At the sale of work, however, Cheriton presented no sign of either mental or moral perturbation. The lavender trousers had been exchanged for an art shade of gray. The tie-pin had a pearl in it instead of a turquoise; the waistcoat, instead of presenting a baffling and complex harmony in lilac, was of plain white piqué; and, in lieu of a gold-headed cane, he carried the famous ivory-handled umbrella, which had been repaired with such exemplary skill that it betrayed no token of the recent catastrophe at Saint Sepulchre’s.
All that was best in the life of Balham and its environs was gathered at the sale of work in aid of Saint Agatha’s. First and foremost was the Rector, the Reverend John Overdene Cummings, a man whom all the world delighted to honor, not for his calling only, but also for himself. His weaknesses were so few that they really do not call for mention. And among his numerous merits, perhaps that which endeared him most to all that was best in the life of Balham, was his almost exaggerated esteem for what he called “the right people.” It was known by the well-informed that in the first instance it was due entirely to the Reverend John Overdene Cummings that the Miss Champneys had prevailed upon their friend Lady Charlotte Greg, to perform the opening ceremony.
Lady Charlotte Greg had just had great pleasure in declaring the sale of work open, when something in the nature of a sensation was caused by the arrival of the wonderful Miss Perry and her attendant ministers. The Assembly Rooms had been transformed into a Sicilian village. They were thronged with the youth, beauty, and fashion of the district, and also with the gay and brilliant costumes of the peasantry of the sunny south. But there was nothing in that brilliant gathering to compare with the blue-eyed and yellow-haired young Amazon, hatted and gowned à la Gainsborough. Miss Burden felt there was not; and she, in her modest gown with lilac trimming, was not without her merit, for she too was tall, distinguished of feature, and her figure was excellent. As for Cheriton, with his glass stuck with a rather humorous insolence in his left eye, he knew there was nothing, not in Balham only, but in the whole of London, that season to compare with Caroline Crewkerne’s niece. He was a proud man, and he looked it as, with pardonable ostentation, he cleared a passage for his escort down the precise center of the throng.
Jim’s mother was thrilled by the apparition of the wonderful Miss Perry. She was there to preside over the refreshment stall. It was small blame to Jim that he had given up his days and nights to dreams of such magnificence. And Jim himself, who had accompanied his mother to the sale of work, more, it is to be feared, in the hope of seeing the “incredible” hat in public, than for any deep interest in the welfare of Saint Agatha’s, was possessed by a strange excitement as he gazed.
“What an air the creature has!” his mother whispered to him. “I never saw anything so regal. She moves like a queen among her subjects. And yet the Goose, under her feathers, hasn’t the ghost of an idea about anything in earth or heaven or in Slocum Magna.”
“You forget Joseph Wright of Derby, my dear.”
“The ridiculous creature!” laughed Jim’s mother.
In the meantime the progress down the center of the Sicilian village was almost royal. The throng yielded on all sides. A wave of respect, amounting almost to awe, seemed to arise and pervade everything. Indeed, royalty was mentioned. For example, the Rector, with his quick eye and his sure instinct, was aroused immediately.
“Dear me,” he said to Miss Laetitia Champneys in exultant tones, “I really believe it must be the Grand Duchess Olga Romanoff.”
It appeared that, according to well-informed journals, a tall and splendid person answering to that name and description was then in London, who was engaged continuously in charitable endeavors.