Sandra Belloni by George Meredith, v3

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"He can afford to--comes of a family," said Mr. Pole, and struck up a bit
of "Celia's Arbour," which wandered into "The Soldier Tired," as he came
bendingly, both sets of fingers filliping, toward Emilia, with one of
those ancient glee--suspensions, "Taia--haia--haia--haia," etc., which
were meant for jolly fellows who could bear anything.

"Eh?" went Mr. Pole, to elicit approbation in return.

Emilia smoothed the wrinkles of her face, and smiled.

"There's nothing like Port," said Mr. Pole. "Get little Runningbrook to
write a song: "There's nothing like Port." You put the music. I'll sing
it."

"You will," cried Emilia.

"Yes, upon my honour! now my feet are warmer, I by Jingo! what's that?"
and again he wore that strange calculating look, as if he were being
internally sounded, and guessed at his probable depth. "What a twitch!
Something wrong with my stomach. But a fellow must be all right when his
spirits are up. We'll be off as quick as we can. Taia--haihaia--hum.
If the farce is bad, it's my last night of theatre-going."

The delight at being in a theatre kept Emilia dumb when she gazed on the
glittering lights. After an inspection of the house, Mr. Pole kindly
remarked: "You must marry and get out of this. This'd never do. All
very well in the boxes: but on the stage--oh, no! I shouldn't like you
to be there. If my girls don't approve of the doctor, they shall look
out somebody for you. I shouldn't like you to be painted, and rigged
out; and have to squall in this sort of place. Stage won't do for you.
No, no!"

Emilia replied that she had given up the stage; and looked mournfully at
the drop-scene, as at a lost kingdom, scarcely repressing her tears.

The orchestra tuned and played a light overture. She followed up the
windings of the drop-scene valley, meeting her lover somewhere beneath
the castle-ruin, where the river narrowed and the trees intertwined. On
from dream to dream the music carried her, and dull fell the first words
of the farce. Mr. Pole said, "Now, then!" and began to chuckle. As the
farce proceeded, he grew more serious, repeating to Emilia, quite
anxiously: "I wonder whether that boy Braintop's enjoying it." Emilia
glanced among the sea of heads, and finally eliminated the head of
Braintop, who was respectfully devoting his gaze to the box she occupied.
When Mr. Pole had been assisted to discover him likewise, his attention
alternated between Braintop and the stage, and he expressed annoyance
from time to time at the extreme composure of Braintop's countenance.
"Why don't the fellow laugh? Does he think he's listening to a sermon?"
Poor Braintop, on his part, sat in mortal fear lest his admiration of
Emilia was perceived. Divided? between this alarming suspicion, and a
doubt that the hair on his forehead was not properly regulated, he became
uneasy and fitful in his deportment. His imagination plagued him with a
sense of guilt, which his master's watchfulness of him increased.
He took an opportunity to furtively to eye himself in a pocket-mirror,
and was subsequently haunted by an additional dread that Emilia might
have discovered the instrument; and set him down as a vain foolish dog.
When he saw her laugh he was sure of it. Instead of responding to
Mr. Pole's encouragement, he assumed a taciturn aspect worthy of a
youthful anchorite, and continued to be the spectator of a scene to
which his soul was dead.

"I believe that fellow's thinking of nothing but his supper," said Mr.
Pole.

"I dare say he dined early in the day," returned Emilia, remembering how
hungry she used to be in the evenings of the potatoe-days.

"Yes, but he might laugh, all the same." And Mr. Pole gave Emilia the
sound advice: "Mind you never marry a fellow who can't laugh."

Braintop saw Emilia smile. Then, in an instant, her face changed its
expression to one of wonder and alarm, and her hands clasped together
tightly. What on earth was the matter with her? His agitated fancy,
centred in himself, now decided that some manifestation of most shocking
absurdity had settled on his forehead, or his hair, for he was certain of
his neck-tie. Braintop had recourse to his pocket-mirror once more. It
afforded him a rapid interchange of glances with a face which he at all
events could distinguish from the mass, though we need not.

