CHAPTER III.
AT MRS. MANDALAY'S ROOMS.
Mrs. Mandalay's rooms were crowded, for Mrs. Mandalay's patronsincluded all the varieties of London society--the noble, the rich, theclever, the dull, the openly vicious, the moderately virtuous, theaudaciously disreputable, masked and unmasked; the outsiders who camefrom curiosity; the initiated who came from habit; dissolute youth,frivolous old age, men and boys who came because they thought this, andonly this, was life: to rub shoulders with a motley mob, to move in anatmosphere of ribald jokes and foolish laughter, air charged with theelectricity of potential bloodshed, since at any moment the ribald jestmight lead to the insensate challenge; to drink deep of adulteratedwines, fired with the alcohol that inspires evil passions and killsthought. These were the diversions that men and women sought at Mrs.Mandalay's; and it was into this witch's cauldron that William Thorntonplunged his daughter, reckless of whom she met or what she saw andheard, for it was an axiom in his blighting philosophy that the more ayoung woman knew of the world she lived in, the more likely she was tosteer a safe course between its shoals and quicksands.
Antonia looked with amazement upon the tawdry spectacle--dominos,diamonds, splendour, and shabbiness, impudent faces plastered withwhite and red, beauty still fresh and young, boys still at theUniversity, old men fitter for the hospital than for the drawing-room.Was _this_ the dazzling scene she had longed for sometimes in thetoilsome evenings, when her tired hand sank on the foolscap page, andin the pause of the squeaking quill she heard the clock ticking onthe stairs and the cinders crumbling in the grate? She had longed forlighted rooms and joyous company, for the concerts, and dances, anddinners, and suppers she read about in the _Daily Journal_; but thescenes her imagination had conjured up were as different from this asparadise from pandemonium.
Dancing was difficult in such a crowd, but there was a country dancegoing on to the music of an orchestra of fiddles and French horns,stationed in a gallery over one end of the room. The music was a_pot-pourri_ of favourite melodies in the "Beggar's Opera," and thestrongly marked tunes beat upon Antonia's brain as she and her fatherstood against the wall near the entrance doors, watching the crowd.
A master of the ceremonies came to ask her if she would dance. Herfather answered for her, somewhat curtly. No, the young lady had onlylooked in to see what Mrs. Mandalay's rooms were like.
"Mrs. Mandalay's rooms are too good to be made a show for countrycousins," the man answered impudently, after a flying glance atThornton's threadbare suit; "and Miss has too pretty a figure under herdomino to shirk a dance."
"Be good enough to leave us to ourselves, sir. Our tickets have beenpaid for; and we have a right to consume this polluted atmospherewithout having to suffer impertinence."
"Oh, if you come to that, sir, I carry a sword, and will swallow noinsult from a beggarly parson; and there are plenty of handsome womenpining for partners."
He edged off as he spoke, and was safe amongst the crowd before hefinished his sentence.
"Let's go home, sir," said Antonia. "I never could have pictured suchan odious place."
"'Tis one of the most fashionable assemblies in London, child."
"Then I wonder at the taste of Londoners. Pray, sir, let's go home. Ishould never have teased you to bring me here had I known 'twas likethis; but you have at least cured me of the desire to come again--or tovisit any place that resembles this."
"You are pettish and over-fastidious. I came here for your amusement,and you may stay here for mine. I can't waste coach hire because youare capricious. I must have something for my money. Do you stay herequietly, while I circulate and find a friend or two."
"Oh, father, don't leave me among this rabble! I shall die of disgustif any one speaks to me--like that vulgar wretch just now."
"Tush, Tonia, there are no women-eaters here; and you have brainsenough to know how to answer any impudent jackanapes in London."
He was gone before she could say anything more. She had hated to bethere even with her father at her side. It was agony to stand therealone, fanning herself with the trumpery Spanish fan that had beensent her with the domino. She was not shy as other women are on theirfirst appearance in an assembly. She had been trained to despise herfellow-creatures, and had an inborn pride that would have supported heranywhere. But the scene gave her a feeling of loathing that she hadnever known before. The people seemed to her of an unknown race. Theirfeatures, their air exhaled wickedness. "The sons of Belial, flownwith insolence and wine." She hated herself for being there, hated herfather for bringing her there.
They had come very late, when the assembly was at its worst, or at itsbest, according to one's point of view. The modish people, who vowedthey detested the rooms, and only looked in to see who was there, wereelbowing their way among fat citizens and their wives from Dowgate, andrich merchants from Clapham Common; while the more striking figures inthe crowd belonged obviously to the purlieus of Covent Garden and thepaved courts near Long Acre.
