by Berta Ruck
CHAPTER XV
A DIFFERENT KIND OF PARTY
MISS MILLION and her callers were having tea in the bigger "lounge," orwhatever they call the gilded hall behind the great glass doors whichshut it off from the main entrance.
Now, this was the first time that my mistress had plucked up courage totake a meal downstairs since we had come to the Cecil.
I wondered how she'd been getting on. I must see!
So, still in my outdoor things, I passed the glass doors. I walked intothe big tea-room. There were palms, and much gilding, and sofas, anddark-eyed, weary-looking waiters wheeling round little carts spread withdainties, and offering the array of eclairs and flat apple-cakes to thedifferent groups--largely made up of American visitors--who were sittingat the plate-glass-topped tables.
I couldn't see Million--Miss Million's party--anywhere at first!
I looked about....
At the further end of the place a string band, half-hidden behindgreenery, was playing "I Shall Dream of You the Whole Night." Peals oflight laughter and ripples of talk came from a gay-looking group offrocks--with just one man's coat amongst them--gathered around a tablenear the band.
I noticed that the eyes of everybody within earshot were turningconstantly towards this table. So I looked, too.
At whom were they all staring? At a plump, bright-haired woman inall-white, who was obviously entertaining the party--to say nothing ofthe rest of the room.
She had a figure that demanded a good deal of French lingerie blouse,but not much skirt. The upright feather in her hat was yellow; jewelledslides glittered in her brass-bright hair; her eyes were round and veryblack.
She reminded me of a sulphur-crested, white cockatoo I had seen at theZoo.
But where had I seen her before? She puzzled and fascinated me. I stooda little way off, forgetting my errand, watching this vivacious lady,the centre of the group. She was waving her cigarette to punctuate herremarks----
"Oh, young Jim's one of the best--the very best, my dears. Tiptop familyand all. Who says blood doesn't tell, Leo? Ah! he's a good old pal o'mine, is the Hon. Jim Burke, specially on Fridays (treasury day, mydear); but it's the Army I'm potty about myself. The Captain (and dashthe whiskers), that's the tiger that puts Leo and his lot in theshade----"
Here followed a wave of the cigarette towards the only man of the party.He was stout and astrachan-haired; a Jew even from the back view.
"Give me the military man, what, what," prattled on the cockatoo lady,whose cigarette seemed to spin a web about her of blue floating smokewisps. "That's the boy that makes a hole in Vi's virgin heart!"
A fan-like gesture of her left hand, jewelled to the knuckles, upon thespread of the lady's embroidered blouse emphasised this declaration.
"Them's the fellers! Sons of the Empire--or of the Alhambra!" wound upthe cockatoo lady with a rollicking laugh.
And as she laughed I caught her full face and the flash of a line ofprominent, fascinatingly white teeth that lighted up her wholeexpression as a white wave lights up the whole shore.
Then I knew where I'd seen her before--in a hundred theatrical postersbetween the Hotel Cecil and the Bond Street tea-shop that I had justleft. Yes, I'd seen this lady's highly coloured portrait above theannouncement:
MISS VI VASSITY, LONDON'S LOVE. ENGLAND'S PREMIER COMEDIENNE!
So that was who she was!
Beside her on the couch a couple of younger girls, also rather "stagily"dressed, were hanging on every word that fell from the music-hallfavourite's vermilioned lips.
With her back to me, and with her chair drawn a little aside from theothers, there sat yet another woman. She was enormously tall and slim,and eccentrically clad in Oriental draperies of some sombre, richlypatterned stuff. This gave her the air of some graceful snake.
She turned and twisted the whole of her long, lissom person, now puttingup a hand to smooth her slim throat, now stretching out a slender ankle;but all the time posing, and admiring the poses in the nearest mirror.She was scarcely listening to Miss Vi Vassity's chatter.
"Tea? Any more, anybody?" Miss Vassity's black eyes glanced about her."Baby? Sybil? Lady G.?" (the latter to the cobra-woman).
"You, my dear?" turning to some one who was hidden behind her. "Half acup--oh, come on now. It'll have to be a whole cup; we don't break ourchina here, as my dear old mother used to say at Baa-lamb.
"You know I sprang from the suburbs, girls, don't you? Better to springthan to sink, eh, Miss Millions--and trillions? Here you are; I'll pourit out."
The music-hall idol leant forward to the tea-tray. Beyond her sumptuousshoulder I caught a glimpse at last of the woman who'd been hidden.
I gasped with surprise. She was my Miss Million!
