Eleanor Part 14

Too happy perhaps--also. She walked on air in these days before Easter.

The book was prospering; Manisty was more content; and as agreeable in all daily ways and offices as only the hope of good fortune can make a man.

'The Priest of Nemi'--indeed, with several other prose poems of the same kind, had been cast out of the text; which now presented one firm and vigorous whole of social and political discussion. But the Nemi piece was to be specially bound for Eleanor, together with some drawings that she had made of the lake and the temple site earlier in the spring. And on the day the book was finished--somewhere within the next fortnight--there was to be a festal journey to Nemi--divine and blessed place!

So she felt no fatigue, and was always ready to chatter to Lucy of the most womanish things. Especially, as the girl's beauty grew upon her, was she anxious to carry out those plans of transforming her dress and hair,--her gowns and hats and shoes--the primness of her brown braids, which she and Miss Manisty had confided to each other.

But Lucy was shy--would not be drawn that way. There were fewer visitors at the villa than she had expected. For this quiet life in the garden, and on the country roads, it seemed to her that her dresses did very well. The sense of discomfort excited by the elegance of her Florentine acquaintance died away. And she would have thought it wrong and extravagant to spend unnecessary money.

So she had quietly ceased to think about her dress; and the blue and white check, to Eleanor's torment, had frequently to be borne with.

Even the promised invitation to the Emba.s.sy had not arrived. It was said that the Amba.s.sador's daughter had gone to Florence. Only Lucy wished she had not written that letter to Uncle Ben from Florence:--that rather troubled and penitent letter on the subject of dress. He might misunderstand--might do something foolish.

And apparently Uncle Ben did do something foolish. For a certain letter arrived from Boston on the day after the seminarists' invasion of the garden. Lucy after an hour's qualms and hesitations, must needs reluctantly confide the contents of it to Miss Manisty. And that lady with smiles and evident pleasure called Mrs. Burgoyne--and Eleanor called her maid,--and the ball began to roll.

On Sat.u.r.day morning early, Mrs. Burgoyne's room indeed was in a bustle--delightful to all but Lucy. Manisty was in Rome for the day, and Eleanor had holiday. She had never looked more frail--a rose-leaf pink in her cheek--nor more at ease. For she was at least as good to consult about a skirt as an idea.

'Marie!'--she said, giving her own maid a little peremptory push--'just run and fetch Benson--there's an angel. We must have all the brains possible.

If we don't get the bodice right, it won't suit Miss Foster a bit.'

Marie went in all haste. Meanwhile in front of a large gla.s.s stood a rather red and troubled Lucy arrayed in a Paris gown belonging to Mrs. Burgoyne.

Eleanor had played her with much tact, and now had her in her power.

'It is the crisis, my dear,' Miss Manisty had said in Eleanor's ear, as they rose from breakfast, with a twinkle of her small eyes. 'The question is; can we, or can we not, turn her into a beauty? _You_ can!'

Eleanor at any rate was doing her best. She had brought out her newest gowns and Lucy was submissively putting them on one after the other.

Eleanor was in pursuit first of all of some general conceptions. What was the girl's true style?--what were the possibilities?

'When I have got my lines and main ideas in my head,' she said pensively, 'then we will call in the maids. Of course you _might_ have the things made in Rome. But as we have the models--and these two maids have nothing to do--why not give ourselves the pleasure of looking after it?'

Pleasure! Lucy Foster opened her eyes.

Still, here was this absurd, this most extravagant cheque from Uncle Ben, and these peremptory commands to get herself everything--everything--that other girls had. Why, it was demanded of her, had she been economical and scrupulous before starting? Folly and disobedience! He had been told of her silly hesitations, her detestable frugalities--he had ferretted it all out. And now she was at a disadvantage--was she? Let her provide herself at once, or old as he was, he would take train and steamer and come and see to it!

She was not submissive in general--far from it. But the reading of Uncle Ben's letter had left her very meek in spirit and rather inclined to cry.

Had Uncle Ben really considered whether it was right to spend so much money on oneself, to think so much about it? Their life together had been so simple, the question had hardly emerged. Of course it was right to be neat and fresh, and to please his taste in what she wore. But--

The net result of all this internal debate, however, was to give a peculiar charm, like the charm of rippled and sensitive water, to features that were generally too still and grave. She stood silently before the long gla.s.s while Mrs. Burgoyne and the maids talked and pinned. She walked to the end of the room and back, as she was bid; she tried to express a preference, when she was asked for one; and as she was arrayed in one delicious gown after another, she became more and more alive to the beauty of the soft stuffs, the invention and caprice with which they were combined, the daintiness of their pinks and blues, their greys and creams, their lilacs and ivories. At last Mrs. Burgoyne happened upon a dress of white c.r.a.pe, opening upon a vest of pale green, with thin edges of black here and there, disposed with the tact, the feeling of the artist; and when Lucy's tall form had been draped in this garment, her three attendants fell back with one simultaneous cry:

'Oh my dear!' said Mrs. Burgoyne drawing a long breath.--'Now you see, Marie--I told you!--that's the cut. And just look how simple that is, and how it falls! That's the green. Yes, when Mathilde is as good as that she's divine.--Now all you've got to do is just to copy that. And the materials are just nothing--you'll get them in the Corso in half-an-hour.'