Tonia watched them till, in spite of her aversion, she began to growinterested in the masks and the faces. The faces told their own story;but the masks had a more piquant attraction, suggesting mystery. Shebegan to notice couples who were obviously lovers, and to imagine aromance here and there. Her eyes passed over the disreputable paintedfaces, and fixed on the young and beautiful, secure in pride ofbirth, the assurance of superiority. She caught furtive glances, thelingering clasp of hands, the smile that promised, the whisper thatpleaded. Romance and mystery enough here to fill more volumes thanRichardson had published. And then among the people who came in late,talked loud, and did not dance, there were such satins and brocades,velvet and lace, feathers and jewels, as neither the theatres nor herdreams had ever shown her. She was woman enough to look at these withpleasure, in spite of her masculine education.
She had forgotten how long she had been standing there when her fathercame back, smelling of brandy, and accompanied by a man whom she hadbeen watching some minutes before, one of the late arrivals, who lookedyoung at a distance, but old, or at best middle-aged, when he came nearher. She had seen him surrounded by a bevy of women, who hung about himwith an eager appreciation which would have been an excuse for vanityin a Solomon.
The new-comer's suit of mouse-coloured velvet was plainer than anybodyelse's, but his air and figure would have given distinction to abeggar's rags, and there needed not the star and ribbon half hiddenunder the lapel of his coat to tell her that he was a personage.
"My friend and patron, Lord Kilrush, desires to make your acquaintance,Antonia," her father said with his grand air.
She had heard of Lord Kilrush, an Irish peer, with an immense territoryon the Shannon and on the Atlantic which he never visited; a man ofsupreme distinction in a world where the cut of a coat and the pedigreeof a horse count for more than any moral attributes. While he had allthe dignity of a large landowner, the bulk of his fortune was derivedfrom his mother, who was the only child of an East Indian factor, "richwith the spoil of plundered provinces."
Antonia had been watching the modish women's manoeuvres long enough tobe able to sink to the exact depth and rise with the assured grace of afashionable curtsey. The perfect lips under the light lace of her maskrelaxed in a grave smile, parting just enough to show the glitter ofpearly teeth between two lines of carmine. Her flashing eyes and lovelymouth gave Kilrush assurance of beauty. It would have taken the nose ofa Socrates, or a complexion pitted with the smallpox, to mar the effectof such eyes and such lips.
"Pray allow me to escort you through the rooms, and to get you a cupof chocolate, madam," he said, offering his arm. "Your father tells methat 'tis your first visit to this notorious scene. Mrs. Mandalay'schocolate is as famous as her company, and of a better quality--for itis innocent of base mixtures."
"Go with his lordship, Tonia," said her father, answering herquestioning look; "you must be sick to death of standing here."
"Oh, I have amused myself somehow," she said. "It is like a comedy att
he theatres--I can read stories in the people's faces."
She took Kilrush's arm with an easy air that astonished him.
"Then you like the Mandalay room?" he said, as he made a path throughthe crowd, people giving way to him almost as if to a royal personage.
He was known here as he was known in all pleasure places for a leaderand a master spirit. It suited him to live in a country where he hadno political influence. He had never been known to interest himselfabout any serious question in life. Early in his career, when his wiferan away with his bosom friend, his only comment was that she alwayscame to the breakfast-table with a slovenly head, and it was best forboth that they should part. He ran his rapier through his friend's leftlung early one morning in the fields behind Montague House; but he toldhis intimates that it was not because he hated the scoundrel who hadrelieved him of an incubus, but because it would have been ungenteel tolet him live.
He conducted Antonia through the suite of rooms that comprised "Mrs.Mandalay's." There were two or three little side-rooms where peoplesat in corners and talked confidentially, as they do in such places tothis day. The confidences may have been a shade more audacious then, anincipient intrigue more daringly conducted, but it was the same andthe same--a married woman who despised her husband; a married man whodetested his wife; a young lady of fashion playing high stakes for acoronet, and baulked or ruined at the game. Antonia glanced from onegroup to the other as if she knew all about them. To be a student ofVoltaire is not to think too well of one's fellow-creatures. She hadread Fielding too, and knew that women were fools and men reprobates.She had wept over Richardson's Clarissa, and knew that there hadonce been a virtuous woman, or that a dry-as-dust printer's elderlyimagination had conceived such a creature.
