Cotillion

Chapter XIII

Never had there been a clearer case of love at first sight! As the Chevalier stood, tenderly holding the little gloved hand in his, while his gaze devoured the flower-like face, Olivia raised her eyes to his in a look of wonder, as though she had been an enchanted maiden awakened from long, dreamless sleep. Kitty, interestedly watching, thought that they exchanged hearts in that moment, and was quite sorry when a recollection of their surroundings made each look away. Olivia recovered her hand, and the Chevalier began at once to talk in his vivacious style to Kitty. He walked beside them, leading his horse, and when they would have parted from him at the Stanhope Gate, declared that he had been on his way to the livery-stables when he had encountered them, and wished to ride no more. He escorted them along Mount Street; and Kitty, much enjoying her first efforts at matchmaking, begged them to stroll on towards Berkeley Square while she paused at the Legerwood house, to enquire after the invalids. When she presently overtook them, they were conversing with the ease of long friendship, or perfect understanding; and the Chevalier had begged leave to stable his horse, and to return immediately to Lady Buckhaven’s house, that he might have the privilege of driving Olivia back to Hans Crescent. Kitty could only admire such ready address. The Chevalier certainly had no carriage in England, but she did not doubt that he would contrive to beg, borrow, or hire a suitable vehicle. Nor was she disappointed: in a surprisingly short space of time he presented himself in Meg’s drawing-room, leaving a groom from the livery-stables he patronized in charge of a neat phaeton-and-pair.

He arrived to find the elder Miss Scorton sitting with Kitty and Olivia, and Kitty could have laughed aloud to see the look of chagrin that flickered in his eyes. But Olivia’s cousin Eliza, a kind, vulgar spinster of uncertain age and romantic disposition, had no notion of spoiling sport. She had indeed come to bear Olivia company on her way home, but one glance at the Chevalier’s excellent riding-dress and indefinable air of affluence was enough to convince her that here was a possible parti for her beautiful little cousin who combined wealth with attributes still more alluring to the female mind; and she lost no time in breaking into a voluble explanation of the several reasons which made it inconvenient for her to take Olivia back to Hans Crescent for at least an hour. She then took leave of Miss Charing, and departed, but not, rather unfortunately, before Lady Buckhaven came in. Meg received her protestations with civility, but coolly; and when she and Kitty were presently left alone she said, in a pet, that she wished Kitty would not invite such vulgar creatures to her house.

Kitty was contrite, but she was able to assure her hostess that Miss Scortori had no notion of encroaching. “She came only to escort Olivia home, you know. But, Meg, did you observe my cousin? I declare to you he no sooner clapped eyes on Olivia than he had no eyes for anyone else! It is the most famous thing!”

But Meg did not think it a famous thing at all. “Of course I observed your cousin, and I must say, Kitty, I think it is foolish beyond permission to encourage such a thing! The Chevalier and a girl with such low connections? You must be mad to think of it!”

“Oh, fiddle!” Kitty said. “You will own that her birth is respectable, and as for her connections, why, Camille will take her away to France, and they need never be troubled by Mrs. Broughty, or the Scortons!”

“You can know nothing of relations if that is what you think!” said Meg tartly. “Good gracious, I wonder that Freddy will let you make such a goosecap of yourself!”

Miss Charing refrained from explaining that it was not in Mr. Standen’s power to control any of her actions. She guessed that Meg would lose no time in telling Freddy, and was fully prepared to counter opposition from that quarter.

But Freddy, rubbing his nose as he always did when at a stand, merely said in a thoughtful voice: “Shouldn’t wonder if you were to catch cold at that, Kit.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Don’t think it’ll fadge,” said Freddy.

“Oh, you are thinking of those dreadful Scortons, I daresay! I own, if Camille were an Englishman it might not do, but consider!—he is here only upon a visit, and it is not to be supposed that Mrs. Broughty or her sister will for ever be journeying into France! Indeed, I should be astonished if they went there at all! To Olivia herself there can be not the least objection!”

“Got a notion Mrs. Broughty won’t like it,” said Freddy.

She stared at him. “Dut why should she not? Desides, I have learnt that Camille was received by her when he drove Olivia to Hans Crescent that day, and nothing could have exceeded her affability!”

