CHAPTER XLI.—ANNIE GRANT FALLS INTO DIFFICULTIES.
Lewis, according to agreement, accompanied Frere to the Palaeontological, and added to the circle of his acquaintance those mysterious beings, the “Relations of the Earlier Zoophytes.” When the lecture was over, Frere, who had an order to admit two into the House of Commons, took Lewis with him to hear the speaking. The debate proved interesting: the Premier addressed the House at length; a well-known satirist rose to reply to him, remarking on various points in the speech with much talent and more ill-nature, and the minister was again on his legs to answer his opponent, when Lewis, glancing at his watch, discovered to his annoyance that it was considerably past eleven; and aware that General Grant had a particular objection to his servants being kept up late, communicated this fact to his companion, and wished him goodnight.
“What! can’t you stay and hear —————‘s answer?” was the reply, “and then I’d come away, too.”
Lewis explained that the thing was impossible, and Frere continued—
“Well, what must be, must, I suppose; and as my hearing—————‘s reply is another inevitable necessity, I must e’en say Good-night, so Schlaffen sie wohl.”
Lewis grasped his proffered hand, and leaving the gallery, started on his homeward route. As he approached Charing Cross his attention was attracted by the restlessness of a magnificent horse, which, in a well-appointed cab, was waiting at the door of one of the houses. As he slackened his pace for a moment to ascertain whether the efforts made by a diminutive cab-groom to restrain the plunging of the fiery animal would prove successful, the house door was flung open, and a gentleman, apparently in headlong haste, sprang down the steps so recklessly that he missed his footing, and would have fallen had not Lewis caught him by the arm in time to prevent it. As the person he had thus assisted turned to thank him, the reflection of the gaslight fell upon his face, and Lewis recognised Lord Bellefield, though his features were characterised by a strange expression which Lewis had never observed in them before. Drawing back, he bowed coldly, and was about to pass on when Lord Bellefield exclaimed—
“Stay one moment, Mr. Arundel. I have been forced to leave the Opera-house suddenly: the Countess Portici and Miss Grant are in Lord Ashford’s box, and I have promised to return to see them home, but am quite unable to do so. You would oblige—that is, I am sure General Grant would wish you——”
“Will your lordship favour me with the loan of your pass-ticket?” interrupted Lewis shortly.
As Lord Bellefield complied with this request, Lewis remarked that his hand trembled to such a degree that he could scarcely grasp the ivory ticket.
“You will tell the Countess that it was impossible for me to come to them,” continued the young nobleman hurriedly; then passing his hand across his eyes, as if he were half bewildered, he sprang into the cab, and seizing the reins, drove off at a furious pace in the direction of Westminster Abbey.
Lewis gazed after him for a moment in surprise, then turning on his heel, walked rapidly to the end of the Haymarket, hoping to reach the theatre before the opera should be concluded. In this expectation he was however disappointed, for when he gained the Opera Colonnade he perceived, from the crush of carriages and the bustle and confusion which was going on, that the opera was over. Hastily pushing through the crowd, he endeavoured to find the box Lord Bellefield had indicated, but to one as little acquainted as was Lewis with the intricacies of the Opera-house this was no such easy matter; first, he ran up considerably too high; in his eagerness to retrieve this error he descended as much too low; and even when he had attained the proper level he more than once took a wrong turning. At length he caught a box-keeper, who, on learning his difficulties, volunteered to conduct him to the box he was in search of. Lo, and behold, when they reached the spot the door stood open, and the box was tenantless!
In order to explain how this awkward and embarrassing result had been brought about, we must beseech the reader’s patience while we resume the broken thread of our narrative where we relinquished it at the end of the last chapter.
