CHAPTER IX.—WHEREIN RICHARD FRERE AND LEWIS TURN MAHOMETANS.
Lewis rather expected a lecture from Richard Frere on account of his aquatic exploit; but he need not have made himself uneasy on the subject, for the only remark his friend volunteered was: “Well, you know, if the dog could not be saved without, of course you were obliged to go in and fetch him. I should have done the same myself, though I hate cold water as I hate the old gentleman, and never could swim in my life.”
When they had concluded dinner, Frere inquired suddenly: “By the way, do you mean to come with me to-night?”
“Before I can answer that question,” returned Lewis, “you must condescend to inform me where you are going, and what you mean to do when you get there.”
“To be sure; I thought I had told you; but the fact is, I have been working rather hard lately (I read for three hours after you were gone to bed last night), and my head is not over clear to-day. The case is this, sir: Tom Bracy, who, as I before told you, is lamentably addicted to practical jokes, happens to be acquainted with a certain elderly lady who devotes her life to lion-hunting.”
“To what?” inquired Lewis.
“To catching celebrities, otherwise termed lions,” replied Frere, “and parading them at her parties for the benefit of her friends and acquaintance. On the last occasion of this kind she confided to Bracy her longing desire to obtain an introduction to a certain Persian prince, or thereabouts, who has lately come over to this country to avoid the somewhat troublesome attentions of his family, his younger brother being most anxious to put out his eyes, and his grandfather only waiting a favourable opportunity for bow-stringing him.”
“‘A little more than kin, and less than kind,’” quoted Lewis.
“I knew you would say that,” returned Frere; “in fact, I should have felt quite surprised if you had not. But to proceed with my account. Bracy soon found out that his hostess had never seen the aforesaid Asiatic magnate, and knew next to nothing about him; whereupon he determined ‘to get a little fun,’ as he calls it, out of the affair, and accordingly informed her, very gravely, that from his acquaintance with the Persian language, he was in the habit of accompanying the prince to evening parties in the character of interpreter, and that if she would entrust him with an invitation, he should be happy to convey it to his Highness, and try to induce him to accept it. She joyfully acceded to the proposal, and this very evening the party is to take place. And now can you guess the purport of Bracy’s visit to me?”
“He wants you to act as interpreter in his stead, I suppose; his knowledge of Persian being probably confined to the word ‘bosh.’”
“Wrong!” rejoined Frere, laughing. “A higher destiny awaits me. I am for the nonce to be elevated to the proud position of one of the Blood Royal of Persia. In plain English, Bracy knows as much of the Prince as I do of the Pope; the whole thing is a hoax from beginning to end, and he wants me to personate his Highness, which I have promised to do, while you are to represent an attendant satrap, a sort of Mussulman gold stick-in-waiting, always supposing you have no objection so to employ yourself.”
“To tell you the truth, I am scarcely in the vein for such fooling,” returned Lewis moodily. “I hate practical jokes to begin with, nor can I see much fun in taking advantage of the absurdities of some weak-minded old lady. At the same time I am tolerably indifferent about the matter, and if you have pledged yourself to go, relying upon my accompanying you, I will put my own tastes out of the question, and do as you wish.”
“Equally sententious and amiable,” returned Frere; “but the truth is, I have promised Bracy (partly fancying you would like the fun), and go I must.”
“I’ll accompany you then,” rejoined Lewis. “I’d make a greater sacrifice than that for you any day, old fellow. And now may I ask who is the lady to be victimised?”
“An opulent widow, one Lady Lombard, ‘the interesting relict of a be-knighted pawnbroker,’ as Bracy calls her,” replied Frere.
“Who inquired Lewis, becoming suddenly interested.
“Why, how now?” returned Frere, astonished at his friend’s impetuosity. Then repeating the name, he continued, “Do you know the lady?”
“Yes, I do,” rejoined Lewis; “know her for a coarse-minded, purse-proud, wretched old woman!”
“Phew!” whistled Frere. “May I ask how the good lady has been so fortunate as thus to have excited your bitter indignation against her?”
“Never mind,” returned Lewis, rising hastily and walking to the window; “it is enough that I know her to be the character I have described.”
“That’s odd now,” muttered Frere, soliloquising. “If I had not been acquainted with his ‘antécêdens’ as the French term it, nearly as well as I know my own, I should have fancied the late lamented Lombard had, in bygone hours, refused to negotiate some small loan for him, on the perishable security of personal clothing. He can’t have popped the question to the widow at one of the German watering-places, and encountered a negative?”
“Frere, don’t mention my dislike of Lady Lombard to your facetious acquaintance,” observed Lewis, turning round. “I have no ambition to become a butt for his bad puns.”
“Never fear, man, I’ll not betray your confidence,” returned Frere; “more particularly when, as in the present instance, I don’t happen to share it.”
“Do you care to know?” asked Lewis.
“Not by no manner of means, as the young lady said, when the parson asked her whether she was prepared to give up all the pomps and vanities of this wicked world,” returned Frere. “And now, as we have to be converted into Pagans before ten o’clock, suppose we start.”
