LADY HELENA"S BALL.
Three days after, on Thursday, the fifth of June, Lady Helena Powyss gave a very large dinner-party, followed by a ball in honor of her American guests. When it is your good fortune to number half a county among your friends, relatives, and acquaintances, it is possible to be at once numerous and select. The creme de la creme of Cheshire a.s.sembled in Lady Helena"s halls of dazzling light, to do honor to Sir Victor Catheron"s bride-elect.
For the engagement had been formally announced, and was the choice bit of gossip, with which the shire regaled itself. Sir Victor Catheron was following in the footsteps of his father, and was about to bring to Catheron Royals one of the lower orders as its mistress. It was the Dobb blood no doubt cropping up--these sort of mesalliances _will_ tell. An American, too--a governess, a poor relation of some common rich people from the States. The best county families, with daughters to marry, shook their heads. It was very sad--_very_ sad, to see a good old name and a good old family degenerate in this way. But there was always a taint of madness in the Catheron blood--that accounted for a good deal. Poor Sir Victor--and poor Lady Helena.
But everybody came. They might be deeply shocked and sorry, but still Sir Victor Catheron _was_ Sir Victor Catheron, the richest baronet in the county, and Catheron Royals always a pleasant house to visit--the reigning Lady Catheron always a desirable acquaintance on one"s visiting-list. n.o.body acknowledged, of course, they went from pure, downright curiosity, to see this manoeuvring American girl, who had taken Sir Victor Catheron captive under the aristocratic noses of the best-born, best-bred, best-blooded young ladies in a circuit of twenty miles.
The eventful night came--the night of Edith"s ordeal. Even Trix was a little nervous--only a little--is not perfect self-possession the normal state of American young ladydom? Lady Helena was quite pale in her anxiety. The girl was handsome beyond dispute, thoroughbred as a young countess, despite her birth and bringing up in a New England town and Yankee boarding-house, with pride enough for a princess of forty quarterings, _but_ how would she come forth from the fiery furnace of all those pitiless eyes, sharpened to points to watch for gaucheries and solecisms of good breeding--from the merciless tongues that would hang, draw, and quarter her, the instant their owners were out of the house.
"_Don"t_ you feel nervous, Dithy?" asked Trix, almost out of patience at last with Edith"s serene calm. "I do--horribly. And Lady Helena has got a fit of the fidgets that will bring her gray hairs to an early grave, if this day lasts much longer. Ain"t you afraid--honor bright?"
Edith Darrell lifted her dark, disdainful eyes. She sat reading, while the afternoon wore on, and Trixy fussed and fluttered about the room.
"Afraid of the people who are coming here to-night--is that what you mean? Not a whit! I know as well as you do, they are coming to inspect and find fault with Sir Victor Catheron"s choice, to pity him, and call me an adventuress. I know also that any one of these young ladies would have married him, and said "Thank you for asking," if he had seen fit to choose them. I have my own pride and Sir Victor"s good taste to uphold to-night, and I will uphold them. I think"--she lifted her haughty, dark head, and glanced, with a half-conscious smile, in the pier-gla.s.s opposite--"I think I can bear comparison by lamplight with any of these "daughters of a hundred earls," such as--Lady Gwendoline Drexel for instance."
"By lamplight," Trix said, ignoring the rest of her speech. "Ah, yes, that"s the worst of it, Edith; you dark people always light up well.
And Lady Gwendoline Drexel--I wonder what Lady Gwendoline will wear to-night? I should like to be the best-dressed young lady at the ball.
Do you know, Dith," spitefully this, "I think Charley is quite struck with Lady Gwendoline. You noticed, I suppose, the attention he paid her the evening we met, and then he has been to Drexel Court by invitation. Pa is most anxious, I know. Money will be no object, you know, with Charley, and really it would be nice to have a t.i.tled sister-in-law. "My sister, Lady Gwendoline Stuart," will sound very well in New York, won"t it? It would be a very suitable match for Charley."
"A most suitable match," Miss Darrell repeated; "age included. She is ten years his senior if a day; but where true love exists, what does a trifle of years on either side signify? He has money--she has rank. He has youth and good looks--she has high birth and a handle to her name.
As you say, Trixy, a most suitable match!"
