CHAPTER XI.

WITH MADAME DAMEREAU.

Mrs. Oscar Dalrymple's carriage stopped at the door of Madame Damereau. Other carriages, waiting for their ladies, drew aside for it, and Mrs. Dalrymple descended. Rather tall, very elegant, her dress, a delicate lilac silk, flounced to the waist, became her well, and her rich white lace mantle became that. The Damereau footman threw open the door for her, and she went up to the show-room. A lady in plain black silk, but than which nothing could be more rich of its kind, with a small cap on her head of costly lace, and lappets of the same, disengaged herself from a group, to whom she was talking, and came forward, bowing; such bows as only a Frenchwoman can achieve. It was Madame Damereau. A clever-looking woman, with a fair skin, and broad smooth forehead.

What could she have the honour of doing today for Madame Dalreemp?

Mrs. Dalrymple scarcely knew. If put upon her conscience, she perhaps could not have said she wanted much. She would walk round first, and see. Was there anything fresh?

The Frenchwoman put the tip of one of her white fingers (very white they were, and displayed some valuable rings) upon the glove of her visitor, and then passed carelessly through the door to the next room. Madame Damereau certainly favoured Selina, who bought so largely of her, and never grumbled at the price. Selina understood the movement, and, stopping to look at a displayed article or two in her way, as carelessly followed her. That was madame's pet way when she was bent upon doing a good stroke of business.

"Tenez--pardon, madame," quoth she, as soon as Selina joined her, and speaking in scraps of French and English, as was her custom: though she spoke both languages almost equally well, barring her accent of ours--which was more than could be said for the clientèle, taking them collectively, and hence, perhaps, the origin of her having acquired the habit--"I have got the rarest caisse of articles arrived from Paris this morning. Ah! qu'ils sont ravissants!"

"What are they?" cried Selina, with breathless interest.

"I have not shown them to anybody: I have kept them en cachette. I said to my assistants, 'You put that up, and don't let it be seen till Madame Dalreemp comes.' Il-y-a une robe--une robe--une robe!" impressively repeated madame, turning up the whites of her eyes--"ma chère dame, it could only have been made for you!"

Selina's eyes sparkled. She thought herself the especial protégée of the Damereau establishment--as many another vain woman had thought before, and would think again.

"Is it silk?" she inquired.

"No. Dentelle. Mais, quelle dentelle! Elle----"

"Madame," said one of the assistants, putting in her head and speaking in a low tone, "the countess wishes to see you before she leaves."

"I am with her ladyship in the moment. Madame Dalreemp, if you are not too hurried, if you can wait till some of these ladies are gone, the caisse shall be brought out. I will not show it while they are here; I want you to have first view."

"I am in no hurry," replied Mrs. Dalrymple. "I have not been here for two days, so shall give myself time to look round."

As Selina did, and to gossip also. Several of her acquaintances were present. Lady Adela Grubb for one. Adela was looking a little worn and weary. A discontented expression sat on her face, not satisfactory to see, and she evidently did not take the enraptured interest in those fine articles, displayed around, that Selina took. Of course they were all "superbes" and "ravissant," as madame was given to observe: still a show-room, even such a one as this, tempting though it undoubtedly is, does not bear for every one quite the fascination of the basilisk.

Amidst other ladies who came in was Selina's old neighbour in the country, Mrs. Cleveland, the Rector's wife. Selina was surprised.

"I am only up for a day or two, my dear," she said. "I shall call in Berkeley Street before I go back."

"And how is mamma?"

"She is pretty well, my dear, and Alice too. Mary Lynn is staying with them."

"Oh is she? You never told me that," added Selina, turning to Lady Adela.

Lady Adela's mouth took rather a scornful curve. "Do you suppose Miss Lynn's movements concern me, that I should hear of them? When did you see Aunt Margery last, Mrs. Cleveland?"

"At church on Sunday."

"How beautiful!" exclaimed Selina, as they were slowly walking round the room, to look at the displayed wares: some on stands ranged against the walls, some on a large centre table. The ladies moved from one sight to another with enraptured gaze.

"What is beautiful?" asked Mrs. Cleveland. "That mantle?"

"Which mantle? That old dowdy black silk thing! I meant these sleeves. See; there's a collar to match."

"Yes, ma'am," interrupted one of the assistants, "we never had anything more beautiful in the house."

"What are they?" inquired Selina.

The young woman, attired in black silk only a degree less rich than madame's and a gold chain, her hair arranged in the newest fashion, carried the sleeves to her mistress.

"What am I to ask?" she said in a low tone.

"Twelve guineas."

"It is for Mrs. Dalrymple."

"Oh! I thought it was Madame Cliv-land. Fifteen guineas."

