The submission of the recalcitrants secured once more to Curtain Wells
her publick amusements, and the Monday Assembly was announced for
Wednesday evening. Everybody determined that it should make up in
brilliance what it lacked in punctuality, and all private
conversaziones, routs, and Quadrille parties were, by general consent,
postponed.
We have temporarily got out of touch with the lesser intrigues of this
history, but truly all such were eclipsed by the great Rebellion whose
echoes drowned the whispered vows of lovers and the murmur of scandalous
small talk. The prospect of peace set everybody at amusement, with
vigour refreshed by the momentary lull in the gay tempest of their
lives.
An additional excitement surrounded this Assembly because it was
everywhere reported that the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ would be
present in force. This rumour was, indeed, likely to prove true, for the
young gentlemen, already determined to discover Mr. Lovely's charmer,
were confirmed in their resolve by a desire to reciprocate the Beau's
lately implied confidence in a way more likely to gratify him than any
other.
The prospect of dancing with young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, Tony Clare,
and Peter Wingfield, or Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_ fluttered
all the young ladies' hearts and very many of the old ones'. Moreover,
there were the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe and Mr. Golightly, and
above all, there was Mr. Charles Lovely who, if he were a poet, was also
a man of the extremest fashion and finest taste, and so at once genteel
and romantick. Altogether the postponed Assembly promised to be a great
success.
Miss Phyllida Courteen hoped that her dear Amor would make an exception
for once, but Mr. Vernon declared he would by no means commit himself to
such publick adoration of his fair; so she was forced to content herself
with the prospect of teasing Miss Sukey Morton about the anonymous
Valentine. She knew that her dear Morton would suspect Mr. Chalkley who,
with the politeness for which the British Army has always been famous,
had once recovered her dropped fan. This somewhat ordinary event had led
Miss Morton to colour the whole world to the hue of a red coat. All the
dearest confidences exchanged with her beloved Courteen referred to
young Mr. Chalkley who was quite unconscious of the amount of room he
occupied in Miss Morton's heart, and was used to regard women as
musquets for the presenting of arms, but nothing more.
The whole of Wednesday had been spent by the ladies of the Wells in
refreshing their bodies with sleep and rouge alternately, and the sickle
moon in the frore February sky looked pale and ghostly beside the sleek
tapers that twinkled in every window pane and the ruddy flambeaux of the
lackeys as they stamped up and down in waiting to escort their
mistresses to the ball.
Phyllida was not long in putting on her white muslin nightgown with
flowered sack; and as her curls had neither to be subdued by Powder and
Pomatum, nor frizzled to a mock vivacity by restorative Tongs, she sat
in the bow-window of her bedchamber and stared at the young moon. The
curtains were drawn back, but, even so, she could still see innumerable
shepherds arming as many shepherdesses through the pattern and, as the
fire-light flickered over them, they seemed, indeed, to be stepping a
forgotten dance.
"I should like to live in a curtain," thought Phyllida, "and be always
young and always happy and always hand in hand with--but after all
nothing could be less like a shepherd than Amor," and just then the
little flame that had been urging all the figures into motion turned to
a noisy puff of smoke; the picture faded from her mind and the voice of
her mother destroyed the last gossamer fancy that floated through her
brain.
The widow's room was billowy with rejected petticoats on which, like
sea-wrack, floated garters, stockings, and gloves; while a large
constellation of paste gleamed fitfully through the mirk of a Paris net.
In the midst of the delicate havock sat the widow uncertain as ever what
colour and stuff would most become the evening.
"The Major spoils my rose lustring and my orange sack makes the Justice
look----"
"Like suet," said Betty.
The widow was about to reprimand her for the simile, but as it perfectly
expressed what the Justice would look like, she refrained.
"Sure, madam," said Phyllida, who was impatient to set out, "you had
best wear your blue brocade."
"The child is right," said the widow emphatically. "Betty! my blue
brocade."
Betty did not protest she had already tried on the blue brocade four
times because, if she had, the widow would instantly have thought that
green would be better, and the argument would have begun all over again.