Freddy looked vaguely distressed, and rubbed his nose harder than ever. “But, Freddy—!”

In Freddy’s pocket there nestled a brief note from Lord Legerwood, informing him that he could discover no noble French family bearing the patronymic of Evron. “Of ‘my uncle the Marquis,’ “ wrote Lord Legerwood, “there is no discoverable trace. One feels that the creation of this peer was a mistake. One is further tempted to hazard the conjecture that your Chevalier may well prove to be a chevalier d’industrie. ...”

Freddy looked at Miss Charing, whose innocent eyes were fixed enquiringly upon his face, and coloured. “French, y’know!” he said. “Been at war with the Frogs so long—!”

Miss Charing was satisfied, and laughed away such doubts. Freddy, foreseeing that Mrs. Broughty, as well as himself, might be inspired to make certain enquiries, perceived shoals ahead, and looked unhappier than ever. His sister would have been glad had she been able to persuade him to remonstrate with his betrothed on her friendship with Olivia; for although Mrs. Broughty, content to have insinuated her daughter into the genteel stronghold of the Buckhaven mansion, did not herself attempt to gain the entree there, Meg lived in constant dread that she would one day do so. She told Freddy that she feared to be dragged into the Scorton’set: if Mrs. Broughty presented herself in Berkeley Square she would not know how to refuse her admittance. Freddy replied, in a practical spirit, that such knowledge was unnecessary. “Only have to tell Skelton you ain’t at home: he’ll do the rest. Dash it, that’s what butlers are for!”

“Oh, well, if you don’t care for me,” said Meg crossly, “I wonder you should not care for Kitty’s getting herself into d scrape, as she very likely will!”

“Don’t see why she should,” responded Freddy obstinately. Meg was in low spirits, suffering from the little malaises of pregnant women, which made her say with a fretfulness alien to her character: “How can you be so stupid? That sort of thing always leads to trouble! It is all kindness, and I am sure I am quite as sorry for Miss Broughty as anyone, but one cannot make a friend of everybody in distressing circumstances! Only, Kitty has been about the world so little she does not understand, and you do not make the least push to set her right!”

“Yes, I do!” said Freddy, stung by this unjust remark. “If it hadn’t been for me, she’d have been going all over town in that devilish hat you told her was all the crack!”

“It was all the crack!” exclaimed Meg, sitting upright on the sofa in her indignation. “Only you are so gothic and stuffy! You would not let her purchase it, just because you had never seen one of the new jockey-bonnets before! So I did, and it has been very much admired, let me tell you!”

“What?” ejaculated Freddy, roused to real dismay. “Good God, Meg, you ain’t such a sapskull as to put a lilac coal-scuttle on that yaller head of yours?”

“A great many persons of exquisite taste,” his sister informed him in trembling accents, “have told me that I look excessively becomingly in it!”

“A great many gapeseeds!” said Freddy witheringly. “It’s time m’mother left the young ‘uns to Nurse to look after, and stopped you making a figure of yourself! No, really, Meg! Might consider me, you know! Might consider Mama, too! Do us credit!”

“Like Kitty! Permitting you to tell her what she may wear, and what she may not! I wonder she will listen to you!”

“Sensible little thing, Kit,” said Freddy. “Does do me credit! M’father was saying so only the other day.”

“Well, she does look remarkably well, I own,” said Meg, “but in one way, Freddy—and I don’t say it out of spite, for I love her dearly!—she doesn’t do you any credit at all. And Mama has heard of it, for she is not still looking after the children, and she asked me if it were true, and what could be the meaning of it? Of course I turned it off, and indeed I don’t believe a word of it, but—why does she let Dolph attach himself to her so particularly?”

But here Freddy felt himself to be upon acutely assailable ground, and he beat a retreat. A visit to Mount Street the following day did nothing to heal the wound to his amour propre, for although Lord Legerwood made no reference whatsoever to the intrusions of Dolphinton, Lady Legerwood was not similarly reticent. In deep concern, she informed him that the few particular friends to whom she had confided the news of his engagement were quite in a puzzle to know what to think of Miss Charing’s predilection for Lord Dolphinton’s society. It was not, therefore, surprising that when, a few days later, Mr. Standen, bowling along Piccadilly in his tilbury, reached the bottom of Old Bond Street in time to see Miss Charing, accompanied by Lord Dolphinton, enter the portals of the Egyptian Hall, upon the south side of the street, he should have been moved to pull up abruptly, to consign his carriage to the care of his groom, and to cross Piccadilly in a purposeful manner.

