Rhoda Fleming. Complete. George Meredith
country’s, young fellow; and mind you don’t soon feed at the table. Let me go.”
Algernon’s hunger was appeased by the prospect of some excitement, and seeing a vicious shake administered to the old man by the young one, he cried, “Hands off!” and undertook policeman’s duty; but as he was not in blue, his authoritative mandate obtained no respect until he had interposed his fist.
When he had done so, he recognized the porter at Boyne’s Bank, whose enemy retired upon the threat that there should be no more pushing past him to get back to seats for the next act.
“I paid,” said Anthony; “and you’re a ticketer, and you ticketers sha’ n’t stop me. I’m worth a thousand of you. Holloa, sir,” he cried to Algernon; “I didn’t know you. I’m much obliged. These chaps get tickets given ‘m, and grow as cocky in a theatre as men who pay. He never had such wine in him as I’ve got. That I’d swear. Ha! ha! I come out for an airing after every act, and there’s a whole pitfall of ticketers yelling and tearing, and I chaff my way through and back clean as a red-hot poker.”
Anthony laughed, and rolled somewhat as he laughed.
“Come along, sir, into the street,” he said, boring on to the pavement. “It’s after office hours. And, ha! ha! what do you think? There’s old farmer in there, afraid to move off his seat, and the girl with him, sticking to him tight, and a good girl too. She thinks we’ve had too much. We been to the Docks, wine-tasting: Port—Sherry: Sherry—Port! and, ha! ha! ‘what a lot of wine!’ says farmer, never thinking how much he’s taking on board. ‘I guessed it was night,’ says farmer, as we got into the air, and to see him go on blinking, and stumbling, and saying to me, ‘You stand wine, brother Tony!’ I’m blest if I ain’t bottled laughter. So, says I, ‘come and see “The Holly Berries,” brother William John; it’s the best play in London, and a suitable winter piece.’ ‘Is there a rascal hanged in the piece?’ says he. ‘Oh, yes!’ I let him fancy there was, and he—ha! ha! old farmer’s sticking to his seat, solemn as a judge, waiting for the gallows to come on the stage.”
A thought quickened Algernon’s spirit. It was a notorious secret among the young gentlemen who assisted in maintaining the prosperity of Boyne’s Bank, that the old porter—the “Old Ant,” as he was called—possessed money, and had no objection to put out small sums for a certain interest. Algernon mentioned casually that he had left his purse at home; and “by the way,” said he, “have you got a few sovereigns in your pocket?”
“What! and come through that crush, sir?” Anthony negatived the question decisively with a reference to his general knowingness.
Algernon pressed him; saying at last, “Well, have you got one?”
“I don’t think I’ve been such a fool,” said Anthony, feeling slowly about his person, and muttering as to the changes that might possibly have been produced in him by the Docks.
“Confound it, I haven’t dined!” exclaimed Algernon, to hasten his proceedings; but at this, Anthony eyed him queerly. “What have you been about then, sir?”
“Don’t you see I’m in evening dress? I had an appointment to dine with a friend. He didn’t keep it. I find I’ve left my purse in my other clothes.”
“That’s a bad habit, sir,” was Anthony’s comment. “You don’t care much for your purse.”
“Much for my purse, be hanged!” interjected Algernon.
“You’d have felt it, or you’d have heard it, if there ‘d been any weight in it,” Anthony remarked.
“How can you hear paper?”
“Oh, paper’s another thing. You keep paper in your mind, don’t you—eh? Forget pound notes? Leave pound notes in a purse? And you Sir William’s nephew, sir, who’d let you bank with him and put down everything in a book, so that you couldn’t forget, or if you did, he’d remember for you; and you might change your clothes as often as not, and no fear of your losing a penny.”
Algernon shrugged disgustedly, and was giving the old man up as a bad business, when Anthony altered his manner. “Oh! well, sir, I don’t mind letting you have what I’ve got. I’m out for fun. Bother affairs!”
The sum of twenty shillings was handed to Algernon, after he had submitted to the indignity of going into a public-house, and writing his I.O.U. for twenty-three to Anthony Hackbut, which included interest. Algernon remonstrated against so needless a formality; but Anthony put the startling supposition to him, that he might die that night. He signed the document, and was soon feeding and drinking his wine. This being accomplished, he took some hasty puffs of tobacco, and returned to the theatre, in the hope that the dark girl Rhoda was to be seen there; for now that he had dined, Anthony’s communication with regard to the farmer and his daughter became his uppermost thought, and a young man’s uppermost thought is usually the propelling engine to his actions.
By good chance, and the aid of a fee, he obtained a front seat, commanding an excellent side-view of the pit, which sat wrapt in contemplation of a Christmas scene snow, ice, bare twigs, a desolate house, and a woman shivering—one of man’s victims.
It is a good public, that of Britain, and will bear anything, so long as villany is punished, of which there was ripe promise in the oracular utterances of a rolling, stout, stage-sailor, whose nose, to say nothing of his frankness on the subject, proclaimed him his own worst enemy, and whose joke, by dint of repetition, had almost become the joke of the audience too; for whenever he appeared, there was agitation in pit and gallery, which subsided only on his jovial thundering of the familiar sentence; whereupon laughter ensued, and a quieting hum of satisfaction.
It was a play that had been favoured with a great run. Critics had once objected to it, that it was made to subsist on scenery, a song, and a stupid piece of cockneyism pretending to be a jest, that was really no more than a form of slapping the public on the back. But the public likes to have its back slapped, and critics, frozen by the Medusa-head of Success, were soon taught manners. The office of critic is now, in fact, virtually extinct; the taste for tickling and slapping is universal and imperative; classic appeals to the intellect, and passions not purely domestic, have grown obsolete. There are captains of the legions, but no critics. The mass is lord.
And behold our friend the sailor of the boards, whose walk is even as two meeting billows, appears upon the lonely moor, and salts that uninhabited region with nautical interjections. Loose are his hose in one part, tight in another, and he smacks them. It is cold; so let that be his excuse for showing the bottom of his bottle to the glittering spheres. He takes perhaps a sturdier pull at the liquor than becomes a manifest instrument of Providence, whose services may be immediately required; but he informs us that his ship was never known not to right itself when called upon.
He is alone in the world, he tells us likewise. If his one friend, the uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy as his friend. This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy, which was applauded, and the remark “Ain’t that Christian?” which was just a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude—none can say exactly, for what reason—and must submit to be occasionally offered up as propitiatory sacrifices.
This good sailor was not always alone in the world. A sweet girl, whom he describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still to be of the same height, once called him brother Jack. To hear that name again from her lips, and a particular song!—he attempts it ludicrously, yet touchingly withal.
Hark! Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?
The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the house.
At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by hearing “Dahlia” called from the pit.
Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of Rhoda. Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries. Her eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was hastily