Prince Fortunatus Part 58

"Yes, I know that, Linn," Maurice said, gently, "and that is why you mustn't talk any more now. You must lie still and rest, so that you may take your place in the theatre again--"

"But haven't they told you I am never going to the theatre again?" he said, eagerly. "Oh, no; as soon as I can I am going away abroad--I am going away all over the world--to find some one. You said she was my friend and my good comrade--do you think I could let her be away in some distant place, and all alone? I could not rest in my grave! It may be Malta, or Cairo, or Australia, or San Francisco; but that is what I am set on. I have thought of it so long that--that I think my head has got tired, and my heart a little bit broken, as they say, only I never believed in that. Never mind, Maurice, I am going away to find Nina--ah, that will be a surprise some day--a surprise just as when she first came here--into the room--in the black dress and the crimson bonnet--_la cianciosella_, she was going away again!--she was always so proud and easily offended--always the _cianciosella_!"

He turned a little, and moaned, and lay still; and Maurice, fearing that his presence would only add to this delirious excitement, was about to slip from the room, when his sick friend called him back.

"Maurice, don't forget this now! When she comes again, you must stand by her at the door there, and tell her not to be frightened: I am not so very ill. Tell Nina not to be frightened. She used not to be frightened.

Ask her to remember the afternoons when I had the broken ankle--she and Sabetta Debernardi used to come nearly every day--and Sabetta brought her zither--and Nina and I played dominoes. Maurice, you never heard Nina sing to herself--just to herself, not thinking--and sometimes Sabetta would play a _barcarola_--oh, there was one that Nina used to sing sometimes--'_Da la parte de Castelo_--_ziraremo mio tesoro_--_mio tesoro!_--_la pa.s.sara el Bucintoro_--_per condur el Dose in mar'_--I heard it last night again--but--but all stringed instruments--and the sound of wind and waves--it was so strange and terrible--when I was listening for Nina's voice. I think it was at Capri--along the sh.o.r.es--but it was night-time--and I could not hear Nina because of the wind and the waves. Oh, it was terrible, Maurice! The sea was roaring all round the sh.o.r.es--and it was so black--only I thought if the water were about to come up and drown me, it might--it might take me away somewhere--I don't know where--perhaps to the place where Nina's ship went down in the dark. Why did she go away, Maurice?--why did she go away from us all?--the poor _cianciosella_!"

These rambling, wearied, broken utterances were suddenly arrested: there was a tapping at the outer door--and Lionel turned frightened, anxious eyes on his friend.

"I'll go and see who it is," Mangan said, quietly. "Meanwhile you must lie perfectly quiet and still, Linn, and be sure that everything will come right."

In the next room, at the open door, he found the reporter of a daily newspaper which was in the habit of devoting a column every Monday morning to music and musicians. He was bidden to enter. He said he wished to have the last authentic news of the condition of the popular young baritone, for of course there would be some talk, especially in "the profession," about Mr. Moore's non-appearance on the preceding night.

"Well," said Maurice, in an undertone, "don't publish anything alarming, you know, for he has friends and relatives who are naturally anxious.

The fever has increased somewhat; that is the usual thing; a nervous fever must run its course. And to-night he has been slightly delirious--"

"Oh, delirious?" said the reporter, with a quick look.

"Slightly--slightly--just wandering a little in his feverishness. I wouldn't make much of it. The public don't care for medical details.

When the crisis of the fever comes, there will be something more definite to mention."

"If all goes well, when do you expect he will be able to return to the New Theatre?"

"That," said Maurice, remembering Miss Burgoyne's hint, "it is quite impossible to say."

"Thanks," said the reporter. "Good-night." And therewith Mangan returned to the sick-room.

He found that Lionel had forgotten all about having been startled into silence by the tapping at the outer door. His heated brain was busy with other bewildering possibilities now.

"Maurice--Maurice!" he said, eagerly. "It is near the time--quick, quick!--get me the box--behind the music--on the piano--"

"Look here, Linn," said his friend, with some affectation of asperity, "you must really calm yourself and be silent, or I shall have to go and sit in the other room. You are straining your throat every time you speak, and exciting yourself as well."

"Ah, and it is my last chance!" Lionel said, piteously, and with burning eyes. "If you only knew, Maurice, you would not refuse!"

"Well, tell me quietly what you want," Mangan said.

"The box--on the top of the piano," Lionel made answer, in a low voice, but his eyes were tremblingly anxious. "Quick, Maurice!"

Mangan went and without any difficulty found the box that held Nina's trinkets, and returned with it.

"Open it!" Lionel said, clearly striving to conceal his excitement.

