I doubt if even a universalentente cordialewill ever make the French mind and the English mind think alike.
I doubt if even a universalentente cordialewill ever make the French mind and the English mind think alike.
Now it happened before Regina and her husband left Paris that Madame de la Barre intimated through the girls that she would like to have a little confidential chat with her pupils’ mother.
“Mother,” said Julia to Regina, “Madame wants to see you.”
“She has seen me,” said Regina.
“Yes, yes, mother, but she wants to see youtoute seule. I suppose she wants to tell you some delinquencies of ours, or something.”
“I hope not,” said Regina.
“Well, dear, you must expect us to be human, like other girls. We have never been in any trouble since we came here, and I don’t know why she wants to see you, but, anyway, she asks if you will do her the favor of taking tea with her to-morrow afternoon at four o’clock.”
“I will,” said Regina.
“She doesn’t speak one word of English, you know,” said Julia.
“We shall communicate somehow,” said Regina, with a superb air.
“I don’t know how,” said Julia, “since you can’t speak two words of French—”
“Excuseme,” said Regina, pointedly.
“Well, excuse me too, mother—I didn’t mean to be rude. But your French isn’t equal to your Latin, is it?”
“I will be there,” said Regina, with a distinct accession of dignity.
And so, punctual to the moment, Regina appeared in thesalonof the schoolmistress. Their mode of communication was original, it was also a little difficult, but both being determined women, they overcame the difficulties of the situation with a supreme indifference to the effect the one might have upon the other. As a matter of fact, Julia had been a little wide of the mark when she had declared to her mother that Madame did not speak one word of English. Madame spoke a little more English than Regina spoke French, and by a series of contortions, gesticulations, and other efforts which I need not attempt to reproduce here, Madame de la Barre contrived to make known to Mrs. Whittaker her object in seeking for the interview. And her object in seeking the interview was that she should explain to her that she considered the taste in dress of the demoiselles Whittaker to be something too atrocious for words.
“C’est affreux! c’est affreux,” she exclaimed, when she found that Regina was a little dense of understanding. “Horreeble—horreeble!”
“I have never,” said Regina, speaking very slowly and distinctly, and with an indulgent air as if she were communicating with someone a little short of being an idiot, “I have never trained my children to care about those matters.”
“But they are young ladies! It is most important,” Madame exclaimed, with quite a tragic air.
“It will come,” said Regina, waving her substantial hand with a vast gesture, as if good taste in dressing was likely to drop from the clouds, “it will come. I never worry about things that are not essential.”
“But it is essential for a young lady—a demoiselle—it is—it is for her life.”
Poor Madame de la Barre! She tried very hard indeed to explain that the many purchases made by the young ladies were not such as should have been made by young girls not yet entered into the great world. She made no impression upon Regina.
“These are small matters,” she said, with a magnificent air; “not essentials in any way. They will make mistakes at first—I don’t doubt it, Madame—we have all done it in our day, but they will learn, oh, they will learn.”
Madame shrugged her shoulders. She felt that she was dealing with a fool of the first water, upon whom valuable breath was wasted. After all, these wereEnglishgirls. What did it matter? They were going to live in a land where it is the rule for women to make themselves such objects as Madame Whittaker herself. It is no exaggeration to say that when Mrs. Whittaker had finally swept out of theschoolmistress’s presence, Madame de la Barre sat down and closed her eyes with a genuine shudder.
“What does it matter, these pigs of English, what they wear? Thou art too good-natured, Helöise,” she went on, apostrophizing herself. “Thou canst forbid these little piglets of English from wearing their too disgraceful garments. What happens to them after they have left thy roof is no concern of thine. Thou art too good-natured, Helöise!”
So the “little piglets of English” continued unchecked in their career of vicious millinery, and when the time came for them to return to the paternal roof, they went, taking with them a stock of garments calculated to make the Park, as they put it, “sit up.”
And truly the Park did sit up, for the appearance of Regina’s two girls was something quite out of the common.
“It is the latest fashion,” said Regina, with an air of conviction to a neighbor who remarked that Maudie’s hat was a little startling. “The girls brought all their things from Paris. It is the seat of good dressing.”
You will observe that Regina never left any doubt in expressing her opinions. Hers was a positive nature. She would say, “My daughtersarebeautiful, my daughtersareelegant, my daughters attract an enormous amount of attention,” but never “Ithinkmy daughters are”—this, that, or the other.
So she gave forth, with the air of one whose fiat could not be questioned, the intimation that asMaudie and Julia’s things had come from Paris, they must be thedernier cri.
And the Park thought they were horrid.
Poor Regina! She was very happy in the return of her girls, so happy that she took a little holiday from her public work, and spent a whole week in talking things over, in arranging and rearranging their rooms, in examining all their purchases, in discussing what kind of life they should live in the immediate future.
“Now, what are your own ideas?” she demanded, on the second day after the return home of the girls, when they had settled down to tea and muffins.
Maudie looked at Julia. As usual, Julia answered for Maudie. Regina herself was full of suppressed eagerness.
“Well, if you really wish us to tell you exactly what we do want, mother,” said Julia, “we will put it in a nutshell. We want father to give us an allowance.”
“A decent allowance,” put in Maudie.
