There seemed but two objections to this system, one being that the hieroglyphics and their key were harder to remember than the things they were to remind you of: the other, that they were frequently to be understood by contraries, like the Hetman in Count Benyowsky, whose characteristic phraseology is--"When I say the garret, I mean the cellar--when I tell you to go up, I mean you to come down."
The professor of mnemonics was very unpopular with the ladies, who asserted, that he had done the gentlemen more harm than good, by so puzzling their already overcharged heads, that he, in many instances, destroyed what little memory they had once possessed. This was particularly the case with regard to Mr. Slowman, who having, at length, proposed in form to Miss Tremor, and the lady, in her agitation, being unable at the moment to give him an intelligible answer, he had never remembered to press his suit any further.
One thing was certain, that since the gentlemen had been taking lessons in memory, they seemed totally to have forgotten the annual ball.
Yet, as the time drew near, there could be no doubt of its frequently entering their minds, from their steadily avoiding all reference to the subject. There was evidently a tacit understanding among them, that it was inexpedient to mention the ball. But the ice was at last broken by Gordon Fitzsimmons, as they were all standing round the fire, and adjusting their cloaks and surtouts, at the close of one of their society meetings.
"Is it not time," said he, "that we should begin to prepare for the Christmas ball?"
There was a silence--at last, one of the young gentlemen spoke, and replied--"that he had long since come to a conclusion that dancing was a very foolish thing, and that there was something extremely ridiculous in seeing a room-full of men and women jumping about to the sound of a fiddle. In short, he regarded it as an amusement derogatory to the dignity of human nature."
He was interrupted in the midst of his philippic by Fitzsimmons, who advised him to "consider it not so deeply." Now, Fitzsimmons was himself an excellent dancer, very popular as a partner, conscious of looking well in a ball-room, and therefore a warm advocate for "the poetry of motion."
Another of the young philosophers observed, "that he saw neither good nor harm in dancing, considered merely as an exercise: but that he was now busily engaged in writing a treatise on the Milky Way, the precise nature of which he had undoubtedly discovered, and therefore he had no leisure to attend to the ball or the ladies."
A second, who was originally from Norridgewock, in the state of Maine, protested that almost every moment of his time was now occupied in lithographing his drawings for the Flora Norridgewockiana, a work that would constitute an important accession to the science of botany, and which he was shortly going to publish.
A third declared frankly, that instead of subscribing to the ball, he should devote all his spare cash to a much more rational purpose, that of purchasing a set of geological specimens from the Himalaya Mountains.
A fifth, with equal candour, announced a similar intention with regard to a box of beetles lately arrived from Van Diemen's Land.
A sixth was deeply and unremittingly employed in composing a history of the Muskogee Indians, in which work he would prove to demonstration that they were of Russian origin, as their name denotes: Muskogee being evidently a corruption of Muscovite; just as the Tuscaroras are undoubtedly of Italian descent, the founders of their tribe having, of course, come over from Tuscany.
And a seventh (who did things on a large scale) could not possibly give his attention to a ball or anything else, till he had finished a work which would convince the world that the whole Atlantic Ocean was once land, and that the whole American continent was once water.
To be brief, the number of young men who were in favour of the ball was so very limited, that it seemed impossible to get one up in a manner approaching to the style of former years. And the gentlemen, feeling a sort of consciousness that they were not exactly in their duty, became more remiss than ever in visiting the ladies.
It was now the week before Christmas: the ladies, being in hourly expectation of receiving their cards, had already begun to prepare; and flowers, feathers, ribands, and laces were in great activity. Still no invitations came. It was now conjectured that the ball was, for some extraordinary reason, to be deferred till New Year's. But what this reason was, the ladies (being all in a state of pique) had too much pride to inquire.
The gentlemen begun to feel a little ashamed; and Gordon Fitzsimmons had nearly prevailed on them to agree to a New Year's ball, when Apesley Sappington (who had recently returned from England in a coat by Stultz, and boots by Hoby) threw a damp on the whole business, by averring that, with the exception of Miss Lucinda Mandeville, who was certainly a splendid woman with a splendid fortune, there was not a lady in the whole circle worth favouring with a ball ticket. At least so they appeared to him, after seeing Lady Caroline Percy, and Lady Augusta Howard, and Lady Georgiana Beauclerck. Mr. Sappington did not explain that his only view of these fair blossoms of nobility had been circumscribed to such glimpses as he could catch of them while he stood in the street among a crowd assembled in front of Devonshire House, to gaze on the company through the windows, which in London are always open on gala nights. He assured his friends that all the ladies of the American aristocracy had a sort of _parvenue_ air, and looked as if they had passed their lives east of Temple Bar; and that he knew not a single one of them that would be presentable at Almack's: always excepting Miss Lucinda Mandeville.
