Prince Fortunatus Part 35

"I have no doubt you will be as pleased to make her acquaintance as she will be to make yours," said he, "and a few civil words never do any harm."

Here Miss Burgoyne was called. She went to the little side-table and sipped some of her home-brewed lemonade; then he opened the door for her, and together they went up into the wings.

"Tall, is she?" continued Miss Burgoyne, as they were looking on at Mr.

Fred Collier's buffooneries out there on the stage. "Is she as silent and stupid as her brother?"

"Her brother?"

"Lord Rockminster."

"Oh, Lord Rockminster isn't her brother. You've got them mixed up," said Lionel. "Miss Cunyngham's brother, Sir Hugh, married a sister of Lord Rockminster--the Lady Adela Cunyngham who came to your room one night--don't you remember?"

"You seem to have the whole peerage and baronetage at your fingers'

ends," said she, sullenly; and the next moment she was on the stage, smiling and gracious, and receiving her father's guests with that charming manner which the heroine of the operetta could a.s.sume when she chose.

Even with Miss Burgoyne's grudgingly promised a.s.sistance, Lionel still remained unaccountably perturbed about that visit of Lady Cunyngham and her daughter; and when on the Sat.u.r.day evening he first became aware--through the confused glare of the footlights--that the two ladies had come into the box he had secured for them, it seemed to him as though he were responsible for every single feature of the performance.

As for himself, he was at his best, and he knew it; he sang, 'The starry night brings me no rest' with such a _verve_ that the enthusiasm of the audience was unbounded; even Miss Burgoyne--Miss Grace Mainwaring, that is, who was perched up on a bit of scaffolding in order to throw a rose to her lover--listened with a new interest, instead of being busy with her ribbons and the set of her hair; and when she opened the cas.e.m.e.nt in answer to his impa.s.sioned appeal, she kissed the crimson-cotton blossom thrice ere she dropped it to her enraptured swain below. This was all very well; but when the comic man took possession of the stage, Lionel--instead of going off to his dressing-room to glance at an evening paper or have a chat with some acquaintance--remained in the wings, looking on with an indescribable loathing. This hideous farcicality seemed more vulgar than ever? what would Honnor Cunyngham think of his a.s.sociates? He felt as if he were an accomplice in foisting this wretched music-hall stuff on the public. And the mother--the tall lady with the proud, fine features and the grave and placid voice--what would she think of the new acquaintance whom her daughter had introduced to her? Had it been Lady Adela or her sisters, he would not have cared one jot. They were proud to be in alliance with professional people; they flattered themselves that they rather belonged to the set--actors, authors, artists, musicians, those busy and eager amateurs considered to be, like themselves, of imagination all compact. But that he should have asked Honnor Cunyngham to come and look on at the antics of this gaping and grinning fool; that she should know he had to consort with such folk; that she should consider him an aider and abettor in putting this kind of entertainment before the public--this galled him to the quick.

The murmur of the Aivron and the Geinig seemed dinning in his ears. If only he could have thrown aside these senseless trappings--if he were an under-keeper now, or a water-bailiff, or even a gillie looking after the dogs and the ponies, he could have met the gaze of those clear hazel eyes without shame. But here he was the coadjutor of this grimacing clown; and she was sitting in her box there--and thinking.

"What is it, Leo?" said Nina, coming up to him rather timidly. "You are annoyed."

"I have made a mistake, that is all," he said, rather impatiently. "I shouldn't have persuaded those two ladies to come to the theatre; I forgot what kind of thing we played in; I might as well have asked them to go to a penny gaff. Collier is worse than ever to-night."

"And you better, Leo," said Nina, who had always comforting words for him. "Did you not hear how enthusiastic the audience were? And if this is the young lady you told me of--who was so friendly in Scotland that she did not fear ridicule for herself in order to save you from the possibility of ridicule--surely she will be so well-wis.h.i.+ng to you that she will understand you have nothing to do with the foolishness on the stage."

"If you are thinking of that salmon-fis.h.i.+ng incident," he said, rather hastily, "of course you mustn't imagine there was any fear of _her_ encountering any ridicule. Oh, certainly not. It was no new thing for her to get wet when she was out fis.h.i.+ng--"

"At all events, it was a friendly act to you," said Nina, on whom that occurrence seemed to have made some impression. "And if she is so generous, so benevolent towards you, do you think she will not see you are not responsible for the comic business?"

