Prince Fortunatus Part 50

"I know hardly anybody here," he said, in an undertone, to Mangan.

"Oh, I know some of them," was the answer, also in an undertone. "Rather small lions--I think she might have done better with proper guidance.

But perhaps this is only a beginning. Isn't your friend Quirk a picture?

Who is the remarkably handsome girl just beyond?"

"That's Lady Adela's sister, Lady Sybil."

"The composer? I see; that's why she's talking to that portentous old a.s.s, Schweinkopf, the musical critic. Then there's Miss Gabrielle Grey--poor thing! she's not very pretty--'I was not good enough for man, and so am given to'--publishers. By Jove, there's Ichabod--standing by the door; don't you know him?--Egerton--but they call him Ichabod at the Garrick. Now, what could our hostess expect to get out of Ichabod? He has nothing left to him but biting his nails like the senile Pope or Pagan in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"

"What does he do?"

"He is a reviewer, _et proeterea nihil_. Some twenty years ago he wrote two or three novels, but people wouldn't look at them, and so he became morose about the public taste and modern literature. In fact, there has been no English literature--for twenty years; this is his wail and moan whenever an editor allows him to lift up his voice. It was feeble on the part of your friend to ask Ichabod; she won't get anything out of him. I can see a reason for most of the others--those whom I know; but Ichabod is hopeless."

Mangan suddenly ceased these careless comments; his attention was arrested by the entrance of a tall young lady who came in very quietly--without being announced even.

"I say, who's that?" he exclaimed, under his breath.

And Lionel had been startled too; for he had convinced himself ere he came that Honnor Cunyngham was certain to be in Scotland. But there she was, as distinguished-looking, as self-possessed as ever; her glance direct and simple and calm, though she seemed to hesitate for a moment as if seeking for some one whom she might know in the crowd. From the fact of her not having been announced, Lionel guessed that she was staying in the house; perhaps, indeed, she had been in the drawing-room before. He hardly knew what to do. He forgot to answer his friend's question. If dinner were to be happily announced now, would it not save her from some embarra.s.sment if he and she could go in their separate ways without meeting? and thereafter he could leave without returning to the drawing-room. Yet, if she were staying in the house, she must have known that he was coming?

All this swift consideration was the work of a single second; the next second Miss Honnor's eyes had fallen upon the young man; and immediately and in the most natural way in the world she came across the room to him. It is true that there was a slight touch of color visible on the gracious forehead when she offered him her hand; but there was no other sign of self-consciousness; and she said, quite quietly and simply,

"It is some time since we have met, Mr. Moore; but, of course, I notice your name in the papers frequently."

"I hardly expected to see you here to-night," he said, in reply. "I thought you would be off to Scotland for the salmon-fishing."

"I go to-morrow night," she made answer.

At the same moment Lord Rockminster came up, holding a bit of folded paper furtively in his hand; the faithful brother looked perplexed, for he had to remember the names of these various strangers; but here at least were two whom he did know.

"Mr. Moore, will you take Miss Cunyngham in to dinner?" he murmured, as he went by; so that Lionel found there would have been no escape for him in any case. But now that the first little awkwardness of their meeting was over, there was nothing else. Miss Cunyngham spoke to him quite pleasantly and naturally--though she did not meet his eyes much.

Meantime dinner was announced, and Lord Rockminster led the way with a trim little elderly lady whom Lionel afterwards discovered to be (for she told him as much) the London correspondent of a famous Parisian journal devoted to fashions and the _beau monde_.

And here he was, seated side by side with Honnor Cunyngham, talking to her, listening to her, and with no sort of perturbation whatever. He began to ask himself whether he had ever been in love with her--whether he had not rather been in love with her way of life and its surroundings. He was thinking not so much of her as her departure on the morrow, and the scenes that lay beyond. Why had he not 10,000 a year--5000--nay, 1000 a year--and freedom? Why could he not warm his soul with the consciousness that the salmon-rods were all packed and waiting in the hall; that new casting-lines had been put in the fly-book; that only the short drive up to Euston and a single black night lay between him and all the wide wonder of the world that would open out thereafter? Forth from the darkness into a whiter light--a larger day--a sweeter air; for now we are among the russet beech-hedges, the deep-green pines, the purple hills touched here and there with snow; and the far-stretching landscape is shining in the morning sun; and the peewits are wheeling hither and thither in the blue. Then we are thundering through rocky chasms and watching the roaring brown torrent beneath; or panting or struggling away up the lonely alt.i.tudes of Drumouchter; and again merrily racing and chasing down into the s.p.a.cious valley of the Spey. And what for the end?--the long, still strath after leaving Invershin--the penetration into the more secret solitudes--the peaks of Coulmore and Suilven in the west--and here the Aivron making a murmuring music over its golden gravel! There is a smell of peat in the air; there are children's voices about the keepers' cottages; and here is the handsome old Robert, rejoiced that the year has opened again and Miss Honnor come back! "Well, Robert, you must come in and have a dram, and I will show you the tackle I've brought with me." "I am not wishing for a dram, Miss Honnor, so much as I am glad to see you back again, ay, and looking so well!"

