THE MASKED BALL
That night much noise and confusion reigned outside the Grand Opera
House. Torches flared, linkmen shouted, horses plunged, backed, and
clattered; oaths flew here and there, whips were plied, carriage-wheels
grated, coachmen swore, and, at short intervals, tall figures of the
Black Musketeers were called in to keep order, a duty they fulfilled in
a summary manner, with little forbearance to the public, dealing kicks,
cuffs, and such remonstrances freely around, and clearing a space,
wherever space was required, by dropping the butts of their heavy weapons
on the feet of the recoiling crowd. With such powerful assistance, coach
after coach deposited its load at the grand entrance, around which were
congregated valets and lackeys wearing the liveries of the noblest
families in France.
Beautiful and gorgeous were the dresses thus emerging for an instant
under the red glare of torchlight, to disappear through the folding-doors
within. Shimmering the satin, and sparkling with jewels, the loveliest
women of the capital passed in review for three paces before the
populace, little loth, perhaps, to submit their toilets to the scientific
criticism of a Parisian crowd, a criticism that reached, however, no
higher than the chin, for every one of those fair French faces was hidden
in a black mask. Their gallants, on the contrary, came unprovided with
these defences, and the male bird, indeed, though without question the
uglier animal, was on the present occasion equal in brilliancy of plumage
to his mate.
It is, however, with the interior that we have to do; behind the
folding-doors that swallowed up these radiant visions in succession so
greedily. That interior was flooded in a warm yellow light. A hundred
glittering lustres shone and twinkled at narrow intervals, to stud the
curves of white and gold and crimson that belted the ample circle of the
building, while high in the centre of its dome an enormous chandelier
flashed and gleamed and dazzled, like some gigantic diamond shivered
into a thousand prismatic fragments. From roof to flooring fresh bright
colours bloomed in the boxes, as bloom the posies on a flower-stall;
while pit, stage, and orchestra, boarded to a level, had become a
shifting sea of brilliant hues, whirling, coiling, undulating, ebbing,
flowing, surging into a foam of light and snowy plumes, bearing in turn
each colour of the rainbow to its surface—flashing and glistening through
all its waters with a blaze of gems and gold.
Captain George was wading about in it, more preoccupied and less inclined
to take advantage of its gaieties than a musketeer usually found himself
in such a scene of revelry. His distinguished air and manly bearing drew
on him, indeed, gibes and taunts, half-raillery, half-compliment, from
many a rosy mouth smiling under its black mask; but to these he answered
not a word.
He was unlike himself to-night—dull, abstracted, and out of spirits. Even
Bras-de-Fer, he felt, would have composed and propounded his heaviest
retorts in less time than it took his captain to understand any one of
the jests levelled at a taciturnity so out of place. He was in no mood
for banter, nor intrigue, nor amusement—not even for supper. He wanted to
see Cerise; he confessed it to himself without reserve, yet he neither
expected nor wished to find her in such a scene as this.
An attachment between two young persons, if of a nature to arrive at
maturity, seems to gain growth and vigour in an inverse proportion to the
amount of care bestowed on its cultivation. The plant is by no means an
exotic, scarce even a garden-flower. Nay, I think a chance seedling of
this tribe comes to fuller perfection than either graft or cutting. It
is good for it also to be crushed, mangled, mown over, or trodden down.
Storms and snows and bitter frosts bring it rapidly into flower, and it
is astonishing, though a tropical blaze could not satisfy its wants, how
little sunshine is required to keep it alive.
Captain George’s meetings with Cerise were indeed as numerous as five
or six in the week; but they took place at an interval of twenty feet,
and consisted of low bows and eager glances from a gentleman on a gravel
walk, returned by the formal reverence and deep blush of a young lady in
a window-seat. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread,
I presume crumbs are acceptable when crusts are not to be obtained. So
the Musketeer had felt ill at ease all day, and was now in the most
unsuitable frame of mind possible for a masquerade, because the girl
had been absent from her window when he passed, which was indeed his
own fault, since, in his impatience, he had crossed the gardens of the
Hôtel Montmirail a quarter of an hour before his usual time, and had thus
perhaps inflicted as much disappointment as he sustained.