At last the widow was dressed; the coach was at the door; and in a very
short time made one of a long row of equally cumbersome vehicles that
extended far down the High Street. Mrs. Courteen peering from the window
announced she had caught a glimpse of Lady Bunbutter stepping out of her
coach in blue brocade. This dreadful anticipation of her own entrance
was extremely disconcerting, and if there had been the slightest
prospect of turning round in the crush of coaches, chairs, footmen,
linkboys and gaping cits, she would have instantly driven home to
exchange blue for any other colour in her trunk-mail or closet. However,
as she could not change her attire, she did the next best thing
possible, by blaming Phyllida for her suggestion. As this was the
prologue to every assembly, the latter was not much troubled by her
mother's annoyance and soon the coach arrived at the very steps leading
up to the Rooms. At the moment it drew up, Major Tarry and Mr. Moon
stepped forward and flung open the door and handed the widow out and
armed her up the steps and gave her name to Mr. Ripple's confidential
Secretary who passed it on to another equally confidential footman who
bawled it out at the top of his voice just as Mrs. Courteen sailed into
the ballroom where Mr. Ripple, with the rosy bloom of triumph on his
cheeks, advanced to offer two fingers vailed in gloves of diaphanous
chicken-skin.
Curtseys, bows, and compliments lasted until the arrival of the next
guest, when the widow with her faithful Ancients surveyed the room in a
grand promenade. Phyllida made off to greet her dear Morton with half a
glance in the direction of the young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_, who
were grouped rather stiffly at the other end of the ballroom.
The babble of conversation and the swish of fans, the colour all compact
of movement, the innumerable tapers, the glitter of many brooches, pins,
and buckles, the mirrours, the preliminary notes of the musicians, the
shuffling feet, and the tap of the opened snuff-boxes combined in that
glorious whole--a ball at the Assembly Rooms, Curtain Wells.
Soon the Minuets would begin, and after the Minuets, the Gavottes, and
so on to the Country Dances and the last great Cotillon. The passionate
history of the world is writ in crowquill letters on the programs of
dances. What Jealousies and yellow-winged Envies hovered on the cool air
of waving fans, what vows would be made and broken in those alcoves, now
serene and empty, before the last flambeau expired in the gutter
outside. What mean Ambitions coiled around every genteel fine hoop!
Yet Mr. Ripple was so suave, Mrs. Courteen and my Lady Bunbutter so full
of compliments, Lieutenant Blewforth so jolly and Mr. Lovely so witty,
old Lord Vanity so generous of snuff, my Lord Cinderton so
distinguished--and as for Miss Phyllida Courteen, she was enchanted to a
magical domain where only very slowly did Mr. Francis Vernon blacken a
trinket sun with the menace of real passion.
Suddenly her heart began to beat so fast that she feared all her friends
would observe her agitation. Surely that young gentleman in primrose
sattin and flesh-coloured brocaded waistcoat, who took the polished
floor so easily, was the poet of Valentine Day to whom she had confided
her note. Surely too, for all he stared at everybody else from time to
time, his eyes were really fixed on hers. Perhaps he was a friend of
Amor's with a message to deliver--and yet it would be more interesting,
she decided, if he were not. Presently Mr. Lovely was bowing over her
chair and asking in the politest manner possible for the honour of the
next two dances.
She looked round at Miss Morton as if to say she could not leave her
without a partner.
"Madam," said Mr. Lovely bowing very low indeed, "if I might be so
presumptuous, does the young lady wish for a Vis a Vis, for in that case
I shall certainly present my friend Mr. Chalkley of the Foot."
Miss Morton, amid a deal of simpering, confessed she favoured a minuet
on occasions, so Mr. Lovely hurried off to fetch Mr. Chalkley before the
musicians began to play the opening bars of the dance.
Phyllida was astonished at the coincidence and not sure whether, after
all, Mr. Chalkley had not employed Mr. Lovely's offices on his behalf.
However, as she had little enough envy in her and was romantically
attached to Mr. Amor, she could scarcely refuse to help her dear Morton
into the arms of an expectant lover, and if Mr. Lovely had no real
inclination to dance with her, that was no great matter, since he was a
vastly agreeable young gentleman and would pass the time very pleasantly
in the absence of another.
Mr. Chalkley, when summoned by Charles, was extremely indignant and
swore he was not come to dance with any jade in the room.
"Pshaw," replied his friend, "you can't stand there gaping all the
evening."
"Why don't you make Blewforth dance with the hussy?"
"Odds my life, Tom, why won't you tread a minuet with a handsome young
woman?"
