Muslin by George Moore

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But above this day, and above all other days, was the day that took them
spellbound to the foot of a narrow staircase, a humble flight seemingly,
but leading to a temple of tightly-stretched floorcloth, tall wardrobes,
and groups and lines of lay figures in eternally ladylike attitudes.

'Oh! how do you do, Mrs. Barton? We have been expecting you for the last
two or three days. I will run upstairs and tell Mrs. Symond that you are
here; she will be so glad to see you.'

'That is Miss Cooper!' explained Mrs. Barton. 'Everyone knows her; she
has been with Mrs. Symond many years. And, as for dear Mrs. Symond,
there is no one like her. She knows the truth about everybody. Here she
comes,' and Mrs. Barton rushed forward and embraced a thin woman with
long features.

'And how do you do, dear Mrs. Barton, and how well you are looking, and
the young ladies? I see Miss Olive has improved since she was in
Dublin.' (In an audible whisper.) 'Everyone is talking about her. There
is no doubt but that she'll be the belle of the season.' (In a still
audible, but lower tone of voice.) 'But tell me, is it true that--'

'Now, now, now!' said Mrs. Barton, drowning her words in cascades of
silvery laughter, 'I know nothing of what you're saying; ha! ha! ha! no,
no--I assure you. I will not--'

Then, as soon as the ladies had recovered their composure, a few
questions were asked about her Excellency, the prospects of the Castle
season, and the fashions of the year.

'And now tell me,' said Mrs. Barton, 'what pretty things have you that
would make up nicely for trains?'

'Trains, Mrs. Barton? We have some sweet things that would make up
beautifully for trains. Miss Cooper, will you kindly fetch over that
case of silks that we had over yesterday from Paris?'

'The young ladies must be, of course, in white; for Miss Olive I should
like, I think, snowdrops; for you, Mrs. Barton, I am uncertain which of
two designs I shall recommend. Now, this is a perfectly regal material.'

With words of compliment and solicitation, the black-dressed assistant
displayed the armouries of Venus--armouries filled with the deep blue of
midnight, with the faint tints of dawn, with strange flowers and birds,
with moths, and moons, and stars. Lengths of white silk clear as the
notes of violins playing in a minor key; white poplin falling into folds
statuesque as the bass of a fugue by Bach; yards of ruby velvet, rich as
an air from Verdi played on the piano; tender green velvet, pastoral as
hautboys heard beneath trees in a fair Arcadian vale; blue turquoise
faille fanciful as the tinkling of a guitar twanged by a Watteau
shepherd; gold brocade, sumptuous as organ tones swelling through the
jewelled twilight of a nave; scarves and trains of midnight-blue
profound as the harmonic snoring of a bassoon; golden daffodils violent
as the sound of a cornet; bouquets of pink roses and daisies, charmful
and pure as the notes of a flute; white faille, soft draperies of tulle,
garlands of white lilac, sprays of white heather, delicate and resonant
as the treble voices of children singing carols in dewy English woods;
berthas, flounces, plumes, stomachers, lappets, veils, frivolous as the
strains of a German waltz played on Liddell's band.

An hour passed, but the difficulty of deciding if Olive's dress should
be composed of silk or Irish poplin was very great, for, determined that
all should be humiliated, Mrs. Barton laid her plans amid designs for
night and morning; birds fluttering through leafy trees, birds drowsing
on bending boughs, and butterflies folding their wings. At a critical
moment, however, an assistant announced that Mrs. Scully was waiting.
The ladies started; desperate effort was made; rosy clouds and veils of
silver tissue were spoken of; but nothing could be settled, and on the
staircase the ladies had to squeeze into a corner to allow Violet and
Mrs. Scully to pass.

'How do you do, Olive? How do you do, Alice? and you, Mrs. Barton, how
do you do? And what are you going to wear? Have you decided on your
dress?'

'Oh! That is a secret that could be told to no one; oh, not for worlds!'
said Mrs. Barton.

