University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
MRS. FOLLINGSBEE'S PARTY, AND WHAT
CAME OF IT.

OUR vulgar idea of a party is a week or fortnight
of previous discomfort and chaotic tergiversation,
and the mistress of it all distracted and worn out
with endless cares. Such a party bursts in on a
well-ordered family state as a bomb bursts into a city,
leaving confusion and disorder all around. But it
would be a pity if such a life-long devotion to the
arts and graces as Mrs. Follingsbee had given, backed
by Dick Follingsbee's fabulous fortune, and administered
by the exquisite Charlie Ferrola, should not
have brought forth some appreciable results. One was,
that the great Castle of Indolence was prepared for the
fête, with no more ripple of disturbance than if it
had been a Nereid's bower, far down beneath the reach
of tempests, where the golden sand is never ruffled, and
the crimson and blue sea flowers never even dream
of commotion.

Charlie Ferrola wore, it is true, a brow somewhat
oppressed with care, and was kept tucked up on a rose-colored
satin sofa, and served with lachrymæ Christi,

and Montefiascone, and all other substitutes for the
dews of Hybla, while he draughted designs for the
floral arrangements, which were executed by obsequious
attendants in felt slippers; and the whole process of
arrangement proceeded like a dream of the lotus-eaters'
paradise.

Madame de Tullegig was of course retained primarily
for the adornment of Mrs. Follingsbee's person. It
was understood, however, on this occasion, that the
composition of the costumes was to embrace both hers
and Lillie's, that they might appear in a contrasted
tableau, and bring out each other's points. It was a
subject worthy a Parisian artiste, and drew so seriously
on Madame de Tullegig's brain-power, that she assured
Mrs. Follingsbee afterwards that the effort of composition
had sensibly exhausted her.

Before we relate the events of that evening, as they
occurred, we must give some little idea of the position
in which the respective parties now stood.

Harry Endicott, by his mother's side, was related
to Mrs. Van Astrachan. Mr. Van Astrachan had been,
in a certain way, guardian to him; and his success in
making his fortune was in consequence of capital advanced
and friendly patronage thus accorded. In the
family, therefore, he had the entrée of a son, and
had enjoyed the opportunity of seeing Rose with a
freedom and frequency that soon placed them on the
footing of old acquaintanceship. Rose was an easy
person to become acquainted with in an ordinary and
superficial manner. She was like those pellucid waters

whose great clearness deceives the eye as to their
depth. Her manners had an easy and gracious frankness;
and she spoke right on, with an apparent simplicity
and fearlessness that produced at first the impression
that you knew all her heart. A longer acquaintance,
however, developed depths of reserved thought and
feeling far beyond what at first appeared.

Harry, at first, had met her only on those superficial
grounds of banter and badinage where a gay young
gentleman and a gay young lady may reconnoitre, before
either side gives the other the smallest peep of the
key of what Dr. Holmes calls the side-door of their
hearts.

Harry, to say the truth, was in a bad way when
he first knew Rose: he was restless, reckless, bitter.
Turned loose into society with an ample fortune and
nothing to do, he was in danger, according to the
homely couplet of Dr. Watts, of being provided with
employment by that undescribable personage who
makes it his business to look after idle hands.

Rose had attracted him first by her beauty, all the
more attractive to him because in a style entirely different
from that which hitherto had captivated his imagination.
Rose was tall, well-knit, and graceful, and
bore herself with a sort of slender but majestic lightness,
like a meadow-lily. Her well-shaped, classical head
was set finely on her graceful neck, and she had a staglike
way of carrying it, that impressed a stranger sometimes
as haughty; but Rose could not help that, it was
a trick of nature. Her hair was of the glossiest black,

her skin fair as marble, her nose a little, nicely-turned
aquiline affair, her eyes of a deep violet blue and shadowed
by long dark lashes, her mouth a little larger than
the classical proportion, but generous in smiles and
laughs which revealed perfect teeth of dazzling whiteness.
There, gentlemen and ladies, is Rose Ferguson's
picture: and, if you add to all this the most attractive
impulsiveness and self-unconsciousness, you will not
wonder that Harry Endicott at first found himself
admiring her, and fancied driving out with her in the
park; and that when admiring eyes followed them
both, as a handsome pair, Harry was well pleased.

