Cotillion (4 page)

“Destitute?” repeated Kitty, as though the word were unknown.

Lord Biddenden pulled a chair forward, and sat down beside her, possessing himself of one of her hands, and patting it. “Yes, Kitty, that is the matter in a nutshell,” he said. “I do not wonder that you should look shocked! Your repugnance must be shared by any man of sensibility. The melancholy truth is that you were not born to an independence; your father—a man of excellent family, of course!—was improvident; but for the generosity of my uncle in adopting you, you must have been reared in such conditions as we will not dwell upon—a stranger to all the elegancies of life, a penniless orphan without a protector to lend you consequence! My dear Kitty, you might even have counted yourself fortunate today to have found yourself in such a situation as Miss Fishguard’s!”

It was plain, from the impressive dropping of his voice, that he had described to her the lowest depths in which his fancy was capable of imagining her. His solemn manner had its effect; she looked instinctively towards the Rector, upon whose judgment she had been accustomed, of late years, to depend.

“I cannot say that it is untrue,” Hugh responded, in a low tone. “Indeed, I must acknowledge that whatever may be my uncle’s conduct today, however improper in
my
eyes, you are very much beholden to him for his generosity in the past.”

She pulled her hand out of Lord Biddenden’s warm, plump clasp, and jumped up, saying impulsively: “I hope I am not ungrateful, but when you speak of
generosity
I feel as though my heart must burst!”

“Kitty, Kitty, do not talk in that intemperate style!” Hugh said.

“No, no, but you do not understand!” she cried. “You speak of his fortune, and you know it to be large! Everyone says that, but
I
have no cause to suspect it! If he yielded to a generous impulse when he adopted me, at least he has atoned for that during all these years! No, Hugh, I
won’t
hush! Ask poor Fish what wage she has received from him for educating me! Ask her what shifts she has often and often been put to to contrive that I should not be dressed in
rags
! Well, perhaps not rags, precisely, but only look at this gown I am wearing now!”

All three gentlemen obeyed her, but perhaps only Lord Biddenden recognized the justice of her complaint. Hugh said: “You look very well, Kitty, I assure you. There is a neatness and a propriety—”

“I do not want neatness and propriety!” interrupted Kitty, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkling. “I want elegant dresses, and I want to have my hair cut in the first style of fashion, and I want to go to assemblies, and rout-parties, and to the theatre, and to the Opera, and not—
not
!— to be a poor little squab of a dowdy!”

Again, only Biddenden was able to appreciate her feelings. “Very understandable!” he said. “It is not at all to be wondered at. Why, you have been kept so cooped-up here that I daresay you may never have attended so much as a concert!”

“Very true,” Hugh concurred. “I have frequently observed to my uncle that the indulgence of some degree of rational amusement should be granted to you, Kitty. Alas, I fear that his habits and prejudices are fixed! I cannot flatter myself that my words have borne weight with him.”

“Exactly so!” Biddenden said. “And so it must always be while you remain under this roof, Kitty! However little you may relish the
manner
of my uncle’s proposals, you must perceive all the advantages attached to an eligible marriage. You will have a position of the first respectability; you will be mistress of a very pretty establishment, able to order things as you choose; with the habits of economy you have learnt you will find yourself at the outset most comfortably circumstanced; and in the course of time you will be able to command every imaginable extravagance.”

From his lengthening upper lip it was to be deduced that this sketch of the future made little appeal to the Rector. He said: “I do Kitty the justice to believe that the tone of her mind is too nice to allow of her hankering after extravagance. I am not a Puritan; I sympathize to the full in her desire to escape from the restrictions imposed upon her by my uncle’s valetudinarian habits—”

“Oh!” cried Kitty wistfully, “I should like so much to be extravagant!”

