Free Maulever Hall by Jane Aiken Hodge

only in dreams that she had once worn silks and gauzes? Very likely. She shrugged irritably and went to work with a will on her rebellious hair. Her hands, working almost without her volition, were doing something different with her curls tonight. Mrs. Mauleverer, in the enthusiasm of turning out her wardrobe, had made her a present of various bits of tarnished ribbon and lace. Most of them, though she had, of course, received them with proper exclamations of delight, were fit only for the Jew’s basket, but she had kept out one length of silver tissue as more promising than the rest, and had contrived to clean it with soft soap and honey. Now, she bound it round a coronet of hair on the top of her head, leaving only short curls to cluster round her face. The result, her glass told her, was charming—but totally unsuited to her plain, high-necked dress. She exclaimed angrily and was about to pull down the whole elaborate erection when Mrs. Mauleverer burst into her room. “There you are at last, my dear. I was quite giving you up in despair.” And then, in obvious surprise: Why, you look charming. What have you done to your hair?”
    “ I was only playing with it.” Marianne hurried to draw up her one comfortable chair for Mrs. Mauleverer, who settled into it with a little sigh of what was intended to suggest exhaustion.
    “Such a bustle as we have been in,” she said. “And you, wicked girl, not there to help. But, of course, you do not know the great news. Mark is come home.”
    Yes, they told me ... ” So he had not mentioned his meeting with her. Well, that was kind of him, perhaps. Since he could say nothing good, he had said nothing at all about her.
    “Yes, rode in as cool as a cucumber just when I had finished my luncheon, and the sweep still here, and the whole house in dust sheets, and my poor Gibbs almost in hysterics. I really thought I should have a spasm myself, but he has a wonderful way of taking charge, has Mark. I wish you could have heard what he said to that poor sweep, it would have done your heart good, my dear, after all your sighings over the little boy—an imp of satan if ever I saw one, by the way, and left soot marks all over my bedroom carpet. But he’s to have baths, and Sunday school, and I don’t know what not, or Mark will know the reason why. You never saw so surprised a man as poor Mr. Bond. Though I expect the child will be more astonished still when he gets his first bath—if ever he does. The trouble with Mark is that he has so many irons in the fire that most of them get cold when he’s not looking. But, dear me, where was I? I came to tell you something most particular, and now I have quite forgot what it was.” She paused, pleating the frills that ornamented the front of her purple satin dinner dress. “Ah, I have it. Dinner, of course. We dine late, you know, when Mark is home. He has town ways and will agree to no other.”
    “Yes, Cook told me. But of course I shall have a tray in my room.”
    “Nonsense. Mark is quite longing to meet you; he said so himself. He says I look years younger”—she rose to prove the satisfactory truth at the glass—“and do you know, I agree with him. I must try my hair the way you have done yours. You shall do it for me tomorrow; I am sure it will be vastly becoming to me. I only wish there were time tonight; we could pass as sisters, could we not? But Mark is a perfect tyrant for punctuality; we had best not risk it. What a fortunate thing you are”—she hesitated—“dressed.”
    It was the cue Marianne wanted. “My dear madam, you must excuse me from dining. You know perfectly well that I have nothing to wear ... I cannot appear like this ... it would be quite unsuitable.”
    “I confess I wish I had thought of it sooner. Perhaps my old gray silk? But, no, you are inches taller than me; it would merely look ridiculous. No, no, my dear, you must not refine too much upon it; you look charming, as indeed, you always do.”