Prince Fortunatus Part 39

But here Estelle herself began to sob, and could not get on with her story at all; she rose from her chair and began to pace up and down.

"I cannot tell you--it was terrible--"

And terrible it was for him, too, to have this revelation made to him.

Now he knew it was no little quarrel that had sent Nina away; it was something far more tragic than that; it was the sudden blighting of a life's hopes.

"Estelle," said he, quite forgetting, "you spoke of a letter she had left for you; will you show it to me?"

She took it from her pocket and handed it to him. There was no sign of haste or agitation in these pages; Nina's small and accurate handwriting was as neat and precise as ever; she even seemed to have been careful of her English, as she was leaving this her last message, in the dead watches of the night:

"DEAR ESTELLE" [Nina wrote],--"Forgive me for the trouble I cause you; but I know you will do what I ask, for the sake of our friendship of past days. I leave a letter for Mr. Lehmann, and one for Miss Constance, and a packet for Mr. Moore; will you please have them all sent as soon as possible? I hope Mr. Lehmann will forgive me for any embarra.s.sment, but Miss Constance is quite perfect in the part, and if she gets the letter to-day it will be the longer notice. I enclose a ring for you, Estelle; if you wear it, you will sometimes think of Nina. For it is true what I said to you when you came into my room to-night--I go away in the morning.

I have made a terrible mistake, an illusion, a folly, and, now that my eyes are opened, I will try to bear the consequences as I can; but I could not go on the stage as well; it would be too bad a punishment; I could not, Estelle. I must go, and forget--it is so easy to say forget! I go away without feeling injured towards any one; it was my own fault, no one was in fault but me. And if I have done wrong to any one, or appear ungrateful, I am sorry; I did not wish it. Again I ask you to say to Mr. Lehmann, who has been so kind to me in the theatre, that I hope he will forgive me the trouble I cause; but I _could not_ go on with my part just now.

"Shall I ever see you again, Estelle? It is sad, but I think not; it is not so easy to forget as to write it. Perhaps some day I send you a line--no, perhaps some day I send you a message; but you will not know where I am; and if you are my friend you will not seek to know. Adieu, Estelle! I hope you will always be happy, as you are good; but even in your happiest days you will sometimes give a thought to poor Nina."

He sat there looking at the letter, long after he had finished reading it; there was nothing of the petulance of a spoiled child in this simple, this heartbroken farewell. And Nina herself was in every phrase of it--in her anxiety not to be a trouble to any one--her grat.i.tude for very small kindnesses--her wish to live in the gentle remembrance of her friends.

"But why did no one stop her?--why did no one remonstrate?" he asked, in a sort of stupefaction.

"Who could, then?" said Mlle. Girond, returning to her seat and clasping her hands in front of her. "As soon as the housemaid appears in the morning, Nina asks her to come into the room; the money is put into an envelope for Mrs. Grey; the not great luggage is taken quiet down the stair, so that no one is disturbed. Everything is arranged; you know Nina was always so--so business-like--"

"Yes, but the fool of a housemaid should have called Mrs. Grey!" he exclaimed.

"But why, Mr. Moore?" Estelle continued. "She only thought that Nina was so considerate--no one to be awakened--and then a cab is called, and Nina goes away--"

"And of course the housemaid didn't hear what direction was given to the cabman!"

"No; it is a misfortune," said Estelle, with a sigh. "It is a misfortune, but she is not so much in fault. She did not conjecture--she thought Nina was going to catch an early train--that she did not wish to disturb any one. All was in order; all natural, simple; no one can blame her. And so poor Nina disappears--"

"Yes, disappears into the world of London, or into the larger world, without friends, without money--had she any money, Miss Girond?"

"Oh, yes, yes!" Estelle exclaimed. "You did not know? Ah, she was so particular; always exact in her economies, and sometimes I laughed at her; but always she said perhaps some day she would have to play the part of the--the--benevolent fairy to some poor one, and she must save up--"

"Had she a bank account?"

Estelle nodded her head.

"Then she could not have got the money yesterday, if she wished to withdraw it; she must have been in London this morning!"

"Perhaps," said Estelle. "But then! Look at the letter. She says if I am her friend, I will not seek to know where she is."

"But that does not apply to me," he retorted--while his brain was filled with all kinds of wild guesses as to whither Nina had fled.

"You are not her friend?" Estelle said, quietly.

"If I could only see her for three minutes!" he said, in his despair, as he rose and went to the window. "Why should she go away from her friends if she is in trouble? Besides ourselves and the people in the theatre, she knows no one in this country. If she goes away back to her acquaintances in Italy, she will not say a word; she will have no sympathy, no distraction of any kind; and all the success she has gained here will be as good as lost. It is like Nina to say she blames no one; but her sending me back those bits of jewelry tells me who is to blame--"

Estelle hesitated.

