Part 37

All Newport was soon talking about Mrs. Ess Kay's mysterious fancy dress party, which wasn't exactly a ball, but was--nobody knew what. People wondered about the Maze and Aladdin's Cave; and those who were asked were sure they would be something to be remembered and talked of through coming seasons; while those who were not, were equally certain that the great mysteries would turn out to be stupid and childish. The Pink Ball, which had been the one absorbing topic of conversation till Mrs. Ess Kay's invitations appeared, became a matter of secondary interest, and Mrs. Ess Kay and Mrs. Pitchley both began thus early to be avenged.

Potter surprised me one morning with the design of a fancy dress, which he announced that he'd been inspired in the night to sketch for my benefit. According to him, I was to represent the Frost Sprite, in glittering white garments, with a long veil like a trail of sparkling mist. I thought it rather suggestive of a diamond-dusted Christmas card, but Mrs. Ess Kay was so charmed with the idea that she begged me to have it. "Potter will be broken-hearted if you don't, and besides, it will cost you next to nothing," she said.

It was the latter consideration rather more than the first which decided me to give my gracious consent. Mrs. Ess Kay telegraphed to a costumier, who was also an artist. He came, made a few practical alterations in Potter's design, and arranged costumes for Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally. Afterwards, when my bill came in, which it didn't do till I asked for it, it certainly was ridiculously small, a mere nothing even for me; but I couldn't help having some uncomfortable suspicions, and I have them still.

ABOUT A GREAT AFFAIR

And now I have come to the Great Affair.

It is the day after, and I have been scribbling down in a hurry all the things that happened to me in Newport meanwhile, for somehow most things have seemed to lead up to that.

I knew no more than anybody outside about the mystery of the Maze, and Aladdin's Cave. The secret was wonderfully kept, although there was a constant undertone of excitement running through the house for days beforehand, and an army of workmen were busy in "the grounds"--as everyone calls them--first putting up a gigantic marquee, and then working inside it. One man told Mrs. Ess Kay that he had been offered a hundred dollars by a New York newspaper to tell what was the nature of his work at The Moorings, but either the bribe wasn't enough, or else he was impeccable.

All under the house runs a great cellar. I knew this from the first, because one broiling hot day, soon after I came, Sally took me down to get cool after I had dressed for somebody's At Home, and looked like a freshly boiled lobster. It's a series of rooms, perfectly ventilated, with rough walls, and cemented floors. One of the rooms is of enormous size, and there are stone pillars dotted about here and there for supports. There is one other that is rather large, but the rest are small. One is used as if it were an ice house; there are others for wine; and there are some storerooms. For a week before the Great Affair men were working down there all day, and towards the last far into the night. Big boxes and bales were lugged down stairs, and didn't come up again. Not a hint went round of what was going on, but I was sure that Aladdin's Cave was in mysterious process of manufacture.

There seemed quite a pressure on the atmosphere for days at The Moorings, except in Sally Woodburn's rooms, for I've noticed that she is never excited by social events. They seem of little real importance to her, I suppose, compared with the past which she has always in her thoughts. When I was with her I felt calmer; but with others, or when I was alone (which seldom happened for more than ten minutes at a stretch) I was as much excited as anybody. Partly it may have been the effect of climate, for the air in America certainly does make you feel always as if something wonderful was going to happen to you round the next corner; and partly it was the effect of Potter.

Potter was most disturbing--and is still, for that matter. He has the air of feeling that he and he alone has a right to me, and it's quite a lesson in tact keeping the peace between him and other men who feel it their Christian duty to be a little nice to a young foreigner.

But I am thinking now of the time before the Great Affair. It really was a strain wondering what it would be like, and whether it would be a grand success, or whether it would fall short of all the brilliant expectations, when the mystery should be revealed.

At last the night came. The invitations were for ten o'clock, and people could not resist the temptation to come soon after the hour, and begin. Mrs. Ess Kay stood in the Early English drawing-room (that's the style it's furnished in, or she believes it is) receiving without a mask, and dressed to represent Queen Margaret of Navarre, from whom she says that she is descended. She had another dress to put on afterwards, so that none of the guests would recognise her, and she could have fun with the rest, but no one knew about that except Sally and Potter, and me.

We others didn't appear at first, because we had no costumes to change with, but by and by, when a lot of people had arrived, we mingled with them.

