unholy prophetic practices. Long afterwards–but even then he could not smile as men so often smile when they look back on lost despairs!
He and his companions spoke but little together as they journeyed. Occasionally Madame and Mr. Sagittarius conversed in husky whispers, like brigands the Prophet thought, and the veiled click of Madame’s contralto struck through the startled air. But mostly a silence prevailed–a silence alive with fate.
At the corner of Air Street they got out and began to walk down Piccadilly towards the Berkeley square. It was now evening. The lamps were lighted and the murmur of strolling crowds filled the gloomy air. Madame stared feverishly about her, excited by the press, the flashing hansoms and the gaily-illuminated shops. Once, as she passed Benoist’s, she murmured “/O festum dies/!” and again, by the Berkeley, when she was momentarily jostled by a very large and umbrageous tramp who had apparently been celebrating the joys of beggary–“/Acto profanus vulgam/!” But generally she was silent, enwrapped, no doubt, in bookish thought. When, at length, they stood before the door of number one thousand she breathed a heavy sigh.
“Please,” said the Prophet, in a trembling voice, “please enter quietly. My grandmother is very unwell.”
“Ankles seems to be a very painful complaint, sir,” said Mr. Sagittarius. “But Madame and self are not in the habit of creating uproar by our movements.”
“No, no. Of course not. Still–on tiptoe if you don’t mind.”
“I cannot walk on tiptoe,” said Madame, in a voice that sounded to the Prophet terrifically powerful. “The attitude is precarious and undignified. As the great Juvenile–“
“Yes, yes. Ah! that’s it!”
He managed to get his key into the door and very gingerly opened it. Madame and Mr. Sagittarius stepped into the hall, followed closely by the Prophet, who was content on conveying them unobserved to the library.
“This way,” he whispered. “This way. Softly! Softly!”
He began to steal, like a shadow, across the hall, and, impressed by his surreptitious manner, his old and valued friends instinctively followed his example. All three of them, then, with long steps and theatrical pauses, were stagily upon the move, when suddenly the door that led to the servants’ quarters swung open and Mrs. Fancy Quinglet debouched into their midst, succeeded by Mr. Ferdinand, who carried in his hand a menu card in a silver holder. At the moment of their appearance the Prophet, holding his finger to his lips, was taking a soft and secret stride in the direction of the library door, his body bent forward and his head protruded towards the sanctum he longed to gain, and Madame and Mr. Sagittarius, true to the instinct of imitation that dwells in our monkey race, were in precisely similar attitudes behind him. The hall being rather dark, and the gait of the trio it contained thus tragically surreptitious, it was perhaps not unnatural that Mrs. Fancy should give vent to a piercing cry of terror, and that Mr. Ferdinand should drop the menu and crouch back against the wall in a hunched position expressive of alarm. At any rate, such were their actions, while–for their part–the Prophet and his two old and valued friends uttered a united exclamation and struck three attitudes that were pregnant with defensive amazement.
Having uttered herself, Mrs. Fancy, according to her invariable custom when completely terrified, displayed all the semblance of clear-sighted composure and explanatory discrimination. While Mr. Ferdinand remained by the wall, with his face to it and his large white hands spread out upon his shut eyes, the lady’s maid advanced upon Madame, and, addressing herself apparently to some hidden universe in need of information, remarked in rather a piecing voice,–
“I say again, as I said afore, the house has been broke into and the robbers are upon us. I can’t speak different nor mean other.”
On hearing these words Madame’s large and rippling countenance became suffused with indignant scarlet, and a preliminary click rang through the hall. The Prophet bounded forward.
“Hush, Fancy,” he cried. “What are you saying?”
“What I mean, Master Hennessey. The house has been broke–“
“Hush! Hush! This lady and gentleman are–“
“Two old and valued friends–” boomed Madame.
“Two old and valued friends of mine. Mr. Ferdinand! Mr. Ferdinand, take your face from the wall, if you please. There is no cause for alarm. Now, Fancy–now!”
For Mrs. Fancy had, as usual, broken into tears on learning the reassuring truth, and was now displaying every symptom of distress and enervation. The Prophet, unable to calm her, was obliged to assist her upstairs and place her upon the landing, where he hurriedly left her uttering broken moans and murmurs, and repeating again and again her statement of affairs and assertion of inability to conceal the revealed obvious. On his return he found Madame, Mr. Sagittarius and Mr. Ferdinand grouped statuesquely in the hall as if to represent “Perturbation.”
“Mr. Ferdinand,” he said rather severely, “I did not expect this conduct of you, shrinking from guests in this extraordinary manner. A butler who shows terror at the sight of visitors does not conduce to the popularity of his employers.”
“I beg pardon, sir. I was not prepared.”
“Please be prepared another time. You will serve dinner for three to-night, very quietly, in the inner dining-room. I do not wish Mrs. Merillia to be disturbed in her illness, and–“
“If you please, sir, Mrs. Merillia feels herself so much better that she is coming down to dinner to-night.”
“Coming down to dinner!” said the Prophet, aghast.
“Yes, sir. And she has asked in Sir Tiglath Butt and the Lady Julia Postlethwaite to join her. I was about to show Mrs. Merillia the menu, sir, when–“
“Good Heavens! Merciful Powers!” ejaculated the Prophet.
“Sir?”
“What on earth is to be done?” continued the Prophet, lost for the moment to all sense of propriety.
Mr. Ferdinand looked at the old and valued friends.
“I can’t say, sir, I’m sure,” he replied, pursing up his lips.
“What is the meaning–” began Mr. Sagittarius.
“I’m not aware that–” started Madame.
The Prophet darted to the library door and opened it.
“Pray, pray come in here,” he hissed. “My grandmother! Softly!”
“But the old la–“
“Hush, please!”
“I must remark, Mr. Viv–“
“Tsh! Tsh! Mr. Ferdinand, wait in the hall. I shall want to speak to you in a moment.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Prophet closed the door and turned to this indignant visitors.
“This is terrible,” he said. “Terrible!”
“Pray why?” cried Madame.
“Why,” cried the Prophet, “why?”
He sought frantically for some excuse. Suddenly a bright idea occurred to him.
“Why,” he said, impressively. “Because Sir Tiglath Butt, the gentleman who is coming to dinner, is the person who for five-and-forty years has been seeking Mr. Sagittarius with the firm intention of assaulting, perhaps of killing, him.”
Mr. Sagittarius turned deathly pale, and made a movement as if to get out of the nearest window.
“This is a trap!” he stammered. “This is a rat-trap. This was planned.”
“Really”–began the Prophet.
But Mr. Sagittarius did not heed the exclamation. Tremblig very violently, he continued,–
“Sophy, my darling, you are in danger. Let us fly!”
And, clutching his wife by the arm, to the Prophet’s unspeakable delight he endeavoured to lead, or rather to drag her to the door. But Madame now showed the metal she was made of.
“Jupiter,” she exclaimed, in her deepest note, “if you are a Prophet you can surely at moments be also a man. Where is your /toga virilibus/?”
“I don’t know, my love, I’m sure. Don’t let us lose a moment. Come, my angel!”
“I shall not come,” retorted Madame, whose leaping ambition had been fired by the sound of titled names. “The gentleman believes you to be an American syndicate.”
“I know, my blessing, I know. But–“
“Very well. If you don’t behave like one he will never suspect you.”
The Prophet saw his chance slipping from him and hastened to interpose.
“He might divine the truth,” he said. “One can never–“
But at this moment he was interrupted by Mr. Ferdinand who abruptly opened the door and observed,–
“If you please, sir, Mrs. Merillia has sent down orders that the police are to be fetched at once.”
Mr. Sagittarius, now thoroughly unnerved, turned from white to grey.
“The police!” he vociferated. “Sophy, my angel, let us fly. This is no place for you!”
“The police!” cried the Prophet. “Why?”
“I believe it’s Mrs. Fancy’s doing, sir. If you would go to Mrs. Merillia, sir, I think–“
The Prophet rushed from the room and hastened upstairs four steps at a time. He found his beloved grandmother in a state of grave agitation, and Mrs. Fancy, in floods of tears, reiterating her statement that there were robbers in the house.
“Oh, Hennessey!” cried Mrs. Merillia, on his entrance, “thank God that you are come. There are burglars in the house. Fancy has just encountered them in the hall. Go for the police, my dearest boy. Don’t lose a moment.”
“My dear grannie, they’re not burglars.”
“I can’t speak different, Master Hennessey, nor–“
“Then who are they, Hennessey? Fancy declares–“
“They are two–two–well, two old and valued friends of mine.”
“Old and valued friends of ours!”
“Of mine, grannie. Fancy, pray don’t make such a noise!”
“Fancy,” said Mrs. Merillia, “you can go to your room and lie down.”
“Yes, ma’am. I say again, as I said afore, the house has been broke into and the robbers–“
At this point the Prophet shut the door on the faithful and persistent creature, who forthwith carried her determination and sobs to an upper storey.
“Hennessey, what is all this? Who is really here?”
“Grannie, dear, only two friends of mine,” replied the Prophet, trying to look at ease, and feeling like a criminal.
“Friends of yours? But surely then I know them. I thought I knew all your friends.”
“So you do, grannie, all except–except just these.”
“And they are old and valued, you say?”
“No, no–that is, I mean yes.”
Mrs. Merillia was too dignified to ask any further questions. She lay back on her sofa, and looked at her grandson with a shining of mild reproach in her green eyes.
