June morning after the
Masked Rout at Hampshire House, that Miss Popple deemed it not worth
her while to enquire what her pleasure might be.
“Foh!” thought Polly. “Some poor country cousin on the spy for
fashion,” for no one can be so haughty as the young person who caters
for the high and mighty.
What was her surprise to see the head milliner conclude the affairs
of a most important dowager in perfunctory haste, with a peremptory,
“Door, Miss Quigly,” and advance with the most urgent courtesy to the
customer in the plain print gown, with the unmistakable home-trimmed
hat, and the not at all pretty face underneath it!
“Step with me into the dressing-room, Miss Vibart. I’ve got your
_matinée_ ready to fit on,” said Pamela, with a knowing wink.
And when the two found themselves together in the little screened off
apartment with the big mirror, Miss Pounce scanned her companion’s face
with the most searching anxiety. There was something in that face that
had not been there before, an emotion between trembling joy and crucial
doubt; a colour that fluctuated, a vague and veiled glance. And a smile
that wavered.
“Well, Miss?” panted Pamela, as the girl, letting herself fall into a
chair, seemed to float away on a dream: “well, Miss, how did you enjoy
of yourself? Wasn’t my head the prettiest there by a long way? I don’t
think the Duchess herself had such a bit of real art, and I ought to
know! I’m sure, if you only looked as you did upstairs in that little
room when you took off your mask----”
“Oh, you dear kind thing, I never took off my mask at all.”
“What, Miss?”
“Oh, I couldn’t!”
“Of all the pities! There, I might as well have spared my trouble, I
see. There ain’t a mite of use in trying to help those that won’t help
themselves, that’s flat!”
“Nay, pray, pray don’t be vexed with me! You’ve been such a friend to
me! You’re the only friend I have! Oh, I must tell you! There’s no one
in the world I can tell.”
There was such real distress in the girl’s whole air, and at the same
time, some pathetic hope that seemed to cast a pale beam across her
trouble like sunshine on a gloomy day, that Pamela swallowed down her
natural irritation and began to feel moreover that her efforts might
prove to have been not so altogether wasted after all. More than this,
how could she fail to be touched by the appeal: “You are my only
friend”? Flattered, too, considering--and Pamela was far too sensible
not to consider--the difference in their station.
“Oh,” cried the plain Miss Vibart, as if the gentle look the milliner
cast on her had been a Moses wand and the spring gushed forth under
its touch. “Oh pity! Oh, why am I not beautiful, like Jane? I never
envied her before--never, never--but oh, why did I go to the party at
all? If I hadn’t known him first, if he had not been so wonderful kind
and clever and charming and loving to talk to me, and understanding me
so--oh, oh, and so handsome! Oh, I’d never have known what he was if
Jane had had him first!”
“There, don’t cry, you poor thing! Why, now, you said you’d tell me
about it, Miss, and I’m sure, I think it uncommon pleasant of you,
Miss, and I’d never take advantage--no! ’Twill be as sacred--as
sacred--no not if I was to be drawn and quartered! But there, Miss,
why, how do you know ’tisn’t all going to end lovely? How do you know
the gentleman isn’t like me and wouldn’t rather have you than the
beauty, fifty thousand times?”
Here came such a lifting of swimming eyes, such a timid smile that
Pamela thought she, for one, never wanted to see anything sweeter than
the face of the plain Miss Vibart.
And after that the confidences came, broken, halting, but explicit
enough for such quick wits as those of Madame Mirabel’s head woman. How
Sarah had followed her mother, with a higher heart than she had ever
carried in her bosom to any entertainment, into the great, splendid
ball-room of Hampshire House, safe under her mask: and they had scarce
been there a five minutes when up comes the Duchess of Queensbury in a
great fuss, followed by a tall young gentleman, and she says to Mamma,
for the Duchess is Mamma’s cousin by marriage, and has remembered the
relationship since Jane came out, for Jane, she says, is the most
beautiful creature in the world and “so she is,” cried the loyal
sister, breaking off her narrative with a trembling lip.
“’Tis the young gentleman’s looks I want to hear about,” Miss Pounce
interpolated skilfully. “Mr. W---- I suppose? Him your lady Mamma was
alluding to.”
