The Reckoning Part 17

The artillerymen had made the great loft gay with bunting. Jacks and signal-flags hung from the high beams overhead, clothing the bare timbers with thickets of gayest foliage; banners and bright scarfs, caught up with trophies, hung festooned along the unpainted walls. They had made a balcony with stairs where the band was perched, the music of the artillery augmented by strings--a harp, half a dozen fiddles, cellos, ba.s.soons, and hautboys, and there were flutes, too, and trumpets lent by the cavalry, and sufficient drums to make that fine, deep, thunderous undertone, which I love to hear, and which heats my cheeks with pleasure.

Beyond the spar-loft the sail-loft had been set aside and fas.h.i.+oned most elegantly for refreshment. An immense table crossed it, behind which servants stood, and behind the servants the wall had been lined with shelves covered with cakes, oranges, apples, early peaches, melons and nectarines, and late strawberries, also wines of every sort, pastry, jellies, whip-syllabub, rocky and floating island, blanc-mange, brandied preserves--and Heaven knows what! But Elsin Grey whispered me that Pryor the confectioner had orders for coriander and cinnamon comfits by the bushel, and orange, lemon, chocolate, and burned almonds by the peck.

"Do look at Lady Coleville," whispered Elsin, gently touching my sleeve; "is she not sweet as a bride with Sir Peter? And oh, that gown!

with the lilac ribbons and flounce of five rows of lace. Carus, she has forty diamond b.u.t.tons upon her petticoat, and her stomacher is all amethysts!"

"I wonder where Walter Butler is?" I said restlessly.

"Do you wish to be rid of me?" she asked.

"G.o.d forbid! I only marvel that he is not here--he seemed so eager for the frolic----"

My voice was drowned in the roll of martial music; we took the places a.s.signed us, and the slow march began, ending in the Governor's set, which was danced by eight couples--a curious dance, newly fas.h.i.+onable, and called "En Ballet." This we danced in a very interesting fas.h.i.+on, sometimes two and two, sometimes three and two, or four couple and four couple, and then all together, which vastly entertained the spectators.

In the final melee I had lost my lady to Mr. De Lancey, who now carried her off, leaving me with a willowy maid, whose partner came to claim her soon.

The ball now being opened, I moved a minuet with Lady Coleville, she adjuring me at every step and turn to let no precious moment slip to court Elsin; and I, bland but troubled, and astonished to learn how deep an interest she took in my undoing--I with worry enough before me, not inclusive of a courts.h.i.+p that I found superfluous and unimportant.

When she was rid of me, making no concealment of her disappointment and impatience, I looked for Elsin, but found Rosamund Barry, and led her out in one of those animated figures we had learned at home from the Frenchman, Gra.s.set--dances that suited her, the rose coquette!--gay dances, where the petticoat reveals a pretty limb discreetly; where fans play, opening and closing like the painted wings of b.u.t.terflies alarmed; where fingers touch, fall away, interlace and unlace; where a light waist-clasp and a vis-a-vis leaves a moment for a whisper and its answer, promise, a.s.sent, or low refusal as partners part, dropping away in low, slow reverence, which ends the frivolous figure with regretful decorum.

Askance I had seen Elsin and O'Neil, a graceful pair of figures in the frolic, and now I sought her, leaving Rosamund to Sir Henry, but that villain O'Neil had her to wine, and amid all that thirsty throng and noise of laughter I missed her in the tumult, and then lost her for two hours. I must admit those two hours sped with the gay partners that fortune sent me--and one there was whose fingers were shyly eloquent, a black-eyed beauty from Westchester, with a fresh savor of free winds and gra.s.sy hillsides clinging to her, and a certain lovely awkwardness which claims an arm to steady very often. Lord! I had her twice to ices and to wine, and we laughed and laughed at nothing, and might have been merrier, but her mother seized her with scant ceremony, and a strange young gentleman breathed hard and glared at me as I recovered dignity, which made me mad enough to follow him half across the hall ere I reflected that my business here permitted me no quarrel of my own seeking.

Robbed of my Westchester shepherdess, swallowing my disgust, I sauntered forward, finding Elsin Grey with Lady Coleville, seated together by the wall. What they had been whispering there together I knew not, but I pushed through the attendant circle of beaus and gallants who were waiting there their turns, and presented myself before them.

"I am danced to rags and ribbons, Carus," said Elsin Grey--"and no thanks to you for the pleasure, you who begged me for a dance or two; and I offered twenty, silly that I was to so invite affront!"