A quarter of an hour’s brisk walking brought them to Bracy’s lodgings, where they found that gentleman deeply immersed in study, with the fez which was to assist in changing Frere into a prince stuck rakishly on one side of his head. On perceiving his visitors he sprang from his seat, and making a low salaam, in the course of which performance the fez tumbled off and knocked down a candle, he exclaimed—
“Most illustrious brothers of the Sun, and first-cousins once removed of the Moon and all the stars, may your shadows never be less! You do me proud by honouring my poor dwelling with your seraphic presences!”
“I see you have got the wherewithal to make Heathens of us,” returned Frere, pointing to the couple of Persian dresses which hung against the wall like a brace of Bluebeard’s headless wives.
“Bude Light of the Universe, yes!” replied Bracy. “Your slave has procured the ‘wear with all’ necessary to complete your transformation from infidel Feringhees to true sons of Islam. Would I have had my prince appear without a khelaut—a dress of honour? Be Cheshm! upon my eyes be it;—by the way, it’s a remarkable fact that the expression ‘my eyes’ should be Court lingo in Persia, and bordering upon Billingsgate in English.”
“You seem particularly well up in the pseudo-oriental metaphor to-night, Bracy,” observed Frere; “has the fez inspired you?”
“No, there’s nothing miraculous in the affair,” returned Bracy; “it is very easily explained. I have been reading up for the occasion—cramming, sir; a process successfully practised upon heavy Johnians at Cambridge and corpulent turkey poults in Norfolk.”
“Indeed! I was not aware that you are a Persian scholar. May I inquire what line of study you have adopted?”
“One that I have myself struck out,” responded Bracy, “and which has been attended, I flatter myself, with the most successful results. I first subjected myself to a strict course of Hajji Baba, after which I underwent a very searching self-examination in Morie’s ‘Zohrab’, or the ‘Hostage.’ I next thoroughly confused my mind with ‘Thalaba,’ but brought myself round again upon ‘Bayley Frazer’s Travels’; after which I made myself master of ‘Ayesha, or the Maid of Khars.’ And by way of laying in a fitting stock of the sentimental, finished off with Byron’s ‘Giaour’;—stop, let me give you a specimen.” And replacing the unruly fez, he sprang upon a chair, and throwing himself into a mock-tragedy attitude, began bombastically to recite—
“ ’Twas sweet, where cloudless stars were bright,
To view the wave of watery light,
And hear its melody by night;
And oft had Hassan’s childhood play’d
Around the verge of that cascade:
And oft upon his mother’s breast
That sound had harmonised his rest;
And oft had Hassan’s youth along
Its banks been sooth’d by Beauty’s song,
And softer seem’d each melting tone
Of music mingled with its own.’
“There now, I call that pretty well for a young beginner; a little of that will go a great way with my Lady Lombard; it is like a penny bun, cheap to begin with, and very filling at the price.”
“Turks and Persians are not exactly alike, though you seem to think they are,” observed Frere dryly. “Have you laid down any plan of operations, may I ask? You must give me very full and clear directions how to behave, for, to tell you the truth, my acquaintance with the manners and customs of the higher ranks of Persia is infinitesimally select.”
“Oh! it’s all plain sailing enough,” returned Bracy; “you have only to look wise, roll your eyes about, and occasionally jabber a little Persian, or any other unknown tongue you may prefer, which I, not understanding, shall translate ad libitum as the occasion may require.”
“And sweetly you will do it too, or I am much mistaken,” muttered Frere, divesting himself of his greatcoat.
“Pray inform me, as I am unfortunately ignorant of all the oriental languages, how do you propose to supply my deficiencies?” inquired Lewis. “Is my part, like Bottom the weaver’s, to be nothing but roaring?”
“Why, as you are about to enact a lion, it would appear not inappropriate,” returned Bracy. “Yes, it never struck me; there seems a slight difficulty there—you never got up any Memoria Technica, did you?”
Lewis shook his head.
“That’s unlucky,” continued Bracy; “a page or two of that would have served the purpose beautifully. I met a man the other night who had struck out a new system for himself, and was perfectly rabid about it. He had bottled, according to his own account, the whole history of England into an insinuating little word that sounded to me something like ‘Humguffinhoggogrificicuana,’ and bagged all Hansard’s Reports, from Pitt to Peel, in half-a-dozen lines of impossible doggerel. Oh! he was a wonderful fellow—clearly mad, but intensely funny. I kept him in tow two good hours, and made him explain his system twice over to everybody, till the people were ready to cry, he bored them so. I was nearly being punished for it though, as he was actually weak enough to believe in me, and called the next day to fraternise.”
“And how did you escape?” asked Lewis.
“Why, I have a sort of tiger (the imp that let you in, in fact), who is a first-rate liar—most excellent, useful boy, I do assure you, sir; I sent him down with a message that I had an attack of Asiatic cholera, but if he would take a glass of wine, and look at the paper till the crisis should be over, I would come to him if it terminated favourably. That settled the business; he did not wait the event, but was off like a shot, thinking the Infection might disagree with his ‘system,’ perhaps.”
