'You are not well, darling,' said he.
'Oh, yes, papa,' she replied, with affected cheerfulness, 'I am very well; but oh, if we were only home again out of this foggy Antwerp. I think I could wheel you about in a bath chair as well as old Archie, were we only home to——'
'Where?' he asked, sharply. 'But I must take care of you now for my own sake. This confinement is killing you; go out somewhere, anywhere under Cadbury's escort.'
But Alison shook her head. As yet she had seen nothing of the famous city of Antwerp, though she could not look forth from her windows in the quaint Place Verte, or along the Marché aux Souliers, with all its shops, without a longing to explore, everything seemed so strange, so striking; for, as Sir Walter Scott wrote truthfully and graphically, 'it is in the streets of Antwerp and Brussels that the eye rests upon the forms of architecture which appear in the pictures of the Flemish school—those fronts richly decorated with various ornaments, and terminating in roofs, the slope of which is concealed from the eye by windows and gables still more highly ornamented; the whole comprising a general effect which, from its grandeur and intricacy, at once amuses and delights the spectator. In fact, this rich intermixture of towers and battlements and projecting windows, highly sculptured, joined to the height of the houses and the variety of ornaments upon their fronts, produce an effect as superior to those of the tame uniformity of a modern street as the casque of a warrior exhibits over the slouched, broad-brimmed beaver of a Quaker.'
Another remarkable feature in the Belgian streets is the enormous height of the front doors, with rings and knockers of brass often more than a foot in diameter.
Lord Cadbury had received a card of invitation pour milord et ses dames to a Redoute monstre et fête de nuit at the Théâtre des Variétés, where there was to be a species of bal masqué in the great saloon, and on the stage a 'Kermesse Flamande, Fête Venitienne,' as it was announced, and he treated Sir Ranald's permission to take Alison with him, simply as a spectator in her street costume.
All the ladies who dance at these balls wear masques and black silk dominoes over their ball dresses; the gentlemen are in evening dress, and do not wear masks, as he explained to her, and Alison, ennuyed and weary of confinement and dulness, consented to go, at her father's urgent request, though she was without a chaperon; but then, as the former said, no one knew her in Antwerp.
When Alison thought of Lord Cadbury's wishes and proposals as regarded herself, she felt that she ought not to accompany him to this fête, but her love for Bevil seemed to guard her like a suit of armour; the temptation to see a little of outdoor life prevailed, and so she yielded, but not without dread and reluctance. Was this a prevision of what was to come?
That morning she had been at a well-known coiffeur's getting her hair dressed, and was rather scared than amused to see gentlemen and ladies seated side by side in the saloon, under the hands of his assistants, the former getting their beards shaved and moustaches trimmed, and the latter their back hair brushed and dressed: but, though this was only a specimen of the freedom of Belgian life, young ladies, she knew, could not go abroad without a chaperon; but then, Lord Cadbury, she reflected, was old enough to be her father.
He would take the greatest care of her—the scene would be a brilliant one, and one, moreover, entirely new to her.