Part 9

“Well, now, that’s getting out of the scrape handsomely, after all,” returned Mrs. Dilberry. “I knew from the way you and Jane Louyza got along last night that you could easily make it up, and would soon be as thick as two pick-pockets. Here, Jane Louyza, Mr. Allanby is ready to shake hands and be friends, and he says he is willing to make any amends you please for being impolite;” and as Miss Jane Louisa approached, simpering and holding out her large, red hand, her mother added: “There, now, you have him in your power. You know you always said you would jump out of your skin to see an opera, and now’s your time. I dare say he would think he was getting off very well to take you there to-night.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” said poor George, coloring and stammering with the embarrassment common to his years, and turning to the daughters, he blundered on—“I shall be happy if Miss Jane Ann—that is, if both the young ladies will honor me with their company.”

“With the greatest of pleasure,” curtseyed the ecstatic Jane Louisa.

“The favor is to us,” rejoined the dignified Esther Ann.

“You are not to trick me that way, you young people,” exclaimed Mrs. Dilberry. “I should like to go to the theatre as well as any of you, and if you a’n’t civil enough to invite me, I’ll go whether or no. Let’s all go, Mrs. Allanby, and have a jolly time of it. You and I can beau each other.”

I excused myself with rather more energy than was necessary.

“Well, I mean to go, anyhow,” resumed the old lady, “though, of course, I’ll pay my own way. It would be imposing upon Mr. Allanby to make him go to the expense of paying for so many of us.”

“Not at all, ma’am,” said George, looking still redder and more frightened, “where shall I call for you?”

There was a pause, but as I had not the grace to break it by answering “here,” Miss Esther Ann had to reply—

“We stop at the W—— Hotel,” and the conscripted squire of dames made a precipitate retreat.

“We’ll have to go back to the hotel, maw, at once,” said Miss Jane Louisa, “for you know ladies must always go to the opera in full-dress. I’ll have to press out my book-muslin dress, and take the wreath off my bonnet to wear on my head, and Easter Ann must fix something to put on.”

“That will be quite unnecessary,” said I, anticipating all sorts of mortifications for my inexperienced brother-in-law, “you may have seats where you will be able to see and hear every thing, without being so conspicuous as to make any material change in your dress necessary. Strangers, who neither know any one nor are known themselves, generally prefer being unobserved, and saving themselves the trouble of much dressing. You will all do very well just as you are.”

“What do you say, girls,” said Mrs. Dilberry; “that might do well enough for you and me, Mrs. Allanby,” giving me a wink, “but I don’t know how these two would like to hide their light under a bushel. Girls like to give the beaux a chance to look at them wherever they can, and I must say it’s natural enough. As to the trouble of dressing, why we’ve got nothing else to do here, and people that have the wherewith may as well put it on their backs.”

The young ladies did not give their sentiments, but exchanged glances and whispered together, and Miss Esther Ann formally proposed going up for their bonnets. Reiterating their hopes of being able to catch an omnibus, to save them the fatigue of a long, warm walk, they took leave, not forgetting to volunteer abundant assurances that they would call every day and make themselves quite at home with me.

As soon as they were gone I wrote a note to George, instilling a little worldly wisdom by means of advising him to go late to the theatre, when the front seats would be filled, and to place his companions where they would attract as little notice as possible.

The next morning whilst I was at breakfast, the young man came in.

“Well, George, how did the opera come off?” asked I.

