The night of the FitzStephens’ dance was a great one in Watcham. It was
not precisely a dance, to tell the truth, as, to temper the pretensions
belonging to the name of a ball, there was to be a little musical
performance to begin with--a duet from Emily and Florry Plowden, a few
pieces for violin and piano, and so on--which was sufficient to give
something of the air of an impromptu and accidental performance to the
dance, which, of course, was the real meaning of the whole. Some of the
people were so unkind as not to arrive till the music was over, which
was thought exceedingly bad taste by the performers and their families,
and gave the General and his wife a moment of dread lest the party they
had got up so carefully might not be a success after all. But by ten
o’clock the music was over, the piano rolled into its appointed corner,
and the music stands, which had been prepared for the violinists, put
away. The musicians who were engaged for the dance did not want any
music stands, and the assembled party required every scrap of room that
was available. The excellent FitzStephens had done wonders to enlarge
the space. They had taken away everything--almost the fixtures of the
house: doors were unhung, carpets lifted: I cannot really calculate the
trouble that had been taken. Even after the party assembled, the removal
of the chairs on which they had been seated to hear the music was a
matter of labour, for they were not all light chairs like those which
people in Watcham borrow by the dozen from Simpkinson of the ‘Blue
Boar,’ but included a number of comfortable easy-chairs for the ladies
who did not dance, of whom there were a considerable number. The
FitzStephens did not see the necessity of leaving the elder people out.
They were old themselves, and though they delighted in seeing the young
ones enjoy themselves, as they said, yet they liked also to have their
own playfellows, with whom to have a comfortable talk, while they looked
on. What Mrs. FitzStephen would have liked best would have been to keep
the elder ladies apart in the room which was called the General’s study,
which had a door (removed) into the dancing room, by the opening of
which (had it not been crowded by the elder gentlemen) the matrons could
have seen enough of their children’s performances, as well as have been
out of the way. This, however, was the one point which was not
successful in the arrangements, for the mothers preferred to cling to
the walls in the dancing room itself, at the risk of being swept away by
flying skirts, or trodden upon by nimble feet; and the fathers occupied
the doorway in a solemn block, so that nobody could see anything through
them. Even Lady William, who generally was so great a help in getting
people to stay where they were wanted, herself got into a corner in the
dancing room, taking up, it must be admitted, very little room, as she
stood up against the wall to watch how Mab got on among the dancers; and
Miss Grey, in a costume in which she had gone to all the parties in the
neighbourhood for the last twenty years, flitted about like an aged
butterfly, getting the puffs of superannuated tulle about her into
everybody’s way, in order to see not only how Mab got on, but how
everybody got on in whom she was interested, and that meant every girl
in the room. Thus Mrs. FitzStephen had one little point of vexation amid
the perfect success of everything else. But it was so natural. The
General declared that he himself liked to see the dancing, and was not
at all satisfied to be sent away into another room.
The reader, perhaps, would like to know at once how Mab, who was the
_débutante_ of the evening, got on. Her white frock was very simple,
being, as has been said, the manufacture of her mother and herself; but
Lady William was universally allowed to have great taste, and it is
saying a great deal to say that she herself was satisfied with the
effort. As a matter of fact, the finest dressmaker in the world could
not have disguised the fact that Mab’s figure was too solid, and her
well-formed, round arms a little too rosy with health, for perfect
grace. But that solid form and rosy tint agreed very well with the
childish roundness of the face, under the dimpled and infantile softness
of which Mab hid so much good sense and independent judgment of her own.
She looked as she was, like a little girl just escaped from the trammels
of childhood, enjoying the dance with all her might, without thinking
for a moment whether anybody admired her, or what people thought of her
dancing or demeanour, and without the slightest thrill of consciousness
in mind or person. Mab was so popular that she was a little bored at
first by her own success, for many of the most dignified persons
present, men quite old enough to be her father, considered it a right
thing to show their interest in her by ‘coming forward’ and performing a
solemn dance with her--General FitzStephen himself (who might have been
her grandfather) taking her out for a quadrille as he might have taken
Mrs. Swinford had she been there. There passed through Mab’s mind a
devout thanksgiving that Uncle James was a clergyman, or perhaps he
might have asked her too. The Archdeacon, indeed, who was also prevented
by his cloth from any such escapades, insisted on taking her to have an
ice, which she did not want, and which almost lost her one waltz. It
will be seen from this that the dance was all that a first dance ought
to be to Mab. Her card was filled before she had been two minutes in the
room, the gentlemen crowding round her, so that before the end of the
evening she, who accepted everybody at first with smiles and pleasure,
became critical, and actually threw over young Mr. Wade, one of the
county people, whom most girls delighted to dance with, in order to
career over the floor with Jim for the third time in succession, to the
astonishment of everybody. Jim, with whom she was on terms of easy
family intimacy, finding fault with him all the time, was, on the whole,
the dancer she preferred--though there was much to be said for Leo, who
was making himself extremely agreeable, and whose ‘style’ most of the
ladies admired greatly as something quite out of the common, and not in
the least like the careless romping of Bobby Wade, who had been supposed
to be the representative of the fashionable world, and to bring the last
graces of the _beau monde_ to astonish the villagers. That Mr. Swinford,
on the contrary, should be so quiet, so far from any ideas of romping,
filled the ladies with surprise, who had been watching Bobby as the
glass of fashion and the mould of form. But Mab thought, and did not
hesitate to say so, that Leo was a little stiff. She said whatever came
into her head, that daring little girl--she was not afraid of offending
anybody, especially not Mr. Leo, as she called him, to the admiration
and wonder of all the other girls.
