'Et chacun croit fort aisément,
Ce qu'il craint.'
LA FONTAINE.
The night of the masked ball had arrived. A large party had assembled at
Wilderleigh, including Lady Pierpoint and her daughters, and Doll. It
was Doll's first visit to Wilderleigh since Mr. Loftus's marriage, and
as he looked down the dinner-table at Sibyl he wondered at his own folly
in coming. He thought he had 'got over it,' but to-night he found that
he had made a sufficiently grave mistake in supposing so. Unimaginative
persons never know when they have got over anything, because they have
no fore-knowledge in absence of the stab which a certain presence can
inflict. So Doll walked stolidly in--where Mr. Loftus in a remote but
not forgotten passage of his own life had feared to tread--and then
writhed and bit his lip at the hurt he had inflicted upon himself.
In the days when he had hoped to marry Sibyl, he had often pictured her
to himself--his imagination could reach as far as tangible objects, such
as furniture and food and raiment--sitting at the head of his table,
talking to his guests, wearing the Wilderleigh diamonds, and looking as
she looked now; for to-night Sibyl was beautiful. And it had all come
about, except one thing--that she was married to Mr. Loftus instead of
to him. He turned to look fixedly at Mr. Loftus talking to Lady
Pierpoint, and saw as in some new and arid light his thin stooping
figure in the carved high-backed chair, the refined profile with the
high thin nose and scant brushed-back gray hair, and the bloodless
Vandyke hand holding his wine-glass. Mr. Loftus had a very beautiful
hand. Doll had not seen Mr. Loftus and Sibyl together except at the
altar-rails. And as he looked rage took him. It was a monstrous
marriage. The blood rushed to his face, and beat in his temples. And a
sudden bitter hatred surged up within him against Mr. Loftus as man
against man. He looked at him again in his gray hair and his feebleness,
and loathed him.
And Mr. Loftus's indifferent kindly glance met his, and he smiled
quietly at him. And the cold fit came after the hot one, and poor Doll
cursed himself, and told himself for the first time of many times--of
how many times!--that the greatest evil that could befall him in life
would be to become estranged from 'Uncle George.'
'What are you thinking of?' said Peggy's voice at his elbow. Peggy was
often at Doll's elbow at other times besides dinner, a fact which did
not escape Lady Pierpoint's maternal eye, but for which she did not
reprimand Peggy, any more than for her slightly upturned nose and little
upper lip, which turned up in sympathy too. But Peggy vaguely felt that
on this occasion her dear 'mummy' was rather in the way, especially when
the whole party assembled in the hall in their masks and dominoes, and
Peggy could not sufficiently admire Doll's flame-coloured garment with a
black devil outlined on the back and a hood with pointed ears. She had
no eyes for Captain Charrington, the tallest man in the Guards,
magnificent in crimson silk from head to foot, with crimson mask as
well, or for another of Doll's companions in arms in a chessboard domino
of black and white with an appalling white mask.
'Look, Peggy,' said Lady Pierpoint, 'at Mrs. Devereux. I think I have
never seen any domino as pretty as her white one with little silver bees
all over it.'
Mrs. Devereux protested, in a muffled manner, through the lace edge of
her mask that Miss Pierpoint's and Mrs. Loftus's duplicate primrose ones
edged with gold quite put her bees into the shade.
'Into a hive you mean,' said her husband, a dull young man in dove
colour. 'But how are we to know Mrs. Loftus and Miss Pierpoint apart?'
'You won't know us,' said Sibyl; 'that is just the point.'
* * * * *
'There is one thing I ought to have asked you before,' said Sibyl
solemnly in her married-woman voice, as the brougham in which she and
Mr. Loftus had driven together drew up in the _queue_. 'Would you like
me to dance or not?'
'Are you fond of dancing?'
'Very--at least, I mean I don't mind.'
'Then, dance by all means.'
'You are quite sure it is what you wish. I thought perhaps as a married
woman----'
'Married goose,' said Mr. Loftus, laughing, perfectly aware that she
would have liked him to be jealous.
* * * * *
'I'm going to dance,' whispered Sibyl to Peggy, as they followed Mr.
Loftus and Lady Pierpoint, the only unmasked ones of the party, towards
the ballroom. 'He says he wishes me to. He is always so unselfish.'
But Peggy's open eyes and mouth and whole attention were turned to the
ballroom which they were entering.
