AN AWAKENING.
London is a dreary-looking city on a Sunday morning, especially on a
Sunday morning in November; people seem to know how tedious the hours
are going to be, and lie in bed as long as they decently can; the
teeming and swarming capital of the world looks as if it had suddenly
grown lifeless. When Lionel got up, there was a sort of yellow darkness
in the air; hardly a single human being was visible in the Green Park
over the way; a solitary saunterer, hands deep in the pockets of his
overcoat, who wandered idly along the neglected pavement, had the
appearance of having been out all night, and of not knowing what to do
with himself, now that what passed for daylight had come. All of a
sudden there flashed into the brain of this young man standing by the
French window a yearning to get away from this dark and dismal
town--there came before him a vision of clear air, of wind-swept waves,
with an after-church promenade of fashionable folk in which he might
recognize the welcome face of many a friend. He looked at his watch;
there was yet time; he would hurry through his breakfast and catch the
10.45 to Brighton.
But was there nothing else prompting this unpremeditated resolve to get
away down to Victoria station? Not some secret hope that he might
perchance descry Lady Cunyngham and her daughter among the crowd
swarming on to the long platform? They had not definitely told him at
the theatre that they were returning the next morning; but was it not
just possible--or, rather, extremely probable? And surely he might
presume on their mutual acquaintance so far as to get into the same
railway-carriage and have some casual chatting with them on the way
down? He had been as attentive as possible to them on the previous
evening; and they had seemed pleased. And he had tried to arouse in Miss
Honnor's mind some recollection of the closer relationship which had
existed between her and him in the solitudes of far Strathaivron.
When he did arrive at Victoria station he found the people pouring in in
shoals; for now was the very height of the Brighton season; besides
which there were plenty of Londoners glad to escape, if only for a day,
from the perpetual fog and gloom. And yet, curiously enough, although
the carriages were being rapidly filled, he took no trouble about
securing a seat. After he had gone down the whole length of the train,
he turned, and kept watching the new arrivals as they came through the
distant gate. The time for departure was imminent; but he did not seem
anxious about getting to Brighton. And at last his patience, or his
obstinacy, was rewarded; he saw two figures--away along there--that he
instantly recognized; even at a greater distance he could have told that
one of these was Honnor Cunyngham, for who else in all England walked
like that? The two ladies were unattended by either man or maid; and as
they came along they seemed rather concerned at the crowded condition of
the train. Lionel walked quickly forward to meet them. There was no time
for the expression of surprise on their part--only for the briefest
greeting.
"I must try to get you seats," said he, "but the train appears to be
very full, and the guards are at their wits' end. I say!" he called to a
porter. "Look here; this train is crammed, and the people are pouring in
yet; what are they going to do?"
"There's a relief train, sir," said the porter, indicating a long row of
empty carriages just across the platform.
"You are sure those are going?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then we can get in now?"
The man looked doubtful; but Lionel soon settled that matter by taking
the two ladies along to a Pullman car, where the conductor at once
allowed them to pass. It is true that as soon as the public outside
perceived that these empty carriages were also going, they took
possession without more ado; but in the meantime Lionel and his two
companions had had their choice of places, so that they were seated
together when the train started.
"It was most fortunate we met you," Lady Cunyngham said, bending very
friendly eyes on the young man. "I do so hate a crowded train; it
happens so seldom in travelling in England that one is not used to it.
Are you going down to Brighton for any time, Mr. Moore?"
"Mother," said Honnor Cunyngham, almost reproachfully, "you forget what
Mr. Moore's engagements are."
"Yes," said he, with a smile, "it is rather a cruel question. My
glimpses of the sea and sky are few and far between. The heavens that I
usually find over my head are made of canvas; and the country scenes I
wander through are run on wheels."
"But don't you think," said Miss Honnor to him (and it seemed so
cheerful to be away from the London gloom and out here in the clearer
air; to find himself sitting so near this young lady, able to regard her
dress, listening to her voice, sometimes venturing to meet the
straightforward glance of her calm eyes--all this was a wondrous and
marvellous thing)--"don't you think you enjoy getting away from town all
the more keenly? I shall never forget you in Strathaivron; _you_ were
never bored like some of the other gentlemen."