“Well, my dear,” she said, “go back to your friends, but don’t forget that Lady Julia and Sir Tiglath are dining here at half-past seven.”
“Grannie,” cried the Prophet, with a desperate feeling that Madame meant to stay, “you ought not to dine downstairs to-night. Let me send and put them off.”
“No, Hennessey,” she answered, with gentle decision. “I feel better, and I want cheering up. My morning was not altogether pleasant.”
The Prophet understood that she was alluding to his questions, and felt cut to the heart. His home seemed crumbling about him, but he knew not what to do or what to say. Mrs. Merillia observed his agitation, but she did not choose to remark upon it, for she considered curiosity the most vulgar of all the vices.
“Go to your friends, dear,” she said again. “But be in time for dinner.”
“Yes, grannie.”
The Prophet descended the stairs and met Mr. Ferdinand at the bottom.
“Am I to send for the police, sir?”
“No, no. I’ve explained matters.”
“And about dinner, sir?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment, Mr. Ferdinand,” replied the Prophet, entering the library with the fixed intention of getting Madame and Mr. Sagittarius out of the house without further delay.
The tableau that met his eyes, however, was not reassuring. He found Madame, having laid aside her bonnet, and thrown the rabbit-skin cloak carelessly upon a settee, arranging her hair before a mirror, and shaking up the coffee-coloured lace fichu in a manner that suggested a permanent occupation of the house, while her husband, sunk in a deep armchair in an attitude of complete nervous prostration, was gazing dejectedly into the fire. When the Prophet entered, the latter bounded with alarm, while Madame turned round, a couple of hairpins in her mouth and both hands to the back of her head.
“Ah,” she remarked, through the pins, “/il a vous/! I am happy to say that I have induced Mr. Sagittarius to assume his /toga virilibus/, and that we have, therefore, great pleasure in yielding to your thoughtful pressure–“
“My what?” said the Prophet, blankly.
“You thoughtful pressure, and accepting your urgent invite to dine here before proceeding to the Zoological Gardens and thence to the butler’s pantry.”
The Prophet tried not to groan while she emitted a pin and secured with it a wandering plait of raven hair.
“You’re sure, sir,” said Mr. Sagittarius, in a deplorable voice, “that the gentleman is convinced that I am really an American syndicate?”
The Prophet rang the bell. He could not trust himself to speak, and, when he looked at Madame’s large and determined eyes, he knew that to do so would be useless.
Mr. Ferdinand appeared.
“Mr. Ferdinand,” said the Prophet, “this lady and gentleman will join us at dinner to-night.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Ferdinand, casting a glance of outraged prudery upon Mr. Sagittarius, who was attired in his usual morning costume, including spats.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Ferdinand?” asked the Prophet, following that functionary’s eyes. “Ha! He’s not dressed!”
“No, sir!”
“Mr. Sagittarius,” cried the Prophet, “you’re not dressed!”
“Sir,” cried that gentleman, “do you dare to accuse me of impropriety in a frock coat?”
“No, no. But for dinner. You can’t possibly dine like that!”
“I have dined like this, sir, for the last twenty years. The architects and their wives–“
“I daresay. But unluckily there will be no architects and their wives at dinner to-night. Please stand up.”
“Sir?”
“Kindly stand up. Mr. Ferdinand!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Place your back against this gentleman’s if you please–touching, touching! Don’t wriggle away like that. Keep your heels to the ground while I fetch a sheet of notepaper. Don’t move your heads either of you. I thought so. You’re pretty much the same height. Mr. Ferdinand, you will lay out a white shirt and one of your black dress suits in my dressing-room at once. Madame, I regret that we must leave you for a few moments. Will you rest here? Allow me to place a cushion for your head. And here is Juvenal in the original.”
So saying, the Prophet hurried Mr. Sagittarius from the room, driving Mr. Ferdinand, in a condition of elephantine horror, before him, and abandoning Madame to an acquaintance with the classics that she had certainly never achieved in the society of the renowned Dr. Carter.
CHAPTER XVII
MALKIEL THE SECOND IS MISTAKEN FOR A RATCATCHER
“If you tremble like that, of course it must look too big!” exclaimed the Prophet to Mr. Sagittarius, a quarter of an hour later. “Draw it in at the back.”
Mr. Sagittarius, with shaking hands, drew in the waistcoat of Mr. Ferdinand, which hung in folds around his thin and agitated figure.
“That’s better,” said the Prophet. “They won’t notice anything odd. But you’ve turned up your–Mr. Ferdinand’s trousers!”
“They’re too long, sir. You braced them too low for–“
“I braced them low on purpose,” cried the Prophet in great excitement, “to cover the spats, since you can’t get on Mr. Ferdinand’s boots. Kindly turn them down.”
“As to the spats, sir, the architects and their wives–“
“Mr. Sagittarius,” exclaimed the Prophet, “I think it right to inform you that if you mention the architects and their wives again, I may very probably go mad. I don’t say I shall, but I will not answer for myself. Have the goodness to turn them down and follow me.”
Mr. Sagittarius obeyed, and followed the Prophet from the room with a waddling gait and a terrible sensation of having nothing on. The coat and trousers which he wore flapped about him as he descended the stairs in the wake of the Prophet, glancing nervously about him and starting at the slightest sound. In the library they found Madame, holding the great Juvenile upside down and looking exceedingly cross.
“Will you be good enough to come upstairs?” said the Prophet to her very politely, though his fingers twitched to strangle her. “I wish to present you to my grandmother, and dinner is just ready.”
Madame rose with dignity.
“I am ready too,” she said, with a click. “/Semper paratis/.”
And, shaking up the fichu, she ascended the stairs. Outside the drawing-room door the Prophet, who seemed strangely calm, but who was in reality almost bursting with nervous excitement, paused and faced his old and valued friends.
“You will forgive my saying so, I hope,” he whispered, “but my grandmother is not well and much conversation tires her. So we don’t talk too much in her presence. Only just now and then, you understand.”
And with this last injunction–futile, he knew as he gave it–he commended himself to whatever powers there be and opened the door.
Sir Tiglath had not yet arrived, but Lady Julia Postlethwaite was seated on a sofa by Mrs. Merillia, and was conversing with her about the Court, the dreadful amount of money a certain duke–her third cousin–had recently had to pay in Death Duties, the corrupt condition of society, and the absurd pretensions of the lower middle classes. Lady Julia was sensitive and a very /grande dame/. She wore her hair powdered, and had a slight cough and exquisite manners. Once a lady in waiting, she was now a widow, possessed a set of apartments in Hampton Court Palace, worshipped Queen Alexandra, and had scarcely ever spoken to anybody who moved outside of Court Circles. The Duke of Wellington was said to have embraced her when a child.
Mrs. Merillia and this lady looked up when the door opened, and Lady Julia paused midway in a sentence, of which these were the opening words,–
“The old duke wouldn’t make it over, and so poor Loftus has to pay nearly a million to the Chancellor of the Excheq–“
“How d’you do, Lady Julia? Grannie, I have persuaded my friends, Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, to join us at dinner. Sir Tiglath Butt is most anxious to meet Mr. Sagittarius, who is a great astronomer. Let me– Madame Sagittarius, Mrs. Merillia–Mr. Sagittarius–Mrs. Merillia, my grandmother–Lady Julia Postlethwaite.”
Mrs. Merillia, although taken completely by surprise, and fully conscious that her grandson had committed an outrage in turning an arranged and intimate quartette without permission into a disorganised sextette, bowed with self-possessed graciousness, and indicated a chair to Madame, who seated herself in it with that sort of defensive and ostentatious majesty which is often supposed by ill-bred people to be a perfect society manner. Mr. Sagittarius remained standing in his enormous suit, turning out his feet, over which Mr. Ferdinand’s trousers rippled in broadcloth waves, in the first position. A slight pause ensued, during which the Prophet was uncomfortably affected by the behaviour of Madame, who gazed at the very neat and superior wig worn by Mrs. Merillia, and at that lady’s charming silver grey damask gown, in a manner that suggested amazement tempered with indignation, her instant expression of these two sentiments being only held in check by a certain reverence which was doubtless inspired by the pretty room, the thick carpet, the ancestral pictures upon the walls, and the lofty bearing of Lady Julia Postlethwaite, who could scarcely conceal her very natural surprise at the extraordinary appearance of Mr. Sagittarius. As to Mrs. Merillia, although she was, in reality, near fainting with wonder at her grandson’s escapade, she preserved an expression of gracious benignity, and did not allow a motion of her eyelids or a flutter of her fan to betray her emotion at finding herself the unprepared hostess of such unusual guests. The Prophet broke the silence by saying, in a voice that cracked with agitation,–
“I trust–I sincerely trust that we shall have a clement spring this year.”
Lady Julia, at whom he had looked while uttering this original desire, was about to reply when Madame uttered a stentorian click and interposed.
“In the spring the young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” she remarked, with the fictitious ease of profound ill-breeding.
No one dared to dispute the portentous statement, and she resumed majestically,–
“The Mouse is delicious in spring.”
There was another dead silence, and Madame, turning with patronising and heavy affability towards Lady Julia, added,–
“Your ladyship doubtless loves the Mouse–/Mus Pulcherrimo/–in spring as I do?”
The Prophet felt as if he were being pricked by thousands of red-hot needles, and the perspiration burst out in beads upon his forehead.
