Prince Fortunatus Part 40

"It is a pity," he said to Lionel. "She had a fresh voice; she was improving in her stage-business; and the public liked her. What on earth made her go off like this?"

"She left no explanation with me," Lionel said, honestly enough. "But in her letter to Miss Girond she hopes you won't be put to any inconvenience. By the way, if Miss Ross owes you any forfeit, I'll settle that up with you."

"No, there's no forfeit in her agreement; it wasn't considered necessary," the manager made answer. "Of course I am a.s.suming that it's all fair and square; that she hasn't gone off to take a better engagement--"

"You needn't be afraid of that," Lionel said, briefly; and, as Miss Constance here made her appearance, he withdrew from the empty stage, and presently had left the building.

He thought he would walk up to the Restaurant Gianuzzi in Rupert Street, and make inquiries there. But he was not very hopeful. For one thing, if Nina were desirous of concealment or of getting free away, she would not go to a place where, as he knew, she had lodged before; for another, he had disapproved of her living there all by herself, and Nina never forgot even his least expression of opinion. When he asked at the restaurant if a young lady had called there on the previous day to engage a room, he was answered that they had no young-lady visitor of any kind in the house; he was hardly disappointed.

But as he walked along and up Regent Street (here were the well-remembered shops that Nina and he used to glance into as they pa.s.sed idly on, talking sometimes, sometimes silent, but very well content in each other's society) he began to ask himself whether in truth he ought to seek out Nina and try to intercept her flight, even if that were yet possible. Estelle's questions were significant. What would he do, supposing he could induce Nina to come back? At present, he vaguely wished to restore the old situation--to have Nina again among her friends, happy in her work at the theatre, ready to go out for a stroll with him if the morning were fine, he wanted his old comrade, who was always so wise and prudent and cheerful, whom he could always please by sending her down a new song, a new waltz, an Italian ill.u.s.trated journal, or some similar little token of remembrance. But if Estelle's theory were the true one, _that_ Nina was gone forever, never to return; her place was vacant now, never to be refilled; and somewhere or other--perhaps hidden in London, perhaps on her way back to her native land--there was a woman, proud, silent, and tearless, her heart quivering from the blow that he had unintentionally dealt. How could he face _that_ Nina? What humble explanations and apologies could he offer?

To ask her to come back would of itself be an insult. Her wrongs were her defence? she was sacred from intrusion, from expostulation and entreaty.

At the theatre that evening he let the public fare as it liked, so far as his part in the performance was concerned. He got through his duties mechanically. The stage lacked interest; the wings were empty; the long, glazed corridor conveyed a mute reproach. As for the new Clara, Miss Constance did fairly well; she had not much of a voice, but she was as bold as bra.s.s, and her "cheek" seemed to be approved by the audience. At one point Estelle came up to him.

"Is it not a change for no Nina to be in the theatre? But there is one that is glad--oh, very glad! Miss Burgoyne rejoices!"--and Estelle, as she pa.s.sed on, made use of a phrase in French, which, perhaps fortunately, he did not understand.

After the performance, he went up to the Garden Club--he did not care to go home to his own rooms and sit thinking. And the first person he saw after he pa.s.sed into the long coffee-room was Octavius Quirk, who was seated all by himself devouring a Gargantuan supper.

"This is luck," Lionel said to himself. "Maurice's Jabberwock will begin with his blatherskite nonsense--it will be something to pa.s.s the time."

But on the contrary, as it turned out, the short, fat man with the unwholesome complexion was not at this moment in the humor for frothy and windy invective about nothing; perhaps the abundant supper had mollified him; he was quite suave.

"Ah, Moore," said he, "haven't seen you since you came back from Scotland. It was awfully kind of Lady Adela to send me a haunch of venison."

"It would serve you for one meal, I suppose," Lionel thought; he did not say so.

"I dine with them to-morrow night," continued Mr. Quirk, complacently.

"Oh, indeed," said Lionel? Lady Adela seemed rather in a hurry, immediately on her return to town, to secure her tame critic.

"Very good dinners they give you up there at Campden Hill,"

Mr. Quirk resumed, as he took out a big cigar from his case.

