"HERTHA."
A dull afternoon in November. In London, too, where, though bright and
beautiful November days are not utterly unknown, they are, it must be
allowed, the exception.
A not very lively scene indoors either.
A large--too large for the present purpose at least--concert-room in a
public building, very far from well filled, and somewhat dimly lighted;
the dimness aggravated by a suspicion of fog.
"Rather an unlucky day, I fear," said one lady to her next neighbour.
"Still, at this season, what can one expect?"
"And after all," was the reply, "the dull season is the best for charity
things. People--such of them as are in town--are glad of something to
do."
For the concert was one for a benevolent object, not seemingly a very
popular one, or possibly merely but little known. It had been difficult
to collect the performers, more difficult to obtain the lady
patronesses, most difficult of all to sell the tickets. And as a
natural consequence, but few had been sold.
"The programme is a very fair one," resumed the first speaker, glancing
at it as she spoke.
"I'm glad you think so," replied the other lady, who had had some hand
in getting up the concert. "That last violin solo was a little too
long."
"Perhaps so--but still--the audience was very attentive; more than
attentive indeed. Just look at those two girls--I have been watching
their faces. They seem quite absorbed and delighted. Look at them now.
What pretty girls they are, too!"
Mrs Balderson--for such was the name of the second speaker--smiled.
Her companion's remarks pleased her.
"They are two young friends of mine," she replied in a lower tone. "I
put them in front so as to see the performers well. They are full of
interest in everything. They are staying with me for two or three
weeks--their first real visit to London."
"Indeed! how you must enjoy having them! Are they relations?" came
next.
Mrs Balderson answered in a semi-whisper, till a slight rustle of
expectancy warned her that the momentary interval between the long solo
and a song which came next was over, and she relapsed into dutiful
silence.
The sisters in front had been talking also, though in subdued tones.
"Celia," said the elder of the two, a handsome, eager-faced girl, with
brown hair and eyes--"Celia, are we not lucky? Do you see what the
first song is?"
"I saw it ever so long ago, but I did not tell you. I thought it would
be such a surprise. I wish you hadn't seen it till you heard it," said
the younger girl.
"What an Irishism!" returned the other, laughing. "You mustn't count on
my short-sightedness, you see;" for Winifred, the elder girl, was a
trifle short-sighted. "I am very glad I saw it; I like the pleasures of
anticipation."
She did not look her age, though she was fond of impressing upon her
friends that she was "no longer very young." Her complexion and the
rounded outlines of her face might have been in keeping with seventeen
or eighteen. Only a certain tone of decision, a slight, very slight
touch of brusqueness, made her twenty-four years credible. Late hours
and heated rooms, the wear and tear of over-amusement or
over-excitement, had nothing to answer for in the case of these country
girls--country girls, in a sense, of the old-fashioned kind.
Celia, who was not yet twenty, was prettier than her sister; taller and
fairer--a more flowerlike creature--with an entire absence of
self-consciousness, born to a certain extent, perhaps, of her absolute
reliance upon Winifred, which added curiously to her charm.
"So do I," she replied. "I like to know the name of the singer and to
picture her to myself beforehand--especially when she is going to sing
anything one loves _so_ clearly as," and she mentioned the song (an old
ballad which I will not name, as I should like my readers to think of
_the_ old ballad they care for most). "If she is ugly or ungraceful, I
shall just shut my eyes after the first glance and try to forget her.
But her name is--pretty? no, not exactly, but nice, somehow, and rather
queer. `Hertha Norreys.' Did you ever hear it before, Winifred?"
"`Norreys,' spelt like that, is a very good name," said Winifred the
all-wise, "but `Hertha!' What is it I know about `Hertha?' We must
look it out in our `Christian names,' Celia, when--"
But a touch on her arm from the quicker-eyed Celia silenced her, and
like their chaperon and her friend, they grew mute, more than mute,
motionless with interest which soon developed into an intenser feeling,
as they watched the new-comer quietly making her way to the front of the
platform. Saw her, and soon _heard_ her. Yet the two perceptions
seemed almost as one. From that first day, it was and ever remained to
both--to Winifred especially, perhaps--impossible to think of Hertha
Norreys in her absence except as singing, impossible to hear elsewhere
the familiar notes of her favourite songs without seeing _her_.
For her songs, as a rule, were well known and simple; ballads familiar
to most of us--the kind of thing which is, in great measure, "made" by
the artist; which may be "marred" into utter nonentity.