"Each and every day was one to be marked by a white stone," he said,
with an earnestness hardly befitting railway-carriage conversation.
"The wet ones, too?" she asked, pleasantly.
"Wet or dry, what was the difference?" he made bold to say. "What did I
care about the rain if I could go down to the Aivron or away up to the
Geinig with you and old Robert?"
"You certainly were very brave about it," she said, in the most friendly
way; "you never once grumbled when the sandwiches got damp--not once."
And so the three of them kept gayly and carelessly talking and chatting
together, as the long train thundered away to the south; while ever and
anon they could turn their eyes to that changing phantasmagoria of the
outer world that went whirling by the windows. It was rather a
wild-looking day, sometimes brightening with a wan glare of sunlight,
but more often darkening until the country looked like a French
landscape, in its sombre tones of gray and black and green. Yet,
nevertheless, there was a sort of picturesqueness in the brooding sky,
the russet woods, the purple hedges, and the new-ploughed furrows; while
now and again a distant mansion, set on a height, shone a fair yellow
above its terraced lawn. Scattered rooks swept down the wind and settled
in a field. The moorhens had forsaken the ruffled water of the ponds and
sought shelter among the withered sedge. Puffs of white steam from the
engine flew across and were lost in the leafless trees. Embankments
suddenly showed themselves high in the air, and as suddenly dipped
again; then there were long stretches of coppice, with red bracken, and
a sprinkling of gold on the oaks. To Lionel the time went by all too
quickly; before he had said the half of what he wanted to say, behold!
here they were at Preston Park.
"You are at least remaining over until to-morrow?" Lady Cunyngham asked
him.
"Well, no," said he, "I did not think of coming down until this morning,
and so I had made no arrangements. I should think it hardly likely there
would be a vacant bedroom at the Orleans Club at this time of year--no,
in any case, I must get back by the 8.40 to-night."
"And in the meantime," she asked again, "have you any engagement?"
"None. I dare say I shall have a stroll along the sea-front, and then
drop in for lunch at the Orleans."
"You might as well come down now and lunch with us," said she, simply.
Lionel's face brightened up amazingly; he had been looking forward to
saying good-bye at the station with anything but joy.
"I should be delighted--if I am not in the way," was his prompt answer.
"Oh, Honnor and I are entirely by ourselves at present," said this
elderly lady with the silver-white hair. "We are expecting Lady Adela
and her sisters this week, however; and perhaps my son will come down
later on."
"Are they back from Scotland?"
"They arrive to-morrow, I believe."
"And Lady Adela's novel?"
"Oh, I don't know anything about that," said she, with a good-humored
smile. "Surely she can't have written another novel already!"
When they got into the station, a footman was awaiting them, but they
had no bags or baggage of any description; they walked a little way
along the platform and entered the carriage; presently they were driving
away down to the sea-front. What Honnor Cunyngham thought of the
arrangement, it is impossible to say, but the invitation was none of her
giving: no doubt it was merely a little compliment in acknowledgment of
Mr. Moore's kindness of the preceding night. However, when the barouche
pulled up in front of a house in Adelaide Crescent, Mr. Moore had his
own proposal to make.
"It seems so pleasant down there," said he, looking towards the wide
stretches of greensward and the promenade along the sea-wall, where the
people, just come out of church, were strolling to and fro; "every one
appears to be out--don't you think we should have a little walk before
going in?"
Honnor Cunyngham said nothing; it was her mother who at once and
good-naturedly assented; and when they had descended from the carriage
they forthwith made their way down to mix in this idle throng. It was
quite a bright and pleasant morning here--a stiff southwesterly breeze
blowing--a considerably heavy sea thundering in and springing with jets
of white spray into the air--the sunlight shining along the yellow
houses of Brunswick Terrace, where there were cheerful bits of green
here and there in the balconies. Then the crowd was rather more gayly
dressed than an English crowd usually is; for women allow themselves a
little more latitude in the way of color during the Brighton season, and
on such a morning there was ample excuse for a display of sunshades. And
was it merely a wish to breathe the fresh-blowing wind and to listen to
the hissing withdrawal and recurrent roar of the waves that had induced
Lionel to ask his two companions to join in this slow march up and down?
