Cotillion Read online

  ‘My dear Kitty!’ he said, surprise and disapproval blended in his voice.

  ‘Thank goodness you have come at last!’ she returned. ‘Now, Dolph, don’t be so foolish! It is only Hugh!’

  The Rector now perceived that his somewhat feeble-minded cousin was peeping at him from under the tablecloth. His astonishment grew. ‘Dolphinton! You here? I hope you mean to explain to me what this means, Kitty!’

  ‘Well, of course I do!’ she replied. ‘Only first, do, pray, persuade Dolph to come out!’

  ‘Come, Foster!’ said Hugh, with grave authority. ‘You must not sit under the table, you know. You are not a child.’

  His lordship crawled out of cover, and rose sheepishly to his feet. ‘Had a fright,’ he explained. ‘Frightened of my mother. She’ll bring Foulstone after me. I know she will. Shut me up.’

  Miss Plymstock took his hand, and patted it. ‘No, she will not, Foster. Now, didn’t you tell me you would be safe with your cousin? Besides, she believes you to be at Arnside, and very well pleased she is. You tell him, sir, that he’s safe here!’

  The Rector, who had been looking at Miss Plymstock with a good deal of surprise and no very marked degree of approbation, said rather frigidly: ‘Foster knows that he has nothing to be afraid of under my roof, ma’am. Come, Foster, sit down in this chair, and straighten your neckcloth! This will not do at all, my dear fellow! Such foolish conduct is not suited to your position, you know.’

  ‘I wish I wasn’t an Earl,’ said his lordship wistfully. ‘I could do a lot of things if I wasn’t. I could breed horses. Sit under the table, if I wanted to. But I don’t want to sit under the table. I don’t want to hide in the cupboard either.’

  ‘Certainly not!’ said his cousin.

  ‘If I wasn’t an Earl, I shouldn’t have to. Shouldn’t have to offer for Kitty, either.’

  Hugh patted him kindly on the shoulder, but said to Kitty, with some severity: ‘I do not know what you can have been about to have upset the poor fellow like this! It was wrong, and thoughtless in you, my dear Kitty.’

  ‘It was not I who upset him, but that wicked, cruel mother of his!’ cried Kitty, stung by this unmerited reproof. ‘I should have supposed you must have known that, for you are very well aware how she uses him!’

  He said, in a voice of still graver censure: ‘Whatever may be my aunt’s faults, such language is quite improper, and, indeed, uncalled-for.’

  ‘Well, it certainly ain’t that!’ interposed Miss Plymstock, in her downright way. ‘I was never one for mealy-mouthed talk: don’t believe in it! What Miss Charing says is the plain truth: wicked and cruel she is, and so I shall tell her, when I meet her ladyship!’

  The Rector stiffened. ‘May I request you, Kitty, to present me to your friend? I fancy I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance.’

  ‘Good gracious, what can I have been thinking about?’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘Pray forgive me, Hannah! This, as you have guessed, is Mr Rattray. And, Hugh, this is Miss Plymstock, who is betrothed to Dolph!’

  He bowed, but said: ‘Indeed! I must suppose that the engagement is of very recent date, since this is the first intimation I have received of it.’

  ‘No, it is of long-standing date, but secret.’

  ‘Secret,’ repeated Dolphinton, nodding his head, and looking anxiously at the Rector. ‘Going to marry Hannah. Kitty says I shall. Kitty said I should hoax my mother, and I did. I got the carriage, too. Did it well, didn’t I, Hannah?’

  ‘To be sure you did, my dear,’ she told him, sitting down beside him.

  ‘Do you tell me that you have contracted an engagement without my aunt’s knowledge?’ demanded Hugh sternly.

  Dolphinton looked frightened; Kitty said impatiently: ‘Of course he has! How can you be so absurd, Hugh? As though you were not very well aware that she wishes him to marry me! You know how it is with him! He has been obliged to keep his engagement a secret. And that is why I have brought him and Miss Plymstock to you, so that you may marry them!’

  He looked quite thunderstruck. ‘Are you telling me, Kitty, that this is why you are here, and sent me so urgent a message that I found myself constrained to respond to it, in spite of the fact that my leaving Biddenden in such haste put my brother and his wife to considerable inconvenience? I went to Biddenden upon family affairs of some moment, and all must be at a stand until I return there.’

  ‘Well, I am sure I am very sorry, Hugh, but you may return as soon as you have performed your part here, you know!’ said Kitty reasonably.

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘I am by no means inclined to do! I do not know under what circumstances Dolphinton has contracted his engagement, but it is plain to me that it is not one of which my aunt would approve. You would not else be here! I cannot lend myself to anything that savours of the clandestine.’

  ‘Hugh!’ gasped Kitty. ‘I had thought you poor Dolph’s friend!’

  ‘I am his friend, as I hope he knows.’

  ‘You cannot be, for you would not stand there talking in that heartless way if you were! Dolph and Miss Plymstock love one another!’

  Miss Plymstock, who had been stolidly staring at the Rector, interposed, to say bluntly; ‘Seems to me it ain’t in your power to refuse to marry us, sir, for all this fine talking. Foster’s of age, and so am I. You’re thinking, I daresay, that I ain’t good enough for your cousin. Well, I don’t pretend to be any better born than what I am, but what I do say is that I shall make Foster a better wife than many a one that has a title.’

  ‘Yes, you are good enough for me!’ said Dolphinton. ‘I won’t let you say you ain’t. Won’t let anyone say it!’

  ‘That’s right, Dolph!’ said Kitty approvingly.

  Emboldened by this encouragement, his lordship went further. ‘I won’t let Freddy say it, and I like Freddy. Like him better than Hugh. If Hugh says it, I’ll draw his cork. Do you think I should do that, Kitty?’

  ‘Well, I don’t precisely understand what it means, Dolph, but I daresay it would be an excellent thing to do.’

  ‘Lord, my dear, it don’t matter to me what anyone says of me!’ said Miss Plymstock. ‘Let ’em say what they choose, for it won’t vex us. Don’t you start picking a quarrel with the Reverend! He’s bound to think you’re marrying beneath you, for I can see he’s a proud kind of a man; but maybe, if he likes to come and visit us in Ireland, he’ll own he was mistaken.’

  Dolphinton’s face brightened. ‘I should like Hugh to visit us. Like Kitty to visit us. Like Freddy to visit us too. I shall show them my horses.’

  Kitty took advantage of this interlude to pull the Rector over to the window, and to say to him in an urgent under-voice: ‘Hugh, upon my word I promise you that you cannot do Dolph a greater service than to marry him to Hannah! She is the kindest, most practical creature! She means to take him to Ireland, and let him breed horses, so that he may be perfectly happy and busy. You must own it would be the very thing for him!’

  ‘Certainly, I have always been an advocate for his living quietly in the country. It is noticeable that whenever he has been staying here with me he is perfectly rational. I do not say that his intellect is strong, but he is by no means an imbecile.’

  ‘Indeed, he is not! But are you aware, Hugh, that his Mama threatens to have him locked up?’

  He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, but Dolphinton was engaged in enumerating to Miss Plymstock the various attractions of his Irish house. ‘You must be mistaken! She could not do such a thing. It is quite unnecessary.’

  ‘I don’t know what she is wicked enough to do, but I do know that that is what terrifies poor Dolph so. As for that doctor of hers, Dolph is thrown into a quake whenever he thinks about him. Why, she even sets his servants to spy on him! He told me so himself, and how they tell her all he does, and where he goes!’

  ‘You shock me very much!’ he said. ‘I had not believe