CHAPTER XVIII
THE MASQUERADE
To form one’s impression of a masked ball from the attempts at this mode of entertainment in our country, is but to conceive a most imperfect and erroneous notion. With us, the first coup d’oeil is everything; the nuns, the shepherdesses, the Turks, sailors, eastern princes, watchmen, moonshees, milestones, devils, and Quakers are all very well in their way as they pass in the review before us, but when we come to mix in the crowd, we discover that, except the turban and the cowl, the crook and the broad-brim, no further disguise is attempted or thought of. The nun, forgetting her vow and her vestments, is flirting with the devil; the watchman, a very fastidious elegant, is ogling the fishwomen through his glass; while the Quaker is performing a pas seul Alberti might be proud of, in a quadrille of riotous Turks and half-tipsy Hindoos; in fact, the whole wit of the scene consists in absurd associations. Apart from this, the actors have rarely any claims upon your attention; for even supposing a person clever enough to sustain his character, whatever it be, you must also supply the other personages of the drama, or, in stage phrase, he’ll have nothing to “play up to.” What would be Bardolph without Pistol; what Sir Lucius O’Triuger without Acres? It is the relief which throws out the disparities and contradictions of life that afford us most amusement; hence it is that one swallow can no more make a summer, than one well-sustained character can give life to a masquerade. Without such sympathies, such points of contact, all the leading features of the individual, making him act and be acted upon, are lost; the characters being mere parallel lines, which, however near they approach, never bisect or cross each other.
This is not the case abroad: the domino, which serves for mere concealment, is almost the only dress assumed, and the real disguise is therefore thrown from necessity upon the talents, whatever they be, of the wearer. It is no longer a question of a beard or a spangled mantle, a Polish dress or a pasteboard nose; the mutation of voice, the assumption of a different manner, walk, gesture, and mode of expression, are all necessary, and no small tact is required to effect this successfully.
I may be pardoned this little digression, as it serves to explain in some measure how I felt on entering the splendidly lit up salons of the villa, crowded with hundreds of figures in all the varied costumes of a carnival, – the sounds of laughter mingled with the crash of the music; the hurrying hither and thither of servants with refreshments; the crowds gathered around fortune-tellers, whose predictions threw the parties at each moment into shouts of merriment; the eager following of some disappointed domino, interrogating every one to find out a lost mask. For some time I stood an astonished spectator at the kind of secret intelligence which seemed to pervade the whole assemblage, when suddenly a mask, who for some time had been standing beside me, whispered in French, —
“If you pass your time in this manner, you must not feel surprised if your place be occupied.”
I turned hastily round, but she was gone. She, I say, for the voice was clearly a woman’s; her pink domino could be no guide, for hundreds of the same color passed me every instant. The meaning of the allusion I had little doubt of. I turned to speak to Power, but he was gone; and for the first moment of my life, the bitterness of rivalry crossed my mind. It was true I had resigned all pretensions in his favor. My last meeting with Lucy had been merely to justify my own character against an impression that weighed heavily on me; still, I thought he might have waited, – another day and I should be far away, neither to witness nor grieve over his successes.
“You still hesitate,” whispered some one near me.
I wheeled round suddenly, but could not detect the speaker, and was again relapsing into my own musings, when the same voice repeated, —
“The white domino with the blue cape. Adieu.”
Without waiting to reflect upon the singularity of the occurrence, I now hurried along through the dense crowd, searching on every side for the domino.
“Isn’t that O’Malley?” said an Englishman to his friend.
“Yes,” replied the other; “the very man we want. O’Malley, find a partner; we have been searching a vis-à-vis this ten minutes.”
The speaker was an officer I had met at Sir George Dashwood’s. “How did you discover me?” said I, suddenly.
“Not a very difficult thing if you carry your mask in your hand that way,” was the answer.
And I now perceived that in the distraction of my thoughts I had been carrying my mask in this manner since my coming into the room.
“There now, what say you to the blue domino? I saw her foot, and a girl with such an instep must be a waltzer.”
I looked round, a confused effort at memory passing across my mind; my eyes fell at the instant upon the embroidered sleeve of the domino, where a rosebud worked in silver at once reminded me of Catrina’s secret. “Ah,” thought I, “La Senhora herself!” She was leaning upon the arm of a tall and portly figure in black; who this was I knew not, nor sought to discover, but at once advancing towards Donna Inez asked her to waltz.
