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, the aristocracy of the vice-regal court began to roll along the streets in their carriages, and surround the door of the stout old knight who represented the person of his royal master in the colony. The members of the Council and of the house of Burgesses, with their wives and daughters, and all other citizens and sojourners of distinction were among the number. Now came the crash of Carriages – swearing of footmen – cracking of whips rattling of wheels – clattering of steps, and the pompous announcement of the man in office, as each party was marshalled into the long suite of apartments brilliantly lighted for the occasion. At the head of the largest room stood Sir William and Lady Berkley. The old knight was dressed in a blue velvet doublet, which being sashed below the belt or waistband, protruded out all round so as to show the yellow silk linings of the aforesaid garment, fringing and ornamenting the waist. His breeches were of pink satin, and were cut in what was called at that day3 "the petticoats;" they were tied to the large mouthed silk hose with gay ribands, and the lining of the breeches being longer than the garment itself, formed a sort of ornament for the overhanging hose; immediately over this row of knotted ribands ornamenting the knee, his breeches hung in ample folds. The sleeves of his doublet reached nearly to the elbow; and from the end of these the shirt was so fashioned as to bulge out in large flowing plaits to his ruffled wrists. His stockings were of white silk, and shoes ornamented with a profusion of ribands, knotted and bound into the shape of flowers. On one shoulder hung a short mantle, reaching to the haunches and falling in rich folds over one side of his person. Lady Berkley appeared For the first time without her farthingale, but still retained its contemporary, the French hood. In place of the starched ruff, she wore the graceful and flowing collar, falling in folds and terminated in rich pointed lace round the upper half of the bust; she wore a stomacher indeed, but greatly modified from the long strait jacket fashion of the preceding reign.
A slight degree of pomp and formality characterized the profound inclination of the knight's magisterial person, as some guest of distinction was from time to time announced, while his lady performed her part of the ceremony in exact accordance with the stately habits of her lord, but softened by a native blandness of manner and sweetness of disposition. She was a lady in the most refined and polished acceptation of the term. They were both just sufficiently advanced in years to add the dignity, of age to that resulting from their station, and command, respect from those who moved within their sphere. The ladies began now to re-appear, after the momentary retouch of the toilet, and arrange themselves round the apartment apparently appropriated to the dance, from a band of musicians stationed some six feet above the floor in a temporary orchestra. The first touch upon the string of the leader's kit was magical – the chords of every young female heart in the room vibrated in unison. No letting down of one string and raising of another was required to bring them to concert pitch; like the blooded charger in the field, in whose veins, the first clang of the trumpet sends the vital stream glistening to the very eye-balls, their gayly decorated persons were at once glowing with animation; their eyes sparkling and their bosoms heaving with impatience, joy, and anticipated triumph. But when the bow of an evident master was drawn over the strings of his rusty cremona in a long single sweep, every heart palpitated in eagerness. The eyes of the gentlemen wandered over the multitude of youthful and lovely faces beaming with a delighted expression, and all were keenly alive to the coming pleasures of the dance. But there was a precedence in the arrangement 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. The blooming Hebe issued forth from the impenetrable ranks of her compeers with the blushing grace and beauty of a nymph – her hand was slightly extended as though its owner were conscious that scores of the opposite ranks would have perilled life and fortune for its possession. She was clad in simple white; not a colour marring the chaste and perfect purity of her attire, save the transparent shadow of a crimson tint which rose and fell in vivid flashes over her complexion with the rapidity of thought. Near her stood a youth, his finely formed person set off to the best advantage by the gay and tasteful fashion of his time, and his dark hazel eye, brilliant with the momentary fire of excitement. Instinctively he moved forward to receive the outstretched and now trembling little hand, but scarcely had he gained it before a competitor appeared upon the field, of not less personal and far more aristocratic pretension. "With your leave, sir," said Frank Beverly, with a profound inclination of his finely dressed person, as he took the hand which Bacon, in the abstraction of the moment, was about to usurp. The latter retired in the most undisguised mortification; his rival moving to the head 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 most evident satisfaction beaming upon his countenance as he cast an intelligent glance toward his lady.