“Yes, yes, dears; yes, yes,” murmured Regina, who had prepared herself for an unfolding of great schemes, such as would have swayed her at her girls’ age.
“The kind of allowance,” Julia went on, “that he ought to give to girls of our age and position—that is to say, ofourage andhisposition. Then we sha’n’t go making sillies of ourselves; we shall know how to cut our coat according to our cloth.”
“And how much do you think such an allowance ought to be?” Regina inquired.
“Oh, about a hundred a year each,” said Julia.
“A hundred a year? That’s a very ample allowance. I never spend more than that myself.”
“Well, mother, it just depends on what you want us to be. If you want us to be smart, well-dressed girls with some position in the world, we couldn’t do it under. We have talked it over thoroughly with French girls who know what society is, and with English girls of the same sort, and they all say that a hundred a year is the least a girl can dress herself decently on.”
“And that would include—?” Regina questioned.
“It would include our clothes, our club subscriptions—”
“Your what?”
“Our club subscriptions.”
“Oh, you are going to join a club, are you?”
“Of course. You have a club, mother. We want some place where we can rest the soles of our feet when we are in London. It isn’t as if you lived right in Mayfair, you know.”
“No, no; you are quite right. I have no objection to your joining a club, or doing anything else that is reasonable. So it would include your club subscriptions?”
“Oh yes, it would have to do that. And our personal expenses. We shouldn’t have to look to father for any money other than an occasional present which he might like to give us if we were good, or if he could afford it; or on some special occasion.”
“I see.”
“Then we should like to have—er—er” and hereJulia stopped short and eyed her mother with a certain amount of apprehension.
“Well, go on, my darling. You would like to have what?”
“We should like to have a sitting-room of our own.”
“Oh!”
“To which,” Julia went on, emboldened by her mother’s mild expression of face, “to which we could ask our friends without upsetting the house, and—and—and—”
“Go on,” said Regina.
“Well, you see, most girls nowadays have an At Home day of their own—just for their own friends, irrespective of their mothers.”
“I haven’t time for an At Home day,” said Regina. “I used to have one, but I gave it up when you went to Paris.”
“I think that was rather foolish of you, mother,” said Julia. “A woman is nothing nowadays if she doesn’t have an At Home day. I don’t quite see myself what all your work brings you.”
“Brings me?” echoed Regina.
“Yes, brings you. What’s the good of working day and night, toiling into the small hours of the morning for a lot of other people? What do they ever do for you, mother?”
“Do for me?” Regina seemed suddenly to have become an echo of her own daughter. “I don’t know that anybody does anything for me.”
“No, it is always Mrs. Albert Whittaker toiling and fagging and slaving for other people’s glorification.I don’t see the force of it. It seems to us,” she went on, with a certain air of severity which ought to have amused Regina, but did nothing of the kind, “it seems to us that you get the worst of it in every way. We think, mother, that you ought to be very glad that we have come home to take care of you.”
“Oh! Then you,” said Regina, with a tinge of sarcasm in her tones, “you and Maudie are to have all the independence, and I am to be taken care of? That is very kind of you. Now, once for all let me speak, and then for ever after hold my peace. I give you, as long as you remain in your father’s house, I give you the same amount of liberty that I had in mine and which I wish to have for myself now, but I give it you on one condition, which is that you never abuse it. If ever you should disappoint me by doing so—which not for one moment do I anticipate—I should instantly withdraw that free gift of liberty. But I want you to remember that while you have your liberty, I still need and require mine. One is so apt to forget, and particularly when one is devotedly attached to anyone, the rights and liberties of others. You are quite welcome, my children, to have your day at home, and your father will certainly not wish to curtail you in the matter of provision therefor. I shall not expect that your little entertainments will come out of your own personal income. At any time that you seek my advice on any matter, it will be there ready for your use. I shall never give it to you unsought, unless I should see you going absolutely wrong. I will only ask you to remember that beforeall things I have striven, since you were tiny babies, first and foremost to preserve the originality of your minds. The more original you are, the more completely will you please me. There is so much in the circumstances and in the lives of women that tend to trammel and to stifle their better judgment and their better selves, that they have but little chance of letting any originality of mind which they may possess have fair play. You are singularly blessed in having an enlightened father and mother, who wish you to be in most respects as free as air. Take care, therefore, children, that you don’t lose sight of this precious opportunity. Let honor and originality go hand in hand. With your gifts and your beauty, you must land yourselves upon the very crest of the wave. There,” she went on, letting the tension of her feelings find relief in a little laugh, “there ends my little homily!” And she stretched forth her firm white hand and helped herself to the last piece of muffin in the dish.
We train up our children, kindly or harshly, according to our temperaments, that they may walk along a certain road. The road is usually one of several, and it is an almost invariable chance that our children will take one contrary to that of our choice.
We train up our children, kindly or harshly, according to our temperaments, that they may walk along a certain road. The road is usually one of several, and it is an almost invariable chance that our children will take one contrary to that of our choice.
Let there be no mistake about the Whittaker girls. They were not in any way deceived or blinded by their mother’s partiality for them.
“There is one thing you and I have got to make up our minds to, Maudie,” said Julia, the day after they had had the little serious talk with their mother. “It’s one thing to climb up a wall, it’s another to topple over on the other side. If we don’t look out what we are doing,weshall topple over the other side of our wall.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Maudie; “at least not quite.”
