Set in Silver
Jones, who got into my train at Marseilles. He's taken to parting his
name in the middle now, and is General Wellington-Jones. She ought to
have known my age approximately, or could have learned it if she cared
to bother; but I suppose to nineteen, forty might as well be sixty.
That's a thing to remember, if one feels the sap pulsing in one's
branches, just to remind one that after all it's not spring, but autumn.
And at the present moment, by the way, I'm not sure that I shan't need
this kind of taking down a peg, for I am feeling so young that I think I
must be growing old. I have begun to value what's left me of youth; to
take it out and look at it in all lights, like a fruit which must be
gloated over before it decays--and that's a fatal sign, eh? I have the
most extraordinary interest in life, which I attribute to the new
motor-car which will be finished and ready to use in a few days; also to
the thought that Graylees is my own.
But I'm wandering away from the girl.
She is as unlike Ellaline de Nesville as one beautifully bound first
volume of a human document can be from another equally attractive.
"First volume of a human document" isn't inexpressive of a young girl,
is it? Heaven knows what this one may be by the time the second and
third volumes are ready for publication; but at present one turns over
the leaves with pleased surprise. There's something original and
charming in each new page.
Her first hair must have been shed, for the present lot--and there is a
lot!--is of a bright, yellowy brown; looks like a child's hair, somehow.
There are little rings and kinks about it which I take to have been put
there by the curling-tongs of nature, though I may be mistaken. And I
suppose I must have deceived myself about the child's eyes, for they are
not black, but of a grayish hazel, which can look brown or violet at
night. She is a tall young thing, slim and straight as a sapling, with
frank, honest manners, which are singularly engaging. I look at her in
amazement and interest, and find her looking at me with an expression
which I am not able to make out. I hardly dare let myself go in liking
her, for fear of disappointment. She seems too good to be true, too good
to last. I keep wondering what ancestress of Ellaline de Nesville's, or
Fred Lethbridge's, is gazing out of those azure windows which are this
girl's eyes. If Fred's soul, or Ellaline's, peeps from behind the clear,
bright panes, it contrives to keep itself well hidden--so far. But I
expect anything.
I had no notion until now that a young woman could be a delightful "pal"
for a man, especially a man of my age. Perhaps this is my ignorance of
the sex (for I admit I locked up the book of Woman, and never opened it
again, since the chapter of Ellaline), or it may be that girls have
changed since the "brave days when we were twenty-one." At that remote
epoch, as far as I can discover by blowing off the dust from faded
souvenirs, one either made love to girls, or one didn't. They were there
to dance with and flirt with, and go on the river with, not to talk
politics to, or exchange opinions of the universe. They--the prettiest
ones--would have thought that valuable time was being wasted in such
discussions. Yet here is this girl, not twenty, a child fresh from
school--a French school, at that--radiant with the power of her youth,
her beauty, her femininity; yet she seems actually interested in
problems of life unconnected with love affairs. She appears to like
talking sense, and she has humour, far more subtle than the mere,
kittenish sense of fun which belongs to her years--or lack of them. I
dreaded the responsibility of her, but I dreaded much more being bored
by her, flirted with by her. I'm hanged if I could have stood that from
the kind of girl I was prepared to see; but as I said, I've found a
"pal"--if I dared believe in her. Instead of avoiding my ward's society,
and shoving it on to Emily, as I intended, I excuse myself to myself for
contriving pretexts to bask in it.
To-day, for instance, what do you think I did? A shopping expedition was
in question. Emily, who never had much taste in dress, and now clothes
herself as if in punishment for sin, seems to know when other women are
badly turned out. She thinks it right that young girls should be simply
dressed, but considers that in the case of Ellaline simplicity has been
carried too far. You see, she doesn't know what you and I know about
that wretched fellow Lethbridge's end, and she believes his daughter has
plenty of money, or will have, on coming of age. Naturally, I don't
undeceive her. Emily is a good soul, but over-conscientious in questions
of money, and if she knew the truth she might be inclined to hold the
purse-strings tight. She might even be tempted to hint something
distressing to this poor girl, if the child vexed her by any thoughtless
little extravagance; whereas I wouldn't for a good deal have Ellaline's
daughter guess she owes anything to me.
Emily offered to choose frocks for Miss Lethbridge; whereupon that young
lady cast such a comical glance of despair at me--a glance which I think
was involuntary--that it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. I
saw so well what was in her mind! And if you will believe me, O'Hagan, I
volunteered to go with them.
Having committed myself, I had all the sensations of a fly caught on a
sheet of "Tanglefoot," or a prisoner of war chained to a Roman chariot;
but in the end I enjoyed myself hugely. Nothing better has happened to
me since I used to be taken to look at the toyshops the day before
Christmas. No, not even my first pantomime could beat this as an
experience!
