AN OLD-TIME CHRISTMAS DANCE
"Where is Rosemary Hedge?" inquired Odalite, as soon as she could get a
chance to speak to Le.
"She is coming. Oh, she would not miss it! Roland Bayard is to bring her
on, with her Aunt Susannah and Miss Sibby.
"With those grown people! Why, how is that? Not but what we shall be very
glad to see them, you know."
"Of course. I know that, or I shouldn't have asked them."
"Oh, Le, you know you can always ask whoever you please to this house. You
know it, Le!"
"Oh, yes, of course I do. I only meant to say that I would not have asked
those two ladies if I had not known that they would be welcome. But I am
going to tell how it was that I did ask them."
"Yes! Very well."
"You see, I went to Grandieres' first, and gave the pressing invitation,
and, I tell you, the young ones jumped at it. They did not keep me waiting
long while they got ready, and girls and boys soon tumbled up into the
break."
"Yes, I will warrant that they did," said Odalite.
"Then I drove on to Grove Hill, where I found Miss Sibby spending the day.
Roland had just brought her there in their mule wagon. I gave my message.
There was a great meeting and great excitement between the Grandieres and
the Elks. Rosemary and her little cousins, Erny and Melly, were wild to
come. But the stately Miss Susannah declared that they could not go
without a chaperon. So I invited her; then I could not 'make a bridge over
Miss Sibby's nose,' so I invited her, also."
"I am very glad you did!" said Odalite.
"But all was not settled yet! Miss Grandiere declared that she and her
nieces were not ready, and could not get ready for an hour to come; and,
besides that, the addition of five more passengers to the seven we had
already in the break would crowd us too much and be too heavy a load, even
for our strong draft horses to draw so long a way over such rough roads."
"And that last was an undeniable fact."
"Of course it was! So I offered to take my party on and return later for
the others. But Miss Grandiere urged that that would be too late for
them."
"She was right again."
"Certainly! But then Roland came to the rescue, and offered to drive the
second party over here in the mule cart, and so it was settled that he
should do so. While we were talking, Mrs. Elk came in, and, of course, I
had to invite her."
"She never goes out in the evening," said Odalite.
"No, of course not. And so she explained, and we excused her. And there
they all come now! I hear the cart! I must go and see to them."
"And I, too," said Odalite, "must go and take the ladies and children
upstairs."
And the young pair left the room together to receive the visitors, who
had, by this time, entered the hall.
"Ah, this is just as it should be," said Miss Grandiere to Miss Bayard, as
they saw Leonidas and Odalite approaching together.
"Yes, and a heap better than it might have been. If you knew as much as I
do, you would say so, too!"
"What do you mean?" inquired Miss Grandiere, in a low voice.
"Hush! Here they are!" whispered Miss Bayard, as the two young people came
up, with outstretched hands and eager voices, to welcome the visitors.
"You are in very good time! the dancing has not yet commenced," said
Odalite, after the first greetings were passed.
"It is not yet seven o'clock," added Le.
And Odalite took off the two ladies and the three children to the warm
dressing room to lay off their wraps, while Le carried off Roland to his
own den, to brush his hair.
"My dear Odalite, I am so glad to see you looking so well," said Miss
Grandiere, when they had reached the chamber.
"I haven't seen her looking so bright for weeks. And that is right, sez
I," added Miss Sibby.
"Thank you. Everybody tells me that," said Odalite, smiling.
Miss Grandiere was dressed in a rich, black silk, with a white lace fichu
and white lace cuffs, and her black hair was plaited and wound into a roll
at the top of her head and fastened with a very high back comb. Her front
hair was divided in the middle and wound into curls, two down each
temple.
Miss Sibby wore a plain black silk and a book-muslin cap, with a full lace
border and white satin bows and strings.
The two little Elk girls, aged ten and twelve, were slender, dark-eyed,
dark-haired, red-cheeked lasses, dressed in the most brilliant of Scotch
plaids, with neatly crimped muslin ruffles around their throats and wrists
and amber necklaces and bracelets.
But Rosemary Hedge's dress was the quaintest costume that the law--of
society--allowed. It was a sage-green velvet, made out of one of Miss
Grandiere's own old-fashioned gowns, and decorated all around the bottom
of the skirt, the belt, the sleeves and the neck with crimson cypress
vines, blue forget-me-nots and yellow crocuses, worked by Miss Grandiere's
own fingers.
Rosemary wore no trinkets, her only ornament being her blue-black hair
curled in ringlets all around her pretty head.
When the visitors were ready to go down, Odalite conducted them to the
drawing room, where now, at one end, the negro musicians were seated on
chairs raised upon a long, broad bench, and were beginning to tune their
instruments, preparatory to playing up an inspiring quadrille tune.
As soon as Mrs. Anglesea saw the newcomers, she made a dash across the
room at them, and accosted them with effusion.
"So glad to see you all! And there's my gay, young sailor lad! Mind you,
Roland Bayard, I won't take you away from the young uns all the time,
because it is their party, but you must manage to give me half a dozen
dances during the evening," she said.
"With the greatest pleasure, Mrs. Anglesea," said the gallant tar, "though
I didn't know that you danced."
"Thought I was too large and heavy, eh? Well, I may be large, but I ain't
heavy! A balloon is large, but it is light! I am also large, but I am
light--on my feet! You shall see!"
"Well, will you give me the pleasure of your hand in this set?" he
inquired.
"You bet!" she replied, placing her plump, yellow-gloved hand in his.
He led her to the head of the quadrille that was just forming.
Miss Meeke and young Dr. Ingle, who had "just happened in and been
prevailed upon to stay," stood up together _vis-a-vis_ to the California
lady and her partner.