Scarcely had Lord Bellefield quitted the box five minutes when the attendant opened the door and Augustus Travers made his appearance. He was very humble and courteous, and all he said to Emily with his tongue might have been printed in the “Times” the next morning without affording matter for the most arrant gossip to prate about; but the language spoken by his eloquent blue eyes was of a very different character. He told her vocally that he had been travelling in the East since they had last parted; that he had been unwell, had felt restless and unsettled; that he had found it impossible to remain contentedly in any place, had become a citizen of the world, a wanderer over the face of the globe; that he had only returned to town during the last week, and had no notion she had left Italy—dear Italy!—and here his eyes said, “that country which your presence made a paradise to me,” just as plainly as if his tongue had spoken the words (in fact they said it more plainly, for his tongue appeared to consider it fashionable to speak English with a slight lisp, which occasionally rendered his meaning indistinct); “but when he saw her”—continued his tongue—“he could not resist coming up to her box to learn whether she had quite forgotten all her old friends;” and here his eyes resumed that his faith in her was so strong that nothing, neither absence nor aught else, could in the smallest degree shake it.
Then Emily replied that she was always delighted to see any old friend, but that she really was quite shocked to find him looking so ill; which observation she uttered with particular tenderness, because, not being aware that he had played French Hazard at a club in St. James’s Street till five o’clock on the previous morning, she accounted for his pale looks by the romantic hypothesis that he was dying for love of her. And so they continued to converse in an undertone, apparently much to their mutual satisfaction, while Annie, having bowed coldly when she was introduced to the fascinating Augustus, of whose presence there she greatly disapproved, pretended altogether to ignore him, and to turn her attention solely to the opera. And time ran on, till, just as the baritone singer was approaching, with suicidal intentions, the (imitation) marble tomb supposed to contain the corpses of his tenor and soprano victims, but which really was tenanted by a live carpenter, who, in a paper cap and flannel jacket, was waiting till the fall of the curtain should enable him to carry away the entire mausoleum, Annie, looking at her watch, perceived that it was past eleven, and glancing towards Emily, reminded her in dumb show that Lord Bellefield might be momentarily expected. This intelligence Emily, in a low tone, communicated to her friend, who smiled, to show his white teeth, and replied that “Bellefield and he had met at Baden, and had become wonderful friends again;” despite which assurance Emily still urged his departure, and he still lingered on, till the opera came to an end before Lord Bellefield made his appearance. Being Saturday night, there was no ballet, and the house began to empty rapidly.
“What can possibly have become of your brother, Emily?” exclaimed Annie, who, disliking the whole situation most particularly, was fast lapsing into that uncomfortable state of mind familiarly termed “a fuss.”
“If you will allow me, I shall be delighted to see you to your carriage,” insinuated Gus.
“Thank you, but I am sure my brother will be here directly,” returned Emily; “he would be extremely annoyed to find that we had gone without waiting for him. Pray do not let us detain you.”
But of course Gus would not go; “he should be wretched unless he knew they were in safety; he saw they were anxious, he would ascertain whether Lord Bellefield had returned; there might perhaps be difficulty in getting up their carriage,” and so he left the box, promising to return instantly.
“What are we to do, Emily, if Bellefield does not come?” exclaimed Annie, pressing her hands together much as the primaa donna had done when, some quarter of an hour since, she had ejaculated at the very tip-top of her lofty voice, “Addesso Morir!”
“What are we to do, you silly child?” replied Emily, laughing, “why, walk downstairs, to be sure, and allow Gus to take care of us till we can find the carriage. Is not he handsome, poor fellow!”
Before Annie could urge her dislike to this scheme, Travers returned, bringing with him a tall, good-looking boy, embarrassed by a perpetual consciousness of his extreme youth and his first tail-coat.
“I can see nothing of Lord Bellefield,” began Gus; “it is evident something must have occurred to prevent his return. Let me introduce my brother Alfred,” he continued, addressing Emily; “he was a naughty little boy in pinafores when you saw him last—and now what will you do? every one is going or gone.”
“Oh, wait a minute longer; I’m sure he will come,” urged Annie.
“Really we cannot,” returned Emily. “We shall get shut up in the opera-house all Sunday, if we don’t take care.”
