Cotillion Page 11

  ‘No, of course you cannot,’ said his lordship, as though he perfectly understood.

  ‘Measles,’ said Freddy. ‘Not that the old gentleman knew about that, but it’s a dashed good reason, come to think of it!’

  Kitty looked at once anguished and bewildered, but Lord Legerwood seemed not to think the remark peculiar, agreeing, in the blandest way, that the measles afforded an excellent excuse for postponing the announcement of the engagement. Upon his wife’s entering the room just then, looking perfectly distracted, he instantly said: ‘Ah, my love, no doubt Frederick has broken these delightful tidings to you! You have come to welcome our prospective daughter-in-law!’

  She cast him a puzzled, enquiring glance, but as his attitude clearly indicated his wish that she should receive Kitty with complaisance, and her own kindly disposition would have made it very hard for her to have repulsed the girl, she embraced Kitty, and said: ‘Yes, indeed! You must forgive me, if I seem surprised, my dear, for I had not the least suspicion, and—But you will explain it all to me presently! It is so unfortunate that you find us in such a fix, but you must come upstairs directly, and take off your bonnet, and be comfortable. Poor child, I am sure you must be tired and horribly chilled by the journey!’

  She again looked for guidance towards her lord, but receiving nothing more helpful than one of his more enigmatic smiles took Kitty away to her dressing-room, murmuring quite audibly: ‘Oh, dear, I wonder what next will befall us?’

  A silence followed the departure of the ladies. Freddy, quite as puzzled as his mama by Lord Legerwood’s behaviour, stole a cautious look at him, and waited.

  ‘Quite a romance, Frederick,’ said his lordship, drawing out his snuff-box again.

  ‘No, no!’ disclaimed his blushing son. He added hurriedly: ‘What I mean is, shouldn’t put it like that, myself!’

  Lord Legerwood dipped his forefinger and thumb into the box, shook away all but a minute pinch of snuff and held this to one nostril. ‘It distresses me to reflect that you have been labouring under the pangs of what you believed to be a hopeless passion, and that I remained in ignorance of it,’ he observed. ‘I must be a most unnatural parent. You must try to forgive me, Frederick!’

  Thrown into acute discomfort, Freddy stuttered: ‘N-never thought of such a th-thing, sir! That is—n-not as bad as that! Always very fond of Kit, of course!’

  Lord Legerwood, a sportsman and a gentleman, abandoned the pursuit of unworthy game, shut his snuff-box with a snap, restored it to his pocket, and said in quite another voice: ‘In Dun Territory, Freddy?’

  ‘No!’ declared his unhappy son.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, boy! If you’ve steered your barque off Point Non-Plus, come to me for a tow, not to a chancy heiress!’

  ‘It ain’t that at all!’ protested Freddy, much harassed. ‘Mind, I knew that’s what everyone would think, and so I told Kit!’

  ‘I perceive that I have fallen into vulgar error,’ said his father. ‘Accept my apologies! I will refrain from embarrassing you with awkward questions, but may I know for how long I am to have the honour of entertaining Miss Charing? And even—if it is permissible to ask—what I am expected to do on her behalf?’

  If there was a barb to this speech, it missed its mark. Relieved to find his parent in so forbearing a mood, Freddy replied gratefully: ‘Much obliged to you, sir! Never a dab at explaining things! Thing is, Kitty took a fancy to spend a month in London, and I promised she should. Thought m’mother would take her about. Pity I didn’t know about the measles! Makes it all dashed difficult.’ He scratched his nose reflectively. ‘I shall have to hatch some scheme or other,’ he decided.

  ‘Do you think you will?’ enquired Lord Legerwood, regarding him with a fascinated eye.

  ‘Bound to!’ said Freddy. ‘Well, what I mean is, must!’