"You're too devilish fond of arranging matters for other people to suit
your own whims. I'll be hanged if I dance a step to-night!" But all the
other young gentlemen vowed so earnestly that Mr. Chalkley was a surly
fellow, that he gave way at last and suffered himself to be dragged to
the feet of attractive Miss Sukey Morton, whose black eyes flashed very
brightly at the sight of Mr. Chalkley's red coat.
Charles, having disposed her friend, offered his hand to Phyllida and
soon they were stepping the minuet with infinite grace, admired by every
one who saw them.
For her the room sank into unreality and she lived in a rainbow whose
colours moved and changed to the slow dignity of far-heard Pizzicato.
The melody to which these marionettes were dancing possessed a strange
quality. It was emotion in quintessence, without passion, without
abandon. Whatever it had of definite character lay in the half bashful
invitation to dance, as if some ghostly puppet master, pale and stately,
were beckoning to his performers. As the opening bars of the minuet were
repeated at the close only to die away in a poignant farewell, Phyllida
felt for the first time, in the swoon of her last courtesy, that she was
a doll whose gestures served to amuse a genteel but unearthly audience
of monocled Gods.
Actually it was a mere momentary dizziness, a sudden loss of volition on
which Charles hung a score of fancies.
"You are feeling faint?" he inquired.
"No, no."
"The heat is overpowering. Shall we sit for a while in an alcove, or
shall we saunter in Curtain Garden?" They passed through the crowded
room and down a cool passage into a Baroc cloister where stone Satyrs
took the place of Angels, and the Cherubim were not easily to be
distinguished from Loves.
The young moon was setting behind Curtain Hill larger and more golden
than before.
The cloister was hung with amber lights and held innumerable whispers.
Somewhere close at hand was a sound of running water.
"You are fond of dancing, madam?"
"Oh, sir, 'tis a very delicate motion truly."
"I fear you thought I was presumptuous in offering my hand for the
minuet."
"No, indeed, sir," Phyllida answered quite naturally.
Lovely was rather surprized. He had expected the customary play of a
fan.
"You are making a long stay here?" he asked.
"Oh, sir, I do not know, 'tis for so long as my mamma thinks proper."
"I have not had the honour of an introduction."
"No," said Phyllida doubtfully. She was not at all anxious to present
Mr. Lovely, and willing enough to take advantage of the Assembly rule
that the offer and acceptance of a dance was not necessarily a passport
to intimacy on the next day. She did not wish to be treated like a child
before the gallant Mr. Lovely who treated her with such deference.
"Did you hear anything more of the Valentine?" said Phyllida with a
ripple of laughter.
"Not a word."
"You remember the young woman by whom I was seated?"
"Perfectly."
"'Twas for her," said Phyllida with more laughter.
"Nonsense."
"Oh, yes! indeed, 'tis true, and the best of it is she thinks the
Valentine was sent by Mr. Chalkley."
"Never!"
"Oh! yes, yes, yes."
"But he has never set eyes on her."
"No! But she thinks he has--often, just because he picked up her fan
once."
"Truly then I did a very politick action in effecting the introduction."
"Oh, sir, she was ravished, you may be sure."
"Gad! I'll send her a Valentine every day of the week, and put one in
her Prayer Book on Sundays."
"Oh, sir! but sure, it might end in a wedding, and that's a very serious
matter as all the world knows."
"Not more serious than love," said Charles.
"Well, no, perhaps not more than love; but then neither of 'em is in
love with t'other."
"I swear they shall be."
"You can't force people to fall in love."
"Can't you?" said Charles very earnestly, so earnestly that Phyllida
thought the air was turning chill and that they ought to go back to the
ballroom.
"Not yet," pleaded Mr. Lovely. "I thought we might walk towards the
Maze."
"The Maze?" said she quickly.
"Why, yes! the entrance is but a few yards from where we are."
"I had forgot," she answered, and then with a sudden determination, "I
think we had better go back."
"You're not frightened of the Maze?"
"Oh, no, truly I'm not," Phyllida affirmed. "But I think I heard my
mamma's voice and if she sees me here, I shall not be allowed to come to
the next Assembly."
Phyllida was feeling a vague emotion of infidelity to her dear Amor and
almost dreaded to see his tall shadow in the amber light.
"As you will," he said in some disappointment, "but we han't had a deal
of conversation yet."
"That's true," she replied, "but this is only our second meeting. Oh!
