Lovers' Vows (5 page)

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A similar state of eagerness prevailed at Stonecroft, where Lady Proctor was very peeved indeed that neither Dewar nor his mama had come to ask for Jane’s hand, and His Lordship in residence for five days now. “At least he will be at the assembly,” she consoled herself. “Mr. Johnson said he would attend, did he not, Holly?”

“Yes, he did.” Holly, too, felt a greater than usual eagerness to get to the party. Lord Dewar’s being at the Abbey with a party of bachelors lent a brighter lustre to the evening. There was a feeling in the air that anything might happen. It was highly improbable that Dewar would fall in love with Jane, less likely that he would even so much as stand up with herself, but Mr. Johnson had spoken of four other gentlemen. The short, funny-looking little man with him was of course one of them, but that still left three unknown quantities. Three London gentlemen, one of whom might be partial to herself—that was something to look forward to.

She glanced into the mirror, where Jane was seen to stand behind her, wearing a white gown, befitting her status as a young lady making her bows. Her blond curls shone in an aura around her face—such a pretty little face, with large, dark blue eyes, and a small, child-like pair of lips. Holly’s heart sank to compare herself to Jane. She was tall, her arms too long, her hair undistinguished, and her gown an unfashionable dark green. She looked like a chaperone. She often was one, but this evening Lady Proctor came with them, so she was free to be a young lady. On the threshold pf twenty-seven, she no longer felt like one. She looked a suitable dancing partner for Mr. Johnson, and that, very likely, was what she would be.

“You look nice, Holly,” Jane said, and smiled sweetly. On top of her other advantages, Jane also had a charming disposition.

Lady Proctor looked them both over approvingly, then went to the mirror for a final appraisal of her own gown. It was a new one, made up since Bertie’s elevation in the world. It was of cinnamon crepe, with great swaths of silk fringe attached to the gown, after a pattern seen in
La Belle Assemblée.
One had not thought, to look at it in a frozen sketch, that it would jiggle about so when one walked. Really, it was extraordinarily uncomfortable, and she had paid a very good price for it.

“We had better go. We don’t want to miss the opening minuet,” she declared, and called for her fur wrap.

As they jogged along into Harknell in the carriage, Lady Proctor gave her daughter such bits of motherly advice as she found suitable. “If Dewar should happen to ask you for the first dance, Jane dear, you want to show your appreciation in a proper manner. Don’t giggle or smirk or lord it over the other girls and, for goodness sake, don’t be shy. You may have two dances with him. If he encourages you to stand up for a third, you must refuse. Do it gently, but firmly. And of course you must not waltz. He will not ask you, when he learns from his mama you are to make your bows in London. The only young lady from Harknell who is doing so, and it is a pity, in a way, that you cannot waltz, but there will be the opening minuet, and perhaps a cotillion or quadrille, or a country dance. Not that he will bother with the country dances, I expect. They are sad romps, lacking in dignity. Dewar stands very high on his dignity.”

The evening began auspiciously enough. Dewar and his party, even including his mama, had arrived at the Assembly Hall before the dance began. Lady Proctor had no way of knowing this was due to the unabashed hounding of Mr. Homberly, who had begun his gentle insistings an hour before they were due to leave the Abbey. She took it, strangely enough, as a personal compliment. There was surely great significance in the fact that both Lady Dewar and herself, neither of whom normally came to these do’s, chose to attend on this occasion: the former with her eligible son, the latter with her nubile daughter.

It was pretty clear as well that Dewar was standing close by the doorway on purpose to greet the Proctor party, and she regretted deeply that Sir Egbert had elected to stay home and play cards with his bailiff. One would think a knight would have a more proper notion of his duties. But there, she had suspected all along it would be up to herself to make the evening run smoothly.

The countess sat across the room, ensconced in the warmest corner of the hall, the one that backed against the kitchen and got the heat from the stove. Her son had not permitted her to leave the house in a gentleman’s jacket, but had promised to secure this warm corner for her.

Dewar’s attention, though he stood near the doorway, had been temporarily distracted across the room to Miss Lacey, who looked as vulgar as usual in a gown cut much too low for a young lady, and with an overly elaborate coiffure that sent Lady Proctor’s eyes darting to Jane’s plain curls for a comparison. For one horrible moment, it seemed Dewar did not realize Jane had entered but, fortunately, one of his companions, likely warned to the job, tugged at his elbow and said in quite an audible voice, “She’s here.”

