Cressida (17 page)

To Captain Harnes s considerable respect, she blew her nose defiantly, said she was all right now, and they had better go back to the ballroom.

“I’d go straight home, but I can’t, because of Kitty and Lady Con, and besides, people would be sure to talk,” she said. “We
must
go back, and pretend that everything is perfectly normal, and then perhaps tomorrow, when he is not so
very
angry any longer, you can contrive to talk to him—”

The Captain, who was looking more dubious by the moment as the full force of the difficulties of such an interview struck him, said he would do his best, but what was he to say to him?

“I don’t
know,”
said Cressida, hitting her eyes angrily with her handkerchief. “I suppose it might help a bit if you were to tell him you weren’t at all in love with me, but with Kitty—”

The Captain looked horrified. “But I couldn’t do that!’’ he said earnestly. “Not when he—he may be attached to her himself!’’

And then, aware that he had said quite the wrong thing, he coloured up furiously; but Cressida, who was by this time in full command of herself again, only said decisively that he wasn’t, and if he was, he oughtn’t to be.

“If he were so idiotish as to marry her, he would probably murder her before the honeymoon was over,” she said. “He hasn’t an angelic temper, like you, and he can’t endure people who bore him, or lie to him. She would be certain to do both. When I was still angry with him, I was used to think it would serve him right if he 
did
marry her, as then he would be just as fiendishly unhappy as
I
was when he made me break off our engagement. But I don’t want him to be unhappy now. ”

Captain Harries both looked and felt extremely shocked by all this plain speaking, especially the part that reflected upon his inamorata, but as he had the kind of frank, simple character that is able to face imperfection in the beloved object without being shaken in the least in its stubborn adoration, he forgave Miss Calverton quickly, as not being quite herself at the moment, and said comfortingly that he was sure matters would all come right in the end.

“Perhaps they will, but just as likely they won’t,” said Cressida, who was far more inclined to take a realistic view of the situation.

But this did not in the least mean that she had resigned herself to failure, for she was already revolving plans in her mind for seeing to it that matters
did
come right, if they were at all amenable to being pushed into their proper place by her.

As no good purpose could be served, however, by her remaining any longer now upon the narrow balcony with Captain Harries, she sent him back into the ballroom with the strict injunction to ask Kitty to stand up with him for the next dance and as many more as he could secure from her, and followed him herself after a short, discreet interval.

Rossiter was nowhere to be seen when she emerged from behind the crimson brocade draperies and surveyed the thronged ballroom, nor could she catch a glimpse of either Kitty or Lady Constance, so she allowed herself to he led into a set of country dances by her latest admirer, a young and very dashing captain in the Dragoon Guards. He had obviously heard the news of her dismissal of Lord Langmere, and was so much emboldened by it that he became quite embarrassingly ardent even under the severe restrictions imposed upon him by the movement of the dance, and at the conclusion of the set at once importuned her to allow him the privilege of taking her down to supper later in the evening.

But his right to this honour was immediately disputed by half a dozen other gentlemen who had been awaiting the end of the dance to approach her, and she was standing smiling and debating among all these offers when a new claimant, a young baronet, joined the group.

“I say,” he remarked in a bored drawl that belied the flush of interested excitement upon his face, “the most extraordinary thing! Rossiter has proposed to Miss Chenevix and been accepted. Never ask me where he found the opportunity in this squeeze—but I daresay he’s not the sort to let a little matter like privacy stand in his way—”

The smile froze upon Cressida’s lips, and the sounds, sights, and perfumes of the brilliant, crowded room seemed to rush all together to form a single sensation of exploding light and colour, which, combined with what appeared to be a highly unusual rocking motion of the floor beneath her feet, made her feel for a moment as if she were on a boat in a storm on tropical seas. When she recovered herself enough to speak, the questions she would have liked to put to the young baronet had already been asked by others, and the young man was replying to the best of his ability.

