Cotillion

by Georgette Heyer

  At these alarming words, Lord Dolphinton, who had for some time been sucking the hilt of a paper-knife, which he had found conveniently to hand, sat up with a jerk, and dropped the knife from his suddenly nerveless fingers. ‘Eh?’ he uttered. ‘But—Said you wouldn’t! Remember it distinctly! Said I might be comfortable again!’

  ‘And so you may, for I meant it!’ said Kitty fiercely. ‘There is no one for whom I have the least partiality, and I don’t wish to marry anyone in your odious family! I think Hugh is a humbug, and Claud has a cruel nature, and Dolph and Freddy are just stupid, and as for Jack I am truly thankful that he was not coxcomb enough to come here, because I dislike him more than all the rest of you together! Good-night!’

  The door slammed behind her, causing Lord Dolphinton to start nervously. Biddenden said: ‘A ramshackle business you made of it, Hugh, with your damned, long-winded periods, and your fine talk of educating the girl! Much good will your scholarship do you while you have less than common sense! What in the devil’s name possessed you to bring Jack up? Of course she’s fancied herself in love with him for years!’

  ‘It is time she left such childish folly behind her,’ said Hugh coldly. ‘There can be little in Jack to recommend him to a female of sense and principles, after all.’

  ‘If that’s what you think, my dear brother, I would advise you to put your nose outside your Rectory and to go about the world a little!’ returned Biddenden, with a short laugh. ‘And don’t talk fustian to me about his gaming, and his libertine ways—ay, I know it’s on the tip of your tongue!—Jack may be anything you please but he’s a devilish handsome fellow, and an out-and-outer—what they call top-of-the-trees! Of course Kitty has a tendre for him!’

  ‘No, she hasn’t,’ interrupted Dolphinton, who had been following this interchange with a puzzled frown on his brow. ‘Can’t have been listening! She said she disliked him more than all the rest of us together. And come to think of it,’ added his lordship, attacked by a sudden thought, ‘not sure she ain’t right!’ He nodded, pleased with his flash of insight, and said with unimpaired affability: ‘Don’t see much of him, which accounts for my thinking it was you I dislike the most, George.’

  Lord Biddenden, after glaring at him in an impotent way for several seconds, strode to the bell-rope, and jerked it vigorously. ‘Since that miserly old bag of bones has given no orders for our refreshment I shall make so bold as to tell the servant to bring some brandy to this room!’ he announced bitterly.

  Three

  Shortly before seven o’clock that evening, at about the moment when Miss Charing entered the Saloon to receive the proposals of two of her cousins, a hired post-chaise and pair drew up before the Blue Boar, a small but excellent hostelry situated rather more than a mile from Arnside House, where four roads joined. The young gentleman who alighted from the chaise must have been recognized at sight by the discerning as a Pink of the Ton, for although his judgment, which, in all matters of Fashion, was extremely nice, had forbidden him to travel into the country arrayed in the long-tailed coat of blue superfine, the pantaloons of delicate yellow, and the tasselled Hessian boots which marked him in the Metropolis as a veritable Tulip, or Bond Street Beau, none but a regular Dash, patronizing the most exclusive of tailors, could have presented himself in so exquisitely moulded a riding-coat, such peerless breeches, or such effulgent top-boots. The white tops of these, which incontrovertibly proclaimed his dandyism, were hidden by the folds of a very long and voluminous driving-coat, lined with silk, embellished with several shoulder-capes, and secured across his chest by a double row of very large buttons of mother of pearl. Upon his brown locks, carefully anointed with Russian oil, and cropped à la Titus, he wore a high-crowned beaver-hat, set at an exact angle between the rakish and the precise; on his hands were gloves of York tan; under one arm he carried a malacca cane. When he strolled into the inn, and shed the somewhat deceptive driving-coat, he was seen to be a slender young gentleman, of average height and graceful carriage. His countenance was unarresting, but amiable; and a certain vagueness characterized his demeanour. When he relinquished his coat, his hat, his cane, and his gloves into the landlord’s hands, a slight look of anxiety was in his face, but as soon as a penetrating glance at the mirror had satisfied him that the high points of his shirt-collar were uncrumpled, and the intricacies of a virgin cravat no more disarranged than a touch would set to rights, the anxious look disappeared, and he was able to turn his attention to other matters.

