Cotillion (6 page)

Miss Charing paid no heed to this, but fixed her eyes most earnestly upon his face, and asked: “Did Jack tell you to come?”

“That’s it. Met him at Limmer’s last night. Wearing a coat I didn’t like. Told me he let Scott make it for him. Pity! Made him look like a military man.”

“Never mind Jack’s coat!” interrupted Kitty. “What did he say to you?”

“Well, that’s it. Said he was tired of Weston’s cut, which made me think he must be a trifle above par. Well, I put it to you, Kit, that’s all you can think when a fellow says a thing like that!”

“What did he say about—about me?” demanded Kitty.

“Didn’t say anything about you. Asked me if I’d had a summons from the old gentleman. Told him I had, and he said I should on no account stay away. That’s why I settled not to come. Kept his mouth as prim as a pie, but you know the way he laughs with his eyes!”

The very thought of the way Mr. Westruther laughed with his eyes drew a deep sigh from Miss Charing. “Yes,” she said wistfully. For a moment she seemed inclined to sink into a reverie, but the melting mood was not of long duration. Once again Mr. Standen became the object of her penetrating gaze. “Did Jack—
know
—why he was sent for?” she asked.

“Carlton House to a Charley’s shelter he knew!” said Freddy. “That’s why he ain’t here, of course.”

Miss Charing stiffened. “You think so?” she said coldly.

“Not a doubt of it!” responded Freddy. “I must say, I call it a shabby thing to do! Might have told me what was in the wind. That’s Jack all over, though!”

Miss Charing accepted this unflattering speech meekly enough, but said, lifting her chin a little: “For my part, I am very glad he has not come. I should have thought very poorly of him had he obeyed such a command.”

“No fear of that,” said Freddy. “Very likely to have put up his back.”

“Yes, perhaps that was it!” said Kitty, brightening. “He is very proud, isn’t he, Freddy?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call him proud, precisely. Gets up on his high ropes now and then, but he ain’t one of your high sticklers.”

Miss Charing meditated for some moments in silence. “I did not wish him to come,” she said at last, “but Uncle Matthew is excessively vexed that he has not. It is the most absurd thing, but I am persuaded that Uncle Matthew had not the least notion of my marrying anyone else. He was as mad as fire when only Dolph and the Rattrays came to Arnside.”

“Anyone would be,” agreed Freddy. “Can’t think what possessed the old gentleman to invite ‘em!” He added modestly: “Or me either, for that matter.”

“He has taken a nonsensical notion into his head that he must not favour any of you above another. And you know what he is, Freddy! Once he has said a thing he will never unsay it! I daresay it may not have occurred to him that jack would not even come! It would serve him right if I said I would marry Dolph!”

“You aren’t going to tell me Dolph offered for you?” said Freddy incredulously.

“Yes, he did. If I hadn’t been so angry I must have gone into whoops. Poor Dolph! he looked so miserable, and of course I knew he only did it because that odious woman compelled him!”

“Now I see it all!” announced Freddy, nodding his head several times. “Accounts for it! Told you I’d settled not to come, didn’t I? Well, it was Aunt Dolphinton who made me change my mind! If I hadn’t met her this morning, I wouldn’t have!”

Kitty looked very much surprised. “Lady Dolphinton made you come? No, how should she do that? She cannot have wished it!”

“Well, that’s it. Didn’t wish it at all. I was in Bond Street, just on the toddle, you know, when out she popped from Hookham’s Library, and stood there staring at me. Made my bow, of course: nothing else to be done! Nasty moment, I can tell you, because I was wearing a new waistcoat, and I’m not sure that it ain’t a thought too dashing. But it wasn’t that. Not,” he added, considering the matter, “that I feel quite easy about it. Liked it when Weston showed it to me, but as soon as I put it on—”

“Oh, Freddy, do stop talking about coats and waistcoats!” begged Miss Charing, quite out of patience. “What did Lady Dolphinton say?”

