CHAPTER IV.
“THE PRELUDE TO SOME BRIGHTER WORLD.”
While the Lancers were being danced to the good old hilarious tunes, which always give an air of boisterous gaiety to a public ball-room, Vansittart, ignoring all further obligations to his home party, went in search of little Mr. Tivett, so that by impounding that gentleman he should make sure of an introduction to Miss Marchant before the next dance.
He found the agreeable Tivett in an anteroom, an apartment much affected by sitters out, and peculiarly congenial to flirtation, where the good little man had found agreeable occupation in pinning up the lace flounce of a portly matron in yellow satin, not too portly to indulge in round dances, which imparted an alarmingly purple shade to the pearly whiteness of her complexion. “Only mother-of-pearl,” as Mr. Tivett said afterwards. “You may be quite happy about your Mechlin, dear lady,” said Tivett, after planting the last pin; “nothing but the stitches gone. No harm done to your lovely lace, I assure you.”
“He was a clumsy bear all the same. How sweet of you, dear Mr. Tivett! Ten thousand thanks. And now I’ll run back to my party, or my young man will be looking for me for the next waltz;” and the lady waddled away pantingly, to be steered carefully round the room by-and-by, in the protecting arm of a tall youth, who had an eye to free luncheons and dinners in the best part of Belgravia.
“You lucky little man,” cried Vansittart, when the lady was gone, “in favour with both youth and age. You save Mrs. Fotheringay’s priceless Mechlin, and you secure your first waltz with the belle of the ball.”
Tivett gave a little conscious laugh, and shook his suède glove at Vansittart airily.
“Pretty girl, that Miss Marchant, ain’t she?” said he, “and not a bit of nonsense about her; naïveté itself. You should have heard her and the sisters prattle in the ’bus, while the Champernownes sat looking thunder.”
“You dog, I believe that bronchitis of yours was all humbug. Come along with me, Tivett; I am going to waylay Miss Marchant, and you must introduce me to her.”
“She’ll be parading about with that black-muzzled man, most likely. I don’t like to shoot another fellow’s bird.”
“Nonsense. She doesn’t like the black man. She didn’t want to dance with him. I am going to be Ivanhoe and rescue her from that black-bearded Templar.”
“I couldn’t quite make her out,” said Tivett. “She seemed not to want to dance with him, and yet she let him march her off. I fancy there’s an understanding between them. No doubt the puss is an arrant flirt,” said Tivett, with his little coquettish shrug, as if he were flirting himself.
Miss Marchant and Sefton, the black-bearded, came into the anteroom at the head of a procession of youths and maidens, and in the confusion made by so many couples pouring out of the big room into the small room, Vansittart contrived to waylay the lady. She dropped Sefton’s arm and turned smilingly to Tivett, and in the next moment the introduction was made, while Sefton was captured by the eldest Miss Champernowne, to whom he was engaged for the next dance.
Miss Marchant’s programme was still a blank, and she allowed Vansittart to write down his name for a couple of waltzes. There was no question now of unwritten engagements blocking the way. He gave her his arm, and they walked slowly to the ball-room, talking those commonplaces with which even the most fateful acquaintance must needs begin.
Vansittart talked of the long, cold drive; of the rooms, with their red and white panels, and vizards and other emblems of the chase;of the heat and the draughts; of the people, the faces, the frocks. Easily as she had prattled with the lively Tivett, Vansittart found her somewhat reticent, and even shy. But she waltzed delightfully, and he had never enjoyed a dance better than this dance, in which his arm was round that slender waist, and that pretty, fair head with its crystal starlets was almost level with his own, so tall and straight was she.
The waltz ended, these two dancing till the final chord, he took her for the conventional scamper through anteroom and tea-room, which communicated with each other by a canvas corridor, delightfully cool and dangerously draughty, and so back to the ball-room, where he restored her to the worthy lady in the red gown, with whom sat the younger Marchant girls, who were glad to dance one dance out of three; like those hunting men of modest pretensions who were satisfied with a day a week. They were quite aware that although tolerated by the county, and invited to garden-parties, they were not in society, and must not expect that the fine flower of the hunt, greatly in request among a majority of the fair sex, would indulge them with more than an occasional dance. Secure of an after-supper waltz with Eve, Vansittart remembered his home engagements, tore himself away from Miss Marchant, and went across the room to that galaxy of the best people in which his sister had her place. The Champernownes were wandering with their partners, but Miss Green was sitting by Lady Mandelford, and entertaining that mild old lady with the cheap cynicism which passes current for wit.
Vansittart booked himself for his second dance with Miss Green, and then went to look for the Champernownes. He found Claudia enjoying a confidential chat with Mr. Sefton in a corner of the anteroom, and avoided them both as if they had been plague-stricken.
