CHAPTER XXXIII

'At Charing Cross, hard by the way

Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay,

There is a house with stairs;

And there did I see coming down

Such folk as are not in our town;

Forty at least in pairs.'

On the night of the 15th of September a great many more than forty pairs

of feet were passing up and down the stairs of that magnificent specimen

of Jackson's domestic architecture, the Hartleys' new palace in

----shire. Amateur theatricals are, strange as it may appear, since

going to see them is almost invariably the triumph of hope over

experience, always an attractive bait to hold out to a country

neighbourhood. Apart from the pleasure of thinking how much better than

do the actors, one could have played their parts one's self; and that

opposite and more good-natured, if not quite so acute pleasure, of

wondering with Miss Snevellici's patroness, 'How they ever learnt to act

as they do, laughing in one piece, and crying in the next, and so

natural in both,' there is, in the present case, an element of curiosity

which adds an additional poignancy to the expectation of enjoyment usual

in such cases.

It is the Hartley _coup d'essai_ in hospitality in the county, and there

is a widespread interest manifested as to how they will do it. Almost as

widespread is the comfortable conviction that they will do it well.

An old-established squire who has been seated on his modest acres for a

couple of hundred years may venture to invite his friends to dance on a

sticky floor to the sound of a piano, and to wash away their fatigue in

libations of 50-shilling champagne; but the millionaire, who has only

within the last year set an uncertain foot upon the land, is not likely

to try any such experiments upon the county's patience. It is, then,

with a confident hope of Gunter and Coote and Tinney that the occupants

of most of the carriages step out on the red cloth--a hope that the

first glimpse of the banks of orchids that line the entrance-hall goes

far to make a certainty.

From the minds of the occupants of one carriage, to whose turn, after

long waiting in the endless string, it at length comes to set free its

load, Gunter, Coote and Tinney, and orchids are equally distant.

Milady's head is still running on her Patience, which, by the aid of a

carriage-lamp and a pack of tiny cards, she has been playing contentedly

during the whole of the long ten miles. The little portion of Peggy's

heart that is not filled with an aching compassion and anxiety for her

sister is pierced by the fear of the extreme likelihood, in so

promiscuous a gathering of three-fourths of the county, of her finding

herself face to face with the one woman whom she would compass sea and

land to avoid, and with the man whom that woman habitually carries in

her train.

And Prue?

'I think he is sure to be at the door to receive us, do not you?' she

has whispered to her sister, under cover of milady's absorption in her

solitary game, while they are still waiting in the string; 'not that I

shall be so silly as to attach any importance to it if he is not; but

after a whole week!' stifling a sigh. 'Oh dear!' letting down the glass

and craning her neck impatiently out, 'shall we never get there? I see

carriage-lamps for half a mile ahead of us still!'

A whole week! It is true. For a whole week the Red House has been

favoured with no glimpse of Mr. Ducane. How should it, indeed, since he

has been compelled by the exigencies of his situation to take up his

abode entirely at the scene of his labours? Of what use to waste upon

the long ride there and back time so precious in a last week? the time

of one upon whose inexhaustible stock of ability and good-nature every

one thinks him or herself entitled to draw.

But though he has been unable to present himself in person to his

betrothed, he has had time to scribble her a tiny pencil-note, just a

word--but then how little can the value of a letter be measured by its

length!--praying her to keep a place for him by her side at the

theatricals.

'If my Prue refuses, it will be all over with my pleasure,' he ends

simply.

The carriage, after many tantalising halts opposite dark laurels, draws

up finally before a blaze of electric light, a crowd of powdered

footmen, an arching of palm-boughs; and milady steps deliberately out in

her fur boots and her diamond 'fender,' followed by her two _protegees_.

Freddy is not at the door to receive them; and the moment that she has

discovered this fact, Prue sees the irrationality of the hope that had

led her ever to expect that he would be. He is naturally not in the

cloak-room, where milady seems, to the girl's passionate impatience, to

loiter unconscionably long, tugging at the strings of her _sortie de

bal_, which have got into a knot, and talking to the numerous friends

she meets there. To do her justice, it is not any care for her toilette

that detains her. She would quite as soon have the famous tiara--her

'fender,' as she always calls it--which the county has admired for fifty

years, on crooked as straight. The county expects to see it on great

occasions, and so she puts it on; but if Mrs. Mason were to dispose it

behind before, the circumstance would disturb but very slightly her

lady's equanimity. Mr. Ducane is not, as far as can be made out by a

first glance, in the magnificent music-room, to-night arranged as a

theatre, and at whose door Mrs. Hartley stands, smiling and splendid, to

receive her guests. But though Prue's eye has as yet to fast from the

sight of her betrothed, her ear at least is gladdened by his praises.