Emily's economical soul clamoured for Oxford Street. I stood out for
Bond, and got my way. (You will grin here. You say I always do get my
way.) My idea was to make of myself a kind of Last Resort, or Court of
Appeal. I meant to let Emily advise, but to sweep her aside if she
perpetrated atrocities. The first shop, however, went to my head. It was
one of those where you walk into a kind of drawing-room with figurines,
or whatever you call them--slender, headless ladies in model
dresses--grouped about, and other equally slender, but long-headed
ladies in black satin trains, showing off their dummy sisters.
It was the figurines that intoxicated me. I saw Ellaline's head--in
imagination--coming out at the top of all the prettiest dresses. They
were wonderfully simple, too, the most attractive ones; seemed just the
thing for a young girl. Emily walked past them as if they were vulgar
acquaintances trying to catch her eye at a duchess's ball, but they
trapped me. There was a white thing for the street, that looked as if it
had been made for Ellaline, and a blue fluff, cut low in the neck,
exactly the right colour to show up her hair. Then there was a film of
pink, with wreaths of little rosebuds dotted about--made me think of
spring. (I told you I'd lost my head, didn't I?)
I stopped my ward, pointed out these things to her, and asked her if she
liked them. She said she did, but they would be horribly expensive. She
wouldn't think of buying such dreams. With that, up swam one of the
satin ladies (whose back view was precisely like that of a wet, black
codfish with a long tail; I believe she was "Directoire"); and hovering
near on a sea of pale-green carpet she volunteered the information that
these "little frocks" were "poems," singularly suited to the style of--I
expected her to say my "daughter." Instead of which, however, she
finished her sentence with a "madam" that brought a blush to my
weather-beaten face. I was the only one concerned who did blush,
however, I assure you! The girl smiled into my eyes, with a mischievous
twinkle, and minded not at all. A former generation would have simpered,
but this young person hasn't a simper in her.
I said "Nonsense," she could well afford the dresses. She argued, and
Emily returned to help her form up a hollow square. They were both
against me, but I insisted, and the codfish was a powerful ally.
"Would they fit you?" I asked the girl.
"Yes, they would fit me, I dare say. But----"
That settled it.
"We'll take them," said I. And after that, being beside myself, I
reconnoitred the place, pointing my stick at other things which took my
fancy. The codfish backed me up at every step, and other codfishes swam
the green sea, with hats doubtless brought from unseen coral caves. Most
of them were enormous hats, but remarkably attractive, in one way or
another, with large drooping brims that dripped roses or frothed with
ostrich plumes. I made Ellaline take off a small, round butter plate she
had on, which was ugly in itself, though somehow it looked like a
saint's halo on her; and murmuring compliments on "madam's" hair, the
siren codfishes tried on one hat after another. I bought all, without
asking the prices, because each one was more becoming to the girl than
its predecessor, and not to have all, would have been like deliberately
destroying so many original Gainsboroughs or Sir Joshuas.
The child's hair, by the way, is extraordinarily vital. It spouts up in
two thick, bright billows over her white forehead, like the beginning of
a strong fountain--a very agreeable foundation for a hat.
Seeing that I had gone mad, the wily codfishes took advantage of my
state, and flourished things before my eyes, at which Emily instantly
forbade me to look. It is true that they were objects not often seen by
bachelor man, except in shop windows and on the advertising pages of
women's magazines; but silk petticoats and cobwebby lace frills have no
Gorgon qualities, and I was not turned to stone by the sight of them. I
even found courage to ask of the company at large if they were the sort
of thing that young ladies ought to have in their wardrobes. The answer
was emphatically in the affirmative.
"Have you already got all you want of them, or could you make use of
more?" I inquired of my ward.
"I shouldn't know myself in such miracles," said she, with a kind of
gasp, her eyes very bright, and her cheeks pinker than they had been
when she was suspected of bridehood. She was still suspected of it;
indeed, I think that in the minds of the black satin codfishes
circumstantial evidence had tinkered suspicion into certainty. But
Ellaline was deaf to the "madam." They might have turned her from wife
into widow without her noticing. She was burning with the desire to
possess those embroidered cobwebs and those frilled petticoats. I don't
know why she should have been more excited about garments which few, if
any, save herself, would see after she'd put them on, than she was about
those on which cats and kings might gaze; but so it was. I should like
to ask an expert if this is the case with all females, or if it is
exceptional.
"Send the lot with the hats and dresses," said I. And when she widened
her eyes and gasped, I assured her that I knew her income better than
she did. Anything she cared to have in the way of pretty clothes she
could afford.
Strange to say, even then she didn't seem comfortable. She opened her
lips as if to speak; shut them hastily at the first word, swallowed it
with difficulty, sighed, and looked anxious. I should rather have liked
to know what was in her mind.
We ended up by the purchase of costumes suitable to the automobile, both
for Emily and Ellaline. I think women ought to be as "well found" for
motoring, as for yachting, don't you? And I am looking forward to the
trip I intend to take. It will be interesting to study the impressions
made upon this young girl by England, land of history and beauty----
... this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea--
... this England.