Chapter 43 Return to London 5 Christmas Eve Tour
While other parts of London might still be partying, Gracechurch Street had already fallen asleep at midnight. Only occasionally could a brief burst of horse hooves be heard, but it would soon fade away.
Heather paused for a few seconds before bending over and moving to the window, carefully sticking her head out to look.
Lancaster stood beneath the alley's sole gas lamp, its flame dancing restlessly within the glass, stretching and fracturing his shadow. He held up a branch he'd picked up from who knows where, but it wasn't long enough. He had to stand on tiptoe and stretch his arm to barely reach the bag hanging overhead and touch it to the second-floor window.
Heather let out a soft laugh. Lancaster had always been at ease, as if everything was under control. He had never been so caught off guard, struggling to hold on, constantly worried about being caught by patrolling soldiers. But this unexpected embarrassment made Heather feel even more real and intimate.
Heather stood up and opened the window. Lancaster, who was downstairs, finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her appear. He carefully retracted the branch, took out the woolen rabbit and put it in his suit pocket.
Only then did Heather notice that Lancaster's clothes today were particularly exquisite and sophisticated. He wore a perfectly tailored dark blue tuxedo, and the vest inside was silver-gray. The dark embroidery on it shone with a low-key luster under the street lights, making him look like a prince who hurriedly escaped from the ball at the stroke of twelve.
Lancaster didn't dare speak loudly, but simply gestured for her to come downstairs. Heather hesitated for a moment, then closed the curtains, opened the door, and listened carefully for a moment. Once she was sure the building was completely silent, she grabbed a plush cloak, carefully lifted her skirt, and walked downstairs in the dark.
The Gardners' butler would complete his final rounds after locking the door at 11 p.m., and there would be no one at the door until five in the morning.
Heather tiptoed towards the main door. After a moment's thought, she didn't open the door and walked out. Instead, she found the key from the secret compartment next to it and opened the letter delivery slot embedded on the right side of the main door.
There was a faint smell of alcohol in the air. After hearing the sound, Lancaster groped in the dark for a long time before finding the hidden brass door.
"Hi, good evening." Lancaster leaned against the delivery port and said in a whisper.
"...Do you know what time it is, sir? Are you drunk at a party or a masquerade ball and can't find your way home? Are masquerade balls fun?" Heather, who was always paying attention to the movements in the house, spoke quickly.
Lancaster pulled out the familiar pocket watch. "11:39, ma'am. Still in time. Masquerade? I didn't go to any masquerade. I just went to some fat pig's party and drank a glass of gin that didn't even contain 30ml."
Heather asked in confusion, "Too late for what? And what's a fat pig?" She already felt that Lancaster must be drunk, otherwise he would never say such a rude word as fat pig.
"Well, don't you know about the fat pig? Or fat George? The moth in the wig?" Lancaster continued, observing Heather's expression through the doorway. "Then you really should come with me to see the new play at Covent Garden."
Heather leaned against the door, relaxing. "Covent Garden Royal Opera House? You came here so late just to invite me to the opera? Fine, remember to invite me when the play you mentioned is performed."
"Okay, let's go now. It starts at 12 o'clock sharp, and it's less than 15 minutes from here, so we can catch it in time."
Heather's half-closed eyes suddenly widened, and she almost couldn't control her voice: "Now? Are you kidding, sir? You mean now?"
"Yes, right now." He stopped leaning against the door and looked straight at me. His low voice was full of temptation. "It starts at 12 o'clock. I sincerely invite you to watch the new puppet show. Are you willing to come?"
Heather thought she was probably crazy. She was the kind of good girl who always returned to the dormitory by midnight during finals week or holidays and never did anything out of character. Even in 21st-century China, it was unsafe to wander around late at night, so how could she dare do something so crazy in 19th-century London? She should have rejected this man immediately and firmly, lest he be scammed out of her money or her family be ruined.
But no one knew how attractive this extraordinary invitation was to a good girl who always followed the rules.
Heather grabbed the key and put it in her sleeve, tied her cloak tightly, and gently opened the door. The cold air outside the door made her shiver, and Heather began to suspect that she was dazzled by the beauty, but it was too late.
Lancaster grabbed her arm through her thick cloak and ran with her through the deserted streets. "The carriage is at the entrance to the avenue ahead. Follow me."