"Yes, yes--put those other things aside--yes, that is it--the two cups--take them separate; it isn't twelve yet, is it? No, no; there will be time; now put them on the table by the window there--yes, that is it--now pour some wine into them--never mind what, Maurice, only be quick!"

Well, he could not refuse this appeal; he thought that most likely the yielding to these incoherent wishes would prove the best means of pacifying the fevered mind; so he went into the next room and brought back some wine, and half filled the two tiny goblets.

"Now, wait, Maurice," Lionel said, slowly, and in a still lower voice, though his eyes were afire. "Wait and watch--closely, closely--don't breathe or speak. It is near twelve. Watch! Do not take your eyes off them; and at twelve o'clock, when you see one of the cups move, then you must seize it--seize it, and seize Nina's hand!--and hold her fast! Oh, I can tell you she will not leave us any more--not when I have spoken to her and told her how cruel it was of her to go away. I do not know where she is now; but at twelve, all of a sudden, there will be a kind of trembling of the air--that is Nina--for she has been here before; how long to twelve now, Maurice?" he asked, eagerly.

"Oh, it is a long time till twelve yet," his friend said. "I think, if I were you, I would try to sleep for an hour or two; and I'll go into the other room so as not to disturb you."

"No, no, Maurice," Lionel said, with panting vehemence. "You must not stir! It is quite near, I tell you--it is close on twelve--watch the cups, Maurice, and be ready to spring up and seize her hand and hold her fast. Quite near twelve--surely I hear something--it is something outside the window--like stringed instruments--and waves, dark waves--no, no! Maurice, Maurice! it is in the next room!--it is some one sobbing!--it is Nina!--Nina!"

He uttered a loud shriek and struggled wildly to raise himself; but Maurice, with gentle pressure and persuasive words, got him to lie still.

"It is past twelve now, Linn; and you see there has been nothing. We must wait; and some day we will find out all about Nina for you. Of course you would like to know about your old companion. Oh, we'll find her, rest a.s.sured!"

Lionel had turned away, and was lying moaning and muttering to himself.

The only phrase his companion could make out was something about "a wide, wide sea--and all dark."

But Maurice, finding him now comparatively quiet, stealthily put back the various trinkets into the box and carried it into the other room.

And then, hearing no further sound, he remained there--remained until the nurse came down to take his place.

He told her what had occurred; but she was familiar with these things, and doubtless knew much better than himself how to deal with such emergencies. At the street-door he paused to light his pipe--his first smoke that day, and surely well-earned. Then he went away through the dark thoroughfares down to Westminster, not without much pity and sadness in his mind, also perhaps with some curious speculations--as to the lot of poor, luckless mortals, their errors and redeeming virtues, and the vagrant and cruel buffetings of fate.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FRIENDS IN NEED.

On the Monday morning matters were so serious that Mangan telegraphed down to Winstead; but the old doctor and his wife and Francie were already on their way to town. When they arrived in Piccadilly, and went into the sick-room, Lionel did not know them; most likely he merely confused them with the crowding phantoms of his brain. He was now in a high state of fever, but the delirium was not violent; he lay murmuring and moaning, and it was only chance phrases they could catch--about some one being lost--and a wide and dark sea--and so forth. Sometimes he fancied that Nina was standing at the door, and he would appeal piteously to her, and then sink back with a sigh, as if convinced once more that it was only a vision. The Winstead people took apartments for themselves at a hotel in Half-Moon Street; but of course they spent nearly all their time in this sitting-room, where they could do little but listen to the reports of the doctors, and wait and hope.

In the afternoon Mangan said,

"Francie, you're not used to sitting in-doors all day; won't you come out for a little stroll in the Park over there?"

"And I'm sure you want a breath of fresh air as much as any one, Mr.

Mangan," the old lady said. "What would my boy have done without you all this time?"

Francie at once and obediently put on her things, and she and Maurice went down-stairs and crossed the street and entered the Park, where they could walk up and down the unfrequented ways and talk as they pleased.

"I suppose you will be going down to the House of Commons almost directly?" she asked.

"Oh, no," he answered. "I've begged off. I could not think of getting to work while Linn is so ill as that."

"Do you know what I have been thinking all day, Maurice?" she said, gently. "When I saw you with the doctors, and when I heard of all you have done since Sat.u.r.day morning--well, I could not help thinking that there must be something fine about Lionel to have secured him such a friend."

He looked at her with some surprise.

"But you have been his friend--all these years!" he said.

"Ah, that's different; we were brought up together. Tell me--the Nina he is always talking about--I suppose that is the Italian girl who was at the theatre, and whom he knew in Naples--he used to write home about her--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_He uttered a loud shriek, and struggled wildly to raise himself._"]