The Marriage of William Ashe Part 31

"Poor wretch!" said Kitty, carelessly. "I'm glad I'm not an errand--Blanche! you know Fanchette may be an old demon, but she _has_ got taste! Just look at these folds, and the way she's put on the pearls! Now then--make haste!"

Off flew the peignoir, and, with the help of the excited maids, Kitty slipped into her dress. Ten times, over did she declare that it was hopeless, that it didn't fit in the least, that it wasn't one bit what she had ordered, that she couldn't and wouldn't go out in it, that it was simply scandalous, and Fanchette should never be paid a penny. Her maids understood her, and simply went on pulling, patting, fastening, as quickly as their skilled fingers could work, till the last fold fell into its place, and the under-housemaid stepped back with clasped hands and an "Oh, my lady!" couched in a note of irrepressible ecstasy.

"Well?" said Kitty, still frowning--"eh, Blanche?"

The maid proper would have scorned to show emotion; but she nodded approval. "If you ask me, my lady, I think you have never looked so well in anything."

Kitty's brow relaxed at last, as she stood gazing at the reflection in the large gla.s.s before her. She saw herself as Artemis--a la Madame de Longueville--in a hunting-dress of white silk, descending to the ankles, embroidered from top to toe in crescents of seed pearls and silver, and held at the waist by a silver girdle. Her throat was covered with magnificent pearls, a Tranmore family possession, lent by Lady Tranmore for the occasion. The slim ankles and feet were cased in white silk, cross-gartered with silver and shod with silver sandals. Her belt held her quiver of white-winged arrows; her bow of ivory inlaid with silver was slung at her shoulder, while across her breast, the only note of color in the general harmony of white, fell a scarf of apple-green holding the horn, also of ivory and silver, which, like the belt and bow, had been designed for her in Madame de Longueville's Paris.

But neither she nor her model would have been finally content with an adornment so delicately fanciful and minute. Both Kitty and the G.o.ddess of the Fronde knew that they must hold their own in a crowd. For this there must be diamonds. The sleeves, therefore, on the white arms fell back from diamond clasps; the ivory spear in her right hand was topped by a small genius with glittering wings; and in the ma.s.ses of her fair hair, bound with pearl fillets, shone the large diamond crescent that Lady Tranmore had foreseen, with one small attendant star at either side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FINISHING TOUCHES]

"Well, upon my word, Kitty!" said a voice from her husband's dressing-room.

Kitty turned impetuously.

"Do you like it?" she cried. Ashe approached. She lifted her horn to her mouth and stood tiptoe. The movement was enchanting; it had in it the youth and freshness of spring woods; it suggested mountain distances and the solitudes of high valleys. Intoxication spoke in Ashe's pulses; he wished the maids had been far away that he might have taken the G.o.ddess in his very human arms. Instead of which he stood lazily smiling.

"What Endymion are you calling?" he asked her. "Kitty, you are a dream!"

Kitty pirouetted, then suddenly stopped short and held out a foot.

"Look at those silk things, sir. n.o.body but Fanchette could have made them look anything but a botch. But they spoil the dress. And all to please mother and Mrs. Grundy!"

"I like them. I suppose--the nearest you could get to buskins? You would have preferred ankles _au naturel_? I don't think you'd have been admitted, Kitty."

"Shouldn't I? And so few people have feet they can show!" sighed Kitty, regretfully.

Ashe's eyes met those of the maid, who was trying to hide her smiles, and he and she both laughed.

"What do you think about it, eh, Blanche?"

"I think her ladyship is much better as she is," said the maid, decidedly. "She'd have felt very strange when she got there."

Kitty turned upon her like a whirlwind. "Go to bed!" she said, putting both hands on the shoulders of the maid. "Go to bed at once! Esther can give me my cloak. Do you know, William, she was awake all last night thinking of her brother?"

"The brother who has had an operation? But I thought there was good news?" said Ashe, kindly.

"He's much better," put in Kitty. "She heard this afternoon. She won't be such a goose as to lie awake, I Should hope, to-night. Don't let me catch you here when I get back!" she said, releasing the girl, whose eyes had filled with tears. "Mr. Ashe will help me, and if he pulls the strings into knots, I shall just cut them--so there! Go away, get your supper, and go to bed. Such a life as I've led them all to-day!" She threw up her hands in a perfunctory penitence.

The maid was forced to go, and the housemaid also returned to the hall with Kitty's Opera-cloak and fan, till it should please her mistress to descend. Both of them were dead tired, but they took a genuine disinterested pleasure in Kitty's beauty and her fine frocks. She was not by any means always considerate of them; but still, with that wonderful generosity that the poor show every day to the rich, they liked her; and to Ashe every servant in the house was devoted.

Kitty meanwhile had driven Ashe to his own toilette, and was walking about the room, now studying herself in the gla.s.s, and now chattering to him through the open door.

"Have you heard anything more about Tuesday?" she asked him, presently.