  The landlord, who had greeted him with a mixture of the deference due to a wealthy man of fashion, and the tolerant affection of one who, having been acquainted with him since the days when he wore nankeens and frilled shirts, knew all his failings, said for the second time: ‘Well, sir, this is a pleasant surprise, I’m sure! Quite a period it is since we’ve seen you in these parts! You’ll be on your way to Arnside, I don’t doubt.’

  ‘Yes,’ acknowledged the traveller. ‘Dashed nearly dished myself up, what’s more! Devilish early hours my great-uncle keeps, Pluckley. Fortunate thing: remembered it a mile back! Better dine here.’

  The Blue Boar was not much in the habit of catering for the Polite World, but the landlord, secure in the knowledge that his helpmate, a north-country woman, was a notable housewife, received this announcement with unruffled equanimity. ‘Well, sir, I won’t say you’re wrong,’ he remarked, with the wink of the privileged. ‘A most respected gentleman, Mr Penicuik, I’m sure, but they do say as he don’t keep what I’d call a liberal table, nor, by what I hear from Mr Stobhill, he don’t let the bottle go round like it should. Now, if you’ll step into the coffee-room, sir, you’ll find a good fire, and no one but yourself likely to come in. I’ll just make so bold as to fetch you in a glass of as soft a sherry as you’ll find this side of London-town, and while you’re drinking it my rib shall toss you up some mushroom fritters, by way of a relish—for you know we don’t have any call for French kickshawses here, not in the ordinary way, and aside from the fritters there’s only a serpent of mutton, and one of our goose-and-turkey-pies, which I’ll be bound you’ve not forgot, and a bit of crimped cod, and a curd pudding, if you should fancy it.’

  This modest repast being approved, Mr Pluckley then withdrew; and within a short space of time the covers were laid in the coffee-room, and the guest sat down to an excellent dinner, the bare skeleton, which had been described by the landlord, being reinforced by oysters in batter, some Flemish soup, and, as side-dishes, some calf’s fry, and a boiled tongue with turnips. A bottle of burgundy, which had formed part of a particularly successful run, washed the meal down; and the whole was rounded off by some cognac, the young gentleman of fashion waving aside, with a horrified shudder, an offer of port.

  It was while he was sipping this revivifying cordial that the landlord, who had lingered in the coffee-room to regale him with various items of local gossip, was drawn from his side by the sound of an opening door. Informing his guest that he would take care no ungenteel person intruded upon him, Mr Pluckley departed. A murmur of voices penetrated confusedly to the coffee-room, and in another minute Mr Pluckley reappeared, looking very much astonished, and saying: ‘Well, sir, and little did I think who it might be, at this hour of the evening, and the snow beginning to fall, and her coming on foot, without a servant nor nothing! It’s Miss Charing, sir!’

  ‘Eh?’ said the willowy gentleman, slightly startled.

  The landlord held the door wide, and Miss Charing, a serviceable if not beautiful cloak huddled about her form, appeared on the threshold, and there halted. The strings of her hood were tied tightly under her chin, and the resulting frill of drab woollen-cloth unbecomingly framed a face whose nose was pink-tipped with cold. There was nothing romantic about Miss Charing’s appearance, but her entrance would not have shamed a Siddons. ‘You!’ she uttered, in accents of loathing. ‘I might have known it!’

  The Honourable Frederick Standen was faintly puzzled. It seemed to
him that Miss Charing was both surprised and displeased to see him. He expostulated. ‘Dash it, Kitty, I was invited!’

