Lady Hunsdon, having in vain besought the poet to read aloud to a
select audience, acted upon the hint he had unwittingly dropped to
Anne Percy and organised a charity performance for the benefit of an
island recently devastated by earthquake. Warner was visibly out of
countenance when gaily reminded by Anne of his careless words, but he
could do no less than comply, for the wretched victims were in want of
bread. Lady Mary, Miss Bargarny, and several others offered their
services. All aristocratic Nevis were invited to contribute their
presence and the price of a ticket, and the performance would end with
a dance that should outlast the night.
Nevis was in a great flutter of excitement, partly because of the
promised ball, for which the military band of St. Kitts was engaged,
partly because but a favoured few, and years ago, had heard Byam
Warner read. Indeed, his low voice was never heard three yards away,
in a drawing-room, although it had frequently made Charlestown ring.
He was now on his old footing at the Great Houses. The nobler felt
many a pang of conscience that they had permitted a stranger at Bath
House to accomplish a work so manifestly their own, while others dared
not be stigmatised as provincial, prejudiced, middle-class. If London
could afford a superb indifference to the mere social offences of a
great poet, well, so could Nevis. They forgot that London had arisen
as one man and flung him out, neck and crop. Lady Hunsdon had eclipsed
London; rather, for the nonce did she epitomise it. Her gowns came not
even from Bond Street. They were confected in Paris. Hers was the most
distinguished Tory _salon_ in London. Her son was the golden fish for
which all maidens fortunate enough to be within reach of the sacred
pond angled. It was whispered that Warner would accompany Hunsdon to
London, be a guest in his several stately homes, possibly be returned
from one of his numerous boroughs. The poet approached his zenith for
the second time.
Curricles, phaetons, gigs, britzskas, barouches, family chaises
brought the elect of Nevis, and their guests, from St. Kitts to Bath
House a little before nine o'clock; the lowly of Charlestown to
the terrace before the ever open windows of the saloon where the
performance was to be held. In the friendly bedrooms of the hotel
there was a great shaking down of skirts, rearranging of tresses. Miss
Medora Ogilvy went straight to Anne's room, by invitation, and finding
it empty, proceeded to beautify herself. Byron had been much in vogue
at the time of her birth--was yet, for that matter--and she had been
named romantically. But there was little romance in the shrewd brain
of Miss Ogilvy. She was well educated and accomplished--like many of
her kind she had gone to school in England; she could cook and manage
even West Indian servants--her mother was an invalid; and she wished
for nothing under heaven but to marry a man of "elegant fortune" and
turn her back upon Nevis for ever. She really liked Anne and thought
her quite the most admirable girl she had ever met, but she was not of
those that deceive themselves, and frankly admitted that the chief
attraction of her new friend was her almost constant proximity to Lord
Hunsdon.
Miss Ogilvy was petite, with excellent features and slanting black
eyes that gave her countenance a slightly Oriental cast. She wore her
black hair in smooth bands over her ears, _à la Victoria_, and her
complexion was as transparently white as only a West Indian's can be.
To-night she pirouetted before the pier glass with much complacency.
She wore a full flowing skirt of pink satin, with little flounces of
lace and rosettes on the front, puffed tight sleeves, and a corsage of
white illusion, pink bands, flowers, and rosettes. As she settled a
wreath of pink rosebuds on her head and wriggled her shoulders still
higher above her bodice, she felt disposed to hum a tune. She was but
nineteen and Lady Mary was twenty-nine if she was a day.
Anne, who had been assisting Mrs. Nunn's maid to adjust lavender satin
folds and the best point lace shawl, entered at the moment and was
greeted with rapture.
"Dearest Miss Percy! What a vision! A Nereid! A Lorelei! You will
extinguish us all. Poor Lord Hunsdon. Poor Mr. Warner--ah, _ma belle_,
I have eyes in my head. But what a joy to see you in colour. How does
it happen?"
"My aunt insisted while we were in London that I buy one or two
coloured gowns. My father has been dead more than a year. I put this
on to-night to please her, although I have two white evening gowns."
