Part 23 (1/2)

Through the long corridors I hurried Mr. Lewis, eagerly scanning the throng for a glimpse of that figure, which I hoped we might overtake; but it had utterly vanished. Outside we found our horses waiting, and together we picked a rough and broken path down Capitol Hill, and then a smoother road where we could put our horses to a canter up the avenue; a gay throng in coaches, in saddle, and on foot accompanying us, and Mr. Meriwether Lewis saluting to right and left as we pa.s.sed the more leisurely ones, or were pa.s.sed by those riding or driving in reckless haste. And so on to my inn, where Bandy Jim, still industriously polis.h.i.+ng boots on the sidewalk, ducked his white head with a joyous ”Howdy, marsa!” and I felt as if an old friend was welcoming me home.

CHAPTER XVIII

A MAGIC COACH

”And we meet with champagne and a chicken.”

I had made my toilet with such despatch that scarcely an hour after parting with Mr. Lewis at my inn I found myself once more at the White House. This time I was ushered up-stairs into an oval room, very gorgeously furnished in crimson, where the President was waiting, and a few of his guests. Beside him stood Mistress Madison, helping him to receive; for his daughters were both away at their homes. I improved the moment when she was speaking to some guests, who had arrived just before me, to look at her well. I had heard much of her, and I knew my sisters at home would want me to tell them exactly how she looked and what she wore.

I think I have often seen more beautiful women (a dark-eyed maiden from France was in my mind at the moment as far more beautiful), but rarely have I seen a face lighted up with more of animation and good humor. On her head she wore an article of dress which I had heard described as worn by the ladies of London and Paris, but which I had never before seen; for the head-dresses of the Frenchwomen in St.

Louis, while in some respects quite as remarkable, bore not the slightest resemblance to this of Mistress Madison's. It was a Turkish turban of white satin and velvet, with a jeweled crescent in front clasping a bunch of nodding white ostrich-plumes. Her gown, of pale pink satin, was heavily trimmed with ermine, and she wore gold chains about her waist and wrists, and carried a jeweled snuff-box in her hand. She was truly regal-looking, and I did not wonder that people sometimes laughingly spoke of her as ”her Majesty.” Her turban especially, I think, gave her an indescribable air of distinction; but I was not quite sure that I thought it as becoming as the dark curling locks of the very beautiful lady who stood beside her.

Mr. Lewis, at this moment descrying me, came forward to present me to the President and to Mistress Madison, who put me at my ease at once by inquiring for my mother and for many of my Philadelphia kin, who, she declared, were old and very dear friends. I would have liked to linger at her side, for she made me much at home, and I liked not to turn away and find myself among a roomful of strangers; but I knew there were others waiting to be received by her, and I must move on.

As I turned from her, a voice in my ear said imperiously:

”Well, sir, and have you no word for your old friend, f.a.n.n.y Cadwalader?”

I turned quickly; it was the beautiful lady with the dark curls.

”Miss f.a.n.n.y!” I cried in joyous recognition, and bent low over her extended hand.

I had been but a young boy when Frances Cadwalader married Mr. Erskine and went to London to live; but we had been great friends as children, and I did not understand how I had failed to recognize her. She bade me stand beside her and she would point out all the distinguished guests, and I was glad indeed of her protection. In reply to my eager question as to how she came to be in Was.h.i.+ngton, she told me that her husband had been appointed minister from Great Britain in Mr. Merry's place, and they were but newly arrived.

”But where have you been living, sir,” she asked, with mock severity, ”that you know nothing of what has been going on in the great world?

Or are we personages of so small importance that our movements are not chronicled in America?”

I had to explain that I had been in the backwoods for months, and for the last two months in the foreign colony of Louisiana, in the village of St. Louis, where little of the doings of the outside world penetrated.

She forgave me my ignorance, and immediately pointed out to me her husband, a fine-looking Englishman, talking to the most gorgeously arrayed creature I had ever beheld: satin, laces, velvets, jewels, gold lace, and powder made up a dazzling ensemble.

”That,” said she, ”is the Marquis de Casa Yrujo, and the lady with him is his wife, Sally McKean. He is magnificent, is he not? I would not quite like it if I were the marchioness, for people look at him instead of her, and she is quite beautiful enough to be looked at herself.”

”Ah, why begrudge the marquis his meed of admiration, if he likes it?”

I said. ”And since he likes it, let us be grateful, for his sake, that it is not Mistress Erskine who is the marchioness, for who can see the glitter of the stars when the lovely moon is in the sky?”

She laughed good-naturedly at my gallantry, but I think she also liked it. We were standing near a window that looked out on the front approach to the White House. Suddenly Mistress Erskine exclaimed:

”Look, look quick, my friend! Here is magnificence indeed!”

I looked as she bade me, and saw what I conceived to be a rolling ball of burnished gold borne swiftly through the air by two gilt wings. As it came nearer we both grew more excited--I because I did not know what it was (and it looked more like a fairy coach than anything I had dreamed of), and she both because she enjoyed my bewilderment and because she loved magnificence. By this time as many of the other guests as were near windows and could look out without seeming to be over-eager, or discourteous to their host, were doing so. The rolling golden ball came to the very foot of the White House steps and stopped. What I had taken to be two gilt wings proved to be nothing more than gorgeous footmen, with _chapeaux bras_, gilt-braided skirts, and splendid swords. They sprang to the ground, opened the door of the coach, and from it alighted the French minister, weighted with gold lace and glittering with diamonds and jeweled orders. He turned with stately ceremony to offer his hand to a lady who was alighting from the coach. First a tiny foot in high-arched slippers and embroidered stocking; then a glimpse of a skirt, pale pink and silver brocade, that had a strangely familiar air. I looked quickly at the head just emerging--waving black curls, dark glowing eyes, a complexion of ivory tinted with rose.

It was Mademoiselle Pelagie!

My head swam. Was it indeed all a bit of enchantment? The golden coach, the gorgeous footmen, the dazzling minister of France, and--Pelagie! Mrs. Erskine noted my agitation.

”Qu'as-tu, m'ami?” she said softly. ”You know her, then?”