AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
When Will, with fear and trembling, explained his plan half-an-hour
later at the _châlet_ to Andreas Hausberger, that wise man of business,
instead of flouting the idea, entered into his suggestion with the
utmost alacrity. He knew Linnet was still very fond of Will
Deverill—and, being a practical man, he was perfectly ready to make
capital out of her fondness. It was good for trade; and whatever was
good for trade appealed at once to Andreas on the tenderest point of his
nature. He had perfect confidence in Linnet’s honour—as well, indeed,
he might have; but if she chose to cherish an innocent sentimental
attachment of the German sort—in point of fact, a
_schwärmerei_—towards a young man she had known and liked before her
marriage, that was no business of his; or, rather, it was just so much
his business as it might help him to make a little more money out of
her. Andreas Hausberger was a proud and self-respecting person, but his
pride and his self-respect were neither of them touched by a purely
romantic feeling on his young wife’s part towards a rising poet-composer
who was anxious to write and score an opera to suit her. Indeed, he
rather congratulated himself than otherwise on the thought that very few
husbands of theatrical favourites had such very small cause for jealousy
as he had.
So he listened to Will’s humming and hawing apology with a quiet face of
subdued amusement. What a bother about nothing! If Will wrote a piece
for Linnet, why, of course, he’d write it excellently, and write it with
most intimate knowledge of her voice, as well as with close sympathy for
all its shades of feeling. Will knew her exact compass, her range, her
capabilities; he knew also her weak points, her limitations, her
dramatic failings. And Linnet, for her part, was sure to sing well
whatever Will wrote for her—both because it was Will’s, and because it
was suited to her voice and character. The idea was an excellent one;
how absurd to make a fuss about it!
“And he has some of it scored already, he says,” Linnet put in,
half-trembling.
“Let me see it,” Andreas exclaimed, in his authoritative way; and he
skimmed it over carefully. “H’m, h’m . . . that’s not bad,” he muttered
from time to time as he went along . . . “suits her style very well
. . . not at all a weak close; fine opportunity for that clear upper G
of hers; excellently considered piece—have you tried it over, Linnet? I
should think it ought to do very nicely indeed for you.”
“I just sang it a bit at sight,” Linnet answered, “on the hillside. When
I met Herr Will first, we sat down and talked, because Herr Will was
tired; and he showed me his score, and I tried part of it over a bit.
But it was not that which you would quite call fairly trying it, for I
had not seen it before, and had no time to study it. Still, I thought it
very good—oh, exquisite, perfect!—and I should like so much the chance
to sing in it.”
“Try it now!” Andreas said, in his dictatorial tone.
And Linnet, without any affected hesitation, or professional airs,
opened her rich mouth naturally, and trilled forth upon Will’s delighted
ear in a raptured flood her native first reading of his own graceful
music.
“That’ll do!” Andreas said, with decision, as soon as she’d finished.
“That’ll do, Linnet. We’ll arrange for it.”
And Will, leaning across to her over the plain deal table, as she stood
blushing in front of him, exclaimed with delight, “Why, Linnet—Frau
Hausberger, I mean—that’s charming, charming! I couldn’t have believed
how pretty my own song was, till I heard you sing it!”
So that very day the whole matter was settled, as far, at least, as
those three could settle it. It was decided and contracted that Will
should definitely write an opera for Linnet; that he should offer it
first to Mr Wells, the manager of the Harmony; and that if Wells refused
it, it should go next to the Duke of Edinburgh’s, on condition that
Linnet was engaged for the title-role. Before evening, Will had
shouldered his knapsack once more (though Andreas would fain have
constrained him to stay the night at their inn), and, with a timorous
farewell to Linnet at the _châlet_ door, had gone on his way rejoicing,
to descend towards Oberwesel.
That interview gave him courage. During the course of the autumn he
completed his piece, for he was a man of inspirations, and he worked
very rapidly when the fit was upon him. The greater part of his opera he
wrote and composed in the open air, beneath the singing larks, on those
green Swiss hillsides. And the larks themselves did not sing more
spontaneous, with heart elate, for pure joy of singing. That one short
_tête-à-tête_ with Linnet at her _châlet_ had filled his teeming brain
with new chords and great fancies. Words and notes seemed to come of
themselves, and to suggest one another; moods seemed to mirror
themselves in becoming music. Besides, Will thought with no little
pleasure, this new venture would bring him, for a time at least, into
closer personal connection with Linnet. While rehearsals and other
preliminary arrangements went on, he must be thrown a great deal
perforce into Linnet’s company. And how delightful to think they would
be working together for a common end; that success, if achieved, would
be due in part and in equal degrees to each of them.
