Cotillion (32 page)

But it was all nonsense, for he was very glad to come tonight. You will say I am a goose!”

Kitty, who was preceding her down the stairs, looked back, saw her blushing, and said laughingly: “No, but do, pray, tell me! Have you fallen in love with Camille? I could see, upon his first setting eyes on you, that he was very much struck, I assure you! When must I wish you happy?”

Discomposed, Olivia turned away her face, faltering: “Do not—! It would be so very unbecoming in me—! He has not spoken, and if I thought that he might do so, lately I have been afraid, when there seemed to be no continued observance, that I had imagined the whole, or—or perhaps that he felt I was not grand enough!”

“If he is such a coxcomb as that, you would be very well rid of him!” Kitty replied.

“No, no, how can you say such a thing? So perfectly the gentleman! Indeed, I am fully conscious of the difference in our stations—scarcely dared to entertain the hope that his affection was animated towards me, as mine, dear Miss Charing, was animated towards him!”

They had by this time reached the landing, and there was no opportunity for further discussion. Kitty, with the uncomfortable recollection in her mind of having on a number of occasions observed her cousin dancing attendance on Lady Maria Yalding, could not but be glad of it. Olivia opened the door into the drawing-room, a babel of voices smote their ears, and Kitty entered to find the rest of the party already assembled. It so happened that the Chevalier was seated in a chair that faced the door, and as Kitty paused for an instant, looking for her hostess in what seemed to be a crowd of persons, he glanced up, his eyes alighting upon Olivia. There was no mistaking the ardent expression that sprang to them, or the tenderness of the smile which touched his lips. The next moment he was on his feet, and was bowing to his cousin. She smiled, and nodded to him, and moved forward to greet Mrs. Scorton, who had surged up from the sofa, her bulk formidably arrayed in purple satin, and upon her crimped locks a turban embellished with roses and feathers.

No one could have doubted Mrs. Scorton’s good-nature; and very few would have denied her vulgarity. She shook Kitty warmly by the hand, embarrassed her by thanking her for her condescension in coming to Ham Crescent, and said, with a jolly laugh: “Olivia would have it I should not invite you, but ‘Nonsense, my dear,’ I said, ‘I warrant Miss Charing is not so high in the instep she won’t enjoy a frolic as well as anyone!’ I daresay Almack’s may be very well, though I don’t know, for I was never there in my life, but what I say is it sounds mighty stiff and dull to me, and I was always one for a little fun out of the ordinary, as I’ll be bound you are too! Now I must introduce everyone to you, and we can be comfortable. Not that I need to introduce my girls, and I hope I’m not such a simpleton as to present your own cousin to you! But this is Mr. Malham, my dear, that’s promised to Sukey here, as you may have heard. A fine thing to have Sukey going off before her sister, ain’t it? Not that I want to lose my Lizzie, as well she knows, but we all roast her about it—just funning, of course! And this is Mr. Bottlesford. We call him Bottles.”

Kitty knew that she was not going to enjoy the party. As she curtsied slightly to both gentlemen, Mrs. Scorton outlined for her benefit the plan for the evening. After dinner, she said, they would play at lottery—tickets, or some other jolly, noisy game, for an hour, and then drive to the Opera House. “And Tom shall escort you home in good time, I promise you, for I don’t mean to let any of you girls stay much after midnight, and so I warn you, for although I’m as fond as you are of a masquerade it don’t do to be lingering on when things get a trifle too free, as very likely they will.”

After this she begged Kitty to take a chair near the fire, and Miss Scorton, who had been much impressed by as much of Lady Buckhaven’s house as she had been privileged to see upon her one and only visit to it, began to ply her astonished guest with questions which were as artless as they were impertinent. She wanted to know how many saloons there were in the house, how many beds her ladyship could make up, how many covers could be laid in her dining-room, how many footmen she employed, and whether she gave grand parties every night, and had a French maid to wait upon her. There seemed to be no end to her interrogation, but after about twenty minutes she was interrupted by the dinner— bell, and the company trooped downstairs to the dining— room.

