CHAPTER VIII.
As the sun went down upon the boisterous revellers in the ancient city,and closed the festivities of the day among the plebeians, thearistocracy of the vice-regal court began to roll along the streets intheir carriages, and surround the door of the stout old knight whorepresented the person of his royal master in the colony. The members ofthe Council and of the house of Burgesses, with their wives anddaughters, and all other citizens and sojourners of distinction wereamong the number. Now came the crash of Carriages--swearing offootmen--cracking of whips rattling of wheels--clattering of steps, andthe pompous announcement of the man in office, as each party wasmarshalled into the long suite of apartments brilliantly lighted for theoccasion. At the head of the largest room stood Sir William and LadyBerkley. The old knight was dressed in a blue velvet doublet, whichbeing sashed below the belt or waistband, protruded out all round so asto show the yellow silk linings of the aforesaid garment, fringing andornamenting the waist. His breeches were of pink satin, and were cut inwhat was called at that day[3] "the petticoats;" they were tied to thelarge mouthed silk hose with gay ribands, and the lining of the breechesbeing longer than the garment itself, formed a sort of ornament for theoverhanging hose; immediately over this row of knotted ribandsornamenting the knee, his breeches hung in ample folds. The sleeves ofhis doublet reached nearly to the elbow; and from the end of these theshirt was so fashioned as to bulge out in large flowing plaits to hisruffled wrists. His stockings were of white silk, and shoes ornamentedwith a profusion of ribands, knotted and bound into the shape offlowers. On one shoulder hung a short mantle, reaching to the haunchesand falling in rich folds over one side of his person. Lady Berkleyappeared For the first time without her farthingale, but still retainedits contemporary, the French hood. In place of the starched ruff, shewore the graceful and flowing collar, falling in folds and terminated inrich pointed lace round the upper half of the bust; she wore a stomacherindeed, but greatly modified from the long strait jacket fashion of thepreceding reign.
[Footnote 3: See Holmes.]
A slight degree of pomp and formality characterized the profoundinclination of the knight's magisterial person, as some guest ofdistinction was from time to time announced, while his lady performedher part of the ceremony in exact accordance with the stately habits ofher lord, but softened by a native blandness of manner and sweetness ofdisposition. She was a lady in the most refined and polished acceptationof the term. They were both just sufficiently advanced in years to addthe dignity, of age to that resulting from their station, and command,respect from those who moved within their sphere. The ladies began nowto re-appear, after the momentary retouch of the toilet, and arrangethemselves round the apartment apparently appropriated to the dance,from a band of musicians stationed some six feet above the floor in atemporary orchestra. The first touch upon the string of the leader's kitwas magical--the chords of every young female heart in the room vibratedin unison. No letting down of one string and raising of another wasrequired to bring them to concert pitch; like the blooded charger in thefield, in whose veins, the first clang of the trumpet sends the vitalstream glistening to the very eye-balls, their gayly decorated personswere at once glowing with animation; their eyes sparkling and theirbosoms heaving with impatience, joy, and anticipated triumph. But whenthe bow of an evident master was drawn over the strings of his rustycremona in a long single sweep, every heart palpitated in eagerness. Theeyes of the gentlemen wandered over the multitude of youthful and lovelyfaces beaming with a delighted expression, and all were keenly alive tothe coming pleasures of the dance. But there was a precedence in thearrangement of the first set which, we must by no means neglect.Virginia Fairfax, by right of birth and consanguinity to the governor,invariably assumed her aunt's place at the head of the set. Theblooming Hebe issued forth from the impenetrable ranks of her compeerswith the blushing grace and beauty of a nymph--her hand was slightlyextended as though its owner were conscious that scores of the oppositeranks would have perilled life and fortune for its possession. She wasclad in simple white; not a colour marring the chaste and perfect purityof her attire, save the transparent shadow of a crimson tint which roseand fell in vivid flashes over her complexion with the rapidity ofthought. Near her stood a youth, his finely formed person set off to thebest advantage by the gay and tasteful fashion of his time, and his darkhazel eye, brilliant with the momentary fire of excitement.Instinctively he moved forward to receive the outstretched and nowtrembling little hand, but scarcely had he gained it before a competitorappeared upon the field, of not less personal and far more aristocraticpretension. "With your leave, sir," said Frank Beverly, with a profoundinclination of his finely dressed person, as he took the hand whichBacon, in the abstraction of the moment, was about to usurp. The latterretired in the most undisguised mortification; his rival moving to thehead of the set with all the grace and ease of self-possession, rank,and consciousness of right in the present instance.
