How well I remember our last evening in Dovermarle Street!
At one of our open windows behind the potted ferns and blossoming
hydrangeas sat Salemina, Bertie Godolphin, Mrs. Beresford, the
Honourable Arthur, and Francesca; at another, as far off as
possible, sat Willie Beresford and I. Mrs. Beresford had sanctioned a
post-prandial cigar, for we were not going out till ten, to see, for the
second time, an act of John Hare's Pair of Spectacles.
They were talking and laughing at the other end of the room; Mr.
Beresford and I were rather quiet. (Why is it that the people with whom
one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to
talk?)
The room was dim with the light of a single lamp; the rain had ceased;
the roar of Piccadilly came to us softened by distance. A belated vendor
of lavender came along the sidewalk, and as he stopped under the windows
the pungent fragrance of the flowers was wafted up to us with his song.
'Who'll buy my pretty lavender?
Sweet lavender,
Who'll buy my pretty lavender?
Sweet bloomin' lavender.'
The tune comes to me laden with odours. Is it not strange that the
fragrances of other days steal in upon the senses together with the
sights and sounds that gave them birth?
Presently a horse and cart drew up before an hotel, a little further
along, on the opposite side of the way. By the light of the street lamp
under which it stopped we could see that it held a piano and two persons
beside the driver. The man was masked, and wore a soft felt hat and a
velvet coat. He seated himself at the piano and played a Chopin waltz
with decided sentiment and brilliancy; then, touching the keys idly for
a moment or two, he struck a few chords of prelude and turned towards
the woman who sat beside him. She rose, and, laying one hand on the
corner of the instrument, began to sing one of the season's favourites,
'The Song that reached my Heart.' She also was masked, and even her
figure was hidden by a long dark cloak the hood of which was drawn over
her head to meet the mask. She sang so beautifully, with such style and
such feeling, it seemed incredible to hear her under circumstances like
these. She followed the ballad with Handel's 'Lascia ch'io pianga,'
which rang out into the quiet street with almost hopeless pathos. When
she descended from the cart to undertake the more prosaic occupation
of passing the hat beneath the windows, I could see that she limped
slightly, and that the hand with which she pushed back the heavy dark
hair under the hood was beautifully moulded. They were all mystery that
couple; not to be confounded for an instant with the common herd of
London street musicians. With what an air of the drawing-room did he
of the velvet coat help the singer into the cart, and with what elegant
abandon and ultra-dilettantism did he light a cigarette, reseat himself
at the piano, and weave Scots ballads into a charming impromptu! I
confess I wrapped my shilling in a bit of paper and dropped it over the
balcony with the wish that I knew the tragedy behind this little street
drama.
Willie Beresford was in a royal mood that night. You know the mood, in
which the heart is so full, so full, it overruns the brim. He bought
the entire stock of the lavender seller, and threw a shilling to
the mysterious singer for every song she sung. He even offered to
give--himself--to me! And oh! I would have taken him as gladly as ever
the lavender boy took the half-crown, had I been quite, quite sure of
myself! A woman with a vocation ought to be still surer than other women
that it is the very jewel of love she is setting in her heart, and not
a sparkling imitation. I gave myself wholly, or believed that I gave
myself wholly, to art, or what I believed to be art. And is there
anything more sacred than art?--Yes, one thing!
It happened something in this wise.
The singing had put us in a gentle mood, and after a long peroration
from Mr. Beresford, which I do not care to repeat, I said very softly
(blessing the Honourable Arthur's vociferous laughter at one of
Salemina's American jokes), “But I thought perhaps it was Francesca. Are
you quite sure?”
He intimated that if there were any fact in his repertory of which he
was particularly and absolutely sure it was this special fact.
“It is too sudden,” I objected. “Plants that blossom on shipboard-”
“This plant was rooted in American earth, and you know it, Penelope. If
it chanced to blossom on the ship, it was because it had already budded
on the shore; it has borne transplanting to a foreign soil, and it
grows in beauty and strength every day: so no slurs, please, concerning
ocean-steamer hothouses.”
“I cannot say yes, yet I dare not say no; it is too soon. I must go off
into the country quite by myself and think it over.”
“But,” urged Mr. Beresford, “you cannot think over a matter of this
kind by yourself. You'll continually be needing to refer to me for data,
don't you know, on which to base your conclusions. How can you tell
whether you're in love with me or not if-- (No, I am not shouting at
all; it's your guilty conscience; I'm whispering.) How can you tell
whether you're in love with me, I repeat, unless you keep me under
constant examination?”
“That seems sensible, though I dare say it is full of sophistry; but I
have made up my mind to go into the country and paint while Salemina and
Francesca are on the Continent. One cannot think in this whirl. A winter
season in Washington followed by a summer season in London,--one wants
a breath of fresh air before beginning another winter season somewhere
else. Be a little patient, please. I long for the calm that steals over
me when I am absorbed in my brushes and my oils.”
“Work is all very well,” said Mr. Beresford with determination, “but I
know your habits. You have a little way of taking your brush, and with
one savage sweep painting out a figure from your canvas. Now if I am
on the canvas of your heart,--I say 'if' tentatively and modestly,
as becomes me,--I've no intention of allowing you to paint me out;
therefore I wish to remain in the foreground, where I can say 'Strike,
but hear me,' if I discover any hostile tendencies in your eye. But I
am thankful for small favours (the 'no' you do not quite dare say, for
instance), and I'll talk it over with you to-morrow, if the British
gentry will give me an opportunity, and if you'll deign to give me a
moment alone in any other place than the Royal Academy.”
“I was alone with you to-day for a whole hour at least.”
“Yes, first at the London and Westminster Bank, second in Trafalgar
Square, and third on the top of a 'bus, none of them congenial spots to
a man in my humour. Penelope, you are not dull, but you don't seem to
understand that I am head over-”
“What are you two people quarrelling about?” cried Salemina. “Come,
Penelope, get your wrap. Mrs. Beresford, isn't she charming in her new
Liberty gown? If that New York wit had seen her, he couldn't have said,
'If that is Liberty, give me Death!' Yes, Francesca, you must wear
something over your shoulders. Whistle for two four-wheelers, Dawson,
please.”
Part Second--In the country.