The gentlemen _savans_ knew Apesley Sappington to be a coxcomb, and in their own minds did not believe him; but still they thought it scarcely worth while to allow their favourite pursuits to be interrupted for the sake of giving a ball to ladies that _might_ be unpresentable at Almack's, and that _possibly_ looked like _parvenues_ from the east side of Temple Bar.
The belles, though much disappointed at the failure of the expected fete, proudly determined not to advert to the subject by the remotest hint in presence of the beaux; carefully avoiding even to mention the word cotillion when a gentleman was by. One young lady left off wishing that Taglioni would come to America, the name of that celebrated _artiste_ being synonymous with dancing; and another checked herself when about to inquire of her sister if she had seen a missing ball of silk, because the word ball was not to be uttered before one of the male sex.
Things were in this uncomfortable state, when Miss Lucinda Mandeville, the belle _par excellence_, gave a turn to them which we shall relate, after presenting our readers with a sketch of the lady herself.
Miss Mandeville was very beautiful, very accomplished, and very rich, and had just completed her twenty-second year. Her parents being dead, she presided over an elegant mansion in the most fashionable part of the city, having invited an excellent old lady, a distant relation of the family, to reside with her. Mrs. Danforth, however, was but nominally the companion of Miss Mandeville, being so entirely absorbed in books that it was difficult to get her out of the library.
The hand of Miss Mandeville had been sought openly by one-half the gentlemen that boasted the honour of her acquaintance, and it had been hinted at by the other half, with the exception of Gordon Fitzsimmons, a young attorney of highly promising talents, whose ambition would have led him to look forward to the probability of arriving at the summit of his profession, but whose rise was, as yet, somewhat impeded by several very singular notions: such, for instance, as that a lawyer should never plead against his conscience, and never undertake what he knows to be the wrong side of a cause.
Another of his peculiarities was a strange idea that no gentleman should ever condescend to be under pecuniary obligations to his wife--ergo--that a man who has nothing himself, should never marry a woman that has anything. This last consideration had induced Mr.
Fitzsimmons to undertake the Herculean task of steeling his heart, and setting his face against the attractions of Miss Mandeville, with all her advantages of mind and person. Notwithstanding, therefore, that her conversation was always delightful to him, he rarely visited her, except when invited with other company.
Lucinda Mandeville, who, since the age of sixteen, had been surrounded by admirers, and accustomed to all the adulation that is generally lavished on a beauty and an heiress, was surprised at the apparent coldness of Gordon Fitzsimmons, than whom she had never met with a young man more congenial to her taste. His manifest indifference continually attracted her attention, and, after awhile, she began to suspect that it was no indifference at all, and that something else lurked beneath it.
What that was, the sagacity of her sex soon enabled her to discover.
Fitzsimmons never urged Lucinda to play, never handed her to the piano, never placed her harp for her, never turned over the leaves of her music book; but she always perceived that though he affected to mingle with the groups that stood round as listeners, he uniformly took a position from whence he could see her to advantage all the time. When she happened to glance towards him, which, it must be confessed, she did much oftener than she intended (particularly when she came to the finest passage of her song), she never failed to find his eyes fixed on her face with a gaze of involuntary admiration, that, when they met, was instantly changed to an averted look of indifference.
Though he was scrupulous in dancing with her once only in the course of the evening, she could not but perceive that, during this set, his countenance, in spite of himself, lighted up with even more than its usual animation. And if she accidentally turned her head, she saw that his eyes were following her every motion: as well indeed they might, for she danced with the lightness of a sylph, and the elegance of a lady.
Notwithstanding his own acknowledged taste for everything connected with the fine arts, Fitzsimmons never asked to see Miss Mandeville's drawings. But she observed that after she had been showing them to others, and he supposed her attention to be elsewhere engaged, he failed not to take them up, and gaze on them as if he found it difficult to lay them down again.