Here they were joined by the master of the house, of whose existence Kitty had previously been unaware. He was quite as stout as his wife, but by no means as good-natured. When he shook hands with Kitty, he grunted something which she might, if she chose, understand to be a welcome; and his wife explained, as though it were a very good joke, that he disliked parties, and never joined them except to eat his dinner. With these encouraging words, she directed Kitty to the chair at his right hand, disposed her own ample form at the foot of the table, beckoned the Chevalier to sit beside her, and said that she hoped all her guests had brought good appetites with them.

They were certainly needed. Mrs. Scorton was a lavish housewife, and prided herself upon the table she kept. When the soup was removed, the manservant, assisted by a page and two female servants, set a boiled leg of lamb with spinach before his master, a roast sirloin of beef before his mistress, and filled up all the remaining space on the board with dishes of baked fish, white collops, fricassee of chicken, two different vegetables, and several sauce-boats. Everyone but Mr. Scorton, who applied his energies to the tasks of carving and of eating, talked a great deal; and Tom Scorton, who was seated beside Kitty, entertained her with a long and boring story of a horse he had bought, and subsequently sold at a very good price, and without a warranty, upon the discovery that the animal was for ever throwing out a splint.

When Mrs. Scorton had unavailingly pressed everyone to take another helping, the dishes were removed, and the second course was laid on the table. This consisted of a roast chicken, some pigeons, a large apple pie, an omelet, and a chafing-dish piled high with pancakes. After that, a dessert was set out, which included, besides what seemed to Kitty every imaginable variety of cake and sweetmeat, a large assortment of preserved fruits, and two dishes full of roasted chestnuts. Observing that Miss Charing seemed to fancy nothing but a French olive, Mrs. Scorton begged her to take a meringue, or a slice of Savoy cake; and Eliza asked her how many courses Lady Buckhaven in general sat down to. When she learned that her ladyship contented herself with a very much lighter diet, she exclaimed at it; and Mrs. Scorton blessed herself to think that she should keep a better table than a baroness.

After this passage, the company returned to the drawing-room, where a card-table had already been set out; and as soon as the box containing all the fish had been found, everyone but Mr. Scorton, who had retired to some fastness of his own, settled down to a game of lottery-tickets. Since the consumption of dinner had occupied nearly two hours, the excitements of the game had scarcely had time to pall before it was decided that it was time to leave for the Opera House. Kitty was provided with a loo-mask, and a cherry-red domino, and accorded the seat of honour in her hostess’s carriage. As nine persons had to be conveyed into town in two carriages, she was uncomfortably crowded, but this disadvantage was more than compensated for by the reflection that she had not been condemned to travel in the landaulet with Eliza and Mr. Bottlesford, both of whom enjoyed local reputations as wits of the first order, and were consequently embarrassing companions. Having been seated at dinner on the opposite side of the table to her cousin, she had had ample opportunity of observing him during the interminable meal, and it had struck her forcibly that he was ill-at-ease. His gaiety seemed mechanical, and an indefinable air of trouble hung about him. She determined that by hook or by crook she would contrive to engage him in a
tête-à-tête
before the evening was out. The suspicion that lie had come to London with the intention of winning a rich bride insensibly grew upon her; and she hardly knew whether most to blame her own imprudence in having introduced him to Olivia Broughty, or his mercenary ambitions, which made it possible for him to pursue Lady Maria when his heart was plainly lost to Olivia.

Upon her first entrance to the Opera House, which she happened never to have visited before, Kitty was quite dazzled by its magnificence. It was adorned with a painted ceiling, and lit by clusters of candles in crystal chandeliers. Besides a gallery, and a roomy pit, there were four tiers of boxes, hung with crimson draperies, and their fronts tastefully decorated in white and gold. The stage, where the ball was already in full swing, was large, extending past the first six boxes; and to add to the festivity of the scene, a fanciful backcloth had been let down, so that English country dances, Viennese waltzes, French quadrilles and cotillions were all danced against a rich eastern background. Although it was some time before midnight, the house was already crowded, and every costume from the simple domino to the magnificence of Tudor doublets was to be seen. Nearly everyone was masked, but several bold-eyed damsels, and a number of gentlemen, had dispensed with this disguise, and were behaving with what, to country-bred Kitty, seemed a strange lack of decorum.

