But the execution of Mr. Ducane's duty-dances is apparently no short task, nor one lightly or quickly accomplished. But few of them, as it turns out, are danced in the ball-room in the eye of the world, and of the electric light. A far larger number are danced on sofas, in obscure corners of little-frequented boudoirs, on steps of the stairs, and under the palm-fans and tree-ferns of the conservatory.
And meanwhile the night swings on. Dance has followed dance. The feet fall pat to the perfect time of the soldiers' music: valse, galop, polka, mazurka, Lancers--Peggy dances them all.
In the Lancers chance brings her close to Lady Betty, who is romping through them with a staid County Member, whom to the petrifaction of his wife, watching horror-struck from afar, she makes romp flagrantly too. Her voice throughout the evening is heard, penetratingly high, above the band; her laugh seems to be ringing from every corner of the room, accompanying her extraordinary antics. For Lady Betty is by no means on her best behaviour to-night, and permits herself such innocent and humorous playfulnesses as putting a spoonful of ice down the back of one of the young Hartleys, popping a fool's-cap out of a cracker on the head of a bald old gentleman perfectly unknown to her, etc. She is evidently not fretting very badly at Talbot's absence. So Margaret thinks, as with a sort of unwilling fascination she watches her.
Lady Betty is evidently in precisely the same mood as she was on that evening when she had favoured milady's guests at the Manor with her remarkable song. It would take uncommonly little persuasion to-night to induce her to sing--
'Oh! who will press that lily hand?'
'I think she is drunk!' says Mrs. Evans charitably. 'I am sure she acts as if she were. If I were to behave like that, I should expect men to take any kind of liberty with me. I should not feel that I had any right to complain if they did.'
Peggy laughs. The idea of Mrs. Evans dancing the can-can, and getting kissed for her pains, is so irresistibly comic that for a minute or two she cannot help herself.
Lady Roupell has grown tired of scolding Prue for her obstinate refusal of all invitations to dance. Milady has happily fallen in with an old friend, whose path hers had not crossed for thirty years. With him she fights o'er again the battles of her youth, and forgets her 'blessed bed.' She goes in to supper a second time, and has more pate de foie gras. Peggy sees it in the guilt of her eye when she comes out.
And meanwhile Peggy herself dances on indefatigably, returning, however, rigorously at the end of each dance to her chaperon, in order to assure herself that there is no change for the better in the position of Prue.
None! none! none! Always standing on precisely the same spot; the poor little figure rigidly upright; the flushed cheekbones; the straining eyes. Always? No, thank God, not always! At last it is gone! At last she finds its place vacant.
'Where is Prue?' she asks eagerly, forgetting her usual gentle good manners so far as to break with her question into milady's tete-a-tete.
'Prue!' repeats the other, looking round rather tartly from her interrupted conversation; 'God bless my soul, child! how can I tell?' and so resumes her talk.
But though this is not a very lucid explanation of her sister's absence, Peggy returns from it with a considerably lightened heart. Since it is a matter of certainty that Prue would never have consented to dance with any one but Freddy, he must have come at last. They are nowhere in sight, therefore he must have carried her off to some retired corner, where he is persuading her--so easy of persuasion, poor soul--of how much he has been suffering all evening, and how extremely loftily he has behaved. Of whatever he is persuading her, her long agony is for this evening at least probably at an end.
Peggy draws a deep breath at the thought, and for the first time becomes aware how good the floor is, and how pleasant the long swallow-swoop from end to end of the ball-room. The crowd is growing much thinner. People who have a long distance to drive are already gone. Mrs. Evans, bulging at every point with the result of her thefts, and driving the reluctant Vicar before her, takes herself off, having indulged herself in one parting whisper to Peggy, to the effect that she 'shall not bow to Lady Betty, even if she looks as if she expected it.' For Betty is still here, and having run up the whole gamut of her schoolboy follies, having grown tired of throwing tarts at her admirers, and pelting them with lobster claws, has settled down into a steady audacious open flirtation with a Rural Dean, the sight of whose good lady's jealous writhings seems to afford her a great deal of innocent joy.