The Egyptian Hall, which had been erected four years previously, was otherwise known as Bullock’s Museum, and contained curiosities from the South Seas, from North and South America; a collection of armoury, and works of art; find had lately received, as an additional attraction, the Emperor Napoleon’s travelling-carriage. Its cognomen was derived from the style of its architecture, which included inclined pilasters ornamented with hieroglyphics. It was an imposing edifice, but it had not previously tempted Mr. Standen to inspect its many marvels. Nor, when he had penetrated beyond the vestibule, did he waste time in studying the exhibits tastefully arranged around the walls. The only object in which he was interested was found seated primly upon a chair, a catalogue in her gloved hands, and her gaze fixed thoughtfully upon the model of a Red Indian chief in full panoply of war. Of Lord Dolphinton there was no sign, a circumstance which caused Mr. Standen to exclaim, quite contrary to his intention: “Well, if this don’t beat the Dutch! First the fellow brings you to a devilish place like this, and then he dashed well leaves you here!”

“Freddy!” cried Miss Charing, jumping almost out of her skin.

“And don’t you say Freddy to me!” added Mr. Standen severely. “I told you I wouldn’t have it, Kit, and I dashed well meant it! Have the whole town talking!”

Kitty looked very much bewildered, but as it was plain that Mr. Standen was filled with righteous wrath she refrained from protest, merely saying in a small, doubtful voice: “Frederick? Should I, in public, call you Mr. Standen?”

“Call me Mr. Standen?” said Freddy, thrown quite out of his stride. “No, of course you should not! Never heard such a silly question in my life! And it ain’t a bit of use trying to turn the subject! Not one to take a pet for no reason, but this is the outside of enough, Kit!”

“I wasn’t trying to turn the subject! You said I must not call you Freddy!”

Mr. Standen stared at her. “Said you wasn’t to call me Freddy? Nonsense!”

“But you did!” replied Kitty indignantly. “Just this moment past! I must own, I think it was very unkind in you, for I had no notion it was wrong!”

“It’s my belief,” said Mr. Standen, with austerity, “that you’re trying to fob me off, Kit! Well, it won’t fadge! I saw you walk into this place on Dolph’s arm! Seems to me there’s something deuced havey-cavey going on between the pair of you. Time I had a word with Dolph! Where the devil is he?”

Enlightenment dawned on Miss Charing. She gave an irrepressible gurgle of mirth. “Oh, Freddy, is that what brings you here?”

“Yes, it is, and it ain’t anything to laugh at!” said Freddy. “Good God, you don’t suppose I’d come to a place like this for no reason, do you? I’d as lief visit Westminster Abbey again!” He levelled his glass, and swept a condemnatory glance round the room. “In fact, liefer!” he added. “I don’t say those effigies weren’t pretty devilish, but they weren’t as devilish as this freak you was staring at when I came in. You know what?—you’ll start having nightmares if you don’t take care! Lord, if it ain’t just like Dolph to choose a place like this for his dashed flirtations! Shows you he’s queer in his attic.”

“He did not bring me here to flirt with me!”

“Now, don’t you tell me he wanted to look at curiosities from the South Seas!” said Freddy warningly. “I ain’t a big enough bleater to swallow that one! Just a trifle too loud, Kit!”

“No, of course he did not. Oh, dear, how awkward this is! I wonder what I should do?”

“Well, I can tell you that!” said Freddy. “You can stop making a cake of me. What’s more, if you let Dolph go on hanging round you for ever I’ll tell everyone that our betrothal is a hum!”

“Freddy, you would not!” exclaimed Miss Charing, turning pale. “What can it signify to you, after all?”

“Does signify. Here’s m’mother wanting to know what I’m about to let you go all over town with Dolph! Never felt such a flat in my life!”

“Oh, I am so very sorry!” said Kitty contritely.

