THE HUNT BALL.
By this time your humble servant, the chronicler of these Gylingden
annals, had taken his leave of magnificent old Brandon, and of its
strangely interesting young mistress and was carrying away with him, as
he flew along the London rails, the broken imagery of that grand and
shivered dream. He was destined, however, before very long, to revisit
these scenes; and in the meantime heard, in rude outline, the tenor of
what was happening--the minute incidents and colouring of which were
afterwards faithfully communicated.
I can, therefore, without break or blur, continue my description; and to
say truth, at this distance of time, I have some difficulty--so well
acquainted was I with the actors and the scenery--in determining, without
consulting my diary, what portions of the narrative I relate from
hearsay, and what as a spectator. But that I am so far from understanding
myself, I should often be amazed at the sayings and doings of other
people. As it is, I behold in myself an abyss, I gaze down and listen,
and discover neither light nor harmony, but thunderings and lightnings,
and voices and laughter, and a medley that dismays me. There rage the
elements which God only can control. Forgive us our trespasses; lead us
not into temptation; deliver us from the Evil One! How helpless and
appalled we shut our eyes over that awful chasm.
I have long ceased, then, to wonder why any living soul does anything
that is incongruous and unanticipated. And therefore I cannot say how
Miss Brandon persuaded her handsome Cousin Rachel to go with her party,
under the wing of Old Lady Chelford, to the Hunt Ball of Gylingden. And
knowing now all that then hung heavy at the heart of the fair tenant of
Redman's Farm, I should, indeed, wonder inexpressibly, were it not, as I
have just said, that I have long ceased to wonder at any vagaries of
myself or my fellow creatures.
The Hunt Ball is the great annual event of Gylingden. The critical
process of 'coming out' is here consummated by the young ladies of that
town and vicinage. It is looked back upon for one-half of the year, and
forward to for the other. People date by it. The battle of Inkerman was
fought immediately before the Hunt Ball. It was so many weeks after the
Hunt Ball that the Czar Nicholas died. The Carnival of Venice was nothing
like so grand an event. Its solemn and universal importance in Gylingden
and the country round, gave me, I fancied, some notion of what the feast
of unleavened bread must have been to the Hebrews and Jerusalem.
The connubial capabilities of Gylingden are positively wretched. When I
knew it, there were but three single men, according even to the modest
measure of Gylingden housekeeping, capable of supporting wives, and these
were difficult to please, set a high price on themselves--looked the
country round at long ranges, and were only wistfully and meekly glanced
after by the frugal vestals of Gylingden, as they strutted round the
corners, or smoked the pipe of apathy at the reading-room windows.
Old Major Jackson kept the young ladies in practice between whiles, with
his barren gallantries and graces, and was, just so far, better than
nothing. But, as it had been for years well ascertained that he either
could not or would not afford to marry, and that his love passages, like
the passages in Gothic piles that 'lead to nothing,' were not designed to
terminate advantageously, he had long ceased to excite, even in that
desolate region, the smallest interest.
Think, then, what it was, when Mr. Pummice, of Copal and Pummice, the
splendid house-painters at Dollington, arrived with his artists and
charwomen to give the Assembly Room its annual touching-up and
bedizenment, preparatory to the Hunt Ball. The Gylingden young ladies
used to peep in, and from the lobby observe the wenches dry-rubbing and
waxing the floor, and the great Mr. Pummice, with his myrmidons, in
aprons and paper caps, retouching the gilding.
It was a tremendous crisis for honest Mrs. Page, the confectioner, over
the way, who, in legal phrase, had 'the carriage' of the supper and
refreshments, though largely assisted by Mr. Battersby, of Dollington.
During the few days' agony of preparation that immediately preceded this
notable orgie, the good lady's countenance bespoke the magnitude of her
cares. Though the weather was usually cold, I don't think she ever was
cool during that period--I am sure she never slept--I don't think she
ate--and I am afraid her religious exercises were neglected.
Equally distracting, emaciating, and godless, was the condition to which
the mere advent of this festival reduced worthy Miss Williams, the
dressmaker, who had more white muslin and young ladies on her hands than
she and her choir of needle-women knew what to do with. During this
tremendous period Miss Williams hardly resembled herself--her eyes
dilated, her lips were pale, and her brow corrugated with deep and
inflexible lines of fear and perplexity. She lived on bad tea--sat up all
night--and every now and then burst into helpless floods of tears. But
somehow, generally things came pretty right in the end. One way or
another, the gay belles and elderly spinsters, and fat village
chaperones, were invested in suitable costume by the appointed hour, and
in a few weeks Miss Williams' mind recovered its wonted tone, and her
countenance its natural expression.
The great night had now arrived. Gylingden was quite in an uproar. Rural
families of eminence came in. Some in old-fashioned coaches; others, the
wealthier, more in London style. The stables of the 'Brandon Arms,' of
the 'George Inn,' of the 'Silver Lion,' even of the 'White House,' though
a good way off, and generally every vacant standing for horses in or
about the town were crowded; and the places of entertainment we have
named, and minor houses of refection, were vocal with the talk of
flunkeys, patrician with powdered heads, and splendent in variegated
liveries.