Yes! So these were the friends whom Mr. Burke had sent to call on her!And there she sat--or shrank--she who was supposed to be the hostess ofthe party!
Beneath her expensive new hat--quite the wrong one to wear with thatparticular frock, which she changed when I went out--her face waswide-eyed and dazed. She who had shown so much self-confidence at herlast tea-party with just those two young men had lost it all in themidst of these other people.
There she sat, silent, lips apart, bewildered eyes moving from one tothe other. Between the languid, posing cobra-woman and the gay,chattering, sulphur-crested cockatoo, she looked like a small hypnotisedrabbit.
I slipped up to her with my best professional manner on.
"Did you want me for anything, Miss?" I asked in my lowest and mostrespectful tone.
Poor little Million's face lighted up into a look of the most patheticrelief as she turned and beheld her one friend in that tea-room.
"Ow! S-Smith! Come in, have you?" she exclaimed, giggling nervously.Then, turning to the music-hall artiste, she explained: "This is mylady's-maid!"
"And very nice, too!" said Miss Vi Vassity promptly, with one of thoseblack-eyed glances that seemed to swing round from me to Million, thenceto the cobra-woman, the other girls, the stout young Jew, all of whomwere staring hard at me.
She ended up in a lightning-quick wink and a quick turn to the longglass that stood beside her teacup which, I suppose, had contained whatthose people the other day called a rattlesnake cocktail.
"I didn't send for you, Smith, but never mind since you're here," myyoung mistress said, almost clinging to me in her nervousness. "You canpop upstairs and begin to put out my evening things, as usual----"
"Extra smart to-night, Smith, extra smart; she's comin' on to a box atthe Palace to see little Me in my great Dazzling act," put in theactress. "Got to be very dressy for that, old dear. Gala night at theOpera isn't in it.
"The black pearl rope you'll wear, of course. And your diamond fender towave your hand to me in, please!"
"Ow!" breathed the dismayed heiress. "Well, I--I don't know as how I'dexpected----"
She hasn't acquired any ornaments at all as yet. And, somehow, I knewthat this black-eyed, bright-haired actress knew that perfectly well.For some reason she was pulling poor Million's leg just as mercilesslyas her precious friend the Honourable Jim----
Even as I was thinking this there strolled up the room to our group thecool, detached, and prosperous-looking figure of the Honourable Jimhimself--the man who had just got out of my taxi at Charing Cross.
Miss Vi jingled her gold mesh vanity-bag at him with its hanging clusterof gold charms, gold pencil, gold cigarette-case.
"Hi, Sunny Jim! You that know everything about 'what's worn, andwhere,'" she cried. "I'm just telling your friend Miss Million thatnobody'd call on her again unless she puts on all the family diamondsfor our little supper after the show to-night!"
Miss Million looked anguished. She really believed that she was going tobe "let down" before her much-admired Mr. Burke (scamp!) before thecobra-lady and the other theatrical lights.
I knew how she felt!
She would be covered with disgrace, she would be "laughed at behind herback" because she was a millionairess--without any diamonds.... They'dthink she wasn't a real millionairess....
I had to come to the rescue.
So I looked Million steadily and reassuringly in the eye as I announcedquite distinctly, but in my "quiet, respectful" voice: "I am afraid,Miss, that there is scarcely time to get the diamonds for to-night. Youremember that all the jewellery is at the bank."
Indescribable relief spread itself over Million's small face. She feltsaved. She didn't mind anything now, not even the loudness with whichthe bright-haired comedienne burst out laughing again.
I wonder why that shrewd, vivacious woman comes to call on Million? It'snot the money this time, surely?
Miss Vi Vassity must draw the largest salary of any one on the halls?Why does she sit beaming at my young mistress, drawing her out, watchingher? And the other, the cobra-woman; what's she doing there in a worldto which she doesn't seem to belong at all?
And the Jew they call Leo? Will they all be at the party they're takingMiss Million to to-night?
They all burst into fresh chatter about it. Under cover of the noise theHonourable Jim edged closer to me and murmured, without looking at me:"All her jewels at the bank, is it? That's not true, child, while shehas a Kohinoor--for a maid!"
Fearful impertinence again. But, thank goodness, none of the othersheard it.
And he, who's been drinking tea and chattering with me the wholeafternoon, had the grace not to glance at me as I slipped away out ofthe tea-room and to the hall.
Here another surprise awaited me.
Miss Million began to enjoy her tea-party tremendously--as soon as itwas all over and she herself was safely back in her own bedroom with hermaid.
