Cotillion

‘Must be fetched!’ said Dolphinton urgently. ‘Important!’

‘Well, of course, my lord, if you say so,’ replied Mrs Armathwaite doubtfully. ‘I suppose Peter could take the cob.’

‘Peter take the cob,’ nodded his lordship.

‘Yes, my lord. If you will come into the parlour, I’ll have a taper put to the fire immediately.’

She looked a little curiously at Miss Plymstock as she ushered the party into the parlour on the left of the front-door, so Kitty, perceiving this, at once made Hannah known to her, describing her as a friend who had been kind enough to bear her company on the journey. This explanation seemed perfectly to satisfy Mrs Armathwaite, and she curtseyed, and went away to procure refreshment for the uninvited guests.

The two ladies then held a consultation in under-voices, as a result of which Miss Plymstock begged Lord Dolphinton to show her more of the Rector’s garden, and Miss Charing went off to his study to find pens, ink, and paper.

The composition of a letter to Hugh she soon found to present her with certain difficulties. After writing My dear Hugh, she sat for some time tickling her chin with the end of the quill, wondering how best to phrase her need. A very little earnest cogitation was enough to convince her that the story of his cousin Dolphinton’s love-affair would be better conveyed to him by word of mouth, since she could place no dependence on his withholding it from Biddenden, who, she felt sure, would heartily disapprove of such an alliance. In the end, the letter which Hugh’s man, Peter, was instructed to carry to his master with all speed was extremely brief, containing nothing more than the intelligence that his affectionate Kitty was at the Rectory and in urgent need of his help. It seemed probable that this communication would bring him home as fast as his horse could carry him.

In the meantime, Mrs Armathwaite had been busy. By the time Peter had been sent off on his errand, a cold collation had been set out in the dining-parlour at the back of the house, and a fire kindled in the front parlour. Miss Plymstock having diverted his thoughts successfully, Dolphinton was able to attack the remains of a sirloin of beef with gusto. He and Kitty made hearty meals; it was, curiously enough, Miss Plymstock who seemed not to fancy more than a mouthful of any dish offered to her. She disclosed to Kitty at the earliest opportunity the reason for her lack of appetite.

‘I don’t know how it is, Miss Charing,’ she said, ‘for you may believe I am not in general a vapourish creature, but I won’t deny that I can’t be easy in my mind. It ain’t only this mischance of finding your cousin away from home, but it came to me when Foster was showing me the orchard that in all the bustle and the excitement not one of us took the least thought to where him and me was to go once the knot has been tied between us. What’s more, I daresay it won’t be possible for this Reverend to marry us now until tomorrow.’

Such a mundane consideration as this had not crossed Kitty’s mind, but she instantly perceived the force of it, and was inclined to blame herself severely for her lack of practical foresight.

‘However, there can be no difficulty about tonight, for this house is very commodious, you know, and you may be sure Hugh will be pleased to have beds made up for you,’ she said. ‘Of course, I could take you to Arnside, but I fear you might not be quite comfortable there, on account of my Uncle Matthew’s disliking strangers excessively. But afterwards! I own I had not thought of that. Oh, dear, I wish it had been possible for me to have consulted Freddy, for it is just the thing he could have advised us on! You will not like to stay at some respectable hostelry?’

‘Lord, it ain’t that!’ said Miss Plymstock. ‘But until I can settle things betwixt Foster and that mother of his we shan’t have more than a few guineas between the pair of us, for I daren’t take him back to London, you know, and if I don’t do that, how is he to reach his bank?’

‘He must borrow some money from Hugh,’ said Kitty. ‘Oh dear, how stupid it was of me not to tell him to draw a large sum out yesterday!’

‘It wouldn’t have answered. Let me tell you, Miss Charing,’ said Hannah grimly, ‘that it’s his Mama that draws the money, and doles it out to him as she chooses! I don’t doubt she’s gone beyond her rights, but what I say is, things won’t be put in the way they should be in a trice. However, I don’t mean to be teasing you with such matters. The chief thing is for us to be married as soon as may be. It won’t do to be keeping Foster in the suspense he’s in now. He’s sensible enough if he’s kept happy and quiet, but all this botheration and excitement ain’t good for him, and I don’t doubt I shall have a rare task to keep him occupied until his cousin ret

urns.’

