I am convinced that there is a huge opening for what I would call an all-round advice bureau. Its claims would reach far and wide, its clients would be drawn from all classes. Among them would be the women who have no taste in dress. The only difficulty would be to convince them of the fact.
I am convinced that there is a huge opening for what I would call an all-round advice bureau. Its claims would reach far and wide, its clients would be drawn from all classes. Among them would be the women who have no taste in dress. The only difficulty would be to convince them of the fact.
Regina found The Dressing-Room without difficulty. To be exact, it was situated in Berners Street and the number was forty-five. Regina gained admittance, was greeted pleasantly, and expressed a certain portion of her wishes.
“You would like to have your hair brushed?” said the charming little lady who received her. “Oh, but you have beautiful hair,” she said, having enveloped Regina in a snowy garment, unfastened the still abundant coils, and allowed the locks to stray over her shoulders. “O, you have lovely hair, but how little you make of it!”
“That is exactly why I have come”—her tone was pathetic in its eagerness. “How would you advise me to wear it?”
“I don’t know, I never like to give an opinion off-hand. I’ll brush it thoroughly, see how it lies, study you face and figure—”
“Oh—my figure!” said Regina.
“Why, what is the matter with it?”
“Too fat,” Regina sighed.
“Too fat? I’d be glad of a little of your complaint,” said the little woman, who was herself about as fat as a match.
“But I am too fat,” Regina cried.
“Well, perhaps you might do with a little less, but I shouldn’t overdo it in the other direction. Of course, there is no doubt that good-looking women are generally those who are inclined to be stout, but keep themselves within reasonable limits. They have the best skin, the best hair, they have so few lines and so few wrinkles, and they escape the withered look of age.”
She was brushing softly yet vigorously at Regina’s soft brown locks.
“You are beginning to wear your hair off your forehead.”
“I have always worn it off my forehead,” said Regina, with dignity.
“No—I don’t mean that, I mean that the continued brushing in one direction has begun to wear it away, and your forehead seems higher than it really is.”
“Yes, it is wearing back.”
“Now, we ought to contradict that tendency.”
“I can’t wear a fringe,” said Regina.
“No, a fringe would be out of keeping with your general appearance, and I never advocate a fringe if it can be dispensed with, but you have been wearing your hair so tightly dressed. Now, would you let me shampoo your hair?”
“Oh yes, do what you like,” said Regina, with child-like faith and very unchild-like patience.
“It will help you a little—in this way, it gives the hair a fresh start. One should never try to dress one’s hair in a new fashion without shaking off as much as possible the old way.”
So Regina’s hair was washed and dried, and then came the great question of what style of hair-dressing she should adopt.
“I would like you not to look in the glass,” said Madame Florence, as the little lady had asked Regina to call her. “I should like you to see the finished picture of yourself without your seeing the process. So often what comes to one as a surprise is so much better than what comes gradually.”
She opened a large box on a table at her right hand, and chose from it a light frame of the exact color of Regina’s hair. This she put on Regina’s head, then she deftly manipulated the abundant tresses, gathered them loosely over the frame into a knot at the top of the head, fixing it here and there with combs, and then slightly waved the looser portions of hair.
“In most instances,” she said when she had reached this point, “I should recommend the wearing of a net, but your hair is so much of a length, and so unlikely to become untidy, that I should not recommend you to trouble to do more than I have done. Now look at yourself.”
It was such a glorified vision of Regina that met that lady’s gaze when she looked at herself that she positively jumped out of her seat.
“It is really me?” she cried.
“Yes, it is really you,” said Madame Florence.
“But how shall I be able to do it myself, I—I do not keep a maid.”
“Well, wear it to-day, see how you like it, see how your people appreciate it, do it as well as you can and come back again to me to-morrow. I will do it for you until your hair has got into condition and takes these lines naturally. How do you like it?”
“I think I must have looked a perfect fright before,” said Regina in a burst of confidence.
“Well, compared with what you do now, you certainly did. It was a sin to see all that lovely hair wasted and made nothing of. By the way, about your combs—I have put you in my ordinary combs; would you like to have a proper set?”
“Oh yes,” said Regina, “I will have everything that is necessary,” for, as I have already explained, money was not a matter of paramount importance to her.
“I have put in ordinary imitation tortoise-shell combs just to try. Take the glass, if you please, and look at yourself all round. See, I will turn on the light. Do you like the shape of the head? You see the combs improve it. I should advise you to have real tortoise-shell; it is better for the hair, and more in accordance with your age and position than little cheap ones.”
“Oh yes, I will have good combs.”
Madame Florence touched a bell and immediately there came into the room a young girl of intelligent aspect and stylish exterior.
“Miss Margaret,” said Madame Florence, “will you get me the good combs?”
“In sets?” said Miss Margaret.
“Yes, like these, only real.”
“Certainly.”
As the girl left the room Regina turned to Madame Florence. “You have a quaint custom here of using the Christian name,” she said.
