MR. KELLY HAS AN ADVENTURE AT A MASQUERADE
BALL
For the greater part of that year Mr. Kelly simply went about his
business. He travelled backwards and forwards from General Dillon,
Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Mar, in Paris, to the Bishop of Rochester,
in London, and from the Bishop to the others of the five who
mismanaged the Chevalier's affairs in England, Lord Arran, Lord
Strafford, Lord North and Grey, Lord Orrery, and last, though not
least, the Earl of Oxford. Thus business brought him more than once
knocking again at the doors of Brampton Bryan Manor, though he did not
always find her ladyship at home to welcome him. On such occasions he
found the great house very desolate for the want of her footstep and
her voice, and so would pull out his watch and fall to wondering what
at that precise moment she was engaged upon in town.
Thus things dallied, then, until a warm wet night of summer in the
year 1720. Mr. Kelly was in London and betook himself to His Majesty's
Theatre in Drury Lane, where he witnessed a farce which was very much
to his taste. It was entitled 'South-Sea; or the Biter Bit,' and was
happy not merely in its quips, but in the moment of its performance.
For the King, or, as the honest party called him, the Elector, and his
lords had sold out, and were off to Germany with their plunder, and
the stocks were falling by hundreds every week. Mr. Kelly might well
laugh at the sallies on the stage and the wry faces with which the pit
and boxes received them. For he had recently sold out his actions in
the Mississippi scheme at a profit of 1,200 per cent., and had his
money safe locked up at Mr. Child's, the goldsmith. Kelly's, however,
was not a mere wanton pleasure. For the floating of the bubble out of
reach meant a very solid change in the Jacobite prospects. So long as
the South-Sea scheme prospered and all the town grew wealthy, there
would be no talk of changing kings and no chance for Mr. Kelly's
friends. That great and patriotic bishop whom he served, my Lord of
Rochester, had said to him this many a month past, 'Let 'em forget
their politics, let 'em all run mad in Change Alley, and the madder
the better. For the funds will fall and be the ruin of thousands, and
when England is sunk into a salutary wretchedness and discontent, then
our opportunity will come.'
It was altogether, then, in a very good humour that Mr. Kelly left the
theatre. The night was young, and he disinclined for his lodgings. He
strolled across to the Groom Porters, in White Hall, where his spirits
were mightily increased. For taking a hand there at Bassette, in three
deals he won nine rich septlevas, and, for once, did not need the
money, and when he left the Groom Porters his pockets were heavy with
gold, and his head swimming with the fumes of punch.
It is not to be wondered at that those same fumes of punch floated
Lady Oxford into Mr. Kelly's mind. He swaggered up St. James's Street
with her ladyship consequently riding atop of his bemused fancies. It
was a gay hour in St. James's, being then about half past one of the
morning. Music rippled out of windows open on the night. Kelly heard
the dice rattle within and the gold clink on the green cloth; lovers
were whispering on the balconies; the world seemed to be going very
well for those who had not their money in the Bubble, and for no one
better than for Mr. Kelly. He looked about him, if by chance he might
catch a glimpse of his divinity among the ladies of fashion as he
watched them getting into their chairs, pushing their hoops sidelong
before them, and the flambeaux flaring on their perfections. He
imagined himself a Paladin rescuing her from innumerable foes. She was
an angel, a sprite, a Hamadryad, in fact everything tender and
immaterial.
He was roused from these dreams by an illumination of more than
ordinary brilliancy, and looking up saw that he had wandered to the
theatre in the Haymarket. A ragged crowd of pickpockets and the like
was gathered about the portico. Carriages and chairs set down in quick
succession, ladies in dominoes, gentlemen in masks. Mr. Kelly
remembered that it was a night of the masquerades; all the world would
be gathered in the theatre, and why not Lady Oxford, who was herself
the better half of it? Kelly had a ticket in his pocket, pushed
through the loiterers, and stood on the inner rim of the crowd
watching the masqueraders arrive. Every carriage that drew up surely
concealed her ladyship, every domino that passed up the steps hid her
incomparable figure. Mr. Kelly had staked his soul with unruffled
confidence upon her identity with each of the first twelve women who
thus descended before he realised that he was not the only one who
waited. From the spot where he stood he could see into the lobby of
the theatre. Heidegger, M. le surintendant des plaisirs du Roi de
l'Angleterre,
'With a hundred deep wrinkles impressed on his front,
Like a map with a great many rivers upon 't,'
was receiving the more important of his guests. The guests filed past
him into the parterre, Heidegger remained. But another man loitered
ever in the lobby too. He was evidently expecting someone, and that
with impatience. For as each coach or chaise drew up he peered eagerly
forward; as it delivered its occupants he turned discontentedly away.