And then Miss Darrell went back to her book, but the slender, black brows were meeting in a steady frown, that quite spoiled her beauty--no doubt at something displeasing in the pages.
"But you mustn"t sit here all day," broke in Trix again; "it"s high time you were up in your dressing-room. What are you going to wear, Dith?"
"I have not decided yet. I don"t much care; it doesn"t much matter. I have decided to look my best in anything."
She arose and sauntered out of the room, and was seen no more, until the waxlights blazed from end to end of the great mansion and the June dusk had deepened into dewy night. Then, as the roll of carriages came without ceasing along the drive, she descended, arrayed for battle, to find her impatient slave and adorer awaiting her at the foot of the grand stairway. She smiled upon him her brightest, most beaming smile, a smile that intoxicated him at sight.
"Will I do, Sir Victor?" she asked.
Would she do? He looked at her as a man may look half dazzled, at the sun. He could not have told you what she wore, pink and white clouds it seemed to him--he only knew two brown, luminous, laughing eyes were looking straight into his, and turning his brain with their spell.
"You are sure I will do? You are sure you will not be ashamed of me to-night?" her laughing voice asked again.
Ashamed of her--ashamed! He laughed aloud at the stupendous joke, as he drew her arm within his, and led her into the thronged rooms, as some favored subject may once in his life lead in a queen.
Perhaps there was excuse for him. "I shall look my best in anything,"
she had said, in her disdain, and she had kept her word. She wore a dress that seemed alternately composed of white tulle and blush-roses; she had roses in her rich, dark hair, hair always beautifully worn; Sir Victor"s diamond-betrothal ring shone on her finger; round her arching throat she wore a slender line of yellow gold, a locket set with brilliants attached. The locket had been Lady Helena"s gift, and held Sir Victor"s portrait. That was her ball array, and she looked as though she were floating in her fleecy white draperies, her perfumery, roses, and sparkling diamonds. The dark eyes outshone the diamonds, a soft flush warmed either cheek. Yes, she was beautiful; so beautiful that saner men than her accepted lover, might have been pardoned if for a moment they lost their heads.
Lady Helena Powyss, in sweeping moire and jewels, receiving her guests, looked at her and drew one long breath of great relief. She might have spared herself all her anxious doubts and fears--low-born and penniless as she was, Sir Victor Catheron"s bride would do Sir Victor Catheron honor to-night.
Trix was there--Trix resplendent in pearl silk with a train half the length of the room, pearl silk, point lace, white-camelias, and Neapolitan corals and cameos, incrusted with diamonds--Trix, in all the finery six thousand dollars can buy, drew a long breath of great and bitter envy.
"If one wore the Koh-i-noor and Coronation Robes," thought Miss Stuart sadly, "she would shine one down. She is dazzling to-night. Captain Hammond," tapping that young warrior with her point-lace fan, "_don"t_ you think Edith is without exception the most beautiful and elegant girl in the rooms?"
And the gallant captain bows profoundly, and answers with a look that points the speech:
"With _one_ exception, Miss Beatrix, only one."
Charley is there, and perhaps there can be no doubt about it, that Charley is, without exception, far and away, the best looking man.
Charley gazes at his cousin for an instant on the arm of her proud and happy lover, radiant and smiling, the centre of all that is best in the room. She lifts her dark, laughing eyes as it chances, and brown and gray meet full. Then he turns away to a tall, languid rather pa.s.sive lady, who is talking slowly by his side.
"Is Miss Darrell really his cousin? Really? How extremely handsome she is, and how perfectly infatuated Sir Victor seems. Poor Sir Victor!
What a pity there is insanity in the family--insanity is such a very shocking thing. How pretty Miss Stuart is looking this evening. She has heard--is it true--can Mr. Stuart inform her--are _all_ American girls handsome?"
And Charley--as Captain Hammond has done--bows, and looks, and replies:
"I used to think so, Lady Gwendoline. I have seen English girls since, and think differently."
Oh, the imbecile falsehoods of society! He is thinking, as he says it, how pallid and faded poor Lady Gwendoline is looking, in her dingy green satin and white Brussels lace overdress, her emeralds and bright golden hair--most beautiful and most expensive shade to be had in London. He is thinking how the Blanc de Perle and rouge vegetal is showing on her three-and-thirty-year-old face, and what his life would be like if he listened to his father and married her. He shudders inwardly and gives it up--"that way madness lies," and while there is a pistol left, wherewith to blow his brains out, he can still hope to escape a worse fate.