Now people in the irritable frame of mind caused by a little anxiety,
a little disappointment, and a good deal of uncertainty, seldom betake
themselves to solitude, which is indeed rather the resort of real
happiness or the refuge of utter despair. The simply discontented are
more prone to rush into a crowd, and Captain George had no idea of
abstaining from the Great Masked Ball at the Opera House, but rather made
his appearance somewhat earlier than his wont at this festivity, though
when there, he roamed about in a desultory and dissatisfied manner, first
dreading, then faintly hoping, and lastly ardently desiring to meet
Mademoiselle de Montmirail amongst that brilliant, shifting, bantering,
and mysterious throng. Disguised indeed! He would know her, he felt sure,
by her pretty feet alone, if she were masked down to her very ankles.
He was not so well versed in feminine arts but that he had yet to learn
how a lady who really wished to remain unknown at these gatherings would
alter her voice, her gestures, her figure, her gait—nay, the very shape
of her hands and feet, to deceive those on whom she wished to practise.
The majority, on the contrary, were most unwilling thus to sink their
identity, and only wore masks, I imagine, to hide the absence of blushes
at such direct compliments as were sure to be addressed to them, also as
an excuse for considerable freedom of speech in return.
The orchestra was pealing out a magnificent “Minuet de la Cour,” and
that stately measure, performed by a few couples of the handsomest
gallants and ladies of the Court, was eliciting the applause of a large
and critical circle, amongst whom Captain George made one, when a voice
thrilled in his ear, the tone of which brought the blood to his cheek,
while a masked figure beside him passed her hand lightly through his
arm. A tremendous flourish of brass instruments rendered the moment
well-chosen for secret communication; but the mask had apparently nothing
more confidential to say than this—
“_Qui cherche trouve!_ You seek something, fair Musketeer. If you are in
earnest, you shall find what you require!”
The voice reminded him almost painfully of Cerise, yet was it deeper and
fuller than the girl’s in tone. He scanned the figure at his side with
a quick penetrating glance; but she was so shrouded in a black satin
cloak reaching to the flounces of her ball-dress, that he gathered but
little from her inspection. He noted, however, a leaf of the stephanotis,
peeping from under the folds that concealed her bouquet, and recollecting
the events of the morning, made a shrewd guess at his companion.
Perhaps she would have thought him very stupid had it been otherwise.
All this elaborate artifice of disguise may have been for her own
deception, not his. She might talk to him more freely under protest, as
it were, that he had no right to know her; and she was, moreover, so well
enveloped and altered, that she could scarcely be identified by passing
acquaintances, or, indeed, by any one with whom she refused to converse.
“I seek only amusement,” answered the Musketeer, with the natural
instinct of mankind to disavow sentiment. “I have not yet found much, I
confess, though Point d’Appui’s airs and graces in the dance there would
afford it to any one who had not seen them as often as I have.”
She laughed scornfully, leaning on his arm. “And they call that thing
_a Man_!” said she, with an accent on the substantive extremely
uncomplimentary to Count Point d’Appui, who was indeed a handsome,
conceited, pleasant, young good-for-nothing enough; “and these are the
objects women break their hearts about—dress for them, dance for them,
die for them; nay, even come to masked balls, disfigured and disguised
for their unworthy sakes. What fools you must think us, Captain George;
and what fools we are!”
“You know me, madame,” exclaimed the Musketeer, affecting surprise,
rather as entering into the spirit of the scene than with any deeper
motive. “You must know, then, that I am amongst the most devoted and
respectful admirers of your sex.”
She laughed again the low soft laugh that was one of her greatest charms,
and lost, moreover, none of its attraction from her disguise.
“Know you!” she repeated, still leaning on his arm perhaps a little
heavier than before. “What lady in Paris does not know you as the citadel
to resist all her efforts of attack?—as the Orson, the woman-hater,
the man of marble, who has no vanity, no feelings, no heart?—the only
creature left in this uninteresting town worth conquering? And all those
who have tried it, no small number, vow that victory is impossible.”
