Cotillion Read online

  ‘Oh, Meg, is that you?’ cried Kitty, nobly coming to her rescue. ‘I wish you had not sat up for me! Was it very tedious, your party?’

  A speaking look of gratitude was cast down at her. Meg recovered her colour a little, and replied: ‘Oh, yes, a dead bore! Do, pray, come to my room! Goodnight, Freddy! Don’t keep Kitty standing down there, prosing on for ever!’ She waved an airy hand, and disappeared again from view.

  Freddy, who had been surveying her with an expression on his face of strong disapproval, said despairingly: ‘Pink! Dashed if I know why it is, but a female’s only got to have a yaller head, and nothing will do for her but to wear pink! Can’t be surprised poor Buckhaven’s gone to China, can you? Now, mind, Kit! Not a word to her about your cousin!’

  ‘No, I promise I will be utterly silent on that head!’ Kitty assured him, giving him her hand, and clasping his warmly. ‘Goodnight! And indeed I thank you, Freddy!’

  He kissed her fingers gracefully. ‘No, no! Pleasure!’ he stammered.

  He then departed, and Kitty sped up the stairs to her hostess’s room. Their quarrel was forgotten: Meg said without preamble: ‘Kitty, how in the world came Freddy to bring you home? Good God, I was ready to sink!’

  ‘He went to fetch me from the Scortons’ house, learned where I had gone, and came there in search of me. What a goose you are, Meg! I was in agonies lest you should betray yourself!’

  ‘He didn’t suspect?’ Meg said anxiously.

  ‘No, of course he did not!’

  ‘What an escape!’ shuddered Meg. ‘I have been quite sick with apprehension, for he doesn’t like it when I go out with Jack, and if he knew of this I daresay he would tell Papa, and you may depend upon it I should be packed off to stay with Lady Buckhaven on the instant! I must say, it was excessively handsome of you not to have told him, Kitty!’

  ‘As though I would do anything so shabby!’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘But whatever possessed you to go to the Opera House? How could Jack have taken you there? I saw at once that it was not at all the sort of party one ought to go to, and surely he must have known that!’

  ‘Oh, yes! He said that Freddy would have his blood, if he came to hear of it, but there was not the least harm, you know! I have always so wished to go to one of those masquerades, and of course Buckhaven will never take me, and nor will Freddy, so I teased Jack to! He took very good care of me, I assure you, and it is not as though I was unmasked. We came away at midnight, but I should like to have remained, for I thought it was very good sport, though, of course, shockingly vulgar! Did you enjoy it?’

  Kitty shuddered. ‘It was quite the worst evening I have ever spent!’ she said. ‘I was never more thankful in my life than when I saw Freddy!’

  ‘Was he very much vexed?’ enquired Meg. ‘He has such stuffy notions!’

  ‘No, no, he was so kind that I almost burst into tears! And he might have reproached me! I do think,’ said Kitty fervently, ‘that Freddy is the most truly chivalrous person imaginable!’

  Freddy’s sister, regarding her with awe, opened her mouth, shut it again, swallowed, and managed to say, though in a faint voice: ‘Do you, indeed?’

  ‘Yes, and a great deal more to the purpose than all the people one was taught to revere, like Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad, and Young Lochinvar, and—and that kind of man! I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons, but you may depend upon it none of those knight-errants would be able to rescue one from a social fix, and you must own, Meg, that one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons! And as for riding off with one in the middle of a party, which I have always thought must have been extremely uncomfortable, and not at all the sort of thing one would wish to happen to one—What is the matter?’

  Meg raised her head from the sofa-cushions: ‘He w-would say it was n-not at all the th-thing!’

  ‘Very well, and why should he not?’ said Kitty, refusing to share in her hostess’s unseemly mirth. ‘If you were to hear of such a thing’s happening, you would think it most improper, now, wouldn’t you?’ A sudden thought occurred to her, and she choked, and said, in an uncertain tone: ‘As a matter of fact, he said that Lochinvar sounded to him like a d-dashed loose-screw!’

  A wail from the depths of the cushions provided to be too much for Kitty’s command over herself. Both ladies then enjoyed a very hearty laugh; after which they embraced, and parted company for the night without exchanging any further confidences.

  The following day passed uneventfully, the only excursion undertaken by two rather weary ladies being a walk to Mount Street, whither they went to take leave of Lady Legerwood, who was conveying the nursery-party to Margate that day. As this included Fanny and her governess, her ladyship’s own maid, and two damsels hired to wait on the nursery and the schoolroom, it was an impressive cortège which set out from London, Lady Legerwood carrying Edmund in her own post-chaise; Miss Kendel and the two unmarried daughters of the house following in a second chaise; and Nurse, with the attendant abigails, and a mountain of baggage, bringing up the rear in a large travelling-coach. Lord Legerwood, who was escorting his family, and remaining with them for a few days, had taken one look at the pile of invalid comforts destined for the chaise that bore his ailing youngest son, and had said that he preferred to ride.

  Lady Legerwood, although flustered by all the bustle of departure, found time to sit for a few minutes with the visitors, enquiring anxiously after Meg’s state of health, giving her a great deal of good advice, charging Kitty to take care of her, and loading both young ladies with conflicting admonitions on what they should do in the event of accident. She said worriedly that she very much disliked being obliged to leave them unprotected, but derived a certain modicum of comfort from the reflection that it would not be many days before Lord Legerwood was back in town.

  ‘Meanwhile, my love,’ said his lordship, taking snuff, ‘you may safely leave them in Freddy’s care.’

  These bland words caused his heir, who had joined the party, very natty in a new coat of blue superfine and pantaloons of a delicate dove-shade, to eye him with acute suspicion. Perceiving it, he laughed, and said: ‘Pray do not look at me as though I were a coiled snake, Freddy! I am sure you will take excellent care of the girls. My dear, I do not wish to hurry you, but it is time we were setting forward.’

  Everyone then went out to where the carriages waited; a footman was sent to fetch another rug for the invalid; Nurse and Miss Kendal dissuaded her ladyship from unpacking a valise to assure herself that Edmund’s medicine had not been forgotten; farewells were spoken, kisses exchanged, and at last the steps of the carriages were let up, and the doors shut. Kitty, who could never see Lady Legerwood without suffering a smart of conscience, and was particularly discomposed by having received a very kind embrace from her, found that Lord Legerwood was at her elbow, and was thrown into still worse confusion by his holding out his hand to her, and saying, with a smile: ‘For the present, goodbye, my child. I look forward to having you under my own roof at no very distant date now.’

  A blush flooded her cheeks; she stammered she knew not what; and cast an almost frightened look up into his face.

  ‘Don’t run away, will you?’ he said quizzically. ‘I like Freddy’s engagement very well, you know. It has done him a great deal of good.’

  ‘Sir—Lord Legerwood!’ she said desperately. ‘I cannot—’

  ‘You cannot talk to me in the open street. Very true! You shall tell me all about it next week, when I return to town. I must go now.’

  He gave her hand a pat, and released it, bade farewell to his son and daughter, mounted his horse, and rode off in the wake of the carriages.

  ‘What can Papa have meant?’ wondered Meg. ‘What are you to tell him, Kitty. Why do you look so oddly?’

  ‘I don’t think I have anything I need tell him,’ replied Kitty, in a hollow tone. ‘Do you, Freddy!’