“Then he has not repeated his visit?” inquired Frere.
“No; and I hope he will not,” returned Bracy, “for there will be nothing left for me to have but Elephantiasis or the Plague, and he must be very far gone in innocence if he can swallow either of them.”
“Am I expected to put on these things?” asked Frere, holding up a most voluminous pair of Persian trousers, made of a species of silk gauze enriched with glittering spangles.
“Yea, verily, most emphatically and decidedly yes,” replied Bracy.
“Well, what must be must be, I suppose,” rejoined Frere, with a sigh of resignation; “but I never thought to see myself in such a garment. ‘Sure such a pair were never seen!’ One thing is clear, I must stand all the evening, for there’s no man living could sit down in them.”
“Never fear,” returned Bracy encouragingly; “only do you go into my bedroom and put on your robes, and I’ll ensure your ‘taking your seat on your return.’ Never make mountains of molehills, man; there are worse dresses than that in the world; for instance, it might have been a kilt.”
“That’s true,” said Frere reflectively, and unhooking the richest Mrs. Bluebeard, he proceeded after sundry ejaculations of disgust to carry it into the other room, whither after a minute or two Bracy followed him, to perform, as he said, the part of lady’s-maid. After a lapse of about a quarter of an hour the door was again unclosed, and Bracy, exclaiming, “Now, Mr. Arundel, allow me to have the honour of introducing you to his Sublime Highness Ree Chard el Freer,” ushered in the person named.
Never was so complete a transformation seen. The Persian dress, rounding off and concealing the angularities of his figure, gave a sort of dignity to Frere, quite in keeping with the character he was about to assume; while moustaches and a flowing beard imparted a degree of picturesqueness to his countenance which accorded well with his irregular but expressive features and bright animated eyes. A shawl of rich pattern confined his waist, while a girdle, studded with (apparently) precious stones, sustained a sword and dagger, the jewelled hilts and brilliantly ornamented sheaths of which added not a little to the magnificence of his appearance.
“Voilà!” exclaimed Bracy, patting him on the back. “What do you think of that by way of a get-up? There’s a ready-made prince for you. Asylum of the Universe, how do you find yourself? Do your new garments sit easily?”
“None of your nonsense, sir,” replied Frere. “If I am a prince, behave to me as sich, if you please. I tell you what, I shall be tearing some of this drapery before the evening is over. Ah! well, it is not for life, that is one comfort; but I never was properly thankful before for not having been born a woman. Think of sinking into the vale of years in a muslin skirt—what a prospect for an intellectual being!”
“Now, Mr. Arundel, your dress awaits you,” said Bracy, “and ‘time is on the wing.’ We shall have her ladyship in hysterics if she fancies her prince means to disappoint her.”
Lewis’s toilet was soon completed, and proved eminently successful, the flowing robe setting off his tall, graceful figure to the utmost advantage, and the scarlet fez, with its drooping tassel, contrasting well with his dark curls and enhancing the effect of his delicately cut and striking features. Bracy making his appearance at the same moment, most elaborately got up for the occasion, with a blue satin underwaistcoat and what he was pleased to denominate the Order of the Holy Poker suspended by a red ribbon from his button-hole, the tiger of lying celebrity was despatched for a vehicle, and the trio started.
“To a reflective mind,” began Bracy, when an interval of wood-pavement allowed conversation to become audible,—“to a reflective mind, there is no section of the zoology of the London streets more interesting than that which treats of the habits and general economy of the genus cabman.”
“As to their general economy,” returned Frere, “as far as I am acquainted with it, it appears to consist in doing you out of more than their fare, and expending the capital thus acquired at a gin-palace.”
“Sir, you misapply terms, treat an important subject with unbecoming levity, and libel an interesting race of men,” returned Bracy, with a countenance of the most immovable gravity.
“Interests, you mean,” rejoined Frere.
“One very striking peculiarity of the species,” continued Bracy, not heeding the interruption, “is their talent for subtle analysis of character, and power of discriminating it by the application of unusual tests.”
“What’s coming now?” inquired Frere. “Keep your ears open, Lewis, my son, and acquire wisdom from the lips of the descendant of many Bracys.”
“I am aware an assertion of this nature should not be lightly hazarded,” resumed Bracy, “as it carries little conviction to the ill-regulated minds of the sceptical, unless it be verified by some illustrative example drawn from the actual.”
“You have not got such a thing as a Johnson’s Dictionary about you, I suppose?” interrupted Frere. “I want to look out a few of those long words.”
“With this view,” resumed Bracy, “I will relate a little anecdote, which will at the same time prove my position and display the capacity of the London cabman for terse and epigrammatic definition. I had been engaged on committee business at the House of Commons a short time since, and was returning to my lodgings when, as I emerged into Palace Yard, it began to rain. Seeing me without an umbrella, a cabman on the stand hailed me with a view of ascertaining whether I required his services. While I was debating with myself whether the rain was likely to increase or not, I was hailed by the cad of an omnibus just turning into Parliament Street.”