Will didn’t return to London till the end of October. He had spent the
time meanwhile partly in the Bernese Oberland, and partly, later, on the
south side of the Alps, among the valleys and waterfalls of the Canton
Ticino. But when he arrived at Charing Cross, it was not empty-handed;
he carried in his portmanteau the almost complete manuscript of
_Cophetua’s Adventure_, that exquisite romance of no particular time and
place, with its fanciful theme and its curious episodes, which proved at
last that poetry is not stone-dead on our English stage, and that
exquisite verse wedded to exquisite harmonies has still its fair chance
of a hearing in England. He had only to polish it at his rooms in Craven
Street, before submitting it to the opinion of the manager of the
Harmony.
Linnet came later. She had a two months’ engagement first to fulfil in
Paris, where Will read, with a little pang of regret, in the _Figaro_
how she had turned the heads and captured the hearts (if any) of ten
thousand _boulevardiers_. Her very innocence and simplicity at once
delighted and surprised the profoundly sophisticated Parisian mind. All
the world of the _foyer_ unanimously voted her _tout ce qu’il-y-a de
plus enfantin_. “She has afforded us,” said a famous lady-killer of the
Avenue Victor Hugo, “the rare pleasure of a persistent and unreasoning
refusal.” So all Paris was charmed, as all Paris always is at any new
sensation. An opera-singer insensible to the persuasiveness of diamonds
and the eloquence of bank-notes—all Paris shugged its shoulders in
incredulous astonishment. “_Incroyable!_” it muttered: “_mais enfin,
elle est jeune, cette petite—ça viendra!_”
So it was March before Linnet was in London once more. Andreas, ever
business-like, had preceded her by a week or two, to conclude the
needful arrangements with the people at the Harmony. By the time the
_prima donna_ herself arrived, everything was already well in train for
the rehearsals. Linnet had studied her part, indeed, in Paris
beforehand, till she knew every line, every word, every note of it. She
had never learnt anything so easily in her life before, though she would
hardly admit, even to herself, the true reason—because Will had written
it. They met at the Harmony the very next afternoon, to discuss the
details. Andreas was there, of course—he never left his wife’s side
when business was in question; he must protect her interests: erect,
inflexible, tall, powerful, big-built, with his resolute face and his
determined mien, he was a man whom no theatrical manager on earth could
afford to bully. He bargained hard with the Harmony for his wife’s
services in this new engagement; for, indeed, her late Parisian vogue
had put up her price another twenty per cent, or so; and now he stood
there, triumphant, self-conscious, jubilant, aware that he had done a
good stroke of business for himself, and ready to do battle again on his
wife’s behalf with all and sundry. So satisfied was he, indeed, with
their rising fortunes, that he had presented Linnet spontaneously with a
five-pound note, all pocket-money of her own to do as she liked with, on
their way to the theatre.
Linnet stood a little behind. Will grasped her hand eagerly. She took
his in return without the faintest pressure—for Our Dear Lady knew well
how wisely and circumspectly she meant to behave now towards him. The
circumstances were dangerous: so much the more, Beloved Frau, would she
strive to comport herself as becomes a good Catholic wife in the hour of
temptation.
“You like your part, Signora?” Will asked of her, half-playfully,
adopting her theatrical Italian style and title.
Linnet raised her big eyes. “I have never sung in anything I liked half
so well,” she answered, simply.
The company assembled by degrees, and the usual preliminary discussion
ensued forthwith as to parts, and cues, and costumes, and properties.
Will’s own ideas, conceived among the virgin snows and pure air of the
high Alps, were a trifle too ethereal and a trifle too virginal for that
practical manager. He modified them considerably. Various points had to
be talked over with various persons. In the midst of them all, Will was
surprised to feel of a sudden a sturdy gloved hand laid abruptly on his
shoulder, and a powerful though musical feminine voice exclaiming
volubly at his ear in very high German, “_Ach mein Gott!_ it’s Herr
Will! So we meet again in London. Herr Andreas told me you had written
this piece for Linnet; but one hardly knows you again, you’ve grown so
much older—and better dressed—and richer! And, Dear Frau! in the
Tyrol, you wore no beard and whiskers!”
Will turned in surprise. It was a minute, even so, before he quite
recognised the stalwart speaker. It was Philippina, still good-humoured
and buxom and garrulous as of old; but, oh, great heavens, how much
changed from the brown-faced _sennerin_ with the rough woollen petticoat
who had offered them milk, all frothy from the cow, in the stoneware mug
on the hillside at St Valentin! If Linnet was altered, Philippina was
transmogrified. Her jolly round face was surmounted incongruously by the
latest and airiest thing out in Parisian bonnets; her dress was the very
glass and mirror of fashion; her delicate gloves looked as dainty as
seven-and-a-halfs are ever likely to look upon feminine fingers.
