The next afternoon all was bustle and confusion in Holly House, servants setting the tables in the dining-room, and clearing the large classroom, in preparation for the party, and governesses and pupils dressing themselves with as much care as though they expected to meet a hundred strangers, instead of the everyday school set, without a single addition. Dresses which had not seen the light since the half-term-holiday were brought forth once more, with such additions in the shape of sashes, flowers, and gloves as befitted the greater importance of the occasion, and in her own bedroom Pixie O’Shaughnessy was whisking to and fro, attending to the wants of three exacting mistresses, who all seemed to require her at one and the same moment.
“Hi, Pixie, come here! This place is getting knee-deep in clothes. Just put them away.”
“Now then, Pixie. I’m waiting for this hair-dressing! You make it look like an artificial plait, or there’ll be trouble in this camp.”
“Oh–h, bother! The more hurry the less speed. Now I’ve broken this tape. Has anyone got a bodkin? No, of course not! There never is a bodkin when I want one. You’ll have to manage with a hairpin, Pixie, and be sharp about it. I shall be late for tea at this rate!” So on, and so on, and at each summons in rushed an eager little worker, so deft, so willing, so incredibly quick in her movements, that her mistresses were overcome with admiration.
“Your hands do you more credit than your brains, young woman!” pronounced Kate judicially. “You will never be a mistress of a High School; but you are a born lady’s-maid, and you can come to me for a reference when you need it.”
“That’s what Esmeralda says. I am going to be her maid when she marries the duke. He comes down to hunt near Bally William, but he really lives in England, in the most beautiful palace, with peacocks on the lawn. Esmeralda’s going to have the drawing-room papered in yellow, to suit her complexion, and to set the fashion of having little sisters to wait upon you, like pages in old story-books,” returned Pixie, with her mouth full of hairpins, and there was a rustle of excitement in the different cubicles.
“Esmeralda engaged! You never told us! To a duke. Which duke? How lovely for her! When are they going to get married?”
“Now indeed I can’t tell you!” returned Pixie regretfully. She was proudly conscious of having made a sensation, and it did seem hard to be obliged to dispel it as soon as it was made! “There’s nothing settled, for, to tell you the truth, he has never so much as seen her yet, but she was visiting old Biddy Gallagher when he drove past to the meet, and at lunch says she, ‘He’s the elegant creature, that duke! I’m thinking of marrying him myself!’ and took Bridgie’s advice on the trousseau that very afternoon. She says she won’t be engaged until she is twenty-one, and that it’s a pity to unsettle him about it yet awhile, as there’s over two years to wait. He wouldn’t want to wait if he saw her, for she’s more beautiful than anyone you ever saw out of a picture, though it’s himself I pity when the tantrums is on her. We often talk about it, and plan how we will spend his money, and if you want to put her in a good temper you’ve nothing to do but call her ‘Your Grace!’”
“I never heard anything so silly!” cried Ethel scornfully. Kate gave a mild “He, he!” as she watched the process of hair-dressing in the mirror, and reflected pensively that spectacles seemed strangely out of keeping with evening dress. There was no doubt about it, she was astonishingly plain, and oh, how nice it must be to be beautiful like Esmeralda—so beautiful that even your own brothers and sisters admired you! It was a natural longing, for every girl wishes to be attractive to others, and feels a pang if obliged to realise that the tribute of admiration can never be hers; but Kate was too sensible to grieve long over impossibilities. “I shall have to be extra amiable to make up for it, that’s all!” she told herself philosophically, as she lifted the hand-glass, and wriggled about before the glass to view the effect of the new coiffure. It was most elaborate and hairdresser-windowish in effect, and if it were not exactly becoming, that was perhaps more her own misfortune than the fault of the operator, who had bestowed such pains upon the erection. So she declared truthfully enough that she had never felt so fine in her life, and threatened to sit at the piano the whole of the evening, so that all beholders might have an opportunity of admiring her “back hair.”
Her toilet was now finished, but Ethel’s bows were waiting to be tied and smoothed out, and Flora had to be laced into her dress, and to be consoled when again visited with the dread of finishing her career as the fat woman in a show. Finally, the first bell for tea was heard pealing downstairs, and away ran the three girls, leaving poor Cinderella to tidy the cubicles, and almost forgetting to thank her for her services; for in truth they had been so cheerfully rendered as to appear a favour given, rather than received.