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.”
The position in which we left Lewis and his friends at the conclusion of the preceding chapter was decidedly more peculiar than agreeable, and afforded no bad illustration of the American expression, “a pretty tall fix.” Bracy, the fertile in expedients, was the first to hazard a suggestion, which he did by whispering to Frere, “You had better be taken suddenly ill; I shall say you have had too much tongue (if you have not, I have), and that it has disagreed with you.”
“Wait a bit,” returned Frere; “you have seen the real Prince, haven’t you?”
Bracy nodded in assent, and Frere continued, “He’s something like me, is he not?”
“Better looking,” was the uncomplimentary rejoinder.
“Well, never mind that,” resumed Frere. “I don’t set up for a beauty, but if I am sufficiently like to pass for him I might contrive to humbug the fellow for a few minutes, and then we could manage to slip away quietly without any shindy at all.”
“You can try it on if you choose, but he is safe to find you out, unless he is a perfect fool, and that is too great a mercy to hope for,” returned Bracy dejectedly. “If the worst comes to the worst, pretend to pick a quarrel with him, draw your carving-knife and make a poke at him; then Arundel and I will bundle him out of the room bodily, and swear we are doing it to save his life. I can see nothing else for it, for there go the women, and, by Jove, here’s the learned Pundit himself! Oh! isn’t he pretty to look at? Why, he is a fac-simile of the picture in the old editions of Gay’s Fables, of ‘the Monkey who had seen the World.’”
While this dialogue was proceeding, Lady Lombard, having gathered the ladies under her wing, had marched them off to the drawing-room, Miss Peyton finding an opportunity as she passed Lewis to say, in German, “Tell your Prince that when I sell myself I shall want a great deal more than £500.”
“In fact, that your value is quite inestimable,” returned Lewis.
“Exactly so,” was the reply. “I am glad you have sufficient penetration to have found it out already.”
The description given by Bracy of the Doctor’s outward man was by no means inapt. His hair and whiskers were grey, and, still adhering to the fashions of his younger days, he wore powder and a pig-tail. His dress consisted of a black single-breasted coat with a stand-up collar, knee breeches, and silk stockings; a profusion of shirt-frill rushed impetuously out of the front of his waistcoat, a stiff white neckcloth appeared thoroughly to deserve the appellation of “choker” which Bracy applied to it, while a shirt-collar starched to a pitch of savage harshness invaded the region of his cheeks to an extent which rendered the tract of country lying between the ears and the corners of the mouth a complete terra incognita. Constant study of the Eastern hieroglyphics had probably rendered his wearing spectacles a matter of necessity; at all events a huge pair in a broad tortoiseshell setting garnished his nose, which, truth compels us to confess, was more than slightly red, in which particular it afforded a decided contrast to his general complexion, which was, we say it distinctly and without compromise, yellow.
To this gentleman, who entered with a hasty step and glanced round him with a quick, abrupt, and rather startling manner, did Bracy address himself with much empressement.
“My dear sir, this is most fortunate; the Prince is quite delighted at the rencontre, but you must expect to find his Highness greatly altered. The cares of life, my dear sir, the anxieties attending—ah! I see you are impatient; I won’t detain you, but I wished to warn you that if you should perceive any great change in his appearance, you must not be surprised, and above all be careful not to show it by your manner. You have no idea how sensitive he is on the point; quite morbidly so, really. Don’t let me detain you—how well you are looking!”
A good deal of pantomimic action had accompanied the delivery of this speech, the Doctor being engaged in making vain and futile attempts to get past his persecutor, who on his part continued, with an affectation of the deepest respect, constantly, and with the utmost perseverance, to frustrate them. The concluding words of his address, however, elicited the following rejoinder, spoken in a quick, cross manner:—
“You have the advantage of me, sir, for I do not remember ever setting eyes on you before in my life. I never forget a face I have once seen.”
“Confound his memory!” thought Bracy, “Frere won’t have a chance with him;” he only said, however, “You are right, Doctor; the fact of your looking well is so self-evident that I ventured to remark it, without having any previous data to go upon—but here is his Highness,” and as he spoke, he at length moved on one side and allowed the man of learning to pass.