It was at the end of the penultimate act that an attendant brought round Miss Cunyngham and her mother--the latter a handsome and distinguished-looking elderly lady, with white hair done up _a la Marie Antoinette_--behind the scenes; and Nina, hanging some way back, could see them being presented to Miss Burgoyne. Nina was a little breathless and bewildered. She had heard a good deal about the fisher-maiden in the far North, of her hardy out-of-door life, and her rough and serviceable costume; and perhaps she had formed some mental picture of her--very different from the actual appearance of this tall young Englishwoman, whose clear, calm eyes, strongly marked eyebrows, and proud, refined features were so striking. Here was no simple maiden in a suit of serge, but a young woman of commanding presence, whose long cloak of tan-colored velvet, with its hanging sleeves showing a flash of crimson, seemed to Nina to have a sort of royal magnificence about it. And yet her manner appeared to be very simple and gentle; she smiled as she talked to Miss Burgoyne; and the last that Nina saw of her--as they all left together in the direction of the corridor, Lionel obsequiously attending them--was that the tall young lady walked with a most gracious carriage. Nina made sure that they had all disappeared before she, too, went down the steps; then she made her way to her own room, to get ready for the final act. Miss Girond, of course, was also here; but Nina had no word for Estelle; she seemed preoccupied about something.

Never had Harry Thornhill dressed so quickly; and when, in his gay costume of flowered silk and ruffles, tied wig and buckled shoes, he tapped at Miss Burgoyne's door and entered, he found that this young lady was still in the curtained apartment, though she had sent out Jane to see that her two visitors were being looked after. Lionel, too, helped himself to some tea; and it was with a singular feeling of relief that he discovered, as he presently did, that both Lady Cunyngham and her daughter were quite charmed with the piece, so far as they had seen it. They appeared to put the farcicality altogether aside, and to have been much impressed by the character of the music.

"What a pretty girl that Miss Ross is!" said the younger of the two ladies, incidentally. "But she is not English, is she? I thought I could detect a trace of foreign accent here and there."

"No, she is Italian," Lionel made answer. "Her name is really Rossi--Antonia Rossi--but her intimate friends call her Nina."

"What a beautiful voice she has!" Miss Honnor continued. "So fresh and pure and sweet. I think she has a far more beautiful voice than--"

He quickly held up his hand, and the hint was taken.

"And she puts such life into her part--she seems to be really light-hearted and merry," resumed Miss Honnor, who appeared to have been much taken by Nina's manner on the stage. "Do you know, Mr. Moore, I could not help to-night thinking more than once of "The Chaplet" and my sisters and their amateur friends. The difference between an amateur performance and a performance of trained artists is so marvellous; it doesn't seem to me to be one of degree at all; at an amateur performance, however clever it may be, I am conscious all the time that the people are a.s.suming something quite foreign to themselves, whereas on the stage the people seem to be the actual characters they profess to be. I forget they are actors and actresses--"

"You must be a good audience, Miss Cunyngham," said he (it used to be "Miss Honnor" in Strathaivron, but that was some time ago--_then_ he was not decked out and painted for exhibition on the stage).

"Oh, I like to believe," she said. "I don't wish to criticise. I wholly and delightfully give myself up to the illusion. Mother and I go so seldom to the theatre that we are under no temptation to begin and ask how this or that is done, or to make any comparisons; we surrender ourselves to the story, and believe the people to be real people all we can. As for mother, if it weren't a dreadful secret--"

But here the curtains were thrown wide, and out came Miss Burgoyne, obviously conscious of her magnificent costume, profuse in her apologies for not appearing sooner. Something had gone wrong, and the mishap had kept her late; indeed, she had just time to go through the formality of taking a cup of tea with her guests when she was called and had to get ready to go.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_And Nina, hanging some way back, could see them being presented to Miss Burgoyne._"]

"However, I need not say good-bye just yet," she said to them, as she tucked up her voluminous train. "Wouldn't you like to look on for a little while from the wings? You could have the prompter's chair, Lady Cunyngham, so that you could see the audience or the stage, just as you chose, if Miss Cunyngham wouldn't mind standing about among the gasmen."

"If you are sure we shall not be in the way," said the elder lady, who had, perhaps, a little more curiosity than her daughter.

"Oh, Mr. Moore will show you," said Miss Burgoyne, making no scruple about preceding her visitors along the corridor and up the steps, for she had not too much time.

The prompter's office, now that this piece had been running over four hundred nights, was practically a sinecure, so that there was no trouble about getting Lady Cunyngham installed in the little corner, whence, through a small aperture, she could regard the dusky-hued audience or turn her attention to the stage just as she pleased. Miss Honnor stood close by her, when she was allowed--keeping out of sight of the opposite boxes as much as she could, though she observed that the workmen about her did not care much whether they were visible or not, and that they talked or called to one another with a fine indifference towards what was going forward on the stage. At present a minuet was being danced, and very pretty it was; she could not help noticing how cleverly Miss Burgoyne managed her train. As for her mother, the old lady seemed intensely interested and yet conscious all the time that she herself, in this strange position, was an interloper; again and again she rose and offered to resign her place to the rather shabby-looking elderly man who was the rightful occupant; but he just as often begged her to remain--he seemed mostly interested in the management of the gas-handles just over his head.

