THE WEARING OF THE GREEN
THAT night was the night of Devonshire’s great ball and all Newmarket
was agog, streets were blocked with fours and sixes—the great coaches
jammed in rows, with fighting, swearing coachmen and postilions. As for
the chairs, they were blocked in so closely that half the chairmen had
black eyes or bloody noses in the morning; and the link-boys, let loose
in this carnival, ran hither and yon, with their lanthorns flaring
in the wind like ministering imps in an inferno, while the country
people and the tavern tipsters and the market women filled up the
last crevices, to see beauty and fashion pass in and out the flaring
doorway, whence came strains of music and the sounds of laughter. The
king, it was true, would not be there; his cough—or despatches from
France, it was whispered—would keep him in bed that festive night, but
Lady Marlborough was there and in her train the Princess Anne. People
had begun already to put the pair in this sequence, and laughed, in
their sleeves, at it and at William’s tolerance, for no one despised my
Lord Marlborough more than that astute, cool-headed monarch, who knew
him to be as false as he was brilliant.
Excepting only the king himself, the whole world of fashion was at
the ball, and the house was dressed with green boughs and flowers,
rushes and sweet seg, and a wassail bowl stood in the hall wreathed
with blossoms. The band was stationed on the staircase landing, the
musicians clad for the occasion in scarlet waistcoats and shorts, deep
clocked scarlet stockings, and coats of yellow velvet stamped on the
back with red roses and on the left breast with the Devonshire arms.
There were female attendants, too, attired quaintly in gay flowered
silks and wearing vizards, who served the fyne of pocras, sobyll bere
and mum below stairs, while above the rooms were lighted by flambeaux
and the floors polished like mirrors for the dancers. There were to be
dances of every sort, from the country romp, “cuckolds all awry,” with
“hoite come toite,” and the more stately galliard, to “Trenchemore” and
the cushion dance and “tolly polly.”
Her Grace of Marlborough, in towering headdress and a gown of red
velvet over a petticoat of cloth of gold, led the first dance with his
Grace of Devonshire, the Princess Anne and the duke being _vis-à-vis_,
but only a poor spectacle by comparison.
The whole house overflowed with the throng. The greatest of the court
were there, Bedford and Ormond and Hartington,—and there, too,
were Godolphin and Somers and a bevy of beauty; ruffles of lace and
gleams of jewels, and here and there the rosy cheeks of the daughters
of the country squires. Old dames looked on from the wall, smiling
and delighted when a daughter danced and frowning at a more favored
neighbor, and the young beaux had no rest, but danced in their tight
French shoes and bowed until their backs were doubled.
But the greatest stir was when Lady Clancarty led the galliard with her
noble host, my lady all in white and gold, with one pink rose in her
hair, her eyes shining, and her cheeks fresher than the rose. Down the
long room they came and her feet scarcely seemed to touch the floor,
and she held her head so high that it almost overlooked his grace,
who bowed smilingly toward her, a stately figure himself as he moved
in his splendid dress down the space left by the dancers, the music
scarcely drowning the murmur of applause. Her Grace of Marlborough was
outshone and she bit her lip and tossed her head.
It was after this, when my Lady Clancarty, flushed and lovely, stood
surrounded by a throng that the Irishman, Mr. Trevor, pushed through
them all to her side. A handsome figure, too, and one which had won
more than one admiring glance that night; a graceful figure clad in
white satin, self-possessed, accomplished. French in manner; he had
caught the trick at Versailles, and his gray eyes looked straight into
hers. The strains of the dance floated up the stairs; my Lord Savile
pressed forward.
“Our dance, my lady,” he said, almost imperatively thrusting between.
For an instant she hesitated and then she smiled and laid her hand in
Mr. Trevor’s, so near that it brushed Savile’s sleeve.
“This dance is promised, my lord,” she said sweetly, and passed out on
the floor with her partner.
The young lord swore in a subdued voice, happily unheard by any one.
All eyes were on my lady and her partner.
“What a pair!” they murmured.
“Mars and Venus!” cried a courtier.
“Venus and Apollo!” said another, and every eye was on them.
Yet the two thought not of it, they danced superbly, it is true, and
with a joy in it, being adepts in the art, but Betty could think of
no one but the man who held her hand, whose eyes held hers, too, by a
spell. Perhaps, she feared a little the mastery of his ways, yet she
had never danced before with such a partner.
“You have learned to dance in France, sir, I think,” she said lightly,
laughing a little.
“Perhaps,” he replied, smiling too, “but I think I learned on the mossy
fields of old Ireland, that I was born a dancer.”
Afterwards they went out on the balcony together, the night air cooling
their faces. Below was the garden, for this was the rear of the house.
It was dark and silent without, but the strains of music floated
through the open windows and the light from within fell on her.
He took something from his breast and pressing it to his lips, held it
out to her.
“Will you wear it, my lady,” he said softly, “the symbol of an
unfortunate country and—of a loyal heart?”
She looked at it strangely, it was a piece of shamrock. Perhaps she
meant to refuse it, but she saw Savile coming and a malicious imp
leaped into her eyes. She took it and tried to fasten it in her hair
but her fingers faltered, and Savile drew nearer; the music, too,
heralded another dance.
“Permit me,” said Richard Trevor, and deftly fastened the shamrock
where the rose had been, that slipped and fell between them on the
floor.
Lady Clancarty’s face was crimson. Trevor knelt on one knee and taking
up the rose kissed it.
“A fair exchange,” he said.
She bit her lip and stretched out her hand to snatch the flower.
“You will dance with me now, my lady?” said Lord Savile.
“You were long in coming,” replied her ladyship wickedly, with mock
eagerness, but not without a backward glance to see the effect of it;
but the coquette was disappointed.
At her words, the Irishman let her flower lie where it had fallen,
and in a few minutes she saw him dancing with the pretty daughter of
a country squire. Lady Clancarty liked it so little that she set her
teeth on her lip and gave my Lord Savile a bit of her temper. Yet she
wore the shamrock, though half the room began to comment upon it.
It was morning when the great rout broke up and the stream of coaches
began to move again. The crowd had stayed; they knew my lord duke’s
generosity and that the broken meats from that fête would keep them for
a sevennight, and they waited to pour at last into the kitchenway and
come out heavy-laden; they were there when the great people went away
in their coaches and chairs.
Lady Sunderland was already in her chair and her daughter was coming
down the stair with a throng of followers, but it was Richard Trevor
who walked beside her.
“The rose I would not take from the ground,” he whispered, “I am no
beggar of crumbs—but the shamrock—”
She smiled and her bright eyes looked beyond him at the throng below.
“The shamrock!” he murmured.
It was not in her hair; had she thrown it away? A step lower down and
she held out her hand and dropped the sprig into his.
“A poor thing, sir, but ’tis yours,” she said, “and you were long in
claiming it,” she added, laughing softly.
At the moment a wreath of flowers, cast from the balcony above, fell
lightly on her shoulders, and she stood laughing, the petals showering
her and falling all about her feet.
He kissed her finger tips gallantly.
“The Queen of the Rout is crowned!” he said.