“There spoke the wild girl of the woods,” cried aunt Alice, laughing merrily. But mother did not smile, as she was expected to do, at that little joke, and I was sorry I had spoken.
We arrived home—to a stately house in a great square, where all the houses were much alike—and were ushered by a liveried man-servant into a sort of back drawing-room (which aunt Alice called her boudoir, though I never would). It was a lofty room, with pale distempered walls, and a dado of the very latest fashion, as I was told, and some of the newest designs in artistic furniture and ornaments. The carpet, however, asserted itself with painful distinctness; and over a lovely tiled chimney-piece was reared the most enormous pier-glass, in the most overpowering gilt frame that, I should think, was ever designed as a memorial of a barbaric age. I afterwards discovered that a mammoth pier-glass was a striking feature of each of the lower rooms; and by-and-bye I also discovered that this article of furniture had a sort of symbolic significance to uncle Goodeve, and was thus prominent in his establishment by his express desire. In his early days of struggle and privation it had stood to him as a sort of sign of wealth and plenty, and of all that was refined and elegant in domestic art. And now he obstinately refused to deny himself the pleasure of possessing it, in the largest sizes and the most elaborate gilt frames, though he was quite willing that aunt Alice and the girls should indulge their taste in “fal-lals” without any further restriction.
My two cousins rose up from two low chairs when I entered the room, and received me with effusive affection. They were rather small, rather bony, rather sallow, inheriting none of that fulness of flesh and colour of which their parents had enough and to spare; and they were neither plain, like their father, nor handsome, like their mother, nor anything particular, in fact. I did not call them even tolerably good-looking, though Bella, the youngest, certainly had nice features and very fine eyes. They wore their hair cut in fringes on their foreheads, and pretty well tossed about over the rest of their heads; and their dresses were tied back so extremely tight (a fashion that was then in its early extravagance) that it was with difficulty they managed to shuffle along, for it could not be called walking.
However, they were very kind and attentive, and my heart warmed to them. They took off my hat, and loosened my jacket, and drew the softest low chair to the fireside for me to sit in; and they commiserated me for having made that “dreadful trip” across that “awful Channel,” and for all the rest of my late fatigues, in a manner that I much enjoyed, though conscious that my face proclaimed the prosaic fact that I felt rather invigorated than otherwise by what I had undergone. A youthful page in brass buttons brought in a silver tray of little teacups, with their elongated saucers garnished with wafers of bread and butter; and we sipped and nibbled as we exchanged our little questions and replies, until it occurred to them that I might like to go to my room, whither they both accompanied me, and where I found a fire, and some fresh flowers, and little welcomes of that kind, which I warmly appreciated. Mother’s chamber was close by, and she had retired into it for the night, for she was really knocked up. I found her in her dressing-gown, in an armchair by the fire, and a maid making preparations for tea at a table beside her; and she looked happy to have found a resting-place after all her travels. Bertha and Bella seemed to think it very odd that I did not want to retire also, but were much pleased when I declared that I would prefer to join them at dinner.
“Then you must make haste and dress,” said Bertha, “for we are very late to-night, and the bell will ring in a quarter of an hour.”
“And we will send our maid to help you,” said Bella, with which the two girls hastened off, while I went down on my knees, and tried to tug open a big wicker trunk, out of which I was determined to drag one of my prettiest new French evening dresses, so as to look as unlike an aboriginal Australian in opossum skins as possible when I appeared amongst the family in the drawing-room. I was a little ruffled by aunt Alice’s remarks on my appearance, and I told mother so.
“Never mind, dear,” was mother’s placid reply. “She is a good, kind creature, but she has been amongst city people a good many years, and perhaps that is not quite the best school for manners.”
Oh, if aunt Alice had heard her!
A smart young maid appeared in a few minutes, and began to toss my things over cheerfully; gradually becoming more respectful in her handling of them as she became aware of their style and quality. By the time she had laid out and examined the dress I had chosen to wear, she was almost reverential. And when she saw it on me, fitting so exquisitely, and falling away behind with that indescribable grace that no folds will take at the hands of ordinary dressmakers, she quite went into raptures. As I surveyed myself in the long glass, the thought occurred to me, I am ashamed to say, that even a perfect French dress would not have looked as well upon her young ladies as it did upon me. “How I wish dear Tom could see me!” I sighed to myself pensively.
I went downstairs in a majestic manner, conscious of being nice to look at, which—scoff as people may—is a pleasant feeling, and not one to be ashamed of. My dress was black, very cloudy and fluffy, with wide, rich, apple-green ribbons looped into it here and there. Never, when I could help it, would I put an ornament into my golden-chesnut braids (for Tom did not like them meddled with); but round my throat lay the chain of silver balls and diamond stars, and on my bosom shone the emerald cross like a royal order. I joined the family on the stairs, and went down to dinner on uncle Goodeve’s arm. I heard cousin Bertha say to father behind me, “How very nice-looking Kitty is, uncle Chamberlayne.”