Part 9 (1/2)
”Well, anyhow, we're going to sample the garden to-morrow morning, aren't we?”
”I suppose so,” said Kitty. Then, after a moment, she looked at her right-hand neighbor, the young politician to whom as yet she had scarcely vouchsafed a word.
”What's his name?” she asked, under her breath. Ashe repeated it.
”Perhaps I ought to talk to him?”
”Of course you ought,” said Ashe, with smiling decision, and turning to the lady whom he had brought in he left her free.
When the ladies rose, Lady Grosville led the way to the large drawing-room, a room which, like the library, had some character, and a thin elegance of style, not, however, warmed and harmonized by the delightful presence of books. The walls, blue and white in color, were panelled in stucco relief. A few family portraits, stiff handlings of stiff people, were placed each in the exact centre of its respective panel. There were a few cases of china and a few polished tables. A crimson Brussels carpet, chosen by Lady Grosville for its ”cheerfulness,” covered the floor, and there was a large white sheepskin rug before the fireplace. A few hyacinths in pots, and the bright fire supplied the only gay and living notes--before the ladies arrived.
Still, for an English eye, the room had a certain cold charm, was moreover full of _history_. It hardly deserved at any rate the s.h.i.+ver with which Kitty Bristol looked round it.
But she had little time to dwell upon the room and its meanings, for Lady Grosville approached her with a manner which still showed signs of the catastrophe before dinner.
”Kitty, I think you don't know Miss Lyster yet--Mary Lyster--she wants to be introduced to you.”
Mary advanced smiling; Kitty held out a limp hand, and they exchanged a few words standing in the centre of the floor, while the other guests found seats.
”What a charming contrast!” said Lady Edith Manley in Lady Grosville's ear. She nodded smiling towards the standing pair--struck by the fine straight lines of Mary's satin dress, the roundness of her fine figure, the oval of her head and face, and then by the little, vibrating, tempestuous creature beside her, so distinguished, in spite of the billowing flounces and ribbons, so direct and significant, amid all the elaboration.
”Kitty is ridiculously overdressed,” said Lady Grosville. ”I hope we shall soon change that. My girls are going to take her to their woman.”
Lady Edith put up her eye-gla.s.s slowly and looked at the two Grosville girls; then back at Kitty.
Meanwhile a few perfunctory questions and answers were pa.s.sing between Miss Lyster and her companion. Mary's aspect as she talked was extremely amiable; one might have called it indulgent, perhaps even by an adjective that implied a yet further shade of delicate superiority.
Kitty met it by the same ”grand manner” that Ashe had several times observed in her, a manner caught perhaps from some French model, and caricatured in the taking. Her eyes meanwhile took note of Mary's face and dress, and while she listened her small teeth tormented her under-lip, as though she restrained impatience. All at once in the midst of some information that Miss Lyster was lucidly giving, Kitty made an impetuous turn. She had caught some words on the farther side of the room; and she looked hard, eagerly, at the speaker.
”Who is that?” she inquired.
Mary Lyster, with a sharp sense of interruption, replied that she believed the lady in question was the Grosville's French governess. But in the very midst of her sentence Kitty deserted her, left her standing in the centre of the drawing-room, while the deserter fled across it, and sinking down beside the astonished mademoiselle took the Frenchwoman's hand by a.s.sault and held it in both her own.
”Vous parlez Francais?--vous etes Francaise? Ah! ca me fait tant de bien! Voyons! voyons!--causons un peu!”
And bending forward, she broke into a cataract of French, all the elements of her strange, small beauty rus.h.i.+ng, as it were, into flame and movement at the swift sound and cadence of the words, like a dancer kindled by music. The occasion was of the slightest; the Frenchwoman might well show a natural bewilderment. But into the slight occasion the girl threw an animation, a pa.s.sion, that glorified it. It was like the leap of a wild rain-stream on the mountains, that pours into the first channel which presents itself.
”What beautiful French!” said Lady Edith, softly, to Mary Lyster, who had found a seat beside her.
Mary Lyster smiled.
”She has been at school, of course, in a French convent.” Somehow the tone implied that the explanation disposed of all merit in the performance.
”I am afraid these French convent schools are not at all what they should be,” said Lady Grosville.
And rising to a pyramidal height, her ample moire dress swelling behind her, her gray head magnificently crowned by its lace cap and black velvet _bandeau_, she swept across the room to where the Dean's wife, Mrs. Winston, sat in fascinated silence observing Lady Kitty. The silence and the attention annoyed her hostess. The first thing to be done with girls of this type, it seemed to Lady Grosville, was to prove to them that they would _not_ be allowed to monopolize society.
There are natural monopolies, however, and they are not easy to deal with.
As soon as the gentlemen returned, Mr. Rankine, whom she had treated so badly at dinner, the young agent of the estate, the clergyman of the parish, the Austrian attache, the cabinet minister, and the Dean, all showed a strong inclination to that side of the room which seemed to be held in force by Lady Kitty. The Dean especially was not to be gainsaid.