Lord and Lady Pontesbury were standing near the entrance solemnly
shaking hands with the masked hooded figures who came silently towards
them. No introductions were possible. Lord Pontesbury almost embraced
Mr. Loftus, so relieved was he to see a human face. Lady Pontesbury
beamed on Lady Pierpoint.
'Your girls here?' she whispered. No one seemed able to speak above a
whisper.
'Yes,' said Lady Pierpoint below her breath, looking helplessly round
at the twenty muffled figures in her wake. And Captain Charrington came
forward at once, and said he was the eldest, and produced Doll as his
youngest sister, while Peggy and Molly wondered how anyone could be so
funny and live.
The long ballroom, with its cedar-panelled walls outlined in gilding,
was brilliantly lighted. The floor of pale polished oak shone like the
pale walls. Banks of orchids rose in the bay-windows. In the brilliant
light a vast crowd of spectral figures stalked about in silence, clad in
every variety and incongruous mixture of colour.
'Like devils out on a holiday,' said a voice from the depths of a fool's
cap and bells.
Mr. Loftus was at once surrounded by masked figures who shook hands
with him warmly. A Bishop was the centre of another group, ruefully
responding to he knew not whom, half the young men in the room telling
him that they had met him last at the Palace when they were ordained.
One mischievous couple were making the circuit of the room, conversing
with the chaperons one after the other, who smiled helplessly at them
and answered but little, for middle-aged ladies with daughters out have
other things to think of besides repartee. Captain Charrington sustained
his character of a wit by walking about growling at intervals in a
mysterious and interesting manner.
The band took its courage in both hands, and broke the silence. A tremor
passed through the crowd. There was a momentary pause, a momentary
uncertainty as to the sex of the hooded figures, and then forty, fifty,
seventy couples of demons were solemnly polkaing.
Mr. Loftus smiled. Sibyl, standing by him, laughed till he gently urged
her to take it more quietly. Lord and Lady Pontesbury turned for a
moment from the fresh arrivals, and their mournful faces relaxed. The
Bishop, who seldom saw anything more enlivening than a confirmation or a
diocesan gathering, shed tears. The trombone collapsed, the wind
instruments wavered, and left the violins for a moment to make desperate
music by themselves. Then the band pulled itself together, and the music
and the flying feet rushed headlong on.
* * * * *
Doll, who had hardly spoken to Sibyl that day, came up to claim his
dance.
'I can't dance any more,' she said plaintively. 'My domino weighs me
down. Let us sit out.'
'Shall we go into the gallery,' said Doll, 'and watch the unmasking from
there? It is a quarter to twelve now, and every one unmasks at twelve.'
He did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she would not dance
with him. 'Better not,' he said to himself. But he had thought of the
possibility of that dance many times before he reached the ballroom, and
had decided that it was his duty to ask her.
They left the ballroom, and, passing numerous ghostly figures sitting in
nooks and on the wide staircase, they made their way to the arched
gallery which overhung the ballroom. Every white arch had been lit by
a pendent pink-shaded lamp, and the arches and Sibyl's primrose domino
all took the same rosy hue. In nearly every arch a couple were already
sitting, watching the crowd below. Doll secured one of the few vacant
places, and Sibyl drew her chair forward and leaned her slender bare
arms on the white stone balustrade. The couple in the adjoining archway
were chattering volubly, but Doll and Sibyl did not talk. She did not
notice the omission, for her eyes were following the quaint pageant with
the delight of a child. Doll racked his brains for something to say, and
found nothing.
Why had she married Uncle George? Why had she married Uncle George? So,
as he could not ask her that, and tell her that he cared for her a
hundred times more than her husband did, he said nothing.
The _pas de quatre_ was in full swing. The men, annoyed by their long
dominoes, and having one hand disengaged, raised their voluminous skirts
and danced with long black legs, regardless of propriety. Captain
Charrington's endless crimson domino had come open in front and
displayed his high action to great advantage. A very elegant pink
domino, which had been introduced by the eldest son of the house as an
heiress to all the men whom he did not recognise, and which had danced
only with masculine dominoes, was now seen to emulate its partner, and
to have black trousers rolled up above its white-stockinged ankles, and
rather large white satin shoes.
'Look!' said the girl in the next archway; 'that pink domino must be
Mr. Lumley. He often acts as a woman.'
