THE BALL.
When Mr. Marston returned to the hall, he loitered a little in the cloak-room, he rambled through the building into the refreshment and waiting-rooms, wherever he thought it possible the beautiful girl who alone gave this trumpery scene its magical interest, might be.
He was a little late, and also a little dispirited. He began to fear that she might not appear again that night.
What a bore it was, his having, in such a mood, to look out Miss Max among the chaperons, and to be introduced to some insupportable person, girl or matron, he forgot which!
Here and there, as he made his way up the room, a friendly voice among the men recognised him, and cried:
“I say! Is that you, Marston?” or, “What brings you here, Marston, old fellow?”
At length he caught a glimpse of Miss Medwyn, in high chat with his sister; then she was hidden again, as he slowly moved through the people; the band was braying and thundering now obstreperously from the gallery, and the stewards were clearing a space for the dancers.
And now, again, he saw Miss Medwyn, much nearer, and she advanced a step or two with her cheery smile to greet him. She said something pleasant to him, smiling and nodding toward his sister, who was busy at that moment, talking to old Lord Fondlebury. Mr. Marston did not hear Miss Medwyn’s remark, for his attention was fixed by a figure standing near her, the outline of which bore a marked resemblance to the lady of whom he was thinking; her face was turned away; she was speaking to a tall, rather handsome young man, with good blue eyes, and light golden moustache.
Miss Medwyn tapped her gently, and the lady turned.
She was dressed, I am enabled to tell you, in “a pale blue tulle, with a very graceful panier, the whole dress looped and studded with pale maize roses.” It was the work of the great Madame Meyer. All these particulars were duly set forth in the county paper.
She had diamond stars in her rich brown hair, diamond earrings, and a diamond necklace. These were remarkably large diamonds, and the effect of the whole costume was dazzling, rich, and elegant.
Old Mr. Tintern was a little pleasurably flushed and excited in the consciousness of having, in that room, such unparalleled brilliants under his wing.
She had turned about, at the touch of Miss Max’s hand, with a regal flash, and as the old lady introduced Mr. Marston to Miss Vernon, he grew pale, and hesitated:
“I am introducing only a name, you see. You have known the lady some time,” said Miss Max, smiling very cheerfully.
Maud looked beautiful as a princess in a fairy-tale; but in all her splendour, more goodnatured, and somehow more simple, than ever.
She was smiling gently, and put out her hand a little, as it seemed, almost timidly.
He took it, and said something suitable, I suppose. Perhaps it seemed a little cold and constrained, contrasted, at least, with his talk at other times — happier times (were they?) — when he suspected nothing of her great name and fortunes.
Had he been trifled with? Had he been fooled? How did these ladies regard him?
These questions were quieted. Neither was capable of enjoying his strange mortification. Whatever had passed was in good faith. But however goodnatured the masquerading, still the truth, now revealed, broke up and dissipated, with an indescribable shock, his more Quixotic, but in many respects happier, estimate of their relations.
What had become of his unavowed confidence in his rank and reversions? Here was no longer the poor and beautiful idol of a half-compassionating love.
Here was in fortune absolutely, and in pure patrician blood nearly, the highest lady in England. Despair was stealing over his sunny prospects. He began, in an expressive phrase, to feel very small. Being proud and sensitive, he was not only a little stunned, but wounded.
Something, however, must be said and proposed. It would not do to stand there doing nothing.
Accordingly, Mr. Marston asked Miss Vernon to dance. She had number one. Had she kept it for him? There was not a moment to lose. It was a quadrille, as is the inflexible practice at public balls.
They took their places in a set just forming, with Lady Helen de Flambeaux and Captain Vivian vis-à-vis. Mr. Marston recognised the tall young man with azure eyes and yellow moustache, to whom Miss Vernon had been talking.
The music was roaring over their heads, so that people could not in the least overhear their neighbours’ talk.
“I have been very much surprised this evening,” he said.
“And shocked,” she added.
“No, Miss Vernon; amazed a little — dazzled.”