Young men have their little vanities and weaknesses, like other folk.
Rumor had on more than one occasion coupled his name with that of some
fair damsel; what if he were to say now, "Well, if you will talk, here
is one worth talking about." He was conscious on this shining morning
that Miss Cunyngham--the more beautiful daughter of a beautiful
mother--was looking superb; he remembered what Miss Georgie had said
about Honnor's proud and graceful carriage. He knew a good many of the
people in this slow-moving assemblage; and he was not sorry they should
see him talking to this tall and handsome young Englishwoman--who also
appeared to have a numerous acquaintanceship.
"Why, you seem to know everybody, Mr. Moore?" she said to him, with a
smile.
"You would think all London was here this morning--it's really
astonishing!" he made answer.
Occasionally they stopped to have a chat with more particular friends;
and then Lionel would remain a little bit aside; though once or twice
Lady Cunyngham chose to introduce him, and that pleased him, he hardly
knew why. But at last she said,
"Well, I think we must be getting home. Properly speaking we have no
right to be in the prayer-book brigade at all, for we have not been to
church this morning."
Not unlikely the squire of these two ladies was rather loath to leave
this gay assemblage; but he was speedily consoled, for, to his
inexpressible joy, he found, when they got in-doors, that there was no
one else coming to lunch--these three were to be quite by themselves.
And of what did they not talk during this careless, protracted, idling
meal? Curiously enough, it was Nina, not Miss Burgoyne, who appeared to
have chiefly impressed the two visitors on the preceding evening; and
when Lady Cunyngham discovered that she was an old companion and
fellow-student of Lionel's, she was much interested, and would have him
tell her all about his experiences in Naples. And again Miss Honnor
recurred to the difference between amateur and professional acting, that
seemed to have struck her so forcibly the previous night.
[Illustration: "_'Why, you seem to know everybody, Mr. Moore!' she said
to him, with a smile._"]
"Really, Mr. Moore," said she, "you must have an astonishing amount of
good-nature and tolerance. If I had complete command of any art, and saw
a band of amateurs attempting something in it and not even conscious of
their own amateurishness, I don't know whether I should be more inclined
to laugh or to be angry. I used to be amused, up there in Strathaivron,
with the confidence Georgie Lestrange showed in singing a duet with
you--"
"Ah, but Miss Lestrange sings very well," said he. "And, you know, if
Lady Adela and her sisters perform a piece like "The Chaplet"--well,
that is a Watteau-like sort of thing--Sèvres china--force or passion of
any kind isn't wanted--it's all artificial, and confessedly so. And
then, when the professional actor finds himself acting with amateurs, I
dare say he modifies himself a little--"
"Becomes an amateur, in short," she said.
"In a measure. Otherwise he would be a regular bull in a china shop. And
surely, when you get a number of people in a remote place like
Strathaivron, the efforts of amateurs to amuse them should be encouraged
and approved. I thought it was very unselfish of them--very kind--though
they generally succeeded in sending Lord Fareborough to bed. By the way,
Miss Cunyngham, did Lord Fareborough ever get a stag?"
For it was observable that this young man, whenever he got the chance,
was anxious to lead away the conversation from the theatre and all
things pertaining thereunto, and would rather talk about Strathaivron
and salmon-fishing and Miss Honnor's plans with regard to the coming
year.
"Oh, no," she said, "he never went out but that once, and then he nearly
killed himself, according to his own account. We never quite knew what
happened; there was some dark mystery that Roderick wouldn't explain;
and, you know, Lord Fareborough himself is rather short-tempered. He
ought not to have gone out--a man who has imagined himself into that
hypochondriacal state. However, it has given him an excuse for thinking
himself a greater invalid than ever; and he has got it into his head now
that we all of us persuaded him to try a day's stalking--a conspiracy,
as it were, to murder him. There was some accident at one of the fords,
I believe. He came home early. I never heard of his having fired at a
stag at all." And then she added, with a smile. "Mr. Moore, what made
you send me such a lot of salmon-flies?"
