17. XVII.
MONSIEUR JAMBOT'S DEATH'S HEAD.
IN the main apartment of Mynheer Van Doring's
Ordinary, the fair Mrs. Butterton is dancing a
galliard to the music of Monsieur Auguste Hypolite
Jambot's fiddle.
That gentleman is clad in a picturesque coat with barrel
cuffs turned back to the elbows, a blue satin waistcoat fitting
tightly to his thin, slight figure, and pumps adorned,
in place of buckles, with immense rosettes of red ribbon.
Monsieur Jambot is thus very picturesque—but the widow is
resplendent. She is dressed in all the colors of the rainbow;
she wears rings, breastpins and bracelets without number;
and when she lifts her skirt gracefully in the animated
dance, the other hand balanced akimbo on her side, she
makes a full display of a pair of substantial ankles cased
in real silk stockings, and large, serviceable feet plunged
in slippers of immense elegance.
The dance comes to an end, and the fair widow fans
herself, saying:
“How did I get through, Monsieur?”
“Elegant! elegant!” cried Monsieur Jambot, “but nex'
time you shall step not so quick, not so jig, ma chère madame!”
“Not so what?” asked the fair widow, laughing.
“Ah, my poor head!” said Monsieur Jambot, ceasing for
a moment to tune his violin, in order to press his forehead
with a theatrical air; “my poor head—I no understand
l'Anglais; I mean you step out too—what you call him—
vite, too quick, too spirited: voilà le mot!”
“Well, let us try again.”
“Same, madame?”
“Oh, yes! are you tired of it?”
“Ah, non, non—I could not be tired of you when you
dance.”
“You are very gallant, Monsieur.”
“C'est vrai!”
“Well, then, play for me again. Do you like that tune?”
“'Tis beautiful.”
“I think so too. So you are willing to try again?”
“Ravi!”
And Monsieur Jambot struck up a lively air, and Mistress
Butterton tripped gaily down the room to the quick music,
her arms akimbo, her wrist bent and resting on her side,
her eyes sparkling, her red-heeled shoes merrily clattering
on the brightly scoured floor.
“Ah, c'est grand!” cried Monsieur Jambot; “you might
dance the contre dance before his Majesté Louis le Grand
himself.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Butterton, fanning herself,
and casting a languishing glance upon her companion—
it was to keep herself in practice—“I am glad you think so:
for I shall go to a number of frolics before returning to Belhaven,
and I wish to show the folks up here the difference
between the town and the country. I must not dance any
more jig tunes, for they dance them very well here: now a
minuet is so much better: that is a court dance!”
“A royal dance, madame! But parole d'honneur, you
dance minuet most elegant.”
“Oh, you jest!”
“Jest? never!”
“Shall we try one, then?”
“Oui, madame: I will play and dance also.”
When Monsieur Jambot danced the minuet he became,
for the time, a different person, so loftily did he hold his
powdered head, with so graceful and stately an amenity did
he move on the points of his high-heeled shoes to the slow,
gliding music. This change now passed over his countenance
and manner. He held his violin as a monarch does
his sceptre; he took up, then laid down his cocked hat, as
an emperor would his crown; his whole person became at
once stiff and supple, erect and inclined. The lady was not
behind-hand. She drew herself up in a stately way, assumed
a gracious and condescending smile, and raised gracefully
her long skirt, ready to step forward at the first notes
of the violin.
Monsieur Jambot commenced with a low prelude, full of
elegance. The instrument, which had at first shook from its
strings a bright shower of laughing and sparkling notes in
the gay gavotte, keeping perfect time to the rattle of the
lady's slippers on the floor of the apartment, now changed
its tone completely, as if ashamed of such inane gaiety and
unseemly mirth. It now gave forth a slow, ceremonious
strain, such as was fit and proper for great lords and ladies
in princely hall assembled, to bow and courtesy to each
other by: even for kings to incline their royal heads to in a
graceful, royal way, leading out princesses in gilded, picture-walled
saloons.
As to Monsieur Jambot, he seemed to be perfectly happy;
he could play and dance very well at the same time, and on
this occasion he excelled himself. He glided, he ambled, he
simpered, he bowed, his very eyes seemed to be full of
music, and to be ready to dissolve away in fluttering delight.
Those eyes were fixed upon the fair widow, and they
expressed, in a way quite unmistakable, the condition of the
owner's heart—the state of his feelings. It was very plain,
from those languishing, and admiring glances, that Monsieur
Jambot was a victim to the belle passion, as he called
it; and would rather prefer to die for her than otherwise.
Not to do injustice to the fair widow's discrimination, we
will add that she understood both the look and the state of
Monsieur Jambot's feelings perfectly well. She was well
assured that he was one of her most ardent adorers, and
that he aspired to her hand; but whether this hand was to
be reduced into possession by the dancing-master, or by
Captain Wagner, the reader will discover in due time.
And now they approached each other in the graceful
dance, bowing, smiling, and rolling their eyes—in which
latter exercise we must say Monsieur Jambot very far excelled
his fair friend—and the music seemed to sigh forth a
species of luxurious delight. The lady, with her skirt raised
with one hand, the other hand, or rather the wrist thereof,
resting on her side—executed profuse bows, and so to the
triumphant fiddle of Monsieur Jambot, the dance went on
its way in triumph.
He wound up the minuet with a graceful flourish, improvised
for the occasion, and full of beauty; and in the excitement
of the moment, sank upon his knees before the
fair lady, grasping her plump hand, which hand he pressed
rapturously to his lips. The lady stood calmly fanning herself
with her disengaged hand, and looking at her admirer
with a roguish twinkle in her eyes.
The parties were arranged in this elegant and striking
tableau, when suddenly the widow turned abruptly, and
Monsieur Jambot rose angrily, brushing his knees. These
movements were caused by a very simple circumstance, a
circumstance which assuredly, in the ordinary course of human
events, was not calculated to overwhelm one, or cause
any profound astonishment. Not to keep the reader longer
in ignorance, the lady and her admirer had been startled by
the arrival of a third personage, and this arrival was announced
by the form of words:
“Snout of the dragon! what do I see! Kneeling, or the
devil fly away with me!”
And Captain Wagner, the hoof-strokes of whose horse had
been drowned by the music of the violin, stalked into the
room—a dreadful frown upon his brow, his martial spurs
jingling as he strode, his heavy sword half drawn, and clattering
portentously against his legs, cased in their heavy
boots.