Without replying to me she turned towards her companion, who seemed as it were to press her acceptance of my offer; she hesitated, however, for an instant, and curtsying deeply, declined it. “Well,” thought I, “she at least has not recognized me.”
“And yet, Senhora,” said I, half jestingly, “I have seen you join a bolero before now.”
“You evidently mistake me,” was the reply, but in a voice so well feigned as almost to convince me she was right.
“Nay, more,” said I, “under your own fair auspices did I myself first adventure one.”
“Still in error, believe me; I am not known to you.”
“And yet I have a talisman to refresh your memory, should you dare me further.”
At this instant my hand was grasped warmly by a passing mask. I turned round rapidly, and Power whispered in my ear, —
“Yours forever, Charley; you’ve made my fortune.”
As he hurried on I could perceive that he supported a lady on his arm, and that she wore a loose white domino with a deep blue cape. In a second all thought of Inez was forgotten, and anxious only to conceal my emotion, I turned away and mingled in the crowd. Lost to all around me, I wandered carelessly, heedlessly on, neither noticing the glittering throng around, nor feeling a thought in common with the gay and joyous spirits that flitted by. The night wore on, my melancholy and depression growing ever deeper, yet so spell-bound was I that I could not leave the place. A secret sense that it was the last time we were to meet had gained entire possession of me, and I longed to speak a few words ere we parted forever.
I was leaning on a window which looked out upon the courtyard, when suddenly the tramp of horses attracted my attention, and I saw by the clear moonlight a group of mounted men, whose long cloaks and tall helmets announced dragoons, standing around the porch. At the same moment the door of the salon opened, and an officer in undress, splashed and travel-stained, entered. Making his way rapidly through the crowd, he followed the servant, who introduced him towards the supper-room. Thither the dense mass now pressed to learn the meaning of the singular apparition; while my own curiosity, not less excited, led me towards the door. As I crossed the hall, however, my progress was interrupted by a group of persons, among whom I saw an aide-de-camp of Lord Wellington’s staff, narrating, as it were, some piece of newly-arrived intelligence. I had no time for further inquiry, when a door opened near me, and Sir George Dashwood, accompanied by several general officers, came forth, the officer I had first seen enter the ball-room along with them. Every one was by this unmasked, and eagerly looking to hear what had occurred.
“Then, Dashwood, you’ll send off an orderly at once?” said an old general officer beside me.
“This instant, my Lord. I’ll despatch an aide-de-camp. The troops shall be in marching order before noon. Oh, here’s the man I want! O’Malley, come here. Mount your horse and dash into town. Send for Brotherton and M’Gregor to quarters, and announce the news as quickly as possible.”
“But what am I to announce, Sir George?”
“That the French are in retreat, – Massena in retreat, my lad.”
A tremendous cheer at this instant burst from the hundreds in the salon, who now heard the glorious tidings. Another cheer and another followed, – ten thousand vivas rose amidst the crash of the band, as it broke into a patriotic war chant. Such a scene of enthusiasm and excitement I never witnessed. Some wept with joy. Others threw themselves into their friends’ arms.
“They’re all mad, every mother’s son of them!” said Maurice Quill, as he elbowed his way through the mass; “and here’s an old vestal won’t leave my arm. She has already embraced me three times, and we’ve finished a flask of Malaga between us.”
“Come, O’Malley, are you ready for the road?”
My horse was by this time standing saddled at the front. I sprang at once to the saddle, and without waiting for a second order, set out for Lisbon. Ten minutes had scarce elapsed, – the very shouts of joy of the delighted city were still ringing in my ears, – when I was once again back at the villa. As I mounted the steps into the hall, a carriage drew up, – it was Sir George Dashwood’s. He came forward, his daughter leaning upon his arm.
“Why, O’Malley, I thought you had gone.”
“I have returned, Sir George. Colonel Brotherton is in waiting, and the staff also. I have received orders to set out for Benejos, where the 14th are stationed, and have merely delayed to say adieu.”
“Adieu, my dear boy, and God bless you!” said the warm-hearted old man, as he pressed my hand between both his. “Lucy, here’s your old friend about to leave; come and say good-by.”