He discovered a younger Champernowne in the tea-room, and offered himself for those dances so lightly promised in the morning. She had kept some numbers open for him. He went to the other sister and wrote his name on her programme for other two waltzes, and this, with his number on Miss Green’s programme, and the two still owing to Claudia, left him a very poor chance of sitting out a dance or two with Miss Marchant. He pined for one quiet quarter of an hour of confidential talk with her. He wanted to make friends with her; so that she should prattle to him as freely as she had prattled to little Tivett.
That golden opportunity did not come till late in the evening. His dance with Claudia Champernowne came at just the hour when all the best people were pouring into the supper-room. When their waltz was over he could not avoid asking her to go in to supper, and she promptly accepted.
“There will be a crowd,” she said, “but we shall get the first of the oysters, and the scrimmage will be more fun than a half-empty room.”
It was an hour later when he danced his extra with Eve Marchant. The next dance was the Caledonians.
“Surely you are not going to dance the Caledonians?” he said. “It is a cruelty to keep the floor from all those portly matrons in fine raiment who are sighing for a square dance.”
“I am happy to say I am not engaged for the Caledonians.”
“Then let us go into that little talking-room. Of course you have been in to supper?”
Miss Marchant owned blushingly that she had not supped.
“Poor dear Mrs. Ponto had been sitting so long in her corner,” she said, “so I asked my last partner to take her in.”
“Poor dear partner, I think. What a sacrifice for him! Why, you must be famishing. And I’m afraid all the oysters must have been eaten by this time.”
“I can be quite happy without oysters.”
“Can you? The youngest Miss Champernowne was inclined to scold the waiters because of the poor supply of natives.”
“The Miss Champernownes are used to such luxuries as oysters, and can’t do without them,” laughed Eve. “My sisters and I have been brought up in a harder manner.”
“Curious, isn’t it, how fashion changes?” said Vansittart, taking her to a little table in the furthest corner of the room—a tiny table that would only just accommodate two people. “When Byron was in society it was considered odious for a young woman to care what she eat, or to have a healthy appetite. Nowadays, it is rather chic for a girl to be a gourmet. We have bread-and-butter Misses affecting a fine taste in dry champagne and a passion for quails. And now what can I get you—mayonnaise lobster, truffled turkey, boar’s head, chicken?”
She decided for chicken, and trifled with a wing while Vansittart sipped a glass of champagne, enchanted to have her all to himself in this corner, wishing that the Caledonians might last for ever, and inclined to be reckless about his engagement for the waltz that was to follow.
“You have been dancing every dance, I think,” he said.
“No; not all. I sat in my corner with Mrs. Ponto all through a most exquisite waltz.”
“Was it possible you had no partner?”
“Mr. Sefton asked me to dance—and I told him I was tired.”
“I have an idea you don’t much like Mr. Sefton?”
“No, he’s not a favourite of mine; but he has always been very kind, and he has given my father some shooting; so I don’t want to be rude to him.”
“Was that why you danced the Lancers with him, after refusing him a dance?”
“How did you know I refused him? Ah, I remember, you were sitting in the tea-room. You must have heard all we said.”
“Every syllable.”
“How flattering to the lady who was talking to you!”
“Dear Miss Green! Oh, she would not mind. She is so pleased with her own conversation that it does not matter whether people listen or not. She is a lady who shakes hands with herself every morning, and says, ‘My dear soul, you are really the cleverest, wittiest, brightest creature I know—not exactly beautiful, but infinitely charming,’ and in that humour she comes smiling down to breakfast, and lets us all see what poor creatures she thinks us.”
“I find you can be ill-natured, Mr. Vansittart. You are not like Lady Hartley, who has always a kind word to say of every one.”
“That is my sister’s little way. She pays most of her debts with kind words.”
“Ah, but she has given us more than words. She asks us to her delightful summer parties, and seems always glad to see us.”
“She is very lucky to have such young ladies at her parties. What would a garden-party be if there were not faces in the crowd worth following and asking questions about? But what of Mr. Sefton? I am interested in Mr. Sefton.”
“Why?” she asked, with innocent wonder.
“Oh, for various reasons. My father and his father were once friends. And then he is a landowner, a great man in these parts, and one always wants to know about such people.”
“Yes, he has a fine estate, and he is said to be rich; but he is not as popular as his father was. I remember old Mr. Sefton, a splendid gentleman. But this Mr. Sefton and my father get on very well together.”
“You say he has been kind. How kind?”
“He asks my father to shooting parties, and he sends us game, and grapes, and pines. I would rather for my own part that he didn’t, for we can give him nothing in return. Sophy wanted to work him a pair of slippers—preposterous—as if he were a curate! My two nursery sisters offered to make him a set of mats in Russian cross-stitch. Imagine sending Mr. Sefton mats for his toilet table.”
“He scarcely looks the kind of man to appreciate that particular form of attention. Tivett, now, would be delighted with such a gift. There is nothing too microscopic or too feminine to interest that dear little man.”
“He is a dear little man. It is quite delightful to hear him talk about London people and London parties.”
“Did he set you longing to be in the whirl of a London season?”
“I don’t know. It would be very nice, for once in one’s life; but I am quite happy in our country home, as long as—as,” she faltered a little, “father is well and contented.”
