CHAPTER XLIII.
“RAFFLE IT!”
“Major and Mrs. Granby Langrishe request the honour of Mr. and Mrs. Blanks’s company at St. John’s church at two o’clock on the afternoon of the 20th inst., to be present at the marriage of their niece and Sir Gloster Sandilands.”
These invitation cards, richly embossed in silver, were to be seen in almost every abode in Shirani. The wedding dress was on its way from Madame Phelps, in Calcutta. The cake and champagne were actually in the house. There were to be no bridesmaids, only two little pages—“they were cheaper,” Mrs. Langrishe said to herself; “a set of girls would be expecting jewellery and bouquets.” Happy Mrs. Langrishe, who had been overwhelmed with letters and telegrams of congratulations. She had indeed proved herself to be the clever woman of the family. It was her triumph—more than Lalla’s—and she was radiant with pride and satisfaction. Yea, her self-congratulations were fervent. She was counting the days until her atrocious little incubus went down the ghaut as Lady Sandilands. A little incubus, securely fastened on another person’s shoulders—for life!
Lalla was entirely occupied with letters, trousseau, and preparations. She was to have taken the principal part in a grand burlesque, written specially for her, by Toby Joy. The burlesque had been on hand for two months, and was to bring the Shirani season to a fitting and appropriate close. The piece was called “Sinbad the Sailor.” Lalla had been rehearsing her songs and dances most industriously, until she had been called upon to play another part—the part of Sir Gloster’s fiancée.
Sir Gloster did not care for burlesques; he had never seen Miss Paske in her true element—never seen her dance. It was not befitting her future position that she should appear on the boards. No, no; he assured her that he was somewhat old-fashioned, his mother would not like it. She must promise him to relinquish the idea, and never to perform in public again. But Lalla was stubborn; she would not yield altogether. Urged by Toby Joy, by the theatrical troupe—who felt that they could not pull through without their own bright particular star—she held out in a most unreasonable and astonishing manner. At length she submitted so far as to declare that “she would wear Turkish trousers, if he liked!” This she reluctantly announced, as if making an enormous concession.
“He certainly did not wish her to wear Turkish trousers!” he returned, greatly scandalized. “How could she make such a terrible suggestion?” He was heavy and inert, but he could oppose a dead, leaden weight of resistance to any scheme which he disliked. This he called “manly determination;” but Lalla had another name for it—“pig-headed obstinacy!” However, she coaxed, promised, flattered, wept, and worked upon her infatuated lover so successfully, that he reluctantly permitted her to take a very small part, so as not to have her name removed from the bills; but this was to be positively “Her last appearance,” and she might announce it on the placards, if she so pleased. He himself was summoned to Allahabad on urgent business—in fact, to arrange about settlements—and he would not be present, he feared; but he would do his best to return by the end of the week.
Miss Paske’s part, the dancing, singing peri, was given to a very inferior performer—who was the stage manager’s despair, and a most hopeless stick. Toby Joy, who was in woefully low spirits respecting the certain failure of the burlesque, and—other matters—came to Lalla on the night but one before the play.
“She has got influenza—so it’s all up,” making a feint of tearing his hair, “and every place in the house sold for two nights, and—an awful bill for dresses and properties. What is to become of me? Can’t you take it? It was your own part—you do it splendidly—no professional could beat you. Come, Lalla!”
“I promised I would not dance,” she answered with a solemn face.
“Time enough to tie yourself up with promises after you are married! Take your fling now—you have only ten days—you’ll never dance again.”
“No, never,” she groaned.
“He is away, too,” urged this wicked youth; “he is not coming up till Saturday; he won’t know, till all is over, and then he will be as proud as a peacock. You have your dresses, you had everything ready until he came and spoilt the whole ‘box of tricks.’” And Toby looked unutterable things. “Did he say anything to your aunt?” he asked.
“No—not a word. You don’t suppose that I allow her to mix herself up in my affairs? It was merely between him and me——”
“Well, you can easily smooth him down—and if you don’t take your own original part, I must send round a peon this afternoon, to say that the burlesque has been put off, owing to the illness of the prima-donna—the ‘incapability’ is the proper word. But you are a brick, and you won’t let it come to that; you will never leave us in a hole.”