Our heroine had been too finely schooled in the etiquette and manners of the ball-room, to allow the most penetrating observer any means of ascertaining whether the incident just related was as pleasing to her as to her partner. Bacon's mortification was not long visible, for with a desperate sort of boldness, quite foreign to his general demeanour, he crossed the room and approached a young lady whose beauty shone conspicuous amid all the gay throng by which she was surrounded. Harriet Harrison was the daughter of one of the proudest and most wealthy families in the colony. They moved in the front ranks of those who radiated around the fashionable orbit of which the Governor and his family were the principal luminaries, and were esteemed by them as among their most honoured friends and supporters. Harriet was the intimate friend of Virginia Fairfax, and, after her mother, the most esteemed repository of her confidence. Though an idea of rivalry in any shape or form had never entered their young and guileless hearts, the youthful Cavaliers who floated upon the same fashionable tide, had frequently placed them in this attitude in their private discussions of the various personal and mental attractions of the maidens, each in her turn proving the reigning favourite, as their respective admirers happened to possess the supremacy over the minds of their companions. She was near the same age with Virginia, and undoubtedly possessed attractions of the most captivating quality, both in mind and person, yet they were finely contrasted with those of her friend. Harriet's complexion was brunette – her hair dark and shining as the raven's plumage – her eye black, keen and sparkling, her finely pencilled brows beautifully overshadowing the native archness of her countenance, and her mouth always expressive of amiable feelings, just sufficiently characterized perhaps by a dash of innocent humour and coquetry; or rather that coquetry which is the result of archness and humour as distinguished from premeditated design. Her figure was slight but finely proportioned. As Bacon approached this laughing little belle, his boldness visibly diminished beneath her sparkling eye, and his petition for her hand was uttered with the most courtly and deferential humility. The brunette cast a significant glance toward her friend at the head of the set, and then with promptitude accepted the offered partner, her intelligent and sparkling countenance turning towards Charles Dudley, who stood near, with a speaking archness, which conveyed as plainly as it could have been in words, her perfect understanding of the byplay which was going on at the expense of his friend. The set being completed, the music now struck up its enlivening notes, and the various contending passions and emotions of those engaged were soon lost for the time in the giddy whirl of excitement which succeeded. Every countenance was clad in joy and hilarity – Bacon himself seeming to forget, in the secret pleasure created by the occasional touch of Virginia's hand, that he himself was not the honoured partner. Nor was the exhilirating effect of the dance confined to those who partook in the exercise – the young enjoyed it present, the old by retrospection. The latter lived over again the gay and brilliant dreams of their own youth, and were what they beheld. The music perhaps touched upon some long forgotten associations of other days and other friends, when and with whom they had mingled in the merry dance under circumstances like the present. These hallowed and blessed associations were not unmixed with melancholy, but it was of the softest and most soothing kind; the tide of feeling flowed over the heart to the cadences of the music, rising and swelling like the waves of the subsiding storm, and irresistibly inviting to mental calm and repose. The elder matrons sat under its influence – their eyes half closed in a sort of pleasing abstraction – while a gentle and subdued smile of mixed emotions played upon their lips. They lived again in the persons of their gay and happy daughters, and with no more selfish wish than to see their offspring following quietly in their own footsteps.
The formality which had somewhat characterized the opening ceremonies was entirely banished – it could not live in the atmosphere of music and the dance. Sir William and his compeers in dignity seemed early to be sensible 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 to compensate themselves for their want of the more sentimental retrospects of their ladies.
Conversation, which till now had flagged under the withering influence of etiquette, burst forth in all the vivacity of unrestrained and unsophisticated nature. The eyes of Harriet Harrison sparkled like gems, as she and Virginia laughed and chatted together, when they occasionally met in the figures of the dance. But with all Virginia's hilarity, an acute observer might have perceived a shade more than once passing over the sunshine of her countenance; whether owing to some vague presentiment of coming evil – to better defined apprehensions from those events which had so lately passed under her eyes – to the mysterious injunctions of the Recluse, or to some not altogether satisfactory arrangements of the dance, we shall leave the sagacity of the reader to determine. Certain it is, however, that she underwent no little badinage from her lively friend and confidant.
