CHAPTER XXIII. VELVET
Constance created quite a sensation when she came down dressed for church on Christmas Day in a dark blue velvet jacket, deeply trimmed with silver fox, and a hat and muff
Up jumped Ida, from lacing her boots by the fire. 'Well, I never! They are spoiling you! Real velvet, I declare, and real silk-wadded lining. Look, ma. What made them dress you like that?'
'It wasn't them,' said Constance, 'it was Lady Adela. One Sunday in October it turned suddenly cold, and I had only my cloth jacket, and she sent up for something warm for me. This was just new before she went into black, when husband died, and she had put it away for Amice, but it fitted me so well, and looked so nice, that she was so kind as to wish me to keep it always.'
'Cast-off clothes! That's the insolence of these swells,' said Ida. 'I wonder you had not the spirit to refuse.'
'Sour grapes,' muttered Herbert; while her mother sighed-'Ah, that's what we come to!'
'Must not I wear it, mamma?' said Constance, who had a certain attachment to the beautiful and comfortable garment. 'She told me she had only worn it once in London, and she was so very kind.'
'Oh, if you call it kindness,' said Ida, 'I call it impertinence.'
'If you had only heard-' faltered Constance.
'No, no,' said their mother, 'you could not refuse, of course, my dear, and no one here will know. It becomes her very well too. Doesn't it, Ida?'
Ida made a snort. 'If people choose to make a little chit of a schoolgirl ridiculous by dressing her out like that!' she said.
'There isn't time now before church,' said Constance almost tearfully, 'or I would take it off.'
'No such thing,' said Herbert. 'Come on, Conny. You shall walk with me. You look stunning, and I want Westhaven folk to see for once what a lady is like.'
Constance was very glad to be led away from Ida's comments, and resolved that her blue velvet should not see the light again at Westhaven; but she did not find this easy to carry out; for, perhaps for the sake of teasing Ida, Herbert used to inquire after it, and insist on her wearing it, and her mother liked to see her, and to show her, in it. It was only Ida who seemed unable to help saying something disagreeable, till, almost in despair, Constance offered to lend the bone of contention; but Lady Adela was a small woman, and Constance would never be on so large a scale as her sister, so that the jacket refused to be transferred except at the risk of being spoilt by alteration; and here Mrs. Morton interfered, 'It would never do to have them say at Northmoor that 'Lady Morton's' gift had been spoilt by their meddling with it.' Constance was glad, though she suspected that Lady Adela would never have found it out.
Then Ida consulted Sibyl Grover, who was working with a dressmaker, and with whom she kept up a sort of patronisingly familiar acquaintance, as to making something to rival it, and Sibyl was fertile in devices as to doing so cheaply, but when she consulted her superior, she was told that without the same expensive materials it would evidently be only an imitation, and moreover, that the fashion was long gone out of date. Which enabled Ida to bear the infliction with some degree of philosophy.
This jacket was not, however, Constance's only trouble. Her conscience was already uneasy at the impossibility of getting to evensong on Christmas Day. She had been to an early Celebration without asking any questions, and had got back before Herbert had come down to breakfast, and very glad she was that she had done so, for she found that her mother regarded it as profane 'to take the Sacrament' when she was going to have a party in the evening, and when Constance was in the midst of the party she felt that-if it were to be-her mother might be right.
It was a dinner first-at which Constance did not appear-chiefly of older people, who talked of shipping and of coals. Afterwards, if they noticed the young people, joked them about their imaginary lovers-beaux, as the older ladies called them; young men, as the younger ones said. One, the most plain spoken of all, asked Herbert how he felt, at which the boy wriggled and laughed sheepishly, and his mother had a great confabulation with various of the ladies, who were probably condoling with her.
Later, there were cards for the elders, and sundry more young people came in for a dance. The Rollstones were considered as beneath the dignity of the Mortons, but Herbert had loudly insisted on inviting Rose for the evening and had had his way, but after all she would not come. Herbert felt himself aggrieved, and said she was as horrid a little prig as Constance, who on her side felt a pang of envy as she thought of Rose going to church and singing hymns and carols to her father and mother, while she, after a struggle under the mistletoe, which made her hot and miserable, had to sit playing waltzes. One good-natured lady offered to relieve her, but she was too much afraid of the hero of the mistletoe to stir from her post, and the daughter of her kindly friend had no scruple in exclaiming-
'Oh no, ma, don't! You always put us out, you know, and Constance Morton is as true as old Time.'
'I am sure Constance is only too happy to oblige her friends,' said Mrs. Morton. 'And she is not out yet,' she added, as a tribute to high life.
If Constance at times felt unkindly neglected, at others she heard surges of giggling, and suppressed shrieking and protests that made her feel the piano an ark of refuge.
The parting speech from a good-natured old merchant captain was, 'Why, you demure little pussy cat, you are the prettiest of them all! What have yon lads been thinking about to let those little fingers be going instead of her feet? Or is it all Miss Ida's jealousy, eh?'
All this, in a speaking-trumpet voice, put the poor child into an agony of blushes, which only incited him to pat her on the cheek, and the rest to laugh hilariously, under the influence of negus and cheap champagne.
Constance could have cried for very shame, but when she was waiting on her mother, who, tired as she was, would not go to bed without locking up the spoons and the remains of the wine, Mrs. Morton said kindly, 'You are tired, my dear, and no wonder. They were a little noisy to-night. Those are not goings-on that I always approve, you know, but young folk always like a little pleasure extra at Christmas. Don't you go and get too genteel for us, Conny. Come, come, don't cry. Drink this, my love, you're tired.'
'Oh, mamma, it is not the being genteel-oh no, but Christmas Day and all!'
'Come, come, my dear, I can't have you get mopy and dull; religion is a very good thing, but it isn't meant to hinder all one's pleasure, and when you've been to church on a Christmas Day, what more can be expected of young people but to enjoy themselves? Come, go to bed and think no more about it.'
To express or even to understand what she felt would have been impossible to Constance, so she had to content herself with feeling warm at her heart, at her mother's kind kiss.
All the other parties she saw were much more decorous, even to affectation, except that at the old skipper's, and he was viewed by the family as a subject for toleration, because he had been a friend and messmate of Mrs. Morton's father. All the good side of that lady and Ida came out towards him and his belongings. He had an invalid granddaughter, with a spine complaint and feeble eyesight, and Ida spent much time in amusing her, teaching her fancy works and reading to her. Unluckily it was only trashy novels from the circulating library that they read; Ida had no taste for anything else, and protested that Louie would be bored to death if she tried to read her the African adventures which were just then the subject of enthusiasm even with Herbert! Ida was not a dull girl. Unlike some who do not seem to connect their books with life, she made them her realities and lived in them, and as she hardly ever read anything more substantial her ideas of life and society were founded on them, though in her own house she was shrewd in practical matters, and though not strong was a useful active assistant to her mother whenever there was no danger of her being detected in doing anything derogatory to one so nearly connected with the peerage.
Indeed, she seemed to regard her sister's dutiful studies as proofs of dulness and want of spirit. She was quite angry when Constance objected to
'Well, if I would be in bondage to an old governess! You are not such a child now.'
'Don't, Ida. Uncle Frank would not like it either.'
'Perhaps not,' said Ida, with an ugly, meaning laugh as she glanced again at the title.