“It shows how little they comprehend me,” he replied, in a tone of jest,
and still pretending not to recognise his companion, who held her head
down and took refuge studiously beneath her mask. “If you, madame, would
condescend to become better acquainted with me, you would soon learn the
falsehood of these ladies’ reports to my discredit!”
“Discredit!” she echoed, and to his surprise, nay, to his dismay, a tear
fell on the gloved hand within his arm. What could he do but dry it with
a kiss? “Discredit!” she said again, in a tone of increasing emotion.
“How little you must understand us if you can make use of such a term!
Who would care to possess that which half the town has worn and thrown
away? What is the value of a heart that has been cut into little scraps
and shreds, and left in portions at different friends’ houses like gifts
on New-year’s-day? No, monsieur, if I must give all I am worth for a
diamond, let it be such a diamond as the Regent’s—large, clear, and
entire—not a collection of fragments only held together by their golden
setting, like a necklace of Madame de Sabran or Madame de Parabére.”
Captain George did not quite follow out the metaphor, his attention being
at this moment somewhat distracted by a figure that reminded him of
Cerise, yet that he felt was as unlike Cerise as possible. The Musketeer
was also a very moderate proficient in the lighter accomplishments of
gallantry, being of a self-contained though energetic nature, that was
disposed to do its work thoroughly or not at all. He was one of those
men, of whom there are more in the world than ladies suppose, whose
respect for the sex restrains them from taking that initiative which
they forget the latter are especially privileged to decline. Unless,
therefore, a woman throws herself at their heads, they make no advances
at all, and then these wretches are just the sort of characters with
which such a course, repugnant to their instinctive sense of fitness, is
least likely to succeed, after all. They are consequently very difficult
birds to tame, and either escape altogether, or are lured into the cage,
accidentally as it were, by a pretty face, a shy manner, and some rare
combination of circumstances which nobody on earth could have foreseen.
When a lady has fairly started, however, and got warmed to her subject, I
imagine little is to be gained by interrupting her, and that no efforts
of eloquence find so much favour as the forbearance of a good listener.
The Marquise thought she had turned her last phrase very prettily,
and applied the image of the necklace with considerable art, so she
continued, without waiting for an answer, “You do not know me, Captain
George, though I know _you_. Also, I mention no names, therefore I break
no confidences. Do you remember the day the late king was taken ill, and
brought home, never to recover?”
His English blood stirred at the recollection of that gallant stag-hunt,
and his eye brightened. She observed it, and not sharing the insular
passion for an _innocent_ pursuit, drew her conclusions accordingly.
“I have not forgotten it,” he replied, calmly, “nor the beautiful
Marquise and her barb!”
She trembled with pleasure, but commanded her voice, and repeated
indifferently, “Ah! the beautiful Marquise! I fancy she nearly rode the
poor barb to death that day. What will a woman not do when her heart is
interested? Well, monsieur, have you ever spoken since to the beautiful
Marquise, as you call her, doubtless in ridicule?”
He began to think he _had_ been somewhat remiss, and that to prosecute
his intimacy with the mother would have been the easiest way of obtaining
access to the daughter. He was not given to self-examination, and did not
perceive that his very love for Cerise had prevented him yet entering the
house. “Do you know the Marquise de Montmirail?” was all he could find at
the moment to say.
“A little!” answered the mask, nodding her head. “But I have an intimate
friend who is very intimate with her indeed. You think women cannot be
friends, monsieur; you think they have no hearts; you little know the
lady of whom we speak. You see her as the world does, and you judge
her accordingly. How blind men are! If your eyes are not dazzled by
self-conceit, they are bandaged by an impenetrable and cold egotism. A
thing must touch your very noses, close like that,” and she thrust her
pretty hand up within an inch of his face, “or you will not believe in
its existence. Nevertheless, I could sometimes find it in my heart to
envy you your callousness, your stupidity, your indifference, and to wish
that I had been born a man.”
I think at the moment he almost wished it too, for although the voice was
very fascinating, and the situation not without its charm, she encumbered
him sadly in his search for the young lady whom yet he did not the least
expect to find.
The Marquise, however, was quite satisfied with her position, and
disposed to improve the occasion.