"They are fifteen guineas, madam," said the young person, returning. "And dirt cheap."

"I inquired what description of lace it was," said Mrs. Dalrymple. "Not the price."

"It is Venice point, madam. Real Venice point."

"I think I must have them," cried Mrs. Dalrymple. "Are they not tempting?

"Not to me," laughed Mrs. Cleveland. "I have too many little pairs of live arms to provide for, to give that price for a pair of sleeves."

"Only fifteen guineas!" remonstrated Selina. "And that includes the collar. I will take these sleeves," she added to the young woman.

"Thank you, madam."

"Those are pretty, that muslin pair."

"Very pretty, madam, for morning. Will you allow me to put these up with the others?"

"I don't mind--yes, if you like," replied Selina, never asking the price. "I saw Lord Winchester just now," she resumed to Mrs. Cleveland. "I did not know he had returned."

"Only a day or two since, I believe. My husband does not care to renew our acquaintance with him, so----"

"Oh, what a love of a bonnet!" unceremoniously interrupted Mrs. Dalrymple, as her eye fell on a gossamer article, all white lace and beauty, with something green sparkling and shining in it.

"Ah," said madame, coming forward, "ce chapeau me rend triste chaque fois que je le vois."

"Pourquoi?" demanded Selina, who was not quite sure of her French, but liked to plunge into a word of it now and then. In those days, French was not so universal a language, even in polite circles, as it is in these.

"Parce que je ne suis pas dame, jeune et belle. Ainsi je ne peux que le regarder de loin. Mais madame est l'une et l'autre."

Selina blushed and smiled, and fixed her eyes on the bonnet.

"It is a charming bonnet," observed Mrs. Cleveland. "What is the price?"

"Thirteen guineas, madam."

Thirteen guineas! Mrs. Cleveland shook her head. Such bonnets were not for her.

"It is a high price," observed Selina.

"High! Mesdames have surely not regarded it closely. These are emeralds. Look well, ma chère Madame Dalreemp. Emeralds. It is the very cheapest bonnet--for its real value--that I have shown this season."

"I think I will try it on," cried Selina.

Madame was not backward to follow the thought. In a twinkling the bonnet was on Selina's head, and herself at the glass. Twitching the border and the flowers, twitching her own hair, she at length turned round with a radiant face, blushing in its conscious beauty, as she spoke to Mrs. Cleveland.

"Is it not a sweet bonnet?"

"If you do not take it, it will be a sin against yourself," interposed the bonnet's present owner. "You never looked so well in all your life, Madame Dalreemp. Your face does set off that chapeau charmingly."

"I will take it," decided Selina. "What did you say it was? Fifteen guineas?"

"Thirteen, madam; only thirteen. Ah! but it is cheap!"

Mrs. Cleveland bought the mantle Selina had designated as dowdy, and a bonnet equally so. Selina told her they were frightful; fit for an almshouse.

"My dear, they are quiet, and will wear well. I cannot afford more than one new bonnet in a season. As to a mantle, it generally lasts me three or four years."

"Look at this handkerchief," interposed Selina, thinking what a dreadful fate Mrs. Cleveland's must be. "I really think it matches the sleeves and collar I have bought. Yes, it does. I must have that."

"That's a dear handkerchief, I know," cried Mrs. Cleveland. "What is it, Madame Damereau?"

"That--oh, but that's recherché, that," said madame, in a rapture. "Nine guineas. Ah!"

"Send it home with the other things," said Selina.

"I am going," said Mrs. Cleveland. "I have bought all I came to buy, and it is of no use staying here to be tempted, unless one has a long purse."

"The truth is, one forgets whether the purse is long or short in the midst of these enchanting things," observed Selina.

"I fear it is sometimes the case," was Mrs. Cleveland's reply. "Are you coming, my dear?"

"Not yet," answered Selina.

Lady, Adela went out with Mrs. Cleveland. She had not given a single order; had not gone with any particular intention of giving one, unless she saw anything especially to take her fancy. But Madame Damereau's was regarded as a favourite lounging place, and the gay world of the gentler sex liked to congregate there.

"Can I drive you anywhere?" asked Adela of Mrs. Cleveland, as they stood on the steps of Madame Damereau's handsome entrance-door. "Will you come home with me?"

"Thank you, I wish I could," was the answer. "But when I do come to London I have so many little commissions to execute that my time has to be almost entirely given to them. I shall hope to call and see you the next time."

"I wish you would come and stay with me for a week," cried Adela, quickly. "It would be a charity--an oasis of pleasure in my lonely life."

"Lonely from the want of children," thought Mrs. Cleveland, with a sad, faint smile.