'Hang him for an impostor! I've danced with him as such,' said the man,
with ill-concealed vexation. 'He knew me, and called me by name. I took
him for----' He did not finish his sentence. 'By Jove! that black domino
with a death's-head and cross-bones is a good idea,' he went on. 'Is it
half-mourning, do you suppose?'
'How foolish you are! That is Lord Lutwyche. I have just been dancing
with him.'
'Lord Lutwyche is not here. He sprained his ankle at hockey yesterday.'
The female domino appeared to be a prey to uneasy reflections.
'The primrose domino is the prettiest in the room,' she said presently.
'And how well she dances! I wonder who she is.'
'I happen to know that is Mrs. Loftus.'
Sibyl, with her back to the arch, could hear every word on the other
side of it. Doll was not near enough. This was indeed delightful! How
lucky that she and Peggy had come dressed alike!
'Which is Mr. Loftus?' said the woman's voice eagerly. 'I have heard so
much about him.'
'That tall, thin, fine-looking old chap with his hands behind his back,
standing by the Bishop. The Union Jack domino is speaking to him.'
'So that is he. I have always wished to see him. He looks tired to
death.'
'He always looks like that. Quite a character, though, isn't he?'
'He has an interesting face. But it was a disgraceful thing, his
marrying a pretty young girl, and an heiress, at his age.'
Sibyl made a sudden movement, and the other couple glanced round. They
saw her, but her primrose domino had taken the pink of her surroundings,
and they suspected nothing.
'I'm not so sure. His nephew stands up for him, though his uncle cut him
out, and his nephew ought to know. I fancy there was more in that
marriage than outsiders suspect. I've heard it said more than once that
she fell head-over-ears in love with him, and he married her out of
pity.'
The last words fell distinctly on Sibyl's ears, and at that second the
music ceased with a crash, and a gong boomed out, engulfing all other
sounds. It was twelve o'clock. A bell somewhere just above them was
counting out twelve slow strokes, just too late--just ten seconds too
late.
She leaned back sick and shivering.
She did not realize that the crash and the tolling bell were part of the
evening's programme. They seemed to her the natural result of the words
she had just heard. If she had been crossed in love at Lisbon before the
earthquake, she would have regarded that upheaval as the immediate
consequence of her lacerated feelings.
'Look, look!' said the woman; 'they are unmasking.'
A confused sound of laughter and surprise and recognition, and a
widespread hum of conversation, came up to them.
Everyone was streaming out of the gallery, and in the ballroom there
was a vast turmoil, as of hiving bees, and a throng at every door.
'Shall I take you to the cloak-room to leave your mask and domino?' said
Doll, turning to her at last, from watching without seeing it what was
passing below. He took off his velvet mask as he spoke. The sullen
wretchedness of his face fitted ill with the pointed rakish ears which
still surmounted it.
She did not answer. He saw that the outstretched hand still on the
balustrade was tightly clenched.
'Mrs. Loftus,' he said. 'Sibyl! what is it? Are you ill?'
She tore off her mask, and, as if she were suffocating, plucked with
trembling hands at the gold ribbon that fastened her hood and domino.
He was alarmed, and clumsily helped her to loosen them. Her small face,
released from the mask, looked shrunk and pinched like a squirrel's in
its thrown-back hood. The pink glow upon it from the lamp was in
horrible contrast with its agonized expression.
'What is it? what is it?' said Doll, in distress nearly as great as her
own, taking her little clenched hand, and holding it, still clenched, in
his large grasp. 'Are you ill?'
She shook her head impatiently.
'Would you like--shall I--fetch Mr. Loftus?'
She winced as if she had been struck.
'No,' she gasped; 'I will not see him--I will not see him!'
A change came over Doll's face. Involuntarily, his hand tightened its
clasp on hers.
* * * * *
'These entertainments,' said the Bishop to Mr. Loftus, as they paused
for a moment in the gallery, and looked down into the ballroom, which
was now rapidly refilling with gaily-dressed women and pink and black
coats, 'are, I believe, typical of English country life. They
are--ahem!--the gallery seems conducive to conversation; it is, in fact,
a--er--whispering-gallery.' Here he turned, smiling, to Mr. Loftus.
'Perhaps Mr. Doll has hardly reached the stage at which he will call
upon me to officiate--just so; we will go down by the other
staircase--but I trust, though I might be in the way at present, that my
services may be required a little later on.'
