Proper pride

The evening of the ball found Alice arraying herself at her cheval glass, an admiring Abigail was twitching and pulling at her dress—she also admired herself in no small degree. The glass reflected an exquisitely-fitting white silk ball costume, trimmed with clouds of soft lace, tulle, and silver—it was not merely a dress, it was an inspiration. A thick collar of diamonds encircled her throat—Reginald’s wedding present; three diamond stars to correspond sparkled in her hair; silver and diamond bangles, long white gloves, and a feather fan completed her toilet.

Mary, in pale pink (her particular colour), looked remarkably well; but Alice killed her; no one would look at her twice beside such a dazzling vision of loveliness.

Together they descended to the hall, and found Mr. and Mrs. Mayhew, Geoffrey, and Reginald awaiting them, the two latter in the full splendour of their hussar uniform. Maurice, who had been allowed to sit up for once, seemed duly to appreciate the great occasion, and viewed his father with profound and unmistakable admiration; even the radiant apparition in white that came floating down the staircase was powerless to divert his attention.

After an eight-mile drive the Monkswood party found themselves at the scene of action, and amidst a throng of carriages and blaze of lights descended at the entrance.

“We shall have to sort ourselves now,” remarked Geoffrey, as he sprang out with the bound of a kangaroo. “You and Alice, Regy—Miss Ferrars and I will follow—lead the way.”

On a table in the entrance-hall lay heaps of gilded programmes. Sir Reginald picked up two as he passed, and, handing one to his wife, said carelessly:

“You will give me a dance, Alice; won’t you?”

“Certainly,” she replied, secretly much surprised at the request. “I have promised Geoffrey the second valse; what will you have?”

“The valse after supper, when the room is not so crowded. There seem to be hundreds here,” glancing through the ball-room. “Let me see,” taking her programme and looking at it for an instant; “Number fourteen, ‘Brises des Nuits,’ I’ll take that, thanks,” scribbling his initials and handing back her card. “We had better move on now, the door is no longer blocked.”

They at last succeeded in making their way to Lady Rufford, who received them with much empressement; and Alice, after exchanging a few words with her hostess, was eagerly engaged for the ensuing lancers by a little Russian prince, who had clamorously begged for an introduction.

It is almost needless to describe a large ball in a country house; there is a strong family likeness among them, one is very much like another. A good floor, good supper, Liddell’s band, and flowers in all directions constitute the chief features. The house party, the élite of the county, formed some portion of those present. There were pretty country girls with rather outré dresses; there were stylish young ladies, who went to town every season, and wore unimpeachable frocks, to these a ball was a very ordinary affair; there were young men, bored and blasé, lounging against doors and walls, and looking superior to the whole thing; rustic sons of neighbouring squires, uncouth and unpolished, enjoying themselves hugely in elephantine gambols with the partners of their choice. There were the chaperones—already languishing for supper, a large military contingent, and an immense number of outsiders, to whom this ball was the great social event of the year. The rooms were crowded; the reception-room, tea-room, and ball-room were almost impassible, not to speak of the staircase and all the nooks and corners that were crammed.

Alice and Reginald were personally but little known, and they overheard various remarks about themselves of a highly laudatory character. For instance, during a pause in a valse Reginald’s lively partner, who was freely discussing the dancers, exclaimed:

“Do look at that girl in white, just opposite. There, standing next the pillar. How she and that boy are enjoying themselves! They seem too intimate for you to call it a flirtation, and not sufficiently tender for an engaged couple. Who can they be? I have never seen them before.”

Seeing her partner smile, she added:

“Ah, I believe you know them!”

“I do,” he calmly replied. “The boy, who would be extremely indignant if he heard you call him one, is Mr. Saville, of the Fifth Hussars; and the young lady with him is his cousin, and my wife.”

“Your wife! you don’t say so? You are joking! Is that really Lady Fairfax? She looks so preposterously young, I could easily imagine this to be her first ball.”

“Nevertheless, she has been married for more than three years.”

“She is uncommonly pretty,” returned the young lady, gazing at her with all her eyes. “Several people have asked me who she was, but I did not know. She is quite the belle of the evening. Don’t you think so?”

“I always agree with a lady, especially when it is a question of taste,” was his evasive answer. “Shall we take another turn?”

