THE BALL.
Much about the time of the disaster we have recorded, some other of
our _dramatis personæ_ were actors amid a very different scene.
A star-lighted but moonless sky overhung the stately modern mansion
of Wilmothurst, and gloomy indeed would the long, wintry avenue have
looked, but for the many-coloured lamps that shed a soft radiance
from branch to branch, and from one gnarled stem to another, lighting
the gravelled way for the fast-rolling carriages that came in quick
succession to the Tuscan _porte-cochère_, setting down the shawled
and daintily-shod guests, where a scarlet carpeting extended from the
doorway to the terrace.
The great house was all ablaze with lights that glowed from every
lofty window, and made the owls wink and blink in the tower of the
village church; while a huge fire in the arched fireplace of the
entrance-hall sent forth a ruddy glow every time the tall double
doors were unfolded to admit a guest.
Bella Chevenix came fully arrayed for conquest. Her dress of sheeny
white silk was cut so as to display fully her beautiful throat and
shoulders, with short sleeves that left her snowy arms bare. She
wore very little jewellery; but among the folds of her skirt were
trails of natural flowers, with their fresh green leaves. There was
a rich flush on her cheeks, a radiance in her soft hazel eyes, and
undoubtedly the girl looked surpassingly bright and beautiful; and
among the guests she was glad to see Bevil Goring, Dalton--looking
_distrait_, as he always did now--and other Aldershot men whom she
knew, and had met at balls, meets, and garden-parties.
As one handsome girl after another came in, all more or less
beautifully attired, bright with smiles and glittering with jewels,
Goring looked on the groups that gathered wistfully as one in a
dream, thinking where at that precise time was she who might have
outshone them all--in his eyes at least.
The great dancing-room was some ninety feet long, and its walls were
hung with many old family portraits, between which were vacant spaces
once occupied by the Rubens, Titians, Vandycks, and other really
valuable pictures, all of which had been sold in the lifetime of
Jerry's father--perhaps before the fatal mortgages had been
contracted.
In a corridor beyond was the band of the Wilmothurst Rifle Volunteers
to furnish music for the dancers, who speedily began to arrange
themselves, while the programme cards were fast filling up.
Under the watchful eyes of his mother and his cousin Emily, Jerry
inscribed his name more than once upon that of Bella Chevenix, but
took care that it should be for dances further on in the night.
Jerry opened the ball with the Countess of Ashcombe, the 'head lady'
of the evening, after which he went near her no more, or--as his
mother phrased it--'neglected her shamefully for that Chevenix girl,'
whose father stood apart in a corner watching with fondness and
admiration the beauty of Bella, the grace with which she floated
through a succession of waltzes, and seemed to be enjoying herself to
the full, especially when she had her first dance with Jerry, who
eventually brought her panting and breathless to the side of her
father, just as the latter was addressing Lady Wilmot, who chanced to
be near him.
'The young fellows of our time, my lady,' said he, in a fidgety way,
feeling the necessity for saying something, 'were better at this sort
of work than those of the present; they don't seem equal to dancing,
somehow.'
'I do not understand you, Mr. Chevenix,' said Lady Wilmot, with one
of her calm stares.
'I mean that we fogies saw something like dancing at country balls in
our time; what "Sir Rogers" we danced, cross hands and down the
middle, and all that sort of thing, before, as now, we became anxious
about draughts and damp linen, and all that sort of thing, my lady.'
Lady Wilmot smiled disdainfully, and found herself looking as if she
failed to comprehend him.
'Yes,' said Jerry, uncomfortably, 'Hampshire people did cling to
these fashions, Mr. Chevenix, and, when they danced, meant it in no
mistake.'
Though, in his pre-occupation of mind, Bevil Goring was far from
enjoying himself, he was too good a dancer not to have plenty of
partners, but there was more than one pair of lovers there that night
who sought the corridors, the staircase, or the aisles of the great
conservatory, and he regarded them enviously, as he thought of her
from whom he was as yet so hopelessly, and, as it seemed, cruelly and
absurdly separated.
