Evelyn Innes Part 19

The dawn surprised them still talking, and it seemed to them as if nothing had been said. He was explaining his plans for her life. They were, he thought, going to live abroad for five, six, or seven years.

Then Evelyn would go to London, to sing, preceded by an extraordinary reputation. But the first thing to do was to get a house in Paris.

"We cannot stop at this hotel; we must have a house. I have heard of a charming hotel in the Rue Balzac."

"In the Rue Balzac! Is there a street called after him? Is it on account of the name you want me to live there?"

"No; I don't think so, but perhaps the name had something to do with it--one never knows. But I always liked the street."

"Which of his books is it like?"

"_Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan_"

They laughed and kissed each other.

"At the bottom of the street is the Avenue de Friedland; the tram pa.s.ses there, and it will take you straight to Madame Savelli's."

The sparrows had begun to shrill in the courtyard, and their eyes ached with sleep.

"Five or six years--you'll be at the height of your fame. They will pa.s.s only too quickly," he added.

He was thinking what his age would be then. "And when they have pa.s.sed, it will seem like a dream."

"Like a dream," she repeated, and she laid her face on the pillow where his had lain.

CHAPTER TWELVE

As she lay between sleeping and waking, she strove to grasp the haunting, fugitive idea, but shadows of sleep fell, and in her dream there appeared two Tristans, a fair and a dark. When the shadows were lifted and she thought with an awakening brain, she smiled at the absurdity, and, striving to get close to her idea, to grip it about its very loins, she asked herself how much of her own life she could express in the part, for she always acted one side of her character. Her pious girlhood found expression in the Elizabeth, and what she termed the other side of her character she was going to put on the stage in the character of Isolde. Again sleep thickened, and she found it impossible to follow her idea. It eluded her; she could not grasp it. It turned to a dream, a dream which she could not understand even while she dreamed it. But as she awaked, she uttered a cry. It happened to be the note she had to sing when the curtain goes up and Isolde lies on the couch yearning for Tristan, for a.s.suagement of the fever which consumes her.

All other actresses had striven to portray an Irish princess, or what they believed an Irish princess might be. But she cared nothing for the Irish princess, and a great deal for the physical and mental distress of a woman sick with love.

Her power of recalling her sensations was so intense, that in her warm bed she lived again the long, aching evenings of the long winter in Dulwich, before she went away with Owen. She saw again the Spring twilight in the sc.r.a.p of black garden, where she used to stand watching the stars. She remembered the dread craving to wors.h.i.+p them, the anguish of remorse and fear on her bed, her visions of distant countries and the gleam of eyes which looked at her through the dead of night. How miserable she had been in that time--in those months. She had wanted to sing, and she could not, and she had wanted--she had not known what was the matter with her. That feeling (how well she remembered it!) as if she wanted to go mad! And all those lightnesses of the brain she could introduce in the opening scene--the very opening cry was one of them.

And with these two themes she thought she could create an Isolde more intense than the Isolde of the fat women whom she had seen walking about the stage, lifting their arms and trying to look like sculpture.

No one whom she had seen had attempted to differentiate between Isolde before she drinks and after she has drunk the love potion, and, to avoid this mistake, she felt that she would only have to be true to herself.

After the love potion had been drunk, the moment of her life to put on the stage was its moment of highest s.e.xual exaltation. Which was that?

There were so many, she smiled in her doze. Perhaps the most wonderful day of her life was the day Madame Savelli had said, "If you'll stay with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of you." She recalled the drive in the Bois, and she saw again the greensward, the poplars, and the stream of carriages. She had hardly been able so resist springing up in the carriage and singing to the people; she had wanted to tell them what Madame Savelli had said. She had wished to cry to them, "In two years all you people will be going to the opera to hear me." What had stopped her was the dread that it might not happen. But it had happened! That was the evening she had met Olive. She could see the exact spot. Although Olive had only just arrived, she had been up to her room and put on a pair of slippers. They had dined at a cafe, and all through dinner she had longed to be alone with Owen, and after dinner the time had seemed so long. Before going up in the lift he had asked her if he might come to her room. In a quarter of an hour, she had said, but he had come sooner than she expected, and she remembered slipping her arm into a gauze wrapper. How she had flung herself into his arms!

That was the moment of her life to put upon the stage when she and Tristan look at each other after drinking the love potion.

In the second act Tristan lives through her. She is the will to live; and if she ultimately consents to follow him into the shadowy land, it is for love of him. But of his desire for death she understands nothing; all through the duet it is she who desires to quench this desire with kisses. That was her conception of women's mission, and that was her own life with Owen; it was her love that compelled him to live down his despondencies. So her Isolde would have an intense and a personal life that no Isolde had had before. And in holding up her own soul to view, she would hold up the universal soul, and people would be afraid to turn their heads lest they should catch each other's eyes. But was not a portrayal of s.e.xual pa.s.sion such as she intended very sinful? It could not fail to suggest sinful thoughts.... She could not help what folk thought--that was their affair. She had turned her back upon all such scruples, and this last one she contemptuously picked up and tossed aside like a briar.