Mab, in short, enjoyed herself so much, and was so frankly delighted
with the progress of events, that the questions that were poured upon
her by all the old ladies became superfluous.
‘Well, Mab, are you getting partners?’ Mrs. Plowden said, whose
attention had been riveted upon her own children, and who, in sincerity,
had scarcely noticed Mab until she danced with Jim.
‘Partners! she has never once sat down the whole evening,’ cried Miss
Grey.
Mrs. Plowden was aware that Emmy had not danced the two last dances, and
she felt the humiliation; but she smiled. ‘Everybody is anxious that a
girl should enjoy her first ball,’ she said. ‘Jim wanted you so much to
enjoy yourself to-night.’
‘Well, she paid him back for it,’ said Miss Grey; ‘she threw over Bobby
Wade for him.’
‘Bobby Wade!’ cried Mrs. Plowden.
Bobby Wade had not asked either of the Rectory girls. This little
heartburning ran on along all the line of mothers who sat or stood by
the wall. Mr. Wade and Mr. Swinford were the two men whose approach made
every heart beat. Those who had not been asked by them--or, rather,
whose daughters had not been asked by them--felt the vanity of the whole
affair, and that the apples which were so bright outside were but ashes
within. Leo, for his part, worked very hard that nobody might be left
out; but young Wade did not care in the least, dancing up with his arm
extended to the young lady he fancied, when he pleased, and carrying her
off sometimes under the very nose of her partner.
‘He had better not try that on with me,’ said Jim.
‘What would you do? You couldn’t knock him down in Mrs. FitzStephen’s
room?’
‘No, I don’t suppose I could do that,’ said Jim, ‘for their sakes; but I
should certainly give him to understand----’
‘How could you give him to understand?’ said Mab, pursuing her cousin
with pitiless practicality. But, as it happened, the proof of what Jim
could do occurred at once, for Mr. Wade made a long step up to her--her
very self--and held out that insolent arm.
‘Our da-ance, I think,’ he said.
‘Indeed, it is nothing of the kind!’ said Mab; ‘I am not engaged to you
at all----’
Wade opened his eyes very wide, and looked as if he could not believe
his ears. ‘I assure you this is ours--booked first thing in the evening.
Come!’ he said.
‘We are losing half the waltz,’ said Mab to her partner, and they dashed
off, brushing against Mr. Wade’s extended arm. It was very rude, and
Lady William took her daughter very much to task for her want of
politeness.
‘But it wasn’t the least his dance--he had nothing to do with it,
mother.’
‘That may be,’ said Lady William, ‘but it is one thing to refuse a
partner and another nearly to knock him down.’
‘Oh, did we knock him down?’ said Mab, delighted, and softly clapping
her hands. She was disappointed to hear that he had not been knocked
down at all, but was standing in a corner of the room very sulky, and
vowing vengeance upon the little fat thing who had rejected his
condescending offer. When, however, the Rectory girls and some others
surrounded her open-mouthed, to hear what it all meant, Mab took higher
ground. ‘If I hadn’t snubbed him,’ she said, ‘Jim would have punched his
head, or something. He told me he would not stand it, so I thought it
better a girl should do it than a boy. He may sulk, but he cannot do
anything to me. And what do I care for his sulking? He cannot dance a
bit,’ said this high-handed young lady, who had not a dance, not even an
extra, to give to any one; others who were not so deeply engaged did
not, perhaps, feel themselves so free. They surrounded her, however,
with a certain wondering admiration, and those girls who were not
acquainted with Bobby Wade, and who had hitherto been a little ashamed
of the fact, now proclaimed it as a superiority.
‘He is such bad form,’ they all said.
It need scarcely be said that there were other things in Lady William’s
mind than even her child’s success, as she stood up in her corner
watching the dancers. It would be to do great injustice to Mrs.
FitzStephen, a woman of very good connections, and who had taken so much
trouble to make her party everything that a party in a village, out of
London, out of the great world, could be, to say that it was in any
sense of the word common or inferior. They were all very nice people,
some even, as has been seen, from the county, for Bobby Wade had brought
his sisters with him, who really gave themselves no airs at all among
the village folk, though they did what they could to appropriate Leo,
and gave him to understand that he was the only man in the least degree
of their own set. But Lady William, as she looked round the room, was
haunted by an altogether unreasonable regret and discomfort, which she
was indignant with herself for feeling, but which came into her mind in
spite of her. This was not the scene, she said to herself, in which Mab
should be making her first acquaintance with the world. Then, why not?
her self said to her, hotly. It would have been far better for Mab’s
mother if she had never known any other; if she had looked forward to an
innocent dance in the village as her greatest pleasure, and never
stepped out of that simple circle. Ah, but she had done so, the other
visionary party in the argument said. She had stepped out of that
circle, and her daughter was Lord William Pakenham’s daughter as well
as hers: and was it not a wrong to Mab that she should be here where
everybody looked up to the Wades, people who were of no particular
importance, whose origin could not be compared to hers? These things
Lady William was pondering with a grave face, when General FitzStephen
came up to her, dodging between the dancers, to take her to supper.
