Prince Fortunatus Part 11

Nina, seated at table in that cool summer costume, merely toyed with the things put before her (except when they came to the strawberries); she was chattering away, with her little dramatic gestures, about every conceivable subject within her recent experience, until, as she happened to say something about Naples, Lionel cruelly interrupted her by asking her if she had heard lately from her sweetheart.

"Who?" she said, with a stare; and also the little widow in black looked up from her plate and seemed to think it a strange question.

"Don't you pretend to have forgotten, Nina," Lionel said, reprovingly.

"Don't you look so innocent. If you have no memory, then I have."

"But who, Leo?" she demanded, with a touch of indignation.

"Who?--who?--who? What is it you mean?"

"Nina, don't you pretend you have forgotten poor Nicolo Ciana."

"Oh, Nicolo!" she exclaimed, with supreme contempt (but all the same there was a faint flush on the clear olive complexion). "You laugh at me, Leo! Nicolo! He was all, as they say here, sham--sham jewelry, sham clothes, all pretence, except the oil for his hair--that was plenty and substantial, yes. And a sham voice--he told lies to the _maestro_ about his wonderful compa.s.s--"

"Now, now, Nina, don't be unjust," he said. "Mrs. Grey must hear the truth. Mrs. Grey, this was a young Italian who wanted to be better acquainted with Miss Nina here--I believe he used to write imploring letters to her, and that she cruelly wouldn't answer them; and then he wrote to Maestro Pandiani, describing the wonderful tenor voice he had, and saying he wanted to study. I suppose he fancied that if the _maestro_ would only believe in the mysterious qualities of this wonderful organ of his he would try to bring them out; and in the meantime the happy Nicolo would be meeting Nina continually. A lover's stratagem--nothing worse than that! What is the harm of saying that you could take the high C if you were in ordinary health, but that your voice has been ill-used by a recent fever? It was Nina he was thinking of. Don't I remember how I used to hear him coming along the garden-paths in the Villa Reale--if there were few people about you could hear his vile falsetto a mile off--and always it was:

'Antoniella, Antonia, Antoniella, Antonia; Votate, Nenna bella, votate cca, Vedimmo a pettenessa comme te sta.'"

"Leo," she said, with proud lips, "he never called me '_Nenna mia_'--never! He dared not!"

In another instant, he could see, there would have been protesting tears in her eyes; and even Mrs. Grey, who did not know the meaning of the familiar Neapolitan phrase,[1] noticed the tremulous indignation in the girl's voice.

[Footnote 1: _Nenna mia_ or _Nenna bella_ is the pet phrase used by the Neapolitan young man in addressing his sweetheart. _Nenna_ has nothing to do with _Nina_, which is a contraction of Antonia.]

"Of course not, Nina," he said, at once; "I was only joking--but you know he did use to sing that confounded 'Antoniella, Antonia,' and it was always you he was thinking of."

"I did not think of _him_, then!" said she, almost instantly recovering her self-control. "Him? No! When I go out--when I was going out in the _Santa Lucia_, I looked at the English gentlemen--all so simple and honest in their dress--perhaps a steel watch-chain to a gold watch--not a sham gold chain to no watch! Then they looked so clean and wholesome--is it right, wholesome?--not their hair dripping with grease, as the peasant-girls love it. And then," she added, with a laugh, for her face had quickly resumed its usual happy brightness of expression, "then I grow sentimental. I say to myself, 'These are English people--they are going away back to England, where Leo is--can they take him a message?--can they tell him they were going over to Capri, and they met on the ship--on the steamer--an Italian girl, who liked to look at the English, and liked to hear the English speak?' And then I say 'No; what is the use; what would any message do; Leo has forgotten me.'"

"Oh, yes," said he, lightly, "you must have been quite certain that I had forgotten my old comrade Nina!"

They got a beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon for their drive down to Hampton Court; nor was it fated to be without incident either. They had pa.s.sed along Oxford Street and were just turning out of the crowded thoroughfare to enter Hyde Park--and Lionel, as a man will, was watching how his coachman would take the horses through the Marble Arch--when Nina said, in a low voice,

"Leo!"

"Well?" said he, turning to her.

"Did you not see?"

"See what?"