Frere coming forward at the same minute, Bracy whispered, while the Doctor bent in a low salaam:
“I have bothered his brains sweetly for him, he hardly knows whether he’s standing on his head or his heels; so now you must take care of yourself, and joy go with you.”
Frere, thus apostrophised, returned the Doctor’s salute with much cordiality, and Bracy, feigning some excuse, left them to entertain each other, having before his eyes a wholesome dread of the newcomer’s addressing him in Persian, and thereby discovering his deplorable ignorance of that interesting language.
Time, which does not stand still for princes any more than for private individuals, passed on with its usual rapidity. Most of the gentlemen having eaten as much, and drunk probably more (looking at it in a medical point of view) than was good for them, had rejoined the ladies, and it became evident to Bracy that a crisis in his evening’s amusement was approaching. On his return to the drawing-room he must of course resume his duties as interpreter, and this inconvenient Persian professor would inevitably discover the imposture. This was the more provoking, as Frere’s likeness to the Prince must evidently have been much stronger than he had imagined, and his acquaintance with the rules of Persian etiquette more extensive than he had believed possible, for the Doctor continued to converse with the utmost gravity, and appeared to believe in him implicitly. While he was still pondering the matter in his anxious mind, the few last remaining guests conveyed themselves away, and the Prince and his party were left to dispute possession of the supper-room with empty champagne bottles and half-tipsy waiters. Frere, when he perceived this to be the case, beckoned Bracy to approach, and as soon as he was within earshot, whispered—
“I have humbugged the old fellow beautifully on the score of our Persian recollections, but he has just been questioning me about you,—where you acquired your knowledge of the language, whether you have been much in the East, how I became acquainted with you, and all the rest of it. I put him off with lies as long as I could, but it would not do, and as a last resource, I have been obliged to refer him to you.”
“The deuce you have!” was the reply; “that is pleasant. He’ll be jabbering his confounded lingo, and I shall not understand a word he says to me; besides, my jargon won’t go down with him, you know. I tell you what, I shall be off, and you must say upstairs (he can interpret for you) that I have been sent for by the prime minister at a minute’s notice, à la De Grandeville.”
“’Tis too late,” replied Frere; and at the same instant the Doctor seized Bracy by the button, and in a stern and impressive manner asked some apparently searching question in Persian. Few men had enjoyed the delight of seeing Tom Bracy in the unenviable frame of mind expressed by the nautical term “taken aback,” but of that favoured few were the bystanders on the present occasion. Never was an unhappy individual more thoroughly and completely at a loss; and it must be confessed the situation was an embarrassing one. To be addressed by an elderly stranger in an unintelligible language, in which you are expected to reply, while at the same time you are painfully conscious that your incapacity to do so, or even (not understanding the question) to give an appropriate answer in your native tongue, will lead to a discovery you are most anxious to avert, is an undeniably awkward position in which to be placed. That Bracy found it so was most evident, for he fidgeted, stammered, glanced appealingly towards Frere for aid, and at last was obliged, between annoyance and an intense appreciation of the absurdity of his situation, to get up a fictitious cough, which, irritating the membrane of the nose, produced a most violent genuine sneeze. From the effects of this convulsion of nature he was relieved by a hearty slap on the back, while at the same moment the tones of a familiar voice exclaimed in his ear—
“Sold, by all that’s glorious! Bracy, my boy, how do you find yourself?” and on looking up he recognised in the laughing face of the Addiscombe doctor, now divested of its spectacles, the well-known features of Charley Leicester.
Equally surprised and mystified at the complete manner in which the tables had been turned upon him, Bracy stood listening with a disgusted expression of countenance to the peals of laughter which his discomfiture elicited from his companions.
“Yes, laugh away,” growled the victimised practical joker; “it’s all very funny, I dare say, but one thing I’ll swear in any court of justice, which is, that you have been talking real Persian, at least if what Frere jabbers is real Persian.”
