A Valiant Ignorance (Vol. 1-3). Victorian Romance
lady was the mistress of the very handsomely and fashionably furnished drawing-room and of the house to which it belonged. Her dress bore traces—so near to vanishing point that their actual presence had something a little ludicrous about it—of the last lingering stage of widow’s mourning. Her name was Pomeroy, Mrs. Robert Pomeroy, and she was presiding over the ladies’ committee for a charity bazaar.
Fashionable charities and their frequent concomitant, the fashionable bazaars which have superseded the fashionable private theatricals of some years ago, are generally and perhaps uncharitably supposed by a certain class of cynical unfashionables to have their motive power in a feminine love of excitement and desire for conspicuousness. Perhaps there is another aspect under which they may present themselves; namely, as a proof that not even a long course of society life can destroy the heaven-sent instinct for work, even though the circumstances under which it struggles may render it so mere a travesty of the real thing. From this point of view, and when the promoter of a charitable folly is a middle-aged woman, who puts into the business an almost painfully earnest enthusiasm which might have been so useful if she had only known more of any life outside her own narrow round, the situation is not without its pathos. But when, as in the present instance, a long-established, self-reliant, and venerable philanthropic institution is suddenly “discovered,” taken up, and patronised by such a woman as the secretary and treasurer of the present committee; a woman who would have been empty-headed and vociferous in any sphere, and who had been moulded by circumstances into a pronounced specimen of a certain type of fashionable woman, dashing, loud, essentially unsympathetic; the position, in the incongruities and discrepancies involved, becomes wholly humorous.
Mrs. Ralph Halse, in virtue of her office as secretary and treasurer, was sitting at Mrs. Pomeroy’s right hand; her conception as to the duties of her office seemed to be limited to a sense that it behoved her never for a single instant to leave off addressing the chair, and this duty she fulfilled with a conscientious energy worthy of the highest praise. She had “discovered” the well-known and well-to-do institution before alluded to about a month earlier.
“Such a capital time of year, you know, when one has nothing to do and can attend to things thoroughly!” she had explained to her friends. She had determined that “something must be done,” as she had rather vaguely phrased it, and she had applied herself exuberantly and forthwith to the organisation of a bazaar. The season was Lent; philanthropy was the fashion; Mrs. Halse’s scheme became the pet hobby of the moment, and the ladies’ committee was selected exclusively from among women well known in society.
The committee was tremendously in earnest; nobody could listen to it and doubt that fact for a moment. At the same time a listener would have found some difficulty in determining what was the particular point which had evoked such enthusiasm, because, as has been said, the members were all talking at once. Their eloquence was checked at last, not, as might have been the case with a cold-blooded male committee, by a few short and pithy words from the gently smiling president, but by the appearance of five o’clock tea. The torrent of declamatory enthusiasm thereupon subsided, quenched in the individual consciousness that took possession of each lady that she was “dying for her tea,” and had “really been working like a slave.” The committee broke up with charming informality into low-toned duets and trios. Even Mrs. Ralph Halse ceased to address the chair, though she could not cease to express her views on the vital point which had roused the committee to a state bordering on frenzy; she turned to her nearest neighbour. Mrs. Halse was a tall woman, good-looking in a well-developed, highly coloured style, and appearing younger than her thirty-eight years. She was dressed from head to foot in grey, and the delicate sobriety of her attire was oddly out of keeping with her florid personality. As a matter of fact, the hobby which had preceded the present all-absorbing idea of the bazaar in her mind—Mrs. Halse was a woman of hobbies—had been ritualism of an advanced type; perhaps some of the fervour with which her latest interest had been embraced was due to a certain sense of flatness in its predecessor; but be that as it may, her present very fashionable attire represented her idea of Lenten mourning.
“I don’t see myself how there can be two opinions on the subject,” she said. Mrs. Ralph Halse very seldom did see how there could be two opinions on a subject on which her own views were decided. “Fancy dress is a distinct feature, and of course there must be more effect and more variety when each woman is dressed as suits her best, than when there is any attempt at uniform. You agree with me, Lady Bracondale, I’m sure?”
The woman she addressed was of the pronounced elderly aristocratic type, tall and thin, aquiline-nosed and sallow of complexion. She seemed to be altogether superior to enthusiasm of any kind, and her manner was of that unreal kind of dignity and chilling suavity, in which nothing is genuine but its slight touch of condescension.
“Fancy dress is a pretty sight,” she said. “But it is perhaps a drawback that of course all the stall-holders cannot be expected to wear it.” The words were spoken with an emphasis which plainly conveyed the speaker’s sense that no such abrogation of dignity could by any possibility be expected of herself. “What is your opinion, Mrs. Pomeroy?” Lady Bracondale added, turning to the chairwoman of the committee.
Mrs. Pomeroy’s attention was not claimed for the moment otherwise than by her serene enjoyment of her cup of tea, which she was sipping with the air of a woman who has done, and is conscious of having done, a hard afternoon’s work. Perhaps it is somewhat fatiguing to be talked to by twelve ladies all at once. Lady Bracondale’s question was one which Mrs. Pomeroy rarely answered, however, even in her secret heart, so she only smiled now and shook her head thoughtfully.
“Miscellaneous fancy dress gives so much scope for individual taste, don’t you think?” said Mrs. Halse.
“Of course it does, my dear Mrs. Halse. Every one can wear what they like, and that is very nice,” answered Mrs. Pomeroy comfortably.
“But, on the other hand, a quiet uniform can be worn by any one,” said Lady Bracondale with explanatory condescension.
“By any one, of course. So important,” assented the chairwoman with bland cheerfulness. Then, as Mrs. Halse’s lips parted to give vent to a flood of eloquence, she continued placidly, in her gentle, contented voice: “Mrs. Romayne is not here yet. I wonder what she will say!”
“I met her at the French Embassy last night,” said Mrs. Halse, with a slightly aggressive inflection in her voice, “and she told me she meant to come if she could make time. Apparently she has not been able to!”
“Mrs. Romayne?” repeated Lady Bracondale interrogatively. “I don’t think I’ve met her? Really, one feels quite out of the world.”
There was a fine affectation of sincerity about the words which would, however, hardly have deceived the most unsophisticated hearer as to the speaker’s position in society, or her own appreciation of it. Lady Bracondale was distinctly a person to be known by anybody wishing to make good a claim to be considered in society, and she was loftily conscious of the fact. She had only just returned to town from Bracondale, where she had been spending the last two months.
“Romayne?” she repeated. “Mrs. Romayne! Ah, yes! To be sure! The name is familiar to me. I thought it was. There was a little woman, years ago, whom we met on the Continent. Her husband—dear me, now, what was it? Ah, yes! Her husband failed or—no, of course! I recollect! He was a swindler of some sort. Of course, one never met her again!”
“This Mrs. Romayne is the same, Ralph says,” said Mrs. Halse, sipping her tea. “At least, her husband was William Romayne, who was the moving spirit in a big bank swindle—and a lot of other things, I believe—years ago. She turned up about two months ago, and took a house in Chelsea. Lots of money, apparently. She has a grown-up son—he would be grown-up, of course—who is going to the bar.”
“But, dear me!” said Lady Bracondale with freezing stateliness, “does she propose to go into society? It was a most scandalous affair, my dear Mrs. Pomeroy, as far as I remember. A connection of Lord Bracondale’s lost some money, I recollect; and I think the man—Romayne, I mean, of course—poisoned himself or something. We were at Nice when it happened. He committed suicide there, and it was most unpleasant! She can’t