“You mean the by-play, in which I was concerned,” said he, passing his hand over his face. “Don’t talk to me about chivalry toward all woman-kind again! But I’ll let you have it from the beginning. In the first place, I took your advice, and went to the W—— Hotel rather late. I was shown into what, I presume, was the ladies’ saloon, for there were a couple of dozens of female faces, of all sorts, turned toward me, as if I were something anxiously expected, and very queer when I had come. I understood it all in a minute, though, for right in the middle of the room, parading between two tall glasses, in which they could see themselves back and front, were the Dilberrys, the objects of all the nodding and tittering I had observed before I came in for my share of attention. The old lady espied me first, and puffing out, loud enough to be heard all over the room, ‘here he comes girls—here comes our beau at last,’ she ran forward as if she were going to seize hold of me, the other two following with their arms, grace-like, twined about each other. ‘La, Mr. Allanby, you have served us a pretty trick—keeping us waiting so long!’ exclaimed Miss Esther Ann, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if we were not to get seats at all.’ ‘I’m ready to pout at you, I wanted so to see every body come in,’ said the other. ‘We were almost ready to give you up, and had all these ladies comforting us,’ said Mrs. Dilberry; ‘here we’ve been, dressed from top to toe, for an hour or more, Jane Louyza walking and standing about, in broad daylight, with her arms and neck bare, for fear we shouldn’t be ready in time, for we thought that as you had made up your mind to lay out your money, you’d like us to get as much for it as possible.’ I escorted them to the carriage, assuring them they would be in time enough.”

“But what about their dress, George?” said I.

“You know I never can make any thing out of describing a lady’s dress. Mrs. Dilberry looked very choked-up, and melting and greasy, and had on that abominable frizzly cap that struck us all so last night; and Miss Esther Ann had on a white frock with old dark kid-gloves, and three brown cockades stuck on top of her head that made her look full six feet high; but Jane Louyza, as they call her, was the beauty! Her dress was one of those stiff, thin ones, that stand out like hogsheads, and are nearly as hard to bend. Such a crushing and pushing as there was to get it into the carriage, and down between the seats! Her neck was—I can’t tell you how bare, and her arms and hands ditto, only that on the latter she had little tight mitts, that looked like the skin tatooed. She had a wreath of artificial blue and purple roses on her head, and a quantity of ribbon flying in tags from each shoulder and from her back and front. But such arms and neck—so red and beefy!”

“And where did you get seats?”

“In one of the side boxes, three benches back—the very place I could have wished—but, as my luck would have it, a lady in the front row took sick, and her party left the theatre with her. Before I could have thought of such a thing, my fair charges pushed forward into the three vacant places, beckoning me to follow, and calling me by name loudly enough to be heard half over the house. Of course it drew all the eyes in the neighborhood upon them, and I observed that the Hallowells, and the Sewards, and the Wilkinses were in the next box; Joe Nicols was with them, and had the impudence to lean over and ask me, ‘Who the mischief have you here, George? country cousins, hey?’—and there they sat chattering and laughing at full voice, evidently greatly flattered by being so much stared at.”

“But of course, you had a respite when the opera commenced?”

“Just wait—as the old lady says. The curtain rose in a few minutes, and then each of them had to turn to me for explanations. ‘Dear me! is that one of your brag singers, the great Mrs. S——!’ said Miss Esther Ann, ‘how affected she is! Did you ever see any body roll her eyes so!’ ‘And what a mouth she has!’ said Jane Louisa, ‘you could almost jump down her throat! I don’t see any sense in such singing—Sarah Tibbets in our choir can go far ahead of that!’ ‘And how scandalous it is for a married woman to be looking up that way in a young man’s face,’ put in the old lady, ‘she surely must be painted up, such a color never was natural, and what loads of extravagant finery! I wonder what all her spangles cost?’

“At length there was a hiss beneath the box, and I directed their attention to it, informing them that it was meant to command silence, it being contrary to custom to talk during the performance. Mrs. Dilberry rolled up her eyes, and put her tongue into her cheek by way of being humorous, Miss Esther Ann screwed her shoulders and answered me huffishly that she supposed they should know how to behave, and Jane Louisa giggled, and kept her handkerchief to her mouth, every few moments looking back at me, as if it were an excellent joke.

“When the first act was over, a gentleman who sat between them and me, and who must have been exceedingly annoyed by their constantly leaning past him, proposed that I should exchange seats with him, which I could not refuse, though it made matters worse for me. ‘Why don’t you admire my bouquet, Mr. Allanby?’ said Jane Louisa, poking in my face a great clumsy bunch of larkspurs, ragged-robins, mallows, and those coarse, yellow lilies that shut up at night, garnished by a foliage of asparagus, ‘I was in despair about a bouquet for my evening-dress, when, luckily, I came across this when we walked through the market-house on our way from your sister’s. I do doat on bouquets.’ ‘Now do stop talking about that borquay,’ interrupted the old lady, ‘after such nonsensical extravagance as throwing away money for it. Why at home we could get a wheelbarrow full of such trash out of any body’s garden for nothing. But it seems to me you city people would be for making money out of the very dirt in the gutters.’ ‘La, maw, they only cost a six-pence, but you are so matter-of-fact, you don’t love flowers; we do, though, don’t we, Mr. Allanby?’ said Miss Jane Louisa.

