CHAPTER XV
JUST as Lady Allerton predicted, the Nicolets were soon taking the ton by storm, though this did not offer universal pleasure.
That evening at Lady Castlereagh’s ball, both Timothy and Trixie observed the flock of gentlemen encircling Mademoiselle de Nicolet, their jostling offering an amusing contrast to the heavenly music filling their ears.
Lady Castlereagh had distinguished her assembly by securing none other than the great Madame Catalani to sing for them betwixt the sets of dances and no angel could have sounded more lovely.
Music, however, was the furthest thought from Timothy’s mind as he complained in an undertone: ‘Corky has the waltz. Corky! And I? Only the cotillion!’
‘Rotten luck!’ Major Morgan sympathised in a low voice.
‘After I spent a whole afternoon with her at the botanical gardens!’
‘Was it such a sacrifice?’ Mrs Morgan enquired, wresting her eyes from the small platform upon which Madame Catalani stood.
‘I should think it was! The way she was going on about flowers to the poor fellow running the place! Even worse, on the way home, she was asking all these questions she had forgotten while there, as if I should have the faintest—’
‘What kind of questions?’ Mr Hargan interjected.
‘I don’t know, some such about why they have ceased using bark, and goodness knows what that is, but it sounds shockingly bad ton. And,’ he concluded with the greatest grievance of the day, ‘I got pollen on my waistcoat, which is devilishly difficult to get out, y’know.’
The performance finished to such great applause that Madame Catalani unbent enough to sing an encore.
‘You might tell Mademoiselle de Nicolet’, Mr Hargan put in as Catalani’s voice began to soar once more, ‘that they have commenced using sand as more equable means of communicating warmth to the plants.’
Timothy turned to look at him, astonished. ‘Might I?’
Mr Hargan flushed. ‘I wondered at it myself when I visited the gardens, and asked Mr Fairbairn, the gardener, you know?’
‘I do know him. A sight too well, I should say!’ The suggestion had, however, visibly cheered Timothy, who felt this information would certainly impress the lady in question. ‘She may, of course, have been so taken with my new neckcloth that I shall not need to use the information.’
He raised his chin so that they might more fully admire it, and all agreed it was his best yet – though Hetty, eyes upon Trixie, did not spare it more than a passing glance.
Trixie had borne Mademoiselle de Nicolet’s rapid ascension well, thus far, but the loss of Lord Devereux – who had been quite Trixie’s most assiduous admirer – did not seem to be sitting as well, given Trixie’s fixed regard towards where this gentleman was currently murmuring into Mademoiselle de Nicolet’s ear.
Trixie gave a great toss of her head. ‘They are all such sheep,’ she said dismissively, forcing her eyes away. ‘Worse, they are boys, and I have no time for boys any more.’
Hetty was pleasantly surprised by this attitude.
‘I much prefer gentlemen who have been about the world a little,’ Trixie continued.
Hetty was unpleasantly surprised by this attitude. She cast her mind about, wondering to whom, exactly, Trixie might be referring. As far as Hetty knew, all of her suitors were generally of the younger set and she could not think of any regular member of Trixie’s court older than eight and twenty.
‘Do you speak from experience?’ she enquired lightly.
Mindful of the need for secrecy, Trixie shook her head. ‘Oh, no! It is just a – a hypothesis, only.’
‘I do not think it a good one.’ Hetty said. ‘Older men can be so very tiresome: most of them have gout, you know.’
‘Gout?’ Trixie repeated. ‘Do you mean – as Henry VIII did?’ She was much struck by this: Anne Boleyn might be, to her mind, the height of elegance, but she had a great horror of Henry VIII.
Hetty gave a sage nod. ‘Exactly so.’
Madame Catalani concluded her aria to even greater applause, and though many further appeals were made of her, she descended from her stage and indicated to Lady Castlereagh that the dancing might begin again.
The cotillion being announced as the next dance, Timothy checked his cravat and squared his shoulders.
‘Sand is cosier for the plants, did you say, Hargan?’
‘Ah – not quite, but—’
Timothy was already across the room. Lord Devereux, soon finding Mademoiselle de Nicolet stolen from under him, raised his head to search the crowd.
Eyes landing upon Trixie, standing at that moment without a partner, he smiled, and made to move in her direction.
This, however, Trixie could not abide. However indifferent she purported to be, she would not permit his lordship to offer her second place.
‘Mr Hargan, dance with me at once,’ she ordered.
Mr Hargan turned pale. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t—’
Trixie turned a dismissive shoulder upon him. ‘Major!’
