"Well, there they air; they are going to give it to her," the policeman announced.
He had an odious appearance of being in the right, for there indeed they seemed to be--they were giving it to her. A general hubbub rose from the floor and the galleries of the hall--the sound of several thousand people stamping with their feet and rapping with their umbrellas and sticks. Ransom felt faint, and for a little while he stood with his gaze interlocked with that of the policeman. Then suddenly a wave of coolness seemed to break over him, and he exclaimed: "My dear fellow, that isn"t applause--it"s impatience. It isn"t a reception, it"s a call!"
The policeman neither a.s.sented to this proposition nor denied it; he only transferred the protuberance in his cheek to the other side, and observed:
"I guess she"s sick."
"Oh, I hope not!" said Ransom, very gently. The stamping and rapping swelled and swelled for a minute, and then it subsided; but before it had done so Ransom"s definition of it had plainly become the true one.
The tone of the manifestation was good-humoured, but it was not gratulatory. He looked at his watch again, and saw that five minutes more had elapsed, and he remembered what the newspaperman in Charles Street had said about Olive"s guaranteeing Verena"s punctuality. Oddly enough, at the moment the image of this gentleman recurred to him, the gentleman himself burst through the other door, in a state of the liveliest agitation.
"Why in the name of goodness don"t she go on? If she wants to make them call her, they"ve done it about enough!" Mr. Pardon turned, pressingly, from Ransom to the policeman and back again, and in his preoccupation gave no sign of having met the Mississippian before.
"I guess she"s sick," said the policeman.
"The public"ll be sick!" cried the distressed reporter. "If she"s sick, why doesn"t she send for a doctor? All Boston is packed into this house, and she has got to talk to it. I want to go in and see."
"You can"t go in," said the policeman drily.
"Why can"t I go in, I should like to know? I want to go in for the _Vesper_"!
"You can"t go in for anything. I"m keeping this man out, too," the policeman added genially, as if to make Mr. Pardon"s exclusion appear less invidious.
"Why, they"d ought to let _you_ in," said Matthias, staring a moment at Ransom.
"May be they"d ought, but they won"t," the policeman remarked.
"Gracious me!" panted Mr. Pardon; "I knew from the first Miss Chancellor would make a mess of it! Where"s Mr. Filer?" he went on eagerly, addressing himself apparently to either of the others, or to both.
"I guess he"s at the door, counting the money," said the policeman.
"Well, he"ll have to give it back if he don"t look out!"
"Maybe he will. I"ll let _him_ in if he comes, but he"s the only one.
She is on now," the policeman added, without emotion.
His ear had caught the first faint murmur of another explosion of sound.
This time, unmistakably, it was applause--the clapping of mult.i.tudinous hands, mingled with the noise of many throats. The demonstration, however, though considerable, was not what might have been expected, and it died away quickly. Mr. Pardon stood listening, with an expression of some alarm. "Merciful fathers! can"t they give her more than that?" he cried. "I"ll just fly round and see!"
When he had hurried away again, Ransom said to the policeman--"Who is Mr. Filer?"
"Oh, he"s an old friend of mine. He"s the man that runs Miss Chancellor."
"That runs her?"
"Just the same as she runs Miss Tarrant. He runs the pair, as you might say. He"s in the lecture-business."
"Then he had better talk to the public himself."
"Oh, _he_ can"t talk; he can only boss!"
The opposite door at this moment was pushed open again, and a large, heated-looking man, with a little stiff beard on the end of his chin and his overcoat flying behind him, strode forward with an imprecation.
"What the h---- are they doing in the parlour? This sort of thing"s about played out!"
"Ain"t she up there now?" the policeman asked.
"It"s not Miss Tarrant," Ransom said, as if he knew all about it. He perceived in a moment that this was Mr. Filer, Olive Chancellor"s agent; an inference instantly followed by the reflexion that such a personage would have been warned against him by his kinswoman and would doubtless attempt to hold him, or his influence, accountable for Verena"s unexpected delay. Mr. Filer only glanced at him, however, and to Ransom"s surprise appeared to have no theory of his ident.i.ty; a fact implying that Miss Chancellor had considered that the greater discretion was (except to the policeman) to hold her tongue about him altogether.
"Up there? It"s her jacka.s.s of a father that"s up there!" cried Mr.
Filer, with his hand on the latch of the door, which the policeman had allowed him to approach.
"Is he asking for a doctor?" the latter inquired dispa.s.sionately.
"You"re the sort of doctor he"ll want, if he doesn"t produce the girl!
You don"t mean to say they"ve locked themselves in? What the plague are they after?"
"They"ve got the key on that side," said the policeman, while Mr. Filer discharged at the door a volley of sharp knocks, at the same time violently shaking the handle.
"If the door was locked, what was the good of your standing before it?"
Ransom inquired.
"So as you couldn"t do that"; and the policeman nodded at Mr. Filer.
"You see your interference has done very little good."
"I dunno; she has got to come out yet."
Mr. Filer meanwhile had continued to thump and shake, demanding instant admission and inquiring if they were going to let the audience pull the house down. Another round of applause had broken out, directed perceptibly to some apology, some solemn circ.u.mlocution, of Selah Tarrant"s; this covered the sound of the agent"s voice, as well as that of a confused and divided response, proceeding from the parlour. For a minute nothing definite was audible; the door remained closed, and Matthias Pardon reappeared in the vestibule.
"He says she"s just a little faint--from nervousness. She"ll be all ready in about three minutes." This announcement was Mr. Pardon"s contribution to the crisis; and he added that the crowd was a lovely crowd, it was a real Boston crowd, it was perfectly good-humoured.
"There"s a lovely crowd, and a real Boston one too, I guess, in here!"
cried Mr. Filer, now banging very hard. "I"ve handled prima donnas, and I"ve handled natural curiosities, but I"ve never seen anything up to this. Mind what I say, ladies; if you don"t let me in, I"ll smash down the door!"
"Don"t seem as if _you_ could make it much worse, does it?" the policeman observed to Ransom, strolling aside a little, with the air of being superseded.
XLII
Ransom made no reply; he was watching the door, which at that moment gave way from within. Verena stood there--it was she, evidently, who had opened it--and her eyes went straight to his. She was dressed in white, and her face was whiter than her garment; above it her hair seemed to shine like fire. She took a step forward; but before she could take another he had come down to her, on the threshold of the room. Her face was full of suffering, and he did not attempt--before all those eyes--to take her hand; he only said in a low tone, "I have been waiting for you--a long time!"
"I know it--I saw you in your seat--I want to speak to you."
"Well, Miss Tarrant, don"t you think you"d better be on the platform?"
cried Mr. Filer, making with both his arms a movement as if to sweep her before him, through the waiting-room, up into the presence of the public.
"In a moment I shall be ready. My father is making that all right." And, to Ransom"s surprise, she smiled, with all her sweetness, at the irrepressible agent; appeared to wish genuinely to rea.s.sure him.