Part 13

Charles found it difficult to extract from his partner more than the ordinary small talk of ballrooms, and as she became more and more absent-minded during the progress of the dance, he let her go at the end of it without a very valiant attempt to detain her for the next. Presently he saw her join a blue mask and lose herself in the flickering throng. Last time he had remarked particularly that her Vis a Vis wore brown and gold, yet the two figures were alike in movement and gesture and he could swear the hands were identical. It was the same without a doubt. Charles bit his nails with vexation, and fretted confoundedly.

"My dear boy, my dear Charles, pray do not gnaw your fingers. Narcissus admired himself, 'tis true, but without carrying his devotion to cannibality."

Charles turned to the well-known voice of Mr. Ripple.

"A thousand pardons, dear Beau, I was vexed by a trifle. The masquerade comports itself with tolerable success."

"I think so," the Beau replied, adjusting his monocle and gazing critically at his subjects. "I certainly think so, but I am never easy in my mind until the Grand Minuet has concluded the entertainment, yet even so, I do not think you will ever find me preying upon my extremities."

Charles laughed.

"They take their pleasures very easily, sir." Again the Beau examined his puppets.

"The burden of amusement certainly weighs very lightly on them, and yet, Charles, I sometimes fancy I detect a shade too much of self-consciousness in their movements. I could wish for a less anxious grace, a less ordered abandon. My monocle which diminishes their size, diminishes their importance; and I must confess that the motion of dancing, if one regards the Ensemble, appears to me nothing less than idiotical. However, do not let my cynical attitude prove contagious--I have watched so many dances."

"Yet you are willing for me to succeed you," said Charles. "Foregad, Mr. Ripple, I was never intended for a spectator."

"I have energy to keep me in office long enough to let you grow older. Come, come, Charles, admit the career I offer would tempt many more deserving young men."

"But I have passions, feelings, desires, ambitions."

"All very suitable," commented the Beau, "till you grow tired of versifying life. We write poetry, Charles, in order to improve our prose."

"Some men write poetry to the end."

"Usually a bitter end; but, indeed, I would not goad you into accepting my offer. Have your dramas, lose your money, expose your heart to Cupid, commit the thousand and one foolish actions that will afford you a moral occupation for your middle age."

"What would that be?"

"A leisurely repentance."

"Sir, I think you spin the natural functions into silk like the silkworm."

"Well, Charles, and isn't silk a more durable excrement than most? You are still devouring the tender shoots of the mulberry tree; I am already in the cocoon and shall go down to posterity as a very reputable moth vouched for by a cenotaph in St. Simon's Church, Curtain Wells."

"Sir, I doubt they will never say of me 'Vive le roi!'"

"We shall see, we shall see. By the way, do you know a Miss Phyllida Courteen? Her mother, a widow whose charms are as ample as her dowry, is lodging in the Crescent."

Charles was taken aback for a moment.

"I believe I have met her once or twice at Assemblies."

"At any rate, you know her by sight."

"Oh yes!" replied our hero.

"Now, I wonder whether you could pick her out from this multitude of masks."

Charles at once perceived the subject of the question.

"She is standing over there by the second pillar and talking to a mask in porcel--no, in lacker. That's strange."

"What is strange?" inquired Mr. Ripple mildly.

"Nothing--a lantern effect," Charles explained.

Surely he could not be mistaken in those taper fingers. Moreover, they were familiar to him. Where could he have seen them?

"So that is Miss Courteen," said the Beau, looking at her very intently. "Yes, now that you have pointed her out, I certainly seem to recognize her. Who is her Vis a Vis?"

"That I do not know," said Charles rather gloomily.

"Then, pray, be so good-natured as to make an attempt to ascertain and you'll oblige me monstrously. Or stay--perhaps I had better inquire myself."

Mr. Ripple, observing that Mr. Lovely looked somewhat melancholy, patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't look so full of disapprobation, Charles. Inquisitiveness, with ordinary men and women, is a breach of good manners: with kings, it is a condescension. Dear me! how time runs!" the Beau continued, tripping from an epigram to a truism. "I will leave you to superintend the Country Dances. Let them be as Oriental as possible, I beg."

