Chapter XIX: The Cafe Au Progres

The two Englishmen to whom we have referred--Sir Jasper Dehorsey and Mr. Tom Hawksleigh--saw how Cadbury and Alison were for the time hopelessly separated by the pleasure-seeking crowd, and hastened at once to improve the occasion by taking advantage of the confusion and of her excessive dismay.

After a word or two of hasty instructions whispered to his friend, Sir Jasper approached Alison, and said, with a profound bow,

'They are rather _sans cérémonie_ here, but don't be alarmed. I shall take care of you. Trust to me, and permit me,' he added, drawing her little hand over his left arm, and leading her away in a direction opposite to where he knew Cadbury was doing his utmost to get free of the crowd. 'Do not be alarmed,' he resumed, 'we shall soon restore you to your friend.'

He spoke most suavely, as though he was, what he wished her to think him--a chivalrous and gallant protector, and, sooth to say, Alison was glad to hear an English voice, and to see some one who appeared like an English gentleman, and, externally, Sir Jasper certainly was one.

'This way, please; let me draw you out of the crowd,' said he, guiding her towards one of the saloon doors.

'How rude--how rough the people are,' exclaimed Alison, with reference to the crowd that separated her from Lord Cadbury, of whom she could see nothing now, and the hubbub of the _kermesse_ on the stage was stunning.

'Well,' said Sir Jasper, with a lazy smile, 'they are not the _crème de la crème_ of Antwerp, nor _crème_ of any kind; and, truth to tell, I was surprised to see you here.'

'Indeed!' exclaimed Alison, with annoyance at having been lured, as she certainly was, into a false position.

At that moment Mr. Hawksleigh, who had been in the corridor, came to say that Lord Cadbury, being unable to find the young lady, had gone to the Café or Restaurant au Progrès.

'Without me!' exclaimed Alison.

'His lordship felt faint, and awaits you there.'

'Did he say so?'

'Yes,' was the reply of the unblushing Mr. Tom Hawksleigh.

'Most strange!'

'Shall we not follow him?' urged Sir Jasper, with his blandest tone.

'I ought to go home to the Hôtel St. Antoine,' said Alison, with doubt now added to her dismay.

'You can't do that alone. The Restaurant au Progrès is close by--almost a part of the theatre--and if Lord Cadbury is unwell----'

'Then let us go instantly, please.'

He led her at once from the hall and down the staircase, up which fresh groups--men in evening dress and ladies in masks and dominoes--were crowding, all laughing and joyous, and thence into the Rue des Escrimeurs, where they crossed the street, and entered a brilliantly lighted café; but avoiding the great pillared dining or supper hall, which was fitted up with marble tables, crowded with guests (many of them masked dominoes), he led her upstairs to a private supper-room, preceded by a waiter, to whom he gave some instructions rapidly in French.

Where was Lord Cadbury, he inquired.

The waiter did not know. Among the many now in the cafè, milord might be one; but he would inquire. Meantime, what did monsieur wish for supper.

In the fair cheek of Alison the delicate colour came and went, and in her eyes there was a strange look of inquiry as she glanced from one man to the other, ignorant that in an instant there was a secret understanding between them, and that the Belgian _valet de cabaret_ took in the whole situation at once.

'Supper--ah--_à la carte_--salmi of guinea fowl, Ris d'Agneau, sauce champignon, and some Moselle. Meantime, ask for his lordship.'

The waiter grinned in what Alison thought a disagreeable manner, and disappeared with his towel over his arm.

The decorations of the little room were very handsome. The hangings were of blue silk, the floor was polished oak, and the chairs were all lounges of blue velvet, but some of the statuettes on brackets and consoles were, to say the least of them, a little startling in design.

'This is a very strange place,' said Alison. 'I cannot imagine what induced Lord Cadbury to select it.'

'Have you been in this part of the world long?' asked Sir Jasper, as he divested himself of his light dust-coat.

'A few weeks--I was about to say years.'

'Poor girl! Has the time been so slow?'

'Well,' said Alison, haughtily, as she disliked his pitying tone, 'I have the old and ailing----'

'Cadbury to nurse--surely not?'

'Of course not, sir. How could you suppose that?'

'Pardon me.'

Proud as Lucifer with all her sweetness, thought Sir Jasper, as Alison bowed haughtily, but no smile spread over the regular contour of her face.

'We have met before--at least, I remember now to have had the pleasure of seeing you,' said he.

'When?'

'This very day.'

'But where?'

'At the coiffeur's in the Rue des Tanneurs. I sat beside you, and saw your hair dressed, and lovely hair it is!'

'You sat beside me?'

'Yes, and watched you.'

'Why?

'I ought to apologise for making a lady's face a study; but need I say how deeply yours interested me?'

He was bending over her chair now in perfect confidence. He thought he had her in his power, and felt

'How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Makes ill deeds done.'

