Patsy Part 31

To this most fas.h.i.+onable event Patsy was going with the Lady Lucy for a chaperon. She had never been to any of the Regency set functions, and this was as much an affair of the Regent as if it had taken place at Carlton House.

The Princess Elsa could not go, or at least would not. But Prince Eitel had obtained an invitation through his emba.s.sy, and looked forward to a long evening of dancing and sitting out with Patsy. He argued, quite convincingly, that since Patsy was wholly unknown in Regency circles, she might expect to be left a good deal to herself. But his conclusion was wrong--first, because there were a good many, who, like Louis de Raincy, had a foot in both camps, and for the others, especially such as had heard much talk of Patsy, the charm of the unknown and unexpected was strong.

Many were the young men, therefore, who forsook the trains of Mrs.

Fitzherbert, of Miss Golding, Lady Bunyip, the Countess of Carment, and Mrs. Arlington herself to be introduced to Patsy. Louis himself was compelled, much against his will, to make some of these presentations.

Captain Laurence, having incautiously admitted that he had some slight acquaintance with the young beauty and her chaperon, found himself victimized by half a regiment at a time. Patsy soon had partners in plenty, and the Prince Eitel, who had looked forward to a pleasant tete-a-tete, retired to a corner from which he gloomed more and more murkily. He folded his arms and regarded the dancers with a.s.sa.s.sinating glances.

But Patsy wrote a hieroglyphic of her own before half-a-dozen of the dances, especially those just then coming into fas.h.i.+on, the waltz and the Bohemian polka _a deux temps_. Then, having a.s.sured her position, she began her struggle with the Arlington. She had never seen the lady before, and even now she did not find her antipathetic. Mrs. Arlington proved to be a big, blonde, jolly-looking woman, abundant in charms, with the easiest manner and the most laughing eyes in the room. She absolutely refused to let go her grip on youth. She must have been upon the outer confines of forty, yet her tint was as fresh and clear as it had been in her teens. Her hair was done in a froth of a myriad curls.

She had ballooned her bust and hour-gla.s.sed her waist according to the fas.h.i.+on of the day. With her fan she beckoned this young man and that other out of the ranks of those collected about the door, and he came blus.h.i.+ng, indeed, at the favour, and still more at its publicity, but all the same half-running with eager delight. She danced frequently, but did not seem to keep to any order or to have any written programme. She simply told one to go and another to come according to the accredited methods of the Roman centurion. Patsy noticed that Mrs. Arlington made no attempts to attract the older men to her side. The Royal Dukes, indeed, bowed over her hand, said a light word or two, and then moved off with a slight smile and a certain air of satisfied complicity.

From all this it was evident that Mrs. Arlington was a woman of much more discernment and courage than Patsy had been given to expect. There was nothing of the jill-flirt about her. She treated the boys whom she drew about her as if they had been her sons in need of scolding. She did not seek to hide her age. Indeed, she rather insisted upon it, and Patsy heard her bidding a young enthusiast to take himself off and do his duty to his girl cousins.

"When you have danced with them all, and got your toes duly trodden upon, come back and I shall see what I can do for you. Till then I have nothing to say to you. Surely you don't want me to have all the mammas hating me--there are some who look as if they could poniard me. Pray do look at that poor dear Lady Lucy. She slops over the seat as if somebody had opened the tap of a treacle-barrel and let her run out!"

But Mrs. Arlington, for all her loud good-nature, did not see without a pang the desertion of so many of her usual followers, and after she had seen Patsy beginning to dance, it suddenly became clear to her that she must do something to vindicate her rights of property.

"Louis," she said, in that most commanding tone which admitted of no reply, "go and speak to your mother. Then come straight back and dance with me. You have not been near the Lady Lucy to-night. And that I can't have!"

Louis obeyed, but as he made his way round the room he heard remarks which set him wild with anger and jealousy.

"They say he is quite mad about her!" said one.

"Don't they make a handsome couple?" "They are dancing the Hungarian Polka, the real one--it is easy to see that they have been practising it often before." "They say he is never away from Hanover Lodge!" "Oh, the Princess--why, of course she takes an interest in the girl because"--(and the rest was whispered into a carefully inclined ear).

"Louis, Louis," said his mother, taking his hand and keeping it between her two large soft palms, "do come and sit by us--don't go back to that odious woman. I can't think what you see in her. Though, indeed, 'tis easy to see what she has been by the horridly familiar way in which the Dukes treat her. Oh, you will break my heart--besides you make your grandfather so angry!"