Lady Roupell's old friend has been reluctantly reft away from her by his party, and she is beginning to show signs of uneasiness, as Peggy can see from a distance. But since Prue's place beside her is still vacant, the elder sister is resolved that no action of hers--however apparently called for by the ordinary rules of politeness--shall tend to shorten the few brief moments of happiness that have come, however tardily, to sweeten her evening's long bitterness. She has deliberately dodged milady's messengers sent in pursuit of her, has evaded them behind doors, and has slipped past them in passages; and it is not until she catches a distant glimpse of Prue returning to her chaperon on Mr. Ducane's arm, that she at length allows herself to be captured. Milady receives her rather testily.
'Come along! come along!' cries she fussily; 'why did not you come before? I do not want to help blow out the lights.'
But Peggy does not answer. Her eyes are fixed in a shocked astonishment on Prue. Instead of the radiant transformation she had expected to find in her--a transformation hitherto as certain under three kind words from Freddy, as the supplanting of night by red-rose day in the visible world--she sees her livid, and with an expression of hopeless stunned despair, such as never before in her saddest moments has been worn by it, on her drawn face. Her hand has fallen from Freddy's arm, and her sister snatches it.
'What is it, Prue? What is it?'
The girl does not seem to hear at first; then:
'Nothing, nothing!' she says stiffly. 'Home; let us go home.'
'She is tired!' cries Mr. Ducane--he too looks pale--caressingly lifting her other hand, which lies perfectly limp and nerveless in his clasp, and pressing it to his lips; 'our Prue is dead-beat. Dear milady, you know you never can recollect that we are not all Titans like yourself. She is worn out. Are not you, Prue?'
'She would have been all right if she had had some supper,' says milady gruffly, probably thinking in bitterness of spirit how greatly to their reciprocal advantage it would be, if a balance could be struck between her own past refreshments and Prue's. Then she adds very sharply, and with an obvious disposition in her tone to hustle her graceful nephew, 'I do not know what you are dawdling here for? Why do not you go and look after the carriage?'
He does not require to be told this twice, and by the alacrity with which he obeys the command, Peggy knows that it comes at this moment most welcome. No one could enjoy looking in a face with an expression such as Prue's now wears, knowing that he himself has brought it there; and for one so especially partial as Mr. Ducane to wreathed smiles, it is doubly painful and trying.
The footman and carriage are long in being found. Our party have to wait what seems to them for a good half-hour in the hall, cloaked, and, as far as concerns milady, fur-booted, while through the open hall-door streams in on the mist the flash of carriage-lamps; the frosty breath of horses--frosty though it is only mid-September--the noise of gravel kicked up under hoofs; the sound of other people's shouted names.
Freddy comes back, and stands beside Prue, and addresses her now and again in coaxing undertones, to which--a fact unparalleled in her poor history--she makes no rejoinder. She is standing right in the full draught from the open door. Her cloak is unfastened at the neck. She has evidently not taken the trouble to tie it. The keen north-wester blows in full upon her thin collar-bones; but when Peggy remonstrates with her, she does not seem to hear.
'Lady Roupell's carriage!'
Thank God, the welcome sound at last! Milady, who has been nodding, bounds to her feet and seizes the arm of her obsequious host, who has been struggling under difficulties to give her a pleasant impression of her last moments under his roof; under difficulties, since she has been more than three-quarters asleep. Peggy hurries after her, and Prue and Freddy bring up the rear. There are too many impatient carriages behind Lady Roupell's for there to be any moment for last words. The footman bangs the carriage-door, jumps on the box, and they are off.
