He was standing so close that when he saw her sway he was able to start forward, and to catch her as she crumpled up.
The startled silence was broken by Jenny’s matter-of-fact voice. “That’s right: lay her on the sofa, Lynton, and open one of the windows! She never could abide a hot room, poor Julia!”
Almost as pale as his fair burden, Adam obeyed. A gentleman whose air and raiment proclaimed the Man of Mode had taken a hasty step forward, but he checked himself, his inscrutable gaze travelling from Adam’s face to Jenny’s.
Looking up from her task of fanning Julia, Jenny glanced round the circle, and said, with a friendly smile: “She will be better directly. Pray don’t be alarmed! It is only the heat!”
A quiet voice behind her said: Take this, Lady Lynton!” and a delicate hand came over Jenny’s shoulder with a vinaigrette in it.
“Thank you! That’s just what’s needed, and I don’t possess!” said Jenny, waving it under Julia’s nostrils. She added, in a conversational tone: “I’ve never fainted myself, but when we were at school together Miss Oversley was for ever doing it”
“Someone — you, Mr Tollerton, if you will be so good! — find Lady Oversley, and tell her that Miss Oversley is overcome by the heat!” commanded the same quiet voice.
“Yes, and do you procure a glass of water, Lynton, if you please!” said Jenny.
He left the room immediately, and, by the time he returned to it Julia had come round, and was leaning against her mother’s shoulder, murmuring in some agitation that it was nothing — so stupid! — the room so stuffy!
Most of the other guests had discreetly withdrawn from the saloon but one or two remained; and Adam, handing the glass of water to Jenny, found himself being regarded through a quizzing-glass raised to the faintly smiling eye of the Man of Mode.
The smile touched a pair of thin, satirical lips. “Lynton, I fancy?” said the gentleman. Adam bowed. “Just so! I was pretty well-acquainted with your father, and am happy to make your acquaintance.” He let his quizzing-glass fall, and held out his hand, saying, as Adam took it: “You don’t resemble him very much, but I felt sure I couldn’t be mistaken. Ah — I’m Rockhill, you know!”
Adam, still shaken by the evening’s event, replied with mechanical civility. The Marquis said sympathetically: “Such an unfortunate contretemps, but not, we must trust, a serious matter.” He levelled his quizzing-glass again, this time at Jenny. “Your wife?”
“Yes, sir,” Adam replied.
“Admirable woman!” signed his lordship. “I felicitate you!”
“Thank you! you are very good!” Adam smiled at Jenny, as she came towards him, and held out his hand. He had pulled himself together, and if he still looked pale he was able to say quite easily: “Is she feeling better? Let me introduce Lord Rockhill to you: he has been complimenting me on your presence of mind!”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know why he should do so,” she answered prosaically. “There was nothing to be in a fuss about! How do you do? I think we should leave Julia with her mama now, so shall we go into the other room? Then they may slip away quietly, for Julia is not feeling quite the thing.”
She made as if to lay her hand on Adam’s arm, but realized that she was still holding the vinaigrette. She exclaimed at her own stupidity, and turned back to restore the crystal phial to its owner, who received it from her with a smile, and a searching look that was at once kind and appraising. “Thank you! You, I collect, are Lady Lynton. I am Lady Castlereagh. I think I saw you at the Drawing-Room, didn’t I? Are you fixed in town now? And ready to receive morning visitors? Then I shall hope to further my acquaintance with you. Let me say that you did very well just now — very well indeed!”
She nodded in a friendly way, and moved away before Jenny could speak, which was perhaps as well, since Jenny, who had been warned that this stately lady’s favour was hard to win, flushed to the roots of her hair, and uttered something that was as inaudible as it was disjointed.
In spite of her momentary embarrassment, however, the knowledge that she had been approved by one of the Patronesses of Almack’s gave her new confidence, and when she presently perceived an acquaintance of her school-days, and received a cordial greeting from her, she began almost to feel at home. She was a little daunted by a cold stare from Mrs Burrell, and some critical ones from several other haughty-looking dames, but before she could be seriously discomposed she saw the lanky form of Lord Brough bearing down upon her, and was immediately at her ease again. She had met him only once before, but he spoke to her as though they had been friends of long standing, saying, as he came up to her: “How do you do? No need to ask — you look famously — not eyen bored!”
