Kate Coventry: An Autobiography

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

However, it was too dark for me to see anything of her ladyship's garden. It was already getting dusk when we arrived, and although it wanted three mortal hours of dinner, all the ladies, including the hostess, had retired to their own rooms, to while away the time by writing letters, reading novels, and going to sleep. I was much too restless to embark in any of these occupations. It would have been a relief to write, certainly—to pour out all one's thoughts and feelings before some sympathizing correspondent; but I owned none such. I could not have settled to read, no, not the most interesting novel that was ever penned, although I might have left it off the day before in an agony of uncertainty at the critical place which is always to be found near the conclusion of the second volume; and as for sleep—sleep, indeed!—I felt as if I should never sleep again.

When I am unhappy, and particularly when I am angry with myself, I must always be doing something—no matter what—but I must be occupied, so I hurried Gertrude, and bustled about, and got myself dressed, and found my own way to one of the drawing-rooms, where I hoped to be at least secure from interruption, and to brood and worry myself for an hour or two in unbroken solitude. I ought to have been safe enough here. As I had wandered through unknown passages and passed uncertain doors, I had heard the click of billiard balls, the sound of many voices, and the harsh laugh of Sir Guy; I knew consequently that the gentlemen were all busy at "pool," or some equally intellectual pastime, and had not yet gone to dress. I was sufficiently conversant with the habits of my own sex to be aware that no lady would willingly tarnish the freshness of her dinner toilette by coming down before the very last minute, and I anticipated therefore no further interruption than a housemaid coming to put the fire to rights, or a groom of the chambers to light fresh candles, functionaries, especially the former, who would be much more incommoded by my presence than I should be by theirs. Good gracious! there was a gentleman down and dressed already; sitting with his back to me, immersed in the thrilling pages of "The Drawing-Room Scrap Book," which he was studying upside-down. I came in very softly, and he never heard me, nor turned his head, but I knew the back of that head pretty well. It was Cousin John. I also took a book, and sat down.

"Perhaps," I thought, "he's not going to speak to me at all. Well, what do I care? I've a temper, too, if it comes to that."

So I read my book assiduously; it was the "Comic Almanac," but I don't know that it made me feel very much inclined to laugh. The clock ticked loud and disagreeably. I determined not to speak till I was spoken to; but after a time the silence grew irksome, and the ticking of the clock so loud, that I ventured on a slight cough, merely to break it. "Ahem," said I, still intent on the "Comic Almanac." John turned slowly round, made a half rise, as if out of compliment to my presence, and returned to "The Drawing-Room Scrap Book," which, however, he was now reading the right way. This would not do; I resolved to wait a little longer, just a quarter of an hour by the clock, and see whether he would not have the common civility to speak to me. What a long quarter of an hour it was! The hand reached it at last—it passed it—I gave him another five minutes. It was getting painful. I spoke, and the sound of my own voice quite startled me, yet was my remark as harmless and commonplace as well could be.

"John," said I, "what time do we dine?"

"A quarter before eight, I believe," answered John, quite good-humouredly, and as if nothing had happened to estrange us. "Dear me, Kate, how early you're dressed!"

I could have cried with vexation; but I resolved, if possible, to find a sore place somewhere, and give him "one" before I had done with him; so I made a saucy face, and asked him, half laughing, whether "he didn't think I had driven them very well from the station?"

"Inimitably, Kate," was his reply; "I hadn't the least idea you were so accomplished a charioteer."

I should have burst into tears, I verily believe, but just then Lady Scapegrace sailed in, and the usual forms of society had to be gone through; and she kissed me, and shook hands with Mr. Jones, as if she really liked us; and we talked of the weather, and the shameful stoppages of the train we had come by, and the general inconveniences of railways; and presently more ladies came down, neat and crisp as if turned out of a bandbox, followed by their lords in choking white neckcloths; and then Sir Guy himself appeared in a costume of surpassing splendour; but still, although in his evening dress, brilliant with starch and polish and buttons and jewellery, looking like a coachman in masquerade; and "dinner" was announced, and we all paired off with the utmost ceremony, and I found myself seated between Frank Lovell and dear old Mr. Lumley, and opposite the elder Miss Molasses, who scowled at me with an asperity of which I should have believed her unmeaning face incapable, as if she hated me on this particular evening more than all the other days of the year. I soon discovered the cause. Frank was more attentive to me than I had ever known him, although there was a something in his manner that I did not altogether like, a sort of freedom that I had never remarked before, and which made me colder and more reserved than usual. It was evident he thought he might venture as far as he liked with a young lady who drove four horses and smoked a cigar the while. I felt I was blushing under my skin; but I was determined to brave it all out, to hide from every living soul my own vexation and self-contempt. Once I caught a telegraphic signal exchanged between my neighbour and Miss Molasses, after which she seemed more at ease, and went on with her dinner in comfort. I was so angry now that I turned my shoulder towards Master Frank, and took refuge with my dear old friend Mr. Lumley, who, utterly regardless of the noise and flirtation his better half was carrying on at the other end of the table, discussed his cutlet quite contentedly, and prosed away to me in his usual kind, consolatory manner. I was one of his great favourites; in fact, he told me so, then and there. He always called me "my dear," and often vowed that if he had only the use of his legs he would walk to the end of the world to make me a thoroughgoing naturalist like himself. I was getting more at ease under his dear old wing. I had gone through so much excitement during the day that this comparative inaction was a positive relief, and I was really beginning to enjoy a sort of repose, when the Baronet's horrid voice from the bottom of the table aroused me once more to an agony of shame and despite.

"Do me the honour to drink a glass of champagne; the champagne to Miss Coventry!" shouted Sir Guy; "you must require it after your exertion. Egad! my team won't get over it in a hurry—the roads were woolly and the time short—hey, Miss Kate? But d——n me if the whipcord was scarce. I've done that seven miles in all weathers, and a sweet seven miles it is, but I never came anything like the pace we did to-day. Your good health, Miss Kate; I'll have a fresh team put together for you to-morrow, and a better cigar to smoke than the one I gave you to-day."