It is perhaps doubtful whether Mr. Kelly would have paid him any great
attention but for his dress, which arrested all eyes and caused the
more tender of the ladies who passed him to draw their cloaks closer
about them with a gesture of disgust. For he was attired to represent
a headsman, being from head to foot in black, with a crape mask upon
his face and a headsman's axe in his hand. He had carried his
intention out with such thoroughness, moreover, that he had daubed his
doublet and hose with red.
Mr. Kelly was in a mood to be charmed by everything strange and
eccentric, and the presence of this bloodsmeared executioner at a
masquerade seemed to him a piece of the most delicate drollery.
Moreover, the executioner was waiting like Mr. Kelly, and with a like
anxiety. Mr. Kelly had a fellow-feeling for him in his impatience
which prompted him suddenly to run up the steps and accost him.
'Like me, you are doubtless waiting for your aunt,' said the Parson
courteously.
The impulse, the movement, the words had all been the matter of a
second; but the executioner was more than naturally startled, as Mr.
Kelly might have perceived had he possessed his five wits. For the man
leaped rather than stepped back; he gave a gasp; his hand gripped
tight about the handle of his axe. Then he stepped close to Kelly.
'You know me?' he said. The voice was muffled, the accent one of
menace. Kelly noticed neither the voice nor the menace. He bowed with
ceremony.
'Without a doubt. You are M. de Strasbourg.'
The headsman laughed abruptly like a man relieved.
'You and I,' he returned, mimicking Kelly's politeness of manner,
'will be better acquainted in the future.'
Kelly was overjoyed with the rejoinder. 'Here's a devil of a fellow
for you,' he cried, and with his elbow nudged Heidegger in the ribs.
Heidegger was at that moment bent to the ground before the Duchess of
Wharton, and nearly stumbled over her Grace's train. He turned in a
passion as soon as the Duchess had passed.
'Vas you do dat for dam?' he said all in a breath. Kelly however was
engaged in contemplating the executioner. He ran his thumb along the
edge of the axe.
'It is cruelly blunt,' said he.
'You need not fear,' returned the other. 'For your worship is only
entitled to a cord.'
'Oh, so you know me,' says Kelly, stepping close to the executioner.
'Without a doubt,' replied the latter, stepping back, 'Monsieur le
Marchand de dentelles.'
It was Kelly's turn to be startled, and that he was effectually; he
was shocked into a complete recovery of his senses and an accurate
estimation of his folly. He walked to the entrance and stood upon the
steps. The executioner knew him, knew something of his trade. Who,
then, was M. de Strasbourg? Kelly recalled the tones of his voice,
conned them over in his mind, and was not a penny the wiser. He
glanced backwards furtively across his shoulder and looked the man
over from head to foot.
At that moment a carriage drove up to the entrance. Mr. Kelly was
standing on the top of the steps and the face of the coachman on the
box was just on a level with his own. He stared, in a word, right at
it, and so took unconsciously an impression of it upon his mind, while
pondering how he should act with regard to M. de Strasbourg.
Consequently he did not notice that a woman stepped out of the
carriage and, without looking to the right or left, quickly mounted
the steps. His eyes, in fact, were still fixed upon the coachman's
face; and it needed the brushing of her cloak against his legs to
rouse him from his reflections.
He turned about just as she disappeared at the far end of the lobby.
He caught a glimpse of a white velvet cloak and an inch of blue satin
petticoat under a muffling domino. He also saw that M. de Strasbourg
was drawn close behind a pillar, as though he wished to avoid the
lady. As soon, however, as she had vanished he came boldly out of his
concealment and followed her into the theatre. Mr. Kelly began
instantly to wonder whether a closer view of the domino would help him
discover who M. de Strasbourg really was, and entering the theatre he
went up into the boxes.
At first his eyes were bedazzled by the glitter of lights and jewels
and the motley throng which paraded the floor. There was the usual
medley of Chinese, Turks, and friars; here was a gentleman above six
feet high dressed like a child in a white frock and leading strings
and attended by another of very low stature, who fed him from time to
time with a papspoon; there was a soldier prancing a minuet upon a
hobby horse to the infinite discomfort of his neighbours; and as for
the women--it seemed to Mr. Kelly that all the goddesses of the
heathen mythology had come down from Olympia in their customary
neglige.
Among them moved M. de Strasbourg like a black shadow, very
distinguishable. Kelly kept his eyes in the man's neighbourhood, and
in a little perceived a masked lady with her hair dressed in the Greek
fashion. What character she was intended to represent he could not for
the life of him determine. He learnt subsequently that she went as
Iphigeneia--Iphigeneia, if you please, in a blue satin petticoat. To
be sure her bosom was bared for the sacrifice, but then all the ladies
in that assembly were in the like case. She had joined a party of
friends, of whom M. de Strasbourg was not one. For though he kept her
ever within his sight, following her hither and thither, it was always
at a distance; and, so far as Kelly could see, and he did not take his
eyes from the pair, he never spoke to her so much as a single word. On
the contrary he seemed rather to lurk behind and avoid her notice.
