“I need not accept,” quoth Kitty, pinching her lips.
“Kitty, if you play your cards well, the post will be offered to you while their Majesties are here at Cheltenham. ’Tis all settled with the Schwellenberg. Do you not know,” said Lady Florence, pushing the dish with a single remaining macaroon upon it, virtuously from her, “that Susan Verney is making all the interest in the world for the honour? But she was rude to the Schwellenberg one day—you know poor Susan’s way!—when they met in my drawing-room at Queen’s Lodge, and the Schwellenberg will have none of her!”
“Say no more!” cried Kitty, and fires shot from her eyes.
“My love, I believe I have served you,” said Lady Florence, replying to the eloquence of that glance. “‘My royals are not bartial to the Irish,’ said Schwellenberg. ‘Ah, but Madam,’ I says. ‘My Lady Kilcroney is not Irish. She is true-born English, and has vast wealth—widow of an Indian Nabob—vast wealth and a generous heart!—And you admire the lace, Madam?’ says I, ‘in the very truth I was hoping I might venture to offer it to you, for ’tis lace that should be worn at court, Madam, and in no other place—and as I mentioned to you, my Lady Kilcroney and her Lord have practically severed all ties with Ireland. If you would accept the flounce, Madam, on my retirement (I think there is a narrow edging of rose-point to match).’ ‘I will tink of what you say about my Lady Kilcroney,’ croaks she. Am I not a good friend, Kitty?”
She looked at Kitty with such beaming kindness that all this latter’s caprices vanished; she cast herself affectionately on Lady Florence’s huge bosom and voted that she was indeed the best and dearest!
It was agreed between them before the large and jovial lady left the pleasant apartments overlooking the meadows, that she would call early next morning, and report the result of Mrs. Schwellenberg’s “tinking,” since she had been given to understand that Her Majesty would deliver her gracious dismissal that evening, during the process of the Royal disrobing.
“You must hold yourself ready, my sweet child, to be at any point considered suitable along Her Majesty’s path during the next few days. By the looks Her Majesty casts on me I am convinced Schwellenberg has kept her word, and prepared the ground ’ere we left Queen’s Lodge. Well, she knew she would not get the rose-point otherwise.”
Kitty stood reflecting in the bow-window long after Lady Florence’s chairmen had reeled away with their burden towards Lord Fauconberg’s small house on the hill, which had been placed at their Majesties’ disposal. It could not be said that she had quite so altogether consuming a desire for the post of Lady-in-Waiting since hearing Lady Florence’s talk and gazing on those swollen feet, but, rather than that Susan Verney—dark, overbearing Susan!—should have the advantage, Kitty would have stood on burning ploughshares. She had, thank Heaven, as good health as any lady in the kingdom, a back that was never tired, and a fund of humour and good humour that made her equal to most trials. Moreover she had a fighting spirit, and, she flattered herself, a charm of her own. If she did not get the better of Schwellenberg on the one hand, and ingratiate herself with Royalty on the other, then she was no longer Incomparable Bellairs!
Her agreeable reflections were broken in upon by the entrance of my Lord Kilcroney.