Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/404

 28, 1860.] senior pupils came down at any time they liked, between the hours of eight and ten; during which period Miss Clara sat ready to pour out tea and coffee with exemplary patience. Frank’s work did not begin till ten, so he did all he could to prevent the time from passing heavily, and we are bound in justice to own, that he was generally successful. The end of the September quarter was drawing near, after which there was a week’s holiday.

On the 28th there was a town-ball, to which the boarders at the grammar-school were always admitted, and Mr. Martin told Frank that as he was not going himself, he wished him to go with them. To this Frank had no objection, especially as Clara was going, so he immediately engaged her for the first two dances. When the long-looked-for night came, Mrs. Martin decided that she would honour the Slopcombe ball with her presence, in order to chaperone her sister-in-law.

When the two ladies had taken their seats at the upper end of the room, Clara immediately began to write on her engagement card.

“What! Are you engaged for any dances already?” inquired Mrs. Martin, for they were very early.

“The first two.”

“May I ask, to whom?”

“To Mr. Ainslie.”

“Goodness gracious, my dear Clara, surely you could not think of such a thing!”

“Why not?”

“What, dance with the usher! I am sure your brother would be very angry with me, if I allowed such a thing for a moment. I am very sorry, but I cannot hear of it.”

At the word usher, poor Clara’s memory reverted to the assistant in a village school, from whom she had received instruction in writing, at the age of eight, and who, to the best of her recollection, had previously failed in business as a cobbler.

“But,” she said, at last, “if I do not dance with Mr. Ainslie, I must sit down for the rest of the evening.”

“Oh, no; you must not think of that, it would do your brother so much harm in the town; there are so many people to whom we must be civil. Stay, here he comes, never mind, I will manage it for you,” and she rose as Frank came, and said in her sweetest voice, “Would you be so kind as to take a little note for me to Mr. Martin? something is forgotten of great importance.” And she scribbled two or three words with her pencil.

“Will you excuse me, Miss Clara,” said he, “for I think the dancing is going to commence?”

Clara bowed assent, for she was really unable to speak.

Frank made his way with some difficulty through the crowd of amateurs at the door, who were occupied in criticising the ball-dresses as they issued from the carriages, and with rapid step he hastened to the school-house, and then to Mr. Martin’s study.

During the absence of the rest of the household in “the halls of dazzling light,” that gentleman was making himself as comfortable as existing circumstances would permit.

The room was already hazy with the fumes of Cavendish, a decanter of port was conveniently placed on a little table by his side, and he was carefully cutting the leaves of a new novel. Frank felt grieved at disturbing him by presenting the ominous missive. To his surprise, however, it only had the effect of provoking a shout of laughter, for it ran as follows: “That wretched boy Johnson has forgotten his gloves. Perhaps as you have had the trouble of bringing it, you would not mind giving it to the housekeeper.”

That lady was not to be found, so Frank had to hunt through all the drawers himself, the contents of which soon became a confused mass under his manipulation, as Mrs. Snuffles the housekeeper found to her cost the next morning. At last he found a pair, guided to them principally by a faint smell of turpentine “which hung round them still,” which he thought might be near the size. When he returned to the ball-room he found the much-maligned Johnson in bran new kids, radiant as his own, and Clara just commencing the second dance with a young man in a yeomanry uniform.

At the end of this, he asked her for the third, but she was engaged for several dances—she did not know how many. Clara was so disgusted with everything at the moment that she could not find the words she wished to soften her refusal. Frank only saw she did not mean to dance with him, and the intention of the pretended message. Frank sat down thoroughly wretched,—he felt that he was despised, and by one—now, for the first time, he owned it to his heart—whom he fondly loved.

He cared not so much for the insult of the moment; it was the insight he fancied it gave him into the inner recesses of a heart of which he had thought so differently. How long he sat, heedless of everything as the dancers whirled past him, he never knew; but, at last, as the rooms filled, a lady sat down so close to him, that he started, and became aware that he was almost the only gentleman who was sitting.

He rose and leant against the doorway, and tried to take an interest in the passers by. It was written of old “a great city is a great solitude;” but in city or country there is no loneliness like that of the ball-room which one enters as a stranger. I know nothing so likely to foster misanthropy in a young man as remaining long, under these circumstances, without a partner. The very beauty and light-heartedness of the women seem to assume the shape of a personal injury.

What right have they to be happy when you are miserable? Why does that pretty girl in pink dance with that young donkey, who does not even know how to pilot her safely through a polka? What can that angel in blue see in a little muff, who does not seem to understand a word she utters, and who evidently has nothing to say for himself: whilst you, oh, accomplished reader! who have waltzed in every capital in Europe, and have every topic of the season at the tip of your tongue, stand partnerless, because you happen to have quarrelled with one steward and don’t know the other?