“Well, it’s like this,” remarked Julia. “We have got to take everything that mother says as partly being mother’s way. I don’t know whether you have ever noticed it, Maudie, but mother never half does things. That’s why she’s such a splendid worker on all these committees she goes in for. Mother calls usbeauties; she says you are purely Greek in type, and that I am a cross between the French and Irish styles of beauty. Well, that’s as may be. We can’t go against mother; it would be rude—besides, it wouldn’t be any good—but you and I needn’t stuff each other up—or even ourselves for that matter with the idea that we are going to set the world on fire with our faces. We sha’n’t,” she ended conclusively.
“I think you are rather nice-looking, Ju,” said Maudie.
“Do you? I don’t agree with you. But that’s neither here nor there. As to your being purely Greek—well, don’t understand that either. I never saw a Greek that was the least little bit like you. You remember those girls at Madame’s? Why, they had a touch of the East about them; they were next door to natives. I used to talk to them about it. I told them that I never knew Greeks were so dark—I always had an idea Greeks were fair people—but Zoe declared they were the common or garden pattern, and that a fair Greek was a thing almost unheard of.”
“That’s all rubbish and nonsense!” said Maudie in a more dominant tone than was her wont. “Do you remember Maurice Dolmanides?”
“The man who was at the boarding-house in Paris? Of course I do.”
“Well, he was ginger.”
“So he was—yes. And he was a Greek, wasn’t he? All the same, Maudie, he had a Scotch mother, you know.”
“Ah, I see. Yes, that does make a difference.”
“I assure you,” Julia went on, “that I talked itover with Zoe and Olga, and they both declared that they were the ordinary Greek type—round features, round black eyes, masses of coal-black hair, palest of olive skins. There’s a touch of the Orient about it. But you, you are blonde; your nose has got a bump in the middle of it, your mouth is far from Greek—”
“Oh, my mouth,” cried Maudie, with a look at herself in the glass, “my mouth is a regular shark’s mouth!”
At this the two girls fell to laughing as heartily as if they were discussing the merits of some animal rather than one of themselves.
“In short,” Julia went on, when they had somewhat recovered themselves, “in short, you and I have got to consider, first and foremost, what we can do to be original. We are not beauties, although mother, poor dear lady, persists that we have inherited an amount of beauty which is absolutely fatal. Dress us in an ordinary manner and we should look horrid. If we want to be any good in the world at all, we must do something a bit out of the common.”
“Follow in our mother’s footsteps?” said Maudie.
“Not a bit of it. What good does mother do by all her strenuous efforts to improve the condition of women? Is mother’s condition one that requires improvement? Not a bit of it. Is our condition one that requires improvement? Not a bit of it.”
“We don’t know yet,” said Maudie in a quiet, sensible tone.
“No, we don’t. And until we get married and see how we get on with our respective husbands, we shall have to remain in our ignorance. One thing is verycertain, Maudie, that neither you nor I are girls that can go in leading-strings. We have been made original and unconventional and independent; in fact, originality and unconventionalism and independence have been rammed down our throats from the time we could remember anything. It has been the key-note of mother’s life. But we have, before we can do anything in our own set, to see to our room and arrange all our things. Now that old playroom is just as we left it. It’s an awfully jolly room, capable of great things in the way of adornment. We must get daddy to have it done up for us, and to give us a certain amount for furnishing it. And we must have a piano.”
“A piano?” said Maudie. “I don’t think a piano is at all a necessary article. Clean paper and paint, a decent something to walk on—yes, that we can fairly ask father to give us, and I’m sure he won’t grudge it; but seeing that neither you, nor I, nor mother knows one tune from another, and that there is a piano that cost a hundred and twenty guineas in the drawing-room, I don’t think it would be fair to ask father to spend even half that sum in such an instrument for our exclusive use.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Julia. “I must think that over. But a piano wemusthave. If we are going to have an At Home day we must be able to have music, even though we can’t make it ourselves.”
“But why not have our At Home day in mother’s drawing-room?”
“Because that would very quickly degenerate intomother’s At Home day, and you know what mother’s At Home day means—seven women, two girls, and half a man. No, if we have an At Home day of our own, it must be in our own room. I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Maudie, we’ll go up to town and choose a little piano somewhere, the kind of piano that you see in the Army and Navy Stores’ list as suitable for yachts, and we’ll pay for it out of our allowance.”
“But we can’t.”
“Yes, we can. We can take three years to pay for it. If we spend thirty pounds on a piano, that’s quite enough. People can’t walk into your room and ask you whether your piano cost thirty pounds or ninety pounds. It wouldn’t be very much out of our allowance for each of us to pay fifteen pounds in three years—only five pounds a year—then the piano will be ours.”
“And suppose one of us gets married?” asked Maudie.
“Well, if one of us gets married, she must leave it for the other one.”
“And the other one?”
“Well, if the other one gets married, she must leave it for the use of the home.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Well,” said Julia, briskly, putting down the book that she held in her hand, “let us go into the playroom and just cast our eyes over its capabilities.”