Not that he thought there was much harm in 'levanting with old Cadbury's girl;' it seemed rather a joke, in fact!

'Won't you take off your hat and sealskin before Lord Cadbury comes?' he urged, in a low voice.

'No--excuse me; and I shall not take them off after he does come.'

'Why so? Will you sup with them on?'

'Yes--or I don't want supper at all.'

'A deuced decided little party,' thought Sir Jasper, who never took his _blasé_ eyes off her.

'Where can Lord Cadbury be?' she exclaimed, impatiently, after the waiter had gone twice in search of him in vain.

'Can't say for the life of me; are you anxious about him or yourself?'

'Myself, perhaps.'

'Oh, be assured I shall take the greatest care of you,' said Sir Jasper, noting with delight how perfect was the contour of her face, the form of her hands and ears.

'Thanks; but this situation is intolerable--he ought to be here.'

'I wonder he doesn't look better after his property.'

'What _do_ you mean?' asked Alison, at this impudent remark. 'I am not his property.'

'Oh--a relation, perhaps.'

'Not even a relation.'

'And you came to Antwerp some weeks ago?'

'Yes.'

'From Paris?'

'No; from Southampton in his yacht.'

'In his yacht--oh, by Jove! what other ladies were of his party?' asked Sir Jasper, quizzically, while stroking his tawny moustache.

'No lady but me.'

'In--deed!'

There was profound insolence in his drawl, yet Alison never suspected it.

Sir Jasper Dehorsey now believed that he might be as impudent as he chose; but the girl's manner nevertheless bewildered him.

'Why, sir, do you stare at me so?' she asked.

'May I not look at you?'

'Not as you do,' she replied, with hauteur.

'You grudge me that pleasure?'

'I do not understand all this!' she exclaimed, as she started from her chair and felt a difficulty in restraining her tears.

'Do be seated. If Cadbury does not appear in five minutes, I shall go in search of him.'

'Or kindly get me a voiture to the Hôtel St. Antoine.'

'So it is there they hang out,' thought he. 'Do you often go to the theatre?'

'Not now.'

'Ah, you should see Antwerp when it is _en fête_.'

'When is that?'

'In the carnival time.' Then he continued, 'And how do you like this city by the Scheldt?'

'Not at all,' she replied, curtly.

'Indeed! You have been at the opera, of course?'

'No.'

'Or the picture galleries?'

'No.'

'What! Have you not seen the Royal Museum, the antiquities at the Steyne, and the Musée Plantin-Moretus?'

'I have seen none of those things.'

'Nor the splendid churches, and all the rest of it?'

'I have been nowhere,' replied Alison, thinking sadly of her father's sick-bed.

'How this old snake has kept this lovely girl all to himself!' was the thought of Sir Jasper, in whose heart envy now mingled with exultation.

'How I should like to show you all these places, and Brussels too!' said he at length.

'I have often heard of the Musée Plantin, with its quaint old rococo furniture and antique pictures--the old-world air of the place--its stillness and gloomy seclusion,' said Alison.

'It is doocid slow. Still I should like to have the pleasure of showing it to you,' said he again, stooping over her chair, but seeking even then to throw her off her guard. 'The place itself is rather dark and gloomy with its high wainscots, oak carvings, ebony and ivory cabinets, faded tapestries, casement windows, and all the rest of it--said to be haunted by the ghosts of the funny old printers who lived there and printed the first Bible with old types which are yet there, and which it is said they come once a year at midnight to set up again, for the creak of the ancient presses is heard. But, be all that as it may, I don't know a more stunning place for a steady spoon or flirtation than the solemn old quadrangular Musée Plantin, with its suites of antique rooms, furnished with cushioned lounges, heavy curtains, and beds like tombs--like plumed hearses, or the old state-beds in Hampton Court--beds in which the dead Plantins slept three hundred years ago. By Jove, you must let me show you all that to-morrow. But as that duffer, old Cadbury, is so doocid long, had we not better have supper without him? Shall I order the waiter to serve it up?' he added, laying his hand upon the bell rope, as if her assent would follow of course.

'Oh, no--no,' exclaimed Alison, starting from her seat now in positive alarm at the idea of supping alone with a man whose name was unknown to her, and in whose watery, wicked eyes she was convinced there was an expression now there could be no mistaking.

'A glass of wine, then,' he urged, suavely.

'You must excuse me.'

'How shy you are! I can never imagine why any woman who is young and handsome need be shy.'

'You know Lord Cadbury, of course,' said Alison, suddenly.

'Intimately.'

'May I ask your name?'

'Captain Smith,' he replied, without a moment's hesitation. 'The world says queer things of old Cadbury.'

'What do people say?'

