University of Virginia Library

42. CHAPTER XLII.
HOW THE REVEL SPED.

Molyneaux's proceedings, at entrance, were not of a sort to
escape notice. He was rough-handed in his practice: the negro
was hurled aside as if he had been a stone. Pompey was a spoiled
negro, as are half of the old family-servants of the South. He
was a fellow apt to put himself upon his dignity. At the treatment
of Molyneaux, so new to his experience, he made lamentable
outcry. His mistress was upon the watch. Never lady, about
to achieve glory in good society, more vigilant. She was instantly
in the piazza. She encountered our lieutenant at the threshold,
and with no little stateliness.

“Sir!” said she, haughtily.

“Ma'am!” quoth he.

“Whom, sir, have I the honor to receive?”

Molyneaux was an Irishman and a rover. Whatever the degree
of bashfulness which belongs to the one character, it was more
than relieved by the boldness which should always accompany the
other. In spite of his origin, Molyneaux was nowise wanting in
proper self-esteem.

“Madam,” said he, “you are, I fancy, the lady of the house.
I am a friend of your guest, the Señora Zulieme Calvert. I wish
to see her.”

“Hush! hush! for God's sake, sir! That name is not to be
spoken here.”

The language of the hostess was that of trepidation. Our bashful
Irishman was evidently wanting in a knowledge of “the ropes.”

“Ah! I see; but I am her friend, her old acquaintance.”

“Who are you, sir?”

“Why, to tell the truth, madam, I do n't know but that a like
caution should forbid me giving my own name. But if you are in
the secrets of the Señora—”

“Still, sir, it needs not that I should know yours. But I can
guess them. Perhaps, sir, the shortest and best course will be to
suffer you to see the lady.”

“That 's it, madam. There can be no harm done.”

“None, sir. Please follow me.”

And she took him to the rear of the piazza — in the background
— where he could remain unseen by new-comers. She
then brought Zulieme to him. He lifted his mask at her approach.

“What! you, Molyneaux?” cried Zulieme, in tones of pleasure,
offering her hand. “I 'm glad to see you.”

“I knew you would be, señora,” responded our bashful Irishman,
grasping her hand warmly, and carrying it to his lips.

“But where 's Harry, and where 's the ship?”

“I have not seen the captain for a week.”

“Not for a week! And where is he, then?”

“On a cruise somewhere, which he keeps secret.”

“Ah! well — and what brings you here?”

“The felicity of seeing you.”

“Well, you 're come at the right time, and I see you 're dressed
for the occasion, as if you knew of it.”

“To confess a truth, I did know of it; and here you see me, as
I am.”

“Well, now, Charlotte—”

Mrs. Anderson was present during the scene, a silent but not
an unobservant spectator.

“Well, my dear, how would you dispose of your friend?”

“Why, to be sure, have him in among the rest.”

“But is there no danger?”

“Danger! from what?”

“Danger, madam, is a familiar acquaintance. I have slept
with it nightly for seven years!”

Mrs. Anderson thought to herself: “The man 's well to look
on; he is in courtly costume; he will be a handsome addition to
my party; and the very fact that he is unknown, and can not be

well suspected by anybody, will make him a lion. But we must
make him keep close.”

“Zulieme, my dear, there can, perhaps, be no danger, if your
friend, Mr. —?”

A pause.

“Mr. Molyneaux — Lieutenant Molyneaux — next officer to
Harry in the ship—”

“If Mr. Molyneaux will be careful not to forego his disguise
for a moment.”

“Wear my mask all the while, madam, you mean?”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Egad, madam, I can do it, and will, if you require it; but I 'm
not much used to disguisings, and my face, madam—”

He lifted his visor for the benefit of Mrs. Anderson, and by the
action properly finished the sentence. The smiling Mrs. Anderson
found the appropriate words —

“Is not one that you need be ashamed of.”

“Gad, madam, you have the proper idea!”

