Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 34

"He sprang up, and thrust it into the lock; in his agitation he shook the box, and a slight, soft cadence, like a faint cry, was heard.

"' The soul of music hovers o'er it still,' he exclaimed theatrically, and, flinging back the lid, discovered--Me! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in a very smart white robe, with very tasty embroidery, and a lace cap which I am a.s.sured was pure Valenciennes, there I lay! I am not aware whether my infantine movements were peculiarly seductive or not; but I have been told that I went through my gamut at a key that even overtopped the iaughter around me.

"'A very bad jest--a _mauvaise plaisanterie_ of the worst taste, I must say,' said Lord E------turning away, and leaving the room.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 284]

"I never rightly knew how the matter was afterwards made up, but certainly it was by his lordship's directions, and at his charge, that I was nursed, reared, and educated. My expenses at Eton and Oxford, as well as the cost of my commission, came from him; and it was only a few days ago, on learning his death, that I also learned the termination of my good fortune in life. He bequeathed me what he styled my 'family mansio,'--the fiddle-case; thus repaying by this cruel jest the practical joke pa.s.sed upon himself so many years before."

"What name did they give you, sir?"

"'I was called after the celebrated violinist of Cremona who lived in the seventh century, who was named Cornelius Creja.n.u.s, or, as some spell, Crega.n.u.s; and, in compliance with modern usages, they anglicized me into Con Cregan."

"I have the honor to propose Con Cregan's health." said the president; "and may he see many happy years ere he next goes to sleep in a wooden box!"

This very gratifying toast was drunk with the most flattering acclamations, and I descended from the tribune the "man of the evening."

If some of the company who put credence in my story did not hesitate to ascribe a strong interest in me to the Royal Duke himself, others, who put less faith in my narrative, thought less of my parentage, and more of myself; so that what I lost on one hand, I gained on the other.

There was a discretion, a certain shadowy prudery about certain portions of my story, of which I have not attempted to convey any notion here, but which I saw had "told" with the fair part of my audience, who, possibly not over rigid in many of their opinions, were well pleased with the delicate reserve in which I shrouded my direct allusion to my parentage. A rough, red-whiskered skipper, indeed, seemed disposed to pour a broadside into this mystery, by asking "If his Royal Highness never took any notice of me?" but the refined taste of the company concurred in the diplomatic refusal to answer a question of which the "hon. gentleman on the straw chair" had given "no notice."

The pleasures of the table,--a very luscious bowl of the liquid which bore the mysterious epithet of "Thumbo-rig," and which was a concoction of the genus punch, spiced, sugared, and iced to a degree that concealed its awful tendency to anti-Mathewism; bright eyes that were no churls of their glances; merry converse; and that wondrous "magnetism of the board" which we call good fellowship,--made the time pa.s.s rapidly.

Toasts and sentiments of every fashion went round, and we were political, literary, arbitrary, amatory, sentimental, and satiric by turns. They were pleasant varlets! and in their very diversity of humors there was that clash and collision of mind and metal that tell more effectively than the best packed party of choice wits who ever sat and watched each other.

Then, there was a jolly jumbling up of bad English, bad Dutch, bad French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, that would drive a sober listener clean mad. Stories begun in one tongue merged into another; and so into a third; while explanations, mistakes, and corrections ran alongside of the narrative, often far more amusing than the story to which they were attached. Personalities, too, abounded, but with a most unqualified good temper; and, on the whole, I never beheld a merrier set.

M. Palamede alone did not relish the scene. He himself was n.o.body at such a moment, and he longed for the ballroom and the dance; and it was only after repeated summonses of his bell that we at last arose and entered the saloon, where we found him standing, fiddle in hand, while, rapping smartly a couple of times with his bow, he called out,--

"Places! places! Monsieur le Duc de Gubbins, to your place. Ladies, I beg attention. Madame la Marquise, dans la bonne societe on ne donne jamais un soufflet."

"Ah, here's old Rosin again!" cried several of the party, who, with all this familiarity, appeared to view him with no small respect.

"Shall I find you a partner, Monsieur de Congreganne?" said he to me.

"Thanks," said I; "but, with your permission, I'll not dance just yet."

