The review and the ball were still in store. Bourhope would not be
beaten with that double shot in reserve. It would go hard with the
brown, curly, independent laird if he were beaten, for already he was
shaken more in his pride and confidence than he ever thought to be.
The review, for which all the drilling had been undertaken, went off
without serious effect on the contesting parties. The only thing was,
that Bourhope was so disturbed and so distracted in his mind that he
could not attend to orders, and lost his character as a yeoman, and all
chance of being future fugleman to his corps. And this, although the
Major had said, when the drills began, that there was not a finer man or
more promising dragoon than Bourhope in the regiment.
Chrissy's bright, tranquil satisfaction in contemplating, from the box
of Mrs. Spottiswoode's phaeton, the stand of county ladies, with their
gorgeousness and grace, was decidedly impaired. The review, with its
tramping and halting, its squares and files, its shouting leaders,
galloping aides-de-camp, flashing swords and waving plumes, was
certainly very fine. All the rest of Priorton said so and proved so, for
they stood or sat for a whole day witnessing it, under a scorching sun,
on foot, and in every description of vehicle from a corn-cart to a
coroneted carriage. Yes, the review was very fine to the mass; but it
was only a confused, hollow, agitating play to Chrissy as to Bourhope.
Still she lost sight of the grand general rank and file, by
concentrating her regard on one little scarlet dot. It was to her a play
with its heart a-wanting, and yet the whirl and movement were welcome
for a moment as substitutes for that heart.
The ball remained, and Bourhope was resolute it should settle the
question for him. It was the commendable fashion at Priorton that no
young lady should refuse to dance with an acquaintance without the
excuse of a previous engagement, under the penalty of having to sit the
rest of the night. Bourhope would get Chrissy to himself that night
(balls were of some use, after all, he thought), and have an opportunity
of hearing a terribly decisive word, and of getting a reason for that
word too, should it prove unfavourable. In short, he would storm the
fortress, and beat down its faltering guard then or never.
Others besides Bourhope had determined on making the ball a theatre of
explanations. Mrs. Spottiswoode was not pleased with the aspect of
things as between Bourhope and Corrie. Their affair made no advance, and
the ball was the conclusion of the yeomanry weeks. The yeomen were
already to all intents and purposes disbanded, and about to return, like
Cincinnatus, to their reaping-hooks. Corrie was evidently not contented.
She was listless and a little peevish, unless when in the company of
other yeomen than Bourhope--a rare thing with Corrie, who was really a
very harmless girl. But she looked elegant in her ball dress, and had
always a train of admirers on such occasions. And then, of course, many
men needed the spur of jealousy to induce them to take the bold leap of
matrimony. Chrissy, too, had her own fears and doubts about this ball.
Bourhope hitherto had only pursued her, if he had pursued her, in rather
a secret manner. She would now see how he would treat her on a public
occasion. His conduct would then be marked and conspicuous, and even
Mrs. Spottiswoode's and Corrie's eyes would be opened to it. Then,
again, he would have an opportunity of contrasting her personally with
all the girls about Priorton. Chrissy gazed wistfully into the glass as
she fastened her yellow scrimp old white frock, and sighed. But she did
not look so much amiss as she supposed: she was young, slight, and full
of subtle character. And with her scarlet coral beads twisted among her
dark little turret curls and bows, there was piquancy and attraction in
Chrissy. But her first purely disinterested and unbounded pleasure in
the gaiety was grievously chequered, and it was to be feared the account
she would carry home of her first ball to expectant Blackfaulds would be
disappointing.
There were only two chaises in repair in Priorton, to convey the whole
townspeople in rotation to the ball. It was thus unavoidable that some
should be very early, as well as some very late. Mr. Spottiswoode, as
Provost, was of course among the first after the Colonel and his lady,
old country people, who stood arm-in-arm, bluff and bland, under the
evergreens over the door, and shook hands with everybody, great and
small--a family of pretty girls meanwhile laughing behind them.
Mrs. Spottiswoode wore a splendid bunch of white feathers tipped with
straw-colour in her blue gauze turban. Even Chrissy's dazed eyes noticed
that, as well as the white ribbon in Provost Spottiswoode's bottle-green
coat, which pointed him out an honorary steward. But how handsome brown
curly Bourhope looked in his red coat!
A strange thought came over Chrissy. She did not wish Corrie, in her
white crape and French ribbons, and so tall and straight and fair, to
be blighted in her beauty--no, not for a moment. But Chrissy was cruel
enough to cherish a passing wish that, by some instantaneous
transformation, Bourhope might be pitted with smallpox, or scarred with
gunpowder, or have premature age brought upon him as with the wave of a
wand--the soul within being left unchanged, however.
Mrs. Spottiswoode, unlike Chrissy, was quite alive to the practical. She
remarked everything with keen eyes, and determined now to be at the
bottom of the business. She should either go in and win triumphantly, or
take a sudden tack and sail away with flying colours, as if she had
never entertained the most distant intention of coming to close
quarters, and thus give the impression that she never had any intention
of promoting a match between Bourhope and Corrie.
Mrs. Spottiswoode thought Bourhope looked as if he were going to do
something desperate. His first blunder had been to hand, or rather lift,
Chrissy into the chaise instead of Corrie, at starting from their own
door. He repeated the unaccountable blunder at the County Rooms, which
compelled him to take Chrissy into the ball-room; and while Chrissy was
still gazing in bewilderment and admiration at the evergreens and
chalked floors, and talking, laughing couples, Mrs. Spottiswoode could
scarcely believe her ears when she distinctly heard Bourhope ask
Chrissy's hand for the first dance, saying that he would have engaged it
before if he had got the opportunity.
