Джорджетт Хейер - The Nonesuch

He laughed, blushing. “No, no, I didn’t mean it so! You know I didn’t! Miss Wield, what do you say?” He smiled at her, adding softly: “Instead of the nuncheon we didn’t eat at Knaresborough! You won’t be so cruel as to refuse!”

It piqued her to be the last to receive his invitation, but she was on her best behaviour, and she replied at once: “Oh, no! A delightful scheme! The very thing to revive us after all our shopping!”

She then went off, with every appearance of alacrity, to visit Elizabeth; and Lady Colebatch remarked that she didn’t know what Lizzie had done to deserve such kind friends.

When Tiffany came down again she was accompanied by Miss Chartley, and the whole party took their leave. Miss Trent wondered whether his infatuation would prompt Lindeth to offer to take Tiffany up in place of Patience, and hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry when he made no such suggestion. It was Patience who hesitated, as he stood waiting to hand her up into the carriage, glancing towards Tiffany with a question in her eyes, and saying in her gentle way: “Wouldn’t you prefer to go in the phaeton, Tiffany?”

Tiffany would infinitely have preferred it, and had Julian invited her she would have accepted, after a graceful show of reluctance. But Julian had not invited her, and he did not now add his voice to Miss Chartley’s. That it would have been scarcely civil of him to have done so never occurred to Tiffany; if it had, she would have brushed such an excuse aside: he had chosen to be civil to Patience at her expense, and that, in her eyes, was an unpardonable offence. As for accepting a seat in the phaeton at Patience’s hands, she would have chosen rather to walk back to Staples. She uttered a brittle laugh, and said: “No, I thank you! I detest riding in phaetons, and am in a constant quake—unless they are being driven by someone I know won’t overturn them!”

Miss Trent, who had been stroking one of the leaders, said, in a voice that had in the past more than once abashed a pert pupil: “My dear Tiffany, surely you are able to distinguish between perch-phaeton and a high-perch phaeton?” She paid no further heed to Tiffany, but smiled at Lindeth: “The fact that you are driving your cousin’s team tells me that you’re no whipster, Lord Lindeth! Or did you steal them when his back was turned?”

He laughed. “No, I shouldn’t dare! Waldo always lets me drive his horses. He must, you know, for it was he who taught me to handle the reins in form. Only think of the wound his pride would suffer if he had to own that his pupil was not fit to be trusted with his horses! Don’t be afraid, Miss Chartley! I’m not a top-sawyer, but I shan’t overturn you!”

“Indeed, I haven’t the smallest fear of that,” she replied, glancing shyly up at him. “You drove me here so comfortably!”

“Thank you!” He saw that Tiffany was preparing to get into the barouche, and walked across to her, to hand her in. “I mean to make you unsay those words one of these days!” he said playfully. “The grossest injustice! I wish we hadn’t to part so soon: I’ve scarcely exchanged half-a-dozen sentences with you. Did you find Miss Colebatch better? Her mama assured me we need not be afraid of a put-off of their ball next week. Will you dance the waltz with me?”

“What?” she exclaimed, her sulks instantly forgotten. “Lindeth, you can’t mean we are to waltz? Oh, you’re hoaxing me!”

He shook his head. “I’m not! Dashing, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, and such fun!” she cried, clapping her hands. “I declare I’m ready to dote on Lady Colebatch! But how does she dare to be so dreadfully fast? Only think how Mrs. Mickleby will look!”

“It has her sanction—almost her blessing!”

“Impossible!”

“I assure you!” His eyes danced. “Lady Colebatch sought her counsel, and she—naturally!—applied to those tonnish London cousins of hers. They informed her that the waltz is now all the crack, and is even permitted at Almack’s. Only rustics, they wrote, still frowned on it. So—!”

“Oh, famous, famous!” she giggled. “The great Mrs. Mickleby a rustic? Now I understand!”

“And you’ll stand up with me?”

“If my aunt permits!” she replied demurely.

He smiled, pressed her hand fleetingly, and went back to the phaeton. Tiffany was so much delighted with his news that she was not only able to bear with equanimity the sight of him driving off with Patience beside him, but to chat merrily to Miss Trent about the treat in store all the way back to Staples.