"Mr. Moore," she said (and she startled him out of his reverie), "do you ever give a little dinner-party at your rooms?"

"Well, seldom," he said. "You see, I have only the one evening in the week; and I have generally some engagement or other."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_There was a slight touch of color visible on the gracious forehead when she offered him her hand._"]

"I should like to send you a salmon, if it would be of any use to you,"

she went on to say.

"Thank you very much; I would rather see you hook and land it than have the compliment of its being sent to me twenty times over. I was thinking this very minute of the Aivron, and your getting down to the ford the day after to-morrow, and old Robert being there to welcome you. I envy him--and you. Are you to be all by yourself at the lodge?"

"For the present, yes," Miss Honnor said. "My brother and Captain Waveney come at the beginning of April. Of course it is rather hazardous going just now; the river might be frozen over for a fortnight at a time; but that seldom happens. And in ordinarily mild weather it is very beautiful up there--the most beautiful time of the year, I think; the birch-woods are all of the clearest lilac, and the brackens turned to deep crimson; then the bent gra.s.s on the higher hills--what they call deer's hair--is a ma.s.s of gold. And I don't in the least mind being alone in the evening--in fact, I enjoy it. It is a splendid time for reading. There is not a sound. Caroline comes in from time to time to pile on more peats and sweep the hearth; then she goes out again; and you sit in an easy-chair with your back to the lamp; and if you've got an interesting book, what more company do you want? Then it's very early to bed in Strathaivron; and I've got a room that looks both ways--across the strath and down; and sometimes there is moonlight making the windows blue; or if there isn't, you can lie and look at the soft red light thrown out by the peat, until the silence is too much for you, and you are asleep before you have had time to think of it. Now tell me about yourself," she suddenly said. "I hope the constant work and the long and depressing winter have not told on you. It must have been very unpleasant getting home so late at night during the fogs."

He would rather she had continued talking about the far Aivron and the Geinig; he did not care to come back to the theatre and Kate Burgoyne.

"One gets used to everything, I suppose," he said.

"But still it must be gratifying to you to be in so successful a piece--to be aware of the delight you are giving, evening after evening, to so many people," Miss Honnor reminded him. "By the way, how is the pretty Italian girl--the young lady you said you had known in Naples?"

"She has left the New Theatre," he said, not lifting his eyes.

"Oh, really. Then I'm sure that must have been unfortunate for the operetta; for she had such a beautiful voice--she sang so exquisitely--and besides that there was go much refinement and grace in everything she did. I remember mother was so particularly struck with her; we have often spoken of her since; her manner on the stage was so charming--so gentle and graceful--it had a curious fascination that was irresistible. And I confess I was delighted with the little touch of foreign accent; perhaps if she had not been so very pretty, one would have been less ready to be pleased with everything. And where is she now, Mr. Moore?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Lionel said, rather unwillingly; he would rather not have been questioned.

"And is that how friendships in the theatre are kept up?" Miss Honnor said, reproachfully. "But it is all very well for us idle folk to talk.

I suppose you are all far too busy to give much time to correspondence."

"No, we have not much time for letter-writing," he said, absently.

Indeed, it was well for him that he had this companion who could talk to him in her quiet, low tones; for he was out of spirits and inclined to be silent; and certainly he had no wish to join in the frothy discussion which Octavius Quirk had started at the upper end of the table. Mr.