Miss Dashwood had stopped behind to adjust her shawl. I flew to her assistance. “Adieu, Miss Dashwood, and forever!” said I, in a broken voice, as I took her hand in mine. “This is not your domino,” said I, eagerly, as a blue silk one peeped from beneath her mantle; “and the sleeve, too, – did you wear this?” She blushed slightly, and assented.
“I changed with the senhora, who wore mine all the evening.”
“And Power, then, was not your partner?”
“I should think not, – for I never danced.”
“Lucy, my love, are you ready? Come, be quick.”
“Good-by, Mr. O’Malley, and au revoir, n’est-ce pas?”
I drew her glove from her hand as she spoke, and pressing my lips upon her fingers, placed her within the carriage. “Adieu, and au revoir!” said I. The carriage turned away, and a white glove was all that remained to me of Lucy Dashwood!
The carriage had turned the angle of the road, and its retiring sounds were growing gradually fainter, ere I recovered myself sufficiently to know where I stood. One absorbing thought alone possessed me. Lucy was not lost to me forever; Power was not my rival in that quarter, – that was enough for me. I needed no more to nerve my arm and steel my heart. As I reflected thus, the long loud blast of a trumpet broke upon the silence of the night, and admonished me to depart. I hurried to my room to make my few preparations for the road; but Mike had already anticipated everything here, and all was in readiness.
But one thing now remained, – to make my adieu to the senhora. With this intent, I descended a narrow winding stair which led from my dressing-room, and opened by a little terrace upon the flower-garden beside her apartments.
As I crossed the gravelled alley, I could not but think of the last time I had been there. It was on the eve of departure for the Douro. I recalled the few and fleeting moments of our leave-taking, and a thought flashed upon me, – what if she cared for me! What if, half in coquetry, half in reality, her heart was mixed up in those passages which daily association gives rise to?
I could not altogether acquit myself of all desire to make her believe me her admirer; nay, more, with the indolent abandon of my country, I had fallen into a thousand little schemes to cheat the long hours away, which, having no other object than the happiness of the moment, might yet color all her after-life with sorrow.
Let no one rashly pronounce me a coxcomb, vain and pretentious, for all this. In my inmost heart I had no feeling of selfishness mingled with the consideration. It was from no sense of my own merits, no calculation of my own chances of success, that I thought thus. Fortunately, at eighteen one’s heart is uncontaminated with such an alloy of vanity. The first emotions of youth are pure and holy things, tempering our fiercer passions, and calming the rude effervescence of our boyish spirit; and when we strive to please, and hope to win affection, we insensibly fashion ourselves to nobler and higher thoughts, catching from the source of our devotion a portion of that charm that idealizes daily life, and makes our path in it a glorious and a bright one.
Who would not exchange all the triumph of his later days, the proudest moments of successful ambition, the richest trophies of hard-won daring, – for the short and vivid flash that first shot through his heart and told him he was loved. It is the opening consciousness of life, the first sense of power that makes of the mere boy a man, – a man in all his daring and his pride; and hence it is that in early life we feel ever prone to indulge those fancied attachments which elevate and raise us in our own esteem. Such was the frame of my mind when I entered the little boudoir where once before I had ventured on a similar errand.
As I closed the sash-door behind me, the gray dawn of breaking day scarcely permitted my seeing anything around me, and I felt my way towards the door of an adjoining room, where I supposed it was likely I should find the senhora. As I proceeded thus, with cautious step and beating heart, I thought I heard a sound near me. I stopped and listened, and was about again to move on, when a half-stifled sob fell upon my ear. Slowly and silently guiding my steps towards the sounds, I reached a sofa, when, my eyes growing by degrees more accustomed to the faint light, I could detect a figure which, at a glance, I recognized as Donna Inez. A cashmere shawl was loosely thrown around her, and her face was buried in her hands. As she lay, to all seeming, still and insensible before me, her beautiful hair fell heavily upon her back and across her arm, and her whole attitude denoted the very abandonment of grief. A short convulsive shudder which slightly shook her frame alone gave evidence of life, except when a sob, barely audible in the death-like silence, escaped her.