At 11:55, the carriage stopped at Covent Garden. It was noticeably busier here than Gracechurch Street. The fruit and vegetable market to the east had already begun to stir, while the cafes to the west were still brightly lit. Women in revealing red dresses stood in the side streets soliciting customers, and crushed oranges littered the stone steps at the theater entrance. After the last noble carriage departed, the Royal Opera House appeared to have closed. The ticket office was empty, and the main entrance was closed.
Lancaster jumped down from the driver's seat, opened the back door, and held out his hand to Heather.
Heather hesitated. "Are we really going? I haven't even changed into formal clothes. It doesn't seem appropriate to go into the theater. And it looks like it's closed. Are you sure there's a show tonight?"
Lancaster didn't retract his hand. "You'll know when you get in. No one will care about your attire." He pulled out a crude poster with the words "The Fat Man and the Beggar" from his pocket. "Look, December 25th, midnight. Guaranteed authenticity."
Heather placed her hand on his doubtfully, and Lancaster pulled her down: "Don't worry, just follow me."
At 11:58, Heather sat in a state of panic, in the center of the first row of the second-floor balcony. She looked around. Lancaster was right; no one here cared about what others wore. That was because, in a theater that could hold thousands, only a few dozen people sat scattered around. Everyone seemed to be deliberately sitting so sparsely, making it impossible to see each other in the dim light.
The curtain opened, and a group of puppets descended from the stage. Their workmanship looked crude, with some of their faces made of theater posters. Remnants of the words "King Lear Opens Thursday" could still be vaguely seen. The gas lights on the stage flickered, and a fat puppet wearing a funny wig descended from the sky onto the exaggerated seesaw on the stage. Its bulging belly was painted with a map of Britain, and each piece of territory was marked with a price tag.
A Welsh-accented narrator reads: "Oh my goodness, why is my dining table tilting? Those poor bastards must be eating my crumbs!"
The fat puppet pushed down the seesaw suddenly, and a ragged puppet on the other end was bounced up and turned over in the air.
Another voice read: "Flying! Thank you for the promotion, Master!"
Suddenly, a piece of orange peel was thrown from the audience seats on the first floor, accurately knocking the fat man's wig away. The man stood up screaming with his bald head, but was tripped by the seesaw with a loud bang, and fell to the ground comically, unable to get up for a long time.
There were scattered laughs in the audience, and Heather was also amused by the puppet's delicate performance. Although the puppet had no expression changes, it made such a clown role full of jokes.
Heather couldn't help but move closer to Lancaster. "So the fat pig refers to the person on the stage?" She looked around again before excitedly saying, "I see. This play is satirizing the Regent's greed and hypocrisy, right?"
Lancaster looked down at Heather's flushed cheeks, "Exactly, you are very clever, my lady."
Heather suddenly became worried again: "They acted so frankly, wouldn't the soldiers come to arrest them?"
Lancaster imitated her, tilting his head and leaning closer. "No, that person doesn't have time to deal with such trivial matters. He gets so many caricatures sent to him, it's beyond his control. Besides, this play will only be performed at the Phantom Theatre at midnight. Tickets are not sold to the public, and the cast are all expelled old actors, escaped French artists, or theater cleaners. Very few aristocrats know about this place, so it's almost impossible for the news to reach the real owner."
"Let me guess, so you support the Whigs?" Hazel knew nothing about current affairs, but Mr. Gardner had the common habit of middle-aged men, often reading newspapers in the living room or commenting on royal affairs, so Hazel knew that the Whigs were the largest faction opposing the Regent.
Lancaster let out a short laugh, his voice dripping with casual disdain. "Ah, no, I don't think they're much better than the Regent. They're just greedy fools. I prefer teasing them to supporting them. It's the most entertaining thing to watch them get so angry that they can't help but take it out on each other."
Heather wasn't entirely convinced, suspecting Lancaster had been drinking and couldn't help boasting. "How are you kidding me? You're just an ordinary lawyer, so you shouldn't have met any of the important figures from either faction, right?"
Lancaster stuttered. "Uh...anyone can tease them, like submitting a satirical article to the Times, or anonymously exhibiting a painting at a cultural salon that will make them furious."
Heather was skeptical about this, but she was more curious about how a strict elite like Lancaster could know about this kind of folk drama that was not worthy of being performed in a formal setting. Logically, he should only watch Shakespeare in the box during prime time.