“I never do make puns,” began Frere, “or else I should be inclined to ask whether being exposed to so much hail and rain at the same time did not give you cold?”
“It happened that I had just betted a new hat with a man,” continued Bracy, still preserving the most perfect gravity, “as to how many times the chairman of the committee would take snuff, and had lost my wager; this made me feel awfully stingy, and accordingly availing myself of the lowest of the two estimates, I fraternised with the ’bus fellow, and metaphorically threw over the cabman. As I was ascending the steps of the vehicle I had resolved to patronise, the following remark from the injured Jehu reached my ears; it was addressed to an amphibious individual, ‘en sabots et bandeaux de foin’ (as the Morning Post would have it), yclept the waterman; and if you don’t think it fully bears out my previous assertions, I can only say that you are an incompetent judge of evidence. He first attracted his friend’s attention by pointing to me over his shoulder with his thumb, and winking significantly; then added in a tone of intense disgust, ‘See that cove; I thort he worn’t no good.‘Stead o’ takin’ a cab to his self, like a gent, he’s a goin’ to have threepen’orth of all sorts’” As Bracy, amid the laughter of his companions, concluded his recital, the vehicle which conveyed them drew up at the door of Lady Lombard’s mansion.
CHAPTER X.—CONTAINS A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY ON THE PROVERB, “ALL IS NOT GOLD WHICH GLITTERS.”
Lady Lombard, being in many senses of the word a great lady, lived in a great house, which looked out upon that gloomy sight, a London garden, and had its front door at the back for the sake of appearances. At this perverted entrance did Bracy’s mendacious tiger, standing on tip-toe the better to reach the knocker, fulminate like a duodecimo edition of Olympian Jove, until two colossal footmen, in a great state of excitement and scarlet plush, opened the door so suddenly as nearly to cause the prostration of the booted boy, who only saved himself from falling by stumbling, boots and all, against the tall shin of the highest footman, thereby eliciting from that noble creature an ejaculation suggestive of his intense appreciation of the injury done him, and hinting, not obscurely, at his wishes in regard to the future destiny of his juvenile assailant. That youth, however, who, we are forced to confess, was not only as “impudent as he was high,” but, reckoning by the peculiar standard which the expression aforesaid indicates, at the very least three feet more so, hastened thus to rebuke his adversary: “Hit’s lucky for you, Maypole, as I hain’t hon the bench of majorstraits yet, hor ther’d a been five bob hout o’ your red plush pockets for swearin’, as sure has heggs is heggs! Hif that’s hall yer gratitude for me a-bringin’ of ye my honourable master and two noble Purshun princes, hi’d better horder the carridge to turn round and take’em back agen.”
Having astonished the disgusted giant by this speech, the imp bounded down the steps and held open the cab-door with an air of dignified condescension.
“Is not that boy a treasure?” whispered Bracy to Frere as they alighted. “How neatly he took the shine out of that thick-witted pyramid of fool’s flesh! I could not have done the thing better myself.”
“I don’t pretend to any very unusual powers of foresight,” muttered Frere under his beard, “but I think I could point out that brat’s residuary legatee.”
“Ah, indeed!” returned Bracy; “and who do you fix upon? the Archbishop of Canterbury?”
“No, the hangman,” was the gruff reply.
“Well, I’d myself venture to insure him against drowning for a very moderate premium,” rejoined his master, laughing; “but now I really must beg you to bear in mind that you are utterly ignorant of the English language.”
“Inshallah! I’d forgotten my illustrious descent most completely,” answered Frere, “but I’ll be careful; so, for the next three hours, ‘my native’ tongue, ‘good-night.’”
While this conversation had been carried on in an undertone, the party had been ushered upstairs amidst the wondering gaze of servants innumerable, of all sorts and sizes, from the little foot-page staggering under a galaxy of buttons to the mighty butler barely able to walk beneath the weight of his own dignity.
“What name shall I say, gentlemen?” asked the last-named official in his most insinuating tone; for a Persian prince was a rarity sufficient to impress even his imperturbable spirit with a sense of respect.
“His Highness Prince Mustapha Ali Khan and suite,” returned Bracy authoritatively.
Immediately the door of a well-lighted saloon was flung back on its hinges, and in a stentorian voice the major domo announced, “His Highness Prince Mystify-all-I-can and see-it.”
“By Jove! he’s hit it,” whispered Bracy to Lewis, as, following Frere, they entered the room. “He won’t beat that if he tries till he’s black in the face.”
As he finished speaking, the guests, who had crowded as near the door as good breeding would allow to witness the Prince’s entrée, drew back as a rustling of silks and satins announced the approach of their hostess.