A certain emphatic declination in the notes of the leader, which all the initiated will understand, warned those in possession of the floor, that there is an order of rotation in happiness on these joyful occasions, a cadence, any thing but musical to those happily and mutually suited in partners, while to those not so fortunately coupled, it was a joyful relief. Each gentleman led his partner to her seat, which she had scarcely taken, perhaps, if one of the favoured few, before new applications for the honour of her hand were laid at her feet. Bacon had no sooner escorted Harriet to her place, than turning to her friend he again put in his claim in more formal parlance than his former instinctive aspirations, but again he was doomed to disappointment; Philip Ludwell on this occasion, with a smirking smile upon his countenance, claiming a prior engagement. Bacon scowled upon him with mingled scorn and rage, as he turned upon his heel and besought the honour of the first hand within his reach. But if he was disappointed, his friend Dudley seemed more fortunate, for at the same moment that the former led out his partner, he encountered the latter escorting the pretty Harriet – and certainly no one in the room claimed a larger portion of his sympathy. But he was struck with the change in the countenance of the lively brunette in the very short time which had elapsed between the two sets. During the first, there was a free, untramelled, mischievous expression in her countenance, which was now merged in one of partial embarrassment. The guileless and confiding air with which she had looked into the face of her former partner, was now exchanged for one of consciousness, as if the lively little belle expected retributive justice from her friends for her own previous badinage. The unpractised Dudley interpreted these appearances any thing but favourably to his own ardent hopes.
Bacon was more deeply studied in the workings of the "human face divine," especially when feeling no personal interest in their meaning, and he therefore amused himself in his ungrateful situation, by watching the changes of his friend's arch little mistress. He doubtless considered it a beautiful and interesting development of character, to see this lively little romp – so lately overflowing with vivacity and animal spirits – all at once transformed into the sensitive, sedate, and downcast maiden. He was certainly not less amused to perceive that these two interesting young personages were unconsciously playing at cross purposes. First the gentleman became cold and moody at the reserve exhibited by his mistress, which did undoubtedly exist, but from which his jealous anxiety made him draw a most erroneous conclusion; while she, on the other hand, resented this apparently ungrateful return for a partiality which her own consciousness induced her to believe was perceptible to its object; indeed this very fear of his knowledge was perhaps the moving impulse of her own wayward conduct. The resentment occasioned by his apparent coldness, and assumed indifference, produced a corresponding feeling in her bosom, and thus they mutually acted and reacted upon each other, departing farther and farther from a mutual understanding at every renewed attempt, until at the close of the set, Dudley retired, as he imagined, irreconcilably offended, folding his arms 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 thy life 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 into thy arms?"
"Run into my arms, forsooth! I think she was nearer running into thine own."
"Tut man, does thy knowledge of the sex extend no farther? Dost not know thou art quarrelling with the light of thine own eyes? Art thou not yet acquainted with the windings and apparent inconsistencies of the female heart? I say apparent, because when the primum mobile is once understood, all these little perversities of lovers' quarrels are beautifully consistent, and always traceable to the one great original cause. Once gain an insight of this leading motive, and you will admire where you now condemn – you will attribute to maidenly modesty and proper reserve, 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 place the small end of the telescope to your eye, and see yourself at the other. You cannot stand, for instance, as I stand, and see yourself as I see you. But study the subject a little before you give way to the identical petulant humours with which you would quarrel in your mistress."
"And how long is it, pray, Sir Sage, since you took the beam from your own eye. If mine deceived me not, I saw you but a little while since swelling with all the offended dignity of majesty itself – merely because some more fortunate swain had previously secured the hand of the Governor's fair niece."
"You are as far wrong in my affairs, Charles, as you were just now in your own. You seem peculiarly predisposed to-night, to see only the surface of things. Suppose that some half a dozen of those butterflies who are now congregating round Lady Berkley, were to form a plot by which you were to be deprived of the hand of that lady whom you most desired to lead to the dance? Nay, more, suppose that you considered it all important to your interests that you should possess the hand on this particular night, and that you should be thwarted by such a contrivance of sub vice-royalty! What would you do? Would you content yourself with spending your rage upon your own lips between your teeth?"
"No, by heavens, I would tweak the nose of a small sprig of royalty itself."
"What, under the circumstances and responsibilities that environ us to-night?"
