I knew how much food and wine were required for the party of one hundred guests, knew we would require extra help from the village, and all the spare pots and pans scoured up for duty, ordered without hesitation the hay for the stables. I had the spare rooms turned out and aired, oversaw the polishing of the lovely crystal chandeliers in the ballroom. The rags came away
brown;
the chandeliers could not have been properly cleaned in two years. I was in my element getting at last a shine on the fine furnishings that had been allowed to dull through indifference. The smell of beeswax and turpentine hung on the air, bringing peace and satisfaction to me. I had been wanting to have an excuse for this clean-up since my arrival.
I was not encouraged to go about outside the house, but guarded by the whole family, I did make the trip to Wickey for the ordering of the curtain material very early in the week, and to see that they didn’t order up another salmon-pink carpet with wine roses. I talked Annie out of peach draperies by telling her quietly aside that if she insisted on pink, Sir Ludwig would dig in his heels and buy green again. She soon found herself enraptured with a much prettier shade of dusky rose. The carpet had to be ordered from a London catalogue. Wickey did not every day have an order for an Aubusson carpet. Abbie, bless her soul, fell in love with an elegant carpet of Aubusson design, an ivory ground wrought with deep blue pattern. A very few hints made Sir Ludwig aware how ill these new fineries would suit his ugly green plush sofas. He agreed to let us make the choice of new covering, in his eagerness to get out of the shop. I’m sure we could have gotten permission to rehang every window in the house, for he was champing at the bit to leave. He just said ‘Yes’ and ‘That’s fine’ to everything, with hardly a glance at it, or the price ticket, either. A little haggling would certainly have lowered the price on such a quantity of items. We ‘accidentally’ ordered sufficient extra material to cover a few cushions while we were about it. The house was inundated with noisy and uncouth workmen the next few days. We spent the week sitting on hardbacked chairs while the sofas were out being recovered, but were so busy stitching up the cushions and rooting through the treasure trove of an attic that we hadn’t much time to complain. Sir Ludwig found plenty of time to do it for us. He was the sort of a gentleman who was happier with the shabby familiar objects than having his peace disturbed with strangers coming and going in his home. I wondered, every time I saw him take a deep breath and frown when the bell rang how he had adjusted so quickly to
my
troublesome presence.
Annie was quite simply delighted with the whole affair. She was like a child having her first birthday party. Every inch of leftover material of any shape or color was squirreled away in her capacious pockets for taking to her room. She held some supernatural communication with the deceased Ruth Kessler during which she was told to watch out for me. I believe this idea actually insinuated itself into her poor disordered head because Sir Ludwig had developed the habit of enquiring where I was every time I was out of the room for so much as a minute. I learned of this by remarking that every time I entered, one or the other of the family would say, “Ah, here she is now. Safe and sound, you see,” or something of the sort. It became rather a joke between us.
“I plan to step into the hallway and ask Chalmers if the extra hay has arrived,” I would explain with great gravity to the family. “if I am not back within five minutes, pray be in touch with Bow Street. You will notice that when last seen I was wearing navy bombazine.” Naturally I could not every day wear the bordeaux, and in fact it was feeling a shade tighter than when it was delivered. It must have been due to the lack of taking exercise, for I strenuously resisted any second helping of anything. I had induced both Abbie and Ludwig to do likewise, which I considered a great victory. Abbie in particular was making giant strides in her diet. She had a very definite waistline now, of which she was proud. By the ruse of trying new dishes for the party, I got a few ragoûts onto the table, which perhaps helped to account for the taking of no seconds. They were not just as a ragoût should be, somehow.
I suggested a wide ribbon round the waist of Abbie’s ballgown to show off her figure, which caused Sir Ludwig to look at me with a start. “What do
you
plan to wear?” he asked. “You don’t have a sleeveless gown, and will want to be in gooseflesh like the others.”
This detail had not slipped my mind by any means. I had been into the attics with Annie and got out a rather pretty bronze taffeta gown of some obese ancestor, which I had stripped of all flowers and flounces and recut to wear as an underdress. Its lumpy seams would be concealed by a gauzy covering I had under construction. I explained all this to Abbie, and was surprised to see that Sir Ludwig was incensed at the idea.
