mrs. winstone won the admiration of her distinguished circle and the high approval of the duke for the tact with which she managed julia’s destinies at this period. as the bride’s husband was away and she had neither entered society as a maid nor in company with her legal owner, her appearance at balls and formal dinners would have created a scandal. nevertheless, she must be educated, and mrs. winstone cut the difference with her never failing acumen. her own drawing-room was thronged with “the world” nearly every afternoon; she gave many small dinners to the smartest dissenters from middle-class morality that she knew; it was the era of the problem play, and julia saw them all, as well as the “halls,” with their strange company in the lobbies; nigel herbert and one or two other admirers were encouraged; and the most modern and extreme of the psychological novels and plays littered the room above the mews.
but julia, although some glimmerings of life’s realities were beginning to penetrate the serene unconsciousness of childhood (enough to induce in her a certain reserve of speech), was far too rushed and bewildered to comprehend more than one-hundredth part of what she heard and saw—the novels and plays she was too tired in her few solitary moments to open. shopping, fitting, luncheons, dinners, the afternoon gatherings, the theatre, the constant buzz of conversation about politics and scandal, kept the surface of her mind agitated and left the depths untouched. even nigel, in spite of his ardent eyes and tender notes, she barely separated from bridgit and ishbel, merely conscious that she liked the three better than any one on earth except her mother. if she thought of france at all, it was to experience a sensation of momentary gratitude to the person that had given her this brilliant experience; although, after she began to rehearse daily for the presentation, curtsying before a row of dummies until she ached, backing out with her train over her arm, the correct smile on her face, the correct measure of respect and dignity in her mien, she was disposed to wish herself back on nevis.
had it not been for the immense respectability of the duke, and his personal friendship with his sovereign, the application to present the wife of harold france at the court of st. james might have received scant consideration. he was even under the ban of the royal arbiter eligantiarum. but there was no question of refusing the pointed request of the duke, whom the queen regarded as a model of all the virtues in a degenerate age; and mrs. edis was also remembered with favor. the lady arabella torrence, a sister of the duke, was selected to present the bride, and at six o’clock on a raw may morning julia was aroused by the hair-dresser, and, after an hour’s torture, went to sleep again on a chair with her feathered head swathed in tulle.
the respite was brief. at nine o’clock two women from the great dressmaking establishment patronized by mrs. winstone came to array the victim in a train that filled up the entire room.
a cup of strong coffee revived julia’s flagging spirits and vitality, and she fancied herself mightily when, draped, and sewn, and squeezed, and pinched, she was free at last to admire her reflection in the long mirror. her gown was pure white, of course, the front of the round skirt covered with tulle and sown with seed pearls, the train of a stiff thick brocade, which would be sent on the morrow to be made into an evening wrap, just as the round frock was to do duty for her first party. such was the private economy of the presentation costume. the duke had lent her the family pearls, and they depended to her waist and clasped her head. her skin was as white as her gown and her hair and lips were vivid touches of color. julia smiled at her reflection, then trembled as she gathered up the train, so much more alarming than the “property” stuff she had used at rehearsals.
word had come that lady arabella was waiting, and cheered by compliments from her aunt and from bridgit and ishbel, who rushed in for a moment, she descended to the family coach and sat herself beside her formidable relative.
lady arabella was a tall bony big woman, with the large hands and feet which are supposed to be the prerogative of the plebeian, an early victorian coiffure, and an imposing skeleton religiously exhibited so far as decency permitted and fashion expected, whenever a court function demanded this sacrifice on the part of a loyal subject who suffered from chronic hay fever. she had a deep bass voice, a bristling beard, and approved of nothing modern. “when the queen was young and gave the tone to society” was a phrase constantly on her lips. she had felt it incumbent upon herself to give the distracted julia a series of lectures on deportment, particularly on her behavior during the sacred hour of presentation, and had improved the opportunity to let fall many edifying remarks upon the duties of a wife, the shocking manner in which the women of the present generation neglected their husbands. although she disapproved of her nephew in so far as she understood him, she subtly conveyed to his wife that to be the choice of the future head of the house of france was an overpowering honor.
at first she had terrified julia, then bored her, finally, as the great day approached, loomed as a rock of strength. nothing, at least, could frighten her, and she was so big and so conspicuously hideous that it was conceivably possible to shrink behind her.
but there was a preliminary ordeal of which she had heard nothing, a grateful callousing of the nerves before making a bow to a mere sovereign.
many had waited for the last drawing-room because it would be the smartest, others because it was a bore, to be deferred as long as possible; many had been in italy or on the riviera; others had been put on the list by a power higher than their own wills. from whatever combination of causes the procession of slowly moving carriages was as long as the tail of a comet, and at times, particularly while the gorgeous coaches of the ambassadors were driving smartly down the mall, came to a dead halt. it was then that the sovereign people had their innings.
