THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition). E. M. Delafield
herself, faintly uneasy.
At the terminus Louis was awaiting her.
She exchanged hasty farewells with those of her companions not already seized upon by expectant parents, and told herself that the last link would indeed break between the old life and the new when she bade farewell to Mother Veronica. But Mother Veronica was hurrying down the crowded platform with a small child clinging on either side, her large umbrella causing considerable inconvenience to her surroundings, and her straw bag bumping smartly against her at every step she took. Zella realized that the nun had already forgotten her existence.
She had a passing sense of mortification, which was forgotten in Louis's exuberant pleasure at having her beside him again.
"We'll stop up here a week if you like, mignonne. You'll want to come to some theatres, and have a little fun, after all this school."
Zella's eyes began to shine.
"I haven't any grown-up frocks," she said rather shyly.
"I thought of that," triumphantly returned Louis, "and I've engaged a maid for you. At least, Stéphanie found her for me, in Paris—a nice woman, and she'll help you to get all you want. You'll find her waiting at the hotel. You can get anything she thinks you need, you know."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Zella ecstatically. She suddenly felt violently excited and happy.
"Your Aunt Marianne is up in town for two nights," Louis continued, "and she and Henry are dining with us to-night. I thought you might like to appear as 'grown-up' for the first time. Would it amuse you?"
"Oh," gasped Zella, greatly daring, "could I—do you think I could—put my hair up?"
"Of course, chérie! That's what Hortense is for. She has some sort of evening frock for you, I believe, that Grandmère sent you from Paris. It amuses me to think that we shall astonish your Aunt Marianne."
He laughed rather triumphantly, glancing at his daughter's pretty flushed face with unconcealed pride.
Zella followed her father into the big hotel consumed by only one desire—to shed as soon as possible her unbecoming school uniform, and to appear as a young lady of the world.
In the hotel bedroom, where carpets and curtains and electric light produced a startling sense of luxury after the whitewash and match-boarding of the convent, Zella found Hortense, a pleasant middle-aged Frenchwoman, awaiting her.
On the bed was spread out a little creamy lace dress that only Paris could have produced.
"The present of Madame la Baronne, selected by herself," beamed Hortense. "Mademoiselle would wish to wear it for the réunion de famille of to-night?"
"Oh yes!" breathed Zella.
The fascination of personal adornment, which had hitherto been quite unknown to her, woke suddenly.
Hortense had already half unpacked the modest school luggage, and Zella hastily divested herself of the dark blue serge bodice, with its high collar and badly hung skirt, and tore off the stiff straw hat.
"Do you think," she presently timidly inquired of the maid in French, "that you could—could do my hair up? I mean,not with a ribbon or anything, but really done up?"
"But yes, mademoiselle. Bien entendu."
"It isn't at all long," said Zella regretfully.
Her hair had often caused her to feel a genuine humiliation. Her plait, amongst the plaits prescribed by convent regulations, had always presented a singularly unimposing appearance.
Mary McNeill's straight fair hair fell in a lank pigtail below her waist, several of the girls boasted plaits over each shoulder, and Zella had often regretfully told herself that even her hair was "different," because the short, broad plait made by her unaccustomed and unskilful fingers looked so unlike the long smooth tails adorning the heads of her companions.
Hortense unplaited the soft thick mass and began to brush it out.
"Shall you be able to make such very short hair look nice?" asked Zella nervously.
"Mais, mademoiselle! quelle idée! Mademoiselle à une chevelure idéale; c'est soyeux, c'est épais—tout ce qu'il faut pour une coiffure de jeune fille."
Hortense ejaculated with sincere satisfaction as she coiled and twisted the pale brown waves of Zella's hair.
"Voilà, c'est ravissant!"
Zella looked at herself in the glass, and in her heart she echoed the maid's heartfelt exclamation.
It was the first time that she had realized herself to be actually pretty. In theory, Zella had seen herself as the beautiful young heroine of many an unacted drama; but the occasional scrutinies to which she had hitherto subjected herself from time to time in the mirror had left her dissatisfied with the extremely colourless delicacy of her small face, the: shortness of her brown hair and thick lashes, and her still diminutive stature.
Now she saw a very obvious admiration in the maid's eyes as she finally surveyed her youthful mistress, arrayed in the lace frock from Paris, and with her hair dressed high upon her head.
Zella felt a throb of pure, exultant vanity as she went downstairs to join her father.
It seemed to her incredible that only that morning she had been at the ink-stained desk in the convent classroom, putting away her old school alpaca apron, and crying a little because it was "for the last time."
A small orchestra was playing softly in the hall as Zella slowly and self-consciously came across it. Her ready emotionalism responded promptly to the obvious conventional lure.
"This is life—all this is real, and I am made for it."
She felt a transient pang at the memory of other aspirations and ideals.
"How hard it will be to give up the world!—perhaps harder for me than for other people. But that will make it more of a sacrifice."
Perhaps Zella's well-trained soul accepted the sop thus flung to it. At all events it ceased to make its voice heard.
"Zella dear! why, I didn't know you!" exclaimed the well-known tones of kind cordiality, overlaying a slight substratum of regretful disapproval, belonging to Zella's Aunt Marianne.
"How are you, dear? Say 'How d'ye do?" to Uncle Henry."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans always enjoined her niece thus, and would continue to do so, Zella felt resentfully certain, until the end of her life. She tried to look as though ignoring the behest, even while greeting Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's husband.
"Darling, you seem to have made yourself very elegant," observed her aunt, surveying her with an air of regret. "I thought you had only arrived from the convent to-day."
"We are going to stay up here for a week," interposed Louis, "and I was in a hurry to see my grown-up daughter. Certainly the transformation is complete, Zella. It does you great credit, my dear."
His eyes said a great deal more.
"Very nice, Zella," remarked Mrs. Lloyd-Evans in a tone calculated to allay every spark of vanity in any human breast, "and I see you've contrived to put up your hair. One always has to try experiments before getting quite into the way of it, but that isn't at all bad for a first attempt."
"My maid did my hair for me," said Zella rather maliciously.
"Do you mean the hotel chambermaid, dear?" said her aunt, still tolerant, but with the latent hostility in her eyes growing more marked at these revelations.
"Oh no! Grand'mère sent over a maid for me from Paris, a Frenchwoman called Hortense. She seems very nice."
"Well, dear, I dare say she will help you to keep tidy, though one would rather think you were able to look after yourself. And did she choose you this little frock?"
"Grand'mère chose that, in Paris, and sent it to me as a present."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans was silenced. As she