"No! not to-night certainly; there is no hurry in the business – his nasal organ will be as tangible a week hence as now, I suppose; but who is 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 my own eye, and that you did in my case exactly what you did in your own – you looked only at the surface. But really, Charles, between ourselves, I begin to entertain some fears that they will at last affect Virginia with their own aristocratic notions and pretensions, for the absence of which we have so often praised her. I have seen a strange unusual something stealing over her countenance whenever I have approached her of late, which I do not like. She evidently struggles with it herself, but it has obtained the mastery in every instance, so far. Think you they will succeed at last?"
"I know not, my friend! but step with me into the entry – a word in your ear." The parties stepped just behind the casings to the door of the room in which they had been dancing, so as to occupy a small entry-way between the two largest apartments of the mansion, and there Dudley continued 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 yet deceived 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 night upon more than one memory in yonder gay assembly! And since the thought strikes me, Dudley, tis pity I disturbed the savage moroseness which was just stealing over you; however I shall retain a quantum sufficit for us both!"
At that moment they were about to return to the party which they had left, when Dudley elevating his finger, said, "Hist!" – and Bacon heard his own name pronounced, just on the other side of the partition against which they were leaning. The voice was Ludwells. "Can you tell me Beverly," 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 his birth. Have you not observed how obstinately his curling locks are matted to his head? I'll warrant me if the truth could be known, his father was as pestilent a Rumper as ever sung a psalm on horseback."
Bacon heard no more; he was seized with the most ungovernable rage, and the utmost endeavours and remonstrances of his friend could scarcely prevent him from bursting in upon the speakers. In his endeavours to effect this object he forced his person partly in front of the doorway, just sufficiently to perceive that Virginia sat near, for whom, he doubted not these observations were intended. Again he became nearly unmanageable, until Dudley said to him in a harsh tone. "Rash man, would you sacrifice the whole colony for the purpose of chastising a piece of unmannerly insolence upon the spur of the moment, when you can as well do it to-morrow? Nay, it is the more manly course of the two."
Bacon by a powerful effort seemed to master his feelings, and compressing his lips, and folding his arms so as entirely to deceive his companion, he marched deliberately into the room, as if he intended to cross to the opposite side. But when not more than three paces from the door, he wheeled suddenly round and addressed Beverly. "This is no place for a personal reencounter, Sir Slanderer, and I will no farther break through 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 abroad with the calumny;" and with these words he flung his glove in the face of him to whom they were addressed. Beverly was taken entirely by surprise; and for some moments did not seem to realize the extent of the insult, and the greater personal indignity which had been offered to him. He was not long, however, in comprehending the nature of the case, and deliberately stooping to pick up the glove he answered, "This, as you have better said than acted, is no place to quarrel, but I accept your gage, and dearly shall it be redeemed on your part."
During this short but pertinent dialogue, Virginia screamed and ran to the protection of her father and uncle, followed by the other ladies in that part of the room. A crowd instantly collected round each of the parties to hear their statements of the case. But Sir William, always prompt and energetic, ordered the orchestra to strike up and the dance to be resumed, which had ceased for the purpose of affording refreshment. "A mere boy's quarrel," said the old Knight with smiling visage, and the dance was resumed, as if nothing unusual had occurred.
General joy and hilarity were soon restored, for though the serenity and happiness of several important personages of our narrative might have been disturbed, there were still plenty of those left who were both light of heart and nimble of foot. The dance was again going round, wine circulating, wit sparkling, and merry faces and loud voices in all quarters, when a sudden explosion like the discharge of a broadside from a line of battle ship, seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth; windows rattled and fell – plastering came tumbling down – and ladies screamed and leaped from the casements, while others were borne off fainting to their friends. Bacon seized Virginia and Harriet, one under each arm, and bore them to a carriage, while Mr. Fairfax and Governor Berkley forced their ladies into the same vehicle, ordering the driver to speed for his life to the residence of the former. A bright red light in the midst of a dark column of smoke was now seen to ascend from behind the Governor's house. The powder magazine had been fired by the Cromwellians who were now in open revolt against the government. The schemes which they had been so long meditating, and which Bacon so truly anticipated, had now arrived at the crisis – the struggle was commenced which was to test whether a few scores of misguided but brave zealots were to triumph over the constituted authorities of the land, as they had before done in England.