CHAPTER XIII.
On an evening at the end of summer, while leaves were yet green and skies yet fall of sunshine, though the long daylight of the year's prime had diminished somewhat more than an hour, and darkness and winter were stealing slowly forward in the distance, a small but handsome room, richly furnished with everything that the taste of that day could display, with exquisite carvings of old oak, with fine pictures, with velvet hangings, ay, and with green shrubs and flowers both rare and beautiful, showed preparations for a supper party, at which two persons only were expected. The table was arranged with great taste: rich fruits in a silver vase formed a pyramid in the midst, and two or three dishes of the most beautiful workmanship presented various tempting pieces of confectionery strewed over, in quaint devices and in a regular pattern, with minute flowers. On the right of the principal table, at some little distance, was a carved oak buffet covered with crimson velvet, just seen from beneath the edges of a damask napkin, on which were arranged some large silver tankards of beautiful forms, two golden goblets, and several tall glasses gilded on the stem. The windows of the room were open, but shaded with trees and flowering shrubs, and a green soft light spread through the interior, as the rays of the setting sun poured through the veil of leaves. That light began to assume a purple hue, showing that the orb of day had touched the verge of the horizon, when a lady entered by a door from the gardens, magnificently habited in an evening dress, with somewhat more display of her fair person than the general habits of the English people rendered decorous. We see the same mode of dress in the pictures of Rubens, especially those in which he represents the court of France at that period; but the costume had not yet become general in Great Britain, and, to English minds, the dress might have been higher, the wing-like collar more close.
The lady closed the door and locked it; looked eagerly round, advanced to the other door, and did the same. Then, taking a small vial from that fair bosom, and a plate from the table, she poured out of the little bottle a white powder into the centre of the plate. There was a little vase of silver standing near, filled with powdered sugar, and from it she took a portion with a small silver ladle, then mingled the sugar and the white powder in the plate intimately together, and sprinkled the confectionery thickly with the mixture. This done, she again gazed round, looked out through both the windows, replaced the little vial in her bosom, and, unlocking either door, went forth again.
The room remained vacant for half an hour; twilight succeeded to broad day, and night to twilight, but soft and fair; no heavy darkness, but a gentle transparent shade, with the starlight and the coming moon, felt though not seen within the chamber. The windows remained open; the soft air sighed in through the branches, and a solitary note of the long-singing merle was heard every now and then from beneath the leaves.
Suddenly the quick hoofs of a number of horses sounded on the road near, then stopped, and voices talking gaily in the house succeeded. Two servants entered that carefully decked room, and lighted the candles in the lustres. A moment after, a man in a white cap and apron followed, looked over the whole table, and moved some of the flowers upon the dishes; but the cook did not seem to remark that aught had been done to his confectionery.
"'Ods life, there are more of them coming," he cried, addressing the other two servants, as the tramp of horses was again heard, "I wish they would keep their hungry throats away. Run out, Lloyd, and see who are these new ones."
The room was left vacant again for a few minutes, and then the door was thrown open by one of the attendants. The lady entered, leaning somewhat languishingly on the arm of a tall, handsome young man, splendidly dressed, but yet without that air of high birth and courtly habits which were eminently conspicuous in his fair companion.
A slight degree of paleness spread over the lady's face as she passed the threshold, and the deep fringed eyelids dropped over the large black eyes. The gentleman's look was upon her at the moment, and his brow somewhat contracted; his countenance assumed an expression of shrewd and bitter meaning. He said nought, however; and the lady, recovering herself in a moment, turned her head, saying to the servant behind, "Let the men wait--tell the boy I will see him, and receive his lord's letter after supper."
"Who are these men?" asked the gentleman, advancing with her towards the table.
"The page of the Earl of Hillingdon, my good lord," she replied, with a sarcastic smile, seating herself in the nearest chair; "his page and a servant, bearing a letter from that noble gentleman to poor deserted me."