LADY THETFORD'S BALL.
Years came and years went, and thirteen passed away. In all these years
with their countless changes, Thetford Towers had been a deserted house.
Comparatively speaking, of course; Mrs. Weymore, the governess, Mrs.
Hilliard, the housekeeper, Mr. Jarvis, the butler, and their minor
satellites, served there still, but its mistress and her youthful son
had been absent. Only little May had remained under Mrs. Weymore's
charge until within the last two years, and then she, too, had gone to
Paris to a finishing school.
Lady Thetford came herself to the Towers to fetch her--the only time in
these thirteen years. She had spent them pleasantly enough, rambling
about the Continent, and in her villa on the Arno, for her health was
frail, and growing daily frailer, and demanded a sunny Southern clime.
The little baronet had gone to Eton, thence to Oxford, passing his
vacation abroad with his mamma--and St. Gosport had seen nothing of
them. Lady Thetford had thought it best, for many reasons, to leave
little May quietly in England during her wanderings. She missed the
child, but she had every confidence in Mrs. Weymore. The old aversion
had entirely worn away, but time had taught her she could trust her
implicitly; and though May might miss "mamma" and Rupert, it was not in
that flighty fairy's nature to take their absence very deeply to heart.
Jocyln Hall was vacated, too. After that refusal of Lady Thetford, Col.
Jocyln had left England, placed his daughter in a school abroad, and
made a tour of the East.
Lady Thetford he had not met until within the last year, when Lady
Thetford and her son, spending the winter in Rome, had encountered Col.
and Miss Jocyln, and they had scarcely parted company since. The
Thetfords were to return early in the spring to take up their abode once
more in the old home, and Col. Jocyln announced his intention of
following their example.
Lady Thetford wrote to Mrs. Weymore, her vice-roy, and to her steward,
issuing her orders for the expected return. Thetford Towers was to be
completely rejuvenated--new furnished, painted and decorated. Landscape
gardeners were set at work in the grounds; all things were to be ready
the following June.
Summer came and brought the absentees--Lady Thetford and her son, Col.
Jocyln and his daughter; and there were bonfires and illuminations, and
feasting of tenantry, and ringing of bells, and general jubilation, that
the heir of Thetford Towers had come to reign at last.
The week following the arrival, Lady Thetford issued invitations over
half the country for a grand ball. Thetford Towers, after over twenty
years of gloom and solitude, was coming out again in the old gayety and
brilliance that had been its normal state before the present heir was
born.
The night of the ball came, and with nearly every one who had been
honored with an invitation, all curious to see the future lord of one of
the noblest domains in broad Devonshire.
Sir Rupert Thetford stood by his mother's side, and met her old friends
for the first time since his boyhood--a slender young man, pale and
dark, and handsome of face with dreamy slumbrous eyes of darkness, and
quiet manners, not at all like his father's fair-haired, bright-eyed,
stalwart Saxon race; the Thetford blood had run out, he was his own
mother's son.
Lady Thetford grown pallid and wan, and wasted in all these years, and
bearing within the seeds of an incurable disease, looked yet fair and
gracious, and stately in her trailing robes and jewels, to-night,
receiving her guests like a queen. It was the triumph of her life, the
desire of her heart, this seeing her son, her idol, reigning in the home
of his fathers, ruler of the broad domain that had owned the Thetfords
lord for more years back than she could count.
"If I could but see her his wife," Lady Thetford thought, "I think I
should have nothing left on earth to desire."
She glanced across the wide room, along a vista of lights, and flitting
forms, and rich dresses, and sparkling jewels, to where a young lady
stood, the center of an animated group--a tall and eminently handsome
girl, with a proud patrician face, and the courtly grace of a young
empress--Aileen Jocyln, heiress of fabulous wealth, possessor of
fabulous beauty, and descendant of a race as noble and as ancient as his
own.
"With her for his wife, come what might in the future, my Rupert would
be safe," the mother thought; "and who knows what a day may bring forth?
Ah! if I dared only speak, but I dare not; it would ruin all. I know my
son."
Yes, Lady Thetford knew her son, understood his character thoroughly,
and was a great deal too wary a conspirator to let him see her cards.
Fate, not she, had thrown the heiress and the baronet constantly
together of late, and Aileen's own beauty and grace was surely
sufficient for the rest. It was the one desire of Lady Thetford's heart;
but she never said to her son, who loved her dearly, and would have done
a great deal to add to her happiness. She left it to fate, and leaving
it, was doing the wisest thing she could possibly do.
