Chapter XV The Red Domino
Fashionable hours were early in the days of Queen Anne, and it was a well-known fact that the imperious Sarah Churchill did not easily pardon the slight of unpunctuality at her entertainments. So by nine o’clock the gorgeous drawing-rooms were well-filled and the steady stream of rank and beauty poured up the great staircase as fast as chariots and chairs could discharge their glittering loads.
The sight was a dazzling one; every nationality, every celebrity was represented. Cardinals paid court to Gipsies, Charlemagne and Henry the Eighth contended for the favor of Helen of Troy, and in front of the dais upon which the duchess stood unmasked, to receive her guests, an endless procession passed, of monks and devils, kings and clowns, swashbucklers, nuns, fairies, princesses, allegorical and mythological personages—a veritable phantasmagoria, in which the mask and domino afforded just as much concealment as the wearer desired, but no more.
A ripple of laughter or a murmur of admiration at frequent intervals announced the arrival of some specially brilliant or humorous masker, and when the crowd was at its densest, a couple approached the dais, followed by a stream of hilarious compliments.
Foremost came Prue, dressed as a shepherdess. Over a skirt of her grandmother’s priceless lace, she wore a Watteau dress of white silk, brocaded with bunches of rosebuds and forget-me-nots, and coquettishly perched upon her luxuriant curls was a little straw hat, adorned with a wreath of roses and a flowing knot of blue ribbon. The pearl-embroidered gloves covered her hands, in one of which she carried a crook all laced with fluttering ribbons, and in the other a silken cord, by which she led Peggie, admirably disguised as a lamb; of gigantic growth, to be sure, but delightfully and gracefully grotesque as she ambled and pranced beside the little shepherdess, who at every other step, stopped to caress and encourage her.
The little procession was so irresistibly funny that the duchess, at first rather disturbed by the rising tide of laughter and applause, as soon as she set eyes upon the cause of it, joined in with the utmost heartiness, and even the queen, who sat beside her in a chair of state, vouchsafed a smile of genuine amusement, rare enough upon the face of that woman of few emotions.
Dancing was going on in the great ball-room, but Prue refused to dance. “I dare not leave my lamb at the mercy of all these wolves,” she declared, in a falsetto voice that deceived no one. “Is there no grassy nook where I can repose, while my pet frolics round me?”
“Certainly,” said a voice, which she recognized as Sir Geoffrey’s. “There are secluded retreats in the conservatories sacred to Chloris and her flock—”
“Including Strephon? No, thank you,” and warning him off with her crook, she roamed about, launching the harmless arrows of her ready wit against such of the guests as she recognized, or pretended to.
Presently a voice began to murmur close behind her—
“Her hair,
In ringlets rather dark than fair,
Does down her ivory bosom roll,
And hiding half, adorn the whole.
In her high forehead’s fair half-round
Love sits in open triumph crown’d.
Her lips, no living bard, I weet,
May say how red, how round, how sweet—”
“Oh! hush!” cried Prue, in a great flutter; “how could you be so rash? You will be recognized.” She turned a quick, timid glance backward, and was promptly reassured. The tall, stately figure, picturesquely draped in a voluminous red domino, had nothing about it to attract attention, and a red mask with a deep fall of gold-lace concealed the entire face, except the firm mouth and strong, square chin.
“What made you come here, of all places in the world?” she asked.
“Chiefly to see you, but partly because I had business here,” he answered.
Poor Prue thought of the bank-notes, and almost collapsed. What business could a highwayman have at a ball unless to rob the guests while pretending to be one of them? Just then Peggie drew her attention by pulling at the cord.
“For Heaven’s sake,” she whispered, “come out of this crowd. I am so hot, muffled in this sheepskin, I shall die if I don’t get to the air.”
Prue signed to Robin to follow, and led her lambkin away. Outside the ball-room, they were soon in comparative solitude. In the card-rooms a few elderly people had thrown off their masks and given themselves over to the full enjoyment of whist and écarté. Here and there a tête-à-tête was progressing behind the kindly shelter of albums or portfolios. In the library a sedate couple mused side by side over the latest number of the Spectator, upside down, while two or three portly, be-starred and be-ribboned fogies discussed the threatened Jacobite uprising over an exclusive bottle of Burgundy.