Lady Lombard, who, to judge by appearances, would never again celebrate her forty-fifth birthday, had been a handsome, and still was a fine-looking woman. She was tall and portly; in fact portly is rather a mild term to use in speaking of her ladyship, but we don’t like to stigmatise her as stout, and beyond that we could not go in speaking of a lady. She had a very bright colour and a very fair skin, in the display of which she was by no means niggardly, her gown having short sleeves (so short, indeed, as scarcely to be worth mentioning), and being——well, we know a French word which would express our meaning, but we prefer our own language, and must therefore say, being rather too much off where it would have been better a little more on. She wore a profusion of light ringlets, which we feel justified in stating, upon our personal responsibility, to have been her own, for Lady Lombard was an honourable woman, and paid her bills most punctually. These flaxen locks rejoiced in one peculiarity—they were not divided in the centre, after the usual method, but the in medio tutissimns ibis principle had been abandoned in favour of a new and striking coiffure, which, until we were introduced to her ladyship, we had believed to be restricted to the blue-and-silver epicene pages who worship the prima donna and poke fun at the soubrettes on the opera stage. The page-like parting, then, was on one side of her head, and across her ample forehead lay a festoon of hair, arranged so as to suggest, to a speculative mind, a fanciful resemblance to the drapery at the top of a window curtain. Her features were by no means without expression; on the contrary, meek pomposity and innocent self-satisfaction were written in legible characters on her good-natured countenance.
The most carefully written descriptions usually prove inadequate to convey to the reader’s mind a just idea of the object they would fain depict; but as we are especially anxious that others should see Lady Lombard with our eyes, we must beg their attention to the following simple process, by which we trust to enable them to realise her.
Let each reader, then, call to mind the last average specimen of fat and fair babyhood which may have come under his notice; let him imagine it clothed in the richest sky-blue satin; let him deprive it of its coral, and substitute in its place a gold watch and appendages; round its fat little excuse for a neck let him clasp a diamond necklace; let him dress its hair, or provide it a flaxen wig—if its hair should be as yet a pleasure to come—made after the fashion we have above described; and let him, lastly, by a powerful effort of imagination, inflate this baby until, still preserving its infantine proportions, it shall stand five feet nine in its satin shoes,—and he will then have arrived at a very correct idea of Lady Lombard as she appeared when, rustling forward in a tremor of delight, she advanced to perform the part of gracious hostess to the Prince of Persia.
“Really, Mr. Bracy,” she began, as that gentleman, with a countenance of solemn satisfaction, stepped forward to meet her, “really, this is too kind of you; how do you do? So you have positively brought me the dear prince? Will you introduce me to him, and explain to him how very much honoured I am by his condescension in coming this evening?”
Be it observed, by the way, that her ladyship spoke with the greatest empressement, and had a habit of uttering many of her words in italics, not to say small capitals.
“It will give me much satisfaction to do so,” returned Bracy, with grave courtesy; “but I can assure you the prince came quite of his own accord. The moment I had explained your invitation to him he caught the note out of my hand, pressed it three times to his forehead, and exclaimed in the court dialect of Iraun, ‘Hahazyr imeyur manzur, he did, indeed.”
“No-o-o, really!” ejaculated Lady Lombard, more emphatically than she had ever yet spoken in her life; then, as a faint glimmering came across her that there was a slight anomaly in appearing so deeply interested in a remark which she could by no possibility understand, she added: “But you should recollect, Mr. Bracy, that every one does not possess your remarkable acquaintance with the Eastern languages.”
“Psha! how forgetful I am!” returned Bracy. “Your ladyship must excuse me; the prince has been so short a time in this country that I am scarcely yet accustomed to my new duties. The few words I had the honour to repeat to you merely signify—you know the Eastern metaphors are very peculiar—‘I will kiss’—it’s the usual form of accepting any distinguished invitation—‘I will kiss her ladyship’s door-mat!’ Curious, is it not?”
“Yes, indeed,” was the sympathetic reply. At the same moment Bracy, turning to Frere, presented him to their hostess, saying “Prince, this is Lady Lombard—Twygt-hur rhumauld gâl!”
The first sound that escaped his Highness was a hysterical grunt which, in an Englishman, might have been deemed indicative of suppressed laughter, but proceeding from the bearded lips of a Persian potentate, assumed the character of an Eastern ejaculation. After muttering a few real Persian words with an appearance of deep respect, Frere took her ladyship’s plump white hand between both his own and raised it to his lips; then, relinquishing it, he spoke again, made a low salaam, and drawing himself up to his full height, crossed his arms on his breast and stood motionless before her. The appealing looks which she cast upon Bracy when the prince spoke was a severe trial to his gravity; but by long experience in practical joking he had acquired wonderful command of countenance, which stood him now in good stead, and he proceeded to translate Frere’s sentences into certain flowery and unmeaning compliments, which were about as unlike their real signification as need be.
After Lewis had gone through the same ceremony without the speeches, for which omission Bracy accounted by explaining that it was not etiquette for the Persian nobles to speak when in attendance on their princes, they were led to the upper end of the apartment, where Frere seated himself cross-legged on a sofa and made himself very much at home, keeping Bracy fully employed in inventing translations to speeches, not one word of which he, or any one else present, comprehended. Lewis, in the meantime, who was becoming dreadfully tired of the whole affair, stood near the end of the sofa, with his arms folded across his breast, looking especially scornful and very particularly bored.
