And lest anyone should be busybody enough to pick up the dropped letter and forward it to its destination, which would be a sad interference with the just action of Providence, Mistress Lafone picked it up herself and minced it into small pieces as she walked along towards her cottage lodging. She had quite a good appetite for her bread and milk that night.
It had been my Lady Kilcroney’s intention to keep her cherished little Denis in his cot, for the space of at least a day, for indeed there was more than one red mark on the satin of his small, plump body, and Kitty vowed it was of a piece with the rest of my Lord’s brutality to declare that those who leave their own homes for the discomforts of lodgings must expect the occasional flea. But on receipt of a letter sent round by my Lady Flora’s woman, she promptly altered her plans, and ordered the protesting cherub to be arrayed in his best robe-coat covered with fine muslin, and his white satin hat with feathers.
My Lord, as soon as his infant’s roars had been soothed by candies, picked up the letter which Kitty had dropped on the floor in her hurried exit to her bed-chamber; and, while his Lady was alternately pealing at her bell and shouting for Lydia, without compunction read it.
“My Dearest Lady Kilcroney: ’Tis all arranged. I consider my freedom well purchased at the price of the rose-point flounce, and the service to a friend, no less, by the trimmings to match. Her Majesty received me in her closet last evening, and the matter was settled quick. I must confess, dearest Kitty, with all the veneration and love (these words were heavily underlined) that I cherish for her August Person, I did feel it hard to find that my poor feet were represented as the dropsy. Dropsy, my love. And I but turned of thirty! ‘You should have warned me,’ said Her Majesty, ‘that you were suffering from a disease.’ ‘Ma’am,’ said I, ‘if disease there is’—(I was afraid to deny it, dear Kitty, lest the fetters should not be struck off my aching ankles)—‘’twas contracted in Your Majesty’s service.’ And now if my Kilcroney has a taste for gilded slavery (though there’s less gilding than you would believe), let her be at the entrance of the pump room, to receive Her Majesty at the head of the other lady visitors, on her first visit thither this very morning at eleven o’clock. The Gentlemen-in-Waiting are informing the other notabilities of the town, and Her Majesty is prepared for the little ceremony which she desires shall have the appearance of an Impromptu, it being her wish to avoid state during the Royal Visit and not to be incommoded by the crowd. If your little Denis were to offer a bunch of roses, it would, I think, please the Queen, who likes to see ladies occupied of their children and is interested in any who are about the age of the Princess Amelia. From what Mrs. Schwellenberg—oh! Kitty, to think of that toad festooned about with my lace—hath wrote to me (thank God we have left the frog-fancier behind at Windsor) I understand you can consider the appointment as good as made——”
The letter dropped from Kilcroney’s hand. His good-natured face (for in spite of tantrums he was to the core a man of good nature), clouded with genuine dismay. It looked as if the plaguey business, which he had regarded in the light of a mere game, was like to turn to earnest.
Why, in the name of Heaven, a woman with all the world could give her, and a devoted husband besides, should break up her family life for the pleasures of an annual three months’ slavery—Lady Florence had well named it—passed his comprehension.
“Nay, Lydia,” Kitty’s voice was uplifted in the other room, “take back the tabby; aye, and the satin cloak from Madame Mirabel’s. I have thought better of it, child. Put away the Eglantine new hat with the feathers. I will wear muslin and a plain straw. I wish to Heaven,” cried Kitty pettishly, “that there was a milliner in the Kingdom who could run up a hat to suit a lady’s eyelashes or the tilt of her nose outside Paris.”
“There’s the Italian straw we bought last time we was staying over there at Madame the Duchess’s,” said Lydia tentatively; “the same your ladyship ordered for yourself to wear at the Feet at Trianon to which the French Queen asked us—and a sweet elegant creature Her Majesty is, with all her fancies for dairies and such—and the thunderstorm coming on it was the disappointment of the world, and one that I am not like to forget in a hurry! Sure your ladyship ain’t forgotten it? A plain rice straw, with a ribbon round, but with a set to it! Aye, and trimmed by my blood-niece, as is apprenticed to Madame Eglantine out of my own poor savings; me being always one to stand by my family, cost what it do.”
“The Italian straw,” my Lady reflected; “’twas monstrous thoughtful of you, child, to pack it—la, Lydia, ’tis the very thing—trimmed by your niece did you say? Nay, only the genius of Eglantine could twist a bow like that. Put it on my head. Why, ’tis perfect—aye, I will wear it. Her Majesty desires simplicity.”