Prince Fortunatus Part 3

"Yes, but I think he would prefer to eat it in a village ale-house,"

Lionel said, with a smile, "where he could make 'the violet of a legend blow, among the chops and steaks.' However, I will take him your book, Lady Adela; and I have no doubt he will be able to give you some good advice."

It was late that evening when, in obedience to the summons of a sixpenny telegram, Maurice Mangan called at the stage-door of the New Theatre and was pa.s.sed in. Lionel Moore was on the stage, as any one could tell, for the resonant baritone voice was ringing clear above the mult.i.tudinous music of the orchestra; but Mangan, not wishing to be in the way, did not linger in the wings--he made straight for his friend's room, which he knew. And in the dusk of the long corridor he was fortunate enough to behold a beautiful apparition, in the person of a young French officer in the gayest of uniforms, who, apparently to maintain the character he bore in the piece (it was that of a young prisoner of war liberated on parole, who played sad havoc with the hearts of the village maidens by reason of his fascinating ways and pretty broken English), had just facetiously chucked two of the women dressers under the chin; and these damsels were simpering at this mark of condescension, and evidently much impressed by the swagger and braggadocio of the miniature warrior.

However, Mlle. Girond (the boy-officer in question) no sooner caught sight of the new-comer than she instantly and demurely altered her demeanor; and as she pa.s.sed him in the corridor she favored him with a grave and courteous little bow, for she had met him more than once in Miss Burgoyne's sitting-room. Mangan returned the salutation most respectfully; and then he went on and entered the apartment in which Lionel Moore dressed.

It was empty; so this tall, thin man with the slightly stooping shoulders threw himself into a wicker-work easy-chair, and let his eyes--which were much keener than was properly compatible with the half-affected expression of indolence that had become habitual to him--roam over the heterogeneous collection of articles around. These were abundantly familiar to him--the long dressing-table, with all its appliances for making-up, the mirrors, the wigs on blocks, the gay-colored garments, the fencing-foils and swords, the framed series of portraits from "Vanity Fair," the innumerable photographs stuck everywhere about. Indeed, it was something not immediately connected with these paraphernalia of an actor's existence that seemed to be occupying his mind, even as he idly regarded the various pastes and colors, the powder-puffs and pencils, the pots of vaseline. His eyes grew absent as he sat there. Was he thinking of the Linn Moore of years and years ago who used to reveal to the companion of his boyhood all his high aims and strenuous ambitions--how he was resolved to become a Mendelssohn, a Mozart, a Beethoven? Whither had fled all those wistful dreams and ardent aspirations? What was Linn Moore now?--why, a singer in comic opera, his face beplastered almost out of recognition; a pet of the frivolous-fashionable side of London society; the chief adornment of photographers' windows.

"'Half a beast is the great G.o.d Pan,'" this tall, languid-looking man murmured to himself, as he was vacuously staring at those paints and brushes and cosmetics; and then he got up and began to walk indeterminately about the room, his hands behind his back.

Presently the door was opened, and in came Lionel Moore, followed by his dresser.

"Hallo, Maurice!--you're late," said Harry Thornhill, as he surrendered himself to his factotum, who forthwith began to strip him of his travelling costume of c.o.c.ked hat, frogged coat, white leather breeches, and shining black boots in order to make way for the more brilliant attire of the last act.

"Now that I am here, what are your highness's commands?" Mangan asked.

"There's a book there--written by a friend of mine," Lionel said, as he was helping his dresser to get off the glittering top-boots. "She wants me to do what I can for her with the press. What do I know about that?

Still, she is a very particular friend--and you must advise me."

Mangan rose and went to the mantelpiece and took down Volume I.

"Lady Arthur Castletown--" said he.

"But that is not her real name," the other interposed. "Her real name is Lady Adela Cunyngham--of course you know who she is."

"I have been permitted to hear the echo of her name from those rare alt.i.tudes in which you dwell now," the other said, lazily. "So she is one of your fashionable acquaintances; and she wants to secure the puff preliminary, and a number of favorable reviews, I suppose; and then you send for me. But what can I do for you except ask one or two of the gallery men to mention the book in their London Correspondent's letter?"

"But that's the very thing, my dear fellow!" Lionel Moore cried, as he was getting on his white silk stockings. "The very thing! She wants attention drawn to the book. She doesn't want to be pa.s.sed over. She wants to have the name of the book and the name of the author brought before the public--"

"Her real name?"

"Yes, certainly, if that is advisable."

"Oh, well, there's not much trouble about that. You can always minister to a mind diseased by a morbid craving for notoriety if a paragraph in a country newspaper will suffice. So this is part of what your fashionable friends expect from you, Linn, in return for their patronage?"

"It's nothing of the kind; she would do as much for me, if she knew how, or if there were any occasion."

"Oh, well, it is no great thing," said Mangan, who was really a very good-natured sort of person, despite his supercilious talk. "In fact, you might do her ladyship a more substantial service than that."

"How?"

"I thought you knew Quirk--Octavius Quirk?"

"But you have always spoken so disparagingly of him!" the other exclaimed.

"What has that to do with it?" Mangan asked; and then he continued, in his indolent fashion: "Why, I thought you knew all about Quirk. Quirk belongs to a band of literary weaklings, not any one of whom can do anything worth speaking of; but they try their best to write up one another; and sometimes they take it into their heads to help an acquaintance--and then their cry is like that of a pack of beagles? you would think the press of London, or a considerable section of it, had but one voice. Why don't you take Lady Arthur's--Lady Constance's--what's her name?--why don't you take her book to the n.o.ble a.s.sociation of log-rollers? I presume the novel is trash; they'll welcome it all the more. She is a woman--she is not to be feared; she hasn't as yet committed the crime of being successful--she isn't to be envied and anonymously attacked. That's the ticket for you, Linn. They mayn't convince the public that Lady What's-her-name is a wonderful person; but they will convince her that she is; and what more does she want?"