“Ah!” exclaimed Lady Lombard, as a pretty, graceful girl, very simply dressed, made her way up the room, “there’s that dear Laura Peyton arrived. I must go and speak to her, and bring her to be introduced to the Prince.” She then added, aside to Bracy, “She’s immensely rich; clear six thousand a year, and does not spend two.”
“A very charming trait in her character,” returned Bracy. “I’ll mention it to the Prince. I don’t know that there ever was an Englishwoman queen of Persia; but that’s no reason there never should be one.”
Bracy was accordingly introduced to the young lady, and led her, smiling and blushing, up to Frere, by whom he seated her, and paved the way for conversation by the following remark:—
“Tharmy buoi aintsheaz tunnar?” which for the damsel’s edification he translated—“Asylum of the Universe! the maiden, the daughter of roses, salutes thee!”
After a short interval Lady Lombard again bore down upon them in full sail, towing in her wake a small, hirsute, baboon-like individual, evidently one of her menagerie.
“There’s a chimpanzee!” whispered Bracy to Frere. “Now, if that picture of ugliness turns out an eastern traveller we’re gone ’coons.”
“All right,” returned Frere in the same tone, “he’s only an exiled something. He came to our shop with a recommendation from some of the Parisian savans the other day.”
“I must trouble you once again, Mr. Bracy,” insinuated Lady Lombard. “Professor Malchapeau is dying to be introduced.”
“No trouble, but a pleasure,” returned Bracy. “I shall have the greatest satisfaction in making two such illustrious individuals known to each other. Does the Professor speak English?”
“Yas; I vas spik Angleesh von pritté veil,” replied the person alluded to, strutting forward on tiptoe. “I ave zie honaire to vish you how you did, my prince?”
Frere made some reply, which Bracy paraphrased into “The descendant of many Shahs kisses the hem of the mantle of the Father of science.”
The Professor’s “Angleesh” not providing him with a suitable reply ready made, he was obliged to resort to that refuge for destitute foreigners—a shrug and a grimace.
Lady Lombard came to his assistance.
“Now, Professor, suppose you were to tell his Highness your affecting history;” adding in a whisper, “Mr. Bracy, the interpreter, is connected with government, and might be of the greatest use to you.”
“Ohf, miladi, if all zie bodies had your big heart in dem, zies vicked vorld should be von eaven,” replied the Professor, gratefully, through his talented nose. “My littel storie! ohf, zie Prince should not vant to ear him?”
His Highness, however, being graciously pleased to signify his anxiety so to do, the small man resumed—
“Ah, ma Patri! vhats I ave come thro’ for him, ven I vill raconte nobody shall not belief.”
“To enable the Prince to understand your account more clearly,” interrupted Bracy, “may I ask to what country it relates?”
“Vidout von doubt, saire! you shall tell zie Prince dat my littel tale is Swish. My fadaire vas vot you call von mayor of zie canton of Zurich. My brodaire and myselfs vas his only schild; since a long time ve vas live very appy, mais enfin—but on his end—zie sacré Autriche—von bad Oystrish government, did vot you call oppress ma pauvre patrie, and my fadaire, toujours brave, got himself into von littel conspiration, vaire he did commit vat you call zie offence politique; vas trown to prison, and in his confinement he did die. Ah! ‘mourir pour la patrie, c’est doux,’ to die for zie country is zie—vat you call doux in Angleesh?”
“You will find the same word in both languages, Professor, only we pronounce it deuce,” replied Bracy politely.
“Ah! c’est bon, to die for zie country is zie deuce! Eh bien, after my poor fadaire was entombed, my brodaire did run himselfs avay, and vas converted to un berger, a little shepherd of cows, and I, hélas! Pour moi, fêtais désolé—for myself, I was dissolute, left alone in zie vide vorld, visout von friend to turn against. Mais le ciel embrace les orphelins—eaven embarrasses zie orphans; I marched on my foot to Paris; I found an unexpected uncle, who had supposed himself dead for some years; I undervent all zie sciences, and enfin me voici—on my end here I am.”
“A most affecting history indeed,” returned Bracy, covering his mouth with his hand to conceal a smile. As for Frere, he had for some time past been nearly suffocated by suppressed laughter, which at length made itself so apparent that nothing but his beard and an assumed fit of coughing could have saved him from discovery.
While this conversation had been going on, Miss Peyton called Lady Lombard’s attention to Lewis by observing: “The interpreter, in entertaining the Prince, seems entirely to have forgotten that very handsome young attendant who stands there, looking so haughty and disconsolate.”
“Dear me! so he does,” exclaimed Lady Lombard anxiously. “How very handsome he is! such a thoroughly Eastern countenance! He’s a man of very high rank, too, over there. What could we do to amuse him?”
“Perhaps we might show him some prints,” suggested Laura; “at all events the attention might please him.”
