Painted Butterflies

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 975, 19 May 1930, Page 5

Painted Butterflies

Published by Special Arrangement.

1

Mrs PATRICK MacGILL

Autbot oI *" Dancers in the Dark.’ " The Ukelele Girl." ~ The Flame ol Life.' etc <=

CHAPTER I. “Madame would like to see Miss Lome in the office immediately.” Jennifer Lome's heart sank as she heard the brown-liveried messenger issue his employer’s command. Her month on trial as a fashion artist at "Elise, Ltd.,” the dressmaker of international fame, who had salons in London, Paris and New York, expired tomorrow, and, according to report, a summons to Madame's private office meant only one thing—dismissal! Jennifer sighed a little as she got up from hor desk, and her lovely young face was grave as she gave a hasty glance into the wall mirror just above it. Jennifer was slim and small, hardly more than five feet, and was easily the prettiest as well as the most popular member of the whole staff. Tlfe burnished brown-gold hair about her forehead and ears curled and shone with life; her big, dark blue eyes danced with the sheer fun of living, and her body was as supple as an arrow, ready to fly from Life’s bow It happened to be her 20th birthday “The sack’ll make a fine birthday present,” thought Jennifer, ruefully, as she tapped softly at the office door, and, being told to come in, braced lierself inwardly for what she imagined was coming to her. But, so far from dismissing her prettiest employee, the famous dressmaker had a favour to ask of her. “Sit down, Miss Lome, please.” Madame’s English was perfect. “Miss Russell went home ill this afternoon,” she informed Jennifer, a little worried line between her brows. Jennifer knew that Dolly Russell was their smallest maunequin. "It is very awkward. She was to have shown Miss Creighton’s dress at live o’clock this afternoon at her bouse. The one that we made to her own design for the Duchess of Vardon’s charity ball —I expect you’ve read all about it in the papers,” said the great dressmaker, in a tone of easy, flattering familiarity. Jennifer had. The Duchess had displayed startling business acumen in persuading leading jewellers, motor Arms, antique dealers and other tradesmen to donate valuable goods as prizes for the best dresses of original design at her charity ball. The papers had mentioned it every day for the last fortnight. “Yes, Madame. It is to be a wonderful affair,” was Jennifer’s comment. Her voice was as charming as the rest of her little person, being low, very clear and beautifully modulated “Miss Russell was the only girl for this particular job; the others are all too tall. I was wondering if you would mind going in her place to Chester Square. You can take a taxi, of <ourse. There's no need to carry the box through the streets,” added Madame, hastily, as if anxious to remove even the suggestion of a lowering of the dignity of her most promising young fashion artist. Jennifer’s big eyes danced with delight. She would have carried a dozen boxes through Piccadilly on her bead for the sake of proving her worth to the firm! Miss Creighton was The Honourable Adela Creighton, a rich orphan, and oue of the best customers that Elise. Ltd., boasted. Certainly, it would never do to offend her. “I shall love to go. Is there anything else besides just the showing

