Christabel Rendell to her sister Nan Vanburgh.
Dearest Mops,—I am in a state of abject collapse after rushing after the beagles yesterday, tearing all over the countryside, and leaping wildly over mountainous barriers, so I think I might as well spend my time writing to you, as you have been hurling reproaches at me for my silence. I couldn’t possibly attempt letters while Betty was here, for we only had a fortnight, and I didn’t get through half what I wanted to say. We enjoyed having her immensely, she’s a perfect dear, and very pretty when she takes enough trouble, which isn’t by any means always the case. I read her a severe lecture on the subject, and retrimmed her blue hat. I’m sure you’ll think it improved. Talking of hats—I can’t understand why I am not a lunatic, after all I’ve experienced with my clothes this spring! Agatha and I went to a tailor’s at Hertford and ordered coats and skirts for morning wear. She wasn’t in a hurry for hers, but I was simply panting for mine to take to the Goodmans’ the next Wednesday, so it was arranged that he should rush on with mine, and that I should go over for a fitting on Monday. My dear, on Monday I was a wreck!—toothache in every joint, chattering with cold, and the rain descended in floods. I ploughed to the station in a sort of dismal, it-is-my-duty-and-I-must kind of stupor; sat in the train with Mrs Ellis, who yelled at me the whole time about the Coal Club, and Mary Jane’s little Emma’s mumps; staggered along the roads to the tailor’s shop, and sat shuddering in his nasty little room with my feet on a slippery oilcloth as cold as ice.
After about twenty minutes (it seemed three hours and a half)—he came in with a coat over his arm! Agatha’s coat! I nearly swooned! ... “Now you don’t say so—really! Your sister’s? And I made so sure it was yours! Isn’t that curious, now? I may say I have been in the tailoring trade, man and boy, for a matter of twenty years, an’ I never knew such a thing to occur before! Of course it wouldn’t be any use saying I could make another by Wednesday, for I should only disappoint, but if Miss Hagatha was to run over, such a thing as this hafternoon, she could have ’er’s ’ome in the place of yours.” ... I got home somehow, I don’t know how, for my mind was a blank, fell into bed, and lay prostrate until the next day, when hope revived once more. If the worst came to the worst, I was sure of a new voile dress which Miss Green was making, and the old coat and skirt would do very well for the mornings. The voile dress promised to be charming, for she really makes very well when she likes; so I felt restored to equanimity, until at eleven o’clock, behold a small girl, to see Miss C Rendell—“Oh, if—you—please—Miss Green—says—as—she’s—two—yards—short—of—the—material—and—could—you—make—it—convenient—to—get—it—to-day?” My brain reeled! As soon as I had sufficiently recovered, I rushed round to see her myself. “You told me you only needed twelve yards, and I got thirteen!” “Yes, madam, but you see, madam, these guagings run into a deal of material. You wouldn’t like them not to be full and ’andsome. Just another two yards!” There was nothing else for it, so I promised to go up to town next morning (I couldn’t possibly go that day), and impressed upon the wretch to finish the bodice first,—as, if necessary, we could do with less trimming on the skirt. My dear, the worst is still to come! The shop was sold out of the shade of voile, and could not get it again, and when I went back to Miss Green, she had finished the skirt, and had nothing left for sleeves! “Yes, I remember you did say do the bodice first, but I thought I’d be getting on with the guaging. Guaging runs into a deal of time!” ... I just lay back, and said to myself, “Can it be real—or is it only a terrible nightmare?” We sat turning over hundreds of dirty old fashion plates, to find out how to make sleeves out of nothing, and they are sights, and I look an owl in them. There’s only one comfort—if my brain has stood such a strain, it will stand anything!
Lilias and Mr Ross are really very satisfactory, and considering that she is thirty (thirty! Isn’t it appalling!), he is not a bit too old. It’s nice to see her look happy and satisfied, and she has been as sweet as sugar ever since, and as pleased as possible with furnishing her little house, which will be quite poky and shabby compared with yours, or Maud’s, or even Elsie’s sanatorium. Poor old Lil! I’m glad she’s going to have a good time, at last. I’m afraid she has felt very “out of it” the last few years.
Old Mr Vanburgh is longing for your next visit, and has his study simply plastered over with portraits of the boy. I go to sit with him on wet afternoons, and listen meekly to praises of yourself, which I know to be absolutely undeserved.
By the way—is Betty in love? Never a word could I get out of her, but her indifference to the admiration she got down here—and she got a good deal—was quite phenomenal, unless there is something behind! Methinks at times I trace a melancholy in her eye. Adieu, my love; this epistle ought to make up for past delinquencies.—Yours ever, Christabel.