Miss Mackenzie Part 56

"Under the canopy, d.u.c.h.ess," just whispered Lady Hartletop. Lady Hartletop was a young woman who knew her right hand from her left under all circ.u.mstances of life, and who never made any mistakes.

The d.u.c.h.ess looked up in her confusion to the centre of the ceiling, but could see no canopy. Lady Hartletop had done all that could be required of her, and if the d.u.c.h.ess were to die amidst her difficulties it would not be her fault. Then came forth the Lady Glencora, and with true charity conducted the lady-president to her chair, just in time to avoid the crush, which ensued upon the opening of the doors.

The doors were opened, and very speedily the s.p.a.ce of the bazaar between the stalls became too crowded to have admitted the safe pa.s.sage of such a woman as the d.u.c.h.ess of St Bungay; but Lady Glencora, who was less majestic in her size and gait, did not find herself embarra.s.sed. And now there arose, before the general work of fleecing the wether lambs had well commenced, a terrible discord, as of a bra.s.s band with broken ba.s.soons, and trumpets all out of order, from the further end of the building,--a terrible noise of most unmusical music, such as Bartholomew Fair in its loudest days could hardly have known. At such a diapason one would have thought that the tender ears of May Fair and Belgravia would have been crushed and cracked and riven asunder; that female voices would have shrieked, and the intensity of fashionable female agony would have displayed itself in all its best recognised forms. But the crash of bra.s.s was borne by them as though they had been rough schoolboys delighting in a din. The d.u.c.h.ess gave one jump, and then remained quiet and undismayed. If Lady Hartletop heard it, she did not betray the hearing. Lady Glencora for a moment put her hands to her ears as she laughed, but she did it as though the prettiness of the motion were its only one cause. The fine nerves of Mrs Conway Sparkes, the poetess, bore it all without flinching; and Mrs Chaucer Munro with her bevy rushed forward so that they might lose nothing of what was coming.

"What are they going to do?" said Margaret to her cousin, in alarm.

"It's the play part of the thing. Have you not seen the bills?" Then Margaret looked at a great placard which was exhibited near to her, which, though by no means intelligible to her, gave her to understand that there was a show in progress. The wit of the thing seemed to consist chiefly in the wonderful names chosen. The King of the Cannibal Islands was to appear on a white charger. King Chrononhotonthologos was to be led in chains by Tom Thumb. Achilles would drag Hector thrice round the walls of Troy; and Queen G.o.diva would ride through Coventry, accompanied by Lord Burghley and the amba.s.sador from j.a.pan. It was also signified that in some back part of the premises a theatrical entertainment would be carried on throughout the afternoon, the King of the Cannibal Islands, with his royal brother and sister Chrononhotonthologos and G.o.diva, taking princ.i.p.al parts; but as n.o.body seemed to go to the theatre the performers spent their time chiefly in making processions through and amidst the stalls, when, as the day waxed hot, and the work became heavy, they seemed to be taken much in dudgeon by the various bevies with whose business they interfered materially.

On this, their opening march, they rushed into the bazaar with great energy, and though they bore no resemblance to the characters named in the playbill, and though there was among them neither a G.o.diva, a Hector, a Tom Thumb, or a j.a.panese, nevertheless, as they were dressed in paint and armour after the manner of the late Mr Richardson's heroes, and as most of the ladies had probably been without previous opportunity of seeing such delights, they had their effect. When they had made their twenty-first procession the thing certainly grew stale, and as they brought with them an infinity of dirt, they were no doubt a nuisance. But no one would have been inclined to judge these amateur actors with harshness who knew how much they themselves were called on to endure, who could appreciate the disgusting misery of a hot summer afternoon spent beneath dust and paint and tin-plate armour, and who would remember that the performers received payment neither in _eclat_ nor in thanks, nor even in the smiles of beauty.

"Can't somebody tell them not to come any more?" said the d.u.c.h.ess, almost crying with vexation towards the end of the afternoon.

Then Mr Manfred Smith, who managed everything, went to the rear, and the king and warriors were sent away to get beer or cooling drinks at their respective clubs.