“Not very enthusiastic about his wife,” was his partner’s mental observation as they once more joined the dancers.

“Who is the lovely girl in white?” was a question that half the room were asking each other. Alice is at last obtaining a social success, dozens of partners vainly beg for dances. She is turning the heads of all the young men, and filling the breasts of her own sex with the devouring flame of envy.

Supper was served at round tables accommodating ten or twelve. Sir Reginald and his partner had taken their places at one at which he was a stranger to all the other guests. A fat red-faced man, who was voraciously gobbling down lobster-salad, remarked to his neighbours:

“Capital ball! capital supper!”

“Yes,” replied a bored-looking youth, with a patronising drawl, “good floor, lots of pretty girls.”

“Ah!” added a third, helping himself to ham, “but there is no one that comes within the length of a street of that girl in white, Lady Fairfax.”

“Quite agree with you,” responded the bored one, in a tone of deep approval.

“Could not get a dance, though,” said another; “card crammed.”

“But,” pleaded his partner, a young person with a figure and dress resembling a pink-and-white pin-cushion, “although she is quite too lovely, she has a melancholy expression when her face is in repose. I admire a more riant style. I think Miss Gordon is more taking, though not so strictly pretty.”

“I think so too,” said another lady; “Miss Gordon is my beauty.”

“You are welcome to her, ladies,” responded the red-faced squire; “none of the gentlemen will dispute her with you—we are all sworn admirers of Lady Fairfax. She’s like a princess—a fairy princess. Let’s drink her health,” seizing a magnum of champagne and suiting the action to the word, having already supped “not wisely, but too well.”

Reginald, much disgusted, was tied to this particular table by his partner’s wants—the demands of a locust-like appetite.

“Never so tiresome or so hungry a girl,” he thought, as he replenished her plate time after time.

“What fun it is to hear them discussing your wife,” she whispered; “you should get up and return thanks. How taken aback they would look.”

“I don’t think I will disturb their equanimity so cruelly,” he returned. “But if you have quite finished, we will adjourn. The next dance has commenced, and your partner is sure to be anathematising me.”

As he rose and left the table, someone said:

“Who is the young hussar fellow with the V.C. and the scowl?”

“Walking down the room with the girl in green?” answered a quiet-looking man, who had taken the vacant place, and was critically scanning the menu.

“Yes, the same.”

“Oh, that’s Fairfax.” (Sensation at the supper-table.)

Sir Reginald having recovered his liberty, was on his way to seek for a fresh partner, when he came face to face with one of the Twenty-Ninth who had been his host at Cheetapore. After a few brief expressions of pleasure and astonishment, the dragoon asked the hussar where he was staying, etc.

“I hope I shall have the pleasure of being presented to your wife. She is here, is she not?”

“Yes, but she is dancing at present.”

“Point her out, please; I am most anxious to see her.”

“Coming this way, in the white dress, dancing with the Highlander.”

“Jove!” ejaculated the dragoon, when she had passed. An enormous amount of admiration was compressed into that one syllable.

“You are a lucky fellow,” he added, surveying his companion enviously. “If I could get a wife like that, I’d marry to-morrow. Has she a sister?”

“No.”

“Has she a cousin with a family likeness?”

“Don’t be a fool, Carew,” replied Sir Reginald impatiently.

“I’m perfectly serious. There, she is sitting down now,” seizing his friend by the arm; “come along and introduce me.”

But ere they reached the ottoman another partner had claimed Alice and carried her away.

“Never mind,” said Sir Reginald consolingly, “come over to-morrow and dine and sleep. That will be a much better opportunity for making my wife’s acquaintance.”

Meantime Alice had been enjoying herself excessively. She was very fond of dancing; the floor and the music were all that could be desired, and she had had a succession of good partners. Her spirits, as Geoffrey remarked to her, were quite up to concert-pitch, and she was spending a very pleasant evening.

“So was Reginald,” she thought, as she observed him dancing every dance, and selecting with much discrimination the prettiest girls in the room! At length her waltz, number fourteen, came round. She had been in to supper with a young lord, who, anxious to retain the belle of the evening on his arm as long as possible, was parading slowly up and down, entreating her for “one more dance.”

“But I really cannot give you one; I have already put down four extra dances that are not on the card.”

