Prince Fortunatus Part 60

"Only last night--but I did not sleep any--"

"Shall I get you some tea?" was the next inquiry.

But here the old doctor, who had been stealthily moving about the room, interfered, and produced a biscuit-box and a decanter of port wine and a gla.s.s; while the old lady begged Miss Ross to take off her cloak and remain with them a little while. At this moment Mangan came out from the sick-room.

"Doctor," said he in a whisper, "you must go in presently; I think you'll see a difference. He is quite pleased and content--talking to himself a little, but not complaining any more. Twice he has said, 'Maurice, Nina has spoken at last.'"

There was a tinkle of a bell; Maurice answered it with the swiftness of a nurse in a hospital. He returned in a minute, looking a little puzzled.

"He wants to make quite sure you have been here," he said to Nina, in the same undertone; "and I told him you were in the next room, but that you were tired, and could not see him just now. No, I don't think it would do for you to go back at present--what do you say, doctor?--he seems so much more tranquil, and it would be a pity to run any risk. But if you could just let him know you were here--he might hear your talking to us--that would be no harm--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_She threw herself on her knees by the bedside and seized his hand._"]

"I know how to tell Leo that I am here," Nina said, simply; and she went to the piano and opened it. Then, with the most exquisite softness, she began to play some familiar Neapolitan airs--slowly and gently, so that they must have sounded in the sick-chamber like mere echoes of song coming from across wide waters. And would he not understand that it was Nina who was speaking to him; that she was only a few yards from him; and not the ghostly Nina who had so often come to the sick-room door and remained there strangely silent, but the wilful, gentle, capricious, warm-hearted _cianciosella_ who had kissed his hand but a little while ago, and wept over it, amid her bitter sobs. These were love-songs for the most part that she was playing; but that was neither here nor there; the soft, rippling notes were more like the sound of a trickling waterfall in some still summer solitude. "_Cannetella, oje Cannete!_"

"_Ch.e.l.lo che tu me dice, Nenna, non boglio fa._" "_Io te voglio bene a.s.saje, e tu non pienz' a me!_" He would know it was Nina who was playing for him--until slowly and more slowly, and gently and more gently, the velvet-soft notes gradually ceased, and at length there was silence.

Old Mrs. Moore went over to the girl and patted her affectionately on the shoulder and kissed her.

"Lionel has told us a great deal about you," the old lady said; "even when he was in Naples we seemed to know you quite well; and now I hope we shall be friends."

And Nina made answer, with downcast eyes:

"Whenever you wish it, madame, I shall be glad to come and play a little--if he cares to hear the Neapolitan airs that he used to know in former days."

Yes, there was no doubt that this opportune visit had made a great difference in Lionel's condition; for, though the fever did not abate--and could not be expected to abate until the crisis had been reached, there were no more of those agonized pleadings and murmurings that showed such deep distress of mind. Frequently, indeed, he seemed to know nothing of what had occurred; he would talk of Nina as being in Naples or as having gone down to the theatre; but all the same he was more tranquil. As for Nina, she said she would do just as they wished.

She had arrived in London that morning, and had gone to Mrs. Grey's, in Sloane Street, and engaged a room. She could go down there now, and wait until she was sent for, if they thought it would please Lionel to know that one of his former companions had come to see him. She put it very prettily and modestly; it was only as an old ally and comrade of Lionel's that she was here; perhaps he might be glad to know of her presence. Or, if they thought that might disturb him, she would not come back at all; she would be content to hear, from time to time, how the fever was going on, if she might be permitted to call and ask the people below.

It was Maurice who answered her.

"If you don't mind, Miss Ross," said he, "I should like you to be here just as much as ever you found convenient. I keep telling Lionel you are in the next room; and that, at any moment he wants, you will play some of those Neapolitan airs for him; and he seems satisfied. It has been the worst part of his delirium that he fancied you were away in some distant place and were being cruelly ill-used, and he has excited himself dreadfully about it. Well, we don't want that to come back; and if at any moment I can say, 'But look!--here is Nina'--I beg your pardon!" said Mangan, blushing furiously, and looking as sheepish as a caught school-boy. "I mean if I could say to him, 'Look! here is Miss Ross, perfectly safe and well,' that would pacify him."

"And if you are fatigued after your journey," said Dr. Moore, who was a firm believer in the fine, old-fashioned fortifying theory, "we shall be having our midday meal by and by, in a room up-stairs, and I'm sure we'll make you heartily welcome."

"And I think, my dear," said the mother, rising from her chair and taking the girl kindly by the hand, "that if you and I and Francie were to go up there now we should be more out of the way; and there would be no chance of our talking being heard."

It was at this plain but substantial midday meal, served in an up-stairs room, that Nina incidentally told them something of her adventures and experiences during the past six months, though, of course, nothing was said about her reasons for leaving London. Maurice happened to inquire where it was that she had heard of Lionel's illness.

"In Glasgow," said Nina. "I saw about it in a newspaper yesterday; I came up by the train last night, because--because--" here some slight color appeared in the pale, clear complexion--"because if an old friend is very ill one wishes to be near." And perhaps it was to escape from this little embarra.s.sment that she proceeded to say: "Oh, they are so kind, the Glasgow people; I have never seen such domesticity." She glanced at Maurice, as if to see whether the word was right; then she went on. "When I was engaged by the director of the Sat.u.r.day Evening Concerts he told me that they had to change their singers frequently; that if I wished to remain in Glasgow or Edinburgh I must sing at private concerts and give lessons to have continual employment. And there was not much difficulty; oh, they are so enthusiastic, the Scotch people, about music!--to sing in the St. Andrew's Hall or the City Hall--and especially if you sing one of their own Scotch songs--the enthusiasm, the applause--it is like fire going through the nerves.