‘I know you never take supper,’ the General said, ‘but none of the
ladies can move till you do, and I should think you would at least be
glad to sit down a little.’
None of the ladies could move till she did. That was true enough; she
had the benefit, such as it was, of her rank. Lady Wade it was well
known would not come to the village festivities because she was unseated
from her usual priority by the superior claims of Lady William. She had
the advantage, such as it was; but the child----
‘Mab is having a thoroughly “good time,”’ said the General. ‘You need
not concern yourself with her any more. She is as happy as the night is
long, and I hope the young ones will make it long and keep it up. They
all seem to be enjoying themselves tremendously now.’
‘Yes; they all seem very happy. It is so kind of you----’
‘To give ourselves the pleasure of seeing them so?’ said the old
General. ‘I don’t call that kindness but selfishness on our parts. My
wife was always fond of young people--which made it more a regret to us
in former times that we had no children of our own.’
‘Yes, indeed; how strange it is--you who would have done them so much
justice--who would have been such perfect parents! and they seem to be
sown broadcast about the streets at everybody’s door.’
‘We must not say that, for, of course, Providence arranges for the
best,’ said the General, ‘and I don’t regret it now--I don’t regret it
now. The worst troubles that people have come through their
children--either they have not enough for them; or they spend everything
their parents have got; or they are ill-behaved; or they are unhappy.
And there is scarcely a moment of their lives that fathers and mothers
are not at their children’s mercy, to be struck to the ground by one
thing or another--perhaps misfortune perhaps death. Oh no, my dear lady,
I do not regret it. I am very glad to be ending my life with my dear
wife without anxiety--now.’
‘And yet I can’t contemplate life at all without my Mab,’ Lady William
said.
‘Ah, my dear lady, that is exactly what I say. You are entirely in her
power. You can’t call your soul your own. If she were to take a perverse
line, or if she were to fall ill----’
‘For Heaven’s sake, General, don’t be such an evil prophet,’ she said,
with a shiver, and then laughing, ‘I had meant to distinguish myself at
supper, and you have taken all my appetite away.’
‘I don’t believe in your appetite,’ said the fatherly old gentleman; ‘I
have never seen it yet. But seriously, even you must be pleased with
Mab’s little success; and I hear she snubbed Bobby Wade. Do him all the
good in the world to be well snubbed by a little girl. The little fool
thinks he has all the girls at his feet. But Mab will never be of that
mind.’
‘She is independent enough. I wonder what you will think of my puzzle,
General. They say that I ought not to keep her here in the village--that
she ought to come out under her aunt, Lady Portcullis’, auspices,
instead of living so quietly here with me.’
‘They talk nonsense, my dear lady,’ said the General; ‘a girl is always
best, and I think she always looks her nicest, by her mother’s side.’
‘Thank you for that kind opinion, General.’
‘But I can’t see any reason,’ said the old gentleman, ‘why her mother, a
lady whom we all admire and honour, should not herself abandon the quiet
corner a little (though we should miss her dreadfully), and bring out
her daughter, which would be better than any Lady Portcullis in the
world.’
‘Ah, but that is impossible,’ Lady William said quickly. She was moved a
little out of her place by the rush of the procession from the
drawing-room, all the elder ladies going in; but presently she went back
and addressed herself to doing her duty by Mrs. FitzStephen in guiding
these elder ladies as they returned into the smaller room. ‘We may as
well make ourselves comfortable here,’ she said, ‘since all the children
are happy and in full swing.’ It was always Lady William who settled
these things--and so quietly. The ladies were very glad of comfortable
seats after standing half the evening against the wall, and the General
managed to get up the quiet rubber he loved, while still one waltz
followed another, and the whirling figures went round and round.
‘Tell me,’ said Leo Swinford, coming in behind her a little out of
breath, ‘why Miss Wade tells me I am the only one of her set. I am not
of her set, or any set; is it intended to be civil, or what does she
mean?’
‘She means that the rest of us are of the village, and she and you are
of the county, which is a very different thing.’
‘It is a distinction I do not understand. Nobility and gentry!--yes, I
know what that means: but we are not noblesse at all, neither she nor I.
We are more or less rich--no two of us the same--but is that the only
distinction here?’
‘Oh no; there are a great many grades of distinction. The county means
the aristocracy----’
‘Permit me; you and Miss Mab are the only persons noble here--is that
not so? Ah, you will have to give me many lessons to bring me to a
proper understanding.
‘And yet I condemn Mab to be nobody,’ said Lady William. ‘Yes, that is
what I am doing. Her old friends are very good to her. She has her
little triumph to-night. But it will not always be her first ball. And
it is I who keep her in obscurity. I think I am learning my lesson more
quickly than you do yours.’