Sweet and Twenty by Joan Smith

Author:Joan Smith [Smith, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1979-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The harvest ball, ostensibly arranged by Basingstoke and his friends, was much discussed and looked forward to in Crockett. It was to be something different from any party ever thrown before. Some genteel families assumed that the price of a guinea a couple would keep out the riff-raff, but it was not the organizers’ wish that anyone with a vote be excluded, so they gave away more tickets than they sold. The dinner preceding the ball, however, was limited by the size of the hall to one hundred persons, and it promised to be a more decorous do than the dancing afterward.

On the arranged evening, Fellows and Hudson called for the ladies of New Moon and the six proceeded to the Assembly Hall, where the one hundred of Crockett society were gathering, the gentlemen in their black jackets and pantaloons, the costume chosen by the whipper-in who did not wish to put the local worthies to the expense of satin breeches they would not be likely to require again in their lives.

The ladies, however, had no limits placed on how grand an ensemble they might devise. There were satins, silks and laces enough to equal the greatest ton party in London. Nine-tenths of the jewels might be paste and the pearls coated with fish scales, but in the candlelight they sparkled and glowed as well as genuine jewels, and gave the wearers as much pleasure.

Fellows had Sara on one arm and her mother on the other, while Hudson escorted Lillian and her Aunt Martha. Alistair and his whipper-in were present, for no overt political overtones were to be acknowledged. In fact Hudson had given him two tickets, for it seemed ungentlemanly to force them to contribute a guinea to the Whig cause. These matters were understood to a nicety between them.

Alistair accosted Fellows’s party as soon as they entered and made himself pleasant to them all. It was only Sara who showed any joy at this circumstance. She detached herself from Fellows with such unexpected alacrity that no one had time to pull her back into the fold.

“Has anyone else been throwing potatoes at you, Mr. Alistair?” she asked eagerly. Having the keenest interest in the campaign, about the only fact she had discovered for a week was that people threw potatoes at Mr. Alistair, and she thought it very mean of them.

“No, no, I am not so unpopular as that,” he assured her.

“Indeed you are not! I’m sure you must be the most popular gentleman in the parish.”

“I hope I am the most popular in the constituency, in any case.”

“There too. I am sure no one else looks half so well in evening clothes.”

The lady was so beautiful and so admiring that Alistair was much of a mind to remain at her side, leaving Reising alone to politick for the party. All through the two glasses of sherry preceding the meal, she inveighed against people who threw potatoes, till finally Mr. Hudson went after her himself and tucked her arm in his, to lead her to the table.

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