One room was set apart for light refreshments, coffee and chocolate,negus and cakes; and here Kilrush found a little table in a corner,and seated her at it. The crowd in this room was so dense that itcreated a solitude. They were walled in by brocaded sacques and thebacks of velvet coats, and could talk to each other without fear ofbeing overheard. This was so much pleasanter than standing against awall staring at strange faces that Antonia began to think she likedMrs. Mandalay's. She took off her mask, unconscious that an adeptin coquetry would have maintained the mystery of her loveliness alittle longer. Kilrush was content to worship her for the perfectionof her mouth, the half-seen beauty of her eyes. She flung off thelittle velvet _loup_, and gave him the effulgence of her face, with anunconsciousness of power that dazzled him more than her beauty.
"I was nearly suffocated," she said.
He was silent in a transport of admiration. Her face had an exoticcharm. It was too brilliant for native growth. The South glowed in thelustre of her eyes and in the sheen of her raven hair. He had seensuch faces in Italy. The towers and cupolas, the church bells, themarket women's parti-coloured stalls, the lounging boatmen and clearwhite light of the Isola Bella came back to him as he looked at her.He had spent an autumn in the Borromean Palaces, a visitor to the lordof those delicious isles, and he had seen faces like hers, and hadworshipped them, in the heyday of youth, when he was on his grand tour.He remembered having heard that Thornton had married a lovely Italiangirl, whom he had stolen from her home in Lombardy, while he wastravelling as bear-leader to an India merchant's son.
Antonia sipped her chocolate with a composure that startled him.Women--except the most experienced--were apt to be fluttered by hislightest attentions; yet this girl, who had never seen him tillto-night, accepted his homage with a supreme unconcern, or indeedseemed unconscious of it. Her innocent assurance amused him. No rusticlass serving at an inn had ever received his compliments without ablush, for he had an air of always meaning more than he said.
"Your father told me he had reared you in seclusion, madam," he said,"and I take it this is your first glimpse of our gay world."
"My first and last," she replied. "I do not love your gay world. Idid wrong to tease my father to bring me here. I imagined a scene sodifferent."
"Tell me what your fancy depicted."
"Larger rooms, fewer people, more space and air--a _fete champetre_by Watteau within doors; dancers who danced for love of dancing, andwho were all young, not old wrinkled men and fat women; not paintedgrimacing faces, and an atmosphere cloudy with hair-powder."
"But is not this better than to sit in your lodgings and mope overbooks?"
"I never mope over books; they are my friends and companions."
"What, in the bloom of youth, when you should be dancing every night,gadding from one pleasure to another all day long? Books are thefriends of old age. I shall take to books myself when I grow old."
Tonia's dark brows elevated themselves unconsciously, and her eyesexpressed wonder. Was he not old enough already for books andretirement? The man of seven and forty saw the look and interpreted it.
"She knows I am old enough to be her father," he thought, "and that isthe reason of her _sang froid_. Women of the world know that mine isthe dangerous age--the age when a man who can love loves desperately,when concentration of purpose takes the place of youthful energy."
They sat in silence for a few minutes while she finished her chocolate,and while he summed up the situation. Then she rose hastily.
"I have been keeping you from your friends," she said.
"Oh, I have no friends here."
"Why, everybody was becking and bowing to you."
"I am on becking and bowing terms with everybody; but most of us hateeach other. Let me get you some more chocolate."
"No, thank you. I must go back to my father."
They had not far to go. Thornton was at a table on the other side ofthe room, drinking punch with one of his patrons in the book trade, ajunior partner who was frivolous enough to look in at Mrs. Mandalay's.
"Miss Thornton is so unkind as to fleer at our solemnities," saidKilrush, "and swears she will never come here again."
"I told her she was a fool to wish to come," answered Thornton. "Yourlordship has been uncommonly civil to take care of her. What the devilshould a Grub Street hack's daughter do here? She has never had adancing-lesson in her life."
"She ought to begin to-morrow. Serise would glory in such a pupil. Giveher but the knack of a minuet, and she would show young peeresses howto move like queens, or like a swan gliding on the current."
"Oh, pray, my lord, don't flatter her. She has not the art to_riposter_, and she may think you mean what you say."
* * * * *
Kilrush went with them to the street, where his chairmen were waitingto carry him to St. James's Square, or to whatever gambling-househe might prefer to the solitude of his ancestral mansion. He wantedto send Antonia home in his chair, but Thornton declined the favourlaughingly.
"Your chairmen would leave your service to-morrow if you sent them tosuch a shabby neighbourhood," he said, taking his daughter on his arm."We shall find a hackney coach on the stand."
The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival Page 3