“Let me look at your programme, if you don’t mind,” he asked with cool superiority.

She handed it to him unhesitatingly.

Yes, every dance was full!

“Who is this fellow, R.M.F., who has got himself down for the next? Can’t you throw him over—forget all about it—and give it to a very deserving young man instead?”

“How do you know that the other is not a very deserving young man also?” she asked with a smile.

“Who is he? He did not even give you his valuable autograph! Maybe he is not very keen about dancing—ten to one he is at supper! Who is he?” he repeated pertinaciously.

“He is my husband, since you insist on knowing.”

“Your husband——” with an impatient gesture, “oh, come then, that’s all right. The laws of society don’t permit married people to dance together. I never heard of such a thing. You’ll give me the dance, won’t you?” he added with tranquil confidence.

“No, certainly not!” she replied quietly.

“But if he forgets all about it, as he is sure to do—what then?”

“Your inference is not very flattering. But in that ‘case unprecedented’ you may have the dance with pleasure,” rejoined Alice with a smile.

“You are not a bride, are you?” he asked anxiously, after a moment’s silence.

“Oh no; I’ve been married more than three years,” she returned with some dignity.

“And may I ask if you always dance with your husband at balls?”

“Never, as yet, since we have been married,” she replied, looking down and surveying the toe of her slender satin shoe, with critical inspection.

“Well, mind you don’t throw me over. Let us sit down here at the end of the room till the band strikes up.”

Presently the strains of “Brises des Nuits” was heard, recalling wandering dancers.

“Look, Lady Fairfax! here’s a good-looking young hussar coming over here. I know he is going to ask you to dance. Remember your promise.”

“Where is he?” she asked indifferently.

“There, in the middle of the room. He has stopped to speak to that little artillery-man with the sandy moustache. Don’t you see him? A handsome, determined-looking fellow. I saw a fixed purpose in his eye just now, but you won’t hear of it, will you? Here he comes.”

“But he is my husband!” exclaimed Alice triumphantly. “You see he did not forget the dance after all.”

“That Fairfax? Why, I thought he was quite elderly, and he does not look more than six or seven and twenty. I see he is a V.C., and I have been wondering who he was all the evening. Will you introduce me?”

“I believe this is our dance, Alice?” said Sir Reginald, stiffly.

“Yes, I think so,” she replied, rising with assumed indifference.

Having presented her late partner, she took her husband’s arm and joined the dancers; one step—two steps—and they floated off.

“How well that couple waltz,” was remarked by more than one. “They are the best dancers in the room,” observed a man who considered himself a good judge and a still better performer.

Their step suited exactly, and they glided easily in and out among the bumping, revolving crowd, with a combination of ease and grace that justified his remark. Reginald’s London seasons stood him in good stead; and when Alice felt his arm firmly encircling her waist, and they plunged into the giddy vortex, she was perfectly confident that, so good was his steering, so quick his eye, and so perfect his step, that no matter what frantic or ponderous couples were afloat, she would meet with no collisions. She could not restrain a pardonable feeling of pride as she saw glance after glance levelled at herself and her husband with unmistakable approval. It was some time before Steepshire society realised the stupendous fact that “Fairfax was dancing with his wife.” It was: “Who is the pretty girl dancing with Fairfax?” or, “Who is the hussar Lady Fairfax has got hold of?” But when they had taken the idea well into their minds they were dumbfounded. “Where was the divorcée? Where was the enraged husband? Above all, where was the idiot who had promoted such a scandal? The Fairfaxes were on the very best of terms. They were the handsomest couple in the room; they were devoted to each other.” Such were the whispers that floated round; and Alice was rehabilitated as quickly as her friends could desire, and placed, by public opinion, on the very top rung of the social ladder.

Alice knew perfectly that her husband had danced with her with an object in view. She felt that it was a most decided “duty dance.” Not for an instant did his arm linger round her waist; not for a second did his hand press hers. If she had been the merest stranger he could not have treated her with more distant ceremony. She paused to take breath for a few seconds, and they came to a standstill just opposite a large mirror, which faced them right across the room. She looked over, and saw a tall slight girl in white, fanning herself with a large feather fan; and it also reflected a very good-looking hussar, clad in all the pomp and panoply of his profession. His dark-blue gold-laced uniform became him well. He was leaning against the wall, watching the crowd with an air of supreme indifference and a decidedly bored expression of countenance. “Who would think we were husband and wife?” thought Alice, as she glanced once more at that couple across the room—“who, indeed? I will make one more effort to-night if I have an opportunity. It will be my last attempt at making friends. If I fail now I fail for ever.”

