Cotillion

‘Oh, yes, Mr Frederick, surely you remember? “For a laggard in love and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar!”’

‘Was he, though?’ said Freddy, faint but pursuing.

Miss Charing, more familiar with the poem than her betrothed, was just about to enquire, in a practical frame of mind, whether her preceptress had the Reverend Hugh Rattray in mind, or Lord Dolphinton, when Miss Fishguard, in a gush of sensibility, said: ‘“Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide!”’

Mr Standen, receiving only a blank look in answer to the anguished glance of enquiry he cast at Miss Charing, said politely: ‘Just so, ma’am!’

‘Oh!’ cried Miss Fishguard, clasping her hands over her emaciated bosom, and blushing with emotion, ‘I declare, it is the same, only in real life! Only think, Mr Frederick!—“One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall-door, and the charger was near; So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung!” And then, you know, he rode off with the fair Ellen, and “The lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see! So daring in love, and so dauntless in war. Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?”’

‘Sounds to me like a dashed loose-screw,’ said Freddy disapprovingly.

Miss Fishguard looked rather daunted; Kitty interpolated in soothing accents: ‘It comes in Marmion, Freddy!’ and Mr Standen said, relieved: ‘Oh, Marmion!’ rather spoiling his effect by adding a moment later: ‘Who was he?’

‘My dearest Kitty, permit one who has ever had your welfare at heart to wish you happy!’ said Miss Fishguard, fondly embracing her pupil. She was obliged to search in the reticule which dangled from her wrist for her handkerchief, for a gush of sensibility brought the tears to her eyes. Wiping them, and dabbing at the tip of her thin nose, she added in thickened accents: ‘I do not scruple now to disclose to you the a

nxiety which has troubled my bosom since I first learned of your honoured guardian’s intentions! Delicacy forbade me to unclose my lips, but one question could not but obtrude upon my brain. In the words of that poet whom we both revere, my love, I have trembled before the thought: “What shall be the maiden’s fate? Who shall be the maiden’s mate?” If I express myself with unbecoming warmth, in telling you how thankful I am to learn that our choice has fallen upon dear Mr Frederick—“Steady of the heart, and stout of hand,” I am persuaded!—rather than upon another, I must not be understood to mean the least derogation of one whose Calling, indeed, must be thought to place him far above my criticism! Mr Frederick, most ardently do I felicitate you! You have offered for the hand of one reared “in still retreats, and flowery solitudes,” and never, I dare to assert, will you have cause to regret your choice! You will live to echo the words of the poet: “Domestic happiness, thou only bliss—!” Dear Kitty, I am quite overcome!’

Miss Charing patted her shoulder, in a sustaining manner. ‘Yes, yes, dear Fish! But pray dry your tears! There is not the least occasion for you to weep, I do assure you!’

Miss Fishguard, having mopped her withered cheeks, given a final sniff into the handkerchief, recovered sufficiently to bestow a watery smile and a fervent handclasp upon her young charge, and to utter: ‘“The tear that is wiped with a little address, May be followed perhaps by a smile!”’

At this point, Mr Standen, who had been listening in growing dismay to the conversational style affected by his affianced’s preceptress, excused himself. It was not his custom to seek his couch at such an early hour of the evening, but he had rapidly arrived at the conclusion that any further colloquy with Miss Charing was likely to be punctuated by quotations from a class of persons known to him as Writing Coves, and he decided that bed before eleven o’clock was a preferable fate. He kissed Kitty’s hand, and then, impelled by the expectant look in Miss Fishguard’s eye, her cheek. Miss Charing received this embrace with equanimity, merely seizing the opportunity afforded to whisper: ‘After breakfast! On no account go to Uncle Matthew before we have consulted together!’

There might have been those who doubted Mr Standen’s ability to shake the world, but none could have been found with the hardihood to declare that he lacked social address. His bow indicated to Kitty that he had perfectly understood her, to Miss Fishguard the depth of his reverence. A second bow, directed to this lady, was so nicely graded as to draw from her, as soon as he had left the Saloon, an encomium upon his gentlemanly deportment. ‘Such courtesy, my love!’ she sighed. ‘Such exquisite regard for the feelings of one who, perhaps believing herself “not scorned in heaven,” is “little noticed here!”’

Miss Charing agreed to this; and, observing that the fire was burning low, announced her intention of seeking her own couch. Miss Fishguard accompanied her upstairs to her bedchamber, so obviously determined to talk the whole matter over that Kitty thoughtfully reminded her to provide herself with a shawl, Mr Penicuik’s parsimony leading him to view with violent disapprobation the lighting of fires in any other bedchamber than his own.