Rose, too, liked Harry Endicott. A young girl of
twenty is not a severe judge of a handsome, lively
young man, who knows far more of the world than she
does; and though Harry's conversation was a perfect
Catherine-wheel of all sorts of wild talk, — sneering,
bitter, and sceptical, and giving expression to the most
heterodox sentiments, with the evident intention of
shocking respectable authorities, — Rose rather liked
him than otherwise; though she now and then took the
liberty to stand upon her dignity, and opened her great
blue eyes on him with a grave, inquiring look of surprise,
— a look that seemed to challenge him to stand
and defend himself. From time to time, too, she let
fall little bits of independent opinion, well poised and
well turned, that hit exactly where she meant they
should; and Harry began to stand a little in awe
of her.

Harry had never known a woman like Rose; a woman

so poised and self-centred, so cultivated, so capable
of deep and just reflections, and so religious. His experience
with women had not been fortunate, as has been
seen in this narrative; and, insensibly to himself, Rose
was beginning to exercise an influence over him. The
sphere around her was cool and bright and wholesome,
as different from the hot atmosphere of passion and
sentiment and flirtation to which he had been accustomed,
as a New-England summer morning from a
sultry night in the tropics. Her power over him was
in the appeal to a wholly different part of his nature, —
intellect, conscience, and religious sensibility; and once
or twice he found himself speaking to her quietly, seriously,
and rationally, not from the purpose of pleasing
her, but because she had aroused such a strain of thought
in his own mind. There was a certain class of brilliant
sayings of his, of a cleverly irreligious and sceptical
nature, at which Rose never laughed: when this sort of
firework was let off in her presence, she opened her
eyes upon him, wide and blue, with a calm surprise
intermixed with pity, but said nothing; and, after trying
the experiment several times, he gradually felt this
silent kind of look a restraint upon him.

At the same time, it must not be conjectured that, at
present, Harry Endicott was thinking of falling in love
with Rose. In fact, he scoffed at the idea of love,
and professed to disbelieve in its existence. And,
beside all this, he was gratifying an idle vanity, and
the wicked love of revenge, in visiting Lillie; sometimes
professing for days an exclusive devotion to her,

in which there was a little too much reality on both
sides to be at all safe or innocent; and then, when he
had wound her up to the point where even her involuntary
looks and words and actions towards him must
have compromised her in the eyes of others, he would
suddenly recede for days, and devote himself exclusively
to Rose; driving ostentatiously with her in the
park, where he would meet Lillie face to face, and bow
triumphantly to her in passing. All these proceedings,
talked over with Mrs. Follingsbee, seemed to
give promise of the most impassioned French romance
possible.

Rose walked through all her part in this little drama,
wrapped in a veil of sacred ignorance. Had she known
the whole, the probability is that she would have refused
Harry's acquaintance; but, like many another
nice girl, she tripped gayly near to pitfalls and chasms
of which she had not the remotest conception.

Lillie's want of self-control, and imprudent conduct,
had laid her open to reports in certain circles where
such reports find easy credence; but these were circles
with which the Van Astrachans never mingled. The
only accidental point of contact was the intimacy of
Rose with the Seymour family; and Rose was the last
person to understand an allusion if she heard it. The
reading of Rose had been carefully selected by her
father, and had not embraced any novels of the French
romantic school; neither had she, like some modern
young ladies, made her mind a highway for the tramping
of every kind of possible fictitious character which

a novelist might choose to draw, nor taken an interest
in the dissections of morbid anatomy. In fact, she was
old-fashioned enough to like Scott's novels; and though
she was just the kind of girl Thackeray would have
loved, she never could bring her fresh young heart to
enjoy his pictures of world-worn and decaying natures.

The idea of sentimental flirtations and love-making
on the part of a married woman was one so beyond her
conception of possibilities that it would have been very
difficult to make her understand or believe it.

On the occasion of the Follingsbee party, therefore,
Rose accepted Harry as an escort in simple good faith.
She was by no means so wise as not to have a deal of
curiosity about it, and not a little of dazed and dazzled
sense of enjoyment in prospect of the perfect labyrinth
of fairy-land which the Follingsbee mansion opened
before her.

