Chapter 16

"THEY'RE TO MEET AT ROSAMOND'S POND"

A masquerade was in full swing at a mansion in Leicester Square. The air of the ball-room was hot and stuffy. Ventilation was a thing of little account. The light, albeit there were a hundred candles or so in the sconces, on the panelled walls, and in the chandelier hanging from the decorated ceiling, and despite the assiduous snuffing by the servants, was dim. The subdued illumination was not without its advantage. It was merciful to the painted faces and softened the crudity of their raw colouring. A mixture of odours offended the nostrils. Powder came off in clouds, not only from the hair of the belles but also from the wigs of the beaux. Its peculiar scent mingled with a dozen varieties of the strong perfumes in vogue, and the combination was punctuated by a dash of oil from a smoky lamp or two in the vestibule and an occasional waft of burnt tallow and pitch from the torches of the link boys outside.

The masquerade was public and the company was mixed. The establishment provided punch, strong waters and cordials and some of the visitors had indulged themselves without scruple. The effect was seen in the cheeks of matrons and damsels where they were not daubed. It added brilliancy to many an eye--it gave a piquancy and freedom to talk, greatly appreciated by the gallants. As for the dancing, in that crowded room owing to the space monopolised by the prodigious hoops and the general exhilaration, the stately minuet and sarabande were out of the question, and the jig and country dance were much more in favour.

In a side room cards and dicing were going on and the gamblers were not to be drawn from the tables while they had money in their pockets. Most of them were women, and when the grey dawn came stealing between the curtains of the long narrow windows, overpowering the candlelight and turning it of a pale sickly yellow, the players were still seated, with feverish hands, haggard faces and hawk-like eyes, pursuing their race after excitement. A silence had come over the party. The play was high and the gamesters too absorbed to note anything but the game. From the ball-room came the sound of violin, flute and harpsichord, shrieks of shrill laughter, oaths from drunken wranglers and the continual thump of feet.

Then the servants brought in coffee, extinguished the candles and drew back the curtains.

"Good lord, we're more like a party of painted corpses than creatures of flesh and blood," cried a lady with excessively rouged cheeks, bright bird-like eyes and a long, thin hooked nose. "I declare positively I'll play no more. Besides the luck's all one way, but 'tis not my fault. I don't want to win every time."

"How generous--how thoughtful of your ladyship," sarcastically remarked a handsome woman on the other side of the table.

"What do you mean, madam?" fiercely inquired the first speaker who was now standing.

"Oh, nothing madam," was the retort accompanied by a curtsey of mock humility. "Everybody knows Lady Anastasia's pleasant way of drawing off when she has won and the luck's beginning to turn against her."

"I despise your insinuations madam," loftily replied Lady Anastasia, her face where it was not rouged turning the colour of putty. "So common a creature as Mistress Salisbury--I prefer not to soil my lips by addressing you as _Sally_ Salisbury--I think that is the name by which you are best known among the Cheapside 'prentices and my lord's lackeys--ought to feel vastly honoured by being permitted to sit at the same table with a woman of my rank."

"Your _rank_? Indeed, you're quite right. It _is_ rank. Foh!"

The handsome face was expressive of contemptuous abhorrence and her gesture emphasised the expression. Lady Anastasia was goaded to fury.

"Why, you impudent, brazen-faced Drury Lane trull! A month at Bridewell would do you good, you----"

Her ladyship's vocabulary of abuse was pretty extensive but it was cut short. A dice box with the ivories inside flew across the table hurled with the full strength of a vigorous shapely arm. This was Sally Salisbury's retort. A corner of a dice cut the lady's lip and a drop of blood trickled on to her chin.

Beyond herself with rage, Lady Anastasia seized a wine glass--a somewhat dangerous projectile, for the wine glasses of the time were large and thick and heavy--and would have dashed it at her antagonist but one of the players, a man, grasped her wrist and held it.

"Let her ladyship have her chance. She's entitled to it. A duel at a masquerade between two women of fashion! Why, it'll be the talk of the town for a whole week," and Sally Salisbury laughed derisively.

But so vulgar a _fracas_ was not to the taste of Lady Anastasia's friends, besides which the attendants were alarmed and ran to prevent further disturbance. They abstained, however, from interfering with Sally Salisbury. Her ungovernable temper and her fear of nothing were well known. If she once let herself go there was no telling where she would stop. At this moment, however, her temper was under perfect control and indeed she was rather enjoying herself.

She rose, pushed away her chair with a backward kick to give room for her ample hoops, and curtseying low to the company marched out of the room without so much as a glance at her rival who was on the verge of hysterics.

