Hubert was sadly puzzled by Cynthia's manner to him at this time. She
seemed to have lost her bright spirits; she was grave and even
depressed; now and then she manifested a sort of coldness which he felt
that he did not understand. Was this the effect of his confession to her
that he had pledged his faith before he lost his heart? She had shown no
such coldness when he told her first; but perhaps reflection had changed
her tone. He began by trying to treat her ceremoniously in return; but
he found it a difficult task. He had never been on very ceremonious
terms at all with her, and to begin them now, when she had acknowledged
that she loved him and he had kissed her ripe red lips--he said to
himself that it was absurd.
He did not cease his visits to Madame della Scala's house, nor try to
set up an artificial barrier between himself and his love. Why then
should she? He would not have this coldness, this conventionality of
demeanor, he told himself; and yet he hardly knew how to beat it down.
For he certainly had no right to demand that she should treat him as her
lover when he was engaged--or half engaged--to marry Enid Vane.
He came one evening in May, and found her on the point of starting for a
_soiree_ where she was to sing. She was _en grande tenue_ for the
occasion, dressed, after an old Venetian picture, in dull red brocade,
point-lace, and gold ornaments. He had given her the ornaments
himself--golden serpents with ruby eyes--which she had admired in a
jeweller's window. But for the rest of her dress she was in no wise
indebted to him; she had been making money lately, and could afford
herself a pretty gown.
She received him, he thought, a little coolly--perhaps only because
Madame della Scala was sitting by--gave him the tips of her fingers, and
declared that she must go almost immediately. It turned out that he was
bound for the same place; and Madame at once asked him to escort them
thither--the carriage would be at the door at half-past nine o'clock.
"I shall be only too happy," said Mr. Lepel, "if you will allow me such
an honor. And, in the meantime, it is not yet nine o'clock, Cynthia; so,
in spite of your impatience, you cannot start quite 'immediately.' What
is there so attractive at the Gores' this evening that you wish to set
off so early?"
"Oh, nothing--I did not know the time!" said Cynthia.
She did not reply jestingly, after her usual fashion; she sat down
languidly, and spread her heavy skirts around her so as to make a sort
of silken barrier between herself and Hubert. He bit his lip a little as
he looked at her.
"Our little bird is not quite herself," said Madame, with a side grimace
at Hubert which she did not want Cynthia to see. "She has what our
neighbors call '_la migraine_,' monsieur. She has never been well since
the return of her old uncle from America, whose fortune--if he has a
fortune--does not seem likely to do any of us any good--her least of
all."
Cynthia lowered her head a little and darted a sudden and fierce glance
at her teacher and chaperon--a glance of which Hubert guessed the
meaning. She had never mentioned this "uncle from America" to him;
probably she had told Madame not to do so either, and the little Italian
lady had broken her compact.
Madame della Scala laughed and spread out her hands deprecatingly.
"_Che, che_--what is it I have done to make you look so fierce at me? I
will leave her to you, Mr. Lepel, and trust you to make her tractable
before we reach the house where we are to sing. For the last few days I
have not known how to content _la signorina_ at all; she has twice
refused to sing when refusal meant--well, two things--loss of money and
offence of friends. Those are two things which I do not like at all."
So saying, Madame, with a fan outstretched before her like a palm-leaf,
moved towards the door; but Cynthia intercepted her.
"Madame, do not go!" she cried. "Indeed I am sorry! Do not make Mr.
Lepel think that I have been behaving so like a petted child. I will do
what you wish henceforward--I will indeed! Do not go, or I shall think
that you are angry with me!"
"Angry with you, _carissima_? Not one bit!" said Madame, touching the
girl's hot cheek with the end of her dainty fan. "Not angry, only a
little--little tiny bit disappointed! But what of that? I forgive you!
Genius must have its moods, its freaks, its passions. But calm yourself
now, for Heaven's sake, or we shall be in bad voice to-night! I am just
going to my room to get my scent-bottle; I will return immediately;" and
Madame escaped.
Hubert was delighted with the little lady's manoeuvre, designed, as he
knew, to leave him alone with Cynthia. As for Cynthia, she gave one
scared look round, as if she dreaded to meet his eyes, then dropped into
the nearest chair and placed one hand over her face. He thought that she
was crying.
"Cynthia, my darling, what is all this?" he said approaching her. "My
dearest, you are not happy! What can I do?"
"Nothing," she answered, dashing away a tear and letting her hand fall
into her lap--"nothing indeed!"
"But you are not--as Madame says--quite like yourself."
"I know; I am very cross and disagreeable," said Cynthia, with a
resolute assumption of gaiety. "I always had a bad temper; and it is
well perhaps that you should find it out."