For all the effect this homily of his mother produced on Louis Raincy, it might just as well never have been spoken. His eyes watched the smiling face of Mrs. Arlington as she whispered confidentially behind her hand to young Lord Lochend, a smooth-faced puppy whom Louis would like to have thrown out of the window. Then he gave his attention to the two who were dancing. They appeared so wrapped up in each other. The world was lost to them. Indeed, nearly every one else had stopped dancing to watch them. No doubt about it--these two were engaged. Patsy was soon to be a Princess. And with the curious mental blindness which causes a group of people to receive a tale, repeated by a sufficient number of mouths, as true, Patsy was considered already as good as married to Prince Eitel of Altschloss. Certain it was that they danced well together. Certain also that the two-time polka was the dance of the young man's native land. He must, therefore, have spent his time in teaching it to Patsy. The Princess, his neighbour, was of great influence with him. So the conclusion was clear--Patsy and he were to be married immediately, and in ten minutes from their first standing up, it was known what were to be the royal presents on the occasion, and the list of guests had been divulged, as well as the name of the officiating bishop.

Louis heard all this, and his eyes wandered no more to Mrs. Arlington.

He thought of the seat in the niche of the beech-tree, the green and secret nest under the wall overlooking the path along which they could see Julian Wemyss pacing to and fro, his hands behind his back, and his eyes on the trout darting and swirling in the pools. Once more he scented the bog-myrtle and was the lad of the night rescue by the White Loch. Again Patsy was his Patsy, and he felt the sting of her hand, little and brown but very strong, on his smitten cheek. Ah, they were good days, those--better than he had ever known since he came to London and donned the uniform of the Blue Dragoons. What a fool he had been!

He did not go back to Mrs. Arlington, but with an eagerness on his face, waited the moment when Patsy should be free. The dance ended. She was coming smilingly back to Lady Lucy. He had nothing to do but to wait.

But the Prince Eitel! He bowed. The Prince Eitel bowed, still radiant after the dance. He twirled his martial moustaches. He had heard from the Princess and others what Patsy had said of Louis Raincy, and considered himself quite at liberty to put on a conquering air which made him particularly hateful to the officer of dragoons.

The Prince said a few words to Lady Lucy, bowed and went away. He had a.s.serted his first rights, and Patsy and he had covered themselves with glory. Mrs. Fitzherbert herself had seen and envied. The Regent had seen and been defied. Best of all, and what he knew would please the Princess most, Lyonesse had seen. "Gad, how happy he would be to stab a rapier through any one of these obese swine!" And Eitel of Altschloss stalked away glancing about him arrogantly, eager and wishful that any one of the Regency party should quarrel with him.

But only poor "Silly Billy" came lolloping up much like a pet rabbit, his cravat undone and his blue ribbon of the Garter slipped from his neck and hanging as low as his knee.

"Cousin," he said, laughing his innocent's giggle, "what do you think?

My brother Clarence says that you have been dancing with a mightily pretty girl, but that Lyonesse led her a prettier dance than you! What did he mean, eh, cousin?"

"Go to your brothers, Clarence and Lyonesse, and tell them from me that they are d.a.m.ned, lying scoundrels, and that if they want a foot of steel through them, they have only to say as much in my hearing. Now say it over--don't forget."

The "natural" was delighted with his commission.

"No, Eitel, I shall tell them every word. I like you, Eitel. You never call me 'Silly Billy' like the rest. If you _could_ put some more swears in--I should like that still better!"

"I am sorry I cannot oblige," said Prince Eitel, "but the one there is, will suffice if you shout it loud enough. Thank you, Duke! that will do perfectly."

And the little man trotted off to deliver his message, jerking his arms and cracking his fingers with a real delight. It was not often that he got the chance of swearing at his brothers under the protection of Prince Eitel of Altschloss.

Meanwhile Louis Raincy had not been misusing his time. He knew he had come late in the day, and he was conscious of the queue of aspirants forming behind him.

At first Patsy listened with indifference, her eyes on the other side of the room and her chin in the air. She was so sorry, but she thought that of course Louis had all his arrangements made long before. She had seen him from the time they came in, yet while she was sitting beside his mother, he had never seen fit to come near them!

Whereupon Louis explained. He had been busy--the onerous duties of an attache--and so forth.

Patsy kept him awhile on the tenterhooks. He went on to remind her of the burn of the Glen-wood. He described their nests in the beech-b.u.t.t and under the shelter of the great march d.y.k.e. He would have spoken of the race across the moors and the rescue at the White Gates, save that by instinct he knew that her thoughts would at once be carried to Stair Garland, the man who _was_ a man and as such had played the leading part on these occasions. He hated even to see the Duke of Lyonesse limp and to think that he had not even done _that_ himself!