"Can I say?" she said, in rather low tones, and her eyes were cast down.

"Is it not breaking confidence? But Nina was speaking of you--she took me into the shop in Piccadilly to show me the beautiful gold cup--and when I said to her, 'It is another present soon--it is a wedding-ring soon he will give you--'"

"Then it is you who have been putting those fancies into her head!" he said, turning to her.

"I? Not I!" answered Estelle, with a quick indignation. "It is you! Ah, perhaps you did not think--perhaps you are accustomed to have every ones--to have every one--give homage to the great singer--you amuse the time--what do you care? I put such things into her head? No!--not at all! But you! You give her a wishing-cup--what is the wish? You come here often--you are very kind to her--oh, yes, very kind, and Nina is grateful for kindness--you sing with her--what do you call them?--songs of love. Ah, yes, the _chansons amoureuses_ are very beautiful--very charming--but sometimes they break hearts."

"I tell you I had no idea of anything of the kind," he said--for to be rated by the little boy-officer was a new experience. "But I am going to try to find Nina--whatever you may choose to do."

"I respect her wish," said Mlle. Girond, somewhat stiffly. However, the next moment she had changed her mood. "Mr. Moore, if you were to find her, what then?" she asked, rather timidly.

"I should bring her back to her friends," he answered, simply enough.

"And then?"

"I should want to see her as happy and contented as she used to be--the Nina we used to know. I should want to get her back to the theatre, where she was succeeding so well. She liked her work; she was interested in it; and you know she was becoming quite a favorite with the public.

Come, Miss Girond," he said, "you needn't be angry with me; that won't do any good. I see now I have been very thoughtless and careless; I ought not to have given her that loving-cup; I ought not to have given her any of those trinkets, I suppose. But it never occurred to me at the time; I fancied she would be pleased at the moment, that was all."

"And you did not reflect, then," said Estelle, regarding him for a second, "what it was that may have brought Nina to England at the beginning?--no?--what made her wish to play at the New Theatre? Ah, a man is so blind!"

"Brought Nina to England?" he repeated, rather bewildered.

"But these are only my conjectures," she said, quickly. "No, I have no secrets to tell. I ask myself what brings Nina to England, to the New Theatre, to the companionship with her old friend--I ask myself that, and I see. But you--perhaps it is not your fault that you are blind; you have so many ladies seeking for favor you have no time to think of this one or that, or you are grown indifferent, it may be. Poor Nina! she that was always so proud, too; it is herself that has struck herself; a deep wound to her pride; that is why she goes away, and she will never come back. No, Mr. Moore, she will never come back. I asked you what you would do if you were to find her--it is useless. She will never come back; she is too proud."

Estelle looked at her watch.

"Soon I must go in to the theatre. There was a note from Mr. Lehmann this morning; he wishes me to go over some parts with Miss Constance, to make sure."

"What hour have you to be there?" he said, taking up his hat.

"Half-past eleven."

"I will walk in with you, if you like," he said; "there will be time.

And I want to see that Lehmann isn't put to any inconvenience; for, you know, I introduced Nina to the New Theatre."

On their way into town Estelle was thoughtful and silent; while Lionel kept looking far ahead, as if he expected to descry Nina coming round some street-corner or in some pa.s.sing cab. But at last his companion said to him,

"You had no quarrel, then, with Nina, on the Sat.u.r.day night?"

"None. On the contrary, the last time she spoke to me was in the most kindly way," he said.

"Then why does she resolve to send you back those presents?" Estelle asked. "Why is it she knows all at once that her life is broken? You have no conjecture at all?"

"Well," said he, with a little hesitation, "it is a difficult thing to speak of. If Nina were looking forward as you think--if she mistook the intention of those trinkets I gave her--well, you know, there was a young lady and her mother, two friends of mine, who came to the theatre on Sat.u.r.day night, and I dare say Nina pa.s.sed while I was talking to the young lady in the wings--and--and Nina may have imagined something. I can only guess--it is possible--"

"Now I know," said Estelle, rather sadly. "Poor Nina! And still you think she would come back if you could find her? Her pride makes her fly from you; and you think you would persuade her? Never, never! She will not come back--she would drown herself first."

"Oh, don't talk like that!" he said, with frowning brows; and both relapsed into silence and their own thoughts.

Mr. Lehmann did not seem much put about by this defection on the part of one of his princ.i.p.al singers.