With this admonition the Great little Man threaded his way through the Exquisite Mob.

Charles d----d the country dances very devoutly. He was not enjoying the evening at all, and wished he were sitting in the cosy firelight of the _Blue Boar_, lulled by the whispers of playing cards, shuffled and dealt. Where could he raise that two hundred pounds he owed Vernon? Vernon--by G...! now he recognized those taper fingers. Vernon! they belonged to Vernon, he could swear to them. Too often had he watched their delicate harvesting of his guineas. He began to fret more than ever. Suddenly he noticed that everybody was looking in his direction, and became aware that time was indeed running and the moment for the Country Dances had arrived.

Meanwhile Mr. Ripple searched in vain for Phyllida and a Vis a Vis in brown and gold.

_Chapter the Seventeenth_

THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY

The Country Dances of these powderpuff Orientals were so truly inappropriate to the celebration that they almost succeeded in convincing by sheer want of fitness. Picture to yourselves two hundred blue and golden marionettes jigging to _Sir Roger de Coverley_ or bobbing to _Come Lasses and Lads_. There was Merry England underneath this hugger mugger of yellow masks, yet the sustained motion was decidedly Eastern. Hands across, back to back, right hand, left hand--each change of attitude was marked by a crashing gong; and he who sounded this barbarick instrument was Mr. Charles Lovely. He stood upon a tripod of ebony quite high enough for a hero of comedy, as I am sure you will admit.

As soon as his proconsulate was over, he jumped from the pedestal and, once more assuming our poor humanity, sought desperately for Mr. Vernon and Miss Phyllida Courteen.

And now the great ballroom was cleared. The Exquisite Mob refreshed itself not with chopsticks, but with two pronged forks and stout-handled knives. Nor was the fare ascetick rice, but pies of mutton, rounds of beef, custards, gay jellies and dappled puddings. In the ballroom the attendants busily ran hither and thither in preparation for the Grand Minuet of Cathay. Four pagodas guarded four corners; little bridges spanned little rivers of blue silk. There were miniature groves that shielded queer little Chinese gods and goddesses, while here and there were temples with crooked roofs, hung round with silver bells destined to be jingled at set moments of this incomparable minuet. High up near the ceiling among the swinging lanterns one saw the peaked faces of giant kites gazing benignly down. Finally in the very centre of the room was a small fountain with a pond all about it of real water, starred with white water lilies, on the highest jet of which a little god, inflated by air, jigged to the rise and fall of the water. Mr. Ripple had not been able to find Miss Courteen and was interrupted in his search by a call to inspect the scene of the Minuet. Gog was sent to fetch Mr. Lovely and presently the Gold Mandarin and the Blue Mandarin were stepping over each bridge, peering from each pagoda, gently trying the bells, lending a last touch to the rivers of silk and coming to a standstill in silent admiration of the dancing water-god.

"I think," said Mr. Ripple, "we may venture to proclaim, the Minuet of Cathay."

"I think so," said Mr. Lovely as he cast a quick eye in the direction of every entrance in turn.

"I could not find Miss Courteen," said the Beau, "have you had better luck?"

Lovely hesitated a moment.

"No," he said finally.

The Beau looked at him a moment.

"I cannot imagine who this Amor can be. He is not down in my list."

"Amor?" inquired Charles, somewhat too suddenly, "is his name Amor?"

"So the young lady informed me, when we considered the situation together. I perceive you know him."

"Indeed, sir, I am acquainted with no one of that name."

"I never imagined you were," replied the Beau testily. "'Tis too plainly a Nom d'amour; but I'll wager you are able to extract a personality from this pseudonym."

"Nay, indeed, I----"

"Very well," said the Beau, cutting him short, "there is no more to be said," and he turned away to order a burly Oriental who on less decorated occasions was wont to assist Mr. Balhatchett the butcher, to sound the gong of invitation.

While the huge sullen instrument boomed a diapason that threatened more than it cajoled, Charles wondered if he had been wise to conceal his knowledge of Mr. Amor's identity. Ripple had obviously not believed him and was moreover very sensitive to any concealment on the part of his subjects. He, as his own subaltern, was especially bound to indulge this foible. Besides, what good had he done? thought Charles. Not much indeed, for soon Ripple would certainly find out the whole affair. He ought to tell him all he knew. Ripple would act for the best and close the Pump Room against the intruder. It would be kill or cure.