On the eventful evening, Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie
stood together to receive their guests, — the former in
gold color, with magnificent point lace and diamond
tiara; while Lillie in heavenly blue, with wreaths of
misty tulle and pearl ornaments, seemed like a filmy
cloud by the setting sun.

Rose, entering on Harry Endicott's arm, in the full
bravery of a well-chosen toilet, caused a buzz of admiration
which followed them through the rooms; but Rose
was nothing to the illuminated eyes of Mrs. Follingsbee
compared with the portly form of Mrs. Van Astrachan
entering beside her, and spreading over her the wings
of motherly protection. That much-desired matron,

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 706EAF. Page 257. In-line Illustration. Image of a man and woman in evening dress walking into a crowded room together. The caption reads, "Rose, entering on Henry Endicott's arm."] serene in her point lace and diamonds, beamed around
her with an innocent kindliness, shedding respectability
wherever she moved, as a certain Russian prince was
said to shed diamonds.

“Why, that is Mrs. Van Astrachan!”

“You don't tell me so! Is it possible?”

“Which?” “Where is she?” “How in the world
did she get here?” were the whispered remarks that

followed her wherever she moved; and Mrs. Follingsbee,
looking after her, could hardly suppress an exulting
Te Deum. It was done, and couldn't be undone.

Mrs. Van Astrachan might not appear again at a
salon of hers for a year; but that could not do away
the patent fact, witnessed by so many eyes, that she
had been there once. Just as a modern newspaper or
magazine wants only one article of a celebrated author
to announce him as among their stated contributors for
all time, and to flavor every subsequent issue of the
journal with expectancy, so Mrs. Follingsbee exulted
in the idea that this one evening would flavor all her
receptions for the winter, whether the good lady's
diamonds ever appeared there again or not. In her
secret heart, she always had the perception, when striving
to climb up on this kind of ladder, that the time
might come when she should be found out; and she
well knew the absolute and uncomprehending horror
with which that good lady would regard the French
principles and French practice of which Charlie Ferrola
and Co. were the expositors and exemplars.

This was what Charlie Ferrola meant when he said
that the Van Astrachans were obtuse. They never
could be brought to the niceties of moral perspective
which show one exactly where to find the vanishing
point for every duty.

Be that as it may, there, at any rate, she was, safe
and sound; surrounded by people whom she had never
met before, and receiving introductions to the right and
left with the utmost graciousness. The arrangements

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 706EAF. Page 259. In-line Illustration. Image of an older couple and a young woman sitting together in stuffed chairs. The man is reading a newspaper. The caption reads, "The Van Astrachans."] for the evening had been made at the tea-table of the
Van Astrachans with an innocent and trustful simplicity.

“You know, dear,” said Mrs. Van Astrachan to
Rose, “that I never like to stay long away from papa”
(so the worthy lady called her husband); “and so, if
it 's just the same to you, you shall let me have the
carriage come for me early, and then you and Harry
shall be left free to see it out. I know young folks
must be young,” she said, with a comfortable laugh.
“There was a time, dear, when my waist was not bigger
than yours, that I used to dance all night with the best
of them; but I 've got bravely over that now.”

“Yes, Rose,” said Mr. Van Astrachan, “you mayn't

believe it, but ma there was the spryest dancer of
any of the girls. You are pretty nice to look at, but
you don't quite come up to what she was in those days.
I tell you, I wish you could have seen her,” said the
good man, warming to his subject. “Why, I 've seen
the time when every fellow on the floor was after her.”

“Papa,” says Mrs. Van Astrachan, reprovingly, “I
wouldn't say such things if I were you.”

“Yes, I would,” said Rose. “Do tell us, Mr. Van
Astrachan.”

“Well, I 'll tell you,” said Mr. Van Astrachan: “you
ought to have seen her in a red dress she used to
wear.”

“Oh, come, papa! what nonsense! Rose, I never
wore a red dress in my life; it was a pink silk; but you
know men never do know the names for colors.”

“Well, at any rate,” said Mr. Van Astrachan, hardily,
“pink or red, no matter; but I 'll tell you, she took all
before her that evening. There were Stuyvesants and
Van Rennselaers and Livingstons, and all sorts of grand
fellows, in her train; but, somehow, I cut 'em out.
There is no such dancing nowadays as there was when
wife and I were young. I 've been caught once or twice
in one of their parties; and I don't call it dancing. I
call it draggle-tailing. They don't take any steps, and
there is no spirit in it.”

