Cotillion (7 page)

“Shouldn’t think so at all,” said Freddy. “George might, because he’s a gudgeon. Daresay Dolph might, but nobody else would. In fact, Dolph wouldn’t either, because he don’t think anything. If you was my uncle’s daughter, he wouldn’t behave so shabbily. Wouldn’t want to leave his money to one of us, either.”

“N-no. I daresay he might wish me to marry one of his great-nephews, but he wouldn’t cut me off without a penny if I refused, would he?”

“He don’t mean to do that?” exclaimed Freddy, shocked.

She nodded, and gave a rather watery sniff into his handkerchief. “Yes, he does, and of course I quite see that I can never hope to form an eligible connection if I’m to be a pauper. It makes me feel horridly low!”

“What you need, Kit, is a drop of something to put some heart into you,” said Freddy decidedly. “If you won’t take some ratafia—mind, I don’t say I blame you!—you’d better have a mouthful of this. It ain’t the right thing, but who’s to know?”

Miss Charing accepted a half-filled glass, and sipped cautiously. The pungency of the spirit was inclined to catch the back of her throat, but the sweetness and the unmistakeable tang of lemon-juice reassured her. “I like it,” she said.

“Yes, but don’t go telling my uncle, or the Fish, that you’ve been drinking punch with me,” he warned her.

She assured him that she would not; and since she was now quite warm, and was finding the settle uncomfortable, joined him at the table, and sat there, sipping her punch, and brooding over her unhappy circumstances. Freddy, who was grappling with thoughts of his own, rather absentmindedly refilled both glasses. A frown began to gather on his brow. He broke the silence by demanding suddenly: “Who’ll inherit the ready if you don’t marry one of us, Kit?”

“Uncle Matthew says he shall leave it to the Foundling Hospital,” replied Kitty. “All of it!”

“He does, does he? Seems to me Dolph ain’t the only one who’s queer in his attic!” said Mr. Standen. He stared fixedly at the play of the candlelight on the golden liquid in his glass. “Wonder if Jack knows that?” he said, in a ruminative tone.

“You may depend upon it that he does, for I am sure Uncle Matthew would not tell George and Hugh more than he has told Jack. And I am excessively happy to think that it has not weighed with him!”

“Wonder if he’s playing a deep game?” said Mr. Standen, pursuing his own meditations. “No saying what might be in his head: a curst rum touch, Jack! Shouldn’t have thought he’d whistle a fortune down the wind, though. Rather fancy he counted the old gentleman’s rolls of soft his own. Never knew such a fellow for wasting the ready! Played wily beguiled with his own fortune.” He encountered a startled look of enquiry from Miss Charing, and added succinctly: “Gamester. Tulip of the Turf. Seems to have come off all right so far, but m’father says he’ll end under the hatches. Very downy one, m’father!” He dwelt for a moment on the percipience of Lord Legerwood, while Miss Charing eyed him with hostility. Refreshing himself with some more punch, he said: “May be shamming it. Don’t care to have his hand forced. Must know you wouldn’t take Dolph or Hugh. Must know I ain’t hanging out for a rich wife. Means to steer the old gentleman to Point Non-Plus.” He drained his glass, and set it down. Still more profound thoughts deepened the frown on his brow. “Same time— may have come about again. Fresh as ever. Don’t need the ready. Don’t want to be married. Drop the handkerchief when he chooses.”

“Drop—
Drop
—?” stammered Kitty. “Do you mean —he thinks I w-would pick it up w-whenever—
Oh
!”

Much confused, Mr. Standen begged pardon. “Thinking to myself!” he explained.

She paid no heed to this, but said fiercely: “
Do
you mean that?”

“No, no! That is—couldn’t blame him, Kit! Handsome phiz, you know—devil of a Corinthian—never at a stand! Daresay you don’t know it, but the fact is any number of caps set at him! High-fliers, too. Queer creatures, females,” mused Mr. Standen, shaking his head. “Fellow’s only got to be a rake to have ‘em all dangling after him. Silly, really, because it stands to reason—Well, never mind that!”