But just as he was upon the point of informing the Great little Man, our hero remembered he owed Vernon two hundred pounds. O resolute hero! Be quick to mount your ebony pedestal or we shall think you no better than a walking gentleman.

The Exquisite Mob of crimped and corseted Orientals began to saunter back from supper, and the debate between honesty and honour was adjourned to a more meditative opportunity. By this hour of the evening most of the Masks were tolerably sure of each other's identity, and though it was an acknowledged custom of the Chinese Masquerade as opposed to other masked balls that all vizards should be worn from door to door, the Grand Minuet of Cathay afforded much scandalous talk for the ensuing days, all the more potent because a convention of anonymity was sedulously maintained. It was not surprizing that intrigue should flourish at a dance where half the company was hidden for many moments at a stretch. The Minuet lasted a whole hour. It reproduced in the various side-figures many emotions. It was a hundred dances in a grand Ensemble. The musick was now courtly, now passionate: sometimes it clanged in barbarick interludes of noise: sometimes but three or four flutes twittered above the plash of the fountain.

Over the bridges pattered the dancers: in and out of the diminutive groves twinkled their scarlet heels. Now a couple swayed in a stationary boat on a motionless river: now at the topmost window of a pagoda, cambrick handkerchief and painted fan kept time to the tune. The Gold Mandarin lived in a golden house beside the fountain and, if he chose, could live a century of sound and perfume in that fragrant hour of dancing. Far away at the other corner of the room lived the Blue Mandarin in a small house at the foot of a small volcano that ceaselessly puffed out clouds of incense. Wherever you went in that strange dance of dances some new delight assailed your senses.

Here, before a temple hung with silver bells, a dozen of these blue and golden dolls moved with grace and precision through many variations of the Minuet. They would carry away with them that night no more than a memory of bells and stately movement by the rosy light of many lanterns. Purged of all feeling save for correct gesture, the vizards seemed no more alive than their mirroured counterparts that moved with equal grace upside down in the polished floor of parquet.

But step over one of these bridges where false white flowers hang in scented clusters: go softly through that Bonbon grove, and there in an alcove fretted to the semblance of wrought ivory, you shall see two masks that are enraptured beneath a white moon-lantern, tracing the melody with long caresses. In one of these fanciful resorts, sat Vernon and Phyllida making love among the shadows, as in pairs and dainty quartetts the dancers darkened the carved portal when they passed. For Phyllida, the Assembly Rooms had been snatched up by some powerful magician and set down in a land of Ombres Chinoises. Many a time had she sat in the theatre and watched these silent black and white tragedies and comedies. Now she had joined that whimsical procession which capers across the draughty sheet. She recalled a particular entertainment of this character last December. First the Columbine had pirouetted across and made a light phantastick entrance into the shadow of the house at the extreme corner. Presently came the Pierrot with a lantern swaying atop of a tall pole. Up and down the sheet he had danced with incredible agility, until a Pulcinello shook his bells from the window of the house, and he floated away gathering giant size as he went. Then came Harlequin, dancing almost more beautifully than Pierrot, and a quiet murder was done in the laurel shadows round the house. Pierrot lay dead and Harlequin, the slim and debonair assassin had donned his vizard: Columbine wept a while until the lights were turned up, when everybody agreed that the whole performance was in the best of taste and vastly well executed.

Phyllida came to herself and found Mr. Vernon gazing steadily at her with his velvet eyes, all the more disconcerting set almondwise in the Chinese mask. She shuddered.

To say truth, this exotick minuet of strange perfumes and processions, was not the sanest amusement for a maid who should have lived always among the roses. The heat was growing intolerable, and still her lover with persistent, regular motion bewitched her hand as it lay in his.

The dancers passed and repassed them as they sat in artificial dusk. Phyllida began to hate them when they fluttered their fans and handkerchiefs. They were sickly things these dancers--crotchets and quavers and semiquavers who had captured the semblance of humanity, who breathed and bowed and capered, merely because musick had conjured them into existence. Suddenly an amazing clangour of gongs and cymbals waked her completely from the fever into which she had been flung, and, waking, she found herself encircled by her lover's arms, his eyes burning into hers and his lips, all that was left alive by the stolid vizard, eager to meet her own.

