“Good gracious!” A large fire was burning in the grate; an easy-chair was drawn up on one side of it; over the back of an ordinary one opposite a clean shirt was warming itself, with the studs inserted in the front and the wristbands. On the bed the dress clothes were neatly laid out; the patent-leather boots stood at attention on the hearth-rug; hot water steamed from a japanned jug on the wash-hand stand; two wax candles lit up the dressing-table; two more stood on another near the fire, which had also writing materials on it. The room could not have been prepared for a duchess, because a duchess would not wear a black coat and trousers; and besides, they were certainly his clothes.
Dressing took Crawley about ten minutes, and he had an hour for the operation. So he looked hurriedly through the play, and marked the parts allotted to Ensign Bellefleur. It did not seem very much, so he felt a little encouraged, and taking Miss Clarissa’s advice, set the book open on the table and began learning what he would have to say, while going on with his toilet. He had a really surprisingly retentive memory, and picked up a good bit even in that little time.
He found Mr Gould in the drawing-room when he went down, and the old gentleman asked him after his progress in study, and what profession he intended to adopt, in a pompous and condescending way; but it was only a few sentences, for there were other gentlemen there, who came up and button-holed him seriously, and with whom he seemed to hold portentous conversation, politics, perhaps, or shares, or something of that kind. Then the ladies assembled, and the second gong boomed, and the people paired off. Crawley timidly offered his arm to Miss Clarissa, rather fearing he was doing wrong, and ought to go to someone else. But she took it all right; and he quoted from the play he had been studying:
“‘Here we escape then. Come, cousin! nay, your lips were set for pearls and diamonds, and I’ll not lose the promised treasure.’”
“‘Well, good counsel is a gem,’” the young lady responded smartly. “‘But, George, I fear me you’ll never carry the jewel in your ears.’ The quotation is not apt, though, for you evidently have carried my good counsel in your ears, and been learning your part already. How good of you!”
Here was a chance for Crawley to say something pretty; but he could not think of what it should be till afterwards.
If the ladies’ society was a little thrown away upon him he appreciated the dinner, which was by far the most luxurious meal he had ever seen in his life. A table-d’hôte at Scarborough had hitherto been his beau idéal of a feed, but that was not in the race with the Gould banquet. And the champagne; on the few occasions when he had had a chance of tasting that wine, he had got all he could and wanted more. But now his only care was not to take too much of it, lest it should get into his head.
“Are you studying your part?” asked his neighbour, for he had been silent for some time.
“No,” he replied; “I was thinking that if your brother lives like this every day, he must find the fare rather unpalatable when he goes back to Weston.”
“I believe he does,” said Miss Clarissa laughing. “At least he writes home grumbling letters enough, and we have to send him hampers of good things - Perigord pies and that. Don’t stop longer than you like,” she added as the ladies rose. “Papa will go on talking about stupid things all night.”