“I am not specially fond of mice in spring, or indeed at any season,” replied Lady Julia, with her slight, but very distinct and bell-like, cough.
“I said the Mouse, your ladyship,” returned Madame, feeding upon this titled acquaintance with her bulging black eyes, and pushing the kid boots well out from under her brown skirt. “I observed that the Mouse was peculiarly delicious in the season of love.”
“No mouse attracts me,” said Lady Julia, coughing again and raising her fine eyebrows slightly. “I should much prefer to pass the spring without the companionship of any mouse whatever.”
Both Madame and Mr. Sagittarius opened their lips to reply, but before they could eject a single word the door was opened by Mr. Ferdinand, who announced,–
“Sir Tiglath Butt.”
Mr. Sagittarius started violently and upset a vase of roses, the astronomer rolled into the room with a very red face, and Mr. Ferdinand added,–
“Dinner is served.”
Mrs. Merillia shook hands with Sir Tiglath and glanced despairingly around her. It was sufficiently obvious that she was considering how to arrange the procession to the dining-room.
“Hennessey,” she began, “will you take Lady Julia? Sir Tiglath, will you”–she paused, but there was no help for it, she was obliged to continue–“take Mrs. Sagittarius? Let me introduce you, Sir Tiglath Butt–Mrs. Sagittarius. Mr. Sagittarius, will you take–“
“Mr. Sagittarius!” roared Sir Tiglath. “Where is he?”
That gentleman gathered Mr. Ferdinand’s trousers up in both hands and prepared for instantaneous flight.
“Where is he?” bellowed Sir Tiglath, wheeling round with amazing rapidity for so fat a man. “Ha!”
He had viewed Mr. Sagittarius, who, grasping Mr. Ferdinand’s suit in pleats, ducked his head like one wishing to be beforehand with violence and set the spats towards the door. Sir Tiglath advanced upon him.
“The old astronomer has heard the name of Sagittarius,” he vociferated. “He has been informed that–“
“It’s not true, sir,” cried Mr. Sagittarius, pale with terror. “It is not true. I deny it. I am an Ameri–I mean I am not the American syndicate–you are in error, in absolute error. I swear it. I take the heavens to witness.”
At this remarkable and comprehensive statement Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia looked at each other in elegant amazement.
“What do you mean, sir?” exclaimed Sir Tiglath. “And why do you insult the sacred heavens, you an astronomer!”
“I am not an astronomer,” cried Mr. Sagittarius, cringing in the voluminous waistcoat of Mr. Ferdinand. “I am an outside broker. I swear it. My dress, my manner proclaim the fact. Sophronia, tell the gentleman that I am an outside broker and that all Margate has recognised me as such.”
“My husband states the fact,” said Madame, in response to this impassioned appeal. “My husband brokes outside, and has done for the last twenty years. Collect yourself, Jupiter. Pray do not doff your /toga virilibus/ in the presence of ladies!”
The terror of Mr. Sagittarius was such, however, that it is very doubtful whether he would not have proceeded thus to disrobe had not the Prophet, rendered desperate by the turn of events, abruptly leaped between Sir Tiglath and his old and valued friend and, gathering the outraged Lady Julia under his arm, exclaimed,–
“Pray, pray–we can discuss this matter more comfortably at dinner. Permit me, Lady Julia. Sir Tiglath, if you will kindly give your arm to Madame Sagittarius. Mr. Sagittarius, my grandmother.”
So saying, he made a sort of flank movement, so adroitly conceived and carried out that, in the twinkling of an eye, he had driven Sir Tiglath to the side of Madame and hustled Mr. Sagittarius into the immediate neighbourhood of Mrs. Merillia. Nor had more than two minutes elapsed before the whole party found themselves–they scarce knew how–arranged around the dining table and being served with clear soup by Mr. Ferdinand and the astounded Gustavus, whose naturally round eyes began to take an almost oblong form as he attended to the wants of Mrs. Merillia’s very unfamiliar guests, whose outlying demeanour and architectural manners evidently filled him with the most poignant dismay.
As to Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia, the foregoing scene had so reduced them that they were almost betrayed into some hysterical departure from the rules of exquisite good breeding which they had unconsciously observed from the cradle. Indeed, the latter, strong in the belief that the terms outside broker and raving maniac were interchangeable, twice dropped her spoon into her soup-plate before she could succeed in lifting it to her mouth, and was unable to prevent herself from whispering to the Prophet,–
“Pray, Mr. Vivian, tell me the worst–is he absolutely dangerous?”
“No, no,” whispered back the Prophet, reassuringly. “It’s all his play.”
“Play!” murmured Lady Julia, glancing at Mr. Sagittarius, who was holding back the right sleeve of Mr. Ferdinand’s coat with his left hand in order to have the free use of his dinner limb.
“Yes,” whispered the Prophet. “He’s the most harmless, innocent creature. A child might stroke him. I mean he wouldn’t hurt a child.”
“Yes, but we are not children,” said Lady Julia, still in great apprehension.
Meanwhile Sir Tiglath, concerned with his dinner, took no heed of Mr. Sagittarius for the moment, and that gentleman, slightly reassured, endeavoured to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Merillia.
“You are very pleasantly situated here, ma’am,” he began.
Mrs. Merillia thought he meant because she was at his elbow, and answered politely,–
“Yes, very pleasantly situated.”
“It is indeed a blessing to be within such easy reach of the Stores,” added Mr. Sagittarius, finishing his soup, and permitting Mr. Ferdinand’s sleeves to flow down once more over his hands.
“The Stores!” said Mrs. Merillia.
“/O festum dies beatus illa/!” ejaculated Madame, assuming an expression of profound and almost passionate sentiment. “Happy indeed the good lady who dwells in the central districts!”
She permitted a gigantic sigh to leave her bosom and to wander freely among the locks of those at the table. Sir Tiglath, who, on being assaulted by her learning, had shown momentary symptoms of apoplexy, now gave a loud grunt, while the Prophet, perceiving that his grandmother and Lady Julia were quite unequal to the occasion, hastily replied,–
“Yes, Berkeley Square is very convenient in may ways.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Sagittarius, keeping a wary eye on Sir Tiglath and re- addressing himself to Mrs. Merillia, “the Berkeley Square. But if you lived in the one behind Kimmins’s Mews, it would be quite another pair of boots, would it not, ma’am?”
Lady Julia, who was sitting next to Mr. Sagittarius, shifted her chair nearer to the Prophet, and whispered, “I’m sure he is dangerous, Mr. Vivian!” while Mrs. Merillia, in the greatest perplexity, replied,–
“The one behind Mr. Kimmins’s Mews?”
“Ay, over against Brigwell’s Buildings, just beyond the Pauper Lunatic Asylum.”
Lady Julia turned pale.
“I daresay,” answered Mrs. Merillia, bravely. “But I am not acquainted with the neighbourhood you mention.”
“You know the Mouse?”
At this abrupt return to the subject of mice Lady Julia became really terrified.
“Be frank with me, Mr. Vivian,” she whispered to the Prophet, under cover of boiled salmon; “is he a ratcatcher?”
“Good Heavens, no!” whispered back the Prophet. “He’s–he’s quite the contrary.”
“But–“
“What mouse?” said Mrs. Merillia, endeavouring to seem pleasantly at ease, though she, too, was beginning to feel a certain amount of alarm at these strange beings’ persistent discussion of the inhabitants of the wainscot. “Do you allude to any special mouse?”
“I do, ma’am. I allude to the Mouse that has helped to make Madame and self what we are.”
Sir Tiglath began to roll about in his chair preparatory to some deliverance, and Mrs. Merillia, casting a somewhat agitated glance at her grandson, answered,–
“Really. I did not know that anything so small could have so much influence.”
“It may be small, ma’am,” said Mr. Sagittarius. “But to a sensitive nature it often seems gigantic.”
“You mean at night, I suppose? Does it disturb you very much?”
“We hear it, ma’am, but it lulls us to rest.”
“Indeed. That is very fortunate. I fear it might keep me awake.”
“So we thought at first. But now we should miss it. Should we not, Sophronia?”
“Doubtless,” replied Madame, arranging a napkin carefully over her fichu, and dealing rigorously with some mayonnaise sauce. “It has been our perpetual companion for many years, /mus amicus humano generi/.”
Sir Tiglath swelled, and Mrs. Merillia responded,–
“I see, a pet. Is it white?”
“No, ma’am,” returned Mr. Sagittarius, “it is a rich, chocolate brown except on wet days. Then it takes on the hue of a lead pencil.”
“Indeed!” said Mrs. Merillia, trying nobly to remain social. “How very curious!”
“We worship it in summer,” continued Mr. Sagittarius. “In the sultry season it soothes and calms us.”
“Then it is quite tame?”
“At that time of year, but in winter nights it is sometimes almost wild.”
“Ah, I daresay. They often are, I know.”
“The architects and their wives love it as we do.”
“Do they? How very fortunate!”
“We should hate to miss it even for a moment.”
“Oh, Mr. Vivian!” whispered Lady Julia, “this is dreadful. “I’m almost sure he’s brought it with him.”
“No, no. It’s not alive.”
“A dead mouse!”
“It’s a river.”
“A river! But he said it was a mouse.”
“It’s both. Mr. Sagittarius,” added the Prophet, in a loud and desperate tone of voice, “you’ll find this champagne quite dry. You needn’t be afraid of it.”