“Well, sir, your costume is that of—”

“Sir Edward Molyneaux, madam, who had the honor, long ago,
to be a frequent attendant at the court of his majesty King Charles
I. He lost his head, madam—”

“Enough, sir. Do not lose yours, if you please. I know
enough of your ship and captain to know that you, as well as he,
would be in some danger here if discovered. You will exercise
the utmost caution. Go in, my love — go in, Zulieme — and we
shall follow you. Be pleased not to know your friend, till I introduce
him as Sir Edward Molyneaux.”

Zulieme disappeared, and, after a reasonable pause, the lady of
the house followed her into the ballroom, and was followed in
turn by Sir Edward. In this character he was formally introduced
to a number of persons, male and female, who were all designated
in character. Many of these were known to the party
through their disguises; but our Sir Edward was a mystery, and
so naturally provoked no small curiosity, especially as he boasted
a fine leg, and was altogether a very graceful fellow in his court
costume.

Costume or fancy balls are very rarely successful, in any dramatic
sense of the term. Very few persons are equal to the impersonation

of marked characters, even where they are acquainted
fully with the biography of him or her whom they represent.
Actors, like poets, are born, not made. But fine dresses, and gay
humors, and lively music, and our own exercise in the dance, will
carry off an affair of the kind with sufficient eclat. Anyhow, and
with all its defects, a masquerade ball is a great improvement on
that of mere existing society. There is more privilege, more
piquancy, and so much more variety! You are to understand
that this of Mrs. Anderson, though pettily provincial in a thousand
respects, was yet perfectly delightful, for the time it lasted,
to all the parties engaged in it; and even the Honorable Messrs.
Craven and Cavendish permitted themselves for a brief season to
forget the more imposing conventions of the court from which they
were in temporary exile.

But the affair had its désagrémens even to these courtier gentles.
The Honorable Keppel was particularly annoyed at the
cool familiarity which the imposing stranger, Sir Edward Molyneaux,
exhibited in his intercourse with the fair Zulieme. Molyneaux
put himself very soon at home; and the very experience
of his rover-life rendered him a confident and presumptuous wooer.
He strode the hall with the same command and freedom which he
exhibited on the quarter-deck, when no sailor dared to pass between
the wind and his nobility. He sat beside the lovely Zulieme,
the moment a seat became vacant; and more than once he
took her hand, and, toying with her fan, she was seen to rap him
playfully over his fingers, evidently to chide or check some devoted
speech. But she smiled gayly as she did so, and he had
his retort — would playfully seize the fan, and agitate the atmosphere
about her into breezes rather than zephyrs, being but
slightly accustomed to deal with such delicate implements.

“The d—d impudent puppy!” muttered the Honorable Keppel.
“Who can he be?”

“He seems an old acquaintance,” replied Cavendish; “but he 's
evidently no Spaniard. I begin to tremble for our guineas, Keppel.”

“D—nation, yes! I must see Madam Anderson.”

“The worst is, the señorita seems wonderfully pleased with his
attentions.”

“Oh, she 's pleased with all attentions! The kitten appears
hardly to care with what mouse she plays.”

“He 's no mouse! He carries himself like a bully, a roystering
soldier from the Low Countries.”

“We must find him out. Ha, for the coranto!”

And, so speaking, the Honorable Keppel darted across the
room to Zulieme, and extended his hand to take her out. She
rose and gave it him, but Molyneaux interposed promptly:—

“How 's this? Was I not to dance with you, Zulieme?”

“Zulieme!” muttered Craven. “Dem 'd free!”

“The next dance,” she answered, to Molyneaux; “not this.”

Molyneaux growled out some guttural, which had no softness
in it, and glared through his vizard at the effeminate courtier as
he bore the lady into the area. With an oath, he muttered —

“I should like to wring the fellow's neck!”

“Who 's your friend?” asked the Honorable Keppel of the
señorita.

“He? why, he 's—” and then she paused.

