Heir of Redclyffe — 10 - Chapter 7, Part 2
The carriages were announced, and Mr. Edmonstone began to call the ladies, adding tenfold to the confusion in the dressing-room.
There was Laura being completed by the lady’s maid, Amabel embellishing Mary, Mrs. Edmonstone with her arm loaded with shawls, Charlotte flourishing about.
Poor Mary--it was much against her will--but she had no heart to refuse the wreath of geraniums that Amy’s own hands had woven for her; and there she sat, passive as a doll, though in despair at their all waiting for her.
For Laura’s toilette was finished, and every one began dressing her at once; while Charlotte, to make it better, screamed over the balusters that all were ready but Mary.
Sir Guy was heard playing the ‘Harmonious Blacksmith,’ and Captain Morville’s step was heard, fast and firm.
At last, when a long chain was put round her neck, she cried out, ‘I have submitted to everything so far; I can bear no more!
’ jumped up, caught hold of her shawl, and was putting it on, when there was a general outcry that they must exhibit themselves to Charles.
They all ran down, and Amy, flying up to her brother, made a splendid sweeping curtsey, and twirled round in a pirouette.
‘Got up, regardless of expense!
’ cried Charles; ‘display yourselves.
’ The young ladies ranged themselves in imitation of the book of fashions.
The sisters were in white, with wreaths of starry jessamine.
It was particularly becoming to Laura’s bella-donna lily complexion, rich brown curls, and classical features, and her brother exclaimed: ‘Laura is exactly like Apollo playing the lyre, outside mamma’s old manuscript book of music.
’ ‘Has not Amy made beautiful wreaths?
’ said Laura.
‘She stripped the tree, and Guy had to fetch the ladder, to gather the sprays on the top of the wall.
’ ‘Do you see your bit of myrtle, Guy,’ said Amy, pointing to it, on Laura’s head, ‘that you tried to persuade me would pass for jessamine?
’ ‘Ah!
it should have been all myrtle,’ said Guy.
Philip leant meantime against the door.
Laura only once glanced towards him, thinking all this too trifling for him, and never imagining the intense interest with which he gave a meaning to each word and look.
‘Well done, Mary!
’ cried Charles, ‘they have furbished you up handsomely.
’ Mary made a face, and said she should wonder who was the fashionable young lady she should meet in the pier-glasses at Allonby.
Then Mr. Edmonstone hurried them away, and they arrived in due time.
The saloon at Allonby was a beautiful room, one end opening into a conservatory, full of coloured lamps, fresh green leaves, and hot-house plants.
There they found as yet only the home party, the good-natured, merry Lord Kilcoran, his quiet English wife, who had bad health, and looked hardly equal to the confusion of the evening; Maurice, and two younger boys; Eveleen, and her two little sisters, Mabel and Helen.
‘This makes it hard on Charlotte,’ thought Amy, while the two girls dragged her off to show her the lamps in the conservatory; and the rest attacked Mrs. Edmonstone for not having brought Charlotte, reproaching her with hardness of heart of which they had never believed her capable--Lady Eveleen, in especial, talking with that exaggeration of her ordinary manner which her dread of Captain Morville made her assume.
Little he recked of her; he was absorbed in observing how far Laura’s conduct coincided with Charles’s hints.
On the first opportunity, he asked her to dance, and was satisfied with her pleased acquiescence;
but the next moment Guy came up, and in an eager manner made the same request.
‘I am engaged,’ said she, with a bright, proud glance at Philip; and Guy pursued Amabel into the conservatory, where he met with better success.
Mr. Edmonstone gallantly asked Mary if he was too old a partner, and was soon dancing with the step and spring that had once made him the best dancer in the county.
Mrs. Edmonstone watched her flock, proud and pleased, thinking how well they looked and that, in especial, she had never been sensible how much Laura’s and Philip’s good looks excelled the rest of the world.
They were much alike in the remarkable symmetry both of figure and feature, the colour of the deep blue eye, and fairness of complexion.
‘It is curious,’ thought Mrs. Edmonstone, ‘that, so very handsome as Philip is, it is never the first thing remarked about him, just as his height never is observed till he is compared with other people.
The fact is, that his superior sense carries off a degree of beauty which would be a misfortune to most men.
It is that sedate expression and distinguished air that make the impression.
How happy Laura looks, how gracefully she moves.
No, it is not being foolish to think no one equal to Laura.
My other pair!
’ and she smiled much more; ‘you happy young things, I would not wish to see anything pleasanter than your merry faces.
Little Amy looks almost as pretty as Laura, now she is lighted up by blush and smile, and her dancing is very nice, it is just like her laughing, so quiet, and yet so full of glee.
