"THE BIRD THAT DANCED THE RIGADOON."
The rejoicings into which London broke out when, at last, the Scottish
rebellion was decisively crushed caused Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens
to be, perhaps, more frequented in the warm spring and summer of 1746
than they had ever been previously. Indeed, after the fright which had
fallen upon the capital when the news came that the Highland troops
were at Derby and within four days' march of London, it was not very
astonishing that the inhabitants should, on the removal of that
terror, give themselves up to wholesale amusement. Six months before,
imminent ruin stared them in the face; the Bank of England, by that
time regarded as being almost as stable an institution as it is now
considered, had only escaped closing its doors by the oft-quoted
artifice of paying the demands made on it in sixpences. Regiments
engaged in foreign campaigns--Ligonier's Horse and Hawley's and Rich's
Dragoons--had been hurried home from Williamstadt; Admiral Vernon and
Commodores Boscawen and Smith were each at sea with a squadron looking
for ships carrying the invaders; while fifty merchantmen, styled
"armed cruisers," were patrolling the Channels round our shores. Also,
as an outcome of the panic, the inhabitants of London had purchased
for the army about to take the field against the Pretender, 12,000
pairs of breeches and the same number of pairs of woollen gloves,
12,000 shirts, 10,000 woollen caps and pairs of stockings, and 9,000
pairs of woollen spatterdashes; while, not to be outdone by the other
citizens, the managers of the then existing London theatres offered to
form the members of their various companies into volunteers attached
to the City regiment.
But, ere the springtime had come, the invasion was over, the danger
past. The young Duke of Cumberland, fresh from his triumphs in
Flanders, had not only destroyed the rebel army, but had taken terrible
and bloody vengeance upon all who had opposed him.[Note C] Therefore
London--indeed, all England--slept again in safety at night, and with
the arrival of summer had plunged with greater fervour than ever into
all its usual enjoyments. Amongst the enjoyments of the former none
were more popular than those of Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens, the
latter being more generally known and spoken of at that period as the
Spring Gardens. Here, on the warm evenings which May brought with it,
until the fashionable world departed for its country seats, or for
Bath, Epsom, or Tunbridge, went on one continual round of pleasures
and festivities--one night a masquerade, another a concert, vocal and
instrumental, where, among others, the mysterious Tenducci--whose sex
was always matter of discussion--sang and warbled, sometimes in a
man's voice, sometimes in a woman's; illuminations took place every
evening, and, as they died out and the company departed, the
nightingales might be heard singing in the neighbouring fields and
groves.
It was on one of these warm May nights that the wherry which brought
Lady Belrose's party from Pimlico Fields to the Spring Gardens arrived
at the latter place, while, as the boat touched the shore, from the
gardens might already be heard the orchestra playing. In the wherry
sat, of course, Lady Belrose herself, a still young and still
good-looking woman, who, being a widow, thought herself entitled to
always have in attendance upon her some beau or other, and who,
to-night, had brought two, one a young lad from Oxford, the other
almost as young a man, Sir Charles Ames. By her side sat Lady
Fordingbridge, whose plain evening frock contrasted somewhat strongly
with that of her friend, who was arrayed in a gorgeous brocade silk,
while one of her cavaliers carried over his arm a green velvet mantle
laced with gold, in case the evening turned cold and she should have
occasion for it.
"I protest," said her ladyship, as stepping ashore she put on her
mask, in which she was copied by the others--"I protest the very sound
of the fiddles squeaking makes me long for a dance. Mr. Fane," she
said, turning to that gentleman, who formed the last member of the
party, "am I to have you for a partner to-night?"
Fane bowed and responded politely that he only trusted his old age and
stiff joints would not prevent him from making himself acceptable, on
at least one occasion, to her ladyship; while Sir Charles Ames,
turning to Kitty, desired to know if she would so far favour him as to
give him a dance.
