Cotillion Read online

  ‘Indeed, I would much rather die!’ Olivia said earnestly. ‘The very thought of it casts me into such despair that I am sure it would be better for me to be dead! But Mama says that he cannot live for ever, and in the meantime I may have as many lovers as I please, provided only that I am discreet. But I do not want many lovers!’

  ‘Good God, I should hope not!’ exclaimed Kitty.

  ‘I shall never love anyone but my Camille!’ said Olivia, showing an alarming tendency to dissolve into tears.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Olivia, don’t start to cry!’ begged Kitty. ‘Recollect, it is not in your Mama’s power to force you into a distasteful marriage! Oh, if only I could see what was best to be done, but I am wholly at a loss!’

  ‘Oh, Miss Charing, will you help me?’

  ‘Yes, yes, to the utmost of my power, but it is all such a dreadful tangle—Olivia, pray dry your eyes! We are approaching the library!’

  Olivia obediently produced her handkerchief, saying gratefully: ‘I knew you would stand my friend!’

  Since Kitty, though anxious to befriend her, had no idea how this was to be done, she felt very much conscience-stricken, and was glad to be able to restore her to Mrs Broughty before she was called upon to outline some scheme for her relief. The only course that offered itself to her was to confide the whole to Freddy; but as he had sent a message to Berkeley Square that he would dine with his sister that evening, she had a good many hours to while away before she could seek his advice. These were spent by her in concocting and immediately discarding a number of quite unsuitable strategems, and in blaming herself bitterly for her part in the affair. A diversion was created midway through the afternoon by Mr Westruther, who came to pay a morning-visit. As Meg had retired to lie down upon her bed, Kitty received him alone, and would not have received him at all had she had the least warning of his arrival. But he was ushered into the drawing-room, where she sat brooding by the fire, so that she had no opportunity to deny herself.

  She accorded him a somewhat cool welcome, but he was quite impervious to such snubs, merely laughing at her, and saying, with a quizzical lift of one eyebrow: ‘Vexed with me, Kitty? For taking Meg to the masquerade? Now, consider how unjust! Am I vexed with you for allowing your fascinating cousin to be your cicisbeo? Certainly not! I hope you enjoyed an excellent evening’s entertainment.’

  She ignored the greater part of this speech. ‘No, I did not enjoy it, and I am astonished that you could have taken Meg to such an improper party!’

  ‘Little prude!’ he said, amused. ‘Did not the dashing Chevalier take good care of you? I had thought him to have been quite in his element!’

  ‘I collect,’ said Kitty, boldly confronting him, ‘that you have taken my cousin in aversion. Will you be so good as to tell me why?’

  ‘My dear Kitty, what in the world can I have said to put such a notion as that into your head? You wrong me, really you do! So far from taking the Chevalier in aversion, I admire his address profoundly, and quite envy him his assurance. Such delightful Gallic polish, and so skilled a card-player! It is a privilege to have met him. Indeed, I hope he may be going to do me the honour of visiting me this very evening, to pit his skill against mine. I am myself a gamester, you know, and I have a great desire to measure myself against one whom I have reason to think a past master in the art.’

  She was dismayed, but summoned up enough courage to reply: ‘I wish you may not have cause to regret it!’

  ‘Ah, well!’ he said, his eyes glinting down at her. ‘Perhaps he may have the advantage of me in some respects, but in others I venture to think that I have the advantage of him.’

  She was silenced, and he presently left her a prey to uneasiness. There could be no doubt that he knew that Olivia had been at the masquerade, for she recalled that she had herself told him that she was there with the Scortons; and she could not rid her mind of its suspicion that his invitation to her cousin to visit him must have some bearing on this circumstance.

  When Freddy arrived in Berkeley Square that evening, she could scarcely restrain her impatience to take him apart, and pour her apprehensions into his ear; but as it lacked only a few minutes to the dinner-hour, and Meg had already joined her in the drawing-room, this was clearly ineligible. Moreover, it immediately became apparent that grave cares were pressing upon Freddy’s soul, for upon his sister’s demanding of him, in a rallying tone, whether Charles had already descended on the town, he replied: ‘No, term don’t end for another ten days. It’s worse than that! Dashed if I didn’t receive a letter from him this morning! Yes, and what’s more, I had to pay sixpence for it, which I’d as lief not have done. It ain’t that I grudge sixpence, but what I mean is, why the deuce should I have to give sixpence for a thing I’d as soon not have?’

  ‘Oh, heavens, is he in a scrape?’ exclaimed Meg.

  ‘Well, of course he is! Knew that as soon as I saw the letter! Stands to reason! What would he want to write to me for, if he hadn’t made a cake of himself in some way or another? Never knew such a fellow! Mind, I daresay it’s only some snyder dunning him, but there’s nothing for it: I shall have to take a bolt to Oxford tomorrow.’

  ‘Going out of town now?’ cried Kitty.

  ‘Yes, but I shan’t be gone above one night. Dashed inconvenient, but the thing is, if Charlie’s landed himself in the basket, must pull him out! Fond of him,’ he added, on an explanatory note. ‘Besides—wouldn’t do for it to come to m’father’s ears!’

  ‘No, indeed! Of course you must go! I hope you may not find that anything very serious is amiss.’

  ‘Yes, I hope so too,’ said Freddy. ‘Because if it’s anything that means I must go and talk to the Bag-wig—what I mean is, the Dean—it’s no use going to Oxford at all, because I don’t suppose he’d listen to me. Never did when I was up myself, and dashed well had to talk to him. Not that I wanted to, mind you, but there it was: obliged to!’

  ‘Could it be that Charlie has become entangled?’ suggested Meg, looking anxious.

  Freddy rubbed his nose. ‘Got into the muslin-company? Might, of course, though he ain’t one for the petticoats. Oh, well, if that’s all it is, nothing to worry about! Buy her off!’

  On this comforting thought, they all went in to dinner. The lighthearted insouciance which characterized the Standens had its effect upon Kitty; and her desponding mood soon changed to one of hope. She was still quite unable to see any way in which she could help Olivia to overcome her troubles, but the cheerful nonchalance with which Freddy confronted the task of rescuing his graceless junior from whatever dire straits he had fallen into insensibly made her feel that the tangle caused by her cousin’s descent upon London would not be beyond his power to unravel.

  When Meg kindly, but (as she pointed out to them) reprehensibly, left the betrothed couple to their own devices, later in the evening, it could not have been said that Freddy’s ingenuity was displayed to any marked degree. He explained, when asked if he had thought what was best to be done, that he had had no leisure in which to examine the problem. ‘Must see I haven’t, Kit! Had a great deal on my mind. Gave me a nasty jar, I can tell you, when it struck me Charlie might be coming down any day. Dashed calendar of mine don’t tell one the dates of the terms, either. Took me the better part of the day to find ’em. And now, just as I thought all was right, I’ve got to go jauntering off to Oxford, and I daresay I shall have to do a lot of thinking when I get there. The thing is, Charlie’s a dashed clever fellow, but he ain’t got a particle of common-sense. No use asking me to get rid of the Chevalier until I come back to town. Do it then.’

  ‘Get rid of him? But how can we, when you yourself said it would be useless to threaten to expose him unless he went away?’

  ‘I don’t know, but very likely I shall hit on something. Well, dashed well must! He hasn’t been calling here, has he?’

  ‘No, oh, no! But I met Olivia today, and I ver