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.