The Country Dances of these powderpuff Orientals were so truly
inappropriate to the celebration that they almost succeeded in
convincing by sheer want of fitness. Picture to yourselves two hundred
blue and golden marionettes jigging to _Sir Roger de Coverley_ or
bobbing to _Come Lasses and Lads_. There was Merry England underneath
this hugger mugger of yellow masks, yet the sustained motion was
decidedly Eastern. Hands across, back to back, right hand, left
hand--each change of attitude was marked by a crashing gong; and he who
sounded this barbarick instrument was Mr. Charles Lovely. He stood upon
a tripod of ebony quite high enough for a hero of comedy, as I am sure
you will admit.
As soon as his proconsulate was over, he jumped from the pedestal and,
once more assuming our poor humanity, sought desperately for Mr. Vernon
and Miss Phyllida Courteen.
And now the great ballroom was cleared. The Exquisite Mob refreshed
itself not with chopsticks, but with two pronged forks and stout-handled
knives. Nor was the fare ascetick rice, but pies of mutton, rounds of
beef, custards, gay jellies and dappled puddings. In the ballroom the
attendants busily ran hither and thither in preparation for the Grand
Minuet of Cathay. Four pagodas guarded four corners; little bridges
spanned little rivers of blue silk. There were miniature groves that
shielded queer little Chinese gods and goddesses, while here and there
were temples with crooked roofs, hung round with silver bells destined
to be jingled at set moments of this incomparable minuet. High up near
the ceiling among the swinging lanterns one saw the peaked faces of
giant kites gazing benignly down. Finally in the very centre of the room
was a small fountain with a pond all about it of real water, starred
with white water lilies, on the highest jet of which a little god,
inflated by air, jigged to the rise and fall of the water. Mr. Ripple
had not been able to find Miss Courteen and was interrupted in his
search by a call to inspect the scene of the Minuet. Gog was sent to
fetch Mr. Lovely and presently the Gold Mandarin and the Blue Mandarin
were stepping over each bridge, peering from each pagoda, gently trying
the bells, lending a last touch to the rivers of silk and coming to a
standstill in silent admiration of the dancing water-god.
"I think," said Mr. Ripple, "we may venture to proclaim, the Minuet of
Cathay."
"I think so," said Mr. Lovely as he cast a quick eye in the direction of
every entrance in turn.
"I could not find Miss Courteen," said the Beau, "have you had better
luck?"
Lovely hesitated a moment.
"No," he said finally.
The Beau looked at him a moment.
"I cannot imagine who this Amor can be. He is not down in my list."
"Amor?" inquired Charles, somewhat too suddenly, "is his name Amor?"
"So the young lady informed me, when we considered the situation
together. I perceive you know him."
"Indeed, sir, I am acquainted with no one of that name."
"I never imagined you were," replied the Beau testily. "'Tis too plainly
a Nom d'amour; but I'll wager you are able to extract a personality from
this pseudonym."
"Nay, indeed, I----"
"Very well," said the Beau, cutting him short, "there is no more to be
said," and he turned away to order a burly Oriental who on less
decorated occasions was wont to assist Mr. Balhatchett the butcher, to
sound the gong of invitation.
While the huge sullen instrument boomed a diapason that threatened more
than it cajoled, Charles wondered if he had been wise to conceal his
knowledge of Mr. Amor's identity. Ripple had obviously not believed him
and was moreover very sensitive to any concealment on the part of his
subjects. He, as his own subaltern, was especially bound to indulge this
foible. Besides, what good had he done? thought Charles. Not much
indeed, for soon Ripple would certainly find out the whole affair. He
ought to tell him all he knew. Ripple would act for the best and close
the Pump Room against the intruder. It would be kill or cure.
But just as he was upon the point of informing the Great little Man, our
hero remembered he owed Vernon two hundred pounds. O resolute hero! Be
quick to mount your ebony pedestal or we shall think you no better than
a walking gentleman.
The Exquisite Mob of crimped and corseted Orientals began to saunter
back from supper, and the debate between honesty and honour was
adjourned to a more meditative opportunity. By this hour of the evening
most of the Masks were tolerably sure of each other's identity, and
though it was an acknowledged custom of the Chinese Masquerade as
opposed to other masked balls that all vizards should be worn from door
to door, the Grand Minuet of Cathay afforded much scandalous talk for
the ensuing days, all the more potent because a convention of anonymity
was sedulously maintained. It was not surprizing that intrigue should
flourish at a dance where half the company was hidden for many moments
at a stretch. The Minuet lasted a whole hour. It reproduced in the
various side-figures many emotions. It was a hundred dances in a grand
Ensemble. The musick was now courtly, now passionate: sometimes it
clanged in barbarick interludes of noise: sometimes but three or four
flutes twittered above the plash of the fountain.
