Prince Fortunatus Part 6

"Well, Nina," he resumed, "I don't seem to have frightened you with the possibility of your having to dress in the same room with two or three chorus-girls whom you don't know; and in fact, if I happened to be acquainted with the theatre, I dare say I could get the manager to make sure you were to dress along with some nice girl, who would show you how to make-up, and all that. But you would get a very small salary to begin with, Nina; perhaps only thirty shillings a week--and an extra pound a week when you had to take up your under-study duties--however, that need not trouble you, because we are old comrades, Nina, and while you are in England my purse is yours--"

She looked at him doubtfully.

"Ah, you don't understand," he said, gently. "It's only this, Nina: I have plenty of money; if you are a good comrade and a good friend, you will take from me what you want--always--at any moment--"

The pretty, pale-olive face flushed quickly, and for a brief second she glanced at him with grateful eyes; but it was perhaps to cover her embarra.s.sment that she now rose from the piano, and pretended to be tired of the music and of these professional schemes.

"It is enough of booziness," she said, lightly; "come, Leo, will you go for a small walk?--have you time?"

"Oh, yes, I have time," said he, "but you must not say _booziness_, Nina? it is _bizness_."

"_Beezness!_--_beezness!_" she said, smiling. "It is enough of _beezness_. You go for a walk with me--yes? How beautiful the weather!"

she continued, in a suddenly altered tone, as she looked out at the sunlit foliage of the Green Park; and then she murmured, almost to herself, in those soft Italian vowel sounds:

"Ah, Leo mio, che sarei felice d'essere in campagna!"

It was a kind of sigh; perhaps that was the reason she had inadvertently relapsed into her own tongue. And as they went down the stairs, and he opened the door for her, the few words he addressed to her were also in Italian.

"The country!" he said. "We will just step across the street, Nina, and you will find yourself in what is quite as pretty as the country at this time of year. You may fancy yourself sitting in the Villa Reale, if you could only have a flash of blue sea underneath the branches of the trees."

But when they had crossed over and got into the comparative quiet of the Park, she resolutely returned to her English again; and now she was telling him about the people in Naples whom he used to know, and of their various fortunes and circ.u.mstances. Sometimes neither of them spoke; for all this around them was very still and pleasant--the fresh foliage of the trees and the long lush gra.s.s of the enclosures as yet undimmed by the summer dust; the cool shadows thrown by the elms and limes just moving as the wind stirred the wide branches; altogether a world of soft, clear, sunny green, unbroken except by here and there a small copper beech with its bronze leaves become translucent in the hot light. It is true that the browsing sheep were abnormally black; and the yellow-billed starlings had perhaps less sheen on their feathers than they would have had in the country; nevertheless, for a park in the midst of a great city this place was very quiet and beautiful and sylvan; and indeed, when these two sat down on a couple of chairs under a fragrant hawthorn, Nina's l.u.s.trous dark eyes became wistful and absent, and she said,

"Yes, Leo, it is as you say in the house--it all appears a dream."

"What appears like a dream to you?" her companion asked.

"To be in London, sitting with you, Leo, and hearing you speak," she answered, in a low voice. "Often I think of it--often I think of London--wondering what it is like--and I ask myself, 'Will Leo be the same after his great renown? Are we friends as before?' and now I am here, and London is not dark and terrible with smoke, but we sit in gardens--oh, very beautiful!--and Leo is talking just as in the old way--perhaps it is a dream?" she continued, looking up with a smile.

"Perhaps I wake soon?"

"Oh, no, it isn't a dream, Nina," said he, "only it might pa.s.s for one, for you haven't told me how you managed to get here. It is all a mystery to me. Where are you staying, for example?"

"My lodging?" she said. "I have an apartment in the Restaurant Gianuzzi."

"Where is that?"

"Rupert Street," she answered, with a valiant effort at the proper p.r.o.nunciation.

"My goodness! what are you doing, Nina?" he said, almost angrily.

"Living by yourself in a foreign restaurant, in the neighborhood of Leicester Square! You'll have to come out of that at once!"

"You must not scold me, Leo," she said, in rather a hurt way. "How am I to know?"