“‘If you had told Mr. Allanby you wanted a bouquet,’ observed Esther Ann, ‘I dare say he would have brought you one, for we’ve heard that city gentlemen make it a point to give bouquets to ladies they wish to be polite to, and don’t mind how much they have to pay for them.’

“When the curtain rose again, the eye of Jane Louisa was caught by one of the understrappers, a tall fellow with a huge false _moustache_. ‘Who is that splendid looking young man!’ exclaimed she—not one of them having discernment enough to make out a single performer or character from the bill and the play; ‘isn’t he beautiful! I’m quite in love with him, I declare; why don’t they applaud him, Mr. Allanby? he’s so elegant!’ and greatly to my relief, she was so much taken up in looking at her new hero, and in watching for his appearance, that she withdrew her attention from me.

“At length, toward the finale, when S—— excelled himself in one of his master-pieces, two or three bouquets were thrown upon the stage at his feet. ‘What was that for?—why are they throwing their flowers away?’ asked Miss Esther Ann. I explained that it was an expression of admiration. ‘Dear me!’ said Jane Louisa, ‘I’d be very sorry to pay such a compliment to such an ugly fellow—he’s not fit to hold a candle to my favorite.’ The favorite immediately made his appearance in a chorus, and took his place not far from the box in which we sat. Just as he opened his capacious mouth, Jane Louisa, with the confidence of a boy throwing stones, pitched her bouquet at him. The great clumsy thing came down _flop_ against his face, breaking his _moustache_ from its moorings, and sweeping it to the floor. The galleries clapped, the pit hissed, one or two of the minor actors laughed, and it was some moments before the singing could go on. I felt, as you ladies say, like sinking through the floor; and I believe I did crouch as low as possible among the people around me. How I got back to the hotel with my tormentors I can’t tell, for it appears like a vexatious dream. I remember, however, that, while they were going up the steps, one of them said I should tell you they would call this morning to get you to go the rounds of the dressmakers with them.”

This was a duty for which I had no inclination, and I concluded to dispose of myself by spending the day with a friend, knowing, from the specimens I had had of the familiarity of my new acquaintances, that the mere excuse of “very much engaged,” delivered by a domestic, would be insufficient to protect me from their society. Accordingly I went out as soon as possible after breakfast, and did not return until evening. As I had anticipated, the “country ladies,” as the servants called them, had inquired for me morning and afternoon, and had left a message purporting that they would come again next day.

The following morning I had some business which called me from home several hours. When I returned to dinner, I was surprised to find the entry lumbered full of furniture, evidently from an auction—a dozen of chairs, of the kind “made to sell,” very loose-jointed, and with flabby seats of thin haircloth; a sofa to match; a centre-table, with its top, as large as a mill-wheel, turned up against the wall, and a piano, which must have had some pretensions fifteen or twenty years back, being much ornamented with tarnished brass or gilding, and supporting five or six disabled pedals.

“What is the meaning of this?” I exclaimed, to the servant who let me in; “where did all these articles come from?”

“Didn’t you send them, ma’am?”

“I!—what in the world should I want with such things?”

“So we thought, ma’am; but they came in two furniture carriages, and the man said the lady told him to bring them here—they had our number on a card.”

“It is a stupid mistake—I know nothing about it; and upon my word, they have broken the walls in several places, bringing their lumber in.”

“And that’s not all, ma’am—they threw over the hat-rack, turning up that monstrous table, and knocked out two of the pins, beside breaking the little looking-glass.”

And so they had; but there was nothing else to be done than to wait patiently until the real proprietor appeared.