Her eyes opened and she gazed sleepily into the twilight of mauve curtains, and dreaded her maid's knock. "It must be nearly eight," she thought, and she strove to pick up the thread of her lost thoughts. But a sharp rap at her door awakened her, and a tall, spare figure crossed the room. As the maid was about to draw the curtains, Evelyn cried to her--

"Oh, wait a moment, Herat.... I'm so tired. I didn't get to bed till two o'clock."

"Mademoiselle forgets that she told me to awaken her very early.

Mademoiselle said she wanted to go for a long drive to the other end of London before she went to rehearsal."

Merat's logic seemed a little severe for eight o'clock in the morning, and Evelyn believed that her conception of Isolde had suffered from the interruption.

"Then I am not to draw the curtains? Mademoiselle will sleep a little longer. I will return when it is time for mademoiselle to go to rehearsal."

"Did you say it was half-past eight, Merat?"

"Yes, mademoiselle. The coachman is not quite sure of the way, and will have to ask it. This will delay him."

"Oh, yes, I know.... But I must sleep a little longer."

"Then mademoiselle will not get up. I will take mademoiselle's chocolate away."

"No, I'll have my chocolate," Evelyn said, rousing herself. "Merat, you are very insistent."

"What is one to do? Mademoiselle specially ordered me to wake her....

Mademoiselle said that--"

"I know what I said. I'll see how I feel when I have had my chocolate.

The coachman had better get a map and look out the way upon it."

She lay back on the pillow and regretted she had come to England. There was no reason why she should not have thrown over this engagement. It wouldn't have been the first. Owen had always told her that money ought never to tempt her to do anything she didn't like. He had persuaded her to accept this engagement, though he knew that she did not want to sing in London. How often before had she not refused, and with his approbation? But then his pleasure was involved in the refusal or the acceptance of the engagement. He did not mind her throwing over a valuable offer to sing if he wanted her to go yachting with him. Men were so selfish. She smiled, for she knew she was acting a little comedy with herself. "But, quite seriously, I am annoyed with Owen. The London engagement--no, of course, I could not go on refusing to sing in London." She was annoyed with him because he had dissuaded her from doing what her instinct had told her was the right thing to do. She had wished to go to her father the moment she set foot in England, and beg his forgiveness. When they had arrived at Victoria, she had said that she would like to take the train to Dulwich. There happened to be one waiting. But they had had a rough crossing; she was very tired, and he had suggested she should postpone her visit to the next day. But next day her humour was different. She knew quite well that the sooner she went the easier it would be for her to press her father to forgive her, to entrap him into reconciliation. She had imagined that she could entrap her father into forgiving her by throwing herself into his arms, or with the mere phrase, "Father, I've come to ask you how I sing." But she had not been able to overcome her aversion to going to Dulwich, and every time the question presented itself a look of distress came into her face. "If I only knew what he would say when he sees me. If the first word were over--the 'entrance,'" she added, with a smile.

It was hopeless to argue with her, so Owen said that if she did not go before the end of the week it would be better to postpone her visit until after her first appearance.

"But supposing I fail. I never cared for my Margaret. Besides, it was mother's great part. He'll think me as bad an artist as I have been a bad daughter. Owen, dear, have patience with me, I know I'm very weak, but I dread a face of stone."

Neither spoke for a long while. Then she said, "If I had only gone to him last year. You remember he had written me a nice letter, but instead I went away yachting; you wanted to go to Greece."

"Evelyn, don't lay the blame on me; you wanted to go too.... I hope that when you do see your father you will say that it was not all my fault."

"That what was not your fault, dear?"

"Well--I mean that it was not all my fault that we went away together.

You know that I always liked your father. I was interested in his ideas; I do not want him to think too badly of me. You will say something in my favour. After all, I haven't treated you badly. If I didn't marry you, it was because--"

"Dearest Owen, you've been very good to me."

He felt that to ask her again to go to see her father would only distress her. He said instead--

"I hear a great deal about your father's choir. It appears to be quite the fas.h.i.+on to hear high ma.s.s at St. Joseph's."

"Father always said that Palestrina would draw all London, if properly given. Last Sunday he gave a ma.s.s by Vittoria; I longed to go. He'll never forgive me for not going to hear his choir. It is strange that we both should have succeeded--he with Palestrina, I with Wagner."

"Yes, it is strange.... But you promise me that you'll go and see him as soon as you've sung Margaret--the following day."

"Yes, dear, I promise you I'll do that."

"You'll send him a box for the first night?"