"Pray, pray, do not dwell on it,--unless you wish to force me back to my room. When I left it I felt that I was attempting to do too much."
This might have been all very well had she not been so manifestly able to talk to Lord Rufford on the same subject. If there is any young man to whom a girl should be able to speak when she is in a state of violent emotion, it is the young man to whom she is engaged.
So at least thought Mr. John Morton.
Then dinner was announced, and the dinner certainly was sombre enough. A dinner before a ball in the country never is very much of a dinner. The ladies know that there is work before them, and keep themselves for the greater occasion. Lady Purefoy had gone, and Lady Penwether was not very happy in the prospects for the evening. Neither Miss Penge nor either of the two Miss G.o.dolphins had entertained personal hopes in regard to Lord Rufford, but nevertheless they took badly the great favour shown to Arabella.
Lady Augustus did not get on particularly well with any of the other ladies,--and there seemed during the dinner to be an air of unhappiness over them all. They retired as soon as it was possible, and then Arabella at once went up to her bedroom.
"Mr. Nokes says he is a little stronger, my Lord," said the butler coming into the room. Mr. Nokes had gone home and had returned again.
"He might pull through yet," said Mr. Hampton. Lord Rufford shook his head. Then Mr. Gotobed told a wonderful story of an American who had had his brains knocked almost out of his head and had sat in Congress afterwards. "He was the finest horseman I ever saw on a horse," said Hampton.
"A little too much temper," said Captain Battersby, who was a very old friend of the Major.
"I"d give a good deal that that mare had never been brought to my stables," said Lord Rufford. "Purefoy will never get over it, and I shan"t forget it in a hurry." Sir John at this time was up-stairs with the sufferer. Even while drinking their wine they could not keep themselves from the subject, and were convivial in a cadaverous fashion.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BALL.
The people came of course, but not in such numbers as had been expected. Many of those in Rufford had heard of the accident, and having been made acquainted with Nokes"s report, stayed away.
Everybody was told that supper would be on the table at twelve, and that it was generally understood that the house was to be cleared by two. Nokes seemed to think that the sufferer would live at least till the morrow, and it was ascertained to a certainty that the music could not affect him. It was agreed among the party in the house that the ladies staying there should stand up for the first dance or two, as otherwise the strangers would be discouraged and the whole thing would be a failure. This request was made by Lady Penwether because Miss Penge had said that she thought it impossible for her to dance.
Poor Miss Penge, who was generally regarded as a brilliant young woman, had been a good deal eclipsed by Arabella and had seen the necessity of striking out some line for herself. Then Arabella had whispered a few words to Lord Rufford, and the lord had whispered a few words to his sister, and Lady Penwether had explained what was to be done to the ladies around. Lady Augustus nodded her head and said that it was all right. The other ladies of course agreed, and partners were selected within the house party. Lord Rufford stood up with Arabella and John Morton with Lady Penwether. Mr.
Gotobed selected Miss Penge, and Hampton and Battersby the two Miss G.o.dolphins. They all took their places with a lugubrious but business-like air, as aware that they were sacrificing themselves in the performance of a sad duty. But Morton was not allowed to dance in the same quadrille with the lady of his affections. Lady Penwether explained to him that she and her brother had better divide themselves,--for the good of the company generally,--and therefore he and Arabella were also divided.
A rumour had reached Lady Penwether of the truth in regard to their guests from Bragton. Mr. Gotobed had whispered to her that he had understood that they certainly were engaged; and, even before that, the names of the two lovers had been wafted to her ears from the other side of the Atlantic. Both John Morton and Lady Augustus were "somebodies," and Lady Penwether generally knew what there was to be known of anybody who was anybody. But it was quite clear to her,--more so even than to poor John Morton,--that the lady was conducting herself now as though she were fettered by no bonds, and it seemed to Lady Penwether also that the lady was very anxious to contract other bonds. She knew her brother well. He was always in love with somebody; but as he had hitherto failed of success where marriage was desirable, so had he avoided disaster when it was not.
He was one of those men who are generally supposed to be averse to matrimony. Lady Penwether and some other relatives were anxious that he should take a wife;--but his sister was by no means anxious that he should take such a one as Arabella Trefoil. Therefore she thought that she might judiciously ask Mr. Morton a few questions. "I believe you knew the Trefoils in Washington?" she said. Morton acknowledged that he had seen much of them there. "She is very handsome, certainly."
"I think so."
"And rides well I suppose."
"I don"t know. I never heard much of her riding."