Sir William himself bent his dignity to enjoy this scene, the mostevident satisfaction beaming upon his countenance as he cast anintelligent glance toward his lady.
Our heroine had been too finely schooled in the etiquette and manners ofthe ball-room, to allow the most penetrating observer any means ofascertaining whether the incident just related was as pleasing to her asto her partner. Bacon's mortification was not long visible, for with adesperate sort of boldness, quite foreign to his general demeanour, hecrossed the room and approached a young lady whose beauty shoneconspicuous amid all the gay throng by which she was surrounded. HarrietHarrison was the daughter of one of the proudest and most wealthyfamilies in the colony. They moved in the front ranks of those whoradiated around the fashionable orbit of which the Governor and hisfamily were the principal luminaries, and were esteemed by them as amongtheir most honoured friends and supporters. Harriet was the intimatefriend of Virginia Fairfax, and, after her mother, the most esteemedrepository of her confidence. Though an idea of rivalry in any shape orform had never entered their young and guileless hearts, the youthfulCavaliers who floated upon the same fashionable tide, had frequentlyplaced them in this attitude in their private discussions of the variouspersonal and mental attractions of the maidens, each in her turn provingthe reigning favourite, as their respective admirers happened to possessthe supremacy over the minds of their companions. She was near the sameage with Virginia, and undoubtedly possessed attractions of the mostcaptivating quality, both in mind and person, yet they were finelycontrasted with those of her friend. Harriet's complexion wasbrunette--her hair dark and shining as the raven's plumage--her eyeblack, keen and sparkling, her finely pencilled brows beautifullyovershadowing the native archness of her countenance, and her mouthalways expressive of amiable feelings, just sufficiently characterizedperhaps by a dash of innocent humour and coquetry; or rather thatcoquetry which is the result of archness and humour as distinguishedfrom premeditated design. Her figure was slight but finely proportioned.As Bacon approached this laughing little belle, his boldness visiblydiminished beneath her sparkling eye, and his petition for her hand wasuttered with the most courtly and deferential humility. The brunettecast a significant glance toward her friend at the head of the set, andthen with promptitude accepted the offered partner, her intelligent andsparkling countenance turning towards Charles Dudley, who stood near,with a speaking archness, which conveyed as plainly as it could havebeen in words, her perfect understanding of the byplay which was goingon at the expense of his friend. The set being completed, the music nowstruck up its enlivening notes, and the various contending passions andemotions of those engaged were soon lost for the time in the giddy whirlof excitement which succeeded. Every countenance was clad in joy andhilarity--Bacon himself seeming to forget, in the secret pleasurecreated by the occasional touch of Virginia's hand, that he himself wasnot the honoured partner. Nor was the exhilirating effect of the danceconfined to those who partook in the exercise--the young enjoyed itpresent, the old by retrospection. The latter lived over again the
gayand brilliant dreams of their own youth, and were what they beheld. Themusic perhaps touched upon some long forgotten associations of otherdays and other friends, when and with whom they had mingled in the merrydance under circumstances like the present. These hallowed and blessedassociations were not unmixed with melancholy, but it was of the softestand most soothing kind; the tide of feeling flowed over the heart to thecadences of the music, rising and swelling like the waves of thesubsiding storm, and irresistibly inviting to mental calm and repose.The elder matrons sat under its influence--their eyes half closed in asort of pleasing abstraction--while a gentle and subdued smile of mixedemotions played upon their lips. They lived again in the persons oftheir gay and happy daughters, and with no more selfish wish than to seetheir offspring following quietly in their own footsteps.