By means which he was only too ready to impart to anyone who could be induced to listen to him, Tom Scorton had procured a box on the lowest tier, a cunning stroke on which he invited his mother and her guests to congratulate him, but which Kitty soon discovered to be an unenviable position. They were much exposed to the advances of beaux on the look-out for trim figures that gave promise of youth and beauty behind the masks; and as a number of these gentlemen were slightly foxed they were difficult to repulse.

Neither of the Misses Scorton appeared in the least discomposed by this nuisance, Eliza going so far as to bandy witticisms with a pertinacious buck, improbably attired as Charles I; and Susan consenting to dance the boulanger with a dashing Harlequin. The Chevalier soon detached Olivia from the rest of the party, and led her on to the floor; and Kitty was obliged to bestow her hand upon Tom for a set of quadrilles which was just then forming. When they presently returned to the box, they found it deserted, and Tom said cheerfully that they might depend upon it that his mother had gone off to the Saloon, in search of refreshment. To be left unchaperoned at a gathering of this nature was not at all what Kitty had bargained for, and she began to feel uncomfortable, and to wish that she had had the resolution to decline the evening’s treat. However, Susan and Mr. Malham soon joined them, which made her feel less conspicuous; and she tried her best to join in their ecstasies over the ball.

It was indeed an experience she thought she might have enjoyed very well under such protection as Freddy or Jack would have afforded her, for she had never seen anything comparable to it before, and could have sat happily enough, watching the glittering, shifting throng, had she been assured that no questing buck would dare to accost her. But however innocent she might be she was no fool, and a very little time sufficed to convince her that Opera House masquerades were not commonly frequented by ladies of quality. Conscience-stricken, she reflected that Freddy had been quite right when he had said that intimacy with Olivia’s relations would lead to undesirable results. This was one of them; and although she was far too warmhearted to regret having befriended Olivia, she did regret that she had allowed herself to be drawn into the Scortons’ set. She was aware, for the first time, of the cogency of Meg’s arguments, and was much inclined to think that she owed her shatter-brained hostess an apology.

It was some time before anything more was seen of Olivia and the Chevalier; and when they did reappear it at once struck Kitty that they did not look as though they were enjoying the masquerade. Where the mask ended, Olivia’s cheek was seen to be very pale, and the Chevalier’s smiling mouth was oddly tight-lipped. Olivia at once sank into a chair at the back of the box, saying in a disjointed way that the heat was insufferable; and the Chevalier, after a moment’s hesitation, solicited Kitty’s hand for the next waltz. But when he presently led her towards the dancing-floor, his air of gaiety was so forced that she said impulsively: “Should you dislike it, Camille, if we strolled in the corridor, instead of dancing? I have had no opportunity to speak to you all the evening—and Olivia is quite right! It is dreadfully hot here.”

He said mechanically: “
A volonté
!” and took her out of the crowded auditorium into the comparative coolness of the corridor. Here they found two chairs placed against the wall, and, for the moment, unoccupied. As she seated herself, Kitty said: “I wish you will tell me, Camille! Has anything happened to vex you?”

He dropped his head in his hands for an instant, and replied, as though the words were wrenched from him: “I was mad to have come! But the temptation—overmastering! I desired—oh,
à corps perdu
! to yield to it! Madness!
C’en est fait de moi
!”

Startled, she exclaimed: “Good God, what can you mean?”

He stripped off his mask with an impatient movement, and ran a hand across his brow, saying with a shaken laugh: “I must suppose that you, my little cousin, know the truth! It is not possible that I should win the hand of that angel. I am a villain to have permitted the affair to march so far! For me, it is
adieu paniers
!”

“You know, Camille, it is true that I am half a Frenchwoman,” said Kitty, quite bewildered, “but I never learned to speak the language with the least fluency, and I must own that I don’t
perfectly
understand what that may signify.”

“Farewell hope!” uttered the Chevalier.