Chapter XVIII: The Rival Beauties

The ball at Lady Dalton’s that evening was of a more mixed kind than the Duke of D----’s. I saw several people making up violently to Lady Horatia, who reminded me in their speech and manner of Mrs. Chandos.

The little Marquis and Lord Woodford were both standing at the top of the stairs when we were announced, and both claimed me for the first dance.

“Rank must have precedence,” said Lady Horatia, smiling at my embarrassment as to which I was to accept. So Lord Lorrington led me into the ball-room, when I had promised the next waltz to the other, although he was such a bad waltzer, I dreaded the display. But there was no help for it, as I could not discover Sir Alfred anywhere.

In the middle of our quadrille, we saw a great movement of the crowd at the further end of the long ball-room, and everyone looked with great curiosity to see what occasioned it. Soon the dense mass was divided, and fell back, as Lord Lorrington said, like the walls of the Red Sea; and in the clear space between we saw a dazzling apparition--a shining, fairy-like form leaning on--oh! horror, then I saw it--it must be the Countess Rossi, and the man is--Sir Alfred!

They were followed by another pair, and the four took their places in our quadrille. A dense crowd now surrounded us. People stood on chairs, while others pressed so near that, had there been no partition-ropes, we should have had no room to stir.

She, or rather it, I was going to say, for there was something so dazzlingly unreal about her--she was very small, and dressed in something indescribably glittering--whether it was covered with diamonds, or gold and silver tissue, I know not--and her movements were so quick, and her step so light, that she seemed to be hovering in the air, like a butterfly darting about near a flower.

Sir Alfred nodded to me, and half shrugged his shoulders, as if he meant to express regret that he was not dancing with me; but I think she perceived the gesture, slight as it was, for she instantly asked him some question, and contrived totally to absorb his attention during the remainder of the dance.

But she looked at me several times, though I felt that she prevented him from looking in my direction, and asked him about people on the farthest side from where I was. She is mesmerising him, I thought, with a feeling of vague dread, and I looked round on my partner, to see what effect her beauty had on him. He had seen her before, and, in reply to my question, said,

“Yes, I suppose she is splendid and beautiful, but I don’t think her lovely. I could never have loved her.”

“Why?”

“I can scarcely tell, except that she frightens me. Yet what a little thing it is!”

“She will make you love her,” I thought, as I saw that she intended to be introduced to Lord Lorrington, now that the quadrille was over.

I was right, for Sir Alfred came, as if to shake hands with me, and he presented his dazzling partner to the Marquis, and of course he asked her to dance the next waltz. She also spoke to me, and said that she was glad to meet a relation of whom she had often heard.

“And you will waltz with me?” said Sir Alfred, in his soft, and, I felt, still loving voice.

But Lord Woodford came up to remind me of my engagement to him, whom I believe I should entirely have forgotten or ignored, had he not.

“Then the one after,” said Sir Alfred, who did not dance that waltz. He stood looking on at the dancers, and I felt dreadfully annoyed at having such a bad partner, that spoilt my dancing; while the Countess managed, with a kind of magic power, to spin the little Marquis round so that he, as well as herself, seemed scarcely to touch the ground.

Lord Woodford urged me to dance the following quadrille with him, after our blundering waltz was over; and, in order to see what was going on, and to fill up the time, I accepted him.

The Countess danced in our quadrille with a foreign prince, who seemed to be a most devoted admirer; and Lord Woodford pointed out to me a tall, pale man, who stood near, as Count Rossi. Such a look of misery, or rather such a total indifference to all around, as his handsome face expressed, I never before witnessed.

“He is broken-hearted, they all say, and even this great property they have lately inherited fails to rouse him from that sad state of apathy.”

Sir Alfred afterwards gave me, during our waltz, more details of the tragic end of Dorina, the Count’s first intended wife. He also told me that he had the worst possible opinion of this wonderful Cunigunda, Countess of Rossi, and pleased me by expressing his certainty that she made away with her rival. “She is capable of any wickedness,” he added.

“And yet you seemed to admire her?”

“As one admires a wondrous piece of acting, or the beautiful picture of an evil spirit, or as one is fascinated by some fatal vice,” he said, in a sad tone.

“Is play so very fascinating?” I inquired. “People told me last night that you left Lady Horatia’s to indulge in your favourite vice.”

“I think you could cure me of it.”

There was a pause, and I waited in breathless anxiety, thinking he was going to say more; but he looked so absent, as if he almost forgot what he was saying, and then made some observation about a young lady’s dress who was opposite to us.

“Could not that magic beauty, the fascinating fairy, cure you of it as well?”

“Cure me of what? Now another turn,” and as we whirled round, his eyes expressed far more than his words had yet done; and I began to think that some fatal engagement, or other mysterious cause, really would prove the barrier about which Lady Horatia and all the others had hinted. He danced twice afterwards with me, and, in spite of his bad opinion of her, twice also with the Countess that night; but with no one else.