“He 's who?”

“Oh, do n't ask me! I do know, but I can 't tell you. But,
no matter — he' s nobody.”

And they whirled away under the call of the music.

Molyneaux followed them round the room, in all their evolutions,
like a grim Afrite following a fairy fresh from Yemen;
and whenever his eyes met those of Craven, the mutual flash of
each showed that their instincts had already made them bitter
enemies. But dear little Zulieme saw nothing of this. She was
exhilarated; laughed merrily with her partner; yielded herself
voluptuously to all the caprices of the dance; went through the
corantos, the lavoltas, the delicias, with all the gusto of an eastern
almee — little dreaming that Molyneaux was writhing with rage,
and fumbling the hilt of his rapier, and muttering his prayers that
somebody, of the masculine gender, might look at him and sneeze!

But it was soon his turn to dance, and Craven's to writhe. The
next dance brought them into the same circle, but this time Molyneaux
danced with Zulieme, and Keppel with another damsel.
And now was Molyneaux all exultation, for Zulieme was just as
full of glee and buoyant fancy as when she danced with Craven;
yielded herself just as fondly to his embraces; and scarcely seemed
to heed the graceful voluptuary, as he swam, in corresponding
mazes, with another fair partner, directly opposite.

But Craven was not so indifferent.

“The dem'd puppy!” he muttered, whenever his eyes met
with those of Molyneaux; and when the two danced toward each
other, it could be seen that there was a something mutually defiant
in their manner. There was a haughty toss of the head on
one side, and an insolent bull-fling of the other forward; and the
parties each felt as if the occasion were approaching when they
must surely take each other by the throat. The awkwardness
of Molyneaux in the dance nearly led to this result in the progress
of this very round. Whirling Zulieme about, and following
her movements very unequally with his own, he found himself
entangled with a group, and, setting down one of his feet with
emphasis, as if to secure himself steadily in position, he planted
the heavy heel on the pointed toe of the Honorable Keppel, who
was just then gliding, with zephyr-like sweep, beside him.

We know not what was the exact condition of Craven's toes.
He possibly had a corn or two which no delicate surgery had yet
been able to extirpate. His pumps were perhaps new, and tight
as new. One thing was certain: that setting down of his foot by
Molyneaux had been terribly emphatic. The Honorable Keppel
writhed under it with a bitter cry; doubled up his body, downward
from his shoulders; dropped the hand of his partner — her
waist, perhaps — while she went over headlong into another set;
the victim, meanwhile, catching up the suffering foot in his hand,
and muttering a fearful malediction upon the elephantine hoof
that caused the injury.

A hoarse laugh from Molyneaux, which he could not suppress,
disgusted the hearers, and even aroused Zulieme.

“You 've hurt him!” she said; and he muttered, in reply —

“D—n him! not half enough.”

She dropped his arm; and, hearing his insolent laugh, Craven
now approached and whispered in his ear —

“You shall answer for this!”

“To be sure, I will; and you shall answer too!” was the fierce
reply, a little too loudly uttered, since it reached other ears than
those for whom it was meant. There was a buzz about the room,
and some confusion. Mrs. Anderson began to fear that her party
might fail yet. Craven, with a nice propriety, whispered again
in Molyneaux's ear, as he saw the hostess approaching:—

“We understand each other. Let us keep up appearances.
Take my hand, that it may seem as if the matter were amicably
settled.”

And he extended his hand as he spoke, lifted his vizard, and
smiled graciously, with a bow. Molyneaux caught the proffered
hand with a vice-like gripe which made the other wince.

“Ay, we understand each other!”

The action arrested the confusion for awhile: the dance was
resumed; refreshments were served; the chat once more became
hilarious; and, leaving the company in a good humor, we will
change the scene to the lodgings of Sproulls, where we left Sam
Fowler, the old salt and pirate — “Squint-eye Sam” — beginning,
with a few kindred spirits, a night of grosser debauchery.