Part 55 (2/2)

”Oh, yes, young ladies; but not women like me who are waiting to find out whether they are ruined or not.”

The difficulty, however, was at last overcome, and Margaret, with many inward upbraidings of her conscience, consented to wear the black-freckled dress.

”I never saw anybody look so altered in my life,” said Mrs Mackenzie, when Margaret, apparelled, appeared in the Cavendish Square drawing-room on the morning in question. ”Oh, dear, I hope Sir John Ball will come to look at you.”

”Nonsense! he won't be such a fool as to do anything of the kind.”

”I took care to let him know that you would be there;” said Mrs Mackenzie.

”You didn't?”

”But I did, my dear.”

”Oh, dear, what will he think of me?” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Margaret; but nevertheless I fancy that there must have been some elation in her bosom when she regarded herself and the freckled muslin in the gla.s.s.

Both Mrs Mackenzie and Miss Mackenzie had more than once gone down to the place to inspect the ground and make themselves familiar with the position they were to take. There were great stalls and little stalls, which came alternately; and the Mackenzie stall stood next to a huge centre booth at which the d.u.c.h.ess was to preside. On their other hand was the stall of old Lady Ware, and opposite to them, as has been before said, the doubtful Mrs Chaucer Munro was to hold difficult sway over her bevy of loud nymphs. Together with Mrs Mackenzie were two other Miss Mackenzies, sisters of her husband, handsome, middle-aged women, with high cheek-bones and fine brave-looking eyes. All the Mackenzies, except our Griselda, were dressed in the tartan of their clan; and over the stall there was some motto in Gaelic, ”Dhu dhaith donald dhuth,” which n.o.body could understand, but which was not the less expressive. Indeed, the Mackenzie stall was got up very well; but then was it not known and understood that Mrs Mackenzie did get up things very well? It was acknowledged on all sides that the Lamb, Griselda, was uncommonly well got up on this occasion.

It was understood that the ladies were to be a.s.sembled in the bazaar at half-past two, and that the doors were to be thrown open to the public at three o'clock. Soon after half-past two Mrs Mackenzie's carriage was at the door, and the other Mackenzies having come up at the same time, the Mackenzie phalanx entered the building together.

There were many others with them, but as they walked up they found the Countess of Ware standing alone in the centre of the building, with her four daughters behind her. She had on her head a wonderful tiara, which gave to her appearance a ferocity almost greater than was natural to her. She was a woman with square jaws, and a big face, and stout shoulders: but she was not, of her own una.s.sisted height, very tall. But of that tiara and its alt.i.tude she was proud, and as she stood in the midst of the stalls, brandis.h.i.+ng her umbrella-sized parasol in her anger, the ladies, as they entered, might well be cowed by her presence.

”When ladies say half-past two,” said she, ”they ought to come at half-past two. Where is the d.u.c.h.ess of St Bungay? I shall not wait for her.”

But there was a lady there who had come in behind the Mackenzies, whom nothing ever cowed. This was the Lady Glencora Palliser, the great heiress who had married the heir of a great duke, pretty, saucy, and occasionally intemperate, in whose eyes Lady Ware with her ferocious tiara was simply an old woman in a ridiculous head-gear.

The countess had apparently addressed herself to Mrs Mackenzie, who had been the foremost to enter the building, and our Margaret had already begun to tremble. But Lady Glencora stepped forward, and took the brunt of the battle upon herself.

”n.o.body ever yet was so punctual as my Lady Ware,” said Lady Glencora.

”It is very annoying to be kept waiting on such occasions,” said the countess.

”But my dear Lady Ware, who keeps you waiting? There is your stall, and why on earth should you stand here and call us all over as we come in, like naughty schoolboys?”

”The d.u.c.h.ess said expressly that she would be here at half-past two.”

”Who ever expects the dear d.u.c.h.ess to keep her word?” said Lady Glencora.

”Or whoever cared whether she does or does not?” said Mrs Chaucer Munro, who, with her peculiar bevy, had now made her way up among the front rank.

Then to have seen the tiara of Lady Ware, as it wagged and nodded while she looked at Mrs Munro, and to have witnessed the high moral tone of the ferocity with which she stalked away to her own stall with her daughters behind her,--a tragi-comedy which it was given to no male eyes to behold,--would have been worth the whole after-performance of the bazaar. No male eyes beheld that scene, as Mr Manfred Smith, the manager, had gone out to look for his d.u.c.h.ess, and missing her carriage in the crowd, did not return till the bazaar had been opened. That Mrs Chaucer Munro did not sink, collapsed, among her bevy, must have been owing altogether to that callousness which a long habit of endurance produces. Probably she did feel something as at the moment there came no t.i.tter from any other bevy corresponding to the t.i.tter which was raised by her own. She and her bevy retired to their allotted place, conscious that their time for glory could not come till the male world should appear upon the scene. But Lady Ware's tiara still wagged and nodded behind her counter, and Margaret, looking at her, thought that she must have come there as the grand duenna of the occasion.

Just at three o'clock the poor d.u.c.h.ess hurried into the building in a terrible flurry, and went hither and thither among the stalls, not knowing at first where was her throne. Unkind chance threw her at first almost into the booth of Mrs Conway Sparkes, the woman whom of all women she hated the most; and from thence she recoiled into the arms of Lady Hartletop who was sitting serene, placid, and contented in her appointed place.

”Opposite, I think, d.u.c.h.ess,” Mrs Conway Sparkes had said. ”We are only the small fry here.”

”Oh, ah; I beg pardon. They told me the middle, to the left.”

”And this is the middle to the right,” said Mrs Conway Sparkes. But the d.u.c.h.ess had turned round since she came in, and could not at all understand where she was.

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