"The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men:
A thousand hearts beat happily: and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell."
--_Byron_.
Let us now contrast the two pictures which present themselves to the
imagination on this stormy winter evening. One is quiet, usual,
familiar; the other is noisy, glittering, but also familiar. One is the
drawing-room in Mr. Rayne's comfortable house, with the gaslight falling
gently over the silent room--it is not turned very high. Mr. Rayne is
dozing in an arm-chair. His hands are folded across his breast, and his
limbs are extended at full length--he is dreaming. Honor is seated at
the piano, stealing her slender fingers over the ivory keys. It is a
low, rippling strain--_Valse des Soupirs_--such as fairies might bring
from their magic touch. 'Tis the music of her own heart--the sound of
her sighs, and she plays on softly, heedlessly. She is lost in the
ecstacy of her own reverie.
We turn to the other side of the picture. Noisy strains of dance music,
merry peals of laughter, little snatches of society gossip, beaming
faces, silk and lace and flimsy loveliness, bouquets and gloves, trains,
handkerchiefs, fans and flirtation, all in a sweet confusion. This is
Ottawa at its best, as every one allows when the Misses Teazle throw
aside their family portals for their annual ball. Every one is there--
married and single, young and old, homely and pretty, rich and--(no! not
rich and poor), the rich only, the powerful only, the most influential
papas and the best-dressed mammas that Ottawa can afford, and the
"juveniles" get in on pa's and ma's qualifications. It is the first
private ball since the opening of Parliament, and every one feels very
fresh for pleasure. The Misses Teazle themselves look charming (what
hostesses ever did not in Ottawa?) and the rest vie with one another.
We are somewhat confused on our entrance into the brilliant room, but
some glaring objects attract our attention, thereby kindly taking that
look of vacant bewilderment out of our eyes. We have often wondered what
the scene was like inside those closed shutters, and here we are now,
transported all at once to the very midst of the interesting
proceedings.
There is a group near the door that we readily take in, in our first
sweeping glance round the room. Mrs. Mountainhead, a lady prodigiously
inclined to embonpoint, looking exceedingly warm and uncomfortable, is
the central figure. Her two daughters and their attendant cavaliers are
also there. But it is plain to see that Mrs. Mountainhead does not enjoy
the ball. She stands in holy awe of her aristocratic daughters, who are
just "fresh" from a very modern boarding-school. Every word she utters
has an accompanying look thrown either to the short-sighted full-
complexioned eldest daughter or to the slim, unprepossessing younger
one, seeking approval from their responsive glances. And, after all,
poor Mamma Mountainhead, in her ruby velvet and Chantilly lace, has, by
far, more brains of her own--if she could get a license to use them--
than either of her daughters have ever admitted within the limits of
their well-frizzed heads. But who is the apparently devoted admirer of
Miss Gerty Mountainhead, who is leaning over her chair from behind, with
the top of his aquiline nose in ridiculous proximity to her very red
face? Who but Mr. Guy Elersley? There he is, whispering all kinds of
nothings into the blushing, susceptible ear of dear Miss Gerty, never
heeding the thought of the lonely girl at the piano in the quiet home of
his uncle.
Then there is a silvery laugh, and you hear the words--"Well, between
the Racquet court and the skating rink, and calls, and going out, what
do you think I could ever do? Why, the day is not half long enough as it
is."
"Surely not, Miss Dash," a deep voice makes answer in a tone of quiet
amusement, "you must be dreadfully worried in trying to make things
harmonize. You are so tired at night that half the morning must go for
repose, and then--"
Here the speakers moved on and it was seen that Bella Dash was happy on
the arm of a wealthy bachelor who was fast becoming interesting to all
female friends, mamas and daughters. It is easy to see at a glance that
every one is fooling every one else, and the male element in the room is
absorbing all the real fun.
With the exception of a few newly-appointed civil servants who have
"made their calls" and run an account at the tailors, the other
gentlemen are mostly well-versed in the drawing-room slang and will
certainly not bore their fair partners by discussing anything outside of
Rideau Hall, or the other fashionable and interesting haunts of gay
winter festivities. These gallant knights are easily distinguished
looking around the ball room with half-closed eyes (they are mostly
short-sighted), or parading their audible element through the room with
such a lazy drawl--beautifully substituting the _r's_ with a perfectly
Italianized "aw."
Among these indispensables, were Jack Fairmay, Willie Airey and a great
many more of our "Sparks Street" elegants. How much better they look on
a freezing afternoon with their noses blue and their fur caps pulled
comfortably down over their ears, than in the painfully proper looking
long-tailed broad cloth and white kids, exactions of society's absolute
laws.
All the blondes and brunettes of Centre Town and Upper Town and Sandy
Hill, all the "tony" Post Office clerks, all the young, flourishing,
embryo and genuine lawyers, doctors, engineers, rich lumber merchants,
and civil servants, _ad infinitum_ were there.