'Oh, Lady Roupell, I do not know how we ever can thank Mr. Ducane

enough!' she hears Mrs. Hartley exclaim. 'My girls say they do not know

what they should have done without him--so kind, so clever, and

unselfish is not the word!'

Milady grunts.

'No, I do not think it is,' she says, half _sotto voce_, as she passes

on.

At the first look, the room, superb as are its proportions, seems

already full; but a closer inspection reveals at the upper end several

still vacant rows of arm-chairs, reserved by the host and hostess for

those among their guests whom they most delight to honour. To this

favoured category belongs milady, and she is presently installed with

her two young friends by a _semillant_ papa Hartley, in the very middle

of the front rank. For the present, nothing can be easier than for Prue

to keep the chair at her side vacant. She has already anxiously and

surreptitiously spread her white frock over it. Each of earth's glories

has probably its attendant disadvantages; a warm and consoling doctrine

for those to whose share not much of life's gilding falls; nor is a seat

in the front row of synagogue or playhouse any exception to this rule.

It has the inevitable drawback, that except by an uncomfortable

contortion of the neck-muscles, it is impossible for its occupants to

see what is going on in the body of the room; and the view of

foot-lights and a drop-scene is one that after a while is apt to pall.

Prue's head is continually turning over her shoulder, as, from the body

of the long hall, all blazing with pink-shaded electric lamps, comes the

noise of gowns rustling, of steps and voices, as people settle into

their seats. At first she had had no cause for uneasiness. The people,

as they tide in, conscious of no particular claim to chief places, pack

themselves, with laughs and greetings to acquaintances, into the

unreserved seats. But presently Mr. Hartley is seen convoying a party of

ladies and men to the top of the room with the same evidences of

deferential tenderness as he had shown to milady; and no sooner are they

disposed of, according to their merits, than he reappears with the same

smile, and a new batch. This continues to happen until the human tide,

like its prototype in its inexorable march over swallowed sands and

drunk rocks, has advanced, despite the piteous protest in Prue's eyes,

to within three chairs of her. Yes, including that one so imperfectly

veiled by the poor child's skirt, there are only three vacant seats

remaining.

'Oh, I wish he would come! Oh, I wish he would come!' she repeats, with

something that grows ever nearer and nearer to a sob in her voice. 'Oh,

Peggy, do you think he will not come after all? You are longer-sighted

than I am; do look if you can see him anywhere! Oh, I wish he would

come! I shall not be able to keep this chair for him much longer, and

then----'

Her words are prophetic. Scarcely are they out of her mouth before the

vision of the radiant host is again seen nearing them, with a fresh

freight--a freight that rustles and jingles and chatters louder than any

of the previous ones.

'Oh yes, do put me in a good place!' a high and apparently extravagantly

cheerful voice is heard exclaiming; 'I always like the best places if I

can get them--do not you? and I mean to applaud more loudly than

anybody. I have been engaged by Freddy Ducane as a claque; and I assure

you I mean to keep my word.'

Although she has been expecting it--although she has told herself that

to hear it is among the most probable of the evening's chances, yet, at

the sound of that clear thin voice, Peggy turns extremely cold. It has

come then. In a second she will certainly be called upon to hear another

voice. Let her then brace herself to bear it decently. Her hands clasp

themselves involuntarily, and she draws in her breath; but she cannot

lift her eyes. She sits looking straight before her, waiting. But

instead of the tones that with such sick dread she is expecting, she

hears only milady's voice--milady's voice not in its suavest key.

'Oh! it is you, is it? How many of you are there?--because we are pretty

full here; and I suppose you do not mean to sit upon our knees.'