“Yes, I daresay, but I’m dashed if I see what your lay is! If you wanted Dolph, why the deuce didn’t you accept his offer? No need to have dragged me into the business at all.”

Kitty laid an impulsive hand on his arm. “Freddy, you could not think that I would ever marry poor Dolph?”

“Well, no,” admitted Freddy. “In fact, I’ll take dashed good care you don’t!”

“I don’t want to! Though, I must say, Freddy, it is not in the least your affair!”

“That’s just what it is,” said Freddy bitterly. “No good saying I ain’t responsible for you, because I am. Mind, I didn’t think I should have to be at the outset—well, stands to reason I didn’t! Wouldn’t have let you talk me into this! —but the more I think of it the more I see that if you go and do something cork-brained there ain’t a soul who won’t say it was my fault for not taking better care of you.”

“Oh, no, Freddy!” she cried, shocked. “How could people say such a thing?”

“Well, they would. What’s more, quite true! Daresay I’d say it myself. Can’t bring a girl to town like this, and then let her do something bird-witted. Not the thing!”

“I promise you I won’t do anything bird-witted!” Kitty said earnestly, clasping his hand. “Indeed, Freddy, I don’t mean to tease you, for I am so very much obliged to you! And I never, never meant to be a charge on you!”

Much discomposed, Freddy made inarticulate noises. Miss Charing, still holding his hand, thought profoundly. Recovering himself, Freddy said: “No need to talk like that, Kit: happy to be of service! Fond of you! Proud of you, too.”

She turned her eyes towards him, astonished. “Proud of me? Oh, no! how could you be? You’re hoaxing me!”

“No, I ain’t. You’ve got taste, Kit. Always look just the thing! Credit to me!” He paused, and added, his brow creasing: “At least, except when you wear the wrong jewels. Ought to let me give you that garnet-set! No reason why you shouldn’t: the merest trumpery! Assure you!”

“There is every reason!” she responded, pressing his hand tightly, her eyes swimming. “Oh, Freddy, you are so very good to me, and I see what a Wretch I am to have put you in this fix!”

“No, no!” he said, horrified to see tears in her eyes. “Now, for the lord’s sake, Kit—! Nothing to cry about! Besides, can’t cry here! Have all the fools gaping at us! I ain’t in a fix. Only thing is, won’t have you attaching Dolph to you.” He looked round the room. “Where the deuce is the fellow?” he demanded.

“In one of the other rooms. Oh, Freddy, dare I trust you?”

“Well, upon my word!” he exclaimed, affronted. “Seems to me that if you didn’t know that when you made me become engaged to you you must be as badly dicked in the nob as Dolph!”

“Yes, yes, but this is not my secret, and I promised I would betray it to no one!”

“What secret?” said Freddy, blinking.

“Well—Freddy, you are fond of Dolph, are you not?”

“No,” replied Freddy. “What I mean is, sorry for the poor fellow, of course. Dash it, couldn’t be fond of him!”

“No, I suppose—At all events, you wouldn’t harm him, would you, Freddy?”

“Of course I wouldn’t harm him!”

“Even if you could not quite like what he meant to do?” Kitty said anxiously.

Suspicion gleamed in his mild eye. No one could have called Mr. Standen quick-witted, but the possession of three sisters had considerably sharpened his instinct of selfpreservation. “Depends what that is,” he said cautiously. “If it has anything to do with you, Kit—”

“No, I promise you it has not!”

“Sounds to me like a smoke,” he said, by no means convinced. “Because if it hasn’t anything to do with you—”

“Only that I am going to help him!”

Mr. Standen thought this over, and came to the conclusion that there was only one way in which his unfortunate relative could be helped. “If you’re hatching a scheme to poison Aunt Augusta, I won’t have anything to do with it!” he said.

“How can you be so absurd? Of course I am not!”

“Good thing, if one could do it,” said Freddy handsomely. “Thing is, bound to be a scandal. If it ain’t that, what do you mean to do?”

“Let us go and find Dolph!” said Kitty. “Mind, Freddyl even though you may not approve of it, you won’t breathe a word to your Aunt Augusta!”