He felt that in this faltering phrase there was a hint of domestic cares. Hubert Hartley had told him, during a few minutes’ talk on the omnibus, that Colonel Marchant was something of a Bohemian, and a difficult man to get on with.
“I always feel sorry for those five girls of his,” Sir Hubert concluded.
“You are wise in liking your country life,” said Vansittart. “It is the happier life. All my best days are at Merewood—our place near Liss. Do you know Liss, by-the-by?”
“No, indeed. I know there is such a place somewhere between here and Portsmouth.”
“You must have passed it, I think. I dare say you sometimes go to Southsea or to the Isle of Wight for your summer holidays.”
“You dare to say too much,” she answered, with her frank, girlish laugh. “We never go anywhere for our summer holidays. We live in the same house all the year round. When a poor man has five daughters he can’t afford to carry them about to seaside lodgings, which are always dreadfully dear in the season, I am told. I think we ought to go back to the ball-room. I am engaged for the next waltz.”
“And I, to a most exacting partner.”
The waltz was half over when they entered the dancing-room, and Hilda Champernowne, who saw them enter side by side, looking very happy, was evidently offended.
“It is hardly worth while standing up,” she said; “the waltz is just over.”
“I thought it had only just begun.”
“That shows how engrossed you must have been.”
“I was giving a young lady some supper, and a young lady who might have starved but for me.”
“Impossible! The young lady was Miss Marchant, whom you yourself pronounced the belle of the ball. Mr. Tivett told me so.”
“In such an assembly as this—where there is some of the best blood in England—there are many belles,” said Vansittart. “Will you come for a turn round the rooms, if you won’t dance?”
The lady rose, and took his arm, somewhat mollified, and in the course of that turn—which could not, from the limited space, last very long—she questioned Vansittart sharply about Miss Marchant. Did he think her good style? Had he found her bright and clever in conversation, or was she very dull?
“The poor things go nowhere, I am told, except to garden-parties, where they are lost in a crowd of nobodies. It has been too sad tosee them sitting with that awful woman in the red gown. Why do girls go to dances to endure such purgatory? I would as soon sit in the pillory, like Daniel Defoe, as in that corner with the crimson lady.”
“Oh, but they have been dancing a good deal. Theirs is not quite such a piteous case as you make out.”
“Have they really?” asked Miss Champernowne, with a disparaging drawl; “I’m glad some one has taken compassion upon them. They’ve always been sittin’ when I happened to look their way.”
The Champernownes and the Marchants met an hour later in the cloak-room, and this time Lady Hartley formally introduced the Miss Marchants to the haughty Devonians, in the hope that this might make the return journey a little more sociable; a vain hope, for the Champernownes and Miss Green affected to be overcome by sleep as soon as they had settled themselves in the omnibus. So Mr. Tivett and the Marchants had all the talk to themselves, as before, with an occasional kindly word from the hostess, who was genuinely sleepy, and who dreamt that she and the Marchant girls were travelling in Italy, and that their carriage was stopped by brigands.
The brigand-in-chief was her own groom, who came to open the door, and assist the young ladies to alight at their garden gate. But he was not allowed to do more than hold the door open, for Vansittart was standing on the whitened road ready to hand his partner and her sisters to the ground. They alighted as airily as Mercury on the heaven-kissing hill.
“Dear Lady Hartley, we have no words to express our gratitude,” said Sophy, as Maud shook hands with her at parting.
Eve was less demonstrative, but not less grateful, and the youngest of the three only murmured something unintelligible from between the folds of her tartan shawl.
Vansittart opened a low wooden gate. The house stood boldly out against the clear moonlit sky; but he had no time to look at it, for he was absorbed in guiding Eve Marchant’s footsteps on the slippery garden path, while the groom followed in attendance on her sisters. The path was smooth as glass, and he almost held her in his arms as they went slowly up the sharp little hill that led to the rustic porch.
An old woman opened the door, and the three girls were speedily absorbed into a dark vestibule, a single candle glimmering in the distance.
“Are we very late, Nancy?” asked Eve.
“Not later than I thowt you’d be,” answered the woman, with a north-country accent; and then there was nothing for Vansittart to do except to wish the three sisters good night, and go back tothe ’bus, where Sir Hubert was beginning to be uneasy about his horses waiting in the frosty air.
“Cuts into them like knives,” said Sir Hubert, as his brother-in-law clambered on to the box. “You might have made shorter work of seeing Miss Marchant to her door.”
“I might have let her fall on that inclined plane,” growled Vansittart. “Capital for tobogganing, but very dangerous for a young lady in satin shoes.”
“Poor girl, I wonder where her next satin shoes will come from,” said Hubert.
“Is the Colonel so very hard up?”
“Very, I should think, since he is always in debt to the little tradespeople about here.”
“And on the strength of that you all talk about those three girls as if they were lepers,” retorted Vansittart. “I have no patience with the pettiness of village society.”