Much Darker Days Part 7

'The fact is, _the Live Mermaid was never alive at all!_ She was a put-up thing of waxwork and a stuffed _salmo ferox_. His pretended marriage with _her_ is therefore a mere specious excuse to enable him to avoid your sister's claims.

'Now he is dead, your sister can take the name, t.i.tle, and estates. I wish she may get them.'

CHAPTER VIII.--Local Colour.

I READ the woman's letter again and again, read it with feelings of the most mingled description. First, I reflected with solemn pride that Philippa was _more_ than an honest woman; that she really was a baronet's lady! After we were married she should keep her t.i.tle. Many people do. How well it would sound when we entered a room together--'

Dr. South and Lady Errand!' Yet, on second thoughts, would not this conjunction of names rather set people asking questions?

Yes, disagreeable a.s.sociations might be revived.

My second thought was that, if Mrs. Thompson kept her word, we might as well go home at once, without bothering about the Soudan. The White Groom, I felt certain, had long been speechless. There was thus no one to connect Lady Errand with the decease of Sir Runan.

Moreover, Philippa's self-respect was now a.s.sured. She had lost it when she learned that she was not Sir Runan's wife; she would regain it when she became aware that she had made herself Sir Runan's widow. Such is the character of feminine morality, as I understand the workings of woman's heart.

I had reached this point in my soliloquy, when I reflected that perhaps I had better _not_ tell Philippa anything about it.

You see, things were so very mixed, because Philippa's memory was so curiously constructed that she had entirely forgotten the murder which she had committed; and even if I proved to her by doc.u.mentary evidence that she had only murdered her own husband, it might not help to relieve her burdened conscience as much as I had hoped. There are times when I almost give up this story in despair. To introduce a heroine who is mad in and out, so to speak, and forgets and remembers things exactly at the right moment, seems a delightfully simple artifice.

But, upon my word, I am constantly forgetting what it is that Philippa should remember, and on the point of making her remember the very things she forgets!

So puzzled had I become that I consoled myself by cursing Sir Runan's memory. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum!_

What a lot of trouble a single little murder, of which one thinks little enough at the time, often gives a fellow.

All this while we were approaching Paris.

The stains of travel washed away, my mother gave a sigh of satisfaction as she seated herself at the dinner table. As any one might guess who looked at her, she was no despiser of the good things of this life!

That very night we went to the Hippodrome, where we met many old acquaintances. My own Artillery Twins were there, and kissed their hands to me as they flew gracefully over our heads towards the desired trapeze. Here, also, was the Tattooed Man, and I grasped his variegated and decorative hand with an emotion I have rarely felt. Without vanity I may say that Philippa and my mother had a _succes fou_.

From the moment when they entered their box every _lorgnette_ was fixed upon them.

All Paris was there, the _tout Paris_ of _premieres_, of _les courses_, the _tout Paris_ of _clubsman_ of _belles pet.i.tes_, of ladies _a chignon jaune_. Here were the Booksmen, the _gommeux_, they who _font courir_, the journalists, and here I observed with peculiar interest my great masters, M. Fortune du Boisgobey and M. Xavier de Montepin.

In the intervals of the performance _tout le monde_ crowded into our _loge_, and I observed that my mother and Lady Errand made an almost equal impression on many a gallant and enterprising young _impresario_.

We supped at the _Cafe Bignon_; toasts were carried; I also was carried home.

Next morning I partly understood the mental condition of Philippa. I had absolutely forgotten the events of the later part of the entertainment.

Several bills arrived for windows, which, it seems, I had broken in a moment of effusion.

Gendarmes arrived, and would have arrested me on a charge of having knocked down some thirty-seven of their number.

This little matter was easily arranged.

I apologised separately and severally to each of the thirty-seven _braves hommes_, and collectively to the whole corps, the French army, the President, the Republic, and the statue of Strasbourg in the Place de la Concorde. These duties over, I was at leisure to reflect on the injustice of English law.

Certain actions which I had entirely forgotten I expiated at the cost of a few thousand francs, and some dozen apologies.

For only one action, about which she remembered nothing at all, Philippa had to fly from English justice, and give up her t.i.tle and place in society! Both ladies now charmed me with a narrative of the compliments that had been paid them; both absolutely declined to leave Paris.

'I want to look at the shops,' said my mother.

'I want the _gommeux_ to look at me,' said Philippa.

Neither of them saw the least fun in my proposed expedition to Spain.

Weeks pa.s.sed and found us still in the capital of pleasure.

My large fortune, except a few insignificant thousands, had pa.s.sed away in the fleeting exhilaration of baccarat.

We must do something to restore our wealth.

My mother had an idea.

'Basil,' she said, 'you speak of Spain. You long to steep yourself in local colour. You sigh for _hidalgos, sombreros, carbonados, and carboncillos_, why not combine business with pleasure?

'Why not take the Alhambra?'

This _was_ an idea!

Where could we be safer than under the old Moorish flag?

Philippa readily fell in with my mother's proposal. When woman has once tasted of public admiration, when once she has stepped on the boards, she retires without enthusiasm, even at the age of forty.

'I had thought,' said Philippa, of exhibiting myself at the Social Science Congress, and lecturing on self-advertis.e.m.e.nt and the ethical decline of the Moral Show business, with some remarks on waxworks. But the Alhambra sounds ever so much more toney.'

It was decided on.

I threw away the Baedeker and Murray, and Ford's 'Spain,' on which I had been relying for three chapters of padding and local colour. I ceased to think of the very old churches of St. Croix and St. Seurin and a variety of other interesting objects. I did not bother about St. Sebastian, and the Valley of the Giralda, and Burgos, the capital of the old Castilian kingdom, and the absorbing glories of the departed Moore. Gladly, gaily, I completed the necessary negotiations, and found myself, with Philippa, my mother, and many of my old _troupe_, in the dear old Alhambra, safe under the shelter of the gay old Moorish flag.

Shake off black gloom, Basil South, and make things skip.

You have conquered Fate!

CHAPTER IX.--Saved! Saved!

GLORIOUS, wonderful Alhambra! Magical Cuadrado de Leicestero! Philippa and I were as happy as children, and the house was full every night.

We called everything by Spanish names, and played perpetually at being Spaniards.

The _foyer_ we named a _patio_--a s.p.a.ce fragrant with the perfume of oranges, which the public were always sucking, and perilous with peel.