A little dancing devil in each eye eagerly assured him that she would not fail them! Yes, the combined entreaties of her own set—their compliments and flattery—her own hungry craving for what Toby called “one last fling,” carried the point. He would not be back until Saturday. The piece was for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and she could (as she believed) easily talk him over. Yes, she made up her mind that she would play the peri; and she informed her aunt, with her most off-hand air, “that she had been prevailed on to take the principal part; that Miss Lane was ill (and any way would have been a dead failure); that she could not be so shamefully selfish as to disappoint every one; that the proceeds were for a charity (after the bills were paid there would not be much margin)”, and Mrs. Langrishe, in sublime ignorance of Lalla’s promise, acquiesced as usual. She now subscribed to all her niece’s suggestions with surprising amiability, assuring herself that the days of her deliverance from “a girl in a thousand” were close at hand!
The burlesque of Sinbad was beautifully staged, capitally acted, and a complete success. Miss Paske’s dancing and singing were pronounced to be worthy of a London theatre—if not of a music-hall. People discussed her wherever they met, and all the men hastened, as it were in a body, to book places for the next performance.
The ladies were not altogether so enthusiastic; indeed, some of them were heard to wonder how Sir Gloster would have liked it?
Sir Gloster, on the wings of love, was already half way through his return journey. He had transacted his business with unexpected promptitude, and was breakfasting at a certain dâk bungalow, encompassed with many parcels and boxes. Here he was joined by two subalterns, who were hurrying in the opposite direction—that is, from Shirani to the plains. They were full of the last evening’s entertainment, and could talk of nothing but the burlesque.
“It was quite A1,” they assured their fellow-traveller. “It could not be beaten in London—no, not even at the Empire. Miss Paske was simply ripping!”
“Yes,” returned Sir Gloster, complacently, “I believe there is a good deal of nice feeling in her acting, but she had only a minor part.”
“Bless your simple, innocent heart!” exclaimed the other, “she was the principal figure; she was the whole show; she filled the bill.”
“May I ask what you mean?” demanded the baronet, with solemn white dignity.
“She was the peri—didn’t you know? She dances every bit as well as Lottie Collins or Sylvia Grey, doesn’t she, Capel?” appealing eagerly to his comrade.
“Yes; and I’d have gone to see her again to-night, only for this beastly court-martial. I gave my ticket over to Manders, for he couldn’t get a place. She draws like a chimney on fire; there is no squeezing in at the door—even window-sills were at a premium. You ought to go on, Sir Gloster; of course you will get a seat,” with a significant laugh. “This is the last performance, and, upon my word, you should not miss it.”
Sir Gloster remained mute. Was it possible that his little Lalla, who wrote him such sweet, endearing notes, had deliberately broken her word, and defied him?
At the very thought of such a crime his white flabby face grew rigid. Seeing was believing. He would take this crack-brained young man’s advice, and hurry on. He might manage to be in Shirani by eight o’clock that evening—just in time to dress and get to the play.
His wrath was hot within him—and the anger of a quiet and lethargic person, when once roused, is a very deadly thing. His sturdy hill ponies bore the first brunt of his indignation; and Sir Gloster, who was naturally a timid horseman, for once threw fear to the winds, and galloped as recklessly as Toby Joy himself. He arrived at the club just in time to swallow a few mouthfuls, change his clothes, and set off to the theatre. He could not get a seat, but “he might, if he liked, stand near the door, with his back to the wall,” and for this handsome privilege he paid four rupees—the best-laid-out money he ever invested, as he subsequently declared. The curtain had already risen; the scene looked marvellously like fairyland. Toby Joy had just concluded a capital topical song, when a large egg was carefully rolled upon the stage. The egg-shell opened without the application of a spoon, and hatched out a most exquisite creature, the peri, whose appearance was the signal for a thunder of hand-clapping. The peri—yes—was Lalla, in very short, fleecy petticoats, with a twinkling star in her hair—his own present, as Sir Gloster noted with an additional spasm of indignation.
Presently she began to dance.
Now, be it known, that her performance was perfectly decorous and delightfully graceful. Lalla’s glancing feet scarcely touched the ground, and she danced as if from pure happiness and lightness of heart. (Toby Joy danced as if he had le diable au corps.) After entrancing the spectators for ten thrilling minutes with several entirely fresh variations, Lalla finished up with the tee-to-tum spin, which is to the dancer what the high note, at the end of a song, is to the singer!