“A woman can have no _friends_,” she proceeded, speaking in a low tone
that the music rendered inaudible to all but her companion. “How I wish
she could! I know the sort of one I should choose—brave, steadfast,
constant, self-controlled; a gallant soldier, a loyal gentleman; above
all, a man uninfluenced by every eye that flashes, every lip that smiles.
And yet—and yet,” she added, while her soft voice sank to a whisper as
the music rose and swelled, “such an one would soon cease to be a friend.
Because—because―”
“Because why?” he asked, bending tenderly over her, for it was not in
man’s nature to remain uninfluenced by such words now spoken.
The dark eyes flashed through their mask, and the hand that rested on his
arm clenched tight while she replied—
“Because I should love him foolishly, madly, if he cared for me; and if
not—I should hate him so fiercely that―”
“You come with me from here!” said a loud good-humoured voice at this
interesting juncture, while a man’s hand was laid familiarly on the
Musketeer’s shoulder. “In a quarter of an hour my coach will be waiting
at the stage entrance. Not one of my _roués_ dare face it! I want a
fellow like you, who fears neither man nor devil!”
Captain George bowed low, with the mask, still leaning on his arm
curtsied to the ground.
“Highness,” said he, “I shall have the honour! It is a mere duty to
serve under his orders but it becomes _a pleasure_ when Monsieur le Duc
commands in person.”
“And to supper afterwards, of course,” added very graciously a lady who
was hanging on the Regent’s arm, and who carried her mask in her hand.
“Captain George is always welcome, as he knows, and we shall not be more
than a half-a-dozen at the outside.”
Again the Musketeer bowed low, and the Marquise, scanning the last
speaker intently, could not but acknowledge that to-night Madame de
Parabére looked more than usually beautiful. The _brunette_, too,
probably overrated the charms of the _blonde_, the exceeding delicacy of
complexion, the softness of skin, and the innocent baby face which so
fascinated the Regent. Also she thought she detected on that baby face a
decided preference for the Musketeer, and Madame de Montmirail was not
a woman to entertain the strongest passions of her sex and leave out
jealousy.
Had it not been for these suspicions, the bouquet of stephanotis might
have remained all night innocuous beneath her cloak, to be consumed in
the stove that warmed her chocolate when she got home. But the Marquise
allowed no one to cross her designs with impunity, and watching her new
enemy narrowly, began to handle her weapons and prepare for action.
The Regent had been traversing the throng of revellers with Madame de
Parabére on his arm; the latter, proud of her disgrace, and exulting
in her infamous position as his acknowledged mistress, had bared her
face, in order to receive the full tribute of admiration which her
beauty really deserved. Now, while the Duke stood still for a moment,
and exchanged a few jesting compliments and well-bred sarcasms with
the passing maskers, an encounter in which he acquitted himself with
considerable tact and ingenuity, his companion, dearly loving mischief,
turned all her batteries on Captain George.
The Marquise was, therefore, left planted as one too many; a situation to
which she, the spoiled child of society, was so unaccustomed, that she
could have cried with vexation, but for the revenge now literally within
her grasp.
So she peered, and watched, and waited, like a Grey Musketeer skirmishing.
Madame de Parabére, observing the Regent’s attention engaged elsewhere,
whispered something to George, looking insolently the while at his
companion, and laughed.
Then the Marquise primed her weapon, as it were, and shook the powder
well up in the pan. A leaf of the rare bouquet peeped from under its
covering.
Madame de Parabére, flirting and ogling outrageously, as was her
custom, whispered again in Captain George’s ear, with a little affected
laugh. It seemed to the eager watcher that her lips shaped the hated
syllables—“Mulatto.”
It was time to take aim now, sure and deadly, preparatory to giving fire.
A cluster of stephanotis showed out like ivory against the smooth black
satin.
Madame de Parabére clapped her hands, and exclaimed with a child’s glee,
“But madame, what a bouquet! Madame is indeed fortunate! Such flowers are
not to be procured within leagues of Paris. How exquisite! How ravishing!
Madame is so good. Madame will permit me to have one little breath of
their fragrance. Only one!”
