OUR FIRST BALL
Eric stayed nearly eight weeks instead of three. Yet I let him go away
without a word about the radical change that had come over a life
outwardly the same.
* * * * *
That was the year I was eighteen. But I still did lessons with my
mother--French and German, and English history. I asked her to let me
leave off history, and allow me to work by myself a little. I wanted to
surprise her, by-and-by, so she was not to question me.
I studied a great deal harder than she knew. When we sat down to
breakfast at half-past eight I would usually have three hours of work
behind me. Often when Bettina and I were both supposed to be at the
Helmstones, I had stayed behind in the copse "to read." This would be
when I knew Ranny Dallas was not at the Hall.
I still thought that, like all the other young men who came there, he
was attracted by Hermione. But I could not forget that Bettina "liked
him best"--liked him more than the man she had allowed to kiss her, and
who had not cared for her at all.
I did my best to make Betty see that even if a man as young as Ranny
Dallas were to think of marrying at present, it would be the Hermione
sort of person he would think of. For we knew that since his elder
brother's death a great deal was expected of Ranny.
All that I could get out of Betty just then was that he was not so young
as he looked. But I heard, presently, that he had told her he was
"chucking the army." His father was growing feeble, and wanted his son
to settle down and nurse the family constituency. I remember how annoyed
Betty was at my saying that, whether Ranny was old enough to think of
marrying or not, I certainly couldn't imagine such a boy being a Member
of Parliament. Betty quoted Hermione. Hermione, who knew much more about
such things than I did, had said she was sure that Ranny would get into
the House at the very next by-election. And Hermione had clinched this
by adding: "Ranny Dallas always gets everything he wants."
I made up my mind that for Betty's sake I must keep my eyes open. All
that I had seen in him so far was a fair, rather chubby young man, who
was not really very good-looking, but who somehow made the impression of
being so--chiefly, I think, because he looked so extraordinarily clean.
And he had that smile which makes people feel that the world must be a
nicer place than they had thought. Then, too, there was something rather
nice in the way his hair simply would curl in wet weather, for all the
plastering down. His round, blunt-featured face was clean-shaven; and if
I had wanted to tease Ranny, I should have told him I was sure he hadn't
long "got over" dimples. But Betty was right; he was older than he
looked.
I tried to be with her whenever he was about. But this became more and
more difficult. For often he came down without any warning. If they
couldn't have him at the Hall, he would put up at the inn. And he seemed
quite as content walking those two miles to the links, or clanking up
and down the hilly road on a ramshackle bicycle he had found at the inn.
Our jobbing gardener was overheard to say that _he_ wouldn't be seen
riding such a bicycle--"no, not on a dark night!" Ranny, as we knew,
had two motor-cars of his own, and was very particular about their every
detail. But he said all that the much-abused "bike" needed was a brake.
Even without a brake it was "a lot better," he said, "than having to
think about the shover-chap."
After all, whether Ranny was nominally at the inn, or staying with the
Helmstones, he spent most of his time with them--and, for all I could
do, he spent a good deal of the time with Bettina.
I still couldn't make up my mind whether he amused himself more with her
or with Hermione. But there was no doubt in Lord Helmstone's mind. He
used to chaff Hermione when Ranny wasn't there, and when he was there
Ranny got the chaffing.
"What! you here again?" his lordship would say. "Why, I thought you'd
only just gone." Then he'd ask, with a business-like briskness, what
he'd come for.
"Why, to play a game o' golf with your lordship."
"Can't think what a boy of your age is doing with golf." Then he would
say to us: "Here's a fella usen't to care a doit for golf--and now this
passion!"
When Lord Helmstone said that--which, in the way of facetious persons
secure from criticism, he did a great many times--a colour like a girl's
would sometimes overspread Ranny's face, in spite of the implication
being so little of a novelty. Then Lord Helmstone would call attention
to Ranny's being "very sunburnt," and he would chuckle and rattle his
keys. "You ought to run away and play cricket. Eh----?"
"In this weather?"
"Well, go deer-stalking, then. Or play polo. Something more suitable to
your years than pottering about golf-links. Something vigorous. Keep
down superfluous tissue. Eh--what?"
People liked teasing Ranny. He took it so charmingly.
When I admitted that much to Betty, she said he did take chaffing well,
but she sometimes thought he got more than his share. Lord Helmstone,
she said, never ventured to treat Mr. Annan in that way.