of the frock?” asked Jennifer, her merry lips parting over two rows of little teeth, as white as a baby’s. “An exceptionally nice girl,” was the great dressmaker’s mental estimate of Jennifer Lorne, as, handing her the precious dress in a large cardboard box, with a few brief instructions, she gave orders for a taxi to be called, into which the jolly little amateur mannequin skipped as joyously as a child going to a longedfor party. The ride to Chester Square was all too short, for, though Jennifer was 20, the number of times that she had ridden in taxis could be counted on one hand. A grin melted the trained stolidity of the butler’s face—-somehow, people always smiled when they encountered Jennifer; from a baby there had been that friendly endearing little quality about her that was as intangible as air, but as real as life. “I don’t know as Miss Creighton’ll see you,” began the butler, doubtfully. “But I’m from her dressmaker, and I’ve come to show her the frock for the ball tonight!” interrupted Jennifer, rather blankly. “That’s what she’s so ratty about, this ’ere ball tonight. Just come ’ome from this new Skating Club she belongs to with a sprained ankle. Can’t put 'er foot to the ground, she can’t. ’Er uncle an’ young Mr. Yardley are both upstairs with ’er, now. The doctor's only just gone. You’ll read all about it in the papers tomorrow,” —Jennifer was told —the butler, like most of his kind, assuming that the affairs of his “people” were of immense importance to the general run of newspaper readers. “Like a cup o’ tea while I inquire if she’ll see you? Cook’s got a pot fresh made, I know,” said the friendly butler, who had taken an instant fancy to “the dressmaker’s girl” as he mentally classified Jennifer. “Thanks, I should love it,” smiled Jennifer, as she followed the deliberately moving figure through tbe famous hall of Carrara marble, down the back staircase to the wide, comfortable kitchen, presided over by tbe chattiest thing in cooks that even Mayfair could ever have seen. Mrs. Coiman seemed to know almost as much about the girl upstairs as Miss Creighton could have known about herself. And it appeared that she did no*' think much of her. “Mean as dirt, she is. Sells all ’er clothes to an agency, which is why she never gits ’er maids to stay with ’er fivfe minutes. What with putting up with ’er everlastin’ tantrums, an’ up late, night after night, well, a gel expects somethink above and beyond 'er bare wages, don’t she? Wouldn t you?” Appealed to, Jennifer compromised bv smiling and taking a sip of tbe excellent tea Miss Creighton was unknowingly providing. “She’U break 'er ’eart not being able to go to this ’ere affair tonight ’Er and young Mr. Yardley—’e’s the only son of Sir Ralph \ardley, the big shipping man —spent hours over designing the dress for it. Settin ’er cap at ’im, she is, barefaced, bui ’e don't seem to bite.” Tbe observations of the cook to whom her mistress was certainly uo heroine, were interrupted by the entrance of the butler, whose face regitered surprise and disgust in equal measure, as he said, “She'll see you, Miss, all right. Wants you to go up ouce. It's the chance of getting, the diamond bangle she wouldn’t miss for nuts, though she'll have to be carried on a stretcher if she goes. This wav, Miss,” to Jennifer. As he paused before Miss Creighton’s door, he whispered “What about coming to the pictures ’ tonight, if you've nothing else to do” You won't be long before you are out, and I've got the evening off.’ “Oh, I'm sorry, but I couldn t possibly go out tonight,” smiled Jennifer, as a tired, supercilious voice bade her “come in.” Except in pictures, Jennifer had never seen such a luxuriously beautiful apartment as tbe oue she now entered The carpet into which her little feet sank was the colour of young spring moss; the rose du Barn silk hangings matched the upholstery of tbe thickly padded chairs auu couches, aud tbe lovely girl reclining on tbe enormous divan at the far end of the room seemed to be embedded in a froth of siik aud snowy lace, reminding Jennifer ot a. pearl in the heart of an oyster. ' Are you from Elise? Don t stand j there staring, please.”

The question and the command were issued sharplj", fretfully, in the same breath. “I’m so sorry. Was I staring?” Jennifer’s quiet apology and very natural question, uttered unhurriedly in her charming voice, caused the Hon. Adela Creighton to lift her pencilled eyebrows the merest trifle. She looked exactly what she was—a beautiful, polished, empty shell, with little, except animal fire, to animate aud render even bearable the thousand wayward, selfish moods indulged in by this spoiled, cynical girl of 25, whose wealth had done nothing more for her than to engender the belief that everything and everybody —with one single exception—could be bought. Slim and dainty as Jennifer herself, Adela Creighton was of the intensely fair, ash-blonde type that flowers to perfection in the early twenties, but runs quickly to seed not later than the middle thirties. The small, heartshaped face, with the delicately tinted complexion that reminded one of a white rose just tinged with pink, the large china-blue, empty eyes, tiny, petulant mouth, and little white clawlike hands, all made up a picture that .held the eye for a fleeting moment, hut made no permanent appeal to a sense of true beauty. Perhaps it was not altogether her fault. Left an orphan at a very earlyage, Adela Creighton had never known the love of a single disinterested human being. At school sbe had been flattered and sought for her wealth and social position, and her beauty had smoothed her path with the men, when she ’“came out.” But not one had succeeded in rousing even a passing emotion until Frank Yardley had been brought to one of her parties by a mutual friend, and almost from the moment that she saw him, Adela Creighton fell in love with all the force of a wildly passionate nature that had never known denial nor brooked defeat. He was 24, and about to travel for a year before entering the vast shipping business owned and controlled by his father, Sir Ralph Yardley, Bt., whose title, being the only son, he would one day inherit. Tall, well over six feet, with broad shoulders, his head set. a little defiantly upon them, with keen, blue eyes that generally made liars decide to tell their lies elsewhere, a straight nose, rather large, generously curved mouth, white, even teeth, which often flashed in laughter that still retained its boyish quality, a splendid thatch of virile brown hair, and a rather shy demeanour that generally endeared him to women, this was the manner of man who had caught and chained Adela Creighton’s self-centred heart. He was with her now, standing over by the window, and Jennifer admired his tall, athletic-looking frame against the fading light. It hurt and jarred her beauty-loving eye to let it rest upon the man to whom he was talking, bending his fine head downward so that his words should not escape his listener. “Uncle, here’s my frock. Do leave off talking to him, Frank, dear, oi he’ll go on till midnight,” requested the high, somewhat nasal voice from the divan. So he was her uncle, that short, redfaced, puffy-eyed individual, who looked as if he drank far too much, and surveyed Jennifer with a leisurely glance that made her feel hot all over. “I say, Adela, wouldn’t it be far better to call the whole thing off? It’s a pity, but-—” “Let’s see tbe frock, anyway." There was a note of impatience underlying the coaxing of the pretty invalid's manner. “Will you go in there and put it on? Madame Elise told you all about it, I suppose?” As sbe spoke, Adela Creighton nodded toward a door in the wall that evidently led to a dress-ing-room. “Yes, I was told how to manage the dress,” answered Jennifer, as she walked across the room, slim and sweet as a young tree, the admiring glances of both men following her. In ten minutes she emerged, and a distinct frown marred the fair, easily disturbed beauty of the rich society girl, and an involuntary “By Jove!” of admiration came from both men, simultaneously. It was not that Adela Creighton deemed her effort at dress-designing unworthy of admiration, but, in some indefinable fashion, her intuition told her that it was the beauty of the girl inside the frock, more than the frock itself, that was exacting this masculine tribute. The dress, which Adela Creighton and Frank Yardley between them had designed, had been named “Painted Butterflies,” and consisted of hundreds of butterflies grouped in the various orders to which they be-