“We wish to be impersonal,” said Madame Florence. “Our establishment is called The Dressing-Room, that is sufficient for our purpose, and as we must have some distinguishing mark, my partner and I are Madame Florence and Madame Cynthia, and our helpers are Miss Margaret, Miss Bertha and Miss Violet. It gives us a personality here which has nothing to do with our private personality. We find that it works excellently well.” She broke off as Miss Margaret came back into the room carrying a large box. Regina chose a set of combs and Madame Florence adjusted them in her hair, taking away the cheaper ones with which she had first dressed it.
“Now,” she said, “you may find your toque a little difficult—well, I should like to see your toque on.”
The effect was terrible, for Regina’s toques were never things of beauty, and this one was less beautiful than most of her headgear.
“It is impossible!”
“Well, it is rather impossible. Forgive me for saying so, but how could you buy such a thing?”
“Madame Florence,” said Regina, “you are a lady.”
“I hope so; I have always believed myself to be such.”
“I recognized it. I recognize it still more as I remain in your presence. I will be frank with you, I will be candid. I see you have a copy of theIllustrated Ladies’ Joyon the table. I should like to speak to you alone,” she said in an undertone.
Madame Florence gave a look at the younger lady, which she interpreted, and immediately disappeared from the room.
“I may speak to you in confidence?”
“Certainly.”
“Give me the number of theIllustrated Ladies’ Joyfor the week before last.”
“Certainly. Here it is.”
Regina turned with trembling fingers to the answers to correspondents on matters connected with the toilette. “Read that,” she said, pointing to the answer which was headed “broken-hearted Miranda.”
“I am that woman; I am ‘broken-hearted Miranda.’”
“Dear, dear, dear,” said Madame Florence, “are you really sure that it is so?”
“I am afraid so. My husband is the noblest of men—generous, brave, true-hearted—he has been got hold of, Madame Florence.”
“And you must get him back again,” said Madame Florence in sharp staccato accents. “You are a good-looking woman, a little stout, but that can be got rid of by judicious means.”
“I have taken means; I have just bought some ofMadame Winifred Polson’s little brown tablets.”
“Two guineas’ worth?”
“Yes.”
“I would not take them if I were you. They will eat away the lining of your stomach, they will make you dyspeptic, they will perforate your bowels and do all sorts of horrible things. They are made of iodine and sea wrack. Put them into the fire, my dear lady.”
“But I paid two guineas for them,” said Regina.
Madame Florence laughed. “Well, take them home with you if you like, and look at them occasionally and say ‘These cost me two guineas,’ but don’t take them. If you want to get thin, go to a medical man who thoroughly understands the science of food and fat—or fat and food.”
“Are there such people?”
“Oh yes. You say you like simple diet, and take all sorts of starchy foods and think that makes your skin fine and clear. My dear lady, it is not the milky foods you take, the bread and butter and cream and the extra two lumps of sugar in your tea that make your skin fine and clear; it is simply that you were born with a fine skin, and have been doing everything you could to ruin it during the whole of your life.”
“You think that under diet my skin will regain its normal beauty?”
“Of course it will. If you put yourself into proper hands, you won’t know yourself. When I say ‘proper hands’ I do not mean my own. My business is connected entirely with the hair, nothing else,but I know who are skilled in all matters of diet. I will give you the name and address of a doctor in Harley Street who will charge you a fixed sum for your course, and who will give you the smallest and closest directions for getting rid of your superfluous fat without making you in the least bit skinny or withered.”
“I am very grateful to you,” said Regina; “I wish I had not gone to Madame Polson. Not that two guineas is a matter of very great importance, but I hate being done.”
“Of course you do, all nice, sensible people do. But you will not take those tablets, will you?”
“Not in the face of what you have told me. Will you give me the address of the doctor in Harley Street? I will go to him now.”
“You cannot go to him now; you see it is past his hours—you have been here so long. Let me give you a cup of tea.”
“You are very kind.”
“And you will let me do your hair for a week?”
“Yes, I will come every day for a week. Tell me, how do you charge for your treatments?”
“Well, we give so many for a guinea. A simple treatment is brushing it and arranging it in the ordinary way. Shampooing is extra, the combs are extra, the frame is extra, and waving the hair is again another charge. We will put your treatment to-day at a lump sum—half-a-guinea. You should take another guinea’s worth of simple treatments—that is to say, I will brush your hair every day for a week, wave it and dress it like this for a guinea.After that, if you come to me once a week you will find that your hair will be kept in perfect condition. Occasionally you will care to have a shampoo, but that is as you feel. I have many clients who never have their heads touched except with my hair brushes.”
“But about my toque? I cannot go out like this. I must put my hair back to-day. Imustget home.”
“I never like,” said Madame Florence, “I never like to recommend special means if my clients are restricted in the way of money. I—er—it is the season of changing one’s clothes; you will be buying new toques?”
“Oh yes.”
“We have another business—nothing to do with me—but another business is run under this roof,” said Madame Florence. “Would you care to see some toques?”
