“You show great aptitude as a whip, Miss Bolderwood,” the Viscount told her, upon their leaving Whissenhurst Grange. “I have been observing you closely, and have derived no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. But St. Erth is not the man to teach you those niceties which you should know! Ger, dear boy, take my horse, and relinquish your place beside Miss Bolderwood to me! I will show her how to feather-edge a corner.”
“Yes, pray do!” Marianne said eagerly. “I collect that you are a member of the Four-Horse Club, and only think how I shall astonish Papa when I tell him that I have had a lesson from one of the first whips in the country!”
“My trick, I fancy, Ger!” murmured the Viscount, giving his bridle into St. Erth’s hand.
“The treachery of one’s friends affords food for much melancholy reflection,” retorted St. Erth. “I warn you, I shall come about, and my revenge may well terrify you!”
“ I would not have yielded so tamely!” muttered Martin, as the Viscount mounted lightly into the curricle.
“I can believe it, but I think myself very well-placed,” replied his brother, swinging himself into the saddle. “That is a nice hack of yours, Miss Morville, and I fancy you have light hands. Do you hunt at all?”
She could not but be pleased with the good-breeding which not only kept him at her side, but prevented his emulating Martin’s example in trying to ride as close to the curricle as possible. He continued to converse with her like a man satisfied with his company; and upon finding an open farm gate, suggested that they should leave the lane for the refreshment of a canter through the fields. The crops, which were so far forward that year as to have put an early end to the hunting season, made it necessary for them to skirt the fields rather than to cross them, but they enjoyed an agreeable ride, and reached Stanyon some time before the rest of their party. The Earl hoped that the exertion would not have made Miss Morville too tired to stand up for every dance that evening, a civility which amused her, since she meant to spend the afternoon, not, as he seemed to suppose, in recruiting her energies for the night’s festivity, but in attending to all the details attaching to the entertainment of a large number of guests with which her hostess was a great deal too indolent to concern herself. Neither she nor the late Earl had been fond of entertaining, and since the marriage of their daughter no ball had been held at Stanyon. The housekeeper and the steward were thrown into a fluster by so rare an event, and although they enjoyed all the consequence of being called upon to provide for the accommodation of the ducal party from Belvoir, besides catering for the refreshment of some twenty persons at dinner, and forty more at supper, they were unaccustomed to such grand doings, and depended on Miss Morville, in default of their mistress, to advise on the number of rout-cakes it would be proper to bake; the propriety of serving tea and coffee at supper, as well as lemonade and champagne; and what apartments ought to be allotted to the several guests who were to spend the night at Stanyon. Then there were the musicians to be thought of: where they should be lodged, and whose duty it was to wait upon them; the arrangement of the flowers to superintend; the number of card-tables to be set up in the Italian Saloon to be decided on; and sufficient chairs to be disposed about the ballroom for those either desirous of watching the dancing, or unfortunate enough to have no partners.
The Earl, finding Miss Morville in conference with Abney, was a little conscience-stricken. “My dear ma’am, had I dreamed that all the labour of the ball was to fall upon you I would not have suggested we should give a ball at all! I should think you must bear me a considerable grudge!”
“No, indeed! I am happy to be of service, and this sort of contriving, you know, is exactly what I like.”
“You do it very well,” he said, looking about him at the flowers, and at the clean packs of cards laid ready on the several tables. “You remember all the details which I am very sure I must have forgotten.”