I don’t think she is less graceful than her sister, but the complete enjoyment strikes one more.
And as to enjoyment--there are those bright eyes of her partner’s perfectly sparkling with delight; he looks as if it was a world of enchantment to him.
Never had any one a greater capacity for happiness than Guy.
’ Mrs. Edmonstone might well retain her opinion when, after the quadrille, Guy came to tell her that he had never seen anything so delightful; and he entertained Mary Ross with his fresh, joyous pleasure, through the next dance.
‘Laura,’ whispered Eveleen, ‘I’ve one ambition.
Do you guess it?
Don’t tell him; but if he would, I should have a better opinion of myself ever after.
I’m afraid he’ll depreciate me to his friend; and really with Mr. Thorndale, I was no more foolish than a ball requires.
’ Lady Eveleen hoped in vain.
Captain Morville danced with little Lady Helen, a child of eleven, who was enchanted at having so tall a partner;
then, after standing still for some time, chose his cousin Amabel.
‘You are a good partner and neighbour,’ said he, giving her his arm, ‘you don’t want young lady talk.
’ ‘Should you not have asked Mary?
She has been sitting down this long time.
’ ‘Do you think she cares for such a sport as dancing?
’ Amy made no answer.
‘You have been well off.
You were dancing with Thorndale just now.
’ ‘Yes.
It was refreshing to have an old acquaintance among so many strangers.
And he is so delighted with Eveleen; but what is more, Philip, that Mr. Vernon, who is dancing with Laura, told Maurice he thought her the prettiest and most elegant person here.
’ ‘Laura might have higher praise,’ said Philip, ‘for hers is beauty of countenance even more than of feature.
If only--’ ‘If?
’ said Amy.
‘Look round, Amy, and you will see many a face which speaks of intellect wasted, or, if cultivated, turned aside from its true purpose, like the double blossom, which bears leaves alone.
’ ‘Ah!
you forget you are talking to silly little Amy.
I can’t see all that.
I had rather think people as happy and good as they look.
’ ‘Keep your child-like temper as long as you can--all your life,’ perhaps, for this is one of the points where it is folly to be wise.
’ ‘Then you only meant things in general?
Nothing about Laura?
’ ‘Things in general,’ repeated Philip; ‘bright promises blighted or thrown away--’ But he spoke absently, and his eye was following Laura.
Amy thought he was thinking of his sister, and was sorry for him.
He spoke no more, but she did not regret it, for she could not moralize in such a scene, and the sight and the dancing were pleasure enough.
Guy, in the meantime, had met an Oxford acquaintance, who introduced him to his sisters--pretty girls--whose father Mr. Edmonstone knew, but who was rather out of the Hollywell visiting distance.
They fell into conversation quickly, and the Miss Alstons asked him with some interest, ‘Which was the pretty Miss Edmonstone?
’ Guy looked for the sisters, as if to make up his mind, for the fact was, that when he first knew Laura and Amy, the idea of criticising beauty had not entered his mind, and to compare them was quite a new notion.
‘Nay,’ said he at last, ‘if you cannot discover for yourselves when they are both before your eyes, I will do nothing so invidious as to say which is _the_ pretty one.
I’ll tell which is the eldest and which the youngest, but the rest you must decide for yourself.
’ ‘I should like to know them,’ said Miss Alston.
‘Oh!
they are both very nice-looking girls.
’ ‘There, that is Laura--Miss Edmonstone,’ said Guy, ‘that tall young lady, with the beautiful hair and jessamine wreath.
’ He spoke as if he was proud of her, and had a property in her.
The tone did not escape Philip, who at that moment was close to them, with Amy on his arm; and, knowing the Alstons slightly, stopped and spoke, and introduced his cousin, Miss Amabel Edmonstone.
At the same time Guy took one of the Miss Alstons away to get some tea.
‘So you knew my cousin at Oxford?
’ said Philip, to the brother.
‘Yes, slightly.
What an amusing fellow he is!
’ ‘There is something very bright, very unlike other people about him,’ said Miss Alston.
‘How does he get on?
Is he liked?
’ ‘Why, yes, I should say so, on the whole; but it is rather as my sister says, he is not like other people.
’ ‘In what respect?
’ ‘Oh I can hardly tell.
He is a very pleasant person, but he ought to have been at school.
He is a man of crotchets.
’ ‘Hard-working?
’ ‘Very; he makes everything give way to that.
He is a capital companion when he is to be had, but he lives very much to himself.
He is a man of one friend, and I don’t see much of him.
’ Another dance began, Mr. Alston went to look for his partner, Philip and Amy moved on in search of ice.
‘Hum!