But Lady Belrose, who had already gathered from her friend that she
only made one of the party because of a serious and grave interview
which she anticipated having with a gentleman whom she might meet at
the _fête_, here interposed and, in a few well-chosen words, gave the
baronet to understand that to dance was not Lady Fordingbridge's
desire that evening. "She is not well," she said, "and will simply be
an onlooker. Meanwhile, doubtless I can find you a sufficiency of
partners among other friends." To this the young man protested that
there was no need for Lady Belrose to endeavour to find him partners
among her friends, since, if she would but condescend to be his
partner, he could not possibly desire any other, and so, with these
interchanges of politeness, they entered the gardens.
On this particular night at Vauxhall--the opening masquerade of the
season--the fashionable world, as well as those who, though not in
that world themselves, loved to gaze on the happier beings who were of
it, assembled in large numbers and in a variety of costumes.
Scaramouches in their black dresses, toques and masks, with rush
lances in their hands, mingled with dancing girls clad in the Turkish
costumes still known in these days as "Roxanas," in memory of the
infamous woman who had first worn this garb; shepherdesses walked
arm-in-arm with men dressed as grave and reverend clergymen; assumed
victims of the Inquisition, invested in the San Benito, pirouetted and
twirled with brazen-faced and under-clad Iphigenias and Phrynes--for
the world was none too modest in those days!--mock soldiers, knights
and satyrs, harlequins, and men in wizard's garments danced and drank,
laughed and shouted with milkmaids, nuns, and Joans of Arc. And to
testify, perhaps, the fact that they had not forgotten the dangers
through which the country had recently passed, and also, perhaps, to
hurl one last taunt at their crushed and broken foes, many of the
maskers had arrayed themselves in the garbs of their late enemies--for
some strutted round and round the orchestra pavilion and banqueting
room dressed as Highlanders or French officers, others as miserable
Scotch peasants having in their hands flails and reaping hooks.
Others, again, had even attempted to portray the character of the
unhappy Charles Edward, now in hiding in the Scotch wilds, and, as
they danced and sang or drank their glasses of ale and ate their
twopenny slices of hung-beef, and endeavoured even by their
conversation to ape what they imagined to be the Scotch dialect. At
the same time, outside all this seething, painted, and bedizened crowd
were many others of the better classes, such as those who formed Lady
Belrose's party, or visitors of a similar degree, who contented
themselves by concealing their identity with masks, vizards, and
dominos, or with hoods and laces.
In a somewhat retired spot beneath where stood a noble statue of
Handel, now nearing his last days, executed by Roubiliac, and at the
back of which were a small wooded green and bosquet in which were many
arbours, Lady Belrose and her friends sat down to watch the
kaleidoscopic crowd. Here, Sir Charles Ames, summoning a waiter, bade
him bring refreshments for the party--viz., some iced fruits and a
flask of champagne--and they being partaken of, he invited her
ladyship to honour him by becoming his partner in a _quadrille de
contredanse_, a new style of dancing introduced into the French
ballets a year or so before, and but just come over to London. This
the sprightly lady accepted at once, having already perfected herself
in the new divertissement under Duharnel's tuition; but, on her other
cavalier desiring also the honour of Lady Fordingbridge's hand, Kitty
refused, on the ground that she knew not the dance, and neither was
she very well.
"I' faith, Kate," said Lady Belrose, as she shook her sack over her
great balloon-shaped hoop and fastened her mask more tightly under her
hood, "yet have you lost but little to-night. The quadrille is well
enough in our own houses or on our country lawns; here, I protest, the
noise, the dust, and the stench of the oil lamps, to say nothing of
the unknown and, doubtless, unclean creatures with whom we rub
shoulders and touch hands, do not recommend it overmuch. However, lead
me to it, Sir Charles, since you will have it so," and in another
moment she, with her partner and the others who formed the sets, were
bowing and curtseying to each other.
