The Hundred and Other Stories
9781465633309
200 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Mrs. Darling was dining from home, and every heart in her little establishment rejoiced over the circumstance, for it meant less work for everybody, with an opportunity to enjoy Christmas Eve on his own account. Mrs. Bonnet, the lady's-maid, with the plans she had in mind for the evening, was scarcely annoyed at all when her mistress scolded because the corset-lace had got itself in a knot. The chamber was full of a delicate odor of iris. The gas-globes at the ends of their jointed gold arms looked like splendid yellow pearls; on the dressing-table under them glittered a quantity of highly embossed silverware, out of all reasonable proportion with the little person owning it, who sat before the mirror beautifying her finger-nails while Mrs. Bonnet did her hair. "Mind what you are about," the mistress murmured, diligently polishing. Mrs. Bonnet instantly removed the hot tongs from the tress she was twisting, and caught it again with greater precaution. "Mind what you are about," warned Mrs. Darling, somewhat louder, a beginning of acid in her voice. Mrs. Bonnet again disengaged the hair from the tongs, and after a little pause, during which to make firm her nerve, with infinite solicitude took hold again of the golden strand, and would have waved it, but—"Mind what you are about!" almost screamed little Mrs. Darling. "Didn't I tell you to be careful? You have been pulling right along at the same hair! Do consider that it is a human scalp, and not a wig you are dealing with! Bonny, you are not a bad woman, but you will wear me out. Come, go on with it; it is getting late." Before the hair-dressing was accomplished Mrs. Darling rolled up her eyes—her blue eyes, round and angelic as they could sometimes be—at the reflection of Mrs. Bonnet's face in the mirror, and said, meekly: "Bonny, do you think that black moiré of mine would make over nicely for you? I am going to give it to you. No, don't thank me—it makes me look old. Now my slippers." While Bonnet was forcing the shoe on her fat little foot, Mrs. Darling's glance rested, perhaps by chance, on a photograph that leaned against the clock over the mantelpiece. It was that of a still young, well-looking man, whose face wore an unmistakable look of goodness, of the kind that made it what one expected to read under it in print—the Rev. Dorel Goodhue. There was another more conspicuous man-photograph in the room, on the dressing-table, in a massive frame that matched the toilet accessories. It stood there always, airing a photographic smile among the brushes and hand-glasses and pin-boxes. "I suppose," said Mrs. Darling, while she braced herself against Bonnet to help get the small shoe on—"I suppose I have a very bad temper!" and she laughed in such a sensible, natural, good-natured way any one must have felt that her exhibition of a moment before had been a sort of joke. "Tell the truth, Bonny: if every mistress had to have a certificate from her maid, you would give me a pretty bad one, wouldn't you? But I was abominably brought up. I used to slap my governesses. And I have had all sorts of illnesses; trouble, too. And I mostly don't mean anything by it. It is just nerves. Poor Bonny! I treat you shamefully, don't I?" "Oh, ma'am," said the lady's-maid, expanding in the light of this uncommon familiarity, "I would give you a character as would make it no difficulty in you getting a first-class situation right away; you may depend upon it, ma'am, I would. Don't this shoe seem a bit tight, ma'am?" "Not at all. It is a whole size larger than I wear. If you would just be so good as to hold the shoe-horn properly. There, that is it." She stood before the bed, on which were spread two long evening dresses. A little King Charles spaniel had made himself comfortable in the softest of one. His mistress pounced on him with a cry, first cuffed, then kissed and put him down. "Which shall I wear?" she asked.