'I'm sure it will be very beautiful,' replied Mrs. Scully, with just a
reminiscence of the politeness of the Galway grocery business in her
voice.

'I hear you have taken a house in Fitzwilliam Square for the season?'
said Mrs. Barton.

'Yes, we are very comfortable; you must come and see us. You are at the
Shelbourne, I believe?'

'Come to tea with us,' cried Violet. 'We are always at home about five.'

'We shall be delighted,' returned Mrs. Barton.

Mrs. Scully's acquaintance with Mrs. Symond was of the slightest; but,
knowing that claims to fashion in Dublin are judged by the intimacy you
affect with the dressmaker, she shook her warmly by the hand, and
addressed her as dear Mrs. Symond. To the Christian name of Helen none
less than a Countess dare to aspire.

'And how well you are looking, dear Mrs. Symond; and when are you going
to take your daughters to the Castle?'

'Oh, not for some time yet; my eldest is only sixteen.'

Mrs. Symonds had three daughters to bring out, and she hoped when her
feet were set on the redoubtable ways of Cork Hill, her fashionable
customers would extend to her a cordial helping hand. Mrs. Symonds' was
one of the myriad little schemes with which Dublin is honeycombed, and
although she received Mrs. Scully's familiarities somewhat coldly, she
kept her eyes fixed upon Violet. The insidious thinness of the girl's
figure, and her gay, winsome look interested her, and, as if speaking to
herself, she said:

'You will want something very sweet; something quite pure and lovely for
Miss Scully?'

Mother and daughter were instantly all attention, and Mrs. Symond
continued:

'Let me see, I have some Surat silk that would make up sweetly. Miss
Cooper, will you have the kindness to fetch those rolls of Surat silk we
received yesterday from Paris?'

Then, beautiful as a flower harvesting, the hues and harmonies of earth,
ocean, and sky fell before the ravished eyes. The white Surat silk,
chaste, beautiful, delicious as that presentiment of shared happiness
which fills a young girl's mind when her fancy awakens in the soft
spring sunlight; the white faille with tulle and garlands of white
lilac, delicate and only as sensuous as the first meetings of
sweethearts, when the may is white in the air and the lilac is in bloom
on the lawn; trains of blue sapphire broche looped with blue ostrich
feathers, seductive and artificial as a boudoir plunged in a dream of
Ess. bouquet; dove-coloured velvet trains adorned with tulips and tied
with bows of brown and pink--temperate as the love that endures when the
fiery day of passion has gone down; bodices and trains of daffodil silk,
embroidered with shaded maple-leaves, impure as lamp-lit and
patchouli-scented couches; trains of white velouture festooned with
tulle; trails of snowdrops, icy as lips that have been bought, and cold
as a life that lives in a name.

The beautiful silks hissed as they came through the hands of the
assistants, cat-like the velvet footfalls of the velvet fell; it was a
witches' Sabbath, and out of this terrible caldron each was to draw her
share of the world's gifts. Smiling and genial, Mrs. Symond stirred the
ingredients with a yard measure; the girls came trembling, doubting,
hesitating; and the anxious mothers saw what remained of their
jeopardized fortunes sliding in a thin golden stream into the flaming
furnace that the demon of Cork Hill blew with unintermittent breath.

Secrets, what secrets were held on the subject of the presentation
dresses! The obscure Hill was bound with a white frill of anticipation.
Olive's fame had gone forth. She was admitted to be the new Venus, and
Lord Kilcarney was spoken of as likely to yield to her the coveted
coronet. Would he marry her without so much as looking at another girl?
was the question on every lip, and in the jealousy thus created the
appraisers of Violet's beauty grew bolder. Her thinness was condoned,
and her refinement insisted upon. Nor were May Gould and her chances
overlooked by the gossips of Merrion Square. Her flirtation with Fred
Scully was already a topic of conversation.

Alice knew she was spoken of pityingly, but she hungered little after
the praise of the Dubliners, and preferred to stay at home and talk to
Harding in the ladies' drawing-room rather than follow her mother and
sister in their wild hunt after Lord Kilcarney. Through the afternoon
teas of Merrion Square and Stephen's Green the chase went merrily.