"Are you quite well?" asked Adela, quickly, some delicacy in Mrs. Cleveland's face striking her.

"I--hope I am," was the hesitating answer. "At least, I hope that nothing serious is amiss. It is true I have not felt quite right lately, have suffered much pain; and one of my errands here is to see a physician. He has made an appointment for tomorrow morning."

Adela renewed her invitation, wished her good-day, and watched the rather fragile form away with a wistful look. They never saw each other again in life. Before two months had run their course, poor Mrs. Cleveland had gone where pain and suffering are not.

Meanwhile, when the show-rooms had thinned a little, Madame Damereau had the "caisse" brought out: that is to say, the contents of it. The caisse was taken for granted; the articles only appeared. The chief one, the lace dress, new from Paris, and secluded till that moment from covetous eyes, was of a species of lace that madame called Point d'Angleterre.

Madame shook out its folds with tender solicitude, and displayed its temptations before Mrs. Dalrymple's enthralled eyes. Madame did not speak; she let the dress do its own work: her face spoke eloquently enough. Selina was sitting on one of the low crimson velvet ottomans, her parasol tracing unconscious figures on the carpet, and her own elegant silk gown spread out around her.

"Oh dear!" she ejaculated, withdrawing her enraptured gaze. "But I fear it is very dear."

"Never let madame talk about that," said the Frenchwoman. "It is high; but--look at it. One could not pick up such a dress as that every day."

"How I should like to have it!"

"The moment we took this dress out of the caisse, I said to Miss Atkinson, who was helping me, 'That must be for Madame Dalreemp: there is no other lady who could do it justice.' Madame," she quickly added, as if an idea had just occurred to her, "fancy this robe, fine et belle, over a delicate pink glacé or a maize!"

"Or over white," suggested Selina.

"Or over white--Madame Dalreemp's taste is always correct. It would be a dress fit for a duchess, too elegant for many of them."

Some silks of different colours were called for, and the lace robe was displayed upon them successively. Selina went into ecstasies when the peach-blossom colour was underneath.

"I must have it. What is the price?"

"Just one hundred guineas, neither more nor less: and to anybody but Madame Dalreemp I should say a hundred and twenty. But I know that when once she appears in this before the world, I shall have order upon order. It will be, 'Where did you get that dress, ma chère Madame Dalreemp?' and madame will answer, 'I got it of Damereau;' and then they will come flocking to me. Ainsi, ma bonne dame, I can afford to let you have your things cheap."

"I don't know what to say," hesitated Selina, taking in, nevertheless, all the flattery. "A hundred guineas; it is a great deal: and what a bill I shall have! that lace dress I bought three weeks ago was only sixty."

"What was that lace robe compared with this?" was madame's indignant rejoinder. "That was nothing but common guipure. Look at what the effect of this will be! Ah, madame, if you do not take it I shall not sleep: I shall be vexed to my heart. Just as madame pleases, though, of course. Milady Grey did come to me yesterday for a lace dress: I told milady I should have one in a week's time: I did not care for her to see it first, for she is short, and she does not set off the things well. I know she would give me one hundred and twenty for this, and be glad to get it."

This was nearly the climax. Lady Grey, a young and pretty woman, dressed as extravagantly as did Mrs. Dalrymple, and there was a hidden rivalry between them, quite well known.

"There is another lady who would like it, I know, and she has but just gone out--and a most charming angel she is. I do speak of the Lady Adela----"

This was quite the climax, and Selina hastily interrupted. Lady Adela was even more lovely than was she herself: very much, too, in the same style of delicate beauty. What would Adela be in that lace dress!

"I will take it," cried Selina. "I must have a slip of that peach glacé to wear underneath it."

"It will be altogether fit for a queen," quoth madame.

"But could I have them home by tomorrow night for Lady Burnham's party?"

"Certainly madame can."

"Very well then," concluded Selina. "Or--stay: would white look better under it, after all? I have ever so many white glacé slips."

Madame's opinion was that no colour, ever seen in the earth or in the air, could or would look as well as the peach. Milady Grey could not wear peach; she was too dark.

"Yes, I'll decide upon the peach blossom," concluded Selina. "But that's not a good silk, is it?"

"Si. Mais si. C'est de la soie cuite."

"And that is all, I think, for today."

"What will Madame Dalreemp wear in her hair with this, tomorrow night?"

"Ah! that's well thought of. It must be either white or peach."

"Or mixed. Cherchez la boîte, numero deux," quietly added madame to an attendant.

Box, number two, was brought. And madame disentangled from its contents of flowers a beautiful wreath of peach-blossom and white, with crystallized leaves. "They came in only today," she said. Which was true.

"The very thing," cried Selina, in admiration. "Send that with the bonnet and sleeves today."

