THE HUNT BALL
The Assembly Room of the Royal Hotel at Bathgate had been the scene of
many fashionable gatherings in days gone by, when London had not been
so easy of access, and the rank and fashion of South Meadshire had been
wont to meet there for their mutual enjoyment, on nights when the moon
was round and roads not too deep in mire. The Regent had once shown
his resplendent presence there, having been entertained at Kencote by
Beau Clinton, who hated the place and spent its revenues in London, but
had furbished it up at rare expense--to the tradesmen who did the
work--for the reception of his royal patron. The Prince had expressed
himself pleased with what had been done, and told his host that it was
surprising what you could do with a damned dull hole like that when you
tried; but he had not repeated his visit, and Beau Clinton's
extravagance had soon after been redeemed by his brother the merchant,
who succeeded him as Squire of Kencote, and just in time, or there
would have been nothing to succeed to.
The royal visit to the Assembly at Bathgate was still to be recalled by
the lustre chandelier in the middle of the room which was surmounted by
the Prince of Wales's feathers. The landlord of those days had
followed the example of Beau Clinton, except in the matter of
forgetting to pay his tradespeople, and spent a large sum in decorating
the room; and he thought himself well repaid when the princely patron
of the arts had remarked that it was "devilish chaste." It had hardly
been touched since. The red silk panels on the walls were faded, and
here and there frayed, and the white paint which surrounded them was
much the worse for wear. Of the Sheraton settees that had once
surrounded the walls only one remained, on the dais at the end of the
room. It was that on which the royal form had reposed, and the present
landlord had refused, it was reported, a large sum for it. There was a
musicians' gallery at the opposite end of the room, and sconces for
candles between the panels. It was still a handsome room, and on the
annual occasion of the South Meadshire Hunt Ball, its shabbiness
disguised with flowers, it had quite an air. But it was small for
these latter days, and, for the dancers, apt to be inconveniently
crowded. Bobby Trench, after he had had his toes trodden on and his
shirt-front crumpled, inwardly repeated his ejaculations of
dinner-time, "Never again!"
But he was, fortunately, in a minority. The bulk of the healthy
open-air-looking young men and the pretty country-bred girls who footed
it to the strains of a brisk and enlivening string band were not so
particular as he. They smiled at the mishaps of others and laughed at
their own, and enjoyed themselves thoroughly, as young men and women do
who are not surfeited with pleasure. Their elders looked on from the
rout seats placed round the room, or from their place of vantage on the
dais, and in the intervals of the babel of talk--for nearly all of them
knew one another and had a great deal to say--thought of their own
young days and were pleased to see their pleasure repeated by their
sons and daughters. There is no ball like a country ball, not too
overwhelmingly invaded from London or elsewhere. It has the essence of
sociability, where people meet who do not meet too often, and there is
something for the young ones to do and the old ones to look on at. If
the Bobby Trenches who happen upon it compare it unfavourably with more
splendid entertainments, it is to be doubted if those entertainments
are so much enjoyed by those who take part in them, except perhaps by
the novices, to whom all gaiety is glamour.
The Squire, sitting on the dais as became a man of his position in the
county, scanned the assembly after having conducted Lady Aldeburgh
through the mazes of the opening quadrille, and the frown which had
left his face for the past few hours, but had sat there almost
invariably during the past month, appeared again. Lady Aldeburgh was
talking to old Lord Meadshire, his kinsman, who in spite of age and
chronic asthma was still an inveterate frequenter of local festivities,
and he had a moment's interval in which his trouble rolled back upon
him. He had had a dim hope that Dick, who for the first time in his
life, except when he was in South Africa, had not come home for
Christmas, might show up at Bathgate for this occasion. It had been a
very small hope, for nothing had been heard from him, and he had even
left them to take it for granted that he had put off Captain Vernon,
the friend whom he had asked to stay at Kencote for the balls. And,
furthermore, if he should be there it would be as a guest of Lady
George Dubec, who was known still to be at Blaythorn. But even that
disagreeable condition did not entirely do away with the Squire's
desire to set eyes on his son, for whose presence he longed more and
more as the days went on. But there was no Dick to be seen amongst the
red-coated men in the room, and as yet there was no Lady George Dubec.
But as he looked over the moving crowd of dancers, and the bordering
rows of men and matrons sitting and standing, his bushy brows
contracted still more, for he saw her come in beneath the musicians'
gallery at the other end of the hall with Miss Dexter, and, which
caused him still further disquietude, saw her instantly surrounded by a
crowd of men. He turned his head away with an impatient shrug and
broke into the conversation between Lady Aldeburgh and Lord Meadshire.