'May I take it off?' said Lucy.

'Well yes, you may'--said Mrs. Burgoyne, reluctantly--'but it's a great pity. Well now, for the coat and skirt,'--she checked them off on her slim fingers--'for the afternoon gown, and one evening dress, I think I see my way--'

'Enough for one morning isn't it?' said Lucy half laughing, half imploring.

'Yes,'--said Mrs. Burgoyne absently, her mind already full of further developments.

The gowns were carried away, and Aunt Pattie's maid departed. Then as Lucy in her white cotton wrapper was retiring to her own room, Mrs. Burgoyne caught her by the arm.

'You remember,'--she said appealingly,--'how rude I was that evening you came--how I just altered your hair? You don't know how I long to do it properly! You know I shall have a little trouble with these dresses--trouble I like--but still I shall pretend it's trouble, that you may pay me for it. Pay me by letting me experiment! I just long to take all your hair down, and do it as it ought to be done. And you don't know how clever I am. _Let_ me!'

And already, before the shamefaced girl could reply, she was gently pushed into the chair before Mrs. Burgoyne's dressing-table, and a pair of skilled hands went to work.

'I can't say you look as though you enjoyed it,' said Mrs. Burgoyne by the time she had covered the girl's shoulders with the long silky veil which she had released from the stiff plaits confining it. 'Do you think it's wrong to do your hair prettily?' Lucy laughed uneasily.

'I was never brought up to think much about it. My mother had very strict views.'

'Ah!'--said Eleanor, with a discreet intonation. 'But you see, at Rome it is really so much better for the character to do as Rome does. To be out of the way makes one self-conscious. Your mother didn't foresee that.'

Silence,--while the swift white fingers plaited and tied and laid foundations.

'It waves charmingly already'--murmured the artist--'but it must be just a little more _ondule_ in the right places--just a touch--here and there.

Quick, Marie!--bring me the stove--and the tongs--and two or three of those finest hairpins.'

The maid flew, infected by the ardour of her mistress, and between them they worked to such purpose that when at last they released their victim, they had turned the dark head into that of a stately and fas.h.i.+onable beauty. The splendid hair was raised high in small silky ripples above the white brow. The little love-locks on the temples had been delicately arranged so as to complete the fine oval of the face, and at the back the black ma.s.ses drawn lightly upwards from the neck, and held in place there by a pearl comb of Mrs. Burgoyne's, had been piled and twisted into a crown that would have made Artemis herself more queenly.

'Am I really to keep it like this?' cried Lucy, looking at herself in the gla.s.s.

'But of course you are!' and Mrs. Burgoyne instinctively held the girl's arms, lest any violence should be offered to her handiwork--'And you must put on your _old_ white frock--_not_ the check--the nice soft one that's been washed, with the pink sash--Goodness, how the time goes! Marie, run and tell Miss Manisty not to wait for me--I'll follow her to the village.'

The maid went. Lucy looked down upon her tyrant--

You are very kind to me'--she said with a lip that trembled slightly. Her blue eyes under the black brows showed a feeling that she did not know how to express. The subdued responsiveness, indeed, of Lucy's face was like that of Wordsworth's Highland girl struggling with English. You felt her 'beating up against the wind,'--in the current, yet resisting it. Or to take another comparison, her nature seemed to be at once stiff and rich--like some heavy church stuff, shot with gold.

'Oh! these things are my snare,' said Eleanor, laughing--'If I have any gift, it is for _chiffons_.'

'Any gift!' said Lucy wondering--'when you do so much for Mr. Manisty?'

Mrs. Burgoyne shrugged her shoulders.

'Ah! well--he wanted a secretary--and I happened to get the place,' she said, in a more constrained voice.

'Miss Manisty told me how you helped him in the winter. And she and Mr.

Brooklyn--have--told me--other things--' said Lucy. She paused, colouring deeply. But her eyes travelled timidly to the photographs on Mrs.

Burgoyne's table.

Eleanor understood.

'Ah!--they told you that, did they?'--The speaker turned a little white.

'And you wonder--don't you?--that I can go on talking about frocks, and new ways of doing one's hair?'

She moved away from Lucy, a touch of cold defensive dignity effacing all her pliant sweetness.