“Oh, have you? Then I will have a new toque,” said Regina. “I—I will be frank and candid with you. I am a very remarkable woman—I am Mrs. Alfred Whittaker. I have been for many years President of the Society for the Regeneration of Womanhood—I have regenerated all sorts of things connected with women, and now I want to regenerate myself. I have given up my presidency, I have worked for others long enough, and some hussy has, in a measure, supplanted me with my husband. I want—I want to learn a great deal, I want to go to school again. I have never known how to dress myself, I have never known how to make the most of myself. Dear Madame Florence, I like you; youhave faithful eyes, I can see you are a woman to be trusted—it has been my business for years past to judge characters by exteriors—you inspire me with confidence. Will you help me, will you come and choose something to put on my head?”
I am bound to say that it was with great difficulty that Madame Florence restrained the broadest of broad smiles.
“Madame Clementine,” she said, “has a suite of rooms on the first floor. If you will come with me I will introduce her to you. No, I would not put your toque on, it is so ugly. Best not to let her know you have ever worn anything so unbecoming. I will send a message down to make sure she is alone.” She touched a bell, and again Miss Margaret came into the room. “Just go down and see if Madame Clementine is below and alone. This lady is going down to choose a toque.”
Two minutes later Regina found herself following Madame Florence down the stairs leading to the first floor.
“Good afternoon, Madame Clementine,” said Madame Florence, cheerfully, “I have brought you a new client. This is Mrs. Alfred Whittaker—so well known—all women know the name of Mrs. Alfred Whittaker. I have been arranging her hair, and I want you to crown my efforts with the prettiest toque you have in your show-rooms.”
Have you ever noticed how a lie spreads and grows as it flies along? What a pity it is that the truth does not increase in the same proportion!
Have you ever noticed how a lie spreads and grows as it flies along? What a pity it is that the truth does not increase in the same proportion!
“Pray be seated, madame,” said Madame Clementine. “I am delighted to be honored by a visit from so distinguished a lady. Certainly I know your name well, everyone interested in the cause of womanhood knows the name of Mrs. Alfred Whittaker.”
Regina smiled and bowed. She was well accustomed to this kind of flattery, but it had never lost its charm for her, and now, after all those years, she accepted it at its face value.
“Mademoiselle Gabrielle,” called Madame Clementine.
“Mais oui, Madame,” answered a voice from another room, and immediately a little French girl came running in.
“Now, mademoiselle, here is a very distinguished lady—This is my right hand,” said Madame Clementine, turning to Regina. “Now, something verychic. Yes, look Mrs. Whittaker well over. You see, Gabrielle looks from this point and from that point, she takes in the whole. It is not with us to sell any hat that comes first, but to sell madame a hat that willalways give madame satisfaction when she looks in the glass.”
“Mrs. Whittaker has not been very pleased with her milliner heretofore,” said Madame Florence.
“Ah madame, now you will never go anywhere else. My clients never leave me, because I believe in what you English call ‘the personal note.’ We have models—oh yes, that is absolutely necessary, because we have ladies who come in and say, ‘I want a hat, I want to wear it now,’ and they pay for it and go away. Well, we must supply their needs, but, when we have regular clients, we like to have a day or two of notice, to see the dress madame is wearing, the mood madame is in, and her state of health, then we make a toque that is madame’s toque, not a toque that you will meet three times between this and Oxford Street.”
“If you suit me,” said Regina, “and give me something that I can go home in, I will put myself unreservedly in your hands in the future. I know little or nothing about dress,” she went on, with a superior, platform kind of air—an assertion which made the lively Frenchwoman positively shudder—“yet I am feminine enough to wish to be well dressed.”
“Ah, we will satisfy madame. Well, Gabrielle?”
“I think,” said little Mademoiselle Gabrielle, “that madame will find the toque that came down yesterday would suit her as well as anything not specially made for her. I will get it, madame.”
She disappeared into the next room, returning with a large black toque in her hand. It was light in fabric, it was bright with jet, and a couple ofhandsome black plumes fell over the coiffure at the back.
“Ah, yes, Gabrielle, yes. Now try it on, madame. Not with those pins, they do not fit with the style of the hat. Madame will not mind to buy hat-pins?”
“If they are not ruinous,” said Regina, who was in a very much “in for a penny, in for a pound” kind of mind.
“Antoinette, Antoinette, bring the box of ’at-pins,” said Mademoiselle Gabrielle.
Immediately another little French girl came out carrying a large tray of hat-pins.
“Madame is not in mourning? We will not have jet—no, no! Now these?”
She pounced upon some cut-steel hat-pins which matched the ornaments on the hat, and then with deft and soft little fingers she firmly fixed the toque on Regina’s head.
“You see,” said Madame Clementine, spreading her hands, and looking at Madame Florence for approval. “Yes, that is the hat for madame. Regard yourself, madame—give madame the ’and-glass.”
Regina got up and walked with stately mien to the long glass set so as to catch the best light from the windows. Indeed, the toque was most becoming. She saw herself a different woman, more like those gracious, well-furnished superb British matrons whom she was accustomed to see sitting behind prancing horses and powdered footmen on those rare occasions when she had allowed herself to be inveigled into the Park. It was not a cheap toque, but Regina had the sense to see that it was worth the money asked for it.