As soon as anyone came in, Mrs. Ess Kay would say, "How do you do, my Lord of Leicester, or my noble George Washington," or whatever the person might be trying to be. "So glad to see you. You must go and have a look at the Maze. Do you know how to find it? Just through that curtain. You can't miss the way."

Then the gorgeous masker would cross the hall, and disappear behind a great curtain of tapestry that covered an open doorway leading to the garden. But he hadn't to go out of doors. A canvas covered, winding passage took him to the vast marquee, which was, of course, the Maze. But why it was the Maze, and what happened to you in the Maze after you had got in, I didn't know any more than the outsiders. That was the fun of it for me, of course; and it really was fun.

Sally had only taken enough pains about her dress to save annoying Mrs. Ess Kay. She was a White Carmelite, with a veil over her face instead of a mask. But Potter had made a tremendous fuss about himself. He was Flame, which he said was appropriate in the circumstances, as he had got so used to playing Fire to my Frost, he felt quite at home in the character. And he was very magnificent. He had designed the costume himself, for he fancies himself at that sort of thing; and my white sparkling robes, and his scarlet satin and carbuncle embroidery, and copper and gold fringes did look rather effective side by side.

He made that an excuse for insisting that I should go with him into the Maze, although a tall Hamlet and a Henry V. of England both wanted to take me.

Potter whisked me away from them somehow, and we passed under the tapestry curtains while one of the two Hungarian bands Mrs. Ess Kay had hired played a waltz which made me long to dance.

"This way to the Maze; this way to the Maze," a man dressed like a Beefeater was continually saying. He stood just outside the door, in a kind of canvas vestibule, lined with greenery, so that it looked like the entrance to a bower.

The passage to the marquee had been made so beautiful, that I couldn't help crying out to Potter with admiration. Not an inch of the canvas showed, for we walked through a sort of tunnel of roses, all lit up with invisible electric lights. It was like the way to fairyland; and the floor was covered with a mat of artificial grass, like they have for stage lawns, Potter said.

I thought, when we came to the end of the rose-tunnel, we should find ourselves in a big open space in the marquee, but when the tunnel stopped, we were in a narrow alley between tall green bushes, set so thickly and so close together that we couldn't see what was on the other side. Above us, instead of the canvas roof of the marquee (which must have been over all), a violet mist seemed to float, with a very faint, soft light filtering through it, like blue moonlight. I suppose it must have been ever and ever so many thicknesses of blue gauze, with shaded lights hanging above, but the effect was mysterious and alluring.

We had only gone on a little way when we arrived at a tiny house built apparently of red flowers; and there was a red light coming out of the one little window. "The Witch of the Woods Lives Here," said a card on the door.

We pushed, and inside was a room, with a young woman in white, crystal-gazing as hard as she could. She had also a velvet cushion on which you laid your hand, and she told your character and your fortune. Some people in historical dress were ready to come out just as we were going in, and one of them said, "It's Madame Cortelyn. Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox must have given her at least five hundred dollars or she wouldn't have come a step."

We had our hands done, and the Witch of the Woods told me that I had come from "across the water," but that I would marry a man on this side; and then she saw some one in the crystal who looked so exactly like Potter Parker, that I wished I had stopped outside her red house.

After this, we kept losing ourselves in different green-walled paths, and suddenly coming on booths where variety entertainments were going on; or funny cardboard pagodas, where celebrated Japanese artists did your portrait in five minutes on rice paper; or silk tents with conjuring shows. And there was a place where you fished in a small round pond with magnets and caught little metal frogs with jewels in their heads, which you picked out. Farther on was a miniature Eastern bazaar where girls in gauze danced, while you drank Turkish coffee and pushed spoonfuls of sherbet under the lace on your mask. And there was a kinematograph entertainment of a bull fight, which I wouldn't look at, and some martyrs being reluctantly eaten by lions; and Otero dancing.

All the masked people we met were enjoying themselves very much, and saying this was the best thing for years. And it really was fun, but at last I thought we must have seen it all, and I wanted to go out. Besides, I was tired of being with Potter, who would be sentimental, though I begged him not.

"How do you propose to escape?" he asked. "This is a Maze. The proper dodge in a Maze is to be lost, and I am lost. So are you. We're lost together."

"But I want to be found now," said I. "We've been lost long enough. There are lots of other things to do."