I had just finished my dinner when I heard a bustle in the hall, and hastened out, presuming that I was to be rid of my unwelcome storage, and desirous to superintend its removal. Who should I find but Mrs. Dilberry and her daughters. Miss Jane Louisa had already the lid of the piano thrown up, while her sister was trying the chairs, and the old lady sitting, or rather bouncing herself up and down on the sofa.

“Oh, Mrs. Allanby, we’ve had the best luck this morning!” they all cried at once; “do tell us what you think of our bargains!”

“Stop, girls, and let me talk;” said Mrs. Dilberry, peremptorily. “Well, to begin at the beginning, Mrs. Allanby, we had laid out to buy two or three pieces of furniture, to set off our parlors—a pyanna, for one—ours, that the girls learnt on, that is Jane Louyza, being rather old-timey—(it was left to me by my Aunt Easter, in her will;) so Mrs. Scrooge, at the tavern—an uncommon sharp, sensible woman—told us we would be fools to pay shop prices for things when we could get them at auction, almost as good, for little or nothing. Well, this morning she hunted up a sale for us, and took us to it, and we’ve had all these things knocked off to us for—now could you guess what, Mrs. Allanby?—upon my word, for what we had made up our minds to pay for a pyanna! and the best of it is, the chairs and sofa are new, spick and span. The auctioneer said that not a soul had ever sat on them before. They didn’t belong to the furniture of the house at all, but to himself, and he had just brought them there to sell, for his own convenience. But the pyanna—just think of it!—I may as well tell you what it cost, Mrs. Allanby, though it would never do to let it be known in Tarry-town;” and she added in a whisper, “only sixty-one dollars!”

“Do try it, Mrs. Allanby,” said Jane Louisa; “some of the strings are broken, to be sure, and the pedals don’t seem to work, but when it is fixed up, it will be delightful.”

I agreed that it must have been a fine affair in its day.

“And the centre-table,” rejoined Esther Ann, “think of such a centre-table selling for fifteen dollars—pure mahogany! when it is varnished, and has a new castor, one being broken, it will be beautiful—or even if it were just rubbed up with oil and turpentine; indeed, for my part, I prefer second-hand furniture to new—it looks more respectable, as if we had it some time. Our old furniture at home I’m very proud of—no one that sees it can call us upstarts.”

“Yes,” added Mrs. Dilberry, “there’s the pyanna, and the book-case, and the pair of card-tables—”

“Don’t say upstarts, sister;” said Jane Louisa, hurrying to drown her mother’s voice; “I’m sure you know it is the fashion to call them _parvenues_!”

“Upon my word,” resumed the old lady, still see-sawing up and down on the sofa, to enjoy its springs, “it will make talk enough in Tarry-town, when we get home with such lots of stylish things; they’ll call us prouder than ever; but when people can be grand for quarter price, they’d be gumpies to let the chance slip through their fingers.”

Still the point that most concerned me, why they had been deposited in my charge, had not yet been broached, and I ventured to hint at it.

“Sure enough, we forgot to mention it;” said Mrs. Dilberry; “we could not take the things to the hotel, you know, so we told the men they might as well bring them here. I suppose they might be removed into the parlors at once.”

I remarked that my parlors were already as full of furniture as was desirable, and that their best plan would have been to have had them removed—at once to some cabinet-makers shop to be repaired, and boxed for transportation.

“That was what Mrs. Scrooge thought,” returned Mrs. Dilberry, “but we went to two or three shops and found they charged such different prices, that I made up my mind to wait, and go round to a dozen at least, till I could find out where the best bargain was to be made. So you may as well put them among your own things and have the credit of them till I can look about a little.”

I had no resource now but to send the chairs to the third story, the table to the dining-room, and to leave the sofa and piano where they stood. Whilst her possessions were being moved by the servants, Mrs. Dilberry ran about the house giving orders as if quite at home.

