“I think I saw you in Richmond this morning, Miss Chamberlayne, did I not? You were coming out of the Star and Garter as I was going in.”
I could not help it, though it almost maddened me, but at this sudden and public mention of my misdeeds the blood rose to the very roots of my hair, and flowed a brilliant scarlet all over me, even through the gauzy haze on my neck and shoulders. Aunt Alice forgot about the ginger-pop (to which she was accustomed), smiled grimly, and pursed up her mouth; Bertha gave a start, and hung her head; Regy scowled and fidgeted, and looked uneasily at me. Certainly they did all that in them lay to help me to blacken my character in the eyes of this distinguished visitor. As for him, he glanced quickly from one to the other, gravely puzzled and astonished, as well he might be. He looked hard at Regy for a moment; then his eyes swept coldly over my face, and he turned to ask a servant who was passing for sauce, as if he had not spoken to me. If he had been my oldest and dearest friend I could not have felt more deeply hurt and shamed. The colour sank out of my cheeks—it seemed to be draining out of my heart, I felt so suddenly cold and sick with my dismay at what had happened. The other listeners considered probably that I was merely showing my savage bringing up by being overwhelmed with the notice of a lord. If he had only thought that, disgusting though it would have been, I could have borne it. But I knew as well as possible that he suspected me of “gallivanting” clandestinely, and of being now found out—I, I, who might be a tomboy and a scaramouch at times, perhaps, but would no more have done anything “fast” than I would have committed a theft or a murder, knowingly. Though my bitter mortification almost drove me into tears, I made a struggle for appearances, and answered him as calmly as I could—my voice sounding very tremulous and cowardly in my own ears. “Yes, Lord Westbrook, I was there. It was the first time I had seen Richmond.”
“And did you not admire the scenery very much?” he then inquired, with an anxious look of kindness that seemed to say he was sorry for having distressed me, though his voice was a little cold.
“Very much,” I replied lifting my head and getting defiant. “My cousin says that the Thames is not be compared with the American rivers and the Rhine; but it is grander than anything I have ever seen.”
“In its way I consider the Thames is above comparison,” he said. “If your cousin had been a painter or an angler he would not have disparaged it.”
Here he went off into a disquisition upon river scenery in general, and upon fishing grounds in particular. Two or three people soon struck into the dialogue. Somebody began to talk of the “Strange Adventures of a Phaeton,” which I had just read, and had deeply fallen in love with. Captain Damer, who neither knew nor cared to inquire whether I had been to Richmond with one cousin or with three, thundered away upon all sorts of trifling topics, and did his best to entertain me. And so dinner went on as before.
But for me all the flavour was gone out of the French dishes that wafted subtle perfumes over my left shoulder every five minutes or so. “No, thank you; no, thank you; no, thank you,” I repeated mechanically, until Captain Damer began to think it was monotonous, and became concerned at my loss of appetite. It was not often that I alarmed my friends on that score, I must say.
“Don’t you care about these things?” he inquired, in a smothered bellow, taking up a gilded and crested carte that lay between us. Probably he thought that a diet of damper and mutton had disqualified my palate for that kind of food. “To tell the truth, no more do I,” he added. “Fellows boast about their chef, you know, and give you no end of a dinner if they invite you to their club; but nine-tenths of us choose a slice from a plain joint in the coffee-room when we have only ourselves to please.”
“But I don’t like slices from plain joints, and I am very fond of made dishes,” I replied, “though these ridiculous names,” pointing to the carte, “never give you any idea what they are made of. Only—the room is hot—I lunched rather late—I am not hungry to-night.”
I scooped a spoonful of cream out of a meringue as I spoke, and felt that a crumb of its fragile substance would choke me.