"As you please, it is but a contre-danse," said he shrugging his shoulders, while he moved away to arrange the figures.

I had not perceived before that a kind of orchestra, consisting of two fiddles, a flute, and a tambourine, was stationed in a long gallery over the door by which we entered; Monsieur Palamede being, however, director, not alone of the music, but of the entire entertainment. The band now struck up a well-known English country-dance, and away went the couples, flying down the room to the merry measure; Monsieur de Rosanne arranging the figures, beating the time, preserving order, and restraining irregularities, with the energy of one possessed.

"Ah, Monsieur le Capitaine de c.o.c.ks, c*en est trop. Mademoiselle de Spicer, pas si haut! de arms graceful! Ladies, no keep your hands under your--what ye call him--jupe--ap.r.o.n--ha! ha! Black man--negro--no talk so loud when you make punch!"

"Cha.s.sez--balancez! La grace! Madame la Marquise, la grace!" Then, as he pa.s.sed me, he muttered with a voice guttural from anger, "Quel supplice!"

As I continued to gaze on the scene, I could not help being struck with the extreme diversity of look and expression; for while there were some faces on which iniquity had laid its indelible stamp, there were others singularly pleasing, and some actually beautiful. Among the men, the same character prevailed throughout,--a rude, coa.r.s.e good-humor,--the sailor-type everywhere; but a few seemed persons of a higher cla.s.s, and on these a life of vice and debauchery had produced the most marked change, and you could still see, amid the traces of nights of riot and abandonment, the remnant of finer features, the expression they had worn before their "fall." If I was surprised at the good looks of many of the women, still more was I by a gracefuluess of carriage and an air of deportment that seemed as much out of place as they were unsuited to such companionship. One young fellow appeared to be a general favorite with the company. He was tall, well-made, and had that indescribably rakish character about his very gesture that is rarely a bad indication of the possessor's mode of life. I had no difficulty in learning his name, for every one called him by it at each instant, and "Fred Falkoner" was heard on all sides. It was he who selected the music for the dance; his partner, for the time being, was the belle of the room, and he lounged about supreme. Nor was his t.i.tle a bad one,--he was the great entertainer of the whole a.s.sembly. The refreshments were almost entirely of his ordering, and the clink of his dollars might be heard keeping merry time with the strains of the violins. I watched him with some interest; I thought I could see that, in descending to such companionship, there was a secret combat between his self-respect and a strange pa.s.sion for seeing life in low places, which, when added to the flattery such a man invariably obtains from his inferiors, is a dangerous and subtle temptation. The more I studied him, the stronger grew this conviction,--nay, at times, the expression of scorn upon his handsome features was legible even to the least remarking. It was while I still continued to watch him that he pa.s.sed me, with a dark, Spanish-looking girl upon his arm, When he turned round suddenly, and, staring at me fixedly a few seconds, said, "We met once before, to-day."

"I am not aware of it," said I, doubtingly.

"Yes, yes. I never forget a face, least of all when it resembles yours.

I saw you this morning at the 'Picayune.'"

"True, I was there."

"What a precious set of rascals those fellows were! You supposed that they were going to join the expedition. Not a bit of it. Some were gamblers; the greater number thieves and pickpockets. I know them all; and, indeed, I was going to warn you about them, for I saw you were a stranger, but I lost sight of you in the crowd. But there's the music.

Will you have a partner?"

"With all my heart," said I, glad to encourage our further acquaintance.

"You speak Spanish?"

"Not a word."

"Well, no matter. If you did, you should have mine here. But what say you to Mademoiselle Helose, yonder?--a bit faded or so; but I remember her second 'Bal-larina' at the Havana, only two years back."

I made the suitable acknowledgment; and the next moment saw me whirling away in a waltz, at least in such an approximation to that measure as my Quebec experience suggested, with a very highly rouged and black-eyebrowed "danseuse." My French was better than my dancing; and so Mademoiselle Helose was satisfied to accept my arm, while we paraded the room, discussing the company after the most approved fashion.