“It is not ver’ cheap,” said Madame Clementine, “non, but it is good, it will last, it is not a toque for a day and then another for to-morrow. Then these plumes, they will come in again and again.”
“I will have it,” said Regina; “I am quite satisfied with it. I only feel, Madame Clementine, that—er—my—my upper part is, well—is superior to my lower part, what in our vernacular we call ‘a ha’-penny head and a farthing tail.’”
“Oh, ver’ good, ver’ good,” cried Madame Clementine, with your true Parisienne’s shriek of laughter. “You see, Gabrielle, the gros sou for the head and the little sou for the tail. Oh, that is most expressive. But, madame, you can remedy that.”
“Oh yes, I suppose I can,” said Regina, doubtfully, “I wish you were a dressmaker.”
“Oh, indeed, no! It does not do, you have notchicif you mix all sorts together. To bemodisteand to becouturièreis like being a painter and a singer at the same time. But I can tell you of a little Frenchwoman—she could dress you—ah—eugh!” And she kissed the tips of her fingers.
“Well, if you will give me her address I will go to her,” said Regina.
“To-day? But it is too late,” said Madame Florence. “Mrs. Whittaker is coming upstairs to have tea with me,” she added; “it will be ready now.”
“Does your friend live far away?” said Regina to Madame Clementine.
“No, not very far, just three streets away. It isune vraie artiste—no great price, she is not known. By-and-bye she will be—unattainable, excepting toher old clients. Antoinette, write down the address of Madame d’Estelle. And when you have arranged your gowns with her, you will come back to me for suitable toques?”
“Yes,” said Regina, “I will put myself unreservedly in your hands. I feel you are a woman of taste, an artiste. I frankly confess that I am—not.”
It was with many wreathed smiles, becks and bows and assurances of welcome when she should come again that Regina was finally allowed to return to The Dressing-Room for the tea which was waiting her. Finally, after having written a cheque for her preliminary treatments, she found herself walking along Berners Street in the direction of Oxford Street, and a feeling took possession of her that, after all, fashionable women knew what they were doing when they patronized private establishments. She had heard of them, because details of dress had not wholly ebbed by leaving her high and dry on the shore of high principle, devoid of the herbage of feminine grace. She had heard that no well-dressed woman, no really well-dressed woman, would ever get her clothes at a shop, and her keen and busy brain turned over the subject as she walked away from The Dressing-Room. After all, she had learned much during her years at the helm of the Society for the Regeneration of Women, and she had learned, above all things, to set a true value on the quality which is called individualism. She had learned that you cannot herd humanity with success, and she was now learning that you cannot dress humanityen bloc. She felt a curious shyness as she caught sight of her unaccustomed appearancein the shop windows as she passed, and once she stopped as she was walking along Oxford Street, at a large furniture establishment, and looked at herself searchingly. Yes, in spite of the feeling of looseness about her head which worried her not a little, she could see the intense becomingness of the new way in which her hair was arranged. It was then after five o’clock, but she steadily pursued her way in search of Madame d’Estelle. I need not go into the details of her visit. Madame d’Estelle made short work of her new client.
“Yes, madame,” she said, “you want a little frock built for that toque. Well, leave it to me, leave it to me; I will make you a little frock—say ten guineas? (Take madame’s measure.) While they take your measurements I will walk round and study you. You will come again in three days for a fitting, then, if it is necessary you will come again three days after that, then in three days more you will have your frock. I will make you something consistent with your personality—it will be a little black frock, nothing very important, but it will give us a sufficient start. (Write, madame, a note—ten guineas—and the day of the fitting.) Leave yourself to me, madame, it will be all right.”
Then Regina went home. She felt that everybody in the Park was looking at her. So they were, for the story had gone round that Mrs. Whittaker had become a little wrong in her head. The story had been going round that she had been seen walking up the road in her nightgown and many variations of it had already found credence. “Have you heard thenews? That Mrs. Whittaker of Ye Dene has gone off her dot.” “Oh, my dear!” “Well, Charley says he met her walking up the road in her nightgown.” “Oh, nonsense.” “Well, that’s what I said, but Charley met her himself.” “Was she walking in her sleep?” “Charley didn’t seem to think so.” Then a little later, “You know Mrs. Whittaker of Ye Dene, they’re saying she’s got a tile off.” “Well, I always did think she was a peculiar kind of woman; no woman would dress like that who was altogether right in her head.” “Yes, but I didn’t think she was as bad as that. Why! she, the President of some society for making new women. Who says she’s got a tile off?” “Well, my sister was at the Wingfield-Jacksons’ yesterday, and Mrs. Jackson told her that Charley had seen her walking up the road in her nightgown, so she must be quite dotty, you know.” A few days after the story spread still further. “You’ve heard the latest, of course.” “No, I’ve heard nothing particular, most people are away.” “They’ve taken poor Mrs. Whittaker away to a lunatic asylum.” “Oh, my dear, you don’t say so. What for?” “Well, I suppose she’s gone out of her mind. Perhaps the wedding, the fuss—so many presents—ah, I thought at the time they were rather over-doing it.” “But I thought she was such a strong-minded woman.” “Ah, but don’t you think there’s always something abnormal about these strong-minded women. Just as my Harry said when he told me—hegot it from the club, of course; all the gossip in the place comes from the club—as he said, it’s all very well to take women out of their rightful sphere and letthem regenerate the world, but it doesn’t pay; that that’s just how we ordinary women, who haven’t got souls above our natural duties, may take comfort to ourselves.” “When did it happen?” “I don’t know, but when they were supposed to go abroad she was taken away to a lunatic asylum. They say she’s at Bolitho House, and I did hear that she is kept in a padded room.” “But, my dear,” said the other woman, “just turn your eyes to the window. There’s Mrs. Whittaker walking down the road with her hair dressed a new way and the smartest hat on her head that I’ve ever seen in my life!” “Well, I never!”