"The carriage that went past." Nina said, looking a little concerned.

"Miss Burgoyne was in it--she bowed to you--"

"Did she? I didn't see her--I'll have to apologize to her to-morrow,"

said he, carelessly. "Perhaps the compliment was meant for you, Nina."

"For me? Ah, no. Miss Burgoyne speaks no more to me."

"She doesn't speak to you? Why?" he asked, in some amazement.

The young Italian lady made a little gesture of indifference.

"How do I know? But I am not sorry. I do not like her--no! she is not--she is not--straightforward, is it right?--she is cunning--and she has a dreadful temper--oh! I have heard;--I have heard such stories!

Again, she is not an artist--I said that to you from the beginning, Leo--no, not an artist: why does she talk to you from behind her fan, when she should regard the others on the stage? Why does she talk always and always to you, when she has nothing to say?"

"Oh, but she finds plenty to say!" he observed.

"Yes," said Nina, contemptuously, "she has always plenty to say to you on the stage, if she has not a word the moment the scene is over. Why?

You don't understand! You don't reflect! I will tell you, Leo, if you are so simple. You think she does not know that the public can see she talks to you? She knows it well; and that is why she talks. It is to boast of her friendship with you, her alliance with you. She says to the ladies in the stalls, 'See here, I can talk to him when I please--you are away--you are outside.' It is her vanity. She says to them, 'You can buy his portrait out of the shop-window perhaps--you can ask him to your house perhaps--and he goes for an hour, among strangers--but see here--every night I am talking to him'--"

"Yes, and see here, Nina," he said, with a laugh, "how about my vanity?--don't you think of that? Who could have imagined I was so important a person! But the truth is, Nina, they've lengthened out that comic scene inordinately with all that gagging, and Miss Burgoyne has nothing to do in it; if she hides her talking behind her fan--"

"Hides?" said Nina, with just a trace of scorn. "No; she shows! It is display! It is vanity! And you think a true artist would so forget her part--would wish to show the people that she talks privately--"

"Miss Nina is quite right, you know, Mr. Moore," said the little widow in black, and she was ent.i.tled to speak with authority. "I didn't think it looked well myself. A ballet-girl would catch it if she went on the same way."

"What would you have her do?" he said--for he was a very tolerant and good-natured person. "Sit and look on at that idiotic comic gag?"

"Certainly," said the little dame, with decision. "She is in the scene.

She is not Miss Burgoyne; she is Grace Mainwaring; and she ought to appear interested in everything around her."

"Oh, well, perhaps I have been to blame," he said, rather uneasily. "I dare say I encouraged her. But really I had no idea the audience could have noticed it."

"It was meant for them to notice it," Nina said, vindictively; and then, as she would have nothing more to say on this wretched subject, she turned to look at the gay lilacs and laburnums in the neighborhood of the Serpentine, at the shimmering blue of the wide stretch of water, and at the fleet of pleasure-boats with their wet oars gleaming in the golden sunlight.

Her equanimity was soon restored; she would have nothing further to say of Miss Burgoyne on such a gracious afternoon; and, indeed, when they had crossed the Thames at Putney, and got into the opener country down by Barnes and East Sheen and Richmond, she was chattering away in her delight over everything they encountered--the wide commons, the luxuriant gardens, the s.p.a.cious mansions, the magnificent elms, the hawthorn-trees, red and white, that sweetened all the soft summer air.

Of course when they arrived at the top of Richmond Hill they halted for a minute or two at the Star and Garter to water the horses, while they themselves had a stroll along the terrace, a cup of tea, and a look abroad over the wide, hazy, dream-like landscape stretching far out into the west. Then they crossed the river again at Richmond Bridge; they bowled along by Twickenham and Teddington; finally they drove through the magnificent chestnut-avenues of Bushey Park, which were just now in their finest blossom. When they stopped at the Mitre, it was not to go in; Nina was to be shown the gardens of Hampton Court Palace; there would be plenty of time for a pleasant saunter before dinner.

