Cotillion

‘Didn’t say anything about you. Asked me if I’d had a summons from the old gentleman. Told him I had, and he said I should on no account stay away. That’s why I settled not to come. Kept his mouth as prim as a pie, but you know the way he laughs with his eyes!’

The very thought of the way Mr Westruther laughed with his eyes drew a deep sigh from Miss Charing. ‘Yes,’ she said wistfully. For a moment she seemed inclined to sink into a reverie, but the melting mood was not of long duration. Once again Mr Standen became the object of her penetrating gaze. ‘Did Jack—know—why he was sent for?’ she asked.

‘Carlton House to a Charley’s shelter he knew!’ said Freddy. ‘That’s why he ain’t here, of course.’

Miss Charing stiffened. ‘You think so?’ she said coldly.

‘Not a doubt of it!’ responded Freddy. ‘I must say, I call it a shabby thing to do! Might have told me what was in the wind. That’s Jack all over, though!’

Miss Charing accepted this unflattering speech meekly enough, but said, lifting her chin a little: ‘For my part, I am very glad he has not come. I should have thought very poorly of him had he obeyed such a command.’

‘No fear of that,’ said Freddy. ‘Very likely to have put up his back.’

‘Yes, perhaps that was it!’ said Kitty, brightening. ‘He is very proud, isn’t he, Freddy?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t call him proud, precisely. Gets upon his high ropes now and then, but he ain’t one of your high sticklers.’

Miss Charing meditated for some moments in silence. ‘I did not wish him to come,’ she said at last, ‘but Uncle Matthew is excessively vexed that he has not. It is the most absurd thing, but I am persuaded that Uncle Matthew had not the least notion of my marrying anyone else. He was as mad as fire when only Dolph and the Rattrays came to Arnside.’

‘Anyone would be,’ agreed Freddy. ‘Can’t think what possessed the old gentleman to invite ’em!’ He added modestly: ‘Or me either, for that matter.’

‘He has taken a nonsensical notion into his head that he must not favour any of you above another. And you know what he is, Freddy! Once he has said a thing he will never unsay it! I daresay it may not have occurred to him that Jack would not even come! It would serve him right if I said I would marry Dolph!’

‘You aren’t going to tell me Dolph offered for you?’ said Freddy incredulously.

‘Yes, he did. If I hadn’t been so angry I must have gone into whoops. Poor Dolph! he looked so miserable, and of course I knew he only did it because that odious woman compelled him!’

‘Now I see it all!’ announced Freddy, nodding his head several times. ‘Accounts for it! Told you I’d settled not to come, didn’t I? Well, it was Aunt Dolphinton who made me change my mind! If I hadn’t met her this morning, I wouldn’t have!’

Kitty looked very much surprised. ‘Lady Dolphinton made you come? No, how should she do that? She cannot have wished it!’

‘Well, that’s it. Didn’t wish it at all. I was in Bond Street, just on the toddle, you know, when out she popped from Hookham’s Library, and stood there staring at me. Made my bow, of course: nothing else to be done! Nasty moment, I can tell you, because I was wearing a new waistcoat, and I’m not sure that it ain’t a thought too dashing. But it wasn’t that. Not,’ he added, considering the matter, ‘that I feel quite easy about it. Liked it when Weston showed it to me, but as soon as I put it on—’

‘Oh, Freddy, do stop talking about coats and waistcoats!’ begged Miss Charing, quite out of patience. ‘What did Lady Dolphinton say?’

‘Said, So you haven’t gone to Arnside! Silly thing to say, really, because there I was, in the middle of Bond Street. So I said, No, I hadn’t gone; and she asked me whether I meant to go, and I said I rather fancied not. And that’s when I took a notion she was playing some kind of an undergame, because she gave me a hoaxing sort of a smile, and said I was wise not to go, for it was all a hum, or some such thing. Seemed devilish anxious to discover whether Jack had gone, too. Looked like a cat at a cream-pot when I told her he hadn’t. Playing the concave-suit, that’s what I thought! Well, dash it, Kit, I may not be one of these clever fellows, talking about a lot of dead people out of history, but a man can’t be on the town and not smell out a bubble! Stands to reason! So I came to see for myself what was in the wind. Mistake, of course, but there’s no harm done, as it chances. All the same, Jack served me a damned backhanded turn, and so I shall tell him! A pretty fix I should have been in if I hadn’t met you!’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Kitty. ‘Uncle Matthew cannot compel you to offer for me!’

Mr Standen looked dubious. ‘You think he can’t? Not sure you’re right there. Fact is, I’m frightened to death of the old gentleman! Always was! I don’t say I wouldn’t have made a push to come off clear, but it would have been dashed awkward. No, the more I think of it the more I think it was a fortunate circumstance I met you. Seemed to me rather a queer start when you walked in, but I’m glad you did, very!’ This reflection had the effect of causing a problem which had for some time been floating in a rather nebulous way at the back of his mind to assume a more concrete form. He said suddenly: ‘Come to think of it, it is a queer start! What brings you here, Kit? No wish to offend you, but not quite the thing, you know!’

Her lip trembled. She replied with a catch in her voice: ‘I am running away!’

‘Oh, running away!’ said Mr Standen, satisfied.

‘I could not bear it another instant!’ declared Kitty, gripping her hands together in her lap.

‘Very understandable,’ said Freddy sympathetically. ‘Most uncomfortable house I ever stayed in! Devilish bad cook, too. Not surprised the old gentleman has stomach trouble. Quite right to run away.’

‘It wasn’t that! Only when Uncle Matthew put me in that dreadful position, and Dolph offered for me, and then Hugh—Hugh!—I wished I had never been born!’

Mr Standen had no difficulty in appreciating this. He said with considerable feeling: ‘By Jupiter, yes! Not to be wondered at. I wouldn’t have Hugh, if I were you, Kit. You’d find him a dead bore. Handsome fellow, of course, but too mackerel-backed, if you ask me. Never saw anyone make a worse bow. Offered to teach him once, but all he did was to look down his nose, and say it was very obliging of me, but he wouldn’t trouble me. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Only did it because everyone knows he’s a cousin of mine.’

‘Oh, he is the stiffest thing in nature!’ declared Kitty. ‘But I didn’t care for that! Only he said he would marry me because if he didn’t I should be left d-destitute upon the w-world, and it is all out of chivalry, and not in the least because he loves m-me, or wants to inherit Uncle M-Matthew’s fortune!’

Mr Standen, perceiving that her eyes were swimming in tears, made a praiseworthy attempt to avert a scene the mere threat of which was already making him acutely uncomfortable. ‘Well, no need to cry over that!’ he said. ‘Never heard such a tale! Bag of moonshine, that’s what it is! Lord, though, to think of Hugh’s being such a Captain Sharp!’

‘George said it too. And Hugh means to educate me, and he says there is nothing I can do to earn my own bread, and they all of them seemed to think I should be glad to marry one of you, and I ran out of the room, and then what must Fish do but say that it was romantic! Romantic! It was too much, Freddy! I made up my mind I would just show them! So I stole the housekeeping-money, and I came here, because I know the Ashford stage stops here, and from Ashford, you know, I can get to London.’