She was smiling when she spoke, but Lady Coleville's white teeth were in her fan's edge, and she looked at me with eyes made bright through disappointment.

"You are conducting like a silly boy," she said, "with those hoydens from Westchester, and every little baggage that dimples at your stare.

Lord! Carus, I thought you grown to manhood!"

"Is there a harm in dancing at a ball, madam?" I asked, laughing.

"Fie! You are deceitful, too. Elsin, be chary of your favors. Dance with any man but him. He'll be wearing two watches to-morrow, and his hair piled up like a floating island!"

She smiled, but her eyes were not overgay. And presently she turned on Elsin with a grave shake of her head:

"You disappoint me, both of you," she said. "Elsin, I never dreamed that _you_----"

Their fans flew up, their heads dipped, then Elsin rose and asked indulgence, taking my arm, one hand lying in Lady Coleville's hand.

"Do you and Sir Peter talk over it together," she said, with a lingering wistfulness in her voice. "I shall dance with Carus, whether he will or no, and then we'll walk and talk. You may tell Sir Peter, if you so desire."

"_All?_" asked Lady Coleville, retaining Elsin's hand.

"All, madam, for it concerns all."

Sir Henry Clinton came to wait on Lady Coleville, and so we left them, slowly moving out through the brilliant sea of silks and laces, her arm resting close in mine, her fair head bent in silent meditation.

Around us swelled the incessant tumult of the ball, music and the blended harmony of many voices, rustle and whisper of skirt and silk, and the swis.h.!.+ swis.h.!.+ of feet across the vast waxed floor.

"Shall we dance?" I asked pleasantly.

She looked up, then out across the ocean of glitter and restless color.

"Now I am in two minds," she said--"to dance until there's no breath left and but a wisp of rags to cover me, or to sip a syllabub with you and rest, or go gaze at the heavens the while you court me----"

"That's three minds already," I said, laughing.

"Well, sir, which are you for?"

"And you, Elsin?"

"No, sir, you shall choose."

"Then, if it lies with me, I choose the stars and courts.h.i.+p," I said politely.

"I wonder," she said, "why you choose it--with a maid so pliable. Is not half the sport in the odds against you--the pretty combat for supremacy, the resisting fingers, and the defense, face covered? Is not the sport to overcome all these, nor halt short of the reluctant lips, still fluttering in voiceless protest?"

"Where did you hear all that?" I asked, piqued yet laughing.

"Rosamund Barry read me my first lesson--and, after all, though warned, I let you have your way with me there in the chaise. Oh, I am an apt pupil, Carus, with Captain Butler in full control of my mind and you of my body."

"Have you seen him yet?" I asked.

"No; he has not appeared to claim his dance. A gallant pair of courtiers I have found in you and him----"

"Couple our names no more!" I said so hotly that she stopped, looking at me in astonishment.

"Have you quarreled?" she asked.

I did not answer. We had descended the barrack-stairs and were entering the parade. Dark figures in pairs moved vaguely in the light of the battle-lanthorns set. We met O'Neil and Rosamund, who stood star-gazing on the gra.s.s, and later Sir Henry, pacing the sod alone, who, when he saw me, motioned me to stop, and drew a paper from his breast.

"Sir Peter and Lady Coleville's pa.s.s for Westchester, which he desired and I forgot. Will you be good enough to hand it to him, Mr. Renault?

There is a council called to-night--it is close to two o'clock, and I must go."

He took a courtly leave of us, then wandered away, head bent, pacing the parade as though he kept account of each slow step.

"Yonder comes Knyphausen, too, and Birch," I said, as the German General emerged from the casemates, followed by Birch and a raft of officers, spurs clanking.

We stood watching the Hessians as they pa.s.sed in the lamp's rays, officers smooth-shaven and powdered, wearing blue and yellow, and their long boots; soldiers with black queues in eelskin, tiny mustaches turned up at the waxed ends, and long black, b.u.t.toned spatter-dashes strapped at instep and thigh.

"Let us ascend to the parapets," she said, looking up at the huge, dark silhouette above where the southeast bastion jutted seaward.

A sentry brought his piece to support as we went by him, ascending the inclined artillery road, whence we presently came out upon the ramparts, with the vast sweep of star-set firmament above, and below us the city's twinkling lights on one side, and upon the other two great rivers at their trysting with the midnight ocean.

There were no lights at sea, none on the Hudson, and on the East River only the sad signal-spark smoldering above the _Jersey_.

Elsin had found a seat low on a gun-carriage, and, moving a little, made place for me.