Gemini!" she went on, "you'll think me forward and bold, but I vow I
never meant it in that way."
"Madam," said Charles with a bow, "I should never presume to put upon it
an interpretation so complimentary to myself, but, seriously, you will
give me two more dances to-night?"
"It would be indiscreet."
"Nay, I do not think so."
"Your friends would laugh."
"I do not _think_ so."
Mr. Lovely looked so fierce that Phyllida hurriedly promised two
gavottes, and Charles who was something of a Gascon could not help
congratulating himself on his speedy success.
They walked back to the ballroom almost in silence, and above the
chatter of folk in the lobby, heard the opening of a plaintive minuet.
Lovely, when he had left his partner, walked over to his friends of the
_Blue Boar_ and was greeted with a shower of sallies.
"How now, Charles, have you been smuggling rare spirits in the
cloister?" cried Blewforth.
"Snuggling would be b-b-better!" stammered little Peter Wingfield.
Charles glared at both the young gentlemen, who laughed very heartily
indeed, and were not at all put about by his frowns.
"Oddslife, Charles," said Mr. Chalkley, "where have been your eyes these
past six weeks to have so lately discovered the fair Courteen?"
"Charles looks at women through dice-boxes," said Blewforth.
"And what's worse, sees double wherever he looks," added Mr. Chalkley.
"Charles," added Mr. Antony Clare, "be wise. Some knave of Clubs will
trump your Queen."
"Mr. Clare," said Charles drawing himself up very straight and looking
as grand as possible, "I'll trouble you to croak when I ask for your
noise; as for you, gentlemen, you're too free with your words, be d--d
to the lot of you."
Thereupon Mr. Charles Lovely swung himself out of the room with such an
air that the young gentlemen looked after him in some apprehension.
"Egad!" commented Chalkley, "the man must be madly in love for he's lost
his wit."
"And his humour too," said Blewforth.
"Don't rally him too hard, boys," said Tony.
"We can't all turn parsons because Charles is bewitched by two blue
eyes," grumbled Chalkley.
This was the opinion of the company, and though in their hearts they
excused Mr. Lovely, they were loud in their condemnation of his churlish
behaviour.
Clare, afraid he was gone to work off his injured feelings by reckless
play, soon followed him out of the ballroom, but could not find him at
the tables.
Charles had, in fact, turned into the garden. Cupid had pierced him with
a long sharp arrow, and he was not yet able to bear a rough hand on the
wound. The night air came over him fresh and cool. In the darkness he
was more than ever enthralled by the image and pale fancies of an ideal
passion. Yet for all he was a poet, or perhaps just because he was a
poet, his love was tinted with the hues of convention. She was like
those Madonnas who appear to peasant children, Madonnas in crude
croelean robes sown with tinsel stars. One feels that much of the
apparition is due to preconceived opinion. So with Charles, his love
made one of a list of women dating to the Queens of Babylon. There was
too much bob-a-cherry about her and too much cream. She stood, too, on
such a high pedestal that if she owned feet of cracked clay not a soul
could have seen them.
Charles felt very angry with his bachelor friends, and when Clare joined
him at the end of an alley was in no mood to be pleasant company.
"Sure, Charles," the latter remonstrated, "you're the last man to tie
yourself to the skirts of a goddess."
"There's a medium between an angel and a woman of the town," said
Charles sententiously.
"But the woman was once an angel to somebody, and 'foregad! I believe
you do your charmer an injury to make her such a paragon of air. I swear
those eyes can flash with more than saintly ecstasy."
"Z----ds! Tony, you are bent on a quarrel. I tell you the child's name
shall not be a toast for my profligate friends."
"You are not better than any of them."
"But at least I can reverence purity."
"Aye, and so can Blewforth."
"D---- e!" swore Charles, "'tis a pity he don't exercise his talent more
openly."
The argument would doubtless have continued, if the sound of voices
approaching had not made the two young men pause involuntarily. Two
people were passing down the adjoining alley, and it was impossible not
to overhear some of the conversation, which was sufficiently ridiculous.
A feminine voice declared that soldiers were romantick, and a voice of
opposite sex replied that as an attribute of class, it was an undeniable
quality, but not for that reason universally applicable to individual
members of that class.
"But a scarlet coat is so dazzling," argued Treble.
"Madam," said Bass, "I cannot claim that my profession is romantick. The
Law, Madam, has no time for romance except perhaps in the examination of
an unwilling witness, but what my profession lacks, my name possesses.