“Mr. W. it was, Mr. Walsingham. And oh, he’s a person of great
consequence, for he’s the nephew and heir of the old Marquis of
Harborough, him that succeeded his brother, you know, and none of
them ever married. And oh, dear, my dear friend--your name’s Pounce,
isn’t it? I’d rather call you by your Christian name if you don’t
mind. Pamela? Oh, I like that. Dear Pamela, I thought when the Duchess
introduced him and he bowed and smiled I’d never seen anything so
agreeable, nor so well looking. With such straight and honest eyes and
so kind a smile. And the Duchess was in such a fuss, as I told you,
she wouldn’t listen to Mamma who wanted to explain about Jane, and I
think she’s a little deaf, too. ‘Here, Edward,’ she cries, ‘here’s
Miss Vibart, what I’ve told you of and you’d better engage her at once,
for once it gets about what face is behind that mask, there’ll be
twenty clamouring for her. Oh, you’re a lucky dog,’ says she--that’s
the way she speaks, and I think it’s rather gross, but Mamma won’t
have it, because she’s a duchess--‘Oh, you’re a lucky dog,’ she cries,
‘and there won’t be a buck in the room that won’t want your blood when
midnight comes and that face is revealed.’”
“Dear, to be sure,” said Pamela, with a sucking breath. “And do you
think Mr. W.--I can’t help it, Miss, I shall always call him that:
’tis so mysterious like--didn’t hear what your Mamma tried to tell the
Duchess? Did he take you for your sister straight off?”
An overwhelming blush spread over the plain Miss Vibart’s face.
“Oh, Pamela Pounce,” she cried, “’twas very silly and cowardly of me,
but I didn’t want him to find out. I thought for once I’d know, even on
false pretences, what it means to be admired and courted. And oh, my
dear creature, yes, I’ll be truthful. I liked him so much from the very
first that I couldn’t, I couldn’t make up my mind to his going away and
leaving me.”
In the pause which ensued, the milliner discreetly waited while last
night’s heroine once again fell into a retrospective muse. Suddenly the
girl broke out:
“’Twas the strangest thing! Our tastes met at every point. ‘Never
think, sir,’ cries I to him, ‘to find me entertaining company, for I’m
the veriest country mouse----’ ‘Country!’ cries he. ‘Madam, there’s no
life for anyone but in the country to my mind. This town existence,
what is it? How can anyone but an idiot substitute the fresh air and
the green fields and the fine views and the wholesome activities, the
pleasant neighbourly intercourse, for this inane round of dissipations
in the atmosphere of smoke, the hideous confinement of brick and mortar
and the feverish intercourse with strangers between people who can
have naught in common, and as like as not can never meet again?’”
“La,” cried Pamela, “how you remember it all, Miss! And sure, to my
mind, ’twas scarce an auspicious opening.”
“Nay, but it was, for it set me off laughing. And, cries I, an idiot
and inane! ‘You’re vastly obliging, sir, but pray remember that I,
at least, am subject to authority.’ ‘And so am I, madam,’ cried he,
‘’tis by my uncle’s orders that I am in the town, so you and I may
perhaps call ourselves the only sane people in a room full of vapidity.
And such being the case,’ he went on, ‘you will allow me to add most
respectfully that we scarce meet altogether as strangers, and that I
trust our first meeting may not be the last.’”
The milliner gave a whistle.
“Quick work,” quoth she, “a’most like putting on the feathers before
the straw is stitched together.”
“Oh, nay indeed!” cried the other again, “we were somehow so
comfortably at home with each other from the first! And after we had
danced a minuet--it is not vanity on my part to say that I can dance
and that better than dear Jane, though, to be sure, it scarce matters
how she steps for none will look but at her face--we got on amazing in
the figures, and afterwards better still in the talk we had together.
Never was there such harmony of taste, I do assure you; I told him how
vastly I preferred the country gentlemen to the town fop, and he told
me the town young lady could never hold a candle to the fresh country
creature that would be up betimes in the dairy, and still-room. And
oh, a dairy is all my joy, and as to a still-room why, I scarce know
how the time flies, once I’m in ours! Our housekeeper is very old, and
Mamma is very kind and lets me help her. And there’s no butter half so
good as mine in the county, and the dear cows, I love the very sight of
them. Aye and I can milk, too. And there’s not a herb in the garden I
don’t know the use of. And----”
“Why, Miss,” said the milliner, amused, “what a mistress you’ll be of a
country house of your own, one of these days!”