“Did you get it from by the rabbit shop, sir?” asked Mr. Sagittarius, lifting his glass. “I ordered a dozen in, only the day before yesterday.”
Lady Julia began to tremble.
“I see,” she whispered to the Prophet. “His mania is about animals.”
Meanwhile the Prophet had made a warning face at Mr. Sagittarius, who suddenly remembered his danger and subsided, glancing uneasily at Sir Tiglath, whose intention of addressing him had been momentarily interfered with by a sweetbread masked in a puree of spinach.
Madame Sagittarius, assisted by food and dry champagne, was now–as the Prophet perceived with horror–beginning to feel quite at her ease. She protruded her elbows, sat more extensively in her chair, rolled her prominent eyes about the room as one accustomed to her state, and said, with condescension, to Lady Julia,–
“Is your ladyship to make one of the party at the Zoological Gardens to-night?”
Lady Julia, who now began to suppose that Mr. Sagittarius’s crazy passion for animals was shared by his wife, gasped and answered,–
“Are you going to the Zoological Gardens?”
“Yes, to an assembly. It should be very pleasant. Do you make one?”
“I regret that I am not invited,” said Lady Julia, rather stiffly.
Madame bridled, under the impression that she was scoring off a member of the aristocracy.
“Indeed,” she remarked, with a click. “Yet I presume that your ladyship is not insensible to the charms of rout and collation?”
“I beg your pardon?” said Lady Julia, beginning to look like an image made of cast iron.
“I imagine that the social whirl finds in your ladyship a willing acolyte?”
“Oh, no. I go out very little.”
“Indeed,” said Madame, with some contempt. “Then you do not frequent the Palace?”
“The Palace! Do you mean the Crystal Palace?”
“Of Buckingham? You are not an /amicas curiae/?”
“I fear I don’t catch your meaning.”
“Does not your ladyship comprehend the Latin tongue?”
“Certainly not,” said Lady Julia, who was born in an age when it was considered highly improper for a young female to have any dealings with the ancients. “Certainly not.”
“Dear me!” said Madame, with pitying amazement. “You hear her ladyship, Jupiter?”
“I do, my angel. Madame is a lady of deep education, ma’am,” said Mr. Sagittarius, turning to Mrs. Merillia, who had been listening to the foregoing cross-examination with perpetually-increasing horror.
“No decent female should understand Greek or Latin,” roared Sir Tiglath at this point. “If she does she’s sure to read a great deal that she’s no business to know anything about.”
At this challenge Madame’s bulging brow was overcast with a red cloud.
“I beg to disagree, sir,” she exclaimed. “In my opinion the Georgics of Horatius, Homer’s Idyls and the satires of the great Juvenile–“
“The great what?” bellowed Sir Tiglath.
“The great Juvenile, sir.”
“There never was a great juvenile, ma’am. Talent must be mellow before it is worth tasting, whatever the modern whipper-snapper may say. There never was, and there never will be, a great juvenile–there can only be a juvenile preparing to be great.”
“Really, sir.”
“I affirm it, madam. And as you seem so mighty fond of Latin, remember what Horace says–/Qui cupit opatam cursu contingere metam, Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit/. Oh-h-h-h!”
And Sir Tiglath flung himself back in his chair, puffing out his enormous cheeks and wagging his gigantic head at Madame who, for once in her life, seemed entirely at a loss, and unable to call to her assistance a single shred of learning from the library of Dr. Carter.
Having at last emerged from his Epicurean silence, the astronomer now proceeded to take the floor. Satisfied that he had laid a presuming female low, he swung round, as if on a pivot, to where Mr. Sagittarius was sitting in the greatest agitation, and roared,–
“And now, sir what is all this about your being an outside broker? I was distinctly informed by this gentleman only a night or two ago that you were a distinguished astronomer.”
“I am betrayed!” cried Mr. Sagittarius, dropping the knife and fork which he had just picked up for the dissection of a lobster croquette. “I said this was a trap. I said it was a rat-trap from the first.”
“I knew he must be a ratcatcher,” whispered Lady Julia to the Prophet, who was about to rise from his seat and endeavour to calm his guest. “I was certain no one but a ratcatcher could talk in such a manner.”
“He is not indeed! Mr. Sagittarius, pray sit down! You are alarming my grandmother.”
“I can’t help that, sir. I am not going to sit here, sir, and be slain.”
“Tsh! Tsh! I merely informed Sir Tiglath the other evening that what Miss Minerva had told him about you was true.”
“Miss Minerva!” cried Madame, glancing at her husband in a most terrible manner. “Miss Minerva!”
“Lady Enid Thistle, I mean,” cried the Prophet, mentally cursing the day when he was born.
“Who’s that?” exclaimed Madame, beginning to look almost exactly like Medusa.
“A young female who informed the old astronomer that your husband and an elderly female named Mrs. Bridgeman had for a long while been carrying on astronomical investigations together–“
“Carrying on together!” vociferated Madame. “Jupiter!”
“And that they had come to the conclusion that there was probably oxygen in certain of the holy fixed stars. Oxygen, so the elderly female–“
“Oxygen in an elderly female!” cried Madame, in the greatest excitement. “Jupiter, is this true?”
Mr. Sagittarius was about to bring forward a flat denial when the Prophet, leaning behind the terrified back of Lady Julia, hissed in his ear,–
“Say yes, or he’ll find out who you really are!”
“Yes,” cried Mr. Sagittarius, in a catapultic manner.
Madame began to show elaborate symptoms of preparation for a large- sized fit of hysterics. She caught her breath five or six times running in a resounding manner, heaved her bosom beneath the green chiffon and coffee-coloured lace, and tore feebly with both hands at a large medallion brooch that was doing sentry duty near her throat.
“Pray, pray, Madame,” exclaimed the Prophet, who was now near his wits’ end. “Pray–“
“How can I pray at table, sir?” she retorted, suddenly showing fight. “You forget yourself.”
“Oh, Hennessey,” said poor Mrs. Merillia, “what does all this mean?”
“Nothing, grannie, nothing except that Mr. Sagittarius is a very modest man and does not care to acknowledge the greatness of his talents. Pray sit down, Mr. Sagittarius. Here is the ice pudding. Madame, I am sure you will take some ice. Mr. Ferdinand!”
“Sir?”
“The ice to Madame Sagittarius instantly!”
Mr. Ferdinand, who was trembling in every limb at having to assist at such a scene in his dining-room, which had hitherto been the very temple of soft conversation and the most exquisite decorum, advanced towards Madame, clattering the flat silver dish, and causing the frozen delicacy that the cook had elegantly posed upon it to run first this way and then that as if in imitative agitation.
“I cannot,” sobbed Madame, beginning once more to catch her breath. “At such a moment food becomes repulsive!”
“I assure you our cook’s ice puddings are quite delicious; aren’t they, grannie?”
“I have no idea, Hennessey,” said Mrs. Merillia, who was so upset by the extraordinary scene at which she was presiding in the character of hostess, that she mechanically clutched the left bandeau of her delightful wig, and set it quite a quarter of an inch awry.
“Try it, Madame,” cried the Prophet. “I implore you to try it.”
Thus adjured Madame detached a large piece of the agile pudding with some difficulty, and subsided into a morose silence, while her husband sat with his eyes fixed imploringly upon her, totally regardless of his social duties. As both Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia were by this time thoroughly unnerved, and Sir Tiglath was once more immersed in his food, the whole burden of conversation fell upon the Prophet, who indulged in a feverish monologue that lasted until the end of dinner. What he talked about he could never afterwards certainly remember, but he had a vague idea that he discussed the foreign relations of England with Madagascar, the probable future of Poland, the social habits of the women of Alaska, the prospects of tobacco culture in West Meath, and the effect that imported Mexicans would be likely to produce upon the natural simplicity of such unsophisticated persons as inhabit Lundy Island or the more remote districts of the Shetlands. When the ladies at length rose to leave the dining-room his brain was in a whirl and he had little doubt that his temperature was up to 104. Nevertheless his mind was still active, was indeed preternaturally acute for the moment, and he saw in a flash the impossibility of leaving Madame Sagittarius alone with his grandmother and Lady Julia. As they got up from their seats he therefore took out his watch and said,–
“Dear me! It is later than I had supposed. I am afraid we ought to be starting for Zoological House. Mrs. Bridgeman will be expecting us.”
“Certainly, sir, certainly!” said Mr. Sagittarius, with all the alacrity of supreme cowardice, and casting a terror-stricken glance towards Sir Tiglath, who was glowering at him with glassy eyes above a glass of port. “Mrs. Bridgeman will be expecting us!”
“I will assume my cloak,” said Madame, fiercely. “Jupiter!”
“My darling!”
“Kindly seek my furs.”
“Certainly, my love,” replied Mr. Sagittarius, darting eagerly from the apartment to fetch the rabbit-skins.
“Lady Julia, I hope you will forgive us,” said the Prophet, with passionate contrition. “If I had had the slightest idea that we should have the pleasure of seeing you to-night, of course I should have given up this engagement. But it is such an old one–settled months ago–and I have promised Mrs. Bridgeman so faithfully that–“
“The old astronomer will go with you,” cried Sir Tiglath at this moment, swallowing his glass of port at a gulp, and rolling out of his chair.
The Prophet turned cold, thinking of Miss Minerva, who would be present at Mrs. Bridgeman’s living her secret double life. It was imperative to prevent the astronomer from accompanying them.