What a gay picture! What an interesting sight! Who would not love Ottawa
for its self-made gouty papas and its fat, airy, comfortable mamas?
Think of the wonderful influence of these thoroughly Christian women on
the sphere in which they shine. Even in this one gathering can we not
realize how the improvements and customs of the day cast their benign
influence over a mighty world, through the rising generation. Those dear
pretty pink and white dimpled darlings done up in "illusion" and silks,
how happy it makes one feel only to look at them! This must be the
nature of the remarks, Guy and another male friend exchange in the bay
window. Let us draw nearer.
"You're wrong, Bob my dear," Guy is saying, "I agree with you they do
look like fish-hooks strung in a row, but I heard Miss Nellie Teazle
tell Mrs. John Prim, that that was the 'Montagu' style; so excuse me for
contradicting you."
"Oh! don't mention it, the name almost redeems the folly of the thing.
By the way Elersley, you have been 'going it' in rather a pronounced way
with Miss Mountainhead to-night. Is it too soon to be the first to
congratulate?"
"Oh Lord!" Guy smothers the exclamation under his heavy moustache. "You
might try the names of all the dear ones in succession on me. They're
just immensely jolly, you know, but I never heard of a young Ottawaite
in his sane sober senses, go choose his future wife in a ballroom."
Just here, Miss Dash comes up and throws a coquettish look at Guy
through the opening in the curtains. He nods a temporary good-bye to his
companion and goes off to claim the next waltz which Miss Dash has
promised him, and, oh Guy! naughty boy! if he is not saying over the
identical pretty nothings to Miss Bella, that are yet filling the heart
of Miss Mountainhead. with a delicious souvenir of him.
In another corner of the room Bob Apley is "spooning" most suggestively
with the same Miss MacArgent whose "fish-hooks" he has just been
ridiculing so mercilessly. This of course is pardonable according to the
world's wise indulgent maxims, especially when we consider that Miss
MacArgent's father's income, daily, is almost identical with the amount
of dollars and cents that find their way to the pockets of the
impecunious Bob in a whole year.
Besides Emily is rather a good-looking specimen of the "foreign" belles
that winter in Ottawa, and some one even said last winter that one of
the Governor-General's Aides-de Camp and she--oh! we all know how the
green-eyed monster tortured the hearts of the poor belles of countless
seasons, when they saw their indisputable rights usurped by a
comparative stranger. The two Misses Begg, for instance, who have been
twenty-five and twenty-six respectively for the last eight years,
waiting for the turn in their lives, that will never come, have cause
for bitter complaint. The same faces are here that are ever on
exhibition as the champion tennis player, the champion skater, another
an unrivalled waltzer, and some more distinguished vocalists and
instrumental performers. These grow wearisome once the novelty wears
off. There is nothing in them besides the foam that blows away after a
little and leaves no trace of its once august presence.
We will make our adieus gladly to the affected civil servants, the young
embryo professionals, the rich independent bachelors, the corpulent
papas and mamas, the famous tennis, skating, singing, dancing and
playing heroines, and go joyfully back to the snug little parlor of
Henry Rayne, where sits the only one sensible girl we have seen
to-night.
She has ceased playing, and is now sitting by a low table with her
lovely head bent earnestly over a lap full of wool-work. The little
clock goes ticking on through the noiseless moments that come and go and
still her busy fingers ply hurriedly through the stitches. At last it is
ten o'clock and instinctively she rises, puts away her wools and needle,
and goes over to the chair which yet supports the sleeping figure of
Henry Rayne.
"Good night, Grandpapa," she says softly in his ear.
He hears the low sweet whisper. Her voice would penetrate the depth of
death itself for him, he fancies. She said "Grandpapa." She only calls
him that when she is sad, whenever a sense of bitter loneliness fills
her heart, making her miss a kind mother and her dear handsome father
most.
He opens his eyes instantly and raises his hand to draw the pretty bowed
head closer still to his.
"Good-night, my dear little child. How stupid of me to have dozed here
all night leaving you by yourself."
"Don't fret, Grandpa dear, I love your company, and all that, but
remember I am never less alone than when alone, and an evening by myself
is never lost to me."
"No, my pretty one, but you must grow tired some day thinking so
incessantly, I must try and distract you; it is dreadful of me to keep
you housed up, so secluded, when there is so much for your youth and
beauty to enjoy outside. May be I'm responsible for many a sigh you've
heaved lately, but it never struck me you see, my pretty darling, that
our sentiments and sympathies run so widely apart, it is not very
surprising if an old prosy bachelor should forget to ferret out the
pleasures of youth, to bestow them on a fair young beautiful thing like
you,"
"Oh-ho, now dear old Grandpa, you have been sleeping and dreaming of
somebody you are mistaking for me. Don't fret for not spoiling me more
than you do. I am pampered enough dear knows. Good-night, I am sleepy
too, and I think a night's rest would not be detrimental to either of
us, eh grandfather?" and kissing him tenderly on both cheeks, she
skipped out through the open doorway and ran up to her own little room.