Shrewsbury: A Romance

She did not answer at once, but with her hands on my shoulders, swayed to and fro sideways as if she already heard the music; while her gipsy face looked archly into mine, first on this side and then on that, and her hair swung to and fro on her shoulders in a beautiful abandonment which I found it impossible to resist. At last she stopped, and, "Yes," she said demurely, "through the windows, Master Richard Longface! Do you meet me here at half past nine-in your new suit, sir-and you shall see them too-through the windows."

After that, though I made a last effort to dissuade her, there was nothing more to be said. Obedient to her behest, I made my preparations, and at the appointed hour next evening rose softly from the miserable pallet on which I had just laid down; and dressing myself with shaking fingers and in the dark-that my bed-fellows might know as little as possible of my movements-stole down the stairs and into the garden.

Here I found myself first at the rendezvous. The night was dark, but an unusual light hung over the town, and the wind that stirred the poplars brought scraps and sounds of music to the ear. I had some time to wait, and time too to think what I was about to do; to weigh the chances of detection and dismissal, and even to taste the qualms that rawness and timidity mingled with my anticipations of pleasure. But, though I had my fears, no vision of the real future obtruded itself on my mind as I stood there listening: nor any forewarning of the plunge I was about to take. And before I had come to the end of my patience Dorinda stood beside me.

Dark as it was, I fancied that I discerned something strange in her appearance, and I would have investigated it; but she whispered that we were late, and evading as well my questions as the caress I offered, she bade me help her as quickly as I could over the fence. I did so; we crossed a neighbouring garden, and in a twinkling and with the least possible difficulty stood in the road. Here the strains of music came more plainly to the ear, and the glare of light hung lower and shone more brightly. This seemed enough for my mistress; she turned that way without hesitation, and set forward, the outskirts of the town being quickly passed. Between the late hour and the flux of people towards the centre of interest, the streets were vacant; and we met no one until we reached the main thoroughfare, and came upon the edge of the great crowd that moved to and fro before the Rose Inn. Here all the windows, in one of which a band of music was playing some new air, were brilliantly lighted; while below and round the door was such a throng of hurrying waiters and drawers, and such a carrying of meals and drinks, and a shouting of orders as almost turned the brain. A carriage and six that had just set down a grandee, come to pay his devoirs to the Prince, was moving off as we came up, the horses smoking, the footmen panting, and the postilions stooping in their saddles. A little to one side a cask was being staved for the troopers who had come with the Duke; and on all the noisy, moving scene and the flags that streamed from the roofs and windows, and the shifting crowd, poured the ruddy light of a great bon-feu that burned on the farther side of the way.

Nor, rare as were these things, were they the most pertinent or the strangest that the fire revealed to me. I had come for nothing else but to see, clam et furtim, as the classics say, what was to be seen; with no thought of passing beyond the uttermost ring of spectators. But as I hung back shamefacedly my companion seized my wrist and drew me on; and when I turned to her to remonstrate, as Heaven lives, I did not know her! I conceived for a moment that some madam of the court had seized me in a frolic; nor for a perceptible space could I imagine that the fine cloaked lady, whose eyes shone bright as stars through the holes in her mask, and whose raven hair, so cunningly dressed, failed to hide the brilliance of her neck, where the cloak fell loose, was my Dorinda, my mistress, the cook-maid whom I had kissed in the garden! Honestly, for an instant, I recoiled and hung back, afraid of her; nor was I quite assured of the truth, so unprepared was I for the change, until she whispered me sharply to come on.

"Whither?" I said, still hanging back in dismay. The bystanders were beginning to turn and stare, and in a moment would have jeered us.

"Within doors," she urged.

"They will not admit us!"

"They will admit me," she answered proudly, and made as if she would throw my hand from her.

Still I did not believe her, and it was that, and that only, that emboldened me; though, to be sure, I was in love and her slave. Reluctantly, and almost sulkily, I gave way, and sneaked behind her to the door. A man who stood on the steps seemed, at the first glance, minded to stop her; but, looking again, smiled and let us pass; and in a twinkling we stood in the hall among hurrying waiters, and shouting call-boys, and bloods in silk coats, whose scabbards rang as they came down the stairs, and a fair turmoil of pages, and footboys, and gentlemen, and gentlemen's gentlemen.

In such a company, elbowed this way and that by my betters, I knew neither how to carry myself, nor where to look; but Dorinda, with barely a pause, and as if she knew the house, thrust open the nearest door, and led the way into a great room that stood on the right of the hall.