The suggestion that he could be thought capable either of enacting the role of informer, or of bandying unnecessary words with Lady Dolphinton, so much revolted Mr. Standen that he was moved to expostulate. Kitty begged pardon hastily, and dragged him into the adjoining room. Here Lord Dolphinton and Miss Plymstock were discovered, seated side by side upon a plush-covered settee in the middle of the room, his lordship plunged in gloom, and Miss Plymstock soothingly patting his hand. When they perceived Miss Charing and her escort, they both rose, Dolphinton looking frightened, and Miss Plymstock pugnacious.

“I think, Hannah, that you have already met Mr. Standen,” said Kitty. “I have told him nothing, but I think we ought to admit him into our confidence, and I have come to ask your permission to do so.”

“How d’ye do?” said Miss Plymstock, extending a hand sensibly gloved in York tan. “Miss Charing was so obliging as to say that you would not take exception to Foster’s being a good deal in her company, but I thought to myself that she was very likely mistaken. You’re Foster’s cousin Freddy, ain’t you?”

Considerably taken aback, Freddy admitted it. His hand was crushed in a hearty grip; Miss Plymstock said in her blunt fashion: “I daresay you won’t like it above half, but I mean to marry Foster, and you don’t look to me like one who would try to throw a rub in the way!”

“No, no!” uttered Fretty feebly, casting a wild glance in Miss Charing’s direction.

“Miss Charing is being so kind as to lend us her aid,” pursued Miss Plymstock. “For my brother don’t like the match any more than the Countess would, I can tell you, and how to meet Foster, with the spies we both have set about us, is more than either of us knew how to do. But Sam—that’s my brother—only knows I bear Miss Charing company on some of her expeditions; and the Countess is pleased enough to think Foster is fixing his interest with her; and if she knows I go along too, as I don’t doubt she does, she don’t think any more than that Miss Charing takes me for propriety, which is what anyone would expect; and if she saw me she wouldn’t spare me a second glance, I’ll lay my life, for I’m no beauty, and never was.”

Mr. Standen, reeling under the impact of this forthright speech, had scarcely recovered himself sufficiently to murmur a polite rejoinder, when he received (as he afterwards expressed it to Miss Charing) a floorer from Lord Dolphinton, who said: “Yes, you are. Very beautiful. Kind of face I like.”

Mr. Standen took another look at the homely countenance confronting him, realized that his unfortunate cousin was of unsounder mind than he had supposed, and said kindly: “Exactly so!”

“Well, that’s all a hum,” said Miss Plymstock bracingly. “What’s more, my brother’s in trade, and so was my father before him, and I’ve no fortune. I’m telling you so to your head, because no good ever came of hoaxing people. If you think I ain’t fit to match with an Earl, why, I know that as well as anyone, but I shall make Foster a better wife than any of the grand ladies he might offer for, and so I assure you!”

Much alarmed by the unmistakeably belligerent note in Miss Plymstock’s voice, Freddy hastened to say: “Nothing to do with me! Not my affair, y’know!”

“You would not try to intervene, would you, Freddy?” Kitty asked.

“No, no! Word of a gentleman! In fact, rather not have anything to do with it!” said Freddy, in a burst of candour.

But Miss Charing was not at all inclined to permit him to adopt this craven attitude. She obliged him to sit down between herself and Hannah upon the settee, while she poured into his unwilling ear the full tale of his cousin’s difficulties. Miss Plymstock punctuated the recital with corroborations and occasional emendations; and Lord Dolphinton stood before the group, watching Freddy with very much the look of an anxious spaniel doubtful whether he was to receive a pat or a kick. Freddy found his intent gaze unnerving, and several times begged him to sit down. Lord Dolphinton shook his head. “Mean to marry Hannah,” he said.

“That’s right, old fellow,” responded Freddy. “No need to stand there staring at me, even if you do.”

“Keep an eye on you,” said his lordship. “See what you’re thinking. Hannah says you won’t like it. I don’t think you won’t like it. Been watching you. Don’t look to be in a miff. You ain’t in a miff, are you, Freddy?” Reassured on this head, he regarded his cousin with fond gratitude, and said: “You know what, Freddy? I like you. Always did. I like you better than Hugh. Like you better than Jack. Better than Biddenden. Don’t like. him at all. Don’t like Claud much either.”