"Oh, well," he said, "I thought you ought to have a good stock." How
could he tell her of his vague hope that the Jock Scotts and Blue
Doctors might serve for a long time to recall him to her memory?
"I suppose you have got the stag's head by now?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, indeed; and tremendously proud of it I am," he responded,
eagerly. "You know I should never have gone deer-stalking but for you. I
made sure I was going to make a fool of myself--"
"I remember you were rather sensitive, or anxious not to miss, perhaps,"
she said, in a very gentle way. "I thought of it again last night, when
I saw you so completely master in your own sphere--so much at home--with
everything at your command--"
"Oh, yes, very much at home," he answered her, with just a touch of
bitterness. "Perhaps it is easy to be at home--in harlequinade--though
you may not quite like it." And then once more he refused to talk of the
theatre. "I am going to send old Robert some tobacco at Christmas," said
he.
"I heard of what you did already in that way," she said, smiling. "Do
you know that you may spoil a place by your extravagance? I should think
all the keepers and gillies in Strathaivron were blessing your name at
this very moment."
"And you go up in the spring, you said?"
"Yes. That is the real fishing-time. My brother Hugh and I have it all
to ourselves then; Lady Adela and the rest of them prefer London."
And then it was almost in his heart to cry out to her, "May not I, too,
go up there, if but for a single week--for six clear-shining days in the
springtime?" Ben More, Suilven, Canisp--oh, to see them once again!--and
the windy skies, and Geinig thundering down its rocky chasm, and Aivron
singing its morning song along the golden gravel of its shoals! what did
he want with any theatre?--with the harlequinade in which he was losing
his life? Could he not escape? Euston station was not so far away--and
Invershin? It seemed to him as though he had already shaken himself
free--that a gladder pulsation filled his veins--that he was breathing a
sweeter air. The white April days shone all around him; the silver and
purple clouds went flying overhead; here he was by the deep, brown pools
again, with the gray rocks and the overhanging birch-woods and the long
shallows filling all the world with that soft, continuous murmur. As for
his singing?--oh, yes, he could sing--he could sing, if needs were,
"O lang may his lady-love
Look frae the Castle Doune,
Ere she see the Earl o' Moray
Come sounding through the toun"--
but there is no gaslight here--there are no painted faces--he has not to
look on at the antics of a clown, with shame and confusion in his
heart--
The wild fancy was suddenly snapped in twain; Lady Cunyngham rose; the
two younger people did likewise.
"Now, I know you gentlemen like a cigar or cigarette after luncheon,"
she said to Lionel, "and we are going to leave you quite by
yourself--you will find us in the drawing-room when you please."
Of course he would not hear of such a proposal; he opened the door for
them, and followed them up-stairs; what were cigars or cigarettes to him
when he had such a chance of listening to Honnor Cunyngham's low,
modulated voice, or watching for a smile in the calmly observant hazel
eyes? Indeed, in the drawing-room, as Miss Honnor showed him a large
collection of Assiout ware which had been sent her by an English officer
in Egypt (by what right or title, Lionel swiftly asked himself, had any
English officer made bold to send Miss Cunyngham a hamperful of these
red-clay idiotcies?), this solitary guest had again and again to remind
himself that he must not outstay his welcome. And yet they seemed to
find a great deal to talk about; and the elder of the two ladies was
exceedingly kind to him; and there was a singular fascination in his
finding himself entirely _en famille_ with them. But alas! Even if he or
they had chosen to forget, the early dusk of the November afternoon was
a sufficient warning; the windows told him he had to go. And go he did
at last. He bade them good-bye; with some friendly words still dwelling
in his ears he made his way down the dim stairs and had the door opened
for him; then he found himself in this now empty and hopeless town of
Brighton, that seemed given over to the low, multitudinous murmur of
that wide waste of waves.
He did not go along to the Orleans Club; his heart and brain were too
busy to permit of his meeting chance acquaintances. He walked away
towards Shoreham till a smart shower made him turn. When he got back to
the town the lamps were lit, throwing long, golden reflections on the
wet asphalt, but the rain had ceased; so he continued to pace absently
along through this blue twilight, hardly noticing the occasional dark
figures that passed. What was the reason, then, of this vague
unrest--this unknown longing--this dissatisfaction and almost despair?