Without speaking, he bent his head to kiss her; but she drew back.
"No!" she said, with decision. "No, Hubert--Mr. Lepel, I mean--that will
not do!"
"What, Cynthia?"
"We are not engaged. We are really nothing to each other; I was wrong to
forget that before."
"This is surely a new view on the subject, Cynthia!"
"Yes; it is the view I have taken ever since I thought it over. We will
be friends, if you like--I will always be your friend"--and there came
over her face an indescribable expression of yearning and passionate
regret--"but we must remember that I shall be nothing more."
"Nothing more? Why, my darling, do you forget what you promised me--that
at the end of two years----"
"If you were free--yes," she interrupted him. "But it was a foolish
promise. You know that you are not likely to be free. You--you knew that
when you told me that you loved me!" She set her teeth and gave him a
look of bitter reproach.
"What does this mean?" said Hubert, flushing up to the roots of his
hair. "I told you everything the next morning, Cynthia; and I
acknowledged to you that I loved you only because I thought that I was
too miserable a wretch for you to cast a sigh upon. You have changed
since then--not I."
Cynthia suddenly rose from her chair.
"I hear the carriage," she said abruptly; "Madame is at the door. There
is no use in continuing this conversation."
"No use at all," said Hubert, who by this time was not in the best of
tempers. "Perhaps you would rather that I did not accompany you
to-night, Miss West?" "Oh, pray come!" said Cynthia, with a heartless
little laugh. "Madame will never forgive me if I deprive her of a
cavalier! It does not matter to me."
Hubert turned at once to Madame della Scala, and offered her his arm
with the courtesy of manner which she always averred she found in so few
Englishmen, but which he displayed to perfection. Cynthia followed, not
waiting for him to lead her to the carriage. He was about to hand her to
her seat, but she had so elaborately encumbered herself with gloves,
fan, bouquet, and sweeping silken train, that it seemed as if she could
not possibly disentangle her hands in time to receive his help. She took
her seat beside Madame with her usual smiling nonchalance, and the two
ladies waited for Mr. Lepel to take the opposite seat. He took off his
hat and made a sweeping bow.
"Madame," he said, "I am unfeignedly sorry, but I find that
circumstances will not allow me to accompany you this evening. Will you
pardon me therefore if I decline the honor of the seat you have offered
me?"
This stately mode of speech was intended to pacify Madame della Scala,
who liked to be addressed as if she were a princess; he knew that she
would be angry enough at his defection. Before she had recovered herself
so far as to speak, he fell back and signed to the coachman to drive on.
They had left him far behind before Madame ceased to vent her
exclamations of wrath, despair, and disappointment.
"What can he mean by 'circumstances'?" This was the phrase that rose
most frequently to her tongue. "'Circumstances will not allow me'! But
that is nonsense--absolutely nonsense!"
"I think by 'circumstances' he meant me," said Cynthia at last--by which
remark she diverted all Madame's wrath upon her own unlucky head.
She did not seem to mind however. She looked brilliant that evening, and
she sang her best. There was a royal personage amongst her hearers, and
the royal personage begged to be presented to her, and complimented her
upon her singing. As Cynthia made her little curtsey and smiled her
bright little smile, she wondered what the royal personage would say if
he knew that she was "Westwood, the murderer's daughter." She had been
called so too often in her earliest years ever to forget the title.
In spite of her waywardness that night, she was woman enough to wish
that Hubert had been there to witness her triumph. She had never
offended him before. She thought that perhaps he would come back, and
darted hasty glances at the throng of smart folk around her, longing to
see his dark face in some corner of the room. But she was disappointed;
he did not come.
"Oh, Miss West," said her hostess to her, in the course of the evening,
"do come here one moment! I hope you won't be very much bored; you young
people always like other young people best, I know. But there is a lady
here--an old lady--who is very much impressed by your voice--your
charming voice--and wants to know you; and she is really worth knowing,
I assure you--gives delightful parties now and then."
"I shall be most happy!" said Cynthia brightly. "I like old ladies very
much; they generally have something to say."
"Which young men do not, do they? Oh, fie, you naughty girl! I saw you
with young Lord Frederick over there---- Dear Miss Vane, this is our
sweet songstress, Miss Cynthia West--Miss Vane. I have just been telling
her how much you admire her lovely singing;" and then the hostess
hurried away.
Something like an electric shock seemed to pass through Cynthia's frame.