Her eyes narrowed in amusement “No, indeed! Why should I be?”
“Don’t you think this is a devilish dull party? I do — wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t been dragged here! You and Adam are the only people I’ve met whom I wished to meet — never saw so many quizzes and dragons in my life! Always the same at Lady Nassington’s parties: I can’t think why anyone comes to ’em!”
“For goodness’ sake — !” she protested. “You’ll be heard!”
“Oh, no, no! Not in this hubbub! Queer thing, isn’t it? All persons of the first consideration, making a din like lions at feeding-time. Come and be introduced to my mother: she wants to meet you.” He added, with his lazy smile: “Most amiable creature in the world! You’ll like her: I do myself.”
This, though it made her laugh, seemed a very odd thing to say of his mother, but he was perfectly right in thinking that she would like Lady Adversane, a stout and placid lady of unfashionable appearance and a warm heart. Jenny sat beside her on a sofa, and thought how easy her new life would be if all great ladies were as kind and as homely.
Had she but known it, she was meeting with far more kindness than might have been expected. Everyone knew under what circumstances Adam had succeeded to his father’s room, and everyone wished him well. Sally Jersey might exclaim to Lady Castlereagh: “Oh, goodness me! Don’t, I implore you, give her vouchers for Almack’s!” but even she, with a shrug and a pout, said: “Oh, well, not — I don’t mean to cut her! Poor, dear Bardy’s son — ! ‘Goodness me, what would Bardy have said to such a connection? My heart is positively wrung with compassion for that poor young man! She presents such a very off appearance, doesn’t she? But I’ll call in Grosvenor Street, and — yes, I’ll send her a card for my rout-party next month! Anything, short of vouchers for Almack’s! Oh, goodness me, one must draw the line somewhere! Tell me — you are so much better acquainted with Lady Oversley than I am! — is it true that young Lynton was previously betrothed to Miss Oversley? And that she swooned just now — actually swooned! — at the sight of him?”
“She did swoon,” acknowledged Lady Castlereagh, “but Lady Lynton, whose conduct, I must tell you, was such as to command my respect, informed us that she always does so in overheated rooms.”
“Oh, excellent address — if she knew the true cause! I dare say she doesn’t: she looks stupid! I’m persuaded she’s not awake upon any suit!”
She was mistaken: Jenny was quite awake upon that suit; and under a stolid demeanour she turned it over and over in her mind. Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did she betray to Adam how fully alive she was to the implications of Julia’s dramatic swoon; nor did she glance for more than an instant at his face, as it was bent over Julia, lying like a broken flower in his arms. In that one instant she had seen all that his chivalry would have wished to conceal from her; and her immediate intervention had sprung from no innate address but from a fierce resolve to protect him from the curiosity of those others who were witnesses of the episode. She had not looked at him again, and she did not mention the matter when, later, they drove back to Grosvenor Street. Neither of them had ever spoken of his previous attachment: it was a tacitly forbidden subject, which she dared not broach, though it lay heavily between them. There was only one thing to be done in such a situation, and that was to talk about something else. So she beguiled the short drive with commonplaces about Brough’s droll sayings, his mother’s kindness, the Prince Regent’s condescension, and her surprise at having a perfectly plainly dressed gentleman pointed out to her as the great Mr Brummell. It required no great effort to reply suitably to these trivialities; Adam even found them vaguely soothing. Emotional exhaustion had communicated itself to his body: he had never felt more fatigued in all the strenuous years of his service. He had steeled himself to meet his lost love, but not to encounter the heartrending look in her eyes when, for a moment before she fainted, they gazed into his. He had caught her, and had held her in his arms, and the sweet, nostalgic scent she always used agonizingly recalled the past, He hoped he had not uttered the words that had leapt to his tongue: Julia, my love, my darling! He thought he had not. Jenny’s flat voice had jerked him back to his senses, prosaically directing him to lay Julia on the sofa. He had obeyed, and, as he straightened himself, he had seen the rampant curiosity in a dozen faces, and had realized that he must at all costs command himself. Providence — in the shape of Jenny, desiring him to procure a glass of water — had come to his rescue, granting him a respite. By the time he had been obliged to return to the room he had regained command over himself: enough, at least, to enable him to play his prescribed rôle throughout an interminable evening.