CHAPTER XIV
A BRILLIANT MARRIAGE
When May left the schoolroom behind her, Sarah found a great differencein her life. In her placid, good-natured way, May had always been fondof her, and had in a great measure stood between her and Flossie; butFlossie, when she became the senior of the schoolroom, took everyopportunity she had of making the younger ones, particularly Sarah,aware of that fact.
Sarah was then nearly fourteen, and rather taller than Flossie, who wasturned sixteen; so, had she chosen to do so, she could easily have gotthe best of her; but Sarah never forgot--never, indeed, was allowed toforget--that she was not a daughter of the house, and was not,therefore, free to fight and wrangle as much and as disagreeably as theothers allowed themselves to do.
Very, very often, in those days, did she have the old taunt of PrincessSarah thrown at her. "Oh! _Princess_ Sarah is quite too high and mightyto quarrel over it. _Princess_ Sarah is going to do the mute martyrstyle of thing."
So Flossie would--though she did not know it--encourage her cousin towork harder than ever, just by way of showing that she had somethingmore in her than to spend her life in bickering and snarling. Stay! Ido Sarah an injustice there--she was moved by another and a bettermotive, both in trying to keep peace and in trying to get on with herwork, for she had always the grateful feeling, "It will please Auntieso," and always a feeling that it was a slight return to her uncle'swife if she bore Flossie's attentions without complaining.
They did not see much of May; all day she was in the drawing-room withher mother, if she was not out on some errand of pleasure. And atnight, when the schoolroom tea was over, she used to come down for aminute and show herself, a vision of comeliness--for May was considereda great beauty in the Stubbs' set--in white or roseate airy garments,with hair crimpled and fluffy, feathers and flowers, fans and bangles,pearls and diamonds, and all the other necessaries for a young lady offashion in her first season.
Some time previously Mr. Stubbs had made his wife a present of anelegant landau and a pair of high-stepping horses. But Flossie, to herdisgust, found that her drives were no more frequent than they had beenin the days of the one-horse "broom." Then her mother had notunreasonably declared herself unable to bear the stuffiness of acarriage full of people. Now May objected to any one going with them onthe score of her dress being crushed and the unpleasantness of "lookinglike a family ark."
They had become very gay. Scarcely a night passed but they went out tosome gay entertainment or other, and many parties were given at home,when the elder of the younger members of the family had the pleasure ofparticipating in them.
Flossie was terribly indignant at being kept at home that May might havemore room in the luxurious and roomy carriage.
"Just you wait till I come out, Miss May." She said one day, "and thensee if your airs and graces will keep me in the background! The factis, you're afraid to show off against me; you know as well as I do that,with all your fine dress and your finer airs, you are not half so muchnoticed as I am! And as for that Sarah----"
"Leave Sarah out of it!" laughed May; "she doesn't want to go."
"I'd soon stop it if she did!" growled Flossie.
It was really very hard, and Flossie thought and said so. But May wasinflexible, and long before Flossie was ready to come out May becameengaged to be married.
It was a very brilliant marriage indeed, and the entire family werewonderfully elated about it. True, the bridegroom was a good deal olderthan May, and was pompous to a degree. But then he was enormously rich,and had a great cheap clothes manufactory down the East End somewhere,and could give May bigger diamonds than anybody they knew. He had, too,a house in Palace Gardens and a retinue of silk-stockinged servants, incomparison with whom Mrs. George's footman at Brighton was a merecountry clod.
So in time May was married--married with such pomp and ceremony thatfeelings seemed left out altogether, and if tender-hearted Mrs. Stubbsshed a few tears at parting with the first of all her brood, they weresmothered among the billows of lace which bedecked her, and nobody butherself was any the wiser.
After this it became an established custom that Flossie should takeMay's place in the carriage; and it was not long before she managed topersuade her mother that it was time for her to throw off Miss Best'syoke altogether, and go out as a young lady of fashion.
Before very long Mrs. Stubbs began dearly to repent herself of herweakness; for Flossie, with her emancipation, seemed to have left herold self in the schoolroom, and to have taken up a new characteraltogether. She became very refined, very fashionable, very elegant inall her ideas and desires.
"My mother really is a great trial to me," she said one day to Sarah."She's very good, and all that, you know; but she's so--well, there's nosort of style about poor mother. And it is trying to have to take menup and introduce them to her. And they look at her, don't you know, asif she were something new, something strange--as if they hadn't seenanything like her before. It's annoying, to say the least of it."
"Well, if I were you," retorted Sarah hotly, "I should say to suchpeople, and pretty sharply, 'If my mother is not good enough for you,why, neither am I.'"
"But then, you see, I am," remarked Flossie, with ineffable conceit.
"You don't understand what I mean," said Sarah, with a patient sigh.
"_That's_ because you're so bad at expressing yourself, my dear," saidFlossie, with a fine air of condescension. "It all comes out ofshutting yourself up so much with that squeaking old violin of yours. Ican't think why you didn't go in for the guitar--it's such a prettyinstrument to play, and it backs up a voice so well."
"But I haven't got a voice," cried Sarah, laughing.
"Oh, _that_ doesn't matter. Lady Lomys hasn't a voice either, but shesings everywhere--everywhere."
"Where did you hear her?" Sarah asked.
"Oh, well, I haven't heard her myself," Flossie admitted; "but then,that's what _everybody_ says about Lady Lomys."
"Oh! I see," murmured Sarah, not at all impressed by the mention of herladyship's accomplishments.
It happened not very long after this that the Stubbses gave a ball--notjust a dance, but a regular ball, with every available room in the housecleared and specially decorated, with the balconies covered in withawnings, and with every window and chimney-shelf, every fireplace andcorner, filled with banks of flowers or stacks of exquisite palms orferns. The entire house looked like fairyland, and Mrs. Stubbs went toand fro like a substantial fairy godmother, who was not quite sure howher charms were going to work.
May came, with her elderly husband, from her great mansion in PalaceGardens, wearing a white velvet gown and such a blaze of diamonds thatthe mind refused to estimate their real value, and ran instinctively topaste. And Mrs. George, who was in town for "the season," came with herdaughters, and languidly patronised everything but those diamonds, whichshe cheapened at once as being a little "off colour" and a "trifleoverdone." Mrs. George herself had put on every single stone she waspossessed of--even to making use of her husband's breast-pin to fasten astray end of lace on the bosom of her gown; but that, of course, hadnothing really to do with her remarks on her niece's taste--oh, no!
Flossie had a new dress for the occasion, of course; and she had coaxeda beautiful diamond arrow out of her father on some pretext or other.Sarah thought she had never seen her look so charming before, and shetold her so; it was with a smile and a conscious toss of her head thatFlossie received the information, and looked at herself once more in theglass of her wardrobe.
As she stood there, with Sarah, in a simple white muslin gown, watchingher, a maid entered with a large white cardboard box.
"For Miss Flossie," she said.
The box contained a beautiful bouquet of rare and fragrant hothouseflowers, and attached to the stem was a small parcel. The parcel provedto contain a superb diamond bangle, and Flossie went proudly downstairs,wearing it upon her arm.
br /> And that night it crept out among the young ones in the Stubbs'schoolroom that Flossie was going to be married.