LADY HELENA'S BALL.
Three days after, on Thursday, the fifth of June, Lady Helena Powyss
gave a very large dinner-party, followed by a ball in honor of her
American guests. When it is your good fortune to number half a county
among your friends, relatives, and acquaintances, it is possible to be
at once numerous and select. The creme de la creme of Cheshire
assembled in Lady Helena's halls of dazzling light, to do honor to Sir
Victor Catheron's bride-elect.
For the engagement had been formally announced, and was the choice bit
of gossip, with which the shire regaled itself. Sir Victor Catheron
was following in the footsteps of his father, and was about to bring
to Catheron Royals one of the lower orders as its mistress. It was the
Dobb blood no doubt cropping up--these sort of mesalliances _will_
tell. An American, too--a governess, a poor relation of some common
rich people from the States. The best county families, with daughters
to marry, shook their heads. It was very sad--_very_ sad, to see a
good old name and a good old family degenerate in this way. But there
was always a taint of madness in the Catheron blood--that accounted
for a good deal. Poor Sir Victor--and poor Lady Helena.
But everybody came. They might be deeply shocked and sorry, but still
Sir Victor Catheron _was_ Sir Victor Catheron, the richest baronet
in the county, and Catheron Royals always a pleasant house to
visit--the reigning Lady Catheron always a desirable acquaintance on
one's visiting-list. Nobody acknowledged, of course, they went from
pure, downright curiosity, to see this manoeuvring American girl, who
had taken Sir Victor Catheron captive under the aristocratic noses of
the best-born, best-bred, best-blooded young ladies in a circuit of
twenty miles.
The eventful night came--the night of Edith's ordeal. Even Trix was a
little nervous--only a little--is not perfect self-possession the
normal state of American young ladydom? Lady Helena was quite pale in
her anxiety. The girl was handsome beyond dispute, thoroughbred as a
young countess, despite her birth and bringing up in a New England
town and Yankee boarding-house, with pride enough for a princess of
forty quarterings, _but_ how would she come forth from the fiery
furnace of all those pitiless eyes, sharpened to points to watch for
gaucheries and solecisms of good breeding--from the merciless tongues
that would hang, draw, and quarter her, the instant their owners were
out of the house.
"_Don't_ you feel nervous, Dithy?" asked Trix, almost out of patience
at last with Edith's serene calm. "I do--horribly. And Lady Helena
has got a fit of the fidgets that will bring her gray hairs to an
early grave, if this day lasts much longer. Ain't you afraid--honor
bright?"
Edith Darrell lifted her dark, disdainful eyes. She sat reading, while
the afternoon wore on, and Trixy fussed and fluttered about the room.
"Afraid of the people who are coming here to-night--is that what you
mean? Not a whit! I know as well as you do, they are coming to inspect
and find fault with Sir Victor Catheron's choice, to pity him, and
call me an adventuress. I know also that any one of these young ladies
would have married him, and said 'Thank you for asking,' if he had
seen fit to choose them. I have my own pride and Sir Victor's good
taste to uphold to-night, and I will uphold them. I think"--she lifted
her haughty, dark head, and glanced, with a half-conscious smile, in
the pier-glass opposite--"I think I can bear comparison by lamplight
with any of these 'daughters of a hundred earls,' such as--Lady
Gwendoline Drexel for instance."
"By lamplight," Trix said, ignoring the rest of her speech. "Ah, yes,
that's the worst of it, Edith; you dark people always light up well.
And Lady Gwendoline Drexel--I wonder what Lady Gwendoline will wear
to-night? I should like to be the best-dressed young lady at the ball.
Do you know, Dith," spitefully this, "I think Charley is quite struck
with Lady Gwendoline. You noticed, I suppose, the attention he paid
her the evening we met, and then he has been to Drexel Court by
invitation. Pa is most anxious, I know. Money will be no object, you
know, with Charley, and really it would be nice to have a titled
sister-in-law. 'My sister, Lady Gwendoline Stuart,' will sound very
well in New York, won't it? It would be a very suitable match for
Charley."
"A most suitable match," Miss Darrell repeated; "age included. She is
ten years his senior if a day; but where true love exists, what does a
trifle of years on either side signify? He has money--she has rank. He
has youth and good looks--she has high birth and a handle to her name.
