CHAPTER V
THE EASTER TUESDAY MASQUERADE ON THE TERRACE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT
ROGER EGREMONT had reached St. Germains on the verge of Passion Week. Then followed Holy Week and its austerities, which were closely observed at the old palace, but not quite so much so at the inn of Michot, except indeed by Dicky Egremont. Dicky would neither play nor sing during that time, and went to church so early and so often, and fasted so long, that his usually rosy face grew quite thin and pallid. Roger went through with such pious practices as he conceived a gentleman and a Christian and an Egremont should, and fasted on Good Friday, and kneeled down with Berwick and others in the muddy street when the sacred processions passed; but his mind was much set upon the glories of Easter Week, and especially upon that great Easter Tuesday masquerade on the terrace, when all of St. Germains, and half of Paris turned out to dance and sing and jest, in masks, when kings and queens and princes and princesses made a part of the pageant, and the Grand Monarque himself was not above showing himself to his loyal subjects. Roger heard much talk at the palace about the coming festival. He now regularly attended in the King’s antechamber, having been appointed one of his Majesty’s secretaries, in addition to being in the corps of gentlemen-at-arms. For the clerkly handwriting Roger had acquired in Newgate gaol recommended him—to his sorrow—for the place of secretary.
On the night before the masquerade Roger was at the levee at the palace, and all the talk was of the next day’s festival. Even Berwick, the Pike—tall, thin, silent, dignified Berwick—was almost enthusiastic over it. A group was gathered around the meagre fire in the great saloon—for all the fires in the palace were meagre—in which stood Berwick and Roger. They had become good friends, and Berwick, in some sort, had adopted Roger, even giving him a handsome dress-sword, as Roger had none, as a sort of warlike gage d’amour.
Presently a commotion was heard. Madame de Beaumanoir, accompanied by her ever faithful and obedient François Delaunay, fluttered into the room and up to the fireplace. Berwick placed a chair for her. Roger Egremont picked up her fan, her handkerchief, and her snuff-box, all of which she dropped in succession, and mightily tickled the old lady by gravely proposing that he should sit on the floor by her chair, so as to be ready to hand her such impedimenta as she might let fall.
“Oh, you darling rogue!” she cried. “Such impudence as I see in your eye! I love an impudent man! So, among you saucy, raking fellows, you sent François Delaunay home to me, t’other night, the worse for liquor! I am a thousand times obliged to you. He has been more human ever since, and less like a cross between a Trappist monk and a Calvinist minister. Did you do your part in filling him up, my lord duke?”
“Madam,” replied Berwick, “I obeyed your commands in that particular as far as I could, and if Mr. Delaunay does not turn out a villainous rake, ’twill not be my fault or Mr. Roger Egremont’s. May I ask if that beauteous niece of yours, Mademoiselle de Orantia will grace the masquerade to-morrow?”
“Oh, Lord, no!” replied Madame de Beaumanoir. “She stays at home,—what for, think you? To read a volume of new plays by that low fellow, Molière. ’Tis true, the French King sent them to her by M. de Sennécy, with a letter—a letter, mind you. And this is not the first, for when I asked her the minx replied as coolly as you please, ‘Madam, the King has honored me three times before with letters.’”
“Very reprehensible of his Majesty,” responded Berwick.
“Reprehensible! Idiot that you are! The greatest honor in the world! When I got a letter from that angel King Charles, did I keep it from the world? Not I, but blazoned it abroad, so that those hussies, the Duchess of Portsmouth and the Castlemaine woman, were ready to cut my throat. But I dare say,” added the old lady, with an air of mild retrospection, “the letters were somewhat different from what my niece gets from the French King. He has grown monstrous proper since that snivelling old Maintenon has got him under her thumb.”
“’Tis said,” continued Berwick, “that the King of France designs the Princess Michelle for a great marriage. You know, madam, one must go from home to hear news of one’s family.”