Miss Burgoyne, indeed! Nina had forgotten all about Miss Burgoyne as the little party of three pa.s.sed through the cool gray courtyard of the palace and entered into the golden glow of the gardens--for now the westering sun was rich and warm on the tall elms and limes and threw deep shadows on the greensward under the short black yews. They walked down towards the river, and stood for a long time watching the irregular procession of boats--many of them pulled by young girls in light summer dresses that lent some variety of color to this sufficiently pretty picture. It was altogether an attractive scene--the placid waters, the soft green landscape, the swift, glancing boats, from which from time to time came a ripple of youthful laughter or song. And indeed Nina was regarding rather wistfully those maidens in palest blue or palest pink who went swinging down with the stream.

"Those young ladies," she said, in an absent kind of way, to the little widow, who was standing beside her, "it is a pleasant life they live. It is all amus.e.m.e.nt. They have no hard work; no anxieties; no troubles; everything is made gentle for them by their friends; it is one enjoyment, and again and again; they have no care."

"Don't be so sure of that, Miss Nina," Mrs. Grey said, with a quiet smile. "I dare say many a one of those girls has worked as hard at her music as ever you have done, and has very little to show for it. I dare say many a one of them would be glad to change her position for yours--I mean, for the position you will have ere long. Do you know, Mr. Moore,"

she said, turning to Nina's other companion, "that I am quite sure of this--if Miss Burgoyne's under-study was drafted into a travelling company, I am quite sure Miss Nina here could take her place with perfect confidence."

"I don't see why not," he said, as if it were a matter of course.

"Then you know what would happen," Mrs. Grey continued, turning again to the young lady, in whose future she seemed greatly interested. "Miss Burgoyne would want a holiday, or her doctor would order her to give her voice a fortnight's rest, or she might catch a bad cold--and then comes your chance! You know the music thoroughly? you know every bit of Miss Burgoyne's 'business;' and Mr. Moore would be on the stage, or in the wings, to guide you as to your entrances and exits. That will be a proud night for me, my dear; for I'll be there--oh, yes, I'll be there; and if I have any stage experience at all, I tell you it will be a splendid triumph--with such a voice as yours--and there won't be any more talk of keeping you as under-study to Miss Girond. No," she added, with a shrewd smile, "but there will be something else. Miss Burgoyne won't like it; she doesn't like rivals near the throne, from what I can hear. She'll try to get you drafted off into one of the country companies--mark my words."

"The country?" said Nina, rather aghast. "To go away into the country?"

"But look at the chance, my dear," said the little ex-actress, eagerly.

"Look at the practice--the experience! And then, if you only take care of your voice, and don't strain it by overwork, then you'll be able to come back to London and just command any engagement you may want."

"To come back to London after a long time?" she said, thoughtfully; and she was somewhat grave and reserved as they strolled idly back through the gardens, and through the Palace buildings, to the riverside hotel.

But no far-reaching possibilities of that kind were allowed to interfere with Nina's perfect enjoyment of this little dinner-party that had been got up in her honor. They had a room all to themselves on an upper floor; the windows were thrown wide open; even as they sat at table they could look abroad on the s.p.a.cious landscape whose meadows and hedges and woods stretched away into distant heights crowned by a solitary windmill. Indeed, the young lady was so rude as to leave the table more than once, and go and stand at the open window; there was a charm in the dying-out of the day--in the beautiful colors now encircling the world--in the hushed sounds coming up from the stream--that she could not withstand. The evening glow was warm on the rose-hued front of the palace and on the ma.s.ses of sunny green foliage surrounding it; on the still, blue river the boats were of a l.u.s.trous bronze; while the oars seemed to be oars of shining gold as they dipped and flashed. By and by, indeed, the glory faded away; the stream became gray and ghostly; there were no more ripples of laughter or calls from this side to that; and Nina resumed her place more contentedly at the table, which was all lit up now. She made her small apologies; she said she did not know that England was such a beautiful place. Lionel, who in no way resented her thus withdrawing herself from time to time, had been leisurely talking to Mrs. Grey of theatrical things in general; and, now that coffee was coming in, he begged permission to light a cigarette. Altogether it was a simple, friendly, unpretentious evening, that did not seem to involve any serious consequences. As night fell, they set out on their homeward drive; and through the silent country they went, under the stars. Lionel left his two friends at their door in Sloane Street; and as he was driving home to his lodgings, if he thought of the matter at all, he no doubt hoped that he had given his friends a pleasant little treat.