XVII

On the night of the Drawing-Room, February 20, 1882, the rain rushed
along the streets; wind, too, had risen, and, threatening to tear every
window from its sash, it careered in great gusts. Sky there was none,
nor sight of anything save when the lightning revealed the outline of
the housetops. The rattling and the crashing of the thunder was
fearsome, and often, behind their closely drawn curtains, the girls
trembled, and, covering their faces with their hands, forgot the article
of clothing they were in search of. In their rooms all was warm and
snug, and gay with firelight and silk; the chaperons had whispered that
warm baths were advisable, and along the passages the ladies'-maids
passed hurriedly, carrying cans of hot water, sponges, and
drying-sheets.

Alice and Olive slept in two rooms on the third floor, on either side of
their mother; May and Mrs. Gould were on the fourth, and next to May was
Fred Scully, who, under the pretext of the impossibility of his agreeing
with his mother concerning the use of a latch-key, had lately moved into
the hotel. May was deeply concerned in Fred's grievance, and, discussing
it, or the new Shelbourne scandal--the loves of the large lady and the
little man at the other end of the corridor--they lingered about each
other's bedroom-doors. Alice could now hear them talking as they
descended the staircase together; then a burst of smothered laughter,
and May came in to see her.

'Oh, how nice you look!'

'If you don't "mash" Mr. Harding to-night, he'll be a tough one indeed.
Did I tell you I was talking to him yesterday in the ladies'
drawing-room? He is very enticing, but I can't quite make him out: I
think he despises us all; all but you; about you he said all kinds of
nice things--that you were so clever, and nice, and amusing. And tell
me, dear,' said May, in her warm, affectionate way, 'do you really like
him--you know what I mean?'

May's eyes and voice were so full of significance that to pretend to
misunderstand was impossible.

'I like Mr. Harding well enough. It is very pleasant to have him to talk
to. I am sure I don't want to run down my own sex--there are plenty
only too anxious to do that--but I am afraid that there is not a girl in
Dublin who thinks of anything except how she is to get married.'

'I don't know about that,' said May, a little offended. 'I suppose if
you think of a man at all, you think of how he likes you.'

The defiant tone in which these words were spoken was surprising; and,
for a moment, Alice stood staring blankly at this superb cream-fleshed
girl, superb in her dress of cream faille, her sensual beauty poetized
by the long veils which hung like gossamer-webs from the coils of her
copper-gleaming hair.

'I am afraid, May,' she said, 'that you think a great deal too much of
such things. I don't say anything against Mr. Scully, but I think it
right to tell you that he is considered a very dangerous young man; and
I am sure it does a girl no good to be seen with him. It was he who . . .'

'Now I'll not hear you abuse Fred,' cried May. 'We are great friends; I
like you better than any other girl, and if you value our friendship,
you'll not speak to me again like this. I wouldn't put up with it, no,
not from my own mother.'

The girl moved towards the door hastily, but Alice laid her hand on her
arm, saying:

'You mustn't be angry, May; perhaps you're right; I shouldn't meddle in
things that don't concern me; but then we have been so long friends that
I couldn't help--'

'I know, I know,' the girl answered, overcome as it were by an
atmosphere. 'You were speaking only for my good; but if you're friends
with a person, you can't stand by and hear them abused. I know people
speak badly of Fred; but then people are so jealous--and they are all
jealous of Fred.'

The girls examined each other's dresses, and at the end of a long
silence May said:

'What an extraordinary thing this Drawing-Room is when one comes to
think of it. Just fancy going to all this expense to be kissed by the
Lord-Lieutenant--a man one never saw before. Will you feel ashamed when
he kisses you?'

'Well, I don't know that I have thought much about it,' said Alice,
laughing. 'I suppose it doesn't matter, it is only a ceremony, not a
real kiss.'

