Checkmate Part 12

"I should so like to make a large drawing of this in chalks!" said Alice, still gazing on the miniature.

"You draw so beautifully in chalks! Your style is not often found here--your colouring is so fine."

"Do you really think so?"

"You must know it, Miss Arden. You are too good an artist not to suspect what everyone else must see, the real excellence of your drawings. Your colouring is better understood in France. Your master, I fancy, was a Frenchman?" said Mr. Longcluse.

"Yes, he was, and we got on very well together. Some of his young lady pupils were very much afraid of him."

"Your poetry is fired by that picture, Miss Arden. Your copy will be a finer thing than the original," said he.

"I shall aim only at making it a faithful copy; and if I can accomplish anything like that, I shall be only too glad."

"I hope you will allow me to see it?" pleaded Longcluse.

"Oh, certainly," she laughed. "Only I'm a little afraid of you, Mr.

Longcluse."

"What can you mean, Miss Arden?"

"I mean, you are so good a critic in art, every one says, that I really _am_ afraid of you," answered the young lady, laughing.

"I should be very glad to forfeit any little knowledge I have, if it were attended with such a misfortune," said Longcluse. "But I don't flatter; I tell you truly, a critic has only to admire, when he looks at your drawings; they are quite above the level of an amateur's work."

"Well, whether you mean it or not, I _am_ very much flattered," she laughed. "And though wise people say that flattery spoils one, I can't help thinking it very agreeable to be flattered."

At this point of the dialogue Mr. Vivian Darnley--who wished that it should be plain to all, and to one in particular, that he did not care the least what was going on in other parts of the room--began to stumble through the treble of a tune at the piano with his right hand. And whatever other people may have thought of his performance, to Miss Alice Arden it seemed very good music indeed, and inspired her with fresh animation. Such as it was, Mr. Darnley's solo also turned the course of Miss Arden's thoughts from drawing to another art, and she said--

"You, Mr. Longcluse, who know everything about the opera, can you tell me--of course you can--anything about the great ba.s.so who is coming?"

"Stentoroni?"

"Yes; the newspapers and critics promise wonders."

"It is nearly two years since I heard him. He was very great, and deserves all they say in 'Robert le Diable.' But there his greatness began and ended. The voice, of course, you had, but everything else was defective. It is plain, however, that the man who could make so fine a study of one opera, could with equal labour make as great a success in others. He has not sung in any opera for more than a year and a half, and has been working diligently; and so everyone is in the dark very much, and I am curious to hear the result--and n.o.body knows more than I have told you. You are sure of a good 'Robert le Diable,' but all the rest is speculation."

"And now, Mr. Longcluse, I shall try your good-nature."

"How?"

"I am going to make Lady May ask you to sing a song."

"Pray don't."

"Why not?"

"I should so much rather you asked me yourself."

"That's very good of you; then I certainly shall. I _do_ ask you."

"And I instantly obey. And what shall the song be?" asked he, approaching the piano, to which she also walked.

"Oh, that ghostly one that I liked so much when you sang it here about a week ago," she answered.

"I know it--yes, with pleasure." And he sat down at the piano, and in a clear, rich baritone, sang the following odd song:--

"The autumn leaf was falling At midnight from the tree, When at her cas.e.m.e.nt calling, 'I'm here, my love,' says he.

'Come down and mount behind me, And rest your little head, And in your white arms wind me, Before that I be dead.

"'You've stolen my heart by magic, I've kissed your lips in dreams: Our wooing wild and tragic Has been in ghostly scenes.

The wondrous love I bear you Has made one life of twain, And it will bless or scare you, In deathless peace or pain.

"'Our dreamland shall be glowing, If you my bride will be; To darkness both are going, Unless you come with me.

Come now, and mount behind me, And rest your little head, And in your white arms wind me, Before that I be dead.'"

"Why, dear Alice, will you choose that dismal song, when you know that Mr. Longcluse has so many others that are not only charming, but cheery and natural?"

"It is because it is _un_natural that I like that song so much; the air is so ominous and spectral, and yet so pa.s.sionate. I think the idea is Icelandic--those ghostly lovers that came in the dark to win their beloved maidens, who as yet knew nothing of their having died, to ride with them over the snowy fields and frozen rivers, to join their friends at a merry-making which they were never to see; but there is something more mysterious even in this lover, for his pa.s.sion has unearthly beginnings that lose themselves in utter darkness. Thank you very much, Mr. Longcluse. It is so very kind of you! And now, Lady May, isn't it your turn to choose? May she choose, Mr. Longcluse?"

"Any one, if you desire it, may choose anything I possess, and have it,"

said he, in a low impa.s.sioned murmur.

How the young lady would have taken this, I know not, but all were suddenly interrupted. For at this moment a servant entered with a note, which he presented, upon a salver, to Mr. Longcluse.

"Your servant is waiting, Sir, please, for orders in the awl," murmured the man.

"Oh, yes--thanks," said Mr. Longcluse, who saw a shabby letter, with the words "Private" and "Immediate" written in a round, vulgar hand over the address.

"Pray read your note, Mr. Longcluse, and don't mind us," said Lady May.

"Thank you very much. I think I know what this is. I gave some evidence to-day at an inquest," began Mr. Longcluse.

"That wretched Frenchman," interposed Lady May, "Monsieur Lebrun or----"

"Lebas," said Vivian Darnley.

"Yes, so it was, Lebas; what a frightful thing that was!" continued Lady May, who was always well up in the day's horrors.

"Very melancholy, and very alarming also. It is a selfish way of looking at it, but one can't help thinking it might just as well have happened to any one else who was there. It brings it home to one a little uncomfortably," said Mr. Longcluse, with an uneasy smile and a shrug.

"And you actually gave evidence, Mr. Longcluse?" said Lady May.

"Yes, a little," he answered. "It may lead to something. I hope so. As yet it only indicates a line of inquiry. It will be in the papers, I suppose, in the morning. There will be, I daresay, a pretty full report of that inquest."

"Then you saw something occur that excited your suspicions?" said Lady May.

Mr. Longcluse recounted all he had to tell, and mentioned having made inquiries as to the present abode of the man, Paul Davies, at the police office.

"And this note, I daresay, is the one they promised to send me, telling the result of their inquiries," he added.