Imogen: or, Only Eighteen

They were in the dancing-room by this time. Imogen began to feel nervous in another sense.

“I hope you don’t dance very well, Mr Winchester,” she began. “No– I don’t mean that, for it would make it worse. I mean I hope you are not very – difficult to please. For I have had very little practice. Oh yes,” as she noticed the surprised expression on her companion’s face – “I can dance; of course I have learnt, but I haven’t danced properly– among other people, you know – at balls.”

“I’m sure we’ll get on all right,” he replied; “you look as if you would dance well. Don’t be nervous.”

He proved a true prophet; after a moment or two’s slight hesitation, Imogen found herself quite at home.

“Oh,” she said, when at last they stopped, “I had no idea it could be so nice; ever so much easier, too, than dancing when it’s a dancing-lesson, you know.”

Mr Winchester could scarcely help laughing, but he was pleased too.

“You really dance beautifully,” he said. “So if your only experience has been dancing-lessons, as you say, you have certainly profited by them. But you should dance with Rex.”

“Does he dance so well?” asked the girl, with interest.

“Splendidly: his worst enemy can’t deny that,” answered Robin with emphasis.

“Who is his worst enemy? I shouldn’t have thought he had any,” said Imogen, half thoughtlessly, but with a spice of curiosity too.

Robin glanced round the room, but suddenly checked himself.

“No,” he said, “I won’t make mischief. Never mind, Miss Wentworth; it’s a shame to spoil a jolly good dance by talking of disagreeable things. Shall we have another turn?”

His spirits seemed to rise as the dance went on, and so did Imogen’s. Truth to tell, she had never enjoyed herself so much in her life.

Robin was really much nearer her in every way than his elder brother. For kind as Major Winchester was to her, Imogen was conscious of a certain strain in talking to him, and her pleasure in his society was largely composed of gratified vanity at the attentions of a man of his age and position; vanity only too cleverly and steadily fed by the two conspirators – directly by Beatrix, with her irresistible appearance of candour and bonhommie; more astutely by Miss Forsyth’s remarks to Mrs Wentworth all of which sooner or later were sure to find their way to the girl herself.

The first dance had become the second, before the two happy young people separated. Just as the latter was coming to a close, Imogen caught sight of Major Winchester dancing with Florence. Her face clouded.

“Why,” she said, “I thought your brother was reading his letters. He promised me his first dance.”

“Never mind,” said Robin. “It’s a pleasure to see those two dancing together; they’re worth watching, I assure you. And how could Rex dance with you, when you were already dancing?”

“He should have come and asked me. I only danced with you to – to – because he was busy,” said Imogen, bluntly, and with evident pique.

“Thank you, Miss Wentworth,” Robin replied. He could not help laughing a little. “It will be all right after this dance, I have no doubt,” he went on. But he looked at her as he spoke with the same expression of inquiry, almost concern, in his eyes, which she had before been conscious of without understanding it.

He was not offended, however; his tone was as hearty, his whole bearing as kindly as before.

“He is very nice,” thought Imogen, “and – I don’t think he’s quite as clever and grand as his brother;” and in the reflection there was a certain unacknowledged sensation of relief. But the sight of Florence and Major Winchester, who just then came in view, brought the cloud back to her face.

“Don’t they dance splendidly?” said Robin. “You see they’ve been used to each other’s paces for so long – ever since Florry grew up.”

“Yea, that is a good while ago,” said Imogen, with a faint touch of spite.

“She is a year older than I, and I am twenty-four,” Mr Winchester replied, simply. “I am fourteen years younger than my brother. Why, he is almost old enough to be your father.”

“Nonsense!” said the girl, sharply. “I am eighteen – eighteen past; that only makes – ”

She stopped and looked confused.

