What Will He Do with It? Part 7

GENTLEMAN WAIFE (mournfully).--"The last four years of it have been spent in your service, Mr. Rugge. If their record had been blabbed out for my benefit, there would not have been a dry eye in the house."

RUGGE. "I disdain your sneer. When a scorpion nursed at my bosom sneers at me, I leave it to its own reflections. But I don't speak of the years in which that scorpion has been enjoying a salary and smoking canaster at my expense. I refer to an earlier dodge in its checkered existence.

Ha, sir, you wince! I suspect I can find out something about you which would--"

WAIFE (fiercely).--"Would what?"

RUGGE.--"Oh, lower your tone, sir; no bullying me. I suspect! I have good reason for suspicion; and if you sneak off in this way, and cheat me out of my property in Juliet Araminta, I will leave no stone unturned to prove what I suspect: look to it, slight man! Come, I don't wish to quarrel; make it up, and" (drawing out his pocket-book) "if you want cash down, and will have an engagement in black and white for three years for Juliet Araminta, you may squeeze a good sum out of me, and go yourself where you please: you'll never be troubled by me. What I want is the girl."

All the actor laid aside, Waife growled out, "And hang me; sir, if you shall have the girl!"

At this moment Sophy opened the door wide, and entered boldly. She had heard her grandfather's voice raised, though its hoa.r.s.e tones did not allow her to distinguish his words. She was alarmed for him. She came in, his guardian fairy, to protect him from the oppressor of six feet high. Rugge's arm was raised, not indeed to strike, but rather to declaim. Sophy slid between him and her grandfather, and, clinging round the latter, flung out her own arm, the forefinger raised menacingly towards the Remorseless Baron. How you would have clapped if you had seen her so at Covent Garden! But I'll swear the child did not know she was acting. Rugge did, and was struck with admiration and regretful rage at the idea of losing her.

"Bravo!" said he, involuntarily. "Come, come, Waife, look at her: she was born for the stage. My heart swells with pride. She is my property, morally speaking; make her so legally; and hark, in your ear, fifty pounds. Take me in the humour,--Golconda opens,--fifty pounds!"

"No," said the vagrant.

"Well," said Rugge, sullenly; "let her speak for herself."

"Speak, child. You don't wish to return to Mr. Rugge,--and without me, too,--do you, Sophy?"

"Without you, Grandy! I'd rather die first."

"You hear her; all is settled between us. You have had our services up to last night; you have paid us up to last night; and so good morning to you, Mr. Rugge."

"My dear child," said the manager, softening his voice as much as he could, "do consider. You shall be so made of without that stupid old man. You think me cross, but 't is he who irritates and puts me out of temper. I 'm uncommon fond of children. I had a babe of my own once,--upon my honour, I had,--and if it had not been for convulsions, caused by teething, I should be a father still. Supply to me the place of that beloved babe. You shall have such fine dresses; all new,--choose 'em yourself,--minced veal and raspberry tarts for dinner every Sunday.

In three years, under my care, you will become a great actress, and make your fortune, and marry a lord,--lords go out of their wits for great actresses,--whereas, with him, what will you do? drudge and rot and starve; and he can't live long, and then where will you be? 'T is a shame to hold her so, you idle old vagabond."

"I don't hold her," said Waife, trying to push her away. "There's something in what the man says. Choose for yourself, Sophy."

SOPHY (suppressing a sob).--"How can you have the heart to talk so, Grandy? I tell you, Mr. Rugge, you are a bad man, and I hate you, and all about you; and I'll stay with Grandfather; and I don't care if I do starve: he sha'n't!"

MR. RUGGE (clapping both hands on the crown of his hat, and striding to the door).--"William Waife, beware 't is done. I'm your enemy. As for you, too dear but abandoned infant, stay with him: you'll find out very soon who and what he is; your pride will have a fall, when--"

Waife sprang forward, despite his lameness,--both his fists clenched, his one eye ablaze; his broad burly torso confronted and daunted the stormy manager. Taller and younger though Rugge was, he cowered before the cripple he had so long taunted and humbled. The words stood arrested on his tongue. "Leave the room instantly!" thundered the actor, in a voice no longer broken. "Blacken my name before that child by one word, and I will dash the next down your throat." Rugge rushed to the door, and keeping it ajar between Waife and himself, he then thrust in his head, hissing forth,

"Fly, caitiff, fly! my revenge shall track your secret and place you in my power. Juliet Araminta shall yet be mine." With these awful words the Remorseless Baron cleared the stairs in two bounds, and was out of the house.