Meanwhile Mr. Wynn, Lady Belrose's second string, having begged that
he might be allowed to find a partner and himself join in a set, since
Lady Fordingbridge was so obdurate (he, too, had been learning the new
dance from Monsieur Duharnel), took himself off, so that Kitty and her
father were left alone together. And now it was that she, after
scanning each male figure that was "more than common tall," began to
tremble a little in her limbs and to feel as though she were about to
faint. For in that portion of the crowd which was not dancing and
which still followed its leaders round and round the orchestra
pavilion, thereby illustrating the words of Bloomfield, a poet of the
period, who wrote:
First we traced the gay circle all round,
Ay--and then we went round it again--
she saw two forms that, she doubted not, were those for whom she
looked--partly in eagerness, partly with nervousness.
These maskers did not walk side by side, but one behind the other,
and, possibly, to ordinary onlookers would not have appeared to have
any connection with each other. Yet Kitty knew very well that,
inseparable in almost all else, they were now equally so. The first,
who was the tallest, was clad in a costume, perhaps unique that night
in the Spring Gardens, perhaps almost unique among the many costumes
that have ever been assumed since first masquerades were invented. It
was that of the headsman. Arrayed in the garb of that dismal
functionary, a rusty black velvet suit, with the breeches and black
woollen stockings to match, the masker might yet have failed to inform
those who saw him of the character he wished to portray, had it not
been for at least one other accessory. On his back, strapped across
it, he carried the long, narrow-bladed axe used for decapitation, its
handle fringed and tasselled with leathern thongs. Yet there were
other tokens also of the part he represented. In a girdle round his
waistcoat he bore a formidable knife having a blade a foot long and an
inch and a half deep--the knife with which the doomsman finished his
ghastly task if the axe failed to do its duty, as had too often
happened. His mask, too, was not that of the ordinary reveller at such
places as this, not a mask made ostensibly to conceal the features,
yet, as often as not, revealing them almost as clearly as though it
had not been assumed; instead, it was long and full, covering not only
the eyes and the bridge of the nose, but also the whole of the upper
part of the face, and leaving only visible the lower jaw and the two
ends of a thick brown moustache that hung below it. Alone by that
moustache would Kitty have known the wearer, if by no other sign. It
had been pressed too often against her own lips for her to forget it!
Yet, also, would she have known him without it. His companion, the man
who followed after him, was not so conspicuous by his appearance. He,
indeed, wrapped in a long brown woollen cloak which descended to his
shoes and must have been more than warm on such an evening as this,
with at his side a Scotch claymore, or broadsword, and on his head a
Scotch bonnet--the mask, of course, being worn--passed among the crowd
as an excellent representative of their now despised and fallen
enemies. Yet, had that crowd known that amongst them stalked in
reality one whose prowess had been terribly conspicuous when exhibited
against their own soldiers, they might not have gazed as approvingly
as they now did on Douglas Sholto.
As Kitty regarded these two figures--still trembling and feeling as
though she were about to faint--she saw the eyes of the former one fix
themselves upon her, and observed him hesitate for a moment ere
continuing his course, then, in an instant, he went on again in the
stream that continued to revolve round the orchestra pavilion. And she
knew that a few moments would bring him again before her.
"Father," she said, nerving herself to that interview which she so
ardently desired, yet which, womanlike, she almost feared now, "the
green behind looks cool and inviting, especially now that the sun is
gone and the lamps are lit. I will stroll down there awhile and take
the air. Meanwhile, rest you here--there is some more champagne in the
flask--and keep these seats until the others come back. The
_contredanse_ will be finished just now."
"Mind no gallant treats ye rudely, child. The crowd is none too
orderly as regards some of its members. Ladies alone, and without a
cavalier, may be roughly accosted."
"Have no fear," she said, "I can protect myself. I shall be back ere
Lady Belrose takes part in the next dance," saying which she turned
and went down the walk that led between the grassy lawn and the
arbours, in each of which now twinkled the many-coloured oil lamps.
And, as she so turned, that portion of the maskers in which was the
man dressed as the headsman passed by the chair she had just vacated,
and she knew that he must have seen her rise and move away.
