Miss Wychwood confined her part in these mild revelries to keeping an eye on them, seeing to it that inexperienced girls unaccompanied by their mamas did not stand up more than twice with the same man, and finding partners for neglected damsels. Since nearly all the young people were well acquainted there was not much of this to be done: indeed, it was more important to take care that the impromptu dance did not develop into a romp, which, with so many very young persons who had known one another from the nursery onwards, was more than likely it would.

She was many times solicited to dance, but smilingly refused to stand up with even a gallant old friend, who might well have been her father. “No, no, General!” she said, twinkling up at him. “Chaperons don’t dance!”

“Chaperon? You?”he said. “Moonshine! I know to a day how old you are, puss, so don’t talk flummery to me!”

“Next you will say that you dandled me when I was an infant!” she murmured.

“At all events, I might have done so. Now, come, Annis! You can’t refuse to stand up with such an old friend as I am! Damme, I knew your father!”

“I should like very much to stand up with you, but you must excuse me! You may think it absurd, but I am being a chaperon tonight, and if I were to stand up with you how could I refuse to stand up with anyone else?”

“No difficulty about that!” he said. “You have only to say that you stood up with me because you didn’t care to offend an old man!”

“Yes, no doubt I could if you weren’t well known to be the wickedest flirt in Bath!” she retorted.

This pleased him so much that he chuckled, threw out his chest a little, apostrophized her as a saucy minx, and went off to dally with all the best looking women in the room.

Miss Wychwood enjoyed dancing, but she was not tempted to take the floor on this occasion. There was no one with whom she wished to dance; but no sooner had she realized this truth than a question posed itself in her mind: if Mr Carleton, instead of leaving the party in something remarkably like a dudgeon, had stayed, and had invited her to dance a waltz with him, would she have been tempted to consent? She was forced to admit to herself that she would have been very strongly tempted, but she hoped (rather doubtfully) that she would have had enough strength of mind to have resisted temptation.

In the middle of these ruminations, Lord Beckenham came up, and sat down beside her, saying: “May I bear you company, dear Miss Annis? I do not ask you to dance, for I know you don’t mean to dance this evening. I cannot help being glad of it: it gives me the opportunity to enjoy a comfortable cose with you, and—to own the truth—I don’t care for the waltz. I am aware that it is the height of a la modality, but it never seems to me to be quite the thing. You will say I am old-fashioned, I fear!”

“Quite Gothic!” she answered flatly. “Excessively uncivil, too, when you must know that I delight in waltzing!”

“Oh, I intended no incivility!” he assured her. “You lend distinction to everything you do!”

“For goodness’ sake, Beckenham, stop throwing the hatchet at me!” she said tartly.

He gave an indulgent laugh. “What an odd expression to hear on your lips! I myself am not familiar with modern slang, but I hear a great deal of it from Harry—more, indeed, than I like!—and I understand throwing the hatchet means to flatter a person, which, I promise you, I was not doing! Nor am I doing so when I tell you that I have rarely seen you look more beautiful than you do tonight.” He laughed again, and, laying his hand over hers, gave it a slight squeeze. “There, don’t eat me! Your dislike of receiving compliments is well known to me, and is what one so particularly likes in you, but my feelings overcame my prudence for once!”

She drew her hand away, saying: “Excuse me! I see Mrs Wendlebury is about to take her leave.”

She got up, and moved across the room towards this formidable dame, and, having said goodbye to her, responded to a signal from Mrs Mandeville, and went to sit beside her.

“Well, my dear, a very pleasant party!” said Mrs Mandeville. “I congratulate you!”

“Thank you, ma’am!” Annis said gratefully. “From you that is praise of a high order! May I also thank you for having been kind enough to honour me with your presence tonight? I assure you I appreciate it, and can only hope you haven’t been bored to death!”

“On the contrary, I’ve been vastly amused!” replied the old lady, with a chuckle. “What made Carleton take himself off in a rage?”

Annis coloured faintly. “Was he in a rage? I thought him merely bored.”

“No, no, he wasn’t bored,my dear! It looked to me as though he and you were at outs!”

“Oh, we come to cuffs whenever we meet!” Annis said lightly.