But, as for the ball, it is chiefly as regards Jerry's affair that we
refer to it. As a ball it was undoubtedly a success. There was a
sprinkling of titled people, a number of the squirearchy, a large
proportion of gentleman farmers, and blooming dowagers blessed with
broods of pert, pretty, marriageable daughters, and Jerry had brought
a considerable male contingent from the camp, so 'all went merry as a
marriage bell.'
As for Bella, she was never without partners, as those who danced
with her once always came back again.
'Jerry has actually introduced Lord Twesildown to that girl!' said
Lady Wilmot behind her fan to Cousin Emily, who grew pale with
annoyance. We may mention that the peer in question took his title
from the highest mountain which overlooks Aldershot. But after a
turn or two they observed that the pair took a promenade round the
room.
'Is this your first visit to the district?' asked Lord Twesildown.
'Oh, no,' replied Bella, 'I live here.'
'Live here, at Wilmothurst!'
'Yes--at the village.'
'How funny!' drawled his lordship, rather puzzled. 'Oh, Chevenix--I
remember the name now.'
'Lead me to a seat, please,' said Bella, curtly, on which he
conducted her to one near Lady Wilmot, and retired into a corner.
'Tired already, Miss Chevenix?' asked Lady Wilmot.
'Oh, no--I never tire of the waltz when I have a good partner,'
replied Bella.
'And Lord Twesildown?'
'Oh, he can't dance a bit.'
'Heavens!--surely you did not tell him so?'
'Well, I hinted as much.'
'Oh, Miss Chevenix, what will he think?'
'He said he thought he would adapt his step to mine, but he had no
step to adapt.'
'But to say this to a man of his position!'
The haughty Bella, who resented Lady Wilmot's tone and expression of
eye, only fanned herself and laughed, as if she thought an earl's son
might be 'snubbed' as well as that of a yeoman.
Her hostess now turned her back on Bella, and never addressed her
again.
As Jerry was again drawing near, Lady Wilmot approached him, and said,
'Do you mean to dance with no one but Miss Chevenix to-night?'
'Mother, I have only danced with her twice as yet, and I have done my
duty to everyone else, so I think I may please myself now. Our
waltz, I think, Miss Chevenix,' he added, as his arm went round her,
and they disappeared among the whirling circles that swept over the
polished floor to the music of the military band.
Bella had been--nay, was still--a good deal of a flirt, perhaps in a
very innocent way, but a something now in the expression of Jerry's
eyes, in the tone of his voice, nay, in the very touch of his hand,
startled her hitherto careless heart from its girlish unconsciousness
and gave it a thrill, 'too sweet for fever, too timid for joy,' or
developed still further the new sensations to which it had been
awakening.
And Jerry, with his arm caressingly around her and her breath on his
cheek, smiled at himself as he thought of his past jealousy of Dalton
and Mrs. Trelawney--Dalton, the good-natured cynic!
He had still too much command over himself, and, though young, was
too much a man of the world to let those around him read his thoughts
with reference to Bella; but his watchful mother could detect that it
was into Bella's eyes he looked with passion when near her, that it
was Bella he took in to supper, and with whom he sat in the
conservatory after, where the flashing fountain played amid the
softly veiled light, and half concealed his utterances by the sound
of its waters.
And Jerry was proudly conscious that Bella's beauty had excited much
comment--envy among the women, and admiration among the men.
'Miss Chevenix--introduce me to her,' had been dinned into his ear
half the night; 'is she rich, an heiress, or what; is there anything
singular about her besides her beauty, Jerry?'
Amid all the gaiety around him Jerry's heart was a heavy one. He now
felt that he loved Bella passionately; but the memory of those
mortgages, and the view that they would inevitably cause Mr.
