“Then I shall instantly ask Mama’s permission to waltz with you!” he said.
This having been granted, he was presently seen twirling round the room with an arm lightly encircling Lucasta’s trim waist: a spectacle which Lady Bugle regarded with complacency, but which was watched by the Viscount’s two cousins, and by several other young gentlemen equally enamoured of the Beauty, with no pleasure at all.
After this, the Viscount did his duty by Miss Windle, and Miss Montsale, and then asked his cousin Emma to stand up with him.
“For heaven’s sake, Ashley, don’t ask me to dance, but take me out of this insufferably hot room!” replied Mrs Redgrave, who had inherited much of her mother’s forthrightness.
“With the greatest pleasure on earth, cousin!” he replied, offering his arm. “I’ve been uneasily aware for the past half-hour that my shirt-points are beginning to wilt! We will walk over to the doorway, as though we wished to exchange a word with Mortimer, and slip out of the room while the next set is forming. I daresay no one will notice our absence.”
“I don’t care a rush if they do notice it!” declared Mrs Redgrave, vigorously fanning herself. “People have no business to hold assemblies on such a sultry night as this! They might at least have opened a window!”
“Oh, they never do!” said Desford. “Surely you must know, Emma, that it is only imprudent young people who open windows on even the hottest of nights! Thereby causing their elders to suffer all the ills which, I am assured, arise from sitting in a draught, and exposing themselves to even worse dangers. Mortimer, why are you not doing your duty like a man, instead of lounging there and holding up your nose at the company?”
“I wasn’t!” said Mr Redgrave indignantly. “The thing is that it’s a dashed sight too hot for dancing—and no one thinks anything of it when we old married men don’t choose to dance!”
“Quoth the graybeard!” murmured Desford.
“Be quiet, wretch!” Emma admonished him. “I won’t have poor Mortimer roasted! Recollect that although he is not so very many years older than you he is much fatter!”
“There’s an archwife for you!” said Mr Redgrave. “If you take my advice, Des, you’ll steer wide of parson’s mousetrap!”
“Thank you, I mean to! The melancholy sight of you living under the cat’s foot is enough to make any man beware!”
Mr Redgrave grinned, but said that Des had hit the nail on the head, adding that he had grown to be a regular Jerry-sneak. Emma knew very well that this inelegant expression signified a henpecked husband, but said with dignity that she didn’t understand cant terms. She then said, as both gentlemen laughed, that they were a couple of horrid rudesbys.
“To be sure we are!” cordially agreed her life’s companion. “You know, if you mean to take part in this dance, the pair of you, you’d best join the set before it’s too late!”
But when he learned that so far from joining the set they were going in search of a little fresh air he instantly said, with considerable aplomb, that having watched Des desperately flirting with Miss Bugle he was dashed well going to see to it that he didn’t get the chance to make up to Emma too.
So the three of them passed through the wide double-doors which stood open into the hall. Several people were gathered there, in small groups, most of the ladies fanning themselves, and the gentlemen surreptitiously wiping their heated brows; but Mrs Redgrave had the advantage over them in knowing the geography of the house, and she led her two cavaliers past the stairway to the back of the hall, and through a door which gave access to the gardens. The air was rather more oppressive than it had been during the day, but in comparison to the conditions within the house it was refreshing enough to cause Mr Redgrave to draw a deep breath, and let it go in a vulgar: “Phew!” He then expressed a wistful desire for a cigarillo, but as his wife recognized this as a mere attempt to hoax her into begging him not to do anything so improper as to light a cigarillo at a ball she paid no attention to it, but tucked her hand in his arm, and strolled on to the lawn. The moon was at the full, but was every now and then hidden by clouds drifting across the sky. Summer lightning flickered, and Mr Redgrave said that he wouldn’t be surprised if they were in for a storm. A few minutes later a distant rumble made Emma think that perhaps it was time they returned to the ballroom. Her disposition was in general calm, but she had a nervous dread of thunderstorms. Any of her brothers would have scoffed at her fears, but her husband and her cousin were more understanding, and neither scoffed nor tried to convince her that the storm was not imminent.
When they re-entered the house there was no one in the hall, but just as Mr Redgrave softly shut the door into the garden Stonor Bugle came out of the ballroom, and exclaimed: “So there you are! I’ve been looking for you all over!”
“Oh, dear!” said Emma guiltily. “I hoped no one would notice it if I slipped away for a few minutes! It is such a hot night, isn’t it?”
He laughed heartily at this. “Ay! Devilish, ain’t it? I only wish I could sherry off into the garden, but I can’t, you know! My mother would comb my hair with a joint-stool if I did! The thing is that old Mrs Barling has been asking for you, ma’am: says she hasn’t seen you since time out of mind, and has been peering round the room after you ever since someone told her you was here,”
“Oh—! Dear Mrs Barling! I’ll come at once!” Emma said, and went back into the ballroom, bearing her reluctant spouse with her.
Stonor followed them, but the Viscount lingered in the hall to adjust his neckcloth, having caught sight of himself in a mirror that hung beside the double-doors into the drawing-room. He was not a dandy; he would have repudiated without hesitation Lady Bugle’s assertion that he was a Pink of the Ton; but he was undeniably one of the Smarts, and the glimpse of himself in wilting shirt-points, and a slightly disarranged neckcloth came as a disagreeable shock to him. There was little he could do to restore their starched rigidity to the points of his shirt-collar, but a few deft touches were all that was needed to repair the folds of his neckcloth. Having bestowed these upon it, he turned away, gave his shirt-bands a judicious twitch or two, and was just about to go back into the ballroom when a feeling that he was not alone, as he had supposed himself to be, made him look up, and cast a swift glance round the hall. No one was in sight, but when he raised his eyes towards the upper floor he found that he was being watched by a pair of wondering, innocent eyes which were set in a charming little face, framed by the bannisters through which its owner was looking. He smiled, guessing that it belonged to one of the younger daughters of the house: possibly a member of the schoolroom-party, but more probably one of the nursery-children, and said, as he saw that she was about to run away in evident alarm: “Oh, don’t run away! I promise I won’t eat you—or tell tales of you to your mama!”
The big eyes widened, in mingled fear and doubt. “You couldn’t!” said the lady. “I haven’t got a mama! She’s been dead for years! I don’t think I have a papa either, though that is by no means a certain thing! Oh, don’t come up! Pray don’t come up, sir! They would be so vexed!”
He had mounted half-way up the first flight of stairs, but he paused at this urgent entreaty, saying, between amusement and curiosity: “No mama? But are you not one of Sir Thomas’s daughters?”
“Oh, no!” she replied, still in that hushed, scared voice. “I’m not related to him, because being married to my aunt does not make him a true uncle—does it?”
“No, no!” he assured her. “It makes him nothing more than an uncle-in-law. But even so I find it hard to believe that he would be cross with you for peeping through those bannisters at the ladies in their smart ball-dresses, and the gentlemen trying to straighten their neckcloths!”