Mrs. Alexander - Kate Vernon, Vol. 1 (of 3)

"Hold your tongue – for Heaven's sake, my dear fellow," I exclaimed in a rapid aside – "don't breathe my name: at this moment I have not the most remote idea who I am, and am constantly on the verge of an unpardonable scrape; be silent and begone, I will tell you all afterwards." Silenced and amazed, poor Burton retired, and my unknown friend, turning to me as I stood elate at having conquered difficulties, again showed me my uncertain footing by observing – "But you used to cherish the most heretical opinions on these points, and offend me not a little by their open avowal." What an ill-bred savage she must identify me with! "Raw boys are always odious and irrational; you should not have deigned to listen to me," said I in despair.

"Oh! you were by no means a raw boy, you looked quite as old as you do now; besides, it is not half a century since we met," she replied, with another distracting look; and then – with a merry burst of apparently irrepressible laughter, in which, though I could not account for it, her friends and myself joined – it was so infectious, added – "You must forgive me, but really your reminiscences seem to be in such inextricable confusion, I cannot help laughing." In an agony lest all should be discovered – with the respectable couple before-mentioned for umpires, I urged in defence "that my memory was like the background of a picture from which one figure alone stood out clear and well defined." Then, observing that she was beating time to the sound of a most delicious waltz just begun, "Am I too unreasonable to ask for a waltz as well as a quadrille," I said. She half shook her head, then, smiling to her companions, observed – "It is so long since I had a waltz I cannot resist it; shall I keep you too late, Caro Maestro ?" "No, no," said the lady with the cap, "we will go and watch you." In a few moments I was whirling my fair incognita round to the inspiring strains of the Elfin Waltz, then new and unhacknied.

What a delicious waltz that was! My partner seemed endowed with the very spirit of the dance: her light pliant form seemed to respond to every tone of the music, and not an unpractised valseur myself, I felt that I was, at all events, no encumbrance to her movements. I have never heard that waltz since – whether ground on the most deplorable of barrel organs, or blown in uncertain blasts from the watery instruments of a temperance band – without seeing, as in a magic mirror, the whole scene conjured up before my eyes: the intense enjoyment of my partner, which beamed so eloquently from her soft grey eyes, and spoke volumes of the nature it expressed: the childlike simplicity with which, when at length wearied, she stopped and said, turning to me – "You dance very well! How I have enjoyed that waltz!"

Many a stray sixpence those reminiscences have cost me! "But," she continued, "it must be late, and I cannot keep my friends any longer, let us find them as soon as possible." This was soon done, and, to my infinite chagrin, my partner declared herself quite ready to depart, pronouncing a glowing eulogium on my dancing. "You must have taken lessons since I had the pleasure of meeting you, for formerly – " There she stopped, for the philanthropic little cavalier she had called caro maestro interrupted her, wrapped a shawl round her, begging she would hold it to her mouth and keep that feature closed during her passage to the carriage, and led the way with his, I supposed, wife, leaving me still in possession of the little hand which had rested on my shoulder during the waltz. Now, or never, I thought.

"I fear I have induced you to prolong that waltz beyond your strength," for I felt her arm still trembling with the exertion, "you must allow me to assure myself to-morrow that you have felt no ill effects?"

"We are not staying here," she said with some hesitation; "we only came in for the festival and leave to-morrow."

Here we reached the passage, and il caro maestro proceeding to discover their carriage, I felt myself, of course, bound to divide my attentions with the lady of the cap, and, not choosing to prosecute my enquiries within range of her ears, I remained some time in a state of internal frying till he returned, and I was again tête-à-tête for a moment with their charge.

"But do you not reside in the neighbourhood?" We were close at the door. Smiling with her eyes, she shook her head, pointed to the shawl which she held to her mouth in obedience to the injunction she had received, and remained silent; I was distracted. "Forgive me," I exclaimed, "and pray speak; I must see you again."

"Come, my dear," cried my tormentor, "you'll catch cold, make haste!"

Her foot was on the step; – she was in, her guardian opposite her; – the glass drawn up. "Move on," said the policeman. One glance, as she bowed full of arch drollery, and I was left on the door step repeating, over and over, "No. 756 – 756," while my brain was in a whirl of excitement, my beautiful vision gone, and my only clue to discover her the number of a cab!

With a confused sensation of annoyance and ill temper, I opened my eyes at the reveillé next morning, and for some moments experienced that most painful puzzle of which few in this troublesome world of ours are quite ignorant, and which is one of the accompaniments of a great grief, videlicet, a perfect certainty that you are in the middle of something disagreeable, but what you are not sufficiently wide awake to discover. The process of shaving, at all times a reflective one, soon cleared up to me the mystery, and placed in full array the pros. and cons. of my chance of ever meeting my beautiful "incognita" again. Even my decidedly sanguine disposition was compelled to acknowledge that the "pros." were few indeed. Still, as I am not without a certain degree of resolution, especially when the matter to be decided on touches my fancy or my affections, I determined pretty firmly not to relinquish the effort to discover and renew my acquaintance with the belle of last night.

I had hardly commenced an attack upon my eggs and broiled ham, when Burton walked in, brimful of curiosity, as I had anticipated, and to avoid the bore of being questioned, I at once opened my budget, and told him the whole history down to my present resolution; the more readily as he was a sufficiently high-minded gentleman-like fellow to talk to about a woman you respected; no blab, and a great chum of mine into the bargain.

I regret to say he laughed most unsympathisingly at my dilemma, and acknowledged that he had spent the greater part of the evening watching my proceedings, and speculating as to alternate expressions of triumph and defeat which swept across my countenance.

"I never heard of a more curious rencontre , the fair unknown must have had a very slight acquaintance with your prototype; and then your unequalled luck sending you to the right quarter for discovering the scene of the original acquaintance, and being sufficiently au fait at its habits and inhabitants, she could never have dreamt of having mistaken you. But how do you think of setting about her recovery?"

"Ah! there's the rub. An advertisement in the Carrington Chronicle – 'If the young lady with the antique fan, &c., who danced the Elfin Waltz with an officer of H.M.'s – Light Dragoons, at the ball last night, will send her address to the Cavalry Barracks, she will hear of something to her advantage,' would hardly do, eh? Besides, the admiration, however respectful, of a younger son, a landless Captain would not, I fear, come under the denomination of an advantage."

"And suppose you discover her, perhaps enshrined in some lordly old manor house, surrounded with all the prestige of position, what will you say for yourself as an excuse, for your bold attempt to see her again?"