“It won’t cost you a penny,” I quizzed him. “As I am already into my salary to the tune of twenty-five pounds, I could not like to run up any higher a bill. Then too my close incarceration here at Granhurst makes a run into town quite impossible. Of course I realize I shall have two or three shillings tacked on to my account, but really, you know, used clothing generally goes for a song.”
“It will not be necessary for a guest under my roof to appear at a ball in a gown twenty years old,” he said. “Having already cost me close to a thousand with carpets and draperies, I am willing to advance another one or two for materials.”
“Now
he tells me, when he is certain there isn’t time to have it made up,” I said in a loud aside to Abbie.
Imagine my astonishment when the next day I was handed about twenty pounds of
ghastly
moss green satin, and told I would be taken that same afternoon to Wickey to be fitted by the modiste there.
“Lord, what an ugly color!” Annie said, regarding it.
Sir Ludwig looked at me questioningly. I was in total agreement with Annie, and think some traces of my feelings must have been on my face. “I thought you liked green,” he said. “Your first choice was green, if you recall, and you have said a dozen times you dislike the wine gown.”
“It’s—it’s lovely,” I exclaimed, trying very hard not to laugh, for he thought he was doing me a great favor. “But there is not time to have it made up before the party. Only two days away now.”
“I have spoken to the modiste in the village. She will have it done on time,” he pointed out.
“Oh! But really the other one she made me did not fit at all well. I shouldn’t like to go to her again,” I prevaricated hastily.
“It fit perfectly!” he objected.
Abigail had taken possession of the green satin, and was holding it up to me, frowning. “Stick to your ancient taffeta,” she advised bluntly.
“I’m sure they will take it back in the village, for the bolts are uncut, both of them.” Good God, and five ells on each, enough to outfit the whole family in moss green satin.
“We’ll go back in the morning and you can choose some color that is more pleasing to you,” he informed me.
“The bronze taffeta pleases me very well,” I answered quickly. I had sufficient duties involving the party that a trip to Wickey at this time would be nothing but an inconvenience, nor was I particularly eager for the villagers to see me flaunting myself in too high a style at Sir Ludwig’s expense. “If you want to ensure my appearance doing you credit, however, you might see if you can exchange all this satin for about three yards of dark green velvet ribbon—quarter of an inch, and
dark
green,” I emphasized, to ensure not ending up with great whopping bright green bows weighing down my gauze overdress.
He was looking offended, and this must be talked away, for it was this evening I had selected for the time when I would get the paintings in the Saloon changed. Both the Stubbs horses and Gainsborough animals were grating on my nerves, surrounded as they now were by so much elegance. To this end I set aside the material and began a series of judicious compliments on the Saloon. “So charming, so elegant,” I said, prior to introducing the ineligibility of horses decorating the walls. “Very modish, don’t you think, Sir Ludwig?”
“I like it very much. And it is saved from being overly dainty by the paintings,” he added with a challenging eye towards me.
“Ah, the paintings! Yes, I remember we discussed replacing Stubbs’ work—how
very well
they would suit your games-room! That pair of Fragonards in your mama’s sitting room . . .”
“Ruth would miss them,” he replied, unblushing.
“From what one hears of Ruth, I am sure she would gladly give them over to the Saloon. Annie tells me she was a great one for rearranging, and I doubt she intended things to remain static when she died.”
“You can hardly say things are
static
when you have changed every stick and rag in the room!” he pointed out.
“Nothing is changed except the Kent commode and rug and curtains,” I parried, rather glossing over a few chairs and tables that had found a new home.
“Nothing is the same.”
“You said you liked it,” I reminded him, far from relinquishing my goal, but discovering it to be more difficult that I had hoped. And I wasn’t wearing my bordeaux gown, either.
“I do like it, and I like the horses, too.”
“Would you not enjoy to have them in your study, where you spend so much time toting up my bill?” I asked, hoping to cajole him into humor.