“You will allow me to know you better than you know yourself, dear Kitty,” responded Hugh, with great firmness. “Most naturally, you desire to become better acquainted with the world. You would like to visit the Metropolis, I daresay, and so you shall! You yearn to taste the pleasures enjoyed by those persons who constitute what is known as the
ton
. It is only proper that you should do so. I venture to prophesy that in a very short space of time you would find many of these pleasures hollow cheats. But do not imagine that if you were to bestow your hand upon me in marriage you would find me opposed to the occasional gratification of your wish for more gaiety than is to be found in a country parish! I am no enemy to the innocent recreation of dancing; I have frequently derived no small enjoyment from a visit to the playhouse; and while I must always hold
gaming
in abhorrence I am not so bigoted that I cannot play a tolerable game of whist, or quadrille, or bear my part in a private loo-party.”

“Hugh,” interrupted Kitty, “George must have
constrained
you to make me this offer!”

“I assure you, upon my honour, it is not so!”

“You don’t wish me to be your wife! You—you don’t love me!” she said, in a suffocating voice, and with tears starting to her eyes.

He replied stiffly: “My regard for you is most sincere. Since I was inducted into a parish, not so far distant as to make it impossible for me frequently to visit my great-uncle, I have had ample opportunity of observing you, and to my regard has been added respect. I am persuaded that there is nothing in your character which could preclude your becoming a most eligible wife to any man in orders.”

She gazed up at him in astonishment. “I?” she exclaimed. “When you have been for ever scolding me for levity, and frowning every time I don’t mind my tongue to your liking, and telling me I ought not to be discontented with my lot? How can you talk so?”

He possessed himself of her hand, saying, with a smile: “These are the faults of youth, Kitty. I own, I have tried to guide you: it was never my intention to
scold
!”

“If you are not constrained by George, it must be by Uncle Matthew!” she declared, snatching her hand away.

“Yes, in some sort,” he replied. “It is hard for you to understand the motives—”

“No, I assure you!”

“Yes,” he said steadily. “You must know, Kitty—you must realize, however painful it may be—that George has spoken only the truth. Your whole dependence is upon my uncle; were he to die, leaving you unwed, unbetrothed to one of us, your situation must be desperate indeed. I hesitate to wound you, but I must tell you that, the world being what it is, a respectable marriage is hard to achieve for a dowerless and orphaned female. What could you do to maintain yourself, if left alone upon the world? George has spoken of such a position as that held by Miss Fishguard, but surely without reflection! Miss Fishguard is an excellent woman, but she is lacking in such accomplishments as a governess, seeking employment in the first circles, is today expected to impart to her pupils. Her knowledge is not profound; her performance upon the pianoforte is not superior; she has no skill with Water Colours; little mastery over the French tongue; none at all over the Italian.”

She turned her face away, a blush of mortification spreading over her cheeks. “You mean that
I
am lacking in accomplishments.”

“Since my uncle neglected to provide masters to supply the deficiencies of your education, it must necessarily be so,” he replied calmly. “You know, my dear Kitty, how often I have recommended you to pursue your studies, even though you have left the schoolroom.”

“Yes,” acknowledged Kitty, without enthusiasm.

“It would afford me much pleasure to be able to direct your studies, and to read with you,” he said. “I believe I may say that I am accounted a good scholar, and I am very sure that to guide the taste and to enlarge the knowledge of so intelligent a pupil as you, dear cousin, must be an agreeable task.”

Lord Biddenden, who had been listening to his brother’s measured speeches in growing disapprobation, could no longer contain his impatience. “Well, really, Hugh!” he ejaculated. “A fine offer to be making the poor girl, I must say! Enough to set her against marriage with you from the outset!”

“Kitty understands me,” Hugh said, rather haughtily.

“Well, yes, I think I do,” said Kitty. “And George is perfectly right! I should dislike excessively to be turned into a scholar, and I cannot feel, Hugh, that I am at all the kind of girl you should marry. And now I come to think of it, I daresay there is
one
way in which I could earn my bread! I could seek a post as housekeeper. That is something in which I need no instruction. I have had the management of this house ever since I was sixteen, and able to relieve poor Fish of duties for which she is quite unsuited! I expect anyone would be very happy to employ me, too, because if there is one thing I know all about it is the strictest economy!”