Waife smiled contemptuously. But as the street-door clanged on the form of the angry manager, the colour faded from the old man's face.

Exhausted by the excitement he had gone through, he sank on a chair, and, with one quick gasp as for breath, fainted away.

CHAPTER XI.

Progress of the Fine Arts.--Biographical anecdotes.--Fluctuations in the value of money.--Speculative tendencies of the time.

Whatever the shock which the brutality of the Remorseless Baron inflicted on the nervous system of the persecuted but triumphant Bandit, it had certainly subsided by the time Vance and Lionel entered Waife's apartment; for they found grandfather and grandchild seated near the open window, at the corner of the table (on which they had made room for their operations by the removal of the carved cocoanut, the crystal egg, and the two flower-pots), eagerly engaged, with many a silvery laugh from the lips of Sophy, in the game of dominos.

Mr. Waife had been devoting himself, for the last hour and more, to the instruction of Sophy in the mysteries of that intellectual amus.e.m.e.nt; and such pains did he take, and so impressive were his exhortations, that his happy pupil could not help thinking to herself that this was the new art upon which Waife depended for their future livelihood. She sprang up, however, at the entrance of the visitors, her face beaming with grateful smiles; and, running to Lionel and taking him by the hand, while she courtesied with more respect to Vance, she exclaimed, "We are free! thanks to you, thanks to you both! He is gone! Mr. Rugge is gone!"

"So I saw on pa.s.sing the green; stage and all," said Vance, while Lionel kissed the child and pressed her to his side. It is astonishing how paternal he felt,--how much she had crept into his heart.

"Pray, sir," asked Sophy, timidly, glancing to Vance, "has the Norfolk Giant gone too?"

VANCE.--"I fancy so--all the shows were either gone or going."

SOPHY.--"The Calf with Two Heads?"

VANCE.--"Do you regret it?"

SOPHY.--"Oh, dear, no."

Waife, who after a profound bow, and a cheery "Good day, gentlemen,"

had hitherto remained silent, putting away the dominoes, now said, "I suppose, sir, you would like at once to begin your sketch?"

VANCE.--"Yes; I have brought all my tools; see, even the canvas. I wish it were larger, but it is all I have with me of that material: 't is already stretched; just let me arrange the light."

WAIFE.--"If you don't want me, gentlemen, I will take the air for half-an-hour or so. In fact, I may now feel free to look after my investment."

SOPHY (whispering Lionel).--"You are sure the Calf has gone as well as the Norfolk Giant?"

Lionel wonderingly replied that he thought so; and Waife disappeared into his room, whence he soon emerged, having doffed his dressing-gown for a black coat, by no means threadbare, and well brushed. Hat, stick, and gloves in hand, he really seemed respectable,--more than respectable,--Gentleman Waife every inch of him; and saying, "Look your best, Sophy, and sit still, if you can," nodded pleasantly to the three, and hobbled down the stairs. Sophy--whom Vance had just settled into a chair, with her head bent partially down (three-quarters), as the artist had released

"The loose train of her amber-dropping hair,"

and was contemplating aspect and position with a painter's meditative eye-started up, to his great discomposure, and rushed to the window. She returned to her seat with her mind much relieved. Waife was walking in an opposite direction to that which led towards the whilolm quarters of the Norfolk Giant and the Two-headed Calf.

"Come, come," said Vance, impatiently, "you have broken an idea in half.

I beg you will not stir till I have placed you; and then, if all else of you be still, you may exercise your tongue. I give you leave to talk."

SOPHY (penitentially).--"I am so sorry--I beg pardon. Will that do, sir?"

VANCE.--"Head a little more to the right,--so, t.i.tania watching Bottom asleep. Will you lie on the floor, Lionel, and do Bottom?"

LIONEL (indignantly).--"Bottom! Have I an a.s.s's head?"

VANCE.--"Immaterial! I can easily imagine that you have one. I want merely an outline of figure,--something sprawling and ungainly."

LIONEL (sulkily).--"Much obliged to you; imagine that too."

VANCE.--"Don't be so disobliging. It is necessary that she should look fondly at something,--expression in the eye." Lionel at once reclined himself inc.u.mbent in a position as little sprawling and ungainly as he could well contrive.

VANCE.--"Fancy, Miss Sophy, that this young gentleman is very dear to you. Have you got a brother?"

SOPHY.--"Ah, no, sir."

VANCE.--"Hum. But you have, or have had, a doll?"