Cotillion

There could be no doubt of this; her eyes were sparkling already in anticipation of the treat. Mr Standen, returning to his lodging in Ryder Street, to change his dress for the evening’s entertainment, nourished a faint hope that a visit to the theatre might give her thoughts a new turn. He was perfectly willing to escort her to any place of amusement frequented by ladies of quality, but he was much inclined to think that any more expeditions such as those which had rendered the last two days hideous would send him into Leicestershire on a repairing lease.

The success of the evening was assured from the moment that Mr Stonehouse, a shy young gentleman afflicted with a slight stammer, made his bow, and showed plainly by his demeanour that he very much admired Miss Charing’s style of beauty. To a girl who, besides having lived in rural seclusion, had never been used to think herself even tolerably handsome, the appreciative gleam in Mr Stonehouse’s eye was as exhilarating to the spirits as a glass of champagne. When they took their seats in the box, they attracted some attention, and several persons, who had exchanged bows and smiles with Meg, looked very hard at Kitty, one foppish man even going so far as to level his quizzing-glass in her direction. She thought this very rude, but she was not altogether displeased until Freddy, observing the interest of the dandy, said in a resigned tone: ‘There’s that fellow Luss. Thought he was out of town. Pity he ain’t. Never knew anyone more inquisitive! Lay you odds we shall have him here in the first interval, trying to nose out who you are, Kit!’

‘Is he staring so because I am a stranger?’ asked Kitty, a trifle dashed.

‘That’s it. No need to put yourself about,’ Freddy said reassuringly. ‘It ain’t that there’s anything amiss: in fact, you look very becomingly.’

This temperate praise exercised a rather damping effect upon her spirits, but these soon rose again, for Mr Stonehouse showed unmistakable signs of wishing to engage her attention. While Freddy and his sister exchanged desultory remarks about their various acquaintances in the audience, he drew his chair rather closer to Kitty’s, and politely enquired if she was enjoying her visit to the Metropolis. He seemed surprised to learn that it was her first; and when she told him innocently that Freddy had been so obliging as to take her to Westminster Abbey and to the Tower, looked quite stunned.

‘F-Freddy?’ he repeated. ‘D-did you say W-Westminster Abbey?’

‘Yes, and also the Tower. We meant to go into St Paul’s as well, but the guide book seemed not to think highly of the interior, so we did no more than look at the outside. But we saw the Elgin Marbles!’

‘N-Not Freddy!’ he said incredulously.

‘Yes, indeed he did! Though I am bound to own that he did not care much for them.’

‘I shouldn’t think he w-would,’ said Mr Stonehouse. ‘I c-can’t imagine how he was p-prevailed upon to go!’ He coloured, and added apologetically: ‘No, I d-don’t mean that! I c-can, of course, but it’s very surprising! The best of good fellows, you know, b-but—’ His voice broke. ‘Elgin Marbles!’ he uttered. ‘Oh, lord!’

Freddy, overhearing, said severely: ‘Yes, but there’s no need for you to spread it all over town, Jasper!’

‘I c-couldn’t resist it!’ said Mr Stonehouse frankly. ‘D-didn’t you admire ’em, Freddy?’

Since Mr Standen felt strongly on the subject, it was fortunate that his sister created a diversion at that moment by calling Kitty’s attention to a box on the opposite side of the house. ‘Look, Kitty! There is the Chevalier, just come in with Lady Maria Yalding and her sister! Freddy! If she has not brought Drakemire with her! Well!’

Kitty, following the direction of her eyes, saw a party of four people in the box. A stout woman, very fashionably dressed but neither beautiful nor in quite the first blush of youth, was disposing herself in her chair, assisted by the Chevalier, who held her fan and her reticule for her, and carefully arranged her elaborately trimmed cloak over the back of the chair. A thinner edition of herself, who bore more the appearance of a hired companion than of a sister, sat down beside her, somewhat perfunctorily attended by the fourth member of the party, a desiccated man with a misogynistic expression.

‘Lady Maria is the fat one, and that’s her elder sister, Lady Jane,’ explained Meg. ‘Annerwick’s daughters, you know: he has five, and all as plain as puddings! No fortune, of course: Mama says that old Lord Annerwick ran through thirty thousand pounds before he was twenty-five years old even!’