“It is so odd a sensation, being ceremoniously introduced to an old friend,” she remarked.
“It is, somehow, so like losing an old friend and finding only an acquaintance in exchange,” he answered, “when first impressions, very much cherished, are proved to be illusions, and circumstances change so entirely. Everything becomes uncertain, and one grows melancholy — it is enough to make one suspicious.”
“That is very tragical,” laughed the young lady.
“Happy are those, say I, for whom life is a holiday, and the world a toy — I mean the people who have a good deal of satire and very little compassion, who are not unkind, but very cold, who enjoy the comedy of life, and can even smile at its tragedy; they can afford to laugh when others suffer,” said Mr. Marston. “It can be of no consequence to you, Miss Vernon, how the strange delusion I have — I don’t deny it — in a measure practised on myself, affects me.”
“Well, I hope it won’t embitter you for ever, Mr. Marston; it is a comfort, at all events, it has not made you give up dancing.”
At this interesting moment Mr. Marston was obliged to advance and retreat, cross over, and all the rest; and when he had set to his partner, and turned that splendid lady about, it devolved on her to execute the same manœuvres with handsome Captain Vivian for vis-à-vis.
The next subject was not so interesting.
“I don’t think our Wymering friends have done all they might for the floor,” she remarked.
To which he made suitable answer, and artfully endeavoured to lead back the conversation into more interesting channels.
But Miss Vernon held him fast during the remainder of the quadrille to the decorations, the music, the room, and the other details, and he began to think it was all over with him, and with his hopes, and that he had had his last serious talk with Miss Vernon.
“When this is over,” he thought, “she will ask me to take her back to the Tinterns, and leave her again with Miss Max, and so she will take a friendly leave, and I shall have a theme to think of for the rest of my life.”
But he was mistaken. Miss Vernon, when the dance was over, said:
“Would you mind, Mr. Marston, taking me to the tea-room? I have not had any yet.”
Very happy this little reprieve made him.
How the light touch of her hand upon his arm thrilled him as he led her in!
“What dances can you give me? Surely you can give me one?” he asked, imploringly, as they went along.
“I could give you a great many,” said the young lady, gently; “but I don’t mean to give you one more.”
Mr. Marston stared.
“You must not think me very unkind. I might have said I have not one to give — not one — earlier than number twelve, and long before that we shall be on our way home to Roydon. But I mean to be very honest tonight; and if we can find a quiet place at the table in the tea-room, we can talk a little there.”
“I half dread that little talk, Miss Vernon. Some people have more power of inflicting pain than they perhaps suspect. I scarcely think that can be your case; but — don’t — I think I may ask that; don’t, I entreat, say anything that may give me very great pain tonight. Give me an opportunity of speaking first. I hope that is not a very unreasonable petition.”
He spoke very low and gently, but very earnestly.
“What a crowd!” said Miss Vernon, as if she had not heard a word.
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As they slowly made their way, many an admiring, and many an envious eye was directed on that princess, and many a curious one upon the handsome young gentleman on whose arm her hand was lightly placed. She continued: “This is the best ball we have had at Wymering for two years. It is my third. I begin to feel very old.”
“Eh? Hollo! Hi! How d’ye do, Miss Vernon?” bawled old Sir John Martingale, of Whistlewhips, short and square, pulling up and blocking half the passage, with his wife on one arm and his elderly daughter, Arabella, on the other, with both of whom Miss Vernon had to exchange greetings. “You’re not turning your back on the dancers so soon, eh?”
His shrewd little grey eyes that lighted up his mulberry-coloured features, were scrutinising Mr. Marston with very little disguise.
“Oh, tea is it? And right good tea it is, I can tell you. Old Mother Vaneil in the High-street here, the confectioner, is doing the refreshments this time. And I have just been telling Lady Martingale, I han’t got so good a cup o’ tea this twel’-month.”
“Don’t mind him, Miss Vernon. We treat him a great deal too well, and he’s always grumbling,” interposed Lady Martingale, “half joke, and whole earnest,” as the good old phrase is.