At this moment Mrs. Barton's voice was heard calling: 'Now, Alice,
Alice, where are you? We are waiting for you! Make haste, for goodness'
sake; we are very late as it is.'

The trail of a sachet-scented petticoat could be detected on this length
of Brussels carpet, the acrid vulgarity of eau de Cologne hung like a
curtain before an open door, a vision of white silk gleamed for a moment
as it fled from room to room: men in a strange garb--black velvet and
steel buttons--hurried away, tripping over their swords, furtively
ashamed of their stockinged calves. On the first landing, about the
winter-garden, a crowd of German waiters, housemaids, billiard-players
with cigars in their teeth and cues in their hands, had collected;
underneath, in the hall, the barmaids, and old ladies, wrapped up in
rugs and shawls to save them from the draughts, were criticizing the
dresses. Olive's name was on every lip, and to see her all were
breathless with expectation; her matrimonial prospects were discussed,
and Lord Kilcarney was openly spoken of. 'Ah! here she is! there she
is!' was whispered. The head-porter, wild with excitement, shouted for
Mrs. Barton's carriage; three under-porters distended huge umbrellas;
the door was opened, an immense wind tore through the hall, sending the
old ladies flying back to their sitting-room, and the Bartons, holding
their hair and their trains, rushed across the wet pavement and took
refuge in the brougham.

'Did one ever see such weather?' said Mrs. Barton. 'I hope your hair
isn't ruffled, Olive?'

'No, mamma, I think it is all right.'

Reassured, Mrs. Barton continued: 'I don't think there ever was a
country so hateful as Ireland. What with rain and Land League. I wonder
why we live here! Did you notice the time, Alice, as we left the hotel?'

'Yes, mamma; it was twenty-five minutes to ten.'

'Oh! we are very late; we shan't be there before ten. The thing to do is
to get there about half-past nine; the Drawing-Room doesn't begin before
eleven; but if you can get into the first lot you can stand at the
entrance of Patrick's Hall. I see, Alice, your friend Harding is going
to the Drawing-Room. Now, if you do what I tell you, you won't miss him;
for it does look so bad to see a girl alone, just as if she was unable
to get a man.'

While Mrs. Barton continued to advise her girls, the carriage rolled
rapidly along Stephen's Green. It had now turned into Grafton Street;
and on the steep, rain-flooded asphalte, they narrowly escaped an
accident. The coachman, however, steadied his horses, and soon the long
colonnades of the Bank of Ireland were seen on the left. From this point
they were no longer alone, and except when a crash of thunder drowned
every other sound, the rattling of wheels was heard behind and in front
of them. Carriages came from every side: the night was alive with
flashing lamps; a glimpse of white fur or silk, the red breast of a
uniform, the gold of an epaulette, were seen, and thinking of the block
that would take place on the quays, the coachmen whipped up their
horses; but soon the ordering voices of the mantled and mounted
policemen were heard, and the carriages came to a full stop.

'We are very late; hundreds will pass before us,' said Mrs. Barton
despairingly, as she watched the lines of silk-laden carriages that
seemed to be passing them by. But it was difficult to make sure of
anything; and fearful of soiling their gloves, they refrained from
touching the breath-misted windows.

Despite the weather the streets were lined with vagrants, patriots,
waifs, idlers of all sorts and kinds. Plenty of girls of sixteen and
eighteen came out to see the 'finery.' Poor little things in battered
bonnets and draggled skirts, who would dream upon ten shillings a week;
a drunken mother striving to hush a child that cries beneath a dripping
shawl; a harlot embittered by feelings of commercial resentment; troops
of labourers; hang-dog faces, thin coats, torn shirts; Irish-Americans,
sinister faced, and broad-brimmed. Never were poverty and wealth brought
into plainer proximity. In the broad glare of the carriage lights the
shape of every feature, even the colour of the eyes, every glance, every
detail of dress, every stain of misery were revealed to the silken
exquisites who, a little frightened, strove to hide themselves within
the scented shadows of their broughams; and in like manner the bloom on
every aristocratic cheek, the glitter of every diamond, the richness of
every plume, were visible to the wondering eyes of those who stood
without in the wet and the cold.