“Well,” said Rose, “I know we moderns are very
much to be pitied. Papa always tells me the same story
about mamma, and the days when he was young. But,
dear Mrs. Van Astrachan, I hope you won't stay a moment,

on my account, after you get tired. I suppose if
you are just seen with me there in the beginning of the
evening, it will matronize me enough; and then I have
engaged to dance the `German' with Mr. Endicott,
and I believe they keep that up till nobody knows when.
But I am determined to see the whole through.”

“Yes, yes! see it all through,” said Mr. Van Astrachan.
“Young people must be young. It 's all right enough,
and you won't miss my Polly after you get fairly into
it near so much as I shall. I 'll sit up for her till twelve
o'clock, and read my paper.”

Rose was at first, to say the truth, bewildered and
surprised by the perfect labyrinth of fairy-land which
Charlie Ferrola's artistic imagination had created in the
Follingsbee mansion.

Initiated people, who had travelled in Europe, said it
put them in mind of the “Jardin Mabille;” and those
who had not were reminded of some of the wonders of
“The Black Crook.” There were apartments turned
into bowers and grottoes, where the gas-light shimmered
behind veils of falling water, and through pendant
leaves of all sorts of strange water - plants of
tropical regions. There were all those wonderful leaf-plants
of every weird device of color, which have been
conjured up by tricks of modern gardening, as Rappacini
is said to have created his strange garden in Padua.
There were beds of hyacinths and crocuses and tulips,
made to appear like living gems by the jets of gas-light
which came up among them in glass flowers of the same
form. Far away in recesses were sofas of soft green

velvet turf, overshadowed by trailing vines, and illuminated
with moonlight-softness by hidden alabaster
lamps. The air was heavy with the perfume of flowers,
and the sound of music and dancing from the ballroom
came to these recesses softened by distance.

The Follingsbee mansion occupied a whole square of
the city; and these enchanted bowers were created by
temporary enlargements of the conservatory covering
the ground of the garden. With money, and the Croton
Water-works, and all the New-York greenhouses
at disposal, nothing was impossible.

There was in this reception no vulgar rush or crush
or jam. The apartments opened were so extensive,
and the attractions in so many different directions, that
there did not appear to be a crowd anywhere.

There was no general table set, with the usual liabilities
of rush and crush; but four or five well-kept rooms,
fragrant with flowers and sparkling with silver and crystal,
were ready at any hour to minister to the guest
whatever delicacy or dainty he or she might demand;
and light-footed waiters circulated with noiseless obsequiousness
through all the rooms, proffering dainties on
silver trays.

Mrs. Van Astrachan and Rose at first found themselves
walking everywhere, with a fresh and lively
interest. It was something quite out of the line of the
good lady's previous experience, and so different from
any thing she had ever seen before, as to keep her in a
state of placid astonishment. Rose, on the other hand,
was delighted and excited; the more so that she could

not help perceiving that she herself amid all these
objects of beauty was followed by the admiring glances
of many eyes.

It is not to be supposed that a girl so handsome as
Rose comes to her twentieth year without having the
pretty secret made known to her in more ways than
one, or that thus made known it is any thing but agreeable;
but, on the present occasion, there was a buzz of
inquiry and a crowd of applicants about her; and her
dancing-list seemed in a fair way to be soon filled up
for the evening, Harry telling her laughingly that he
would let her off from every thing but the “German;”
but that she might consider her engagement with him
as a standing one whenever troubled with an application
which for any reason she did not wish to accept.

Harry assumed towards Rose that air of brotherly
guardianship which a young man who piques himself on
having seen a good deal of the world likes to take with
a pretty girl who knows less of it. Besides, he rather
valued himself on having brought to the reception the
most brilliant girl of the evening.