Chevenix, Bella herself, and all who knew of their peculiarity and
existence to take of his love and his attentions, fettered his
tongue, and caused him, even when he had the lovely girl all to
himself in the solitude of the conservatory, to speak dubiously and
enigmatically; thus leading her, in her pride and hauteur, to fear
that he was viewing her through the medium of his mother and with her
aristocratic eyes; and thus, with all the love of him in her heart,
Bella felt that heart revolt at the situation and swell a little with
anger.
He shrank from uttering the words that loaded his tongue--the longed
for declaration his attentions had given Bella an undoubted right to
expect--and she resented because she misunderstood the reason of his
not doing so. She dreaded that he had taught her to love him, while
looking down upon her position in the world--at least, the world in
which he and his mother moved.
'Do you know that all our fellows from the camp, and indeed all my
mother's guests, are quite wild in their admiration of you!' he said,
in a low voice.
'How kind--how excessively condescending of them?' exclaimed Bella,
sharply, opening and shutting her fan again and again.
He regarded her with a little perplexity, and felt his cheek colour.
'And Lady Wilmot--does she share in that gust of admiration?' she
asked, with an unmistakable curl on her lovely lip.
'Bella--oh, permit me to call you so, as of old? What has come to
you--what has offended you?'
'Nothing has come to me--nothing has offended me; but I should not
have come here to-night, and you have no right to call me Bella now!'
'I beg your pardon--the name came naturally to my lips--we were such
good friends of old.'
'Your mother does not view us as such. _Her_ friendship consists of
loftily patronising me, while looking down upon me and my father too.
You know this as well as I do, Captain Wilmot.'
Jerry was silent, and thought.
'I came here to talk, perhaps of love, and now, by Jove, it seems we
are quarrelling!'
His face expressed this and the pain her words gave him; and Bella,
ever a creature of impulse, felt that she was froward, petulant, and
foolishly irritable; but his mother's haughty manner had stung her
keenly more than once that night.
Jerry sighed and rose from his seat.
'Pardon me,' said she, in her sweet, low voice, and with an upward
glance of her light brown eyes that was irresistible; 'I know that I
am very cross with you, and--and I don't know why.'
'Miss Chevenix----'
'Call me Bella!' said she, impetuously, as she bit the feathers of
her fan.
'Oh, Bella, you know not how I am situated with regard to you!' he
began, as he thought of the mortgages.
'Oh, I understand it precisely,' said she, flushing deeply. 'You are
very fond of me, perhaps--admire me very much, of course; but it is
an affair of proud relations--high position in the county on the one
hand, and the granddaughter of the farmer of Langley Park on the
other--that is it? So let us drop our acting; you your mock
love-making----'
'Mock love-making!' he exclaimed, sorrowfully and reproachfully.
'Yes; and I shall drop my flirty way. And now let us go back to the
dancers; I want papa, and wish to go home.'
'Oh, Bella, you know not--may never, never know--what my mind is
struggling with!' he began, in a low and hurried voice, and then
paused; for it was strange that jolly Jerry, usually cool, calm,
self-reliant in the tumult of the betting-ring, in the business
transactions of life, in the hurly-burly of a field-day in the Long
Valley, with a dozen of aides-de-camp all bellowing contrary orders
to him at once, should be wanting in confidence when alone with Bella
Chevenix; and yet perhaps it was not strange, when those infernal
mortgages, which made her an heiress and him a half ruined man, are
remembered.
Young Twesildown's profound admiration for Bella--notwithstanding her
snub--admiration openly expressed to himself, and that of more than
one other man, had made Jerry feel uncomfortable and savage--all the
more that he had begun to assume or feel a right of proprietary in
her that in itself was very delightful; but it is said that 'a man
head over ears in love would feel jealous of his charmer's uncle, not
knowing him to be such;' and certainly Jerry Wilmot was in that
submerged condition.
'With what is your mind struggling?' asked Bella, with reference to
his broken words.
'I know not how to explain.'
'You do look troubled, Captain Wilmot. In your usually merry face
one never sees such an expression as it wears now,' said she,
surveying his features with her sweet and earnest eyes, full of great
and sudden sympathy. 'What--amid a scene like this to-night--this
gay world of yours, rank and luxury around you--what mental pain have
you to struggle with?'
