of silk! And what general heartiness of laughter and exclamation—so that the gender tones of one's more subdued companions must be raised to a persistent roar, rendering most of the party voiceless by dawn, with only the insipid delights of indifferent negus and faltering meat pasties as recompense for all one's trials.
So Fanny Burney has described a rout, in Cecilia and Camilla; and so I should be forced to record my first experience of the same, in a more modest volume I entitle simply Jane, had not Fate intervened to render my dissipation more intriguing. For last night I endured the most fearsome of crushes—a post-theatrical masquerade, forsooth, with myself in the role of Shepherdess—at no less exalted an address than Laura Place, and the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough's abode, with attendant hundreds of her most intimate acquaintance.
And what, you may ask, had Miss Jane Austen to do in such company? So my father gendy enquired, at the moment of my setting out from Green Park Buildings (where all my dear family have been situated but two months, having lost our former lodgings in Sydney Place to the infamous Coles), my brother Henry at my side, a most formidable Richard the Third, and his wife, Eliza, done up as Marie Antoinette.
“Why, Father,” I replied, with a wave of my Shepherdess's crook, “you must know that the invitation is all my brother's, procured with a view to amusing Eliza, who must have her full measure of Bath's diversion during so short a visit to the city, and in such a season. Bath at Christmastide may yet be called a trifle thin, in requiring the larger crowds of Easter to lend it style; and if Eliza is not to be thoroughly put out, we must seize our diversion where we may. A masquerade, and at the express invitation of a Dowager Duchess, cannot be let slip. Is not this so, Henry?”
“Indeed,” my brother stammered, with a look for his elegant wife, who appeared to have entirely swallowed her little dog, Pug, so pursed with false innocence was her mouth. Eliza is but a slip of a lady, tho’ in her present towering headdress, complete with ship's models and birds of paradise bestowed about her heavily powdered curls, she bid fair to rise far above her usual station.
I must confess to a greater admiration for Eliza's queen than for Henry's king—for though both may be called cunning by history's judgement, Eliza has the advantage over Henry, in having at least seen Marie Antoinette in all the Austrian's former glory, and thus being capable of the incorporation of that lady's vanished style in her present dress; while Henry is dependent upon the merest notion of humped backs and twirling moustachios, or a general reputation for squintyness about the eyes, for the affectation of his villain.
“And our own dear Madam Lefroy is to be in attendance at the Duchess's party as well, Father,” Eliza added. “It is to form the chief part of her final evening in Bath—she returns to Hampshire on the morrow—and we cannot part without some notice on either side. I am sure you would not wish us to neglect so amiable a neighbour, so dear a friend. For who shall say when we shall meet again?”
“But are you even acquainted with the Duchess, my dear Jane?” my father asked, in some bewilderment.
“Assuredly—” Henry began.
“—not,” I concluded.
“That is to say,” my brother amended hastily, “the acquaintance is entirely mine, Father. I have performed some trifling service for the Wilborough family, in the financial line. The rout tickets came to me.”
“I had not an idea of it, my dear boy.” The expression of pleasure that suffused my father's face, at this indication of his son's advancement in his chosen profession of banking, made the falsehood almost worth its utterance.
“But now we must be off,” Eliza interjected firmly, “or lose another hour in search of chairs, for our own have been standing at the door this quarter-hour.1 It has quite struck eleven, and how it snows! Do observe, my dear sir, the unfortunate chairmen!”
Bath's climate is usually so mild as to escape the advent of winter, but this night at least we were subject to a fearsome blast. And thus, as my father clucked in dismay from the drawing-room window, all benevolent concern for the reddened cheeks and stamping feet of the unlucky fellows below, we hurried down to the street, where indeed our chairs had been idle already some minutes, and setded ourselves