Poor Mr Manfred Smith! He had not been present at the moment in which he was wanted to lead the d.u.c.h.ess to her stall, and the d.u.c.h.ess never forgave him. Instead of calling him by his name from time to time, and enabling him to shine in public as he deserved to shine,--for he had worked at the bazaar for the last six weeks as no professional man ever worked at his profession,--the d.u.c.h.ess always asked for "somebody" when she wanted Mr Smith, and treated him when he came as though he had been a servant hired for the occasion. One very difficult job of work was given to him before the day was done; "I wish you'd go over to those young women," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "and say that if they make so much noise, I must go away."

The young women in question were Mrs Chaucer Munro and her bevy, and the commission was one which poor Manfred Smith found it difficult to execute.

"Mrs Munro," said he, "you'll be sorry to hear--that the d.u.c.h.ess--has got--a headache, and she thinks we all might be a little quieter."

The shouts of the loud nymphs were by this time high. "Pooh!" said one of them. "Headache indeed!" said another. "Bother her head!" said a third. "If the d.u.c.h.ess is ill, perhaps she had better retire,"

said Mrs Chaucer Munro. Then Mr Manfred Smith walked off sorrowfully towards the door, and seating himself on the stool of the money-taker by the entrance, wiped off the perspiration from his brow. He had already put on his third pair of yellow kid gloves for the occasion, and they were soiled and torn and disreputable; his polished boots were brown with dust; the magenta ribbon round his neck had become a moist rope; his hat had been thrown down and rumpled; a drop of oil had made a spot upon his trousers; his whiskers were draggled and out of order, and his mouth was full of dirt. I doubt if Mr Manfred Smith will ever undertake to manage another bazaar.

The d.u.c.h.ess I think was right in her endeavour to mitigate the riot among Mrs Munro's nymphs. Indeed there was rioting among other nymphs than hers, though her noise and their noise was the loudest; and it was difficult to say how there should not be riot, seeing what was to be the recognised manner of transacting business. At first there was something of prettiness in the rioting. The girls, who went about among the crowd, begging men to put their hands into lucky bags, trading in rose-buds, and asking for half-crowns for cigar lighters, were fresh in their muslins, pretty with their braided locks, and perhaps not impudently over-pressing in their solicitations to male strangers. While they were not as yet either aweary or habituated to the necessity of importunity, they remembered their girlhood and their ladyhood, their youth and their modesty, and still carried with them something of the bashfulness of maidenhood; and the young men, the wether lambs, were as yet flush with their half-crowns, and the elder sheep had not quite dispensed the last of their sovereigns or b.u.t.toned up their trousers pockets. But as the work went on, and the dust arose, and the prettinesses were destroyed, and money became scarce, and weariness was felt, and the heat showed itself, and the muslins sank into limpness, and the ribbons lost their freshness, and braids of hair grew rough and loose, and sidelocks displaced themselves--as girls became used to soliciting and forgetful of their usual reticences in their anxiety for money, the charm of the thing went, and all was ugliness and rapacity. Young ladies no longer moved about, doing works of charity; but harpies and unclean birds were greedy in quest of their prey.

"Put a letter in my post-office," said one of Mrs Munro's bevy, who officiated in a postal capacity behind a little square hole, to a young man on whom she pounced out and had caught him and brought up, almost with violence.

The young man tendered some sc.r.a.p of paper and a sixpence.

"Only sixpence!" said the girl.

A cabman could not have made the complaint with a more finished accent of rapacious disgust.

"Never mind," said the girl, "I'll give you an answer."

Then, with inky fingers and dirty hands, she tendered him some scrawl, and demanded five shillings postage. "Five shillings!" said the young man. "Oh, I'm d----"

Then he gave her a shilling and walked away. She ventured to give one little halloa after him, but she caught the d.u.c.h.ess's eye looking at her, and was quiet.

I don't think there was much real flirting done. Men won't flirt with draggled girls, smirched with dust, weary with work, and soiled with heat; and especially they will not do so at the rate of a shilling a word. When the whole thing was over, Mrs Chaucer Munro's bevy, lying about on the benches in fatigue before they went away, declared that, as far as they were concerned, the thing was a mistake. The expenditure in gloves and muslin had been considerable, and the returns to them had been very small. It is not only that men will not flirt with draggled girls, but they will carry away with them unfortunate remembrances of what they have seen and heard. Upon the whole it may be doubted whether any of the bevies were altogether contented with the operations on the occasion of the Negro Soldiers'

Orphan Bazaar.