“Said,
So you haven’t gone to Arnside
! Silly thing to say, really, because there I was, in the middle of Bond Street. So I said, No, I hadn’t gone; and she asked me whether I meant to go, and I said I rather fancied not. And that’s when I took a notion she was playing some kind of an undergame, because she gave me a hoaxing sort of a smile, and said I was wise not to go, for it was all a hum, or some such thing. Seemed devilish anxious to discover whether Jack had gone, too. Looked like a cat at a cream-pot when I told her he hadn’t. Playing the concave-suit, that’s what I thought! Well, dash it, Kit, I may not be one of these clever fellows, talking about a lot of dead people out of history, but a man can’t be on the town and not smell out a bubble! Stands to reason! So I came to see for myself what was in the wind. Mistake, of course, but there’s no harm done, as it chances. All the same, Jack served me a damned backhanded turn, and so I shall tell him! A pretty fix I should have been in if I hadn’t met you!”

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Kitty. “Uncle Matthew cannot compel you to offer for me!”

Mr. Standen looked dubious. “You think he can’t? Not sure you’re right there. Fact is, I’m frightened to death of the old gentleman! Always was! I don’t say I wouldn’t have made a push to come off clear, but it would have been dashed awkward. No, the more I think of it the more I think it was a fortunate circumstance I met you. Seemed to me rather a queer start when you walked in, but I’m glad you did, very!” This reflection had the effect of causing a problem which had for some time been floating in a rather nebulous way at the back of his mind to assume a more concrete form. He said suddenly: “Come to think of it, it
is
a queer start! What brings you here, Kit? No wish to offend you, but not quite the thing, you know!”

Her lip trembled. She replied with a catch in her voice: “I am running away!”

“Oh, running away!” said Mr. Standen, satisfied.

“I could not bear it another instant!” declared Kitty, gripping her hands together in her lap.

“Very understandable,” said Freddy sympathetically. “Most uncomfortable house I ever stayed in! Devilish bad cook, too. Not surprised the old gentleman has stomach trouble. Quite right to run away.”

“It wasn’t that! Only when Uncle Matthew put me in that dreadful position, and Dolph offered for me, and then Hugh —
Hugh
!—I wished I had never been born!”

Mr. Standen had no difficulty in appreciating this. He said with considerable feeling: “By Jupiter, yes! Not to be wondered at. I wouldn’t have Hugh, if I were you, Kit. You’d find him a dead bore. Handsome fellow, of course, but too mackerel-backed, if you ask me. Never saw anyone make a worse bow. Offered to teach him once, but all he did was to look down his nose, and say it was very obliging of me, but he wouldn’t trouble me. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Only did it because everyone knows he’s a cousin of mine.”

“Oh, he is the stiffest thing in nature!” declared Kitty. “But I didn’t care for that! Only he said he would marry me because if he didn’t I should be left d-destitute upon the w-world, and it is all out of chivalry, and not in the least because he loves m-me, or wants to inherit Uncle M-Matthew’s fortune!”

Mr. Standen, perceiving that her eyes were swimming in tears, made a praiseworthy attempt to avert a scene the mere threat of which was already making him acutely uncomfortable. “Well, no need to cry over
that
!” he said. “Never heard such a tale! Bag of moonshine, that’s what it is! Lord, though, to think of Hugh’s being such a Captain Sharp!”

“George said it too. And Hugh means to educate me, and he says there is nothing I can do to earn my own bread, and they all of them seemed to think I should be
glad
to marry one of you, and I ran out of the room, and then what must Fish do but say that it was romantic!
Romantic
! It was too much, Freddy! I made up my mind I would just
show
them; So I stole the housekeeping-money, and I came here, because I know the Ashford stage stops here, and from Ashford, you know, I can get to London.”

“Oh!” said Freddy. “Very good notion, I daresay. At least—No wish to throw a damper, but what are you going to do there?”

“That’s just it!” said Kitty, her face much flushed, and large tear-drops trickling down her cheeks. “I was too angry to think of that, but I thought of it when I was walking along the lane, and I don’t know what I’m going to do, or where I am to stay, for I haven’t a friend in the world, and every word Hugh said was
true
!”

“No, no!” said Freddy feebly.

Miss Charing, after an abortive search for her handkerchief, began to mop her face with a corner of her cloak.

Mr. Standen’s dismay gave place to shocked disapproval. “Here, Kitty, I say! no!” he protested. “Take mine!”