Accordingly, Miss Fishguard first sought her own apartment; while Kitty, encountering the arctic temperature of her chamber, made haste to shed her raiment and tumble into the old-fashioned four-poster bed. This had just been warmed for her by a maid bearing a large warming-pan when Miss Fishguard rejoined her, now swathed in a large shawl of nondescript colour and rather tufty appearance. She was in time to see Kitty get between sheets, her nightgown untied, and her cap in her hand, and clucked a faint protest. Kitty, fitting the cap over her head, and tieing its strings under her chin, paid no heed; and, indeed, the remonstrance lacked conviction. She pulled the quilt round her shoulders, and said, sitting up against her banked pillows: ‘Do you think you should stay, Fish? I am sure you will be perished with the cold! If ever I should be mistress of a house of my own, I shall have huge fires burning in every room!’

Miss Fishguard was not unnaturally startled by this remark. ‘If ?’ she echoed. ‘But, my love—!’

‘Oh, yes, of course, to be sure!’ said Kitty, recollecting herself. ‘The—the thing is, it seems strange to me just at first!’

Miss Fishguard could readily understand this. She pressed Kitty’s hand in a speaking manner: ‘A change in your circumstance, dear, but a natural one.’

Kitty gave an involuntary gurgle. ‘Well, I must own it doesn’t seem a natural thing to me to be engaged to marry Freddy!’ she said frankly.

Miss Fishguard forbore to reprove her for this outburst of candour. She said: ‘A very eligible connection! He has a thousand amiable qualities—most distinguished manners, I am sure! Most truly the gentleman! But, oh, my love, when Stobhill dropped a hint in my ear—so very improper, but one scarcely liked to give him a set-down, for I daresay he meant it for the best!—I declare I felt ready to drop! Pardon me, my dear Kitty, if I am presumptuous enough to say that I had not the remotest guess—never expected—in short, was amazed almost into a spasm! I do not pretend to any extraordinary quickness in these matters: it has never appeared to me that dear Mr Frederick had grown particular in his attentions!’

‘No,’ agreed Kitty, reflecting that since of all Mr Penicuik’s relations Mr Standen had been of late years the most infrequent visitor to Arnside, no one could wonder at Miss Fishguard’s surprise.

‘In another, I might almost have supposed this event to have been occasioned by pecuniary considerations,’ confessed Miss Fishguard. ‘I hasten, however, to assure you, my love, that in connection with Mr Frederick such a suspicion has only to occur to one to be banished! I am persuaded that he has too much delicacy of mind and sensibility of heart ever to be swayed by mercenary impulses! Besides,’ she added, ‘I cannot but be aware that he was born to the comfort of a handsome fortune.’

‘I must say, I do hope that others besides you will think that,’ remarked Kitty thoughtfully. ‘I quite see that it would be very disagreeable for poor Freddy to be supposed to have offered for me only to acquire Uncle Matthew’s money.’

‘So ignoble a thought,’ declared Miss Fishguard, ‘will not for an instant be permitted to obtrude!’

‘I own, I cannot imagine how it should,’ agreed Kitty, hugging her knees, and looking, with one curl escaping from beneath her cap, and a bow tied at a skittish angle under her chin, absurdly youthful. ‘But he seemed to think it would. Oh, well! Very likely he quite mistakes the matter, for he is the most foolish creature!’ She realized that she had shocked her governess, and added hastily: ‘I mean—I mean—he takes odd notions into his head!’

‘Kitty!’ said Miss Fishguard, her voice sinking a tone, and her cheeks suffused with colour, ‘can it be that you have mistaken your heart?’

Kitty made haste to assure her that she had not. Miss Fishguard, her fingers writhing together, and her eyes cast upwards, said tremulously: ‘Let one whose vernal hopes were blighted by the ambition of a parent assure you that “love will still be lord of all!” Dear Kitty, do not, I implore you, be seduced by thoughts of worldly advancement!’

‘No, no, I promise you I will not!’ Kitty said. ‘But—but what were your vernal hopes, dear Fish?’

‘Alas!’ sighed Miss Fishguard. ‘His situation was inferior, and although I must always hold to the belief that his character was respectable, I could not but acquiesce in my dear father’s decision that it might not be.’ She met Miss Charing’s enquiring gaze, and sank her head, saying in a stricken under-voice: ‘He was the apothecary’s assistant. He was a very handsome young man, my dear, and looked quite the gentleman. I can see him now, putting up the pills which poor papa was forced to take to alleviate the pangs of indigestion. But of course it would not do!’

‘Of course not,’ said Kitty, over-awed by the mental vision of Miss Fishguard in the throes of love for an apothecary’s assistant.