Читать книгу The Black Cabinet - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 8

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“Chloe, how could you!”

“How could I what?” Chloe lit the gas as she spoke, and turned round laughing. She knew quite well what she would see—a serious, reproachful Rose, full of concern and good advice.

“Chloe, you know very well. How could you pick Mr. Foster up like that and bring him back to tea?”

“Poof!” said Chloe, blowing her a kiss. “Rose, you’re not a chaperone yet. And if you think I’m just going to sit down and let you come being married over me, you little know your Chloe.”

“It’s just because I do know you,” said Rose. She checked a tendency to dimple, and looked severe instead. “Chloe, you oughtn’t to do things like that, and you know it.”

“That’s what all the sermons say. Rose, I believe one could make quite a hit with potted sermons if one was a parson. That sentence of yours would make a topper. If you come to think of it, that’s all sermons ever do say: ‘You know you oughtn’t to.’ ” She made a face. “I suppose being a parson’s daughter will out. After all, what have I done? Asked a perfectly nice man to tea and gone to the pictures with him, accompanied and chaperoned by you and Edward. And the Tank introduced him to me—even if she did feel rather bad about it. And—and anyhow, he goes away to-morrow, and I shall never see him again.”

“You just wait and see,” said Rose.

On Tuesday evening Chloe and Rose went home together. Michael Foster had left Maxton; but a man stood where Michael had stood the night before, and waited as he had waited for Chloe to come through Miss Allardyce’s green door. It was an old man this time. It was, in fact, Mr. Mitchell Dane. He waited until the girls came out, and then walked behind them the length of the High Street. Scraps of conversation reached him—Rose’s name from Chloe, and Chloe’s name from Rose—laughter.

At the foot of the High Street he crossed over, and watched them turn into Basing Street. He stood looking after them for a moment, and then went back to his hotel.

Next day was a busy one in the work-room. Finishing touches were being given to the dresses for the County Ball which would take place that night. Miss Allardyce was much fluttered, and kept changing her mind about everything.

“The flowers higher up, Miss Smith. Oh, no, no, no, not there! Lower down, and an inch or two to the right. Miss Dane, that bodice is too low. Oh dear, oh dear, it really is too low! But the time to alter it—where is it? It can’t be done—and yet——”

“I could put a fold of net,” said Chloe, “but it’s just as you pinned it on her, really.”

“Yes, yes, put the net!” said Miss Allardyce distractedly, and then, ten minutes later, declared with her hands at her head, but it would never, never do, and that Chloe must take it off again. “And oh, how thankful I shall be when to-day is over!”

Rose and Chloe were thankful too when the last of the dresses had been sent off by a special errand boy. Rose was going to the ball with Edward Anderson, and was in a state of pleasurable anticipation which she tried to conceal because Chloe, who had no frock to wear, must play at being Cinderella and stay at home.

“Oh, Chloe, I wish you were coming,” she said for about the fiftieth time.

“So do I,” said Chloe frankly. “But go in a window curtain or one of Mrs. Jones’ antimacassars, I won’t and can’t. Just think of Monica’s face if I arrived in an antimacassar! I’d love to do it—just walk artlessly up to their party, and say how shy I felt, and ‘Dear Lady Gresson, I may stay with you, mayn’t I?’ Rose, I believe I really could make an antimacassar dress if I gave my mind to it.”

“You haven’t got a ticket,” said Rose.

“It’s just as well, isn’t it?”

“There’s a parcel for you, Miss Dane,” said Mrs. Jones in the hall as they came in.

“For me?” Chloe pounced on it. Parcels were few and far between. “It’s a box—a dress box!”

She ran upstairs with it, burst into their room, lit the gas, and was cutting the string before Rose overtook her.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Cut the string! Cut all the knots! Rose, it’s a dress box—but who, who on earth could possibly be sending me a dress, unless Ally’s gone clean off her head and addressed one of her atrocities to me by mistake? Oh’h’h!”

The string was cut, and the paper was off. The box that was revealed was not one of Miss Allardyce’s boxes. It bore the name of a famous firm—a firm so famous that Rose and Chloe clutched each other and gazed at it in petrified silence. Chloe was the first to recover.

“Either it’s a practical joke,”—the words came whispering—“or else we’ve just walked straight through Mrs. Jones’ front door into a fairy story, and at any minute—at any minute—the pumpkin coach may arrive.”

“Open it, Chloe,” said Rose.

“Perhaps it’s full of old newspapers.”

“Perhaps it isn’t. Chloe, do open it!”

“One,” said Chloe—she put her hands on the lid—“Two,”—she lifted it an inch—“Three,”—she flung it back. White tissue paper crossed by white ribbons. She untied them with shaking fingers; the paper crisped and rustled as she pulled it away; there seemed to be reams and reams of it. And then——

“It is the fairy story! It is!!” said Chloe, with the last thin sheet in her hand. The colour sprang to her cheeks. “I believe we’re asleep. I don’t believe it’s real.” She was looking with unbelieving eyes at the silver tissue of her dreams.

It was Rose who lifted the shining frock and held it up—a fairy tale dress, a dream dress, simple with the simplicity that is of great price. They both looked at it. Chloe began to laugh very softly and irrepressibly.

“How—how ripping! Rose, there are shoes to match! And the sort of stockings you read about! And—and——”

“Who can have sent it?” said Rose with a gasp.

Chloe snatched the frock from her, pinched it to see if it was real, and held it up against the light.

“I don’t care who sent it. I don’t care if it turns back into rags at midnight. I don’t care for anything else in the world as long as I can just wear this lovely, lovely thing. And—and—oh, what a pity Michael Foster’s gone away!”

“Chloe, here’s a note.”

Chloe tore it open, the silver dress over her arm, and exclaimed in astonishment:

“Lady Gresson! It can’t be—it simply can’t—I don’t believe it.”

“What does she say?”

“She says”—Chloe’s voice was bewildered in the extreme—“she says:—

“ ‘My Dear Chloe,—

“ ‘It will give us great pleasure if you will join our party to-night. We will call for you at nine o’clock. Will you accept the frock and shoes from an old friend?

“ ‘Yours affectionately,

“ ‘Olivia Gresson.’

“She’s never been mine affectionately since I went to work for Ally,” said Chloe. “Oh, Rose, how topping of her—how simply topping! There’s a postscript to say she’s got my ticket.” She threw the silver dress on to the bed, and hugged Rose vehemently. “I don’t believe a single word of it—it’s a lovely, lovely dream. And oh, ducky, ducky dear, don’t wake me up till the ball is over!”