The front of the Town Hall resounded with the ring of horse-hoofs, the
crack of whips, the bawling of coachmen, the clank of carriage steps and
clang of coach doors. A promiscuous mob of the plebs and profanum vulgus
of Gylingden beset the door, to see the ladies--the slim and the young in
white muslins and artificial flowers, and their stout guardian angels, of
maturer years, in satins and velvets, and jewels--some real, and some,
just as good, of paste. In the cloak-room such a fuss, unfurling of fans,
and last looks and hurried adjustments.
When the Crutchleighs, of Clay Manor, a good, old, formal family, were
mounting the stairs in solemn procession--they were always among the
early arrivals--they heard a piano and a tenor performing in the
supper-room.
Now, old Lady Chelford chose to patronise Mr. Page, the Dollington
professor, and partly, I fancy, to show that she could turn things
topsy-turvy in this town of Gylingden, had made a point, with the rulers
of the feast, that her client should sing half-a-dozen songs in the
supper-room before dancing commenced.
Mrs. Crutchleigh stayed her step upon the stairs abruptly, and turned,
with a look of fierce surprise upon her lean, white-headed lord,
arresting thereby the upward march of Corfe Crutchleigh, Esq., the hope
of his house, who was pulling on his gloves, with his eldest spinster
sister on his lank arm.
'There appears to be a concert going on; we came here to a ball. Had you
not better enquire, Mr. Crutchleigh; it would seem we have made a
mistake?'
Mrs. Crutchleigh was sensitive about the dignity of the family of Clay
Manor; and her cheeks flushed above the rouge, and her eyes flashed
severely.
'That's singing--particularly _loud singing_. Either we have mistaken the
night, or somebody has taken upon him to upset all the arrangements.
You'll be good enough to enquire whether there will be dancing to-night;
I and Anastasia will remain in the cloak-room; and we'll all leave if you
please, Mr. Crutchleigh, if this goes on.'
The fact is, Mrs. Crutchleigh had got an inkling of this performance, and
had affected to believe it impossible; and, detesting old Lady Chelford
for sundry slights and small impertinences, and envying Brandon and its
belongings, was resolved not to be put down by presumption in that
quarter.
Old Lady Chelford sat in an arm-chair in the supper-room, where a
considerable audience was collected. She had a splendid shawl or two
about her, and a certain air of demi-toilette, which gave the Gylingden
people to understand that her ladyship did not look on this gala in the
light of a real ball, but only as a sort of rustic imitation--curious,
possibly amusing, and, like other rural sports, deserving of
encouragement, for the sake of the people who made innocent holiday
there.
Mr. Page, the performer, was a plump young man, with black whiskers, and
his hair in oily ringlets, such as may be seen in the model wigs
presented on smiling, waxen dandies, in Mr. Rose's front window at
Dollington. He bowed and smiled in the most unexceptionable of white
chokers and the dapperest of dress coats, and drew off the whitest
imaginable pair of kid gloves, when he sat down to the piano, subsiding
in a sort of bow upon the music-stool, and striking those few, brisk and
noisy chords with which such artists proclaim silence and reassure
themselves.
Stanley Lake, that eminent London swell, had attached himself as
gentleman-in-waiting to Lady Chelford's household, and was perpetually
gliding with little messages between her ladyship and the dapper vocalist
of Dollington, who varied his programme and submitted to an occasional
_encore_ on the private order thus communicated.
'I told you Chelford would be here,' said Miss Brandon to Rachel, in a
low tone, glancing at the young peer.
'I thought he had returned to Brighton. I fancied he might be--you know
the Dulhamptons are at Brighton; and Lady Constance, of course, has a
claim on his time and thoughts.'
Rachel smiled as she spoke, and was adjusting her bouquet, as Dorcas made
answer--
'Lady Constance, my dear Radie! That, you know, was never more than a
mere whisper; it was only Lady Chelford and the marchioness who talked it
over--they would have liked it very well. But Chelford won't be managed
or scolded into anything of the kind; and will choose, I think, for
himself, and I fancy not altogether according to their ideas, when the
time comes. And I assure you, dear Radie, there is not the least truth in
that story about Lady Constance.'
Why should Dorcas be so earnest to convince her handsome cousin that
there was nothing in this rumour? Rachel made no remark, and there was a
little silence.
'I'm so glad I succeeded in bringing you here,' said Dorcas; 'Chelford
made such a point of it; and he thinks you are losing your spirits among
the great trees and shadows of Redman's Dell; and he made it quite a
little cousinly duty that I should succeed.'
At this moment Mr. Page interposed with the energetic prelude of his
concluding ditty. It was one of Tom Moore's melodies.
Rachel leaned back, and seemed to enjoy it very much. But when it was
over, I think she would have found it difficult to say what the song was
about.
Mr. Page had now completed his programme, and warned by the disrespectful
violins from the gallery of the ball-room, whence a considerable
caterwauling was already announcing the approach of the dance, he made
his farewell flourish, and bow and, smiling, withdrew.