Had he not been more fortunate than he could have hoped for? He had met
Miss Honnor and her mother in the morning, and had been with them all
the way down; they had been most kind to him; he had spent the best part
of the day with them; they had parted excellent friends; looking back,
he could not recall a single word he would have liked unsaid. Then a
happy fancy struck him: the moment he got up to town he would go and
seek out Maurice Mangan. There was a wholesome quality in Mangan's
saturnine contempt for the non-essential things of life; Mangan's clear
penetration, his covert sympathy, his scorn or mock-melancholy, would
help him to get rid of these vapors.
When Lionel returned to town a little after ten o'clock that night he
walked along to Mangan's rooms in Victoria Street, and found his friend
sitting in front of the fire alone.
"Glad you've looked in, Linn."
"Well, you don't seem to be busy, old chap; who ever saw you before
without a book or a pipe?"
"I've been musing, and dreaming dreams, and wishing I was a poet," said
this tall, thin, languid-looking man, whose abnormally keen gray eyes
were now grown a little absent. "It's only a fancy, you know--perhaps
something could be made of it by a fellow who could rhyme--"
"But what is it?" Lionel interposed.
"Well," said the other, still idly staring into the fire before him, "I
think I would call it 'The Cry of the Violets'--the violets that are
sold in bunches at the head of the Haymarket at midnight. Don't you
fancy there might be something in it--if you think of where they come
from--the woods and copses, children playing, and all that--and of what
they've come to--the gas-glare and drunken laughter and jeers. I would
make them tell their own story--I would make them cry to Heaven for
swift death and oblivion before the last degradation of being pinned on
to the flaunting dress." And then again he said: "No, I don't suppose
there's any thing in it; but I'll tell you what made me think of it.
This morning, as we were coming back from Winstead church--you know how
extraordinarily mild it has been of late, and the lane going down to the
church is very well sheltered--I found a couple of violets in at the
roots of the hedge--within a few inches of each other, indeed--and I
gave them to Miss Francie, and she put them in her prayer-book and
carried them home. I thought the violets would not object to that, if
they only knew."
"So you went down to Winstead this morning?"
"Yes."
"And how are the old people?"
"Oh, very well."
"And Francie?"
"Very busy--and very happy, I think. If she doesn't deserve to be, who
does?" he continued, rousing himself somewhat from his absent manner. "I
suppose, now, there is no absolutely faultless woman; and yet I
sometimes think it would puzzle the most fastidious critic of human
nature to point out any one particular in which Miss Francie could be
finer than she is; I think it would. It is not my business to find
fault; I don't want to find fault; but I have often thought over Miss
Francie--her occupations, her theories, her personal disposition, even
her dress--and I've wondered where the improvement was to be suggested.
You see, she might be a very good woman, and yet have no sense of humor;
she might be very charitable, and also a little vainglorious about it;
she might have very exalted ideas of duty, and be a trifle hard on those
who did not come up to her standards; but in Miss Francie's case these
qualifications haven't to be put in at all. She always seems to me to be
doing the right thing, and just in the right way--with a kind of fine
touch that has no namby-pambiness about it. Oh, she can be firm, too;
she can scold them well enough, those children--when she doesn't laugh
and pat them on the shoulder the minute after."
"This is, indeed, something, as coming from you, Maurice!" Lionel
exclaimed. "Has it been left for you to discover an absolutely perfect
human being?"
"It isn't for you to find fault with her, anyway," the other said,
rather sharply. "She's fond enough of you."
"Who said I was finding fault with her?--not likely I am going to find
fault with Francie!" Lionel replied, with sufficient good-humor. "Well,
now that you have discovered an absolutely faultless creature, you might
come to the help of another who is only too conscious that he has plenty
of faults, and who is so dissatisfied with himself and his surroundings
that he is about sick of life altogether."
Notwithstanding the light tone in which he introduced the subject,
Mangan looked up quickly, and regarded the younger man with those
penetrating gray eyes.
"Where have you been to-day, Linn?"
"Brighton."
