Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 39

“You need not come yet,” said Margaret.

“I must go.”

“Of course I shall come.” giggled Carolan.

“Do you know, I have been ready for at least half an hour, waiting! If I have to wait much longer I shall burst with impatience.”

“You are a silly child,” said Margaret, ‘and you say such silly things! I am going down now.”

Carolan followed her from the room. The squire from the hall below saw them descending the staircase, and stood there watching them.

By God, he thought, she is growing up. She is a woman. She is not much like Bess and Kitty smaller altogether, brighter, with more vitality. She has all they had though. Carolan … my daughter, Carolan!

His eyes went to Margaret. Nice enough just the wife for young Orland. Margaret’s place was in a country parsonage. Amelia’s girl! And, by God, no one could have any doubt of that. And tonight that young milksop would come to the point, he hoped. The young fellow was a plaguey long time deciding that he wanted to take the girl to bed with him. Still, there was nothing like a ball to bring a young man to the point; show him Margaret’s people knew how to entertain, by God! Show him what sort of a family he would be marrying into. She was nigh on twenty! Time she was off his hands. How the children grew up! Carolan next. No, not Carolan she was his girl, his little daughter. This last year he had been happier than he had been for a long time. He was beginning to shape into that pattern he had cut for himself. He scarcely ever flew into one of the wild rages that had come to him so frequently at one time. People might think he was getting old, but it was not that entirely; he was not getting old; he was getting what he wanted. He had his little Carolan. Why did not Margaret’s eyes sparkle as Carolan’s did? Why did not her hair glow with that vitality?

His hand came down on Carolan’s shoulder.

“By God!” he cried.

“What have we here? I thought it was a child, but it is a young woman!”

She glanced at him through those thick lashes.

“Children are not given ball dresses, are they?” she said.

“Pampered ones might get all sorts of things out of their old fathers.”

She was scintillating. And this at sixteen! He was faintly worried, seeing her like this. He wanted her to remain a child.

“Well, sir,” said Carolan, curtsying, ‘this child is a child no longer.”

He touched her nose with a clumsy forefinger, made her take one arm, offered Margaret his other. Now he was proud and happy, standing with Margaret Carolan in the background -receiving the guests. He was the good squire now; he had been wild in his day, but what young man is not wild in his day? His cottagers could bring their troubles to him nowadays; he might roar at them; he might lose his temper now and then; but he did what he could for them; he was a good squire.

A girl in the uniform of a parlourmaid flitted through a door and across the room. His eyes followed her. That was Emm; and he glowed again with satisfaction. He was not a bad squire really … large hearted and tolerant. Good squire, people would say when he rode by with his daughter. Wild in his day, but a fine master! So many men would not have had Emm in their houses after Harriet had turned her out. Emm! He could laugh at the thought of one starry night when she had run from him and locked the door on him. She had saved her virtue for a young labourer who had promised her marriage and then deserted her. So virtuous little Emm had found herself with child and nowhere to cum. But the squire was a good squire, and Emm would never cease to bless him to the end of her days. He had not said: “Now you see what it is to trust a labourer; better far to trust a squire!” He had never deserted a woman. If there was a child he had seen that it was put out somewhere and a lump sum paid for it. Poor little Emm! What would have happened to her if she had lived in a neighbourhood where the squire was just a squire! But Emm had her baby at the cottage of Jane Lever the midwife, and a man and his wife who had no children looked after it; and Emm came to Haredon to be parlourmaid under Mrs. West. And she was shapely, a personable enough young woman; and she was grateful to the squire: but not once had he looked in her direction. That was the man he had become. He was bowing over Mrs. Orland’s hand, well pleased with himself and with life. Carolan watched the guests arrive. How lovely the old hall looked, decked out like this, the beautiful dresses of the women, the elegant garments of the men a blaze of colour and lights and beauty! And here was Everard, more elegant, more beautiful than any.

He stood before her, his eyes shining.

“Why, Carolan, you have grown up overnight!”

“That is what everyone is saying. You like the change, Everard?”

“I like it very much.”

She smiled her pleasure.

“The dress is beautiful, is it not?”

“Very beautiful.”

“It cost a good deal, but the squire insisted on my having something really good for my first ball.”

Mrs. Orland came swiftly to them.

“Hello, Carolan! It is going to be a wonderful evening, I am sure. Now Everard, the squire was going to open the ball with Margaret, but he feels unable to and he wants you to do it for him, Everard. Look, dear, do go over to Margaret right away. It is time to start, and the musicians are waiting. I will look after Carolan.”

Everard smiled over his shoulder at Carolan. He was docile always.

“And, Carolan,” said Mrs. Orland, ‘here is Geoffrey Langley coming over. I know he wants to dance with you. Ah … Geoffrey, my dear boy, you have come to ask Carolan to dance, have you not?”

Geoffrey Langley, rather portly, middle-aged and bucolic, said he had been coming over to them with just that idea.

“There!” said Mrs. Orland, with the air of one who had worked very satisfactorily on behalf of others.

“You will look after our little Carolan, Geoffrey: this is the dear child’s first ball!”

Geoffrey Langley’s small eyes smiled appreciatively as he held out his hand.

Now Margaret and Everard were dancing together down the centre of the hall, and other couples were falling in behind them and the fun was beginning.

Geoffrey Langley was not sorry to relinquish his partner to another. She was an enchanting child but her feet had wings, and his ageing body could not keep up with her frolicking. Her next partner was a young man who told her she was beautiful, and tried to urge her out into the grounds because he was sure there was a wonderful moon. But Carolan wished to stay in the ballroom until Everard came to dance with her; but she was enjoying herself, waiting for Everard. It was fun to note the effect she had on this very young man, particularly when she remembered that last week, riding with him at the hunt, he had not given her a second glance. Oh, what a difference a ball dress can make! So she was coquetting, flirting in as natural a manner as her mother had before her. People glancing her way, noting her brilliant green eyes, her flushed, enchanting little face, thought, There will be trouble there! What is it those women have? The squire must watch out.

But there was in Carolan something neither her mother nor her grandmother had possessed, something more spiritual, less voluptuous; pleasure loving, certainly but something finer too.

The evening was wearing on when Everard found her. There was a faint colour under his skin, and he looked as exasperated as it would be possible for Everard to look.

“Oh, Everard!” she said.

“How nice to see you! I hoped you would come to dance with me before the evening was over.”

There was the faintest reproach in her voice. This evening had taught her that she was not the child, Carolan, waiting to be noticed by grownups; she was a woman, to be sought after. That she had learned, and it was intoxicating knowledge.