“Yes, he makes a lot of enemies with that bitter tongue of his,” nodded Mrs Mandeville. “Spoilt, of course! Too many caps have been set at him! My second son is a friend of his, and he told me years ago that it was no wonder he’d been soured, with half the mamas and their daughters on the scramble for him. That’s the worst of coming into the world as rich as a Nabob: it ain’t good for young men to be too full of juice. However, I don’t despair of him, for there’s nothing much amiss with him that marriage to the woman he falls in love with won’t cure.”

“I haven’t understood that love was lacking in his life, ma’am!”

“Lord, child, I’m not talking of his bits of muslin,” said Mrs Mandeville scornfully. “It ain’t love a man feels for the lightskirts he entertains! Myself, I’d always a soft corner for a rake, and it’s my belief most women have! Mind you, I don’t mean the sort of rabshackle who gives some gal a slip on the shoulder, for them I can’t abide! Carleton ain’t one of those sneaking rascals. Has he put you in charge of that pretty little niece of his?”

“No, no! She is merely staying with me for a short time, before going to live with one of her aunts, or cousins—I am not perfectly sure which!”

“I’m glad to hear it. You’re a deal too young to be burdened with a gal of her age, my dear!”

“So Mr Carleton thinks! Only he goes further than you, ma’am, and doesn’t scruple to inform me that he considers me to be quite unfit to take care of Lucilla.”

“Yes, I’m told he can be very uncivil,” nodded Mrs Mandeville.

“Uncivil! He is the rudest man I have ever met in my life!” declared Miss Wychwood roundly.

Chapter 9

By the time Miss Wychwood had said goodbye to the last, lingering guests she was feeling more weary than ever before at the end of a party. Everyone except herself (and, presumably, Mr Carleton) seemed to have enjoyed it, which was, she supposed some slight consolation to her for having spent a most disagreeable evening. Lucilla was in what she considered to be exaggerated raptures over it: she wished it might have gone on for ever! Miss Wychwood, barely repressing a shudder, sent her off to bed, and was about to follow her when she found Limbury in the way, obviously awaiting an opportunity to speak to her. She paused, looking an enquiry, and he all unwittingly set the seal on a horrid evening by disclosing, with the smile of one bearing welcome tidings, that Sir Geoffrey had arrived in Bath, and wished her to give him a look-in before she retired to bed.

“Sir Geoffrey?” she repeated blankly. “Here? Good God, what can have happened to bring him to Bath at this hour of the night?”

“Now, don’t you fret yourself, Miss Annis!” Limbury said, in a fatherly way. “It’s no worse than the toothache which Master Tom has, and which my lady thinks may be an abscess, so she wishes to take him instantly to Mr Westcott. Sir Geoffrey arrived twenty minutes before you went down to supper, but when he saw you was holding a rout-party he charged me not on any account to say a word to you about it until the party was over, him being dressed in his riding-habit, and not having brought with him his evening attire, and not wishing to attend the rout in all his dirt. Which is very understandable, of course. So I directed Jane to make up the bed in the Blue bedchamber, miss, and myself carried up supper to him, which is what I knew you would wish me to do.”

Miss Farlow, who had paused in her rather ineffective attempts to restore the drawing-room to order, to listen to this interchange, exclaimed: “Oh, poor Sir Geoffrey! If only I had known! I would have run up immediately to make sure that he was comfortable—not that I mean to say Jane is not to be trusted, for she is a very dependable girl, but still—! Dear little Tom, too! His papa must be in agonies,for nothing is worse than the pain one undergoes with the toothache, particularly when an abscess forms, as well I know, for never shall I forget the torture I suffered when I—”

“It is Tom who has the toothache, not Geoffrey!” snapped Miss Wychwood, interrupting this monologue without ceremony.

“Well, I know, dearest, but the sight of one’s child’s suffering cannot but cast a fond parent into agonies!” said Miss Farlow.

“Oh, fiddle!” said Annis, and went upstairs to rap on the door of the Blue bedchamber.

She found her brother flicking over the pages of the various periodicals with which Limbury had thoughtfully provided him. A decanter of brandy stood on a small table at his elbow, and he held a glass in his hand, which, on his sister’s entrance, he drained, before setting it down on the table, and rising to greet her. “Well, Annis!” he said, planting a chaste salute upon her cheek. “I seem to have come to visit you at an awkward moment, don’t I?”