CHAPTER XXXII. AN INVASION.
To afford the reader the explanation contained in the preceding chapter, we have been obliged to leave Kate Dalton waiting, in mingled anxiety and suspense, for the hour of Mrs. Ricketts's visit. Although her mind principally dwelt upon the letter which had been announced as coming from her father, an event so strange as naturally to cause astonishment, she also occasionally recurred to the awkwardness of receiving persons whom Lady Hester had so scrupulously avoided, and being involved in an acquaintanceship so unequivocally pronounced vulgar. A few short months before, and the incident would have worn a very different aspect to her eyes. She would have dwelt alone on the kindness of one, an utter stranger, addressing her in terms of respectful civility, and proffering the attention of a visit. She would have been grateful for the goodnature that took charge of a communication for her. She would have viewed the whole as a sort of flattering notice, and never dreamed of that long catalogue of “inconveniences” and annoyances so prolifically associated with the event as it at present stood. She was greatly changed in many respects. She had been daily accustomed to hear the most outrageous moral derelictions lightly treated, or, at least, but slightly censured. For every fault and failing there was a skilful excuse or a charitable explanation. The errors of the fashionable world were shown to be few, insignificant, and venial; and the code showed no exception to the rule that “well-bred people can do no wrong.” Vulgarity alone was criminal; and the sins of the underbred admitted of no palliation. Her sense of justice might have revolted against such judgments, had reason been ever appealed to; but such was not the case. Ridicule alone was the arbiter; whatever could be scoffed at was detestable, and a solecism in dress, accent, or demeanor was a higher crime than many a grave transgression or glaring iniquity.
The little mimicries of Albert Jekyl, as he described Mrs. Ricketts, the few depreciatory remarks of Lady Hester concerning her, would have outweighed her worth had her character been a cornucopia of goodness. It was, then, in no pleasant flurry of spirits, that, just as the clock struck three, Kate heard the heavy door of the palace flung wide, and the sound of wheels echo beneath the vaulted entrance. The next moment a small one-horse phaeton, driven by a very meagre servant in a tawdry livery, passed into the courtyard, having deposited its company in the hall.
There had been a time, and that not so very far back either, when the sight of that humble equipage, with visitors, would have made her heart beat to the full as strong, albeit with very different emotions. Now, however, she actually glanced at the windows to see if it had attracted notice, with a kind of terror at the ridicule it would excite. Never did she think an old gray horse could be so ugly; never did wheels make so intolerable a noise before! Why would people dress up their servants like harlequins? What was the meaning of that leopard-skin rug for the feet? It was an odious little vehicle, altogether. There was a tawdry, smirking, self-satisfied pretension about its poverty that made one wish for a break-down on looking at it.
“Mrs. Montague Ricketts and Miss Ricketts,” said a very demure-looking groom of the chambers; and although his features were immaculate in their expressions of respect, Kate felt offended at what she thought was a flippancy in the man's manner.
Although the announcement was thus made, the high and mighty personages were still three rooms off, and visible only in the dim distance, coming slowly forward.
Leaning on her sister's arm, and with a step at once graceful and commanding, Mrs. Ricketts came on. At least, so Kate judged an enormous pyramid of crimson velvet and ermine to be, from the summit of which waved a sufficiency of plumes for a moderate hearse. The size and dignity of this imposing figure almost entirely eclipsed poor Martha, and completely shut out the slender proportions of Mr. Scroope Purvis, who, from being loaded like a sumpter-mule with various articles for the road, was passed over by the groom of the chambers, and believed to be a servant. Slow as was the order of march, Purvis made it still slower by momentarily dropping some of the articles with which he was charged; and as they comprised a footstool, a poodle, two parasols, an album, a smelling-bottle, a lorgnette, with various cushions, shawls, and a portable tire-screen, his difficulties may be rather compassionated than censured.
“Scroope, how can you? Martha, do speak to him. It's down again! He'll smash my lorgnette he'll smother Fidele. How very awkward how absurd we shall look!” Such were the sotto voce accompaniments that filled up the intervals till they arrived at the great drawing-room, where Kate Dalton sat.
If the reader has ever watched a great tragedy queen emerging from the flats, when, after a lively dialogue with the prompter, and the utterance of a pleasant jest, she issues forth upon the open stage, to vent the sorrows or the wrongs of injured womanhood, he may form some faint idea of the rapid transformation that Mrs. Ricketts underwent as she passed the door-sill. Her first movement was a sudden bound forwards, or, at least, such an approach to a spring as a body so imposing could accomplish, and then, throwing her arms wide, she seemed as if about to enclose Miss Dalton in a fast embrace; and so, doubtless, had she done, if Kate had responded to the sign. A deep and very formal courtesy was, however, her only acknowledgment of this spontaneous burst of feeling; and Mrs. Ricketts, like a skilful general, at once changing her plan of attack, converted her ardor into astonishment, and exclaimed,
“Did you ever see such a resemblance? Could you believe it possible, Martha? A thousand apologies, my dear Miss Dalton, for this rudeness; but you are so wonderfully like our dear, dear friend Lady Caroline Montressor, that I actually forgot myself. Pray forgive me, and let me present my sister, Miss Ricketts. My brother, Mr. Scroope Purvis, Miss Dalton.”