"I am not scolding you," he said (indeed, he knew better than to do that; if once the notion had got into her little head that he was really upbraiding her, she would have been up and off in a moment, proud-lipped, indignant-eyed, with a fierce wrong rankling in her heart; and weeks it might take him to pet her into gentleness again, even if she did not forthwith set out for the South, resolved to return to this harsh, cold England no more). "I am not scolding you, Nina," he said, quite gently. "Of course you didn't know. And of course you were attracted by the Italian name--you thought you would feel at home--"

"They are very nice people, yes, yes!" she said--and still she was inclined to hold her head erect, and her mouth was a little proud and offended.

"Very likely indeed," he said, with great consideration, "but, you see, Nina, a single young lady can't stay at a restaurant by herself, without knowing some one, some one to go about with her--"

"Why," she said, vehemently, almost scornfully, "you think I not know that! An Italian girl--and not know that! Last night, hour after hour, I sit and think, 'Oh, there is Leo singing now--if I may go to the theatre!--to sit and hear him--and think of the old days--and perhaps to write home to the _maestro_, and tell him of the grand fame of his scholar.' But no. I cannot go out. There is no time yet to see about chaperon. When it comes eleven hour, I say, 'The theatre is ceased;' and I go to bed. Then this morning I know no person; I say, 'Very well, I go and see Leo; he will understand;' it is how I meet him in the Chiaja, and he says, 'Good-morning, Nina; shall we go for a little walk out to Pozzuoli'--it is just the same."

"Yes, I understand well enough, Nina," said he, good-naturedly, "and I wasn't scolding you when I said you must get some better place to stay at while you are in London. Well, now, I am going to tell you something.

I don't know much about what actors and actresses are in Italy, but here in England they are exceedingly generous to any of their number who have fallen into misfortune; and a case of the kind happened a little while ago. An actor, who used to be well known, died quite suddenly and left his widow entirely unprovided for; whereupon there was a subscription got up for her, and a morning performance, too, in which nearly all the leading actors and actresses managed to do something or other; and the result is that they have been able to take the lease of a house in Sloane Street, and furnish the rooms for her, and she is to earn her living by keeping lodgers. Now, if you really want to remain in London, Nina, don't you think that might be a comfortable home for you? She is a very nice, ladylike little woman; and she's a great friend of mine, too; she would do everything she could for you. There's a chaperon for you ready-made!--for I'm afraid she has only one lodger to look after as yet, though she has all the necessary servants, and the establishment is quite complete. What do you say to that, Nina?"

Her face had brightened up wonderfully at this proposal.

"Yes, yes, yes, Leo!" she said, instantly. "Tell me how I go, and I go at once, to ask her if she can give me apartments."

He glanced at his watch.

"The fact is," said he, slowly, "I was to have lunched with a very small party to-day--at a d.u.c.h.ess's house--at a d.u.c.h.ess's house, think of that, Nina!"

She jumped to her feet at once, and frankly held out her hand.

"Forgive me, Leo!--I r.e.t.a.r.d you--I did not know."

"Don't be in such a hurry, Nina," he said, as he also rose. "I'm going to break the appointment, that's all about it; Signorina Antonia Rossi doesn't arrive in England every day. I'll tell you what we have got to do: we will get into a hansom and drive to a telegraph-office, and I'll get rid of that engagement; then we'll go on to the Restaurant Gianuzzi, and you and I will have a little luncheon by ourselves, just to prepare us for the fatigues of the day; then you will get your things ready, and I will take you down to Mrs. Grey's in Sloane Street, and introduce you to that most estimable little lady; and then, if Mrs. Grey happens to be disengaged for the evening, she might be induced to come with you to the New Theatre, and she could take you safe home after the performance. How will that do, Nina?"

"You always were kind to me, Leo," she said--though the grat.i.tude plainly shining in the gentle, dark eyes rendered the words quite unnecessary.

And indeed she was delighted, with a sort of childish delight, to sit in this swift hansom, bowling along the smooth thoroughfare; and she chatted and chattered in her gay, rapid, disconnected fashion; and she had nothing but contempt for the shabby Neapolitan fiacre and the jolting streets that Leo of course remembered; and when at last she found herself and her companion of old days seated at a small, clean, bright window-table in the Restaurant Gianuzzi--they being the only occupants of the long saloon--she fairly clapped her little hands together in her gladness. And then how pretty she looked! She had removed her bonnet; and the light from the window, falling on the magnificent ma.s.ses of her jet-black hair gave it almost a blue sheen in places; while here and there--about the wax-like ear, for example, a tiny ringlet had got astray, and its soft darkness against the olive complexion seemed to heighten the clear, pure pallor of the oval cheek.