Well, it is very pleasant, but it is not enough employment, even though I get one or two other engagements, like the Edinburgh Orchestral Festival. No, it is not enough; but then I began to sing at musical evenings, in the fashionable private houses, and also to give lessons in the daytime; and then it was I began to know the kindness of that people, their consideration, their benignitance to a stranger, their good-humor, and good wishes to you. Oh, a little brusque sometimes, the father of a family, perhaps; the lady of the house and her daughters--never! More than once a lady has said to me, 'What, are you all alone in this big town?--my daughters will call for you to-morrow and take you to the Botanic Gardens; and after you will come back to tea.' Or, again, they have shown me photographs of a beautiful large house--like a castle, almost--on the side of a hill, among trees; and they say, 'That is our house in the summer; it is by the sea; if you are here in the summer, you must come and stay with us, and you will play lawn-tennis with the girls and go boating with them and fishing all day; then every evening we will have a little concert--'"

"I beg your pardon," interposed the blunt-tongued doctor, "but do you call that Scotch hospitality, Miss Ross?--to invite a professional singer to their houses and get her services for nothing?"

"Ah, no, no, you mistake," said Nina, putting up the palm of her right hand for a second. "You mistake. I was offered terms as well--generous, oh, yes, very generous; but it was not that that impressed me--it was their kindness--their admitting me into their domesticity--I have found the mother as kind to me as to her own daughters. No airs of patronage; they did not say, 'You are a foreigner; we cannot trust you;' they said, 'You are alone; come into our family, and be friends with us.' But not at once; no, no; for at first I did not know any one--"

"I should think it would be easy for you to make friends anywhere," said Francie, in her gentle fashion.

They did not linger long over that meal; it was hardly a time for feasting; indeed, Maurice had gone down before the others, to hear the nurse's report. She had nothing to say; the sick-room had been so still, she had not even ventured in, hoping the patient was asleep.

That afternoon there were many callers; and Mangan, who went down to such of them as wanted to have special intelligence, was pleased in a way. "Well," he would say to himself, as he went up and down the stairs, "the public have a little grat.i.tude, after all, and even mere acquaintances do think of you occasionally. It is something. But if you should go under, if you should drop out from amid the universal forward-hurrying throng, what then? If you have done something that can be mentioned, in art or letters or science, the newspapers may toss you a paragraph; or if you have been a notorious criminal or charlatan or windbag, they may even devote a leader to you; but the mult.i.tude--what time have they to think? A careless eye glances at the couple of obituary lines that have been paid for by relatives; then onwards again.

Perhaps, here and there, one solitary heart is struck deep, and remembers; but the ordinary crowd of one's acquaintances--what time have they? Good-bye, friend!--but we are in such a hurry!" Nevertheless, he was glad to tell Lionel of these callers, and of their flowers and cards and messages and what not.

On this Tuesday afternoon Miss Burgoyne also called; but, hearing that there were some relations come, she would not go up-stairs. Maurice went down to see her.

"What brought on this fever?" she asked, after the usual inquiries.

"A variety of causes, I should imagine," he answered. "The immediate one was a severe chill."

"They say he has lost all his money and is deeply in debt," she observed.

"Who says?" he demanded--too sharply, for he did not like this woman.

"Oh, I have heard of it," she answered.

"It is not true then. I don't know of his being in debt at all; if he is, he has friends who will see him through until he gets all right again."

"Oh, well," she said, apparently much relieved, "it is of no great consequence, so long as his voice is not touched. With his voice he can always retrieve himself and keep well ahead. They do tell such stories.

Thank you, Mr. Mangan. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said he, with unnecessary coldness; why should a disciple of Marcus Aurelius take umbrage at any manifestation of our common human nature?

She turned for a moment as he opened the door for her.

"Tell him I called; and that his portrait and mine are to appear in this week's _Footlights_--in the same number."

"Very well."

"Good-bye!"

When Dr. Ballardyce came that evening to make his usual examination, his report was of a twofold character: the fever was still ravaging the now enfeebled const.i.tution--the temperature, in especial, being seriously high; but the patient seemed much calmer in mind.

"Indeed," said the doctor to Maurice, at the foot of the stairs, as he was going away, "I should say that for the moment the delirium was quite gone. But I did not speak much to him. Quiet is the great thing--sleep above all."

Then Maurice told him what had happened during the day, and asked him whether, supposing they found Lionel quite sane and sensible, it would be advisable to tell him that Miss Ross was in the house, or even ask her to go and see him.

"Well, I should say not--not unless he appears to be troubled again. His present tranquillity of mind is everything that could be wished; I would not try any unnecessary experiment. Probably he does not know now that he has even seen her. Sometimes they have a vague recollection of something having happened; more frequently the whole thing is forgotten.

Wait till we see how the fever goes; when he is convalescent--perhaps then."

But Maurice, on his own responsibility, went into the sick-room after the doctor had left--went in on tip-toe, lest Lionel should be asleep.

He was not asleep. He looked at Mangan.

"Maurice, come here," he said, in a hard-laboring voice.

"You're not to talk, Linn," his friend answered, with a fine affectation of carelessness. "I merely looked in to see how you were getting on.

There's no news. The government seem to be in a mess, but even their own friends are ashamed of their vacillation. They're talking of still another lyric theatre; you'll have to save up your voice, Linn--by Jove!

you fellows will be in tremendous request. What else? Oh, nothing.

There's been a plucky thing done by a servant-girl in rescuing two children from a fire--if there's a little testimonial to her, I'm in with my humble guinea. But there's nothing in the papers--I'm glad I'm not a leader-writer."