‘Dear-ah-me! Is she really! Do you know I never saw a duchess before.’ And Miss Piper drew herself up and craned her neck, as if resolved to ‘behave herself properly,’ as she had been taught to do at boarding-school thirty years before, in the presence of‘her grace.’ By and by she said to Phoebe, with a sudden jerk out of position—‘Look, look! that’s our Mr. Cholmley, the magistrate’ (he was the great man of Coreham), ‘and that’s Mrs. Cholmley in red satin, and Mr. George and Mr. Harry from Oxford, I do declare; and Miss Cholmley, and pretty Miss Sophy. I should like to go and speak to them, but then it’s so formidable crossing a room without a gentleman. And there is Coxe the butcher and his wife! Why, all Coreham seems to be here! And how Mrs. Coxe can afford such a gown I can’t make out for one, for I know Coxe had some difficulty in paying for the last sheep he bought of my brother.’
Just at this moment the band, consisting of two violins, a harp, and an occasional clarionet, having finished their tuning, and brought themselves as nearly into accord as was possible, struck up a brisk country-dance, and partners quickly took their places. Mrs. Gibson was secretly a little annoyed at Cynthia’s being one of those to stand up in this early dance, the performers in which were principally the punctual plebeians of Hollingford, who, when a ball was fixed to begin at eight, had no notion of being later, and so losing part of the amusement for which they had paid their money. She imparted some of her feelings to Molly, sitting by her, longing to dance, and beating time to the spirited music with one of her pretty little feet.
‘Your dear papa is always so very punctual! To-night it seems almost a pity, for we really are here before there is any one come that we know.’
‘Oh! I see so many people here that I know. There are Mr. and Mrs. Smeaton, and that nice good-tempered daughter.’
‘Oh! booksellers and butchers if you will.’
‘Papa has found a great many friends to talk to.’
‘Patients, my dear—hardly friends. There are some nice-looking people here,’ catching her eye on the Cholinleys: ‘but I daresay they have driven over from the neighbourhood of Ashcombe or Coreham, and have hardly calculated how soon they would get here. I wonder when the Towers’ party will come. Ah! there’s Mr. Ashton, and Mr. Preston. Come, the room is beginning to fill.’
So it was, for this was to be a very good ball, people said; and a large party from the Towers was coming, and a duchess in diamonds among the number. Every great house in the district was expected to be full of guests on these occasions; but at this early hour, the townspeople had the floor almost entirely to themselves; the county magnates came dropping in later; and chiefest among them all was the lord-lieutenant from the Towers. But to-night they were unusually late, and the aristocratic ozone being absent from the atmosphere, there was a flatness about the dancing of all those who considered themselves above the plebeian ranks of the tradespeople. They, however, enjoyed themselves thoroughly, and sprang and bounded till their eyes sparkled and their cheeks glowed with exercise and excitement. Some of the more prudent parents, mindful of the next day’s duties, began to consider at what hour they ought to go home; but with all there was an expressed or unexpressed curiosity to see the duchess and her diamonds; for the Menteith diamonds were famous in higher circles than that now assembled; and their fame had trickled down to it through the medium of ladies’ maids and housekeepers. Mr. Gibson had had to leave the ball-room for a time, as he had anticipated, but he was to return to his wife as soon as his duties were accomplished and, in his absence, Mrs. Gibson kept herself a little aloof from the Miss Brownings and those of her acquaintance who would willingly have entered into conversation with her, with the view of attaching herself to the skirts of the Towers’ party, when they should make their appearance. If Cynthia would not be so very ready in engaging herself to every possible partner who asked her to dance, there were sure to be young men staying at the Towers who would be on the look-out for pretty girls: and who could tell to what a dance might lead? Molly, too, though not so good a dancer as Cynthia, and, from timidity, less graceful and easy, was becoming engaged pretty deeply; and, it must be confessed, she was longing to dance every dance, no matter with whom. Even she might not be available for the more aristocratic partners Mrs. Gibson anticipated. She was feeling very much annoyed with the whole proceedings of the evening when she was aware of some one standing by her; and, turning a little to one side, she saw Mr. Preston keeping guard, as it were, over the seats which Molly and Cynthia had just quitted. He was looking so black that, if their eyes had not met, Mrs. Gibson would have preferred not speaking to him; as it was, she thought it unavoidable.
‘The rooms are not well lighted to-night, are they, Mr. Preston?’
‘No,’ said he; ‘but who could light such dingy old paint as this, loaded with evergreens, too, which always darken a room?’
