John Strange Winter

Have you ever noticed how a lie spreads and grows as it flies along? What a pity it is that the truth does not increase in the same proportion!

“Pray be seated, madame,” said Madame Clementine. “I am delighted to be honored by a visit from so distinguished a lady. Certainly I know your name well, everyone interested in the cause of womanhood knows the name of Mrs. Alfred Whittaker.”

Regina smiled and bowed. She was well accustomed to this kind of flattery, but it had never lost its charm for her, and now, after all those years, she accepted it at its face value.

“Mademoiselle Gabrielle,” called Madame Clementine.

“Mais oui, Madame,” answered a voice from another room, and immediately a little French girl came running in.

“Now, mademoiselle, here is a very distinguished lady—This is my right hand,” said Madame Clementine, turning to Regina. “Now, something very chic. Yes, look Mrs. Whittaker well over. You see, Gabrielle looks from this point and from that point, she takes in the whole. It is not with us to sell any hat that comes first, but to sell madame a hat that will always give madame satisfaction when she looks in the glass.”

“Mrs. Whittaker has not been very pleased with her milliner heretofore,” said Madame Florence.

“Ah madame, now you will never go anywhere else. My clients never leave me, because I believe in what you English call ‘the personal note.’ We have models—oh yes, that is absolutely necessary, because we have ladies who come in and say, ‘I want a hat, I want to wear it now,’ and they pay for it and go away. Well, we must supply their needs, but, when we have regular clients, we like to have a day or two of notice, to see the dress madame is wearing, the mood madame is in, and her state of health, then we make a toque that is madame’s toque, not a toque that you will meet three times between this and Oxford Street.”

“If you suit me,” said Regina, “and give me something that I can go home in, I will put myself unreservedly in your hands in the future. I know little or nothing about dress,” she went on, with a superior, platform kind of air—an assertion which made the lively Frenchwoman positively shudder—“yet I am feminine enough to wish to be well dressed.”

“Ah, we will satisfy madame. Well, Gabrielle?”

“I think,” said little Mademoiselle Gabrielle, “that madame will find the toque that came down yesterday would suit her as well as anything not specially made for her. I will get it, madame.”

She disappeared into the next room, returning with a large black toque in her hand. It was light in fabric, it was bright with jet, and a couple of handsome black plumes fell over the coiffure at the back.

“Ah, yes, Gabrielle, yes. Now try it on, madame. Not with those pins, they do not fit with the style of the hat. Madame will not mind to buy hat-pins?”

“If they are not ruinous,” said Regina, who was in a very much “in for a penny, in for a pound” kind of mind.

“Antoinette, Antoinette, bring the box of ’at-pins,” said Mademoiselle Gabrielle.

Immediately another little French girl came out carrying a large tray of hat-pins.

“Madame is not in mourning? We will not have jet—no, no! Now these?”

She pounced upon some cut-steel hat-pins which matched the ornaments on the hat, and then with deft and soft little fingers she firmly fixed the toque on Regina’s head.

“You see,” said Madame Clementine, spreading her hands, and looking at Madame Florence for approval. “Yes, that is the hat for madame. Regard yourself, madame—give madame the ’and-glass.”

Regina got up and walked with stately mien to the long glass set so as to catch the best light from the windows. Indeed, the toque was most becoming. She saw herself a different woman, more like those gracious, well-furnished superb British matrons whom she was accustomed to see sitting behind prancing horses and powdered footmen on those rare occasions when she had allowed herself to be inveigled into the Park. It was not a cheap toque, but Regina had the sense to see that it was worth the money asked for it.

“It is not ver’ cheap,” said Madame Clementine, “non, but it is good, it will last, it is not a toque for a day and then another for to-morrow. Then these plumes, they will come in again and again.”

“I will have it,” said Regina; “I am quite satisfied with it. I only feel, Madame Clementine, that—er—my—my upper part is, well—is superior to my lower part, what in our vernacular we call ‘a ha’-penny head and a farthing tail.’”

“Oh, ver’ good, ver’ good,” cried Madame Clementine, with your true Parisienne’s shriek of laughter. “You see, Gabrielle, the gros sou for the head and the little sou for the tail. Oh, that is most expressive. But, madame, you can remedy that.”

“Oh yes, I suppose I can,” said Regina, doubtfully, “I wish you were a dressmaker.”

“Oh, indeed, no! It does not do, you have not chic if you mix all sorts together. To be modiste and to be couturiÈre is like being a painter and a singer at the same time. But I can tell you of a little Frenchwoman—she could dress you—ah—eugh!” And she kissed the tips of her fingers.

“Well, if you will give me her address I will go to her,” said Regina.

“To-day? But it is too late,” said Madame Florence. “Mrs. Whittaker is coming upstairs to have tea with me,” she added; “it will be ready now.”