As you say, Trixy, a most suitable match!"
And then Miss Darrell went back to her book, but the slender, black
brows were meeting in a steady frown, that quite spoiled her beauty--no
doubt at something displeasing in the pages.
"But you mustn't sit here all day," broke in Trix again; "it's high
time you were up in your dressing-room. What are you going to wear,
Dith?"
"I have not decided yet. I don't much care; it doesn't much matter. I
have decided to look my best in anything."
She arose and sauntered out of the room, and was seen no more, until
the waxlights blazed from end to end of the great mansion and the June
dusk had deepened into dewy night. Then, as the roll of carriages came
without ceasing along the drive, she descended, arrayed for battle, to
find her impatient slave and adorer awaiting her at the foot of the
grand stairway. She smiled upon him her brightest, most beaming smile,
a smile that intoxicated him at sight.
"Will I do, Sir Victor?" she asked.
Would she do? He looked at her as a man may look half dazzled, at the
sun. He could not have told you what she wore, pink and white clouds
it seemed to him--he only knew two brown, luminous, laughing eyes were
looking straight into his, and turning his brain with their spell.
"You are sure I will do? You are sure you will not be ashamed of me
to-night?" her laughing voice asked again.
Ashamed of her--ashamed! He laughed aloud at the stupendous joke, as
he drew her arm within his, and led her into the thronged rooms, as
some favored subject may once in his life lead in a queen.
Perhaps there was excuse for him. "I shall look my best in anything,"
she had said, in her disdain, and she had kept her word. She wore a
dress that seemed alternately composed of white tulle and blush-roses;
she had roses in her rich, dark hair, hair always beautifully worn;
Sir Victor's diamond-betrothal ring shone on her finger; round her
arching throat she wore a slender line of yellow gold, a locket set
with brilliants attached. The locket had been Lady Helena's gift, and
held Sir Victor's portrait. That was her ball array, and she looked as
though she were floating in her fleecy white draperies, her perfumery,
roses, and sparkling diamonds. The dark eyes outshone the diamonds, a
soft flush warmed either cheek. Yes, she was beautiful; so beautiful
that saner men than her accepted lover, might have been pardoned if
for a moment they lost their heads.
Lady Helena Powyss, in sweeping moire and jewels, receiving her guests,
looked at her and drew one long breath of great relief. She might have
spared herself all her anxious doubts and fears--low-born and penniless
as she was, Sir Victor Catheron's bride would do Sir Victor Catheron
honor to-night.
Trix was there--Trix resplendent in pearl silk with a train half the
length of the room, pearl silk, point lace, white-camelias, and
Neapolitan corals and cameos, incrusted with diamonds--Trix, in all
the finery six thousand dollars can buy, drew a long breath of great
and bitter envy.
"If one wore the Koh-i-noor and Coronation Robes," thought Miss Stuart
sadly, "she would shine one down. She is dazzling to-night. Captain
Hammond," tapping that young warrior with her point-lace fan, "_don't_
you think Edith is without exception the most beautiful and elegant
girl in the rooms?"
And the gallant captain bows profoundly, and answers with a look that
points the speech:
"With _one_ exception, Miss Beatrix, only one."
Charley is there, and perhaps there can be no doubt about it, that
Charley is, without exception, far and away, the best looking man.
Charley gazes at his cousin for an instant on the arm of her proud
and happy lover, radiant and smiling, the centre of all that is best
in the room. She lifts her dark, laughing eyes as it chances, and
brown and gray meet full. Then he turns away to a tall, languid
rather passive lady, who is talking slowly by his side.
"Is Miss Darrell really his cousin? Really? How extremely handsome she
is, and how perfectly infatuated Sir Victor seems. Poor Sir Victor!
What a pity there is insanity in the family--insanity is such a very
shocking thing. How pretty Miss Stuart is looking this evening. She
has heard--is it true--can Mr. Stuart inform her--are _all_ American
girls handsome?"
And Charley--as Captain Hammond has done--bows, and looks, and replies:
"I used to think so, Lady Gwendoline. I have seen English girls since,
and think differently."
