Her Season in Bath Part 12

"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 pa.s.sed 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 pa.s.sed 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 m.u.f.fled 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 att.i.tudes, 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 sc.u.m 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.

CHAPTER IX.

WATCHED!

Scenes of poverty and sickness are familiar now to many a good and fair woman, of whom it may be said in the words of the poet Lowell, that

"Stairs, to sin and sorrow known, Sing to the welcome of her feet."

But few indeed were the high-born ladies a hundred and twenty years ago who ever penetrated the dark places where their suffering brothers and sisters lived and died in penury and want.

Cla.s.s distinction was then rigid, and the sun of womanly tenderness and compa.s.sion had not as yet risen on the horizon with healing on its wings.

Thus the two wretched attics, furnished with the barest necessities of life--to which she ascended by dark, narrow stairs--was indeed a new world to Griselda Mainwaring.

She shrank back when the door of the room was opened, and turned away her head from the pitiful sight before her. The sick man was propped up on his miserable bed, the child kneeling by him listening to, and trying to soothe, his incoherent mutterings.

Leslie Travers went in first and touched the child's shoulder.

"I have brought the lady to see you, and to ask what she can do for you."

Instead of answering, Norah held up her hand as if to beg Leslie to be silent, and continued to stroke her father's long thin hands with one of hers, while with the other she pressed the rag of vinegar and water on his burning brow.

Presently the muttering ceased, and the breathing became more regular, and then Norah rose, and said in a low voice:

"Nothing stops his wild talk till I kneel by him and hold his hand, and stroke his forehead; that is why I could not speak, sir." Then the child went up to the threshold of the door where Griselda still stood, and said: "I thought you would come--I felt sure, lady, you would come; but do not be afraid, he is asleep now, and may sleep for an hour."

Griselda felt ashamed of the disgust she could not conceal at what she saw. But the true womanly instinct a.s.serted itself, and pointing to an open door leading into another garret, she said:

"May I go in there?"

"Yes, it is my room; it is where I put the clothes when I have mended them. The queen's gauze veil got torn, and I can mend gauze better than anyone, so Mrs. Betts gave it to me. Mrs. Betts is kind to me." Then seeing Griselda's puzzled look at the heterogeneous ma.s.s of finery heaped up on a table supported against the wall, as it was minus one leg, the child explained: "I mend the actresses' dresses. Mrs. Betts is the wardrobe keeper at the theatre, and she has had pity on me, or--or I think we should have starved."

"Well," Griselda said, "I have brought you money to buy food, and surely you want a fire; and where is your bed?"

The child pointed to a mattress in the corner under the sloping angle of the roof, and said:

"I sleep there most nights, but now he is so bad I watch by him."

Griselda opened her sachet and took from it a crimson silk purse.

"Here are two guineas," she said; "get all you want."

Norah clasped her hands in an ecstasy.