'There is nothing I should like better!' cries Lady Betty friskily. 'You

are looking perfectly delightful to-night; all the more so because your

fender is quite on one side. Come now, do not be ill-natured, but make

room for me; you know I am not very----'

Peggy hears the voice break off abruptly; and involuntarily her eyes,

hitherto glued to the back of the chair in front of her, snatch a hasty

glance in Lady Betty's direction. She has turned away, and is addressing

Mr. Hartley in an altered and hurried key.

'After all, I hope you will not think me very changeable, but I believe

I should like to sit a little farther back; one sees better, and hears

better, and gets a better general idea.'

'She is going away!' whispers Prue, with a long quivering sigh of

relief. 'Oh, I was so frightened! I thought she was going to take my

chair. Why did she go? She could not have seen us!'

But this is not quite the conclusion arrived at by Peggy, as her eyes

follow Betty's retreating figure--Betty, with her

'Little head

Sunning with curls'

that go to bed in a box--Betty, with the docile Harborough and a couple

of Guardsmen at her heels; and--without John Talbot! That for one chance

evening she should happen to lack his attendance is, after all, but

small evidence against his being still riveted with her fetters; but

Peggy's heart swells with a disproportionate elation at the discovery.

There is, alas! not much likelihood of poor Prue's feeling a like

expansion; for scarcely has she finished drawing the long breath caused

her by Betty's retreat, than the seat which the latter had spared is

approached, settled upon, and irrevocably occupied--poor Prue's barriers

politely but ruthlessly swept away.

She has attempted a hurried protest, but it has not been even heard; and

now it is too late, for a bell has rung. The curtain has swept aloft,

with less of hesitation and dubiousness as to the result than is

generally the case with amateur curtains, and discloses to view the

second Miss Hartley seated under the rustic berceau of a wayside Italian

wine-shop, in peasant's cap and bodice, soliloquising rather nervously

and at some length. What is the drift of that soliloquy; or of the

dialogue that follows with a person of a bandit nature, whom it takes

some moments for his acquaintance to decipher into a young man Hartley;

or of the jiggy catchy songs with which the piece is freely

interspersed, Peggy will never know to her last day.

Before her eyes, indeed, there is a phantasmagoria of people going and

coming in a blaze of light--of more be-peasanted Misses Hartley, with

more banditted brothers; in her ears a brisk dialogue that must be

funny, judging from the roars of laughter coming from behind her; of

smart galloping quartettes and trios that must be humorous and musical,

from the storm of applause and encores that greet them. But to her brain

penetrate none of the gay and smiling images conveyed by her senses. Her

brain is wholly occupied by the painful and impossible effort to calm

Prue, whose agitation, rendered more unmanageable by the weakness of her

state of health and the lack of any habit of self-government, threatens

to become uncontrollable.

'Oh, Peggy, why has not he come? What has become of him? Where can he

be?' she keeps moaningly whispering.

Peggy has taken hold of one of her sister's feverish hands, whose dry

fire is felt even through her glove, and presses it now and again.

'He will be here directly,' she answers soothingly; 'no doubt he could

not get away. You heard how useful he has been! Probably he is helping

them behind the scenes. Do not you think that you could try to look a

little less miserable? I am so afraid that people will remark it.'

'If he is behind the scenes,' moans Prue, not paying any heed to,

evidently hardly hearing, this gentle admonition, 'he is with her. You

see that she is not acting either! Wherever they are, they are together!

Oh, Peggy, I think I shall die of misery!'

The close of her sentence is drowned in a tempest of riotous applause,

and Peggy's eyes involuntarily turn to the stage, to learn the cause.

One of the performers, who has been throughout pre-eminently the funny

man of the piece, is singing a solo, accompanied by many facetious

gestures. The drift of the song is the excessive happiness of the

singer--a theme which is enlarged upon through half a dozen successive

verses:

'The lark is blithe,

And the summer fly;

Blithe is the cricket,

And blithe am I.

None so blithe, so blithe as I!'

Peggy happens to have some acquaintance with the singer off the stage;

knows him to be sickly, melancholy, poor; to-night racked with

neuralgia, yet obliged to do his little tricks, and go through his small

antics, on penalty of banishment from that society, his sole _raison

d'etre_ in which is his gift of making people laugh.

'La Comedie Humaine!' she says to herself--'La Comedie Humaine!'