It seemed as if her hopes were likely to be realized. Sir Rupert had an
artist's and a Sybarite's love for all things beautiful, and could
appreciate the grand statuesque style of Miss Jocyln's beauty, even as
his mother could not appreciate it. She was like the Pallas Athine, she
was his ideal woman, fair and proud, uplifted and serene, smiling on
all, from the heights of high-and-mightydom, but shining upon them, a
brilliant far-off star, keeping her warmth and sweetness all for him. He
was an indolent, dreamy Sybarite, this pale young baronet, who liked his
rose-leaves unruffled under him, full of artistic tastes and
inspirations, and a great deal too lazy ever to carry them into effect.
He was an artist, and he had a studio where he began fifty gigantic
deeds at once in the way of pictures, and seldom finished one. Nature
had intended him for an artist, not country squire; he cared little for
riding, or hunting, or fishing, or farming, or any of the things wherein
country squires delight; he liked better to lie on the warm grass, with
the summer wind stirring in the trees over his head, and smoke his
Turkish pipe, and dream the lazy hours away. If he had been born a poor
man he might have been a great painter; as it was, he was only an idle,
listless, elegant, languid dreamer, and so likely to remain until the
end of the chapter.
Lady Thetford's ball was a very brilliant affair, and a famous success.
Until far into the gray and dismal dawn, "flute, violin, bassoon," woke
sweet echoes in the once ghostly rooms, so long where silence had
reigned. Half the county had been invited, and half the county were
there; and hosts of pretty, rosy girls, in arcophane and roses, and
sparkling jewelry, baited their dainty traps, and "wove becks and nods,
and wreathed smiles," for the special delectation of the handsome
courtly heir of Thetford Towers.
But the heir of Thetford Towers, with gracious greetings for all, yet
walked through the rose strewn pitfalls all secure, whilst the starry
face of Aileen Jocyln shone on him in its pale, high-bred beauty. He had
not danced much; he had an antipathy to dancing as he had to exertion of
any kind, and presently he stood leaning against a slender white column,
watching her in a state of lazy admiration. He could see quite as
clearly as his mother how eminently proper a marriage with the heiress
of Col. Jocyln would be; he knew by instinct, too, how much she desired
it; and it was easy enough, looking at her in her girlish pride and
beauty, to fancy himself very much in love, and though anything but a
coxcomb, Sir Rupert Thetford was perfectly aware of his own handsome
face and dreamy artist's eyes, and his fifteen thousand a year, and
lengthy pedigree, and had a hazy idea that the handsome Aileen would not
say no when he spoke.
"And I'll speak to-night, by Jove!" thought the young baronet, as near
being enthusiastic as was his nature, as he watched her, the brilliant
center of a brilliant group. "How exquisite she is in her statuesque
grace, my peerless Aileen, the ideal of my dreams. I'll ask her to be my
wife to-night, or that inconceivable idiot, Lord Gilbert Penryhn, will
do it to-morrow."
He sauntered over to the group, not at all insensible to the quick,
bright smile and flitting flush with which Miss Jocyln welcomed him.
"I believe this waltz is mine, Miss Jocyln. Very sorry to break upon
your _tete-a-tete_, Penryhn, but necessity knows no law."
A moment and they were floating down the whirling tide of the dance,
with the wild, melancholy waltz music swelling and sounding, and Miss
Jocyln's perfumed hair breathing fragrance around him, and the starry
face and dark, dewy eyes downcast a little, in a happy tremor. The cold,
still look of fixed pride seemed to melt out of her face, and an
exquisite rosy light came and went in its place, and made her too lovely
to tell; and Sir Rupert saw and understood it all, with a little
complacent thrill of satisfaction.
They floated out of the ball-room into a conservatory of exquisite
blossom, where tropic plants of gorgeous hues, and plashing fountains,
under the white light of alabaster lamps, made a sort of garden of Eden.
There were orange and myrtle trees oppressing the warm air with their
sweetness, and through the open French windows came the soft, misty
moonlight and the saline wind. There they stopped, looking out of the
pale glory of the night, and there Sir Rupert, about to ask the supreme
question of his life, and with his heart beginning to plunge against his
side, opened conversation with the usual brilliancy in such cases.
"You look fatigued, Miss Jocyln. These grand balls are great bores,
after all."
Miss Jocyln laughed frankly. She was of a nature far more impassioned
than his, and she loved him; and she felt thrilling through every nerve
in her body the prescience of what he was going to say; for all that,
being a woman, she had the best of it now.
"I am not at all fatigued," she said; "and I like it. I don't think
balls are bores--like this, I mean; but then, to be sure, my experience
is very limited. How lovely the night is! Look at the moonlight, yonder,
on the sea--a sheet of silvery glory. Does it not recall Sorrento and
the exquisite Sorrentine landscape--that moonlight on the sea? Are you
not inspired, sir artist?"
