Lady Busshe was for Constantia
Durham. She laughed at Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson's notion of Laetitia
Dale. She was a little older than Mrs. Mountstuart, and had known
Willoughby's father, whose marriage into the wealthiest branch of the
Whitford family had been strictly sagacious. "Patternes marry money;
they are not romantic people," she said. Miss Durham had money, and she
had health and beauty: three mighty qualifications for a Patterne
bride. Her father, Sir John Durham, was a large landowner in the
western division of the county; a pompous gentleman, the picture of a
father-in-law for Willoughby. The father of Miss Dale was a battered
army surgeon from India, tenant of one of Sir Willoughby's cottages
bordering Patterne Park. His girl was portionless and a poetess. Her
writing of the song in celebration of the young baronet's birthday was
thought a clever venture, bold as only your timid creatures can be
bold. She let the cat out of her bag of verse before the multitude; she
almost proposed to her hero in her rhymes. She was pretty; her
eyelashes were long and dark, her eyes dark-blue, and her soul was
ready to shoot like a rocket out of them at a look from Willoughby. And
he looked, he certainly looked, though he did not dance with her once
that night, and danced repeatedly with Miss Durham. He gave Laetitia to
Vernon Whitford for the final dance of the night, and he may have
looked at her so much in pity of an elegant girl allied to such a
partner. The "Phoebus Apollo turned fasting friar" had entirely
forgotten his musical gifts in motion. He crossed himself and crossed
his bewildered lady, and crossed everybody in the figure, extorting
shouts of cordial laughter from his cousin Willoughby. Be it said that
the hour was four in the morning, when dancers must laugh at somebody,
if only to refresh their feet, and the wit of the hour administers to
the wildest laughter. Vernon was likened to Theseus in the maze,
entirely dependent upon his Ariadne; to a fly released from a jam-pot;
to a "salvage", or green, man caught in a web of nymphs and made to go
the paces. Willoughby was inexhaustible in the happy similes he poured
out to Miss Durham across the lines of Sir Roger de Coverley, and they
were not forgotten, they procured him a reputation as a convivial
sparkler. Rumour went the round that he intended to give Laetitia to
Vernon for good, when he could decide to take Miss Durham to himself;
his generosity was famous