“But in the midst of all this,” said Lady Cecilia, “I want some ice very much for myself, and for Helen more.”
“I have a notion we shall find some here,” replied he, “if you will come on this way—in this sanctum sanctorum of Lady Katrine’s.”
He led them on to a little inner apartment, where, as he said, Lady Katrine Hawksby and her set do always scandal take, and sometimes tea.—“Tea and punch,” continued he, “you know, in London now is quite à la Française, and it is astonishing to me, who am but a man, what strong punch ladies can take.”
“Only when it is iced,” said Lady Cecilia, smiling.
“Be it so,” said he,—“very refreshing ice, and more refreshing scandal, and here we have both in perfection. Scandal, hot and hot, and ice, cold and cold.”
By this time they had reached the entrance to what he called Lady Katrine’s sanctum sanctorum, where she had gathered round the iced punch and tea-table a select party, whom she had drawn together with the promise of the other half of a half-published report,—a report in which “I promessi Sposi” and “La belle fiancée” were implicated!
“Stop here one moment,” cried Churchill, “one moment longer. Let us see before we are seen. Look in, look in pray, at this group. Lady Katrine herself on the sofa, finger up—holding forth; and the deaf old woman stretching forward to hear, while the other, with the untasted punch, sits suspended in curiosity. ‘What can it be?’ she says, or seems to say. Now, now, see the pretty one’s hands and eyes uplifted, and the ugly one, with that look of horror, is exclaiming, ‘You don’t say so, my dear Lady Katrine!’ Admirable creatures! Cant and scandal personified! I wish Wilkie were here—worth any money to him.”
“And he should call it ‘The scandal party,’” said Lady Cecilia. “He told me he never could venture upon a subject unless he could give it a good name.”
At this moment Lady Katrine, having finished her story, rose, and awaking from the abstraction of malice, she looked up and saw Helen and Lady Cecilia, and, as she came forward, Churchill whispered between them, “Now—now we are going comfortably to enjoy, no doubt, Madame de Sevigné’s pleasure ‘de mal dire du prochain,’ at the right hour too.”
Churchill left them there. Lady Katrine welcoming her victims—her unsuspicious victims—he slid off to the friends round the tea-table to learn from “Cant” what “Scandal” had been telling. Beauclerc was gone to inquire for the carriage. The instant Helen appeared, all eyes were fixed upon her, and “Belle fiancée” was murmured round, and, Cecilia heard—“He’s much to be pitied.”