The party for dinner was to have consisted of fifteen persons,
including the little girls and their governess. Lady Carey, who
combined strict views on the bringing up of children with the greatest
latitude and kindness in carrying them out, had arranged that the
school-room party should sit at a side-table, but partake of all the
good things provided for their betters. Willoughby’s arrival threw the
numbers out and, in order to avoid the evil of sitting down thirteen at
the larger table, it was necessary that some one else should be placed
at the inferior one, and Lady Carey had decided that it should be Henry
Whitaker, who was still at Westminster, and therefore grouped in her
mind with the children.
The choice could not have fallen on anyone who would feel the indignity
more. He stood beside his chair, red and glowering, unwilling to take
the place one moment before it was necessary. The disgrace was happily
averted. The two little girls clamorously begged that Mr. Atherton
might be sent to their table and, as he added his entreaties, Lady
Carey yielded to their wishes. Margaret breathed again for Henry, and
as he took the place intended for Mr. Atherton between their hostess
and herself she was able to begin the process of soothing his ruffled
feelings by the sweetness of her welcoming smile.
It was not to be expected that Henry could have much to say to Lady
Carey. The affront was too recent, and his resentment too just. It
was not until the first course had been removed and the corner dishes
placed for the second that he could have replied without constraint
even to her inquiries for his mother. Margaret’s attention, as he told
her of the great doings at Westminster at the Grease, and the wild
scenes in Great School that always ensued, had done him a world of
good, and, though it might be that Lady Carey would never be entirely
forgiven, he found he could now speak to her in an ordinary tone and
believe her to be a very good sort of woman in her way.
Walter Carey, who sat on Margaret’s other side, was far from being
pleased to find her attention turned from him, but, in addition to
his habitual good-nature, he had the assistance of knowing himself
to be the superior of Henry in so many particulars that he felt he
could afford to him the indulgence of Margaret’s kindness. He himself
was obliged to turn to Mary Whitaker, a plain girl, but, he found,
very agreeable. So often it may be noticed by those whose powers of
observation are not blurred by partiality that the absence of other
attractions is accompanied by a wish to please, and some knowledge of
how to do it, so that those who are so justly scorned for their lack of
beauty, by their fairer sisters, achieve a high degree of popularity
with the other sex.
Mary Whitaker was generally liked and always content with such notice
as fell to her share. She felt no resentment when Walter took the
opportunity of the dishes being changed to engage Margaret’s attention,
even though she herself was cut short in the middle of a sentence, and,
finding Mrs. Ferrars at liberty, was pleased to find herself kindly
addressed and offered some advice and help in the arrangement of her
dress as Second Brother.
Sir Francis had enjoyed his talk with Elinor. Her cultivated mind and
elegant beauty exactly suited his taste, and he eyed Miss Steele, who
sat on his left, with a sidelong glance that spoke his fear that he
was now to be less happily entertained. Miss Steele was in very poor
spirits. She was sat down next to Sir Francis, who had not so much
as looked at her, and on the other side was Penelope Carey, who had
no eyes for anyone but Mr. Willoughby, and who seemed a stupid sort
of girl even if she had tried to make herself agreeable. When Sir
Francis had learnt that Miss Steele had lived at Plymouth all her life,
and that her younger sister was well married, but that she herself
could not make up her mind, he found himself at a loss for a topic
of conversation, and, on being applied to by Elinor for information
as to the origin of Comus, he gladly devoted himself to the task of
enlightening the minds of Mary Whitaker and Mrs. Ferrars on the subject
of the influence of the Elizabethans on literature of a later date.
Willoughby had been exerting his powers of conversation between
Isabella and Penelope Carey, who had often wished to know more of him
in the days when Marianne had absorbed his attention, and by the end
of dinner they were both quite convinced that whatever the trouble had
been, whatever it was that had broken the engagement, it must have
been the fault of Mrs. Brandon, and not of the charming gentleman who
entertained them. They wondered that his wife were not more seen with
him. They feared he was neglected by her, and remembered all they had
heard of her ill-temper and sickliness.
Isabella’s attention was claimed from time to time by Sir John, who
must have some young lady to tease about her dearest affections, and
who spent a very agreeable hour dividing his attentions between Lady
Carey, who was a very knowledgable woman indeed, and Isabella, who was
a very handsome one.
The party at the smaller table was as noisy as any. Mr. Atherton had
claimed that Miss Fairfield was to have a holiday and he would be
deputy governess, with the lady as his eldest and show pupil, and the
little girls had been delighted to have their knuckles rapped and their
elbows poked in, and to be told how to hold their forks all wrong, and
which side of their mouths they should use for drinking.
The laughter became so uproarious that Sir Francis’s eyebrows went up
into his grey hair, and Lady Carey had to administer some more serious
admonitions. Margaret thought with surprise of how wearisome this man
could be, and made the well-worn discovery that if people are to be
agreeable they need but be natural. Mr. Atherton’s good-nature was
superior to his intelligence, and he could make himself liked where he
did not much wish to impress.
Dinner was over at last, and the ladies were to spend the hours before
tea in rest and chat in the drawing-room, admiring each other’s work,
for which they cared nothing, playing each other’s songs, which they
did very indifferently, and preventing each other from indulging in the
quiet doze which would have been so welcome to most after the tiring
morning and excellent dinner. Lady Carey alone was fortunate in having
matters requiring her attention, and which, declining all assistance,
she executed in great comfort with her eyes closed on the couch in her
bed-chamber.
The party in the drawing-room finally strolled out on to the lawn,
where they were joined by the gentlemen, who had been watching a
desultory game of billiards between Walter and Willoughby. Henry felt
that the insult of the dining-room had been almost wiped out when Sir
Francis had invited him to join the party in the billiard-room.
The children were taken off to the school-room by their governess.
Their share of amusement was over for the day, as they were not to
appear at the ball. If they felt downcast at being excluded from the
fun, they could console themselves by thinking that, in a few years
time, they would be as pretty as Miss Dashwood, and talk as fast as
Miss Steele, and wear clothes as fine as their sisters.
Miss Fairfield had no such consolation. For a young woman of
twenty-three to be in the school-room while a ball is in progress in
the drawing-room is no happy fate; and the time to which the children
looked forward would only be to her the occasion of a removal to
another house, where she might be treated with less consideration, and
at a time when she could not but be losing the attractions of face
and figure which seemed so wasted now. She actually was as pretty as
Margaret, and could have found as many things to say as Miss Steele,
and have looked fully as well in fine clothes as the two Miss Careys.
Her lot, however, was a different one, and she took the cover from her
harp in order to practise the music of the other girls’ songs, with the
wish at least to be contented in that she had a share, though a small
one, in the performance which was the centre of every one’s thoughts.