Moon, madam, I venture to affirm, is a singularly romantick name."
"It is," murmured the widow, for, of course, it was she.
"The moon is the method of illumination adopted by every poet of
distinction."
"How true that is," she sighed.
"I might add that so far as dazzling goes my name is as capable of
extreme refraction as the red coat of a soldier. Moreover, madam, the
latter is very antipathetick to the complexion of a woman of quality."
"But the coat need not be worn, Mr. Moon. It could exist in a bottom
drawer, I should feel it was there, and I could sometimes brush it
even."
"Good heavens! ma'am, has not the Law an equal fascination? Do you know
that my house is full of legal cases?"
"How untidy!" said the widow reprovingly.
"Arguments _Pro_ and _Contra_, trials!"
"But I dislike arguments, they put my hair out of curl and we have so
many trials to bear already."
"They need never be used, but they can exist, madam, they can exist in
calf on a bottom shelf, and they could be dusted sometimes," declared
the Justice. Then in softer accents he began to plead:
"Think, my dear Mrs. Courteen, of Mrs. Moon. Mrs. Moon! I often murmur
that short sentence over to myself."
"Do you, Mr. Moon? When?" said the widow, who seemed touched by his
devotion.
"Oh! after dinner--or getting into bed, or--" but the third occasion was
never revealed, for Major Tarry charged round the corner and carried off
the dear questioner to adorn a gavotte.
Somehow the hedges no longer seemed so mysterious and the night not
quite so large.
"Gad! what follies!" laughed Charles.
"D'ye know who the lady was?" inquired the other.
"Venus grown fat by the sound of her voice."
"That was Mrs. Courteen."
"Eh?"
"Your charmer's mother."
"Then she must have had a very delightful father."
"That's neither here nor there," said Clare. "Your angel's wings may
moult, and she who now goes tiptoe for very lightness will one day--but,
pshaw! if you love her, she will always skim the ground."
"Tony!" said Charles, "I've made a fool of myself."
"In the best way of folly."
It may seem odd that Charles should have been so ready to admit the
mortality of his goddess, but after all as yet his love was an
apparition. No miracles had been worked at the shrine, and she had a
mother.
Also Charles began to smell romance, of which he pretended to an
exaggerated horror. Like mother, like daughter. He made up his mind to
neglect Miss Phyllida Courteen, and having done so, went back to the
ballroom with the temerity of a successful anchorite. Yet when he saw
her again she was young and adorable, and he was as madly in love with
her as ever; all the more perhaps because he realized that one day she
would fade. However, he was no longer so full of heroick rebukes for his
friends. Perhaps, like the Greeks, he was beginning to understand that
romantick Troy was a menace to the common sense of the world.
Charles found the young men in precisely the same position as that in
which he left them.
"Oddslife," cried Blewforth, "there's Charles come back. What, man! have
you been languishing under the sky? Your mistress has been dancing
merrily with Ripple himself, while you were star-gazing."
"'Tis a pity that none of you have enough impudence to follow his
example," retorted Charles, "for on my soul you all stand stiff and
awkward as the figures on a Gothick tombstone. Gad! I've a mind to tell
the ladies how nimbly you tripped it at Baverstock, Blewforth, and as
for you, Tom, I'm hanged if I'd be cut out by a beggarly half-pay
militia captain," continued Charles pointing to the disreputable Captain
Mann who was handing Miss Morton through the gavotte.
"Well said!" Clare joined in, "we shall find it more difficult than ever
to believe Blewforth's tales of conquest in the ports of civilization."
"Unless," added Charles, "like a picture by a great master he possesses
an immovable reputation and attracts by beauty in repose."
"Ha--ha--ha," bellowed the Lieutenant, "you should have seen me at
Minorca. These finicking hussies aren't worth the shoe leather one uses
in dragging them round the room." But just as Mr. Blewforth was about to
give a discourse on the beauty, grace, and agility of feminine Spain,
Mr. Ripple scaled the rigid group:
"Now, gentlemen, you are not dancing. Come, come this won't do. I've
let you off the Minuets and Gavottes, but I insist on the Country
Dances. Let me see, Lieutenant Blewforth, I have the very Vis a Vis you
are looking for--Mrs. Georgina Bean, widow of the late Captain Bean, of
your own Service. She will like to hear the latest Marine Information."