“Which would be indeed dreadfully wicked—a most terrific climax of depravity,” simpered Gus. “Seriously,” he continued, “you must accept my arm, though I am sorry the alternative should be so very disagreeable to you.” These latter words he spoke in such a tone that Emily alone could hear them, for which he obtained a reproachful, tender, and upbraiding glance, with a view to which reward he had probably uttered them.
“Come, Annie, we positively must go,” exclaimed her cousin impatiently.
“Alfred, why don’t you offer Miss Grant your arm?” chimed in Gus, drawing Emily’s within his own. Thus urged, poor Annie, sorely against her will, accepted Alfred’s trembling arm and quitted the box; Emily and Augustus Travers following. As they descended the stairs a slight confusion occurred: an Irish gentleman had lost his hat, and wanted to return to look for it, a measure against which a stout old lady, to whom he was acting as escort, vehemently protested, while an obsequious box-keeper was vainly endeavouring to understand the locality in which the embarrassed Hibernian imagined he had left the missing article. While Annie and her juvenile protector were manoeuvring to get past this group, Augustus Travers paused, saying in a low tone to his companion, “Let them precede us; I must speak two words to you in private, and if I lose this opportunity I may never have another. Emily, if you value my peace of mind, I entreat you do not refuse.”
A large party, composed chiefly of young men, was descending at the moment, so that Emily’s reply was inaudible, but when, having got in some degree clear of the confusion, Annie looked back for her chaperone, Travers and the Countess were nowhere to be seen. Horrified at this discovery, Annie stopped abruptly, exclaiming, “Oh, we have missed Mr. Travers and my cousin! We had better turn back.”
The boy glanced quickly round, and as he perceived the truth of her assertion a meaning smile passed across his features. All traces of it had, however, vanished ere he replied, “They must have turned down the other staircase, but it will bring them out at the same place as this would have done; we shall meet them at the bottom.” Then, as his companion still hesitated, he continued, “I can assure you it is so; we should only lose them if we were to return.”
Half convinced by this argument, and completely frightened by the party of young men, who, talking and laughing, were rapidly following them, Annie suffered herself to be hurried on by her companion till she reached the foot of the staircase; here she paused and looked anxiously around for her cousin and Travers—they were nowhere to be seen. Annoyed, distressed, and frightened, she turned to her companion, exclaiming, “They are not here, you see. What are we to do?”
“Wait, I suppose,” returned the boy, who seemed puzzled and vexed. “This is a nice trick of Master Gus’s,” he continued in a half soliloquy; “he ought at least to have given me a hint what to do.”
Before Annie could inquire what he imagined his brother’s intentions might be, a fresh incident diverted, and, from its disagreeable nature, soon wholly engrossed her attention. The crush-room, as it is called, where she was now standing, was occupied almost entirely by men, who, broken up into parties of four or five, were pacing up and down, waiting for their friends to join them, or standing in groups, canvassing the various merits and demerits of the different performers. To one or two of these coteries Annie soon became an object of especial notice.
“Do you see that girl?” whispered a pert youth with light curls and a turned-down collar. “Isn’t she a regular stunner, eh?”
“Ya’as, dev’lish pwitty, ra-ally,” drawled a moustachiod puppy, staring through an eyeglass at the object of his admiration. “Aw—I wonder who she possibly ca-an be. I actually don’t know har.”
“I suppose she’s standing there to be looked at,” returned the first speaker. “Her juvenile gallant can’t get her along at any price, it seems.”
“Ra’ally, it were almost worth while to relieve him of his charge,” drawled moustachios. “He seems particularly incompetent to fill it, not—aw—equal to the situation—ha! ha!”
“Why don’t you volunteer, Spooner, if you think so?” urged a third speaker.
“Na-o, I don’t do that sort of thing—I’m—aw—quite a reformed character,” was the reply; “but if you wa-ant a leader for such a forlorn hope—aw—here comes your man.”