Jerry felt her slender fingers trembling in his hand, and he pressed
them softly and caressingly.
'You know not all I have endured of doubt and love too, Bella,
since--since--'
'Since when?' she asked, impatiently, but in a low voice.
'That interview I had with your father.'
Her dilated eyes expressed great wonder at this unexpected reply.
'What passed between you?' she asked.
'I cannot tell you--now at least--and so infuse an aspect of
selfishness, with bitterness too, in the sweetness of a moment like
this.'
'Jerry!' exclaimed the girl, bewildered by his manner.
His name escaped her lips almost unconsciously, but the sound of it
then again, as in his boyish days, made every pulse quicken and his
heart to thrill.
'Bella, my darling! I love you. You know that I have always loved
you, and never anyone else.' (Though this was not precisely the case,
just then Jerry thought it was.) 'I have struggled against that love
till I can do so no longer'--(Why? thought Bella, with anger growing
in her breast)--'struggled against it, but it has overpowered me at
last; and though the world I live in might view the avowal with
contempt and derision, and utterly mistake the spirit in which I make
it, I do love you dearly, Bella,' he added in a low, beseeching voice.
All unknown to himself, this speech in its phraseology was about the
most blundering he could have addressed to the haughty Bella Chevenix!
Her beautiful eyes were sparkling with indignation now; her face was
blanched and very pale, for she loved Jerry dearly, though at that
moment only anger and bitterness were swelling in her breast. She
snatched her hand from his clasp, and, cresting up her head, said
proudly,
'This world of yours shall never know from me at least that you have
condescended to address me thus. You deem it condescension; I an
insult!'
'An insult, Bella?'
'Enough of this: let us rejoin the dancers.'
Jerry was utterly bewildered, and led her from the conservatory, on
emerging from which the first eyes that met them were those of Lady
Wilmot, and they wore an expression at once cold, inquiring, and
reprehensive, which added to the annoyance of Bella, who hurriedly,
and without a word of adieu to Jerry, took the arm of her father.
The latter had been enjoying himself after his own fashion during a
protracted visit to the supper-room, and was by no means yet prepared
to withdraw.
She danced with Goring, with Dalton, and in quick succession with all
the men who again and again pressed round her, and whose names were
on her card, including even the slighted Lord Twesildown, to whom
several bumpers of champagne had given fresh courage, while the
crushed and bewildered Jerry watched her from the doorway; and none
who saw her there in all the radiance of her rare beauty, her eyes
sparkling, her cheeks flushing, her whole face wreathed with smiles,
would have imagined the turmoil of angry thoughts surging in her
snow-white bosom.
On one hand Lady Wilmot was intensely irritated to see Jerry looking
so _distrait_--'put out'--after his too evident confabulation in the
conservatory with Miss Chevenix, and on the other she was exasperated
to see the fast and furious love and flirtation between that young
lady and the vapid Lord Twesildown, as she had views of her own
regarding him and Cousin Emily, so Lady Wilmot was sorely worried by
the general results of Jerry's birthday ball.
At last the guests began to depart, and Bella's father led her away;
Twesildown shawled her in the hall, and handed her into their snug
family brougham, and she was driven home through the familiar country
lanes and roads like one in a dream.
That Jerry Wilmot, whom, in her secret heart she actually loved so
dearly, should have insulted her in that supreme moment of declaring
his passion by inference, as she thought, by broadly hinting of her
humbler origin and the disparity of their position in society--a
disparity his proud mother had often made her feel keenly--stung the
impulsive and naturally warm-hearted girl.
She threw off her ball-dress in hot and angry haste, tossed her few
ornaments from her, and, casting herself upon her bed, wept bitterly
in her sense of disappointment and humiliation, while the dim, grey
hours of the winter morning stole slowly over the landscape and the
silent village of Wilmothurst.