Arabella (4 page)

It could scarcely be expected that this masterly speech would please the three damsels to whom it was pointedly addressed, but it had the happy effect of softening the Vicar’s countenance. He glanced at Arabella, who was furiously blushing and holding her head bent over her plate, and said gently: “Indeed, I am disposed to think that her character is well-established amongst us as one who wants neither sense nor feeling.” Arabella looked up quickly, her eyes brightened by tears. He smiled at her, and said in a teasing voice: “If she will not let her tongue run like a fiddle-stick, nor express herself in terms which I might almost suppose she learns from her brothers, nor play pranks like a hoyden, I really believe I may indulge the hope that we shall not hear from Lady Bridlington that she is sunk quite beyond reproach in London!”

Such was the relief of his children at escaping one of Papa’s homilies that this mild jest was received with a flattering degree of appreciation. Bertram seized the opportunity afforded by the general outcry of laughing protests to inform Betsy in a savage under-voice that if she opened her lips again he would most faithfully drop her in the middle of the duck-pond on the morrow, which promise so terrified her that she sat mumchance throughout the rest of the meal. Sophia, with real nobility of character, then asked Papa to explain something she had read in Sir John Malcolm’s
History of Persia
,
which the Vicar, whose only personal extravagance was his purchase of books, had lately added to his library. This was a happy inspiration: while her contemporaries gazed at Sophia in stupefaction, the Vicar, becoming quite animated, expounded at length on the subject, quite forgetting the immediate problems of the hour, and reducing his other offspring to a state of speechless indignation by saying, as he rose from the table, that he was glad to find that he had one daughter at least of a scholarly turn of mind.

“And Sophy never read a word of the book!” Bertram said bitterly, when, after enduring an evening in the parlour under the scourge of having passages from Sir John Malcolm’s memorable work read aloud to
them, he and his two elder sisters had escaped to the sanctuary of the girls’ bedchamber.

“Oh, yes, I had!” retorted Sophia, sitting down on the end of her bed, and curling her legs under her in a way that, could her Mama but have seen it, would certainly have called down reproof upon her head.

Margaret, who was always sent up to bed before the appearance of the tea-tray, and thus had been spared the greater part of the evening’s infliction, sat up, hugging her knees, and asked simply: “Why?”

“Well, it was that day that Mama was obliged to go out, and desired me to remain in the parlour in case old Mrs. Farnham should call,” explained Sophia. “I had nothing else to do!”

After regarding her fixedly for several moments, her brother and sisters apparently decided that the excuse was reasonable, for they abandoned the subject.

“I declare I was ready to sink when Papa said
that
about me!” remarked Arabella.

“Yes, but you know, Bella, he is very absent-minded,” said Sophia, “and I fancy he had forgotten what you and Bertram did on Boxing Day, and what he said about your inclination for finery, when you pulled the feathers out of Uncle’s peacocks to furbish up your old bonnet.”

“Yes, perhaps he had,” agreed Arabella, in a dampened tone. “But all the same,” she added, her spirits reviving, “he never said I had no delicacy of principle, which he said to you when he discovered it was you, Sophy, who put one of Harry’s trousers-buttons into the bag in Church that Sunday!”

This was
so unanswerable that Sophia could think of no retort to make. Bertram said suddenly: “Well, since it is decided that you are to go to London, Bella, I’ll tell you something!”

Seventeen years’ intimate knowledge of her younger brother was not enough to restrain Arabella from demanding eagerly: “Oh, what, pray?”

“You may get a surprise when you are there!” said Bertram, in a voice of mystery. “Mind, I don’t say you will, but you
may!
”

“What can you possibly mean? Tell me, Bertram!—
dearest
Bertram!”

“I’m not such a saphead! Girls always blab everything!”

“I would not! You know I would not! Oh, Bertram!”

“Don’t heed him!” recommended Margaret, sinking back onto her pillow. “It’s all humbug!”

“Well, it’s not, miss!” said her brother, nettled. “But you needn’t think I mean to tell you, for I don’t! But don’t be surprised, Bella, if you get a surprise before you have been in London very long!”