As he spoke, a tall, distinguished-looking individual, with much watch-chain and more whisker, who looked forty, but might be a year or two younger, lounged up to the group, and showing his teeth with a repulsive smile, inquired, “What are you young reprobates grinning about, eh?”
“We were only saying it was a pity that young lady had not a more efficient protector, and advising Spooner to volunteer, Sir Gilbert,” was the reply.
“Who are the individuals?” inquired the last comer, screwing a glass into the corner of his eye. A moment’s inspection served to elucidate the mystery; and removing the glass with a contemptuous smile, he added, “The boy is little Alfred Travers, who has just left Eton; he’s evidently waiting for his brother, who, I’ve a notion, has more strings than one to his bow to-night; as for the damsel, noscitur a sociis. We’ll play the fascinating Gus a trick for once in his life. Come with me, Forester; I may want you to bully the boy.” Then turning on his heel, he advanced towards Annie, and saluting her with a low bow, began—
“This is a most unexpected pleasure! I had no idea you were here to-night; where have you hidden yourself this age?” then perceiving that, confused by his address, and uncertain whether he might not be some acquaintance whose features she had failed to recognise, the young lady was completely at a loss how to reply, he continued, “I see that you have been cruel enough to forget me; while I, on the contrary, have carried your lovely image in my heart, and time has failed to efface even the shadow of a charm. But let me be of use to you. Have you a carriage here, or will you allow me to place mine at your disposal? The house is becoming deserted—let me escort you. Stand aside, young gentleman,” and as he spoke he advanced towards her, offering his arm.
But Annie, having recovered from her first surprise, felt convinced that the person addressing her was a total stranger, and drawing back in alarm, she said to her companion in a hurried whisper—
“Indeed, I do not know that gentleman—there must be some mistake—pray let us get away.”
Thus urged, the boy drew up his slight figure to its full height, and turning to the individual in question, said haughtily—
“You are mistaken, sir; I must trouble you to allow us to pass.”
“It is you who mistake jest for earnest, my good boy,” was the contemptuous reply; “the lady and I are old friends; she is merely trying to tease me by pretending to have forgotten me. This gentleman” (and he glanced at his companion) “will explain the matter to you.” Then again offering his arm to Annie, he continued, “Really, if you persist in your silly joke we shall have the carriage drive off.” Confused by his pertinacity, Alfred Travers glanced at his trembling companion, and reading the truth in the terrified expression of her face, his boyish chivalry took fire, and anxious to vindicate his title to be considered a man, he exclaimed, angrily—
“Stand back, sir, and let us pass; do you mean to insult the lady?”
The person he addressed, Sir Gilbert Vivian, was a roué Baronet who, having been a man about town for the last sixteen years, and having long since lost all the good character he had ever possessed, and acquired a reputation of a diametrically opposite tendency, was scarcely a person to stick at trifles, laughed as he replied—
“Do you hear that, Forester? This good youth accuses you of insulting the young lady—hadn’t you better give him a lesson in civility?”
As he spoke he made a significant gesture, which the other responded to by exclaiming—
“Insult the lady! what do you mean, you young cub, eh?” and grasping him by the arm, he twisted him roughly round, thereby separating him from Annie.
“Take that, and find out,” was the thoroughly school-boy answer, as, bounding forward, the ex-Etonian administered to his antagonist a ringing box on the ear.
This, save that the blow was more skilfully applied and rather harder than he had calculated upon, was just the result Forester had anticipated. Seizing the struggling boy by the collar, he declared he would give him in custody for an assault, and, despite his resistance, dragged him from the spot in a pretended search after a policeman. Availing himself of the confusion, the Baronet placed himself by Annie’s side, and bending over her, said—
“It’s no use waiting for the fascinating Augustus, I can assure you; he has other game in view to-night, and can’t come; so for once you must allow me the honour of acting as his deputy—’pon my word, you must,” and as he spoke he attempted to take her arm and draw it within his own.