"Don't," she gasped. "Don't. I hate you, I hate you when you do that."

"Nay, my angel must not be so prudish. Come, kiss me of your own will and we'll gallop to Gretna Green next week."

Phyllida still repulsed him.

"To Gretna Green," he went on. "Drawn by a pair of cream-coloured horses, in a chaise all citron silk and rosy sattin with my Phyllida plunged into the softest cushions and her Amor to love her so fondly while trees and milestones fly past."

Vernon inherited much talent from his mother, and as he breathed his persuasions in the most refined modulations of intensity, half looked over his shoulder, for an audience.

"My Phyllida, your lips are soft as moths."

"Don't, Amor, don't."

"Soft as little moths that in wet garden paths brush the cheeks with feathery wings."

"Release my hand, detestable Amor. I will sit here no longer to be tortured by your boorishness."

"But why will you repulse me? you love me? We are to be wed almost at once. Why were you willing to sit in this dark corner, unless for the charms of love?"

The Minuet was drawing to a close. Long since the musick had departed into wilder channels. This was now no courtly measure, but a barbarick medley of noise, fit for trumpets of India, cymbals of Ethiopia, and the hollow booming of drums that affright wrecked pirates in the green swamps of Madagascar.

Vernon stood up and drew Phyllida closer.

"By G----, child, you madden me with your prettiness. Come, I swear you shall kiss me before the end of the dance. You shall, by G---- you shall!"

Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and blushes in our first chapter, is scarcely recognizable now. She is growing old fast. She is kindling the faggots that will warm her chill old age.

But still, though passion tugged at her heart strings, the school-miss, the older Eve before the Fall, made her struggle against knowledge.

"I hate you, I hate you like this. Let me go, sir, let me go!"

With a sudden effort, she escaped from his arms, and he, plunging back at the same moment, struck the frail summer house of ivory so that it toppled over in front of the Blue Mandarin who was crossing a bridge over a silken stream that flowed in the direction of his little house beneath the miniature volcano. The Bonbon grove was strewn with fragments. Like Cinderella fled Miss Courteen and was quickly lost in the gold and azure company. With careless air, Mr. Vernon stooped to buckle his shoe and Charles, seeing the taper fingers, stood for a moment petrified upon the ridiculous bridge over which he had been stepping with such an affectation of importance.

Now was his opportunity to probe Mr. Vernon, or rather to lead him gradually into the urbane presence of Mr. Ripple who would certainly probe him deep enough. There was every reason to admonish him for, as he knelt over his shoe, Charles could plainly see his costume was reversible. Such a device was a breach of etiquette, deserving publick censure. Himself as viceroy of Society, should not be backward in arresting a traitor to Society's rules. Of old, the favourites of monarchs had not scrupled to owe money to those whom they denounced as dangerous to the State.

Charles took a step forward.

"Sir," he said, pointing with a tasselled wand whose handle was a squat Buddha, "you have broken a law of the Chinese Masquerade."

"Indeed," said Vernon, rising from his knees, not at all perturbed apparently by the accusation.

"Yes," went on the Blue Mandarin. Pray let our hero be impersonal for a while, "You are wearing a double costume."

"What a monstrous breach of privilege," said Vernon chilly, unmoved.

"And it is my duty to report the incident to Beau Ripple. Your name, sir?"

It was now the turn of our villain to hesitate. If he frankly avowed his identity, Lovely was bound to say no more about it, but did the interloping young Jackanapes know the heroine of the affair?--he had danced with her once that night. If he said Amor, Lovely might easily inform Ripple and plead ignorance. D---- n the young fool! Why didn't he pass over his absurd stream and take his callow brain, stuffed with ceremonies, to the sugar-plum atmosphere of the Beaux' ante-room?

"Why Lovely, man, don't you know me? 'Tis I, Vernon, what the plague do you mean by so much impertinence? Were you shocked to see me trying to kiss a saucy school-minx, eh? That was little Miss----"

"Her mask, sir, should conceal her name."

