miss.” (You would never believe it, but we find the name is spelled Brighthelmston.) “He hasn’t bought the ‘ouse; he has taken it for a week, and is giving a ball there on the Tuesday evening. He has four daughters, miss, and two h’orphan nieces that generally spends the season with ‘im. It’s the youngest daughter he is bringing out, that lively one you saw cutting about just now. They ‘ave no ballroom, I expect, in their town ‘ouse, which accounts for their renting one for this occasion. They stopped a month in this ‘otel last year, so I have the honour of m’luds acquaintance.”
“Lady Brighthelmston is not living, I should judge,” remarked Salemina, in the tone of one who thinks it hardly worth while to ask.
“Oh, yes, miss, she’s alive and ‘earty; but the daughters manages everythink, and what they down’t manage the h’orphan nieces does. The ‘ouse is run for the young ladies, but m’ludanlady seems to enjoy it.”
Dovermarle Street was so interesting during the next few days that we could scarcely bear to leave it, lest something exciting should happen in our absence.
“A ball is so confining!” said Francesca, who had come back from the corner of Piccadilly to watch the unloading of a huge van, and found that it had no intention of stopping at Number Nine on the opposite side.
First came a small army of charwomen, who scrubbed the house from top to bottom. Then came men with canvas for floors, bronzes and jardinieres and somebody’s family portraits from an auction-room, chairs and sofas and draperies from an upholsterer’s.
The night before the event itself I announced my intention of staying in our own drawing-room the whole of the next day. “I am more interested in Patricia’s debut,” I said, “than anything else that can possibly happen in London. What if it should be wet, and won’t it be annoying if it is a cold night and they draw the heavy curtains close together?”
But it was beautiful day, almost too warm for a ball, and the heavy curtains were not drawn. The family did not court observation; it was serenely unconscious of such a thing. As to our side of the street, I think we may have been the only people at all interested in the affair now so imminent. The others had something more sensible to do, I fancy, than patching up romances about their neighbours.
At noon the florists decorated the entrance with palms, covered the balcony with a gay awning, and hung the railing with brilliant masses of scarlet and yellow flowers. At two the caterers sent silver, tables, linen, and dishes, and a Broadwood grand piano was installed; but at half-past seven, when we sat down to dinner, we were a trifle anxious, because so many things seemed yet to do before the party could be a complete success.
Mr. Beresford and his mother were dining with us, and we had sent invitations to our London friends, the Hon. Arthur Ponsonby and Bertie Godolphin, to come later in the evening. These read as follows:—
Private View
The pleasure of your company is requested at the coming-out party of
The Hon. Patricia Brighthelmston
July —- 189-
On the opposite side of the street.
Dancing about 10-30. 9 Dovermarle Street.
At eight o’clock, as we were finishing our fish course, which chanced to be fried sole, the ball began literally to roll, and it required the greatest ingenuity on Francesca’s part and mine to be always down in our seats when Dawson entered with the dishes, and always at the window when he was absent.
An enormous van had appeared, with half a dozen men walking behind it. In a trice, two of them had stretched a wire trellis across one wall of the drawing-room, and two more were trailing roses from floor to ceiling. Others tied the dark wood of the stair railing with tall Madonna lilies; then they hung garlands of flowers from corner to corner and, alas! could not refrain from framing the mirror in smilax, nor from hanging the chandeliers with that same ugly, funereal, and artificial-looking vine,—this idea being the principal stock-in-trade of every florist in the universe.
We could not catch even a glimpse of the supper-rooms, but we saw a man in the fourth story front room filling dozens of little glass vases, each with its single malmaison, rose, or camellia, and despatching them by an assistant to another part of the house; so we could imagine from this the scheme of decoration at the tables.—No, not new, perhaps, but simple and effective.
By the time we had finished our entree, which happened to be lamb cutlets and green peas, and had begun our roast, which was chicken and ham, I remember, they had put wreaths at all the windows, hung Japanese lanterns on the balcony and in the oak-tree, and transformed the house into a blossoming bower.
At this exciting juncture Dawson entered unexpectedly with our sweet, and for the first and only time caught us literally ‘red-handed.’ Let British subjects be interested in their neighbours, if they will (and when they refrain I am convinced that it is as much indifference as good breeding), but let us never bring our country into disrepute with an English butler! As there was not a single person at the table when Dawson came in, we were obliged to say that we had finished dinner, thank you, and would take coffee; no sweet to-night, thank you.
Willie Beresford was the only one who minded, but he rather likes cherry tart. It simply chanced to be cherry tart, for our cook at Smith’s Private Hotel is a person of unbridled fancy and endless repertory. She sometimes, for example, substitutes rhubarb for cherry tart quite out of her own head; and when balked of both these dainties, and thrown absolutely on her own boundless resources, will create a dish of stewed green gooseberries and a companion piece of liquid custard. These unrelated concoctions, when eaten at the same moment, as is her intention, always remind me of the lying down together of the lion and the lamb, and the scheme is well-nigh as dangerous, under any other circumstances than those of the digestive millennium. I tremble to think what would ensue if all the rhubarb and gooseberry bushes in England should be uprooted in a single night. I believe that thousands of cooks, those not possessed of families or Christian principles, would drown themselves in the Thames forthwith, but that is neither here nor there, and the Honourable Arthur denies it. He says, “Why commit suicide? Ain’t there currants?”
I had forgotten to say that we ourselves were all en grande toilette, down to satin slippers, feeling somehow that it was the only proper thing to do; and when Dawson had cleared the table and ushered in the other visitors, we ladies took our coffee and the men their cigarettes to the three front windows, which were open as usual to our balcony.
We seated ourselves there quite casually, as is our custom, somewhat hidden by the lace draperies and potted hydrangeas, and whatever we saw was to be seen by any passer-by, save that we held the key to the whole story, and had made it our own by right of conquest.
Just at this moment—it was quarter-past nine, although it was still bright daylight—came a little procession of servants who disappeared within the doors, and, as they donned caps and aprons, would now and then reappear at the windows. Presently the supper arrived. We did not know the number of invited guests (there are some things not even revealed to the Wise Woman), but although we were a trifle nervous about the amount of eatables, we were quite certain that there would be no dearth of liquid refreshment.
Contemporaneously with the supper came a four-wheeler with a man and a woman in it.
Sal. “I wonder if that is Lord and Lady Brighthelmston?”
Mrs. B. “Nonsense, my dear; look at the woman’s dress.”
W.B. “It is probably the butler, and I have a