In conversation, he never risked a compliment to Miss Mandeville, but often dissented with her opinion, and frequently rallied her.--Yet when she was talking to any one else, he always contrived to be within hearing; and frequently, when engaged himself in conversing with others, he involuntarily stopped short to listen to what Lucinda was saying.
Miss Mandeville had read much, and seen much, and had had much love made to her: but her heart had never, till now, been touched even slightly. That Fitzsimmons admired her, she could not possibly doubt: and that he loved her, she would have been equally certain, only that he continued all the time in excellent health and spirits; that, so far from sitting "like patience on a monument," he seldom sat anywhere; that when he smiled (which he did very often) it was evidently not at grief; and that the concealment he affected, was assuredly not feeding on his cheek, which, so far from turning "green and yellow," had lost nothing of its "natural ruby."
Neither was our heroine at all likely to die for love. Though there seemed no prospect of his coming to a proposal, and though she was sometimes assured by the youngest and prettiest of her female friends, that they knew from authentic sources that Mr. Fitzsimmons had magnanimously declared against marrying a woman of fortune; yet other ladies, who were neither young nor handsome, and had no hope of Mr.
Fitzsimmons for themselves, were so kind as to convince Miss Mandeville that he admired her even at "the very top of admiration." And these generous and disinterested ladies were usually, after such agreeable communications, invited by Miss Mandeville to pass the evening with her.
Also--our heroine chanced one day to overhear a conversation between Dora, her own maid, and another mulatto girl; in which Dora averred to her companion that she had heard from no less authority than Squire Fitzsimmons's man Cato, "who always wore a blue coat, be the colour what it may, that the squire was dead in love with Miss Lucinda, as might be seen from many invisible _symptoms_, and that both Dora and Cato had a certain _foregiving_ that it would turn out a match at last, for all that the lady had the money on her side, which, to be sure, was rather unnatural; and that the wedding might be looked for _momently_, any minute."
In the course of the next quarter of an hour, Miss Lucinda called Dora into her dressing-room, and presented her with a little Thibet shawl, which she had worn but once. Dora grinned understandingly: and from that time she contrived to be overheard so frequently in similar conversations, that much of the effect was diminished.
To resume the thread of our narrative--Lucinda being one morning on a visit to her friend Miss Delwin, the latter adverted to the failure of the annual dancing party.
"What would the beaux say," exclaimed Lucinda, struck with a sudden idea, "if the belles were to give a ball to _them_, by way of hinting our sense of their extraordinary remissness? Let us convince them that, according to the luminous and incontrovertible aphorism of the renowned Sam Patch, 'some things may be done as well as others.'"
"Excellent," replied Miss Delwin; "the thought is well worth pursuing.
Let us try what we can make of it."
The two young ladies then proceeded to an animated discussion of the subject, and the more they talked of it, the better they liked it. They very soon moulded the idea into regular form: and, as there was no time to be lost, they set out to call on several of their friends, and mention it to them.
The idea, novel as it seemed, was seized on with avidity by all to whom it was suggested, and a secret conclave was held on the following morning at Miss Mandeville's house, where the ladies debated with closed doors, while the plan was organized and the particulars arranged: our heroine proposing much that she thought would "point the moral and adorn the tale."
Next day, notes of invitation to a ball given by the ladies, were sent round to the gentlemen; all of whom were surprised, and many mortified, for they at once saw the motive, and understood the implied reproof.
Some protested that they should never have courage to go, and talked of declining the invitation. But the majority decided on accepting it, justly concluding that it was best to carry the thing off with a good grace; and having, besides, much curiosity to see how the ladies would _conduct_, if we may be pardoned a Yankeeism.
Fitzsimmons declared that the delinquent beaux were rightly punished by this palpable hit of the belles. And he congratulated himself on having always voted in favour of the ball being given as formerly: secretly hoping that Miss Mandeville knew that _he_ had not been one of the backsliders. We are tolerably sure that she _did_ know it.
Eventually the invitations were all accepted, and the preparations went secretly but rapidly on, under the superintendence of Miss Mandeville and Miss Delwin. In the mean time, the gentlemen, knowing that they all looked conscious and foolish, avoided the ladies, and kept themselves as much out of their sight as possible; with the exception of Gordon Fitzsimmons, he being the only one that felt freedom to "wear his beaver up."