“Yes, well, much obliged to you, Dolph!” said Freddy patiently. “But it ain’t a bit of use thinking I can help you in this fix, because I dashed well can’t!”

“Kitty’s going to help us,” said Dolphinton, with simple faith.

“That’s as may be,” interposed Miss Plymstock. “There is no need for you to tease yourself, Foster, for we shall contrive in some way or another; but it seems to me it’s for Mr. Standen to say whether Miss Charing may stand our friend or not. And if you don’t choose she should, sir, there’s no one could blame you, for I don’t doubt that Foster’s Mama will kick up a rare dust, and behave mighty unpleasantly to her.”

“It don’t signify what my Aunt Augusta does,” replied Freddy, for the second time in his career astonishing Kitty by a display of courage which seemed to her to verge on foolhardiness. “Can’t do Kit a mischief: shouldn’t let her. Daresay she’ll set up a screech. Thing is, Kit don’t live with her, and nor do I. Shan’t have to listen to anything she says.”

Miss Plymstock, listening to this eminently practical speech with warm approval, was moved to grasp Mr. Standen’s hand again. “You’re a sensible man!” she said gruffly. “Now, you listen to what your cousin says, Foster, and think if it ain’t what I’ve been drumming into your head this age past! Once the knot’s tied between us, and I have you safe, there’s nothing your Mama can do to hurt you, and so I promise you! You tell him that’s true, Mr. Standen!”

“Yes, I daresay it is,” agreed Freddy, recovering his hand, and hoping very much that she would not feel herself impelled to wring it a third time. “The thing is, the knot ain’t tied, and I’m dashed if I see how it is to be, if Dolph’s being spied on all the time.”

“We shall think of a way,” said Kitty.

Her betrothed regarded her with misgiving. “Yes, but it won’t do if you think of sending ‘em off to Gretna Green, or anything like that, Kit. Not one to throw a rub in your way, but that’s coming it too strong!”

“Yes, indeed! In any event, Miss Plymstock thinks it would not answer, so you may be easy!”

Mr. Standen, however, was not at all easy; and he took the earliest opportunity of telling Kitty so. “Shatterbrained, that’s what you are, my dear girl!” he informed her, with some severity. “First it’s one thing, and then it’s another!

Told me you wanted to come to town to establish yourself, but all you do is to mix yourself up in affairs that don’t concern you. Shouldn’t wonder if you were to find yourself at a standstill.”

“But, Freddy, you would not have me refuse to help poor Dolph?”

“Well, I would,” he said. “Mind, it don’t matter to me if he chooses to marry that shocking fright, because he ain’t a Standen, for one thing; and for another he’s so badly touched in his upper works there’s no saying but what he might not do something a dashed sight worse than marry a tradesman’s daughter. Thing is, bound to be a rare kick-up if the thing comes off, and I’d as lief have nothing to do with it.” He met Miss Charing’s slightly reproachful eyes manfully, and added: “Tell you what, Kit! Got too kind a heart!”

A smile swept across her face. “Oh, Freddy, how absurd you are! When you have a much kinder one than I have!”

“No, really, Kit!” protested Freddy, revolted. “Haven’t got anything of the sort! Been on the town for years!”

“Yes, you have,” averred Kitty, lifting his hand to her cheek for a brief moment. “And when I consider how dreadfully I have imposed upon you—Oh, well! At least, I promise I won’t embroil you in this business! You won’t object to it if I help them? For it is the most shocking thing, Freddy!—I could not speak of it with Dolph standing by, but Lady Dolphinton holds him in subjection by threatening to have him shut up as a lunatic! And that he is not!”

“You don’t mean it?” exclaimed Freddy, much struck. “Of course he ain’t a lunatic! Got no brains, that’s all. Well, I ain’t got any either, but you wouldn’t say I was a lunatic, would you?”

“No, and you have got brains, Freddy!” said Kitty indignantly.

Mr. Standen, already shaken by having his hand rubbed worshipfully against a lady’s cheek, goggled at her. “You think I’ve got brains?” he said, awed. “Not confusing me with Charlie?”

“Charlie!” uttered Miss Charing contemptuously. ill daresay he has book-learning, but you have—you have address, Freddy!”

“Well, by Jove!” said Mr. Standen, dazzled by this new vision of himself.