“Why, that’s what he said!”
“Did he indeed?” Pamela laughed out loud.
“Nay, but,” the girl’s face, which had wonderfully brightened, fell;
“You must remember he thought I was the Beauty all the time! He has
heard about Jane. ’Tis quite clear. He is in love with her without ever
having seen her, and that was why the more charming, the more ardent,
respectfully ardent, he was, the more my heart sank. Though indeed I do
think our minds were in sympathy, and to be sure, sister scarce knows
rhubarb from angelica, or cream cheese from curds.”
“Ah, if I’d been you,” said Pamela Pounce with fire, “I’d have pulled
my mask off, Miss, and faced him and said, ‘By your tongue you’re a man
of sense, show yourself one by your eyes.’”
“Oh, you may talk,” Sarah cast a desperate upward glance at the
kindling face: “you that’s so handsome! Little you know what it is
to feel plain. ’Tis as I have told you, I couldn’t, aye--that’s the
word!--face it. And so I slipped from him, even as all the assembly
was summoned to the supper-room, and hid myself. And oh,” cried Sarah,
between laughing and crying, “when Mamma found me at last, sitting with
the maids among the cloaks, she was very angry first. ‘And where have
you been?’ cries she. ‘The Duchess and Mr. W. have been looking for you
everywhere. Mr. Walsingham’s mad after you, child,’ and oh,” here Sarah
sobbed, “she was most angry because she thought he had liked me too
much. And when I told her he took me for sister, ‘why,’ said she, ‘put
on your mask this minute, Miss. And I forbid you ever to let on that
you took Jane’s place. He has told the Duchess that you’re the most
intelligent young woman, that your mind and your principles are all
he could desire--believing you to be Jane of course. Things could not
be better! His intentions are most serious!’ And now,” cried Sarah,
drying her eyes desperately, “Sister’s had her tooth out this morning,
and the apothecary says in a week there’ll be nothing to show for it.
And though there’s been a message from the Duchess to say Mr. W. wished
to call to-day, Mamma has wrote back that Jane has taken a cold at the
masked ball and must keep her room for a few days. But oh, Pamela, when
he comes and looks upon her--why, you can guess how it will be!”
“’Tis a monstrous shame,” the partisan exclaimed. “I wouldn’t put up
with it, Miss. And all the time ’tis yourself he’ll think he’s getting.
You ought to up and tell him straight and let him make his choice.”
But Sarah, pulling on her shabby gloves and drawing her hat over her
red eyes, shook her head. “I couldn’t do that,” said she. “Mamma says
if I breathe a word ’twill be the basest treachery to sister. And
she’ll keep me out of the way,” she added under her breath.
The girl then flung her arms round the milliner’s neck. Sarah was
indeed lacking in propriety.
“I’ll send back your head. ’Tis as fresh as ever. And thank you a
million times. At least I’ve had a peep into happiness.”
It was quite ten days later when Pamela Pounce received an urgent
message from Miss Vibart to come and see her after closing hours.
“_Mamma and Jane are going out and I shall be quite alone. Do come, I
have something so strange to tell you._”
Miss Pounce did not need to be bidden twice to such an appointment.
Her warm heart had been considerably preoccupied on the subject of the
plain Miss Vibart’s affairs.
She was shown in, not to the fireless dark slit of a room overlooking
the shaft, but to quite a comfortable small bedroom on the street.
Sarah, in an elegant white muslin wrapper, sprang up from her
writing-table to embrace her friend.
“Yes, yes, look at me!” she cried. “I ain’t ashamed of my face to-day.
Indeed I quite love it. Oh, I’ve just been writing to all the dear old
people at home, my blessed old nurse and Mrs. Comfit--that’s our good
housekeeper--to tell them--to tell them my great news! Oh, Pamela, I
wanted to tell it by degrees and surprise you, but I can’t. ’Twill out!
It is me he wants.”
“Mr. W.?”
“My own dear, darling Edward Walsingham, who else? Oh, was there ever
such a lucky girl? Oh, Pamela! Here, sit beside me. Let me hold your
hand. Let me hold your hand, your warm, dear hand that lifted me up,
when I was oh, in such a pit of despond.”