She wore green taffeta flowing open in front over a white embroidered
muslin slip, and trimmed with white fringe. A sash whose fringed ends
hung down in front, girt her small waist. Her arms and neck were bare,
but slipping from the shoulders, carelessly held in the fashion of the
day, was a white crêpe scarf fringed with green. She wore her hair in
the usual bunch of curls on either side of her face, but in a higher
knot than usual, and had bound her head with the golden fillet Mrs.
Nunn had pressed upon her in London. Depending from it and resting on
her forehead, was an oblong emerald; Anne had a few family jewels
although she wore no others to-night.
"I vow!" continued Miss Ogilvy, tripping about her, "quite classic!
And at the same time such style! Such _ton_! Madame Lucille made that
gown. Am I not right?"
Anne confessed that Madame Celeste had made it.
"Celeste, I meant. How could I be so stupid? But it is two long years
since I laid eyes on Bond Street. A humbler person, plain Mrs.
Barclay, sends out my gowns. What do you think, dear Miss Percy, shall
I look provincial, second-rate, amongst all these lucky people of
fashion?"
"You are lovely and your gown is quite perfect," said Anne warmly,
and then the two girls went down-stairs arm in arm, vowing eternal
friendship. Miss Ogilvy professed a deep interest in the poet,
declared that she had begged her obdurate papa time and again to call
upon and reclaim him; and Anne, who now detested Lady Mary, was
resolved to further her new friend's interests with Lord Hunsdon. He
joined them at the foot of the staircase and escorted them to a little
inner balcony above the saloon. There was no danger of interference
from Lady Mary, who was to perform, or from Lady Hunsdon, who occupied
the chair of state in the front row.
They were late and looked down upon a brilliant scene. Not even a
dowager wore black, and the young women, married and single, were in
every hue, primary and intermediate. Almost as many wore their hair
_à la Victoria_ as in the more becoming curls, for loyalty, so long
dead and forgotten, was become the rage since the young Queen had
raised the corpse. But they softened the severity of the coiffure with
wreaths, and feathers, and fillets, and even coquettish little lace
laps, filled with flowers. The men were equally fine in modish coats
and satin waistcoats; narrow and severe or deep and ruffled neckties
but one degree removed from the stock, or in flowing collars _à la
Byron_. Their hair was parted in the middle and puffed out at the
side; not a few wore a flat band of whisker that looked like the strap
of the condemned. Both Hunsdon and Warner shaved, or Anne would have
tolerated neither.
There was a platform at the end of the saloon, with curtains at the
back separating it from a small withdrawing-room, and it had been
tastefully embellished with rugs, jars of gorgeous flowers, a reading
stand, a harp and a piano.
"Who will sway over the harp?" asked Miss Ogilvy humorously.
"Lady Mary. Ah! They are about to begin."
A fine applause greeted Miss Bargarny, who executed the overture to
Semiramide quite as well as it deserved. After the clapping was over
and she had obligingly given an encore, she remained at the piano, and
Mr. Stewart, a young man with red hair and complexion, in kilts and
pink knees, emerged from the curtains, and sang in a thundering voice
several of Burns's tenderest songs. After their final retirement the
curtains were drawn apart with much dignity, and Lady Mary stepped
forth; a vision, as her severest critics were forced to admit. She was
in diaphanous white, with frosted flowers amidst her golden ringlets,
a little crown of stars above her brow, and a scarf of silver tissue.
"All she needs is wings!" exclaimed Miss Ogilvy, and added to herself,
"may she soon get them!"
Lady Mary, acknowledging the rapturous greeting with a seraphic
expression and the grand air, literally floated to the harp,
where nothing could have displayed to a greater advantage her long
willowy figure, her long white thin arms, the drooping gold of her
ringlets. As the golden music tinkled from the tips of her taper
fingers--formed for the harp, which may have had somewhat to do with
her choice of instrument--her ethereal loveliness swayed in unison,
and, one might fancy--if not a rival--emitted a music of its own.