Milady does not light her lamp or shuffle her Patience cards again on the homeward drive. She is fast asleep before the Hartleys' park gates are reached; nor does any jolt or jar avail to break her slumber, until she finds herself being bidden good-night to, and thanked by Peggy, at the door of the little Red House. Not one word is exchanged during the whole ten miles between the three occupants of the brougham. Prue has thrown herself into her corner, beside milady. Peggy, sitting back--she always sits with her back to the horses, and has so long pretended to like that position best, that she has at length almost persuaded herself that she does so--leans forward every now and then and peers into the blackness, trying to catch a glimpse of her sister's face or attitude. In vain at first. But after a while--once at a turnpike-gate, once at a flat railway-crossing--a ray of light streams in, and reveals her cast prone and hopeless in her corner, with her face pressed against the cushions.
Before they reach the Red House, though the dawn has not yet come, it is heralded by its dim, gray forerunner--a forerunner that gives shape to the still colourless hedges as they pass, and an outline to the vague trees looming out of the dim seas of chilly vapour, that a couple of hours more will turn into rich green meadows and yellow stubbles. But the light is not strong enough to reach the recesses of the carriage, to touch milady's sleepy head, rolling about in the tiara which makes so uncomfortable a night-cap, or to throw any cruel radiance on the blackness of Prue's despair.
The stopping of the carriage, which partially rouses the old lady, seems not to be even perceived by the younger woman; and it is not until Margaret has stooped over her, pulling her by the arm, and crying in a frightened voice, 'Prue! Prue! we are at home. Do not you hear, dear? at home. Come, come!' that she slowly stirs, and lifts her head. Peggy has given her latch-key to the footman, and herself jumping out of the carriage, stands in the raw dawn wind, and receiving into her arms her staggering and half-conscious sister, carries rather than leads her into the little house, whose door that sister had left with so bounding a heart, such towering hopes of enjoyment seven or eight hours ago. In a moment more, milady--her slumbers already resumed--is borne swiftly away.
Peggy had forbidden the servants to wait up for her. She wishes now that she had not. It is very eerie here alone in the little dark house, whose darkness seems all the blacker for the faint, unsure glimmer of coming day that here and there patches the night's garment; alone with her half-swooning sister. Thank God! there is a lamp still burning in the sitting-hall, though the fire is out, and the air strikes cold. She staggers with her burden to the settle, and laying her gently down upon it, snatches up a flat candlestick, and lighting it at the lamp, hastens away upstairs to the closet where she keeps her drugs for the poor, medicine for the dogs, and her small stock of cordials; and taking thence a flask of brandy, hurries back with it, and pours some down Prue's throat. It is not an easy task to get it down through the girl's set and chattering teeth; but at length she succeeds, and is presently rewarded by seeing signs of returning animation in the poor body, whose feet and hands she is chafing with such a tender vigour.
'I am cold,' says Prue, shivering; 'so cold! May not I go to bed?'
'Do you think that you can walk?' asks Peggy anxiously; 'or shall I carry you?'
'Walk!' repeats the other, with a little dreary smile. 'Why not? There is nothing the matter with me.'
She rises to her feet as she speaks, but totters so pitiably that Peggy again comes to her rescue.
'Of course you can walk,' she says soothingly; 'but I think we are both rather tired: had not we better help each other upstairs?'
And so, with her strong and tender arm flung about her poor Prue's fragile, shivering figure, they slowly climb together--oh, so slowly!--the stairs, down which Prue had leaped with such gaiety eight hours ago.
In the bedroom, which they at last reach, the fire is happily still alight, and only needs a few fresh coals to blaze up cheerfully. But since Prue still shivers, long shudders of cold running down her limbs and convulsing her frame, Peggy wheels an arm-chair close to the fire, and wrapping a warm dressing-gown about her sister, holds her cold feet to the flame, rubbing them between both her hands. For some time Prue's only answer to these attentions is a low moan which, after awhile, shapes itself into articulate words:
'To bed! Let me go to bed!'
And so Peggy, unlacing with a sick heart the poor crumpled gown that had been put on in such pride and freshness over-night, carries its drooping wearer to her bed, and laying her down most gently in it, covers her with the warm bed-clothes, tucking them in, and bidding God bless her, as she has done every night for nigh upon eighteen years.