This ineptitude naturally threw his sisters into whoops. Unfortunately their mirth reached the ears of old Nurse, who promptly sailed into the room, and delivered herself of a shrill homily on the general impropriety of young gentlemen who sat on the ends of their sisters’ beds. Since she was quite capable of reporting this shocking conduct to Mama, Bertram thought it prudent to remove himself, and the symposium came to an abrupt end. Nurse, blowing out the candles, said that if this came to Mama’s ears there would be no London for Miss Arabella; but apparently it did not come to Mama’s ears, for on the morrow, and indeed on all the succeeding days, nothing was talked of in the Parsonage (except in Papa’s presence) but Arabella’s entrance into the Polite World.

The first and most pressing consideration was the getting together of a wardrobe suitable for a young lady hopeful of making a successful début. Earnest perusal of the fashion journals had cast Arabella into a mood of despair, but Mama took a more cheerful view of the matter. She commanded the houseboy to summon the ubiquitous Joseph Eccles up to the Parsonage, and desired the pair of them to fetch down from one of the attics two formidable trunks. Joseph, who had been employed by the vicar since the first year of his marriage as the farm-hand, considered himself the mainstay of the establishment, and was only too ready to oblige the ladies; and he lingered in the dressing-room, proffering counsel and encouragement in the broadest of Yorkshire dialects until kindly but firmly dismissed.

A pleasing aroma of camphor pervaded the air as soon as the lids were raised from the trunks, and the removal of a covering of silver paper disclosed treasures innumerable. The trunks contained the finery which Mama had worn (she said) when she was just such a giddy puss as Arabella, When she had married Papa she had had no occasion for such fripperies, but she had not been able to bring herself to give them away, and had packed them up and well-nigh forgotten all about them.

Three ecstatic gasps shuddered on the air as three rapt young ladies dropped down on their knees beside the trunks, and prepared to rummage to their hearts’ content.

There were unimagined delights in the trunks: curled ostrich plumes of various colours; branches of artificial flowers; an ermine tippet (alas, turned sadly yellow with age, but it would serve to trim Sophy’s old pelisse!); a loo-mask; a whole package of finest thread-lace; a tiffany cloak, which set Margaret peacocking round the room; several ells of ribbon of a shade which Mama said was called in her young days
opéra brulé
,
and quite the rage; scarves of gauze, lace, and blonde, spangled and plain; a box containing intriguing knots of ribbon, whose names Mama could not quite remember, though she rather thought that that pale blue bunch was A Sign of Hope, and the pink bow A Sigh of Venus; point-lace tuckers, and lappet-heads; a feather muff; innumerable fans; sashes; a scarlet-flowered damask mantua petticoat—what a figure Mama must have looked in it!—and a velvet cloak, miraculously lined with sable, which had been a wedding-gift to Mama, but which she had scarcely worn, “because, my loves, it was finer than anything your aunt possessed, and, after all, she was the Squire’s wife, and dreadfully inclined to take a pet, so that I always took care never to give her the least cause to be offended. But it is a beautiful fur, and will make a muff for Arabella, besides trimming a pelisse!”

It was fortunate that Mama was an indulgent parent, and so very fond of a joke, for the trunks contained, besides these treasures, such old-fashioned garments that the three Misses Tallant were obliged to laugh. Fashions had changed a great deal since Mama was a girl, and to a generation accustomed to high-waisted gowns of muslin and crape, with little puff-sleeves, and demure flounces round the hems, the stiff, voluminous silks and brocades Mama had worn, with their elaborate undergowns, and their pads, and their wired bodices, seemed not only archaic, but very ugly too. What was this funny jacket, with all the whalebones? A Caraco? Gracious! And this striped thing, for all the world like a dressing-gown? A lustring sack—well, it was certainly very like a sack, to be sure! Did Mama wear it in
company
? What was in this elegant box? Poudre a la Marechale! But did Mama then powder her hair, like the picture of Grandmamma Tallant, up at the Hall? Oh,
not
quite like that! A
gray
powder? Oh, Mama, no! and you without a gray hair to your head! How did you dress it? Not cut at
all?
Curls to the waist at the back? And all those rolls and puffs over the ears! How could Mama have had the patience to do it? So odd as it must have looked, too!

But Mama, turning over half-forgotten dresses, grew quite sentimental, remembering that she had been wearing this very gown of green Italian taffeta, over a petticoat of satin,
soupir a l’etouffe
(unaccountably missing), when she had first met Papa; remembering the pretty compliment paid to her by that rejected baronet when he had seen her in the white silk waist Sophia was holding up (it had had a book-muslin train, and there should be somewhere a pink silk coat, very smart, which she had worn with it); remembering how shocked her Mama had been when she had seen that rose-coloured Indian muslin underwear which Eliza—your Aunt Eliza, my loves—had brought her from London.