Kelly's curiosity was the more provoked by this stealthy pursuit. He
lost his sense of uneasiness in a wonder what the man designed against
the woman. He determined to wait the upshot of the affair.
The night wore away, the masqueraders thinned. The inch of blue satin
petticoat took her departure from the parterre. M. de Strasbourg
followed her; Mr. Kelly followed M. de Strasbourg.
The lobby was crowded. Kelly threaded his way through the crowd and
came out upon the steps. He saw the lady, close wrapped again in her
velvet cloak, descend to her carriage. The coachman gathered up his
reins and took his whip from its rest. The movement chanced to attract
Kelly's eyes. He looked at the coachman, at the first glance
indifferently, at the second with all his attention. For this was not
the same man who had driven the carriage to the masquerade. And then
the coachman turned his full face towards Kelly and nodded. He nodded
straight towards him. But was the nod meant for him? No! Well, then,
for someone just behind his shoulder.
Kelly did not turn, but stepped quietly aside and saw M. de Strasbourg
slip past him down the steps. So the nod was meant for him. M. de
Strasbourg was still masked, but he had thrown a cloak about his
shoulders which in some measure disguised his dress. The mystery
seemed clear to Kelly; the lady was to be forcibly abducted unless
someone, say Mr. James Johnson, had a word to say upon the matter. The
carriage turned and drove slowly through the press of chairs and
shouting link-boys; M. de Strasbourg on the side-walk kept pace with
the carriage. Kelly immediately crossed the road, and, concealed by
the carriage, kept pace with M. de Strasbourg. Thus they went as far
as the corner of the Haymarket, and then turned into Pall Mall.
At this point Kelly, to be the more ready should the lady need his
assistance, stepped off the pavement and walked in the mud hard by the
hind wheels of the carriage. It was now close upon four of the
morning, but, fortunately, very dark, and only a sullen sort of
twilight about the south-eastern fringes of the sky.
In Pall Mall the carriages were fewer, but the coachman did not
quicken his pace, doubtless out of regard for M. de Strasbourg, and at
the corner of Pall Mall, where the road was quite empty, he jerked the
horses to a standstill. Instantly M. de Strasbourg ran across the road
to the carriage, the coachman bent over on that side to watch, and Mr.
Kelly, on the other side, ran forward to the box. M. de Strasbourg
wrenched open the door and jumped into the carriage. Mr. Kelly heard a
woman's scream and sprang on to the box. The coachman turned with a
start. Before he could shout, before he could speak, Kelly showed him
a pistol (for he went armed) under the man's nose.
'One word,' said Kelly, 'and I will break your ugly face in with the
stock of that, my friend.'
The woman screamed again; M. de Strasbourg thrust his head out of the
window.
'Go on,' he shouted with an oath, 'you know where. At a gallop! Kill
the horses, they are not mine! Flog 'em to death so you go but fast
enough.'
'To the right,' said Kelly, quietly.
The man whipped up the horses. They started at a gallop up St. James's
Street.
'To the right,' again whispered Kelly.
The carriage turned into Ryder Street, rocking on its wheels. M. de
Strasbourg's head was again thrust from the window.
'That's not the way. Are you drunk, man?--are you drunk?' he cried.
'To the left,' says Kelly, imperturbably, and fingered the lock of the
pistol a little.
The carriage swung into Bury Street.
'Stop,' said Kelly.
The coachman reined in his horses; the carriage stopped with a jerk.
'Where in the devil's name have you taken us?' cried M. de Strasbourg,
opening the door.
Kelly sprang to the ground, ran round the carriage to the open door.
'To the Marchand de dentelles, M. de Strasbourg,' said he with a bow.
'I have some most elegant pieces of _point d'Alencon_ for the lady's
inspection.'
M. de Strasbourg was utterly dumbfounded. He staggered back against
the panels of the carriage; his mouth opened and shut; it seemed there
was no language sufficiently chaotic to express his discomposure. At
last:
'You are a damned impudent fellow,' he gasped out in a weak sort of
quaver.
'Am I?' asked Kelly. 'Shall we ask the lady?'
He peeped through the door. The lady was huddled up in a corner--an
odd heap of laces, silks, and furbelows, but with never a voice in all
the confusion. It seemed she had fainted.
Meanwhile M. de Strasbourg turned on the unfortunate coachman.