Blewforth struck his colours with an almost humble salute.
"Mr. Chalkley," the Beau continued, "Miss Margery Mansel a young lady
fresh from boarding-school, will certainly suit your accomplishments.
Treat her kindly, sir. Mr. Golightly, I insist on your dancing with Lady
Jane Vane--your father and hers were intimate friends. Mr.
Harthe-Brusshe, your respected father tells me that he has a particular
desire you should dance with Miss Mimsy; she's an heiress, sir, and as
good as she is wealthy. Come, come, gentlemen, make no doubt that I
shall find a partner for every one of you."
The young gentlemen, a little stiffer, a little more awkward, followed
Mr. Ripple very mildly across the room. The rest of the Assembly
fluttered quite perceptibly at their approach.
Lovely had no opportunity of asking Phyllida to dance with him as by the
time he had crossed the room, she was standing opposite Mr. Moon. So he
hurried up to Miss Sukey Morton who flashed her black eyes and took his
arm with all the grace in the world and discussed the attraction of the
British Army with much fan-play and volubility. He met Phyllida in the
course of the dance and begged her hand for the Cotillon, but she shook
her head gravely with a glance in the direction of old General Morton,
and Charles passed on to less interesting encounters much exasperated by
the impertinence of old age.
"Why aren't you a soldier, Mr. Lovely?" asked Miss Morton in a wondering
voice.
"I like to pull the sheets over my head when I sleep," said Charles very
solemnly, "but soldiers always have to put them on top of a pole."
"Oh! but think of war and fortresses and sieges and bivouacks."
"I dislike war, I object to fortresses. For sieges I lack the patience
and I abominate bivouacks."
"But the uniform is so gay," persisted Miss Morton, "and so martial."
"A footman's, ma'am, is twice as gay and three times as martial."
"Nay, I vow you're jealous of the Army."
"Madam, is that surprizing, when Miss Morton inclines so much to
scarlet?"
"Nay, now you are laughing at me,", she pouted, "and I hate to be
laughed at. Are you a friend of Mr. Chalkley?"
"Indeed, I hope I may describe myself as such," said Charles.
"Does he paint landskips as an Amateur?" inquired cunning Miss Sukey
Morton.
"Not that I am aware of."
The disappointment visible on her countenance recalled the incident of
the Valentine, and he made haste to add:
"Though now I come to think of it, I found him cutting out an ace of
hearts one day last week."
"An ace of hearts?" said Miss Morton very innocently, "why what would he
do that for?"
"I asked him as much, and he muttered something about a torn velvet
patch. But his behaviour that day was monstrous odd altogether, for I
remember I found him later on the bowling green of the _Blue Boar_
picking snowdrops, and when I rallied him, he asked me for a rhyme to
'white.'"
Miss Morton danced for the rest of the evening as though her scarlet
heels were little flames.
The hands of the clock were nearing the magick hour of the last
Cotillon, and everybody was hurrying in search of partners and places;
when the appearance of Gog and Magog, with Mr. Ripple's marble pedestal,
warned everybody that the Great little Man was about to make an
announcement. Everybody waited with extreme deference and not a whisper
disturbed the religious peace. The room was quite still save for the
tinkle of jewellery and the slow sighing of the fans.
The Beau ascended his pedestal, calm and majestick while the listeners
craned their necks to attention.
"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. You are doubtless all aware that we
have to lament the sudden death of that respected model of fortitude and
perseverance, Sir Jeremy Dummer."
A sympathetick murmur floated along the wind of the fans.
"I am happy to tell you that he died as he lived, fighting. He died, if
I may use so vulgar a metaphor, in harness--the harness of an old
war-horse who, having fought the foes of England during his prime,
continued to fight the greatest foe of England during his decay. That
energy which erstwhile displayed itself in the trenches of War enabled
him for twenty-one years to persecute by every means in his power that
enemy of all of us--the Gout.
"He sought to starve it into capitulation by restricted diet, he tried
to storm it by sudden charges of chalybeate. My lords, ladies and
gentlemen, it was in the middle of one of these gallant sallies that he
died. In a word, he was half-way through a glass of the cleansing liquid
when death overtook him. There it stood, that partially empty glass
beside the dead form of the veteran. May we not regard this relick as
the tears of AEsculapius? Shall we not enshrine these sparkling drops in
a lachrymatory and, having sealed the sacred fluid with the city seal,
shall we not set it in a prominent part of our civick museum? My lords,
ladies and gentlemen, we shall. I have consulted with my brother the
Mayor of this town, and he has agreed.
