Cotillion Read Free

I won’t keep you all here, eating me out of house and home, to suit the convenience of a couple of damned jackanapes. Mind, I don’t mean they shan’t have their chance! They don’t deserve it, but I said Kitty should have her pick, and I’m a man of my word.”
    “I apprehend, sir,” said Biddenden, “that we have some inkling of your intentions. You will recall that one amongst us is absent through no fault of his own.”
    “If you’re talking about your brother Claud, I’m glad he isn’t here,” replied Mr. Penicuik. “I’ve nothing against the boy, but I can’t abide military men. He can make Kitty an offer if he chooses, but I can tell you now she’ll have nothing to say to him. Why should she? Hasn’t clapped eyes on him for years! Now, you may all of you keep quiet, and listen to what I have to say. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I’ve decided what’s the right thing for me to do, so now I’ll put it to you in plain terms. Dolphinton, do you understand me?”
    Lord Dolphinton, who was sitting with his hands loosely clasped between his knees, and an expression on his face of the utmost dejection, started, and nodded.
    “I don’t suppose he does,” Mr. Penicuik told Hugh, in a lowered voice. “His mother may say what she pleases, but I’ve always thought he was touched in his upper works! However, he’s as much my great-nevvy as any of you, and I settled it with myself that I’d make no distinctions between you.” He paused, and looked at the assembled company with all the satisfaction of one about to address an audience without fear of argument or interruption. “It’s about my Will,” he said. “I’m an old man now, and I daresay I shan’t live for very much longer. Not that I care for that, for I’ve had my day, and I don’t doubt you’ll all be glad to see me into my coffin.” Here he paused again, and with the shaking hand of advanced senility helped himself to another pinch of snuff. This performance, however, awoke little response in his great-nephews. Both Dolphinton and the Reverend Hugh certainly had their eyes fixed upon him, but Dolphinton’s gaze could not be described as anything but lack-lustre, and Hugh’s was frankly sceptical. Biddenden was engaged in polishing his eyeglass. Mr. Penicuik was not, in fact, so laden with years as his wizened appearance and his conversation might have led the uninitiated to suppose. He was, indeed, the last representative of his generation, as he was fond of informing his visitors; but as four sisters had preceded him into the world and out of it this was not such an impressive circumstance as he would have wished it to appear. “I’m the last of my name,” he said, sadly shaking his head. “Outlived my generation! Never married; never had a brother!”
    These tragic accents had their effect upon Lord Dolphinton. He turned his apprehensive eyes towards Hugh. Hugh smiled at him, in a reassuring way, and said in a colourless voice: “Precisely so, sir!”
    Mr. Penicuik, finding his audience to be unresponsive, abandoned his pathetic manner, and said with his customary tartness: “Not that I shed many tears when my sisters died, for I didn’t! I will say this for your grandmother, you two! —She didn’t trouble me much! But Dolphinton’s grandmother —she was my sister Cornelia, and the stupidest female—well, never mind that! Rosie was the best of ‘em. Damme, I liked Rosie, and I like Jack! Spit and image of her! I don’t know why the rascal ain’t here tonight!” This recollection brought the querulous note back into his voice. He sat in silence for a moment or two, brooding over his favourite great-nephew’s defection. Biddenden directed a look of long-suffering at his brother, but Hugh sat with his eyes on Mr. Penicuik’s face, courteously waiting for him to resume his discourse. “Well, it don’t signify!” Mr. Penicuik said snappishly. “What I’m going to say is this: there’s no