The red-haired chief, as master of the ceremonies, wore a huge peony in his buttonhole, and with what gusto he marshalled us about, told off couples, and shouted "Lancers now," or "Look out now, the Caledonian Quadrille." Three quaint little girls had been allowed to come with their governess, who entered heartily into the spirit of the thing, and never left the piano. Quadrille after polka, waltz after schottische, "Sir Roger de Coverley," mazurka, and gallop. And, between the dances, what riotous fun, when we cast ourselves upon the refreshments, and noisy boys risked death and assassination as they opened lemonade and soda-water bottles with a splendid flourish! Our elders might drink themselves to frenzy on whisky and yet remain more sober than we were as we capered and laughed and quaffed big draughts of harmless fluid. And the sandwiches we ate, the biscuits and apples we devoured, the bread-and-butter we munched, and flick, flack! there was Miss Montgomery at the piano, and dozens of little feet were again twinkling about the floor.
I, proud being, danced twice with Arthur. We floundered in amazing fashion through a set of Lancers, the master of ceremonies shouting the while indignantly at our heels. And later he invited me to go through some mysterious measure he called a gallop, which consisted in a wild charge for the other end of the room, helter-skelter, couples knocking each other down delightedly, rolling over each other, and picking one another up in the best of tempers.
And then, as we mopped our faces, and drank lemonade, somebody proposed that I should give an imitation of Mr. Parker. Arthur and I were the only travelled personages of the assembly. He had been to Eton and I had been to Lysterby, and it was his slightly sarcastic voice that determined me. "Oh, I say, by all means. I hear he was a capital fellow that dancing-master of yours, and you do him to a T."
To prove that I did, I began the chassé-croisé, to the tune of an imaginary violin, chanting Nora Creina, amid shrieks of approbation. How often since have my friends lamented my missed vocation! On the stage, whether actress or dancer, my fortune would long ago have been made, and as an acrobat I should have won glory in my teens. But old-fashioned parents never think of these things. If you are a girl, and fortune forsakes the domestic hearth, they tell you to go and be a governess, and bless your stars that, thanks to their good sense, you are enabled to earn a miserable crust in the path of respectability. When they find a child with extraordinary mimic capacities, an abnormal physical suppleness, and a passion for the ballet, it does not occur to them that it would be wiser and more humane to seek to turn these advantages to some account, instead of condemning the little wretch to future misery and self-effacement as a governess.
Pauline, who knew every moment of the famous Mr. Parker by heart, wandered out into the front garden with a lad of her own age to look at the stars and talk of their ideal. It was a few minutes after the hourly train from Dublin stopped at Dalkey, and as they sat on the wall discussing their favourite book of the hour, Manzoni's "Betrothed," they saw a large and lofty figure steadily approach the gate. Good heavens! It was my mother. Pauline was a creature of resource, and she had some understanding of that formidable person.
"Quick, quick, Eddie," she whispered. "Run in and tell Agnes to get them all out by the pantry window, which shows into the laneway. I'll keep mamma outside talking about the stars."
Effectively, when my mother opened the gate, she encountered the solemn sentimental regard of a student of the stars. Nothing enchanted my mother more than an unexpected revelation of intelligence in one of her children. She was a woman of colossal intelligence, of wide knowledge, a brilliant talker, and at all times, whatever her temper, you could put her instantly into good-humour, and wean her thoughts from the irritating themes of daily life, by addressing yourself to her intellect, and speaking of remote subjects like the constellations, South Africa, the Federal war, Belgian farming, or the German Empire. She knew everything, was interested in everything, had read everything, could talk like a specialist on any given subject, except mathematics and metaphysics, which she professed to hold in contempt. Another mother would have been staggered to find a girl of thirteen alone beneath the new-lit stars; but my mother found nothing at all odd in being begged to deliver a lecture on astronomy at that hour, and fell into the trap with ingenuous fervour.
And now I beseech you to conceive the scene inside. Ten minutes to clear the house of some thirty excited children, obliged to make a precipitous exit through a narrow pantry window, stifling with hysterical laughter, and in danger of breaking their limbs upon the hard ground as they dropped into the lane that ran alongside the garden into the highroad. Ten minutes to clear the drawing-room of empty bottles and glasses and plates, and put the chairs and tables and couches into order. Ten minutes for us to scamper up-stairs, and get into our night-gear in the dark. Good Lord! what fun! One would willingly endure again the thrashing for those ten brave minutes of fire and fury.
"It was grand!" said Arthur next day to Pauline, after he had tried in vain to look woe-begone over our castigation.
Only the body of the red-headed chief rebelled against the limited space of the pantry window. What puffing and blowing and pushing to get his fat carcass through! "Steady!" shouted the servant, Bridget, a big-boned country girl; and with a bound she ran head-foremost like a charging bull, who meditates the destruction of his enemy. A crash outside, and we thrust anxious heads out of the window to ascertain if the unfortunate youth lay in pieces upon the ground. But no; with smothered laughter he was tearing down the lane for dear life.