But whether the Baron, in naming such a distant spot for the rendezvous,
was in hope she might fail him, and so relieve him after all of his
undertaking, cannot be said; though it might have been strongly suspected
from his manner that he had no great zest for the responsibility of
escorting her.
But he little knew the firmness of the young woman he had to deal with.
She was one of those soft natures whose power of adhesiveness to an
acquired idea seems to be one of the special attributes of that softness.
To go to a ball with this mysterious personage of romance was her ardent
desire and aim; and none the less in that she trembled with fear and
excitement at her position in so aiming. She felt the deepest awe,
tenderness, and humility towards the Baron of the strange name; and yet
she was prepared to stick to her point.
Thus it was that the afternoon of the eventful day found Margery trudging
her way up the slopes from the vale to the place of appointment. She
walked to the music of innumerable birds, which increased as she drew
away from the open meads towards the groves.
She had overcome all difficulties. After thinking out the question of
telling or not telling her father, she had decided that to tell him was
to be forbidden to go. Her contrivance therefore was this: to leave home
this evening on a visit to her invalid grandmother, who lived not far
from the Baron’s house; but not to arrive at her grandmother’s till
breakfast-time next morning. Who would suspect an intercalated
experience of twelve hours with the Baron at a ball? That this piece of
deception was indefensible she afterwards owned readily enough; but she
did not stop to think of it then.
It was sunset within Chillington Wood by the time she reached
Three-Walks-End—the converging point of radiating trackways, now floored
with a carpet of matted grass, which had never known other scythes than
the teeth of rabbits and hares. The twitter overhead had ceased, except
from a few braver and larger birds, including the cuckoo, who did not
fear night at this pleasant time of year. Nobody seemed to be on the
spot when she first drew near, but no sooner did Margery stand at the
intersection of the roads than a slight crashing became audible, and her
patron appeared. He was so transfigured in dress that she scarcely knew
him. Under a light great-coat, which was flung open, instead of his
ordinary clothes he wore a suit of thin black cloth, an open waistcoat
with a frill all down his shirt-front, a white tie, shining boots, no
thicker than a glove, a coat that made him look like a bird, and a hat
that seemed as if it would open and shut like an accordion.
‘I am dressed for the ball—nothing worse,’ he said, drily smiling. ‘So
will you be soon.’
‘Why did you choose this place for our meeting, sir?’ she asked, looking
around and acquiring confidence.
‘Why did I choose it? Well, because in riding past one day I observed a
large hollow tree close by here, and it occurred to me when I was last
with you that this would be useful for our purpose. Have you told your
father?’
‘I have not yet told him, sir.’
‘That’s very bad of you, Margery. How have you arranged it, then?’
She briefly related her plan, on which he made no comment, but, taking
her by the hand as if she were a little child, he led her through the
undergrowth to a spot where the trees were older, and standing at wider
distances. Among them was the tree he had spoken of—an elm; huge,
hollow, distorted, and headless, with a rift in its side.
‘Now go inside,’ he said, ‘before it gets any darker. You will find
there everything you want. At any rate, if you do not you must do
without it. I’ll keep watch; and don’t be longer than you can help to
be.’
‘What am I to do, sir?’ asked the puzzled maiden.
‘Go inside, and you will see. When you are ready wave your handkerchief
at that hole.’
She stooped into the opening. The cavity within the tree formed a lofty
circular apartment, four or five feet in diameter, to which daylight
entered at the top, and also through a round hole about six feet from the
ground, marking the spot at which a limb had been amputated in the tree’s
prime. The decayed wood of cinnamon-brown, forming the inner surface of
the tree, and the warm evening glow, reflected in at the top, suffused
the cavity with a faint mellow radiance.
But Margery had hardly given herself time to heed these things. Her eye
had been caught by objects of quite another quality. A large white
oblong paper box lay against the inside of the tree; over it, on a
splinter, hung a small oval looking-glass.
Margery seized the idea in a moment. She pressed through the rift into
the tree, lifted the cover of the box, and, behold, there was disclosed
within a lovely white apparition in a somewhat flattened state. It was
the ball-dress.
This marvel of art was, briefly, a sort of heavenly cobweb. It was a
gossamer texture of precious manufacture, artistically festooned in a
dozen flounces or more.
Margery lifted it, and could hardly refrain from kissing it. Had any one
told her before this moment that such a dress could exist, she would have
said, ‘No; it’s impossible!’ She drew back, went forward, flushed,
laughed, raised her hands. To say that the maker of that dress had been
an individual of talent was simply understatement: he was a genius, and
she sunned herself in the rays of his creation.
She then remembered that her friend without had told her to make haste,
and she spasmodically proceeded to array herself. In removing the dress
she found satin slippers, gloves, a handkerchief nearly all lace, a fan,
and even flowers for the hair. ‘O, how could he think of it!’ she said,
clasping her hands and almost crying with agitation. ‘And the glass—how
good of him!’
