L. Meade - Turquoise and Ruby

They then went to a shoemaker’s where they got shoes, and to another shop for gloves, and finally to interview that modiste of great fame, as Madame Declassé described herself. But here disappointment awaited the little girls, for Brenda insisted on entering the apartment all alone.

“You, Fanchon,” she said, “must hold the pony’s reins. Don’t hold them too tight – just like this; see, mon enfant – do attend to my directions. Now then, I shan’t be very long.”

“But may not two of us come with you?” asked Josephine. “We should love to see the pretty things in Madame Declassé’s show-room.”

“No, no; I must see her alone; she will do it cheaper for me if I am alone.”

Brenda skipped away, and the girls were left in charge of the dull, over-worked little pony with the western sun beating down upon them. They had certainly passed an exciting day, but, on the whole, they were not quite satisfied. There was a mutinous feeling in each small breast which only needed the match of suspicion to set it on fire. It was Nina who, in the most casual voice, applied that match.

“I am looking at myself,” she said, “in the mirror let into the pony trap just facing us; and I am awfully red.”

“Of course you are, Nina,” laughed both her sisters.

“My face is red,” continued Nina, “and so is my hair; and my eyes are not at all big. Do you think I am really pretty, or am I ugly?”

She gave an anxious glance at Josephine and Fanchon.

“Ugly – of course,” laughed Fanchon.

“Very ugly – a little fright,” said Josephine.

“Then if I am a fright,” said Nina, becoming a more vivid crimson, “so are you, too, for you are red also, and your hair is sandy, and you have very small eyes.”

“Oh, do shut up,” said Fanchon.

Nina turned restlessly on her hot seat. “I wish I was like Brenda,” she said, after a minute’s pause.

“Well, you are not, and all the wishing in the world won’t make you so,” was Josephine’s answer.

“I suppose she is quite beautiful,” said Fanchon, with a sigh.

“Oh, yes – there isn’t a doubt of it,” continued Nina. “How the men do stare at her.”

“It’s very rude of men to stare,” said Josephine. “It is not at all to be admired.”

“But Brenda likes it, all the same,” said Nina. “I know she does, for she nudges me sometimes as we are on the way to church. What a long time she is with Madame Declassé!”

“Nina,” said Fanchon, “if you don’t sit still, you will startle Rob, and he may take it into his head to run away.”

“Rob run away! He knows better,” answered Nina. “Why, he has hardly a kick in him – poor old dear! You wouldn’t run away, would you, Rob?”

Rob flicked his ears, and gave a slight movement to his tail. This he considered sufficient answer to Nina’s tender enquiry.

“I wish Brenda was not quite so long,” she said. “Why, of course she is a long time. She has got to have her lovely blue silk made up. Fancy Brenda in silk! How astonished father will be! Silk is the dream of his life. He said when he married mother, she wore silk. She never, never wore it since – he said – she could not afford it, only very rich people could. There was a time when I thought of keeping silkworms, and winding off the silk from the cocoons until I had enough to make a dress; but Brenda laughed me out of that.”

“Well – she’s got her deserts. She must have spent a lot of money on the dress,” said Fanchon.

“She didn’t spend much on ours, that I know,” said Nina. “Those pink muslins were only sixpence three farthings the yard, and she wouldn’t get an extra yard for me, although I did so want mine to have little flounces – I think little flounces are so stylish. Oh dear, dear! I wish she would come!”

Here Nina took up a carefully folded parcel which contained the material for the girls’ pink muslin dresses.

“Let’s look at it,” she said – “let’s see it in the broad light. It’ll be something to amuse us.”

“Oh, but we never can pack it up again,” exclaimed Josephine.

“Have you got your pocket knife with you, Fanchon?” asked Nina.

Fanchon declared that she had.

“Well, give it to me, and I will cut a wee hole in the paper, just enough for us to see our darling gowns.”

This was too fascinating a proposal to be lightly refused, and in the end the girls had removed enough of the brown paper wrapping to disclose a certain portion of the delicate pink muslin which lay folded beneath.

“I wonder now,” said Nina – she raised her flushed face and looked at her red little person in the tiny square of glass – “I wonder why she makes us wear pink. Do you think, Fanchon – do you think, Josephine, that it suits us?”

The two elder girls were quite silent, but a horrified expression crept over Fanchon’s face. She was older than the others, and had once heard it said that a girl with red hair – however pretty she might be – ought not to wear pink. A sense of revolt filled her soul.

“Why don’t you speak?” said Nina.

“I – I am thinking,” she said, crossly. “Don’t worry me.”

She was thinking to good purpose. The other two seemed to divine her thoughts. They all sat silent and moody.

“I shall do a sum in arithmetic to-night,” thought Josephine. “I know exactly how many yards of that horrid pink muslin she bought and what the hats cost, and those little cheap shoes, and those gloves.”

But Josephine did not say the words aloud. After a little time Nina said:

“I saw a quantity of gold in Brenda’s purse. It seems so odd that she should spend a lot of father’s money on herself, and so very, very little on us – doesn’t it? I don’t understand it – do you, girls?”

But before the girls could reply, Brenda, looking fresh and captivating, as usual, appeared by their side.

“Now, then,” – she said – “home we go. Oh, I am glad to get out of this heat. I think we’ll have supper in the garden to-night. It will be lovely under the mulberry tree. What do you say, petites ? What dear, pretty little darlings you are!”

But the pretty little darlings were not in the best of tempers, and Brenda had some trouble in getting them back to good humour. She herself was in excellent spirits, for she had employed Madame Declassé not only to make the dress in a way so sweet as to take the hearts of all who saw her by storm, but was she not also to make her a long white serge dust coat, very fashionable looking and very, very smart, and a little white hat, which would exactly finish off the pale blue costume? and was not Madame Declassé to supply a parasol and gloves, all suited to that distinguished looking young lady, Miss Brenda Carlton?

But these small matters Brenda kept to herself. It would never do for the sandy-haired daughters of the Reverend Josiah Amberley to know about them. Her object was to humour them to the very top of their bent until she got them away with her to the seaside, and then – behold! what twenty pounds still quite unspent might not achieve! For the blue silk dress was paid for, and Madame Declassé would not charge for the making up, nor for the parasol, nor the white serge coat, nor the pretty white hat, for a long, long time. It really did not matter to Madame when her little bills were paid. She was quite willing and ready to accommodate her customers.

As the little party were driving in by the tumble-down gates, Nina, however, made a remark. She raised her light blue eyes and looked full at Brenda and said, in a tone of question and some alarm:

“Do you really, really think, Brenda, that pink muslin is the most suitable sort of dress for red girls like us?”