The Passionate Elopement
"Now you're being satirical, and I vow I detest sarcasm. Indeed, I think
it has all been a mistake, and I'll go back to Hampshire to-morrow, and
you may go back to your Haymarket."
"Very well, madam, since you dismiss my suit, I will go back to my
Haymarket. It may be vastly diverting for you, madam, to break a man's
heart. You, secure in the verdant meads and--er--meadows of the county
of Hampshire, you, wandering among fields of daffadillies, at peace,
beneath a summer sun."
"Daffadillies don't grow in the summer."
"Alas! madam, I am ignorant of these pastoral delights."
This was perfectly true since Mr. Vernon's mother was a lady who thought
a bough-pot in Air Street worth the finest estate in the Kingdom.
"I," he continued, "have lived my life in cities, and though I have
often hoped to hear the cuckoo wake me at dawn, 'tis very evident I must
for ever bid farewell to such vain dreams."
Here, Mr. Vernon, who had inherited considerable histrionick ability on
the female side, contrived to get an effective break into his usually
smooth enunciation.
"But I don't want to quarrel for ever," protested Phyllida.
Mr. Vernon turned his head away, probably to hide a tear.
"For my part," she went on, "I should be very willing to live always as
we are living now."
"My angel!"
"But since the world is so censorious and seems to concern itself with
every unimportant young woman's affairs, I thought--I thought----"
"You thought a wedding would put a stop to scandal. How little you know
the world. Why! madam, a hasty wedding would set people's tongues
wagging at once. Come, come, pay no attention to old Ripple. He knows my
name. If he chuse, he can seek me out. I warrant I shall hear no more
about it."
"But we shall be watched."
"Then we'll change our trysting-place. At any rate, prithee, let us
enjoy to-night." Here Mr. Vernon put on his mask and taking off his gown
resumed it inside out. "Do you see, dear charmer, I am both porcelain
and lacker, so that no one will be able to say you prefer the one to the
other. Hark! the fiddles have begun--let's go and step our first gavotte
together."
Phyllida took his arm and they returned to the ballroom. The vizards
made all the faces appear fixed and wooden and Miss Courteen could not
help looking very often at Mr. Charles Lovely who was sitting
cross-legged on his azure cushion and, in contrast to the rest of the
masquerade, was plainly a man. Once she fancied she caught his eye, and
when he came up and asked her to honour his arm for the third gavotte,
she knew she had not been mistaken. Mr. Vernon silently relinquished his
partner.
"Who was your late Vis a Vis?" Charles inquired. "I beg your pardon," he
added as he saw Phyllida hesitate, "my manners grow as barbarick as my
costume."
He had noticed with devout jealousy that Miss Courteen's fingers reposed
a moment longer than was necessary upon that sattin forearm.
"How did you discover me?" she asked with frank interest.
"'Twas not difficult."
"But masked as I am?"
"I did not regard your mask--I saw your eyes."
Phyllida was conscious of a blush and a faint quickening of the pulses,
all over her body. There was certainly something very satisfactory in
such a compliment. It was genuine moreover, for indeed he had discovered
her through the distorted yellow vizard which concealed her roses.
Presently the dance began, and, though Phyllida liked every moment of
it, she could not help observing Amor, half buried in the greenery of an
alcove and, as it seemed to her, forbidding too keen a pleasure.
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?"