Agnes Castle

“ Before the autumn of her disastrous summer had waned, the younger Miss Pounce found herself firmly established in the very position which had been the object of her wildest dream. She was head of the millinery department of the great Bond Street mantua maker.
Like her unexpected patroness, it might seem that her cup of happiness was full. But there is no factor in the calculations of existence so easily forgotten as that most important item of all; the human heart.
Pamela, in making her courageous plan of life, had forgotten to reckon with her heart! ”

“ My young Lady Selina’s curls were scarcely powdered, and shone very golden under the evening light, set in flying bunches each side of her narrow, pretty, pale, impertinent face. There was something in the expression of her countenance, attractive for all its wilfulness, that made Pamela’s quick wits jump to the horrid conclusion—before even she had clapped eyes on the driver of the curricle.
“Lord! if ever I see the look of one bent on a desperate course, I see it this minute!” thought the milliner, turning the glance on Lady Selina’s companion. ”

“ By this time Job was up on the back seat, and his master started the chestnuts at a pace that only his own pride and temper would have urged upon them.
“Oh, la!” cried Miss Pounce, and made a clutch for her hat. She drew the pure keen air into her lungs, felt the wind of their passage blow with the most delicious invigoration against her face. “Oh, la! Was there ever anything so beautiful? ’Tis the first time I have driven by moonlight. ’Tis the first time I have ever driven in a curricle! Oh, ’tis like flying, Sir Jasper! Oh, what a night! I vow I feel like a bird!” ”

“ Kitty unexpectedly stretched out her hand; with a sigh of relief he put it into it.
“I knew you’d be the first to say it ought to be paid, my dearest life.”
“Certainly, it ought to be paid, Denis.”
“You wouldn’t wish the poor dear lad—and him as pleasant over the green cloth as ever I met—to be penned up in the sponging house. Besides which,” added Kilcroney, in imprudent reminiscence, “don’t I know, isn’t it the mischief once you get into one of those holes! ’Tis like a sheep in a ditch: the sky is black with crows after you in a twinkling.” ”

“ The sound of hoofs and wheels, and of the clanging bell had brought landlord and landlady to the doorway. Pamela emerged slowly from her leafy retreat. She had a mind to keep the Mad Brat under observation as long as she could.
’Twas a mere child! Pamela knew that she could scarce have reached her twentieth year; and Pamela had once herself been mighty near flinging away everything a woman should hold dear, for a man’s smile. She had been saved, on the very edge of the precipice, by a sort of miracle. ”

“ Kitty stood and looked at Mr. Bellairs. He was in the throes of undeniable agitation. She looked at Pamela, serene and, as she gazed down at the child, Kitty thought, lovely, with a maternal softening of her bright, handsome face.
“Ah, Jocelyn Bellairs!” cried Lady Kilcroney, dramatically, “you may well turn away. You may well feel that sight were more than you can endure. But raise your eyes, sir. Behold, behold, and let your heart speak. Can you call yourself a man and refuse that trusting creature her rights, refuse that exquisite cherub a father’s name?” ”

“ Everything, everything left to me! ‘My dearest wife, Kitty, in token of the perfect happiness she gave me.’ Those were his words, Sir Jasper. But a year’s happiness, alas! and he, poor seraph, scarce able to endure anyone in the room with him with the gout so cruel settled in his joints that, if you’ll believe me, his feet were like nothing so much as warming-pans, and his hands—my poor Bellairs’ hands, why, there were days when he could not have borne that a butterfly should settle on them! ”

“ Kitty Kilcroney sat up and wrung her hands. “Was ever any woman so punished for a fit of temper? Oh, Lydia! Oh! I shall never smile again! ’Twas my Lord being so late in yestereven from White’s, mad-stupid with his losses. And, oh, the night I had, trying to show him the error of his ways and the vast folly of not letting bad be when the luck’s against him. And him going off in a huff, God knows where, before I’d as much as swallowed my chocolate! And Mrs. Mirabel’s hat coming on the top of it, and it is a sight to frighten the crows after all my trouble. ”

“ How much may hang on the droop of a feather; the tilt of a hat-brim; the glow of a rose in cunning juxtaposition with the soft carmine of a blushing cheek? Blue eyes may flash into sudden significance under a knot of azure ribbon, that had before languished their tenderest in vain. Saucy innocence may triumph beneath a shepherdess wreath; or tired charms kindle into new brilliancy stimulated by the consciousness of the perfect inspiration. In fine, all that life holds best is at the mercy of the mantua maker where the Lady of Fashion is concerned. ”