  Seven

  It was fortunate for Miss Charing, who, from the moment of entering the Legerwood town-house, had been stricken by feelings of remorse, that her hostess was so much preoccupied with the thought of her ailing children that as soon as she had installed her young guest in a comfortable bedchamber, and had rapidly explained to her the unhappy state of affairs, she felt herself impelled to go up to the nursery-floor, to ascertain that no relapse had been suffered by any of the invalids, and that Nurse had not fallen asleep in her chair—a hideous dread which was as persistent as it was unjust. Miss Charing, left alone to the unaccustomed luxury of a fire in her bedchamber, and to the terrifying knowledge that she had but to pull the bell-rope to bring a handmaiden to her assistance, reviewed her situation with feelings of guilt. It had not previously occurred to her that the plot she had hatched might involve others besides the hapless Freddy. His parents, although known to her, had seemed to be but vague figures in the background, whose existence had no bearing upon her schemes. The entrance of Lord Legerwood into the Blue Saloon had banished such false notions; she had been within a hair’s breadth of abandoning her whole project. She was restrained partly by an agonizing reluctance to confess so foolish an exploit to such an awe-inspiring personage; and partly by an even more agonizing fear that to do so would mean her instant return to Arnside. By the time Lady Legerwood had joined the party, she had contrived in some measure to soothe her conscience with the reflection that since she had no intention of marrying Freddy no lasting harm would be done by the imposture. But for all that, she looked forward with dismay to the questions Lady Legerwood must inevitably ask, and could only be thankful that maternal solicitude obliged her ladyship to postpone the dangerous tête-à-tête.

  Having assured herself that Edmund, though sadly feverish, seemed inclined to sleep, Lady Legerwood descended the stairs again to her dressing-room. Out of consideration for Miss Charing, whose wardrobe she knew to be scanty, she had declared that she would herself sit down to dinner in her morning-dress, but she would have thought it a very odd thing not to have made some alteration in her appearance. Not even her desire to seek counsel of her lord could be allowed to take precedence over the more pressing need to change her cap, and to repair possible damages to her complexion. She sent for her maid, discovered that her hair must be dressed again, and had just resigned herself to the impossibility of seeking his lordship out before the dinner-bell rang, when he most providentially walked into the room.

  She greeted him with relief. ‘Oh, my love, I have been wanting to speak to you! Yes, the rose-point cap, Clara, and you need not wait! Stay, give me the orange-blossom scarf with the broad French border! No, perhaps that is a little too—The paisley shawl will do very well! You need not wait.’

  ‘Charming!’ remarked his lordship, picking up the lace cap, and looking at it through his eyeglass.

  ‘Yes, is it not? I knew you would be pleased! Not that I care a fig for such fripperies at such a moment! How can you be so provoking, Legerwood? What, I ask you, is to be done? I was never more taken-aback in my life, and what must you do but stand there smiling as though you liked it!’

  He laughed, and set the cap down. ‘Well, what would you have had me do? I could scarcely forbid the banns: Freddy is of age.’

  ‘As though that could signify! Not that I wished you to go to such lengths as that!’

  ‘I wonder if he did?’ said his lordship thoughtfully.

  Her full blue eyes stared at him. ‘What can you possibly mean? Freddy wish it?’ a dreadful suspicion smote her. ‘Legerwood! It cannot be that she has entrapped Freddy into this engagement?’

  ‘Oh, no, most unlikely, I imagine!’ he responded coolly. ‘Quite an innocent!—refreshingly so, I thought.’

  ‘Of course she is! Reared in such a way! But one is forced to consider whether she has not induced poor Freddy to offer for her only to escape from Arnside. And I am very, very sorry for her, and I am sure I know nothing against her, except that her mother was a Frenchwoman, which I cannot like, but it is not the match I hoped for! I hope I may not
be an odious schemer—and if I were, I should be delighted to know that my dear son was to marry a fortune, which, I assure you, I am not, for of all things I detest anything mercenary, particularly when it is not in the least necessary that he should do so! I should be very glad to think that my uncle meant to leave legacies to the younger boys, but as for Freddy, he is abundantly provided for, and I did hope to see him married to someone of consequence, and not to a little countrified girl nobody ever heard of!’

  ‘Do not despair!’ recommended his lordship. ‘I will own myself astonished if anything comes of this engagement. My dear Emma, you are not such a goose-cap that you can imagine either of them to be in love with the other!’

  Lady Legerwood was tieing the strings of her cap, but she let her hands fall, and turned in her chair to confront him. ‘But if she has not entrapped him, and they are not in love, in heaven’s name why have they become engaged?’

