Prince Fortunatus Part 44

The slow minutes pa.s.sed; his thoughts went wandering over the world, seeking for what they could not find. And how was he to call to Nina across the black gulf of the night, wheresoever she might be? Suddenly there leaped into his recollection an old German ballad he used to sing.

It was that of the three comrades who were wont to drink together, until one died, and another died, and nevertheless the solitary survivor kept the accustomed tryst, and still, sitting there alone, he had the three gla.s.ses filled, and still he sang aloud, "_Aus voller Brust._" There came an evening; as he filled the cups, a tear fell into his own; yet bravely he called to his ghostly companions, "I drink to you, my brothers--but why are you so mute and still?" And behold! the gla.s.ses clinked together; and the wine was slowly drunk out of all the three, "_Fiducit! du wackerer Zecher!_"--it was the loyal comrade's last draught. And now Lionel, hardly knowing what he was doing--for there were such wild desires and longings in his brain--went to a small cabinet hard by and brought forth the loving-cup he had given to Nina.

They two were the last who had drunk out of it. And if now, if once again, on this last night of all the nights of the year, he were to repeat his challenge, would she not know? He cared not in what form she might appear--Nina could not be other than gentle--silent she might be, but surely her eyes would shine with kindness and forgiveness. He was not aware of it, but his fingers were trembling as he took the cup in twain, and put the two tiny goblets on the table and filled them with wine. Nay, in a sort of half-dazed fashion he went and opened the door and left it wide--might there not be some shadowy footfall on the empty stair! He returned to the table and sat down; it was almost twelve; he was shivering a little--the night was cold.

All around him the silence appeared to grow more profound; there was only the ticking of a clock. As minute after minute pa.s.sed, the suspense became almost unendurable; something seemed to be choking him; and yet his eyes would furtively and nervously wander from the small goblets before him to the open door, as if he expected some vision to present itself there, from whatsoever distant sh.o.r.e it might come.

The clock behind him struck a silver note, and instantly this vain fantasy vanished; what was the use of regarding the two wine-filled cups when he knew that Nina was far and far away? He sprang to his feet and went to the window, and gazed out into the black and formless chaos beyond.

"Nina!" he called, "Nina!--Nina!" as if he would pierce the hollow distance with this pa.s.sionate cry.

Alas! how could Nina answer? At this moment, over all the length and breadth of England, innumerable belfries had suddenly awakened from their sleep, and ten thousand bells were clanging their iron tongues, welcoming in the new-found year. Down in the valleys, where white mists lay along the slumbering rivers; far up on lonely moorlands, under the clear stars; out on the sea-coasts, where the small red points of the windows were face-to-face with the slow-moaning, inarticulate main; everywhere, over all the land, arose this clamor of joy-bells; and how could Nina respond to his appeal? If she had heard, if she had tried to answer, her piteous cry was swallowed up and lost; heart could not speak to heart, whatever message they might wish to send, through this universal, far-pulsating jangle and tumult.

But perhaps she had not heard at all? Perhaps there was something more impa.s.sable between her and him than even the wide, dark seas and the night?

He turned away from the window. He went back to the chair; he threw his arms on the table before him--and hid his face.

CHAPTER XIX.

ENTRAPPED.

There were two young gentlemen standing with their backs to the fire in the supper-room of the Garden Club. They were rather good-looking young men, very carefully shaven and shorn, gray-eyed, fair-moustached; and, indeed, they were so extremely like each other that it might have been hard to distinguish between them but that one chewed a toothpick and the other a cigarette. Both were in evening dress, and both still wore the overcoat and crush-hat in which they had come into the club. They could talk freely, without risk of being overheard; for the members along there at the supper-table were all listening, with much laughter, to a professional entertainer, who, unlike the proverbial clown released from the pantomime, was never so merry and amusing as when diverting a select little circle of friends with his own marvellous adventures.

"It's about time for Lionel Moore to make his appearance," said one of the two companions, glancing at the clock.