Mistress Salisbury entered the ball-room, now tenanted by the dregs of the company most of them more or less stupefied or excited, according to their temperaments, by drink. In one corner was a young man whose richly embroidered silk coat of a pale lavender was streaked with wine, whose ruffles were torn and whose wig was awry. To him was talking in a thick growling bass a man arrayed in a costume hardly befitting a ball-room, unless indeed he wore it as a fancy dress. But his evil face, dark, dirty, and inflamed by deep potations, the line of an old scar extending from the corner of his mouth almost to his ear showing white against the purple of his bloated cheek forbade this supposition.

Captain Jeremy Rofflash in point of fact was very drunk. He had for the last three or four hours been industriously engaged in getting rid of some of the guineas of the old gentleman from Bath, in a boozing ken in Whitefriars. Seasoned toper as he was he could carry his liquor without it interfering with his head. About the effect on his legs he was not quite so sure and at that moment his body was swaying ominously, but thanks to his clutching a high backed chair he maintained his equilibrium fairly well.

"Idiot," snarled the young gentleman whose temper inebriation had soured, "why the devil didn't you come here earlier? The coup might have been brought off to-night. Gad, I want rousing. I'm just in the mood, and the sight of that pretty, saucy, baggage--oh, you're a damned fool, Rofflash!"

"If Mr. Dorrimore will condescend to await my explanation," swaggered Rofflash with drunken dignity, "he will admit that I've done nothing foolish--nothing not permissible to a man of honour."

"Devil take your honour."

"Granted sir. The subject is not under discussion at the present moment. Now, sir, what happened? As I've already informed you, I came across the young poppinjay and the girl sweethearting on Moor Fields. She was in his arms...."

"In his arms! S'death! I'll run the impudent upstart through for that. The girl's mine, by God. Where's the fellow to be found?"

"All in good time, sir. Have a little patience. Aye, she was in his arms but it's only fair to say that she had gone into a swoon."

"A swoon? What the devil made her swoon? She's never swooned in _my_ arms and I've clipped her close enough. She giggled and tittered I grant you, but never the ghost of a swoon."

"There's no rule for the mad humour of a woman, as you must know, Mr. Dorrimore."

"But swooning--that's a sign she was in earnest. She was never in earnest with me--just a hoyden asking to be won."

"I crave your honour's pardon. The girl was in earnest enough when she smashed your carriage window with the heel of her shoe and leaped out like a young filly clearing a five barred gate."

"Pest! Don't remind me of that. It makes me sick when I think how I was fooled and that you were such an ass as to let her slip."

"Sir, I did my best and but for the spark who had the impudence to thrust his nose into what didn't concern him, I'd have had her safe. But I've made amends. I've run her to earth."

"Satan's helped you then. Where is she?"

"At her mother's house in the Old Bailey."

"That's a lie."

"Sir!"

"I tell you it's a lie. Her mother visited me at my chambers yesterday. She'd got the story pat of Lavinia's running away with me from school and all the rest of it. The old woman's not much better than Mother Needham. Faith, she's a shade worse. She agreed to let me have the girl for fifty guineas. She'd got the chit locked up she said. I went to her Old Bailey hovel to-day--gad, I've got the smell of the cooked meats and boiled greens in my nostrils at this minute--and damn it, she said the girl had run away. And now you tell me she's there."

"I do, sir. With these eyes which I flatter myself don't often mistake when they rest on a well turned ankle, a trim waist and a pretty face. I swear I saw her go into the house."

"Ecod, I suppose I must believe you," rejoined Dorrimore sullenly. "But what do you make of it all? Did the old woman lie?"

"Without a doubt she did. If she's of Mother Needham's tribe she can lie like truth. Lies are half of the trade and the other half is to squeeze the cull of as much gold as he can be fooled out of. Can't you see sir, that her trick is to spring her price? I'll wager her fifty guineas has swollen to a hundred when next you see her. With traffickers in virgins the price grows as rapidly as Jonah's gourd."

"Aye, it may be so. Well, what then? Have you got a plan?"

Captain Jeremy Rofflash placed a dirty forefinger by the side of his nose, slowly closed one eye and a greasy smile widened his thick, red moist lips.

"Have I a plan, sir? Trust Jeremy Rofflash for that. By God, sir, I'll swear there's no man in the world readier with a plan when its wanted. Look ye here, Mr. Dorrimore, I've the whole thing cut and dried in the hollow of my hand. To come to the point. The old harridan means to fleece you. _I_ don't. Damme sir, I'm a man of my word. For a hundred guineas I'll let you into a secret and if I fail I won't ask you for a stiver. Is that fair or isn't it?"

