CHAPTER XXI.
HOW EVERYONE GOES TO LADY WARBECK'S DANCE, AND HELPS TO MAKE IT A SUCCESS; AND HOW MANY CURIOUS THINGS ARE SAID AND DONE THERE.
Everyone has come now, and old Lady Warbeck, resplendent in pearls and brocade, has dropped into a chair that some charitable person has placed behind her.
It is indeed close upon midnight, and dancing it at its height. Flowers are everywhere, and a band from town has been secured. This latter is quite a flight on the part of Lady Warbeck, who, as a rule, trusts the music to the local geniuses. Altogether everyone acknowledges it is very well done. Very well done indeed, and a good deal more than one would expect from the Warbecks!
Old Sir Thomas is marching round, paying senile compliments to all the prettiest girls; his son Gillam, with a diamond stud that you could see a mile off, is beaming on Mrs. Bethune, who is openly encouraging him. Indeed, "The Everlasting," as he is called by his friends (it is always one's friends who give one a bad name), is careering round and about Mrs. Bethune with a vigour hardly to be expected of him. He is looking even younger than usual. Though fully forty-five, he still looks only thirty—the reason of his nickname! Everyone is a little surprised at Mrs. Bethune's civility to him, she having been studiously cold to all men save her cousin Sir Maurice during the past year; but Mrs. Bethune herself is quite aware of what she is doing. Of late—it seems difficult of belief—but of late she has fancied Maurice has avoided her. He was always a little highflown with regard to morals, dear Maurice, but she will reform him! A touch, just a touch of jealousy will put an end to the moral question!
She has thrown aside the dark colours she usually affects, and is to-night all in white. So is Tita. So is Mrs. Chichester, for the matter of that. The latter is all smiles, and is now surrounded by a little court of admirers at the top of the room, Captain Marryatt, fatuous as ever, by her side, and the others encircling her.
"Quite refreshing to see so many men all together," says she in a loud voice, addressing everybody at once. She likes an audience. "As a rule, when one gets into the country, one sticks a glass in one's eye, and ask, 'Where's the MAN?'"
"I never heard anything so unkind in my life," says Mr. Gower, with a deep reproach. "I'm sure ever since you have been in the country you have had a regiment round you, waiting on your lightest word."
"Oh! you git!" says Mrs. Chichester, who is as vulgar as she is
well-born. Her glance roams down the room. "Just look at Mrs.
Bethune and 'The Everlasting,'" says she. "Aren't they going it?
And for once the fair Bethune is well-gowned."
"Yet I hear she is very hard up at present," says a woman near her.
"What eyes she has!"
"I was told she made her own gowns," says another, laughing.
"Pouf!" says Mrs. Chichester. "That's going a trifle too far. One may make the garment that covers one—I'm sure I don't know, but I've heard it—but no one ever made a gown except a regular clothes woman—a modiste."
"And, for the matter of that, hers is beautiful. Do you see how the catch at the side of the dress is? It shows the bit of satin lining admirably."
"Well, but how did she get such a charming gown if she is as you say—well, 'hard up'?"
"Ah! To go into a thing like that! How rude!" says Mrs. Chichester, going off into a little convulsion of laughter behind her fan.
"Talking of clothes," says Captain Marryatt at the moment, "did you ever see anything like Gillam's get up?"
"Gillam? Is that Mrs. Bethune's partner?"
"Yes. Just look at his trousers, his diamonds! How can Mrs.
Bethune stand it all?"
"Perhaps she admires it—the diamonds at all events."
"'My love in his attire doth show his wit!'" quotes Marryatt, who likes to pose as a man of letters.
"'When the age is in the wit is out,'" quotes Gower in his turn, who can never resist the longing to take the wind out of somebody's sails; "and, after all, The Everlasting is not a youth! No doubt his intellect is on the wane."
"He's a cad, poor fellow!" says one the cavalry men from the barracks at Merriton.
"Nonsense!" says the girl with him, a tall, heavy creature. "Why, his father is a baronet."
The cavalry man regards her with pity. How little she knows!
"A cad is not always the son of a sweep," says he, giving his information gently; "sometimes—he is the son of a prince."
"Ah! now you are being very funny," says the girl, who thinks he is trying to be clever.
"Yes, really, isn't he?" says Mrs. Chichester, who knows them both; she is a sort of person who always knows everybody. Give her three days in any neighbourhood whatsoever, and she'll post you up in all the affairs of the residents there as well as if she had dwelt amongst them since the beginning of time. You, who have lived with them for a hundred years, will be nowhere; she'll always be able to tell you something about them you never heard before.
"Isn't he?" says she; she is now regarding the heavy girl with suppressed, but keen, amusement. "And to be funny in this serious age is unpardonable. Don't do it again, Captain Warrender, as you value your life."
"I shan't!" says he. "A second attempt might be fatal!"
"How well Mr. Hescott dances!" goes on Mrs. Chichester, who admires
Tom Hescott.
"True. The very worst of us, you see, have one good point," says
Gower.
"I don't consider Mr. Hescott the worst of you, by a long way," returns she.
"Oh no, neither do I," says a pretty little woman next to her, a bride of a few weeks, who, with her husband, has just come up.
"I have you on my side then, Lady Selton?" says Mrs. Chichester.
Lady Selton nods her reply. She is panting, and fanning herself audibly. Without the slightest ear for music, she has been plunging round the room with her husband, who is still so far infatuated as to half believe she can dance. She is an extremely pretty woman, so one can condone his idiocy.
At this moment Hescott appears. He goes straight to the bride. He has been sent, indeed, by Lady Warbeck.
"Will you give me the pleasure of this dance, Lady Selton?" asks he.
"It? What is it?" nervously.
"A waltz."
He is smiling at her. She has a charming figure. Of course she can dance. Tom Hescott would not have asked the loveliest woman in the land to waltz with him, if he knew her to be a bad dancer.
"I can't waltz at all," says the bride. But her husband comes to the rescue.
"Oh, nonsense!" says he, smilingly. "Hescott dances so well that he will teach you. Go, go with him." He gives her a playful little push towards Hescott, who is looking very blank. "You'll get into it in no time."
"Get into it."
The disgust that is writ so large on Hescott's face, as he leads her away, makes Mrs. Chichester shake with laughter.
"He'll find it a slight difference after Lady Rylton's waltzing," says she to Marryatt.
"He'll find a difference in every way. Lady Selton is devoted to her husband——"
"And Lady Rylton——"
"Well!" He hesitates.
"How vague! But I know, I know! By-the-bye," with a swift change of tone that quite deceives him, "which do you admire most?"
"Oh, Lady Rylton, of course. Lady Selton is pretty—in a way—but——"
"Then you prefer the woman who is not devoted to her husband?"
"I don't see how that argument comes in," says he quickly. "Some husbands are—are——"
"Quite true. They are indeed," interrupts Mrs. Chichester, who seems to be enjoying herself. "But what an aspersion on poor Sir Maurice."
"I wasn't thinking of him," says Marryatt hurriedly.
"Of whom then?"
She fixes her eyes full on his—eyes merry with mischief.
"Oh, I don't know," says he confusedly.
"Of my husband?"
"Mrs. Chichester, I don't think——"
"That's right," says she, rising and slipping her arm into his. "Never think; it's about the most foolish thing anyone can do. _I _never think. I only wait; waiting is full of promise."