Miss Charing accepted, with a loud sob, the delicate handkerchief held out to her, and blew her small nose with determination. Mr. Standen, reflecting that he had several handkerchiefs in his portmanteau, applied himself to the task of consolation. “No sense in crying,” he said. “Think of some shift or other! Bound to!”

This well-meant suggestion caused Kitty’s tears to flow faster. “I have been thinking and thinking, and there is nothing I can do! And, oh, I would rather die than go back to Arnside!”

At this moment, an interruption occurred. The landlord, not unnaturally consumed with curiosity, had hit upon an excuse for re-entering the coffee-room. He came in bearing a steaming bowl of rum-punch, which he set down on the table, saying: “Your punch, sir. You
did
say nine o’clock, sir, didn’t you? Just on nine now, sir!”

Mr. Standen could not recall that he had said anything at all, and he was about to repudiate the punch when he realized that it was clearly the moment for him to fortify himself. He was thankful to perceive that Kitty had stopped crying, and had turned her face away. He ventured to offer her a glass of ratafia. She shook her head silently, and the landlord, setting two glasses down beside the bowl, said: “Perhaps Miss would fancy just a sip of punch, to keep the cold out. Snowing quite fast, it is, though not laying, sir. I hope no bad news from Mr. Penicuik’s, sir?”

Freddy, who had been hurriedly inventing a tale to account for Miss Charing’s unconventional presence in the Blue Boar, now rose to the occasion with considerable address. “Lord, no! Nothing of that sort!” he said airily. “Stupid looby of a coachman forgot his orders, that’s all! Ought to have fetched Miss Charing an hour ago. She’s been visiting: obliged to walk back to Arnside. Started to snow, so she had to seek shelter.”

If the landlord thought poorly of a story which featured a host so lost to propriety as to permit an unattached damsel to leave his house at dusk, on foot and unescorted, and which left out of account the modest carpet-bag, at present reposing in the passage outside the coffee-room, Kitty at least had no fault to find with it. No sooner had Mr. Pluckley departed, than she turned to look admiringly at Freddy, and to thank him for his kind offices. “I had no notion you could be so clever!” she told him.

Mr. Standen blushed, and disclaimed. “Made it all up beforehand,” he explained. “Daresay you wouldn’t think of it, but the fellow was bound to start nosing out your business. Oughtn’t to be out alone, you know. Ought to have brought the Fish with you.”

“But, Freddy, you must see that I couldn’t run away to London if I brought Fish! She would never consent!”

“Mustn’t run away to London,” said Freddy. “Been thinking about that, and it won’t do. Pity, but there it is!”

“You don’t feel that there might be something I could do to support myself?” asked Miss Charing, with a last flicker of hope. “Of course, I don’t wish to starve, but do you think I should?
Truthfully
, Freddy?”

Keeping his inevitable reflections to himself, Mr. Standen lied manfully. “Sure of it!” he said.

“Not if I became a chambermaid!” said Kitty, suddenly inspired. “Hugh says I am too young to be a housekeeper, but I could be a chambermaid!”

Mr. Standen brought her firmly back to earth. “No sense in that. Might as well stay at Arnside. Better, in fact.”

“Yes, I suppose I might,” she said despondently. “Only I would like so much to escape! I do try not to be ungrateful, but oh, Freddy, if you knew what it is like, keeping house for Uncle Matthew, and reading to him, and pouring out his horrid draughts, and never speaking to anyone but him and Fish! It makes me wish he never had adopted me!”

“Must be devilish,” nodded Mr. Standen, ladling punch into one of the glasses. “Can’t think why he did adopt you. Often puzzled me.”

“Yes, it used to puzzle me too, but Fish thinks that he formed a lasting passion for my mama.”

“Sort of thing she would think,” remarked Freddy. “If you ask me, he never formed a lasting passion for anyone but himself. I mean, look at him!”

“Yes, but I do feel she may be right,” Kitty insisted. “He hardly ever speaks of her, except when he says I am not nearly as pretty as she was, but he has her likeness. He keeps it in his desk, and he showed it to me once, when I was a little girl.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have believed it!” said Freddy, apparently convinced.

“No, but I fancy it was so. Because George, you know, thought I was Uncle Matthew’s daughter. Hugh said that he never did so, but I have a strong notion he did!”