And she was not--no, certainly not--"pretty," and by no means "to the
multitude" beautiful, though the word describes less inadequately than a
poorer one the impression she made on the "some;" an impression which
after knowledge of her, never lessened or effaced. She was not very
tall, though of what used to be considered more than average height for
a woman: nothing in or about her was startling or even striking. Her
features, though in almost perfect proportion--perhaps for that very
reason--never provoked admiration of their individual merits; her eyes,
clear and sweet, could light up with affection or with occasionally a
flash of consciousness almost approaching the inspiration of genius,
into rare beauty; her whole face, her whole personality, spoke above all
of simple yet powerful goodness, the true, large-hearted, thoughtful
goodness of a noble woman.
At this time Hertha Norreys was twenty-eight.
The Maryon sisters--for Maryon was their surname--sat, as I said, in
more than silence, while the wonderful--yes, wonderful I must call them
in their perfect purity and sweetness--notes floated over them; now in
joyousness, now in pathos, to die away at last in unutterable regret, as
dies the wind on an autumn evening.
She was encored, of course. Though not in the first ranks of vocalists,
for her voice was of no astounding compass, Miss Norreys was allowed on
all hands to be "very good, very good indeed in her way," and in herself
she was a favourite with many, though not with all; so it was the proper
thing, especially on an occasion like the present, when she gave her
services gratuitously, to applaud her heartily.
And till she had reappeared and sung again the last verse of the ballad,
neither Winifred nor Celia spoke or moved.
Then came--from Celia--the first half-timid words.
"I am so glad she sang the last verse over again," she whispered.
"Anything else would have spoilt it."
"Of course," said Winifred, and her tone was a little impatient. But in
a moment, ashamed of her hastiness, she spoke again. "Oh, Celia," she
said, "I am not cross. But I seem so--so worked up. Isn't she
_wonderful_? Not her singing only--and after all, I know you understand
music better than I do--but the whole of her, her face, her way of
moving, even her dress! It was just perfect."
"Blue-grey bengaline--that lovely shade," said Celia, in whom there was
now and then a queer, sudden matter-of-fact-ness which a superficial
observer would rather have expected to find in Winifred. "And it fitted
so well--so naturally, you know."
"Everything about her is natural--that's the beauty of it," Winifred
replied, repressing her indignation at hearing the texture of her
divinity's garments put into vulgar words. ("I wonder Celia does not
tell me how many yards of stuff there must be in the dress," she said to
herself.) "Everything about her is natural--at least in perfect
harmony," she repeated, and then she gave a deep sigh. "Celia, is she
to sing again?" she inquired in a low voice.
"Yes," Celia replied, consulting the programme she held, "once--no,
twice--once alone and another time in a trio, or quartette rather. I
daresay it is some kind of glee: the name sounds like that."
"I shall not care for that," said Winifred, "but oh, I am so glad she is
to sing again alone."
She did care for the quartette when it came, for Miss Norreys' voice was
far ahead of the others, and then there was the pleasure of seeing her!
And the third time she sang, the impression of the first was
intensified, for though the song itself was a gayer one, the
indescribable pathos of her voice was there too--it was as if a spirit
were singing of joys which had once been his, long ago, in some golden
age of childhood.
After that, Winifred, though she sat silent and apparently attentive,
heard but little of the music.
Then came the little bustle of collecting discarded cloaks and furs, and
the interchange of remarks upon the performance, as the "assistants," in
the French sense, most of whom were women, made their way to the door.
"Winifred, my dear, Celia," said their hostess, when they were waiting
with her for the carriage at the entrance, "I want to introduce you to
my friend, Lady Campion."
"You have enjoyed the concert, I think," said the stranger--the same
whose remarks about the Maryon girls had pleased Mrs Balderson.
"Very much, oh, very, _very_ much," both sisters replied.
Their chaperon gave a little smile of satisfaction as she glanced at
Lady Campion.
"There's some pleasure in having girls like these to take about, isn't
there?" the smile and glance seemed to say, and the answering expression
in Lady Campion's bright eyes showed that she understood.
"It is cold, isn't it?" said Mrs Balderson, drawing her fur-lined cloak
more closely round her, with a slight shiver.