“Of course I have,” returned Leicester, still in convulsions. “When Frere and I planned this dodge we knew what a wide-awake gentleman we had to deal with, and took our measures accordingly. I learned four Persian sentences by heart from his dictation, and pretty good use I have made of them too, I think.”
“It was not a bad idea, really,” observed Bracy, who, having got over his annoyance at the first sense of defeat, instantly recovered his good-humour. “How well you are got up! I did not recognise you one bit till you pulled off the barnacles.”
“Yes, I got little Stevens, who does the light comic business at one of the minors, to provide the apparel and come and dress me. I hope you admire my complexion; he laid on the red and yellow most unsparingly.”
“He has done it vastly well,” returned Bracy. “I shall cultivate that small man; he may be extremely useful to me on an occasion.”
“Now we ought to be going upstairs,” interrupted Frere; “these waiter fellows are beginning to stare at us suspiciously too. I say, Bracy, cut it short, man; we have had all the fun now, and I’m getting tired of the thing.”
“Ya, Meinheer,” rejoined Bracy aloud, adding in a lower tone, “The slaveys will swallow that or anything else for Persian. They are all more or less drunk, by the fishy expression of their optics.”
Laura Peyton was astonished somewhat later in the evening by the Addiscombe professor leaning over the back of the sofa on which she was seated and asking whether she had enjoyed her last valse at Almack’s the evening before last.
“Surely you can feel no particular interest about such a frivolous and unintellectual matter, sir,” was the reply.
“I was about to follow up the inquiry by asking whether your partner made himself agreeable.”
“To which I shall reply, after the Irish fashion, by asking how it can possibly concern you to know, sir?”
“Merely because I have the honour of the gentleman’s acquaintance.”
“That, in fact, you are one of those uncommon characters who know themselves,” returned Laura with an arch smile. “Is not that what you wish to impress upon me, Mr. Leicester?”
Charley laughed, then continued in a lower tone, “I saw you knew me. Did your own acuteness lead to the discovery, or are there traitors among us?”
“Your friend Mr. Arundel’s expressive features let me into the secret of his acquaintance with the English language before we went down to supper; but I entered into a contract, not to betray the plot if he would tell me all I might wish to know about it, so the moment he came up I made him inform me who you were. What a gentlemanly, agreeable person he is!”
As she said this a slight shade passed across Leicester’s good-natured countenance, and he replied, more quickly than was his wont—
“I had fancied Miss Peyton superior to the common feminine weakness of being caught by the last handsome face.”
“What a thoroughly man-like speech!” returned the young lady. “Did I say anything about his appearance, sir? Do you suppose we poor women are so utterly silly that we can appreciate nothing but a handsome face? Your professor’s disguise has imbued you with the Turkish belief that women have no souls.”
“No one fortunate enough to be acquainted with Miss Peyton would continue long in such a heresy,” replied Leicester, with the air of a man who thinks he is saying a good thing.
“Yes, I knew you would make some such reply,” returned Laura. “You first show your real opinion of women by libelling the whole sex, and then try to get out of the scrape by insulting my understanding with a personal compliment. Wait,” she continued, seeing he was about to defend himself, “you must not talk to me any more now, or you will excite Lady Lombard’s suspicions and betray the whole conspiracy. Go away, and send my new friend Mr. Arundel Hassan Bey here; Lady Lombard committed him to my charge, and I want to cultivate him.”
Leicester tried to assume a languishing look, which he was in the habit of practising upon young ladies with great success, but becoming suddenly conscious of the wig and spectacles, and gathering from Laura’s silvery laugh that such adjuncts to an interesting expression of countenance were incongruous, not to say absurd, he joined in her merriment, then added, “You are in a very wicked mood to-night, Miss Peyton; but I suppose I must e’en do as you bid me, and reserve my revenge till some more fitting opportunity;” then, mixing with the crowd, he sought out Lewis and delivered the young lady’s message to him, adding in his usual drawling tone, “You have made a what-do-ye-call-it—an impression in that quarter. Women always run after the last new face.”