"I would rather have anybody else, if it comes to that," said the other, peevishly. "Moore spoils the game all to bits. You never know where to have him--"

"Yes, that's just where he finds his salvation," continued he of the toothpick. "Mind you, that wild play has its advantages. He gets caught now and again, but he catches you at times. You make sure he is bluffing, you raise him and raise him, then you call him--and find he has three aces! And I will say this for Moore--he's a capital loser. He doesn't seem to mind losing a bit, so long as you keep on. You would think he was a millionaire; only a millionaire would have an eye on every chip, I suppose. What salary do they give him at the New Theatre?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_He threw his arms on the table before him, and hid his face_"]

"Fifty pounds a week, I've heard say; but people tell such lies. Even fifty pounds a week won't hold out if he goes on like that. What I maintain is that it isn't good poker. For one thing, I object to 'straddling' altogether; it's simply a stupid way of raising the stakes; of course, the straddler has the advantage of coming in last, but then look at the disadvantage of having to bet first. No, I don't object to betting before the draw; that's sensible; there's some skill and judgment in that; but straddling is simply stupid. You ought to make it easy for every one to come in; that's the proper game; frighten them out afterwards if you can." And then he added, gloomily, "That fellow Moore is a regular bull in a china-shop."

"I suspect he has been raking over a few of your chips, Bertie," his companion said, with a placid grin.

Just as he was speaking, Lionel entered the room, and, having ordered some supper, took a seat at the table. One of those young gentlemen, throwing away his toothpick, came and sat down opposite him.

"Big house to-night, as usual?" he asked.

"Full," was the answer. "I dare say when the archangel blows his trump, "The Squire's Daughter" will still be advertised in the bills all over the town. I don't see why it should stop before then."

"It would be a sudden change for the company, wouldn't it?" the young man on the other side of the table said. "Fancy, now, a music-hall singer--no disrespect to you, Moore--I mean a music-hall comic--fancy his finding himself all at once in heaven; don't you think he'd feel deuced awkward? He wouldn't be quite at home, would he?--want to get back to Mr. Chairman and the chorus in the gallery, eh, what?--'pon my soul, it would make a capital picture if you could get a fellow with plenty of imagination to do it--quite tragic, don't you know--you'd have the poor devil's face just full of misery--not knowing where to go or what to do--"

"The British public would be inclined to rise and rend that painter,"

said Lionel, carelessly; this young man was useful as a poker-player, but otherwise not interesting.

Two or three members now came in; and by the time Lionel had finished his frugal supper there was a chosen band of five ready to go up-stairs and set to work with the cards. There was some ordering of lemon-squashes and further cigarettes; new packs were brought by the waiter; the players took their places; and the game was opened. With a sixpenny "ante" and a ten-shilling "limit," the amus.e.m.e.nt could have been kept mild enough by any one who preferred it should remain so.

But the usual thing happened. Now and again a fierce fight would ensue between two good hands, and that seemed to arouse a spirit of general emulation and eagerness; the play grew more bold; bets apart from the game were laid by individual players between themselves. The putting up of the "ante" became a mere farce, for every one came in as a matter of course, even if he had to draw five cards; and already the piles of chips on the table had undergone serious diminution or augmentation--in the latter case there was a glimmer of gold among the bits of ivory.

There was no visible excitement, however; perhaps a player caught bluffing might smile a little--that was all.

Lionel had been pretty fortunate, considering his wild style of play; but then his very recklessness stood him in good stead when he chanced to have a fair hand--his reputation for bluffing leading on his opponents. And then an extraordinary bit of luck had befallen him. On this occasion the first hand dealt him contained three queens, a seven, and a five. To make the other players imagine he had either two pairs or was drawing to a flush, he threw away only one of the two useless cards--the five, as it chanced; but his satisfaction (which he bravely endeavored to conceal) may be imagined when he found that the single card dealt him in its place was a seven--he therefore had a full hand!

When it came to his turn, instead of beginning cautiously, as an ordinary player would have done, he boldly raised the bet ten shillings.

But that frightened n.o.body. His game was known; they imagined he had either two pairs or had failed to fill his flush and was merely bluffing. When, however, there was another raise of ten shillings from the opposite side of the table, that was a very different matter; one by one the others dropped out, leaving these two in. And then it went on:

"Well, I'll just see your ten shillings and raise you another ten."

"And another ten."

"And another ten."

"And another ten."

Of course, universal attention was now concentrated on this duel.

Probably four out of five of the players were of opinion that Lionel Moore was bluffing; that, at least, was certainly the opinion of his antagonist, who kept raising and raising without a qualm. At length both of them had to borrow money to go on with; but still the duel continued, and still the pile of gold and chips in the middle of the table grew and increased.

"And another ten."

"And another ten."

Not a word of encouragement or dissuasion was uttered by any one of the onlookers; they sat silent and amused, wondering which of the two was about to be smitten under the fifth rib. And at last it was Lionel's opponent who gave in.

"On this occasion," said he, depositing his half-sovereign, "I will simply gaze; what have you got?"

"Well, I have got a full hand," Lionel answered, putting down his hand on the table.