"I thought you spent every minute studying legal texts or useful information and wouldn't waste any time on such self-entertainment?"
Lancaster turned his eyes away from the stage. He had to solemnly declare this: "No, of course not. I'm definitely not the kind of person who devotes himself to his career. In fact, I went through a long rebellious period when I was young. There was almost no unknown activity hidden in the streets and alleys of London that I had not seen. But as time went by, these novelties became less novel, and I could only use work to pass the time."
Heather couldn't help laughing. Lancaster's words "when he was young" with this face made her feel particularly funny. She suddenly felt that revealing the secrets of Lancaster step by step was much more interesting than watching a drama.
Her laughter was so sudden that it was drowned out by the applause at the curtain call and could not be heard clearly, but Lancaster could clearly see the tears of laughter in the corners of her eyes.
Lancaster couldn't figure out for a moment whether she was laughing at the absurd ending of the fat puppet on the stage or at the wording he had just said.
The ghost show ended and they stood up and walked out among the crowd. It was not until all the audience in the theater stood up that Heather realized that there were many more spectators hiding in the darkness than she had imagined.
Heather and Lancaster were standing very close to each other in the crowded crowd, and as their sleeves rubbed against each other, they tacitly agreed not to speak.
It was not until he got into the carriage that Lancaster's voice came from the front of the carriage.
"But you haven't given me any time-consuming work lately." Lancaster sounded like a workaholic. "There's nothing else I need to do with the inheritance, and I've found a house. So, Mrs. Lawrence, I sincerely want to ask, is there anything else I can do for you?"
Heather leaned against the carriage, gazing out at the street. Turning the corner of Covent Garden, the bustling scene seemed like a play that had suddenly come to an end. The gaslight grew increasingly sparse, and the moonlight cast a silvery silence over the increasingly empty streets. The brief bustle was over, but the loneliness in her heart hadn't returned.
Hazel said relaxedly, "Really? Well, I have something I'd like to ask you for help with. Mr. Darcy's friend, Mr. Bingley, has recently been embroiled in a lawsuit with no known source. Can you help investigate the cause? Mr. Darcy said he came to see you, but you didn't have time to see him."
"I'm not Mr. Darcy's soldier, and I have no interest in getting involved in his affairs. But since you brought it up, I will give you the truth of the matter within a week."
The carriage soon stopped not far from the Gardner house, and Lancaster got out of the carriage and walked to the door with Heather.
"But has Mr. Darcy ever actually visited here?"
Heather shook her head. "No, I met him by chance. His good friend Mr. Bentley has some connections with my niece, and Mr. Bentley's sister has done me a big favor before, so could you please help me check it out, okay?"
Lancaster hadn't expected this connection; he'd assumed Heather had come to him for help because of Darcy. "In that case, I'll get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. Don't worry; it's probably not a serious problem."
It was quiet in front of Gardner's house, and the last street light seemed to be out due to some malfunction.
In the darkness, Heather's playful mood revived. She tried to be serious and said, "Then Mr. Lancaster, I specially accompanied you to watch your favorite puppet show so late at night. Shouldn't you accept payment for doing this for me?"
Lancaster stopped at the gate and thought silently for a long time before saying, "If I can always choose this form of compensation, then I hope my workload can be increased several times."
This time the pressure was on Heather. Heather pretended to be calm and said good night, then quickly opened the door and ran into the house without even looking back.
She lay back on the bed as quickly as possible, and after a long time, she looked at the clock on the bedside table absent-mindedly.
"Oh my goodness, it's already one o'clock and I have to go to church tomorrow morning!"
She wailed silently and suddenly pulled the quilt up to cover her face.
——
Lancaster stood downstairs in a daze for a long time before he calmed down and walked back.
A coachman appeared out of nowhere in front of the carriage. It was Assistant Oliver.
Oliver waited until his superior was seated before he asked, "Sir, are we going to Bond Street or back to Park Lane?"
Five minutes later, a voice came from the carriage: "Bond Street. But I have a question. How can you subtly attract someone's attention without scaring them away?"
Oliver, who was concentrating on turning his horse, asked seriously, "Excuse me, does someone mean a man or a woman?"
The carriage was completely silent, but Oliver didn't care and drove the carriage diligently forward. If he was lucky, he might be able to fall asleep before half past one.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
