Charles Lever - Jack Hinton - The Guardsman

‘Sir Peter and Lady Macfarlane!’ screamed the servant at the top of the stairs.

‘Counsellor and Mrs. Blake!’

‘Captain O’Ryan of the Rifles!’

‘Lord Dumboy – ’

‘Dunboyne, you villain!’

‘Ay, Lord Dunboyne and five ladies!’

Such were the announcements that preceded us as we wended our way slowly on, while I could distinguish Mr. Rooney’s voice receiving and welcoming his guests, for which purpose he used a formula, in part derived from the practice of an auction-room.

‘Walk in, ladies and gentlemen, walk in. Whist, tea, dancing, negus, and blind-hookey – delighted to see you – walk in’; and so, da capo , only varying the ritual when a lord or a baronet necessitated a change of title.

‘You’re quite right, O’Grady; I wouldn’t have lost this for a great deal,’ whispered the duke.

‘Now, my lord, permit me,’ said Phil. ‘Hinton and I will engage Mr. Rooney in conversation, while your grace can pass on and mix with the crowd.’

‘Walk in, walk in, ladies and – Ah! how are you, Captain? This is kind of you – Mr. Hinton, your humble servant – Whist, dancing, blind-hookey, and negus – walk in – and, Captain Phil,’ added he in a whisper, ‘a bit of supper by-and-by below-stairs.’

‘I must tell you an excellent thing, Rooney, before I forget it,’ said O’Grady, turning the host’s attention away from the door as he spoke, and inventing some imaginary secret for the occasion; while I followed his grace, who now was so inextricably jammed up in the dense mob that any recognition of him would have been very difficult, if not actually impossible.

For some time I could perceive that the duke’s attention was devoted to the conversation about him. Some half-dozen ladies were carrying on a very active and almost acrimonious controversy on the subject of dress; not, however, with any artistic pretension of regulating costume or colour, not discussing the rejection of an old or the adoption of a new mode, but with a much more practical spirit of inquiry they were appraising and valuing each other’s finery, in the most sincere and simple way imaginable.

‘Seven-and-sixpence a yard, my dear; you ‘ll never get it less, I assure you.’ ‘That’s elegant lace, Mrs. Mahony; was it run, ma’am?’ Mrs. Mahony bridled at the suggestion, and replied that, though neither her lace nor her diamonds were Irish – ‘Six breadths, ma’am, always in the skirt,’ said a fat, little, dumpy woman, holding up her satin petticoat in evidence.

‘I say, Hinton,’ whispered the duke, ‘I hope they won’t end by an examination of us. But what the deuce is going on here?’

This remark was caused by a very singular movement in the room. The crowd which had succeeded to the dancers, and filled the large drawing-room from end to end, now fell back to either wall, leaving a space of about a yard wide down the entire centre of the room, as though some performance was about to be enacted or some procession to march there.

‘What can it be?’ said the duke; ‘some foolery of O’Grady’s, depend upon it; for look at him up there talking to the band.’

As he spoke, the musicians struck up the grand march in Blue Beard , and Mrs. Paul Rooney appeared in the open space, in all the plenitude of her charms – a perfect blaze of rouge, red feathers, and rubies – marching in solemn state. She moved along in time to the music, followed by Paul, whose cunning eyes twinkled with more than a common shrewdness, as he peered here and there through the crowd. They came straight towards where we were standing; and while a whispered murmur ran through the room, the various persons around us drew back, leaving the duke and myself completely isolated. Before his grace could recover his concealment, Mrs. Rooney stood before him. The music suddenly ceased; while the lady, disposing her petticoats as though the object were to conceal all the company behind her, curtsied down to the very floor.

‘Ah, your grace,’ uttered in an accent of the most melting tenderness, were the only words she could speak, as she bestowed a look of still more speaking softness. ‘Ah, did I ever hope to see the day when your Highness would honour – ’

‘My dear madam,’ said the duke, taking her hand with great courtesy, ‘pray don’t overwhelm me with obligations. A very natural, I hope a very pardonable desire, to witness hospitality I have heard so much of, has led me to intrude thus uninvited upon you. Will you allow me to make Mr. Rooney’s acquaintance?’

Mrs. Rooney moved gracefully to one side, waving her hand with the air of a magician about to summons an attorney from the earth, when suddenly a change came over his grace’s features; and, as he covered his mouth with his handkerchief, it was with the greatest difficulty he refrained from an open burst of laughter. The figure before him was certainly not calculated to suggest gravity.

Mr. Paul Rooney for the first time in his life found himself the host of a viceroy, and, amid the fumes of his wine and the excitement of the scene, entertained some very confused notion of certain ceremonies observable on such occasions. He had read of curious observances in the East, and strange forms of etiquette in China, and probably, had the Khan of Tartary dropped in on the evening in question, his memory would have supplied him with some hints for his reception; but, with the representative of Britannic Majesty, before whom he was so completely overpowered, he could not think of, nor decide upon anything. A very misty impression flitted through his mind, that people occasionally knelt before a Lord Lieutenant; but whether they did so at certain moments, or as a general practice, for the life of him he could not tell. While, therefore, the dread of omitting a customary etiquette weighed with him on the one hand, the fear of ridicule actuated him on the other; and thus he advanced into the presence with bent knees and a supplicating look eagerly turned towards the duke, ready at any moment to drop down or stand upright before him as the circumstances might warrant.

Entering at once into the spirit of the scene, the duke bowed with the most formal courtesy, while he vouchsafed to Mr. Rooney some few expressions of compliment. At the same time, drawing Mrs. Rooney’s arm within his own, he led her down the room, with a grace and dignity of manner no one was more master of than himself. As for Paul, apparently unable to stand upright under the increasing load of favours that fortune was showering upon his head, he looked over his shoulder at Mrs. Rooney, as she marched off in triumph, with the same exuberant triumph Young used to throw into Othello, as he passionately exclaims —

‘Excellent wench I perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee!’

Not but that, at the very moment in question, the object of it was most ungratefully oblivious of Mr. Rooney and his affection.

Had Mrs. Paul Rooney been asked on the morning after her ball, what was her most accurate notion of Elysian bliss, she probably would have answered – leaning upon a viceroy’s arm in her own ball-room, under the envious stare and jealous gaze of eight hundred assembled guests. Her flushed look, her flashing eye, the trembling hand with which she waved her fan, the proud imperious step, all spoke of triumph. In fact, such was the halo of reverence, such the reflected brightness the representative of monarchy then bore, she felt it a prouder honour to be thus escorted, than if the Emperor of all the Russias had deigned to grace her mansion with his presence. How she loved to run over every imaginable title she conceived applicable to his rank, ‘Your Royal Highness,’ ‘Your Grace,’ ‘Your noble Lordship,’ varying and combining them like a a child who runs his erring fingers over the keys of a pianoforte, and is delighted with the efforts of his skill.