"It _looks_ cold," replied Lady Campion, as she glanced up and down the
street where the incipient fog veiling the dim red still lingering in
the sky, and the yellow glare of the just-lighted lamps, gave a curious,
half-mysterious effect, not without its charm. "It looks cold," she
repeated, "but I don't think that it really is so."
"It was beautifully warm in the concert-room," said Winifred. "London
is so much less chilly than the country just now. It _is_ so delightful
to be here."
"Yet the country is often charming in November: there are days when one
longs to sit out sketching," said Lady Campion, who tried her hand at
painting as well as at several other accomplishments. "The hazy
colouring is so wonderful sometimes."
"If I were an artist," said Celia, who had not yet spoken, "I should
like nothing better than to try _London_ effects on a day like this. I
never saw anything more curious than the lights just now."
Lady Campion glanced at her in some surprise. There was a touch of
originality in the remark which she had not expected, for she had
already in her own mind put down Celia as "the pretty sister," and
Winifred as "the clever one."
Just then Mrs Balderson's footman hurried up to announce the carriage.
"Good-bye, so glad to have met you," said his mistress, as she began to
shake hands with her friend. "But--how are you going home?" she added
suddenly. "You are driving, of course?"
"No, that is to say I have no carriage here. I am going to get a
hansom," replied the younger woman.
"Then do come with us, and let us drop you. It will not be out of our
way at all," said Mrs Balderson, cordially. "There is plenty of room
for us all."
"Thank you very much. Well, yes, it would be very nice," replied Lady
Campion, who felt rather pleased to see a little more of the two girls.
They interested her, and she liked to be interested.
So in another moment or two the four found themselves comfortably
ensconced in the landau, which, like everything belonging to Mrs
Balderson, gave one a not unpleasing impression of space and plenty--of
a rather old-fashioned kind.
"You are not tired, my dear Winifred? You have not got a headache, I
hope?" said her hostess. For Miss Maryon was sitting silent with an
absent look.
The girl started, then she smiled brightly. Her smile was very
pleasant, relieving her face from the heaviness which in repose was its
possible defect. And she had beautiful teeth!
"Oh dear, no," she replied. "I never have headaches. None of us do,
except Louise, and that very, very seldom. I was--only thinking."
"I know," said Celia. "Mrs Balderson, shall I tell you what it is?
Winifred has fallen in love, and at first sight."
"My dear!" exclaimed Mrs Balderson, rather taken aback, while Lady
Campion listened with a quiet smile, her interest and amusement
increasing.
"Yes," Celia went on, unabashed, "and so have I, though not quite so
badly, perhaps. It is Miss Norreys--Miss Hertha Norreys, the singer."
Mrs Balderson's face cleared.
"She is so--I can't find a word for her," said Winifred, half
apologetically, but tacitly pleading guilty to her sister's impeachment.
"Isn't she wonderful, Mrs Balderson?--_you_ think her so, I am sure;
don't you?" she went on, turning to Lady Campion, in whose face she
fancied she read quicker sympathy.
"I think she sings charmingly, in her own way," began the elder woman,
who was by no means ignorant of music; "and in herself she is, of
course, most--"
"No, no; I agree with Miss Maryon," interrupted Lady Campion, but in a
pretty eager way peculiar to her, which took away all shadow of
offensiveness from the solecism. "Hertha Norreys, take her all
together, _is_ wonderful. I know no one the least, the very least like
her."
"You know her, then?" exclaimed Winifred, her eyes sparkling. "You know
her privately?"
"Is it her real name?" added Celia, "I thought actors and singers always
changed their names, or at least altered them somehow."
"Not always--more often indeed not now-a-days, when they are of her
class and position," Lady Campion replied. "She is an `artist,' so to
say, of the modern school, retaining all the privileges that are hers by
birth, except--and that `except,' I fear, means a great deal--that she
is, or would be if she did nothing, very poor."
"If she did nothing?" repeated Winifred, musingly. "What a
different,"--then she broke off hurriedly, asking again--"You know her?
Privately--personally, I mean?"
Lady Campion nodded her head.
"I have that honour," she said quaintly. "And an honour it is. But
here we are at my own door. A thousand thanks, dear Mrs Balderson;
but--now, won't you do me another kindness? Come in and have tea with
me, and I shall be able to tell our young friends a little more about my
dear Hertha."
Mrs Balderson hesitated. Her first impulse was always to do whatever
she was asked to do, if such doing, that is to say, promised to give
pleasure to the asker or any one else concerned. But, as often
happened--for she had learned by experience--there came second thoughts.
