Mrs. Molesworth - Not Without Thorns

“And you won’t dance?” urged Beauchamp.

“No, really I don’t feel inclined for it,” she replied decidedly. “And it looks uncivil to go on like this, talking to ourselves so much. Do go and get introduced to some one, Beauchamp. I don’t want to offend Mary.”

Captain Chancellor walked off without saying any more, but he felt chafed and cross, and by no means inclined to waste his waltzing on a Wareborough young lady. He retired into a corner, and stood there, looking and feeling rather sulky, and trusting devoutly that his energetic hostess might not discover his retreat. It was a large room, with several windows and a good deal of drapery about it: there were heavy curtains, only partially drawn, close to where he was standing, and these for some moments concealed from his view a young lady sitting by herself on a low chair very near his corner.

Her head was the first thing he caught sight of; a scarlet band and a small cluster of silvery leaves at one side, just above a pretty little ear. He could not see her face, but the simple head-dress, the arrangement of the bright wavy brown hair, he recognised at once. He moved his position slightly, drawing a little, a very little nearer, enough however to attract her attention. She looked up – ah yes, he had been right, his instinct had not deceived him; it never did in such matters, he said to himself; she was pretty, very pretty, though so young and unformed a creature. The gloomy expression, softened out of his face as he watched her for a moment without speaking; then gradually a slight colour rose on her cheeks, she looked down quickly, as if becoming conscious of his observation, and the movement recalled him to himself.

“I beg your pardon,” he began hurriedly, without quite knowing what he meant. “I did not see you when I invaded your quiet corner. Are you not going to dance?” he went on, as if speaking to a child, for almost as such he unconsciously regarded her, calmly ignoring the fact that he had not been introduced to her. “Don’t you like dancing?”

“Oh, yes, at least I think I do,” she answered, with some hesitation. “I have never danced much. I don’t care for it very much.”

Captain Chancellor looked at her again, this time with increasing interest and some perplexity. He could not make her out. She was not shy, certainly not the least awkward; but for the slightly fluctuating colour on her cheeks, he would have imagined her to be thoroughly at her ease, rather more so perhaps than he quite cared about in a girl of her tender years, for “she can’t be more than sixteen,” he said to himself, as he observed her silently, sitting there alone, gravely watching the dance which had now begun. It seemed unnatural that she should not join in it; he felt sorry for her – but yet – it was quite against his principles to risk making a spectacle of himself – he wished she would dance with some one else; he could judge of her powers in a moment then. But no one came near their corner – even Mrs Dalrymple seemed to have forgotten them both. Captain Chancellor was a kind-hearted man, the sort of man, too, to whom it came naturally to try to attract any woman with whom he might be thrown in contact. And then this girl was undoubtedly pretty, and with something out of the common about her. He began to feel himself getting good-tempered again. It was stupid work sulking in a corner on account of Roma; he had had plenty of experience of her freaks before now, much better show her he did not pay any attention to them. Just as he had reached this point in his meditations, a faint, an all but inaudible little sigh caught his ear. It carried the day.

“Don’t you find it rather wearisome to sit still, watching all this waltzing?” he said at last. “Though you don’t care much about dancing, a turn or two would be a change, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” the girl answered, raising her face to his, with a rather melancholy expression in her eyes. “Yes, I daresay it would be very nice; but no one has asked me to dance. I hardly know any one here, for it is almost the first time I have been out anywhere in this way.”

Her frankness somewhat embarrassed her companion. It is not often that young ladies calmly announce a dearth of partners as a reason for their sitting still, and Captain Chancellor hardly knew how to reply. Condolence, he feared, might seem impertinent. He took refuge, at last, in her extreme youth.

“No one could think it possible you had been out much,” he said gently. “At your age, many girls have never been out at all.” She looked up quickly at this, smiling a little, as if about to say something, but stopped. “As for not knowing any one here, we both seem in the same predicament, for I am a perfect stranger too. If no one better offers, will you condescend to give me the next dance? This one is just ending.”

A bright, almost a grateful glance was his reward.

“I didn’t understand that you were asking me to dance with you,” she said, half apologetically. “I should like it very much, but – ” here the rather stiff demureness of her manner fairly melted away, and she began to laugh. “You forget I don’t know who you are. I haven’t even heard your name.”

Captain Chancellor started. He felt considerably annoyed with himself. He was the last man to slight or ignore any recognised formality, and he could not endure to be laughed at. He drew himself up rather haughtily, and was just beginning a somewhat stilted apology, when the young lady interrupted him.

“Oh, please don’t be vexed!” she exclaimed eagerly. “I hope I haven’t said anything rude. It was so kind of you to ask me to dance, and I should like it so much! It doesn’t matter our not being regularly introduced, does it?”

“I hope not. We must consider the fog our master of ceremonies: it was under his auspices we first made each other’s acquaintance,” he replied, with a smile, for her “Oh, please don’t be vexed!” was irresistible; “and I think I do know your name. You are Miss Laurence, are you not? Your friend Mrs Dalrymple was speaking about you at dinner, and I know she quite intended asking your permission to introduce me to you. It is easy to tell you my name. It is Chancellor.”

“Captain Chancellor! Oh yes; I thought so,” she said naïvely; “but of course I was not sure. Now it is all right, isn’t it?” for by this time a new dance was beginning, and she was evidently eager to lose no more valuable time.

It was only a quadrille. They took their places, and though Miss Laurence’s gravity returned when she found herself facing so many people, an underlying expression of great content was nevertheless plainly visible in her countenance to an observer so experienced and acute as her partner, and the discovery by no means diminished his good, humour.

There was not much conversation between Captain Chancellor and his partner during the quadrille, for Miss Laurence seemed a little afraid of her own voice in so public a position, and bestowed her attention principally on the rest of the performers. Immediately after the square dance, however, there came another waltz, for which Captain Chancellor, waxing bolder as his practised eye followed the girl’s graceful and well-balanced, though somewhat timid movements, took care to secure her. His hopes were not disappointed. She danced beautifully; and then, too, how pretty it was to see how she enjoyed it! He forgot all about Miss Eyrecourt and her unamiability.

“How well you dance! I can hardly believe you have not had much practice. With one or two very trifling alterations, your waltzing would be perfection,” he exclaimed.