A few moments later she was aware that such was the case. A heavy
tread sounded behind her--she had now advanced considerably down the
path and had almost reached a rustic copse, in which were two or three
small arbours--another instant, and the voice she longed yet feared to
hear, the voice that she thought trembled a little as it spoke,
addressed her:
"Is Lady Fordingbridge not afraid to separate herself from her party
thus?" she heard Bertie Elphinston say--surely his voice quivered as
he spoke. "Or does pity prompt her to do so; pity for another?"
"Lady Fordingbridge," she replied, knowing that her own voice was not
well under control, "has no fear of anyone, unless it be of those
whom, all unwittingly, she has injured." Then, scarcely knowing what
she said, or whether her words were intelligible, and feeling at a
loss what else to say, she gazed up at him and exclaimed, "You come to
these festivities in a strange garb, sir. Surely the executioner's is
scarcely a suitable one for a night of rejoicing."
"Yet suitable to him who wears it. Perhaps 'tis best that I who may
apprehend----"
"Oh, Mr. Elphinston!" she exclaimed suddenly, interrupting him, "it
was not to hear such words as these that I came here to-night. You
know why I have sought this meeting; have you nought to say to me but
this?"
"Yes," he replied, "yes. But let us not stand here upon the path
exposed to the gaze of all the crowd. Come, let us enter this arbour.
We shall be unobserved there."
She followed him into the one by which they were standing, and--for
she felt her limbs were trembling beneath her--sank on to a rustic
bench. And he, standing above her, went on:
"The letter that you sent to me asked that I should pity and forgive
you. Kate, we meet again, perhaps for the last time on earth; let me
say at once, there is nothing for me to forgive. If fault there was,
then it was mine. Let mine, too, be the blame. I should have told you
that Elphinston of Glenbervy was about to marry Mademoiselle
Baufremont. Yet, he had sworn me to silence, had bidden me, upon our
distant kinsmanship, to hold my peace, had sought my assistance to
enable him to wed the woman whom he loved. How could I disclose his
secret even to you? How could I foresee that a scheming devil would
turn so small a thing to so great an account?"
"But," she said, gazing up at him and noticing--for both had
instinctively unmasked at the same time--how worn his face was, how,
alas! in his brown hair there ran grey threads though he was still so
young; "but why, to all those letters I sent, was no answer
vouchsafed? I thought from one or from the other some reply must
surely come. Have you forgotten how, for many years now, we
four--Douglas and Archibald, you and I--had all been as brothers and
sister--until--until," she broke off, and then continued: "how we had
vowed that between us all there should be a link and bond of
friendship that should be incessable?"
"I have forgotten nothing," he replied, "nothing. No word that was
ever spoken between us, no vow, nor promise ever made."
Again the soft blue eyes were turned to him, imploringly it seemed;
begging by their glance that he should spare her. And, ceasing to
speak of his remembrance of the past, he continued: "Circumstances,
strange though they were, prevented any one of us from receiving your
letters--or from answering them in time. I was lying ill of Roman
fever at the English College; Archibald Sholto was in Tuscany in the
train of Charles Edward, Cardinal Aquaviva having provided their
passports; Douglas was with De Roquefeuille, and received your letter
only on his return to Paris, where it had been sent back to him. Kate,
in that stirring time, when the prince was passing from Rome to
Picardy, was it strange no answer should come?"
"No, no," she replied. "No," and as she spoke she clasped both of her
hands in her lap, and bent her head to hide her tears. Then she
muttered, yet not so low but that he could hear her: "Had I but
waited! but trusted!"
"It would have been best," he said very gently. And as he spoke, as
though in mockery of their sad hearts, many of the maskers went by
laughing and jesting, and the quadrille being finished the band was
playing the merry old tune of "The Bird that danced the Rigadoon."
"You hear the air?" she said, looking up suddenly again. "You hear?
Oh! my heart will break."
"Yes," he answered, "I hear."