"Excellent--excellent--and the people very well chosen, too, if it weren't for that loathsome brute, Quincey Hooper. Why do they tolerate a fellow like that--the meanest lick-spittle and boot-blacker to any Englishman who has got a handle to his name, while all the time he is writing in his wretched Philadelphia rag every girding thing he can think of against England. Comparison, comparison, continually--and far more venomous than the foolish, feeble sort of stuff which is only Anglophobia and water; and yet Hooper hasn't the courage to speak out either--it's a morbid envy of England that is afraid to declare itself openly and can only deal in hints and innuendoes. What can Lady Adela see in a fellow like that? Of course he writes puffing paragraphs about her and sends them to her; but what good are they to her, coming from America? She wants to be recognized as a clever woman by her own set.

She appeals to the _dii majorum gentium_; what does she care for the verdict of Washington or Philadelphia or New York?"

Well, Lionel had no opinion to express on this point; on a previous occasion he had wondered why these two augurs had not been content to agree, seeing that the wide Atlantic rolled between their respective spheres of operation.

"I have been favored," resumed Mr. Quirk, more blandly, "with a sight of some portions of Lady Adela's new novel."

"Already?"

"Oh, it isn't nearly finished yet; but she has had the earlier chapters set up in type, so that she could submit them to--to her particular friends, in fact. You haven't seen them?" asked Mr. Quirk, lifting his heavy and boiled-gooseberry eyes and looking at Lionel.

"Oh, no," was the answer. "My judgment is of no use to her; she is aware of that. I hope you were pleased with what you saw of it. Her last novel was not quite so successful as they had hoped, was it?"

"My dear fellow!" Mr. Quirk exclaimed, in astonishment (for he could not have the power of the log-rollers called in question). "Not successful?

Most successful!--most successful! I don't know that it produced so much money--but what is that to people in their sphere?"

"Perhaps not much," said Lionel, timidly (for what did he know about such esoteric matters?). "I suppose the money they might get from a novel would be of little consideration--but it would show that the book had been read."

"And what, again, do they care for vulgar popularity?--the approbation of the common herd--of the bovine-headed mult.i.tude? No, no, it is the verdict of the polished world they seek--it is fame--_eclat_--it is recognition from their peers. It may be only _un succes d'estime_--all the more honorable! And I must say Lady Adela is a very clever woman; the pains she takes to get 'Kathleen's Sweethearts' mentioned even now are wonderful. Indeed, I propose to give her an additional hint or two to-morrow. Of course you know ---- is doomed?" asked Mr. Quirk, naming a famous statesman who was then very seriously ill.

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. Gout at the heart; hopeless complications; he can't possibly last another ten days. Very well," continued Mr. Quirk, with much satisfaction, as if Providence were working hand in hand with him, "I mean to advise Lady Adela to send him a copy of 'Kathleen's Sweethearts.' Now do you understand? No? Why, man, if there's any luck, when he dies and all the memoirs come out in the newspapers, it will be mentioned that the last book the deceased statesman tried to read was Lady Adela Cunyngham's well-known novel. Do you see? Good business? Then there's another thing she must absolutely do with her new book. These woman-suffrage people are splendid howlers and spouters; let her go in for woman-suffrage thick and thin--and she'll get quoted on a hundred dozen of platforms. That's the way to do it, you know! Bless you, the publishers' advertis.e.m.e.nts are no good at all nowadays!"

Lionel was not paying very much heed; perhaps that was why he rather indifferently asked Mr. Quirk whether he himself was in favor of extending the suffrage to women.

"I?" cried Mr. Quirk, with a boisterous horse-laugh. "What do I care about it? Let them suffer away as much as ever they like!"

"Yes, they're used to that, aren't they?" said Lionel.

"What I want to do is to put Lady Adela up to a dodge or two for getting her book talked about; that's the important and immediate point, and I think I can be of some service to her," said Mr. Quirk? and then he added, more pompously, "I think she is willing to place herself entirely in my hands."

Happily at this moment there came into the room two or three young gentlemen, intent upon supper and subsequent cards, who took possession of the farther end of the table; and Lionel was glad to get up and join the new-comers, for he felt he could not eat in the immediate neighborhood of this ill-favored person. He had his poached eggs and a pint of hock in the company of these new friends; and, after having for some time listened to their ingenuous talk--which was chiefly a laudation of Miss Nellie Farren--he lit a cigarette and set out for home.

So it was Octavius Quirk who was now established as Lady Adela's favorite? It was he who was shown the first sheets of the new novel; it was he who was asked to dinner immediately on the return of the family from Scotland; it was he who was to be Lady Adela's chief counsellor throughout the next appeal to the British public? And perhaps he advised Lady Sybil, also, about the best way to get her musical compositions talked of; and might not one expect to find, in some minor exhibition, a portrait of Octavius Quirk, Esq., by Lady Rosamund Bourne? It seemed a gruesome kind of thing to think of these three beautiful women paying court to that lank-haired, puffy, bilious-looking baboon. He wondered what Miss Georgie Lestrange thought of it; Miss Georgie had humorous eyes that could say a good deal. And Lord Rockminster--how did Lord Rockminster manage to tolerate this uncouth creature?--was his good-natured devotion to his three accomplished sisters equal even to that?

