What Will He Do with It? Part 32

Mrs. Crane made no immediate rejoinder, but fixed on her lawless visitor a gaze in which there was no womanly fear (though Losely's aspect and gesture might have sent a thrill through the nerves of many a hardy man), but which was not without womanly compa.s.sion, her countenance gradually softening more and more, as if under the influence of recollections mournful but not hostile. At length she said in a low voice, "Poor Jasper! Is all the vain ambition that made you so false shrunk into a ferocity that finds you so powerless? Would your existence, after all, have been harder, poorer, meaner, if your faith had been kept to me?"

Evidently disliking that turn in the conversation, but checking a reply which might have been rude had no visions of five pounds, ten pounds, loomed in the distance, Mr. Losely said, "Pshaw! Bella, pshaw! I was a fool, I dare say, and a sad dog, a very sad dog; but I had always the greatest regard for you, and always shall! Hillo, what's that? A knock at the door! Oh, by the by, a queer-looking man, in a white hat, called at the same time I did, to see you on private business, gave way to me, said he should come again; may I ask who he is?"

"I cannot guess; no one ever calls here on business except the tax-gatherer."

The old woman-servant now entered. "A gentleman, ma'am; says his name is Rugge."

"Rugge,--Rugge; let me think."

"I am here, Mrs. Crane," said the manager, striding in. "You don't, perhaps, call me to mind by name; but--oho! not gone, sir! Do I intrude prematurely?"

"No, I have done; good-day, my dear Mrs. Crane."

"Stay, Jasper. I remember you now, Mr. Rugge; take a chair."

She whispered a few words into Losely's ear, then turned to the manager, and said aloud, "I saw you at Mr. Waife's lodging, at the time he had that bad accident."

"And I had the honour to accompany you home, ma'am, and--but shall I speak out before this gentleman?"

"Certainly; you see he is listening to you with attention. This gentleman and I have no secrets from each other. What has become of that person? This gentleman wishes to know."

LOSELY.--"Yes, sir, I wish to know-particularly."

RUGGE.--"So do I; that is partly what I came about. You are aware, I think, ma'am, that I engaged him and Juliet Araminta, that is, Sophy."

LOSELY.--"Sophy? engaged them, sir,--how?"

RUGGE.--"Theatrical line, sir,--Rugge's Exhibition; he was a great actor once, that fellow Waife."

LOSELY.--"Oh, actor! well, sir, go on."

RUGGE (who in the course of his address turns from the lady to the gentleman, from the gentleman to the lady, with appropriate gesture and appealing look).--"But he became a wreck, a block of a man; lost an eye and his voice too. How ever, to serve him, I took his grandchild and him too. He left me--shamefully, and ran off with his grandchild, sir.

Now, ma'am, to be plain with you, that little girl I looked upon as my property,--a very valuable property. She is worth a great deal to me, and I have been done out of her. If you can help me to get her back, articled and engaged say for three years, I am willing and happy, ma'am, to pay something handsome,--uncommon handsome."

MRS. CRANE (loftily).--"Speak to that gentleman; he may treat with you."

LOSELY.--"What do you call uncommon handsome, Mr.--Mr. Tugge?"

RUGGE.--"Rugge! Sir; we sha'n't disagree, I hope, provided you have the power to get Waife to bind the girl to me."

LOSELY.--"I may have the power to transfer the young lady to your care--young lady is a more respectful phrase than girl--and possibly to dispense with Mr. Waife's consent to such arrangement. But excuse me if I say that I must know a little more of yourself, before I could promise to exert such a power on your behalf."

RUGGE.--"Sir, I shall be proud to improve our acquaintance. As to Waife, the old vagabond, he has injured and affronted me, sir. I don't bear malice, but I have a spirit: Britons have a spirit, sir. And you will remember, ma'am, that when I accompanied you home, I observed that Mr.

Waife was a mysterious man, and had apparently known better days, and that when a man is mysterious, and falls into the sear and yellow leaf, ma'am, without that which should accompany old age, sir, one has a right to suspect that some time or other, he has done something or other, ma'am, which makes him fear lest the very stones prate of his whereabout, sir. And you did not deny, ma'am, that the mystery was suspicious; but you said, with uncommon good sense, that it was nothing to me what Mr. Waife had once been, so long as he was of use to me at that particular season. Since then, sir, he has ceased to be of use,--ceased, too, in the unhandsomest manner. And if you would, ma'am, from a sense of justice, just unravel the mystery, put me in possession of the secret, it might make that base man of use to me again, give me a handle over him, sir, so that I might awe him into restoring my property, as, morally speaking, Juliet Araminta most undoubtedly is.

