Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [9]
“This is what it means to be a married woman, Jane,” my friend said, with an arch smile; “one is forever expected to forego refreshment so that others may dance. You may eat to your heart's content, but / must allow my husband to lead me to the floor, or suffer the contempt of my guests.” Isobel then swept off on the arm of the Earl, and proceeded to the head of the room; others equally eager to join in the revels formed up in pairs alongside them, as the musicians laid bow to string.
I felt the absence of Tom Hearst, and knew not whether to wish for the return of such a man or no. But my confusion was to be of short duration. A parting of the crowd, a sight of a curly head, and a jaunty bow in my direction; and I found myself facing the Lieutenant not four couples removed from the Earl and his lady, in all the flushed excitement of a first dance.
The knowledge of Lieutenant Hearst's having killed a man put flight to every other thought in my head, but since it is impossible to move through the figures without some attempt at conversation, I cast about in desperation for the slightest word. I fear I blushed, and turned my eyes to the ground, and appeared in every way as missish as possible, giving the Lieutenant as inaccurate a picture of myself as perhaps Miss Delahoussaye had drawn of him. My wordless confusion made him hesitate to utter a syllable; and thus we laboured in profound stupidity, for fully half the dance's span. But of all things detestable, I most detest a silent partner—and thrusting aside my horror of pistols at dawn, I took refuge in a lady's light banter.
“I have profited from your absence, Lieutenant, to enquire of your character,” I began.
A merry look, from under a lifted eyebrow. “And am I fit to touch your glove, Miss Austen?”
“I learned that you are everywhere regarded as a man of charm and intelligence; that you are an officer renowned for bravery and quick temper; that you are observed to spend a good deal of time on horseback in the Park; and that you prefer saddle of mutton to roast beef, in which you have been disappointed this evening.”
“Nay!” he cried, his head thrown back in laughter, “and shall we have the size of my boot and my preference in tailors as well?”
“It was an intelligence I could not, with delicacy, gather,” I replied, “but if you disappear with such alacrity again, I shall be certain to find it out.”
With great good humour the Lieutenant then began to converse quite freely, enquiring of my life in Bath and the circumstances of my family with a becoming interest. For my part, I quickly learned that he is the son of Lord Scargrave's sister, Julia, dead these niany years, and that his father was a dissolute rogue. Having reduced the Lady Julia to penury (for so I interpreted the Lieutenant's more generous words), the elder Mr. Hearst had the good sense to abandon his sons to her brother and depart for the Continent, where he subsequently died in the arms of his mistress. Lord Scargrave has had the rearing of the Hearst boys these twenty years; and it would not be remarkable if they looked to him as a father.
The Lieutenant added that he had tired of schooling while still at Eton, and spurned Oxford for the more brilliant ranks of the military; that he is at present a member of the Royal Horse Guards, resident in St. James, and is at Scargrave on leave through the Christmas holidays; though he failed to intimate that it was an enforced leave, due to his having recently killed a man.
Indeed, having spent some time in Lieutenant Hearst's company, I must wonder whether Miss Delahoussaye's romantic notions have not run away with what little sense she commands. For the Lieutenant seems as unlikely to kill a man as my