they lined the streets surrounding the palace in serried ranks. not even the american crowd loves a “show” as the british does, socialists and all. their ancestors have gaped at gilded coaches and gorgeous robes and sparkling jewels for centuries, and if the day ever comes when they shall have exchanged these amiable pageants of their betters for a full stomach, who shall dare predict that they will be entirely satisfied?
what awe they may have inherited had long since disappeared. they crowded up against the procession of carriages, devouring with their curious good-natured eyes the splendid gowns and jewels, the glimpses of bare shoulders, and the beauty or bones of women apparently insensible of their existence.
for a time julia clutched nervously at the pearls beneath her cloak, and shrank from that sea of eyes under hats of an indescribable commonness.
“my eye, ain’t her hair red!” exclaimed one young woman, with unmistakable reference. “and a little paint wouldn’t ’urt her.”
“paint? that there’s high-toned pallor—”
“pearl powder—”
“oh, i sy, wot for do they let bibies like that marry when they don’t have to? i call it a shime.”
“right you are!”
one girl, with a violent color and black frizzled hair that stood out quite eight inches from three parts of her face, thrust her head through the open window of the coach.
“don’t you mind wot they sy,” she said consolingly. “they’re that nonsensical they can’t ’elp chaffing. and you’re the prettiest and the most haristocratic of the whole lot—i’ve been all up and down the line. and it ain’t powder! my word, but your complexion’s grand!”
she withdrew without waiting for an answer. julia turned to lady arabella, who, throughout the ordeal, had sat as upright as if corseted in iron, and with her long haughty profile turned unflinchingly to the mob. so, it must be conceded, stupid as she was in her pride, would she have sat if they had threatened her life. as julia asked her timidly (in effect) if the most aristocratic function of the year was always treated like a travelling circus, lady arabella answered, without flickering an eyelash: “always, and fortunately for us. the lower classes love to see us on parade, and the more we give them of this sort of thing, the longer we shall keep their loyalty. moreover, it serves the purpose—this drawing-room procession, in particular—of bringing us in close touch with the people, serves to demonstrate that we are real mortals, not the ridiculous creatures in the sort of novels they read. i always endeavor to look a symbol. i hope you will learn to do the same in time, for the lower classes are secretly proud of us and like us to play our part. you are drooping. sit up and present your profile.”
“what’s the use of a profile without a backbone?” said julia, wearily. “i’m so tired.”
“you must rise above mere physical fatigue,” said the old dame, severely. “people in our class keep our backbones for our bedrooms. when you are inclined to complain, think of the poor royalties, who stand for hours. and don’t finger your pearls. you are supposed to have been born with them about your neck.”
julia’s sense of humor was not yet fully awake, but her new relative’s words were tonic as well as reassuring; she sat erect, but turned her eyes round her profile to regard this strange lower class of london, of which she had heard much but seen nothing until to-day. they were an ugly lot; beauty would seem to be the prerogative of aristocracy in england, possibly because it is well fed; they wore rough ready-made frocks, or, where finery was attempted, feathers and ribbons inferior to anything julia had ever seen on the negroes of nevis; and many of the hats looked as if they might be used as nightcaps to protect the elaborate masses of frizzled hair. julia, brought up on the soundest aristocratic principles, saw in this gaping good-natured crowd but a broad and solid foundation for the historic institution above.
the coach finally rolled through the gates of buckingham palace. for an hour longer she stood, her slippers pinching until her native independence of character almost induced her to kick them off. but she was so tired after a month of london, an almost sleepless night, and the excitements of an already long day, that her brain worked toward no such simple solution, and before her moment came she ached from head to foot. the scene became a blur of vast rooms, of tall women, very thin or very fat, with diamond tiaras above set faces, and trains of every color over their arms, of girls that shifted from one foot to the other and breathed audibly their wish that it were over. one by one they disappeared. there was a sharp emphatic whisper from lady arabella. julia started and set her teeth. “mind you don’t sit down like that daughter of the american ambassador,” whispered the same fierce nervous voice. “remember all that you have rehearsed.”
julia, terrified to her marrow, did as opera singers do in moments of distress; she “fell back on technique.” afterward she remembered vaguely making a succession of curtsies to a long row of dazzling crowns, but no effort of memory ever recalled the features beneath. she received the train flung over her arm and backed out without disgracing herself, but also without a thrill of that joy which a loyal subject is supposed to feel when in the presence of his sovereign for the first time.
“not bad,” said lady arabella, graciously, as after many more moments, they entered their carriage. but julia was yawning. when she reached the house in tilney street, she went to bed and refused to get up for twenty-four hours.