She didn't seem to realise that she had only then emerged from a stateof shrinking and speechless panic!
"Jer see all those people, Smith, that I was having such a fine old timewith?" she exulted, as I began to unfasten her afternoon frock.
"Miss Vi Vassity, if you please! Jer recanise her from the pictures?Lor'! When I did use to get to a music-hall to hear her, once in a bluemoon, little did I ever think I'd one day be sitting there as close toher as I am to you, talkin' away nineteen to the dozen to her, as if shewas nobody!
"Wasn't that a sweet blouse she'd got on? I wonder what she's goin' toput on to-night after the theatre; you know we're having supper alltogether, her and me and the Honourable Mr. Burke and LadyGolightly-Long, that tall lady, and some other gentlemen and ladiesthat's coming on from somewhere.
"And, Smith! I don't think I'm going to wear that white frock you'reputting out there," concluded my young mistress, rather breathlessly;"there don't seem to me to be enough style about it for the occasionI'll wear me cerise evening one with the spangles."
"Cerise? But you haven't got a cerise evening frock," I began. "I didn'tlet you order that----"
Then I caught Million's half-rueful, half-triumphant glance at a newwhite carton box on the wicker chair beside her bed. And I saw what hadhappened.
No sooner was her maid's back turned than Miss Million had wired, ortelephoned, or perhaps called at that shop, and secured thatcherry-coloured creation. It would have looked daringly effectiveon--say, Miss Lee White in an Alhambra burlesque. On little Million itwould have a vulgarity not to be described in words. I'd thought I'dguided her safely away from it! And now this!
"Yes, you see I thought better of buying that gown," said the heiress,flushed but defiant. "You see, you were wrong about those very brightshades not being the c'rect thing; why, look at what that LadyGolightly-Long had got on her back! Red and green and blue trimmings,and I don't know what all, all stuck on at once. And she ought to knowwhat's what, if anybody did," Million persisted, "c'nsidering she's aEarl's cousin and one of the Highest in the Land!"
"Certainly one of the longest," I said, thinking of those unendinglissom limbs swathed in the Futurist draperies of that cobra-woman.
Million went on to inform me, impressively, that this lady, too, was "aPerfeshional." Does classic dancing, they call it. Needn't do it for herliving, of course. But she says she's 'wrapped up in the Art of it.'Likes to do what she likes, I s'pose she means.
"She's got a lovely home of her own, Miss Vi Vassity told me, inAberdeenshire.
"Not only that, but a big bungalow she has near the river. Sometimes shehas down parties of her own particular friends to watch her dancing onthe lawn there, in the moonlight. And, Smith!" Here Million gave alittle skip out of her skirt, "What jer think?"
"What?" I asked, as I drew the cerise frock from its wrappings. (Worse,far worse than in the shop. Still, I'd got to let her wear it, Isuppose. And it may be drowned by Miss Vi Vassity's voice at thesupper-table.)
"Why, she's going to ask me down there, too, to one of her week-endparties! Think o' that! An invitation to visit! Some time when Mr.Burke's going. He often goes to the house. All most artistic, he toldme; and a man-cook from Vienna. Fancy!" breathed Miss Million. "Fancy mestayin' in a house like that!"
I took up her ivory brushes and began to do her hair.
"You're very quiet to-night," said Million. "Didn't you enjoy yourafternoon out?"
"Oh, yes. Quite, thank you," I said rather absently.
I was longing to have the room to myself, with peace and quiet to putaway Miss Million's things--and to think in. To think over "my afternoonout," with its unexpected encounter, its unexpected conversation! And tomeditate over that other surprise that I'd found waiting for me at theend of it.
At last Miss Million was dressed. I put the beautiful mother-o'-pearl,satin-lined wrap upon her shoulders, sturdily made against the flaring,flimsy, cerise-coloured ninon.
"Needn't wait up for me," said my mistress, bright-eyed as a child withtremulous excitement over this new expedition. "I'll wake you if I can'tmanage to undo myself. Don't suppose I shall get back until 'the divil'sdancin' hour,' as that Mr. Burke calls it. He'll be waitin' for me now,downstairs."
Really that young man lives a life of contrasts!
Tea with Miss Million's maid! Dinner and supper with Miss Millionherself!
I wonder which he considers the more amusing bit of light opera?
"Pity I can't take you with me to-night, really ... seems so lonely-likefor you, left in this great place and all," said the kind-hearted littleMillion at the door. "Got something to read, have you?"
"Oh, yes, thanks!" I laughed and nodded. "I have got something toread."