The result of this effort was a hurricane of frantic applause, in which Sir Gloster took no part; he was not a theatre-goer—he was provincial. His mother and his surroundings were strictly evangelical; and whilst his fiancée enchanted the whole station, he stood against the wall glowering and pale. The only character present to his mind was the daughter of Herodias! Frankly speaking, the performance had filled him with horror. That the future Lady Sandilands should offer herself thus to public contemplation; that any one who chose to pay four rupees might see this indecorous exhibition—including soldiers in uniform, at the low price of four annas!
He was actually beside himself with fury, and forced his way out, with his head down, like a charging animal. Few noticed him or his hasty exit; every one had eyes for Lalla, and Lalla only. She received an ovation and a shower of bouquets as she was conducted before the curtain by Toby Joy, modestly curtseying and kissing her hand. Miss Paske subsequently remained to enjoy a merry and recherché supper, chaperoned by the invaluable Mrs. Dashwood; and Mrs. Langrishe, as was not an unusual occurrence, went home alone.
To that lady’s great amazement, she discovered Sir Gloster awaiting her in the drawing-room, and she gathered from his strange and agitated appearance that something terrible had occurred.
“I was thinking of writing to you, Mrs. Langrishe,” he began in a curiously formal voice, “but I changed my mind, and came to see you instead. All is over between your niece and myself.”
Mrs. Langrishe turned perfectly livid, and dropped into the nearest chair.
“Pray, explain!” she faltered at last.
“Miss Paske will doubtless explain to you why she gave me a solemn promise to renounce dancing on a public stage. I reluctantly allowed her to appear for the last time in a very small part—that of an old nurse. I return unexpectedly, and discover her in the character of a ballet-girl, exhibiting herself—well, I must say it—half naked to the whole of Shirani. Such a person is not fit to be my wife. She has broken her word. She has a depraved taste; she has no modesty.”
That Ida Langrishe should live to hear such epithets applied to her own flesh and blood!
She covered her face with her hands, and actually sobbed aloud. Who had ever seen Mrs. Langrishe break down before? No one.
“Oh, dear Sir Gloster,” she began hysterically (she would need all her fascinations now), “Lalla is so young” (only twenty-six). “She is easily worked upon, she is in great request; the burlesque would have fallen through—and it is for such a good charity—if she had not, at the eleventh hour, consented to take a part.”
“I cannot accept your excuses, my dear madam” (waving both fat hands, like the flappers of an angry seal). “I could never trust Miss Paske again. Imagine the future Lady Sandilands, displaying her arms—and, excuse me, her legs—in ungraceful antics for the amusement of any one who chose to pay two or three rupees. At the eleventh hour, I absolutely refuse to marry her!”
“You are not afraid of a breach of promise case?” asked Mrs. Langrishe in despair. She was indeed dying in the last ditch.
“Not in the least,” was the bold reply. “No man—no gentleman is compelled to marry an amateur mountebank! Oh, if my poor dear mother had been present this night, I believe the shock would have killed her! However, I am grateful for small mercies; I am thankful that I saw Miss Paske in her true colours, before it was too late!”
“The invitations are out days ago; the trousseau is almost complete; the presents have come in shoals; the cake is actually in the house,—what am I to do?” pleaded unhappy Mrs. Langrishe, in a transport of anguish.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I wash my hands of the whole affair. I am going down to-morrow morning.”
“To-morrow morning!” repeated the unfortunate lady.
“Yes, I have no personal ill-will or ill-feeling against you, Mrs. Langrishe,” he continued, as if he were offering her some superb token of generosity. “It is not your fault, though I must confess that I always thought you rather spoiled Miss Paske. However, in the present instance, I hold you entirely blameless; but noblesse oblige—and I—a—really could not ask my mother, and friends, to receive a young a—a—lady—whose proper sphere is pantomime and—all that sort of thing!” And waving his adieux, with a large tremulous hand, he stalked out, and with him Mrs. Langrishe saw depart Lalla’s brilliant prospects, her own reputation as a clever woman, and the solid embodiment of an immense outlay of forbearance—flattery—and rupees.
She sat for a long time over the dying wood fire, her face the colour of its ashes.
At three o’clock in the morning Lalla (a true rake at heart) had not returned, and her impending interview was thus postponed for twelve hours. It was past three o’clock in the afternoon when Miss Paske sauntered into her aunt’s room. Mrs. Langrishe was prostrate, from the double effect of a sleepless night and a nervous headache.