'I should like to see Doll married,' said Mr. Loftus, who had been not a
little surprised at the eager manner in which the young man was bending
towards the figure with her back towards them, whose fallen-back hood
intercepted her features. He recognised the domino.
'I had no idea Peggy had made such an impression,' he said to himself.
As he re-entered the ballroom, he met Lady Pierpoint, also returning to
it with her two plump little girls in tow, whom she had been tidying in
the cloak-room. Captain Charrington and some of the other men from
Wilderleigh were waiting near the doorway, claiming first dances as
their party came in. The orchestra, who had been refreshing themselves,
were remounting to their places.
'Then, where is Sibyl?' said Mr. Loftus, looking at Peggy.
'She went to the gallery a long time ago,' replied Peggy promptly, 'with
Mr. Doll, to see the people unmask at twelve o'clock.'
Mr. Loftus smiled. 'It was a horrible sight as seen from below,' he
said; 'half the men's faces were black, and the hair of every one of
them stood up at the back.'
The band struck up a swaying, languorous valse such as tears the hearts
out of young persons in their teens.
* * * * *
'I must go home,' Sibyl kept repeating feverishly. 'Doll, you must get
the carriage. I must go home.'
Doll was engaged to Peggy for this valse, but he had forgotten it. Sibyl
was engaged to Captain Charrington, but she had forgotten it.
He was terrified, as only reticent persons can be, lest her loss of
self-control should be observed. He helped her to her feet, and took
her to the cloak-room, she clinging convulsively to him. Her entire
disregard of appearances filled him with apprehension. The cloak-room
was empty, even of attendants, for it had been thronged till within the
last ten minutes, and now the wave had surged back to the ballroom, and
the maids, their duties finished, had slipped away to see the spectacle.
Sibyl cast herself down on a chair, shivering. Her little Grecian crown
of diamonds fell crooked.
'Let me fetch Lady Pierpoint,' said Doll urgently.
'No, no,' she said imploringly; 'I want to go home. Oh, Doll, get the
carriage, and take me home. Is it so much to ask?'
He looked at her in doubt. She was not fit to return to the ballroom.
Evidently she would make no attempt to conceal her despair, whatever its
cause might be, from the first chance comer.
'I will take you,' he said; and he rushed out to the stables, found the
Wilderleigh coachman, and himself helped to put the horses into the
brougham.
'It was ordered for one o'clock especially for Mr. Loftus,' said the
coachman, hesitating, 'and the landau, and the fly, and the homnibus for
half-past three.'
'You will be back in time for Mr. Loftus,' said Doll. 'Mrs. Loftus is
ill, and must go home immediately.'
He had the brougham at the door in ten minutes, and returned to the
cloak-room to find a maid standing by Sibyl with a glass of water. Sibyl
was still shivering, holding on to the chair with both hands, her eyes
half closed, her face ghastly.
'I am afraid the lady is ill,' said the servant.
It was very evident that she was ill.
'The carriage is here,' said Doll. 'Can you manage to walk to it?'
She rose unsteadily, and the maid wrapped her in her white cloak. It
annoyed Doll that the maid evidently looked upon them as an interesting
young married couple.
He gave Sibyl his arm, and she staggered against him. He hesitated, and
then compressed his lips, put his arm round her, and, half carrying,
half leading her, helped her to the carriage.
It was a white night with snow upon the ground. The band was playing
one of Chevalier's songs. Out into the solemn night came the urgent
appeal of ''Enery 'Awkins' to his Eliza not to die an old maid,
accompanied by the dull, threshing sound of many feet.
As the carriage began to move, Sibyl seemed to revive, and a moan broke
from her.
'Oh, Doll,' she said suddenly, turning towards him and catching his hand
and wringing it. 'It isn't true, is it? It is only a horrible lie.'
'What isn't true?' he said fiercely, almost hating her for the pain she
was causing him, not his hand.
'It isn't true what that man said in the next arch, that--that Mr.
Loftus married me out of pity?' And she swayed herself to and fro.
She had asked the only person to whom Mr. Loftus had confided his real
reasons for his marriage.
It had been on the tip of Doll's tongue all the evening to say: 'Why did
you marry him? _I_ would have married you for love.' But he mastered
himself.
'It isn't true, is it?' gasped Sibyl.
Doll set his teeth.
'No,' he said. 'It's a lie. He married you for love. He--_told me so_!'