“I did not think you knew Mrs. Bridgeman, Sir Tiglath,” the Prophet began, while Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia stood blankly near the door, trying to look calm and dignified while everyone was ardently preparing to desert them.
“The old astronomer must know her before the evening is one hour more advanced. He must question her regarding the holy stars. He must examine her and this Sagittarius, who claims to be an outside broker and yet to have discovered oxygen in the fixed inhabitants of the sacred heavens. My cloak!”
The last words were bellowed at Gustavus, who rushed forward with Sir Tiglath’s Inverness.
The Prophet lowed his head, and metaphorically, threw up the sponge.
“Lady Julia,” said Mrs. Merillia, in a soft voice that slightly trembled, “let us go upstairs.”
The two old ladies bowed with tearful dignity, and retired with a sort of gentle majesty that cut the Prophet to the heart.
“One moment, if you please!” he said to his guests.
And he darted out of the room and leaped up the stairs. He found Mrs. Merillia and Lady Julia just about to dispose themselves side by side upon a sofa near the fire. They turned and looked at him with reproachful doves’ eyes.
“Grannie–Lady Julia!” he exclaimed, “I implore your forgiveness. Pardon me! Appearances are against me, I know. But some day you may understand how I am placed. My position is–my–my situation–I–you– do not wholly condemn me! Wait–wait a few days, I implore you!”
He rushed out of the room.
The two old ladies seated themselves upon the sofa, and tremblingly spread abroad their damask skirts. They looked at each other in silence, shaking their elegant heads. Then Mrs. Merillia said, in a fluttering voice,–
“Oh, Julia, you were a lady in waiting to Her Majesty, you were kissed by the great Duke–tell me–tell me what it all means!”
“Victoria,” replied Lady Julia, “it means that your grandson has fallen into the clutches of a dangerous and determined ratcatcher.”
And then the two old ladies mingled their damask skirts and their lace caps and wept.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SILLY LIFE
“Call a cab for Sir Tiglath, Mr. Ferdinand,” whispered the Prophet–“a four-wheeler with a lame horse. I’ll take both Mr. and Madame Sagittarius in the brougham.”
“Must the horse be lame, sir?”
“Yes. I absolutely decline to encourage the practice of using good horses in four-wheeled cabs. It’s a disgrace to the poor animals. It must be a very lame horse.”
“Yes, sir.”
And Mr. Ferdinand, standing upon the doorstep, whistled to the night.
Strange to say, in about two minutes there appeared round the corner the very same cabman who had conveyed the Prophet and Lady Enid to the astronomer’s on the previous day, driving the very same horse.
“This horse will do admirably,” said the Prophet to Mr. Ferdinand.
“He isn’t lame, sir.”
“P’r’aps not; but he knows how to tumble down. Sir Tiglath, here is a cab for you. We shall go in the brougham. Zoological House, Regent’s Park, is the direction. Let me help you in, Madame.”
As the Prophet got in to sit bodkin between his old and valued friends, he whispered to the footman,–
“Tell Simkins to drive as fast as possible. We are very late.”
The footman touched his hat. Just as the carriage moved off, the Prophet protruded his head from the window, and saw the astronomer rolling into the four-wheeler, the horse of which immediately fell down in a most satisfactory manner.
There was no general conversation in the brougham, but the Prophet, who was obliged to sit partly on Madame, and partly on Mr. Sagittarius and partly on air, occasionally heard in the darkness at his back terrible matrimonial whisperings, whose exact tenor he was unable to catch. Once only he heard Madame say sibilantly and with a vicious click,–
“I might have known what to expect when I married a Prophet–when I passed over the /pons asinoribus/ to give myself to a /monstram horrendo/.”
To this pathetic heart-cry Mr. Sagittarius made a very prolonged answer. The Prophet knew it was prolonged because Mr. Sagittarius always whispered in such a manner as to tickle the nape of his neck. But he could not hear anything except a sound like steam escaping from a small pipe. The steam went on escaping until the brougham passed through a gate, rolled down a declivity, and drew up before an enormous mansion whose windows blazed with light.
“Is this the Zoological Gardens?” inquired Madame in a stern voice. “Is this the habitation of the woman Bridgeman?”
“I suppose this is Zoological House,” replied the Prophet, sliding decorously off Madame’s left knee in preparation for descent.
“My darling! my love!” said Mr. Sagittarius. “I swear upon the infant head of our Capricornus that Mrs. Bridgeman and I are–“
“Enough!” cried Madame. “/Jam satus/! Be sure that I will inquire into this matter.”
The carriage door was opened and, with some struggling, the Prophet and his two valued friends emerged and speedily found themselves in a very large hall, which was nearly full of very large powdered footmen. In the distance there was the sound of united frivolities, a band of twenty guitars thrumming a wilful /seguidilla/. Roses bloomed on every side, and beyond the hall they beheld a vision of illuminated vistas, down which vague figures came and went.
Evidently when Mrs. Bridgeman let herself go she let herself go thoroughly.
Mr. Sagittarius gazed about him with awe-struck amazement, but Madame was equal to the occasion. She cast the rabbit-skins imperially to a neighbouring flunkey, arranged her hair and fichu before a glass, kicked out her skirt with the heel of one of the kid boots, nipped the green chiffon into prominence with decisive fingers, and then, turning to the Prophet with all the majesty of a suburban empress, said in a powerful voice,–
“Step forward, I beg. /J’ai pret/.”
The Prophet, thus encouraged, stepped forward towards an aperture that on ordinary days contained a door, but that now contained a stout elderly lady, with henna-dyed hair, a powdered face, black eyebrows and a yellow gown, on which rested a large number of jewelled ornaments that looked like small bombs. At this lady’s elbow stood a footman with an exceedingly powerful bass voice, who shouted the names of approaching guests in a manner so uncompromising as to be terrific. Each time he so shouted the stout lady first started and then smiled, the two operations succeeding one another with almost inconceivable rapidity and violence.
“What name, sir?” asked the footman of the Prophet, bending his powdered head till it was only about six feet two inches from the floor.
“Mr. Hennessey Vivian,” replied the Prophet, hesitating as to what he should add.
“Mr. Hemmerspeed Vivian!” roared the footman. “What name, Madame?” (to Madame Sagittarius).
“Mr. and Madame Sagittarius of Sagittarius Lodge, the Mouse!” replied the lady majestically.
“Mr.–and Madame–Segerteribus–of–Segerteribus–Lodge, the Mouse!” bawled the footman.
The stout lady, who was Mrs. Vane Bridgeman, started and smiled.
“Delighted to see you, Mr. Segerteribus!” she said to the Prophet.
The Prophet hastened to explain through the uproar of twenty guitars.
“Mr. Vivian is my name. I think Miss Minerva Partridge–“
Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.
“Of course,” she exclaimed. “Of course. You are to be kind enough to introduce me some day to Mr. Sagi–Sagi–something or other, and I am to introduce him to Sir Tiglath Butt, when Sir Tiglath Butt has been introduced to me by dear Miss Partridge. It is all to work out beautifully. Yes, yes! Charming! charming!”
“I have ventured to bring Mr. and Madame Sagittarius with me to-night,” said the Prophet.
Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.
“They are my old and valued friends, and–and here they are.”
“Delighted! delighted!” said Mrs. Bridgeman, speaking in a confused manner through the guitars. “How d’you do, Mr. Sagittarius?”
And she shook hands warmly with a very small and saturnine clergyman decorated with a shock of ebon hair, who was passing at the moment.
“Biggle!” said the little clergyman.
Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.
“Biggle!” repeated the little clergyman. “Biggle!”
The guitars rose up with violence, and all the hot, drubbing passion of Bayswater being Spanish.
“Yes, indeed, I so agree with you, dear Mr. Sagittarius,” said Mrs. Bridgeman to the little clergyman.
“Biggle!” the little clergyman cried in a portentous voice. “Biggle! Biggle!”
“What does he mean?” whispered Mrs. Bridgeman to the Prophet. “How does one?”
“I think that is his name. These are Mr. and Madame Sagittarius.”
Mrs. Bridgeman started and smiled.
“Biggle–of course,” she said to the little clergyman, who passed on with an air of reliant self-satisfaction. “Delighted to see you,” she added, this time addressing the Prophet’s old and valued friends. “Ah! Mr. Sagi–Sagi–um–I have heard so much of you from dear Miss Minerva.”
The wild, high notes of a flute, played by a silly gentleman from Tooting, shrilled through the tupping of the guitars, and Mr. Sagittarius, trembling in every limb, hissed in Mrs. Bridgeman’s ear,–
“Hush, ma’am, for mercy’s sake!”
Mrs. Bridgeman started and forgot to smile.
“My loved and honoured wife,” continued Mr. Sagittarius, in a loud and anxious voice, “more to me than any lunar guide or starry monitor! Madame Sagittarius, a lady of deep education, ma’am.”
“Delighted!” said Mrs. Bridgeman, making a gracious grimace at Madame, who inclined herself stonily and replied in a sinister voice,–
“It is indeed time that this renconter took place. Henceforth, ma’am, I shall be ever at my husband’s side, /per fus et nefus/–/et nefus/, ma’am.”
“So glad,” said Mrs. Bridgeman. “I have been longing for this–“
“Mr. Bernard Wilkins!” roared the tall footman.
Mr. Sagittarius started and Mrs. Bridgeman did the same and smiled.