‘And the company, too! I always think that freshness and brilliancy of dress go as far as anything to brighten up a room. Look what a set of people are here: the greater part of the women are dressed in dark silks, really only fit for a morning. The place will be quite different, by and by, when the county families are in a little more force.’
Mr. Preston made no reply. He had put his glass in his eye, apparently for the purpose of watching the dancers. If its exact direction could have been ascertained, it would have been found that he was looking intently and angrily at a flying figure in pink muslin: many a one was gazing at Cynthia with intentness besides himself, but no one in anger. Mrs. Gibson was not so fine an observer as to read all this; but here was a gentlemanly and handsome young man, to whom she could prattle, instead of either joining herself on to objectionable people, or sitting all forlorn until the Towers’ party came. So she went on with her small remarks.
‘You are not dancing, Mr. Preston!’
‘No! The partner I had engaged has made some mistake. I am waiting to have an explanation with her.’
Mrs. Gibson was silent. An uncomfortable tide of recollections appeared to come over her; she, like Mr. Preston, watched Cynthia; the dance was ended, and she was walking round the room in easy unconcern as to what might await her. Presently her partner, Mr. Harry Cholmley, brought her back to her seat. She took that vacant next to Mr. Preston, leaving that by her mother for Molly’s occupation. The latter returned a moment afterwards to her place. Cynthia seemed entirely unconscious of Mr. Preston’s neighbourhood. Mrs. Gibson leaned forwards, and said to her daughter—
‘Your last partner was a gentleman, my dear. You are improving in your selection. I really was ashamed of you before, figuring away with that attorney’s clerk. Molly, do you know whom you have been dancing with? I have found out he is the Coreham bookseller.’
‘That accounts for his being so well up in all the books I’ve been wanting to hear about,’ said Molly, eagerly, but with a spice of malice in her mind. ‘He really was very pleasant, mamma,’ she added; ‘and he looks quite a gentleman, and dances beautifully!’
‘Very well. But remember, if you go on this way, you will have to shake hands over the counter to-morrow morning with some of your partners of to-night,’ said Mrs. Gibson, coldly.
‘But I really don’t know how to refuse when people are introduced to me and ask me, and I am longing to dance. You know to-night it is a charity ball, and papa said everybody danced with everybody,’ said Molly, in a pleading tone of voice; for she could not quite and entirely enjoy herself if she was out of harmony with any one. What reply Mrs. Gibson would have made to this speech cannot now be ascertained; for, before she could make reply, Mr. Preston stepped a little forwards, and said, in a tone which he meant to be icily indifferent, but which trembled with anger—
‘If Miss Gibson finds any difficulty in refusing a partner, she has only to apply to Miss Kirkpatrick for instructions.’
Cynthia lifted up her beautiful eyes, and, fixing them on Mr. Preston’s face, said, very quietly, as if only stating a matter of fact—
‘You forget, I think, Mr. Preston: Miss Gibson implied that she wished to dance with the person who asked her—that makes all the difference. I can’t instruct her how to act in that difficulty.’
And to the rest of this little conversation, Cynthia appeared to lend no ear; and she was almost directly claimed by her next partner. Mr. Preston took the seat now left empty, much to Molly’s annoyance. At first she feared lest he should be going to ask her to dance; but, instead, he put out his hand for Cynthia’s nosegay, which she had left on rising, entrusted to Molly. It had suffered considerably from the heat of the room, and was no longer full and fresh; not so much so as Molly’s, which had not, in the first instance, been pulled to pieces in picking out the scarlet flowers which now adorned Molly’s hair, and which had since been cherished with more care. Enough, however, remained of Cynthia’s to show very distinctly that it was not the one Mr. Preston had sent; and it was perhaps to convince himself of this, that he rudely asked to examine it. But Molly, faithful to what she imagined would be Cynthia’s wish, refused to allow him to touch it; she only held it a little nearer.
‘Miss Kirkpatrick has not done me the honour of wearing the bouquet I sent her, I see. She received it, I suppose, and my note?’
‘Yes,’ said Molly, rather intimidated by the tone in which this was said. ‘But we had already accepted these two nosegays.’
Mrs. Gibson was just the person to come to the rescue with her honeyed words on such an occasion as the present. She evidently was rather afraid of Mr. Preston, and wished to keep at peace with him.
‘Oh, yes, we were so sorry! Of course, I don’t mean to say we could be sorry for any one’s kindness; but two such lovely nosegays had been sent from Hamley Hall—you may see how beautiful from what Molly holds in her hand—and they had come before yours, Mr. Preston.’