At length the eventful evening arrived. It had been specified in the notes that the ladies were to meet the gentlemen at the ball-room, which was a public one engaged for the occasion. Accordingly, the beaux found all the belles there before them: the givers of the _fete_ having gone in their own conveyances, an hour in advance of the time appointed for their guests.
The six ladies that officiated as managers (and were all distinguished by a loop of blue riband drawn through their belts) met the gentlemen at the door as they entered the ball-room, and taking their hands, conducted them to their seats with much mock civility. The gentlemen, though greatly ashamed, tried in vain to look grave.
The room was illuminated with astral lamps, whose silver rays shone out from clusters of blue and purple flowers, and with crystal chandeliers, whose pendent drops sparkled amid festoons of roses. The walls were painted of a pale and beautiful cream colour. Curtains of the richest crimson, relieved by their masses of shadow the brilliant lightness of the other decorations: their deep silken fringes reflected in the mirrors, whose polished surfaces were partially hidden by folds of their graceful drapery. The orchestra represented a splendid oriental tent; and the musicians were habited in uniform Turkish dresses, their white turbans strikingly contrasting their black faces.
At the opposite end of the room was an excellent transparency, executed by an artist from a sketch by Miss Mandeville. It depicted a medley of scenery and figures, but so skilfully and tastefully arranged as to have a very fine effect when viewed as a whole. There was a Virginian lady assisting her cavalier to mount his horse--a Spanish damsel under the lattice of her lover, serenading him with a guitar--a Swiss _paysanne_ supporting the steps of a chamois hunter as he timidly clambered up a rock--four Hindoo women carrying a Bramin in a palanquin--an English girl rowing a sailor in a boat--and many other anomalies of a similar description. Beneath the picture was a scroll fancifully ornamented, and containing the words "_Le monde renverse_."
That nothing might be wanting to the effect of the ball, the ladies had made a point of appearing this evening in dresses unusually splendid and _recherche_. The elegant form of Lucinda Mandeville was attired in a rich purple satin, bordered with gold embroidery, and trimmed round the neck with blond lace. Long full sleeves of the same material threw their transparent shade over her beautiful arms, and were confined at intervals with bands of pearls clasped with amethysts. A chain of pearls was arranged above the curls of her dark and glossy hair, crossing at the back of her head, and meeting in front, where it terminated in a splendid amethyst aigrette. Three short white feathers, tastefully disposed at intervals, completed the coiffure, which was peculiarly becoming to the noble and resplendent style of beauty that distinguished our heroine; though to a little slight woman with light hair and eyes, it would have been exactly the contrary.
"Did you ever see so princess-like a figure as Miss Mandeville?" said young Rainsford to Gordon Fitzsimmons, "or features more finely chiselled?"
"I have never seen a princess," replied Fitzsimmons, "but from what I have heard, few of them look in reality as a princess should. Neither, I think, does the word _chiselled_ apply exactly to features, formed by a hand beside whose noble and beautiful creations the finest _chef d'oeuvres_ of sculpture are as nothing. I like not to hear of the human face being _well cut_ or _finely chiselled_: though these expressions have long been sanctioned by the currency of fashion. Why borrow from art a term, or terms, that so imperfectly defines the beauty of nature? When we look at a living face, with features more lovely than the imagination of an artist has ever conceived, or at a complexion blooming with health, and eyes sparkling with intelligence, why should our delight and our admiration be disturbed, by admitting any idea connected with a block of marble and the instruments that form it into shape?"
"But you must allow," said Rainsford, "that Miss Mandeville has a fine classic head."
"I acknowledge," said Fitzsimmons, "the graceful contour of the heads called classic. On this side of the Atlantic we have few opportunities of judging of antique sculpture, except from casts and engravings. But as to the faces of the nymphs and goddesses of Grecian art, I must venture to confess that they do not exactly comport with my ideas of female loveliness. Not to speak of their almost unvarying sameness (an evidence, I think, that they are not modelled from life, for nature never repeats herself), their chief characteristics are a cold regularity of outline, and an insipid straightness of nose and forehead, such as in a living countenance would be found detrimental to all expression. I know I am talking heresy: but I cannot divest myself of the persuasion, that a face with precisely the features that we are accustomed to admire in antique statuary, would, if clothed in flesh and blood, be scarcely considered beautiful."