"I fear I must not," she said. "Mr Balderson and Eric are coming home
early. Eric has some accompaniments he wants me to try over before
dinner. But I should be very glad for you girls to stay half an hour or
so with Lady Campion," she went on, turning to the Maryons. "I cannot
send the carriage back again, I fear, for I have had it out so much
to-day, but your footman could see them into a hansom; they would be all
right?" she added, reverting to Lady Campion.
"Oh, perfectly. I shall be delighted," she replied; and the "delight,"
without any polite figure of speech, shone in Winifred's eyes, as she
eagerly repeated the word "perfectly," adding--"That will be charming.
Celia and I want very much to go about a little alone in hansoms--to
learn to manage for ourselves."
But Celia hesitated.
"Winifred," she said, "I think one of us _should_ write home. We only
sent a postcard of our arrival last night, and they will be so looking
forward to a letter to-morrow morning. I had planned to write just now
as soon as we go in. Might I--could _I_ go home with you, dear Mrs
Balderson, and--and Winifred stay with--"
She spoke nervously, for she _felt_ her sister's disapproval.
"Certainly not," said Miss Maryon, decidedly. "Of course, if any one
writes, it must be me. Not that I think it necessary--in fact, you are
absurd, Celia. But still, as you have got it into your head. Thank you
a thousand times," she went on, turning to Lady Campion with a frank
heartiness which was one of her attractions. "I am ashamed to make such
a fuss. Perhaps Celia is right, but--you will ask us again to come to
see you, I hope? I should so enjoy it, and I long to hear about Miss
Norreys."
"I like the elder girl best," thought Lady Campion, as she entered her
own house. "She is so entirely unaffected: the other, it strikes me, is
a bit of a prig."
But it is not the mark of a prig to look guilty; and poor Celia looked
decidedly guilty as they drove off again. Mrs Balderson, gifted with
the kind of tact which comes from an extremely warm heart, exerted
herself to disperse the little cloud which had arisen, by giving her
young friends a few details about Lady Campion.
"She is so clever," she said; "she can do almost anything she sets
herself to. But I think she takes up too many things. She has no
children, and few responsibilities; for they are not very rich--just
comfortably off--and her husband is much older than she, and manages
everything, so her time is greatly in her own hands."
"_What_ a pity she married!" exclaimed Winifred, with extreme
conviction. "She might have been really great at something, if she had
not thrown herself into trammels."
Mrs Balderson smiled, but there was some perplexity in her smile.
"My dear!" she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that that is how you
look upon marriage--a happy marriage, too, for Sir Hugh Campion is
devoted to his wife and she to him, only he spoils her a little."
"Ah, yes," said Winifred, "a plaything when not a slave! I have my own
ideas, dear Mrs Balderson, but you mustn't be shocked at me. You must
allow that happy marriages are rare."
"If you mean perfect marriages, perhaps so. But happy marriages--no, I
can't agree with you. I know as many happy-together husbands and wives
as mothers and daughters, or brothers and sisters, or any other
relations," said Mrs Balderson.
"I am using the word `happy' in a wider and deeper sense than yours,"
said Winifred, a little loftily. "But we must talk about it some other
time. I flatter myself I have thought it out pretty thoroughly."
"At one--no, two-and-twenty?" said her hostess, with a good-humoured
smile.
"I am four-and-twenty--past," said Winifred. They had reached Mrs
Balderson's house by this time.
"Come and have some tea before you take off your things," she said. "It
is sure to be ready. And then you can write your letters up-stairs if
you like. I hope the servants keep up a good fire in your room,
Winifred?"
"Oh dear yes," said Winifred. "Not that we really need one. London
houses are so much warmer than country ones, you know."
"Yes--we have a few advantages over you, I allow," said Mrs Balderson.
"This house is very warm though it is commonplace. But even that must
be a change to you after your wonderful old home, with its quaint nooks
and crannies and odd-shaped rooms, inexplicable staircases, and--oh,
that reminds me. You must tell Lady Campion all about your ghost when
we see her again. Ghosts are one of her manias."
A slight frown showed itself on Winifred's face at the words.
"You know I don't believe in it," she said. "It is so silly."
"Oh, Winifred, don't say that," exclaimed Celia, with sudden anxiety.
"It always frightens me a little when you speak so."