‘I should have felt honoured if you had accepted of mine, since the young ladies were so well provided for. I was at some pains in selecting the flowers at Green’s; I think I may say it was rather more recherché
ce
than that of Miss Kirkpatrick’s which Miss Gibson holds so tenderly and securely in her hand.’
‘Oh, because Cynthia would take out the most effective flowers to put in my hair!’ exclaimed Molly, eagerly.
‘Did she?’ said Mr. Preston, with a certain accent of pleasure in his voice, as though he were glad she set so little store by the nosegay; and he walked off to stand behind Cynthia in the quadrille that was being danced; and Molly saw him making her reply to him—against her will, Molly was sure. But, somehow, his face and manner implied power over her. She looked grave, deaf, indifferent, indignant, defiant; but, after a half-whispered speech to Cynthia, at the conclusion of the dance, she evidently threw him an impatient consent to what he was asking, for he walked off with a disagreeable smile of satisfaction on his handsome face.
All this time the murmurs were spreading at the lateness of the party from the Towers, and person after person came up to Mrs. Gibson as if she were the accredited authority as to the earl and countess’s plans. In one sense this was flattering; but then the acknowledgment of common ignorance and wonder reduced her to the level of the inquirers. Mrs. Goodenough felt herself particularly aggrieved; she had had her spectacles on for the last hour and a half, in order to be ready for the sight the very first minute any one from the Towers appeared at the door.
‘I had a headache,’ she complained, ‘and I should have sent my money, and never stirred out o’ doors to-night; for I’ve seen a many of these here balls, and my lord and my lady too, when they were better worth looking at nor they are now; but every one was talking of the duchess, and the duchess and her diamonds, and I thought I shouldn’t like to be behindhand, and never ha’ seen neither the duchess nor her diamonds; so I’m here, and coal and candle-light wasting away at home, for I told Sally to sit up for me; and, above everything, I cannot abide waste. I took it from my mother, who was such a one against waste as you never see nowadays. She was a manager, if ever there was a one; and brought up nine children on less than any one else could do, I’ll be bound. Why! she wouldn’t let us be extravagant—not even in the matter of colds. Whenever any on us had got a pretty bad cold, she took the opportunity and cut our hair; for she said, said she, it was of no use having two colds when one would do—and cutting of our hair was sure to give us a cold. But, for all that, I wish the duchess would come.’
‘Ah! but fancy, what it is to me,’ sighed out Mrs. Gibson; ‘so long as I have been without seeing the dear family—and seeing so little of them the other day when I was at the Towers (for the duchess would have my opinion on Lady Alice’s trousseau, and kept asking me so many questions it took up all the time)—and Lady Harriet’s last words were a happy anticipation of our meeting to-night. It’s nearly twelve o’clock.’
Everyone of any pretensions to gentility was painfully affected by the absence of the family from the Towers; the very fiddlers seemed unwilling to begin playing a dance that might be interrupted by the entrance of the great folks. Miss Phoebe Browning had apologized for them—Miss Browning had blamed them with calm dignity; it was only the butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers who rather enjoyed the absence of restraint, and were happy and hilarious.
At last, there was a rumbling, and a rushing, and a whispering, and the music stopped; so the dancers were obliged to do so too; and in came Lord Cumnor in his state dress, with a fat, middle-aged woman on his arm; she was dressed almost like a girl—in a sprigged mushn, with natural flowers in her hair, but not a vestige of a jewel or a diamond. Yet it must be the duchess; but what was a duchess without diamonds?—and in a dress which farmer Hodson’s daughter might have worn! Was it the duchess? Could it be the duchess?
1
The little crowd of inquirers around Mrs. Gibson thickened, to hear her confirm their disappointing surmise. After the duchess came Lady Cumnor, looking like Lady Macbeth in black velvet—a cloud upon her brow, made more conspicuous by the lines of age rapidly gathering on her handsome face; and Lady Harriet, and other ladies, amongst whom there was one dressed so like the duchess as to suggest the idea of a sister rather than a daughter, as far as dress went. There was Lord Hollingford, plain in face, awkward in person, gentlemanly in manner; and half a dozen younger men, Lord Albert Monson, Captain James, and others of their age and standing, who came in, looking anything if not critical. This long-expected party swept up to the seats reserved for them at the head of the room, apparently regardless of the interruption they caused; for the dancers stood aside, and almost dispersed back to their seats, and when ‘Moneymusk’ struck up again, not half the former set of people stood up to finish the dance.