"Madame ought to wear amethysts with this toilette," suggested Madame Damereau.

"Amethysts! I have none."

"It is a great pity, that. They would look superbe."

"I was admiring a set of amethysts the other day," thought Selina, as she went down to her carriage. "I wish I could have them. I wonder whether they were very out-of-the-way in point of cost? I'll drive there and ascertain. I have had a good many little things there that Oscar does not know of."

She entered her carriage, ordering it to the jeweller's; and with her pretty face reposing amidst its lace and its flowers, and her point-lace parasol shading it, Mrs. Dalrymple, satisfied and happy, bowed right and left to the numerous admiring faces that met and bowed to her.

That same evening, Madame Damereau, having dined well and taken her coffee, proceeded to her usual business with her cashier, Mrs. Cooper. A reduced gentlewoman, who had tried the position of governess till she was heart-sick, and thankfully left it for her present situation, where she had less to do and a liberal salary. Miss Atkinson and Miss Wells, the two show-room assistants, came in. It was necessary to give Mrs. Cooper a summary of the day's sale, that she might enter the articles. They arrived, in due course, at the account of Mrs. Dalrymple.

"Dress of Point d'Angleterre," cried Madame Damereau. "One hundred guineas."

"Which dress is it she has bought?" inquired Mrs. Cooper, looking up from her writing. She had learnt to take an interest in the sales and customers.

"The one that the baroness ordered for her daughter, and would not have when it came," explained madame. "I then sent it to the Countess of Ac-corn, who was inquiring about a lace robe yesterday morning: but it seems she did not keep it. She never knows her own mind two hours together, that Milady Ac-corn."

"It is a very nice dress," remarked Mrs. Cooper.

"It is a beauty," added Miss Atkinson. "And Lady Acorn need not have cried it down."

"Did she cry it down?" quickly asked madame.

"She said it was as dear as fire's hot."

"Par exemple!" uttered madame, with a flashing face. "Did she say that?"

"Yes, madame. So Robert told me when he brought it back."

"She's the most insolent customer we have, that Femme Ac-corn," exploded madame. "And pays the worst. The robe would have been cheap at the price I asked her--eighty guineas."

"Mrs. Dalrymple, lace robe, one hundred guineas," read Mrs. Cooper. "What else?--making?"

"Making, two guineas. Peach glacé slip comes next."

"Peach glacé slip," wrote Mrs. Cooper. "The price, if you please?"

"Put it down in round figures. Ten guineas. She did not ask."

"I sold her those morning sleeves with the little dots," interposed Miss Wells. "There was no price mentioned, madame."

"What were they marked?" asked madame.

"Fourteen and sixpence."

"Put them down at a guinea, Mrs. Cooper. Making peach glacé slip--let me see, no lining or trimming--say fourteen shillings. White point-lace bonnet, thirteen guineas. Sleeves and collar--what did I say for that, Miss Wells?"

"Fifteen guineas, madame: and the handkerchief nine."

"Sleeves, collar, and handkerchief of Venice point, twenty-four guineas," read Mrs. Cooper. "She must be rich, this Mrs. Dalrymple."

"Comme ça, for that," quoth madame.

"She has had for more than a thousand pounds in the last six weeks. I suppose you are sure of her, madame? She is a new customer this season."

"I wish I was as sure of getting to Paris next year," responded madame. "Her husband has not long ago come into the Dalreemp estate. And the English estates are fine, you know. These young brides will dress and have their fling, and they must pay for it. They come to me: I do not go to them. The Dalreemps are friends of the Cliv-lands, and of those rich people in Grosvenor Square, the Grubbs, which is quite sufficient passe-port. You can go on now to Madame Cliv-land, Mrs. Cooper: one black mantle, silk and lace, three pounds ten shillings, and one fancy straw bonnet, blue trimmings, three guineas."

"Is that all there is for Mrs. Cleveland?"

Madame shrugged her shoulders. "That's all. I would not give thank you for the custom of Madame Cliv-land in itself; but they are well connected, and she is a gentle, good woman. I thought she looked ill today."

"There was Mrs. Dalrymple's wreath," interrupted Miss Atkinson, referring to a pencil list in her hand.

"Tiens, I forgot," answered madame. "What were those wreaths invoiced to us at, Miss Wells? This is the first of them sold."

"Twenty-nine and sixpence each, madame."

"Peach-and-white crystallized wreath, Mrs. Cooper, if you please. Forty-nine shillings."

"Forty-nine shillings," concluded Mrs. Cooper, making the entry. "That is all, then, for Mrs. Dalrymple."

And a pretty good "all," for one day, it was, considering Mr. Dalrymple's income.