CHAPTER VIIIIn which a Wonderful Bit of Luck Comes out ofMiss Pounce’s Bandbox for Somebody Else
In which a Wonderful Bit of Luck Comes out ofMiss 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 anamourette, 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 thenight 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 ifshewere the condescending party, and carried taper hands eachside 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 overwhelmingfavour 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 herhead 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, ifthatdon’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 yourmouchoir, 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 adébutante. 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. Anice 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, creampoult de soieof 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 cheapparasol 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 assortedchapeau.”
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.
“Chapeauandrobe,” 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, andtell 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 recognitionby 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 Ameliabethought 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 yousmile, 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 shewas 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 yourmatinéeready 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 youdid 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 alittle 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 withstrangers 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.”
“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 whitemuslin 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: ‘Youplain 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.”