'Get down, you rascal,' he cried; 'you have been bribed, you're in the
fellow's pay. Get down! Not a farthing will you get from me, but only
a thrashing that will make your bones ache this month to come.'
'Your honour,' replied the coachman piteously, 'it was not my fault.
He offered to kill me unless I drove you here.'
M. de Strasbourg in a rage flung back to Kelly. He clapped a hand on
his shoulder and plucked him from the carriage door.
'So you offered to kill him, did you?' he said. 'Perhaps you will make
a like offer to me. But I'll not wait for the offer.'
He unclasped his cloak, drew his sword (happily not his axe) and
delivered his thrust with that rapidity it seemed all one motion. Mr.
Kelly jumped on one side, and the sword just gleamed against his
sleeve. M. de Strasbourg overbalanced himself and stumbled a foot or
two forwards. Kelly had whipped out his sword by the time that M. de
Strasbourg had recovered, and a battle began which was whimsical
enough. A quiet narrow street, misty with the grey morning, the
carriage lamps throwing here a doubtful shadow, a masked headsman
leaping, swearing, thrusting in an extreme passion, and, to crown the
business, the coachman lamenting on the box that whichever honourable
gentleman was killed he would most surely go wanting his hire, he that
had a woeful starving family! Mr. Kelly, indeed, felt the strongest
inclination to laugh, but dared not, so hotly was he pressed. The
attack, however, he did not return, but contented himself with
parrying the thrusts. His design, indeed, reached at no more than the
mere disarming of M. de Strasbourg. M. de Strasbourg, however, lost
even his last remnants of patience.
'Rascal!' he cried. 'Scullion! Grasshopper!'
Then he threw his hat at Kelly and missed, and at last flung his
periwig full in Kelly's face, accompanying the present with a thrust
home which his opponent barely parried.
It was this particular action which brought the contest to a grotesque
conclusion quite in keeping with its beginnings. For the periwig
tumbled in the mud, and the coachman, assured that he would get no
stiver of his hire, scrambled down from his box, rushed at a prize of
so many pounds in value, picked it up and took to his heels.
M. de Strasbourg uttered a cry and leaped backwards out of reach.
'Stop!' he bawled to the coachman. The coachman only ran the quicker.
M. de Strasbourg passed his hand over his shaven crown and looked at
the carriage. It was quite impossible to abduct a lady without a
periwig to his head. He swore, he stamped, he shouted 'Stop!' once
more, and then dashed at full speed past Kelly in pursuit.
Kelly made no effort to prevent him, but gave way to his inclination
and laughed. The coachman threw a startled glance over his shoulder
and, seeing that M. de Strasbourg pressed after him, quickened his
pace; behind him rushed a baldheaded executioner hurling imprecations.
The pair fled, one after the other, to the top of Bury Street, turned
the corner and disappeared. Kelly laughed till the tears ran down his
cheeks, and leaned against the carriage.
The touch of the panels recalled him to the lady's presence. The
street was now fairly roused by the clamour. Night-capped heads peeped
from the windows; an indignant burgher in a dressing-gown even
threatened Mr. Kelly with a blunderbuss; and, as he turned to the door
of the carriage, he saw Mrs. Barnes at a window on the second floor
looking at him with an air of the gravest discontent.
'Take me into shelter, good sir, at once, at once,' cried the lady
from out the confusion of her laces, in a feigned tone of the
masquerade.
'With all my heart, madam,' said Kelly. 'This is my door, and my
lodging is at your disposal. Only the street is fairly awake, and
should you prefer, I will most readily drive you to your own house.'
The lady looked out of the window. She was still masked so that Kelly
could see nothing of her face, and she hesitated for a little, as if
in doubt what answer she should make.
'You may make yourself at ease, madam,' said Kelly, believing that she
was not yet relieved of fear; 'you are in perfect safety. Our worthy
friend had to choose between your ladyship and his periwig, of which
he has gone in chase. And, indeed, while I deplore his taste, I cannot
but commend his discretion.'
'Very well,' she replied faintly. 'I owe you great thanks already,
Mr.--' she paused.
'Johnson,' said Kelly.
'Mr. Johnson,' she replied; 'and I shall owe you yet more if you will
drive me to my home.'
She gave him the address of a house in Queen's Square, Westminster.
Kelly mounted on the box, took up the reins, and drove off. He looked
up, as he turned the carriage in the narrow street, towards the second
floor of his lodging. Mrs. Barnes shook her head at him in a terrible
concern.
'I shall write and tell Mr. Wogan,' she bawled out.
'Hush, Mrs. Barnes, have you no sense?' cried Kelly, and he thought
that from within the carriage he heard a stifled peal of laughter.
'Poor woman,' thought he, ''tis the hysterics,' and he drove to
Queen's Square, Westminster, at a gallop.