June expressed a ripe scorn by vehemently beginning to clear the table. High time, certainly. They had been discussing cold mutton and pickled walnuts and tapioca pudding and Leicestershire cheese and things and women for one solid hour by the Queen Anne clock, a real antique, in the middle of the chimneypiece, for which S. Gedge had lately refused the sum of forty guineas.
XIX
In the course of the afternoon, June found herself immersed in the crisis of her fate. It began with a desire to own a dress of soft blue silk. This, she well knew, was insane. In the first place, she was still in mourning for her mother; in the second, she must hoard every penny of her slender means; in the third, was William’s conviction that the success of a dress depended upon its wearer.
Not a shade of excuse could be found for this vaulting ambition. But it was fixed so firmly in the centre of her mind, that when she set out soon after three to order the cheese she could think of nothing else. The grocer was at the end of the street and two minutes did her business with him. And then in the toils of imperious desire she marched boldly down to Charing Cross and took a bus to Oxford Circus.
A yearning for a dress of blue silk was upon her like a passion. It was madness and yet it was very delicious. What could a blue silk dress avail when at any moment she was likely to be cast adrift? That thought hit hard as she sauntered slowly along the Street of Streets gazing wistfully upon its long array of too-fascinating drapers’ windows.
Her store of worldly wealth was nineteen pounds and a few odd shillings. It was as certain as anything could be that she was about to enter upon the most critical period of her life, and this was all she had to tide her over. But do what she would to act like a reasonable being she was now at the mercy of a demon more powerful than common prudence. She was haunted by a passion for a blue silk dress and no matter what happened to her afterwards she must satisfy that craving.
It was a rather thrilling business to rake these forbidden windows in quest of a thing it was sheer madness to buy, yet within one’s power to do so. Why was she going to buy it? Because she wanted it so badly? Why did she want it so badly? That was a question she could not answer.
Had she been really pretty this folly might have seemed less amazing. But she knew she was plain. At least, she always felt and always passed for plain at Blackhampton. But her pilgrimage along Oxford Street which, in the middle of a bright afternoon of early October, seemed the Mecca of fashion, beauty and good taste went some way to change the attitude she had taken up in regard to her personal appearance.
Plain she might be, her clothes might be severely provincial, their hue depressing, but she was clearly informed by the sixth sense given to Woman that she was not wholly unlooked at. It was nice to feel that such was the case; indeed, it was stimulating, yet so deeply was she occupied just then with large affairs that she didn’t think much about it.
After many windows she had seen, she found herself drifting with the tide into a store of regal aspect. Here she was received by young women, elegant and gracious, with a courteous charm that made a search for five yards of blue silk fabric in its least expensive form a perfectly simple and yet delightful adventure. Moreover, it brought in its train a great idea. Was it necessary, after all, that domestic servitude should be her lot? Might it not be possible to become one of these smart and pleasant ladies in their very attractive clothes?