“Maybe
one
of them,” he thought, “and we could change it for the stag in the study.”
“Oh, worse than ever! You cannot be so obtuse as to think those animals do justice to your Saloon!” I cried, outraged to consider a good painting of a horse was to be replaced by a very inferior etching of a stag.
“Do be reasonable, Lud,” Abbie said, laughing.
“I have been reasonable, which is not to say I haven’t a mind and taste of my own. The horses stay,” he decreed, and marched off to his study.
I knew he would not stay away long, however, and sat devising schemes to get him to change his mind. I was afraid he’d have the stag etching in his hands when he returned, but they were empty when he peeped in to see I was present and accounted for. “Still here,” I told him with a wave and a smile. I suggested a game of cards, hoping to win at gambling what I had failed to achieve by smiles and persuasion.
“Not tonight,” he answered, with a significant glance to his blasted horses. “Why don’t you play something for us, Abbie?”
Abbie, as eager as myself to conciliate him, for time was running very short, went to the pianoforte and played a few selections. I sat trying to envision how vastly improved the room would be with the proper paintings. To me, the paintings in any room were always the icing on the cake, and I dislike a cake with poor icing very much. It seemed a great pity all the work and expense was to be ruined by one man’s stubbornness. I suppose my eyes were frequently on the walls during the recital, for after a quarter of an hour, I was told bluntly by my host (right in the middle of a waltz) it was petty-minded of me to sulk, when I had had all my own way thus far. “After all, it
is my
home, and I think my taste ought to be represented at least.”
How odious it is to be put firmly in the wrong. I had taken upon myself to redo his Saloon to my taste with his money, and was pouting because he wished to have these few small tokens of his execrable taste to remind him he was master
chez lui.
“You’re right,” I admitted in a peevish mood, “and it is a pity your taste is so very bad.”
“Indeed!” he said stiffly, pokering up like an offended dowager.
“And furthermore, the straw rug in your morning parlor is hideous!” I said in a fit of pique, then left the room before he should beat me to it. It was not my plan to stay away. I went no farther than the library to recover my temper and my manners. It was badly done of me to have been so forward and unappreciative of his improvements. I intended to render an apology in some oblique manner before retiring, hoping this unusual circumstance might bring him to change his mind. Before I had quite recovered, however, he appeared at the door. My first gratifying thought was that he had followed me, and my hopes soared, but it was not the case. The Kesslers were none of them great readers except for the papers and magazines, but he had come for a book. It was ironic that in this Germanic household there should be such poor representation of the invention of Gutenberg. There was the library to be sure, with several shelves bearing dusty tomes, but nothing of a light, poetic or romantic nature. Nothing a body would actually be tempted to read, in either English or French. Even Voltaire and Rousseau were missing. Descartes, dating from the seventeenth century, was the most modern French writer, and the English stopped with a few tattered copies of the
Tattler.
“Oh, this is where you ran off to stamp your feet and scream, is it?” he asked, with a lifted brow and an eye not yet empty of anger. “I thought you would be in the morning parlor, tearing up the straw rug.”
There was a strong urge to answer this piece of insolence in kind, but I stifled it. “Oh no, I am not that strongly opposed to it.”
“That’s good, because I have no plans to change it.”
“Or the pictures,” I added for him.
“Just so,” he said over his shoulder, for he had turned his back on me in mid-conversation to examine the books.
“Looking for something to read, are you?” I asked casually. Had that foolish question been put to me, I would have declared I had come to take a bath, but perhaps he wanted to smooth over the squabble.
“Yes, I like to read a little philosophy before sleeping. I find it soporific.”
“That is hardly a compliment to the philosophers!”
“It is not intended as one. Philosophy is arrant nonsense, most of it.”
“How can you consider a search for truth and wisdom nonsense? It is the most serious subject in the world.”
“Truth and wisdom are not to be found in books, Miss Smith.” The ‘Miss Smith’ informed me I was still in disgrace. “Every man must make the painful discovery for himself. I read it to see where these fellows have run amok.”