  ‘That I don’t yet know,’ he answered. ‘I am not sufficiently well-acquainted with Kitty even to hazard a guess. I suspect the existence of a plot—’

  ‘Not of Freddy’s making!’ interpolated Lady Legerwood, ruffling up in defence of her young.

  ‘I am far too well-acquainted with Freddy to make it necessary for you to tell me that, my love. Certainly not of his making. For some reason, as yet hidden from us, Kitty wishes it to be thought that she is betrothed to Freddy. An interesting feature of the engagement—or so it seems to me—is that for reasons equally mysterious no immediate announcement is to be made.’

  ‘No announcement?’ she cried. ‘But why not?’

  ‘Measles,’ he said imperturbably.

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘Of course: it was Freddy’s offering on the altar of parental curiosity. Kitty preferred to lay the blame at the door of your deplorable uncle’s eccentricity.’

  ‘That might well be true,’ she said, considering deeply. ‘When my uncle made this disgraceful plan you may depend upon it he meant Jack to benefit! I declare it serves him right to be so set-down! Perhaps he hopes it will all come to nothing. He could not refuse his consent to the engagement, of course, because he will never go back on his word. It is one of the things one so particularly dislikes in him! What should we do?’

  ‘Do? Why, nothing! Except, perhaps, enjoy a diverting episode.’

  ‘For my part, I do not find it diverting!’ she said tartly. ‘I think you should demand to know the whole!’

  ‘Oh, do you? And for my part I think I should be foolish beyond permission to do anything of the kind. Freddy’s efforts to concoct suitable lies for my delectation might, I daresay, be amusing, but I think I won’t put him to so much mental fatigue.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I suppose he would lie to you! How very dreadful it is! And he expects me to dress Kitty, and to take her to parties with me—’

  ‘No, you are mistaken. I collect that he has abandoned that scheme.’

  ‘Is she to return to Arnside?’ asked her ladyship hopefully.

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so! Freddy is going to hatch another scheme.’

  ‘Legerwood, you know very well he will do no such thing! We shall be obliged to do something!’

  ‘Nonsense, my love! Freddy assures me he is bound to think of something,’ said his lordship, at his most urbane.

  But no one was more surprised than he when his heir, having sat throughout the second course at dinner wrapped in profound thought, announced suddenly: ‘Knew I should hit on something! Well, I have!’

  Lady Legerwood, whose conversation during dinner had meandered between the sufferings of her younger children, and the predicament in which her married daughter found herself, looked doubtfully at him. ‘Hit on what, dear Freddy?’

  ‘Meg,’ replied Freddy succinctly. ‘Going to visit her.’

  ‘Are you, my love? But—Oh, now you put me in mind of it I recall that she is going to Almack’s tonight, with Emily Cowper!’

  ‘Find her there,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, of course, dear—But you are not dressed for Almack’s!’

  ‘Go back to my lodgings and change. Plenty of time!’ said Freddy. ‘Must see Meg!’

  ‘This brotherly devotion is most affecting,’ remarked Lord Legerwood. ‘May we know why it has so suddenly attacked you?’

  ‘It ain’t anything of the sort, sir!’ said Freddy, justly indignant. ‘Told you I’d hit on something! Came to me with the cheese-cakes!’

  ‘What a tribute to the cook!’ said his father.

  He looked at Freddy with an expression of patient resignation; but Miss Charing, who had been vainly trying, ever since the news of the epidemic raging in the house had been broken to her, to think of an alternative to returning to Arnside on the morrow, said anxiously: ‘Is it about me, Freddy?’

  ‘Of course it is. Famous good notion! Meg don’t want to stay with old Lady Buckhaven, don’t want Cousin Amelia to keep her company, can’t have Fanny, because she’s got the measles—better have you!’

  Lord Legerwood, in the act of raising his claret-glass to his lips, lowered it again, and regarded his son almost with awe. ‘These unsuspected depths, Frederick—! I have wronged you!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know that, sir!’ Freddy said modestly. ‘I ain’t clever, like Charlie, but I ain’t such a sapskull as you think!’

  ‘I have always known you could not be, my dear boy.’