I think that nothing in the world shows truer affection than that curious resentment against any change in the appearance of those we love.
I think that nothing in the world shows truer affection than that curious resentment against any change in the appearance of those we love.
Regina, all unconscious of the gossip that with her for its central figure was floating about the Park, went slowly down the road in the direction of Ye Dene. Truth to tell, she was a little shy of facing her family in her new guise. It was then after six o’clock; in fact, it was fast approaching the hour of seven. Now it happened that Julia had been off on an expedition to town with one of the Marksby girls, and had only arrived home about ten minutes previously, and being tired had gone into the pleasant sitting-room which she and Maudie had hitherto shared between them. When Mrs. Whittaker came up the covered way Julia saw her from where she was sitting, for both the sitting-room door and the front door were wide open.
“Hullo, mother, are you back?” she called out.
Regina with a certain accession of color and a certain acceleration of heart beating, replied with a pleasant word and walked into Julia’s sitting-room.
“Oh, you’ve not been back long?” she said.
Julia did not reply. It was not perhaps a remark that called for any special attention in the way of answer, but if it had it would have been all the same.
“Why,mother—” and she stared at Regina as if she were indeed fitted for the padded room which had been mentioned a few minutes previously.
“I have got a new toque,” said Regina.
“Oh, the toque is all right—a little big—”
“I don’t think so. It was chosen for me by a Frenchwoman whose taste is indisputable.”
“I have not always found French taste indisputable,” said Julia, remembering with a certain shame some of the purchases that she and Maudie had made in days gone by. “Your toque’s all right, but what have you been doing to your hair?”
“I have had my hair shampooed and brushed, and I intend to wear it in another mode.”
“It looks horrid!” said Julia.
“I don’t think so,” answered Regina, her color still heightened and a great accession of dignity in her manner. “You do not always wear your hair the same, why should I? I have got to that time of life when what suited me at thirty does not still suit me at fifty, and my hair showed signs of wearing off the forehead, and I do not like a bald forehead either in a man or a woman.”
“Oh, I daresay you are right. Of course, you are at liberty to make whatever sort of a guy you like of yourself, only don’t ask me to admire it, that’s all.”
The tone was rude, and Regina felt stabbed to the heart.
“I do not always admire your taste in dress, Julia,”she said very quietly. “I sometimes think that if a mother had all her life had a frightful wart on her nose, her children would resent its removal because they had grown accustomed to it. I have chosen, my dear, to do my hair in a new fashion, and I am not to be turned from my purpose by even your wishes. I have come to the conclusion that I have paid too little attention in the past to the details which most women think of paramount importance. I am going to change all that and I have begun with my hair and my toque.”
She did not wait for Julia to reply, but turned and went quietly and quickly out of the room, leaving Julia speechless and astonished.
“Now, what has happened to her?” said Julia. “Why should she, all at once, take to altering herself like that? Surely mother isn’t going to be frivolous in her old age. I wonder what daddy will say. She’s going to ‘alter all that.’ Well, of course—she’s at liberty to please herself. I suppose I ought not to have jumped on her like that—poor mother!”
She got up and ran up the broad and shallow stairs, knocked at her mother’s door, and, without waiting for an answer, entered the room.
“I say, mother,” she said.
Regina was standing before the glass, evidently in the act of taking the pins out of her hat. She turned round.
“You want me?” she asked. Her tone was quite pleasant and sweet, but there was an indefinable sense of woundedness about it which touched Julia to the very quick.
“Oh, I say, mother, I was beastly rude to you just now. But I didn’t mean to be.”
“I am sure you didn’t.”
“You see, when one has a mother that one thinks an awful lot of, and who always wears her hair the same, one feels sort of blank when she makes herself look different. But I was rude, and I’m awfully sorry; I didn’t mean it for that.”
She came to the side of the dressing-table and stood looking at her mother with honest, troubled eyes. Regina caught her by the hand and drew her to her ample bosom.
“I felt myself growing such a frump,” she said. “I don’t know when, I think it was about the time of Maudie’s wedding, that I felt, all at once, that I was getting into a fossil like all other women workers. I never saw it all those years till about that time, and I hated myself for being frumpy and ridiculous.”
“You never were that to us,” said Julia, with quick reproach. “I hope you never thought we thought so, for we never did.”