The formality which had somewhat characterized the opening ceremonieswas entirely banished--it could not live in the atmosphere of music andthe dance. Sir William and his compeers in dignity seemed early to besensible of this, for no sooner had the motion of "hands round"commenced, than he collected his forces, and retreated to the card room,where, from the excitement of the game and wine, they endeavoured tocompensate themselves for their want of the more sentimental retrospectsof their ladies.
Conversation, which till now had flagged under the withering influenceof etiquette, burst forth in all the vivacity of unrestrained andunsophisticated nature. The eyes of Harriet Harrison sparkled like gems,as she and Virginia laughed and chatted together, when they occasionallymet in the figures of the dance. But with all Virginia's hilarity, anacute observer might have perceived a shade more than once passing overthe sunshine of her countenance; whether owing to some vaguepresentiment of coming evil--to better defined apprehensions from thoseevents which had so lately passed under her eyes--to the mysteriousinjunctions of the Recluse, or to some not altogether satisfactoryarrangements of the dance, we shall leave the sagacity of the reader todetermine. Certain it is, however, that she underwent no little badinagefrom her lively friend and confidant.
A certain emphatic declination in the notes of the leader, which all theinitiated will understand, warned those in possession of the floor, thatthere is an order of rotation in happiness on these joyful occasions, acadence, any thing but musical to those happily and mutually suited inpartners, while to those not so fortunately coupled, it was a joyfulrelief. Each gentleman led his partner to her seat, which she hadscarcely taken, perhaps, if one of the favoured few, before newapplications for the honour of her hand were laid at her feet. Bacon hadno sooner escorted Harriet to her place, than turning to her friend heagain put in his claim in more formal parlance than his formerinstinctive aspirations, but again he was doomed to disappointment;Philip Ludwell on this occasion, with a smirking smile upon hiscountenance, claiming a prior engagement. Bacon scowled upon him withmingled scorn and rage, as he turned upon his heel and besought thehonour of the first hand within his reach. But if he was disappointed,his friend Dudley seemed more fortunate, for at the same moment that theformer led out his partner, he encountered the latter escorting thepretty Harriet--and certainly no one in the room claimed a largerportion of his sympathy. But he was struck with the change in thecountenance of the lively brunette in the very short time which hadelapsed between the two sets. During the first, there was a free,untramelled, mischievous expression in her countenance, which was nowmerged in one of partial embarrassment. The guileless and confiding airwith which she had looked into the face of her former partner, was nowexchanged for one of consciousness, as if the lively little belleexpected retributive justice from her friends for her own previousbadinage. The unpractised Dudley interpreted these appearances any thingbut favourably to his own ardent hopes.
Bacon was more deeply studied in the workings of the "human facedivine," especially when feeling no personal interest in their meaning,and he therefore amused himself in his ungrateful situation, by watchingthe changes of his friend's arch little mistress. He doubtlessconsidered it a beautiful and interesting development of character, tosee this lively little romp--so lately overflowing with vivacity andanimal spirits--all at once transformed into the sensitive, sedate, anddowncast maiden. He was certainly not less amused to perceive that thesetwo interesting young personages were unconsciously playing at crosspurposes. First the gentleman became cold and moody at the reserveexhibited by his mistress, which did undoubtedly exist, but from whichhis jealous anxiety made him draw a most erroneous conclusion; whileshe, on the other hand, resented this apparently ungrateful return for apartiality which her own consciousness induced her to believe wasperceptible to its object; indeed this very fear of his knowledge wasperhaps the moving impulse of her own wayward conduct. The resentmentoccasioned by his apparent coldness, and assumed indifference, produceda corresponding feeling in her bosom, and thus they mutually acted andreacted upon each other, departing farther and farther from a mutualunderstanding at every renewed attempt, until at the close of the set,Dudley retired, as he imagined, irreconcilably offended, folding hisarms upon his breast, and looking the very picture of love in despair.While in this mood Bacon approached him, and tapped him on the shoulder,saying, "Hah, Charles, would'st drown thyself? Thou dost not set thylife at a pin's fee I'll warrant me. Why, what would'st thou have, man?Thou would'st not have her forward and pert enough to run unbidden intothy arms?"