She lifted a flitting, radiant glance, a luminous smile, and the
star-like face, drooped again--and the white hands took to reckless
breaking off sweet sprays of myrtle.
"My inspiration is nearer," looking down at the drooping face.
"Aileen----" and there he stopped, and the sentence was never destined
to be finished, for a shadow darkened the moonlight, and a figure
flitted in like a spirit and stood before them--a fairy figure, in a
cloud of rosy drapery, with shimmering golden curls and dancing eyes of
turquoise blue.
Aileen Jocyln started back and away from her companion, with a faint,
thrilling cry. Sir Rupert, wondering and annoyed, stood staring; and
still the fairy figure in the rosy gauze stood, like a nymph in a stage
tableau, smiling up in their faces and never speaking. There was a blank
pause, a moment's; then Miss Jocyln made one step forward, doubt,
recognition, delight, all in her face at once.
"It is--it is!" she cried, "May Everard!"
"May Everard!" Sir Rupert echoed--"little May!"
"At your service, _monsieur_! To think you should have forgotten me so
completely in a decade of years. For shame, Sir Rupert Thetford!"
And then she was in Aileen Jocyln's arms, and there was an hiatus filled
up with kisses.
"Oh! what a surprise!" Miss Jocyln cried breathlessly. "Have you dropped
from the skies? I thought you were in France."
May Everard laughed, the calm, bright laugh of thirteen years ago, as
she held up her dimpled cheeks, first one and then the other, to Sir
Rupert.
"Did you? So I was, but I ran away."
"Ran away! From school?"
"Something very like it. Oh! how stupid it was, and I couldn't endure it
any longer; and I am so crammed with knowledge now that if I held any
more I should burst; and so I told them I had to come home; but I was
sent for, which was true, you know, for I felt an inward call; and as
they were glad to be rid of me, they didn't make much opposition or ask
unnecessary questions. And so," folding the fairy hands and nodding her
little ringleted head, "here I am."
"But, good heavens!" cried Sir Rupert, aghast, "you never mean to say,
May, you have come alone?"
"All alone," said May, with another nod. "I'm used to it, you know; did
it last vacation. Came across and spent it with Mrs. Weymore. I don't
mind it the least; don't know what sea-sickness is; and oh! didn't some
of the poor wretches suffer this time! Isn't it fortunate I'm here for
the ball? And, Rupert, good gracious! how you've grown!"
"Thanks. I can't see that you have changed much, Miss Everard. You are
the same curly-headed, saucy fairy I knew thirteen years ago. What does
my lady say to this escapade?"
"Nothing. Eloquent silence best expresses her feelings; and then she
hadn't time to make a scene. Are you going to ask me to dance, Rupert?
because if you are," said Miss Everard, adjusting her bracelet, "you had
better do it at once, as I am going back to the ball-room, and after I
once appear there you will stand no chance amongst the crowd of
competitors. But then, perhaps you belong to Miss Jocyln?"
"Not at all," Miss Jocyln interposed, hastily, and reddening a little;
"I am engaged, and it is time I was back, or my unlucky cavalier will be
at his wit's end to find me."
She swept away with a quicker movement than her wont, and Sir Rupert
laughingly gave his piquant little partner his arm. His notions of
propriety were a good deal shocked; but then it was only May Everard,
and May Everard was one of those exceptionable people who can do pretty
much as they please, and not surprise any one. They went back to the
ball-room, the fairy in pink on the arm of the young baronet, chattering
like a magpie. Miss Jocyln's partner found her and led her off; but Miss
Jocyln was very silent and _distrait_ all the rest of the night, and
watched furtively, but incessantly, the fluttering pink fairy. She had
reigned belle hitherto, but sparkling little May, like an embodied
sunbeam, electrified the rooms, and took the crown and the sceptre by
royal right. Sir Rupert had that one dance, and no more--Miss Everard's
own prophecy was true--the demand for her was such that even the son of
the house stood not the shadow of a chance.
Miss Jocyln held herself aloof from the young baronet for the remaining
hours of the ball. She had known as well as he the words that were on
his lips when May Everard interposed, and her eyes flashed and her dark
cheek flushed dusky red to see how easily he had been deterred from his
purpose. For him, he sought her once or twice in a desultory sort of
way, never noticing that he was purposely avoided, wandering contentedly
back to devote himself to some one else, and in the pauses to watch May
Everard floating--a sunbeam in a rosy cloud--here and there and
everywhere.