“Oh, yes! how clever of you! I should never have thought of that now. I’ve a table covered with them in the boudoir,” exclaimed Lady Lombard delightedly; “but do you think you could turn them over for him? I’m so foolish, I should be quite nervous; you see it’s so awkward his not understanding English, poor fellow! I know I’m very foolish.”
“I shall be most happy to do anything I can to lessen your difficulties,” replied the young lady good-naturedly. “Shall I look out a book of prints?”
“If you would be so kind, my dear, you’ll find plenty in the boudoir; and I’ll go to Mr. Bracy and get him to speak to him for me.”
The result of this application was the capture of Lewis, who, inwardly raging, was carried off to the boudoir and seated at a table, while Miss Peyton, half frightened, half amused, turned over a volume of prints for his edification. Lady Lombard and sundry of the guests stood round for some minutes watching the smiles and pantomimic gestures with which Lewis, or rather Hassan Bey, as Bracy had named him, felt bound to acknowledge the young lady’s attentions.
Amongst the guests who were thus amusing themselves lounged a young dandy, who, on the strength of a Mediterranean yacht voyage, set up for a distinguished traveller. To Lady Lombard’s inquiry whether he spoke Persian he simpered, “Re’ely—no, not exactly so as to talk to him; but he’ll do vastly well. They prefer silence, re’ely, those fellows do. You know I’ve seen so much of ’em.”
“You were in Persia, were you not?” asked one of the company.
“Re’ely—not exactly in his part of Persia. Stamboul, the city of palaces, was my headquarters: but it’s much the same; indolence, beards, and tobacco are the characteristics of both races.”
“Don’t you think he is charmingly handsome?” asked an old young lady, shaking her ringlets after a fashion which five years before had been a very “telling” manoeuvre.
“Re’ely, I should scarcely have said so,” was the reply; “the boy is well enough for an Asiatic, I like a more—ahem!—manly style of thing.” And as he spoke he passed his hand caressingly over a violent pair of red whiskers which garnished his own hard-featured physiognomy.
The cool impudence of this remark inspired Lewis with so intense a sentiment of disgust that his lip curled involuntarily, and he turned over the print before him with a gesture of impatience. On looking up he was rather disconcerted to find Laura Peyton’s piercing black eyes watching him curiously.
“You’ve given us nothing new in the musical way lately, Lady Lombard,” observed the “sere and yellow leaf” damsel before alluded to.
“I expect a lady to stay with me soon,” was the reply, “whom I think you’ll be pleased with; she sings and plays in very first-rate style.”
“Indeed! Is she an amateur or professional, may I inquire?”
“Why, really, my dear Miss Sparkless, you’ve asked a difficult question. The fact is,” continued Lady Lombard, sinking her voice, “it’s one of those very sad cases, reduced fortune—you understand. I mean to have her here merely out of charity.” Sinking her voice still lower, the following words only became audible: “Wife of a Captain Arundel—foreign extraction originally—quite a mésalliance, I believe.”
As she spoke some new arrival attracted her attention, and she and her confidante left the boudoir together.
It may easily be conceived with what feelings of burning indignation Lewis had listened to the foregoing remarks; but Frere’s lecture of the morning had not been without its fruits. With his anger the necessity for self-control presented itself, and he was congratulating himself at having checked all outward signs of annoyance when he was startled by a silvery voice whispering in his ear: “Persian or no Persian, sir, you understand English as well as I do;” and slightly turning, his eyes encountered those of Laura Peyton fixed on him with a roguish glance. His resolution was instantly taken, and he replied in the same tone: “Having discovered my secret, you must promise to keep it.”
“Agreed, on one condition,” was the rejoinder.
“And that is———?” asked Lewis.
“That you immediately make a full confession and tell me all about it.”
“It is a compact,” was the reply.
“That is good,” rejoined the young lady. “Now move the portfolio, so that your back will be towards those people. That will do. Hold down your head as if you were examining the prints, and then answer my questions truly and concisely. First, you are an English gentleman?”
“Yes, I hope so.”
“Who is the prince?”
“My friend, Richard Frere.”
“And why have you both come here dressed like Persians?”
“To mystify our foolish hostess.”
“For shame, sir! I’m very fond of Lady Lombard.”
“But you know she is a silly woman.”
“Well, never mind. Who planned this hoax?”
“Bracy, the so-called interpreter.”
“Does Prince Frere talk real Persian?”
“Yes.”
“And does the other man understand him?”
“Not a bit.”
“Then he invents all the answers? That’s rather clever of him. I shall go and listen presently. And you can’t talk either Persian or gibberish, so you held your tongue and looked sulky. Well, I think it’s all very wrong; but it’s rather droll. Poor, dear Lady Lombard! she’d never survive it if she did but know! And now, tell me, lastly, what put you in a rage just this minute and enabled me to find you out?”
“You would not care to know.”
“But I do care to know, sir, and you have promised to answer all my questions.”
“You heard the speech that woman made about a Mrs. Arundel?”
“Yes, surely.”
“Learn, then, that my name is Lewis Arundel, and the lady referred to was my mother. Now do you understand?”