The French have a proverb, "Bete comme une danseuse;" and I must say that my fair friend did not prove an exception. Her whole idea of life was limited to what takes place in rehearsal of a morning, or on the night of representation. She recounted to me her history from the time she had been a "Rat,"--such is the technical term at the Grand Opera of Paris,--flying through the air on a wire, or sitting perilously perched upon a pasteboard cloud. Thence she had advanced to the state of Fairy Queen, or some winged messenger of those celestials who wear muslin trousers with gold stars, and always stand in the "fifth position."

Pa.s.sing through the grade of Swiss peasant, Turkish slave, and Neapolitan market-girl, she had at last arrived at the legitimate drama of "legs," yclept "ballet d'action;" and although neither her beauty nor abilities had been sufficient to achieve celebrity in Paris, she was accounted a Taglioni in the "provinces," and deemed worthy of exportation to the colonies.

"Non contingit cuique ad ire Corinthum!" we cannot all have our "loges"

at the "Grand Opera;" and happy for us it is so, or what would become of the pleasure we derive from third, fourth, and fifth rate performances elsewhere? True, indeed, if truffles were a necessary of life, there would be a vast amount of inconvenience and suffering. Now, Mademoiselle Helose, whose pirouettes were no more minded in Paris, nor singled out for peculiar favor, than one of the lamps in the row of footlights, was a kind of small idol in the Havana. She had the good fortune to live in an age when the heels take precedence of the head, and she shared in the enthusiasm by which certain people in our day would bring back the heathen mythology for the benefit of the corps de ballet.

Alas for fame! in the very climax of her glory she grew fat! Now, flesh to a danseuse is like cowardice to a soldier, or shame to a lawyer,--it is the irreconcilable quality. The gauzy natures who float to soft music must not sup. Every cutlet costs an "entrechat"! Hard and terrible condition of existence, and proving how difficult and self-denying a thing it is to be an angel, even in this world!

So much for Mademoiselle Heloise; and if the reader be weary of her, so was I.

"You'll have to treat her to a supper," whispered Falk-oner, as he pa.s.sed me.

"I've not a cent in my purse," said I, thinking it better to tell the truth than incur the reproach of stinginess.

"Never mind, take mine," said he, as he dropped a very weighty purse into my coat-pocket, and moved away before I could make any answer.

Perhaps the greatest flattery an individual can receive is to win some acknowledgment of confidence from an utter stranger. To know that by the chance intercourse of a few minutes you have so impressed another, who never saw you before, that he is impelled at once to befriend you, your self-esteem, so pleasantly gratified, immediately re-acts upon the cause, and you are at a loss whether most to applaud your own good gifts, or the ready wittedness of him who appreciated them so instantaneously.

I was still hesitating, revolving, doubtless, the pleasant sense of flattery aforesaid, when Falkoner came flying past with his partner.

"Order supper for four," cried he, as he whizzed by.

"What does he say, mon cher Comte?" said my partner.

I translated his command, and found that the notion pleased her vastly.

The dining-room by this time had been metamorphosed into a kind of coffee-room, with small supper-tables, at which parties were already a.s.sembling; and here we now took our places, to con over the bill of fare, and discuss scalloped oysters, cold lobster, devilled haddock, and other like delicacies.

Falkoner soon joined us, and we sat down, the merriest knot in the room.

I must have been brilliant! I feel it so, this hour; a kind of warm glow rushes to my cheeks as I think over that evening, and how the guests from the different parts of the room drew gradually nearer and nearer to listen to the converse at our table, and hear the smart things that came pattering down like hail! What pressing invitations came pouring in upon me! The great Mastodon himself could not have eaten a t.i.the of the breakfasts to which I was asked, nor would the grog-tub of a seventy-four contain all the rum-and-water I was proffered by skippers lying "in dock."

Falkoner, however, pleased me more than the rest. There was something in his cordiality that did not seem like a pa.s.sing fancy; and I could not help feeling that however corrupted and run to waste by dissipation, there was good stuff about him. He interested me, too, on another score: he had formerly made one of a Texan excursion that had penetrated even to the Rio del Norte, and his escapes and adventures amused me highly.

The ladies, I believe, at last found us very ungallant cavaliers; for they arose, and left us talking over prairie life and the wild habits of the chase, till day began to shine through the windows.