I said that was quite different, and we very nearly had a serious
quarrel. When I saw that Betty really couldn't see the vast difference
between making fun of that boy and making fun of a man like Eric Annan,
I began to feel more anxious than ever about Betty.
This was the first year the Helmstones kept Christmas in the South.
They filled the great house full to overflowing for a dance on New
Year's Eve. We had only our white muslin summer frocks to wear. But not
even Bettina minded, and we had a most heavenly time. Hermione had
taught us the new dances. She said she "never in all her born days knew
anybody so quick as Bettina at learning a new step."
Even I danced every dance, and Bettina had to cut some of hers in two.
There were several new young men in the house-party. Two were brothers,
and both sailors. The oldest one danced better than any man we had ever
seen, and he would have liked to dance with Bettina the whole night
long. It was our first ball, and Betty was only sixteen. So perhaps it
was not very strange that the music and the motion and all the
admiration went to Betty's head. For she did behave rather badly to
Ranny. When she had danced three times with the oldest sailor--Captain
Gerald Boyne--Ranny took her into a corner and remonstrated. I saw he
looked pretty serious, but I didn't know till she and I were undressing
in our own room that night, or rather morning--I didn't know how
strongly he had spoken.
We had found our mother waiting for us, and we were both a little
remorseful for being so late when we saw how tired she looked. "But you
know we asked you if we might stay to the end." Then, I told her they
had all begged us to wait for one or two more dances after the musicians
went away, and how a friend of Lady Helmstone's played waltzes for us.
My mother thought it a pity to keep London hours in the country. We were
to get to bed now as quickly as possible, and tell her "all about it in
the morning."
So we took the candle and went away to our own room. It suddenly looked
different to me--this room Bettina and I had shared all our lives. The
ceiling seemed to have dropped a foot. But all the same it looked very
white and kind in the dim light. Bettina ran and pulled back one of the
dimity curtains. Yes, the moon was brighter than ever! Betty threw open
the window and leaned out. Oh, what a pity to go to bed when the world
was looking like this!
We had had a green Christmas, and the wind that blew in was not cold;
but I thought how horrified my mother would be to see Betty leaning out
of a window in January, with the night-wind blowing on her neck. We
quarrelled a little, very softly, about shutting the window. Bettina was
still flushed and a good deal excited. Rather anxious, too, about what
had happened at the ball. But she defended herself. She overdid her air
of justification--"such perfect nonsense Ranny's making all that fuss,
just because a person naturally likes to waltz with a man who dances so
divinely!"
I asked what, precisely, Ranny had said.
"Oh, he said he had hoped I would care to dance with him. And, of
course, I said I did. I had already given him the first polka, and I had
promised him----" She broke off. Nobody had ever been quite so
reasonable as she, or so unreasonable as Ranny. He had tried to prevent
her dancing _at all_ with Captain Boyne.
"But you had already danced three times with Captain Boyne," I reminded
her.
"Well, what of that?" she demanded, in a quite un-Betty-like way. And
instead of undressing she followed me about the room, her cheeks very
bright as she told me how that unreasonable Ranny had "kept saying that
he 'made a point of it.' Then my partner for the mazurka came, and I saw
Ranny go over to you. What did he say?" she asked, so eagerly that she
forgot to keep her voice down.
My mother knocked on the wall. "Go to sleep, children," she called.
We both answered "Yes," and I began hurriedly to undo Betty's gown. But
she never stopped twisting her head round: "Go on, tell me. What did he
say?"
I told her, a little impatiently, that he hadn't said anything in
particular--he hadn't tried to make himself the least agreeable, and he
danced badly.
"Danced badly?" said Bettina, as though it were quite a new idea. "I
think that must have been your fault. He dances quite well with me."
"Yes," I admitted, "he does dance best with you."
Then she told of the part Hermione had played. Nothing escaped Hermione,
and as soon as she got wind of what was happening, she egged Betty on.
Hermione had laughed out, in the most meaning way, when she saw Ranny
coming towards Betty in the interval with "blood in his eye," as she
expressed it. She whispered to Betty that Ranny was far too used to
having his own way. "'But you'll see, you'll have to give in,'" Hermione
said, and went off laughing just as Ranny came up.
And he began badly: "'You've told Boyne he can't have this waltz?'"