Prue was at home in every corner of Marlborough House, and had no difficulty in piloting her companions into a cool, dim-lighted conservatory, where the sound of voices and music reached the ear agreeably softened by distance.
“Every one has seen me,” said Peggie; “I’ll get rid of this sheepskin, and then I can dance.”
“Peggie would rather dance than eat, sleep or go to church,” remarked Prue, seating herself and making a little, half-hesitating, half-inviting movement toward the seat beside her.
Robin was not slow in availing himself of the opportunity. There was something in Prue’s manner that allured him, while it kept him at a distance. He longed to take her in his arms as he had done once; yet he dared not touch her hand.
“I am glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you,” she said, removing her mask. “You sent me something to-day—”
“Yes—oh! you don’t know how happy you have made me by wearing them,” he said earnestly.
“Ah! yes,” she started and looked down at the gloves; “they are beautiful—just the very thing for my dress, too. But that was not what I meant.”
A deep flush burned his face under the mask. “I beg and implore you not to speak of anything else I sent,” he said, in a low, tremulous voice. “Let me deceive myself into the belief that you acknowledge that, at least, as my rightful privilege.”
She raised her lovely eyes to his with a puzzled expression, then dropped them, a little embarrassed. “We will not discuss that,” she said, “but unfortunately I can not avoid speaking about the money, because—you see, I can not help knowing that you—that perhaps—that perhaps it honestly belongs to somebody else and you have no right to give it to me. There!” She looked apprehensively at him, fearing an outburst of rage, but he was quite calm, and the mask concealed any change of countenance.
“You are very scrupulous,” he said coldly.
“Oh! I know you had no reason to expect honesty from me!” she exclaimed, with a touch of temper in her voice. “But when you threw your purse to me in the carriage, I had no opportunity of returning it and I never expected to see you again. Besides, you took mine and—and—” She glanced at him out of the tail of her eye, but he did not accept the challenge. “You think, perhaps,” she went on, quite angrily now, “that I have done a much worse thing for money than ever you did; but if I have married a robber—”
“Stop, stop!” he said authoritatively. “If you must say these things about yourself, it shall not be to me. Insult me as much as you please, but do not accuse me of daring to blame you for anything you have done, or could do. Tell me, if I assure you that that money is my very own, will you take my word for it?”
She hesitated and softened. “Tell me truly—in what way your own? Do not fear to trust me.”
“Trust you! Do you not know that you could charm any secrets of my own from me by a kind word? But this is no secret; it is the price of my birthright, received in honest sale and barter over a lawyer’s table. You will believe me, won’t you?”
She put out both her hands, with a gesture of enchanting frankness. “I will believe anything you tell me,” she said; “I know you would not deceive me.”
He took the two little fluttering hands in his, and raised them one after another to his lips.
“I see you are not wearing a sling,” she remarked. “Is your arm healed?”
“It was nothing; a broken collar-bone is quickly cured,” he said carelessly, though delighted by even so slight a token of interest from her. “Besides, the person whose domino I borrowed, does not wear his arm in a sling, and I do not wish any difference to be remarked when he resumes it.”
“Then you are here in some one else’s disguise?” she said quickly. “What will you do when we unmask?”
“At midnight the right face will be found under this mask,” he replied.
“What fun it would be!” she cried, with reckless gaiety, “if you were to stay until midnight and unmask with the rest! I wonder if any one would recognize you.”
“If the experiment will amuse you, I will stay and try it,” said Robin tranquilly.
Her own voice dropped almost to a whisper. “To amuse me?” she murmured. “What do you suppose would happen?”
“Probably nothing at all; I am not so well known. At the worst, they would merely arrest me,” he said.
“Merely arrest you! and send you back to—prison, I suppose?”
“Why, ’tis likely; and then, in a few days, you would be free—to marry some one you love.”
“I have had enough of marrying,” she said petulantly. “Besides, had I loved one man, I would not have married another, even in jest.”
“Even in jest,” he repeated. “Well, have a little patience and you may laugh as heartily as you please at this merry jest. When you are free, will you—” he hesitated—“I owe you a chance to make a better use of your freedom next time, yet it irks me to think that you will very likely throw it away again upon one who is not worthy of you.”