Here, down the spacious floor, and lighted by shaded candles, were ranged several tables, at which a number of persons had seats, while others again stood or moved about the room. The majority of those present were men. I noticed, however, three or four women masked after the fashion of my companion, but more gorgeously dressed, and in my simplicity did not doubt that these were duchesses, the more as they talked and laughed loudly; whereas the general company-save those who sat at one table where the game was at a standstill, and all were crying persistently for a Tallier-spoke low, the rattle of dice and chink of coin, and an occasional oath, taking the place of conversation. I saw piles of guineas and half-guineas on the tables, and gold lace on the men's coats, and the women a dream of silks and furbelows, and gleaming shoulders and flashing eyes; and between awe of my company, and horror at finding myself in such a place, I took all for real that glittered. Where, therefore, a man of experience would have discerned a crowd of dubious rakes and rustic squires tempting fortune for the benefit of the Groom-Porter, whose privilege was ambulatory, I fancied I gazed on earls and barons; saw a garter on every leg, and, blind to the stained walls of the common inn-room, supplied every bully who cried the main or called the trumps with the pedigree of a Howard.

This was a delusion not unnatural, and a prey to it, I expected each moment to be my last in that company. But the fringe of spectators that stood behind the players favouring us, we fell easily into line at one of the tables, and nothing happening, and no one saying us nay, I presently breathed more freely. I could see that my companion's beauty, though hidden in the main by her mask, was the subject of general remark; and that it drew on her looks and regards more or less insolent. But as she took no heed of these, but on the contrary gazed about her unmoved and with indifference, I hoped for the best; and excited by the brilliance and movement of a scene so far above my wildest dreams, that I already anticipated the pride with which I should hereafter describe it, I began to draw a fearful joy from our escapade. Like Æneas and Ulysses, I had seen men and cities! And stood among heroes! And seen the sirens! To which thoughts I was proceeding to add others equally classical, when a gentleman behind me diverted my thoughts by touching my companion on the arm, and very politely requesting, her to lay on the table a guinea which he handed to her.

She did so, and he thanked her with a low-spoken compliment; then added with bent head, but bold eyes, "Fortune, my pretty lady, cannot surely have been unkind to one so fair!"

"I do not play," Dorinda answered, with all the bluntness I could desire.

"And yet I think I have seen you play?" he replied. And affecting to be engaged in identifying her, he let his eyes rove over her figure.

Doubtless Dorinda's mask gave her courage; yet, even this taken into the count, her wit and resource astonished me. "You do not know me, my pretty gentleman," she said, coolly, and with a proud air.

"I know that you have cost me a guinea!" he answered. "See, they have swept it off. And as I staked it for nothing else but to have an excuse to address the handsomest woman in the room-"

"You do not know what I am-behind my mask," she retorted.

"No," he replied, hardily, "and therefore I am going-I am going-"

"So am I!" my mistress answered, with a quickness that both surprised and delighted me. "Good night, good spendthrift! You are going; and I am going."

"Well hit!" he replied, with a grin. "And well content if we go together! Yet I think I know how I could keep you!"

"Yes?" she said, indifferently.

"By deserving the name," he answered. "You called me spendthrift."

On that I do not know whether she thought him too forward, or saw that I was nearly at the end of my patience-which it may be imagined was no little tried by this badinage-but she turned her shoulder to him outright, and spoke a word to me in a low tone. Then: "Give me a guinea, Dick!" she said, pretty loudly. "I think I'll play."

CHAPTER V

She spoke confidently and with a grand air, knowing that I had brought a guinea with me; so that I had neither the heart to shame her, nor the courage to displease her. Though it was the ninth part of my income therefore, and it seemed to me sheer madness or worse to stake such a sum on a single card, and win or lose it in a moment, I lugged it out and gave it to her. Even then, knowing her to have no more skill in the game than I had, I was at a stand, wondering what she would do with it; but with the tact which never fails a woman she laid it where the gentleman had placed his. With better luck; for in a twinkling, and before I thought it well begun, the deal was over, the players sat back, and swore, and the banker, giving and taking here and there, thrust a guinea over to our guinea. I was in a sweat to take both up before anyone cheated us; but she nudged me, and said with her finest air, "Let it lie, Dick! Do you hear? Let it lie."