“Bernard Wilkins the Prophet!” Mr. Sagittarius exclaimed. “From the Rise!”
“Mrs. Eliza Doubleway!” shouted the footman.
“Mrs. Eliza!” cried Mr. Sagittarius, in great excitement. “That’s the soothsayer from the Beck!”
“Madame Charlotte Humm!” yelled the footman.
“Madame Humm!” vociferated Mr. Sagittarius, “the crystal-gazer from the Hill!”
“Professor Elijah Chapman!” bawled the footman.
“The nose-reader!” piped Mr. Sagittarius. “The nose-reader from the Butts!”
“Verano!” screamed the footman, triumphantly submerging the flute and the twenty guitars. “Verano!”
“The South American Irish palmist from the Downs! My love,” said Mr. Sagittarius, in a cracking voice, “we are in it to-night, we are indeed; we are fairly and squarely in it.”
Madame began to bridle and to look as ostentatious as a leviathan.
“And if we are, Jupiter!” she said in a voice that rivalled the footman’s–“if we are, we are merely in our element. They needn’t think to come over me!”
“Hush, my love! Remember that–“
“Dr. Birdie Soames!” interposed the vibrant bass of the footman.
“The physiognomy lady from the Common!” said Mr. Sagittarius, on the point of breaking down under the emotion of the moment. “Scot! Scot! Great Scot!”
Mrs. Bridgeman was now completely surrounded by a heterogeneous mass of very remarkable-looking people, among whom were peculiarly prominent an enormously broad-shouldered man, with Roman features and his hair cut over his brow in a royal fringe, a small woman with a pointed red nose in bead bracelets and prune-coloured muslin, and an elderly female with short grizzled hair, who wore a college gown and a mortar-board with a scarlet tassel, and who carried in one hand a large skull marked out in squares with red ink. These were Verano, the Irish palmist from the Downs; Mrs. Eliza Doubleway, the soothsayer from Beck; and Dr. Birdie Soames, the physiognomy lady from the Common. Immediately around these celebrities were grouped a very pale gentleman in a short jacket, who looked as if he made his money by eating nothing and drinking a great deal, a plethoric female with a mundane face, in which was set a large and delicately distracted grey eye; and a gentleman with a jowl, a pug nose, and a large quantity of brass-coloured hair about as curly as hay, which fell down over a low collar, round which was negligently knotted a huge black tie. This trio comprised Mr. Bernard Wilkins, the Prophet from the Rise; Madame Charlotte Humm, the crystal-gazer from the Hill; and Professor Elijah Chapman, the nose-reader from the Butts. No sooner was the news of the arrival of these great and notorious people bruited abroad through the magnificent saloons of Zoological House than Mrs. Bridgeman’s guests began to flock around them from all the four quarters of the mansion, deserting even the neighbourhood of the guitars and the inviting seclusion of the various refreshment- rooms. From all sides rose the hum of comment and the murmur of speculation. Pince-nez were adjusted, eyeglasses screwed into eyes, fingers pointed, feet elevated upon uneasy toes. Pretty girls boldly trod upon the gowns of elderly matrons in the endeavour to draw near to Mrs. Bridgeman and her group of celebrities; youths pushed and shoved; chaperons elbowed, and old gentlemen darted from one place to another in wild endeavours to find an inlet through the press. And amid this frantic scramble of the curious, the famous members of the occult world stood, calmly conscious of their value and in no wise upset or discomposed. Verano stroked his Roman features, and ran his large white hand through his curly fringe; Dr. Birdie Soames tapped her skull; Mrs. Eliza Doubleway played with her bead bracelets; Mr. Bernard Wilkins and Madame Charlotte Humm conversed together in dreamy murmurs; while Professor Elijah Chapman shook his brass-coloured hair till it fell forward over his variegated shirt-front, and glanced inquiringly at the multitudes of anxious noses which offered themselves to his inspection beneath the glare of the electric lights.
Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, completely overlooked in the throng, elbowed, trampled upon, jogged from behind and prodded from before, gazed with a passion of bitter envy at their worshipped rivals, who were set in the full blaze of success, while they languished in the outer darkness of anonymous obscurity.
“/O miseris hominum men/–don’t set your feet on me, sir, if you please!” cried Madame. “/O pectorae caec/–ma’am, I beg you to take your elbow from my throat this minute!”
But even her powerful and indignant organ was lost in the hubbub that mingled with the wild music of the guitars, to which was now added the tinkle of bells and the vehement click of a round dozen of castanets, marking the bull-fighting rhythm of a new air called “The Espada’s Return to Madrid.”
“Jupiter!” she gurgled. “I shall be suff–“
“Mr. Amos Towle!” roared the footman savagely.
“The great medium from the Wick!”
“Towle the seer!”
“Amos Towle, the famous spiritualist!”
“Mr. Towle who materialises!”
“The celebrated Towle!”
“The great and only Towle!”
“Oh, is it /the/ Towle?”
“I must see Towle!”
“Where is he? Oh, where is Towle?”
“Towle who communicates with the other world!”
“Towle the magician!”
“Towle the hypnotist!”
“Towle the soothsayer!”
“The magnetic Towle!”
“The electric Towle!”
“We must–we must see Towle!”
Such were a very few of the exclamations that instantly burst forth upon the conclusion of the footman’s announcement. The elbowing and trampling became more violent than ever, and Mrs. Bridgeman was forced–from lack of room–to forego her society start, though she was still able to indulge in her society smile, as she bowed, with almost swooning graciousness, to a short, perspiring, bald and side-whiskered man in greasy broadcloth, who looked as if he would have been quite at home upon the box of a four-wheeled cab, as indeed he would, seeing that he had driven a growler for five-and-twenty years before discovering that he was the great and only Towle, medium, seer, and worker-of-miracles-in-chief to the large and increasing crowd that lives the silly life.
“Oh, Mr. Towle–charmed, delighted!” cried Mrs. Bridgeman. “I was so afraid–How sweet of you to come out all this way from your eyrie at the Wick! You’ll find many friends–dear Madame Charlotte–the Professor–Mrs. Eliza–they’re all here. And Miss Minerva, too! Your greatest admirer and disciple!”
At this moment the crowd, wild in its endeavour to touch the inspired broadcloth of the great Towle, surged forward, and the Prophet was driven like a ram against the left side of his hostess.
“I beg–your–pard–” he gasped; “but could you tell–me–where Miss Minerv–erva–is? I special–ly want to–to–“
“I think she’s with Eureka in tea-room number 1,” replied Mrs. Bridgeman. “Oh, dear! Near the band. Oh, dear! Oh, my gown! Oh! So sweet of you to come, Mrs. Lorrimer! Just a few interesting people! Oh, gracious mercy! Oh, for goodness’ sake!”
She was thrust against a new arrival, and the Prophet, bringing his shoulders vigorously into play, according to the rules of Rugby football, presently found himself out in the open and free to wander in search of Miss Minerva, whom he was most anxious to encounter before the arrival of Sir Tiglath Butt, which must now be imminent, despite the marked disinclination of his horse to proceed at the rate of more than half a mile an hour.
The Prophet abandoned Mr. and Madame Sagittarius to their fate, thankful, indeed, to be rid for a moment of their prophetic importunity.
Following the gasped directions of Mrs. Bridgeman, he made towards the guitars, threading a number of drawing-rooms, and passing by the doors of various mysterious chambers which were carefully curtained off in a most secret manner. Here and there he saw groups of people–men in extraordinary coats and with touzled masses of hair, women in gowns made of the cheapest materials and cut in the most impossible fashions. Some wore convolvulus on their heads, ivy-leaves, trailing fuchsia, or sprigs of plants known only to suburban haberdashers; others appeared boldly in caps of the pork-pie order, adorned with cherry-coloured streamers, clumps of feathers that had never seen a bird, bunches of shining fruits, or coins that looked as if they had just emerged from the seclusion of the poor-box. Thread gloves abounded, and were mostly in what saleswomen call “the loud shades”–bright scarlet, marigold yellow, grass green or acute magenta. Mittens, too, were visible covered with cabalistic inscriptions in glittering beadwork. Not a few gentlewomen, like Madame, trod in elastic-sided boots, and one small but intrepid lady carried herself boldly in a cotton skirt topped with a tartan blouse “carried out” in vermilion and sulphur colour, over which was carelessly adjusted a macintosh cape partially trimmed with distressed-looking swansdown. Here and there might be seen some smart London woman, perfectly dressed and glancing with amused amazement at the new fashions about her; here and there a well set-up man, with normal hair and a tie that would not have terrified Piccadilly. But for the most part Mrs. Bridgeman’s guests were not quite usual in appearance, and, indeed, were such as the Prophet had never gazed upon before.