But this did not save him, for Lord Meadshire, whose old twinkling eyes
were everywhere, said in his low husky voice, "There's the lady I met
driving yesterday. Tell me who she is, my dear Edward, and relieve my
curiosity."
The Squire, mumbling inaudibly, got up from his seat and, turning his
back upon the hall, entered into a conversation with the wife of the
Master of the South Meadshire, whom he disliked, but who happened to be
the only lady disengaged at the moment. But she said, when she had
answered his first remark, "There is Lady George. She looks handsomer
than ever"; and turning his back again he went out into a room where
there was a buffet and swallowed a glass of champagne, although he knew
that a tablespoonful would have brought him discomfort.
Virginia was dressed in a gown of shimmering blue green which had the
effect of moonlight. She had a row of turquoises round her slim neck.
Her colour was higher than usual and her eyes sparkled. No one of
those who pressed round her admiring her beauty and gay charm could
have guessed that it was excitement of no pleasurable sort that brought
the light to her eyes and the laughter to her lips. But Miss Dexter,
standing demurely by her side, dressed in black, her light hair combed
unbecomingly back from her broad forehead, and receiving with
equanimity the crumbs of invitation that fell from her friend's richly
spread table, knew with what shrinking Virginia had brought herself to
make her appearance here. Both of them knew very well why the Squire
had no more been seen in the hunting field since that first day; both
of them had been aware of him the moment they had entered the room, had
seen his movements, and interpreted them correctly.
Virginia was soon dancing with Bobby Trench, who had drawn her
impatiently away from her suitors, telling her that the valse was half
over and that she could fill up her card later.
"Jove!" he said, when they had danced once round the room in silence,
"it's a relief to come across a friend amongst all these clodhoppers.
How on earth do you find yourself here?"
"I'm living near here at present," she said. "How do you?"
"Oh, I'm a visitor--a non-paying guest in a house like a Hydropathic
Establishment, or what I imagine one to be like. Fine house, but mixed
company."
"Then if you are a guest you ought not to say so," said Virginia, whose
thoughts so ran on Kencote that it was the first house that occurred to
her as possibly affording him hospitality.
"Oh, they're all right, really," he said, "only they're the sort of
people who take root in the country and grow there, like
cabbages--except the chap who asked me. He's one of the sons, and he'd
smarten 'em up if he had his way. Humphrey Clinton! Do you know him?"
"No," said Virginia. "Well, yes, I've met him in London. I don't like
him."
"Eh? Why not? I'll tell him."
"Very well. Let's go and sit down. The room is too crowded."
But Bobby Trench, who saw the end of the dance in sight, and knew that
directly Virginia sat down other men would come up to her, continued to
dance. "I haven't bumped you yet," he said. "We'll steer through
somehow. Are you going to Kemsale on Monday?"
"No," said Virginia, and left off dancing, having come to the end of
the room, where Miss Dexter was still standing. As her partner had
foreseen, she was immediately besieged again, and as for some, to him,
unaccountable reason, she refused to book another engagement with him,
he went away and left her in a huff.
He came across Humphrey, who was partnerless for the moment. "Let's go
and get a drink," he said. "I'm dry. I say, you didn't tell me that
Virginia Dubec lived in these parts."
"She doesn't," replied Humphrey as they made their way towards the room
with the buffet. "She has taken a house here for a few months. My
brother Dick got it for her."
"Oh, I thought she said she didn't know your people. Where is your
brother, by the by?"
Humphrey considered for a moment as to whether he should enlighten him
as to the state of the case, and decided not to, but wished almost
immediately that he had, for as they went into the refreshment-room
they met his father coming out, and Bobby Trench, who always spoke what
was passing through his mind to the nearest available person, said,
"I've found a friend, Mr. Clinton--Lady George Dubec. Didn't know she
was in your part of the country."
The Squire scowled at him, and went out of the room without a word.
"Nice manners!" commented Bobby Trench to himself.
"The fact is," said Humphrey, "that the governor won't know the lady."
"Why not? What's the matter with her?" asked his friend. "I should
have thought she'd have been a godsend in a place like this. I thought
you said your brother got her down here."
"So he did," said Humphrey, making a clean breast of it. "That's what
the row's about. Governor wouldn't have anything to do with her, and
so Dick has retired from the scene for a time. But don't say anything
about it, old chap. Little family disturbance we don't want to go any
further."
"Course not," said Bobby Trench, delighted to get hold of the end of a
piece of gossip and determined to draw out the rest as soon as
possible. "So that's how the land lies, is it? Now I see why she
didn't want to have any more truck with this engaging youth. Well,
your brother's taste is to be commended. Why does your father object
to her?"
"Oh, I don't know. Old-fashioned prejudice, I suppose; and he knew
George Dubec."
