The Nonesuch

“My dear sir,” had said Mama, “you would not wish your daughter to be seen in worn-out slippers and soiled gloves, I hope!”

Afterwards she had explained the suppression of the pink satin and the velvet ribbon, saying in a confidential tone which made Patience feel suddenly very much more grownup that it was better not to talk to men about frills and furbelows, because they had no understanding of such things, and were merely bored by feminine chatter.

Miss Trent thought that she had seldom seen Patience in such good looks, and reflected that nothing became a girl so well as a glow of pleasurable excitement. She was inevitably dimmed by Tiffany, who was in great beauty, and wearing a dashing bonnet with a very high crown and a huge, upstanding poke framing her face, but there was something very taking about her countenance; and her eyes, though lacking the brilliance of Tiffany’s, held a particularly sweet expression.

The drive into Leeds, once Patience had won a spirited argument with Miss Trent on which of them really preferred to sit with her back to the horses, was accomplished in perfect amity. Tiffany took no part in a dispute which she felt to be no concern of hers, but she was very ready to discuss with her companions the various purchases she meant to make in the town, and to show a civil, if fleeting, interest in Patience’s more modest requirements. Being a considerable heiress she had a great deal of pin-money allowed her; and as, unlike Patience, she had not the smallest notion of economy, it was enough for her to see something that took her fancy to make her buy it immediately. Her drawers were crammed with the expensive spoils of her visits to Leeds or Harrogate, most of which she had decided did not become her, or which were not as pretty as she had at first thought them. They ranged from innumerable pairs of rosettes for slippers to a Spartan diadem which (mercifully) was found to make her look positively haggish; and included such diverse items as an Angola shawl suitable for a dowager, a pair of Spanish slippers of sea-green kid, three muffs of spotted ermine, chinchilla, and swansdown, a tangle of spangled ribbon, and a set of head ornaments of silver filigree. She was obliged, at present, to apply to Mrs Underhill whenever she wanted to draw on her allowance. What would happen when she came into full possession of her fortune was a question which conjured up nightmarish visions in the mind of a conscientious governess, and Miss Trent had made persistent and extremely exhausting efforts to instil into her head some glimmerings of the value of money. She had failed, and as she was not one to fling her cap after the impossible there was nothing left for her to do but to check Tiffany’s extravagance by whatever means her ingenuity might suggest to her; and to excuse her failure by the reflection that the control of that volatile damsel’s inheritance would pass into the hands of her unknown but inevitable husband.

When they reached Leeds they alighted from the carriage at the King’s Arms, and set forth on foot down the main shopping street. Leeds was a thriving and rapidly expanding town, numbering amongst its public edifices two Cloth Halls (one of which was of impressive dimensions, and was divided into six covered streets) ; five Churches; a Moot Hall; the Exchange (a handsome building of octangular design); an Infirmary; a House of Recovery for persons afflicted with infectious diseases; a Charity school, clothing and educating upwards of a hundred children, and over which (had they but known it) Sir Waldo Hawkridge was, at the time of their arrival in the town, being escorted by several of the Governors; a number of cloth and carpet manufactories; several cotton mills, and foundries; inns innumerable; and half-a-dozen excellent posting-houses. The buildings were for the most part of red brick, beginning to be blackened by the smoke of industry; and while none could be thought magnificent there were several Squares and Parades which contained private residences of considerable elegance. There was some very good shops and silk warehouses; and it was not long before Miss Trent’s ingenuity was put to the test, Tiffany falling in love first with a pair of gold French shoe-buckles ornamented with paste; and next with a Surprise fan of crape, lavishly embellished with purple and gold devices. Miss Trent had never seen anything so exquisite as the buckles, and bemoaned the change in fashion which had made it impossible for anyone to wear them now without appearing perfectly Gothic. As for the fan, she agreed that it was a most amusing trifle: just what she would wish to buy for herself, if it had not been so excessively ugly!