As Lewis uttered these words, in atone of suppressed bitterness, his companion hastily turned her head and said, in a low, hurried voice—“I beg your pardon! I fear I have pained you; but I did not know—I could not guess——”
“Pray do not distress yourself,” returned Lewis kindly, Rose’s smile for a moment smoothing his haughty brow and playing round his proud mouth. “I am sure you would not hurt any one’s feelings knowingly; and since you observed my annoyance, I am glad to have been able to explain its cause.”
So engrossed had they been by this conversation that they had not observed Miss Sparkless enter the boudoir by another door; and they were first made aware of her presence by seeing her standing, breathless with astonishment, at discovering Miss Peyton in familiar colloquy with a Persian nobleman utterly ignorant of the English language.
“Do you speak German?” asked Lewis quickly.
“Yes, a little,” returned Miss Peyton.
“She has not caught a word yet,” continued Lewis. “Tell her you found out by accident that I had picked up a few German sentences when the Prince was at the court of Prussia. White lies, unhappily, are inevitable on these occasions,” he continued, seeing his companion hesitate. “It’s the only way to prevent an éclaircissementt; and then, think of poor Lady Lombard’s feelings!”
“As I seem fairly embarked in the conspiracy, I suppose I must do your bidding,” was the reply, and Miss Sparkless, the middle-aged young lady, was accordingly informed of Lewis’s German proficiency, whereat, falling into an ecstasy, she replied—
“How charming! What a dear creature he is!” On which the dear creature himself, catching Miss Peyton’s eye, was very near laughing outright.
“Laura, my love,” exclaimed Lady Lombard, entering hastily, “the Prince is going down to supper; will you come?” Then taking her hand caressingly, she added, “Have you been very much bored by him, poor fellow?”
“I found he could speak a few words of German, and that helped us on,” was the reply.
“Yes, really—ah; we might have thought of that before,” returned Lady Lombard, by no means certain the German language might not form an important and customary branch of Persian education.
During supper Laura Peyton contrived to be seated between Frere and Bracy, the latter of whom she kept so constantly engaged in interpreting for her that he scarcely got anything to eat, and came to the conclusion that in the whole course of his experience he had never before encountered such a talking woman. Nor was his annoyance diminished by observing that Lewis, who was seated opposite, appeared to be deriving the utmost amusement from his discomfiture. Having exhausted every possible pretext for breaking off the conversation, and being each time foiled by the young lady’s quiet tact, he was about to resign himself to his fate and relinquish all idea of supper, when a project occurred to him which he immediately hastened to put into execution. Waiting till Frere had spoken a Persian sentence, he suddenly drew himself up, looking deeply scandalised, frowned at the speaker, shook his head and muttered something unintelligible in a tone of grave remonstrance, then paused for a reply, which Frere, intensely perplexed, and by no means clear that he had not done something un-Persian and wrong, was forced to utter. This only seemed to make matters worse: Bracy again remonstrated in gibberish, then appeared to have determined on his course, and muttering, “Well, there’s no help for it, I suppose,” he turned to Lady Lombard, and began in a tone of deep concern—
“I have a most disagreeable duty to perform, and must beg you to believe that nothing but absolute necessity could have induced me to mention the matter; but I have remonstrated with his Highness without effect, and I dare go no further—he is subject to most violent bursts of passion, and becomes dangerous when opposed. He drew his dagger and attempted to stab me only yesterday, because I interfered to prevent his having one of the waiters of the hotel strangled with a bow-string.”
Lady Lombard turned pale on receiving this information, while Bracy continued—
“It is most unfortunate, but the Prince has been so much delighted with this young lady’s charming flow of conversation that, in his ignorance of the customs of this country, he has actually commissioned me to offer you £500 for her, and declared his determination of taking her home with him.”
The effect of this communication may be “better imagined than described.” Miss Peyton, aware of the true state of affairs, hid her face in her handkerchief in an uncontrollable fit of laughter; Lewis, sorely tempted to follow her example, bent over his plate till the flowing tassel of the fez concealed his features; Frere, excessively annoyed at the false imputation, all but began a flat denial of the charge in somewhat forcible English, but remembering his assumed character just in time, clenched his fist and ground his teeth with impatience, while Lady Lombard, observing these gestures, and construing them into indications of an approaching burst of fury, was nearly swooning with terror, when a note was put into her hands by a servant; hastily casting her eyes over it, she handed it to Bracy, saying—
“This is most fortunate; it may serve to divert his attention.”
As he became aware of its contents his countenance fell, and holding it so that Frere might read it, he whispered—
“Here’s a treat! We are in for it now, and no mistake!”
The note ran as follows:—
“Dr. ————, Persian Professor at Addiscombe, presents his compliments to Lady Lombard, and begs to inform her that being only in town for a few hours, and learning accidentally that his Highness Prince Mustapha Ali was spending the evening at her house, he has ventured to request her permission to intrude upon her uninvited, as he is most anxious to renew his acquaintance with his Highness, whom he had the honour to know in Persia.”