CHAPTER XXXII

THE DEPARTURE

THOUGH we left Miss Rosa with the drawing-master, it was not for the purpose of superintending the performance of her crayons, but for the unsentimental one of preparing for their journey home. It was arranged they should all go together. “Time was hup,” as the old stage-coachmen used to say when they disturbed the passengers at their hasty meals, and another day would see them all off. The last day at any place is always a testy, disagreeable one; half the things one wants are packed up, and every room has a littery, untidy look. The servants are hurried and jaded, what between their own business and ours, and don’t know what to do first. Then tiresome people keep calling, knowing that we “will be at home to them,” and so the day wears on without getting half through the work. The meals are ill-cooked and uncomfortable—breakfast on the day of departure particularly so—all odds and ends together. Then just as we are starting, come the last of the lingering bills, those that won’t bear inspection; the milkman with that marvellous score; the publican with an equally long one; the baker for supplementary muffins. Who, in the midst of cording, and tieing, and directing, can resuscitate the memory of those manifold measures? Nothing for it, but to pay and resolve never to have any bills for the future, pay for everything at the time, soap, sand, sugar, sticks, and all. But when the next time comes we just go on as before, being sure we can remember what is got. But let us away. The “key” delivered to the dirty charwoman, then come the cabs for the voluminous crinoline and innumerable parcels and packages that stuff every pocket and tower upon the roof, making the cab look like a haystack. Heavens, how it would have astonished a stage-coachman of the olden times to have seen the quantity of luggage each passenger claims to have carried now-a-days!

Dress has made a marvellous spring since the introduction of railways. Ladies, whose mothers used to get all their things into a moderate sized box and a carpet-bag, travel with great piano-forte-case-like packages, so numerous that they are obliged to be numbered for fear they forget how many they have. And the more they take the more they want to take, till each lady looks as if she ought to have a luggage-van to herself. Then, to see them attempt the entry of a moderate sized carriage; the utter disproportion of the door to the “object,” as it may well be called, that seeks admission! The absurdity of fashion might be tolerated if it inconvenienced only the wearer; but when one lady extends herself to the size of two, she necessarily takes up the room of two, and must exclude some one else from a seat. A family coach has now no chance of accommodating a family. One full-blown sister must go instead of two natural sized girls. The only advantage we see in the absurdity is, that it forms a sort of graduated scale of gentility; the more extravagant a woman is in her hoops, the less inclined we are to think her a lady. It is only the vulgar who go into extremes, and make themselves look like curtains to bathing-machines.

Well, at length all is ready for a start in Sea-View Place. Mamma and Miss take last looks at themselves in the mirror, hoping they have not forgotten any thing, and down they proceed on the descent of the stairs to the cabs.

The privileged beggar is at the street door, hat in hand, hoping for residuary halfpence, and numerous noses are flattening against the windows of the adjoining houses to see the fair visitors depart, who squeeze into their fly, amidst the speculations by the fair as to the probable result of the visit, and wondering what Miss’s name will be next. Bang goes the door; “Station!” cries the footman; whip goes the driver, and away the top-heavy vehicle rolls away along the east end of Sea-View Place, and so into Triton Lane, making for the broad Victoria Road, leading to the railway.

“Stop!” suddenly cries Miss Rosa, starting up in her seat, as they diverge into Triton Lane.

“What’s the matter?” asks Mamma, looking if Rosa has left her watch.

The watch is there, but she has forgotten our old friend the musical snuff-box, though she had put it on the centre of the mantel-piece, on purpose that she might see and carry it away in her hand. If she had put it on the centre of the table, she most likely would, but what lady can be expected to see anything save her own pretty face above the mantel-piece?

“Stop!” cries Mamma, poking the footman in the back through the let-down front window with her parasol.

“Stop!” repeats he to the driver, and forthwith the cumbrous vehicle stops, and John Thomas is touching his hat at the door.

“Oh dear!” exclaims Mrs. McDermott, in a half timid, half propitiatory tone, “Oh dear! I’m afraid we’ve forgotten the musical box. It’s on the drawing-room mantel-piece. I wish you would just step back and see.”

“Yez, ’um,” says John, thinking how long it will take him to go.

“And then come after us as quickly as you can to the station, you know.”

“Yez, ’um,” says John, fore-fingering his hat.

“Go on then,” cries Mrs. McDermott to the driver, and forthwith the ponderous vehicle is again nid-nodding on its way to the station.