“Well, well, well, I will wear my hair this way for a little while, and if you and dear father do not like it I will put it back into the old way again. It is bad for the hair to dress it always in the same fashion.”
“Well, now I come to think of it, it looks awfully nice, and you’ve lovely hair and a glorious complexion.”
At this the color on Regina’s cheeks deepened into a veritable rose blush. Julia hurried on—“It’s a beautiful hat,” she said. “Where did you get it? How did you light on this Frenchwoman? Was itvery expensive? It’s worth it, whatever it cost.”
“No,” said Regina, “it was four guineas; I don’t call that very expensive for a hat with good feathers.”
“Oh, not a bit! And even if it was, you can afford it. I think you are quite right, now you have chucked the regeneration business, to start regenerating your own person. I admit it gave me a shock when you came in. You know, somehow one doesn’t like the first idea of one’s mother being tampered with.”
Then Regina told Julia how she came to put herself in the hands of Madame Florence and the little Frenchwoman on the first floor—that is to say, she told her in part, not giving her reasons, her actual reasons, or the source of her information concerning them.
“But how will you do your hair to-morrow morning?”
“I do not know quite how I shall do it. I am going to Madame Florence every day for a week, so that she may do it and get it into the proper set. When she had arranged my hair she gave me a lesson on a dummy, so that I really do know how things should be, and she thinks after a week I shall be quite able to do it myself. Besides, as she says, it makes such a difference—the way your hair is accustomed to go.”
“You’ll never be able to wave your own hair, mother.”
“Well, I don’t like to think about that part of it,” said Regina.
“Darling,” said Julia, feeling that she had smoothed over her previous indiscretions, “why don’tyou have a maid? She would be so useful to both of us. Think of somebody who would be able to make smart blouses, do up frocks and touch up hats and generally make life easy and comfortable. Why don’t you have a maid?”
“It seems such an expense,” said Regina.
“But you can afford it—I shall talk to father.”
“If I did have a maid I should pay her myself; I shouldn’t think of coming on your father for an extravagance of that sort.”
“Well, you have more money than you ever spend. Dearest, you have got into the habit of going without things, and we have got into the habit of regarding you as a person of no vanities, so that we resent it when you show the smallest sign of anything feminine in your nature. Now I come to look at you again,” said Julia, with her head on one side, “I think I do like you better like this. It is more important looking; it seems to make your head more of a size with the rest of you. I like you in black—you know, mother, you never wear black. Do you mind if I try it on?”
“Why of course not.” It was with pride that Regina stood by and saw her daughter poise the beautiful black toque upon her own abundant locks.
“Oh yes, it’s a ravishing hat,” Julia declared. “I think I must go and see your Madame Clementine. You won’t mind?—Ah, there is daddy coming.”
At that moment Alfred’s solid footstep was heard upon the landing. “Hullo, young woman,” he said a moment later as he entered the room, “got a new hat?”
“It’s mother’s hat,” said Julia with emphasis and awaited developments.
“Your mother’s? Well, my dear, you have been doing yourself very well. Why—bless my soul—what have you been doing to your head?”
“I have been having my hair brushed and cared for,” said Regina, feeling that she must take her bull by the horns and grasp her nettle without delay.
“Why didn’t they put it up as it was—let me look at you. I don’t know”—and he passed his thumb down one cheek and his fingers down the other till they met at the lowest point of his chin, “I don’t know—it isn’t you, you see.”
“Don’t say you dislike it, Alfred,” said Regina, with pathetic wistfulness.
“I don’t say I dislike it, at the same time—it isn’t you,” he replied. “Put the hat on—let’s see you in it. Yes—I don’t know. It’s a pity to hide a forehead like yours with all that loose hair. I know women are all wearing it so; but at the same time, I think it is a pity.”
“I’ve got to look such a frump, Alfred,” said Regina, taking the hat off again and patting her hair into place.
“No, my dear, that you never did. You have a distinctiveness all your own. As to this new-fangled arrangement—well, if it pleases you to do it that way, you must do it that way and we must get used to it. Perhaps, in a little while, we shall like it better than as it was before.”
“But it does not meet with your unqualified approval, Alfred?” said Regina.
“No, I can’t say that it does.”
“It makes me look younger,” she asserted.
“But I don’t want you to look younger. We were a very good match for each other as we were, and I don’t know that itdoesmake you look younger. Well, well, let it be for a day or two till one gets accustomed to the change. As it is, it doesn’t seem right to have you, of all women in the world, thinking about vanities.”
“Why not?” said Regina in a very small voice.
At that moment Julia betook herself out of the room, shutting the door as if she did not want to hear any more of what passed between her parents.
“Why not?” repeated Regina.
“Well, they don’t seem to be in keeping with you. One never thinks of you as having nerves or the megrims, of being offended about nothing and having to be coaxed back again into a good temper. You are the kind of woman one gives a present to because one desires to give you pleasure, not because you are to be made to forget some vexation or some disappointment. You are unlike other women, Regina.”
And Regina immediately decided that the hussy was a person of moods!