So the two girls went off to their old playroom, which was just as they had left it when they haddeparted for their school in Paris two years before.
“It’s a good shape,” said Julia. “That bow window and those two little windows on that side give it great possibilities. We ought to have a cosy corner there.”
“That will cost five-and-twenty guineas,” said Maudie.
“Oh no; I mean a rigged-up cosy corner. We’ll take inHome Blitherfor a few weeks. We are sure to get an idea out of that.”
“I’ve never,” remarked Maudie, “seen anything about a cosy corner inHome Blitherthat did not combine a washstand with it. We don’t want a washstand, Julia.”
“No, not in this room—certainly not. I propose that we have a delicate French paper with bouquets of roses—perhaps a white satin stripe with bouquets of roses tied up with delicate blue or mauve ribbons. That will give us an interesting background to work upon.”
“Then for the curtains?” said Maudie.
“Well, for the curtains I should have—well, now, what should I have? Well, I’ll tell you. I should have chintz.”
“I shouldn’t; I should have cretonne. It will look warmer.”
“We don’t want to look warm; we want to look dainty. Or we might have lace curtains.”
“Yes, we might. And we might have those lovely dewdrops to hang in front of the window, but ofcourse it looks into the garden, and it would be rather a pity to shut the garden out in any way.”
“Yes,” said Julia. “A little desk there,” she went on; “white wood, you know, the kind of thing that you get in the High Street all ready for painting, or poker work. We might sketch all over it, or get our friends to autograph it.”
“Autograph it?”
“Yes. And then varnish it over with a very clear, colorless varnish. It would look very beautiful, and it would be original too.”
“Yes, it would be original. Supposing we have all the furniture like that?”
“No, no, not all the furniture—only the writing-table. There’s something appropriate about autographs on a writing-table,” Julia declared.
Eventually Mr. Whittaker agreed to have the room done up according to the girls’ ideas, and to give them a certain sum for furnishing it according to their own taste.
“Now I do beg, dear Alfie,” said Mrs. Whittaker, who, in spite of her desire that her girls should be original, was a person who loved to have a finger in every pie, “now I do beg, Alfie, that you will not be too lavish. Have the room thoroughly done up according to their ideas; that is only right. I like the notion of delicate bouquets of roses, tied together with a sky-blue ribbon, on a white satin stripe. It is elegant, refined, and capable of great things in the general effect. I would have a suitable ceilingpaper to match, and you must give them a pretty electric light arrangement in place of this simple one. After that, leave everything to the girls. Yes, dears, the paint will have to be touched up. It won’t require newly painting, because, you see, it has been white, and it is not in very bad condition. So have it entirely done, Alfie—ceiling, walls, paint—then give them a sum of money, just enough for them to exercise their ingenuity in making it go the very furthest.”
“I’ll give you thirty pounds,” said Alfred Whittaker, slapping his pocket and thrusting his hand into it with an air of firm determination. “Thirty pounds after I have done the decoration, and no more. If you can’t make a room look smart with thirty pounds, you don’t deserve to have a room of your own.”
“All right, daddy. Thank you very much,” said Julia.
“Yes, daddy dear, we’ll make it do very nicely,” said Maudie.
And then they sat down to hold another council of war.
“Maudie,” said Julia, “thirty pounds won’t go very far.”
“No,” replied Maudie. “We can’t possibly buy a carpet under ten pounds for a room of that size.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you what we’ll do—we’ll polish the floor, and we’ll have two or three nice rugs. We shall get them for about a guinea orthirty shillings apiece. And we must go in for bamboo.”
“Oh, I hate bamboo,” Maudie cried.
“We could enamel it white.”
“H’m—bamboo enamelled white,” said Maudie, dubiously; “it doesn’t sound particularly fascinating.”
“Well, that was rather a nice stand we saw up at Derry & Tom’s the other day, wasn’t it, with three sticks of bamboo arranged so as to hold a pot in the middle? Enamelled white it would be rather fetching, particularly if we had a nice trailing plant in it. Then we’ve got to get a fender; and they’ve got some lovely basket chairs at Barker’s, I know they have; and I saw some tables at two-and-eleven in a shop down the High Street—I don’t know what the name is. Oh, we shall find it easy enough; you can do a good deal at furnishing a room when you can get a table for two-and-eleven.”
“Yes, I daresay you’re right. You’ve got a wonderful headpiece, Ju. Then, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll get our room papered and painted, and then we’ll have the floor done up—that’s all quite plain sailing—and then we shall be better able to decide whether we’ll have a small square of carpet or two or three rugs. We needn’t have very expensive ones; it isn’t as if we had got a lot of boys to come clumping about with muddy boots, is it?”
“No, there’s something in that. And I’ll tell you what, Maudie—if we have chintz for the curtains, we could have chintz covers for the big old couch andthe large armchair that we had in the room from the beginning. One thing is very certain,” Julia continued impressively, “that we shall have to weigh every penny before we spend it.”
We learn most through our mistakes.
You know what the British workman is. Believe me, that the particular specimen of the British workman who haunts Northampton Park has no fewer sins than his fellow who inhabits the heart of London. The days dragged on, dragged on, dragged on. Oh, that lovely sitting-room of Maudie and Julia Whittaker’s imagination, day by day it seemed as if it was receding further and further into the Never-Never-Land.
