ON THE TRACK.
Griselda had been much surprised at the applause which followed the
reading of her verses. They were called for a second time, and elicited
great praise.
"They are vastly pretty, and full of feeling!" exclaimed Lady Betty the
next morning. "I declare, Griselda, you are without an atom of
sentiment; you sat listening to them with a face like a marble statue.
It is well for you that you are not a victim to sentiment as I am. I vow
I could weep at the notion of the sorrowful soul who wrote those
impassioned couplets which were read before the five stanzas, so much
admired. Ah!" Lady Betty continued, with a yawn--for it was her
yawning-time between her first and second visit to the Pump Room--"ah!
it is well for some folks that they are callous. I am all impatience to
get a copy of those rhymes for Lord Basingstoke; and--_entre nous, ma
chere, entre nous_--when do you propose to accept Sir Maxwell Danby's
suit? He formally asked my permission to address you. It would be a good
match, and----"
"I have not the slightest intention, Aunt Betty, of listening to Sir
Maxwell Danby's proposal."
Griselda always gave Lady Betty that title when angry.
"Oh! how high and mighty we are! But I would have you to know, miss, I
cannot afford to keep you for ever. I am now embarrassed, and a dun has
been here this very morning; so I advise you not to overlook Sir Maxwell
Danby's offer."
"If there were not another man in the world I would not marry Sir
Maxwell," Griselda said, rising. "I will consider other matters, and
tell you of my decision."
"You silly child! Where are you going, pray?"
"To my own chamber."
"You must be powdered for the ball to-night. I promised Sir Maxwell he
should have his opportunity at my Lady Westover's dance. Perkyns is
coming at four o'clock. You must be powdered. It is not the mode to
appear in full toilette, with your hair as it was dressed last night.
That gold band may suit some faces, but not yours. Do you hear, miss?"
"I hear," Griselda said; "and I repeat I do _not_ go with your ladyship
to Lady Westover's ball."
"The minx!--the impudent little baggage! You shall repent your saucy
words. But you'll come round, see if you don't, if you hear that
pale-faced fellow Travers is to be of the company. Yes; go and ask his
old mother about it--go!"
Griselda shut the door with a sharp bang, which made Lady Betty call
loudly for her salts, and brought Graves from the inner room.
"Such impudence! I won't stand it--the little baggage! She _shall_
marry Sir Maxwell Danby, or I wash my hands of her."
Graves calmly held the salts to her mistress's nose: they were strong,
and Lady Betty called out:
"Not too near! Oh! oh! I am not faint;" and immediately went off into
hysterical crying, which, for obvious reasons, was tearless.
Meanwhile, Griselda had gone to her room; and, putting on a long black
pelisse and a wide hat with a drooping feather, set well over her eyes,
she left the house, carrying in a large satchel, which was fastened to
her side, the box containing the jewels she wanted to sell.
At first she thought she would go to consult Mrs. Travers in her
difficulty. She was determined to run no risk of meeting Sir Maxwell
Danby; and if Lady Betty persisted in backing up his suit, she would
leave her; but where, where should she go?
An open door in King Street attracted her, and she saw Mr. and Miss
Herschel passing in, each carrying some favourite and precious musical
instrument. They were in all the bustle of removal, doing this, as they
did everything else, with resolute determination to be as earnest as
possible in accomplishing their purpose.
Miss Herschel, in her short black gown and work-a-day apron with wide
pockets and her close black hood, did not see, or if she saw did not
recognise, Griselda. She was giving directions to her servant, enforced
with many strong expressions; and as she went backwards and forwards
from the door to a cart lined with straw, she was wholly unconscious of
anyone standing by.
Griselda could not help watching, with interest and admiration, the
swift firm steps of this able and practical woman, as she went about her
business, intent only on clearing the house in Rivers Street, and
filling the house in King Street, as quickly as possible.
"She is too busy to speak to me now," Griselda thought.
Mr. Herschel now came hurriedly out, exclaiming:
"The two brass screws, Lina, for the seven-foot mirror! They are
missing!" and then he disappeared in the direction of the house they
were leaving.
Fortunately it was a bright winter noon, and everything favoured the
flitting, which was accomplished in a very short time. But we who have
in these days any experience of removals--and happy those who have not
that experience--know how patience and temper are apt to fail, as the
hopeless chaos of the new house is only a degree less hopeless than that
of the old house we are leaving. We have vans, and packers, and helpers
at command, unknown in the days of Mr. and Miss Herschel; for at the
close of the last century few, indeed, were the removals from house to
house. As a rule, people gathered round them their "household gods," and
handed them down to their children in the house where they had been born
and brought up. Removal from one part of England to another was not to
be thought of at that time, when roads were bad and conveyances rare,
and a distance of twenty miles more difficult to accomplish than that of
two or three hundred in our own time. Mr. Herschel's reason for taking
the house in King Street was that the garden behind it afforded room for
the great experiment then always looming before him--the casting of the
great mirror for the thirty-foot reflector.
