"Oh, Richard!. . . and my dress is blue," said Mary distractedly, and
sitting back on her heels let her arms fall to her sides. She was on her
knees, and before her lay a cardboard box from which she had withdrawn a
pink fan, pink satin boots with stockings to match, and a pink head-dress.
"Well, why the dickens didn't you say so?" burst out the giver.
"I did, dear. As plainly as I could speak."
"Never heard a word!"
"Because you weren't listening. I told you so at the time. Now what am I
to do?" and, in her worry over the contretemps, Mary quite forgot to
thank her husband for the trouble he had been to on her behalf.
"Get another gown to go with them."
"Oh, Richard. . . how like a man! After all the time and money this one
has cost me. No, I couldn't do that. Besides, Agnes Ocock is wearing
pink and wouldn't like it." And with a forehead full of wrinkles she
slowly began to replace the articles in their sheaths. "Of course
they're very nice," she added, as her fingers touched the delicate
textures.
"They would need to be, considering what I paid for them. I wish now I'd
kept my money in my pocket."
"Well, your mistake is hardly my fault, is it, dear?" But Richard had
gone off in a mood midway between self-annoyance and the huff.
Mary's first thought was to send the articles to Jinny with a request to
exchange them for their counterparts in the proper colour. Then she
dismissed the idea. Blind slave to her nursery that Jinny was, she would
hardly be likely to give the matter her personal supervision: the box
would just be returned to the shop, and the transfer left to the
shop-people's discretion. They might even want to charge more. No, another
plan now occurred to Mary. Agnes Ocock might not yet have secured the
various small extras to go with her ball-dress; and, if not, how nice it
would be to make her a present of these. They were finer, in better
taste, than anything to be had on Ballarat; and she had long owed Agnes
some return for her many kindnesses. Herself she would just make do with
the simpler things she could buy in town. And so, without saying
anything to Richard, who would probably have objected that Henry Ocock
was well able to afford to pay for his own wife's finery, Mary tied up
the box and drove to Plevna House, on the outer edge of Yuille's Swamp.
"Oh, no, I could never have got myself such beautiful things as these, Mary," and Mrs. Henry let her hands play lovingly with the silk stockings, her pretty face a-glow with pleasure. "Henry has no understanding, dear, for the etceteras of a costume. He thinks, if he pays for a dress or a mantle, that that is enough; and when the LITTLE bills come in, he grumbles at what he calls my extravagance. I sometimes wish, Mary, I had kept back just a teeny-weeny bit of my own money. Henry would never have missed it, and I should have been able to settle a small bill for myself now and then. But you know how it is at first, love. Our one idea is to hand over all we possess to our lord and master." She tried on the satin boots; they were a little long, but she would stuff the toes with wadding. "If I am REALLY not robbing you, Mary?"
Mary reassured her, and thereupon a visit was paid to the nursery, where
Mr. Henry's son and heir lay sprawling in his cradle. Afterwards they
sat and chatted on the verandah, while a basket was being filled with
peaches for Mary to take home.
Not even the kindly drapery of a morning-wrapper could conceal the fact
that Agnes was growing stout--quite losing her fine figure. That came
of her having given up riding-exercise. And all to please Mr. Henry. He
did not ride himself, and felt nervous or perhaps a little jealous when
his wife was on horseback.
She was still very pretty of course--though by daylight the fine bloom
of her cheeks began to break up into a network of tiny veins--and her
fair, smooth brow bore no trace of the tragedy she has gone through. The
double tragedy; for, soon after the master of Dandaloo's death in a
Melbourne lunatic asylum, the little son of the house had died, not yet
fourteen years of age, in an Inebriate's Home. Far was it from Mary to
wish her friend to brood or repine; but to have ceased to remember as
utterly as Agnes had done had something callous about it; and, in her
own heart, Mary devoted a fresh regret to the memory of the poor little
stepchild of fate.