“Does your friend live far away?” said Regina to Madame Clementine.

“No, not very far, just three streets away. It is une vraie artiste—no great price, she is not known. By-and-bye she will be—unattainable, excepting to her old clients. Antoinette, write down the address of Madame d’Estelle. And when you have arranged your gowns with her, you will come back to me for suitable toques?”

“Yes,” said Regina, “I will put myself unreservedly in your hands. I feel you are a woman of taste, an artiste. I frankly confess that I am—not.”

It was with many wreathed smiles, becks and bows and assurances of welcome when she should come again that Regina was finally allowed to return to The Dressing-Room for the tea which was waiting her. Finally, after having written a cheque for her preliminary treatments, she found herself walking along Berners Street in the direction of Oxford Street, and a feeling took possession of her that, after all, fashionable women knew what they were doing when they patronized private establishments. She had heard of them, because details of dress had not wholly ebbed by leaving her high and dry on the shore of high principle, devoid of the herbage of feminine grace. She had heard that no well-dressed woman, no really well-dressed woman, would ever get her clothes at a shop, and her keen and busy brain turned over the subject as she walked away from The Dressing-Room. After all, she had learned much during her years at the helm of the Society for the Regeneration of Women, and she had learned, above all things, to set a true value on the quality which is called individualism. She had learned that you cannot herd humanity with success, and she was now learning that you cannot dress humanity en bloc. She felt a curious shyness as she caught sight of her unaccustomed appearance in the shop windows as she passed, and once she stopped as she was walking along Oxford Street, at a large furniture establishment, and looked at herself searchingly. Yes, in spite of the feeling of looseness about her head which worried her not a little, she could see the intense becomingness of the new way in which her hair was arranged. It was then after five o’clock, but she steadily pursued her way in search of Madame d’Estelle. I need not go into the details of her visit. Madame d’Estelle made short work of her new client.

“Yes, madame,” she said, “you want a little frock built for that toque. Well, leave it to me, leave it to me; I will make you a little frock—say ten guineas? (Take madame’s measure.) While they take your measurements I will walk round and study you. You will come again in three days for a fitting, then, if it is necessary you will come again three days after that, then in three days more you will have your frock. I will make you something consistent with your personality—it will be a little black frock, nothing very important, but it will give us a sufficient start. (Write, madame, a note—ten guineas—and the day of the fitting.) Leave yourself to me, madame, it will be all right.”

Then Regina went home. She felt that everybody in the Park was looking at her. So they were, for the story had gone round that Mrs. Whittaker had become a little wrong in her head. The story had been going round that she had been seen walking up the road in her nightgown and many variations of it had already found credence. “Have you heard the news? That Mrs. Whittaker of Ye Dene has gone off her dot.” “Oh, my dear!” “Well, Charley says he met her walking up the road in her nightgown.” “Oh, nonsense.” “Well, that’s what I said, but Charley met her himself.” “Was she walking in her sleep?” “Charley didn’t seem to think so.” Then a little later, “You know Mrs. Whittaker of Ye Dene, they’re saying she’s got a tile off.” “Well, I always did think she was a peculiar kind of woman; no woman would dress like that who was altogether right in her head.” “Yes, but I didn’t think she was as bad as that. Why! she, the President of some society for making new women. Who says she’s got a tile off?” “Well, my sister was at the Wingfield-Jacksons’ yesterday, and Mrs. Jackson told her that Charley had seen her walking up the road in her nightgown, so she must be quite dotty, you know.” A few days after the story spread still further. “You’ve heard the latest, of course.” “No, I’ve heard nothing particular, most people are away.” “They’ve taken poor Mrs. Whittaker away to a lunatic asylum.” “Oh, my dear, you don’t say so. What for?” “Well, I suppose she’s gone out of her mind. Perhaps the wedding, the fuss—so many presents—ah, I thought at the time they were rather over-doing it.” “But I thought she was such a strong-minded woman.” “Ah, but don’t you think there’s always something abnormal about these strong-minded women. Just as my Harry said when he told me—he got it from the club, of course; all the gossip in the place comes from the club—as he said, it’s all very well to take women out of their rightful sphere and let them regenerate the world, but it doesn’t pay; that that’s just how we ordinary women, who haven’t got souls above our natural duties, may take comfort to ourselves.” “When did it happen?” “I don’t know, but when they were supposed to go abroad she was taken away to a lunatic asylum. They say she’s at Bolitho House, and I did hear that she is kept in a padded room.” “But, my dear,” said the other woman, “just turn your eyes to the window. There’s Mrs. Whittaker walking down the road with her hair dressed a new way and the smartest hat on her head that I’ve ever seen in my life!” “Well, I never!”