The Gorgeous Isle Part 7

They were late and looked down upon a brilliant scene. Not even a dowager wore black, and the young women, married and single, were in every hue, primary and intermediate. Almost as many wore their hair _a la Victoria_ as in the more becoming curls, for loyalty, so long dead and forgotten, was become the rage since the young Queen had raised the corpse. But they softened the severity of the coiffure with wreaths, and feathers, and fillets, and even coquettish little lace laps, filled with flowers. The men were equally fine in modish coats and satin waistcoats; narrow and severe or deep and ruffled neckties but one degree removed from the stock, or in flowing collars _a la Byron_. Their hair was parted in the middle and puffed out at the side; not a few wore a flat band of whisker that looked like the strap of the condemned. Both Hunsdon and Warner shaved, or Anne would have tolerated neither.

There was a platform at the end of the saloon, with curtains at the back separating it from a small withdrawing-room, and it had been tastefully embellished with rugs, jars of gorgeous flowers, a reading stand, a harp and a piano.

"Who will sway over the harp?" asked Miss Ogilvy humorously.

"Lady Mary. Ah! They are about to begin."

A fine applause greeted Miss Bargarny, who executed the overture to Semiramide quite as well as it deserved. After the clapping was over and she had obligingly given an encore, she remained at the piano, and Mr. Stewart, a young man with red hair and complexion, in kilts and pink knees, emerged from the curtains, and sang in a thundering voice several of Burns's tenderest songs. After their final retirement the curtains were drawn apart with much dignity, and Lady Mary stepped forth; a vision, as her severest critics were forced to admit. She was in diaphanous white, with frosted flowers amidst her golden ringlets, a little crown of stars above her brow, and a scarf of silver tissue.

"All she needs is wings!" exclaimed Miss Ogilvy, and added to herself, "may she soon get them!"

Lady Mary, acknowledging the rapturous greeting with a seraphic expression and the grand air, literally floated to the harp, where nothing could have displayed to a greater advantage her long willowy figure, her long white thin arms, the drooping gold of her ringlets. As the golden music tinkled from the tips of her taper fingers--formed for the harp, which may have had somewhat to do with her choice of instrument--her ethereal loveliness swayed in unison, and, one might fancy--if not a rival--emitted a music of its own.

"She doesn't look a day over twenty!" exclaimed Miss Ogilvy. "Who would dream that she was thirty? But those fragile creatures break all at once. When she does fade she will be even more _pa.s.see_ than most."

"But women know so many arts nowadays," said Anne drily. "And she would be the last to ignore them."

"Ah! no doubt she will hang on till she gets a husband. I never knew anyone to want one so badly."

"Lady Mary?" asked Hunsdon wonderingly. "I had long since grown to look upon her as a confirmed old maid."

"La! La! my lord!" Miss Ogilvy suddenly resolved upon a bold stroke.

"She's trying with all her might and main to marry your own most intimate friend."

"My most intimate friend? He is in England. Nottingdale. Do you know him? Or do you perchance mean Warner?"

"Never heard of the first and it certainly is not the last. Oh, my lord!" And then she laughed so archly that poor Lord Hunsdon could not fail to read her meaning. His fresh coloured face, warm with ascending heat, turned a deep brick red. He felt offended with both Miss Ogilvy and Lady Mary, and edged closer to Anne as if for protection.

This conversation took place while Lady Mary was bowing in response to the plaudits her performance evoked. She tinkled out another selection, and then, with a gently dissenting gesture, the dreaming eyes almost somnambulistic, floated through the curtains.

There was a brief interval for rapturous vocatives and then the curtains were flung apart and Spring burst through, crying,

"I come! I come! Ye have called me long.

I come o'er the mountains with light and song!

Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth By the winds that tell of the violet's birth."

The young lady, attired in white and hung with garlands, looked not unlike the engraving of "Spring" in the ill.u.s.trated editions of the poems of the gentle Felicia. For a moment Anne, who had long outgrown Mrs. Hemans, was disposed to laugh, but as the sweet ecstatic voice trilled on a wave of sadness swept over her, a familiar scene of her childhood rose and effaced the one beneath. She saw the favourite room of her mother in the tower overhanging the sea, her brothers sprawled on the hearthrug, herself in her own little chair, her mother in her deep invalid sofa holding her youngest child in her arms, while she softly recited the "Evening Prayer at a Girl's School," "The Coronation of Inez del Castro," "Juana," or, to please the more robust taste of the boys, "Bernardo del Carpio," and "Casabianca," the last two in sweet inadequate tones. Lines, long forgotten swept back to Anne out of the past:

The night wind shook the tapestry round an ancient palace room, And torches, as it rose and fell, waved through the gorgeous gloom.