Now Mrs. Spottiswoode had no doubt that Bourhope would solicit her
sister Corrie for this dance, and therefore she had peremptorily
forbidden Corrie to engage herself in any other quarter, even when
Corrie had demurred at the certainty of the arrangement. It was very odd
of Bourhope, unless he thought Chrissy would have no chance of any other
partner, and wanted to spare a plain little girl's mortification at the
very commencement of the evening. "That must be it," Mrs. Spottiswoode
said to herself, and was consoled by Corrie's hand being immediately
requested for the Colonel's nephew.
The Colonel's wife opened the ball with the most popular and oldest
private for partner, and, of course, Chrissy and Bourhope stood below
Corrie and the Colonel's nephew. But Bourhope and Chrissy did not mind
Corrie's precedence, and were talking to each other quite intimately.
Bourhope was forgetting the figure and bending across to Chrissy, though
he was saying nothing particular, and speaking out quite loud. But he
looked engrossed and excited. If it had been any other girl but Chrissy,
Mrs. Spottiswoode would have called it a flirtation, and more than a
flirtation. Chrissy looked well in her shabby dress, almost pretty
indeed, in the new atmosphere. Mrs. Spottiswoode was aggrieved,
disgusted in the first instance, but she would not just yet believe such
an incredible contradiction to her well-laid scheme. Match-making
involves so many parties, there are such wheels within wheels of
calculation and resource. She glanced at Corrie, who was dancing very
complacently with the Colonel's nephew, and exchanging passing words
with yeomen who tried to get speech with her. In her white crape, and
teeth as white, and her dimples, she was safe, heart-whole and
prosperous--a beauty who might pick and choose a suitable husband,
even though Bourhope, infatuated, threw himself away.
Mrs. Spottiswoode gave a sigh of relief. Failure now would only be
comparative.
The dance being over, Bourhope sat down beside Chrissy. No, she turned
her head the other way, and he rose up and strolled through the room.
But he was soon back in his old place.
He wanted to dance with Chrissy again. She hesitated, grew nervous, and
cast her eyes on Mrs. Spottiswoode. He went straight to their hostess,
and said, "Mrs. Spottiswoode, you have no objection that I dance this
dance again with Miss Chrissy Hunter?"
"None in the world, Bourhope," said Mrs. Spottiswoode, with a spasmodic
smile, "why should I?"
"Why, indeed?" he returned, "or every dance? May I tell her so?"
"That is as she and you may agree. You are aware that would appear
something serious," she said, trying to laugh.
"I will take the consequences," he significantly assured her, and went
back and told Chrissy so, and then he drove her to her inmost citadel,
and beat her there.
Other eyes than Mrs. Spottiswoode's were attracted to the pair.
Half-a-dozen matrons' heads went wagging significantly; girls
whispered and tittered; gentlemen opened their eyes, shaped their
mouths as if about to whistle, strolled up and took their observations
of the pre-occupied, unconscious couple quite coolly, and then
speculated and gossiped.
Mrs. Spottiswoode read these comments as well as what had gone before,
and was ready with her magnanimity. It was this which constituted her a
truly able tactician. She shifted her tack before the shout of malicious
exultation and ridicule could have been raised at her discomfiture. By a
dexterous sleight of hand, she shuffled her cards and altered her suit.
In a moment Mrs. Spottiswoode was winking and nodding with the matrons
interested in the news of the night. She arrested a good-humoured
yeoman, and crossed the room on his arm, to express and receive
congratulations. "You have found out the secret? Foolish fellow,
Bourhope; he cannot conceal his feelings, though their display is
premature. I must scold him for exposing himself and her. Poor dear! she
is not accustomed to this sort of thing. But I am so delighted--so nice,
isn't it? Such an excellent marriage for my cousin Chrissy--a good girl,
a very clever girl--such a fortunate beginning for the Blackfaulds
family. I often say the first marriage makes or mars a family of girls.
It is so lucky that I invited Chrissy for the yeomanry weeks this
summer. It is a great deal better than if it had been Corrie, because
Corrie can wait," with a careless wave of her hand in the direction in
which Corrie moved, deliberately followed by her train. "Corrie has too
many admirers to make up her mind speedily, yet she takes it all very
quietly. But this is so appropriate--Mr. Spottiswoode's cousin and my
cousin--nobody could have planned it better."
She turned round, and heard a blunt booby of a farmer speaking out his
mind. She at once took him up--"You would not have thought it? You
cannot comprehend what has come over Bourhope, or what he sees in that
thin, yellow mite, Miss Hunter of Blackfaulds, even though she were as
good as a saint, and as wise as the Queen of Sheba? Oh! come, Balquin,
you do not allow sufficient latitude to goodness and cleverness. I tell
you, Bourhope has neither eyes nor ears for anybody but that mite; he
counts his colourless daisy far before the gayest painted face. He knows
that we are remarking on them now, and he is holding his head as high as
if he had sought and won a queen. He is right; she will prove a
sensible, cheerful wife to him. Bourhope will have the cleverest, best
wife in the county, for all your swaggering. And that is something, when
a man comes to be old and has an old wife like me. Not old, Balquin?
away with you. I wish the Provost heard you. Do you think to flatter me
because I am in spirits about my cousin's match? No, it is not lost that
a friend gets, Balquin."
The public of Priorton did not know whether most to admire Mrs.
Spottiswoode's diplomacy, or this rare instance of poetic justice.