The Marquise hesitated. An instinct of womanly forbearance prompted mercy
even to another woman. Vindictive as she felt, and with her finger on the
trigger, she would yet spare her, she thought; but the insolent creature
should know her enemy, and should be taught that even the Regent’s
favourite could not command such bouquets as the acknowledged beauty of
the Court.
“They were sent me as a gift, madame,” she observed, haughtily, and
withholding the flowers. “I value them because ours are not yet blown at
the Hôtel Montmirail.”
“Pardon, madame!” retorted the other, unable, now that she knew her, to
forego this opening for a thrust. “Tropical, of course! From an admirer,
madame? or perhaps a kinsman? Very dark, no doubt, and with close curled
hair. I offer you my compliments from the bottom of my heart!”
No quarter now. She had rushed upon her fate, and must be shot down
without the least compunction. “If madame will deign to accept my
bouquet,” said the Marquise, “she will do me the highest honour.” And she
displayed the whole of it, a wonder of nature, brought to perfection by
art.
Madame de Parabére, giddy, thoughtless, fond of flowers, stretched her
hand out eagerly, and Captain George, whose attention the Regent’s
conversation had diverted from this passage of arms between the ladies,
turned round while she was in the act of putting them enthusiastically to
her face.
He saw the situation at a glance, and his promptitude served him as usual.
“I must be ready for your Highness!” he exclaimed hurriedly, addressing
the Regent, but with his eye fixed on the treacherous flowers. “Madame,
I have the honour of wishing you a good-night!” he added in the same
breath; while with an energetic flourish of his cocked hat he knocked
them clean out of the lady’s hands to a few paces’ distance on the floor,
letting the hat follow; and as he recovered the latter, crushing the
bouquet to pieces, as if inadvertently, beneath his foot. It was the
second time he had practised this manœuvre within twelve hours, and he
was perfect in his lesson.
Rising with an affectation of great confusion, he made his excuses to
Madame de Parabére, contriving, amongst a torrent of phrases, to convey,
unobserved, the single word “Beware!” And she understood him, contenting
herself with a glance of intense gratitude, and an inward vow she would
never rest till she had found opportunity to repay both friend and foe.
The Regent laughed heartily at the joke. “You must have supped already,
my friend,” said he, “and not spared the wineflask. So much the better;
you are all the fitter for your night’s work. Come! let us be moving. It
is time we were off!”
Madame de Montmirail stood a while, stupefied, paralysed, as it were,
at the failure of an attack thus foiled by the last person in whom she
expected to find an opponent. The first instant she could have hated him
with all the fierceness of baffled rage. The next, she felt she had never
loved him half so well as now. He had thwarted her; he had tamed her; he
had saved her from crime, from ruin, from _herself_! All in one glance of
the keen eye, one turn of the ready hand. She acknowledged him for her
master, and to her such a sentiment was as fascinating as it was new. She
would have liked to burst out crying, and kneel at his feet, imploring to
be forgiven, had time and place permitted so romantic an exhibition. At
least, she could not let him go without another word, and Captain George,
following the Regent through the crowd towards the door, felt a hand laid
timidly on his arm, heard a broken voice whispering softly in his ear.
She trembled all over. Her very lips shook while she murmured, “Forgive
me, monsieur! I must explain all. I _must_ see you again. Where do you go
to-night?”
“To sup with his Highness,” answered the Musketeer, keeping the Duke’s
figure in sight as it threaded the jostling, shifting throng of noisy
revellers.
“But that is not till midnight,” she urged. “He said something about
duty. You are brave! You are rash! For heaven’s sake, promise you will
not rush into needless danger!”
He laughed good-humouredly, and reassured her at once. “Danger! madame!
Nothing of the kind. I can trust you not to gossip. It is a mere frolic.
We are going a league or two out of Paris, _to raise the devil_!” And
observing the Duke turning back for him, he escaped from her and was lost
in the crowd.
She looked longingly after him, and sighed. “To raise the devil!” she
repeated, pressing both hands on her heart. “And not the only one
to-night. Alas! you have raised one here that none but yourself can lay!”
Then the Marquise, still retaining her disguise, passed hastily through
the ball, till she reached the street, and gaining her carriage, was
driven straight home to the Hôtel Montmirail, weeping, softly and
patiently, behind her mask.