The sound of a fiddle being tuned obliged him to drag his mind from this intriguing problem. The first set was forming; and as the dance was of an informal nature, Lady Ash having announced that since all the young people knew one another she meant to leave them to choose their own partners, it behooved him to look about him for an unattached lady. He saw Tiffany, talking vivaciously to Miss Banningham, and to Lindeth, who was clearly waiting to lead the eldest daughter of the house into the set. It did vaguely occur to Laurence that it was unusual to find Tiffany without an eager crowd of admirers clamouring for the privilege of dancing with her, but although he bowed, and smirked, and solicited the honour of leading her on to the floor, his mind was still too much preoccupied to allow of his paying more than cursory heed to this circumstance. Nor did he notice that the lady who was being besieged by suppliants was Miss Chartley.
But Miss Trent noticed it, and she thought that it set the seal on an evening of unalleviated misery. Too well did she know that glittering look of Tiffany’s, that over-emphatic gaiety; and if she was relieved to see, as the evening progressed, that Tiffany was never left without a partner, her relief was soon tempered by the spectacle of Mr Wilfred Butterlaw, a pimply youth suffering from unrequited adoration of the Beauty, leading her charge into a set. Mercifully for what little peace of mind was left to Miss Trent, she could not know that Mr Butterlaw’s evil genius prompted him to blurt out, when he and Tiffany came together in the dance: “I d-don’t care a s-straw what anyone says, Miss Wield! I think you’re p-perfect!”
But although she never knew of this essay in tactlessness she was not at all surprised, during the drive back to Staples, to find that Tiffany was in her most dangerous mood, which found expression, not in one of her stormy outbursts, but in brittle laughter, and the utterance of whatever damaging animadversions on the manners or looks of her acquaintances first occurred to her. Miss Trent preserved a discouraging silence, and devoutly hoped that Courtenay, seated opposite to the ladies, would refrain from adding fuel to the fire. So he did, until Tiffany reached the most galling cause of her discontent, and said, with a trill of laughter: “And Patience Chartley, looking like a dowd in that hideous green dress, and putting on die-away airs, and pretending to be so shy, and so modest, and casting down her eyes in that ridiculous way she uses when she wants to persuade everyone that she’s a saint!”
“If I were you,” interposed Courtenay bluntly, “I wouldn’t be quite so spiteful about Patience, miss!”
“Spiteful? Oh, I didn’t mean to be! Poor thing, she’s close on twenty and has never had an offer! I’m truly sorry for her: it must be odious to be so—so insipid!”
“No, you ain’t,” said Courtenay. “You’re as mad as fire because it wasn’t you that got all the notice tonight buther! And I’ll tell you this!—”
“Don’t!” said Miss Trent wearily.
The interpolation was unheeded. “If you don’t take care,” continued Courtenay ruthlessly, “you’ll find yourself in the suds—and don’t think your precious beauty will save you, because it won’t! Lord, if ever I knew such a corkbrained wag-feather as you are! First you drove Lindeth off with your Turkish treatment, then it was Arthur, and to crown all you hadn’t even enough sense to keep your tongue about what happened in Leeds, when it was Patience that showed what a game one she is, not you! All you did was to scold like the vixen you are!”
“A game one?” Tiffany said, in a voice shaking with fury. “Patience? She’s nothing but a shameless show-off! I collect you had this from Ancilla! She positively dotes on dear, demure little Patience—exactly her notion of a well-brought-up girl!”
“Oh, no, I didn’t! Miss Trent never told us anything but that Patience had snatched some slum-brat from under the wheels of a carriage, with the greatest pluck and presence of mind! Nor did Lindeth! And as for Patience, she don’t talk about it at all! You did all the talking! You was afraid one of the others would describe the figure you cut, so you set it about that Patience had created an uproar just so that people should think she was a heroine, but that it was all a fudge: no danger to the brat or to herself!”
“Nor was there! If Ancilla says—”
“Wasn’t there? Well, now, coz, I’ll tell you something else! Ned Banningham was in York t’other day, staying with some friends, and who should be one of the people who came to the dinner-party but the fellow who nearly drove over Patience? I don’t recall his name, but I daresay you may. Very full of the accident he seems to have been! Told everyone what a trump Patience was, and how she didn’t make the least fuss or to-do, and what a stew he was in, thinking she was bound to be trampled on. Described you too. Jack wouldn’t tell me what he said, and I’d as lief he didn’t, because you are my cousin, and I ain’t fond of being put to the blush. But Ned told Jack, and of course Jack told Arthur, and then Greg got to hear of it—and that’s why you got the cold shoulder tonight! I daresay no one would have cared much if you’d said cutting things about Sophy Banningham, because she ain’t much liked; but the thing is that everyone likes Patience! What’s more, until you came back to Staples, and peacocked all over the neighbourhood, she and Lizzie were the prettiest girls here, and the most courted! So take care what you’re about, Beautiful Miss Wield!”
Chapter 16
By the time Miss Trent was at liberty to seek her own bed after that memorable party she was so much exhausted that she fell almost instantly into a deep, yet troubled sleep. The drive back to Staples had ended with Tiffany in floods of tears, which lasted for long after she had been supported upstairs to her bedchamber. Miss Trent, thrusting aside her own troubles, applied herself first to the task of soothing Tiffany, then to that of undressing her, and lastly to the far more difficult duty of trying to point out to her, while she was in a malleable condition, that however brutal Courtenay might have been he had spoken no more than the truth. Bathing Tiffany’s temples with Hungary Water, she did her best to mingle sympathy with her unpalatable advice. She thought that Tiffany was attending to her; and found herself pitying the girl. She was vain, and selfish, and unbelievably tiresome, but only a child, after all, and one who had been flattered and spoilt almost from the day of her birth. She had met with a severe check for the first time in her headlong career; it had shocked and frightened her; and perhaps, thought Miss Trent, softly drawing the curtains round her bed, she might profit by so painful a lesson.
She did not come down to breakfast, but when Miss Trent went to visit her she did not find her lying in a darkened room with a damp towel laid over her brow and smelling-salts clasped feebly in her hand, as had happened on a previous and hideous occasion, but sitting, up in bed, thoughtfully eating strawberries. She eyed Miss Trent somewhat defensively, but upon being bidden a cheerful good morning responded with perfect amiability.
“No letters yet from Bridlington,” said Miss Trent, “but Netley has just brought up a package from the lodge. I couldn’t conceive what it might be until I saw the label attached to it, for a more unwieldy parcel you can’t imagine! My dear, those idiotish silk merchants haven’t sent patterns, but a whole roll of silk! They must have misunderstood Mrs Underhill—and I only hope it may match the brocade! I shall have to take it to Mrs Tawton in the gig. Will you go with me? Do!”