"And he was a daisy, from all accounts. Come on, we'd better be
getting back."
Old Lord Meadshire, who had been Lord-Lieutenant of the county from
which his title came for over forty years, and took an almost fatherly
interest in its inhabitants, learnt from Mrs. Graham who the unknown
lady was.
"Oh, I can tell you all about her," she said. "She's making a fine
disturbance in this little duck-pond."
"Well, she's pretty enough to make a disturbance anywhere," said the
old lord, whose kindly eye for youth and beauty was not dimmed by his
eighty years. "And if there is anything going on, I know I can trust
you to tell me all about it."
"There it is again," replied Mrs. Graham. "I'm getting the reputation
of a tale-bearer, and there's nothing I hate more. Still, I think
_you_ ought to know." And she told him who Virginia was, and what was
happening because she was what she was.
The old man grew rather serious as the story was unfolded to him.
"Edward Clinton was always headstrong," he said, "but it's unlike him
to quarrel with Dick. I think he ought to have waited to see what she
was like first."
"Of course he ought," said Mrs. Graham. "I've no patience with him.
He had the impudence to take me to task for asking her to dinner, and
Jim and Cicely to meet her. But he didn't get much change out of me."
"You told him what you thought about him--what?"
"I told him what I thought about her, and left him to infer the rest.
There's nothing wrong about her, if she did marry Lord George Dubec,
and all the rest of it. I like her, and I told him so. And if I can't
ask my own son and daughter-in-law to meet whom I like in my own house
without being hauled over the coals by Mr. Clinton--well, he'll be
expecting me to ask him what I'm to wear next."
"He couldn't improve on that," said Lord Meadshire, with an
appreciative glance at her pretty gown of pale blue silk under brown
net.
"Thank you," returned Mrs. Graham. "I hate clothes, but I can get
myself up if I'm flattered enough beforehand. Cicely does that for me.
I've no complaint to make of her as a daughter-in-law."
"Well, you had better introduce me to Lady George," said Lord
Meadshire. "She must be asked to Kemsale on Monday. And I'll find an
opportunity of dropping a word of common sense into Edward's ear, eh?"
"It will go out at the other. There's nothing to stop it," said Mrs.
Graham. "But it will be a good thing to show him he's not going to
have it all his own way."
The introduction was duly made, and Virginia, palpitating under her air
of assured ease, talked to him for some little time, sitting with him
on the dais. She knew that this kind old man who chatted pleasantly
with her, making feeble little jokes in his asthmatic voice, which his
eyes, plainly admiring her, asked her to smile at, was the most
important of all Dick's relations, besides being the most important man
in the county, and that if she could win him to like her his influence
might well avail to ease her lover's path. That he did like her and
was prepared to accept her in friendly wise as a neighbour was plain.
But she had a moment of fright when he said, "We are dancing at Kemsale
on Monday night. You must come. Where is Eleanor, I wonder?" And he
looked round for Lady Kemsale, his widowed daughter-in-law, who kept
house for him.
"I am not sure," she said hurriedly. She did not know in the least how
much he knew, or whether he knew anything. "Captain Clinton found me
my house here, but----" She did not know how to go on, and feared she
had already said too much in her confusion, but he turned towards her.
"Oh, I know, I know," he said kindly, and then beckoned to his
daughter-in-law, a stout, rather severe-looking lady in steely grey,
who greeted Virginia without smiling and gave the required invitation
rather coldly.
"I will send you a card," she said, "and please bring any friends you
may have with you."
Lady Kemsale had just heard the story of his troubles from the Squire,
who had found in her a sympathetic listener, and she had heard that
Virginia had once danced on the stage. She would have preferred to
have ignored her, but Lord Meadshire's commands must be obeyed, and
even as she obeyed them and gave the invitation her sympathy with the
Squire's troubles began to wane and she said to herself that he must
have made a mistake. There was nothing of the stage-charmer about this
woman, and Lady Kemsale thought she knew all about that class of
temptress, for her own nephew had recently married one of them. She
preserved her stately, unsmiling air as she turned away, but she was
already softened, if Virginia had only known it.
But Virginia's sensibilities had already taken renewed fright at her
manner, and in a way the exhibition of which now somewhat disturbed old
Lord Meadshire. She rose to her feet, and her air was no less stately
than that of Lady Kemsale. "It is very kind of you to ask me to your
house," she said, "but I think under the present circumstances I would
rather not come." Then she made him a bow and stepped off the dais,
and was immediately seized by her partner of the dance that was then in
progress. She was angry, but did not speak to him until they had
circled the room twice. She was willing to pay court to the people
amongst whom she was going to marry if they treated her properly. She
was willing to do even more than that for Dick's sake, and to run the
risk of slights, and she had done so by staying at Blaythorn, as he had
asked her to do, and by coming here to-night. But she was not going to
put up with slights from women who chose to treat her as of no account
and as if she were anxious at all costs to obtain their countenance.
