CHAPTER X
IT was a rare evening where no engagements were to be found in the diary, and they were all arranged in the drawing room.
Lady Allerton was busy sorting through a pile of invitations, casting aside with some relish those she found undeserving; Trixie was engaged in building card-houses; Timothy was adjusting the folds of his cravat in the looking glass; while Arthur and Hetty were cosied in armchairs before the fire.
It was a spot, Arthur decided as he closed his eyes and sank back into the chair, in which he intended spend eternity.
Hetty, when he voiced this, cast him a sidelong glance. ‘I should have thought you would make use of the free evening to visit Mrs Ridley.’
Arthur opened one eye to look towards his mother and sister. ‘Hushed tones, please, Hetty.’
Hetty begged his pardon, promising herself she would let the subject rest. Then, after a moment: ‘I just – I – assumed you would wish to recommence your acquaintance.’
‘Had circumstances been different I might indeed have dashed back to her waiting …’
‘Bosom?’ Hetty suggested, for this was an area in which Mrs Ridley was most blessed.
‘That is not what I was going to say! It is certainly not what you ought to say.’
He reached out to give her a playful cuff round the ear – as he would have done in their youth – before abruptly recollecting this was no longer appropriate.
‘I am not going to dash straight back to her waiting arms,’ he clarified. ‘Arms.’
Hetty tried not to look too pleased. Arthur closed his eyes again.
There was a pleasant fatigue in his bones.
He had spent a productive two hours with Thimbleby that afternoon, deciding which assets he might most swiftly dispose of.
The land of Belcourt was, in the main part, entailed; the only parcel of land available to be sold was the deer park – untenable, of course – but that was thankfully not the only option available to him.
‘Did you consider selling the racing stables?’ Hetty asked.
Arthur nodded. ‘I did. We shall do so immediately.’
‘And perhaps … perhaps’, Hetty continued tentatively, ‘you also considered letting out the Brighton house, if you have no plans to remove there …?’
Arthur’s eyes remained closed, but the corners of his mouth upturned. ‘Do “I” have any other ideas?’
Hetty flushed, torn between pleasure and embarrassment to have been so transparent. ‘I do not mean to overstep.’
Arthur waved away her apology. ‘I am used now to knowing you might play my role in Society just as well as I.’
‘For that matter, you might play mine far better,’ she countered.
‘I had not considered setting my cap at a European noble,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘An interesting idea, certainly, though I fear the modiste would have to do a great deal of heavy lifting.’ He added, more seriously: ‘You did well today.’
‘It was an improvement,’ Hetty conceded. ‘Though I cannot conduct all of my conversations on horseback.’
‘Saddle sores,’ Arthur agreed. ‘I understand, though there are other ways to achieve the same ease one has when the mind is distracted on some other task. Dancing, for instance.’
Hetty wrinkled her nose. ‘Not all dances allow for conversation, with all the hopping about one has to do.’
‘There is the waltz – and especially the new German waltz. There is no hopping about in that.’
‘Oh, we do not dance the new waltz, Arthur!’ Hetty said, in a faux-scandalised tone. ‘Really!’
His brows flew up. ‘You do not? It is all the rage in Europe.’
Hetty shook her head. ‘Not yet in London. I know some hostesses permit it but your mother is not convinced.’
Lady Allerton was in general a very indulgent chaperone, but she had an occasional streak of stuffiness that was difficult to predict.
‘But that’s ridiculous! Mama!’
Lady Allerton raised her head from her invitation cards, a questioning look upon her face.
‘What is this I hear about you not permitting Hetty to learn the new waltz?’
Lady Allerton fluttered her hand of cards like a fan. ‘Oh Arthur, it seems positively indecent, you know.’
‘You told Mrs Dandridge last night that you could not wait to dance it!’ Trixie accused.
‘I am practically in my dotage.’ Lady Allerton adjusted the devastatingly low bodice of her lavender silk gown primly. ‘Young ladies’ reputations are such delicate things. One wouldn’t wish for gentlemen to get ideas.’
Trixie looked intrigued. ‘Ideas of what?’