First of all, there was a difficulty about the paper. After a week’s delay, various samples of paper were submitted to them, papers that were marvellously cheap, marvellously dainty. The choice being left entirely to the girls, it fell upon one at two-and-four the piece. It was an elegant paper; stripes of white satin alternated with a wide white rib, upon which were flung at regular intervals delicate bouquets of banksia roses and violets. The ribbon which tied each bouquet and meandered on to the next was of the most delicate blue. The ceiling was of embossed white satin (apparently), and the frieze, which was ratherdeep, was composed of long festoons of the tiny roses caught at intervals with bunches of violets. Oh, it was a lovely paper! But they had to wait for it. For some occult reason, best known to the decorator who had undertaken the work of transforming that particular room at Ye Dene—which, by-the-bye, the girls determined to christen theparloir—that particular paper was out of stock. Impatient Julia suggested that they should choose another one, but the decorator blandly informed her that it was such a favorite with fashionable people in the West End that the manufacturers were reprinting, and he expected the consignment for their room—which he had already ordered—to arrive at any moment.
And the days went by after the manner of days when there is a little house-decorating on hand. The decorator suggested that they could get on with the rest of the work, so on a duly-appointed day several gentlemen, dressed in lily-white garments, arrived and began to work their will upon the empty room. They swept the chimney—not the lily-white gentlemen, but a black one who seemed to be on friendly terms with them; they tore off the existing paper and they washed the ceiling, and then they went away and thought about things. They thought about things for several days, until at last the Whittaker girls hied them to the head office and made representation to the master of the business. Then they came and papered half the ceiling.
“How lovely it looks, doesn’t it?” said Maudie to Julia.
“It would look lovelier if it were all done. I expectwe shall have to go and fetch them to paper the other half.”
It was quite true. But still, bit by bit, the room progressed towards a thing of beauty, and at length, after a period of about five weeks, the foreman in charge of the work announced in a tone of triumph that they had come to bid the household at Ye Dene adieu. He didn’t put it in those words, my reader, but that was his meaning.
“I am sure we are very much obliged to you,” said Julia. “You have been a very long time about it.”
“Well, lady, the workman gets blamed when the blame belongs to somebody else. You see, we had to wait for the paper, and when we got the paper we had to wait for the frieze, and then when we got the frieze we had to wait for that bit of paint just to finish off the doors. Still, it’ll last much longer because it has been slow in doin’.”
“Oh, really, will it?” said Julia, rather taken aback. “Oh, I’m glad of that, because, of course, as it takes such a long time doing, one doesn’t want to be often turned out of one’s room for so long. Thank you so much. Would you like a glass of beer?”
“Well, lady, a glass of beer never comes amiss to a man at the end of a hard day’s work,” rejoined the foreman. “Me and my mates thank you very much.”
So Julia called to one of the servants and ordered “Beer for these gentlemen” with a lavish air which the more frugal Regina might not have approved had she happened to be at home. Regina was, however, at that moment gracing with her dignified presence a platform devoted at that hour to the restriction of thesale of strong drinks, and the incident never came to her knowledge.
“Now, Maudie,” said Julia, “have you any suggestions to make?”
Maudie stood looking round and round the room which was to be their especial domain.
“It’s awfully pretty,” she said. “Well, as to suggestions, I should suggest that we get the floor done before we do anything else.”
“Yes. And then I suggest that we choose the chintz,” said Julia.
“I like cretonne better than chintz,” replied Maudie.
“No, cretonne is like flannelette at fourpence-ha’penny a yard—looks like the loveliest flannel, and you make up your blouse and think you have got a treasure that’s going to last you for six weeks without washing. You find out your mistake in about six days, and when you send it to the wash, it comes back as rough as a badger and can never be worn more than once afterwards. No, dear girl, let us have chintz.”
“I suppose,” said Maudie, “if you want chintz you’ll have chintz.”
“Well, we’ll go up to the High Street to-morrow morning and we’ll look at both—”
“Excuse me making so bold,” said a voice at the door, “but if I might be allowed to speak to you ladies—”
They both turned with a start. The foreman, politely pressing the back of his hand across his lips, was standing in the hall. “Well?” they said in the same breath.
“If I might make so bold, ladies, as to suggest, our guv’nor is a one-er on chintzes.”
“Oh, really?”
“Loose covers is his special’ty—his special’ty.” He again passed the back of his hand across his lips. “Thank you very much for the drink, ladies. It was very welcome. If I might make so bold as to—”
“You had better have another,” said Julia.
“I’m not saying no, miss. It’s very polite of you, and I accepts it as it’s offered. If I might make so bold, I would suggest that I just speak to the guv’nor as I go past the head office, and he’d send his book of patterns up in the morning. He could send them up and then you could look at them in the room itself. It’s always more satisfactory than seeing them at a distance. It isn’t everyone,” the foreman went on, “that can hold a scheme of color in the heye and carry it to a shop miles away, and take the exact match of it.”
“No,” said Maudie, “I suppose not.”
“Well, I can,” said Julia, with decision. “If there’s one thing I can do, it is to carry a scheme of color in my eye; but at the same time you might as well tell Mr. Broxby to send in his book of chintz patterns, and we’ll have a look at them. But who shall we get to make them?”
