the younger lady with languid hauteur, asif she were practising a part, "and you are always blurting out Betsy."
"Blurting! There's a way to speak to your poor mother, who has made thelady of you that you are. Carriages and diamonds, and grand dinners,and--"
"The smell of the orange peel, and the candles, and the memory of thetheatre tacked on to me. `Actress!' you can see every fine madam wepass say with her eyes, as she draws her skirt aside and turns from meas if I polluted the cliff. I've a deal to be proud of," cried theyounger woman fiercely. "For heaven's sake, hold your tongue!"
"Don't go on like that, Betsy--Cora, I mean, my dear. Let 'em sneer.If your poor, dear, dead father did keep a show--well, there, don't biteme, Bet--Cora--_theatre_, and make his money, it's nothing to them, andyou'll make a marriage yet, as'll surprise some of 'em if you plays yourcards proper!"
"Mother!"
"Say mamma, my dear, now; and do smooth down, my beauty. There, there,there! I didn't mean to upset you. There's Lord Carboro' coming.Don't let him see we've been quarrelling again. I don't know, though,"she added softly, as she noticed her child's heightened colour andheaving bosom; "it do make you look so 'andsome, my dear."
"Pish!"
"It do, really. What a beauty you are, Cora. I don't wonder at thefools going mad after you and toasting you--as may be a countess if youlike."
"Turn down here," said Cora abruptly. "I don't want to see Carboro'."
"But he made me a sign, my dear; with his eyeglass, dear."
"Let him make a hundred," cried Cora angrily. "He is not going to playwith me. Why, he's hanging about after that chit of Denville's."
"Tchah! Cora dear. I wouldn't be jealous of a washed-out doll of athing like that. Half-starved paupers; and with the disgrace of thathorrid murder sticking all over their house."
"Jealous!" cried Cora, with a contemptuous laugh; "jealous of her! Notlikely, mother; but I mean to make that old idiot smart if he thinks heis going to play fast and loose with me. Come along."
Without noticing the approaching figure, she turned up the next street,veiling her beautiful eyes once more with their long lashes, and glidingover the pavement with her magnificent figure full of soft undulationsthat the grotesque fashion of the dress of the day could not hide.
"Oh, Cora, my darling," said her mother, "how can you be so mad andobstinate!--throwing away your chances like that."
"Chances? What do you mean?" cried the beauty.
"Why, you know, my dear. He has never married yet; and he's so rich,and there's his title."
"And are we so poor that we are to humble ourselves and beg because thatman has a title?"
"But it is such a title, Betsy," whispered the elder woman.
"And he is so old, and withered, and gouty, and is obliged to drivehimself out in a ridiculous donkey-chaise."
"Now, what does that matter, dear?"
"Not much to you, seemingly."
"Now, my lovely, don't--don't. To think that I might live to see mygal, Betsy Dean, a real countess, and such a one as there ain't anywhereat court, and she flying in my face and turning her back upon herchances."
"Mother, do you want to put me in a rage."
"Not in the street, dear; but do--do--turn back!"
"I shall not."
"Then I know the reason why," cried the elder woman.
"What do you mean?"
"You're thinking of that nasty, poverty-stricken, brown-faced fiddler ofa fellow, who hasn't even the decency to get himself shaved. I declarehe looks more like a Jew than a Christian."
"You mean to make me angry, mother."
"I don't care if I do. There, I say it's a sin and a shame. A realEarl--a real live Lord as good as proposing to you, and you, you greatsilly soft goose, sighing and whining after a penniless pauper who won'teven look at you. Oh! the fools gals are!"
Cora Dean's lips were more scarlet than before, and her beautiful eyesflashed ominously, but she said nothing.
"Going silly after a fellow like that, who's for ever hanging aboutafter Denville's gal. Oh! I hav'n't patience."
She said no more, for her daughter walked so fast that she became shortof breath.