Major Morgan clicked his heels. ‘At your service!’
They left for the dance floor together.
‘You do not dance at all, Mr Hargan?’ Mrs Morgan wondered. ‘Ever?’
‘I am just – The way I step upon toes.’ Mr Hargan shook his head miserably. ‘It is best that I do not.’
‘I should not mind.’ Hetty felt a sudden surge of a kinship towards the fellow, for the agony upon his face was one with which she was well familiar. ‘Perhaps you would find it helpful to practise with someone whose opinion does not signify in the least.’
Mr Hargan hesitated. He had not yet given up hope that Miss Clithero’s opinion might, one day, signify something.
Perceiving this struggle upon his face, Mrs Morgan sprang into the breach.
‘My feet are miniscule,’ she boasted. ‘I shall give you a hundred pounds if you can even find them to step upon.’
Mr Hargan, demurring, began to retreat. Mrs Morgan, relentless, gave pursuit, and Hetty watched the chase, smiling for a moment, before letting her eyes stray across the room to the Marquis de Nicolet.
They had not yet had a chance to speak that evening.
The Marquis, though an enthusiastic co-conspirator, was proving an inconsistent one.
He might be staunchly against marriage, but flirtation was his bread and butter, and he was so enjoying a bantering back and forth with Lady Jersey that Hetty did not think he would be able to recollect her name.
It was at this moment that Arthur arrived.
Mr Hargan having made immediate good on his promise to introduce Arthur to Mr Coke of Norfolk – a gentleman who had seen his own estate grow into an annual income of twenty thousand pounds solely through use of experimental farming practices – and Arthur had dined with this gentleman that evening.
He had spent a pleasurable but mentally taxing few hours being schooled in modern farming methods whilst being plied with champagne, before making his way across the city to join the rest of the family.
It was there he found Hetty in forlorn repose at the sidelines, watching the Marquis flirt with another lady.
Good God, this fellow! How many flirts did he have in keeping?
He made his way swiftly to her side. ‘I am sorry.’
‘Arthur!’ She beamed, turning towards him. Then, comprehending his words, asked with a wrinkled brow: ‘What reason have you to be sorry?’
Arthur gave a rather grim nod over her shoulder to Nicolet and Lady Jersey. Flirtation was not a crime, perhaps, but …
‘Hmm? Oh!’
Recollecting she ought to seem more crestfallen by the absence of her long-lost love – rather than quite pleased to have him already beside her – Hetty arranged her expression into a moue of disappointment.
‘Are you well?’
Hetty arranged her face out of the moue.
‘Have you spoken yet? Perhaps he has asked you to save him a dance.’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But it is yet early in the evening.’
That, however, was a crime to Arthur’s mind.
Why, from the way the fellow had been speaking to Hetty this afternoon, one might well expect a proposal by the end of the week – and yet now, hours later, he did not even ask for a dance?
It did not speak at all well to his character.
Neither, Arthur thought darkly, did he care for the ostentation of the fellow’s waistcoat.
‘Are you so wholly set on the fellow, Hetty?’ he said, eyes lingering unfavourably upon the excessive folds of Nicolet’s cravat.
Hetty paused. ‘Why?’
‘I think it would be worth proceeding with caution,’ Arthur said. ‘When I first agreed to help you, I had no idea he would be so …’
‘You would have me give up already?’ Hetty wondered, rather crestfallen. Did he truly think her case so hopeless? ‘It has not been so long after all, and such things do take time.’
Arthur did not look in the least unconvinced by this laissez-faire approach. ‘One does not hasten them by waiting in such a way. You should at the least show him he has some competition. Come, pretend to flirt with me.’
Hetty stilled. ‘Would that not be thought odd?’
For some reason, Arthur found this strangely irritating. ‘I do not think so. Come—’
He drew her further away from the dance floor to a more secluded position by the wall – so that it might seem, as he explained, that they were enjoying an intimate tête-à-tête.
‘How should that – ah – look exactly?’
‘Oh, it is the simplest thing in the world,’ he assured her. ‘I would only …’
He took a step towards her and tilted his head further down towards hers, and it shouldn’t have made such a difference, only suddenly Hetty did not think she could breathe.
‘You see?’
Hetty saw.
‘Look at me as though you might be in love with me – can you manage that?’
Hetty wondered when, exactly, her life had begun to resemble one of the theatrical farces of which Trixie was so fond. ‘I think so.’
‘Perhaps you might blush again – yes, very good, Hetty!’ he praised her. ‘I did not know you had such aptitude for the dramatics. Now, perhaps you might laugh, as if I have said something very amusing.’