“You are right,” returned Lewis, with a degree of energy which startled his listless companion; “and those men are wisest who know them for the toys they are, and avoid them.”
Leicester gazed after his retreating figure in astonishment, then murmured to himself, “What’s in the wind now, I wonder; is the good youth trying to keep up the Asiatic character, or suddenly turned woman-hater? Confound that little Peyton girl, how sharp she was to-night!”
“How very well Mr. Leicester is disguised!” observed Laura Peyton to Lewis, after they had conversed in German for some minutes on general topics.
“Yes,” replied Lewis; “though I can’t say his appearance is improved by the alteration.”
“A fact of which he is fully aware,” returned Laura, smiling.
A pause ensued, which was terminated by Laura’s asking abruptly, “Do gentlemen like Mr. Leicester?”
“Really I have not sufficient knowledge of facts to inform you, but I should say he is a very popular man.”
“Popular man! I hate that phrase,” returned his companion pettishly. “It is almost as bad as describing any one as a man about town, which always gives me the idea of a creature that wears a pea-jacket, lives at a club, boards on cigars, talks slang, carries a betting-book, and never has its hair cut. Can’t you tell me what you think of Mr. Leicester yourself?”
“Well, I think him gentlemanly, good-natured, agreeable up to a certain point, cleverish—-”
^ “Yes, that will do; I quite understand. I don’t think you do him justice—he has a kind heart, and more good sense than you are disposed to give him credit for. You should not form such hasty judgments of people; a want of charity I perceive is one of your faults. And now I must wish you good-night; I hear my kind old chaperone anxiously bleating after me in the distance.”
So saying she arose and hastened to put herself under the protection of “a fine old English gentlewoman,” who, with a hooked nose, red gown, and green scarf, looked like some new and fearful variety of the genus Parroquet. At the same time, Bracy summoned Lewis to join the Prince, who was about to depart, which, after Lady Lombard had in an enthusiasm of gratitude uttered a whole sentence in the largest capitals, he was allowed to do.
Leicester accompanied them, tearing himself away from Professor Malchapeau, who had singled him out as a brother savan, and commenced raconte-ing to him his affecting history, thereby leaving that shaggy little child of misfortune to lament to his sympathising hostess the melancholy fact that “Zie Professor Addiscombe had cut his little tale off short, and transported himselfs avay in von great despatch.”
’Twere long to tell the jokes that were made, the new and additional matter brought to light, as each of the quartette, assembled round a second edition of supper in Bracy’s rooms, detailed in turn his own personal experiences of the evening’s comicalities—the cigars that were smoked, or the amount of sherry cobbler that was imbibed: suffice it to say, that a certain lyrical declaration that they would not “go home till morning,” to which, during their symposium, they had committed themselves, was verified when, on issuing out into the street, the cold grey light of early dawn threw its pale hue over their tired faces and struggled with sickly-looking gas lamps for the honour of illuminating the thoroughfares of the sleeping city.
Leicester’s cab, with his night-horse—a useful animal, which, without a leg to stand upon, possessed the speed of the wind, and having every defect horseflesh is heir to, enjoyed a constitution which throve on exposure and want of sleep, as other organisations usually do on the exact opposites—was in waiting. Into this vehicle Charley (who bore some token of sherry cobbler in the unsteadiness of his gait), having made two bad shots at the step, rushed headlong and drove off at an insane pace, and in a succession of zigzags.
Frere and Lewis watched the cab till, having slightly assaulted an unoffending lamp-post, it flew round a corner and disappeared; then, having exchanged a significant glance suggestive of sympathetic anticipations of a sombre character in regard to the safety of their friend, they started at a brisk pace, which soon brought them to Frere’s respectable dwelling. While the proprietor was searching in every pocket but the right one for that terror of all feeble-minded elders, that pet abomination of all fathers of families, that latest invention of the enemy of mankind—a latch-key—they were accosted by a lad of about fifteen, whose ragged clothes, bronzed features, and Murillo-like appearance accorded well with his supplication, “Per pietà Signor, denaro per un pover’ Italiano.”