There was music on the midnight-- From a royal fane it rolled.

The warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire, And sued the haughty king to free his long imprisoned sire.

Mrs. Percy had been a gentle, sentimental, romantic creature with golden ringlets and floating sylph-like form, not unlike Lady Mary's.

She received little attention from her scientific husband and devoted her short life to her children and to poetry, writing graceful vacant verses herself. Mrs. Hemans was her favourite poet, although her eyes could kindle when she read "The Corsair," or "The Bride of Arbydos,"

particularly as she had once met Byron and remembered him as the handsomest of mortals. But she would have thought it indecorous even to mention his name before her young children. Mrs. Hemans was as much a part of the evening hour in winter as the dusk and the blazing logs, and the children loved her almost as well as the gentle being who renewed her girlhood in those romantic effusions. A malignant fever raging up the coast, had burnt out that scene for ever, leaving Anne alone and aghast, for her father, the first horror and remorse over, subsided once more into his laboratory. Then had come a succession of governesses; finally the library was discovered; she ceased to miss her old companions. But she never forgot them, and no doubt the sweetness and melancholy of the memory did as much as the imaginary Byam Warner to save her from the fate of her dry dehumanised father.

Anne came to herself as a charade progressed, and Miss Ogilvy gaily commented upon the interpretation of the middle syllable of Caterpillar, as A, in the architecture of which one of the handsomest girls and her swain made a striking silhouette. Then she remembered that the next name on the programme was Warner's; he was to read for half an hour from his own work; after which all would hie themselves to the music room and dance.

There was a longer interval than usual. Anne's hands and feet became nerveless bits of ice. Had his courage given out? Had he run away?

Worse still, was he nerving himself to an ordeal to which he would prove unequal? A humiliating breakdown! Anne's blood pounded through her body as he finally emerged from the curtains, and she broke her fan, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Miss Ogilvy.

The company, although it had once or twice permitted its applause to go beyond the bounds prescribed by elegant civility, had reserved its real enthusiasm for the poet whose halo of present fashion electrified their springs of Christianity. As he entered, correctly attired, although more soberly than most of his audience, and walked slowly to the reading stand, they not only clapped but stamped and cried his name until the walls resounded; and so excited the coloured people (with whom his popularity had never waned) that a stentorian chorus burst through the windows and drowned the more polite if no less ardent greeting of the elect.

Warner blushed faintly and bent his head in acknowledgment, but otherwise gave no sign of the astonishment he must feel, and stood quite still until the noise had died away down to its final echo in the neighbourhood of the palm avenue. When he finally lifted his book a sudden breathless silence fell upon the company. Anne leaned over the railing in almost uncontrollable excitement, her face white, her breath short. Lord Hunsdon was too agitated himself to observe her, but the unaffected Miss Ogilvy took note and matured plans.

Warner began to read in his low, toneless, but distinct voice. In a few moments the excitement subsided; he was p.r.o.nounced insufferably monotonous. Fans rustled, hoops sc.r.a.ped the hard floors. Lady Constance gave a loud admonitory cough. Warner paid no heed. Still he read on in low monotone. A few moments more and its spell had enmeshed the company. The silence was so deep that the low murmur of the sea could be heard beyond (or within) his own voice. The most impatient, the most vehement, raised significant eyebrows and shot out optical affirmations that nothing could be more effective than the verbal method the poet had adopted--although doubtless it was quite his own, so in keeping was it with his reserved, retiring, non-committal personality. Be that as it may, the dramatic scenes, the impa.s.sioned phrases, the virile original vocabulary that flowed from his set lips could never be delivered so potently by tones that matched their tenor. The contrast flung them into undreamed of relief. Those most familiar with his work wondered that they had never understood it before.