'Well, people, of course, say anything but their prayers. So rough things are said of Old Cad., as he is called. But never mind him; let us talk of ourselves, and don't look so uneasy. I assure you I am a perfect archangel of virtue, and have always laughed at love at first sight till--_now_,' he said, in a manner so pointed that it made Alison's usually pale cheek flame. 'What a deliciously fresh, unconventional, and lovely little darling you are!' he exclaimed, laying a hand upon her arm.

'Sir!'

'Hoity-toity. Come, it mustn't give itself little airs. Look at that pretty picture.

She gave it a glance. It was the production, doubtless, of some Parisian artist, and the subject made her tremble with fear and just anger.

She felt herself deeply insulted, and was now convinced that she had been ensnared. The blood of a hundred gallant Cheynes welled up in her heart, yet there was an expression of agony in her blue-grey eyes and on her blanched and quivering lips.

At that moment the room door opened, and the waiter appeared with the supper tray. She formed her resolution quick as lightning, and acted upon it quite as quickly. Young, active, and half wild with terror, she darted from the room, nearly knocking over Mr. Tom Hawksleigh, who was coming to enjoy his share of the little supper ordered by Sir Jasper, then down the staircase of the café, and out into the darkened streets, through which she fled like a hunted hare; she knew not in what direction, nor did she care, provided that she was not overtaken by 'Captain Smith' or his companion.

At that hour the streets of Antwerp are usually deserted by all save the gendarmes, and she had fled a considerable distance, conscious only that the snow was falling fast, before she stopped, quite out of breath, and began to think by what means she could reach the Hôtel St. Antoine, or get a voiture to convey her there.

She had run to the end of the Rue des Arquebusiers, and now before her opened on either hand the long and spacious street called the Place de Mer in which the stately house of Rubens and the royal palace stand side by side.

Not a cab was to be seen, nor a gendarme; the wind was keen, the snow falling heavily, and, like 'Policeman X' and other guardians of the night, the gendarmes had betaken themselves to some cosy estaminet, or sought the hospitality of friendly kitchens and confiding cookmaids.

Which way was she to turn? where seek aid or shelter? She closed her little hands in terror and dismay, and, while shuddering with cold, suddenly a chorus burst upon her ear, and, before she could think which way to turn, a dozen of great fellows in kepis, blouses, and sabots, fresh from some estaminet, surrounded her, with shouts and mockery.

One put an arm round her and tried to kiss her, tearing away her veil; but endued with strength beyond herself, by the extremity of her terror, she dashed him back with both her hands.

'God help me!' she exclaimed.

And hemming her in by a ring, they danced round her hand in hand, singing a song, which, as it was in Flemish and unknown to her, she supposed was something very ribald and horrible, yet it was only thus:--

'Hark to the sound
Of the fiddle and horn,
The dance and the song--
'Tis a festal morn.
Oh! little they reck of dull care
Or of sorrow;
They laugh for the day
Though they weep on the morrow.'

'Ouf!' shouted one, 'that would make a grand pendant to the _Zeike Jongeling_,' referring to Jan Van Beers, the greatest lyric poet of the day.

'Une blonde English mees--une nymphe--_parbleu_!' cried one fellow.

'_Sommes-nous fantastiques! N'est-elle pas jolie_! ('Isn't she pretty!') cried another.

'_Sur mon honneur, ma belle coquette!_' cried a third, making a clutch at her.

Others shouted strange things in Flemish, showing that they were boors or artizans, redolent of garlic, beer, and tobacco; but with a gasping sob of terror she broke away from them and fled again. She heard the clatter of sabots behind her, as some started in pursuit; but she was too swift for them, and the sound soon died away in the distance.

Along the dark and now silent streets she ran, close past the great doors of innumerable houses, as there are no areas or front garden plots in Antwerp, where the entrances open directly off the footpaths. Many a bell-handle and many a large knocker--lion's heads and bull's heads as large as life--were within her reach; but, fearing to be roughly or coarsely repulsed, she dared touch neither.

She passed a church of vast height and colossal proportions--St. Jacques, though she knew it not--where Rubens lies under a slab of spotless white marble. There were few lamps in the streets in this quarter, and the oil lanterns before the Madonnas perched on stone brackets at the street corners, swung dimly and mournfully to and fro in the sleety and snowy wind.

She felt an apparently mortal chill in her heart; her whole clothes were now soaked with sleet by her falling once or twice as she slipped.

Again she heard a tipsy chorus ringing out upon the night, and, in terror lest she was about to be overtaken by the roysterers from whom she had escaped, on finding herself near a great doorway in the Rue Rouge, as it eventually proved to be, she grasped the swinging handle of a bell and pulled it violently. She heard the sound of the bell respond at a distance, and, incapable of further endurance, before the door, which was a double one of great size, was opened, she had sunk down senseless, and lay huddled in a kind of heap upon the step of the house.

The last thing of which she was conscious was feeling the hand of a man roughly and daringly searching her pockets, as he muttered, with an oath,

'_Sacré_! not a _sou_--not a _centime_!'