I knelt silently down beside her, and gently withdrawing her hand, placed it within mine. A dreadful feeling of self-condemnation shot through me as I felt the gentle pressure of her taper fingers, which rested without a struggle in my grasp. My tears fell hot and fast upon that pale hand, as I bent in sadness over it, unable to utter a word. A rush of conflicting thoughts passed through my brain, and I knew not what to do. I now had no doubt upon my mind that she loved me, and that her present affliction was caused by my approaching departure.
“Dearest Inez!” I stammered out at length, as I pressed her hands to my lips, – “dearest Inez!” – a faint sob, and a slight pressure of her hand, was the only reply. “I have come to say good-by,” continued I, gaining a little courage as I spoke; “a long good-by, too, in all likelihood. You have heard that we are ordered away, – there, don’t sob, dearest, and, believe me, I had wished ere we parted to have spoken to you calmly and openly; but, alas, I cannot, – I scarcely know what I say.”
“You will not forget me?” said she, in a low voice, that sank into my very heart. “You will not forget me?” As she spoke, her hand dropped heavily upon my shoulder, and her rich luxuriant hair fell upon my cheek. What a devil of a thing is proximity to a downy cheek and a black eyelash, more especially when they belong to one whom you are disposed to believe not indifferent to you! What I did at this precise moment there is no necessity for recording, even had not an adage interdicted such confessions, nor can I now remember what I said; but I can well recollect how, gradually warming with my subject, I entered into a kind of half-declaration of attachment, intended most honestly to be a mere exposé of my own unworthiness to win her favor, and my resolution to leave Lisbon and its neighborhood forever.
Let not any one blame me rashly if he has not experienced the difficulty of my position. The impetus of love-making is like the ardor of a fox-hunt. You care little that the six-bar gate before you is the boundary of another gentleman’s preserves or the fence of his pleasure-ground. You go slap along at a smashing-pace, with your head up, and your hand low, clearing all before you, the opposing difficulties to your progress giving half the zest, because all the danger to your career. So it is with love; the gambling spirit urges one ever onward, and the chance of failure is a reason for pursuit, where no other argument exists.
“And you do love me?” said the senhora, with a soft, low whisper that most unaccountably suggested anything but comfort to me.
“Love you, Inez? By this kiss – I’m in an infernal scrape!” said I, muttering this last half of my sentence to myself.
“And you’ll never be jealous again?”
“Never, by all that’s lovely! – your own sweet lips. That’s the very last thing to reproach me with.”
“And you promise me not to mind that foolish boy? For, after all, you know, it was mere flirtation, – if even that.”
“I’ll never think of him again,” said I, while my brain was burning to make out her meaning. “But, dearest, there goes the trumpet-call – ”
“And, as for Pedro Mascarenhas, I never liked him.”
“Are you quite sure, Inez?”
“I swear it! – so no more of him. Gonzales Cordenza – I’ve broke with him long since. So that you see, dearest Frederic – ”
“Frederic!” said I, starting almost to my feet with, amazement, while she continued: —
“I’m your own, – all your own!”
“Oh, the coquette, the heartless jilt!” groaned I, half-aloud.
“And O’Malley, Inez, poor Charley! – what of him?”
“Poor thing! I can’t help him. But he’s such a puppy, the lesson may do him good.”
“But perhaps he loved you, Inez?”
“To be sure he did; I wished him to do so, – I can’t bear not to be loved. But, Frederic, tell me, may I trust you, – will you keep faithful to me?”
“Sweetest Inez! by this last kiss I swear that such as I kneel before you now, you’ll ever find me.”
A foot upon the gravel-walk without now called me to my feet; I sprang towards the door, and before Inez had lifted her head from the sofa, I had reached the garden. A figure muffled in a cavalry cloak passed near me, but without noticing me, and the next moment I had cleared the paling, and was hurrying towards the stable, where I had ordered Mike to be in waiting.
The faint streak of dull pink which announces the coming day stretched beneath the dark clouds of the night, and the chill air of the morning was already stirring in the leaves.
As I passed along by a low beech hedge which skirted the avenue, I was struck by the sound of voices near me. I stopped to listen, and soon detected in one of the speakers my friend Mickey Free; of the other I was not long in ignorance.
“Love you, is it, bathershin? It’s worship you, adore you, my darling, – that’s the word! There, acushla, don’t cry; dry your eyes – Oh, murther, it’s a cruel thing to tear one’s self away from the best of living, with the run of the house in drink and kissing! Bad luck to it for campaigning, any way, I never liked it!”