Civilisation, indeed, had done its worst for Philippina: it had
transformed her outright from a simple and natural if somewhat
coarse-fibred cow-girl into the jolly, bouncing, distinctly vulgar type
of third-rate actress. With all the good-humoured coarseness of her
original nature, she now possessed in addition all the airs and graces,
all the coquettish affectations, all the noisy self-assertion of the
theatrical utility.
“Why, I didn’t know you were in England,” Will exclaimed, taken aback at
her unexpected salute, and surveying from head to foot with no very
pleased eye the fly-away peculiarities of her over-trimmed costume.
“Then you’ve taken to the stage!” He turned hastily to Linnet, and added
in English, which Philippina did not understand when he last met her,
“She isn’t surely going to play in this piece of mine, is she?”
“_So!_” Philippina answered, in a very Teutonic voice, indeed, but in
our native vernacular. “Ach, yes; I am going to play in it; Herr Andreas
has arranched all zat wis ze manager. You are surbrized to zee zat I
shall blay in your biece. But I haf blay pevore in many bieces in
Paris.”
Will glanced at Linnet, a mute glance of inquiry. He didn’t know why,
but Linnet’s eyes fell, and a blush spread quick over that clear brown
cheek of hers. It wasn’t the familiar blush he was accustomed to see
there; he noted at once some tinge of shame and personal humiliation in
the look that accompanied it. But she answered quickly, “Oh yes;
Philippina’s to play. My husband and Mr Wells have settled all about
it.”
“What part?” Will inquired, with a slight sense of sinking; for he
wasn’t over-well pleased to hear those dainty lines of his were to be
murdered by Philippina’s coarse guttural utterance.
“Ze Brincess Berylla,” Philippina replied, with glib promptitude and
great self-satisfaction. “It’s a very schmall part; bod I shall do my
best in it.”
Will gave a slight sigh of relief. The Princess Berylla would do at a
pinch. If she _must_ sing at all, it was well at least she should sing
in so minor a character. Though, to be sure, he had his misgivings how
his water-fairies’ song would sound on the stage when delivered with her
clumsy Teutonic pronunciation:
“They loved to dwell
In a pearly shell
And to deck their cell
With amber;
Or amid the caves
That the riplet laves
And the beryl paves
To clamber.
By the limpets’ home
And the vaulted dome
Where the star-fish roam
They’d linger;
In the mackerel’s jaw,
Or the lobster’s claw,
They’d push and withdraw
A finger.”
He trembled to think what sort of strange hash those thick lips of hers
would make of his lilting versification.
However, for the moment, and for Linnet’s sake, he said nothing against
it. A little later in the afternoon, he had five minutes with the _prima
donna_ alone in one of the passages. “Look here, Linnet,” he said
hurriedly with a beseeching glance, “_must_ we have Philippina?”
“There’s no _must_ at all in the matter, except the musts you make,”
Linnet answered, trembling. “If _you_ say she must go, Mr Wells will cut
her out, I suppose, to please you. Only——” and she hesitated.
“Only what?” Will cried, inquiringly.
“Only . . . I’m afraid Andreas wouldn’t like it.”
Her face flushed again. Will looked down at her and paused. A great many
thoughts ran through his head in a second. Linnet scanned the floor,
embarrassed. After awhile, Will spoke again in a very low tone. “I’d let
_anybody_ sing, Linnet,” he said, “with a voice like a frog’s, rather
than allow—well, any trouble to crop up between myself and your
husband.”
“Thank you,” Linnet answered simply. But she lifted her eyes and gave
him one grateful look that was more than full recompense.
“How did Philippina learn English?” Will asked once more, hardly daring
to press the subject.
“Oh, Andreas has always taken—well—a very great interest in her, you
know,” Linnet answered, with a faintly evasive air. “She went with us to
Italy. He kept her on when he paid off the rest of his troupe at Meran;
and he got her trained under agreement, and put her into a minor part
when I sang at San Carlo. When we came to England first, she went for
awhile to Paris; but he’s always been getting her English lessons
everywhere. He has a claim on her, he says, for money advanced to train
her for the stage. . . . She’s a very good-natured girl, and she’s
always been kind to me.”
“I see,” Will answered, with a suddenly sobered air. “Very well, then,
Linnet,” and he drew a deep sigh—though not for himself; “she shall
sing the part of Princess Berylla.”
“Thank you,” Linnet said simply, with a sigh, once more.
But till then, he had never thought Linnet had _that_ to put up with.