The two sat together on the maiden’s bed, and Pamela began to cry, as
women will, over the tender emotions of the moment.
“I’m as glad, my dear,” she said, “as glad as if you’d given me a
hundred thousand pounds. Gladder! And, how did it come to pass?” she
drew her sucking breath of delighted anticipation.
“This morning, then--oh, when I think it was only this morning!--sister
being quite unswollen and looking lovelier than ever, Mamma put her
into the blue muslin--your blue muslin, you remember it?--and made
Meeking do her hair in a new way with a black ribbon bow at the back
and little curls, like the Duchess of Devonshire, and oh, sister did
look lovely! And just as she was ready, up comes Joe Footman to say the
Duchess of Queensberry and Mr. Walsingham was in the withdrawing-room.
And Mamma takes sister by the hand and ‘Come, child,’ says she. ‘And
if you poke when you come into the room I’ll slap you,’ (Sister does
poke sometimes you know.) And off they go, without so much as a look
at me. I’d been helping to dress sister, you see, holding the hairpins
and that. And there was I in my old frumpy gown, and I just looked at
myself in the glass and I thought: ‘You plain thing, how dare you
be jealous of beauty, and your own sister, too! And if you cry, you
silly creature, you’ll only make yourself plainer, so what’s the good
of that!’ And I wouldn’t cry, dear. I picked up sister’s clothes and
was putting them away, trying not to think. Oh, trying so hard not to
think--of him downstairs, looking worship at Jane, when all at once up
comes Joe Footman again. ‘And you’re to come down, Miss, you’re to come
down this minute to the withdrawing-room. Her Ladyship has sent for
you,’ And oh, you’ll never believe the dreadful thought that came into
my head and how near I was saying I would not obey Mamma, for to tell
you the truth, I thought she wanted to show off Jane with my plainness.
But then I thought, ‘Nay, daughters must do as they’re bid,’ and I set
my teeth and down I went, just as I was. Oh, Pamela, such an untidy,
ill-dressed poor girl, with a sad pale face! And oh--I can hardly
believe it myself--the moment I came into the room up he jumped--yes,
he, Mr. W.--and I heard him cry out quite joyful: ‘Ah, I knew I could
not be mistaken. Ah, ’tis she, ’tis she indeed!’ And then he took both
my hands in his and kissed them one after the other very respectful.
And says he, ‘Forgive me, Madam, forgive me! Your mother will explain.
It has been an absurd misunderstanding. I found a treasure, and I
thought I had lost it. Oh, forgive me if I seem too precipitate!’ And
Jane got up and went to the window and began to tap on the pane, and
Mamma and the Duchess looked at each other. And the Duchess said: ‘I
congratulate you, Amelia, this is the most crazy bit of good fortune
that ever befell a mother,’ And everything did seem rather crazy, for
there was Mamma at one minute looking as if she could kill me and at
the next clasping me and calling me her favourite child. And oh,”
went on the plain Miss Vibart, “it is precipitate, but what does that
matter, when we’re both so happy? And oh, it seems I must tell you,
and ’tis not vanity! that the moment he saw Jane he stared and looked
so mortal disappointed and seemed so confused, falling back two steps
indeed, instead of coming forward, that the Duchess cried: ‘What’s
the matter with the fellow? Ain’t she pretty enough?’ And he said:
‘This is never the young lady to whom you introduced me at Hampshire
House, ma’am. There is some cruel mistake here,’ he says. And oh, he
said to me, when we were alone together a little while ago that when
he saw that empty face--that’s what he said--that doll’s face, that
bit of waxwork, his blood ran cold, and then says he: ‘When you came
in!’--oh dear, I’m not dreaming!--‘When I saw your charming expressive
countenance, full of life and spirit and wit and goodness’--he did say
that--‘I could not hold myself back, I had to speak at once, lest I
lose you again.’ And now,” concluded the future Marchioness, turning
her radiant visage upon the milliner, “he’s gone to Harborough House
to tell his uncle, and Mamma and Jane have gone out to a dinner party,
and if you’ll help me into my frock, dear--yes, it is one of poor
Jane’s--I’ll be ready for him when he calls back, to wish me good
night.”