‘Good gracious!’ said Kitty, looking in surprise towards Lady Maria’s box. ‘I had supposed her to be very rich indeed! She wears so many jewels and feathers!’

‘Oh, yes! For, by the luckiest chance, Mr Yalding wished to marry her, and although he was quite an ungenteel person—I believe, in fact, a merchant!—the Annerwicks could not but be thankful.’

‘Didn’t want to marry her,’ interpolated Freddy. ‘Wanted to be in the ton. Offered for the Calderbank girl first, but he smelled too much of the shop for Calderbank. Queer old fellow! Didn’t do him much good, either. Nailed up a couple of years ago.’

‘N-no, but it d-did Lady M-Maria good,’ said Mr Stonehouse. ‘He left his whole f-fortune to her. She saw to that! D-dragon of a female!’ He glanced across the house. ‘Stupid, too. Who’s the young b-blade making—’ He stopped abruptly, his question cut short by a nip from Meg’s fingers.

But Freddy, who had moved beyond the reach of his sister’s hand, answered it. ‘Cousin of Miss Charing’s. French fellow. Think he’s dangling after her, Kit?’

‘Oh, Freddy, surely he would not do so?’ exclaimed Kitty, shocked.

‘Might,’ said Freddy. ‘Wouldn’t myself, but plenty of fellows have. Well, bound to! Worth a hundred thousand, they say. Trouble is, she’s a dashed queer-tempered woman. Uphall made a push

to fix his interest with her. She’d have had him, too, but he couldn’t bring himself up to scratch. Told me he’d sooner be rolled-up. Says it ain’t so bad in a sponging-house—once you get used to it. Good God! For the lord’s sake, don’t look to the left, Meg! Aunt Dolphinton!’

With great presence of mind, Meg unfurled her fan, and plied it so that it hid her profile. ‘Has she seen us?’ she hissed.

‘Don’t know, and I’m dashed well not going to look. She’s got Dolph with her, that’s all I can tell you. We shall have to take a stroll outside after the act, or she’ll start beckoning to us. You know what she is!’

Just then the curtain rose, and although Freddy’s enjoyment of the drama was marred by what he felt to be the urgent necessity to evolve a scheme that would enable them all to escape a compulsory visit to Lady Dolphinton’s box, Kitty instantly forgot the ordeal ahead, and sat throughout the act in a trance of rapt interest, her lips just parted, her gaze riveted, and her hands tightly clasping her fan. At the fall of the curtain Freddy made a creditable attempt to hustle the ladies out of the box before his redoubtable relative had had time to observe them; but owing to Meg’s having lost her handkerchief, and to Kitty’s having to be roused from her lingering trance, this failed. Before he could achieve his end, a knock fell on the door, and the Chevalier entered, so that the project had to be abandoned.

Kitty could not but be glad. That her handsome cousin should dangle after a fortune was a suggestion that distressed her. His prompt appearance in Freddy’s box seemed to give the lie to it; and nothing in his demeanour betrayed the least desire on his part to return to Lady Maria’s side. In full view of his hostess, he stayed chatting, very gay and debonair; and when Kitty, rendered quite uncomfortable by a fixed stare from the opposite box, told him that she feared he might be offending Lady Maria, his brows flew up in surprise, and he exclaimed: ‘But no! How should it be possible? I have informed her that my cousin is present—my cousin whom for so many years I have not seen!’

‘Well, she looks very cross,’ said Kitty.

‘I am not very well acquainted with Lady Maria, but it seems that she suffers from bad humours,’ he said, with a droll look. ‘But I should not say so! I am, in effect, an ingrate! She has been most kind to one who is without friends in London, and—you understand my lips are sealed!’

‘All very w-well,’ said Mr Stonehouse, when, by tacit consent, he and Mr Standen withdrew from the box to take an airing in the corridor, ‘b-but if he hasn’t any f-friends in London, w-why did he c-come here? N-not one of the Embassy people, is he?’ He added hastily: ‘I don’t m-mean to say that he isn’t p-perfectly respectable! It just struck m-me that it was odd!’ He became aware of a lanky figure in his path, and put up his glass. ‘Oh! Dolphinton! How d’ye do?’