And now all doubts as to how Leo might receive her had fled from her mind; they were on the old, familiar terms again; and she followed with an eager and joyous interest all that he had to say to her. Then how easily could she accentuate her sympathetic listening with this expressive face! The mobile, somewhat large, beautifully formed mouth, the piquant little nose with its sensitive nostrils, the eloquent dark eyes could just say anything she pleased; though, to be sure, however varying her mood might be, in accordance with what she heard and what was demanded of her, her normal expression was one of an almost childish and happy content. She poured her gla.s.s of Chianti into a tumbler, and filled that up with water, and sipped it as a canary sips. She made little pellets of bread with her dainty white fingers--but that was in forgetfulness--that was in her eagerness of listening. And at last she said,

"What is it, Leo?--you wish to frighten me with your trials?--no! for now you laugh at all these--these mortifications. Then a man is proud--he is sensitive--he is not patient as a woman--oh, you think you frighten me?--no, no!"

The fact is, he began to see more and more clearly that she was resolved upon trying her fortune on the lyric stage; and he thought it his duty to let her know very distinctly what she would have to encounter. He did not exactly try to dissuade her; but he gave her a general idea of what she might expect, and that in not too roseate colors. His chief difficulty, however, was this: he was possessed by a vague feeling that there might be some awkwardness in having Antonia Rossi engaged at the same theatre with himself; and yet, looking round all the light operas then being performed, he had honestly to confess that the only part Nina could aspire to take, with her present imperfect p.r.o.nunciation of English, was that of the young French officer played at the New Theatre by Mlle. Girond. Nor did it lessen his embarra.s.sment to find, as soon as he mentioned this possibility, that to join the New Theatre was precisely what Signorina Rossi desired.

"I don't think there would be much difficulty about it, Nina," he was forced to admit--carefully concealing his reluctance the while.

"Lehmann, that is our manager, is talking about getting up a second travelling company, for the opera is so popular everywhere; and there is to be a series of rehearsals of under-studies beginning next Monday, and you could see all the coaching going on. Then you could sit in front at night, and watch Mlle. Girond's 'business:' how would you like that, Nina?--whether what she does is clever or stupid, you would have to copy it? the public would expect that--"

"Why not?" Nina said, with a pleasant smile. "Why not? I learn. She knows more; why I not learn?"

"It's a shame to throw away a fine voice like yours on a small part in comic opera," he said--still with vague dreams before him of a concert-room career for her.

"But I must begin," said she, with much practical common-sense, "and while I am in the small part, I learn to act, I learn the stage-affair, I learn better English, to the end of having a place more important.

Why, Leo, you are too careful of me! At Naples I work hard, I am a slave to old Pandiani--I suffer everything--can I not work hard here in London? You think I am an infant? Certainly I am not--no, no--I am old--old--"

"But light-hearted still, Nina," he said, for she was clearly bent on laughing away his fears. Then he looked at her, with a little hesitation. "There's another thing, Nina? about the costume."

"Yes?" she asked, innocently.

"I don't know--whether you would quite like--but I'll show you Mlle.

Girond's dress anyway--then you can judge for yourself," said he. He called the waiter. He scribbled on a piece of paper, "Photograph of Mlle. Girond as Capitaine Crepin in 'The Squire's Daughter.'" "Send round to some stationer's shop, will you, and get me that?"

When the messenger returned with the photograph, Lionel, rather timidly, put it before her; but, indeed, there was nothing in the costume of Mlle. Girond to startle any one--the uniform of the boy-officer was so obviously a compromise. Nina glanced at it thoughtfully.

"Well, Leo," she said, looking up, "you see no harm?"

"Harm?" said he, boldly taking up his cue, "of course not! It isn't like any uniform that ever was known; I suppose it's Mlle. Girond's own invention; but, at all events, there's nothing to prevent any modest girl wearing it. Why, I know more than one fashionable lady who would think nothing of appearing as Rosalind--and Rosalind's is a real boy's dress, or ought to be--and then they haven't the excuse that an actor or actress has, that it is a necessity of one's profession. However, there's nothing to be said about that costume, anyway; I really had forgotten that Mlle. Girond had got her pretty little blue coat made with so long a skirt. Besides, Nina, with a voice like yours, you will soon be beyond having to take parts like that."