Volume III Part 7 (1/2)
”A dressmaker's bill! That can't be very alarming. You look as awful, and the doc.u.ment looks as voluminous, as if it were a lawyer's bill, including the costs of two or three unlucky Chancery suits, or half-a-dozen conveyances. Let me have the account, dear, and I'll send your dressmaker a cheque next Sat.u.r.day.”
He held out his hand for the paper, but Pamela did not give it to him.
”I'm afraid you'll think it awfully high, Conrad,” she said, in a deprecating tone. ”You see it has been running a long time--since the Christmas before dear Edward's death, in fact. I have paid Theodore sums on account in the meanwhile, but those seem to go for very little against the total of her bill. She is expensive, of course. All the West End milliners are; but her style is undeniable, and she is in direct a.s.sociation with Worth.”
”My dear Pamela, I did not ask you for her biography, I asked only for her bill. Pray let me see the total, and tell me if you have any objections to make against the items.”
”No,” sighed Mrs. Winstanley, bending over the doc.u.ment with a perplexed brow, ”I believe--indeed, I am sure--I have had all the things. Many of them are dearer than I expected; but there is no rule as to the price of anything thoroughly Parisian, that has not been seen in London. One has to pay for style and originality. I hope you won't be vexed at having to write so large a cheque, Conrad, at a time when you are so anxious to save money. Next year I shall try my best to economise.”
”My dearest Pamela, why beat about the bush? The bill must be paid, whatever its amount. I suppose a hundred pounds will cover it?”
”Oh, Conrad, when many women give a hundred pounds for a single dress!”
”When they do I should say that Bedlam must be their natural and fitting abode,” retorted the Captain, with suppressed ire. ”The bill is more than a hundred then? Pray give it me, Pamela, and make an end of this foolishness.”
This time Captain Winstanley went over to his wife, and took the paper out of her hand. He had not seen the total, but he was white with rage already. He had made up his mind to squeeze a small fortune out of the Abbey House estate during his brief lease of the property; and here was this foolish wife of his squandering hundreds upon finery.
”Be kind enough to pour me out a cup of coffee,” he said, resuming his seat, and deliberately spreading out the bill.
”Great Heaven!” he cried, after a glance at the total. ”This is too preposterous. The woman must be mad.”
The total was seventeen hundred and sixty-four pounds fourteen and sixpence. Mrs. Winstanley's payments on account amounted to four hundred pounds; leaving a balance of thirteen hundred and sixty-four pounds for the Captain to liquidate.
”Indeed, dear Conrad, it is not such a very tremendous account,”
pleaded Pamela, appalled by the expression of her husband's face.
”Theodore has customers who spend two thousand a year with her.”
”Very laudable extravagance, if they are wives of millionaires, and have their silver-mines, or cotton-mills, or oil-wells to maintain them. But that the widow of a Hamps.h.i.+re squire, a lady who six years hence will have to exist upon a pittance, should run up such a bill as this is to my mind an act of folly that is almost criminal. From this moment I abandon all my ideas of nursing your estate, of providing comfortably for our future. Henceforward we must drift towards insolvency, like other people. It would be worse than useless for me to go on racking my brains in the endeavour to secure a given result, when behind my back your thoughtless extravagance is stultifying all my efforts.”
Here Mrs. Winstanley dissolved into tears.
”Oh Conrad! How can you say such cruel things?” she sobbed. ”I go behind your back! I stultify you! When I have allowed myself to be ruled and governed in everything! When I have even parted with my only child to please you!”
”Not till your only child had tried to set the house on fire.”
”Indeed, Conrad, you are mistaken there. She never meant it.”
”I know nothing about her meaning,” said the Captain moodily. ”She did it.”
”It is too cruel, after all my sacrifices, that I should be called extravagant--and foolish--and criminal. I have only dressed as a lady ought to dress--out of mere self-respect. Dear Edward always liked to see me look nice. He never said an unkind word about my bills. It is a sad--sad change for me.”
”Your future will be a sadder change, if you go on in the way you are going,” retorted the Captain. ”Let me see: your income, after Violet comes of age, is to fifteen hundred a year. You have been spending six hundred a year upon millinery. That leaves nine hundred for everything else--stable, garden, coals, taxes, servants' wages, wine--to say nothing of such trifling claims as butcher and baker, and the rest of it. You will have to manage with wonderful cleverness to make both ends meet.”
”I am sure I would sacrifice anything rather than live unhappily with you, Conrad,” Mrs. Winstanley murmured piteously, drinking much strong tea in her agitation, the cup shaking in her poor little white weak hand. ”Nothing could be so dreadful to me as to live on bad terms with you. I have surrendered so much for your love, Conrad. What would become of me, if I lost that? I will give up dealing with Theodore, if you like--though it will be a hard trial, after she has worked for me so many years, and has studied my style and knows exactly what suits me. I will dress ever so plainly, and even have my gowns made by a Southampton dressmaker, though that will be too dreadful. You will hardly recognise me. But I will do anything--anything, Conrad, rather than hear you speak so cruelly.”
She went over to him and laid her hand tremulously on his shoulder, and looked down at him with piteous, pleading eyes. No Circa.s.sian slave, afraid of bowstring and sack, could have entreated her master's clemency with deeper self-abas.e.m.e.nt.
Even Conrad Winstanley's hard nature was touched by the piteousness of her look and tone. He took the hand gently and raised it to his lips.
”I don't mean to be cruel, Pamela,” he said. ”I only want you to face the truth, and to understand your future position. It is your own money you are squandering, and you have a right to waste it, if it pleases you to do so. But it is a little hard for a man who has laboured and schemed for a given result, suddenly to find himself out in his calculations by so much as thirteen hundred and sixty-four pounds. Let us say no more about it, my dear. Here is the bill, and it must be paid. We have only to consider the items, and see if the prices are reasonable.”