“Makin’ loose covers is one of Mr. Broxby’s special’ties,” said the foreman. He turned and held out his glass that he might have it refilled. “My respects to you, ladies,” he said politely, raising his glass towards the two girls, “my respects to you. It isn’t often that a man in my positionfinishes a job with such pleasure as it’s been to us fellows to do this ’ere room for you young ladies, and if I can put any little tip in your way, it’s a great pleasure to me to do it.”
“Thank you,” said Julia. “You are very kind. You have done the room beautifully, we are most satisfied. And if you’ll tell Mr. Broxby to send us his chintzes to-morrow morning, we can look at them.”
Then began another period of waiting. Mr. Broxby arrived himself with the books of patterns. He viewed the great roomy old couch on which for years the girls had played, and which they had, as Julia frankly said, used abominably, and he made one or two suggestions for adding to its comfort at no great outlay of money. And finally they chose a chintz for the curtains of the three windows, and for covers for the couch and the large armchair. The cost thereof was a question into which Mr. Broxby found it difficult to go.
“I couldn’t exactly say, Miss Whittaker, what the price will be, but it won’t be very much,” he remarked. “You see, cretonne is cheaper than chintz, that is why so many people chooses cretonne in preference to the other; but when you come to the question of wear—why, chintz has it all its own way.”
“Just what I said,” said Julia, “just what I said. Well, now, look here, Maudie, we’ll have this chintz, and as to the cost—well, we must leave it to Mr. Broxby’s honor that he doesn’t ruin us. If you ruin us,” she said, “you won’t get your bill paid as soon, or nearly as soon, as if you keep the prices down. Our father has given us a sum of money to do thisroom up with. He pays for the papering, but he gives us a fixed sum of money for everything else, and if you charge us too much you’ll have to leave half your bill till next year.”
“And who’ll pay it then?” asked Maudie.
“Oh, well, you and I will have to pay it.”
“I see.”
Now Maudie was a careful soul who detested procrastination: at any time she preferred to go out in a pair of extremely dirty gloves rather than procure others by forestalling her next quarter’s money (for I must tell you that for several years these girls had had a small allowance paid quarterly which provided them with gloves and ties).
Then there set in another period of waiting. The chintz, like the wall-paper, was not in stock, and on learning this fact the two girls went round and explained to Mr. Broxby that they would just as soon choose another.
“Now, young ladies, if you would allow me to advise you,” said Mr. Broxby—“it’s the same thing to me, of course—but if you would allow me to advise you, I should say wait and have the chintz that exactly suits your wall-paper. There isn’t another chintz in the book that exactly goes with the wall-paper. If you chance on one that clashes with the paper, well, your room is spoilt at once. I’ll hurry them on all I know, but I must say that it will give me more satisfaction to make things up with a legitimate end in view.”
“There’s something in that,” said Maudie. “I should wait.”
“Very well,” said Julia, “but if I have to wait another five weeks, all I can say is, Mr. Broxby, that I shall come every morning and I shall worry you until we do get the covers.”
“Young ladies, you will not come too often to please me,” said Mr. Broxby, gallantly. At which the two girls laughed, and literally took to their heels and fled.
I won’t say that they waited quite five weeks for the chintz, but they did have to wait; and when at length Mr. Broxby announced that he had received the chintz, they had to wait yet a little time longer while the curtains and covers were put together.
“But doesn’t it look sweet now it’s done?” said Julia. “Isn’t it sweet? Yes, it’s true they’ve cost a lot—you’re quite right there, Maudie; and they’ll make a big hole in our thirty pounds. Of course, we ought to have an Aubusson carpet, but we can’t possibly afford that.”
“No,” said Maudie, shaking her head resolutely, “that is certain, as certain as that one day we shall both die. The best thing we can do is to go for one of those square things we saw at Barker’s the other day—‘cord squares,’ I think they called them.”
“I wanted a carpet our feet would sink in,” said Julia.
“You can’t have it, my dear. Besides, it wouldn’t be much in keeping with a girls’ room. Have a pretty dark blue cord square. We shall get it for about three pounds. We shall have endless bother with people slipping about and smashing things if we try and make these boards look like parquet.”
“You don’t slip on parquet as you do on boards,” said Julia. “You see, we haven’t very much left, and we must have two big basket chairs, a couple of small chairs, and a stool or two; and we must have a writing-table. And then we haven’t got any sort of an over-mantel, no sort of a looking-glass, and no pictures, so say nothing of a stand or two to put plants in. I don’t see where it is all coming from—still less the piano. Oh, I haven’t given up all idea of the piano. That we must squeeze out of our dress allowance.”
“You don’t think,” said Maudie, “that we could put the piano off for another year?”
“No,” said Julia, decidedly, “it’s no good spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar.”
I have always had a tender feeling about the great Idiot Asylum which teaches its children by means of keeping shop, with real pennies and real sweeties.
I have always had a tender feeling about the great Idiot Asylum which teaches its children by means of keeping shop, with real pennies and real sweeties.
Now if there was one thing on which Julia Whittaker prided herself, it was that she could carry color in her eye. A great many people have the same belief, and it is a point upon which a very large number entirely deceive themselves.