When the dance had concluded, Sir Reginald led his partner through the series of long rooms, in the wake of a multitude of others; not a few drifted aside into various sequestered bowers of flirtation, but the mass of dancers kept on moving down the great corridor; their goal appeared to be the garden, and many couples were soon scattered over its grassy sward. Our hero and heroine found their way into the conservatory. It was a charming place; a dim religious light, distributed by Chinese lanterns, sufficed to show gigantic tropical plants, palms, pyramids of flowers, and various cunningly-placed crimson seats for two. Having found a vacancy in a retired nook, Sir Reginald threw himself into one corner of the sofa when Alice had seated herself at the other; a silence, broken only by the murmur of half-a-dozen adjacent flirtations and the splash of a fountain, lasted for at least five minutes.

“What possessed me to come here?” thought Reginald to himself. “Absence of mind? I forgot for the moment it was not old times. This is just the sort of place we used to affect before we were married.” He looked at his wife—contemplated her with a grave critical scrutiny almost severe. She was leaning back in her corner, playing with her fan. The red background of the couch threw her slender graceful figure into bold relief. She was very lovely, certainly; and now he came to think of it, there was a melancholy look on her face when in repose.

“Reginald,” she said, sitting up and facing him, “do you remember the last time we danced together?”

“No! I think not!” he answered dubiously.

(I think you do, Sir Reginald.)

“It was at the Lancasters; we danced together half the evening.”

“Did we? Then we must have made ourselves rather remarkable,” he replied, with a short laugh, breaking off a large bit of fern and critically examining its fronds.

“Do you remember the ball at Burford House?”

Considering that it was at that very ball he had proposed to her, he could not well plead forgetfulness.

“I do, of course,” he answered, glancing at her quickly, and pausing in the act of dissecting the fern bit by bit. “What is the good of calling up these reminiscences? There are some things which are best forgotten,” he added with cool judicial serenity.

“Do you wish to forget that evening, Reginald?” she asked in a tone of low reproach, and raising her fan to hide her trembling lips.

“Well, no,” he replied slowly and with evident reluctance. “Not yet; but I quite agree with Balzac that ‘Life would be intolerable without a certain amount of forgetting;’ and I am glad to say that I have forgotten much.”

“Why should you endeavour to forget? Why are you so changed to me, Reginald?” she asked with an enormous effort. “What makes you so stern, so hard to me?” she faltered, laying a timid little hand on his. “Won’t you tell me?”

He would—he will—he is about to speak—he has thrown away the fern-stalk, and has taken her hand firmly in his own. Precisely at this critical moment a well-known voice exclaimed jovially:

“So here you are!” and Geoffrey suddenly appeared before them. “Fairly run to earth! A nice dance you’ve led me. None but a couple of regular professional flirts would have found out this cover. Alice, your partners are literally tearing each other to pieces in the ball-room, and unless you wish for bloodshed you had better be off—it’s really serious!” offering his arm. “You have five men waiting for the same dance.”

Oh, Geoffrey! Geoffrey! If you had only come five minutes later! Reginald dropped Alice’s hand like the traditional live coal, and Alice shrank back into her corner of the sofa at the first sound of her cousin’s approach.

“I’m engaged for this too,” said Reginald, rising and looking at his programme. “You will take Alice back to the ball-room, I suppose, then?” he observed, with extraordinary command of countenance; and, turning away, he sauntered off, ostensibly in search of his own partner.

The ball was over; people were leaving in crowds—the Fairfaxes among the first flight.

“Alice,” said Geoffrey from his corner of the carriage, “I am proud of you; you took the shine out of them all to-night. Now I can believe in the old duke’s infatuation.”

“What duke?” asked Miss Ferrars sleepily.

“Have you never heard that the old Duke of St. Remo, old enough to be her great-grandfather, fell madly in love with my pretty little cousin when she was at Nice, and proposed in due form?”

“Geoffrey, be quiet; you are really very provoking. Do leave me alone,” crossly.

