The Golden Calf | Page 5

butterfly-room,
so called on account of a gaudy wall paper, whereon Camberwell
Beauties disported themselves among roses and lilies in a strictly
conventional style of art. The butterfly-room was the most fashionable
and altogether popular dormitory at the Manor. It was the May Fair--a
district not without a shade of Bohemianism, a certain fastness of tone.
The wildest girls in the school were to be found in the butterfly-room.
It was a pleasant enough room in itself, even apart from its association
with pleasant people. The bow window looked out upon the garden and
across the garden to the Thames, which at this point took a wide curve
between banks shaded by old pollard willows. The landscape was
purely pastoral. Beyond the level meadows came an undulating line of
low hill and woodland, with here and there a village spire dark against
the blue.
Mauleverer Manor lay midway between Hampton and Chertsey, in a

land of meadows and gardens which the speculating builder had not yet
invaded.
The butterfly-room was furnished a little better than the common run of
boarding-school bedchambers. Miss Pew had taken a good deal of the
Mauleverer furniture at a valuation when she bought the old house; and
the Mauleverer furniture being of a rococo and exploded style, the
valuation had been ridiculously low. Thus it happened that a big
wainscot wardrobe, with doors substantial enough for a church,
projected its enormous bulk upon one side of the butterfly-room, while
a tall narrow cheval glass stood in front of a window. That cheval was
the glory of the butterfly-room. The girls could see how their skirts
hung, and if the backs of their dresses fitted. On Sunday mornings there
used to be an incursion of outsiders, eager to test the effect of their
Sabbath bonnets, and the sets of their jackets, by the cheval.
And now Ida Palliser came into the butterfly-room, yawning wearily, to
brush herself up a little before tea, knowing that Miss Pew and her
younger sister, Miss Dulcibella--who devoted herself to dress and the
amenities of life generally--would scrutinize her with eyes only too
ready to see anything amiss.
The butterfly-room was not empty. Miss Rylance was plaiting her long
flaxen hair in front of the toilet table, and another girl, a plump little
sixteen-year-old, with nut-brown hair, and a fresh complexion, was
advancing and retiring before the cheval, studying the effect of a
cherry-coloured neck-ribbon with a gray gown.
'Cherry's a lovely colour in the abstract,' said this damsel, 'but it
reminds one too dreadfully of barmaids.'
'Did you ever see a barmaid?' asked Miss Rylance, languidly, slowly
winding the long flaxen plait into a shining knob at the back of her
head, and contemplating her reflection placidly with large calm blue
eyes which saw no fault in the face they belonged to.
With features so correctly modelled, and a complexion so delicately
tinted, Miss Rylance ought to have been lovely. But she had escaped

loveliness by a long way. There was something wanting, and that
something was very big.
'Good gracious, yes; I've seen dozens of barmaids,' answered Bessie
Wendover, with her frank voice. 'Do you suppose I've never been into
an hotel, or even into a tavern? When I go for a long drive with papa he
generally wants brandy and soda, and that's how I get taken into the bar
and introduced to the barmaid.'
'When you say introduced, of course you don't mean it,' said Miss
Rylance, fastening her brooch. 'Calling things by their wrong names is
your idea of wit.'
'I would rather have a mistaken idea of wit than none at all,' retorted
Miss Wendover, and then she pirouetted on the tips of her toes, and
surveyed her image in the glass from head to foot, with an aggravated
air. 'I hope I'm not vulgar-looking, but I'm rather afraid I am,' she said.
'What's the good of belonging to an old Saxon family if one has a thick
waist and large hands?'
'What's the good of anything at Mauleverer Manor?' asked Ida, coming
into the room, and seating herself on the ground with a dejected air.
Bessie Wendover ran across the room and sat down beside her.
'So you were in for it again this afternoon, you poor dear thing,' she
murmured, in a cooing voice. 'I wish I had been there. It would have
been "Up, guards, and at 'em!" if I had. I'm sure I should have said
something cheeky to old Pew. The idea of overhauling your locker! I
should just like her to see the inside of mine. It would make her blood
run cold.'
'Ah!' sighed Ida, 'she can't afford to make an example of you. You
mean a hundred and fifty pounds a year. I am of no more account in