It is odd that, while business is a mantle sufficiently ample to cover a whole lifetime of sins, we usually credit any pastime with being the cloak of a good deal of wickedness.
It is odd that, while business is a mantle sufficiently ample to cover a whole lifetime of sins, we usually credit any pastime with being the cloak of a good deal of wickedness.
In the face of the indisputable fact that neither husband nor child approved of the change she had made in her coiffure, Regina entered upon a course of what can only be called complete prevarication. The following day she rose betimes in the morning as was her wont, as one of her fixed habits was always, under all circumstances short of absolute illness, to be ready for breakfast in time to give Alfred a quiet and ample meal. She had from the very beginning conceived it to be her bare duty to be the one to speed him on his daily quest into the city, and to welcome him when he returned to his home in the evening, and to do her full justice, Regina had rarely failed in this particular. She had left her children more or less to shape their own lives, and being of extremely dominant personalities, they had shaped them accordingly—Maudie in the direction of the soft, domestic, luxurious type, which later developes into the “feather bed;” Julia in a keen, alert, downright, make-your-own-world-as-you-go fashion. She had arranged her domestic affairs so that whenshe took up the regeneration of women her housekeeping arrangements did not suffer by her absence, and as I have said, she was always down in ample time to breakfast, always having made a decently becoming toilette, and she was always or almost always the first person that Alfred saw when he came home again in time for dinner. On this occasion she knew it would be impossible for her to arrange her hair in a new and unaccustomed way with anything like success and at the same time be ready at the usual breakfast time. So she merely combed her hair up and twisted it into a knot on the top of her head. Truth to tell, it was much more becoming than any style she had done it in before, though less elaborate than the arrangement of Madame Florence. She donned a plain white cambric wrapper, touched her face with powder, and tied a broad blue ribbon round her waist, bringing the bow low down, and pinning it with a huge brooch at a point about six inches lower than she usually wore her buckle. In the past one of Regina’s landmarks had been what is usually called the Holbein curve, and the mere fact of pinning her waist ribbon a few inches lower than usual was sufficient to transform Regina if not from the ridiculous to the sublime, at least from the grotesque to the prevailing mode. She was already in the spacious and comfortable dining-room reading her letters when Alfred made his appearance.
“Whew!” he said, “it’s going to be a blazing hot day; the city will be like a grill room!”
“And I suppose you are too busy to take an hour or two off?”
“Why, do you want me to go anywhere?”
“No, I was thinking it would be good for you if you could take an hour or two off and get a little fresh air.”
“Utterly impossible, my dear. With any other partner, perhaps, but not with Chamberlain. To put it plainly, my dear, Chamberlain put in the money when I wanted to spread myself, and I did spread myself. The experiment was a success, and I am saddled with Chamberlain for the rest of my natural life.”
“Is he no help to you?” said Regina.
“Well, he is less than no help. I think I shall be obliged to suggest taking in another partner; the business is too big now to have the whole responsibility on one pair of shoulders. I must have a holiday now and again—goodness knows, it isn’t often for a man of my substance—but anything like the muddle in which I found things I never imagined even Chamberlain could accomplish. He’s a dear chap, too full of apologies, perfectly aware of his own shortcomings, always in a domestic pickle—which is not to be wondered at—but as a partner he is hopeless.”
“My poor Alfred!” said Regina.
“Ah, you may well say that. Of course, when one just comes back off a holiday, one doesn’t feel like doing collar work all the time, all uphill and no easement. But it will pass, and I must seriously think of taking someone else in.”
“Have you anyone in your eye?”
“Well, of course, Tomkinson’s a splendid man.One wouldn’t give him a full share, wouldn’t make him an equal exactly, but I think it would be a wise thing if we were to make him a junior partner. Besides that, someone else might get hold of him; he is well known as a first-class man.”
“I should, my dear. But why should you go on working and toiling like this? If you were to realize, and with what money I have we should be quite comfortable.”
“Oh no, oh no, thank you, Queenie, not while I am strong and well. I should like a little more time to myself; I should like to be able to run over to Paris for a week or to spend a few days by the seaside. I’m thinking of taking up golf—I began to take an interest in the game at Dieppe. It’s good for the liver; a mild craze for golf has saved many a man from an attack of paralysis.”
“You would join a golf club?”
“Oh, yes, one of those clubs round London.”
“And you would get an afternoon twice a week or so? Could I—could—I walk round with you?”
“Oh, I don’t think so; I don’t think they allow ladies’ on men’s golf links. No, no, if you want to start playing yourself, my dear, you must join a ladies’ club and play on your own. It would be good for you.”
“Yes—it would. Won’t you have any more coffee?”
“No, thanks. I may be late for dinner; possibly I may not be able to get back—I’ll send you a wire. By the way, when we leave Ye Dene we will have a telephone put up.”
“Yes,” she said, “it would be most convenient.”
For some time after he had caught his ’bus and gone off to town she sat thinking. Golf, two afternoons a week—that would mean enjoyments in which she could take no part. She knew she was growing suspicious—well, she had enough to make her so. When the scales fall from blind eyes the eyes are not to be blamed for seeing. Some five minutes after Regina had come to this conclusion the door opened and Julia came in.