And now came in the comic interlude which Lionel had feared most of all--the squire's faithful henchman going through all the phases of getting drunk in double-quick stage-time; and, while those stupidities were going forward, Lionel and Miss Burgoyne were supposed to retire up the stage somewhat and look on. Well, they took up their positions--Grace Mainwaring being seated.

"Your giraffe is rather handsome," she said, behind her fan.

"I believe she is considered to be one of the best-looking women in England," said he, somewhat stiffly.

"Oh, really! Well, of course, tastes differ," Miss Grace Mainwaring said. "I don't think a woman should have blacking-brushes instead of eyebrows. But it's a matter of taste."

"Yes," said he, "and comic opera is the sort of place where one's taste becomes so refined. What do you think of this gag now? Is this what the public like--when they come to hear music?"

"You're very fastidious--you want everything to be super-fine--but you may depend on it that it keeps the piece going with the pit and gallery."

His answer to that was one of this young lady's strangest experiences of the stage: Lionel Moore had suddenly left her, and, indeed, quitted this scene, in which he was supposed to be a chief figure. He walked down the wings until he found himself close to Miss Honnor Cunyngham.

"Miss Cunyngham," he said.

She turned--her eyes somewhat bewildered by the glare of light on the stage.

"Come back, please," he said. "I don't want you to see this scene--it has nothing to do with the operetta--and it is dull and stupid and tedious beyond description."

She followed him two or three steps, wondering.

"You say you like the music," he continued, here in the twilight of the wings, "and the little story is really rather pretty and idyllic; but they _will_ go and introduce a lot of music-hall stuff to please the groundlings. I should prefer you not to see it. Won't you rather wait a little, and talk about something?--it isn't often you and I meet. Did you get many salmon after I left Strathaivron?"

"Oh, no," said she, still rather surprised. "Towards the end of the season the red fish are really not worth landing."

"It seems a long time since then," he said. "I find myself sitting up at night and thinking over all those experiences--making pictures of them--and the hours go by in a most astonis.h.i.+ng fas.h.i.+on. Here in London, among the November fogs, it seems so strange to think of those splendid days and the long, clear twilights. I suppose it is all so well known to you, you do not trouble to recall it; but I do--it is like a dream--only that I see everything so distinctly--I seem almost to be able to touch each leaf of the bushes in the little dell where we used to have luncheon; do you remember?"

"Above the Geinig Pool?--oh, yes!" she said, smiling.

"And the Junction Pool," he continued, with a curious eagerness, as if he were claiming her sympathy, her interest, on account of that old companions.h.i.+p--"I can make the clearest vision of it as I sit up all by myself at night--you remember the little bush on the opposite side that you used sometimes to catch your fly on, and the shelf of s.h.i.+ngle going suddenly down into the brown water--I always thought that was a dangerous place. And how well you used to fish the Rock Pool! Old Robert used to be so proud of you! Once, at the tail of the Rock Pool, you wound up, and said to him, 'Well, I can't do any better than that, Robert;' and then he said, 'No man ever fished that pool better--oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Honnor; no one at all ever fished that pool better.' I suppose Strathaivron is nothing to you--you must be so familiar with it--but to me it is a sort of wonderland, to dream of when I am all by myself at night--"

Alas! it was at this very moment that Nina came up from her room; Clara, the innkeeper's daughter, had to go on immediately after the ball-room scene was over. And Nina, as she came by, caught sight of these two, and for a moment she stood still, her eyes staring. The two figures were in a sort of twilight--a twilight as compared with the glare of the stage beyond them, but there were lights here quite sufficient to illumine their features; it was no imagination on Nina's part--she saw with a startling clearness that Lionel was regarding this tall, English-looking girl with a look she had never seen him direct towards any woman before--a timid, wistful, half-beseeching look that needed no words to explain its meaning. For a second Nina stood there, paralyzed--not daring to breathe--not able to move. Yet was it altogether a revelation to her, or only a sudden and overwhelming confirmation of certain half-frightened misgivings which had visited her from time to time, and which she had striven hard to banish? The next moment Nina had pa.s.sed on silently, like a ghost, and had disappeared in the dusk behind some scenery.

"When shall you be back in Strathaivron, Miss Honnor?" he asked.

"In the spring, I suppose, for the salmon-fis.h.i.+ng," she made answer.