"Among the dukes and duchesses again? Ah, you needn't be angry--I
respect as much as anybody those whom God has placed over us--I haven't
forgotten my catechism--I can order myself lowly and reverently to all
my betters. But tell me what the matter is. You sick of life?--I wonder
what the gay world of London would think of that!"
And therewithal Lionel, in a somewhat rambling and incoherent fashion,
told his friend of a good many things that had happened to him of
late--of his vague aspirations and dissatisfactions--of Miss Cunyngham's
visit to the theatre, and his disgust over the music-hall clowning--of
his going down to Brighton that day, and his wish to stand on some other
footing with those friends of his--winding up by asking, to Mangan's
surprise, how long it would take to study for the bar and get called,
and whether his training--the confidence acquired on the stage--might
not help in addressing a jury.
"So the idol has got tired of being worshipped," Mangan said, at last.
"It is an odd thing. I wonder how many thousands of people there are in
London--not merely shop-girls--who consider you the most fortunate
person alive--in whose imagination you loom larger than any saint or
soldier, any priest or statesman, of our own time. And I wonder what
they would say if they knew you were thinking of voluntarily abdicating
so proud and enviable a position. Well, well!--and the reason for this
sacrifice? Of course, you know it is a not uncommon thing for women to
give up their carriages and luxuries and fine living, and go into a
retreat, where they have to sweep out cells, and even keep strict
silence for a week at a time, which, I suppose, is a more difficult
business. The reason in their case is clear enough; they are driven to
all that by their spiritual needs; they want to have their souls washed
clean by penance and self-denial. But you," he continued, in no
unfriendly mood, but with his usual uncompromising sincerity, "whence
comes your renunciation? It is simply that a woman has turned your head.
You want to find yourself on the same plane with her; you want to be
socially her equal; and to do that you think you should throw off those
theatrical trappings. You see, my dear Linn, if I have remembered my
catechism, you have not; you have forgotten that you must learn and
labor truly to get your own living, and do your duty in that state of
life unto which it has pleased God to call you. You want to change your
state of life; you want to become a barrister. What would happen? The
chances are entirely against your being able to earn your own living--at
least for years; but what is far more certain is that your fashionable
friends--whose positions and occupations you admire--would care nothing
more about you. You are interesting to them now because you are a
favorite of the public, because you play the chief part at the New
Theatre. What would you be as a briefless barrister? Who would provide
you with salmon-fishing and deer-stalking then? If you aspired to marry
one of those dames of high degree, what would be your claims and
qualifications? You say you would almost rather be a gillie in charge of
dogs and ponies. A gillie in charge of dogs and ponies doesn't enjoy
many conversations with his young mistress; and if he made bold to
demand any closer alliance Pauline would pretty soon have that Claude
kicked off the premises--and serve him right. If you had come to me and
said, 'I am too well off; I am being spoiled and petted to death; the
simplicity and dignity of life is being wholly lost in all this
fashionable flattery, this public notoriety and applause; and to recover
myself a little--as a kind of purification--I am going to put aside my
trappings; I will go and work as a hod-carrier for three months or six
months; I will live on the plainest fare; I will bear patiently the
cursing the master of the gang will undoubtedly hurl at me; I will sleep
on a straw mattress'--then I could have understood that. But what is it
you renounce?--and why? You think you would recommend yourself better to
your swell friends if you dropped the theatre altogether--"
"Don't you want to hire a hall?" said Lionel, gloomily.
"Oh, nobody likes being preached at less than I do myself," Mangan said,
with perfect equanimity, "but you see I think I ought to tell you, when
you ask me, how I regard the situation. And, mind you, there is
something very heroic--very impracticably heroic, but magnanimous all
the same--in your idea that you might abandon all the popularity and
position you have won as a mere matter of sentiment. Of course you won't
do it. You couldn't bring yourself to become a mere nobody--as would
happen if you went into chambers and began reading up law-books. And you
wouldn't be any nearer to salmon-fishing and deer-forests that way, or
to the people who possess these by birth and inheritance. The trouble
with you, Linn, my boy, as with most of us, is that you weren't born in
the purple. It is quite true that if you were called to the bar you
could properly claim the title of esquire, and you would find yourself
not further down than the hundred and fiftieth or hundred and sixtieth
section in the tables of precedence; but if you went with this
qualification to those fine friends of yours, they would admit its
validity, and let you know at the same time you were no longer
interesting to them. Harry Thornhill, of the New Theatre, has a free
passport everywhere; Mr. Lionel Moore, of the Middle Temple, wouldn't be
wanted anywhere."