On the very afternoon of the day that they had decided on the chintz for the curtains and covers, the sisters hied themselves to that part of London which is familiarly known as “the High Street.” Knowing that their mother would be away from the Park during all the hours which intervened between breakfast and dinner, so the girls determined that they would get something which would serve as lunch in one of the large shops in Kensington High Street which catered for that particular meal. Thus they had several hours before them for selection and consideration.
“Maudie,” said Julia, as they walked into the carpet room at John Barker’s, “there’s one thing we’ve never given a thought to.”
“What’s that?” asked Maudie.
“The blinds. And, mind you, the blinds will cost us a pretty penny.”
“Won’t those we have do?” Maudie suggested.
“Oh Maudie!”
“No, I suppose they won’t,” Maudie admitted.
“Of course,” Julia went on, “mother was right enough when she had those green blinds to match the bedrooms at the back of the house—they were quite good enough for a playroom, but they would be horrid for us. Well, that keeps us down to the idea of a cord for the carpet. We want to look at carpets,” she said to a gentlemanly young man who came up asking her pleasure. “No, nothing so expensive as that,” she continued, casting reflective eyes upon a very beautiful carpet square. “We want something that will be—I think you call them a cord—something in deep blue, or deep crimson, or a rich green.”
“I’m afraid,” said the young man, shaking his head doubtfully, “that we haven’t anything quite in those colors. We have a blue, and we have a terra-cotta. What size, madam?”
Well, I needn’t go through the process of buying a cheap carpet. The transaction ended by the two girls purchasing a carpet which, as Julia remarked, was really almost too ugly for words. It was not an ugly carpet as carpets for that price go—it would have been admirable in a bedroom, but for a sitting-room with a delicate Louis XV paper, with exquisite chintzes to match, it was certainly not a little out of keeping.
“After all, the carpet doesn’t matter,” said Julia,with an air of making the best of it, “so long as it’s unobtrusive and neat.”
“I believe plain felt would have been the best,” said Maudie, eyeing the carpet with much disfavor.
“They don’t wear, do they?” said Julia, appealing to the young man.
“No, a felt carpet doesn’t wear, madam. It sweeps up into a good deal of fluff, and it’s apt to induce moths in the house, and we really don’t find them very satisfactory. It looks very nice at first,” he ended with a flourish, as if their brains were enough to fill up the rest of the sentence.
“Yes, I think so, too. Well, we’ll have it, Maudie, eh? It will do for us to begin with,” she added in a whisper. “Now tell us, where are the blinds?”
“I can show you the blinds, madam. They are in the other end of the department.”
I must confess that the blinds were another blow. Mind you there were five windows to provide for—two single windows and a large bay of three lights.
“These blinds are ruinous,” remarked Maudie, as the young man drew down one rich linen and lace specimen after another.
“I am afraid,” said Julia, “we must have something more simple than that.”
“A good blind, madam, is worth its money. Blinds don’t wear out like carpets,” said the young gentleman. “I should personally recommend this one. Yes, it is rather dear to begin with, but it gives the window an air, and it will clean again and again and again. Perhaps your house is in a very smoky district.”
“No, it isn’t. We live in Northampton Park.”
“Ah, then I should recommend these—I should really. They will be more satisfaction to you afterwards. A carpet is a very different thing. You are walking on a carpet every day, and it’s hidden by other things, but blinds, unless you are having curtains quite stretched across the window, blinds are always in view. Really, I should recommend these.”
And eventually they did buy them; and then they bade their tempter adieu and went across the road to look into furniture. Well, the furnishing of a room is always more or less a matter of taste, a matter of individual taste, I may say, and the two girls that afternoon displayed their individual taste in a most extraordinary manner. They bought the most curious and unnecessary articles. First of all they fell in love with a most elaborate over-mantel, which was ready to be enameled in any color that the purchaser desired, or which might be stained to simulate oak. For its centre it had a square of looking-glass with beveled edges, and it had many little cupboards and shelves and pillars. It was a most elaborate creation. Then Maudie fell in love with a couple of Japanese vases. They were exceedingly meretricious in their art; they were the most modern specimens of that style of Japanese handicraft which is produced exclusively for the English market. The English have much to answer for, and the prostitution of Japanese art, like the prostitution of art in India, is among the sins for which one day England will surely be called upon to justify herself. The price of these vases was twelve-and-nine-pence. You know perhapswhat it is to buy your first piece of porcelain, either new or old. It’s like that first downward step out of the rigid paths of honesty which leads eventually to the gallows. The Whittaker girls took the step at a jump.
The consequences were disastrous. Oh, the rubbish they bought that day, the absurd little tables that turned over almost with being looked at, the ridiculous plant stands, the preposterous little cupboards for hanging on the wall. Then they must needs have a horrible curtain of reeds and beads and string, and a three-fold screen, which was a marvel of cheapness because it was the last one left in stock. Then their taste went to Venetian glass—such Venetian glass!—some modern faïence from Rouen, and some Wedgewood which surely would cause the originator of that great art to turn in his grave could he have beheld it. Fans they bought also, and a gypsy pot for a coal pan, and then they remembered that they must have a fender, and they did themselves rather nicely in a black curb with a brass railing. Then they reminded each other that they must have a set of fireirons, and then they went off to see the basket chairs.