Presently the uproar of the guitars grew more stentorian upon his ear, and, leaving on his left an astonishing chamber that contained from a dozen to fifteen small round tables, with nothing whatever upon them, the Prophet emerged into an inner hall where, in quite a grove of shrubs hung with fairy lights, twenty young ladies, dressed from top to toe in scarlet, and each wearing a large golden medal, were being as Spanish as if they had not been paid for it, while twelve more whacked castanets and shook bells with a frenzy that was worth an excellent salary, the silly gentleman from Tooting the while blowing furiously upon his flute, and combining this intemperate indulgence with an occasional assault upon a cottage piano that stood immediately before him, or a wave of the baton that asserted his right to the position of /chef d’orchestre/. Immediately beyond this shrine of music the Prophet perceived a Moorish nook containing a British buffet, and, in quite the most Moorish corner of this nook, seated upon a divan that would have been at home in Marakesh, he caught sight of Miss Minerva in company with a thin, fatigued and wispy lady in a very long vermilion gown, and an extremely small gentleman–apparently of the Hebrew persuasion–who was smartly dressed, wore white gloves and a buttonhole, and indulged in a great deal of florid gesticulation while talking with abnormal vivacity. Miss Minerva, who was playing quietly with a lemon ice, looked even more sensible than usual, the Prophet thought, in her simple white frock. She seemed to be quite at home and perfectly happy with her silly friends, but, as soon as she saw him hovering anxiously to the left of the guitars, she beckoned to him eagerly, and he hurried forward.
“Oh, Mr. Vivian, I’m so glad you’ve come! Let me introduce you to my great friend Eureka”–the lady in vermilion bowed absent-mindedly, and rolled her huge brown eyes wearily at the Prophet–“and to Mr. Briskin Moses.”
The little gentleman made a stage reverence and fluttered his small hands airily.
“Pretty sight, pretty sight!” he said in a quick and impudent voice. “All these little dears enjoying themselves so innocently. Mother Bridgeman’s chickens, I call them. But it’s impossible to count them, even after they’re hatched. Cheese it!”
The final imperative was flung demurely at a mighty footman, who just then tried to impound Mr. Moses’s not quite finished brandy-and-soda.
“Sir?” said the mighty footman.
“Cheese it!” cried Mr. Moses, making a gesture of tragic repugnance in the direction of the footman.
The mighty footman cheesed it with dignity, and afterwards, in the servants’ hall, spoke very bitterly of Israel.
The Prophet was extremely anxious to get a word alone with Miss Minerva. Indeed, it was really important that he should warn her of Sir Tiglath’s approach, but he could find no opportunity of doing so, for Mr. Moses, who was not afflicted with diffidence, rapidly continued, in a slightly affected and tripping cockney voice,–
“Mother Bridgeman’s a dear one! God bless her for a pretty soul! She’d be sublime in musical comedy–the black satin society lady, you know, who makes the aristocratic relief,–
” ‘I’m a Dowager Duchess, and everyone knows I’m a lady right down to the tip of my toes.’
“Very valuable among the minxes; worth her weight in half-crowns! I’d give her an engagement any day, pretty bird! Ever seen her driving in a cab? She takes off her gloves and spreads her hands over the apron to get the air. A canary! Anything for me to-night, Eureka? A dove, a mongoose–anything lucky? Give us a chance, mother!”
The lady in vermilion, who had a tuft of golden hair in the midst of her otherwise raven locks, glanced mysteriously at Mr. Moses.
“See anything, mother?” he asked, with theatrical solemnity. “A tiny chunk of luck for tricky little Briskin?”
“I do see something,” said Eureka, in a dim and heavy voice. “It’s just close to you on that table by the brandy.”
Mr. Moses started, and cast a glance of awe at the tumbler.
“My word,” he cried–“my word, mother! What’s the blessed little symbol like? Not a pony fresh from Jerusalem for your believing boy!”
“You must wait a moment. It is not clear,” replied Eureka, slowly and dreamily, fixing her heavy eyes on the brandy-and-soda. “It’s all cloudy.”
“Been imbibing, mother? Has the blessed little symbol been at it again? Briskin’s shock–shocked!”
“It’s getting clearer. It stands in a band of fire.”
“Shade of Shadrach! Apparition of Abednego! Draw it mild and bitter, mother!”
“Ah! now it steps out. It’s got a hump.”
“Got the hump, mother? My word! then it must be either a camel or an undischarged bankrupt! Which is it, pretty soul?”
“It’s a rhinoceros. It’s moving to you.”
“Yokohama, mother! Tell the pretty bird to keep back! What’s it mean?”
“It’s a sign of plenty.”
“Plenty of what, mother? The ready or the nose-bag? Give us a chance!”
“Plenty of good fortune, because its head is towards you. If it had presented its tail, it would mean black weather.”
“Don’t let it turn tail, for Saturday’s sake, mother. Keep its head straight while I finish the brandy!”
And so saying, little Mr. Moses, with elaborate furtiveness, caught up the tumbler, poured its contents down his throat, and threw himself back on the divan with the air of a man who had just escaped from peril by the consummate personal exercise of unparalleled and sustained ingenuity.
During this scene Miss Minerva had preserved her air of pronounced Scottish good sense, while listening attentively, and she now said to Eureka,–
“D’you see anything for Mr. Vivian, dear Eureka? Even the littlest thing would be welcomed.”
Eureka stared upon the Prophet, who began to feel very nervous.
“There’s something round his head,” she remarked, with her usual almost sacred earnestness.
The Prophet mechanically put up his hands, like a man anxious to interfere with the assiduous attentions of a swarm of bees.
“Something right round his head.”
“Is it a halo?” asked Miss Minerva.
“Is it a Lincoln & Bennet, mother?” cried Mr. Moses. “One of the shiny ones–twenty-one bob, and twenty-five-and-six if you want a kid lining?”
“No; it’s like some sort of bird.”
” ‘I heard the owl beneath my eaves complaining,’ ” chirped Mr. Moses, taking two or three high notes in a delicate tenor voice. ” ‘I looked forth–great Scot! How it was raining!’ Is it an owl, mother? Ask it to screech to Briskin.”
“It is no owl,” said Eureka to the Prophet. “It is a sparrow–your bird.”
“Is it upon the housetop, mother, having a spree all on its little alone?”
“No; it is hovering over the gentleman.”
“What does that mean?” said the Prophet, anxiously.
But at this point Eureka suddenly seemed to lose interest in the matter. “Oh, you’re all right,” she said carelessly. “I’m tired. I should like a wafer.”
“Mother’s peckish. Mother, I see an ostrich by your left elbow. That’s a sign that you’re so peckish you could swallow anything. Waiter!”
“Sir!”
“This lady’s so peckish she could eat anything. Bring her some tin- tacks and a wafer. Stop a sec. Another brandy for Briskin. Your calves’d do for the front row; ‘pon my word, they would. Trot, boy, trot!”
“I must speak to you alone for one moment,” whispered the Prophet to Miss Minerva, under cover of the quips of Mr. Moses. “Sir Tiglath’s coming!”
Miss Minerva started.
“Sir Tig–” she exclaimed and put her finger to her lips just in time to stop the “lath” from coming out. “Mr. Moses, I’m going to the buffet for a moment with Mr. Vivian. Eureka, darling, do eat something substantial! All this second sight takes it out of you.”
Eureka acquiesced with a heavy sigh, Mr. Moses cried, “Aunt Eureka’s so hungry that one would declare she could even eat oats if she found they were there!” and Miss Minerva and the Prophet moved languidly towards the buffet, endeavouring, by the indifference of their movements, to cover the agitation in their hearts.
“Sir Tiglath coming here!” cried Miss Minerva under her breath, as soon as they were out of earshot. “But he doesn’t know Mrs. Bridgeman!”
“I know–but he’s coming. And not only that, Mr. and Madame Sagittarius are here already!”
Miss Minerva looked closely at the Prophet in silence for a moment. Then she said,–
“I see–I see!”
“What?” cried the Prophet, in great anxiety, “not the sparrow on my head?”
“No. But I see that you’re taking to your double life in real earnest.”
“I?”
“Yes. Now, Mr. Vivian, that’s all very well, and you know I’m the last person to complain of anything of that sort, so long as it doesn’t get me into difficulties.”
“Think of the difficulties you and everyone else have got me into,” ejaculated the poor Prophet, for once in his life stepping, perhaps, a hair’s-breadth from the paths of good breeding.
“Well, I’m sure I’ve done nothing.”
“Nothing!” said the Prophet, losing his head under the influence of the guitars, which were now getting under way in a fantasia on “Carmen.” “Nothing! Why, you made me come here, you insisted on my introducing Mr. Sagittarius to Mrs. Bridgeman, you told Sir Tiglath Mrs. Bridgeman and I were old friends and had made investigations together, assisted by Mr. Sagittarius, you–“
“Oh, well, that’s nothing. But Sir Tiglath mustn’t see me here as Miss Minerva. Has he arrived yet?”
“I don’t think so. He’s got the cab we had yesterday and the horse.”
“The one that tumbles down so cleverly when it’s not too tired? Capital! Run to the cloak-room, meet Sir Tiglath there, and persuade him to go home.”
But here the Prophet struck.
“I regret I can’t,” he said, almost firmly.
“But you must.”
“I regret sincerely that I am unable.”
“Why? Mr. Vivian, when a lady asks you!”
“I am grieved,” said the Prophet, with a species of intoxicated obstinacy–the guitars seemed to be playing inside his brain and the flute piping in the small of his back,–“to decline, but I cannot contend physically with Sir Tiglath, a man whom I reverence, in the cloak-room of a total stranger.”
“I don’t ask you to contend physically.”
“Nothing but personal violence would keep Sir Tiglath from coming in.”
“Really! Then what’s to be done?”
She pursed up her sensible lips and drew down her sensible eyebrows.
“I know!” she cried, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll masquerade to-night as myself.”
“As yourself?”
“Yes. All these dear silly people here think that I’ve got an astral body.”
“What’s that?”
“A sort of floating business–a business that you can set floating.”