"I don't understand you, Maurice!" the young baritone cried, almost angrily. "Again and again you've spoken of Octavius Quirk as if he were beneath contempt."

"What has that to do with it?" the other repeated, placidly. "As an independent writer, Quirk is quite beneath contempt--quite. There is no backbone in his writing at all, and he knows his own weakness; and he thinks he can conceal it by the use of furious adjectives. He is always in a frantic rush and flurry, that produces no impression on anybody. A whirlwind of feathers, that's about it. He goes out into the highway and brandishes a double-handed sword--in order to sweep off the head of a b.u.t.tercup. And I suppose he expects the public to believe that his wild language, all about nothing, means strength; just as he hopes that they will take his noisy horse-laugh for humor. That's Octavius Quirk as a writer--a n.o.body, a nothing, a wisp of straw in convulsions; but as a puffer--ah, there you have him!--as a puffer, magnificent, glorious, a Greek hero, invincible, invulnerable. My good man, it's Octavius Quirk you should go to! Get him to call on his pack of beagles to give tongue; and then, my goodness, you'll hear a cry--for a while at least. Is there anything at all in the book?"

"I don't know," said Harry Thornhill, who had changed quickly, and was now regaling himself with a little of Miss Burgoyne's lemonade, with which the prima-donna was so kind as to keep him supplied. "Well, now, I shall be on the stage some time; what do you say to looking over Lady Adela's novel?"

"All right."

There was a tapping at the door; it was the call-boy.

But Lionel Moore did not immediately answer the summons.

"Look here, Maurice; if you should find anything in the book--anything you could say a word in favor of--I wish you'd come round to the Garden Club with me, after the performance, and have a bit of supper. Octavius Quirk is almost sure to be there."

"What, Quirk? I thought the Garden was given over to dukes and comic actors?"

"There's a sprinkling of everybody in it," the young baritone said; "and Quirk likes it because it is an all-night club--he never seems to go to bed at all. Will you do that?"

"Oh, yes," Maurice Mangan said; and forthwith, as his friend left the dressing-room, he plunged into Lady Adela's novel.

The last act of "The Squire's Daughter" is longer than its predecessors; so that Mangan had plenty of time to acquire some general knowledge of the character and contents of these three volumes. Indeed, he had more than time for all the brief scrutiny he deemed necessary; when Lionel Moore reappeared, to get finally quit of his theatrical trappings for the night, his friend was standing at the fireplace, looking at a sketch in brown chalk of Miss Burgoyne, which that amiable young lady had herself presented to Harry Thornhill.

"Well, what's the verdict?"

Mangan turned round, rather bewildered; and then he recollected that he had been glancing at the novel.

"Oh, _that_!" he said, regarding the three volumes with no very favorable air, "Mighty poor stuff, I should say; just about as weak as they make it. But harmless. Some of the conversation--between the women--is natural; trivial, but natural. The plain truth is, my dear Linn, it is a very foolish, stupid book, which should never have been printed at all; but I suppose your fashionable friend could afford to pay for having it printed."

"But, look here, Maurice," Lionel said, in considerable surprise, "I don't see how it can be so very stupid, when Lady Adela herself is one of the brightest, cleverest, shrewdest, most intelligent women you could meet with anywhere--quite unusually so."

"That may be; but she is not the first clever woman who has made the mistake of imagining that because she is socially popular she must therefore be able to write a book."

"And what am I to say to Octavius Quirk?"

"What are you to say to the log-rollers? Don't say anything. Get Lady Adela to ask one or two of them to dinner. You'll fetch Quirk that way easily; they say Gargantua was a fool compared to him."

"I've seen him do pretty well at the Garden, especially about two in the morning," was the young baritone's comment; and then, as he began to get into his ordinary attire, he said, "To tell you the truth, Maurice, Lady Adela rather hinted that she would be pleased to make the acquaintance of any--of any literary man--"

"Who could do her book a good turn?"

"No, you needn't put it as rudely as that. She rather feels that, in becoming an auth.o.r.ess, she has allied herself with literary people--and would naturally like to make acquaintances; so, if it came to that, I should consider myself empowered to ask Quirk whether he would accept an invitation to dinner--I mean, at Cunyngham Lodge. It's no use asking you, Maurice?" he added, with a little hesitation.

Maurice Mangan laughed.

"No, no, Linn, my boy; thank you all the same, I say," he continued, as he took up his hat and stick, seeing that Lionel was about ready to go, "do you ever hear from Miss Francie Wright, or have you forgotten her among all your fine friends?"

"Oh, I hear from Francie sometimes," he answered, carelessly, "or about her, anyway, whenever I get a letter from home. She's very well.

Boarding out pauper sick children is her new fad; and I believe she's very busy and very happy over it. Come along, Maurice; we'll walk up to the Garden, and get something of an appet.i.te for supper."

When they arrived at the Garden Club (so named from its proximity to Covent Garden) they went forthwith into the s.p.a.cious apartment on the ground floor which served at once as dining-room, newspaper-room, and smoking-room. There was hardly anybody in it. Four young men in evening dress were playing cards at a side-table; at another table a solitary member was writing; but at the long supper-table--which was prettily lit up with crimson-shaded lamps, and the appointments of which seemed very trim and clean and neat--all the chairs were empty, and the only other occupants of the place were the servants, who wore a simple livery of white linen.

"What for supper, Maurice?" the younger of the two friends asked.