This was almost more than I could bear, to see fortune in my grasp, and not shut my hand upon it, but she was mistress and I let it lie; and in a moment, hey presto, as the Egyptians say, the two guineas were four, and those who played next us, seeing her success, began to pass remarks on her, making nothing of debating who she was, and discussing about her shape and complexion in terms that made my cheeks burn. Whether this open admiration turned her head, or their freedom confused her, she let the money lie again; and when I would have snatched it up, not regarding her, the dealer prevented me, saying that it was too late, while she with an air, as if I had been her servant, turned and rated me sharply for a fool. This caused a little disturbance at which all the company laughed. However, the event proved me no fool, but wiser than most, for in two minutes that pretty sum, which was as much as I had ever possessed at one time in my life, was swept off; and for two guineas the richer, which we had been a moment before, we remained one, and that my only one, the poorer!

For myself, I could have cried at the misadventure, but my mistress carried it off with a shrill laugh, and tossing her head in affected contempt-whereat, I am bound to confess, the company laughed again-turned from the table. I sneaked after her as miserable as you please, and in that order we had got half way to the door, when the gentleman who had addressed her before, stepped up in front of her. "Beauty so reckless," he said, speaking with a grin, and in a tone of greater freedom than he had used previously, "needs someone to care for it! Unless I am mistaken, Mistress, you came on foot?" And with a sneering smile, he dropped his eyes to the hem of her cloak.

Alas, I looked too, and the murder was out. To be sure Dorinda had clothed herself very handsomely above, but coming to her feet had trusted to her cloak to hide the deficiency she had no means to supply. Still, and in spite of this, all might have been well if she had not in her chagrin at losing, forgotten the blot, and, unused to long skirts, raised them so high as to expose a foot, shapely indeed, but stockingless, and shod in an old broken shoe!

Her ears and neck turned crimson at the exposure, and she dropped her cloak as if it burned her hand. I fancied that if the stranger had looked to ingratiate himself by his ill-mannered jest, he had gone the wrong way about it, and I was not surprised when she answered in a voice quivering with mortification, "Yes, on foot. But you may spare your pains. I am in this gentleman's care, I thank you."

"Oh," he said, in a peculiar tone, "this gentleman?" And he looked me up and down.

I knew that it behooved me to ruffle it with him, and let him know by out-staring him that at a word I was ready to pull his nose. But I was a boy in strange company, and utterly cast down by the loss of my guinea; he a Court bully in sword and lace, bred to carry it in such and worse places. Though he seemed to be no more than thirty, he had a long and hard face under his periwig, and eyes both tired and melancholy; and he spoke with a drawl and a curling lip, and by the mere way he looked at me showed that he thought me no better than dirt. To make a long story short, I had not looked at him a moment before my eyes fell.

"Oh, this gentleman?" he said again, in a tone of cutting contempt. "Well, I hope that he has more guineas than one-or your ladyship will soon trudge it, skin to mud. As it is, I fear that I detain you. Kindly carry my compliments to Farmer Grudgen. And the pigs!"

And smiling-not laughing, for a laugh seemed alien from his face-at a jest which was too near the truth not to mortify us exceedingly, my lord-for a lord I thought he was-turned away with an ironical bow; leaving us to get out of the room with what dignity we might, and such temper as remained to us. For myself I was in such a rage, both at the loss of my guinea and at being so flouted, that I could scarcely govern myself; yet in my awe of Dorinda I said nothing, expecting and fearing an outbreak on her part, the consequences of which it was not easy to foretell. I was proportionately pleased therefore, when she made no more ado at the time, but pushing her way through the crowd in the street, turned homeward and took the road without a word.

This was so unlike her that I was at a loss to understand it, and was fain to conclude-from the fact that she two or three times paused to listen and look back-that she feared pursuit. The thought, bringing to my mind the risk of being detected and dismissed, which I ran-a risk that came home to me now that the pleasure was over, and I had only in prospect my squalid bed-room and the morrow's tasks-filled me with uneasiness. But I might have spared myself, for when she spoke I found that her thoughts were on other things.

"Dick," she said, suddenly-and halted abruptly in the road, "you must lend me a guinea."

"A guinea?" I cried, aghast, and speaking, it may be, with a little displeasure. "Why, have you not just-"

"What?" she said.

"Lost my only one."

She laughed with a recklessness that confounded me. "Well, you have got to find another one," she said. "And one to that!"

"Another guinea?" I gasped.

"Yes, another guinea, and another guinea!" she answered, mimicking my tone of consternation. "One for my shoes and stockings-oh, I wish he were dead!" And she stamped her foot passionately. "And one-"

"Yes?" I said, with a poor attempt at irony. "And one-?"

"For me to stake next Friday, when the Duke passes this way on his road home."

"He does not!"

"He does, he does!" she retorted. "And you will do too-what I say, sir! or-"

"Or what?" I cried, calling up a spirit for once.

"Or-" and she raised her voice a little, and sang:

"But alas, when I wake, and no Phyllis I find,