"You are very worldly-wise to-night, Maurice."
"I don't want to see you make a sacrifice that wouldn't bring you what
you expect to gain by it," Mangan said. "But, as I say, you won't make
any such sacrifice. You have had your brain turned by a pretty pair of
eyes--perhaps by an elegant figure--and you have been troubled and
dissatisfied and dreaming dreams."
"If that is your conclusion and summing-up of the whole matter," Lionel
said, with studied indifference, "perhaps you will offer me a drink, and
I'll have a cigarette, and we can talk about something on which we are
likely to agree."
"I'm sure I beg your pardon," Mangan said, with a laugh; and he went and
brought forth what modest stores he had, and he was quite willing that
the conversation should flow into another channel.
And little did Lionel know that at this very moment there was something
awaiting him at his own rooms that would (far more effectually than any
reasoning and plain speaking) banish from his mind, for the moment at
least, all those restless aspirations and vague regrets. When eventually
he arrived in Piccadilly and went up-stairs, he was not expecting any
letters, this being Sunday; and as there was on the table only a small
parcel, he would probably have left that unheeded till the morning (no
doubt it was a pair of worked slippers, or a couple of ivory-backed
brushes, or something of the kind) but that in passing he happened to
glance at the note on the top of it, and he observed that the
handwriting was foreign. He took it up carelessly and opened it; his
carelessness soon vanished. The message was from Mlle. Girond, and it
was in French:
"DEAR MR. MOORE,--To-day Mrs. Grey and I have called twice at your
apartments, but in vain, and now I leave this letter for you. It is
frightful, what has happened. Nina has gone, no one knows where; we
can hear nothing of her. This morning when I came down to her room
she was gone; there was a letter for me, one for Mr. Lehmann, one
for Miss Constance, asking her to be ready to sing to-morrow night,
another for Mrs. Grey, with money for the apartments until the end
of the month, and also there was this little packet for you. In her
letter to me she asks me to see them all delivered. During the
night she must have made these arrangements; in the morning she is
gone! I am in despair; I know not what to do. Will you have the
goodness to come down to-morrow as soon as possible?
"ESTELLE."
And then mechanically he drew a chair to the table, and sat down and
pulled the small package towards him; perhaps the contents might help to
explain this extraordinary thing that had occurred. But the moment that
he took the lid off the pasteboard box he was more bewildered than ever;
for the first glimpse told him that Nina had returned to him all the
little presents he had made to her in careless moments.
"Nina!" he said, under his voice, in a tone of indignant reproach.
Yes, here was every one of them, from the enclasped loving-cup to the
chance trinkets he had purchased for her just as they happened to
attract his eye. He took them all out; there was no letter, no message
of any kind. And then he asked himself, almost angrily, what sort of mad
freak was this. Had the wayward and petulant Nina--forgetting all the
suave and gracious demeanor she had been teaching herself since she came
to England--had she run away in a fit of temper, breaking her engagement
at the theatre, and causing alarm and anxiety to her friends, all about
nothing? For he and she had not quarrelled in any way whatsoever, as far
as he knew. One fancy, at least, never occurred to him--or, if it
occurred to him, it was dismissed in a moment--that Nina might have had
a secret lover; that she had honestly wished to return these presents
before making an elopement. It was quite possible that Nicolo Ciana, if
he had heard of Nina's success in England, might have pursued her, and
sought to marry so very eligible a helpmeet; but if the young man with
the greasy hair and the sham jewelry and the falsetto voice had really
come to England, Lionel knew who would have been the first to bid him
return to his native shores and his _zuccherelli_. Had not Nina
indignantly denied that he had ever dared to address her as "Nenna mia,"
or that his perpetual "Antoniella, Antonià," in any way referred to her?
No; Lionel did not think that Nicolo Ciana had much to do with Nina's
disappearance.