Lionel did not proceed to ask himself why he had grown suddenly jealous of a man whom he himself had introduced to Lady Adela Cunyngham. Yet the reason was not far to seek. Before his visit to Scotland, it would have mattered little to him if any one of his lady friends--or any half dozen of them, for the matter of that--had appeared inclined to put some other favorite in his place; for he had an abundant acquaintance in the fashionable world; and, indeed, had grown somewhat callous to their polite attentions. But Lady Adela and her two sisters were relations of Honnor Cunyngham; they were going down to Brighton this very week; he was anxious (though hardly knowing why) to stand well in their opinion and be of importance in their eyes. As he now walked home he thought he would go and call on Lady Adela the following afternoon; if she were going down to that house in Adelaide Crescent, there would be plenty of talk among the women-folk; his name might be mentioned.

Next morning there was no further word of Nina. When he had got his fencing over, he went along to Sloane Street, but hardly with any expectation of news. No, Estelle had nothing to tell him; Nina had gone away--and wished to remain undiscovered.

"Poor Nina!" said Estelle, with a sigh.

Somewhat early in the afternoon he went up to Campden Hill. Lady Adela was at home. He noticed that the man-servant who ushered him into the drawing-room was very slow and circ.u.mspect about it, as if he wished to give ample warning to those within; and, indeed, just as he had come into the hall, he had fancied he heard a faint shriek, which startled him not a little. When he now entered the room he found Miss Georgie Lestrange standing in the middle of the floor, while Lady Adela was seated at a small writing-table a little way off. They both greeted him in the most friendly fashion; and then Miss Georgie (a little embarra.s.sed, as he imagined) went towards the French window and looked out into the wintry garden.

"You have come most opportunely, Mr. Moore," said Lady Adela, in her pleasant way. "I'm sure you'll be able to tell us: how high would a woman naturally throw her arms on coming suddenly on a dead body?"

He was somewhat staggered.

"I--I'm sure I don't know."

"You see, Georgie has been so awfully kind to me this morning," Lady Adela continued. "I have arrived at some very dramatic scenes in my new story, and she has been good enough to act as my model; I want to have everything as vivid as possible; and why shouldn't a writer have a model as well as a painter; I hope to have all the att.i.tudes strictly correct--to describe even the tone of her shriek when she comes upon the dead body of her brother. Imagination first, then actuality of detail; Rose tells me that Mr. Mellord, after he has finished a portrait, won't put in a blade of gra.s.s or a roseleaf without having it before him. If there's to be a crust of bread on the table, he must have the crust of bread."

"Yes, but Mr. Moore," said Miss Georgie, coming suddenly back from the window--and she was blushing furiously, up to the roots of her pretty golden-red hair, and covertly laughing at the same time, "my difficulty is that I try to do my best as the woman who unexpectedly sees her dead brother before her; but I've got nothing to come and go on. I never saw a dead body in my life; and it would hardly do to try it with a real dead body--"

"Georgie, don't be horrid!" Lady Adela said, severely. "Here is Mr.

Moore, who can tell you how high the hands should be held, and whether they should be clenched or open."

"Well, Lady Adela," he said, in his confusion (for he was in mortal terror lest she should ask him to get up and posture before her), "the fact is that on the stage there are so many ways of expressing fear or dismay that no two people would probably adopt the same gestures. Would you have her hands above her head? Wouldn't it be more natural for her to have them about the height of her shoulders--the elbows drawn tightly back--her palms uplifted as if to shut away the terrible sight?--"

"Yes, yes!" said Lady Adela, eagerly; and she quickly scribbled some notes on the paper before her. "The very thing!--the very thing!"

"But don't you think," he ventured to say, "that that would look rather mechanical--rather stagey, in fact? I know nothing about writing; but I should think you would want to deal mostly with the expression of the woman's face--"

"I want to have it all!" the anxious auth.o.r.ess exclaimed. "I want to have att.i.tudes--gestures--everything; to make the picture vivid. I must have the actual tone of her shriek--"

"Which Mr. Moore heard as he came in," Miss Georgie said, as a kind of challenge.