“Well, sir,” she was saying. “I don’t lightly think I should, but if you insist…”
“Of course, I insist. Now, be a sport.”
Gwennan looked at me. “It’s Harry,” she said. “Harry Leveret”
The door opened, and Fanny, flushed and anxious, said: “I don’t rightly know ...”
“What is it?” I asked.
“The gentleman said ...”
And there was Harry. He was dressed as Drake, and his false beard did not match the reddish hair that showed beneath his feathered cap. He brushed Fanny aside and she disappeared; then he came into the gallery.
“Harry, what are you doing?” asked Gwennan, her voice rising on a high-pitched note of excitement.
“You didn’t expect me to stay down there when you were up here, did you?”
He didn’t seem at all surprised to see us in our costumes, so I guessed she must have told him that we had found them. His eyes shone as he looked at her.
“We have masks too, haven’t we, Harriet?” said Gwennan. “Come on. Put them on and we’ll go down.”
I could see that Harry wasn’t very pleased at the prospect of having me with them.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I shan't be a nuisance.”
“You’ll find a partner,” Gwennan said, with that conviction she always gave to things she wanted to believe.
“Of course,” I replied proudly, although I didn’t believe it for a moment, and now that the time had come to join the dancers, I was alarmed. What would happen if my father discovered me! I had allowed Gwennan to pull me into this adventure without giving full consideration to the coo-sequences. She would be all right; she would have Harry Leveret to look after her; besides, her family were not like my father.
“Of course, she will,” agreed Harry.
We left the gallery and went down to the ballroom. I promised myself that I could always hurry back to the gallery if I felt too lonely among all those people, and the thought gave me courage. And what comfort it was to cower behind the mask. I caught a glimpse of myself as we passed a mirror. I didn’t recognize myself. Then if I didn’t, why should anyone else? And suddenly I was excited—by the color, the music, the brilliance of everything and the strange feeling that, with the dress, I had put on a different personality.
Harry could scarcely wait to get Gwennan to himself, and as we entered the ballroom he put his arm about her and they went into the waltz. I stood watching. The Beautiful Blue Danube! How dreamy, how romantic! How I should love to be one of those dancers!
I hid myself behind the potted ferns, watching, caught up by the music, imagining myself dancing there … with Bevil, of course.
And then I saw him. He was dancing with a beautiful girl dressed as Cleopatra—laughing, looking down at her, saying amusing things … affectionately, I was sure. I thought of the way be had talked to me when he had brought me back from the island; he had kissed me then. It had been a joke, of course.
He was dancing past my alcove again, and as he did so he looked straight at me, I was sure, although it was not easy to see, because of his mask. He had come very close to the ferns; it was almost as though be had wanted to take a closer look at the figure cowering there. Then he was gone, and I told myself I had imagined it. I knew him because I had seen him arrive with his family; besides, I should know him anywhere. He wouldn’t know me in the same way. The dress, the snood and mask made an entirely different person of me.
The waltz was over, and there followed an interval when the dangers of exposure were trebled. Suppose I were seen hiding myself in the alcove! What should a young woman be doing at a ball without a watchful mamma or a chaperone of some sort to look after her?
The music started again. Now was the time to escape to the gallery; to sit there watching the dancers, as I had been told to do. But the temptation to stay was too strong. I could not bear not to be here. Gwennan would despise me for running away, I told myself. But it was more than that I was different hi this dress. I could not forget that in the room—that strange, circular opening in the buttress—I had danced.
“Are you alone?"
My heart began to beat uncomfortably. I stammered: “Not at this moment.”
Bevil laughed. I was dreaming it all. It couldn’t be Bevil.
“I noticed you,” he said. “I came back, scarcely hoping that I should find you here. You must have just arrived, or I should have seen you before.”
“Among so many?”
“I should have been aware of you.”
This was the way he talked to women. This was flirtation, and with Bevil I found it extremely enjoyable.
The orchestra started to play. “A cotillion,” he said, and grimaced. “Let us stay here and talk—unless you would prefer to dance.”
“I should prefer not to dance.”
He sat down next to me and kept his eyes on my face. “We’ve met before,” he said.
“Do you think so?” I replied, trying to disguise my voice.
He laid his hand over mine. “I am certain of it.”
I withdrew my hand and let it fall onto the folds of topaz velvet.
“I wonder where?” I said.
“We can easily discover.”
“I think we’re supposed to keep our identities secret Isn’t It more fun that way?”
“As long as we know curiosity win eventually be satisfied, perhaps. But I am very impatient” He had leaned towards me and touched my mask.
I drew back indignantly.
“I am sorry,” he said. “But I was so certain that I knew you, and it seems incredible that I shouldn’t be sure who you are.”
“Then I am a mysterious woman.”
“But I’m sure you know me.”
“Yes … I do know you.”
He sat back in his chair. “You give up?” I asked.
“You can’t know me very well, or you’d know I never give up. But in any case, I have the whole evening before me. First, let me tell you that you are enchanting. Your dress is wonderful.”
“You like it?” I smiled, thinking of the shaking and hanging out in the sunshine to take off the smell of damp; and the lavender sachets which Gwennan had produced to put in the folds.
“I’ve seen it before.”
“Where?” I asked.
“I’m trying to remember.”
I was entranced. I heard myself laughing at his conversation—light, frothy, frivolous conversation; and yet, there seemed to be depth in it. He was interested in me; he had seen me in my alcove, and as soon as possible he had left the partner with whom he had been dancing and had come to me. Who would have believed that possible?
There I sat, gay as anyone at the ball, returning his quips, finding that I too had a gift of repartee that might be mistaken for wit. He was certainly not bored, but he was puzzled. He did not guess who I was. Perhaps had he known I was to be at the ball he might have done so; but he had always thought of me as a child, and still did, and it would not occur to him that I could possibly be there; he had been with Gwennan in her simple party dress when they arrived and had heard that she and I were to sit in the gallery to watch; he knew nothing about the discovery of the dresses. No, it would not occur to him that it could possibly be young Harriet with whom he was enjoying such an intriguing interlude.
The cotillion was over; they were playing a waltz.
“Shall we dance?” he said.
I was surprised at myself. If I had not been intoxicated by the evening, by the presence of Bevil, by my new personality, in spite of having danced with Gwennan, I should have murmured that I couldn’t dance. But I was bemused; I allowed myself to be led onto the floor; I may have limped but I was unaware of it; my voluminous skirts would perhaps hide my infirmity; at least, so it seemed to me. And there I was, dancing with Bevil. I do not mean that I danced well or expertly. Bevil was no born dancer anyway, but I danced, and the floor was so crowded that one’s steps did not matter—and I was so happy that I felt life was wonderful and everything had changed for me.