"Moreover, let me remind you of the last words of the great Socrates,
his last injunction to his friend to sacrifice a cock to AEsculapius. Let
us also, in memory of our deceased exemplar, present a new tap to our
publick fountain and so sacrifice, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, not a
cock, but a turncock to AEsculapius."
The Great little Man here paused to wipe away the tears of sorrow and
the heat of the atmosphere. "It seems," he continued, "out of place to
make any announcement of a new diversion, but pleasure is as inexorable
as death."
Here the audience seemed to murmur a mournful assent.
"Next Tuesday at 7 o'clock precisely will be held the Chinese
Masquerade. This, as you are aware, limits our costumes to those
authorized by gold-lackered cabinets and teacups of blue china. I myself
shall act as Gold Mandarin and my young friend Mr. Charles Lovely will
be the Blue Mandarin. There will be a grand minuet of Cathay, but I will
not detain you now with farther particulars of this entertainment. I
hope that we shall hold masquerades of assorted characters until May,
when we shall make an attempt to start the Fetes Champetres which were
so successful last year.
"Finally, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, you are aware that an incident
of an unpleasantly obtrusive habit deterred us from Terpsichore on
Monday night. I am, indeed, happy to say that the curtain has fallen
upon the whole affair without a dissentient voice. I should have been
inexpressibly grieved if the gloom consequent upon the defiance of my
authority, had been at all lasting. May I add that the rebels--if I may
call them so without offence--have acted in the handsomest manner and
have offered to set up in the portico of these rooms a tablet
commemorating the temporary cloud upon your delight. I should be more
than mortal if I were not proud of such a token of confidence in my
despotism.
"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am your very grateful, humble, and
obliged servant to command."
The Beau's descent from his pedestal was the signal for much waving of
lace handkerchiefs and fans. There were cries of 'Bravo, Beau,' 'Viva,
Ripple!'
Finally when old Lord Vanity stepped up to the dignified lord of
ceremonies and solemnly offered him his noted jade snuffbox full to
overflowing of the richest brown Rappee, and when the Beau, having
dropped his jewelled fingers into the modish soil, drew them forth and
raised them to his aquiline nose, a stillness fell upon the room, and
above the silence the sniffs of the great Beau, three in number, were
distinctly heard by all. It was as if he wished them Good Health. But
this was not enough for the Exquisite Mob. Somebody--it may have been
our hero--ran post haste for a bottle of champagne, and somebody else
rushed off for goblets. Presently, the prettiest Impromptu in the world
was enacted, and very proud indeed were the spectators of a scene
memorable for many years in the chronicles of fashion.
Delicately veined hands untwisted the silver wire and tore off the gold
cap. Somebody fetched a corkscrew, somebody clenched the sombre green
bottle between his brocaded knees. An arm tapering to snowy peaks pulled
at the unwilling cork. A fairy explosion was followed by the dewy
vapours of long imprisoned sunshine. The amber liquid sparkled and
bubbled and flowed over the many faceted goblet in cream and foam.
The Beau mounted once more upon his pedestal and drank to the pleasure,
health, and beauty of the company, while Lord Vanity and my Lady
Bunbutter quaffed an answering toast in deputy for the lords, ladies and
gentlemen present. Salvoes of well-bred applause pattered round the
room, and the Beau's triumph was hailed with acclamations.
And you, beautiful women and fine gentlemen, roses and carnations of an
older century, nothing remains of you for us. Your very perfume is but a
name. You are no more to the world of to-day than those glossy candles
that spluttered to death in gilt sockets. And yet, from the ruin of
elegance, one relick of that famous evening remains; for the silver wire
of the bottle of champagne, flung heedless to the ground, caught in a
flounce of some Beauty's petticoat. Long ago the gossamer stuff
mouldered, long ago was Beauty herself a skeleton, but the wire
cherished by Beauty's family may still be seen in a glass-topped table
in the corner of a quiet library somewhere in the broad Midlands. O
insignificant wire, you are more durable than the flowers who despised
you!
And now another famous ball waned to a close, and all the world of taste
and fashion went home to bed.
_Chapter the Tenth_