'I wish they wouldn't stare so,' said Mrs. Barton; 'one would think they
were a lot of hungry children looking into a sweetmeat shop. The police
ought really to prevent it.'

'And how wicked those men in the big hats look,' said Olive; 'I'm sure
they would rob us if they only dared.'

At last the order came that the carriages were to move on, and they
rolled on, now blocked under the black rain-dripping archway of the
Castle yard, now delayed as they laboriously made the tour of the
quadrangle. Olive doubted if her turn would ever come; but, by slow
degrees, each carriage discharged its cargo of silk, and at last Mrs.
Barton and her daughters found themselves in the vestibule, taking
numbers for their wraps at the cloak-rooms placed on either side of the
stairway.

The slender figures ascending to tiny naked shoulders, presented a
piquant contrast with the huge, black Assyrian, bull-like policemen, who
guarded the passage, and reduced, by contrast, to almost doll-like
proportions the white creatures who went up the great stairway. Overhead
an artificial plant, some twenty feet wide, spread a decorative
greenness; the walls were lined with rifles, and at regular intervals,
in lieu of pictures, were set stars made out of swords. There were also
three suits of plate armour, and the grinning of the helmets of old-time
contrasted with the bearskin-shrouded faces of the red guardsmen. And
through all this military display the white ware tripped past powdered
and purple-coated footmen, splendid in the splendour of pink calves and
salmon-coloured breeches.

As the white mass of silk pushed along the white-painted corridor, the
sense of ceremony that had till then oppressed it, evaporated in the
fumes of the blazing gas, and something like a battle began in the blue
drawing-room. Heat and fatigue soon put an end to all coquetting between
the sexes. The beautiful silks were hidden by the crowd; only the
shoulders remained, and, to appease their terrible ennui, the men gazed
down the backs of the women's dresses. Shoulders were there, of all
tints and shapes. Indeed, it was like a vast rosary, alive with white,
pink, and cream-coloured flowers; of Marechal Niels, Souvenir de
Malmaisons, Mademoiselle Eugene Verdiers, Aimee Vibert Scandens. Sweetly
turned, adolescent shoulders, blush-white, smooth and even as the petals
of a Marquise Mortemarle; the strong, commonly turned shoulders,
abundant and free as the fresh rosy pink of the Anna Alinuff; the
drooping white shoulders, full of falling contours as a pale Madame
Lacharme; the chlorotic shoulders, deadly white, of the almost greenish
shade that is found in a Princess Clementine; the pert, the dainty
little shoulders, filled with warm pink shadows, pretty and compact as
Countess Cecile de Chabrillant; the large heavy shoulders full of vulgar
madder tints, coarse, strawberry-colour, enormous as a Paul Neron;
clustering white shoulders, grouped like the blossoms of an Aimee Vibert
Scandens, and, just in front of me, under my eyes, the flowery, the
voluptuous, the statuesque shoulders of a tall blonde woman of thirty,
whose flesh is full of the exquisite peach-like tones of a Mademoiselle
Eugene Verdier, blooming in all its pride of summer loveliness.

To make way for this enormous crowd, the Louis XV. sofas and arm-chairs
had been pushed against the walls, and an hour passed wearily, in all
its natural impudence, in this beautiful drawing-room, the brain aching
with dusty odour of poudre de riz, and the many acidities of evaporating
perfume; the sugary sweetness of the blondes, the salt flavours of the
brunettes, and this allegro movement of odours was interrupted suddenly
by the garlicky andante, deep as the pedal notes of an organ, that the
perspiring armpits of a fat chaperon exhaled slowly.