She did not show any trace of emotion, the smile did not waver on her
lips; but suddenly, as she bowed gracefully to the handsome, keen-eyed
old lady to whom she had just been introduced, she saw herself a ragged,
unkempt, savage little waif and stray, fresh from the workhouse,
standing on a summer day upon a dusty road, the centre of a little group
of persons whose faces came back to her one by one with painful
distinctness. There was the old lady--not so wrinkled as this old lady,
but still with the same clearly-cut features, the same sharp eyes, the
same inflexible mouth; there was the child with delicate limbs and
dainty movements, with sweet sympathetic eyes and lovely golden hair,
which Cynthia had passionately admired as she had never admired any
other hair and eyes in the world before; and there was a young man. His
face had hitherto been the one that she thought she remembered best; she
was suddenly aware that she had so idealised and glorified it that its
very features had become unreal, and that when she met it in the flesh
in later years it remained unrecognisable. Never once till now had it
been borne in upon her that this hero of her childish dreams and her
present lover were one and the same. It was a terrible shock to her--and
greater even then she knew.
"I am glad to make your acquaintance, Miss West," said Miss Leonora
Vane, holding out her hand so cordially that Cynthia could not in common
politeness refuse to take it. "Your singing has delighted everybody--and
myself, I am sure I may say, not least. You have been some time in
Italy, I suppose? Do sit down here and tell me where you studied."
Cynthia fancied that she heard the same voice telling her what a wicked
girl she was, and that she deserved to be whipped for running away from
the workhouse. She repressed a little shudder, and answered smilingly--
"You are very kind. Yes, I have studied in Italy."
"Under Lamperti, I hear. Do you think of coming out in opera next
season? You may always count me among your audience."
Cynthia remembered how this courteous gentlewoman had once put her hand
over her eyes and declared that the sight of Westwood's daughter made
her ill. The burning sense of injustice that had then taken possession
of the child's soul rose up as strong as ever in the woman. She wished,
in her bitterness, that she were free to rise from her seat and cry
aloud--
"Yes, look at me--listen to me--for I am Westwood's daughter! I am the
child of a felon and escaped convict, a man whom you call a
murderer--and I am proud of my name!"
Curiously enough, Miss Vane touched closely upon this subject before
long. She was anxious to know whether Cynthia's name was her own or only
assumed for stage purposes, and managed to put her question in such a
way that it sounded less like impertinence than a manifestation of
kindly interest--which was very clever of Miss Vane.
"No," said Cynthia coldly, "'West' is not my name exactly; but I prefer
to be known by it at present."
She had never said as much before; and Miss Vane felt herself a little
bit snubbed, and decided that the new singer had not at all good
manners; but she meant to secure her for her next party nevertheless.
She rather prided herself upon her parties.
To her utter surprise and bewilderment, Miss Cynthia West absolutely
declined to come. She gave no reason except that she thought that she
should before long give up singing in drawing-rooms at all; and she was
not to be moved by any consideration of payment. Miss Vane ventured to
intimate that she did not mind what she paid; but she was met by so
frigid a glance that she was really obliged, in self-defence, to be
silent. She carried away an unpleasant impression of Cynthia West, and
was heard to say afterwards that she could believe anything of that
young woman.
Cynthia was, however, acknowledged to have made in every other way a
great success. Madame della Scala was delighted with her pupil, and
quite forgot all the little disagreeables of the evening; while Cynthia,
during their drive home, was as charming and as lively as she had ever
been. When the carriage stopped at the quiet little house in Kensington,
the weather had changed, and rain was falling rapidly. One of the
servants was in waiting with an umbrella, ready to give an arm to
Madame, who alighted first. Cynthia followed, scarcely noticing the man
who stepped forward to assist her, until something prompted her suddenly
to look at his face. Then she uttered an inarticulate exclamation.
"Yes, it is I," said Hubert. "I have been waiting to help you out. I
don't know how I have offended you; but, whatever it is, forgive me,
Cynthia--I can't bear your displeasure!"
"Nor I yours," she said, with a sob; and, under the umbrella that he was
holding, she actually held up her face to be kissed.
Nobody saw the little ceremony of reconciliation. The next moment
Cynthia was in the hall, having her dress shaken out and let down by a
yawning maid's attentive hands, and the coachman had driven off, and the
hall door was shut, and Hubert Lepel was out in the street, with a wall
between him and his love. There were tears in Cynthia's eyes as she went
wearily, her gaiety all departed, up to her room. Nobody suspected that
the charming singer whose gaiety and audacity, as well as her beauty,
had won all hearts that evening passed half the night in weeping on the
hard floor--weeping over the fate that divided her from her lover. For
ever since the day that she had learned from her father that Hubert
Lepel was a cousin of the Vanes--more than ever now she knew that he was
the man who had befriended her in her childhood--she felt it to be
utterly impossible that she should marry him until he knew the truth;
and the truth--that she was Westwood's daughter--would, she felt sure,
part him from her for ever.