Here Miss Martingale, who had been secretly squeezing and plucking at his arm, having secured, half an hour before, an eligible old bachelor, Mr. Plimbey, of Cowslip Meads, for number two, prevailed, and Sir John, with a jocular “I won’t stand no more of your rubbish for breakfast, mind ye, my lady,” and a wink at Miss Vernon, in which Mr. Marston, though a stranger, was included, pulled his women through, as he phrases it, with a boisterous chuckle, interrupted, alas! soon by a fit of coughing.
By this time Mr. Marston had led Miss Vernon to the long tea-table, that, like a counter, traversed one end of the tea-room, and at an unfrequented part of this they took their stand, and he called for a cup of tea for the young lady.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A MAN WITH A SQUARE BLACK BEARD.
There are few loiterers left in the room; the distant roar of the band accounts for this desertion. The damsel who administers tea to them is stricken in years, thin, and anxious with the cares of boiling kettles behind the scenes, and many teapots, and sponge and plumcakes, and soup and ices, in immediate perspective. She has not a thought for other people’s business, and is the most convenient possible attendant upon two people who have anything of the slightest interest to say to one another.
“Yes, it is very nice tea,” says the young lady; “and, I forgot, I promised this dance to Mr. Dacre. I suppose I’m in disgrace, but I can’t help it.” She glances up at the cornice, and thinks for a moment. “I want you, Mr. Marston,” she says, more gravely, and her diamonds make a great flash as she lowers her head, “to remember this: that if we are to continue to be good friends, you must never be offended at anything I do, or ever ask the meaning of it.”
Marston laughs. It is a pained laugh she thinks.
“You can’t suppose me so unreasonable,” he says. “I know, perfectly, I have not the least right to ask a question, far less to be offended. In fact, you can hardly feel, more than I do, how very little claim an acquaintance, founded in so much ignorance and misapprehension, can give me to more than, perhaps, a very slight recognition.”
“Well, I don’t quite agree with you, Mr. Marston; I think, on the contrary, that I know you a great deal better than I possibly could have known you under ordinary circumstances in so short a time; and I think we ought to be better friends — I think we are better friends — for that very reason.”
That was the sweetest music he ever heard in his life, and he could not answer immediately. It seemed to him, as she spoke, that her colour was a little heightened, and, for a moment, a strange, soft fire in her eyes. But was this real, or only one of those illusions which, before the gaze of devout enthusiasts, have, in a moment of ecstasy, lighted up sad portraits with smiles, or crossed their beauty with a shade of sorrow?
The next moment she looked just as usual.
“I saw my sister for a few minutes in the cloak-room,” he says, suddenly, “and she told me that she had asked Miss Vernon to her house in Warwickshire. It did not interest me, for I little knew, then, who Miss Vernon really was. Do you think you will go to her?”
“I hope I shall — that is, if I can, I certainly will. Miss Medwyn is going, I believe, and I could go with her; but I don’t know yet what mamma will say to it; and mamma is the only person living who can prevent my doing exactly what I please.”
“But Lady Vernon, I hope, won’t dream of preventing it?” he says, very anxiously.
“Mamma decides for herself in all things, and acts very strictly according to her ideas of duty, and sometimes thinks things that appear to me of no importance whatever, very important indeed; and you know that there has been some — something very like a quarrel — and Lord Warhampton doesn’t like her, and I’m afraid mamma doesn’t like him — and I really don’t know whether that might not make a difficulty in her allowing me to go to Lady Mardykes; but a few days will decide.”
“Heaven grant it may be favourably,” murmurs the young man, vehemently.
“And you have asked me to say nothing tonight that could give you pain,” says the young lady, referring to a speech that she had not before noticed, “and I, in return, exact the same promise from you. You must say nothing that may make us part worse friends than we were when we met.”
“And I have so much to tell you, that is, ever so much to say; and, oh! how I hope you will not refuse my sister’s invitation.”
