LADY HORATIA SOMERTON.
I thought Lady Horatia Somerton looked rather displeased when we at last
succeeded in getting through the crowd, and reached the raised sofa
where she sat.
“Have you been dancing together all this time?” she inquired.
“Only one waltz and a quadrille,” said Sir Alfred; “but I have been
showing Miss Vivian the pictures.”
“But I found them in the conservatory,” said Lord Woodford, “engaged--I
may say that I surprised them--in a very interesting _tête-à-tête_, I
assure you.”
I felt much annoyed, and could not help blushing, as I feared, by Lady
Horatia’s looks of displeasure, that I had been doing something wrong.
“Well, but you are engaged for the next quadrille to Lord Woodford, are
you not?” inquired Lady Horatia; “and it will soon begin, so you had
better go at once, and get a good place, and a _vis-à-vis_.”
I could no longer refuse Lord Woodford’s arm; and as I reluctantly went
with him towards the dancers, I was somewhat relieved by seeing Sir
Alfred soon follow with a young lady, and insist on being our
_vis-à-vis_. So I enjoyed the dance extremely, for he contrived to look
towards me several times. But I saw that Lord Woodford did not seem to
like this, and was annoyed because I would not attend much to his
trifling talk. At least it seemed to me trifling, because I did not like
his manner or tone.
When the dance was over, Lady Horatia said it was time to go home, and
she asked Sir Alfred to get her carriage. The irrepressible Lord
Woodford again offered his arm to take me down to the cloak-room, while
some other young men offered theirs to Lady Horatia. She accepted the
assistance of a little man with a turned-up nose, who had danced with me
twice, and had buzzed about me a good deal. I did not know who he was,
but, as we drove home, Lady Horatia told me he was the young Marquis of
Lorrington, one of the richest men of the day.
“You have made no end of conquests,” she said. “Your success has been
even greater than I anticipated. But now I am going to give you a
serious piece of advice. I am going to place you as our parents were in
the Garden of Eden. You may freely flirt with all the men, who are only
too willing to fall in love with you, except one; and with him,” she
added, in a tone partly mocking, but with a great mixture of serious
anxiety--“with him thou shalt not flirt, nor allow him to fall in love;
and that is the man you unfortunately monopolised so long this evening,
Sir Alfred Rivers.”
“Why?--is he engaged to be married?” I asked, with a sudden anxiety.
“I cannot explain my reasons; only remember, they are very weighty. I
shall be extremely displeased if you do not fulfil my wishes to the
letter in this case; nay, more, you will bitterly repent it yourself if
you disregard my commands.”
Her tone was more serious, and her looks more dark and angry, than I
fancied such cheery and sunshiny features could have assumed; so,
feeling half frightened and half angry, I said--
“I am sure I don’t want any of the gentlemen to like me. I--in fact----”
I was going to say, “I am engaged,” but the recollection of Carlo’s
supposed indifference made me stop, when it roused still more my proud
and rebellious feelings.
“But they do, and will care for you,” said Lady Horatia, in her usual
pleasant tone. “There are two great _partis_ at your feet already. You
may be Lady Woodford, with a fine castle and park in Wales, and twelve
thousand a year; or the Marchioness of Lorrington, with thirty thousand
a year. Yes, I have asked Lorrington to dinner to-morrow, for he would
suit you best. He is a good little man, and if you managed him well, he
would make a very fair husband.”
“But I should not like to marry either of them,” I said; “and besides,
they cannot possibly care for me.”
“Perhaps not for you, but for the reigning beauty of the season they
will. I mean, they do not understand you so well as I do. I was prepared
for your not caring much about rank or fortune, if you could but love
the person who offers it. Still you like luxury and splendour, and you
may get to like that young Marquis.”
“Impossible!”
“Well, we shall see; only remember my orders about Sir Alfred. I am
sorry he is coming also to dinner to-morrow, but it can’t be helped now.
I could not foresee that he would take such----”
“We met before, when I was a little girl at Pompeii,” I said, as if to
excuse him in her eyes, “and he liked my singing some Neapolitan
barcarolle.”
“Ah, yes; you have a splendid voice too, of course you have, and he is
the best tenor of the day.”
She was silent during the rest of the drive home, and looked thoughtful
and not well pleased.
“What can it be?” I thought. “Can she care for him herself, or has she a
bad opinion of him?”
This mysterious prohibition made me think still more of him, and in the
rebellious frame I was in rather seemed to stimulate my spirit of
contradiction. Then I determined to be cautious, and not appear to be
ungrateful for all her kindness to me, by apparently going against her
wishes.
Had she but known me better still, and confided the whole truth about
Sir Alfred, what years of trouble and misery and remorse might have been
spared! This was the great turning-point of my life.
“I should not fall in love--no, of course not. I would never care for
anyone again; it would be impossible.” Still my last thoughts, as I went
to sleep that night, were of Sir Alfred; and his looks, the tone of his
voice, haunted my dreams all night with a wild, intoxicating kind of
delight.
But the next morning I got up with a feeling of disenchantment and
depression. The cold light of a cloudy morning, that penetrated the
dingy blinds, seemed to awaken me to the realities of life, and my
peculiar position in it. The transient gleam of wild bliss I had
enjoyed the night before was exchanged for a dreary feeling of disbelief
in all happiness.