Delphine looked—a vision! At the first glimpse of her in her cobweb fineries, I was ill-bred enough to gape, whereat she blushed and said hurriedly:—
“Your dressmaker! Yes! Isn’t it a duck?”
And knowing the prices which Celeste charges for ducks with such feathers, I wondered, and—feared! Did the Vicar know? Was it possible that with his small stipend he could afford such extravagances? Had the silly little thing ordered, and never asked? Was it my fault for having given the address? Could I have helped doing so, when I was asked? I had said she was expensive. It was some small comfort to remember that, and Charmion would say it was no concern of mine. A dozen such disconcerting thoughts raced through my mind, but I shook them off, and said heartily:—
“It is lovely! You are lovely! I had no idea you were such a beauty. What does your husband say?”
Her face clouded.
“Nothing. Doesn’t notice. Likes me as much in an old print. But I—love it! Oh, you don’t know what bliss it is to feel ‘finished off’. Everything new, good, pretty, and to match!” She gave a rapid swirling movement of the hand to call my attention to such details as shoes and stockings, embroidered bag, and glorified garden hat. “It’s nothing to you. You have had them all your life, but I have only longed and—starved!”
She spoke with a passionate emphasis, which to many people would seem out of all keeping with the subject; but I am young, and a girl, so I understood. There are many empty-headed women in whom the craving for pretty things is as strong as the masculine craving for drink and cards. Circumstances have compelled these women to wear the plainest, most useful of clothes, while every shop window shows a tantalising display of colour and beauty, and other women not half so pretty as themselves bloom with a borrowed radiance!
No mere man can understand the inborn feminine joy in the feel of fine smooth fabric, nor the blending of delicate colours, the dainty ruffling of lace. To the rich these things come as a matter of course, and the working classes are satisfied with garish imitations; it is the poor gentlewoman with the cultivated taste, the cultivated longing for beauty, to whom temptation comes in its keenest form. It had come to Delphine, and she had succumbed. I devoutly hoped and prayed that the shock of the coming bill would prevent further extravagances!
Charmion and I took charge of the Treasure Hunt. We had given the treasures, which were laboriously chosen with a view to suitability. Umbrellas (lashed flat to the trunks of trees!) bags, photograph frames, writing cases, boxes of handkerchiefs, chocolate, cigarettes, scent, and—this was a cunning idea!—cash orders on a big London store.
There was a great rush for tickets, and the Vicar—very flurried, and out of his element, poor man!—dragged in the Squire to help us. The Squire had arrived with his mother an hour before, and had sat under a cedar, drinking tea with a selection of old ladies and gentlemen, looking as though he liked it quite well. Whenever he met my eye, he glowered, as if to say, “How dare you look at me!” and I smiled back, as that seemed to annoy him most. Now, as the Vicar brought him up, I could hear his muttered protests: “Rather not! Can’t you—isn’t there something else?” Pleasing thing, I must say, to have a man forced to help you against his will!