“They’re very ugly,” said Maudie.
“And they’re not very comfortable,” rejoined Julia. “But there, we have spent such a lot of money already that we certainly must get our chairs before we think of anything else.”
“And we have no small chairs.”
“No, we haven’t. I don’t know where we shallget small chairs—we can’t possibly afford expensive ones.”
“If I were you, ladies, I should go and look in the second-hand furniture department,” suggested the young lady who was convoying them round the basket department.
“Yes, that’s a good idea. We might pick up some odd chairs there. That’s a good idea,” said Julia. “Well, then, Maudie, if we have those two big lounge chairs and those two little occasional chairs, that ought to do us very well.”
“Will you have them cushioned, madam?”
“Cushioned? Of course we ought to have them cushioned. Is there much difference in the price?”
“Oh, no, madam, not very much. Cushions in a pretty cretonne are quite inexpensive.”
So eventually, without any reference either to the carpet or the wall-paper, or the chintz curtains and covers, they chose a pretty cretonne of a nice salmon-pink shade. And then they went to the second-hand department and looked out two or three occasional chairs, which were in reality the most sensible purchases that they made.
I wish I could adequately paint the scene the following morning, when the van conveying all the purchases, with the exception of the blinds and the chairs, which had still to be cushioned, drew up at the door of Ye Dene. First of all came the carpet, which was promptly laid down and tacked into position.
“It clashes with everything,” said Maudie, quite tragically.
“I don’t think it does. It goes quite well with thatblue in the wall-paper. I carried the color in my eye,” said Julia. “And, after all, it won’t show much. There’s a lot to go on it.”
And true enough, compared with the other things, the carpet was absolutely inoffensive.
“You would like the over-mantel put up, lady?” said the workman who laid the carpet.
“Yes, I think so.”
“You wouldn’t like to have it enameled first?”
“No, I think we’ll keep it as it is,” Julia replied. “Don’t you think so, Maudie?”
“Oh yes,” said Maudie, in a voice of complete despair, “keep it as it is.”
Honestly, I do not know how to describe this room, the room that had started so well. With a few articles of real Louis Quinze furniture to give it a tone, and the rest decently shrouded in the exquisite chintz which the girls had chosen, the room might have been one whose equal was not to be found in the length and breadth of the Park. As it was, it ended by having the air of a bazaar stall, put together by somebody who did not properly understand the business.
“There, that looks awfully nice and cosy behind the couch,” said Julia, eyeing with much satisfaction the three-fold screen, which was of a vivid scarlet embroidered in garish colors. “At least it will do when the couch gets its pretty new frock on.”
“And what are you going to do with this?” asked Maudie, holding up a mass of bright-colored beads and string depending from a lath.
“I thought we would hang it over that window.”
“But you want them over all the windows.”
“Well, do you know I really don’t know what we did have that for. Look here, we’ve gone on the conventional line in this room, let’s start and have something that’s not at all conventional. We’ll hang it on one side of the bay window—yes, just up there.”
“Well, we can’t fix it up ourselves. We’ll have to get one of Broxby’s men to come in.”
“It will look awfully well,” said Julia, “and it will screen off that part of the room. Maudie,” she went on, breaking off sharp as a new idea struck her, “what on earth were we thinking of? We ought to have had a window seat.”
“That would have been a good idea—I wonder we never thought of it,” Maudie cried.
“Well, we can’t now,” said Julia in a very matter-of-fact tone, “because we haven’t any money left. As it is, I don’t believe thirty pounds will cover all we spent yesterday.”
“Neither do I, for when the blinds come you’ll find they will be ever so much dearer than we bargained for. Shall we stand this tall bamboo thing for plants here?”
“Yes—just in front of where the reed and bead curtain is to go. Well, then, since we haven’t a window seat,” Julia went on, “we must put one of the big wicker chairs there.”
“But who’s going to sit there alone?”
“Oh, we can put a small occasional chair beside it. The man can sit on that.”
“And a table?”
“Yes—oh yes, I should put a table for their tea-cups. Well, then, when the piano comes—and by-the-byedon’t forget we have to go up to-day and choose it—when the piano comes, what do you say to standing it out here?”
“It would not look bad.”
“And this wicker chair like that—a little table there—”
“Oh, it will be exquisite! There won’t be another room in the Park like it.”
“And there are all these things, Julia,” said Maudie, looking down upon a great dust-sheet on which were spread the rest of their many purchases. “I don’t know where we shall put everything. All these little knick-knacks and odds and ends, they are awfully quaint and funny and pretty, but I’m sure I don’t know what we are to do with them. Here, you have got the eye; you must say just where they are to go.”
And Julia, having the eye, did say where they were to go; in fact, with her own energetic hands she spread them about the room—crawling beetles, grinning devils, spotted cats with exaggerated green eyes, odds and ends of pottery, glass and porcelain.
“Do you think we need have that over-mantel enameled?” she asked Maudie at last.
“No, I should have it stained black—ebonized, that’s the word,” said Maudie, looking round. “As it is, the room is too new, too ornate, too dazzlingly modern. There isn’t a touch of shadow in it anywhere—it’s like a face without any eyelashes.”