"But it is your dear barége that you have kept for ten years," I said, trying to be playful; "I must wear it, at least to-night."
I knew that I had never looked worse, and I quite gloried in the fact. I saw Mr. Randolph from his seat near mother glance at me several times in a puzzled way, and Mr. Fanning, after one or two astonished glances, during which he took in the tout ensemble of the ugly robe, began to enter into a playful bear-like flirtation with Miss Armstrong. Dear brown barége, what service it was doing me! I secretly determined that it should be my dinner dress every evening until it wore itself to rags. When the turquoise blue bows became too shabby, I might substitute them for magenta ones. I felt that I had suddenly found an opening out of my difficulty. If I ceased to appear attractive, Mr. Randolph and Mr. Fanning would cease to worry me, the rest of the boarders would accept me for what I was, and my Gordian knot would be cut. Little did I guess! It was by no means so easy to carry out my fixed determination as I had hoped. In the first place, poor darling mother nearly fretted herself into an illness on account of my evening dress. She absolutely cried when she saw me in it, and said that if I was determined to deteriorate in that way, she would give up the boarding-house and go to the cottage in the country without a moment's hesitation. After wearing the dress for three or four days I was forced, very much against my will, to put on one of my pretty black dresses, and the barége made by Annie Starr resumed its place in my wardrobe. I determined to wear it now and then, however—it had already done me good service. I began to hope that neither Mr. Randolph nor Mr. Fanning thought me worth looking at when I appeared in it.
On this evening, as I was dressing for dinner, I heard a wonderful bumping going on in the stairs. It was the noise made by very heavy trunks, trunks so large that they seemed scarcely able to be brought upstairs. They were arriving at the attics, too—they were entering the attic next to mine. Now that special attic had up to the present remained untenanted. It was the most disagreeable room in the house. Most of the attics were quite excellent, but this room had a decidedly sloping roof, and rather small windows, and the paper on the walls was ugly, and the accommodation scanty, and what those huge boxes were going to do there was more than I could tell. The boxes, however, entered that special attic, and then a bodily presence followed them briskly, a loud hearty voice was heard to speak. It said in cheerful tones—
"Thank you, that will do nicely. A large can of hot water, please, and a couple more candles. Thanks. What hour did you say the company dined?"
The reply was made in a low tone which I could not catch, and the attic door was shut.
I was down in the drawing-room in my black dress—(how comfortable I felt in it, how hateful that brown barége was, after all)—when the door was opened, and a large, stoutly-made woman, most richly dressed, came in. She had a quantity of grizzly grey hair, which was turned back from her expansive forehead; a cap of almost every colour in the rainbow bedizened her head, she wore diamond pendants in her ears, and had a flashing diamond brooch fastening the front of her dress. Her complexion was high, she had a broad mouth and a constant smile. She walked straight up to Jane Mullins.
"Well," she said, "here I am. I have not unpacked my big trunk, as your servant said there was very little time before dinner. Please can you tell me when Albert will be in?"
"Mr. Fanning generally comes home about now," I heard Jane say. "Mrs. Fanning, may I introduce you to my dear young friend, Miss Wickham—Mrs. Wickham has not yet appeared."
To my horror I saw Miss Mullins advancing across the drawing-room, accompanied by the stout woman; they approached to my side.
"May I introduce Mrs. Fanning," said Miss Mullins—"Mr. Fanning's mother."