That's why I call,--leaving my company, to which I am a father, orphans for the present. But I have missed that little girl,--that young lady, sir. I called her a phenomenon, ma'am; missed her much: it is natural, sir, I appeal to you. No man can be done out of a valuable property and not feel it, if he has a heart in his bosom. And if I had her back safe, I should indulge ambition. I have always had ambition. The theatre at York, sir,--that is my ambition; I had it from a child, sir; dreamed of it three tunes, ma'am. If I had back my property in that phenomenon, I would go at the thing, slap-bang, take the York, and bring out the phenomenon with A CLAW!"

LOSELY (musingly).--"You say the young lady is a phenomenon, and for this phenomenon you are willing to pay something handsome,--a vague expression. Put it into L. s. d."

RUGGE.--"Sir, if she can be bound to me legally for three years, I would give L100. I did offer to Waife L50,--to you, sir, L100."

Losely's eyes flashed, and his hands opened restlessly. "But, confound it, where is she? Have you no clew?"

RUGGE.--"No, but we can easily find one; it was not worth my while to hunt them up before I was quite sure that, if I regained my property in that phenomenon, the law would protect it."

MRS. CRANE (moving to the door).--"Well, Jasper Losely, you will sell the young lady, I doubt not; and when you have sold her, let me know."

She came back and whispered, "You will not perhaps now want money from me, but I shall see you again; for, if you would find the child, you will need my aid."

"Certainly, my dear friend, I will call again; honour bright."

Mrs. Crane here bowed to the gentlemen, and swept out of the room.

Thus left alone, Losely and Rugge looked at each other with a shy and yet cunning gaze,--Rugge's hands in his trouser's pockets, his head thrown back; Losely's hands in voluntarily expanded, his head bewitchingly bent forward, and a little on one side.

"Sir," said Rugge, at length, "what do you say to a chop and a pint of wine? Perhaps we could talk more at our ease elsewhere. I am only in town for a day; left my company thirty miles off,--orphans, as I said before."

"Mr. Rugge," said Losely, "I have no desire to stay in London, or indeed in England; and the sooner we can settle this matter the better. Grant that we find the young lady, you provide for her board and lodging; teach her your honourable profession; behave, of course, kindly to her."

"Like a father."

"And give to me the sum of L100?"

"That is, if you can legally make her over to me. But, sir, may I inquire by what authority you would act in this matter?"

"On that head it will be easy to satisfy you; meanwhile I accept your proposal of an early dinner. Let us adjourn; is it to your house?"

"I have no exact private house in London; but I know a public one,--commodious."

"Be it so. After you, sir."

As they descended the stairs, the old woman-servant stood at the street door. Rugge went out first; the woman detained Losely. "Do you find her altered?"

"Whom? Mrs. Crane?--why, years will tell. But you seem to have known me; I don't remember you."

"Not Bridget Greggs?"

"Is it possible? I left you a middle-aged, rosy-faced woman. True, I recognize you now. There's a crown for you. I wish I had more to spare!"

Bridget pushed back the silver.

"No; I dare not! Take money from you, Jasper Losely! Mistress would not forgive me!"

Losely, not unreluctantly, restored the crown to his pocket; and, with a snort rather than sigh of relief, stepped into open daylight. As he crossed the street to join Rugge, who was waiting for him on the shady side, he mechanically turned to look back at the house, and, at the open window of an upper story, he beheld again those s.h.i.+ning eyes which had glared down on him from the stairs. He tried to smile, and waved his hand feebly. The eyes seemed to return the smile; and as he walked down the street, arm-in-arm with the ruffian manager, slowly recovering his springy step, and in the gloss of the new garments that set forth his still symmetrical proportions, the eyes followed him watchfully, steadfastly, till his form had vanished, and the dull street was once more a solitude.

Then Arabella Crane turned from the window. Putting her hand to her heart, "How it beats!" she muttered; "if in love or in hate, in scorn or in pity, beats once more with a human emotion. He will come again; whether for money or for woman's wit, what care I?--he will come. I will hold, I will cling to him, no more to part; for better for worse, as it should have been once at the altar. And the child?" she paused; was it in compunction? "The child!" she continued fiercely, and as if las.h.i.+ng herself into rage, "the child of that treacherous, hateful mother,--yes!

I will help him to sell her back as a stage-show,--help him in all that does not lift her to a state from which she may look down with disdain on me. Revenge on her, on that cruel house: revenge is sweet. Oh! that it were revenge alone that bids me cling to him who deserves revenge the most." She closed her burning eyes, and sat down droopingly, rocking herself to and fro like one in pain.