YES AND NO.
CHAPTER I.
Shakspeare.
The events of the last chapter, combined with Lady Latimer’s rather deliberate devoirs at her dressing-table, had so much postponed her arrival, that by the time she entered the room, the ball was at its zenith. For two hours previously had the motley assemblage been collecting; and various as the character and rank of the company, had been their modes of arrival.
First, the ostentatious old grandee, who had insisted on the dignity of his coach-and-six, though at every turn of the narrow streets the leaders’ heads had smashed a shop window, and the hind wheel had carried off the scraper from the opposite door.
Then, drawn by a pair of the farm-team, slowly rolled on the family chariot, whose single seat was as warmly contested as if it had been a parliamentary one: the proper pretensions of a bodkin being very differently considered by brother Bill, whose tight “knees” resisted sitting in too acute an angle; and by sisters Selina and Georgina, who insisted on ample space for their lower garments, and elbow-room for their gigot sleeves.
Here too, but for the convenient darkness, might have been seen, from under a carefully-gathered gown, a well-turned leg, and slim ancle, tottering over the crossing beneath the weight of cumbrous clogs; papa having been too stingy to hire a chaise to go a hundred yards, and Miss herself too impatient to wait for the twentieth turn of the single sedan which the town boasted.
How little know they, whose London mornings are spent in a fastidious discussion of the half-a-dozen “at homes,” from which they are to make a selection, of the pleasure felt by the country girl in the anticipation of her only ball! With all the languor of the last night’s raking still upon her, the disciple of fashion finds out, as she contemptuously tosses over the offered engagements for the evening, that Lady G. has not got Collinet; that Mrs. H. lives in Bryanstone Square, and she makes it a rule never to cross Oxford Street except to the corps diplomatique, who, as foreigners, have a right to live in outlandish parts; that Lady Mary is always so civil, and means this for a squeeze; and that if they go to Mrs. D.’s, they must ask her in return; and their “very small, very early,”——impossible!
On the other hand, the rural nymph, to whom an engagement of this kind is an extraordinary event, wakes earlier in the morning, for fear she should not be in time, counts the hours impatiently till dressing, whilst the habitual glow of health is heightened by the flush of excitement. And what can be a more gratifying sight than such a collection of happy faces—if they did but know how to dance!
Germain had miraculously escaped from his election-dinner, only so much elevated with all he had swallowed, as made him the more likely to go through the remaining labours of the evening with spirit, and therefore with success.
Not so Mr. Macdeed and Captain Wilcox, who were both as much cut as the occasion warranted, and walked about the early part of the evening arm-in-arm, each thinking that he was taking care of the other. The wine rendered Macdeed facetious, the captain only familiar.
“My friend the captain,” Macdeed repeated several times with an accompanying laugh; “though only a single vote after our dinner has turned out a plumper.”
“Macdeed, my man, don’t talk nonsense; and take care, or you’ll run against the ladies,” replied the captain, pulling him away.
Mr. Stedman was solemn and sober, but looked wonderfully clean, till after the dancing had set in with such severity as to cause the first fall of powder upon his coat, which, though antique in cut, was new for the occasion; nor was his double-breasted white dimity waistcoat as yet stained with snuff; and his stout legs, shown to advantage in ribbed silk stockings, seemed to want nothing but elasticity to qualify them for the labours of the evening. Yet for all this, there was not a young lady whose situation in the county entitled her to dance with one of the members, who did not put up a secret wish that the young and handsome Germain might first offer to lead her forth, and that she might not be left to be dragged up and down by the main force of the old squire.
Germain, who was not very learned in the etiquette of these occasions, had entertained some vague sort of intention of opening the ball with Lady Latimer, but her late arrival put that out of the question, and it was lucky for his popularity that it did so. It was suggested to him, that to dance with a bride would prevent jealousies about any other pretensions; and Mrs. Captain Wilcox, both on account of her father’s situation in the county, and her husband’s recently acquired property, would be a proper person.
Our old friend Fanny was not dressed as a bride—it would have been better if she had, for the combined election colours which she thought her husband’s opinions required on the occasion, were not becoming. Hers was not a taste which could be trusted with the indiscriminate use of two such colours as blue and red, particularly as she of course had no very accurate idea of the peculiarly delicate shade of the real “feu d’enfer.” Her shoes, however, were red, which Germain could not deny was giving a very fair allowance in point of quantity to his colour. Still her general appearance was dowdy; and as Germain stood opposite to her waiting to begin, though it was impossible to find much fault with any thing that looked so good and fresh, and happy and healthy, yet he could not help wondering at his former self, as he recollected some of the day-dreams of his early sentiment.
There, too, stood his formerly revered, always respectable Mentor, her father, who certainly was not in the same state as the captain and Mr. Macdeed; but this arose not so much from any abstemiousness on the occasion, as from having ascertained from long habit exactly how much he could drink with decency. Germain fancied, when he first observed him, that his features had the cunning compression of a man who knows that he has drank enough, and he was confirmed in his opinion by the maudlin tone in which he said, as he passed, nodding at Fanny, “Old times, eh, Mr. Germain?”
When Captain Wilcox at that moment touched him on the other side, and nodding and smirking, said, “Much flattered, I’m sure, Mr. Germain; you’ll make Mrs. Wilcox quite sport high at opening the ball with the Member ——,” Germain felt almost gratified by the captain’s interruption, from the consciousness he thence derived that ‘old times’ could not be really revived.
