The Ffolliots of Redmarley Part 13

Mrs Ffolliot, looking tired and pale, was sitting with Ger on an oak settle by the hearth. Ger had been allowed to stay up till dinner time to see his family dressed. The twins were sitting on the floor in front of the fire. Reggie paused on the staircase four steps up, and behind him came Grantly in smock frock (borrowed from the oldest labourer in Redmarley) and neat gaiters as the typical Georgian "farmer's boy" to match Mary's milk-maid.

"Aren't you coming, Aunt Marjory?" Reggie asked. "I thought you were to appear as one of the Ladies of St James's as a foil for Mary."

Mrs Ffolliot shook her head. "I did think of it, but I've got a bad headache. Mary doesn't really need me as a chaperon, it's only a boy and girl dance; besides, you and Grantly can look after her."

Mr Ffolliot went and sat down on the settle beside his wife. "You're much better at home," he said tenderly, "you'd only get tired out sitting up so late."

Grantly and Mary exchanged glances. They knew well enough that Mrs Ffolliot had decided at the last moment that she had better stay at home to look after the twins, who were certain, if left to their own devices, to get into mischief during her absence.

"That rumpus with Ger upset her awfully," Mary whispered to Reggie as they went into dinner, "and she won't risk anything fresh. It is a shame, for she'd have loved it, and she always looks so ripping."

The three young people left directly after dinner. Grantly stopped the carriage at an old Ephraim Teakle's cottage in the village, and they all went in to let him have a look at them, for it was his smock, a marvel of elaborate st.i.tching, that Grantly was wearing.

Ephraim was eighty-seven years old and usually went to bed very early, but to-night he sat up a full hour to see "them childer," as he called the Ffolliots. He was very deaf, but had the excellent sight of a generation that had never learned to read. He stood up as the young people came in, and joined in the chorus of "laws," of "did you evers,"

indulged in by his granddaughter and her family.

"'Er wouldn' go far seekin' sarvice at mop, not Miss Mary wouldn't," he said; "an' as for you, Master Grantly, you be the very moral of me when I did work for Farmer Gayner over to Winson. Maids did look just like that when I wer a young chap--pretty as pins, they was."

But Mrs Rouse, his granddaughter, thought "Mr Peel did look far an'

away the best, something out o' the common 'e were, like what a body sees in the theatre over to Marlehouse . . . but there, I suppose 'tis dressin' up for the likes o' Master Grantly, an' I must say laundry-maid, she done up grandfather's smock something beautiful."

Abinghall, Sir George Campion's place, was just outside Marlehouse town. The house, large and square and comfortable, was built by the first baronet early in the nineteenth century. The Campions always did things well, and "the boy and girl dance" had grown very considerably since its first inception. Indeed, had Mrs Ffolliot realised what proportions it had a.s.sumed since she received the friendly informal invitation some five weeks before, she would have risked the recklessness of the twins, and made a point of chaperoning Mary herself.

For the last three generations the Campions had been strong Liberals, therefore it was quite natural that with an election due in a fortnight there should be bidden to the dance many who were not included in Lady Campion's rather exclusive visiting list.

It is extraordinary how levelling an election is, especially at Christmas time, when peace and goodwill are acknowledged to be the prevailing and suitable sentiments.

Even the large drawing-room at Abinghall wouldn't hold the dancers, so a floor and a huge tent had been imported from London, and joined to the house by a covered way. A famous Viennese band played on a stage at one end, and around the sides were raised red baize seats for those who wanted to watch the dancing. Lady Campion received her guests at the door of the large drawing-room; she caught Mary by the arm and held her to whisper rapidly, "I don't know half the people, Mary, do help me, and if you see anyone looking neglected, say a kind word, and get partners, like a dear. I depended on your mother, and now she has failed me."

Naturally the Liberal candidate was bidden to the dance, and Eloquent arrayed in the likeness of one of Cromwell's soldiers, a dress he had worn in a pageant last summer, was standing exactly opposite the entrance to the tent, when at the second dance on the programme Phyllida and the Farmer's Boy came in, and with the greatest good-will in the world proceeded to Boston with all the latest and dreadful variations of that singularly unbeautiful dance. Grantly had imported the very newest thing from Woolwich, Mary was an apt pupil, and the two of them made a point always of dancing the first dance together wherever they were. They were singularly well-matched, and tonight their height, their quaint dress, their remarkable good looks and their, to Marlehouse eyes, extraordinary evolutions, made them immediately conspicuous.

Eloquent, stiff, solemn, and uncomfortable in his wide-leaved hat and flapping collar, watched the smock-frock and russet gown as they bobbed and glided, and twirled and crouched in the mazes of that mysterious dance, and the moment they stopped, shouldered his way through the usual throng of pierrots, flower-girls, Juliets, Carmens, Sikhs, and Chinamen to Lady Campion, who was standing in the entrance quite near the milk-maid who was already surrounded by would-be partners.

"Lady Campion, will you present me to Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent asked in a stand-and-deliver sort of voice, the result of the tremendous effort it had been to approach her at all.

She looked rather surprised, but long apprenticeship to politics had taught her that you must bear all things for the sake of your party, so she smiled graciously on the stiff, rosy-faced Cromwellian, and duly made the presentation.