Oh, the imbecile falsehoods of society! He is thinking, as he says it,
how pallid and faded poor Lady Gwendoline is looking, in her dingy
green satin and white Brussels lace overdress, her emeralds and bright
golden hair--most beautiful and most expensive shade to be had in
London. He is thinking how the Blanc de Perle and rouge vegetal is
showing on her three-and-thirty-year-old face, and what his life would
be like if he listened to his father and married her. He shudders
inwardly and gives it up--"that way madness lies," and while there is
a pistol left, wherewith to blow his brains out, he can still hope to
escape a worse fate.
But Lady Gwendoline, freighted with eleven seasons' experience, and
growing seedy and desperate, clings to him as the drowning cling to
straws. She is the daughter of a peer, but there are five younger
sisters, all plain and all portionless. Her elder sister, who
chaperones her to-night, is the wife of a rich and retired
manufacturer, Lady Portia Hampton. The rich and retired manufacturer
has purchased Drexel Court, and it is Lady Portia's painful duty to
try and marry her sisters off.
The ball is a great success for Miss Edith Darrell. The men rave about
her; the women may sneer, but they must do it covertly; her beauty and
her grace, her elegance and high breeding, not the most envious dare
dispute. Music swells and floats deliciously--scores are suitors for
her hand in the dance. The flush deepens on her dusk cheeks, the
streaming light in her starry eyes--she is dangerously brilliant
to-night. Sir Victor follows in her train whenever his duties allow
him; when he dances with others his eyes follow his heart, and go
after her. There is but one in all those thronged rooms for him--one
who is his idol--his darling--the pride, the joy, the desire of his
life.
"My dear, I am proud of you to-night," Lady Helena whispers once. "You
surpass yourself--you are lovely beyond compare. You do us all credit."
And Edith Darrell's haughty eyes look up for a moment and they are
flashing through tears. She lifts the lady's hand with exquisite grace,
and kisses it. Then smiles chase the tears, and she is gone on the arm
of some devoted cavalier. Once--only once, she dances with Charley.
She has striven to avoid him--no, not that either--it is _he_ who
has avoided her. She has seen him--let her be surrounded by scores,
she has seen him whispering with Lady Gwendoline, dancing with Lady
Gwendoline, fanning Lady Gwendoline, flirting with Lady Gwendoline. It
is Lady Gwendoline he leads to supper, and it is after supper, with
the enchanting strains of a Strauss waltz filling the air, that he
comes up and asks her for that dance.
"I am sure I deserve it for my humility," he says plaintively. "I have
stood in the background, humbly and afar off, and given you up to my
betters. Surely, after all the bitter pills I have been swallowing, I
deserve _one_ sugar-plum."
She laughs--glances at Sir Victor, making his way toward her, takes
his arm rather hurriedly, and moves off.
"Is Lady Gwendoline a pill, or a sugar-plum?" she asks. "You certainly
seem to have had an overdose of her."
"I owe Lady Gwendoline my deepest thanks," he answered gravely. "Her
efforts to keep me amused this evening, have been worthy of a better
cause. If the deepest gratitude of a too-trusting heart," says Charley,
laying his hand on the left side of his white waistcoat, "be any
reward for such service, it is hers."
They float away. To Edith it is the one dance of the night. She hardly
knows whether she whirls in air or on the waxed floor; she only knows
that it is like heaven, that the music is celestial, and that it is
Charley's arm that is clasping her close. Will she ever waltz with him
again, she wonders, and she feels, feels in her inmost heart, that she
is sinning against her affianced husband in waltzing with him now. But
it is _so_ delicious--what a pity most of the delicious things of
earth should be wrong. If it could only last forever--forever! And
while she thinks it, it stops.
"O Charley! that _was_ a waltz!" she says, leaning on him heavily,
and panting; "no one else has my step as you have it."
"Let us trust that Sir Victor will learn it," he responds coolly;
"here he comes now. It was a charming waltz, Dithy, but charming
things must end. Your lawful proprietor approaches; to your lawful
proprietor I resign you."
He was perfectly unflushed, perfectly unexcited. He bows, smiles,
yields her to Sir Victor, and saunters away. Five seconds later he is
bending over Lady Gwendoline's chair, whispering in the pink,
patrician ear resting against the glistening, golden chignon. Edith
looks once--in her heart she hates Lady Gwendoline--looks once, and
looks no more.
And as the serene June morning dawns, and larks and thrushes pipe in
the trees, Lady Helena's dear five hundred friends, sleepy and pallid,
get into their carriages and go home.