Mellord, the famous Academician, had taken in Lady Adela to dinner; but she had placed Mr. Quirk on her left hand; and from this position of authority he was roaring away like any sucking-dove and challenging everybody to dispute his windy plat.i.tudes. Lord Rockminster, down at the other end, mute and in safety, was looking on at this motley little a.s.semblage, and probably wondering what his three gifted sisters would do next. It was hard that he had no Miss Georgie Lestrange to amuse him; perhaps Miss Georgie had been considered ineligible for admission into this intellectual coterie. Poor man!--and to think he might have been dining in solitary comfort at his club, at a quiet little table, with two candles, and a Sunday paper propped up by the water-bottle! But he betrayed no impatience; he sat and looked and meditated.

However, when dinner was over and the ladies had left the room, he had to go and take his sister's place, so that he found himself in the thick of the babble. Mr. Quirk was no longer goring spiders' webs; he was now attacking a solid and substantial subject--nothing less than the condition of the British army; and a pretty poor opinion he seemed to have of it. As it chanced, the only person who had seen service was Lord Rockminster (at Knightsbridge), but he did not choose to open his mouth, so that Mr. Quirk had it all his way--except when Maurice Mangan thought it worth while to give him a cuff or a kick, just by way of reminding him that he was mortal. Ichabod, in silence, stuck to the port wine.

Quincey Hooper, the American journalist, drew in a chair by the side of Lord Rockminster and humbly fawned. And meanwhile Quirk, head downward, so to speak, charged rank and file, and sent them flying; arose again and swept the heads off officers; and was just about to annihilate the volunteers when Mangan interrupted him.

"Oh, you expect too much," he said, in his slow and half-contemptuous fashion. "The British soldier is not over well-educated, I admit; but you needn't try him by an impossible standard. I dare say you are thinking of ancient days when a Roman general could address his troops in Latin and make quite sure of being understood; but you can't expect Tommy Atkins to be so learned. And our generals, as you say, may chiefly distinguish themselves at reviews; but the reviews they seem to me to be too fond of are those published monthly. As for the volunteers--"

"You will have a joke about them, too, I suppose," Quirk retorted. "An excellent subject for a joke--the safety of the country! A capital subject for a merry jest; Nero fiddling with Rome in flames--"

"I beg your pardon? Nero never did anything of the kind," Mangan observed, with a perfectly diabolical inconsequence, "for violins weren't invented in those days."

This was too much for Mr. Quirk; he would not resume argument with such a trifler; nor, indeed, was there any opportunity; for Lord Rockminster now suggested they should go into the drawing-room--and Ichabod had to leave that decanter of port.

Now, if Maurice Mangan had come to this house to see how Lionel was feted and caressed by "the great"--in order that he might carry the tale down to Winstead to please the old folk and Miss Francie--he was doomed to disappointment. There were very few of "the great" present, to begin with; and those who were paid no particular attention to Lionel Moore. It was Octavius Quirk who appeared to be the hero of the evening, so far as the attention devoted to him by Lady Adela and her immediate little circle was concerned. But Maurice himself was not wholly left neglected. When tea was brought in, his hostess came over to where he was standing.

"Won't you sit down, Mr. Mangan?--I want to talk to you about something of very great importance--importance to me, that is, for you know how vain young authors are. You have heard of my new book?--yes, I thought Mr. Moore must have told you. Well, it's all ready, except the t.i.tle-page. I am not quite settled about the t.i.tle yet; and you literary gentlemen are so quick and clever with suggestions--I am sure you will give me good advice. And I've had a number of different t.i.tles printed, to see how they look in type; what do you think of this one? At present it seems to be the favorite; it was Mr. Quirk's suggestion--"

She showed him a slip with "North and South" printed on it in large letters.

"I don't like it at all," Mangan said, frankly. "People will think the book has something to do with the American civil war. However, don't take my opinion at all. My connection with literature is almost infinitesimal--I'm merely a newspaper hack, you know."

"What you say about the t.i.tle is _quite_ right? and I am _so_ much obliged to you, Mr. Mangan," Lady Adela said, with almost pathetic emphasis. "The American war, of course; I never thought of that!"

"What is Ichabod's choice?--I beg your pardon, I mean have you shown the t.i.tles to Mr. Egerton?"

"I'm afraid he doesn't approve of any of them," said Lady Adela, sadly turning over the slips.

"No, I suppose not; good t.i.tles went out with good fiction--when he ceased to write novels a number of years ago. May I look at the others?"

She handed him the slips.