Our friend Lillie, however, was in her own way as
entrancingly beautiful this evening as the most perfect
mortal flesh and blood could be made; and Harry went
back to her when Rose went off with her partners as a
moth flies to a candle, not with any express intention
of burning his wings, but simply because he likes to be
dazzled, and likes the bitter excitement. He felt now
that he had power over her, — a bad, a dangerous power
he knew, with what of conscience was left in him; but

he thought, “Let her take her own risk.” And so, many
busy gossips saw the handsome young man, his great
dark eyes kindled with an evil light, whirling in dizzy
mazes with this cloud of flossy mist; out of which
looked up to him an impassioned woman's face, and
eyes that said what those eyes had no right to say.

There are times, in such scenes of bewilderment,
when women are as truly out of their own control by
nervous excitement as if they were intoxicated; and
Lillie's looks and words and actions towards Harry were
as open a declaration of her feelings as if she had spoken
them aloud to every one present.

The scandals about them were confirmed in the eyes
of every one that looked on; for there were plenty of
people present in whose view of things the worst possible
interpretation was the most probable one.

Rose was in the way, during the course of the evening,
of hearing remarks of the most disagreeable and
startling nature with regard to the relations of Harry
and Lillie to each other. They filled her with a sort of
horror, as if she had come to an unwholesome place;
while she indignantly repelled them from her thoughts,
as every uncontaminated woman will the first suspicion
of the purity of a sister woman. In Rose's view it was
monstrous and impossible. Yet when she stood at
one time in a group to see them waltzing, she started,
and felt a cold shudder, as a certain instinctive conviction
of something not right forced itself on her. She
closed her eyes, and wished herself away; wished that
she had not let Mrs. Van Astrachan go home without

her; wished that somebody would speak to Lillie and
caution her; felt an indignant rising of her heart against
Harry, and was provoked at herself that she was engaged
to him for the “German.”

She turned away; and, taking the arm of the gentleman
with her, complained of the heat as oppressive,
and they sauntered off together into the bowery region
beyond.

“Oh, now! where can I have left my fan?” she said,
suddenly stopping.

“Let me go back and get it for you,” said he of the
whiskers who attended her. It was one of the dancing
young men of New York, and it is no particular matter
what his name was.

“Thank you,” said Rose: “I believe I left it on the
sofa in the yellow drawing-room.” He was gone in a
moment.

Rose wandered on a little way, through the labyrinth
of flowers and shadowy trees and fountains, and sat
down on an artificial rock where she fell into a deep
reverie. Rising to go back, she missed her way, and
became quite lost, and went on uneasily, conscious that
she had committed a rudeness in not waiting for her
attendant.

At this moment she looked through a distant alcove
of shrubbery, and saw Harry and Lillie standing
together, — she with both hands laid upon his arm,
looking up to him and speaking rapidly with an
imploring accent. She saw him, with an angry frown,
push Lillie from him so rudely that she almost fell

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 706EAF. Page 266. In-line Illustration. Image of a woman kneeling on the ground, her face covered by her hands. A man is standing in front of her with his arms reaching out towards the woman on the ground. The caption reads, "She saw him, with an angry frown, push Lillie from him."] backward, and sat down with her handkerchief to her
eyes; he came forward hurriedly, and met the eyes of
Rose fixed upon him.

“Mr. Endicott,” she said, “I have to ask a favor of
you. Will you be so good as to excuse me from the
`German' to-night, and order my carriage?”

“Why, Miss Ferguson, what is the matter?” he
said: “what has come over you? I hope I have not
had the misfortune to do any thing to displease you?”

Without replying to this, Rose answered, “I feel very
unwell. My head is aching violently, and I cannot go
through the rest of the evening. I must go home at
once.” She spoke it in a decided tone that admitted
of no question.

Without answer, Harry Endicott gave her his arm,
accompanied her through the final leave-takings, went
with her to the carriage, put her in, and sprang in after
her.

Rose sank back on her seat, and remained perfectly
silent; and Harry, after a few remarks of his had failed
to elicit a reply, rode by her side equally silent through
the streets homeward.

He had Mr. Van Astrachan's latch-key; and, when
the carriage stopped, he helped Rose to alight, and
went up the steps of the house.

“Miss Ferguson,” he said abruptly, “I have something
I want to say to you.”

“Not now, not to-night,” said Rose, hurriedly. “I
am too tired; and it is too late.”

“To-morrow then,” he said: “I shall call when you
will have had time to be rested. Good-night!”