“Twenty years,” said Robin, calmly. “Practically a generation. Still, as Wordsworth says – what is it he says about ‘a pair of friends?’ One was – I forget how old or how young, but Matthew was seventy-two, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know,” Imogen replied. “I don’t know Wordsworth well, except ‘We are Seven,’ and I can’t bear it. I had to learn it when I was seven, and I always thought her such a stupid little girl. After all,” she went on, “twenty years don’t seem so much. When Major Winchester is seventy-two I shall be fifty-two, and I’m sure once a woman is fifty-two she might as well be a hundred.”

“Perhaps you won’t think so when the time comes,” said Robin. “Shall we take one other turn, Miss Wentworth? We shall not have time for more.”

The music stopped before they had got well round the room. Then Imogen, espying her mother in a corner not far from where Florence and her partner were standing, made Mr Winchester pilot her thither. But she did not volunteer to introduce him, though he lingered in the neighbourhood for a moment or two.

“The mother is a sweet-looking woman,” he thought. For he had noticed the adoring smile with which the girl was greeted. “But she never can have been as charming as the girl. She has much more character, I should say, than her mother. But she is very, very young. I wonder if – I hope;” then his thoughts became less defined, as he went off in another direction to claim the dance which Alicia, his eldest cousin, had promised. Still they had brought a somewhat anxious expression to his usually unclouded face, and more than once during his waltz with her, Miss Helmont reproached him with being nearly as solemn and “absent” as Rex himself.

And there was some reason for her remarks. Robin’s misgivings intensified, as the first turn round the room brought into full view his late partner, glancing up in his brother’s face with what looked to him like not-to-be-concealed delight, as Major Winchester appeared to claim the dance he had been somewhat tardy of remembering.

“She has forgiven him already,” thought the younger man. “I never saw that look in her face all the time she was dancing with me,” and he gave a little sigh. “Rex should be – ”

“Robin, what is the matter? Are you in love? You are sighing ‘like a furnace,’ or an old man with asthma?” said Alicia. And the young man had to smile and excuse himself.

His interpretation of Imogen’s face was not quite correct, but it would have required much deeper discernment than his – than Imogen’s own indeed – to eliminate the elements of gratified vanity and girlish triumph from the nobler feelings with which they were intermingled.

Major Winchester almost never danced, Trixie had taken care to tell her, “except with one of us, or some very great friend. He says he is too old and grave. But, indeed, he scarcely ever speaks to girls at all; of course every one sees you are quite an exception, Imogen.”

The evening was pronounced on all hands to have gone off excellently.

“You have really enjoyed it thoroughly, my darling, have you not?” said Mrs Wentworth, fondly, when she looked in to Imogen’s room to bid her good-night – or good-morning, rather, for midnight was well past.

“Yes, mamsey, very much indeed,” was the reply, “only I’m dreadfully sleepy. I think I enjoyed the first part the most, before I got at all tired, you know, and Mr Winchester just suits me for dancing.”

“Mr Winchester?” her mother repeated, inquiringly.

“Yes; didn’t you see? A tall man, though not as tall as his brother, but just a little like him, only much younger. He came over with the Penmores – I think that’s the name. He’s staying there for shooting. Didn’t you know? He’s so nice looking.”

Mrs Wentworth looked slightly discomfited.

“Oh yes,” she said, “I think I did see you dancing with a young man whom I did not know – a mere boy.”

“No,” Imogen replied, rather hotly, “he’s not a mere boy; he’s twenty-four or twenty-five; and he’s very nice.”

“But it was Major Winchester you were dancing with at the end?”

“Yes, he’s rather too tall for me, and he is very old, mamsey,” and Imogen glanced up with a curious, somewhat perplexed expression.

“Old!” repeated Mrs Wentworth with a little laugh. “What ridiculous ideas girls have! I was just thinking you and he looked so – no, I mustn’t say what I thought when I saw you dancing together.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Imogen, and her cheeks grew scarlet.

“And what was that I heard him whispering as he said good-night just now?” Mrs Wentworth went on. “Something about ‘forgive’ or ‘forgiven?’”

“Oh, nothing,” said the girl, “only that he hadn’t come for the first dance he had asked me for. He danced it with Florence.”