She said slowly: “I see. You are right; that is what I should have done at once. I am in your debt.”
People were beginning to move down the gallery towards the looking-glass doors at the north end. These had been flung open into the Music Room, where a concert was to be given. The Regent called to Mr. Brummell, desiring his opinion on a piece of Sevres he had been showing to one of his guests; Miss Taverner rejoined her chaperon, and taking her place in the procession soon found herself in a huge room which cast anything she had yet seen into the shade.
At first sight it was all a blaze of red and gold, but after her first gasp of astonishment she was able to take a clearer view of the whole, and to see that she was standing, not in some fantastic dream-palace, but in a square apartment with rectangular recesses at each end, fitted up in a style of Oriental splendour. The square part was surmounted by a cornice ornamented with shield-work, and supported by reticulated columns, shimmering with gold-leaf. Above this wad an octagon gallery formed by aseries of elliptical arches, und pierced by windows of the same shape. A convex cove rose over this, topped by leaf ornaments in gold and chocolate; and above this was the central dome, lined with a scale-work of glittering green and gold. In the middle of it a vast foliated decoration was placed, from whose calyx depended an enormous lustre of cut-glass in the shape of a pagoda. To this was attached by chains a lamp made to resemble a huge water-lily, coloured crimson and gold and white. Four gilded dragons clung to the under-side of the lamp, and below them hung a smaller glass water-lily.
The recesses at the north and south ends of the room were canopied by convex curves of imitation bamboo, bound by ribands, and contained the four doorways of the apartment, each one of which was set under a canopy of crimson and gold, embellished with bells and dragons. These canopies were held up by gilt columns, entwined by yet more dragons. The walls were hung with twelve views of the neighbourhood of Pekin, executed in bright yellow on a crimson background, and set in frames enwreathed by dragons. Still more dragons writhed above the window draperies, which were of blue and crimson satin and yellow silk. The floor was covered by a gigantic Axminster carpet where golden suns, stars, serpents, and dragons ran riot on a pale blue ground; and the sofas and chairs were upholstered in yellow and dove-coloured satin.
A fire burned in the fireplace of statuary marble on the western wall, and above it, on the mantel-shelf, a large clock presented an appearance of the most striking incongruity, for although its base was entwined by an inevitable dragon, upon the top were grouped, rather surprisingly, Venus and Cupid, with the Peacock of Love, and Mars climbing up to them.
Miss Taverner was quite overpowered, and could only blink at what she saw. The heat of the room was oppressive; all the ladies were fanning themselves. Miss Taverner began to feel a little faint; dragons and lights started to dance oddly before her eyes, and had she not at that moment found a chair to sink into she believed she must have lost possession of her senses.
She recovered in a few minutes, and was able to enjoy the concert. The Regent, who had been taught to play the violoncello in his youth by Crossbill, and was very musical, beat time with one foot; the Duke of Cumberland stared all the prettiest women out of countenance; Mr. Brummell gazed before him with an air of weary patience; and Sir John Lade, who looked for all the world like a stage-coachman strayed by mistake into the Pavilion, went to sleep in the corner of a sofa, and snored gently till it was time to go home.
Chapter XVIII
Upon the following morning Miss Taverner despatched her groom post-haste to London to fetch down her phaeton, and no sooner had it arrived, and her horses been rested, than she startled Brighton by driving it to Donaldson’s at the fashionable hour to change her book. No one observing her air of calm assurance could have guessed what an effort it cost her to appear thus unconcerned. She met Captain Audley on the Steyne, and took him up beside her, and drove him to the Chalybeate Spring at Hove and back again. At the ball at the Castle inn that evening one or two people ventured to comment on it. She raised her brows and said coolly: “My phaeton? Yes, it has just arrived from town. Some trifling fault made it necessary for me to send it to the coachmaker’s, which is why you have seen me walking lately. You must know that I am used to drive myself wherever I go.” She passed on with a smile and a bow.
“Excellent, Miss Taverner!” murmured Mr. Brummell. “You are so apt a pupil that if I were only ten years younger I believe I should propose for your hand.”