Meanwhile, Lord Lindeth, driving Miss Chartley home at an easy pace, naturally told her that the waltz would be danced at the Colby Place ball. She was quite as much surprised as Tiffany had been, but she received the news very differently, saying wistfully: “I have never learnt to waltz, but I shall enjoy watching it.”

“You could learn the steps in a trice,” he assured her. “I know how well you dance, Miss Chartley! Any caper-merchant could teach you in one lesson! Why, I could do it myself—though I’m no dab at it! Do let me!”

She smiled gratefully at him, but said simply: “I don’t think Mama would permit it.”

“Wouldn’t she? Not even when she knows Mrs Mickleby sanctions it?”

She shook her head, but closed her lips on speech. A lady of true quality, said Mama, did not puff off her consequence: anything of that nature belonged to the mushroom class! Mama never mentioned the matter, but she was far better bred than the Squire’s wife, and well did Patience know that she would be considerably affronted by any suggestion that she should accept Mrs Mickleby as a model.

“Does she believe it to be an improper dance?” asked Lindeth. “So too did my own mother, until she saw that it was no such thing. I shall see if I can’t persuade Mrs Chartley to relent! It would be too bad if you were obliged merely to watch it!”

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t succeed,” she said, thinking there was no real intention behind his words.

She was mistaken. When they reached the Rectory Lindeth entered it with her, and was soon engaged in coaxing Mrs Chartley, recovering from her indisposition on the sofa in her drawing-room, to revise her opinion of the fast German dance which had become the rage in London.

She was by no means impervious to his charm, but her sense of propriety was strict, and it is doubtful whether he would have prevailed upon her to relax it had he not received support from an unexpected quarter. The Rector, coming into the room and learning what was the subject under discussion, said that since the world began each generation had condemned the manners and customs of the next. For himself, he would not judge a dance he had never seen performed. Smiling kindly upon Julian, he invited him to show them the steps.

“Mr Chartley!” protested his wife, in half-laughing reproach.

“I was very fond of dancing when I was young,” said the Rector reminiscently. “Dear me, what dashers we were! Always up to the knocker, as you young people would say!”

That made them all laugh; and when he told his wife that while he hoped no child of his would ever pass the line he found he could not wish his daughter to be a dowdy, Mrs Chartley flung up her hands in mock dismay, and consented to postpone judgment. The end of it was that Julian was persuaded to give Patience her first lesson, ably assisted by Miss Jane Chartley, who not only bullied her shrinking elder sister into standing up with him, but volunteered to play the music. This she did with great aplomb, strongly marking the time, in a manner which made her startled mama wonder who had taught her to play waltzes. It was certainly not her rather prim governess.

Patience (like her father) was very fond of dancing, and as soon as she had overcome her nervousness she showed herself to be an apt pupil, a trifle stiff when she found Lindeth’s arm round her for the first time, but quickly mastering the steps and the rhythm of the dance.

“Bravo!” applauded the Rector, gently clapping his hands. “Very pretty! Very pretty indeed!”

“Oh, do you think so, Papa?” Patience said eagerly. “I was dreadfully awkward, and kept missing my step! But, if you don’t think it indecorous, I-I should like to learn to do it correctly. It is so exhilarating!”

It was this impulsive utterance which made Mrs Chartley say, later: “My dear John, I marvel at your countenancing this most improper dance! When they went down the room together, with his left hand holding her right one above their heads, his right hand was clasping her waist!”

“For guidance, my love!” said the Rector. “Lindeth had no amorous intention! I saw nothing improper. Indeed, I should have wished to see Patience a trifle less unyielding—but I daresay she was awkward from ignorance!”

“It’s my belief,” said Mrs Chartley severely, “that you would like to dance the waltz yourself!”

“No, no, not at my age!” he said guiltily. A smile crept into his eyes. “But if it had been in fashion when I was a young man, and not, of course, in orders, I should have danced it—and with you, my love! Would you have disliked it?”

A dimple quivered in her cheek, but she said: “My mother would never have permitted such a thing. Do you, in all sincerity, expect me to permit Patience to—to twirl round a ball-room in a male embrace—for I can call it nothing less than that!”

“You are the best judge of what she should do, my dear, and I must leave it to you to decide. I must own, however, that I should not wish to see Patience sitting against the wall while her friends are, as you phrase it, twirling round the room.”