‘Besides, you know how pressed for time Monsieur Dupont is at the moment – he could only spare an hour for Lady Pinkerton’s girls, and you will forgive me if I remark that that was insufficient.’
‘Ham hands,’ Timothy interpolated. ‘The whole family has ’em.’
‘There are surely other dancing masters,’ Arthur pointed out.
‘I’m not sure I could trust another,’ Lady Allerton fretted. ‘When one thinks where their hands could go!’
‘Where?’ Trixie demanded. ‘Where could they go? Hetty?’
Lady Allerton raised a hand to forestall any answer.
‘In Europe they did not think it in the least exceptional,’ Arthur tried to reassure his mother.
‘Europe’, Lady Allerton – formerly Mademoiselle Barbet – said darkly, ‘is a very different place.’
‘You make it sound so fast.’ Trixie sounded fascinated. ‘I should like to try it.’
Lady Allerton sent Arthur a rather Speaking Glance. He had to see her point: Trixie hardly needed more licence to romp about, but neither was he so unfeeling an elder brother as to wish her to be left out of something that would soon become a staple of fashionable life.
‘There are more Europeans arriving into London by the day,’ Arthur pointed out. ‘I predict – nay, I promise – that the dance will be widespread within the week, and you would not want Hetty and Trixie standing upon the sidelines, surely?’
Besides, he did not think the German waltz – though certainly danced at more close quarters than the usual English arrangements – quite as shocking as Lady Allerton was imagining. ‘Perhaps I can show you,’ Arthur offered.
Lady Allerton shook her head, on the point of refusing. ‘I am just not sure—’
‘Hetty, would you assist me?
Lady Allerton shut her mouth with a click. ‘Perhaps I ought to keep an open mind,’ she said magnanimously. ‘Yes, Hetty, do assist Arthur – Timothy, push the furniture back, will you?’
Hetty stood reluctantly. Learning a new dance was equally likely to be diverting or humiliating, and idea of discovering which it would be in Arthur’s presence was not particularly appealing.
‘There is no music,’ she objected. ‘And the pianoforte is with Mr Kemp for repair.’
‘He has had it an age,’ Trixie said crossly. ‘I have not been able to play all Season!’
Lady Allerton gave a sympathetic hum. In reality, of course, her ladyship had bade Mr Kemp keep the pianoforte safely away from Berkeley Square until the occasion of Trixie’s engagement, Trixie’s enthusiasm for musical pursuits so grossly outweighing her ability, Lady Allerton had deemed nothing to be so detrimental to her marital prospects than a gentleman hearing her rendition of ‘Für Elise’.
‘Perhaps you could hum an accompaniment,’ Arthur suggested.
Trixie brightened. ‘Timothy has to hum with me, though!’
‘I’ve just moved the furniture!’ Timothy, on his way back to the looking glass, objected strongly. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to make the dinner, too!’
Trixie stamped her foot. ‘Oh, you care for nothing but your neckcloth!’
‘How dare you! I care for all my clothes!’
‘Mama, make him hum!’
‘You will hum for us, won’t you, Timothy?’ Lady Allerton cajoled. ‘You have such a lovely baritone.’
Timothy softened. ‘I suppose someone has got to keep Trixie in tune.’
Ignoring the bickering, Arthur turned to Hetty. ‘Now, Hetty, you have seen it done, have you not? You put your hand here, and I mine here – yes, just so.’
Hetty clasped his hand. Requiring dexterity for jack straws earlier in the evening, she had removed her gloves, and so her hand was bare in his.
She could feel against her palm the scar from the summer he had taken a tumble during the hunt, slicing his hand open on the way down.
But there were new scars too and callouses not visible to the eye.
He had the hands of a soldier now, not a gentleman.
‘You can come a bit closer,’ he encouraged.
Hetty tried to laugh, but it was rather strange. None of the dances they habitually danced were so intimate: one clasped hands and hopped and twirled about, but for most of it there was a clean foot of space between oneself and one’s partner. It felt odd, now, to feel the warmth of another person.
‘It’s a three count, as usual. Very simple – all you have to do is follow my lead. Trixie, are you ready?’
Trixie drew a deep breath and began her favourite, though tuneless, waltz-air, Timothy providing an unenthusiastic accompaniment.