"She doesn't look a day over twenty!" exclaimed Miss Ogilvy. "Who
would dream that she was thirty? But those fragile creatures break all
at once. When she does fade she will be even more _passée_ than most."
"But women know so many arts nowadays," said Anne drily. "And she
would be the last to ignore them."
"Ah! no doubt she will hang on till she gets a husband. I never knew
anyone to want one so badly."
"Lady Mary?" asked Hunsdon wonderingly. "I had long since grown to
look upon her as a confirmed old maid."
"La! La! my lord!" Miss Ogilvy suddenly resolved upon a bold stroke.
"She's trying with all her might and main to marry your own most
intimate friend."
"My most intimate friend? He is in England. Nottingdale. Do you know
him? Or do you perchance mean Warner?"
"Never heard of the first and it certainly is not the last. Oh, my
lord!" And then she laughed so archly that poor Lord Hunsdon could not
fail to read her meaning. His fresh coloured face, warm with ascending
heat, turned a deep brick red. He felt offended with both Miss Ogilvy
and Lady Mary, and edged closer to Anne as if for protection.
This conversation took place while Lady Mary was bowing in response
to the plaudits her performance evoked. She tinkled out another
selection, and then, with a gently dissenting gesture, the dreaming
eyes almost somnambulistic, floated through the curtains.
There was a brief interval for rapturous vocatives and then the
curtains were flung apart and Spring burst through, crying,
"I come! I come! Ye have called me long.
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth
By the winds that tell of the violet's birth."
The young lady, attired in white and hung with garlands, looked not
unlike the engraving of "Spring" in the illustrated editions of the
poems of the gentle Felicia. For a moment Anne, who had long outgrown
Mrs. Hemans, was disposed to laugh, but as the sweet ecstatic voice
trilled on a wave of sadness swept over her, a familiar scene of her
childhood rose and effaced the one beneath. She saw the favourite room
of her mother in the tower overhanging the sea, her brothers sprawled
on the hearthrug, herself in her own little chair, her mother in her
deep invalid sofa holding her youngest child in her arms, while she
softly recited the "Evening Prayer at a Girl's School," "The
Coronation of Inez del Castro," "Juana," or, to please the more robust
taste of the boys, "Bernardo del Carpio," and "Casabianca," the last
two in sweet inadequate tones. Lines, long forgotten swept back to
Anne out of the past:
The night wind shook the tapestry round an ancient palace
room,
And torches, as it rose and fell, waved through the
gorgeous gloom.
There was music on the midnight--
From a royal fane it rolled.
The warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of
fire,
And sued the haughty king to free his long imprisoned sire.
Mrs. Percy had been a gentle, sentimental, romantic creature with
golden ringlets and floating sylph-like form, not unlike Lady Mary's.
She received little attention from her scientific husband and devoted
her short life to her children and to poetry, writing graceful vacant
verses herself. Mrs. Hemans was her favourite poet, although her eyes
could kindle when she read "The Corsair," or "The Bride of Arbydos,"
particularly as she had once met Byron and remembered him as the
handsomest of mortals. But she would have thought it indecorous even
to mention his name before her young children. Mrs. Hemans was as much
a part of the evening hour in winter as the dusk and the blazing logs,
and the children loved her almost as well as the gentle being who
renewed her girlhood in those romantic effusions. A malignant fever
raging up the coast, had burnt out that scene for ever, leaving Anne
alone and aghast, for her father, the first horror and remorse over,
subsided once more into his laboratory. Then had come a succession of
governesses; finally the library was discovered; she ceased to miss
her old companions. But she never forgot them, and no doubt the
sweetness and melancholy of the memory did as much as the imaginary
Byam Warner to save her from the fate of her dry dehumanised father.
Anne came to herself as a charade progressed, and Miss Ogilvy
gaily commented upon the interpretation of the middle syllable of
Caterpillar, as A, in the architecture of which one of the handsomest
girls and her swain made a striking silhouette. Then she remembered
that the next name on the programme was Warner's; he was to read for
half an hour from his own work; after which all would hie themselves
to the music room and dance.