longed, exquisitely painted in their natural colours by a skilled artist, and mounted on a background of black gauze, the better to display their vivid hues. Enormous wings sprang from behind Jennifer’s shoulders, and revealed the outline of her slender body as a sweetly tender thing. A long black tube with a bulb at the end was held in each little white trembling hand, and when, at a word from Adela, tbe lights were snapped off, the reason for them became manifest. When Jennifer pressed the bulbs a hundred tiny electric lights concealed within the butterflies glowed and shone, and the wings flashed with all the beauty of their natural colourings, making a picture of unique colourings and originality. Frank Yardley, who was a clever amateur electrical engineer, had conceived the happy thought of lighting up Adela’s dress for the Duchess of Vardon’s Ball. “There won’t be anything to touch it, Frank. Ob, it must be seen! It must not be wasted!” wailed Adela. “But you can’t put your foot to the ground, Adela, much less stand while the judges examine the frock,” protested the fat, elderly man, whose eyes were still fixed on Jennifer with the stare that she instinctively loathed. Suddenly, to everybody's surprise, Adela Creighton started talking in eager, fluent French. “I have an idea, Frank,” she said, turning to the rather discomfited-look-ing young man. “This girl is about the same size as I am, and not at all bad-looking, really, and she could wear the frock in the competition, couldn’t she? After all, the prizes are being given for the dresses, not the people inside them. I’ve got a box, luckily, so my couch can easily be accommodated. What do you say, dear?” The fair, rather feline little face was upraised in childish eagerness, to await the tall young man’s reply. “Well, it rather depends on what the girl says, doesn’t it?' She may have an engagement of her own that she might not be willing to forgo.” It never occurred to Adela Creighton to consider anything that anybody else might wish to do.

"It will be all right. I will show the dress with pleasure if Miss

Creighton will tell me exactly what 1 have to do.”

The two men and the society girl stared. Frank Yardley stared the longest. Ever since Jennifer had entered the room, her young beauty had troubled some hidden chord in his being that vibrated in glad, selfforgetting harmony. In the dress that he had helped to design, she held his gaze by the perfection of the picture that she made. A thing of fire, beautiful as a spring morning; it was like spark and tinder coming together. “You understand French, then?” There was something intensely disagreeable in Adele Creighton’s tone, and her china-blue eyes were insolent in their look of surprise. “I speak French, yes,” Jennifer ad mitted, calmly, and like a flash-back in a film, her mind reverted for a brief second to the night school where, for six years, after a hard day’s work in her mother’s miserably-equipped hand laundry, she had slaved at French aud the drawing that she loved in the hope that some day, somehow, she would be able to use them, and then, miraculously, had come her chance at Elise, Ltd., through the winning of a drawing prize in a newspaper competition. “An unusual accomplishment in a dressmaker’s messenger, surely’” drawled Adela Creighton, looking Jennifer up and down, as if she had been a museum specimen. Jennifer would not have been human if she had not shown a flash of spirit in her reply—a reply that had the effect of personally aggravating one hearer, and greatly interesting the other two. “I am not a messenger, Miss Creighton, but an artist on Madame Elise's staff. The mannequin who usually shows your frocks—Miss Russell—i.-, ill, so I came instead.” Frank Yardley said, “Very good ot you,” in the rather diffident way thai he usually had with strangers, and instantly Jennifer felt that the hurt which Miss Creighton had inflicted was soothed and softened. “I’ll be at the Albert Hal] at II o’clock, ready to show the dress, then? said Jennifer, as she came out of the gorgeously-appointed dressingroom, having changed into her own clothes. ( To be Continued Tomorrow.)