"May I," Eloquent asked, with quite awful solemnity, "have the pleasure of a dance?"

"I've got twelve or fourteen and an extra, but I can't promise to dance any one of them if other people are sitting out, because I've promised Lady Campion to help see to people. I'll give you one if you'll promise to dance it with someone else--if necessary----"

Eloquent looked blue. "Isn't that rather hard?" he asked meekly.

"Everyone's in the same box," Mary said shortly, "and you, of all people, ought simply to dance till your feet drop off. Let me see your card--What? no dances at all down? Oh, that's absurd--come with me."

And before poor Eloquent could protest he found himself being whisked from one young lady to another, and his card was full all except twelve, fourteen, and the second extra--which he rigidly reserved.

"There," said Mary, smiling upon him graciously, "that's well over.

I've been most careful; you are dancing with just about an equal number of Liberal and Tory young ladies, and you ought to take at least five mamas into supper; don't forget; look pleased and eager, and be careful what you say to the pretty girl in pink, she's a niece of our present member."

Here a partner claimed Mary, and Eloquent, feeling much as the White King must have felt when Alice lifted him from the hearth to the table (he certainly felt dusted), went to seek one Miss Jessie Bond whose name figured opposite the number on his programme that was just displayed on the bandstand.

He really worked hard. He danced carefully and laboriously--he had had lessons during his last year in London--and entirely without any pleasure. So far, he had fulfilled Mary's instructions to the very letter, except in the matter of looking "pleased and eager." His round, fresh-coloured face maintained its habitual expression of rather prim gravity. The Liberal young ladies, while gratified that he should have danced with them, thought him distinctly dull, the Tory young ladies declared him an insufferable oaf; but Phyllida the tall milk-maid, when she came across him in the dance, nodded and smiled at him in kindly approval. He noticed that she danced several times with the plain young man in the Elizabethan ruff, and that they seemed very good friends.

At last number twelve showed on the bandstand. Eloquent was not very clear as to whether Mary had given him this dance or not, but he went to her to claim it. It came just before the supper dances.

"Yes, this is our dance," said Mary, "shall we one-step for a change?"

"It seems to me," said Eloquent mournfully, "that one does nothing but change all the time. Now this is a waltz, how can you one-step to a waltz?"

"Poor man," Mary remarked pityingly. "It _is_ muddling if you're not used to it. Let us waltz then, that will be a change."

Once round the room they went, and Eloquent felt that never before had he realised the true delight of dancing. He was very careful, very accurate, and his partner set herself to imitate exactly his archaic style of dancing, so that they were a model of deportment to the whole room. But it was only for a brief s.p.a.ce that this poetry of motion was vouchsafed to him.

Mary stopped.

"Do you see," she asked, "that old lady near the band. She has been sitting there quite alone all the evening and she must be dying for something to eat. Don't you think you'd better take her to have some refreshment?"

"No," said Eloquent decidedly, "not just now. I've been dancing with all sorts of people with whom I didn't in the least desire to dance solely because you said I ought, and now I'm dancing with you and I'm not going to give it up. May we go on again?"

Again they waltzed solemnly round. Again Eloquent felt the thrill that always accompanies a perfect achievement. Again Mary stopped.

"That old lady is really very much on my conscience," she said; "if you won't take her in to have some supper, I must get Reggie, he'd do it."

"But why now?" Eloquent pleaded. "If, as you say, she has sat there all night, a few minutes more or less can make no difference--why should we spoil our dance by worrying about her? Do you know her?"

"I don't think I know her," Mary said vaguely, "but I have an idea she has something to do with coal. She's probably one of your const.i.tuents, and I think it's rather unkind of you to be so uninterested; besides, what does it matter whether one knows her or not, she's here to enjoy herself, it's our business to see that she does it. . . ."

"Why our business?" In a flash Eloquent saw he had made a mistake.

Mary looked genuinely surprised this time.

"Why, don't you think in any sort of gathering it's everybody's business . . . if you see anyone lonely . . . left out . . . one tries. . . ."

"I've been lonely and left out at dozens of parties in London, where I didn't know a soul, and I never discovered that anyone was in the least concerned about me. At all events no one ever tried to ameliorate my lot."

"But you're a man, you know. . . ."

"A man can feel just as out of it as a woman. It's worse for him in fact, for it's n.o.body's business to look after him."

Eloquent spoke bitterly.

"But surely since you, yourself, have suffered, you ought to be the more sympathetic with that stout lady----"

"I will go, since you wish it; but I don't know her and she may think it impertinent. . . ."

"I'll come too," said Mary. "_I_ don't know her but I can introduce you . . . we'll both go."

The lady in question was stout and rubicund, with smooth, tightly-braided brown hair, worn very flat and close to the head, and bright observant black eyes. She wore a high black satin dress, and had apparently been poured into it, so tight was it, so absolutely moulded to her form. A double gold chain was arranged over her ample bosom, and many bracelets decorated her fat wrists. She was quite alone on the raised red seat. For the last two hours Mary had noticed her sitting there, and that no one, apparently, ever spoke to, or came to sit by her.

There she remained placidly watching the dancers, her plump ungloved hands folded in her lap. She appeared rather cold for she wore no wrap, and what with draughts and the breeze created by the dancers, the tent was a chilly place to sit in.