  ‘Kitty to stay with Meg!’ Lady Legerwood said, considering it dubiously. ‘I must say—But would it answer? I am sure Lady Buckhaven wishes her to have some older female with her, and I own—’

  ‘No need to tell her Kit’s age, ma’am. Never leaves Gloucestershire, so she ain’t likely to find out. Besides, couldn’t kick up a dust! Affianced wife—can’t stay here, because of the measles, stays with m’sister instead. Quite the thing!’

  ‘Oh, Freddy!’ exclaimed Miss Charing, eyes and cheeks glowing, ‘it is a splendid scheme! Only, will your sister like it?’

  ‘Like anything that kept her away from old Lady Buckhaven,’ said Freddy. Upon reflection, he added: ‘Except cousin Amelia. Well—stands to reason!’

  So shortly after ten o’clock, just as Miss Charing was climbing into bed after a quiet evening spent in poring over the fashion-plates in various periodicals, Mr Standen, beautiful to behold in knee-breeches and striped stockings, blue coat with very long tails, a white waistcoat, and a neckcloth which caused an acquaintance almost to swoon with envy, sauntered into the vestibule at Almack’s Assembly Rooms. He handed his hat and his coat to an attendant lackey, gave a couple of twitches to his wrist-bands and favoured the great Mr Willis with a nod.

  Mr Willis, according him the bow due to a Pink of the Ton, would not have dreamed of asking to see his voucher. Quite surprising persons might find themselves excluded from Almack’s, but not the most capricious of its patronesses would have entertained for a moment the thought of excluding Mr Standen. He was neither witty nor handsome; his disposition was retiring; and although he might be seen at any social gathering, he never (except by the excellence of his tailoring) drew attention to himself. Not for Mr Standen, the tricks and eccentricities of gentlemen seeking notoriety! He was quite a pretty whip, but no one had ever seen him take a fly off the leader’s ear, or heard of his breaking a record in a racing-curricle; he rode well to hounds, without earning the title of neck-or-nothing; and while he sometimes practised single-stick in Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, or tossed off a third of daffy in Cribb’s Parlour, he was no Corinthian. Indeed, so far from aspiring to pop in a hit over Jackson’s guard, or to stand up for any number of rounds with some Pet of the Fancy, he would have disliked either experience very much indeed. Nor could anyone have thought him an ideal cavaliere-servente, for he was too inarticulate to pay charming compliments, and had never been known to indulge in the mildest flirtation. But a numerous circle of male acquaintances held him in considerable af
fection, and with the ladies he was a prime favourite. The most sought-after beauty was pleased to stand up with so graceful a dancer; any lady desirous of redecorating her drawing-room was anxious for his advice; no hostess considered her invitation-list complete without his name. His presence did not, of course, confer on a party the distinction that Mr Brummell’s did, but he was a much more agreeable guest, never arriving long after he had been despaired of and then departing within twenty minutes, and never startling the old-fashioned by uttering calculated impertinences. He could be depended upon, too. He would not stand against the wall, refusing to dance; and no hostess, presenting him to the plainest damsel in the room, had the smallest fear that he would excuse himself, or abandon his partner at the earliest opportunity. He was an excellent escort for any lady deprived at the last moment of her lord’s attendance, for his appearance could not but add to her consequence, and he was always nice to a fault in every attention to her comfort. Nor was the most jealous husband suspicious of him. ‘Oh, Freddy Standen!’ said these green-eyed gentlemen. ‘In that case, ma’am, very well!’

  So Mr Willis, who did not condescend to chat with every visitor to the club, welcomed Mr Standen affably, and frowned at the footman who was trying to present him with a quadrille-card. Whoever else might need instruction in the figures of the quadrille Mr Standen most certainly did not.

  ‘Seen Lady Buckhaven tonight, Willis?’ enquired Freddy, bestowing a final touch to his neckcloth.

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir. Her ladyship came in with my Lady Cowper half-an-hour ago. Mr Westruther was one of her ladyship’s party.’

  ‘Oh, he’s here, is he?’ said Freddy. ‘Much of a squeeze?’

  ‘No, sir, we are a little thin of company, the season not having begun,’ replied Mr Willis regretfully. ‘But it wants forty minutes till eleven, and no doubt we may expect to see the rooms fill up tolerably well.’