There was a longer interval than usual. Anne's hands and feet became
nerveless bits of ice. Had his courage given out? Had he run away?
Worse still, was he nerving himself to an ordeal to which he would
prove unequal? A humiliating breakdown! Anne's blood pounded through
her body as he finally emerged from the curtains, and she broke her
fan, much to the amusement of Miss Ogilvy.
The company, although it had once or twice permitted its applause to
go beyond the bounds prescribed by elegant civility, had reserved its
real enthusiasm for the poet whose halo of present fashion electrified
their springs of Christianity. As he entered, correctly attired,
although more soberly than most of his audience, and walked slowly to
the reading stand, they not only clapped but stamped and cried his
name until the walls resounded; and so excited the coloured people
(with whom his popularity had never waned) that a stentorian chorus
burst through the windows and drowned the more polite if no less
ardent greeting of the elect.
Warner blushed faintly and bent his head in acknowledgment, but
otherwise gave no sign of the astonishment he must feel, and stood
quite still until the noise had died away down to its final echo in
the neighbourhood of the palm avenue. When he finally lifted his book
a sudden breathless silence fell upon the company. Anne leaned over
the railing in almost uncontrollable excitement, her face white, her
breath short. Lord Hunsdon was too agitated himself to observe her,
but the unaffected Miss Ogilvy took note and matured plans.
Warner began to read in his low, toneless, but distinct voice. In a
few moments the excitement subsided; he was pronounced insufferably
monotonous. Fans rustled, hoops scraped the hard floors. Lady
Constance gave a loud admonitory cough. Warner paid no heed. Still he
read on in low monotone. A few moments more and its spell had enmeshed
the company. The silence was so deep that the low murmur of the sea
could be heard beyond (or within) his own voice. The most impatient,
the most vehement, raised significant eyebrows and shot out optical
affirmations that nothing could be more effective than the verbal
method the poet had adopted--although doubtless it was quite his own,
so in keeping was it with his reserved, retiring, non-committal
personality. Be that as it may, the dramatic scenes, the impassioned
phrases, the virile original vocabulary that flowed from his set lips
could never be delivered so potently by tones that matched their
tenor. The contrast flung them into undreamed of relief. Those most
familiar with his work wondered that they had never understood it
before.
Anne felt more than all this. She closed her eyes and enjoyed a
delusion. It was the soul of the poet reading. The body there was but
a fallacy of vision, non-existent, really dead, perhaps; subservient
for a while longer to that imperious immortal part that had not yet
fulfilled its earthly mission. She had allowed herself to believe that
she had caught fleeting glimpses of this man's soul, so different from
his battered clay; to-night she heard it, and heard as she never did
by the North Sea when all her world was one vast delusion. It murmured
like the sea itself, the gray cold sea of some strange dark planet
beyond the stars, whence came, who knew? all genius; a sea whose tides
would rise high and higher until they exhausted the clay they beat
upon while they had yet a message to deliver to Earth. That clay! If
it could but be preserved a few years longer! Great as was his
accomplished work he must do greater yet. No student of his more
ambitious poems, half lyric, half dramatic, believed his powers were
yet developed.
Anne came to herself amidst a new thunder of applause. She told
herself with a sigh and an angry blush that she was a romantic idiot
and the sooner she married and had a little family to think of the
better. Heaven knew what folly she might be capable of did she give
rein to dreams. She became aware that Warner, compelled to silence,
was looking straight at her, and she automatically beat her hands
together. He smiled slightly and gave his head an almost imperceptible
shake. Then some one in the audience called for the popular poem in
which he had so vigorously denounced Macaulay's unjust estimate of
Byron a few years since, holding up to scorn the brain of the mere man
of letters who dared to criticise or even to attempt to understand the
abnormal brain and temperament of a great poet. He recited it from
memory and then retired followed by a tumult of approval that he well
knew he never should evoke again.