CHAPTER XVII
The party for dinner was to have consisted of fifteen persons, including the little girls and their governess. Lady Carey, who combined strict views on the bringing up of children with the greatest latitude and kindness in carrying them out, had arranged that the school-room party should sit at a side-table, but partake of all the good things provided for their betters. Willoughby’s arrival threw the numbers out and, in order to avoid the evil of sitting down thirteen at the larger table, it was necessary that some one else should be placed at the inferior one, and Lady Carey had decided that it should be Henry Whitaker, who was still at Westminster, and therefore grouped in her mind with the children.
The choice could not have fallen on anyone who would feel the indignity more. He stood beside his chair, red and glowering, unwilling to take the place one moment before it was necessary. The disgrace was happily averted. The two little girls clamorously begged that Mr. Atherton might be sent to their table and, as he added his entreaties, Lady Carey yielded to their wishes. Margaret breathed again for Henry, and as he took the place intended for Mr. Atherton between their hostess and herself she was able to begin the process of soothing his ruffled feelings by the sweetness of her welcoming smile.
It was not to be expected that Henry could have much to say to Lady Carey. The affront was too recent, and his resentment too just. It was not until the first course had been removed and the corner dishes placed for the second that he could have replied without constraint even to her inquiries for his mother. Margaret’s attention, as he told her of the great doings at Westminster at the Grease, and the wild scenes in Great School that always ensued, had done him a world of good, and, though it might be that Lady Carey would never be entirely forgiven, he found he could now speak to her in an ordinary tone and believe her to be a very good sort of woman in her way.
Walter Carey, who sat on Margaret’s other side, was far from being pleased to find her attention turned from him, but, in addition to his habitual good-nature, he had the assistance of knowing himself to be the superior of Henry in so many particulars that he felt he could afford to him the indulgence of Margaret’s kindness. He himself was obliged to turn to Mary Whitaker, a plain girl, but, he found, very agreeable. So often it may be noticed by those whose powers of observation are not blurred by partiality that the absence of other attractions is accompanied by a wish to please, and some knowledge of how to do it, so that those who are so justly scorned for their lack of beauty, by their fairer sisters, achieve a high degree of popularity with the other sex.
Mary Whitaker was generally liked and always content with such notice as fell to her share. She felt no resentment when Walter took the opportunity of the dishes being changed to engage Margaret’s attention, even though she herself was cut short in the middle of a sentence, and, finding Mrs. Ferrars at liberty, was pleased to find herself kindly addressed and offered some advice and help in the arrangement of her dress as Second Brother.
Sir Francis had enjoyed his talk with Elinor. Her cultivated mind and elegant beauty exactly suited his taste, and he eyed Miss Steele, who sat on his left, with a sidelong glance that spoke his fear that he was now to be less happily entertained. Miss Steele was in very poor spirits. She was sat down next to Sir Francis, who had not so much as looked at her, and on the other side was Penelope Carey, who had no eyes for anyone but Mr. Willoughby, and who seemed a stupid sort of girl even if she had tried to make herself agreeable. When Sir Francis had learnt that Miss Steele had lived at Plymouth all her life, and that her younger sister was well married, but that she herself could not make up her mind, he found himself at a loss for a topic of conversation, and, on being applied to by Elinor for information as to the origin of Comus, he gladly devoted himself to the task of enlightening the minds of Mary Whitaker and Mrs. Ferrars on the subject of the influence of the Elizabethans on literature of a later date.
Willoughby had been exerting his powers of conversation between Isabella and Penelope Carey, who had often wished to know more of him in the days when Marianne had absorbed his attention, and by the end of dinner they were both quite convinced that whatever the trouble had been, whatever it was that had broken the engagement, it must have been the fault of Mrs. Brandon, and not of the charming gentleman who entertained them. They wondered that his wife were not more seen with him. They feared he was neglected by her, and remembered all they had heard of her ill-temper and sickliness.
Isabella’s attention was claimed from time to time by Sir John, who must have some young lady to tease about her dearest affections, and who spent a very agreeable hour dividing his attentions between Lady Carey, who was a very knowledgable woman indeed, and Isabella, who was a very handsome one.
The party at the smaller table was as noisy as any. Mr. Atherton had claimed that Miss Fairfield was to have a holiday and he would be deputy governess, with the lady as his eldest and show pupil, and the little girls had been delighted to have their knuckles rapped and their elbows poked in, and to be told how to hold their forks all wrong, and which side of their mouths they should use for drinking.
The laughter became so uproarious that Sir Francis’s eyebrows went up into his grey hair, and Lady Carey had to administer some more serious admonitions. Margaret thought with surprise of how wearisome this man could be, and made the well-worn discovery that if people are to be agreeable they need but be natural. Mr. Atherton’s good-nature was superior to his intelligence, and he could make himself liked where he did not much wish to impress.
Dinner was over at last, and the ladies were to spend the hours before tea in rest and chat in the drawing-room, admiring each other’s work, for which they cared nothing, playing each other’s songs, which they did very indifferently, and preventing each other from indulging in the quiet doze which would have been so welcome to most after the tiring morning and excellent dinner. Lady Carey alone was fortunate in having matters requiring her attention, and which, declining all assistance, she executed in great comfort with her eyes closed on the couch in her bed-chamber.
The party in the drawing-room finally strolled out on to the lawn, where they were joined by the gentlemen, who had been watching a desultory game of billiards between Walter and Willoughby. Henry felt that the insult of the dining-room had been almost wiped out when Sir Francis had invited him to join the party in the billiard-room.
The children were taken off to the school-room by their governess. Their share of amusement was over for the day, as they were not to appear at the ball. If they felt downcast at being excluded from the fun, they could console themselves by thinking that, in a few years time, they would be as pretty as Miss Dashwood, and talk as fast as Miss Steele, and wear clothes as fine as their sisters.
Miss Fairfield had no such consolation. For a young woman of twenty-three to be in the school-room while a ball is in progress in the drawing-room is no happy fate; and the time to which the children looked forward would only be to her the occasion of a removal to another house, where she might be treated with less consideration, and at a time when she could not but be losing the attractions of face and figure which seemed so wasted now. She actually was as pretty as Margaret, and could have found as many things to say as Miss Steele, and have looked fully as well in fine clothes as the two Miss Careys. Her lot, however, was a different one, and she took the cover from her harp in order to practise the music of the other girls’ songs, with the wish at least to be contented in that she had a share, though a small one, in the performance which was the centre of every one’s thoughts.