“All alone, ducky?” she remarked. “Well, Iamlate. I’d no idea daddy was gone.”
“Yes, you are late, or I fancy, to be correct, he was unusually early. He is almost killed with work—or I should say, over-work. However, he thinks he will get things straight in a few days and then it will be a little easier.”
“Dear daddy! I really don’t see what use Mr. Chamberlain is to him,” said Julia, holding out her hand for the coffee cup which her mother had just filled.
“No, he is no help in a business sense, but he put the money into the concern. What are you going to do to-day, Julia?”
Julia looked up in unmitigated astonishment. “To-day—oh—ah—I shall be out and about all day,” she returned promptly.
“I rather wanted you to go to town with me.”
“Awfully sorry, dear, I can’t go to-day,” Julia answered.
Regina felt exactly as she might have felt if someone had flung a pail of cold water in her face.
“I was going to the West End,” she said half hesitatingly. “I thought you might like to go and see this new milliner of mine.”
“I should have loved it,” said Julia, “if I had known before, but I’ve made several engagements for to-day.”
She did not vouchsafe any information as to her movements, and Regina hastened to explain things for Julia.
“You are going with one of the Marksbys?”
“No, I’m not. I’m going to lunch at the club, then I’m going to do a little shopping and later I’m going to tea with the Ponsonby-Piggots.”
“Really! Are you lunching at the club with somebody?”
“No, I’ve somebody lunching with me.”
Again Regina felt that curious sensation of a douche of cold water administered over her entire person. Well, she had brought up her children to be independent, to have wills, caprices, likes and dislikes of their own, she could not blame them if they were not of the clinging, great-chum-with-mother type which she would have preferred them to be at this moment.
“Suppose we make it a fixture for the day after to-morrow?” said Julia, helping herself to more delicate strips of bacon from the covered silver dish before her.
“Yes, certainly.”
“Shall we lunch here or in town?” Julia went on.
“Whichever you like.”
“Your club is such a long way,” said Julia, with afaint accent of disparagement in her tones; “to my mind that is the worst of professional clubs; they’re always so ultra-professional that one can’t find a corner for anything at all fashionable. Suppose you come and lunch with me, mother dear? If you are giving up your societies why don’t you join a good West-End club? You’d find it so useful, living out as far as we do.”
“I think I must.”
“I shouldn’t recommend mine. It’s all very well for me, but it’s a cheap little club and it wouldn’t do for you. Now, why don’t you join one of the big clubs in Petticoat Lane?”
“Petticoat Lane!”
“Oh—I beg your pardon, mummy, I meant Dover Street. There are half-a-dozen of them. Shall I see if I can get your name put up? I daresay you will have to wait some little time. Which would you like—one that improves your mind or one that improves your convenience?”
“Certainly not one that improves my mind.”
“No, I think you are quite right; I hate clubs where they have lectures and debates and other beastly things that they never have in men’s clubs. Now there’s the Kaiserin, that would suit you very well: handsome clubhouse, excellent cooking arrangements, spacious entertaining-room which you can hire and have all to yourself, every necessity and comfort to make a club thoroughly comfy—in fact, a second home without any bother.”
“But how do you know?” said Regina in a curiously small voice.
“Oh, I know several women who belong to the Kaiserin,” Julia answered carelessly. “What are you going to do to-day, dearest? Going to see your milliner again?”
“No, I’m going to have my hair dressed; I can’t do it properly myself for a few days, and I have one or two other things to do.”
Now it happened that of the one or two other things that Regina had to do, the most important was a visit to the distinguished specialist in whose hands the fashionable world was content to put itself with a view to getting rid of superfluous tissue. It was just on the stroke of noon when Regina found herself walking across Cavendish Square in the direction of that street of sighs which most of us know, alas! too well. She was kept waiting some little time, but the dining-room in which she spent the period of detention, along with three other ladies much fatter than herself, was cheerful, and the papers were of the newest (which is not always the case, let me remind you, in the houses of medical specialists). At last her turn came to penetrate to the sanctum of the great man. Regina was quite nervous, needlessly so, but in five minutes the bland and friendly personality whom she had come to consult had put her quite at ease. She was weighed! I do not think it would be exactly delicate to tell you the precise weight at which she turned the scale, but I have always held her up to you as a woman of that type which is called “a fine figure.”
“Let me see, you want to get rid of four stones,” said the doctor, genially; “well, that’s not a very severe case. It will take you four or five months; youmust take no liberties with yourself and I will send you a card this evening telling you exactly what you may and may not eat and drink. You must live by the card, literally by the card. Remember, no vagaries, no irregularities, no coquetting with the ‘one time that never hurts one.’ You must make up your mind that you will give up your own will until you have reached the required standard, and believe me, dear lady, you will be a happier woman, a healthier woman and a handsomer woman when you have attained your object.”
Regina wrote a check and went out into the sunlight, out of the land of liberty and into the straight and narrow path of a strict and severerégime.