“What–a company?”
“No, no. A replica of yourself. The great Towle–“
“He’s here to-night.”
“I knew he was coming. Well, the great Towle detached this astral body once at a séance and, for a joke–a silly joke, you know–“
“Yes, yes.”
“I christened it by my real name, Lady Enid Thistle, and said Lady Enid was an ancestress of mine.”
“Why did you?”
“Because it was so idiotic.”
“I see.”
“Well, I’ve only now to spread a report among these dear creatures that I’m astral to-night, and get Towle to back me up, and I can easily be Lady Enid for an hour or two. In this crowd Sir Tiglath need never find out that I’m generally known in these circles as Miss Partridge.”
“Do you really think–“
“Yes, I do. But I must find Towle at once.”
So saying she hastened away from the buffet, followed by the trotting Prophet. As she passed Eureka and Mr. Moses, she said,–
“Eureka, darling, do I look odd? I suddenly began to feel astral just as I was going to eat a sandwich. I can’t help thinking that Lady Enid –you know, my astral ancestress, who’s always with me–is peculiarly powerful to-night. D’you notice anything?”
“Watch out for it, mother!” cried Mr. Moses. “See if it’s got the lump.”
Eureka fixed her heavy eyes on Miss Minerva and swayed her thin body to and fro in as panther-like a manner as she could manage.
“Mother’s after it,” continued Mr. Moses, twitching his left ear with his thumb in a Hebraic manner and shooting his shining cuffs; “mother’s on the trail. Doves for a bishop and the little mangel-wurzel for the labouring man. Clever mother! She’ll take care it’s suitable. Is it a haggis, mother, hovering over the lady with outspread wings?”
Eureka closed her eyes and rocked herself more violently.
“I see you,” she said in a deep voice. “You are astral. You are Lady Enid emerged for an hour from our dear Minerva.”
“I thought so,” cried Lady Enid, with decision. “I thought so, because when someone called me Miss Minerva just now I felt angry, and didn’t seem to know what they meant. Tell them, dear Eureka,–tell all my friends of your discovery.”
And she hastened on with the Prophet in search of the great Towle.
“I’ll get him to back Eureka up, and then it will be quite safe,” she said. “Ah! there he is with Harriet Browne, the demonstrator from the Rye.”
Indeed, at this moment a small crowd was visible in one of the further drawing-rooms, moving obsequiously along in reverent attendance upon the great Towle, Mrs. Bridgeman and a thickset, red-faced lady, without a waist and plainly clad in untrimmed linsey-wolsey, who was speaking authoritatively to a hysterical-looking young girl, upon whose narrow shoulder she rested a heavy, fat-fingered hand as she walked.
“Harriet’s evidently going to demonstrate,” added Lady Enid. “That’s lucky, because then I can get a quiet word with Towle.”
“Demonstrate?” said the Prophet.
“Yes. She’s the great Christian Scientist and has the healing power. She demonstrated over Agatha Marshall’s left ear. You know. The case got into the papers. Ah, Harriet, darling!”
“My blessing! My Minerva!” said Harriet in a thick and guttural voice.
“Lady Enid, Harriet love, to-night. Eureka says I’m astral. Oh, Mr. Towle, what an honour to meet you–what an honour for us all!”
The great Towle ducked and scraped in cabman fashion.
“Oh, will you materialise for us to-night?”
“Yes, yes,” cried Mrs. Bridgeman, trembling with excitement. “He’s promised to after supper. He says he feels less material then–more /en rapport/ with the dear spirits.”
“How delightful! Mr. Towle, tell me, do you agree with Eureka? I await your fiat. Am I astral?”
“Ay, miss, as like as not,” said the great man, twisting his lips as if they held a straw between them. “Astral, that’s it. That’s it to a T.”
“Then I’m Lady Enid Thistle, my ancestress, who’s always with me?”
“Ay, ay! Every bit of her. Her ladyship to a T.”
The company was much impressed, and whispers of “It’s Lady Enid; Eureka and Mr. Towle say it’s her ladyship in the astral plane!” flew like wildfire through the rooms.
At this point Harriet Browne, who was sufficiently Christian and scientific to like to have all the attention of the company centred upon her, cleared her throat loudly and exclaimed,–
“If I am to heal this poor sufferer, I must be provided with an armchair.”
“An armchair for Mrs. Browne!”
“Fetch a chair for Harriet!”
“Mrs. Harriet can’t demonstrate without a chair!”
“What is she going to do?” whispered the Prophet to Lady Enid, feeling thoroughly ashamed of his ignorance.
“Demonstrate.”
“Yes, but what’s that?”
“Put her hands over that girl and think about her.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Does she do it out of kindness?”
“Of course. But she’s paid something, not because she wants to be paid, but because it’s the rule.”
“Oh!”
An armchair was now wheeled forward, and Mrs. Harriet ensconced herself in it comfortably.
“I’m very tired to-night,” she remarked in her thick voice. “I’ve had a hard afternoon.”
“Poor darling!” cried Mrs. Bridgeman. “Fetch a glass of champagne for Mrs. Harriet somebody. Oh, would you, Mr. Brummich?”
Mr. Brummich, a gentleman with a remarkably foolish, ascetic face and a feebly-wandering sandy beard, was just about to hasten religiously towards the Moorish nook when the great Towle happened, by accident, to groan. Mrs. Bridgeman, started and smiled.
“Oh, and a glass of champagne for Mr. Towle, too, dear Mr. Brummich!”
“Certainly, Mrs. Bridgeman!” said dear Mr. Brummich, hurrying off with the demeanour of the head of an Embassy entrusted with some important mission to a foreign Court.
“Were you at work this afternoon, Harriet, beloved?” inquired Mrs. Bridgeman of Mrs. Browne, who was leaning back in the armchair with her eyes closed and in an attitude of severe prostration.
“Yes.”
“Which was it, lovebird? Hysteric Henry?”
“No, he’s cured.”
Cries of joy resounded from those gathered about the chair.
“Hysteric Henry’s cured!”
“Henry’s better!”
“The poor man with the ball in his throat’s been saved!”
“How wonderful you are, Harriet, sweet!” cried Mrs. Bridgeman. “But, then which was it?”
“The madwoman at Brussels. I’ve been thinking about her for two hours this afternoon, with only a cup of tea between.”
“Poor darling! No wonder you’re done up! Ought you to demonstrate? Ah! here’s the champagne!”
“I take it merely as medicine,” said Mrs. Harriet.
At this moment, Mr. Brummich, flushed with assiduity, burst into the circle with a goblet of beaded wine in either hand. There was a moment of solemn silence while Mrs. Harriet and the great Towle condescended to the Pommery. It was broken only by a loud gulp from the hysterical- looking girl who was, it seemed, nervously affected by an imitative spasm, and who suddenly began to swallow nothing with extreme persistence and violence.
“Look at that poor misguided soul!” ejaculated Mrs. Harriet, with her lips to the Pommery. “She fancies she’s drinking!”
The poor, misguided soul, yielded again to her distraught imagination, amid the pitiful ejaculations of the entire company, with the exception of one mundane, young man who, suddenly assailed by the wild fancy that he wasn’t drinking, crept furtively to the Moorish rook, and was no more seen.
“Give her a cushion!” continued Mrs. Harriet, authoritatively.
“Mr. Brummich!” said Mrs. Bridgeman.
Mr. Brummich ran, and returned with a cushion.
“Sit down, poor thing! Sit at my feet!” said Mrs. Harriet, giving the hysterical-looking girl a healing push.
The girl subsided in a piteous heap, and Mrs. Harriet, who had by this time taken all her medicine, leant over her and inquired,–
“Where d’you feel it?”
The girl put her hands to her head.
“Here,” she said feebly. “It’s like fire running over me and drums beating.”
“Fire and drums!” announced Mrs. Harriet to the staring assembly. “That’s what she’s got, poor soul!”
Ejaculations of sympathy and horror made themselves heard.
“Drums! How shocking!” cried Mrs. Bridgeman. “Can you cure even drums, Harriet, my own?”
“Give me ten minutes, Catherine! I ask but that!”
And, so saying, Mrs. Harriet planted her fat hands upon the head of the young patient, closed her eyes and began to breathe very hard.
Silence now fell upon the people, who said not a word, but who could not prevent themselves from rustling as they pressed about this exhibition of a latter-day apostle. The Prophet and Lady Enid were close to the armchair, and the Prophet, who had never before been present at any such ceremony–it was accompanied by the twenty guitars, now tearing out the serenade, “From the bull-ring I come to thee!”–was so interested that he completely forgot Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, and lost for the moment all memory of Sir Tiglath. The silly life engrossed him. He had no eyes for anyone but Mrs. Harriet, who, as she leaned forward in the chair with closed eyes, looked like a determined middle- aged man about to offer up the thin girl on the footstool as a burnt sacrifice.
“You’re better now, poor thing,” said Mrs. Harriet, after five minutes has elapsed. “You’re feeling much better?”
“Oh, no, I’m not!” said the girl, shaking her head under the hands of the demonstrator. “The fire’s blazing and the drums are beating like anything.”
Mrs. Harriet’s hue deepened, and there was a faint murmur of vague reproof from the company.
“H’sh!” said the demonstrator, closing her hands upon the patient’s head with some acrimony. “H’sh!”
And she began to breathe hard once more. Another five minutes elapsed, and then Mrs. Harriet exclaimed with decision,–