Mr. Hamilton reflected: “What is this, my Mollinda?—for Mollinda’s work you are. Kit, and an assignation—with whom? Is it man or woman, you little devil? And so is the enigma to be resolved at last? I don’t believe a word of it. It is some pretty trick of yours to requite me for my late unkindness to you. Well, I’ll defeat it. Find me, with a green scarf to my hat, at the rendezvous, and kiss me for Kit whoever you may be. Who would have thought of that, now, George, but your own ingenious self?”
But, in spite of their pretended confidence, they were all three properly puzzled and nervous, bless you. And one after the other, in an inconsequent sort of way, they put themselves into positions where they might hope to run across Mrs. Davis by accident, and question her casually as to her plans for the evening. But, exasperatingly enough, Moll was never once in evidence the whole day long, and no one knew what had become of her. She had vanished from all human ken like the “baseless fabric of a vision.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Where the grounds of Buckingham Palace now extend, there stood in the seventeenth century the old flowery pleasaunce known as Mulberry Garden, a place long appropriated, like its Spring prototype at Whitehall, to al fresco entertainment. Ex-mural and mural as things then went, there was to the ordinary cit a soupçon of adventure suggested in a visit to this remoter fairyland; and, as a little enterprising beyond the confines of the orthodox adds a zest to the soberest merry-making, Mulberry Garden possessed an attraction for the town, which was certainly due as much to its comparative removedness as to any diversions it might offer in the way of dancing and junketing. There was a mild thrill in achieving it, its wild and tangled acres, only gathered into cores of brilliancy at certain definite centres, where, after dark, the scattered threads of lamps, like gossamer hung with dew-drops, constellated thickly about groups of arbours, set in open spaces among the trees, where glittering forms circulated, and laughter rang, and cheese-cakes were eaten and lips kissed under fragrant ambushes of boughs woven into a thousand pretty devices of green garters and lovers’ knots. There was here none of the structural artifices which later came to vulgarize, and, alas! popularize, the more ordered vistas of Vauxhall across the water—cascades, and sham ruins, and side shows, and so forth; but Nature was allowed for the most part her own sweet, untrammelled way; and, where the wildernesses were converted, it was to no more than an artless religion of green swards and bowers, whereon and wherein the tripping frolic of foot and heart might adapt itself, if it would, to “the music of the moon” and the song of the innocent nightingale.
Not that to those chaste warblers of the night was entrusted the whole provision of music for the company. Skies might be moonless, and birds silent or out of season; wherefore there was generally to be found engaged to the service of romantic hearts and ears some performer, skilled on lute or harp, whose melodious utterances, thrilling through grove and clearing, were calculated to awaken such emotions as were compatible with the sweet understanding of sylvan solitudes.
Now, that is a true picture, though very certainly a one-sided. For where innocence goes sin is sure to follow; and the atmosphere of Mulberry Garden was by no means all of harmless frolic compact. Being relatively remote, and consisting, moreover, for three-fourths of its space of unredeemed wilderness, it formed a tempting rendezvous for spirits kept better apart; and too often, it must be confessed, a meeting among its waste thickets was tantamount to an intrigue. Still, in its popular centres the whole may be said to have leavened the parts, and it was to those, nominally, that the town gravitated, and in them found its entertainment.
Mulberry Garden was aristocratic, and remained so until its vogue came to abate—which it was already threatening to do—through the growing reputation of that “Jardin Printemps” at Lambeth, to the entrance of which a trip across the water made such a pleasant prelude. Never popularly patronized, there were times when—robuster novelties attracting—the exclusive might enjoy its green walks and hospitalities with the sense almost of being a privileged company invited to a fête champêtre. It had, of course, its central restaurant—without which it could not have existed aristocratically—in the building known as Mulberry Garden House, where quite recherché little dinners could be eaten; and, indeed, it was there that Mr. Pepys (to mention him but once again) discussed that “Spanish Olio,” chartered by one Shere, and mentioned in the Diary, which he found so richly delectable—“a very noble dish such as I never saw better or more of.” In this room Fashion would dine—and often too liberally wine, too—before emerging to tickle its pseudo-pastoral sentiment with pretence of neo-Arcadian groves and flowery shepherdesses; and it was from this room that, vizard on brow, Mr. George Hamilton issued at about a quarter past eight o’clock on a certain soft and windless June night.
He looked sharply about him, as he descended the steps into the open, searching among the company within his range for a particular token. It was one of those exceptional occasions when the visitors were relatively few, and as such widely scattered among the walks and trees. All the space before him was strung with tiny lamps, festooned from branch to branch, or ambushed in cloudy green like glow-worms. They cast a diffused light, enough to distinguish people by, but clothing one and all in a romantic glamour very soft and mystic. Many, most, in fact, of the company wore vizards. Women, indeed, on view in public places, seldom appeared unmasked, not from blushing modesty, but to hide their inability to blush at all where a blush was called for. That was understood, and derided; yet, while wit and address might effect what they could in the way of persuasion, it was an article of the strictest punctilio that no vizor should be removed by force—a rule so respected that any abuse of it was like enough, in those hot times, to lead to bloody reprisals on the offender.
Now, not distinguishing what he sought—and, indeed, the hour was yet early for an expected trysting—Master George sauntered away, with the purpose to seek some retired spot, where he might pin about his hat the green emblem of identification which he had brought with him in his pocket. On his way, reaching an open space where much company was congregated, he stopped to ascertain the cause of the assembling, and perceived, seated upon a green knoll in the midst, the long, grey-clad figure of a harpist, who was in the act of tuning up his instrument before performing.
“Quel qu’il soit?” he asked of a scented exquisite who stood near him.