“I like her so very much,” says the young lady. “And this dance will soon be over. You must take me now to Miss Medwyn — she is with the Tinterns — and remember, I have a reason for everything I do, although you may not understand it. You are not to speak to me again tonight, when you have taken me back to the Tinterns.”
“Then,” says Mr. Marston, with a look of sadness, almost reproach, “I am to take my leave in something worse than uncertainty?”
“Uncertainty?” with a half angry, half startled glance, the girl repeats, but in the moment that follows the haughty fire of her fine eyes is quenched, and she places her fingers lightly on his arm, and says: “Shall we come now? I’m afraid the passage will soon be crowded. Let us come before the dance is over.”
As they pass together toward the great room where the dancers, gentle and simple, townsfolk and rural, skilled and clumsy, were all whisking and whirling their best, to the inspiring thunder of the band, she repeats:
“You understand? You are not to speak to me, or look at me, or come near where I am again tonight — not in the cloak-room, not anywhere — and you must leave me the moment you place me beside my cousin Maximilla. I should not like you to think me capricious or silly,” she adds, a little sadly, he fancies. “So, as a proof of your friendship, I ask you to believe that I have good reasons for what I ask. No, not this door; let us come in by the other. Goodnight,” she almost whispers, as they reach Miss Medwyn’s side.
That lady was standing a little behind Mr. Tintern and Lady Mardykes, and the door by which they entered brought Miss Vernon beside her cousin, without passing before the other figures in this group.
“Goodnight,” she repeated, a little hurriedly.
“God bless you,” he said, very low, holding in his the hand she had given him, longer than he ever had held it before, “and come what may I will see you very soon again.”
“Well, dear, you have been to the tea-room?” said Miss Max, greeting her young cousin with a smile; “and where is Mr. — wasn’t it Mr. Marston who took you?”
“Yes; I think he’s gone,” said the young lady.
Miss Max was looking round to find him, but he had left by the door through which they had just entered.
“He has vanished,” she continued, “but of course he’ll turn up again.”
“Who is that man with the black beard, and large eyes and solemn, pale face, who is talking to Lad
y Mardykes?” asked Maud, after a silence of a minute or two.
“I don’t know; rather a remarkable face, clever, I think,” answered Miss Max; “she knows every one that is worth knowing. Her house is quite delightful. Warhampton having held office so often, and only awaiting the next division, they say, to be in again. She knows all the clever people of her party, in both Houses, and the foreign ministers, and all the people distinguished for talent. I do so hope Barbara will let you go to her.”
The grave man with the black beard now made his bow and smile, and turned away and disappeared in the crowd, and before Maud had time to ask Lady Mardykes who he was, Captain Vivian appeared to claim number three, promised to him.
Marston did not dance this, nor the next, and he saw Miss Vernon give both dances to the handsome young man with blue eyes and golden moustache, whom he had seen in conversation with her at the beginning of the evening.
“Fine girl, Miss Vernon, Miss Vernon of Roydon, you know; that’s she with the diamonds, and devilish good diamonds they are,” said Marston’s schoolfellow, Tom Tewkesbury, who, after an absence of five years was just what he always was, only a little fonder of his bottle, “by Jove she is; positively lovely, by Jove! Don’t you think so? I do. I wonder who that fellow is she’s dancing with — not a bad-looking fellow. I say, Marston, I wonder whether a fellow would have any chance of getting a dance from her? By Jove! They are going it. Do you think it’s a case? I’ve a great mind to go and try. She’s with the Tinterns. Shall I? What do you say?”
“You had better be quick. She’s not likely to remain long standing,” said Marston, who was not sorry, in his present mood, to lose his friend’s agreeable conversation.
Marston shifted his point of observation to see more distinctly how Mr. Tewkesbury fared.
That gentleman had made his way by this time to Mr. Tintern.
“Here I am — come to ask a favour,” he said, taking a button of Mr. Tintern’s coat, and looking persuasively in his face. “I want Miss Vernon to give me a dance, and you must introduce me. Do.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 587