Over the bridges pattered the dancers: in and out of the diminutive
groves twinkled their scarlet heels. Now a couple swayed in a stationary
boat on a motionless river: now at the topmost window of a pagoda,
cambrick handkerchief and painted fan kept time to the tune. The Gold
Mandarin lived in a golden house beside the fountain and, if he chose,
could live a century of sound and perfume in that fragrant hour of
dancing. Far away at the other corner of the room lived the Blue
Mandarin in a small house at the foot of a small volcano that
ceaselessly puffed out clouds of incense. Wherever you went in that
strange dance of dances some new delight assailed your senses.
Here, before a temple hung with silver bells, a dozen of these blue and
golden dolls moved with grace and precision through many variations of
the Minuet. They would carry away with them that night no more than a
memory of bells and stately movement by the rosy light of many lanterns.
Purged of all feeling save for correct gesture, the vizards seemed no
more alive than their mirroured counterparts that moved with equal grace
upside down in the polished floor of parquet.
But step over one of these bridges where false white flowers hang in
scented clusters: go softly through that Bonbon grove, and there in an
alcove fretted to the semblance of wrought ivory, you shall see two
masks that are enraptured beneath a white moon-lantern, tracing the
melody with long caresses. In one of these fanciful resorts, sat Vernon
and Phyllida making love among the shadows, as in pairs and dainty
quartetts the dancers darkened the carved portal when they passed. For
Phyllida, the Assembly Rooms had been snatched up by some powerful
magician and set down in a land of Ombres Chinoises. Many a time had she
sat in the theatre and watched these silent black and white tragedies
and comedies. Now she had joined that whimsical procession which capers
across the draughty sheet. She recalled a particular entertainment of
this character last December. First the Columbine had pirouetted across
and made a light phantastick entrance into the shadow of the house at
the extreme corner. Presently came the Pierrot with a lantern swaying
atop of a tall pole. Up and down the sheet he had danced with incredible
agility, until a Pulcinello shook his bells from the window of the
house, and he floated away gathering giant size as he went. Then came
Harlequin, dancing almost more beautifully than Pierrot, and a quiet
murder was done in the laurel shadows round the house. Pierrot lay dead
and Harlequin, the slim and debonair assassin had donned his vizard:
Columbine wept a while until the lights were turned up, when everybody
agreed that the whole performance was in the best of taste and vastly
well executed.
Phyllida came to herself and found Mr. Vernon gazing steadily at her
with his velvet eyes, all the more disconcerting set almondwise in the
Chinese mask. She shuddered.
To say truth, this exotick minuet of strange perfumes and processions,
was not the sanest amusement for a maid who should have lived always
among the roses. The heat was growing intolerable, and still her lover
with persistent, regular motion bewitched her hand as it lay in his.
The dancers passed and repassed them as they sat in artificial dusk.
Phyllida began to hate them when they fluttered their fans and
handkerchiefs. They were sickly things these dancers--crotchets and
quavers and semiquavers who had captured the semblance of humanity, who
breathed and bowed and capered, merely because musick had conjured them
into existence. Suddenly an amazing clangour of gongs and cymbals waked
her completely from the fever into which she had been flung, and,
waking, she found herself encircled by her lover's arms, his eyes
burning into hers and his lips, all that was left alive by the stolid
vizard, eager to meet her own.
"Don't," she gasped. "Don't. I hate you, I hate you when you do that."
"Nay, my angel must not be so prudish. Come, kiss me of your own will
and we'll gallop to Gretna Green next week."
Phyllida still repulsed him.
"To Gretna Green," he went on. "Drawn by a pair of cream-coloured
horses, in a chaise all citron silk and rosy sattin with my Phyllida
plunged into the softest cushions and her Amor to love her so fondly
while trees and milestones fly past."
Vernon inherited much talent from his mother, and as he breathed his
persuasions in the most refined modulations of intensity, half looked
over his shoulder, for an audience.
"My Phyllida, your lips are soft as moths."
"Don't, Amor, don't."
"Soft as little moths that in wet garden paths brush the cheeks with
feathery wings."
"Release my hand, detestable Amor. I will sit here no longer to be
tortured by your boorishness."
"But why will you repulse me? you love me? We are to be wed almost at
once. Why were you willing to sit in this dark corner, unless for the
charms of love?"
