The Quiet Gentleman

She could not but be pleased with the good-breeding which not only kept him at her side, but prevented his emulating Martin’s example in trying to ride as close to the curricle as possible. He continued to converse with her like a man satisfied with his company; and upon finding an open farm gate, suggested that they should leave the lane for the refreshment of a canter through the fields. The crops, which were so far forward that year as to have put an early end to the hunting season, made it necessary for them to skirt the fields rather than to cross them, but they enjoyed an agreeable ride, and reached Stanyon some time before the rest of their party. The Earl hoped that the exertion would not have made Miss Morville too tired to stand up for every dance that evening, a civility which amused her, since she meant to spend the afternoon, not, as he seemed to suppose, in recruiting her energies for the night’s festivity, but in attending to all the details attaching to the entertainment of a large number of guests with which her hostess was a great deal too indolent to concern herself. Neither she nor the late Earl had been fond of entertaining, and since the marriage of their daughter no ball had been held at Stanyon. The housekeeper and the steward were thrown into a fluster by so rare an event, and although they enjoyed all the consequence of being called upon to provide for the accommodation of the ducal party from Belvoir, besides catering for the refreshment of some twenty persons at dinner, and forty more at supper, they were unaccustomed to such grand doings, and depended on Miss Morville, in default of their mistress, to advise on the number of rout-cakes it would be proper to bake; the propriety of serving tea and coffee at supper, as well as lemonade and champagne; and what apartments ought to be allotted to the several guests who were to spend the night at Stanyon. Then there were the musicians to be thought of: where they should be lodged, and whose duty it was to wait upon them; the arrangement of the flowers to superintend; the number of card-tables to be set up in the Italian Saloon to be decided on; and sufficient chairs to be disposed about the ballroom for those either desirous of watching the dancing, or unfortunate enough to have no partners.

The Earl, finding Miss Morville in conference with Abney, was a little conscience-stricken. “My dear ma’am, had I dreamed that all the labour of the ball was to fall upon you I would not have suggested we should give a ball at all! I should think you must bear me a considerable grudge!”

“No, indeed! I am happy to be of service, and this sort of contriving, you know, is exactly what I like.”

“You do it very well,” he said, looking about him at the flowers, and at the clean packs of cards laid ready on the several tables. “You remember all the details which I am very sure I must have forgotten.”

“Very likely you might,” she agreed. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must leave you. Lady St. Erth received an express from your sister this morning, informing her that she and Lord Grampound would be pleased to come to the party, and I find she has not told Mrs. Marple of it. I daresay her ladyship would wish to be given her former apartments, and we had arranged, you know, to put the Ashbournes in them.”

“Louisa coming!” he exclaimed. “Good God, what folly! Who can have invited her to undertake a journey of eighty miles for a ball of no particular consequence?”

“I don’t think anyone invited her,” replied Miss Morville, “but I expect Lady St. Erth may have mentioned that a ball was to be held here. That, if you will not mind my saying so, would be enough to bring her.”

“More than enough! She is the most tiresome, inquisitive woman of my acquaintance, I believe!”

“Her understanding is not powerful,” said Miss Morville, “nor are her manners such as must universally please, but she is not,I think, ill-natured, and although she may regret your existence, I fancy she does not dislike you, or even hold you to blame for being older than her brother.”

“I am very much obliged to her! This is something indeed!” he said sardonically.

She smiled, but would say no more; and upon the housekeeper’s looking into the room, went away to confer with her on the necessary alteration in the bedchambers.

Chapter 9