The reigning belle

Mrs. Carter’s party had been the grand sensation of a week. Fashionable circles were profoundly agitated by the great social question it evolved. The word “shoddy” became inelegantly common in ladies’ conversation. Fastidiously exclusive people, whose fathers had raised cabbages, sold milk, and fattened pigs on land that time, rather than ability, had paved inches deep with gold, smiled significantly, or answered with delicate reserve, when asked if they would be at the Carters’. In fact, superfine jests and aristocratic sneers were the order of the day, until Miss Spicer made a round of calls through all the windings and ramifications of uppertendom, when a marvellous change was produced.

“Of course,” the young lady said, “Mrs. Lambert was going, and openly expressed herself as highly pleased with the invitation. Why not? Mrs. Carter was enormously wealthy. Shoddy, indeed! What of that? After a great civil war, society, like States, must be reconstructed.” Mrs. Lambert and herself had settled on that, and nothing could move them; the thing must be done in the most liberal manner. The aristocracy of wealth had no right to exclude a lady like Mrs. Carter; as for the smaller and more exalted circle of genius, the lady’s brother, Mr. Ross, stood high among the highest there—so the family had a double claim to consideration. At any rate, Miss Spicer went on to say Mrs. Lambert had accepted, and ordered one of the loveliest dresses for the occasion. In fact—though it was not a thing to talk about—some of her diamonds were being reset at Ball & Black’s. For years Miss Spicer had not seen Mrs. Lambert enter into the spirit of a grand toilet with such zest. She was anxious as a girl of sixteen about it. When a royal prince was here she had not cared half so much; but then Mrs. Lambert always did adore genius; and Mrs. Carter’s brother was something really distinguished in that line—painted like an angel, and in conversation was perfectly splendid.

It was wonderful how much effect these repeated conversations of Miss Spicer had upon the great social mind of the metropolis. The diverging current turned at once in favor of the Carters. Those who had openly called the lady vulgar, now found her remarkably stylish—not handsome, but queenly and imposing; so generous, too. If she was a little showy and all that, it was because a rich, natural taste was likely to develop itself gorgeously when plenty of money was at hand. Her party would be something perfectly magnificent. Her orders for flowers had exhausted every green-house for miles around, and the supper would be marvelous. It was said that an artiste had come out from Paris to preside over its preparation.

All this came from Miss Spicer, who entered into the subject with spirit and imagination enough to have given sensation for a first-class novel. So Mrs. Lambert, sitting still in her shaded boudoir, regulated society as she had done for years, without apparent effort; in fact, caring very little about it, except on this especial occasion, when she felt a nervous satisfaction in being the unknown fairy who turned the whole fashionable world into Mrs. Carter’s saloons.

The night came at last, and Mrs. Laurence’s humble parlor was not the only one in which anxious and beautiful women were adorning themselves before their mirrors, though it was doubtful if one so small as that hanging between those parlor windows was consulted during the evening; or if the loftiest and broadest gave back a figure of more perfect loveliness.

Mrs. Lambert stood in her dressing-room, radiant with jewels, pallid with nervous excitement. She was still a beautiful woman; her mirror reflected that and more, it revealed the faint shiver of her hands, the anxious fire in her eyes, the swell and contraction of her white throat, under its diamond necklace. Ellen, her maid, had never seen her so strangely restless before; she turned her eyes imploringly on the girl, and besought her to say honestly if she looked so old as nine-and-thirty. The maid clasped her hands.

“Indeed, indeed, Mrs. Lambert, you do not look it by ten years.”

The proud woman smiled, and touched the girl’s shoulder caressingly, for the first time in her life.

“Look again, Ellen; can you see no lines on my forehead, no contraction here at my throat?”

“Nothing of the kind; if they were there, I should, the diamonds light them up so.”

“And my hair. Ah! Ellen, I see threads of white.”

“That is because you are looking for them; besides, your hair is so glossy and black, the least thing shows. A dust of powder, now?”

“No, no, no! He detests—— You ought to remember that I detest powder. Take the jewels out of my hair, they kindle up every defect. My dress, too, looks presumptuously youthful.”

“Youthful, why not? There will be no young lady at the party half so beautiful. Besides, this shade of mauve is neither old nor young, so delicate and rich; just a glimpse of blue, with a faint blush of roses breaking out, as the dress-maker said, when it came home, ‘something for point lace flounces to tell upon,’ says she, ‘satin thick as a board, sweeping so majestic, with the lace floating over like—like mist.’ That is what she said, but then, of course, you know best, ma’am—nobody ever had so much taste.”

Mrs. Lambert was not listening, but unclasped her bracelets, and took off her necklace with an air of disgust.

“One would think I intended to dazzle the crowd,” she muttered, “as if such things could do it.”

“Oh, madam! you are spoiling everything.”

Mrs. Lambert looked at herself drearily in the glass, her dress had lost it brilliancy—she seemed growing older.

“Put them on, again,” she said, holding out her white arms, as if the glittering jewelry held by her maid were manacles of iron. “Nothing seems to become me, to-night.”

“Indeed, madam, I never saw you look so lovely; no girl ever had an air like that.”

This professional flattery was received by the lady with a quick feeling of interest. She longed to believe the girl; longed to think that much of the freshness and dew of her youth remained.

“Ellen,” she said, with an appeal for truth in her words, and a piteous shrinking from it in her eyes, “no one will look on me with your partial eyes; suppose you had not seen me since I was—well, since I was married to Mr. Lambert, you remember that, just a chasm of so many years to leap over, would you find me so little changed then?”

“Indeed, ma’am, and I would!”

The girl spoke honestly; flattery had become second nature to her, and she believed every word of it.

Mrs. Lambert drew a soft, deep breath; she had lost faith in her own judgment, and it was pleasant to have her doubts swept away, even by the opinion of a menial. She drew on her gloves, and took up her fan, with a bouquet of tea-roses that old Storms had sent up.

“Madam, are you ready?”

“Yes, Ivon.”

The young man stepped into the room with an exclamation of surprise at his step-mother’s beauty. The admiration was genuine; Mrs. Lambert’s eyes kindled under it, and a warm blush swept across her face.

“It is because you love me, Ivon.”

“No, it is because I cannot help thinking you the loveliest woman in society. I never saw but one——”

The young man broke off, blushing more vividly than his mother had done.

“Well, that one, Ivon?” said the lady, with shadows gathering upon her face. “Surely, you cannot mean—”

“But I do, mother; to me there is only one other—but we will not speak of her. The carriage is waiting.”

Mrs. Lambert allowed Ellen to wrap her in a soft, white opera cloak, and bent her head for a cloud of zephyr worsted, that fell as light as snow upon it. At another time, she might have felt angry with Ivon for his mention of a girl she repudiated. But now she was self-occupied, and scarcely heeded it; so, wrapping the snow-white mantle around her, she descended to the carriage, with a feeling of anxiety which had not possessed her for years.