It was known to all the world that Mrs Montacute Jones's first great garden-party was to come off on Wednesday, the sixteenth of June, at Roehampton. Mrs Montacute Jones, who lived in Grosvenor Place and had a country house in Gloucestershire, and a place for young men to shoot at in Scotland, also kept a suburban elysium in Roehampton, in order that she might give two garden-parties every year. When it is said that all these costly luxuries appertained to Mrs Montacute Jones, it is to be understood that they did in truth belong to Mr Jones, of whom nobody heard much. But of Mrs Jones,--that is, Mrs Montacute Jones,--everybody heard a great deal.
She was an old lady who devoted her life to the amusement of--not only her friends, but very many who were not her friends. No doubt she was fond of Lords and Countesses, and worked very hard to get round her all the rank and fashion of the day. It must be acknowledged that she was a worldly old woman. But no more good-natured old woman lived in London, and everybody liked to be asked to her garden-parties. On this occasion there was to be a considerable infusion of royal blood,--German, Belgian, French, Spanish, and of native growth. Everybody, who was asked would go, and everybody had been asked,--who was anybody. Lord Silverbridge had been asked, and Lord Silverbridge intended to be there. Lady Mary his sister, could even be asked, because her mother was hardly more than three months dead; but it is understood in the world that women mourn longer than men.
Silverbridge had mounted a private hansom cab in which he could be taken about rapidly,--and, as he said himself, without being shut up in a coffin. In this vehicle he had himself taken to Roehampton, purporting to kill two birds with one stone. He had not as yet seen his sister since she had been with Lady Cantrip.
He would on this day come back by the Horns.
He was well aware that Lady Mab would be at the garden-party. What place could be better for putting the question he had to ask! He was by no means so confident as the heir to so many good things might perhaps have been without overdue self-confidence.
Entering through the house into the lawn he encountered Mrs Montacute Jones, who, with a seat behind her on the terrace, surrounded by flowers, was going through the immense labour of receiving her guests.
'How very good of you to come all this way, Lord Silverbridge, to eat my strawberries.'
'How very good of you to ask me! I did not come to eat your strawberries but to see your friends.'
'You ought to have said you came to see me, you know. Have you met Miss Boncassen yet?'
'The American beauty? No. Is she here?'
'Yes; and she particularly wants to be introduced to you; you won't betray me, will you?'
'Certainly not; I am true as steel.'
'She wanted, she said, to see if the eldest son of the Duke of Omnium really did look like any other man.'
'Then I don't want to see her,' said Silverbridge, with a look of vexation.
'There you are wrong, for there was a real downright fun in the way she said it. There they are, and I shall introduce you.' Then Mrs Montacute Jones absolutely left her post for a minute or two, and taking the young lord down the steps of the terrace did introduce him to Mr Boncassen, who was standing there amidst a crowd, and to Miss Boncassen.
Mr Boncassen was an American who had lately arrived in England with the object of carrying out certain literary pursuits in which he was engaged within the British Museum. He was an American who had nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with trade. He was a man of wealth and a man of letters. And he had a daughter who was said to be the prettiest young woman either in Europe or America at the present time.
Isabel Boncassen was certainly a very pretty girl. I wish that my reader would believe my simple assurance. But no such simple assurance was ever believed, and I doubt even whether any description will procure for me from the reader that amount of faith which I desire to achieve. But I must make the attempt.
General opinion generally considered Miss Boncassen to be small, but she was in truth something above the average height of English women. She was slight, without that look of slimness which is common to girls, and especially to American girls. That her figure was perfect the reader may believe my word, as any detailed description of her arms, feet, bust, and waist, would be altogether ineffective. Her hair was dark brown and plentiful; but it added but little to her charms, which depended on other matters. Perhaps what struck the beholder first was the excessive brilliancy of her complexion. No pink was every pinker, no alabaster whiteness was ever more like alabaster; but under and around and through it all there was a constant changing hue which gave a vitality to her countenance which no fixed colours can produce. Her eyes, too, were full of life and brilliancy, and even when she was silent her mouth would speak. Nor was there a fault within the oval of her face upon which the hypercritics of mature age could set a finger. Her teeth were excellent both in form and colour, but were seen seldom. Who does not know that look of ubiquitous ivory produced by teeth which are too perfect in a face which is otherwise poor? Her nose at the base spread a little,--so that it was not purely Grecian. But who has ever seen a nose to be eloquent and expressive, which did not spread? It was, I think, the vitality of her countenance,--they way in which she could speak with every feature, the command which she had of pathos, of humour, of sympathy, of satire, the assurance which she gave by every glance of her eye, every elevation of her brow, every curl of her lip, that she was alive to all that was going on,--it was all this rather than those feminine charms which can be catalogued and labelled that made all acknowledge that she was beautiful.