“Good gracious, Freddy, as though I was not well-aware that Jack is a shocking flirt!” said Kitty untruthfully, but with spirit. “I have not the least doubt that he flirts with all the prettiest ladies in London! Which makes it so particularly stupid and—and diverting of Uncle Matthew to suppose that he wished to offer for me! Indeed, I can’t imagine why anyone should think he would do so. I should be astonished to learn that he regards me as anything other than a dowdy schoolgirl!”

“Yes, I should be too,” agreed the Job’s comforter on the other side of the table.

Miss Charing swallowed another mouthful of punch. A gentle glow was spreading through her veins, dispelling the melancholy which had possessed her. It would have been too much to have said that she was restored to happiness, but she no longer despaired. A certain exhilaration infused her brain, which seemed all at once to be able quite easily to master difficulties that, a few minutes before, had appeared so insoluble. She sat bolt upright in her chair, staring straight ahead, the fingers of one hand tightening unconsciously round her tumbler. Mr. Standen, glad to be left in peace to wrestle with the second of the problems confronting him, meditatively rubbed the rim of his quizzing-glass up and down the bridge of his nose.

“Freddy!” said Miss Charing suddenly, turning her expressive eyes towards him.

He gave a slight start, and let his quizzing-glass fall. “Thinking of something else!” he excused himself.

“Freddy, you are quite
sure
you don’t want to marry me, aren’t you?”

He looked a little alarmed, for she spoke with a degree of urgency which made him feel uneasy. “Yes,” he said. He added apologetically: “Very fond of you, Kit, always was! Thing is, not a marrying man!”

“Then, Freddy, will you be so
very
obliging as to be betrothed to me?” said Miss Charing breathlessly.

Chapter IV

For a stunned moment Mr. Standen stared into the dark eyes fixed so beseechingly on his face. His horrified gaze, wavering, fell upon the tumbler, still clasped in Miss Charing’s hand. A certain measure of relief entered his face; he removed the half-empty glass, and set it down safely out of Miss Charing’s reach. “Ought never to have given it to you!” he said, in self-accusatory tones.

“No, no, Freddy, indeed I’m not
inebriated
!”

“Lord, no, Kit! Nothing of that sort! Just a little bit on the go! Call for some coffee! Soon set you to rights!”

“I don’t want it! I am quite sober, I promise you! Oh, Freddy, please listen to me!”

Mr. Standen, however undistinguished a scholar, was at home to a peg in all matters of social usage. He knew well that it was useless to expostulate with persons rather up in the world. Miss Charing had stretched out an impulsive hand, and was clutching the sleeve of his coat in a way that could not but render him acutely apprehensive, but he refrained from drawing her attention to this. He said soothingly: “Of course! With the greatest pleasure on earth!”

To his relief, she released him. He smoothed his sleeve carefully, and was inclined to think that no irreparable damage had been done to it.

“I cannot and I will not return to Arnside!” announced Kitty. “At least, I suppose I must for a little while, but I won’t remain there, meekly waiting for—for some obliging person to marry me! By hook or by crook I mean to go to London! Ever since I was seventeen I have yearned to go. Uncle Matthew will not let me. He says it would be a great waste of money, and that it is not to be thought of. It is useless to argue with him upon that head: in fact, it is much worse than useless, because the last time I begged him to let me go with Fish, for one week, only to see the sights, he went to bed, and stayed there for a fortnight, and would do nothing but throw things at Spiddle and poor Fish, and groan in the most affecting way whenever I entered his room! He said he had nourished a serpent in his bosom, and that I did not care how soon he was dead and buried, besides being giddy, and selfish, and too young to go to London. Of course, the thing was that he could not let me go without Fish, and that would have meant that there would have been no one left at Arnside to order everything as he likes, for he won’t employ a housekeeper, you know.”

“Very hard case,” said Freddy politely. “But it ain’t got anything to do with—”

“It has, Freddy, it has!” insisted Kitty. “Only consider! If you were to offer for me, and I should accept your offer, Lord and Lady Legerwood would wish to see me, would they not?”

“Have seen you,” Freddy said, entering a caveat.

“Well, yes, but not at all lately. They—they would wish to present me to their acquaintance! Freddy, don’t you think your mama would invite me to stay with her, in Mount Street? Just for one little month?”