“Do you mean Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert?” she said. “Do not fear, I shall never marry him.”
“You will not?” he exclaimed eagerly. “You do not love him? Oh! you give me new life; I care little what becomes of me, if I am sure you will not marry Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert.”
“Hush-sh,” she whispered, peering round in the dim twilight of their retreat; “I thought I heard a movement; suppose any one had overheard you!”
He clapped his hand on his sword, but everything was still except the distant music and the approaching voices of another pair in search of solitude.
“Let us go,” said Prue, rising in a tremor and adjusting her mask. “I would not, for the world, have anything happen to you, and I fear you are not safe here; we have been incautious—prithee, begone from this house—”
“Do not be uneasy, dear Lady Prudence; I am safe here,” said Robin, devouring her with his eyes. “I may never see you again; do not banish me—”
“Never see me again?” she interrupted. “Why not? I am sure you are in some danger you will not tell me of, else why should I never see you again?”
“Would you care if you did not see me again?”—he was beginning, in a passionate whisper, when Peggie, released from her sheepskin and clad in somewhat scanty drapery intended to represent springtime, pounced upon them, delighted with the semi-nudity that displayed her charming form, while the mask concealed her plain face.
“Have I been away long enough?” she cried saucily. “Have you had plenty of time to quarrel and make love? Come, Prue; eleven o’clock has struck, and we shall scarcely be in time for a country-dance before we unmask. Hasten!”
She was drawing Prue after her by one hand, but she hung back, extending the other to Robin, who stood irresolute, longing to follow, yet not venturing, unbidden.
“Farewell,” she said, in a thrilling voice. “Prithee, do not linger.”
He pressed a kiss on her finger-tips and was still looking after her with his heart in his eyes, when a hand brushed his arm with a peculiar touch, and turning with his wandering senses suddenly on the alert, he saw a figure in a monk’s habit, strolling slowly toward the most crowded card-room. He followed, and soon caught up with him.
“Your dress is too conspicuous,” said the monk, in a harsh whisper. “There is work to be done, instantly, and your dress unfits you for it.”
“Show me the work,” said Robin, apparently greatly interested in two players who were throwing dice for high stakes.
“I expected to find you at your post, and after a long search, where do I discover you? You, of all men—at the feet of the most heartless little Jezebel in London,” said the monk, with bitterness.
Robin laughed silently. “Have you also been under her feet?” he asked. “Well, if it were any one else, I would kill him for such a calumny upon the most virtuous and adorable lady in the world; but I can not spare you, so give me your news.”
“The papers stolen from a certain general are here, in the possession of a man who does not know their importance, but only that Madame Sarah will pay handsomely for them. Not being able to obtain audience of her, he is now leaving the house.”
“Why do you make such a long story of it?” said Robin impatiently. “Describe him to me, and I will see to the rest.”
“There is no hurry; he has a sweetheart among the maids, and will be some time about his adieux. I will show him to you, but you must get rid of that scarlet affair; what have you underneath? Oh! that is still worse; satin and velvet and diamonds! Why couldn’t you come quietly dressed, like the rest of us?”
Robin blushed under his mask, for he knew very well that if Prue had not been among the guests, the monk’s frock or the student’s cap and gown would have been fine enough for his purpose.
“Never mind my dress,” he said shortly. “You can lend me your frock, and if you have no further business here, you can do me a service.”
As they went out together, Robin explained to his friend the manner in which he had obtained a domino and an invitation, and, incidentally, the predicament of Lord Beachcombe. Together they sought and found his carriage, at a place previously arranged for, and within it the exchange of garments was effected.
“Now go to the house by the riverside, where you will find Lord Beachcombe tied hand and foot in the dark in the guard-room, and his lackeys under similar conditions in another room. Steve Larkyn is in charge of them. Restore the mask and domino to Lord Beachcombe, return him and his varlets to the carriage, blindfolded, and when you have taken them a safe distance from Essex Street, set them free to go their way to the ball or the devil, whichever pleases them.”
The carriage drove away and Robin, completely concealed under the monk’s gown, made his way back to the house. Not, however, through the brilliantly lighted main-entrance, but this time by a side-door that led to the servants’ quarters.