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I won over Lady Lyndon's companion by a present of a hundred guineas down, and a promise of two thousand when I should be married, and gained the favours of her favourite lady's-maid by a bribe of similar magnitude. My reputation had so far preceded me in London that, on my arrival, numbers of the genteel were eager to receive me at their routs.
But he dressed me as it suited him, patting my silk shoes into shape, smoothing coat-skirt and flowered vest-flap, shaking out the lace on stock and wrist with all the delicacy and cunning of a lady's-maid. "Idiot!" said I, "am I tricked out to please you?" "You sho' is, Cap'in Ormond, suh," he said, the first faint approach to a grin that I had seen wrinkling his aged face.
Only our freshest toilettes were packed, and these were arranged in our trunks with the sole view of impressing the lady's-maid who should unpack them. We each purchased dressing-cases and new fittings, Francesca's being of sterling silver, Salemina's of triple plate, and mine of celluloid, as befitted our several fortunes.
As the duties of a lady's-maid, where there are young ladies, include attending them in the streets and to parties, she should be a person of unquestioned respectability.
Goffe did not scruple to take for her a "genteel" suite of drawing-rooms, two rooms with folding-doors, that is, with the bedrooms above, first-class lodging-house attendance, and a garret for the lady's-maid. "And then it will be quite close to Mrs. Bluestone," said Mr. Goffe, who knew of that intimacy.
"John," said Henry, "is gone to clean the pig-sty." The lady's-maid drew up her lip, and looked disgusted. "Faugh!" said she, "I shall not think of troubling him to cull the flowers." "Shall I get some for grandmamma?" asked Henry. She thanked him for his politeness, and accepted his offer. The little boy walked before her to where there was a bit of raised ground covered with rose-bushes.
She would have let her cottage and looked for a situation as a lady's-maid or a nursery-governess, but then should Ralph come back he would be disappointed at not finding her there, and she might not even hear of his return, so she would not entertain the idea for a moment. She might find an old lady to lodge with her, and her last idea was to open a school for little girls.
Harry Brace, the thoughtless bachelor, was struck dumb when he saw the immense quantity of luggage which went off in and on a bus to the railway station in the charge of a nurse and a lady's-maid. 'Oh, Lord! said he, aghast, 'are we starting out on an African expedition, Lucy? 'Well, I'm sure, Harry, mamma and I are only taking what is absolutely necessary. Other women would take twice as much.
I vas coming up in the Bristol coach yesterday, and the guard he told me that he had vifteen thousand pound in hard gold in the boot that had been zent up to back our man." "They'll be in luck if they see their money again," said another. "Harrison's no lady's-maid fighter, and he's blood to the bone. He'd have a shy at it if his man was as big as Carlton House."
It is true, she had a female attendant; but to her she had been accustomed from childhood, and Nanny Sidley, as her quondam nurse and actual lady's-maid was termed, appeared so much a part of herself, that, while her absence would be missed almost as greatly as that of a limb, her presence was as much a matter of course as a hand or foot.
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