The youth was in the act of conveying the instrument to its retreat, when
conscience sent his eyes toward Emilia, who, to his horror, beckoned to
him, and touched Mr. Pole, entreating him to do the same. Mr. Pole
gesticulated imperiously, whereat Braintop rose, and requested his
neighbour to keep his seat for ten minutes, as he was going into that
particular box; and "If I don't come back in ten minutes, I shall stop
there," said Braintop, a little grandly, through the confusion of his
ideas, as he guessed at the possible reasons for the summons.

Emilia had seen her father in the orchestra. There he sat, under the
leader, sullenly fiddling the prelude to the second play, like a man
ashamed, and one of the beaten in this world. Flight had been her first
thought. She had cause to dread him. The more she lived and the dawning
knowledge of what it is to be a woman in the world grew with her, the
more she shrank from his guidance, and from reliance on him. Not that
she conceived him designedly base; but he outraged her now conscious
delicacy, and what she had to endure as a girl seemed unbearable to her
now. Besides, she felt a secret shuddering at nameless things, which
made her sick of the thought of returning to him and his Jew friends.
But, alas! he looked so miserable--a child of harmony among the sons of
discord! He kept his head down, fiddling like a machine. The old
potatoe-days became pathetically edged with dead light to Emilia. She
could not be cruel. "When I am safe," she laid stress on the word in her
mind, to awaken blessed images, "I will see him often, and make him
happy; but I will let him know that all is well with me now, and that I
love him always."

So she said to Mr. Pole, "I know one of those in the orchestra. May I
write a word to him on a piece of paper before we go? I wish to."

Mr. Pole reflected, and seeing her earnest in her desire to do this,
replied: "Well, yes; if you must--the girls are not here."

Emilia borrowed his pencil-case, and wrote:--

"Sandra is well, and always loves her caro papa, and is improving, and
will see him soon. Her heart is full of love for him and for her mama;
and if they leave their lodgings they are to leave word where they go.
Sandra never forgets Italy, and reads the papers. She has a copy of the
score of an unknown opera by our Andronizetti, and studies it, and
anatomy, English, French, and pure Italian, and can ride a horse. She
has made rich friends, who love her. It will not be long, and you will
see her."

The hasty scrawl concluded with numerous little caressing exclamations in
Italian diminutives. This done, Emilia thought: "But he will look up and
see me!" She resolved not to send it till they were about to quit the
theatre. Consequently, Braintop, on his arrival, was told to sit down.
"You don't look cheerful in the pit," said Mr. Pole. "You're above it?--
eh? You're all alike in that. None of you do what your dads did. Up-
up-up? You may get too high, eh?--Gallery?" and Mr. Pole winked
knowingly and laughed.

Braintop, thus elevated, tried his best to talk to Emilia, who sat half
fascinated with the fear of seeing her father lift his eyes and recognize
her suddenly. She sat boldly in the front, as before; not being a young
woman to hide her head where there was danger, and having perhaps a
certain amount of the fatalism which is often youth's philosophy in the
affairs of life. "If this is to be, can I avert it?"

Mr. Pole began to nod at the actors, heavily. He said to Emilia, "If
there is any fun going on, give me a nudge." Emilia kept her eyes on her
father in the orchestra, full of pity for his deplorable wig, in which
she read his later domestic history, and sad tales of the family dinners.

"Do you see one of those"--she pointed him out to Braintop; "he is next
to the leader, with his back to us. Are you sure? I want you to give
him this note before he goes; when we go. Will you do it? I shall
always be thankful to you."

Considering what Braintop was ready to do that he might be remembered for
a day and no more, the request was so very moderate as to be painful to
him.

"You will leave him when you have given it into his hand. You are not to
answer any questions," said Emilia.

With a reassuring glance at the musician's wig, Braintop bent his head.

"Do see," she pursued, "how differently he bows from the other men,
though it is only dance music. Oh, how his ears are torn by that
violoncello! He wants to shriek:--he bears it!"

She threw a piteous glance across the agitated instruments, and Braintop
was led to inquire: "Is he anything particular?"

"He can bring out notes that are more like honey--if you can fancy a
thread of honey drawn through your heart as if it would never end! He is
Italian."

Braintop modestly surveyed her hair and brows and cheeks, and taking the
print of her eyes on his brain to dream over, smelt at a relationship
with the wry black wig, which cast a halo about it.