Griselda passed on without even getting a smile of recognition from Miss
Herschel, so thoroughly engrossed was she with the business in hand; and
a sense of loneliness came over her, as she said to herself:
"How could I expect Miss Herschel to recognise me, especially in this
thick pelisse and hat? I must not expect my concerns to be of importance
to her or to anyone."
And as this thought passed through her mind, she became conscious that
to someone, at least, her concerns were of importance; for Leslie
Travers had seen her from the window of his mother's house, and had
thrown his cloak over his shoulders without delay, and, with his hat
looped up at one side in his hand, advanced, saying:
"This is a happy chance! I am anxious to see you; and, if you will, I
would fain tell you more of a visit I paid to the poor people in Crown
Alley. It is a pitiable case!"
"And I want to see them," Griselda said, "and to help the child with the
angelic face. I have in my bag the trinkets I spoke of. Will you take me
at once to a shop in the Abbey Churchyard, and inquire for me the price
they will fetch? I want also," she said hurriedly, "to consult you, or
rather your mother, as to what I should do. I cannot--I cannot live any
longer with Lady Betty, unless she promises to protect me from the man I
detest!"
Leslie Travers's face kindled with delight.
"Come at once to my mother, at No. 14 in this street. She will be proud
to receive you," he said eagerly.
"I must not act hastily," Griselda said. "I left Lady Betty in anger
this morning; but I have reason to be angry."
"You have indeed, if you are forced into the company of a man like Sir
Maxwell Danby. From him I would fain protect you. But," he said,
checking himself, "I am at your service now about the trinkets, or shall
we pay a visit to the poor folks first? It is, I warn you, a sad
spectacle--can you bear it? I have questioned Mr. Palmer of the theatre,
and he says the man (Lamartine) is a man of genius, but a reprobate. He
has for some time made his living on the stage, and when not in drink is
a wonderful actor. But he is subject to desperate fits of drunkenness,
and on his arrival here from Bristol he broke out in one, and falling
down the stairs at the theatre after the second rehearsal, injured
himself so terribly that he cannot live."
"And the child!--the sweet, innocent child?" Griselda asked.
"The child is the daughter of a young girl employed about the theatre,
whom Lamartine married some years ago. She died of burns from her dress
catching fire at the Bristol Theatre, where she was acting and getting a
fair living. That is the story. The man is by no means a deserving
character. Shall we visit him to-day?"
"Yes," Griselda said; "I wish to see the child."
It was now near the hour when it was fashionable to resort to the baths
for the second time before the dinner hour, which was generally at two
o'clock; and as Griselda and Mr. Travers passed the Pump Room they met
several acquaintances.
It was no uncommon thing for the beaux to conduct the ladies to the
baths, drink the water with them, and lounge away an hour or two while
the band played; and, one by one, those who had been bathing came, well
muffled in wraps, to the chairs waiting to convey them to their
apartments.
But eyes, which were by no means kindly eyes, were upon Griselda, and as
Sir Maxwell Danby stood at the entrance of the Pump Room he made a low
bow, to which Griselda responded with a stately inclination of her head.
"Whither away, my fair lady, with that puppy?" thought he. "Ha! I will
be on your scent, and maybe find out something. A silversmith's shop!
Ah! to buy the ring, forsooth! Ah! ha!"
"What amuses you, Danby?" asked a man of the same type as Sir Maxwell.
"Let me have the benefit of the joke, for I am bored to death dancing
attendance on my wife and girls."
"Come down with me, and I will show you the finest girl in Bath and the
biggest puppy. They have disappeared within that shop. We may follow."
"What are you turned spy for?" asked his companion.
"Who said I had turned spy?" asked Sir Maxwell angrily. "Please
yourself!" and he went down the street, and turned into the jeweller's
shop as if by accident just as Griselda had laid her trinkets on the
counter and the master of the shop was examining them.
Sir Maxwell retired to the further end of the shop and asked to see some
snuff-boxes, where he was presently joined by his friend. Sir Maxwell
threw himself into one of his easy attitudes, and, while pretending to
listen to the shopman, who had displayed a variety of little pocket
snuff-boxes in dainty leather cases, he was taking in the fact that
Griselda was selling her necklace and gold ornaments.
As soon as the transaction was over, Sir Maxwell made a sign to his
companion, and, leaving all the snuff-boxes, he loftily waved away the
master of the shop, who was advancing to inquire which he would prefer,
and left in time to see which way Griselda went.
"To Crown Alley--a low place! By Jove! this is a queer notion. And with
that jackanapes, too, who sets up for being so pious! We won't follow
them further," he said, taking out an elaborately-chased snuff-box and
offering it to his friend. "We won't follow them--this is enough."
"You are that fair lady's devoted slave, so report says. What are you
about, Danby, to let another get before you? It is not like you!"
"No, it is _not_ like me; you are right, sir. But I am not beaten out
of the field yet. Crown Alley, forsooth! haunted by the scum of the
theatre! Ah! ha! We must unearth this rat from its hole, and I am the
man to do it!"
"You are well fitted for the business, I must say," was the rejoinder,
with a laugh.