“ Hardly, however, had he broken his hot roll, than the room was invaded by fresh arrivals; a young woman, wrapped in furs, conducted by a gentleman who had not removed his travelling coat, and kept his hat pressed on his brows; a personage who entered with an intolerable arrogance as if the place belonged to him, who ordered champagne and supper for the lady, and fresh horses for his coach, in a voice which rang like the crack of a whip. He could not wait; the servers must bustle. A guinea each to the ostlers if they harnessed within ten minutes. ”

“ And indeed, when some twenty minutes later the plain Miss Vibart contemplated her image in the glass, she conceded that she might very well hold her own. By a couple of twists of clever fingers, Pamela Pounce had contrived to loosen and display her curls to an advantage hitherto undreamt of. When a hairdresser was called in, his services were not wasted on Sarah. And the “head”; what an exquisite indescribable trifle, and how becoming! The twist of silver tissue as light as the most delicate cloud, the single hint of blue, and the one full pink rose! ”

“ Her Majesty is not fond of audacities and you did, dearest Kitty, the most audacious deed.... Well, never mind again!
“’Twas your hat did the trick to begin with, my love; you was always so clever about clothes, Kitty. Sure, it was the finest inspiration to wear that modest country straw with its plain ribbon. It caught Her Majesty’s eye from the first moment, and that you know means so much. So modest, sensible and quiet you showed beside poor Susan! Susan, with that tow-row of feathers on her head! ’Tis she who is dished after all: ‘A loud young woman,’ says the Queen to me. ”

“ Men have been hanged for less!”
She kept him busy with whip and spur till the old grey mare wheezed and bucketed along the road at a pace astonishing for her years and size.
It was somewhere midway between Ashford and Pitfold that they crossed Mr. Bellairs riding towards them on his own rakish chestnut as if for a race. If Pamela’s heart beat high at sight of him she did not avow her pride and pleasure even to herself; if her bright, clear heat of anger and triumphant determination gave place to tender, womanly emotions, she betrayed no sign of them. ”

“ Yes, your Ladyship, the French have droll minds! But your Ladyship has seized the idea; not pink, but just a warmth, a lightening of the white, ’twill be exquisite. A twist of silver ribbon to hold it together—Miss Popple, where’s that silver ribbon that came from Lyons? I have a model here,” went on Pamela, stooping to pull out one of the deep drawers of the cupboard which ran the length of the room, and in which the most special treasures in the millinery line were hidden away from the ordinary public, only to be brought out for the favoured. ”

“ The romance of a lady’s own woman is centred in her mistress. She will clothe her in finery with a greater joy than if she were draping herself; rather than see her go shabby she would wear sackcloth; she will hang over the banisters, on a dinner-party night, to observe the sit of her train as she sweeps downstairs on the arm of some notable personage; she will lean out of the window to watch her step into her sedan, and if there are Beaux hovering and my Lady tosses her plumes and whisks her panniers to proper advantage it is Abigail’s heart that beats high with pride. ”

“ A poor girl never knew what spiteful eyes might be watching. It would do her no good if some loose tongue were to start a bit of scandal about her: “Miss Pamela Pounce behaving shameful with my Lord Kilcroney, as brazen as you like, before everybody.” It would always be, of course, the poor girl who behaved shameful, never the half-tipsy nobleman. Such is the way of the world.
“And as like as not,” went on Pamela to herself—she had a vivid and swift imagination—“the next thing will be: ‘They left Weymouth together. ’Twas a regular elopement.’ No, thank you, Pamela, my girl. ”

“ When Madame la Marquise’s coach came along there would be a prodigious clatter to wake them all up. Pamela knew that she was quite safe. It’s all very well to trim a hat. You never know what it’s like till you’ve tried it on.
Very deliberately she divested her glossy chestnut hair of its discreet cap, loosened the swelling waves a trifle more on either side of the firm rose-tinted ivory of her face. ”

“ La! men are base creatures,” cried Pamela out of her own bitterness. “White for your innocence, and the shadow of my broad brim over your eyes with a toss of white feathers atop, and just three black plumes standing up in the midst of them; the bit of tragedy that has come into your young life; one,” said Miss Pounce, “for the horrid danger you’ve escaped, and one for your poor deceived heart, and one for the remorse, like, over the goodness of that kind Sir Peter, making his will so generous and trusting, for all his ways ’ud be enough to drive any wife out of her wits. ”