And then, as he regarded this little box of useless jewelry, another
wild guess flashed through his brain, leaving him somewhat breathless,
almost frightened. Was it possible that Nina had mistaken these gifts
for love-gifts, had discovered her mistake, and, in a fit of wounded
pride, had flung them back and fled forever from this England that had
deceived her? He was not vain enough to think there could be anything
more serious, that Nina might be breaking her heart over what had
happened to her; but it was quite enough if he had unconsciously led her
to believe that he was paying her attentions. He looked at that
loving-cup with some pricking of conscience; he had to confess that such
a gift was capable of misconstruction. It had never occurred to him that
she might regard it as some kind of mute declaration--as a pledge of
affection between him and her that necessitated no clearer
understanding. He had seen the two tiny goblets in a window; he had been
taken by the pretty silver-gilt ornamentation; he had been interested in
the old-fashioned custom; and he had lightly imagined that Nina would be
pleased--that was all. And now that he thought of it, he had to confess
that he had been indiscreet. It is true he had given Nina those presents
from time to time in a careless and haphazard fashion that ought not to
have been misunderstood--only, as he had to remind himself, Nina must
have perceived that he did not give similar presents to Miss Burgoyne,
or Estelle Girond, or anybody else in the theatre. And was Nina now
thinking that he had treated her badly?--Nina, who had been always his
sympathizing friend, his gentle adviser, and kind companion. Was there
any one in the world that he less wished to harm? He supposed she must
have been angry when she returned these jewels and gew-gaws; clearly she
was too proud to send him any other message. And now she would be away
somewhere, where he could not get hold of her to pet her into a
reconciliation again; no doubt there was some hurt feeling of injury in
her heart--perhaps she was even crying.
"Poor Nina!" he said to himself, little dreaming of the true state of
affairs. "I hope it isn't so? but if it is so, here have I, through mere
thoughtlessness, wounded her pride, and, what is more, interfered with
her professional career. I suppose she'll go right away back to old
Pandiani; and they'll be precious glad to get her now at Malta, after
her success in England. Perhaps some day we shall hear of her coming
over here again, as a famous star in grand opera; that will be her
revenge. But I never thought Nina would want to be revenged on me."
And yet he was uneasy; there was something in all this he did not
understand. He began to long for the coming of the next day, that he
might go away down to Sloane Street and hear what Miss Girond had to
tell him. Why, for example, he asked himself, had Nina taken this step
so abruptly--so entirely without warning? How and when had she made the
discovery that she had mistaken the intention of those friendly little
acts of kindness and his constant association with her? Then he tried to
remember on what terms he had last parted from her. It was at the
theatre, as he patiently summoned up each circumstance. It was at the
theatre, on the preceding night. She had come to him in the wings,
observing that he looked rather vexed, and she had given him comforting
and cheerful words, as was her wont. Surely there was no anger in her
mind against him then. But thereafter? Well, he had seen no more of
Nina. When Miss Cunyngham had come behind the scenes, he had forgotten
all about Nina. And then suddenly he remembered that he must have been
standing close by the prompter's box, absorbed in talking to Miss
Cunyngham, when Nina would have to come up to go on the stage. Had she
passed them? Had she suspected? Had she, in her proud and petted way,
resented this intimacy, and resolved to throw back to him the harmless
little gifts he had bestowed on her? Poor Nina! she had always been so
wilful--so easily pleased, so easily offended--but of late he had rather
forgotten that, for she had been bearing herself with what she regarded
as an English manner; and indeed their friendship had been so constant
and unvarying, so kind and considerate on both sides, that there had
been no opportunity for the half-vexed, half-laughing quarrels of
earlier days. He would seek out this spoiled child (he said to himself)
and scold her into being good again. And yet, even as he tried to
persuade himself that all would still be well, he could not help
recalling the fierce vehemence with which Nina had repudiated the
suggestion that perhaps she might let some one else drink out of this
hapless loving-cup that now lay before him. "I would rather have it
dashed to pieces and thrown into the sea!" she had said, with pale face
and quivering lips and eyes bordering on tears. He remembered that he
had been a little surprised at the time--not thinking what it all might
mean.