This finally got Dewar’s eyes off Miss Lacey and on to his future bride. No mama could like to have a gentleman ogle her daughter in such an open way, with his quizzing glass raised, running noticeably from head to toe. As soon as he smiled and advanced towards them, however, this solecism was forgiven. The ‘Good evening, Mrs. Proctor,’ that followed immediately was harder to forgive, despite the graceful bow that accompanied it. Dewar stared as the woman’s expression changed from delight to offence. For a full thirty seconds he was stopped dead, racking his brain to discover where he had gone amiss.

From the dame’s left shoulder, a pleasant voice spoke up. “Oh, Lady Proctor, your shawl is slipping,” it said. Without glancing to follow the voice to its source, Dewar recovered his
faux pas.
“What a forgetful fellow I am!” he explained. “For years I was used to call you Lady Proctor when speaking of you to Mama, and have heard myself corrected so often that the old name slipped out. Do forgive me, Lady Proctor. Now at last I can address you in the way that always seemed most natural to me.”

There was so much blarney wrapped up in this speech, and such swift, clever thinking, that Miss McCormack was momentarily overcome. She looked to her aunt, seeing with amusement that the blarney had gone down very well. A broad smile beamed. It was of all things the most acceptable he could have said—to intimate frequent references to her at the Abbey and to include a neat compliment on Egbert’s knighthood all in one. She was forced to admit it was skillfully done.

There was a flurry of introductions, while Dewar expressed the proper amount of surprise and pleasure at Jane’s having achieved maturity and an acknowledgement of Miss McCormack’s being amongst them. Then Homberly was put forward. It was such a rosy beginning for the evening that really there seemed nothing more to be desired, till the musicians began scraping their bows, indicating the dance was about to begin.

Then things began to get out of hand. Somehow, it was the insignificant little fellow with the popping eyes that was leading Jane to the floor, while Dewar hastened across the room to offer his arm to Miss Lacey. Holly hardly had time to assure her aunt it was all a mistake before Mr. Johnson was at her elbow, reminding her of her promise.

“Dewar intended to ask Jane first, but the Homberly man beat him to it. She will surely have the second dance with Dewar. Why don’t you go and speak to his mother?” Holly said before leaving her aunt’s side.

There was little consolation to be gained from the countess. “I see Homberly achieved his wish. It is all we hear at the Abbey, Elsa, how he is smitten with your gel. You will have an offer from the fellow if you play your cards right. A very eligible
parti
he is too. Has an Abbey in Surrey. A good old family. There—I told you I’d save you the bother of hauling her off to the city.”

“Is Dewar looking to make a match with Sally Lacey?” Elsa retaliated. “Quite a feather in her cap, for a miller’s daughter to nab a peer.”

“That he ain’t! But it will do her no harm to claim him for her flirt for the month or so he is home. She’s a looker. Dewar likes that. Tell me, Elsa, what the deuce are all those strings doing hanging off your gown? They will have a pair of scissors in the ladies’ room to trim them for you,” the countess suggested, with a malicious little smile on her gaunt face.

“This is a fringe, Lady Dewar. The latest style from London but, then, you are not interested in style.” This was not the way the talk was supposed to go at all. They should be discussing visits by now.

“I have better things to do. When we get to be our age it is time to give over to the youngsters.” Another blow, for a lady of sixty-five to be claiming herself coeval with a dame scarcely forty. “You’ve got Jane rigged up to the nines tonight. A part of her London wardrobe, I fancy?”

This unpromising beginning soon went even further downhill, to become immersed in bellyaches and cures. At the end of the first act, Lady Proctor excused herself with thin-lipped civility, and went after her daughter. She scarcely nodded to Homberly when he returned Jane to her. Had it not been for his kinship to the Dewars, and of course his Abbey, she would have forgone the nod as well.