Mr. Standen, perceiving a straw, clutched at it. “Tell you what, Kit! Ask my mother to invite you. Fond of me: very likely to do it to oblige me. No need to be betrothed!”

For a moment her eyes brightened; then they clouded again, and she sighed, and shook her head. “It wouldn’t serve. Ever since the buttered lobsters Uncle Matthew is convinced that he has only a few months to live! He had a dreadful colic, you know, and nothing will persuade him that it was only the lobsters, which he would eat for supper! He says his heart is very weak, and that Dr. Fenwick is a clodpole. That’s why there is all this bustle about his Will. He is determined to provide for me before he dies, so, you see, he could never be prevailed upon to let me go to London if I were still unbetrothed. He would be bound to suspect I should elope with a half-pay officer.”

“I don’t see that,” objected Freddy, painfully following the gist of this tumultuous speech.

“Well, I don’t either,” admitted Kitty, “but it is what he always says, whenever I have asked him if I might not go to London. He has the greatest dislike of military men, and when the militia were quartered in the neighbourhood he would scarcely allow me even to walk to the village. But if I were betrothed to you, Freddy, he could not refuse to let me go on that score. He could not refuse on any score, because if Lady Legerwood would be so obliging as to invite me to Mount Street it would not cost him a penny above my coach-fare. And there can be not the least necessity for Fish to go too, so that he may be sure that things will go on at Arnside just as they should.”

“Yes, but—”

“And, Freddy, only think! He said that if I became engaged to one of you he would give me a hundred pounds for my bride-clothes! A—hundred—pounds, Freddy!”

“You know, Kit,” said Mr. Standen, momentarily diverted, “dashed if he ain’t the kind of fellow who behaves scaly to waiters! A Plum wouldn’t buy the half of your bride-clothes! Forget how much blunt m’father dropped when Meg was married, but—”

“More than a hundred pounds?” said Kitty, awed. “It seems a very great sum to me. But it was quite different in your sister’s case! I mean, she is the eldest of you, and I expect your father wished her to have the very best sort of bride-clothes. Truly, I think I could contrive very well with a hundred pounds! I don’t want grand dresses, or jewels, or costly furs. Just—just one or two pretty ones, so that I need not be a dowd! Freddy, I know I am not beautiful, but don’t you think I might be passable, if I could be more in the mode?”

This appeal awoke an instant response in one whose exquisite taste was the envy of the
ton
. “I know what you mean,” said Freddy sympathetically. “Need a little town bronze! Give you a new touch!”

“Yes, that is it!” she said eagerly. “I knew you would understand!”

“Well, I do, and, what’s more, I’d be very happy to do anything in my power to oblige you. Dashed awkward thing to have to say, but not marriage, dear girl! We shouldn’t suit! Assure we should not! Besides, I don’t want to be married.”

She broke into a gurgle of laughter. “How can you be so absurd? Of course we should not suit! I did not mean we were to be really betrothed! Only hoaxing!”

“Oh!” said Freddy, relieved. He considered the matter for a moment, and perceived a flaw. “No, that won’t do. Bound to find ourselves in the basket. Can’t puff off an engagement, and then not get married.”

“Yes, we can! I know people often cry off!”

“Good God, Kitty, you can’t ask me to do a thing like that!” exclaimed Freddy indignantly.

“But why should you not? I assure you I shan’t take a pet, or care for it!”

“Well, I won’t do it, that’s all!” said Freddy, with unexpected firmness. “Shocking bad
ton
! Now, don’t start disputing about it, Kit, because it ain’t a bit of use! Good God, a pretty figure I should cut!”

He was evidently a good deal moved. Kitty said placably: “Oh, very well!
I’ll
cry off. There can be no objection to that!”

“Yes, but it would make me look like a flat!” protested Freddy.

“No, no! Everyone would say you were very well rid of me! Besides, I daresay it would not make such a stir after all.”

“Well, it would. Dash it, notice in the
Gazette
—friends felicitating one—dress-party—wedding-gifts!”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” admitted Kitty. “I don’t think we should send a notice to the
Gazette
.”

“I’m dashed sure we shouldn’t!” said Freddy, with feeling.

“You may easily hit upon an excuse for our keeping the engagement private. After all, it will only be for one month!”