"Egad! Juno's put out," said James, Earl of Carboro', peer of therealm, speaking in a high-pitched voice, and then applying one glove tohis very red lips, as if he were uneasy there. "What a magnificentfigure, though! She's devilish handsome, she is, egad! It's just aswell, perhaps. I won't follow her. I'll go on the pier. Let her comeround if she likes, and if she doesn't--why, demme, I don't care if shedoesn't--now that--"
He smacked his lips, and shook his head, and then drew himself up,rearranging his quaint beaver hat that came down fore and aft, curled uptightly at the sides, and spread out widely at the flat top. He gavehis ancient body a bit of a writhe, and then raised his gold eyeglass togaze at the pier, towards which people seemed to be hastening.
"Eh? Egad, why, what's the matter? Somebody gone overboard? I'll goand see. No, I won't; I'll sit down and wait. I shall soon know. It'sdeuced hot. Those railings are not safe."
He settled himself on the first seat on the cliff, and, giving the widewatered-silk ribbon a shake, used his broad and square gold-rimmedeyeglass once more, gazing through it at the long, old-fashioned pierthat ran down into the sea, amongst whose piles the bright waves thatwashed the chalky shore of fashionable Saltinville were playing, whilean unusual bustle was observable in the little crowd of loungers thatclustered on the long low erection.
Meanwhile the Master of the Ceremonies of the fashionable seaside resorthonoured of royalty had continued his course towards the pier.
The trouble at his house seemed to be forgotten, and in the pursuit ofhis profession to serve and be observed--gentleman-in-waiting onsociety--he looked to-day a tall, rather slight man, with nut-brownhair, carefully curled and slightly suggestive of having been grownelsewhere, closely-shaven face of rather careworn aspect, but delicateand refined. He was a decidedly handsome, elderly man, made ridiculousby a mincing dancing-master deportment, an assumed simpering smile, anda costume in the highest fashion of George the Third's day. His hat hasbeen already described, for it was evidently moulded on the same blockas my Lord Carboro's, and the rest of the description will do for thecostume of both--in fact, with allowances for varieties of colour andtint, for that of most of the gentlemen who flit in and out in thevaried scenes of this story of old seaside life.
His thin, but shapely legs were in the tightest of pantaloons, overwhich were a glossy pair of Hessian boots with silken tassels where theymet the knee. An extremely tight tail coat of a dark bottle green wasbuttoned over his breast, leaving exposed a goodly portion of a buffwaistcoat below the bottom buttons, while the coat collar rose up like aprotecting erection, as high as the wearer's ears, and touched andthreatened to tilt forward the curly brimmed hat. Two tiny points of ashirt collar appeared above the sides of an enormous stock which rigidlyprisoned the neck; a delicate projection of cambric frilling rose fromthe breast; the hands were tightly gloved, one holding a riding-whip,the top of which was furnished with a broad-rimmed square eyeglass; andbeneath the buff vest hung, suspended by a broad, black watered-silkribbon, a huge bunch of gold seals and keys, one of the former being anenormous three-tabled topaz, which turned in its setting at the wearer'swill.
Such was the aspect of the Master of the Ceremonies in morning costume--the man whose services were sought by every new arrival for introductionto the Assembly Room and to the fashionable society of the day--the manwho, by unwritten canons of the fashionable world, must needs beconsulted for every important fete or dance, and whose offerings fromsupplicants--he scorned to call them clients--were supposed to yield hima goodly income, and doubtless would do so, did the season happen to belong, and society at Saltinville in force.
Parting from the ladies he had met, he passed on with a feeble smirk,growing more decided, his step more mincing, to bow to some lady, aproceeding calling for grace and
ease. The raising and replacing of thehat was ever elaborate, so was the kissing of the tips of the gloves tothe horsemen who cantered by. There was quite a kingly dignity full ofbenevolence in the nods bestowed here and there upon fishers and boatmenin dingy flannel trousers rising to the arm-pits, trousers that lookedas if they would have stood alone. Then there was an encounter with abrace of beaux, a halt, the raising and replacing of their hats, and thesnuff-box of the Master of the Ceremonies flashed in the bright autumnsunshine as it was offered
The Master of the Ceremonies Page 12