"Run into my arms, forsooth! I think she was nearer running into thineown."
"Tut man, does thy knowledge of the sex extend no farther? Dost not knowthou art quarrelling with the light of thine own eyes? Art thou not yetacquainted with the windings and apparent inconsistencies of the femaleheart? I say apparent, because when the _primum mobile_ is onceunderstood, all these little perversities of lovers' quarrels arebeautifully consistent, and always traceable to the one great originalcause. Once gain an insight of this leading motive, and you will admirewhere you now condemn--you will attribute to maidenly modesty and properreserve, what you now censure as perverse and whimsical."
"I understand you not, Sir Professor."
"No, because you are interested in the matter. You cannot truly placethe small end of the telescope to your eye, and see yourself at theother. You cannot stand, for instance, as I stand, and see yourself asI see you. But study the subject a little before you give way to theidentical petulant humours with which you would quarrel in yourmistress."
"And how long is it, pray, Sir Sage, since you took the beam from yourown eye. If mine deceived me not, I saw you but a little while sinceswelling with all the offended dignity of majesty itself--merely becausesome more fortunate swain had previously secured the hand of theGovernor's fair niece."
"You are as far wrong in my affairs, Charles, as you were just now inyour own. You seem peculiarly predisposed to-night, to see only thesurface of things. Suppose that some half a dozen of those butterflieswho are now congregating round Lady Berkley, were to form a plot bywhich you were to be deprived of the hand of that lady whom you mostdesired to lead to the dance? Nay, more, suppose that you considered itall important to your interests that you should possess the hand on thisparticular night, and that you should be thwarted by such a contrivanceof _sub vice-royalty_! What would you do? Would you content yourselfwith spending your rage upon your own lips between your teeth?"
"No, by heavens, I would tweak the nose of a small sprig of royaltyitself."
"What, under the circumstances and responsibilities that environ usto-night?"
"No! not to-night certainly; there is no hurry in the business--hisnasal organ will be as tangible a week hence as now, I suppose; but whois it that has done this deed? I see you have many rivals."
"Frank Beverly, to be sure."
"I supposed as much."
"You see," continued Bacon, "that I have now removed the mote from myown eye, and that you did in my case exactly what you did in yourown--you looked only at the surface. But really, Charles, betweenourselves, I begin to entertain some fears that they will at last affectVirginia with
their own aristocratic notions and pretensions, for theabsence of which we have so often praised her. I have seen a strangeunusual something stealing over her countenance whenever I haveapproached her of late, which I do not like. She evidently struggleswith it herself, but it has obtained the mastery in every instance, sofar. Think you they will succeed at last?"
"I know not, my friend! but step with me into the entry--a word in yourear." The parties stepped just behind the casings to the door of theroom in which they had been dancing, so as to occupy a small entry-waybetween the two largest apartments of the mansion, and there Dudleycontinued in an under tone.--
"Do you think they will dare _the deed_ to-night?"
"As sure as there is truth in that strange old man--and he has never yetdeceived me!"
"Tis well! and are all things prepared for their reception?"
