"Although they have not paid for their seats," Lance pointed out, "they believe they have a right to disdain the play, which shows that the more people are given, the more they take as their natural right. I wonder they don't demand the price of the seat which they haven't paid for.”
Lance was interested in people, but his attitude toward them was lighthearted and even cynical. He looked for something beyond the facade, and I was sure he was often right in his judgment. When I pitied some poor beggar in the streets he would suggest that the woebegone look was part of an act.
"I once knew a man," he told me, "who was a great figure in the night life of London.
He'd wager a thousand pounds and think nothing of it. He lived in style in St. James'.
I saw him one day disguised so that I scarcely recognized him. He was waylaying fine ladies as they came out of their houses and telling such a pitiful tale that there was scarcely one of them who didn't dip into her purse and give the plausible rogue some money. I had a game with him. I pretended not to recognize him and gave him five pounds on condition that when he was able to he should repay me threefold. 'May Gawd bless you, sir,' he said. He had a good line of talk, and although by night he spoke in a highly cultured fashion, the jargon of the streets came readily to his tongue. 'That I will right gladly, noble sir,' he said. 'I never forget them that hoffers a poor beggar what's in need.' " Lance laughed at the memory. "It was a fortnight later when I saw him in the Thatched House coffeehouse in St. James'.
I said, 'Hello, you old rogue, you owe me fifteen pounds.' He was startled, but when I told him I had recognized him in the ragged beggarman, he was overcome with mirth.
He paid out the fifteen pounds and made me swear to tell no one of his little subterfuge.”
"I am sure his was an isolated case," I said.
"That may be. But how can you say how many men-abouttown are hiding behind their rags and tatters? How many ladies of quality are telling their doleful tales to passersby?
I always remember him when I see him. It teaches you something." "It teaches me that he couldn't have been very successful at the gaming tables if he had to resort to such methods. Oh, yes, it teaches me that gambling is a foolish way to lose one's money.”
"Touche" he said. "I wouldn't have told you this tale if I had known it would bring us round to this. As a matter of fact, he was fairly lucky at the tables. I think he did the begging out of a spirit of mischief.”
After that, I must admit, I looked closely at the beggars and was less generous.
I had a dressmaker who came to the house and made a whole new wardrobe for me. The clothes I had worn at Enderby were scarcely suitable for London life. All the latest fashions, I discovered, came from France-a fact which delighted Jeanne. If it had been worn at Versailles, that was its accolade. My dressmaker would bring large dolls sent from her associate in Paris, and these dolls would be dressed in the latest fashions, all made in exact detail. There would be tight-fitting bodices with sleeves to the elbow, which ended in the most elaborate frills. Big collars and fichus were very much in vogue. Panniers were worn, and the widened skirts accentuated the narrowness of the waist. There was a new kind of gown called a sacque, and although the bodice was tight-fitting, there was a fullness at the back which I thought most becoming.
The dresses were made of silks and satins, brocades and velvet. "The material is of the utmost importance," declared Alison, the dressmaker, with such seriousness that she might have been discussing the Treaty of Utrecht.
It was all very exciting and amusing. Then there were the cosmetics. I must be patched and powdered like every other lady of fashion. Jeanne quickly adapted herself to the art, as she had done with that of hairdressing.
"I am not having one of these fancy hairdressers doing your hair, milady," she announced firmly.
I was quite ready to leave myself in the capable hands of Jeanne and Alison.
I said to Lance, "I shall soon be as elegant as you are.”
It must have been about a month after I had received that first letter from Aimee that I had another.
My dear sister, [she wrote] A wonderful thing has happened to me. I am to be married. Just as I was thinking myself all alone and forlorn-it was a day after I wrote to you before-I met Joseph.
He lives close by Hessenfield Castle in a fine old house. Is it not strange that we did not meet before? He was not one for the social life ... until we met. We like each other ... we meet again ... and again, and then to my surprise he said, "Marry me!" Well, I am amazed, but after a while I say yes. He is a little older than I am ... well, thirty years, to be truthful. But I do not notice. ...
I am so happy. Dear little sister, you must come and see us. You will one day, eh?