Reply was prevented by the commencement of the dancing; and Fanny swam, and bounced, and floated, and jumped, as if she was determined to show her sense of the honour.
“’Tis pity,” thought Germain, “that where the heart is so light, the heels should be so heavy.”
At length, to his infinite relief, though his exertions had kept no pace with those of his partner, they reached the bottom. At this moment Lady Latimer entered the room alone, and took her seat at one end of it by Mrs. and the Misses Luton. She had depended upon having Miss Mordaunt to accompany her. Lord Latimer had declined to come from a feeling, perhaps unnecessarily squeamish in those days, that a peer had better not personally interfere in elections. Fitzalbert, in a fit of indolence, had staid with him.
The first glance satisfied Germain that Lady Latimer never looked more beautiful; and she took the same opportunity to signify her congratulations at his success by a slight inclination of the head, and a finger half raised to point out the colours she wore. But from where he stood, Germain could see her but imperfectly; for between them was the figure of Mrs. Wilcox fanning herself, and swinging about her not very transparent person. The captain, too, came up to them again, saying, “Fanny, my dear, hadn’t you better be seated; now I declare you are quite warm, and I’m sure you must be leg-weary.”
“Me! oh no, I could dance down ten times more, with pleasure.”
“Dieu m’en défende!” thought Germain.
“But are you sure it’s quite prudent, my dear?” enquired the captain, winking and nudging Germain, who was not learned enough in family matters to comprehend the meaning of the inuendo, though it added to the already deep die of Fanny’s skin.
As they were (to use the new idiom of the day) being danced up, he observed Lady Latimer, who was really short-sighted, and never used a glass offensively, stealing hers up to her eye, and directing it towards the expansive but unconscious front of his partner, which was turned towards her. This was evidently followed by an inquiry of Mrs. Luton, and he did not at all like the tale-telling manner in which that lady prepared to answer it; for he had a disagreeable recollection that she had lived near his tutor’s, and that she could no otherwise account for the indifference he then showed to the advances of any, and indeed all of the Misses Luton, than by supposing a domestic prepossession at Mrs. Dormer’s. He felt sure, too, that she would detail every thing in the most malicious manner; and he could not deny, as he looked at Mrs. Captain Wilcox, that it wanted no assistance to make her, and consequently himself, ridiculous.
The apparently interminable dance at length concluded, he hastened to Lady Latimer, and began expressing his regrets, which were certainly very sincere, that she had not arrived in time for him to open the ball with her. “Oh,” said she, laughing, “pray don’t think it necessary to make speeches which we know how far to believe. You remember the old proverb, ‘On revient toujours;’ need I go on, or does your conscience fill up the rest?”
Germain felt that he looked sufficiently foolish for him to wish to avoid Lady Latimer’s eye, he therefore carried his down the line beyond, where it encountered Mrs. Luton’s malicious grin, Miss Luton’s suppressed smile, Miss Anne Luton’s silly simper, and a certain expression which twittered about the little pursed-up mouths of the whole line of Misses Luton.
Now Germain was not aware that he had given what was considered very serious ground of offence to every one of these young ladies. The elder ones recollected the manner in which he had formerly slighted their charms, and all of them considered, that as they were the only young ladies in the room who had actually been at Paris, and who bore about them the outward and visible signs of it, that this ought to have superseded every other claim to precedence, and left, as the only choice for Germain, which of the sisters he should open the ball with.
Germain felt what has been felt by less diffident characters when exposed alone to a whole line of ladies, that if he was not actually making a favourable impression upon one, he was probably making an unfavourable one upon all, and therefore to extricate himself from this false position, he proposed to Lady Latimer to dance the next dance with him.
“I think I am growing too old,” said she, evidently not very seriously; “I am losing the elasticity of youth,” looking down at her pretty little foot, which certainly seemed to come much more under the description of the “light fantastic” than that of his last partner.
What gallant reply he might have thought it necessary to make is unknown, for at that moment he felt his elbow touched, and turning round he beheld the persevering Captain Wilcox.
“Sweet woman that, the Viscountess Latimer; would you do me the honour to present me to her in due form?” Germain did not know how to refuse, and therefore mentioned the request to Lady Latimer. “What,” said she, “the successful rival? you generous man!” The introduction effected, the captain began—
“My lord’s not here, I understand. I hope not indisposed. I am sure you look charming well, my lady, in spite of the hot room—perhaps, as assistant-surgeon Jackson used to say at Madras, the hotter the healthier, because——”
“And so you insist upon my standing up this dance,” said Lady Latimer to Germain, taking his arm, and interrupting the captain, and then continuing, as she walked away—“That was a little too bad, Mr. Germain. So I was to have occupied the good, easy man, whilst you—Oh! for shame!”
There was much in all this that annoyed Germain; he was, as has been seen before, always peculiarly sensitive to ridicule, and the tone of banter so successfully assumed by Lady Latimer, he could not conceal from himself was most probably founded on indifference. However, though she was soon satisfied with the sensation her presence had created in the ball-room, and retired early, he resolutely remained much of the night, as in duty bound; and it was a very late hour ere the festivities concluded.