The Minuet was drawing to a close. Long since the musick had departed
into wilder channels. This was now no courtly measure, but a barbarick
medley of noise, fit for trumpets of India, cymbals of Ethiopia, and the
hollow booming of drums that affright wrecked pirates in the green
swamps of Madagascar.
Vernon stood up and drew Phyllida closer.
"By G----, child, you madden me with your prettiness. Come, I swear you
shall kiss me before the end of the dance. You shall, by G---- you
shall!"
Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and blushes in our first chapter,
is scarcely recognizable now. She is growing old fast. She is kindling
the faggots that will warm her chill old age.
But still, though passion tugged at her heart strings, the school-miss,
the older Eve before the Fall, made her struggle against knowledge.
"I hate you, I hate you like this. Let me go, sir, let me go!"
With a sudden effort, she escaped from his arms, and he, plunging back
at the same moment, struck the frail summer house of ivory so that it
toppled over in front of the Blue Mandarin who was crossing a bridge
over a silken stream that flowed in the direction of his little house
beneath the miniature volcano. The Bonbon grove was strewn with
fragments. Like Cinderella fled Miss Courteen and was quickly lost in
the gold and azure company. With careless air, Mr. Vernon stooped to
buckle his shoe and Charles, seeing the taper fingers, stood for a
moment petrified upon the ridiculous bridge over which he had been
stepping with such an affectation of importance.
Now was his opportunity to probe Mr. Vernon, or rather to lead him
gradually into the urbane presence of Mr. Ripple who would certainly
probe him deep enough. There was every reason to admonish him for, as he
knelt over his shoe, Charles could plainly see his costume was
reversible. Such a device was a breach of etiquette, deserving publick
censure. Himself as viceroy of Society, should not be backward in
arresting a traitor to Society's rules. Of old, the favourites of
monarchs had not scrupled to owe money to those whom they denounced as
dangerous to the State.
Charles took a step forward.
"Sir," he said, pointing with a tasselled wand whose handle was a squat
Buddha, "you have broken a law of the Chinese Masquerade."
"Indeed," said Vernon, rising from his knees, not at all perturbed
apparently by the accusation.
"Yes," went on the Blue Mandarin. Pray let our hero be impersonal for a
while, "You are wearing a double costume."
"What a monstrous breach of privilege," said Vernon chilly, unmoved.
"And it is my duty to report the incident to Beau Ripple. Your name,
sir?"
It was now the turn of our villain to hesitate. If he frankly avowed his
identity, Lovely was bound to say no more about it, but did the
interloping young Jackanapes know the heroine of the affair?--he had
danced with her once that night. If he said Amor, Lovely might easily
inform Ripple and plead ignorance. D---- n the young fool! Why didn't he
pass over his absurd stream and take his callow brain, stuffed with
ceremonies, to the sugar-plum atmosphere of the Beaux' ante-room?
"Why Lovely, man, don't you know me? 'Tis I, Vernon, what the plague do
you mean by so much impertinence? Were you shocked to see me trying to
kiss a saucy school-minx, eh? That was little Miss----"
"Her mask, sir, should conceal her name."
With what fair Incognita Mr. Vernon intended to couple himself, will
never be known. No doubt a pseudonym as nice as his own would have been
forthcoming, since he was of an inventive disposition and had on
occasions a pretty turn of fancy.
The musick had stopped; the Grand Minuet of Cathay was finished. Mr.
Charles Lovely was aware of a rival to whom, by cursed ill-fortune, he
owed money which he was unable to pay.
"Shall I give you your revenge?" murmured Vernon.
The company, still masked, were hurrying in blue and golden bunches to
their coaches and chairs.
"Not tonight," said Charles. "But on my honour, Vernon, you must really
be careful not to offend against our rules on another occasion."
So, lightly enough, with no appearance of mutual ill-will the rivals
passed on. Phyllida was gone home, her face afire beneath her Chinese
mask. To her virginal chamber, I shall presently take you in order to
hear what Mistress Betty has to say about the ways of lovers. And while
we walk in the direction of the Crescent, somewhat overwrought by a
plethora of colour, scent, movement and sound, we may be tolerably
certain that young Mr. Charles Lovely--no longer Blue Mandarin, but
again our admired hero--is seated furiously inditing the most satirical
verses on the residents and visitors of Curtain Wells, in order to make
money enough to pay Mr. Vernon his guineas, and be able to run him
through in Curtain Mead with a clear conscience and a clean smallsword.
_Chapter the Eighteenth_