“Don’t interrupt; you know you are very proud of his scalp, though you would not be a duchess. Is not his proposal kept among our family archives to this day?”

“Geoffrey! only I am so sleepy I would box your ears. Meanwhile, permit me to remind you of one word—the mystic word, wait!”

“Fancy, descending from a duke to a baronet! I am a deeply injured man. Only for your nonsense I might have been quoting ‘My cousin, the duchess.’ You would have made such a sweet little nurse. I daresay you would have been spoon-feeding the dear old fellow by this time, whereas, thanks to your heartless conduct, he has been hurried to an early grave.”

“How foolish of you not to have accepted him, Alice,” put in Mary, with lazy interest.

“Was she not? Miss Fane did all she could to make her; but she only cried and sobbed, and made no end of scenes; so she had to get her own way. You always do get your own way, don’t you, Lady Fairfax?”

But all this was thrown away on Alice, who was leaning back in her corner apparently fast asleep.

“Only we had to go in our war-paint, it was a very pleasant ball, wasn’t it, Rex? I’m nearly smothered in this tunic. I suppose you, as my senior officer, would not hear of my taking it off, would you?”

“No,” replied Reginald, with a yawn; “suppose you follow the general example and go to sleep. I’ll excuse that if you like.”

A very weary, drowsy party ascended the shallow steps of Monkswood, as the stars were disappearing and giving place to the gray dawn. With yawns and candles they all dispersed, leaden-footed, to their own apartments, to seek tired nature’s soft restorer, sleep.

But there was little sleep for Sir Reginald, nor had he any apparent inclination to woo the fickle goddess, as he paced his long, low-roofed bedchamber from end to end.

“What did Alice mean, to-night?” he said to himself. “How weak I am where she is concerned! I was on the point of yielding; only for Geoffrey it was all over with me. Fancy a Fairfax breaking his word of honour—his oath! Well, in ten days’ time I may go; in ten days more I shall have made sufficient sacrifice to the shrine of public opinion, and in ten days I shall be out of the way of temptation.”

A knock at the door—an angry knock.

Enter to him Geoffrey, robed in a dressing-gown of blinding brilliancy.

“I say, Rex, are you doing sentry go? because, if not, will you have the goodness to remember that my room is under yours?”

Exit, with slam of door.

Reginald accepted the rebuke, and ceasing his promenade seated himself on the edge of his bed in a very dissatisfied frame of mind. He had miscalculated his strength on which he piqued himself. His iron will appeared a very flexible article to him now. He had thought himself man enough to remain at Monkswood, mixing daily and familiarly with Alice, unmoved and unruffled, the very embodiment of the typical iceberg; and now he found he could not bear it, it was too much for his self-control. How capricious she was! one morning full of solicitude for his safety, changing ere evening like the veriest weathercock. On rare occasions amazing him with a glimpse of her former self, as on the day after Helen’s arrival (attributed by him to the immediate result of Helen’s influence), and on the evening before the races. After that, the thermometer of her manners changed from fair to freezing. But this evening again there had been a thaw. What did it mean? Better sustain an even temperament throughout as he did. She was ready enough to reproach him with harshness, to win him into good-humour with herself, to recur to the past as if there were no barrier between them, and that barrier wholly erected and sustained by her. Had she forgotten that he had sworn he would never be reconciled save on one condition? Not likely; she must remember it as well as he did himself.

“If I could believe that she cared for me,” he said, “it would be different. Once or twice I have been mad enough to think so, but only for a moment; cool reflection, and Alice’s subsequent treatment, effectually dispelled my illusions on that score. She never would have left me all those years without one line; she never would have given me such a freezing reception, not one word of welcome for the present or regret for the past. Reginald Fairfax,” he added aloud, as he rose and began to pull off his tunic, “listen to common sense, keep out of your wife’s way, for you are a greater fool than I thought you; keep aloof from her altogether, if you would wish to say when you leave this roof for ever, all is lost save honour. If she had had anything to say to you, it would have been said long ago. Sitting up all night won’t mend matters. Sitting up all night won’t make her ask you to forgive and forget; she will never give in. And,” after a pause and glancing at himself sternly in the glass, “if I know you, you’ll never give in either.” Having garrisoned his mind with this reflection, he followed the example of the household, and went to bed.