’ said Philip to himself, causing Amy to gaze up at him, but he was musing too intently for her to venture on a remark.
She was thinking that she did not wonder that strangers deemed Guy crotchety, since he was so difficult to understand; and then she considered whether to take him to see King Charles, in the library, and concluded that she would wait, for she felt as if the martyr king’s face would look on her too gravely to suit her present tone.
Philip helped her to ice, and brought her back to her mother’s neighbourhood without many more words.
He then stood thoughtful for some time, entered into conversation with one of the elder gentlemen, and, when that was interrupted, turned to talk to his aunt.
Lady Eveleen and her two cousins were for a moment together.
‘What is the matter, Eva?
’ said Amy, seeing a sort of dissatisfaction on her bright face.
‘The roc’s egg?
’ said Laura, smiling.
‘The queen of the evening can’t be content--’ ‘No; you are the queen, if the one thing can make you so--the one thing wanting to me.
’ ‘How absurd you are, Eva--when you say you are so afraid of him, too.
’ ‘That is the very reason.
I should get a better opinion of myself!
Besides, there is nobody else so handsome.
I declare I’ll make a bold attempt.
’ ‘Oh!
you don’t think of such a thing,’ cried Laura, very much shocked.
‘Never fear,’ said Eveleen, ‘faint heart, you know.
’ And with a nod, a flourish, of her bouquet, and an arch smile at her cousin’s horror, she moved on, and presently they heard her exclaiming, gaily, ‘Captain Morville, I really must scold you.
You are setting a shocking example of laziness!
Aunt Edmonstone, how can you encourage such proceedings!
Indolence is the parent of vice, you know.
’ Philip smiled just as much as the occasion required, and answered, ‘I beg your pardon, I had forgotten my duty.
I’ll attend to my business better in future.
’ And turning to a small, shy damsel, who seldom met with a partner, he asked her to dance.
Eveleen came back to Laura with a droll disappointed gesture.
‘Insult to injury,’ said she, disconsolately.
‘Of course,’ said Amy, ‘he could not have thought you wanted to dance with him, or you would not have gone to stir him up.
’ ‘Well, then, he was very obtuse.
’ ‘Besides, you are engaged.
’ ‘O yes, to Mr. Thorndale!
But who would be content with the squire when the knight disdains her?
’ Mr. Thorndale came to claim Eveleen at that moment.
It was the second time she had danced with him, and it did not pass unobserved by Philip, nor the long walk up and down after the dance was over.
At length his friend came up to him and said something warm in admiration of her.
‘She is very Irish,’ was Philip’s answer, with a cold smile, and Mr. Thorndale stood uncomfortable under the disapprobation, attracted by Eveleen’s beauty and grace, yet so unused to trust his own judgment apart from ‘Morville’s,’ as to be in an instant doubtful whether he really admired or not.
‘You have not been dancing with her?
’ he said, presently.
‘No: she attracts too many to need the attention of a nobody like myself.
’ That ‘too many,’ seeming to confound him with the vulgar herd, made Mr. Thorndale heartily ashamed of having been pleased with her.
Philip was easy about him for the present, satisfied that admiration had been checked, which, if it had been allowed to grow into an attachment, would have been very undesirable.
The suspicions Charles had excited were so full in Philip’s mind, however, that he could not as easily set it at rest respecting his cousin.
Guy had three times asked her to dance, but each time she had been engaged.
At last, just as the clock struck the hour at which the carriage had been ordered, he came up, and impetuously claimed her.
‘One quadrille we must have, Laura, if you are not tired?
’ ‘No!
Oh, no!
I could dance till this time to-morrow.
’ ‘We ought to be going,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘O pray, Mrs. Edmonstone, this one more,’ cried Guy, eagerly.
‘Laura owes me this one.
’ ‘Yes, this one more, mamma,’ said Laura, and they went off together, while Philip remained, in a reverie, till requested by his aunt to see if the carriage was ready.
The dance was over, the carriage was waiting, but Guy and Laura did not appear till, after two or three minutes spent in wonder and inquiries, they came quietly walking back from the library, where they had been looking at King Charles.
All the way home the four ladies in the carriage never ceased laughing and talking.
The three gentlemen in theirs acted diversely.
Mr. Edmonstone went to sleep, Philip sat in silent thought, Guy whistled and hummed the tunes, and moved his foot very much as if he was still dancing.
They met for a moment, and parted again in the hall at Hollywell, where the daylight was striving to get in through the closed shutters.
Philip went on to Broadstone, Guy said he could not go to bed by daylight, called Bustle, and went to the river to bathe, and the rest crept upstairs to their rooms.
And so ended Lord Kilcoran’s ball.
