Alberic Orme was the duke’s second son; he was in Orders, was a scholar of high degree, held one of his father’s livings, had married the daughter of a rural dean, and was the especial object of the ridicule, derision, and suspicion of Cocky and his wife.
Judging Lord Alberic by themselves, they attributed to him and his hostile influence every one of the duke’s acts which was disagreeable to them. He was the one of his family nearest to the heart and to the ear of the duke; the other two being officers in cavalry regiments, both somewhat spendthrifts and troublesome, and his daughters having married early and being little with him.
To be dressed up like a tomfool, and prate like a poll parrot, as he phrased it in his own thoughts, was unutterably odious to William Massarene, but he was powerless under his enslaver’s orders. When the Easter recess was passed and the great night came, he appeared as Titus Oates, looking and feeling very ridiculous with his stout bowed legs in black silk stockings and ruffled breeches; but, after all, it was not worse than Court dress, and it had procured him admittance to Otterbourne House.
“Mind, the man is not to speak to me; not here, nor anywhere even at any time,” said the duke to his daughter-in-law, nervously and apprehensively.
“No, he never shall,” she promised; but she knew that nobody who would see him there would be aware of the stipulation.
She had got him to Otterbourne House and had fulfilled one of the clauses of the unwritten contract by which Blair Airon was sold.
The ball was a great pageant and a great success; and she, as the most exquisite of Nell Gwynnes, with all her lovely natural hair curling over her shoulders, was very kind to Titus Oates, guided his squat stiff unaccustomed limbs through the mazes of one quadrille, and even snatched a few moments to present him to some great people; and as her father-in-law made but a brief appearance in the rooms and only spoke with the royal personages present and two or three of his intimate friends, she found little difficulty in avoiding the introduction to him of the “man from Dakota.”
“Another time, another time,” she said vaguely, and William Massarene was dazzled and quieted.
Cocky was present for half an hour, looking a shaky, consumptive, but not inelegant Grammont, for his figure was slender and his features were good. He was infinitely diverted by the sight of William Massarene.
“Passes muster, don’t he, when he don’t open his mouth?” he said to Hurstmanceaux. “Lord, what an ugly mug he’s got! But the women are always asking for his photo. Haha! we’ve got it in Stanhope Street large as life. Pater won’t let him be taken up to him, and you won’t know him either. You’re both wrong. He’s thoroughly respectable, and he’s got a lot of my paper.”