Everything was so well prepared, that to clothe herself in these garments
was a matter of ease. In a quarter of an hour she was ready, even to
shoes and gloves. But what led her more than anything else into
admiration of the Baron’s foresight was the discovery that there were
half-a-dozen pairs each of shoes and gloves, of varying sizes, out of
which she selected a fit.
Margery glanced at herself in the mirror, or at as much as she could see
of herself: the image presented was superb. Then she hastily rolled up
her old dress, put it in the box, and thrust the latter on a ledge as
high as she could reach. Standing on tiptoe, she waved the handkerchief
through the upper aperture, and bent to the rift to go out.
But what a trouble stared her in the face. The dress was so airy, so
fantastical, and so extensive, that to get out in her new clothes by the
rift which had admitted her in her old ones was an impossibility. She
heard the Baron’s steps crackling over the dead sticks and leaves.
‘O, sir!’ she began in despair.
‘What—can’t you dress yourself?’ he inquired from the back of the trunk.
‘Yes; but I can’t get out of this dreadful tree!’
He came round to the opening, stooped, and looked in. ‘It is obvious
that you cannot,’ he said, taking in her compass at a glance; and adding
to himself; ‘Charming! who would have thought that clothes could do so
much!—Wait a minute, my little maid: I have it!’ he said more loudly.
With all his might he kicked at the sides of the rift, and by that means
broke away several pieces of the rotten touchwood. But, being thinly
armed about the feet, he abandoned that process, and went for a fallen
branch which lay near. By using the large end as a lever, he tore away
pieces of the wooden shell which enshrouded Margery and all her
loveliness, till the aperture was large enough for her to pass without
tearing her dress. She breathed her relief: the silly girl had begun to
fear that she would not get to the ball after all.
He carefully wrapped round her a cloak he had brought with him: it was
hooded, and of a length which covered her to the heels.
‘The carriage is waiting down the other path,’ he said, and gave her his
arm. A short trudge over the soft dry leaves brought them to the place
indicated.
There stood the brougham, the horses, the coachman, all as still as if
they were growing on the spot, like the trees. Margery’s eyes rose with
some timidity to the coachman’s figure.
‘You need not mind him,’ said the Baron. ‘He is a foreigner, and heeds
nothing.’
In the space of a short minute she was handed inside; the Baron buttoned
up his overcoat, and surprised her by mounting with the coachman. The
carriage moved off silently over the long grass of the vista, the shadows
deepening to black as they proceeded. Darker and darker grew the night
as they rolled on; the neighbourhood familiar to Margery was soon left
behind, and she had not the remotest idea of the direction they were
taking. The stars blinked out, the coachman lit his lamps, and they
bowled on again.
In the course of an hour and a half they arrived at a small town, where
they pulled up at the chief inn, and changed horses; all being done so
readily that their advent had plainly been expected. The journey was
resumed immediately. Her companion never descended to speak to her;
whenever she looked out there he sat upright on his perch, with the mien
of a person who had a difficult duty to perform, and who meant to perform
it properly at all costs. But Margery could not help feeling a certain
dread at her situation—almost, indeed, a wish that she had not come.
Once or twice she thought, ‘Suppose he is a wicked man, who is taking me
off to a foreign country, and will never bring me home again.’
But her characteristic persistence in an original idea sustained her
against these misgivings except at odd moments. One incident in
particular had given her confidence in her escort: she had seen a tear in
his eye when she expressed her sorrow for his troubles. He may have
divined that her thoughts would take an uneasy turn, for when they
stopped for a moment in ascending a hill he came to the window. ‘Are you
tired, Margery?’ he asked kindly.
‘No, sir.’
‘Are you afraid?’
‘N—no, sir. But it is a long way.’
‘We are almost there,’ he answered. ‘And now, Margery,’ he said in a
lower tone, ‘I must tell you a secret. I have obtained this invitation
in a peculiar way. I thought it best for your sake not to come in my own
name, and this is how I have managed. A man in this county, for whom I
have lately done a service, one whom I can trust, and who is personally
as unknown here as you and I, has (privately) transferred his card of
invitation to me. So that we go under his name. I explain this that you
may not say anything imprudent by accident. Keep your ears open and be
cautious.’ Having said this the Baron retreated again to his place.
‘Then he is a wicked man after all!’ she said to herself; ‘for he is
going under a false name.’ But she soon had the temerity not to mind it:
wickedness of that sort was the one ingredient required just now to
finish him off as a hero in her eyes.
They descended a hill, passed a lodge, then up an avenue; and presently
there beamed upon them the light from other carriages, drawn up in a
file, which moved on by degrees; and at last they halted before a large
arched doorway, round which a group of people stood.
‘We are among the latest arrivals, on account of the distance,’ said the
Baron, reappearing. ‘But never mind; there are three hours at least for
your enjoyment.’
The steps were promptly flung down, and they alighted. The steam from
the flanks of their swarthy steeds, as they seemed to her, ascended to
the parapet of the porch, and from their nostrils the hot breath jetted
forth like smoke out of volcanoes, attracting the attention of all.