“Now I must tell you about our tower among the mantua-makers,” said she, at length settling herself in the drawing-room, and mopping her face with her handkerchief, after her exercise; “but, girls, why don’t you follow my example and take your bonnets off? Don’t wait to be coaxed—Mrs. Allanby don’t expect you to make strangers of yourselves with her; as we’ve come to spend the afternoon, we may as well be comfortable first as last. But where was I about the mantua-makers? Oh, I believe I hadn’t began. Well, a lady at the tavern gave us the names of three of them, written on a card, with directions where they were to be found. So we got into an omnibus, in front of the hotel, and were let out at the corner next to the place that was nearest. We soon found the house—as I’m alive, a large three-story brick, with marble steps, and nothing like a sign about it. But the name was on the door-plate, and we rang the bell. A black boy took us into the parlors, and what should we see but Brussels carpets, and looking-glasses as tall as yours, and spring-seated chairs, and a pyanna, and every thing as fine as you please. ‘Mercy on us, maw,’ says Jane Louyza, ‘there’s nothing looks like a mantua-maker’s here!’ I thought so myself, and told the girls we had better slip out before any body came; but Easter Ann would not hear to it—she said it would look undignified, and, says she, ‘If we are mistaken, maw, let me make the apology.’

“In a few minutes a lady steps in, dressed in a handsome black silk wrapper, with a watch at her side, looking as stiff as a poker. ‘We were told that we would find Mrs. N——, the mantua-maker, here, ma’am,’ says I.

“‘I am Mrs. N——,’ says she, stiffer, if any thing, than before.

“‘We have three dresses to make, ma’am,’ says Easter Ann; ‘perhaps it wouldn’t be convenient for you to undertake them?’

“‘I am always prepared to do any amount of work,’ says she.

“‘What may be your charges, ma’am?’ says I.

“‘That depends upon the material, and the style in which it is to be made,’ says she.

“‘One is a silk, and the other two are balzarines,’ says I.

“‘And we want them made fashionably,’ put in Jane Louyza.

“‘I make every thing fashionably,’ says she, as high as if she was the president’s lady.

“We had our bundles with us, and we opened them, and though our dresses are beautiful, considering how cheap we got them, she looked at them without saying a word, and didn’t even deign to take them in her hands. ‘I want mine made quite plain,’ says I; ‘but my daughters will expect to have theirs flounced off to the top of the mode—mine’s the silk one. But we’ll have to settle first what you’ll take to do the job—it’s a large one, remember, ma’am—three dresses—and it will be nothing but fair that you should make allowance for that.’

“‘I never make abatement,’ says she; ‘my charge is three dollars for a plain silk dress, and four for such as the others, if full trimmed.’

“Eleven dollars for making three dresses—just think of it! the girls looked dumb-foundered, and so was I; but being in the scrape, we had to get out of it the best way we could. ‘Very well, ma’am,’ says I, making up our bundles again, and looking unconcerned, ‘we’ll call again when we get the trimmings.’

“‘As you please,’ says she, more like Queen Victoria than a mantua-maker; and we walked out in double-quick time, my lady never condescending to step to the door. ‘She may call us fools if she ever catches us again,’ says I to the girls.

“Well, we went on to the next. The house looked pretty fine, too, this time; but under the name on the door was another plate with ‘_Fashionable Dress-making_’ on it, and we thought it didn’t look quite so stuck up. A girl let us in, and we didn’t find the parlors quite so grand, though they were stylish enough, dear knows. This was Mrs. B——’s. She was down stairs herself, waiting for customers, we supposed, which looked as if she was not above her business, and she had a table beside her covered all over with fashion-plates and magazines, like yours, on the centre-table. She was a little, sharp-eyed, fidgetty-looking woman, with a very pointy nose. She sent away a girl she was fixing a sleeve for, and came forward to meet us, and gave us seats, and seemed very sociable.

“‘We have some dresses to be made, ma’am,’ says I; ‘here’s three in our hands, and it’s likely we may have some more if we can make a good bargain about these.’ I thought it best to hold out a large inducement to her.

“‘And I suppose you will want the three without delay?’ said she, talking very glib; ‘dear me, how unfortunate just at this time! I have so much work on hand already. I keep twenty-two hands working night as well as day, and I don’t see how I possibly can get through all that I have taken in. But, really, I should like to oblige you three ladies—I always do all in my power to accommodate strangers—you are from the country, I presume?’

“‘From Tarry-town,’ says Easter Ann.