There might be women who would be glad to gain entrance to a house like
Kemsale even after such an invitation as Lady Kemsale had given her,
but she was not one of them. The invitation, if it came after what she
had said to Lord Meadshire, should be refused. The woman whom Dick was
going to marry would not be recognised on those terms. She would wait
until she could go to Kemsale as an equal, and if that time never came
she would not go at all. In the meantime she was spending a very
wearing evening, and had an impulse to cut it all short and summon Miss
Dexter to accompany her home. But the thought that she was going
through it for Dick's sake sustained her, and she said to herself that
since she had wrought up her courage to come she would not run away.
The person who did run away, before the dancing was half over, was the
Squire. He could stand it no longer. He could not remain in the
refreshment-room all the evening, and, as he hated cards, the solace of
the tables, set out quite in old Assembly-room style in another room,
did not avail him. If he led out a dowager to take his part in a
square dance there was always the haunting fear that Virginia might be
brought into the same set, and if he sat and looked on at the round
dances the hateful sight of her dark head and slender form was always
before him. Moreover, he had not yet talked to any one who had not
either made some remark about her or asked him why Dick was not there,
or, worse still, maintained an ominous silence on the subject of both
of them, showing plainly that he or she was aware of the disturbance in
his household, which galled him exceedingly, although to sympathetic
and assumedly secret ears like those of Lady Kemsale he was ready to
talk his fill, and gain relief from doing so. He could not keep what
he felt out of his face, and he saw people looking at him with furtive
amusement as he sat there glowering at the assembly, or trying his best
to talk as if he had nothing on his mind. He felt instinctively that
the story was being put all about the room, as indeed it was, for
rumour was already in the air, and had gained impulse by Dick's absence
and his own behaviour.
And then Lord Meadshire--Cousin Humphrey, as he had called him ever
since he was a child, and called him still--had talked to him about
Dick and about Virginia, coupling their names together, as he
disgustedly said to himself, showing plainly that he knew what was on
foot, and inviting confidences if the Squire felt disposed to give
them. He did not feel so disposed. He was angry with his kinsman for
so publicly giving his countenance to Virginia, flouting him in the
face--so he felt it--making it appear as if he, in the place where he
had all his life cut a distinguished figure, and his wishes, were not
worth regarding. "I don't know the lady and don't want to," he said,
one might say petulantly. "And as for Dick--she wanted to come here
and he told her of a house. Considering he has scarcely been near the
place since she came, it's most annoying to hear him talked about as if
there was something between them. I hope you'll do what you can to
contradict that report. You can do a lot if you want to."
Lord Meadshire glanced at him quizzically. He knew well enough his
ostrich-like habit of burying one fact in a Sahara of words and leaving
a dozen for all the world to see. "Come now, my dear Edward," he said
persuasively, "why not make friends with the lady? You will find her
everything she ought to be, and a charming woman into the bargain. If
Dick is a little struck with her charms, I don't wonder at it, and
there's nothing to be alarmed at. The best thing you can do is to keep
your eye on her while he is away."
But this was a little too much. Cousin Humphrey had been his boyhood's
idol, and was the only member left of an older generation of his family
with the exception of Aunt Laura, but if he thought that he could treat
him as an obstinate child who was to be coaxed into good behaviour, he
was mistaken. "Nothing will induce me to make friends with her or to
recognise her in any way," he said, with decision. "Where's Nina? I'm
going home. I can't stand this any longer."
Mrs. Clinton, who was enjoying herself in a quiet way, talking to
people whom she seldom saw, and infinitely relieved in her mind to find
Virginia what she was, and not what she had feared she might be, even a
little fascinated by her grace and beauty, and watching her all the
time even when she was talking, was disagreeably surprised at the curt
request of her lord and master that she should instantly accompany him
home. "But, Edward!" she exclaimed, "we have not ordered the carriage
until one o'clock, and it is not yet eleven. Aren't you well?"
"We can get a fly," snapped the Squire. "Yes, I'm quite well. But I
can't put up with any more of this."
Still she hesitated. There were her guests to think of. How could she
go off and leave them?
"If you like I will go home with Uncle Edward," said Angela Senhouse,
to whom she had been talking. "I think it would make people uneasy if
you were to go." She looked at the Squire with her calm, rather cold
eyes, and he suddenly grew ashamed of himself. "I'll get a fly and go
by myself. You had better stay here, Nina." And he took himself off
without further ado.