Arthur winced but marshalled himself. ‘Now, we begin …’
Hetty followed the pressure of the palm clasping hers, face already aflame, keeping her eyes fixed upon his feet as she tried to follow his steps.
‘Head up,’ Arthur advised. ‘If you become used to watching your feet, you will never cease.’
She raised her head reluctantly. Finding their faces far closer together than she had anticipated, she flicked her eyes up to his forehead. ‘You can look at me,’ Arthur sounded amused. ‘Your European fellow might expect some eye contact, you know – but perhaps he does not dance.’
Hetty’s reply, concentrating on her feet as she was, was distracted: ‘He dances – well, actually.’
‘Aha! Another clue.’
‘Is it? I could be speaking of thousands of persons, surely.’
‘You could,’ he said. ‘But you have, at least, removed all members of our royal family from the list of possibilities.’
She laughed, which caused her to miss her next step, treading upon Arthur’s toe – which so much distressed her that she immediately did it again.
‘Sorry! Sorry!’
‘No matter. You should have seen me when I was learning.’
‘How had you occasion to do so?’ she asked. ‘Between battles?’
‘Just as soon as the whistle called an end to the fighting,’ he agreed. ‘A single “pip pip”, and we would leap into position. I must say you are a more pleasing companion than the Major.’
‘A compliment indeed.’
He paused a moment, correcting her form.
‘There were a few balls,’ he said. ‘Wellington liked our fellows to show up in style, you know, and we couldn’t let the Prussians shine us down. Knighton taught us.’
‘You make it sound almost a jaunt,’ she noted, her brow creasing. This time, it was Arthur’s turn to evade her gaze. It was hard to lie to Hetty. But what would he say? That Knighton, who had taught them all their steps, had died three days before the ceasefire?
Fortunately, he was saved the difficulty of answering, for at that moment the orchestra began to lose its structural integrity.
‘You’re going too fast!’ Timothy broke off to berate Trixie in a hiss.
‘You’re going too slowly!’
‘Can’t just go off on your own.’
‘I know – let us do it in the round! It is more interesting, I think.’
‘Dash it, when has the waltz ever been played in the round?’
‘Anyway, it is my turn!’ Trixie skipped over to them, hands outstretched. Arthur dropped Hetty’s hand rather hastily, and Hetty – noting this – worried that her clammy palms had been as noticeable to him as they had been to her.
Trixie was a better student than Hetty, taking to the new steps as a duck to water. ‘Gosh, everyone will think us dashing!’ she said, voice full of self-admiration.
‘If they do not consider you fast!’ Lady Allerton said, but without nearly as much heat. She was feeling more complacent about the whole business now: her children did show themselves to best advantage upon the dance floor, there was no doubt about that.
‘We can dance it next week!’ Trixie said eagerly. ‘I should think Countess Lieven will have it at her ball.’
But Lady Allerton shook her head. ‘You will need far more practice before dancing it creditably in public.’
Before both Hetty and Trixie’s debuts, Lady Allerton had taken each of them to a succession of country balls, where they might practise their steps in relative anonymity.
‘Surely there is somewhere in London where we are not well known,’ Trixie reasoned.
Lady Allerton shook her head. ‘We would have to travel for several days or more.’
‘Odd thing to do,’ Timothy agreed.
‘Or wear disguises!’ Trixie suggested.
‘Odder.’
But Trixie, once she had an idea in her head, was not easily dissuaded.
‘There is a masked ball at the Argyll Rooms tonight,’ she said with shining eyes. ‘We might easily slip in without anyone noticing!’
‘Oddest.’
Arthur’s face was thoughtful. It was not a bad idea, actually. ‘The Argyll Rooms are perfectly respectable.’
‘For private events,’ Lady Allerton said, ‘and subscription balls – but I think for tonight’s soirée one can simply buy a ticket …’ She paused, and then added, with no little degree of horror: ‘On the door.’
‘Not the door …’ Hetty murmured, and Arthur had to work to keep his face straight.
‘I am afraid it is out of the question,’ Lady Allerton said with finality. ‘I will not listen to any further of your persuasions.’