Poor Annie! distressed, confused, and frightened, the desertion, or rather capture, of the boy, her only protector, had increased her alarm twenty-fold, and now the renewed persecution of the Baronet brought her fears to a climax, and attempting to withdraw her hand from his grasp, in a very agony of terror she exclaimed—
“Oh! where is Emily? will nobody help me?” and burst into a flood of tears.
At this moment a tall figure suddenly interposed between them, and the Baronet’s wrist was seized with such a vice-like grasp that he uttered an exclamation of mingled rage and pain, and dropped the little hand of which he had unjustly possessed himself as though it had been a red-hot cinder; while Annie, uttering a cry of delight, sprang forward, and clasping the arm of the new-comer, clung to it as some drowning wretch clings to the plank which shields him from the rushing waters that threaten his destruction.
Lewis, for he it was (as every reader above the unsuspecting age of four and a half has of course ere this discovered for himself), understanding at a glance the outlines of the situation, and intuitively divining much of what Annie must have gone through, pitied and sympathised with her so deeply that the anger he would otherwise have felt against the man who had insulted her was completely conquered by the stronger feeling which absorbed him, and his only thought was how best to soothe and tranquillise the frightened girl who clung to him.
“Do not alarm yourself,” he said kindly; “you have nothing more to fear. I will not leave you for a moment till you are again at home and in safety. Lean on my arm, you tremble so that you can scarcely walk;” and half leading, half supporting her, he drew her away from the scene of her disasters, and passing through the crowd of loiterers whom the scuffle between Forester and Alfred Travers had attracted to the spot, conducted her towards the nearest exit.
So quietly and suddenly had all this taken place, that ere Sir Gilbert Vivian had left off rubbing his wrist, or thoroughly realised the sudden frustration of his scheme, the object of his insolent attentions was almost out of sight. Irritated at his failure, and urged on by the scarcely suppressed laughter of those who had witnessed his defeat, he muttered an oath, and turning on his heel, followed hastily in the track of Annie and her deliverer. Coming up with them just as they reached the entrance leading into the colonnade, he tapped Lewis smartly on the shoulder, saying angrily—
“A word with you, sir, if you please. I wish to ask what you mean by your impertinent interference. Who the d——-l are you, I should like to know?”
A flush of anger passed across Lewis’s brow, and he was about to make a reply which would scarcely have tended to bring the matter to an amicable conclusion, when an almost convulsive pressure of the arm on which Annie hung recalled his self-control, and drawing himself up with a stern dignity which bespoke an apt pupil in the school of General Grant, he fixed his piercing eyes upon the Baronet as he answered, “You have already, sir, acting probably under some mistake” (and he laid a strong emphasis upon the last word), “subjected this lady to an amount of fright and annoyance which should secure the forbearance of any one moving in the society of gentlemen. Should you wish to call and apologise to her father for your share in this unlucky adventure, I shall be happy to explain to you in his presence the part I have taken in the affair. There is my address,” and without waiting further parley Lewis handed him his card, and drawing Annie gently forward, passed on. As they reached the entrance, a gentleman coming hastily the other way, nearly ran against them. Looking up, Annie perceived it to be Augustus Travers, who, recognising her, exclaimed, “I have left the Countess Portici in the carriage, and was returning to seek for you, Miss Grant. She is much alarmed at having missed you.” The only reply Annie made to this speech was by a slight inclination of the head, and pressing hastily forward, she passed on. As Lewis assisted her into the carriage, she, for the first time, spoke. “You will come with us,” she said eagerly; “remember you have promised not to leave me.” Then catching sight of Augustus Travers, who had followed them, a new idea struck her, and she continued, “Tell that gentleman I am afraid his brother has become involved in some difficulty on my account; he had better go back and seek for him.” Lewis repeated her message and then sprang into the carriage, which instantly drove off, leaving the discomfited dandy to accomplish his mission as best he might.