“Now, Kitty, don’t talk nonsense!” begged Lord Biddenden testily.

The Rector made a silencing gesture with one shapely hand. “If your youth, Kitty, did not render you ineligible for such a post, your birth and your breeding most assuredly do. I hardly think, moreover, that you would find it congenial.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” she said frankly. “But I shouldn’t find it congenial to be married to you either, Hugh.”

“There! What did I tell you?” interpolated Biddenden.

“I am sorry,” Hugh said, grave but kind. “For my part, I should count myself happy to be able to call you my wife.”

“Well, it is very obliging of you to say so,” retorted Kitty, “but if you are speaking the truth I cannot conceive why you should never have given me the least suspicion of it until today!”

It was his turn to redden, but he did not allow his eyes to waver from hers, and he replied with scarcely a moment’s hesitation: “The thought, however, has frequently been in my mind. I believe it is not in my nature to
fall in love
, as the common phrase has it, but I have long felt for you the sincerest esteem and affection. You are young: you have not yet reached your twentieth birthday; I believed that the time to declare myself was not yet. I have sometimes suspected, too, that you had a partiality for another member of the family decided enough to make it useless for me to address you. It was in the expectation of finding all three of my cousins gathered here that I came to Arnside. I have found only Dolphinton, and in these circumstances I do not hesitate to beg you, Kitty, to accept of my hand in marriage, and to believe that at Garsfield Rectory you may be sure of a safe and an honourable asylum.”

“It is not, then, for the sake of Uncle Matthew’s fortune that you have offered for me, but from chivalry towards a penniless creature whom you suppose to have been rejected by—by everyone else?” demanded Kitty breathlessly. “I—I would rather marry
Dolph
!”

At these alarming words, Lord Dolphinton, who had for some time been sucking the hilt of a paper-knife, which he had found conveniently to hand, sat up with a jerk, and dropped the knife from his suddenly nerveless fingers. “Eh?” he uttered. “But—Said you wouldn’t! Remember it distinctly! Said I might be comfortable again!”

“And so you may, for I meant it!” said Kitty fiercely. “There is no one for whom I have the
least
partiality, and I don’t wish to marry
anyone
in your odious family! I think Hugh is a humbug, and Claud has a cruel nature, and Dolph and Freddy are just
stupid
, and as for Jack I am truly thankful that he was not coxcomb enough to come here, because I dislike him more than all the rest of you together! Goodnight!”

The door slammed behind her, causing Lord Dolphinton to start nervously. Biddenden said: “A ramshackle business you made of it, Hugh, with your damned, long-winded periods, and your fine talk of educating the girl! Much good will your scholarship do you while you have less than common sense! What in the devil’s name possessed you to bring Jack up? Of course she’s fancied herself in love with him for years!”

“It is time she left such childish folly behind her,” said Hugh coldly. “There can be little in Jack to recommend him to a female of sense and principles, after all.”

“If that’s what you think, my dear brother, I would advise you to put your nose outside your Rectory and to go about the world a little!” returned Biddenden, with a short laugh. “And don’t talk fustian to me about his gaming, and his libertine ways—ay, I know it’s on the tip of your tongue!—Jack may be anything you please but he’s a devilish handsome fellow, and an out-and-outer— what they call top-of-the-trees! Of course Kitty has a
tendre
for him!”

“No, she hasn’t,” interrupted Dolphinton, who had been following this interchange with a puzzled frown on his brow. “Can’t have been listening! She said she disliked him more than all the rest of us together. And come to think of it,” added his lordship, attacked by a sudden thought, “not sure she ain’t right!” He nodded, pleased with his flash of insight, and said with unimpaired affability: “Don’t see much of him, which accounts for my thinking it was you I disliked the most, George.”

Lord Biddenden, after glaring at him in an impotent way for several seconds, strode to the bell-rope, and jerked it vigorously. “Since that miserly old bag of bones has given no orders for our refreshment
I
shall make so bold as to tell the servant to bring some
brandy
to this room!” he announced bitterly.