Mr. Johnson soon added himself to the list of persons out to defeat Lady Proctor. What must the gudgeon do but claim Jane for the second set, when that rather good-looking gentleman who had come with Dewar—Altmore they were calling him—was advancing towards the Proctor party. As he was deprived of Jane’s company, he asked Miss McCormack to stand up with him, bringing some little joy to Holly at least. She had noticed him amid the throng—tall, dark, not precisely handsome, but with the unmistakable aura of the city about his hair and jacket. She was soon in possession of all the important facts regarding Dewar’s company at the Abbey—their names, backgrounds, and the intended length of their visit. The next set was whiled away for Holly by putting Lady Proctor in possession of these same facts, and by trying to calm her wrath at Dewar’s standing up with Mrs. Raymond when Jane was at loose ends. Jane was not long free, however. Mr. Altmore at last claimed her for a dance, and Foxey was hot on his heels.

The evening was well advanced before Elsa had the pleasure of seeing her first-born in the arms of Dewar. What vestige of relief this might have brought was largely destroyed by its being a simple country dance. It would take an active imagination to find any intimacy or chance for romantic dalliance during a country dance. Jane appeared a perfect fright at its end, with her face bright pink, little beads of perspiration on her forehead, and her curls all shaken about on her head, till she looked nearly as common as Miss Lacey.

“Well, what had Dewar to say?” she was asked, as soon as she resumed her seat.

“He said he would like to call on us tomorrow, if it is all right. I gave him permission. I hope you don’t mind?”

Miss Lacey, Mrs. Raymond, Mr. Homberly, and Mr. Johnson—all were forgiven in the burst of hope that followed these words. “Mind?
Mind?
No indeed, I have nothing to say against it. Morning or afternoon?”

“He didn’t say, Mama. I hope he comes in the morning, for Holly and I wanted to go into the village in the afternoon.”

“Go and brush your hair, Jane, and wipe off your face. See if Holly has any rice powder. You are overheated with all that hard jigging.” This speech was accompanied by a most doting smile and a gentle, motherly pat on the wrist.

When Jane returned to the hall, she saw her mama sitting beside Lady Dewar, her head back, laughing gaily. It really was an excellent party. “We should come more often to these little local assemblies, Lady Dewar,” Elsa said. “It keeps up the ton for the slightly older ladies to attend, do you not agree?”

What ‘ton’ Lady Dewar lent was all in her title and her reputation, for her physical presence in a grey gown oddly resembling a gunnysack lent no distinction.

Jane was not singled out at Dewar’s dinner party, but the two families were all at the same table, with the Laceys and their like excluded. That odious little Mr. Homberly had an encroaching way of putting himself forward, and of cutting Jane off from the other gentlemen by seating her at the end of the table. But, all in all, the meal was not unpleasant and, afterwards, there was the visit to the ladies’ room to mention in a loud voice to Holly that Dewar would be calling tomorrow, while Mrs. Lacey looked on angrily. Then in a lower voice she added, “See if you can keep that peaky Homberly fellow away from Jane, dear, for there is no saying Dewar won’t stand up with her again if he gets the chance.”

This request proved impossible of fulfilling. It was Mr. Homberly who stood up again with Jane. Later, Dewar was returned to the family circle. When he passed Lady Proctor’s chair between sets, she called out to him in a loud voice, “Ah, Dewar, I forgot to tell your mama—perhaps you will be kind enough to mention it to her when you get home...” There was sufficient noise that he had to walk up to her chair to hear her, and once he was within an arm’s length she was soon urging him on to the empty chair beside her. Jane was in the card room, as a waltzing session was next to come.

“Yes, ma’am?” he asked, just a trifle impatiently. The prettier girls were already being led to the floor. She refused to recognize any hints. Quick darts of the eye to the far wall, a jiggling knee—all were ignored, while she launched into a recital of Sir Egbert’s dislike of assemblies. Suddenly she was struck with inspiration. There was Holly unpartnered; if he stood up with her, he would be back in this spot when Jane returned after the waltzes.

“I see you are eager to dance, Dewar. My niece will be happy to oblige you. She has hardly had a dance all evening.”

This speech sent Holly into a fit of the dismals, which she did her best to conceal as she accepted the black-sleeved arm that was held to her, rather stiffly, as though under protest. She felt an utter fool. Her hopes had risen insensibly when first Dewar strolled towards them. She took the idea he was coming to ask her to dance, but as his steps veered off to the left, she had recovered her disappointment without much trouble.