Betty said "No."
"'Why not? _Why_ haven't you told him?'"
"He would ask for a reason."
"'Very well, give it'"
"'I don't know any reason,'" Betty said.
"'The reason is....' Then he stopped, and seemed to change his mind. He
began again: 'The reason is, you are going to sit out with me.' And
then," Betty ended nervously, "Gerald Boyne came, and--we waltzed that
time too."
"Yes," I said severely, "everybody was saying, 'Those two again!' And I
didn't see you dance with Ranny at all after that."
No; but it wasn't her fault. "It was quite understood he was to have the
cotillion."
"Then it was very wrong of you to dance the cotillion with Captain
Boyne. It was making yourself conspicuous."
She protested again that it wasn't her fault. "I kept them all waiting
as it was. You saw how I kept them waiting for Ranny, till everyone was
furious. And as he didn't come, I had to dance with whoever was there."
"I suppose what made him angry was my going off for that horrid waltz
after he had said he 'made a point of it'--I wasn't to dance again with
'that fellow.' And then, what do you think I said?" Bettina took hold of
my arm, so I couldn't go on braiding my hair. "I said he was jealous of
Captain Boyne, or why should he call him 'that fellow'? Even at the
moment I felt how horrid that was of me; for it's not a bit like Ranny
to be jealous in a horrid way, calling people 'fellows.' So I said: 'If
the Boynes aren't nice, why are they here?' And Ranny said: 'Oh, Gerald
Boyne's people are all right. His brother is all right. But I shouldn't
want you to dance with Gerald if you were my sister. And if you were my
wife, I should forbid it.'"
"'But,' I said, 'I'm _not_ your sister!'--Betty tossed her head,
laughing softly--'and I'm not your wife----'"
I asked her if she had said it like that?
Yes, she had. "And I said, too--I said it was 'fortunate.'" Then without
the least warning, poor Betty sat down on the foot of her bed and began
to cry.
I put my arm round her. And she pulled her bare shoulders away. "You
needn't think I'm crying about Ranny," she said. "I suppose it's being
so angry makes me cry."
"You are crying because you are over-tired," I said, and I began to take
off her shoes and stockings.
"I'm _not_ crying because I'm tired, but because"--she wiped her eyes on
the sleeve of her nightgown--"it's a disappointment to see anyone so
silly ... making 'points' of such things as waltzes."
When she was ready for bed, she stood meditating a moment. And then:
"Ranny has never struck me as one of the horrid, unforgiving sort of
people. Has he you?"
"Oh, no," I said, and I made her get into bed. I covered her up. But it
was no use; she threw back the eiderdown, and sat bolt upright.
"----asking me like that, _at a ball_, if I liked Captain Boyne best--a
man I'd never seen before--don't you call it very rude?"
"No; only a little foolish----"
Another knock on the communicating door. "If you children keep on
talking I shall have to come in."
We promised we wouldn't say another word. But more than once Betty
began: "Ranny----"
"Sh!" I said.
The quarrel about the window had ended in our leaving it a couple of
inches open, and the curtains looped back. As we lay there, the room
grew brighter; so bright that every little treasure on the long, narrow
shelf above each bed could be plainly seen. All the small vases and
pictures and china animals--all the odds and ends we had cherished most
since we were babies.
When Bettina had come in that night, the first thing she did was to
clear a space for her cotillion favours. The moonlight showed the
brilliant huddle of fan and bonbon-basket tied with rose-colour, and,
most conspicuous of all, the silver horn hung with parti-coloured
ribbons.
When we had lain quiet in our beds for ten minutes or so, Bettina pulled
out a pillow from under her head, and propped it so that the moon
couldn't shine any longer on the be-ribboned horn. And neither could
Betty's eyes rest on it any more. She lay still for some time, and I was
falling asleep, when I heard her bed creak. She had pulled herself half
out of the covers, and was leaning over the pillow-barrier. She took the
horn and the other favours, one by one, and with much gravity thrust
them under the bed.
A sigh of satisfaction and a settling down again.
I turned and smiled into my pillow. It was so exactly the sort of thing
Bettina used to do when she was in the nursery--punishing her toys when
things went wrong.
What a blessing, I said to myself, that I was coming to like Ranny
Dallas. For, quite certainly, he was going to be my brother-in-law.