"I'll swear you're no better than Mother Fenton, but I'd rather deal with a man than a woman. Done with you for a hundred. Say on."

"It's just this. I was within earshot when the loving pair were in Paul's Churchyard. They're to meet at Rosamond's Pond to-morrow evening at seven. Now what's to prevent you being beforehand with the spark? The park's lonely enough for our purpose and you have but to have your coach ready and a man or two. A gag whipped over her mouth and we'll have her inside the coach within a second and not a soul be the wiser."

"Sounds mighty well, faith. But will she come? What of her mother? Will the woman trust her out of sight?"

"I'll back a wench against her dam for a thousand guineas if she's set her heart on a man. Odds bodikins, if she comes not you won't lose. _I_ shall and it'll be the devil's own bad luck. No have, no pay. D'ye see that my young squire?"

Dorrimore could offer no contradiction. All that remained to be discussed was what would follow supposing fortune favoured them, and they subsided into a whispered conference which was after a time interrupted by some of Dorrimore's boon companions, who carried him off to a wild revelry in the Covent Garden taverns with the last hour at the "Finish," the tavern of ill-repute on the south side of the market.

Rofflash would have accompanied the party but that a hand was laid on his arm and a masked lady whispered:--

"One moment, captain, I want you."

He turned. He recognised the speaker by the lower part of her face, the round, somewhat prominent chin, the imperious mouth with its sensual lower lip, the bold sweeping contour from the chin to the ear.

"Sally Salisbury--the devil!" he ejaculated.

"Not quite, but a near relative may be," rejoined Sally with a sarcastic laugh. "Who's the spark you're so thick with?"

"The fool who's mad to get hold of the prettiest wench in town--Lavinia Fenton."

"That little trollop! I hate the creature. But there's no need to talk of her. What of the man I paid you to track? Have you found him?"

Rofflash watched her face, what he could see of it, for she had not unmasked, and noted the slight quiver of the lips and the rise and fall of her bosom.

"Faith mistress," he chuckled with a drunken leer, "if you're not as crazy over the beggarly scribbler as my young gallant is over the Fenton girl who lives in the Old Bailey--at a coffee house, forsooth! Why, to see the pother you're in one would think the hussy had put your nose out of joint. Perhaps she has. She's fetching enough."

Sally seized the captain's arm with a vigorous grip that showed the intensity of her feelings. He winced and muttered an oath.

"S'life," he burst out, "save your nails for the girl who's cut you out with the scribbler."

"She? You lie. What has he to do with the minx?"

"As much as he need have to start with. Didn't he help her to escape from Dorrimore's arms when the fool thought he had her safe?"

"What!" screamed Sally, "Was _he_ the man?"

"Aye. I've not yet plucked the crow between him and me for that, but by gad, I mean to pluck it."

"It won't be by fair means then. You're too much of a coward. See here, you devil. Lance Vane's mine, and if you dare so much as to lay a finger on him you will know what _I_ can do. There's but one road for gentry of your profession--the road to Tyburn--and you'll take it if you cross me. It'll be as easy as _that_."

She dealt the braggart a blow across the nose and eyes with her closed fan. The sticks snapped and in a white heat of passion she broke them again and again and flung the fragments in the discomfited captain's face.

Her fury and his smarting nose somewhat sobered Rofflash. He knew well enough that when Sally was in her cups she was capable of any deed of violence. Years after, indeed, her temper led to her undoing when inflamed by drink and jealousy she stabbed the Honourable John Finch at "The Three Tuns" in Chandos Street.

Rofflash hastened to mollify the enraged beauty, and did so effectually when he suggested a plan by which she could mortify her rival.

Sally heard him almost silently. Jeremy's plan was so much to her taste that in a measure she was able to control herself, though her arms, rigid by her sides, and her tightly clenched hands showed that her nerves were still unstrung.

"You see, mistress, you did me an injustice," growled Rofflash. "I have worked for you, aye and right well. What do _I_ get for doing it?"

"You shall have all the coin that old miser Mountchance gives me for your next haul of trinkets. I won't touch a farthing for my trouble."

Rofflash stipulated for money down.

"You won't get a stiver," retorted Sally. "I'm as cleaned out as a gutted herring. That cheating cat Anastasia bagged every shilling I had."

Rofflash had no reason to doubt Sally's word. He knew the phenomenal luck which attended Lady Anastasia's play and he had to be contented with promises.

Thus they parted.