The guests assembled for dinner were of a quality to fill any hostess’s bosom with pride, including as they did a great many members of the diplomatic set, and two Cabinet Ministers, with their wives. Lady Ombersley could cram her rooms with as many members of the nobility as she cared to invite, but since her husband took little interest in politics, Government circles were rather beyond her reach. But Sophy, barely acquainted with the very well-born but equally undistinguished people who made up the larger part of the Polite World, had been bred up in Government circles, and, from the day when she first did up her hair and let down her skirts, had been entertaining celebrated persons, and was on the friendliest of terms with them. Her, or perhaps Sir Horace’s, acquaintances preponderated at her aunt’s board, but not even Miss Wraxton, on the watch for signs of presumption in her, could find any fault with her demeanour. It might have been expected, since all the arrangements for the party had been hers, that she would have put herself forward more than was becoming, but so far from doing so she seemed to be in a retiring mood, bearing no part in greeting guests upstairs, and confining her conversation at table, most correctly, to the gentlemen on her either side. Miss Wraxton, who had labelled her a hoyden, was obliged to own that her company manners at least were above reproach.
The ball, which began at ten o’clock, was held in the huge room built for the purpose at the back of the house. It was lit by hundreds of candles in a great crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and since this had been unswathed from its holland covering three days before so that both footmen and the pantry-boy could wash and polish its lustres, it sparkled like a collection of mammoth diamonds. Masses of flowers were arranged in set pieces at either end of the room, and an excellent orchestra hadbeen engaged, quite regardless (Mr Rivenhall bitterly reflected) of expense.
The room, large as it was, soon became so crowded with elegant persons that it seemed certain that the function would receive the final accolade, in being voted a sad crush. No hostess could desire more.
The ball opened with a country-dance, in which Mr Rivenhall, in honour bound, stood up with his cousin. He performed his part with propriety, she hers with grace; and Miss Wraxton, watching from a route-chair at one side of the room, smiled graciously upon them both. Mr Fawnhope, a most beautiful dancer, had led Cecilia into the same set, a circumstance that considerably annoyed Mr Rivenhall. He thought that Cecilia should have reserved the opening dance for some more important guest, and he derived no satisfaction from overhearing more than one tribute to the grace and beauty of such an arresting couple. Nowhere did Mr Fawnhope shine to more advantage than in a ballroom, and happy was the lady who stood up with him. Envious eyes followed Cecilia, and more than one dark beauty wished that, since Mr Fawnhope, himself so angelically fair, unaccountably preferred gold hair to black, she could change her colouring to suit his fancy.
Lord Bromford, one of the earliest arrivals, failed, owing to Mr Rivenhall’s sense of duty, to secure Sophy’s hand for the first dance, and as a waltz followed the country-dance it was some time before he was able to stand up with her. While waltzing was in progress he stood watching the performers, and in due course gravitated to Miss Wraxton’s side, and entertained her with an exposition of his views on the waltz. With these she was to some extent in sympathy, but she expressed herself more moderately, saying that while she herself would not care to waltz, the dance could not be altogether frowned on now that it had been sanctioned at Almack’s.
‘I did not see it danced at Government House,’ said Lord Bromford.
Miss Wraxton, who was fond of reading books of travels, said:‘Jamaica! How much I envy you, sir, your sojourn in that interesting island! I am sure it must be one of the most romantic places imaginable.’
Lord Bromford, whose youth had never been charmed by tales of the Spanish Main, replied that it had much to recommend it, and went on to describe the properties of its medicinal springs, and the great variety of marbles to be found in the mountains, all of which Miss Wraxton listened to with interest, telling Mr Rivenhall later that she thought his lordship had a well-informed mind.
It was half-way through the evening when Sophy, breathless from an energetic waltz with Mr Wychbold, was standing at the side of the room, fanning herself, and watching the couples still circling round the floor while her partner went to procure a glass of iced lemonade for her, was suddenly accosted by a pleasant-looking gentleman, who came up to her, and said with a smile: ‘My friend, Major Quinton, promised that he would present me to the Grand Sophy, but the wretched fellow goes from one set to the next, and never spares me a thought! How do you do, Miss Stanton-Lacy? You will forgive my informality, won’t you? It is true that I have no business here, for I was not invited, but Charles assures me that had I not been believed to be still laid upon a bed of sickness I must have received a card.’
She looked at him in that frank way of hers, summing him up. She liked what she saw. He was a man in the early thirties, not precisely handsome, but with a pleasing countenance redeemed from the commonplace by a pair of humorous gray eyes. He was above the medium height, and a good pair of shoulders, and an excellent leg for a riding-boot.
‘It is certainly too bad of Major Quinton,’ Sophy said smilingly. ‘But you know what a rattle-pate he is! Ought we to have sent you a card? You must forgive us! I hope your illness was not of a serious nature?’
‘Alas, merely painful and humiliating!’ he replied. ‘Would you believe that a man of my age could fall a victim to so childish a complaint, ma’am? – Mumps!’
Sophy dropped her fan, exclaiming: ‘What did you say?Mumps?’
‘Mumps,’ he repeated, picking up the fan, and giving it back to her. ‘I do not wonder at your astonishment!’
‘Then you,’ said Sophy, ‘are Lord Charlbury!’
He bowed. ‘I am, and I perceive that my fame has gone before me. I own, I should not have chosen to figure in your mind as the man with mumps, but so, I see, it is!’
‘Let us sit down,’ said Sophy.
He looked amused, but accompanied her at once to a sofa against the wall. ‘By all means! But may I not get you a glass of lemonade?’
‘Mr Wychbold – I expect you are acquainted with him – has already gone to do so. I should like to talk to you for a little while, for I have heard a great deal about you, you know.’
‘Nothing could please me more, forIhave heard a great deal about you, ma’am, and it has inspired me with the liveliest desire to meet you!’
‘Major Quinton,’ said Sophy, ‘is a shocking quiz, and I daresay has given you quite a false notion of me!’
‘I must point out to you, ma’am,’ he retaliated, ‘that we are both in the same case, for you knowmeonly as a man with mumps, and at the risk of sounding like a coxcomb I must assure you thatthatmust have givenyouan equally false notion of me!’
‘You are perfectly right,’ said Sophy seriously. ‘It did give me a false notion of you!’ Her eyes followed Cecilia and Mr Fawnhope round the room; she drew a breath, and said: ‘Things may be a trifle difficult.’
‘That,’ said Lord Charlbury, his eyes following hers, ‘I had already realized.’
‘I cannot conceive,’ said Sophy, with strong feeling, ‘what can have possessed you, sir, to contract mumps at such a moment!’
‘It was not done by design,’ said his lordship meekly.
‘Nothing could have been more ill-judged!’ said Sophy.
‘Not ill-judged!’ he pleaded. ‘Unfortunate!’
Mr Wychbold came up just then with Sophy’s lemonade. ‘Hallo, Everard!’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were fit to be seen yet! How are you, dear boy?’
‘Bruised in spirit, Cyprian, bruised in spirit! My sufferings under the complaint that struck me down were as nothing to what I now undergo. Shall I ever live it down?’