The musicians laid down their instruments, and trooped out, one by one.
Emilia perceived a man brush against her father's elbow. Her father
flicked at his offended elbow with the opposite hand, and sat crumpled up
till all had passed him: then went out alone. That little action of
disgust showed her that he had not lost spirit, albeit condemned to serve
amongst an inferior race, promoters of discord.

Just as the third play was opening, some commotion was seen in the pit,
rising from near Braintop's vacated seat; and presently a thing that
shone flashing to the lights, came on from hand to hand, each hand
signalling subsequently toward Mr. Pole's box. It approached.
Braintop's eyes were in waiting on Emilia, who looked sadly at the empty
orchestra. A gentleman in the stalls, a head beneath her, bowed, and
holding up a singular article, gravely said that he had been requested to
pass it. She touched Mr. Pole's shoulder. "Eh? anything funny?" said
he, and glanced around. He was in time to see Braintop lean hurriedly
over the box, and snatch his pocket-mirror from the gentleman's hand.
"Ha! ha!" he laughed, as if a comic gleam had illumined him. A portion
of the pit and stalls laughed too. Emilia smiled merrily. "What was
it?" said she; and perceiving many faces beneath her red among
handkerchiefs, she was eager to see the thing that the unhappy Braintop
had speedily secreted.

"Come, sir, let's see it!" quoth Mr. Pole, itching for a fresh laugh; and
in spite of Braintop's protest, and in defiance of his burning blush, he
compelled the wretched youth to draw it forth, and be manifestly
convicted of vanity.

A shout of laughter burst from Mr. Pole. "No wonder these young sparks
cut us all out. Lord, what cunning dogs they are! They ain't satisfied
with seeing themselves in their boots, but they--ha! ha! By George!
We've got the best fun in our box. I say, Braintop! you ought to have
two, my boy. Then you'd see how you looked behind. Ha-ha-hah! Never
enjoyed an evening so much in my life! A looking-glass for their
pockets! ha! ha!--hooh!"

Luckily the farce demanded laughter, or those parts of the pit which had
not known Braintop would have been indignant. Mr. Pole became more and
more possessed by the fun, as the contrast of Braintop's abject
humiliation with this glaring testimony to his conceit tickled him. He
laughed till he complained of hunger. Emilia, though she thought it
natural that Braintop should carry a pocket-mirror if he pleased, laughed
from sympathy; until Braintop, reduced to the verge of forbearance, stood
up and remarked that, to perform the mission entrusted to him, he must
depart immediately. Mr. Pole was loth to let him go, but finally
commending him to a good supper, he sighed, and declared himself a new
man.

"Oh! what a jolly laugh! The very thing I wanted! It's worth hundreds
to me. I was queer before: no doubt about that!"

Again the ebbing convulsion of laughter seized him. "I feel as clear as
day," he said; and immediately asked Emilia whether she thought he would
have strength to get down to the cab. She took his hand, trying to
assist him from the seat. He rose, and staggered an instant. "A sort of
reddish cloud," he murmured, feeling over his forehead. "Ha! I know what
it is. I want a chop. A chop and a song. But, I couldn't take you, and
I like you by me. Good little woman!" He patted Emilia's shoulder,
preparatory to leaning on it with considerable weight, and so descended
to the cab, chuckling ever and anon at the reminiscence of Braintop.

There was a disturbance in the street. A man with a foreign accent was
shouting by the door of a neighbouring public-house, that he would not
yield his hold of the collar of a struggling gentleman, till the villain
had surrendered his child, whom he scandalously concealed from her
parents. A scuffle ensued, and the foreign voice was heard again:

"Wat! wat you have de shame, you have de pluck, ah! to tell me you know
not where she is, and you bring me a letter? Ho!--you have de cheeks to
tell me!"

This highly effective pluralizing of their peculiar slang, brought a roar
of applause from the crowd of Britons.

"Only a street row," said Mr. Pole, to calm Emilia.

"Will he be hurt?" she cried.

"I see a couple of policemen handy," said Mr. Pole, and Emilia cowered
down and clung to his hand as they drove from the place.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

And, ladies, if you will consent to be likened to a fruit
Passion does not inspire dark appetite--Dainty innocence does
The sentimentalists are represented by them among the civilized
The woman follows the man, and music fits to verse,
You have not to be told that I desire your happiness above all
Wilfrid perceived that he had become an old man

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