With what fair Incognita Mr. Vernon intended to couple himself, will never be known. No doubt a pseudonym as nice as his own would have been forthcoming, since he was of an inventive disposition and had on occasions a pretty turn of fancy.

The musick had stopped; the Grand Minuet of Cathay was finished. Mr. Charles Lovely was aware of a rival to whom, by cursed ill-fortune, he owed money which he was unable to pay.

"Shall I give you your revenge?" murmured Vernon.

The company, still masked, were hurrying in blue and golden bunches to their coaches and chairs.

"Not tonight," said Charles. "But on my honour, Vernon, you must really be careful not to offend against our rules on another occasion."

So, lightly enough, with no appearance of mutual ill-will the rivals passed on. Phyllida was gone home, her face afire beneath her Chinese mask. To her virginal chamber, I shall presently take you in order to hear what Mistress Betty has to say about the ways of lovers. And while we walk in the direction of the Crescent, somewhat overwrought by a plethora of colour, scent, movement and sound, we may be tolerably certain that young Mr. Charles Lovely--no longer Blue Mandarin, but again our admired hero--is seated furiously inditing the most satirical verses on the residents and visitors of Curtain Wells, in order to make money enough to pay Mr. Vernon his guineas, and be able to run him through in Curtain Mead with a clear conscience and a clean smallsword.

_Chapter the Eighteenth_

THE CONFIDANTE

If Eve had possessed a Confidante, it is probable that the evil wrought by Woman would have been double as great as it is reputed to be. Miss Courteen had stepped into the mud of reality and, not unnaturally, was eager to tell Mistress Betty of the accident and ascertain by candlelight consultation, whether or not her glass slipper was truly lost.

As they drove home in the rumbling coach, Phyllida experienced an emotion of futility as she half listened, half dozed, to the conversation of the Major, the Justice and her mother. To this came Youth. Bumpety-bump went the coach, bumpety-bump went the conversation, bumpety-bump went Thomas' broad back on the Jimmy, bumpety-bump went Phyllida's head, while her thoughts and memories kept pace in the darkness like swift sparks that are blown along by the wind. At last the coach drew up before their house in the Crescent: Phyllida and her mother alighted: Betty opened the door and the coach drove off to put down Major Tarry and Mr. Moon at their lodgings.

The hall seemed drab and unfamiliar; the bedchamber candle-sticks set out upon the little gate table had an air of reproof about them; they seemed to say as they sat in a prim row: "Look at us, we are quite content. Last night our candles burnt an inch lower, and the candle suffers diminution, but we remain the same. We are quite content."

"My pretty one looks pale," said Betty, full of solicitude.

"I'm tired," said Phyllida.

"Betty," said Mrs. Courteen, "you must help me to undress. The evening has been most enjoyable, and my lady Bunbutter tore her gown on a monkey's tail. Now, Phyllida, do you run quickly to bed, for to-morrow Mr. Moon and the Major have promised to drive with us to see Melton Abbey. You will enjoy the excursion vastly."

"What a whimsical place to visit."

"Whimsical! How can you be so irreverend, Phyllida?"

"But why, mamma, do you suddenly drive to Melton Abbey?"

"Why, child! because I wish to train your mind to be sure. Nothing tests deportment so severely as wandering round a Gothick ruin. However, they tell me that Gothick will soon be a la Mode, and who am I to dispute the commands of fashion?"

Upon the heels of this humble interrogation, the widow betook herself to bed.

"When you have undressed my mamma, Betty, come to my chamber, I have a thousand things to tell you," Phyllida whispered as they went up the narrow stairs.

She lighted all the candles in her room and looked round in sudden affright. It was as if some one had trespassed upon those virginal solitudes while she was away. Yet her room was the same as usual; the dimity covers were all in their places: the fire was burning merrily in the hearth: the bed-cloaths were turned back, fresh, cool and lavendered. Her slippers knelt devoutly by the fender: the fire-irons looked just as stilted and apologetick as usual. Everything was perfectly familiar, perfectly ordinary and perfectly safe; yet something in the room was strange, or was it herself who was altered? Was she out of harmony with this palace of amber morning dreams, this treasure-box of twilight hopes and imaginations?