"Oh yes!--compliments by the dozen. Old Parham overtook me as I was walking away from the House, and said all manner of civil things."

"And I met Lady Parham in Marshall's," said Kitty. "She does thank so badly! I should like to show her how to do it. Dear me!" Kitty sighed.

"Am I henceforth to live and die on Lady Parham's ample breast?"

She sat with one foot beating the floor, deep in meditation.

"And shall I tell you what mother said?" shouted Ashe through the door.

"Yes."

He repeated--so far as dressing would let him a number of the charming and considered phrases in which Lady Tranmore, full of relief, pleasure, and a secret self-reproach, had expressed to him the effect produced upon herself and a select public by Kitty's performance at the Parhams'.

Kitty had indeed behaved like an angel--an angel _en toilette de bal_, reciting a scene from Alfred de Musset. Such politeness to Lady Parham, such smiles, sometimes a shade malicious, for the Prime Minister, who on his side did his best to efface all memory of his speech of the week before from the mind of his fascinating guest; smiles from the Princess, applause from the audience; an evening, in fact, all froth and sweetstuff, from which Lady Parham emerged grimly content, conscious at the same time that she was henceforward very decidedly, and rather disagreeably, in the Ashes' debt; while Elizabeth Tranmore went home in a tremor of delight, happily persuaded that Ashe's path was now clear.

Kitty listened, sometimes pleased, sometimes inclined to be critical or scornful of her mother-in-law's praise. But she did love Lady Tranmore, and on the whole she smiled. Smiles, indeed, had been Kitty's portion since that evening of strange emotion, when she had found herself sobbing in William's arms for reasons quite beyond her own defining. It was as if, like the prince in the fairy tale, some iron band round her heart had given way. She seemed to dance through the house; she devoured her child with kisses; and she was even willing sometimes to let William tell her what his mother suspected of the progress of Mary's affair with Geoffrey Cliffe, though she carefully avoided speaking directly to Lady Tranmore about it. As to Cliffe himself, she seemed to have dropped him out of her thoughts. She never mentioned him, and Ashe could only suppose she had found him disenchanting.

"Well, darling! I hope I have made a sufficient fool of myself to please you!"

Ashe had thrown the door wide, and stood on the threshold, arrayed in the brocade and fur of a Venetian n.o.ble. He was a somewhat magnificent apparition, and Kitty, who had coaxed or driven him into the dress, gave a scream of delight. She saw him before her own gla.s.s, and the crimson senator made eyes at the white G.o.ddess as they posed triumphantly together.

"You're a very rococo sort of G.o.ddess, you know, Kitty!" said Ashe. "Not much Greek about you!"

"Quite as much as I want, thank you," said Kitty, courtesying to her own reflection in the gla.s.s. "Fanchette could have taught them a thing or two! Now come along! Ah! Wait!"

And, gathering up her possessions, she left the room. Ashe, following her, saw that she was going to the nursery, a large room on the back staircase. At the threshold she turned back and put her finger to her lip. Then she slipped in, reappearing a moment afterwards to say, in a whisper, "Nurse is not in bed. You may come in." Nurse, indeed, knew much better than to be in bed. She had been sitting up to see her ladyship's splendors, and she rose smiling as Ashe entered the room.

"A parcel of idiots, nurse, aren't we?" he said, as he, too, displayed himself, and then he followed Kitty to the child's bedside. She bent over the baby, removed a corner of the cot-blanket that might tease his cheek, touched the mottled hand softly, removed a light that seemed to her too near--and still stood looking.

"We must go, Kitty."

"I wish he were a little older," she said, discontentedly, under her breath, "that he might wake up and see us both! I should like him to remember me like this."

"Queen and huntress, come away!" said Ashe, drawing her by the hand.

Outside the landing was dimly lighted. The servants were all waiting in the hall below.

"Kitty," said Ashe, pa.s.sionately, "give me one kiss. You're so sweet to-night--so sweet!"

She turned.

"Take care of my dress!" she smiled, and then she held out her face under its sparkling crescent, held it with a dainty deliberation, and let her lips cling to his.

Ashe and Kitty were soon wedged into one of the interminable lines of carriages that blocked all the approaches to St. James's Square. The ball had been long expected, and there was a crowd in the streets, kept back by the police. The brougham went at a foot's pace, and there was ample time either for reverie or conversation. Kitty looked out incessantly, exclaiming when she caught sight of a costume or an acquaintance. Ashe had time to think over the latest phase of the negotiations with America, and to go over in his mind the sentences of a letter he had addressed to the _Times_ in answer to one of great violence from Geoffrey Cliffe. His own letter had appeared that morning.

Ashe was proud of it. He made bold to think that it exposed Cliffe's exaggerations and insincerities neatly, and perhaps decisively. At any rate, he hummed a cheerful tune as he thought of it.

Then suddenly and incongruously a recollection occurred to him.

"Kitty, do you know that I had a letter from your mother, this morning?"

"Had you?" said Kitty, turning to him with reluctance. "I suppose she wanted some money."