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Page 70
There was not much cheering. Women never mean to cheer, of course. The
men had cheered the green ticket, but they were mad with the red one. I
gave up my ticket, signed my receipt, and took my check, shook hands
with Mr. A---- and Mr. Burrham, and turned to bow to the mob,--for mob I
must call it now. But the cheers died away. A few people tried to go out
perhaps, but there was nothing now to retain any in their seats as
before, and the generality rose, pressed down the passages, and howled,
"Face! face!" I thought for a moment that I ought to say something, but
they would not hear me, and, after a moment's pause, my passion to
depart overwhelmed me. I muttered some apology to the gentlemen, and
left the stage by the stage door.
I had forgotten that to Castle Garden there can be no back entrance. I
came to door after door, which were all locked. It was growing dark.
Evidently the sun was set, and I knew the library door would be shut at
sunset. The passages were very obscure. All around me rang this horrid
yell of the mob, in which all that I could discern was the cry, "Face,
face!" At last, as I groped round, I came to a practicable door. I
entered a room where the western sunset glare dazzled me. I was not
alone. The veiled lady in black was there. But the instant she saw me
she sprang towards me, flung herself into my arms, and cried:--
"Felix, is it you?--you are indeed my protector!"
It was Miss Jones! It was Fausta! She was the legatee of Miss
Stillingfleet. My first thought was, "O, if that beggarly usher had let
me go! Will I ever, ever think I have better rights than the Public
again?"
I took her in my arms. I carried her to the sofa. I could hardly speak
for excitement. Then I did say that I had been wild with terror; that I
had feared I had lost her, and lost her forever; that to have lost that
interview would have been worse to me than death; for unless she knew
that I loved her better than man ever loved woman, I could not face a
lonely night, and another lonely day.
"My dear, dear child," I said, "you may think me wild; but I must say
this,--it has been pent up too long."
"Say what you will," she said after a moment, in which still I held her
in my arms; she was trembling so that she could not have sat upright
alone,--"say what you will, if only you do not tell me to spend another
day alone."
And I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I said,
"Never, darling, God helping me, till I die!"
How long we sat there I do not know. Neither of us spoke again. For one,
I looked out on the sunset and the bay. We had but just time to
rearrange ourselves in positions more independent, when Mr. A----came
in, this time in alarm, to say:--
"Miss Jones, we must get you out of this place, or we must hide you
somewhere. I believe, before God, they will storm this passage, and pull
the house about our ears."
He said this, not conscious as he began that I was there. At that
moment, however, I felt as if I could have met a million men. I started
forward and passed him, saying, "Let me speak to them." I rushed upon
the stage, fairly pushing back two or three bullies who were already
upon it. I sprang upon the table, kicking down the red box as I did so,
so that the red tickets fell on the floor and on the people below. One
stuck in an old man's spectacles in a way which made the people in the
galleries laugh. A laugh is a great blessing at such a moment. Curiosity
is another. Three loud words spoken like thunder do a good deal more.
And after three words the house was hushed to hear me. I said:--
"Be fair to the girl. She has no father nor mother She has no brother
nor sister. She is alone in the world, with nobody to help her but the
Public--and me!"
The audacity of the speech brought out a cheer and we should have come
off in triumph, when some rowdy--the original "face" man, I
suppose--said,--
"And who are you?"
If the laugh went against me now I was lost, of course. Fortunately I
had no time to think. I said without thinking,--
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