Lord Upperton laughed again. “Miss Fitzroy,” he continued, “undertook to represent the Sultana of Turkey. If I remember rightly, she appeared in baggy silk trousers, high-heeled pink slippers, crimson jacket, embroidered with gold, and a white turban. Her bewitching eyes peeped through two holes in a muslin yashmak spangled with silver stars. Among the gentlemen I recall Lord Augustus Hervey, who disguised himself so completely as a jester that no one could make out who he was. He said saucy things as a court fool. He even guyed his own wife, and she never mistrusted she was flirting with her own husband, but then, as she was ready to flirt with anybody, it made no difference.”
Miss Newville hardly knew what reply to make as his lordship laughed again, and so remained silent.
“May I ask what character Lord Upperton assumed,” she asked.
“Oh, certainly. I appeared as a young devil, with hoofs, horns, and a forked tail. His satanic majesty, you know, is supposed to whisper things in people’s ears, and you may be sure I acted out the character I assumed. I did it so well that Lady Lucy Hastings said I was a perfect imp of darkness.”
“Have you any other recreations?” Miss Newville inquired.
“Oh, yes, a great many. One diversion I am sure would charm you,—the club at Almack’s, in which the ladies nominate gentlemen to membership and gentlemen the ladies. Only a few days before leaving London I attended a grand masquerade ball at Almack’s, where my Lady Archer appeared as a boy wearing a postman’s blue coat. Lord Edgecombe assumed the character of an old washerwoman. Sir Watkins Wynne rode into the hall on a goat, assuming the character of holy Saint David. The goat, more accustomed to browse in the pastures than take part in such high jinks, frightened by the blare of trumpets, the scraping of fiddles, and the whisking of the ladies’ skirts as they went round in the dance, capered like mad, butted my Lady Winchester so that she fell flat upon the floor, upset holy Saint David, and kept the room in an uproar until a waiter seized the animal by the horns and another by the tail and led him from the hall.”
Lord Upperton roared with laughter, and Miss Newville could but join him in the merriment.
“It was a picturesque scene, I assure you, with peddlers, haymakers, shepherdesses, gypsies, chimney-sweeps, and nymphs,” his lordship said.