“I had it from Lady Con Havener, so it must be true,” he said. “She is in the card-room, telling everyone who will listen to her. Addison is looking as blue as megrim. Of course everyone knows he has been casting out lures to the girl himself—”

He halted abruptly as Cressida, saying, “In the card-room?” in a rather dazed voice, walked right through him, like a sleepwalker, or at least looked as if she would have done if he had not moved aside in nimble astonishment. She made her way towards the end of the ballroom, where a pair of doors led to a saloon that had been set out with tables for the convenience of those guests who cared more for cards than for dancing. Like the ballroom, it was crowded to the walls with players and onlookers, and was even more insufferably hot. Cressida found Lady Constance seated upon a sofa at the end of the room, with half a dozen ladies and gentlemen gathered about her, and went straight up to her.

“Lady Con,” she said, “I must talk to you.”

“Yes, dear,” said Lady Constance, obligingly moving to try to make a place for her upon the sofa beside her, and looking as proud as a mother cat who has produced a splendid litter of kittens. “Oh, Cressy, my love,
have
you heard what has happened? Rossiter has—” “Not here,” said Cressida firmly, and to the surprise and admiration of all beholders, who knew that nothing was more difficult than to move Lady Constance when she was settled for a comfortable gossip, particularly when she herself was cast in the role of the star of the piece, she got her to her feet by the sheer power of command of the gaze she bent upon her, out of the card-room, across the ballroom floor, and out onto one of the same narrow balconies on which her unfortunate interview with Captain Harries had taken place.

“But isn’t it dangerous?” Lady Constance, who was nervous of even moderate heights, enquired as she glanced apprehensively over the narrow iron railing.

“No, ” said Cressida. “But
I
shall be if you don’t tell me at once exactly what has happened. Has Rossiter—?” “Well, my dear, I was
trying
to tell you in the card-room, when you made me come out here instead,” Lady Constance said in an aggrieved voice. “But yes—he
has 
actually made Kitty an offer—while they were engaged in a set of country dances, if you will credit it!
Most
extraordinary—but then he
is
an extraordinary man, I believe! Everyone heard him—I mean all the people who were next them in the set—and I
do
think it reflects well upon Kitty’s good sense that she was not totally overset—” “She accepted him?’’ Cressida interrupted, in an abrupt, rather stifled voice.

“Well, my dear, not precisely there in the set, of course!” Lady Constance said virtuously. “She brought him to me after it was over, and asked me very prettily what she was to do—though it was quite apparent, of course, what she
wished
to do. And I naturally said that they must consult her mama, who is her proper guardian, but that, standing as I did in her place at present,
I
could see no possible objection, and was quite sure Emily Chenevix would feel as I did, that it was a
most
suitable match—”

“And so you have been spreading the story of an engagement to everyone in this ballroom—which means all of London!” Cressida interrupted her again, in a shaking voice. “Oh, Lady Con, you
are
a widgeon!”

“Well, I am sure I do not know why you should say
that!”
said Lady Constance, looking affronted. “I think I have been very clever! You may say what you like, my love, but it is always best to pin a man down in these cases, for no matter how ardent they may be, they
will 
sometimes have second thoughts. And, besides, it isn’t as if he wasn’t
overheard
making her the offer—Why, my dear, what
is
the matter?” she broke off to ask, suddenly becoming aware, even in the darkness, of the tragedy on Cressida’s face and the tears glittering in her eyes. She looked at her with dawning comprehension and dismay. “You can’t mean that
you
—that
he
—”

“Yes—no! It doesn’t signify!” said Cressida, very disjointedly and in a muffled voice, turning her head away to hide her face from observation.

Lady Constance, who was truly quite thunderstruck by this development, for the idea had literally never entered her head that the old attachment between Cressida and Rossiter was not entirely a thing of the past, continued to stare at her in the greatest puzzlement.

“But, my dear, I don’t in the least understand!” she protested at length. “You have never shown the least partiality for Captain Rossiter; indeed, it has always seemed to me that the two of you come to dagger-drawing every time you meet! And if
he
cares for
you,
why did he offer to Kitty—?”