Catrina’s reply, – for it was she, – I could not gather; but Mike resumed: —
“Ay, just so, sore bones and wet grass, accadenté, and half-rations. Oh, that I ever saw the day when I took to it! Listen to me now, honey; here it is, on my knees I am before you, and throth it’s not more nor three, may be four, young women I’d say the like to; bad scran to me if I wouldn’t marry you out of a face this blessed morning just as soon as I’d look at ye. Arrah, there now, don’t be screeching and bawling; what’ll the neighbors think of us, and my own heart’s destroyed with grief entirely.”
Poor Catrina’s voice returned an inaudible answer, and not wishing any longer to play the eavesdropper, I continued my path towards the stable. The distant noises from the city announced a state of movement and preparation, and more than one orderly passed the road near me at a gallop. As I turned into the wide courtyard, Mike, breathless and flurried with running, overtook me.
“Are the horses ready, Mike?” said I; “we must start this instant?”
“They’ve just finished a peck of oats apiece, and faix, that same may be a stranger to them this day six months.”
“And the baggage, too?”
“On the cars, with the staff and the light brigade. It was down there I was now, to see all was right.”
“Oh, I’m quite aware; and now bring out the cattle. I hope Catrina received your little consolations well. That seems a very sad affair.”
“Murder, real murder, devil a less! It’s no matter where you go, from Clonmel to Chayney, it’s all one; they’ve a way of getting round you. Upon my soul, it’s like the pigs they are.”
“Like pigs, Mike? That appears a strange compliment you’ve selected to pay them.”
“Ay, just like the pigs, no less. May be you’ve heard what happened to myself up at Moronha?”
“Look to that girth there. Well, go on.”
“I was coming along one morning, just as day was beginning to break, when I sees a slip of a pig trotting before me, with nobody near him; but as the road was lonely, and myself rather down in heart, I thought, Musha! but yer fine company, anyhow, av a body could only keep you with him. But, ye see, a pig – saving your presence – is a baste not easily flattered, so I didn’t waste time and blarney upon him, but I took off my belt, and put it round its neck as neat as need be; but, as the devil’s luck would have it, I didn’t go half an hour when a horse came galloping up behind me. I turned round, and, by the blessed light, it was Sir Dinny himself was on it!”
“Sir Dennis Pack?”
“Yes, bad luck to his hook nose. ‘What are you doing there, my fine fellow?’ says he. ‘What’s that you have dragging there behind you?’
“‘A boneen, sir,’ says I. ‘Isn’t he a fine crayture? – av he wasn’t so troublesome.’
“‘Troublesome, troublesome – what do you mean?’
“‘Just so,’ says I. ‘Isn’t he parsecutiug the life out of me the whole morning, following me about everywhere I go? Contrary bastes they always was.’
“‘I advise you to try and part company, my friend, notwithstanding,’ says he; ‘or may be it’s the same end you’ll be coming to, and not long either.’ And faix, I took his advice; and ye see, Mister Charles, it’s just as I was saying, they’re like the women, the least thing in life is enough to bring them after us, av ye only put the ‘comether’ upon them.”
“And now adieu to the Villa Nuova,” said I, as I rode slowly down the avenue, turning ever and anon in my saddle to look back on each well-known spot.
A heavy sigh from Mike responded to my words.
“A long, a last farewell!” said I, waving my hand towards the trellised walls, now half-hidden by the trees; and, as I spoke, that heaviness of the heart came over me that seems inseparable from leave-taking. The hour of parting seems like a warning to us that all our enjoyments and pleasures here are destined to a short and merely fleeting existence; and as each scene of life passes away never to return, we are made to feel that youth and hope are passing with them; and that, although the fair world be as bright, and its pleasures as rich in abundance, our capacity of enjoyment is daily, hourly diminishing; and while all around us smiles in beauty and happiness, that we, alas! are not what we were.
Such was the tenor of my thoughts as I reached the road, when they were suddenly interrupted by my man Mike, whose meditations were following a somewhat similar channel, though at last inclining to different conclusions. He coughed a couple of times as if to attract my attention, and then, as it were half thinking aloud, he muttered, —
“I wonder if we treated the young ladies well, anyhow, Mister Charles, for, faix, I’ve my doubts on it.”