"Well, the one after next!" said Patsy carelessly, after consulting the list of dances for those she had marked with her own hieroglyphic.

"Meanwhile, stay here with Lady Lucy till I am ready. I am certainly not going to seek you up and down the ball-room."

This she said because she noticed that the Arlington was beginning to waft signals in the young man's direction with her fan. Therefore, before she took her next partner's arm, she saw Louis sit down beside his delighted mother, and talking to her in a manner so completely absorbed that he never so much as raised his eyes.

Patsy proved perfectly entrancing when it came to be Louis's turn to dance with her, but before the end of the music they dropped out, for Patsy said, "Now we shall climb the bank till we find our nook!"

And taking the young man's hand they ran nimbly up the stairs till they came to a dimly curtained recess which, if the truth must be told, Patsy had just vacated.

"Oh," said Louis, delighted, "you are as clever at finding hidie-holes in Hertford House as you used to be in the brows of the Abbey Water!"

"Draw the curtains closer," said Patsy, "or we shall have your Mrs.

Arlington spying us out and carrying you off with a single wave of her fan. She reminds me of Circe--a fat, curly-wurly Circe--like that picture Uncle Ju brought back from Italy. _Why_ do you run after her, Louis? I told you to go and make love to as many pretty girls as would let you, and here you go and break the tables of affinity by making love to your grandmother!"

At this Louis was vaguely offended--or perhaps rather hurt than offended. He had not come there to be lectured--at least not about Mrs.

Arlington. But Patsy had the good sense to administer the cooling bitter medicine immediately after the waltz, when men are never quite themselves. She would give him time to get over it.

"I am not making love to Mrs. Arlington," he retorted abruptly.

"I should think not," said Patsy, as instantaneously. "As an officer and a gentleman I should hope that you know better what England expects of you--Patsy Ferris also. What does the man suppose he is here for, that he should begin by telling me that? But seriously, Louis, you used to be always one to strike out new paths for yourself--why do you stick to the dusty highway--or, perhaps one might say in Mrs. Arlington's case, the old military road?"

"Patsy," said Louis, "_you_ do not need to say things like that. You are too pretty. Mrs. Arlington is a kind woman, much spoken against and abominably maligned. Besides, she is a great admirer of yours, and would give anything to be introduced to you! She told me so!"

Patsy whistled a mellow but mocking blackbird's note which very nearly brought the Duke of Kent, and half-a-dozen of his compeers, upon them.

However, they pa.s.sed on, in spite of royal instructions to "stop and search--some of these little she-vixens are signalling us!"

While the danger lasted, Patsy had gripped Louis by the wrist as she used to do in the woods when her uncle or some prowling gamekeeper went by. And the pressure of her fingers made his pulses fly. Patsy sighed, for she knew well that she was laying up wrath against herself, but for the present she disregarded the future. She was saving Louis, and in order to do this she must attach him to herself. It was a pity, of course, because it would inevitably lead to entanglements. Louis would blame her. Lady Lucy would blame her, and perhaps, at least till she had an occasion to explain, the Earl would also be angry. But of this last she was in no very deadly fear. Of all the explanations which fall to be made in this weary world, she found those with well-affected old gentlemen to be the easiest. And indeed, she was not very particular whether they were well-affected or not--that is, to begin with. The s.h.i.+kar was only the more interesting if the tiger growled and showed his teeth a bit at first.

Thereafter Patsy laid herself out to tease Louis, to bedazzle the poor boy's brain, and to reduce him to the state of drivelling incompetence induced by disobedience to the Arlington and dancing with herself. She went so far that Louis, filled with a spirit more heady than wine, got down on his knees and was trying to make Patsy understand his undying devotion, when the curtain was pushed furiously aside and Mrs. Arlington appeared menacing in the brilliant illumination of the stairs. Behind, having no connection with her, but equally there on a mission of vengeance, loomed up the chubby giant, Prince Eitel of Altschloss.

"Ah, Prince," said Patsy, not in the least ruffled, "is it time for our dance already?"

"No," said the Prince austerely, "our dance was five or six back!"

Patsy glanced at her programme. She had carried it out to the very hieroglyph. All those dances which she had specially marked, she had sat out with Louis in the niche on the stairs. And now she did not mean to leave the spoil in the hands of the enemy.

She rose to her feet, shook out her skirts, and said, "Now, Louis, give me your arm and take me back to Lady Lucy. I don't think I shall dance any more to-night. You had better come with us to Raincy House!

Good-night, Prince! I suppose we shall see you to-morrow!"