“Oh, I can’t explain! It is all such a
confounded
muddle!” Cressida said angrily.
“I
don’t know what is to be done—nothing, I daresay, now that it has been published all over London that he has made her an offer! He couldn’t cry off now, even if he wished to—and Kitty won’t—We had best go back to the ballroom,” she broke off abruptly. “There can be no purpose served by discussing this any further!”

“Yes, but— Lady Constance looked at her with an expression of some doubt upon her face. “Are you quite sure—? I have asked Captain Rossiter to join us for supper, of course, and it will not appear at all proper for you to ignore the whole matter and go on as if nothing had happened, since Kitty
is
staying in your house—”

“Very well! I shall join you for supper, too!” Cressida said, in grim resignation. “But I warn you that we shall all be
very
uncomfortable! Rossiter is furious with me, you see!”

“He is? But I thought that you—that he—”

Lady Constance gave it up, and with a helpless shrug followed Cressida back into the ballroom. Here the latter was at once seized upon by the admirers she had disappointed by going off so hurriedly into the card-room in search of Lady Constance, and, having awarded the waltz that was just then beginning to the young baronet who had brought the news of Rossiter’s engagement, she chose the oldest of the group, a well-known diplomatist, to take her down to supper afterwards, feeling that his experience best fitted him to cope with the sort of disagreeable situation into which he would be thrust.

And disagreeable it certainly was. Rossiter, looking grim, was pointedly attentive to his chosen bride; Lady Constance, for once thrown quite off her stride, socially speaking, chattered indefatigably and pointlessly; Cressida was far too gay and did not once meet Rossiter’s eyes; and the diplomatist, who, with the sixth sense of his profession, realised he was in deep waters, prudently retired into his shell like a tortoise and contributed nothing to the conversation except an occasional smile or shrug of his shoulders.

Only Kitty looked as serene as always, with a pretty, deprecatory air when she addressed her affianced husband that did not quite conceal, Cressida considered, a certain quiet triumph. She had got what she wanted: that was plain—a husband, a fortune, and an assured position in Society. It must have seemed to her, Cressida thought, that the small deception she had had to perpetrate to obtain them was an insignificant price to pay for them.

“And isn’t she
quite
the princess at the end of the fairy tale,” Addison, who had been going about all evening making cleverly disparaging remarks about the newly betrothed couple, said in Cressida’s ear as they were leaving a little later, “with nothing to do but live happily ever after? Only one
does
so wonder about the prince—doesn’t one? A rather ramshackle sort of royalty —don’t you agree?—in spite of all that vulgar money. Kitty, my admired love, ” he broke off as Kitty appeared with Lady Constance, ready for the drive back to Mount Street, “my deepest felicitations to you. You shall ride in a carriage and wear a silk gown—which, of course, you are about to do at present, I may note, and with me, but 
not,
my sweet, with a ring upon your finger. We shall have to see about that presently. ”

Cressida looked up at him quickly, but there was nothing to be read in that cold, selfish, handsome face but the urbane mockery usually present there. No doubt it was quite mad of her, she thought, to expect any help from that direction, for even if Addison was disgruntled by Rossiter’s having carried Kitty off in spite of his own attentions to her, he would never offer marriage to her himself.

She got into the carriage drearily with Kitty and Lady Constance, and it was not until all of ten minutes had passed, and the coachman had disentangled his vehicle from the horrible crush of traffic in the Square without having it suffer the fate of a cabriolet just before them, which had somehow got the hind legs of one of its horses enmeshed in the fore-wheel of a barouche, that her natural optimism reasserted itself and she made up her mind that, after all, the battle was not lost until the fatal words had been pronounced in church. And if she had to lose it in the end, she thought, she might at least have the satisfaction of going down fighting.

It did not take her long to realise, however, that if she was to continue the battle she must have allies who could supply both advice and assistance. Lady Constance, she considered, with her loyalties divided between sympathy for Cressida’s plight and rejoicing over Kitty’s triumph, was useless in this respect, and she therefore made up her mind that very night to place her reliance instead upon Sir Octavius. She had once told Lady Constance that he was the wisest man she knew, and certainly, it appeared to her, the wisdom of a Solomon would be required to untangle the extraordinary muddle into which her affairs had got themselves.