But Lady Gwendoline, freighted with eleven seasons" experience, and growing seedy and desperate, clings to him as the drowning cling to straws. She is the daughter of a peer, but there are five younger sisters, all plain and all portionless. Her elder sister, who chaperones her to-night, is the wife of a rich and retired manufacturer, Lady Portia Hampton. The rich and retired manufacturer has purchased Drexel Court, and it is Lady Portia"s painful duty to try and marry her sisters off.
The ball is a great success for Miss Edith Darrell. The men rave about her; the women may sneer, but they must do it covertly; her beauty and her grace, her elegance and high breeding, not the most envious dare dispute. Music swells and floats deliciously--scores are suitors for her hand in the dance. The flush deepens on her dusk cheeks, the streaming light in her starry eyes--she is dangerously brilliant to-night. Sir Victor follows in her train whenever his duties allow him; when he dances with others his eyes follow his heart, and go after her. There is but one in all those thronged rooms for him--one who is his idol--his darling--the pride, the joy, the desire of his life.
"My dear, I am proud of you to-night," Lady Helena whispers once. "You surpa.s.s yourself--you are lovely beyond compare. You do us all credit."
And Edith Darrell"s haughty eyes look up for a moment and they are flashing through tears. She lifts the lady"s hand with exquisite grace, and kisses it. Then smiles chase the tears, and she is gone on the arm of some devoted cavalier. Once--only once, she dances with Charley.
She has striven to avoid him--no, not that either--it is _he_ who has avoided her. She has seen him--let her be surrounded by scores, she has seen him whispering with Lady Gwendoline, dancing with Lady Gwendoline, fanning Lady Gwendoline, flirting with Lady Gwendoline. It is Lady Gwendoline he leads to supper, and it is after supper, with the enchanting strains of a Strauss waltz filling the air, that he comes up and asks her for that dance.
"I am sure I deserve it for my humility," he says plaintively. "I have stood in the background, humbly and afar off, and given you up to my betters. Surely, after all the bitter pills I have been swallowing, I deserve _one_ sugar-plum."
She laughs--glances at Sir Victor, making his way toward her, takes his arm rather hurriedly, and moves off.
"Is Lady Gwendoline a pill, or a sugar-plum?" she asks. "You certainly seem to have had an overdose of her."
"I owe Lady Gwendoline my deepest thanks," he answered gravely. "Her efforts to keep me amused this evening, have been worthy of a better cause. If the deepest grat.i.tude of a too-trusting heart," says Charley, laying his hand on the left side of his white waistcoat, "be any reward for such service, it is hers."
They float away. To Edith it is the one dance of the night. She hardly knows whether she whirls in air or on the waxed floor; she only knows that it is like heaven, that the music is celestial, and that it is Charley"s arm that is clasping her close. Will she ever waltz with him again, she wonders, and she feels, feels in her inmost heart, that she is sinning against her affianced husband in waltzing with him now. But it is _so_ delicious--what a pity most of the delicious things of earth should be wrong. If it could only last forever--forever! And while she thinks it, it stops.
"O Charley! that _was_ a waltz!" she says, leaning on him heavily, and panting; "no one else has my step as you have it."
"Let us trust that Sir Victor will learn it," he responds coolly; "here he comes now. It was a charming waltz, Dithy, but charming things must end. Your lawful proprietor approaches; to your lawful proprietor I resign you."
He was perfectly unflushed, perfectly unexcited. He bows, smiles, yields her to Sir Victor, and saunters away. Five seconds later he is bending over Lady Gwendoline"s chair, whispering in the pink, patrician ear resting against the glistening, golden chignon. Edith looks once--in her heart she hates Lady Gwendoline--looks once, and looks no more.
And as the serene June morning dawns, and larks and thrushes pipe in the trees, Lady Helena"s dear five hundred friends, sleepy and pallid, get into their carriages and go home.
CHAPTER XVI.
"O MY COUSIN SHALLOW-HEARTED!"