Before Mr. Waife could reply, the Remorseless Baron stepped up in a spirit worthy of his odious and arbitrary character. What do you do here, sir? I allow no conspirators behind the scenes earwigging my people.
I beg pardon respectfully: I am an artist,a pupil of the Royal Academy; I should like to make a sketch of Miss Juliet Araminta.
Sketch! nonsense.
Sir, said Lionel, with the seasonable extravagance of early youth, my friend would, I am sure, pay for the sittinghandsomely!
Ha! said the manager, softened, you speak like a gentleman, sir: but, sir, Miss Juliet Araminta is under my protection; in fact, she is my property. Call and speak to me about it to-morrow, before the first performance begins, which is twelve oclock. Happy to see any of your friends in the reserved seats. Busy now, andandin shortexcuse meservant, sirservant, sir.
The Barons manner left no room for further parley. Vance bowed, smiled, and retreated. But meanwhile his young friend had seized the opportunity to speak both to Waife and his grandchild; and when Vance took his arm and drew him away, there was a puzzled, musing expression on Lionels face, and he remained silent till they had got through the press of such stragglers as still loitered before the stage, and were in a quiet corner of the sward. Stars and moon were then up,a lovely summer night.
What on earth are you thinking of, Lionel? I have put to you three questions, and you have not answered one.
Vance, answered Lionel, slowly, the oddest thing! I am so disappointed in that little girl,greedy and mercenary!
Precocious villain! how do you know that she is greedy and mercenary?
Listen: when that surly old manager came up to you, I said somethingcivil, of courseto Waife, who answered in a hoarse, broken voice, but in very good language. Well, when I told the manager that you would pay for the sitting, the child caught hold of my arm hastily, pulled me down to her own height, and whispered, How much will he give? Confused by a question so point-blank, I answered at random, I dont know; ten shillings, perhaps. You should have seen her face!
See her face! radiant,I should think so. Too much by half! exclaimed Vance. Ten shillings! Spendthrift! Too much! she looked as you might look if one offered you ten shillings for your picture of Julius Caesar considering whether he should cross the Rubicon. But when the manager had declared her to be his property, and appointed you to call to-morrow,implying that he was to be paid for allowing her to sit,her countenance became overcast, and she muttered sullenly, Ill not sit; Ill not! Then she turned to her grandfather, and something very quick and close was whispered between the two; and she pulled me by the sleeve, and said in my earoh, but so eagerly!I want three pounds, sir,three pounds!if he would give three pounds; and come to our lodgings,Mr. Merle, Willow Lane. Three pounds,three! And with those words hissing in my ear, and coming from that fairy mouth, which ought to drop pearls and diamonds, I left her, added Lionel, as gravely as if he were sixty, and lost an illusion!
Three pounds! cried Vance, raising his eyebrows to the highest arch of astonishment, and lifting his nose in the air towards the majestic moon,three pounds!a fabulous sum! Who has three pounds to throw away? Dukes, with a hundred thousand a year in acres, have not three pounds to draw out of their pockets in that reckless, profligate manner. Three pounds!what could I not buy for three pounds? I could buy the Dramatic Library, bound in calf, for three pounds; I could buy a dress coat for three pounds (silk lining not included); I could be lodged for a month for three pounds! And a jade in tinsel, just entering on her teens, to ask three pounds for what? for becoming immortal on the canvas of Francis Vance?bother!
Here Vance felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned round quickly, as a man out of temper does under similar circumstances, and beheld the sweat face of the Cobbler.
Well, master, did not she act fine?how dye like her?
Not much in her natural character; but she sets a mighty high value on herself.
Anan, I dont take you.
Shell not catch me taking her! Three pounds!three kingdoms! Stay, cried Lionel to the Cobbler; did not you say she lodged with you? Are you Mr. Merle?
Merles my name, and she do lodge with me,Willow Lane.
Come this way, then, a few yards down the road,more quiet. Tell me what the child means, if you can; and Lionel related the offer of his friend, the reply of the manager, and the grasping avarice of Miss Juliet Araminta.
The Cobbler made no answer; and when the young friends, surprised at his silence, turned to look at him, they saw he was wiping his eyes with his sleeves.
Poor little thing! he said at last, and still more pathetically than he had uttered the same words at her appearance in front of the stage; tis all for her grandfather; I guess,I guess.
Oh, cried Lionel, joyfully, I am so glad to think that. It alters the whole case, you see, Vance.
It dont alter the case of the three pounds, grumbled Vance. Whats her grandfather to me, that I should give his grandchild three pounds, when any other child in the village would have leaped out of her skin to have her face upon my sketch-book and five shillings in her pocket? Hang her grandfather!
They were now in the main road. The Cobbler seated himself on a lonely milestone, and looked first at one of the faces before him, then at the other; that of Lionel seemed to attract him the most, and in speaking it was Lionel whom he addressed.
Young master, he said, it is now just four years ago, when Mr. Rugge, coming here, as he and his troop had done at fair-time ever sin I can mind of, brought with him the man you have seen to-night, William Waife; I calls him Gentleman Waife. However that man fell into sick straits, how he came to join sich a caravan, would puzzle most heads. It puzzles Joe Spruce, uncommon; it dont puzzle me.
Why? asked Vance.
Cos of Saturn!
Satan?
Saturn,dead agin his Second and Tenth House, Ill swear. Lord of Ascendant, mayhap; in combustion of the Sun,who knows?
Youre not an astrologer? said Vance, suspiciously, edging off.
Bit of it; no offence.
What does it signify? said Lionel, impatiently; go on. So you called Mr. Waife Gentleman Waife; and if you had not been an astrologer you would have been puzzled to see him in such a calling.
Ay, thats it; for he warnt like any as we ever see on these boards hereabouts; and yet he warnt exactly like a Lunnon actor, as I have seen em in Lunnon, either, but more like a clever fellow who acted for the spree of the thing. He had sich droll jests, and looked so comical, yet not commonlike, but always what I calls a gentleman,just as if one o ye two were doing a bit of sport to please your friends. Well, he drew hugely, and so he did, every time he came, so that the great families in the neighbourhood would go to hear him; and he lodged in my house, and had pleasant ways with him, and was what I call a scollard. But still I dont want to deceive ye, and I should judge him to have been a wild dog in his day. Mercury ill-aspected,not a doubt of it. Last year it so happened that one of the great gents who belong to a Lunnon theatre was here at fair-time. Whether he had heard of Waife chanceways, and come express to judge for hisself, I cant say; like eno. And when he had seen Gentleman Waife act, he sent for him to the innRed Lionand offered him a power o money to go to Lunnon,Common Garden. Well, sir, Waife did not take to it all at once, but hemmed and hawed, and was at last quite coaxed into it, and so he went. But bad luck came on it; and I knew there would, for I saw it all in my crystal.