They were the head and foot couples. Ned Grandiere and Wynnette were on
the right, Sam Grandiere and Elva were on the left. This was the form of
the first set in the front half of the drawing room.
Mr. Force led Miss Grandiere to the head of another set at the back of the
long room. Leonidas took Miss Sibby--who adored dancing--to the foot.
Odalite stood with Erna Elk on the right hand, and Mrs. Force with Melly
Elk on the left hand.
And the two included the whole company, with the exception of Rosemary
Hedge and the four Grandiere girls.
The music struck up the favorite, old-fashioned "Coquette," and the dance
began.
And, oh Terpsichore, how the lady from Wild Cats' did foot it away! And
she danced well--only, perhaps, just a little too vigorously for good
taste.
The "Coquette" was followed by the "Basket," and then by "Malbrook," and
lastly by the "Fire Brigade," which finished the set.
When Mrs. Anglesea, out of breath with her great exertions, was being led
to her seat by her handsome, young partner, she passed Miss Sibby, who was
sitting in an armchair, actively fanning herself with a hand screen.
"Too bad! Too bad, indeed!" said the lady from the mines, with more good
nature than discretion; "too bad that you should have to dance, at your
age, to make up a set!"
"What's that you say?" demanded Miss Sibby, with much spirit. "Me dance to
make up a set, when all them five young gals was waiting? Me? Why, 'oman,
I dote on dancing! I think it's heavenly--perfectly heavenly! It ought to
be a lawful part of worship, sez I!"
"Oh, if that's your sort, I have no more to say! I only thought you looked
kind o' played out and done for, that's all!" said Mrs. Anglesea.
"It does sort o' try one's breath; but it is heavenly, for all that!
Perfectly heavenly! And I mean to dance the next set, too, if I can only
get a partner!"
In other parts of the room other talk was going on.
"Odalite," said Leonidas, "will you give me the next dance?"
"Certainly I will, Le! I would have given you the first one, only I wanted
you to dance with Miss Sibby!"
"Well, I obeyed you, and danced with her."
"You did not find it hard, did you?"
"I found it--funny!"
"Oh!"
"Miss Wynnette," said young Edward Grandiere, "will you be so very good as
to give me this next dance, also?"
"Not if I know it! I mean, thank you very much, but I hope you will do me
the favor of asking one of the Misses Elk to dance with you. I intend to
put on Le's cap and be a gentleman, and ask one of your sisters to dance
with me."
"Why, Miss Wynnette, how strange!"
"There's no help for it; there are not gentlemen enough in the company, so
I must be one! Why, just see, here are fourteen ladies and only seven
gentlemen. And always about the same proportion in this neighborhood,
whether it be a ball, or a dinner party, or a tea-drinking, or a little
dance like this. It is always the same--about twice as many ladies as
gentlemen! Oh, I don't know what is to become of us all, unless we go out
as missionaries to the heathen!" sighed Wynnette.
"You must not go! I beg you will stay and take care of one poor heathen!"
said the boy, trying his boyish best to be gallant.
"Maybe I will--stay and take care of poor, old Gov. Broadvally, who has
gout in his great toe and infidelity on his brain, and neither wife nor
child to make him a poultice, or read him a sermon," said Wynnette, as she
sprang up and left the side of her partner.
"Rosemary, darling, will you dance this set with me? I wished so much to
dance the first set with you, but----" Roland Bayard, who was the speaker,
paused, and Rosemary finished the sentence for him:
"You were caught and carried away captive by a gay lady! And what could a
gentleman do?" she asked, smiling.
"Will you dance this set with me, then, darling child?" he repeated.
"With real pleasure, Roland," she answered, giving him her hand.
And he led her out.
In the sets that were now forming, the Grandiere girls, as well as all the
other children, danced, and all the grown women sat down, except Miss
Sibby, who conscripted Mr. Force to dance with her.
Wynnette, as a gentleman, led out the youngest Miss Grandiere. And, the
two sets being complete, the music struck up, the dancing commenced,
"And all went merry as a marriage bell."
The dancing concluded with the rollicking merry-go-round, called, in these
days, the "Virginia Reel," but in the olden times known as "Sir Roger de
Coverly," in which all hands--men, women and children, young and
old--joined heartily, and none more heartily than Miss Sibby.
"Enjoy yourself as long as you can, sez I!" she hastily whispered into the
ear of Le, as he whirled her around in the giddy maelstrom of that mad
dance.
At ten o'clock the fiddlers had rest to their elbows and the banjo players
to their hands, when they were marched off to the kitchen, to partake of
good Christmas cheer.
In the parlor the guests were seated in somewhat stiff and formal rows, on
sofas and chairs ranged along the wall, while two menservants, Jake and
Jerry, bearing large trays of refreshments, made the circuit of the
room--Jerry going first, with a great plum cake and plain pound cake, each
beautifully frosted and decorated, and neatly cut from the center to the
edge, ready for helping, and a pile of small, china plates and damask
napkins. Le Force, walking beside this waiter, served each guest with a
plate, a napkin and a slice of each cake.
Behind Jerry came Jake, bearing another large tray laden with cut-glass
goblets filled to the brim with snowy, frothy eggnog, or amber apple
toddy, or golden lemon punch. And beside this waiter walked Mr. Force,
serving each guest with the special nectar he or she preferred.
When these good things had been disposed of, although it was but half-past
ten, carriages were ordered, and all the county neighbors took leave and
went home, for these were simple days "before the war"--or "befo' de wo,"
as the negroes more truly, if less grammatically, put it. And the people
wished to get home and go to bed, that they might rise on Christmas
morning in time to attend church in the forenoon.
Within an hour after their departure the household at Mondreer had retired
to rest.