"That is good enough," the other said, stolidly. "Take away the money."

After this dire combat, the game fell flat a little; but interest was soon revived by a round of Jack-pots; and here again Lionel was in good luck. Indeed, when the players rose from the table about three o'clock, he might have come away a winner of close on 40 had not some reckless person called out something about whiskey poker. Now whiskey poker is the very stupidest form of gambling that the mind of man has ever conceived, though at the end of the evening some folk hunger after it as a kind of final fillip. Each person puts down a certain sum--it may be a sovereign, it may be five sovereigns; poker hands are dealt out, the cards being displayed face upwards on the table; there is no drawing; whoever has the best hand simply annexes the pool. It looks like a game, but it is not a game; it is merely cutting the cards; but, as the stakes can be doubled or trebled each round, the jaded appet.i.te for gambling finds here a potent and fiery stimulant just as the party breaks up.

Lionel was not anxious to get away with the money he had won. It was he who proposed to increase the stakes to 10 from each player--which the rest of them, to their credit be it said, refused to do. In the end, when they went to get their hats and coats before issuing into the morning air, some one happened to ask Lionel how he had come off on the whole night; and he replied that he did not think he had either won or lost anything to speak of. He hardly knew. Certainly he did not seem to care.

The dawn was not yet. The gas-lamps shone in the murky thoroughfares as he set out for Piccadilly--alone. The others all went away in hansoms; he preferred to walk. And even when he reached his rooms, he did not go to bed at once; he sat up thinking, a prey to a strange sort of restlessness that had of late taken possession of him. For this young man's gay and happy b.u.t.terfly-life was entirely gone. The tragic disappearance of Nina, followed by the sudden shattering of all his visionary hopes in connection with Honnor Cunyngham, had left him in a troubled, anxious, morbid state that he himself, perhaps, could not well have accounted for. Then the sense of solitariness that he had experienced when he found that Nina had so unexpectedly vanished from his ken had been intensified since he had taken to declining invitations from his fashionable friends, and spending his nights in the aimless distraction of gambling at the Garden Club. Was there a touch of hurt pride in his withdrawal from the society of those who in former days used to be called "the great"? At least he discovered this, that if he did wish to withdraw from their society, nothing in the world was easier. They did not importune him. He was free to go his own way.

Perhaps this also wounded him; perhaps it was to revenge himself that he sought to increase his popularity with the crowd; at night he sang with a sort of bravado to bring down the house; in the day-time it comforted him to perceive from a distance in that or the other window a goodly display of his photographs, which he had learned to recognize from afar.

But in whatever direction these wayward moods drew him or tossed him, there was ever this all-pervading disquiet, and a haunting regret that almost savored of remorse, and a sick impatience of the slow-pa.s.sing and lonely hours.

He had given up all hopes of hearing from Nina now or of gaining any news of her. Pandiani had nothing to tell him. The Signorina Antonia Rossi had not written to any of her Neapolitan friends, so far as could be ascertained, since the previous December; certainly she had not presented herself here in Naples to seek any engagement. The old _maestro_, in praying his ill.u.s.trious and celebrated correspondent to accept his respectful submissions, likewise begged of him, should anything be learned with regard to the Signorina Rossi, to communicate farther. There was no hope in that quarter.

But one morning Estelle made a new suggestion.

"There is something I have recalled; yes, it is perhaps of not great importance; yet perhaps again," she said. "One day Nina and I, we were speaking of this thing and the other, and she said it was right and proper that a young lady should have a _dot_--what is the English?--no matter. She said the young lady should bring something towards the--the management; and she asked how she or I could do that. Then comes her plan. She was thinking of it before she arrives in England. It was to go to America--to be engaged for concerts--oh, they pay large, large salaries, if you have a good voice--and Nina would take engagements for all the big cities, until she got over to San Francisco, and from there to Australia--a great tour--a long time--but at the end, then she has the little fortune, and she is independent, whatever happens.

Marriage?--well, perhaps not, but she is independent. Yes, it was Nina's plan to go away on that long tour; but she comes to England--she is engaged at the New Theatre--she practises her little economies--but not so as it would be in America, and now, now if she wishes to go away for a long, long time, is it not America? She goes on the long voyage; she forgets--what she wishes to forget. Her singing, it is constant occupation; she must work; and they welcome a good voice there--she will have friends. Do you consider it not possible? Yes, it is possible--for that is to go entirely away, and there is no danger of any one interfering."

"It's just frightful to think of," he said, "if what you imagine is correct. Fancy her crossing the Atlantic all by herself--landing in New York unknown to any human being there--"