Prue lies exactly as she had laid her down, with no slightest change of posture, with no attempt at turning over and nestling to sleep; her eyes wide open, with that long shudder recurring at first at intervals. But then this ceases, and she lies like a log--the very dead no stiller than she--staring blankly before her. Peggy sits beside her through the remnant of the night, watching in impotent pain, to see whether the eyelids will never mercifully fall over those wide rigid eyes; watching the insolent light march up and take possession of the curtained room; watching its daring shafts push through chink and cranny even to the dying fire. The clock has struck seven. The servants are up and astir; and--oh, God be thanked!--at length Prue's eyes are closed, and her head has fallen a little sideways on the pillow. Having waited awhile, to assure herself of the blessed fact that she is asleep, Peggy rises noiselessly, and, turning with infinite precaution the door-handle, passes out.
The light seems unutterably glaring in the passage, and her tired eyes blink as they meet it; meeting at the same moment the astonished look in Sarah's face, called forth by seeing her still in her torn and tumbled ball-gown. She has not the heart to spend much time in explanations, but, passing quickly to her own room, tears off the crushed finery, associated in her mind with an evening of such acute misery; and having washed and again dressed in her usual chintz morning-gown, returns to Prue's door, and listening at it for a moment, cautiously enters. But her caution is needless, as her first glance into the room shows her. Though she has not been absent more than half an hour, its aspect is completely changed. The curtains are drawn back, and the blind pulled up to the top; and Prue, sitting up in bed, with blotting-book and ink-bottle before her, is rapidly writing. As her sister hastens up to her, with an exclamation of surprise and dismay, she puts her two hands over the page to hide it.
'I am writing a letter,' she says hurriedly. 'I do not wish you to see what I am writing; you have no business to look!'
'I should not think of such a thing!' cries Peggy, drawing back pained. 'But why are you writing now, darling? It is only eight o'clock in the morning.'
Prue's trembling fingers are still clutching her pen.
'It--it--is as well to be in good time,' she says. 'This is a letter that ought to be written; the--the person to whom it is addressed will--will expect to get it.'
Peggy is standing by the bed, tall and sorrowful. She has taken the poor hand, pen and all, into her protecting clasp.
'Is it--is it all over then?' she asks chokingly.
'He is going round the world with the Hartleys,' says Prue, not answering directly, and beginning feverishly to fidget with her paper and envelopes. 'Of course I should like this to reach him before he sets off.'
Going round the world with the Hartleys! The blow has fallen, then. Peggy had known that it was coming, as surely as she knows the fact of her own existence. She had seen it approaching for months; and yet now that it has come, she stands stunned.
'I suppose that that was what he was talking to her about all evening,' pursues Prue, looking blankly away out of the window, to where, on the top of the apple-tree outside, a couple of jackdaws are sitting swinging in the fresh wind. 'That was what made him forget all about his dances with me. Of course, there would be a great deal to arrange; they are to be away a whole year. It was quite natural, quite; only it showed that it was all over with me. Even I could see that.'
She says it quite calmly, and with a sort of smile, her eyes still fixed on the jackdaws. Peggy is still too choked to speak.
'No one would have guessed last night that it was I who was engaged to him, would they?' pursues Prue, bringing home her straying look, and resting it in a half-uncertain appeal upon her sister. 'And yet I was, was not I? It was not my fancy; he did ask me once to be his wife--his wife,' dwelling on the word with a long, clinging intonation--'standing there by myself all those hours. I am sure that if he had known how it hurt me he would not have done it; he is too kind-hearted willingly to hurt a fly.'
Peggy's only answer is a groan.
'But of course I must write to him,' continues the younger girl, beginning again to draw her half-written sheet of paper tremblingly towards her. 'And--and it is not altogether an easy letter to write; you understand that. It requires all one's attention.'
'Lie down and rest first, and write afterwards,' says Peggy, in a tone of tender persuasion.
'No, no!' returns the other, pushing her sister away. 'I will lie down and rest afterwards; there will be plenty of time. But I could not rest before it was written; and do not disturb me; do not speak to me. I should be sorry if there were anything ridiculous--anything that she could laugh at in my last letter to him.'