The girls did not know where to look when Mama sighed over a cherry-striped gown, and said how pretty it had been, for really it was quite hideous, and it made them feel almost uncomfortable to think of Mama’s being seen abroad in such a garment. It was beyond laughter, so they sat respectfully silent, and were profoundly relieved when suddenly she shook off this unaccustomed mood, and smiled, and said in her own brisk way: “Well, I daresay you think I must have looked like a dowd, but I assure you I did not! However, none of these brocades is of any use to Arabella, so we will put them up again. But that straw-coloured satin will do famously for a ball-dress, and we may trim it with some of the point-lace.”

There was a dressmaker in High Harrowgate, an elderly Frenchwoman, who had originally come to England as an émigrée from the Revolution. She had very often made dresses for Mrs. Tallant and her daughters, and since she had excellent taste, and did not charge extortionate prices, except during the short season, it was decided that she should be entrusted with the task of making all Arabella’s gowns. On the first day that the horses could be spared from the farm, Mrs. Tallant and her two elder daughters drove to High Harrowgate, taking with them three bandboxes full of the silks, velvets, and laces which had finally been selected from Mrs. Tallant’s hoard.

Harrowgate, which was situated between Heythram and the large town of Knaresborough, was a watering-place renowned more for the excellent properties of its medicinal springs than for the modishness of its visitors. It consisted of two straggling villages, more than a mile apart, and enjoyed a summer season only. Since upwards of a thousand persons, mostly of valetudinarian habits, visited it then to drink the waters, both villages and their environs boasted more hotels and boarding-houses than private residences. From May till Michaelmas, public balls were held twice a week at the new Assembly Rooms; there was a Promenade, standing in the middle of an agreeable garden; a theatre; and a lending library, much patronized by Mrs. Tallant and her daughters.

Mme. Dupont was delighted to receive a client in the middle of January, and no sooner learned the reason for the bespeaking of such an extensive wardrobe than she entered into the spirit of the adventure with Gallic enthusiasm, fell into raptures over the silks and satins in the three bandboxes, and spread fashion-plates, and rolls of cambric and muslin, and crape before the ladies’ eyes. It would be a pleasure, she said, to make for a
demoiselle
with such a
taille
as
Mademoiselle Tallant’s; already she perceived how Madame’s satin polonaise could be transformed into a ball-dress of the most ravishing, while as for the taffeta over-dress—alas, that the elegant toilettes of the last century were no longer in vogue!—she could assure Madame that nothing could be more
comme il faut
than an opera cloak fashioned out of its ample widths, and trimmed with ruched velvet ribbon. As for the cost, that would be a matter for arrangement of the most amicable.

Arabella, who in general had a decided will of her own, as well as very definite ideas on the colour and style of her dresses, was so much shocked by the number of gowns Mama and Mme. Dupont seemed to think indispensable for a sojourn in London that she scarcely opened her lips, except to agree in a faint voice with whatever was suggested to her. Even Sophia, who so often earned reproofs from Papa for chattering like a magpie, was awed into comparative silence. Not all her study of the fashion-plates in
The Ladies’ Monthly Museum
had prepared her for the dazzling creations sketched in
La Belle Assemblee.
But Mama and Mme, Dupont were agreed that only the simplest of these would be
convenable
for such a young lady. One or two ball-dresses of satin, or orange-blossom sarsnet, would be needed for grand occasions, but nothing could be prettier, said Madame, than crape or fine jaconet muslin for the Assemblies at Almack’s. Some silver net drapery, perhaps—she had—the very thing laid by—or a Norwich shawl, carried negligently across the elbows, would lend a
cachet
to the plainest gown. Then, for a morning half-dress, might she suggest a figured French muslin, with a demi-train? Or perhaps Mademoiselle would prefer a Berlin silk, trimmed with silk floss?—For carriage dresses, she would recommend fine cambric, worn with a velvet mantle, and a Waterloo hat, or even a fur bonnet, ornamented—Mademoiselle’s colouring made it permissible, even imperative!—with a bunch of cherries.