  ‘I thought better of you!’ said Miss Charing tragically.

  ‘You did?’ said Mr Standen, sparring for wind. His gaze, not wholly unlike that of a startled hare, alighted on the table; he fancied he could perceive a glimmer of light. ‘Yes, but you know what my uncle is!’ he said. ‘Dines at five, or he did when I was last down here! Nothing for it but to snatch a mouthful on the way.’

  ‘That!’ said Miss Charing, with withering scorn. ‘I don’t care where you dine, Freddy, but that you should have come to Arnside gives me a very poor notion of you, let me tell you! Not that I ever had anything else, for you’re as bad as Dolph—worse!’

  Mr Standen, considering the matter, was moved to expostulate again. ‘No, really, Kitty! Pitching it too strong!’ he said. ‘The poor fellow’s queer in his attic!’ It occurred to him that Mr Pluckley’s interested presence might with advantage be dispensed with. He indicated this briefly and simply, and Mr Pluckley regretfully withdrew.

  Miss Charing, who shared with her governess a taste for romantic fiction, toyed with the idea of remaining (a statue of persecuted virtue) by the door, but succumbed to the lure of a fire. Seating herself on the settle beside it, she untied the strings of her cloak, pushed back the hood from her ruffled curls, and stretched benumbed hands to the blaze.

  ‘I’ll tell you what it is!’ offered Mr Standen. ‘You’re cold! Put you in a miff! Have some brandy!’

  Miss Charing declined the invitation contemptuously. She added: ‘You need not have put yourself to the trouble of travelling all the way from London. You have quite wasted your time, I assure you!’

  ‘Well, that don’t surprise me,’ returned Freddy. ‘I rather thought it was a hum. Uncle Matthew pretty stout?’

  ‘No, he is not! Dr Fenwick said he could be cured of his stomach trouble by magnetism and warm ale, but it only did him a great deal of harm. At least, he said it did, and also that we were all in a plot to kill him.’

  ‘Gout bad too?’ enquired Mr Standen anxiously.

  ‘Very bad!’

  ‘You know, I think I made a mistake to come,’ confided Mr Standen. ‘Not at all sure I won’t rack up for the night here, and go back to London in the morning. The thing is, the old gentleman don’t like me above half, and if his gout’s plaguing him I’d as lief not meet him. Besides, he won’t let me bring my man, and I find it devilish awkward! It ain’t my neckcloths, of course: never let Icklesham do more than hand ’em to me! It’s my boots. The last time I stayed here the fellow who cleaned ’em left a dashed great thumb-mark on one of them! I’m not bamming, Kitty! Gave me a nasty turn, I can tell you.’

  ‘You might as well go back to London now,’ said Kitty. ‘You made a great mistake to come! In fact, when I think of your circumstances I am quite shocked that you should have done so!’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ objected Mr Standen, ‘but I don’t like travelling at night. Besides, this ain’t a posting-house, and I need a change. Yes, and now I come to think of it, what have my circumstances to say to anything?’

  ‘You are as rich as—as—I can’t remember the name!’ said Miss Charing crossly.

  ‘I expect you mean Golden Ball,’ said Freddy. ‘And I ain’t.’

  ‘No, I do not! I mean somebody out of history—at least, I think he was, because when you wish to signify that a person is excessively wealthy you say he is as rich as—as him!’

  ‘Well, I don’t!’ said Freddy. ‘Never heard of the fellow! Nice cake I should make of myself if I went around talking about people out of history! Anyone would think you’d been in the sun, Kitty!’

  ‘Sun? It is snowing!’ cried Miss Charing.

  ‘In that case, I’ll be dashed if I go back to London tonight,’ said Freddy. ‘Not that that’s what I meant, but never mind! What’s more, I ain’t as wealthy as all that.’

  ‘You are wealthy enough not to be obliged to offer for an heiress!’ said Miss Charing, darting a glance of scorn at him.