Lalla listened to her outburst incredulously. She had dressed herself with special care, collected all her bouquets, and had resolved to enact a pretty little semi-penitential scene, with her stolid, easy-going, somewhat dull fiancé. She expected him now at any moment. What was this her aunt was saying? He had come; and seen; and fled! Impossible! He had been present last night! For once, she signally failed to sneer down, laugh down, or in any way suppress or silence her relative. Oh! she had been mad to listen to Toby Joy, she was always too ready to be over-persuaded by him. He had had nothing on the hazard, whilst she had her all at stake. And her magnificent prospects, her title, her diamonds, were at that moment rapidly rumbling down hill in the rickety mail tonga.
The presents, the invitations, the breakfast—what people would say, especially her own people, and the not unnatural elation of old Mother Brande, on whom she had ruthlessly trampled—all these things flashed through her mind.
She would, of course, be sent home immediately. What a horrible outlook. To remain till the end of her days, as a sort of “object lesson,” a terrible living example, in the corner of her father’s large shabby country house. She would be pointed out to her younger sisters, and to others, as the old maid who had had her chance, and had danced it away!
During all this time her aunt was speaking fluently, ceaselessly, passionately, but to deaf ears—for Lalla was listening to her own thoughts, and too much occupied by the clamour of an inward voice to heed these outpourings.
At last one sentence struck her ear.
“And what is to be done with the cake, that has cost two hundred rupees, and is now in my storeroom?” demanded Mrs. Langrishe, dramatically.
“Raffle it,” cried Lalla, with a reckless laugh, “or have another starvation picnic, and give them wedding-cake and sugar ornaments!”
“Lalla!” shrieked her aunt, in a voice that would have sounded strange even to her most intimate friends. “You are the most abominable, unprincipled, devilish——”
“Oh, don’t bother!” interrupted Lalla, savagely; and she went out of the room, and gave the door a bang that caused the very cheval-glass to stagger in its place.
Once in her own bower, Lalla turned the key and flung herself into an armchair, knocking, as she did so, a parcel off a table at her elbow. She stooped and picked it up mechanically. It was a birthday-book, one of her numerous wedding presents, and had arrived that morning. She opened it in order to search for the verse opposite the date of the day. Perhaps it would give her a clue as to her future plans. For Lalla was extremely superstitious, and often shaped her course by means of the most trivial instruments, which were accepted by her as signs, tokens, and omens. Idiotic and preposterous as it may appear, she attributed all her present misfortune, not to her own deceit and folly—oh dear, no!—but to the disastrous fact of having had a green dress in her trousseau, and that was entirely Aunt Ida’s doing, no fault of hers.
Yes, Lalla had a curious temperament, and an imagination open to every fantastic influence. As she whirled over the leaves of the book, she said to herself, “I will take this as final, and abide by it, for bad or good.”
It was the eleventh of September, and the lines were—
“What utter bosh!” she exclaimed, passionately; then, like all dissatisfied inquirers, she determined to cast her first resolve to the winds and have yet another experiment—one more dip into the lottery of Fate.
“I’ll see what it says for the twentieth—my wedding day, that was to have been——”
She turned to the page, and the lines were—
“There, that settles it,” cried Lalla, tossing the book down and moving quickly to her writing-table.
In a few hours the news of the ruptured alliance was all over Shirani. Another piece of intelligence was faintly whispered, but not credited, for it was really too much for the gossip-mongers to digest all at once. This last item declared “that Miss Paske and Mr. Joy had been seen flying down the cart road in a special tonga. They had run away—she, from her aunt’s reproaches, and he, from his regimental duty. They were both absent without leave.”
For once rumour proved to be true in every particular. The pair were married at the first church they came to, and subsequently joined an English theatrical company that were touring in India, and accompanied them to the Straits Settlements, China, and Japan.
Toby and Lalla act under the professional alias of “Mr. and Mrs. Langrishe,” to the unspeakable indignation of the rightful owners of the name.
Lalla had written her aunt a most wicked, flippant, impertinent, heartless, in fact, diabolical letter, mentioning that the name of Langrishe would now be surrounded by distinction and a lustre of fame,—and for the first time.
It was many months before the stately Ida recovered her mental equilibrium, and her spirits. The experiences she had undergone at the hands of “a girl in a thousand” had aged her considerably; there are now a good many lines in her smooth, ivory-tinted face, and silver threads among her well-dressed brown locks.
Every one tacitly avoids the subject of broken-off engagements, theatricals, and nieces in her presence; and it would be a truly bold woman (such as is not Mrs. Brande) who would venture to inquire “what had become of her charming niece, who was to have married the baronet?”