Miss Mackenzie had been, perhaps, more fortunate than some of the others. It must, however, be remembered that there are two modes of conducting business at these bazaars. There is the travelling merchant, who roams about, and there is the stationary merchant, who remains always behind her counter. It is not to be supposed that the d.u.c.h.ess of St Bungay spent the afternoon rushing about with a lucky bag. The d.u.c.h.ess was a stationary trader, and so were all the ladies who belonged to the Mackenzie booth. Miss Mackenzie, the lamb, had been much regarded, and consequently the things at her disposal had been quickly sold. It had all seemed to her to be very wonderful, and as the fun grew fast and furious, as the young girls became eager in their attacks, she made up her mind that she would never occupy another stall at a bazaar. One incident, and but one, occurred to her during the day; and one person came to her that she knew, and but one. It was nearly six, and she was beginning to think that the weary work must soon be over, when, on a sudden, she found Sir John Ball standing beside her.

"Oh, John!" she said, startled by his presence, "who would have thought of seeing you here?"

"And why not me as well as any other fool of my age?"

"Because you think it is foolish," she answered, "and I suppose the others don't."

"Why should you say that I think it foolish? At any rate, I'm glad to see you looking so nice and happy."

"I don't know about being happy," said Margaret,--"or nice either for the matter of that."

But there was a smile on her face as she spoke, and Sir John smiled also when he saw it.

"Doesn't she look well in that bonnet?" said Mrs Mackenzie, turning round to the side of the counter at which he was standing. "It was my choice, and I absolutely made her wear it. If you knew the trouble I had!"

"It is very pretty," said Sir John.

"Is it not? And are you not very much obliged to me? I'm sure you ought to be, for n.o.body before has ever taken the trouble of finding out what becomes her most. As for herself, she's much too well-behaved a young woman to think of such vanities."

"Not at present, certainly," said Margaret.

"And why not at present? She looks on those lawyers and their work as though there was something funereal about them. You ought to teach her better, Sir John."

"All that will be over in a day or two now," said he.

"And then she will shake off her dowdiness and her gloom together,"

said Mrs Mackenzie. "Do you know I fancy she has a liking for pretty things at heart as well as another woman."

"I hope she has," said he.

"Of course you do. What is a woman worth without it? Don't be angry, Margaret, but I say a woman is worth nothing without it, and Sir John will agree with me if he knows anything about the matter. But, Margaret, why don't you make him buy something? He can't refuse you if you ask him."

If Miss Mackenzie could thereby have provided for all the negro soldiers' orphans in existence, I do not think that she could at that moment have solicited him to make a purchase.

"Come, Sir John," continued Mrs Mackenzie, "you must buy something of her. What do you say to this paper-knife?"

"How much does the paper-knife cost?" said he, still smiling. It was a large, elaborate, and perhaps, I may say, unwieldy affair, with a great elephant at the end of it.

"Oh! that is terribly dear," said Margaret, "it costs two pounds ten."

Thereupon he put his hand into his pocket, and taking out his purse, gave her a five-pound note.

"We never give change," said Mrs Mackenzie: "do we, Margaret?"

"I'll give him change," said Margaret.

"I'll be extravagant for once," said Sir John, "and let you keep the whole."

"Oh, John!" said Margaret.

"You have no right to scold him yet," said Mrs Mackenzie.

Margaret, when she heard this, blushed up to her forehead, and in her confusion forgot all about the paper-knife and the money. Sir John, I fancy, was almost as much confused himself, and was quite unable to make any fitting reply. But, just at that moment, there came across two harpies from the realms of Mrs Chaucer Munro, eagerly intent upon their prey.

"Here are the lion and the lamb together," said one harpy. "The lion must buy a rose to give to the lamb. Sir Lion, the rose is but a poor half-crown." And she tendered him a battered flower, leering at him from beneath her draggled, dusty bonnet as she put forth her untempting hand for the money.