  ‘Well, I ain’t going to offer for an heiress,’ said Freddy patiently. A thought occurred to him; in some concern he added: ‘Kitty, you haven’t got this infectious complaint, have you? Don’t know what it is, but it goes very much about, they tell me. M’sister Meg was in bed a sennight with it.’

  ‘Freddy!’ exclaimed Miss Charing, staring fixedly at him. ‘Don’t you know why Uncle Matthew sent for you?’

  ‘Said he had something important to say to me. I thought it was a hum!’

  ‘But if you came at all why did you not come yesterday?’ Kitty demanded.

  ‘Been out of town,’ explained Mr Standen.

  ‘Oh, Freddy, I have wronged you!’ uttered Kitty, genuinely remorseful. ‘But George, and Hugh, and Dolph all knew, and so of course I supposed you must too!’

  ‘Eh?’ ejaculated Freddy, startled. ‘You don’t mean to tell me they are at Arnside?’

  ‘Yes, yes, they have been there since yesterday, and it is too dreadful, Freddy!’

  ‘Good God, I should rather think so!’ he agreed, much struck. ‘Why, if I hadn’t met you, I should have walked smash into them! You know, Kitty, the old gentleman must be in pretty queer stirrups! Unless he’s been on the mop, and that don’t seem likely. Well, what I mean is, he must be dicked in the nob to want such a set of gudgeons at Arnside! Mind, I don’t say Hugh ain’t a clever fellow: daresay he is; but you can’t deny he’s a dead bore!’

  ‘Yes, he is!’ agreed Miss Charing, with enthusiasm. ‘And, which is worse, he’s a saintly bore, Freddy!’

  ‘Devilish!’ agreed Freddy. ‘Know what he said to me the last time he took a bolt to the village? Why, just because he saw me coming away from the Great-Go, he started to moralize about the evils of gaming! Seemed to think I was a regular leg, which, as I told him, is a dashed silly thing to think, because for one thing it ain’t at all the thing, and for another you have to be a curst clever fellow to be a leg! What’s brought him to Arnside?’

  ‘Uncle Matthew,’ replied Kitty. ‘He is making his Will!’

  ‘He is? You don’t mean he’s had notice to quit at last?’

  ‘Of course he has not, but he chooses to think so!’ said Kitty.

  ‘No need to put yourself in a pucker,’ said Freddy kindly. ‘Been saying it any time these past ten years! Who’s he leaving his money-bags to?’

  ‘To me—upon conditions!’

  ‘What, nothing to Jack?’ exclaimed Freddy. ‘If that don’t beat the Dutch! Not but what I’m dashed glad to hear it, Kitty! Felicitate you!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Charing, ‘but it is on condition that I marry one or other of his great-nephews, and that, Freddy, is why you were invited to Arnside! You are to offer for me!’

  The effect of this pronouncement was quite as great as she could have desired, and, possibly, rather greater. Mr Standen, who had disposed his slender person gracefully in a chair on the other side of the fireplace, was jerked suddenly upright. An expression of the most profound horror transformed his amiable countenance; his eyes showed an alarming tendency to start from his head; and he said, in a voice approaching a squeak: ‘What?’

  Miss Charing was betrayed into an unromantic giggle.

  Mr Standen looked suspiciously at her. ‘Now, listen to me, Kitty!’ he said severely. ‘If you’re trying to roast me—No, my God! So that was it! I might have guessed as much! Well, if I don’t serve him trick-and-tie, for this—!’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Kitty.

  ‘Jack,’ said Mr Standen. ‘Mind, I thought it was a dashed smoky thing! In fact, I settled it with myself I wouldn’t come. Well, what I mean is, I ain’t such a green ’un as to fall into one of Jack’s take-ins! But, you know, Kit, this is a devilish business! Why, if I hadn’t chanced to meet you I should have found myself dished-up!
You might have warned me, my dear girl!’

  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.’