At last there was a move forwards, and a sigh of relief, a grunt of
satisfaction, broke from the oppressed creatures; but a line of
guardsmen was pressing from behind, and the women were thrown hither and
thither into the arms and on to the backs of soldiers, police officers,
county inspectors, and Castle underlings. Now a lady turns pale, and
whispers to her husband that she is going to faint; now a young girl's
petticoats have become entangled in the moving mass of legs! She cries
aloud for help; her brother expostulates with those around. He is
scarcely heeded. And the struggle grows still more violent when it
becomes evident that the guardsmen are about to bring down the bar; and,
begging a florid-faced attorney to unloose his sword, which had become
entangled in her dress, Mrs. Barton called on her daughter, and,
slipping under the raised arms, they found themselves suddenly in a
square, sombre room, full of a rich, brown twilight. In one corner there
was a bureau, where an attendant served out blank cards; in another the
white plumes nodded against the red glare that came from the
throne-room, whence Liddell's band was heard playing waltz tunes, and
the stentorian tones of the Chamberlain's voice called the ladies'
names.

'Have you got your cards?' said Mrs. Barton.

'I have got mine,' said Olive.

'And I have got mine,' said Alice.

'Well, you know what to do? You give your card to the aide-de-camp, he
passes it on and spreads out your train, and you walk right up to His
Excellency; he kisses you on both cheeks, you curtsy, and, at the far
door, two aides-de-camp pick up your train and place it on your arm.'

The girls continued to advance, experiencing the while the nerve
atrophy, the systolic emotion of communicants, who, when the bell rings,
approach the altar-rails to receive God within their mouths.

The massive, the low-hanging, the opulently twisted gold candelabra, the
smooth lustre of the marble columns are evocative of the persuasive
grandeur of a cathedral; and, deep in the darkness of the pen, a vast
congregation of peeresses and judges watch the ceremony in devout
collectiveness. How symmetrical is the place! A red, a well-trimmed
bouquet of guardsmen has been set in the middle of the Turkey carpet;
around the throne a semicircle of red coats has been drawn, and above it
flow the veils, the tulle, the skirts of the ladies-of-honour--they seem
like white clouds dreaming on a bank of scarlet poppies--and the long
sad legs, clad in maroon-coloured breeches, is the Lord-Lieutenant, the
teeth and the diamonds on his right is Her Excellency. And now a
lingering survival of the terrible Droit de Seigneur--diminished and
attenuated, but still circulating through our modern years--this
ceremony, a pale ghost of its former self, is performed; and, having
received a kiss on either cheek, the _debutantes_ are free to seek their
bridal beds in Patrick's Hall.

'Miss Olive Barton, presented by Mrs. Barton!' shouted the Chamberlain.

Olive abandoned her train to the aides-de-camp; she saw their bent
backs, felt their nimble fingers exhibiting this dress whereon Mrs.
Barton and Mrs. Symond had for days been expending all the poetry of
their natures. What white wonder, what manifold marvel of art! Dress of
snow satin, skirt quite plain in front. Bodice and train of white
poplin; the latter wrought with patterns representing night and morning:
a morning made of silver leaves with silver birds fluttering through
leafy trees, butterflies sporting among them, and over all a sunrise
worked in gold and silver thread; then on the left side the same sun
sank amid rosy clouds, and there butterflies slept with folded wing, and
there birds roosted on bending boughs; veils of silver tissue softened
the edges of the train, silver stars gleamed in the corn-coloured hair,
the long hands, gloved with white undressed kid, carried a silver fan;
she was adorably beautiful and adorably pale, and she floated through
the red glare, along the scarlet line, to the weary-looking man in
maroon breeches, like some wonderful white bird of downy plumage. He
kissed her on both cheeks; and she passed away to the farther door,
where her train was caught up and handed to her by two aides-de-camp. He
had seemed to salute her with deference and warmth; his kiss was more
than ceremonial, and eager looks passed between the ladies-of-honour
standing on the estrade; the great bouquet of red-coats placed in the
middle of the floor, animated by one desire, turned its sixteen heads to
gaze after the wonderful vision of blonde beauty that had come--that had
gone. Mrs. Barton experienced an instant thrill of triumph, and advanced
into the throne.

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