The great drawing-room at Rodenham was full of candles, powdered heads and waving feathers, gentlemen in purple, red, or blue, dames in gorgeous gowns and swelling hoops. The room had been the prior’s parlor of old, and still retained its slender pillars capped with foliage, its deeply moulded groins, its many vaults, now painted azure and crusted with silver stars. Candles were ranged around the walls in sconces between the long, gilded mirrors that made the room look like a magician’s maze. The panelling was painted after the French fashion with Cupids, garlands, and festoons of flowers. The furniture was also French, Louis Quinze; fauteuils, canopies carved and gilt and covered with tapestry; handsome commodes; here a fantastic buhl-table, or a chased and inlaid escritoire. There were two fireplaces in the long and curious room, both with oak logs stacked upon their burnished irons.
Richard Jeffray was entertaining some of his Sussex neighbors under the especial patronage of the Lady Letitia. The Hardacre coach had rolled over the priory bridge before dusk to deposit Sir Peter, Mr. Lancelot and the fair Jilian at Richard’s porch. The Perkabys, of Rookhurst, were present with their three sleepily handsome daughters, dark odalisques who spoke slowly and looked love. Dr. Sugg bustled to and fro in his best gown, beaming upon every one, and shaking the powder out of his full-bottomed wig. Squire Bilson had driven over with his wife and son from Marling to take snuff with Squire Rokeley of Marvelscombe, whose harriers were the boast of all the Sussex Nimrods. Some half a score lesser folk completed the assemblage—a lawyer, a few young gentlemen of sporting tastes, Mary Sugg, Dr. Sugg’s daughter, and several elderly ladies whose plumes nearly swept the star-dusted ceiling.
Richard in black, with white silk stockings and silver buckled shoes, his hair powdered and caught up at the back with a black velvet bow, stood behind his aunt’s chair as the guests came to pay their respects to the venerable dowager. The Lady Letitia might have stood for the high priestess of fashion with her immense toupé, her gorgeous damasks, her rouge and patches, her diamonds and her portentous fan. It was the Lady Letitia herself who had devised the “rout,” her nephew having consented in the innocence of his heart. He had never seen the Lady Letitia campaigning before, and had no notion of the strategies and ambuscades she had planned that night. From the moment that the first guest had been announced by Peter Gladden, the dowager had taken the function to herself, and ousted her nephew from all premiership or authority.