"They are! As for myself, never did such occasion come more opportunely.I will raise a bloody monument to perpetuate the events of this nightupon more than one memory in yonder gay assembly! And since the thoughtstrikes me, Dudley, tis pity I disturbed the savage moroseness which wasjust stealing over you; however I shall retain a _quantum sufficit_ forus both!"
At that moment they were about to return to the party which they hadleft, when Dudley elevating his finger, said, "Hist!"--and Bacon heardhis own name pronounced, just on the other side of the partition againstwhich they were leaning. The voice was Ludwells. "Can you tell meBeverly," said he, "the reason why Bacon does not wear the love lock!"
"Yes, I can, nature stamped him for a Roundhead and Crop-ear at hisbirth. Have you not observed how obstinately his curling locks arematted to his head? I'll warrant me if the truth could be known, hisfather was as pestilent a Rumper as ever sung a psalm on horseback."
Bacon heard no more; he was seized with the most ungovernable rage, andthe utmost endeavours and remonstrances of his friend could scarcelyprevent him from bursting in upon the speakers. In his endeavours toeffect this object he forced his person partly in front of the doorway,just sufficiently to perceive that Virginia sat near, for whom, hedoubted not these observations were intended. Again he became nearlyunmanageable, until Dudley said to him in a harsh tone. "Rash man, wouldyou sacrifice the whole colony for the purpose of chastising a piece ofunmannerly insolence upon the spur of the moment, when you can as welldo it to-morrow? Nay, it is the more manly course of the two."
Bacon by a powerful effort seemed to master his feelings, andcompressing his lips, and folding his arms so as entirely to deceive hiscompanion, he marched deliberately into the room, as if he intended tocross to the opposite side. But when not more than three paces from thedoor, he wheeled suddenly round and addressed Beverly. "This is no placefor a personal reencounter, Sir Slanderer, and I will no farther breakthrough the rules of good breeding than to hurl defiance in your teeth,and even this much I would not do, only that the defiance may go abroadwith the calumny;" and with these words he flung his glove in the faceof him to whom they were addressed. Beverly was taken entirely bysurprise; and for some moments did not seem to realize the extent of theinsult, and the greater personal indignity which had been offered tohim. He was not long, however, in comprehending the nature of the case,and deliberately stooping to pick up the glove he answered, "This, asyou have better said than acted, is no place to quarrel, but I acceptyour gage, and dearly shall it be redeemed on your part."
During this short but pertinent dialogue, Virginia screamed and ran tothe protection of her father and uncle, followed by the other ladies inthat part of the room. A crowd instantly collected round each of theparties to hear their statements of the case. But Sir William, alwaysprompt and energetic, ordered the orchestra to strike up and the danceto be resumed, which had ceased for the purpose of affordingrefreshment. "A mere boy's quarrel," said the old Knight with smilingvisage, and the dance was resumed, as if nothing unusual had occurred.
General joy and hilarity were soon restored, for though the serenity andhappiness of several important personages of our narrative might havebeen disturbed, there were still plenty of those left who were bothlight of heart and nimble of foot. The dance was again going round, winecirculating, wit sparkling, and merry faces and loud voices in allquarters, when a sudden explosion like the discharge of a broadside froma line of battle ship, seemed to shake the very foundations of theearth; windows rattled and fell--plastering came tumbling down--andladies screamed and leaped from the casements, while others were borneoff fainting to their friends. Bacon seized Virginia and Harriet, oneunder each arm, and bore them to a carriage, while Mr. Fairfax andGovernor Berkley forced their ladies into the same vehicle, ordering thedriver to speed for his life to the residence of the former. A brightred light in the midst of a dark column of smoke was now seen to ascendfrom behind the Governor's house. The powder magazine had been fired bythe Cromwellians who were now in open revolt against the government. Theschemes which they had been so long meditating, and which Bacon so trulyanticipated, had now arrived at the crisis--the struggle was commencedwhich was to test whether a few scores of misguided but brave zealotswere to triumph over the constituted authorities of the land, as theyhad before done in England.