The great minuet was to be at midnight, and Katherine was promised to Lord Dover for it. In his fine scarlet uniform of Lord Lieutenant, he was already waiting for her in the door of the great barn with transepts like a church, which had been turned into a ball-room, decked with the trophies of Lord Eastry’s wars.
For in another two or three minutes the first stroke would clang from the tower of Eastry’s little Norman church. Katherine had been up to her room,—she had girlish vanity enough to wish to look her best in the great minuet,—and now she was stepping down the stairway with an eloquent hesitancy, her left hand clearing from her lovely feet the heavy shimmery satin, which, young as she was, it seemed natural for such an imperial woman to wear. Dividing the line between her beautiful throat and her shoulders, were the famous pearls that were the trophy of Lord Eastry’s wildest exploit.
Who could doubt but that when she went out from that minuet, it would be to have the greatest name in all the kingdom of Kent offered for her keeping?
But suddenly, through the open, ivy-shrouded Elizabethan pane at the turn of the stair, came a low voice,—a young voice, with the low distinctness which I shall never forget,—“Kitty Fleet, Kitty Fleet, is it you, Kitty Fleet?”
A light came over the girl’s face, which, I am prepared to swear, the great Marquess of Dover had never seen, as she replied,
“Hush, Will! keep in the shadow, and I’ll come—but only for a minute.”
But, instead of doing as she bade him, he came right into the door,—into the full blaze of light. He was then a fair boy of eighteen, and I can tell you that his charming figure was shown off to great advantage by the quaint dress of our day,—the tight-fitting Nankeen hose and short dark blue jacket. And when he bared his head he showed fair hair, as glossy and golden as Katherine’s own, in a very long queue. I can picture him fidgeting with his sugar-loaf beaver, for he had something great on his mind.
“Oh, Will,” she whispered, “we shall be discovered.”
“No matter.”