"Has she been staying long at Bragton?"
"Just a week."
"Do you know Lord Augustus?" Morton said that he did not know Lord Augustus and then answered sundry other questions of the same nature in the same uncommunicative way. Though he had once or twice almost fancied that he would like to proclaim aloud that the girl was engaged to him, yet he did not like to have the fact pumped out of him. And if she were such a girl as she now appeared to be, might it not be better for him to let her go? Surely her conduct here at Rufford Hall was opportunity enough. No doubt she was handsome. No doubt he loved her,--after his fashion of loving. But to lose her now would not break his heart, whereas to lose her after he was married to her, would, he knew well, bring him to the very ground.
He would ask her a question or two this very night, and then come to some resolution. With such thoughts as these crossing his mind he certainly was not going to proclaim his engagement to Lady Penwether.
But Lady Penwether was a determined woman. Her smile, when she condescended to smile, was very sweet,--lighting up her whole face and flattering for the moment the person on whom it shone. It was as though a rose in emitting its perfume could confine itself to the nostrils of its one favoured friend. And now she smiled on Morton as she asked another question. "I did hear," she said, "from one of your Foreign Office young men that you and Miss Trefoil were very intimate."
"Who was that, Lady Penwether?"
"Of course I shall mention no name. You might call out the poor lad and shoot him, or, worse still, have him put down to the bottom of his cla.s.s. But I did hear it. And then, when I find her staying with her mother at your house, of course I believe it to be true."
"Now she is staying at your brother"s house,--which is much the same thing."
"But I am here."
"And my grandmother is at Bragton."
"That puts me in mind, Mr. Morton. I am so sorry that we did not know it, so that we might have asked her."
"She never goes out anywhere, Lady Penwether."
"And there is nothing then in the report that I heard?"
Morton paused a moment before he answered, and during that moment collected his diplomatic resources. He was not a weak man, who could be made to tell anything by the wiles of a pretty woman. "I think,"
he said, "that when people have anything of that kind which they wish to be known, they declare it."
"I beg your pardon. I did not mean to unravel a secret."
"There are secrets, Lady Penwether, which people do like to unravel, but which the owners of them sometimes won"t abandon." Then there was nothing more said on the subject. Lady Penwether did not smile again, and left him to go about the room on her business as hostess, as soon as the dance was over. But she was sure that they were engaged.
In the meantime, the conversation between Lord Rufford and Arabella was very different in its tone, though on the same subject. He was certainly very much struck with her, not probably ever waiting to declare to himself that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life, but still feeling towards her an attraction which for the time was strong. A very clever girl would frighten him; a very horsey girl would disgust him; a very quiet girl would bore him; or a very noisy girl annoy him. With a shy girl he could never be at his ease, not enjoying the labour of overcoming such a barrier; and yet he liked to be able to feel that any female intimacy which he admitted was due to his own choice and not to that of the young woman. Arabella Trefoil was not very clever, but she had given all her mind to this peculiar phase of life, and, to use a common phrase, knew what she was about. She was quite alive to the fact that different men require different manners in a young woman; and as she had adapted herself to Mr. Morton at Washington, so could she at Rufford adapt herself to Lord Rufford. At the present moment the lord was in love with her as much as he was wont to be in love. "Doesn"t it seem an immense time since we came here yesterday?" she said to him. "There has been so much done."
"There has been a great misfortune."
"I suppose that is it. Only for that how very very pleasant it would have been!"
"Yes, indeed. It was a nice run, and that little horse carried you charmingly. I wish I could see you ride him again." She shook her head as she looked up into his face. "Why do you shake your head?"
"Because I am afraid there is no possible chance of such happiness.
We are going to such a dull house to-morrow! And then to so many dull houses afterwards."
"I don"t know why you shouldn"t come back and have another day or two;--when all this sadness has gone by."
"Don"t talk about it, Lord Rufford."
"Why not?"
"I never like to talk about any pleasure because it always vanishes as soon as it has come;--and when it has been real pleasure it never comes back again. I don"t think I ever enjoyed anything so much as our ride this morning,--till that tragedy came."
"Poor Caneback!"
"I suppose there is no hope?" He shook his head. "And we must go on to those Gores to-morrow without knowing anything about it. I wonder whether you could send me a line."
"Of course I can, and I will." Then he asked her a question looking into her face. "You are not going back to Bragton?"
"Oh dear, no."
"Was Bragton dull?"
"Awfully dull;--frightfully dull."
"You know what they say?"