“Oh, certainly,” Temeraire said, very haughty, “mine is much nicer; I do not in the least want anything so common as brass.” After a moment he added, muttering, “But his is very large.”
“Cheap at the price,” Jane said the next day, when Laurence came to report on a morning for once uneventful: the ferals more zealous than ever, and rather disappointed not to find more enemies than the reverse. “They come along handsomely: just as we had hoped.” But she spoke tiredly; looking into her face, Laurence poured her a small glass of brandy and brought it to her at the window, where she was standing to look out at the ferals, presently cavorting in mid-air over their clearing after their dinner. “Thank you, I will.” She took the glass, but did not drink at once. “Conterrenis has gone,” she said abruptly, “the first Longwing we have lost; it was a bloody business.”
She sat down all together, very heavily, and put her head forward. “He took a bad chill and suffered a haemorrhage in the lungs, the surgeons tell me. At any rate, he could not stop coughing, and so his acid came and came; it began at last to build up on the spurs, and sear his own skin. It laid his jaw bare to the bone.” She paused. “Gardenley shot him this morning.”
Laurence took the chair beside her, feeling wholly inadequate to the task of offering any comfort. After a little while she drank the brandy and set down her glass, and turned back to the maps to discuss the next day’s patrolling.
He went away from her ashamed of his dread of the party, now only a few days’ hence, and determined to put himself forward with no regard for his own mortification; if for the least chance of improving the conditions of the sick.
…and I hope you will permit me to suggest [Wilberforce wrote] that any oriental touch to your wardrobe, only a little one, which might at a glance set you apart, would be most useful. I am happy to report that we have engaged some Chinese as servants for the evening, by offering a good sum in the ports, where occasionally a few of them may be found having taken service on an East Indiaman. They are not properly trained, of course, but they will only be carrying dishes to and from the Kitchens, and we have instructed them most severely to show no alarm at being in the presence of the dragon, which I hope they have understood. However, I do have some Anxiety as to their comprehension of what faces them, and should you have enough liberty to come early, that we may try their Fortitude, it would be just as well.
Laurence did not indulge in sighs; he folded the letter, sent his Chinese coat to his tailors for refurbishment, and asked Jane her permission to go some hours earlier. In the event, the Chinese servants did set up a great commotion on their arrival, but only by leaving all their work and running to prostrate themselves before Temeraire, nearly throwing themselves beneath his feet in their efforts to make the show of respect generally considered due a Celestial, as symbolic of the Imperial family. The British workmen engaged in the final decoration of the covert were not nearly so complaisant, and vanished one and all, leaving the great panels of embroidered silk, surely made at vast expense, hanging half askew from the tree branches and dragging upon the earth.
Wilberforce exclaimed in dismay as he came to greet Laurence; but Temeraire issued instructions to the Chinese servants, who set to work with great energy, and with the assistance of the crew the covert was a handsome if astonishing sight in time to receive the guests, with brass lamps tied makeshift onto branches to stand in place of Chinese paper lanterns, and small coal-stoves placed at intervals along the tables.
“We may bring the business off, if only it will not come on to snow,” Lord Allendale said pessimistically, arriving early to inspect the arrangements. “It is a pity your mother could not be here,” he added, “but the child has not yet come, and she does not like to leave Elizabeth in her confinement,” referring to the wife of Laurence’s eldest brother, soon to present him with his fifth.
The night stayed clear, if cold, and the guests began to arrive in cautious dribs and drabs, keeping well away from Temeraire, who was ensconced in his clearing at the far end of the long tables, and peering at him not very surreptitiously through opera glasses. Laurence’s officers were all meanwhile standing by him, stiff and equally terrified in their best coats and trousers: all new, fortunately, Laurence having taken the trouble to direct his officers to the better tailors in Dover, and funding himself the necessary repairs which all their wardrobes had required after their long sojourn abroad.
Emily was the only one of them pleased, as she had acquired her first silk gown for the occasion, and if she tripped upon the hem a little she did not seem to mind, rather exultant in her kid gloves and a string of pearls, which Jane had bestowed upon her. “It is late enough in conscience for her to be learning how to manage skirts,” Jane said. “Do not fret, Laurence; I promise you no one will be suspicious. I have made a cake of myself in public a dozen times, and no one ever thought me an aviator for it. But if it gives you any comfort, you may tell them she is your niece.”
“I may do no such thing; my father will be there, and I assure you he is thoroughly aware of all his grandchildren,” Laurence said. He did not tell her that his father would immediately conclude Emily to be his own natural-born child, should he make such a false claim, but only privately decided he should keep Emily close by Temeraire’s side, where she would be little seen; he had been in no doubt that his guests would keep a very good distance, whatever persuasion Mr. Wilberforce intended to apply.
That persuasion, however, took the most undesirable form, Mr. Wilberforce saying, “Come; behold this young girl here who thinks nothing of standing in reach of the dragon. If you can permit yourself, madam, to be outdone by trained aviators, I hope you will not allow a child to outstrip you,” while Laurence with sinking heart observed his father turning to cast an astonished eye on Emily which confirmed all his worst fears.
Lord Allendale did not scruple, either, to approach and interrogate her; Emily, perfectly innocent of malice, answered in her clear girlish voice, “Oh, I have lessons every day, sir, from the captain, although it is Temeraire who gives me my mathematics, now, as Captain Laurence does not like the calculus. But I had rather practice fencing,” she added candidly, and looked a little uncertain when she found herself laughed over, and pronounced a dear, by the pair of society ladies who had been persuaded to venture close to the great table, by her example.
“A masterful stroke, Captain,” Wilberforce murmured softly; “wherever did you find her?” and did not wait for an answer before he accosted a few gentlemen who had risked coming near, and worked upon them in the same fashion, adding to his persuasions that if Lady So-and-So had approached Temeraire, surely they could not show themselves hesitant.
Temeraire was very interested in all the guests, particularly admiring the more bejeweled of the ladies, and managed by accident to please the Marchioness of Carstoke, a lady of advanced years and receded neckline whose bosom was concealed only by a vulgar set of emeralds-in-gold, by informing her she looked a good deal more the part, in his estimation, than the Queen of Prussia, whom he had only seen in traveling-clothes. Several gentlemen challenged him to perform simple sums; he blinked a little, and having given them the answers inquired whether this was a sort of game performed at parties, and whether he ought to offer them a mathematical problem in return.