“ The next moment the poor thing saw the Queen and the Princesses, and Kitty Kilcroney white as death and good Lady Flora scarlet in the face; she saw and understood. Motionless she strove to rally her courage. She wanted strength of heart and clearness of mind to do just what would be right; Quaker Rachel who had never done wrong but once! And for that breathless moment, unknown to herself, her eyes hung on Kitty’s face; and Kitty’s eyelids were cast down. ”

“ The moonlight flooded the road, hedges and trees sparkled and shimmered white as diamonds. The sky was one mighty sapphire, darkly, wonderfully blue. The stars, fainting in the moonlight, looked like the thousand facets of a jewel.
“Oh,” cried Pamela again, “I’ll make a head out of it for the opera, I will indeed! Sapphire blue ribbands and frosted silver feathers. ’Tis an inspiration.”
This gave Sir Jasper his opening.
“Why,” said he, “’tis a monstrous pity such a monstrous fine girl as you should have to work for her living. ”

“ And the marriage for next Monday as ever was!”
My Lady Kilcroney was in the long, narrow parlour which formed part of her set of rooms in St. James’s Palace. She, too, was in full fig; a marvel of glistening white, with the fashionable purple trimmings that proclaimed attachment to Royalty. The Bellairs diamonds shone on her throat and bodice, and diamonds shot from every angle of her piled and flying curls. At the Maid-of-Honour’s words she shook and sparkled and quivered in all her finery, looking like some magic tropical bird spreading out wings for battle. ”

“ I can’t bear to hear a woman cry. But I must say Joseph himself would have been tempted by that little—devil, this morning!”
“Hush!” cried the milliner, rocking the weeping Selina as if it had been a baby, but shooting another glance at Mr. Bellairs which, after all, held more indulgence than resentment. “Hush, sir! Leave me with her Ladyship. Go, refresh yourself with a tankard of cool ale, after your dusty drive—and send the landlady hither with the hartshorn.”
If Mr. Bellairs had thought highly of Pamela before, he now told himself she was the pattern of true women. ”

“ A small, dusky woman with very bright eyes and extraordinarily swift movements, she was like some quick furry animal of the mouse tribe; a greater contrast to the fair, large, composed English girl could hardly be imagined; yet on one point these two were singularly akin. Both were geniuses in the same restricted yet fascinating realm of art.
If there were a creature on earth capable of stepping straight off into the shoes of Madame Eglantine, first milliner in the world of Fashion, it was Pamela Pounce, the British yeoman’s daughter! ”

“ Polly, after a dumb show of wounded female delicacy, expressively rendered, tottered from the room as if her legs could scarce carry so much horrified rectitude; and the incident apparently dropped. Indeed, Pamela regarded it merely as another of Popple’s nasty bits of spleen. A low-minded, common creature! As if her girls would be taken in by such vile suggestions! As if the life of Pamela Pounce, head milliner, was not as fresh and fair as her own face! ”

“ From the moment of her seizure—spasms on the lungs—to that last breath, Sir Jasper had been in unremitting attendance. Every physician of note had been summoned to her bedside; but, in spite of all the resources of science, bloodings, blisters and cuppings, pills and potions, poor Julia Standish persisted in succumbing. He was the most afflicted of widowers! She had been the pearl of wives. No woman could ever compare with her in the whole world again. ”

“ Where was her dear Kitty? Suddenly she stopped—the smile faded, the light of the expectant gaze went out, shadow fell upon her radiance, a flutter as of fear shook her; yet she had but encountered the gaze of my Lady Verney. Susan Verney, who was very well acquainted with Rachel [43] Mandeville, who had indeed also tasted of her hospitality, both in town and in the country, now withered her with a blasting stare of denegration, a stare which said: “My Lady Mandeville, I am pure virtue to-day, I do not know you.” ”

“ There would be a fine moon presently, had been the [298] landlord’s parting words, as he respectfully deposited his Lordship’s wig, hat and pistol case in the curricle. The streets of the sleepy little town were clatteringly left behind; the steep hill surmounted; and then the Salisbury road lay before them, straight and white across the grey mystery of the downs.
Pamela thought it was the strangest night vision she had ever beheld. The earth seemed as featureless as the sky; the winds, which had slept in the valley, were lively enough here, as if the earth were their playground. ”