She had not understated the case. During the hours which followed, the task of keeping Dolphinton occupied taxed their ingenuity to snapping-point. Garsfield village was intersected by a busy cross-country road, and during the course of the afternoon a great many vehicles passed the Rectory. Every time the sound of approaching hoof-beats penetrated to the parlour, Dolphinton became obsessed by the idea that his mother had discovered his clandestine intentions and would, in another instant, descend upon him. Happily, there was a large cupboard in the parlour, filling the recess on one side of the fireplace. His lordship remembered its existence when a vehicle was heard to draw up outside the gate, and with rare presence of mind dived into it. The vehicle, which turned out to be a sporting curricle, belonged to one of the younger Churchwardens, who called at the Rectory merely to leave a note for the Reverend Hugh; but nothing would induce Dolphinton to leave his hiding-place until the ladies could assure him that the visitor had driven away. A backgammon board being discovered, he was persuaded to sit down to play this mild game with Miss Plymstock. It served, in some measure, to restore the balance of his mind, but any unexpected noise outside the house had the effect of making him take precipitate refuge in his hiding-place, until he began to remind Kitty of nothing so much as a jack-in-the-box. Miss Plymstock made no attempt to dissuade him from bolting into the cupboard, saying very sensibly to Kitty that if it made him happier to do so she was sure he was doing no harm to anyone.

When Hugh arrived, it was past five o’clock, and he took his uninvited guests by surprise, walking up from the stables through the garden, and entering the house by a side-door. The sound of a firm footstep approaching the parlour so much alarmed Dolphinton that he forgot the existence of the cupboard, and sought refuge instead under the table. So the Rector, standing transfixed upon the threshold, was confronted by the unusual spectacle of two ladies on their knees, trying to coax something or somebody to emerge from behind the screen of a fringed tablecloth. One of the ladies looked over her shoulder towards him, and he recognized, not without difficulty, his great-uncle’s demure ward, Kitty Charing. When he had last seen her, she had worn a sober green gown, and her hair had been arranged in neat bands. He beheld her now in what seemed to him a very much too dashing driving-dress, which was not only of a frivolous shade of pink but was also embellished with mannish epaulettes. The dark locks, of whose neatness he had formerly approved, had been cut and curled and arranged in a style which, however becoming it might be, could scarcely have been called demure; and he could not doubt that the high-crowned bonnet with two curled ostrich feather plumes, and very long satin strings, which reposed upon a chair against the wall, belonged to her.

‘My dear Kitty!’ he said, surprise and disapproval blended in his voice.

‘Thank goodness you have come at last!’ she returned. ‘Now, Dolph, don’t be so foolish! It is only Hugh!’

The Rector now perceived that his somewhat feeble-minded cousin was peeping at him from under the tablecloth. His astonishment grew. ‘Dolphinton! You here? I hope you mean to explain to me what this means, Kitty!’

‘Well, of course I do!’ she replied. ‘Only first, do, pray, persuade Dolph to come out!’

‘Come, Foster!’ said Hugh, with grave authority. ‘You must not sit under the table, you know. You are not a child.’

His lordship crawled out of cover, and rose sheepishly to his feet. ‘Had a fright,’ he explained. ‘Frightened of my mother. She’ll bring Foulstone after me. I know she will. Shut me up.’

Miss Plymstock took his hand, and patted it. ‘No, she will not, Foster. Now, didn’t you tell me you would be safe with your cousin? Besides, she believes you to be at Arnside, and very well pleased she is. You tell him, sir, that he’s safe here!’

The Rector, who had been looking at Miss Plymstock with a good deal of surprise and no very marked degree of approbation, said rather frigidly: ‘Foster knows that he has nothing to be afraid of under my roof, ma’am. Come, Foster, sit down in this chair, and straighten your neckcloth! This will not do at all, my dear fellow! Such foolish conduct is not suited to your position, you know.’

‘I wish I wasn’t an Earl,’ said his lordship wistfully. ‘I could do a lot of things if I wasn’t. I could breed horses. Sit under the table, if I wanted to. But I don’t want to sit under the table. I don’t want to hide in the cupboard either.’

‘Certainly not!’ said his cousin.

‘If I wasn’t an Earl, I shouldn’t have to. Shouldn’t have to offer for Kitty, either.’

Hugh patted him kindly on the shoulder, but said to Kitty, with some severity: ‘I do not know what you can have been about to have upset the poor fellow like this! It was wrong, and thoughtless in you, my dear Kitty.’

‘It was not I who upset him, but that wicked, cruel mother of his!’ cried Kitty, stung by this unmerited reproof. ‘I should have supposed you must have known that, for you are very well aware how she uses him!’