Anne felt more than all this. She closed her eyes and enjoyed a delusion. It was the soul of the poet reading. The body there was but a fallacy of vision, non-existent, really dead, perhaps; subservient for a while longer to that imperious immortal part that had not yet fulfilled its earthly mission. She had allowed herself to believe that she had caught fleeting glimpses of this man's soul, so different from his battered clay; to-night she heard it, and heard as she never did by the North Sea when all her world was one vast delusion. It murmured like the sea itself, the gray cold sea of some strange dark planet beyond the stars, whence came, who knew? all genius; a sea whose tides would rise high and higher until they exhausted the clay they beat upon while they had yet a message to deliver to Earth. That clay! If it could but be preserved a few years longer! Great as was his accomplished work he must do greater yet. No student of his more ambitious poems, half lyric, half dramatic, believed his powers were yet developed.

Anne came to herself amidst a new thunder of applause. She told herself with a sigh and an angry blush that she was a romantic idiot and the sooner she married and had a little family to think of the better. Heaven knew what folly she might be capable of did she give rein to dreams. She became aware that Warner, compelled to silence, was looking straight at her, and she automatically beat her hands together. He smiled slightly and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. Then some one in the audience called for the popular poem in which he had so vigorously denounced Macaulay's unjust estimate of Byron a few years since, holding up to scorn the brain of the mere man of letters who dared to criticise or even to attempt to understand the abnormal brain and temperament of a great poet. He recited it from memory and then retired followed by a tumult of approval that he well knew he never should evoke again.

CHAPTER XIV

When Anne descended the company was streaming toward the music room, whence issued the rich summons of a full military band. She manoeuvred so well that Lord Hunsdon led out Miss Ogilvy for the first dance, and sat down beside Mrs. Nunn, hoping that Warner would summon courage to take the empty chair beside her. Her pulses beat high with excitement and delight in his triumph, and she longed to show him recklessly for once the admiration and the faith she had taken care to conceal under a correctly flattering manner. But Warner stood talking with a group of men, and even could he have ignored a sudden imperious beckoning of Lady Hunsdon's fan he would have been too late. With one of those concerted impulses to which men no less than women are subject, the young bloods of Bath House, the moment they saw Anne Percy radiant in colour, with an even deeper blush and brighter eyes than usual, determined that she and she alone should be the belle of the evening. She had hardly seated herself when she was surrounded, she was besieged for dances; and in spite of her protests that she had never danced save with her governesses, she found herself whirling about the room in the arm of Mr. Abergenny, and followed by many an angry eye. Abergenny might be unt.i.tled and less of a "catch"

than Lord Hunsdon, but he had far more dash, manner, and address; he possessed a fine property, if somewhat impaired by high living, and was a man of note and fashion in London. His word alone had stamped more than one ambitious beauty for good or ill, and this was not the first time that he had intimated his entire approval of Miss Percy.

Anne guessed that his intentions were never serious, but he had amused her more than the others, and since she must know the world, doubtless she should be grateful for tutelage so able.

Although trembling and suffused with terrified blushes, all her old shyness in possession, Mr. Abergenny was so admirable a partner, he gave her so many courteous hints, he kept her so persistently in the thick of the dancing, where critical eyes could hardly follow her, that her confidence not only returned, but before she had completed the circuit of the room three times she was vastly enjoying herself.

She danced round and square dances with her various admirers for the next hour, and when the country dance was at its height she found herself tripping alone between the long files with no return of bashfulness and no less grace than Lady Mary herself; forgetting that there could be no better preparation for grace in the ball-room than years of free exercise out of doors.

She abandoned herself to the new and unantic.i.p.ated pleasure, and not only of dancing but of being the acknowledged belle of the night.

Beyond the intoxication of the moment nothing existed. Once indeed, she met Warner's eyes, and they flashed with surprise and rage, but she forgot him and danced until even her strong frame could stand no more, and she went to bed with the dawn and slept till afternoon.

CHAPTER XV

Depressed with reaction and heavy with unwonted sleeping by daylight, she was glad to go from her dressing-table to the carriage waiting to take herself and her aunt for the customary drive. It was but a moment before her mind was startled into its accustomed activity.

"Mr. Warner has disappeared again." Mrs. Nunn tilted her lace parasol against the slanting sun. "Poor Maria!"

"Disappeared?"

"That is the general interpretation. Maria, with whom he was to dine to-night, received a note from him this morning asking to be excused as he was going away for some time; and when Hunsdon rushed down to Hamilton House--unshaved and without his plunge--he was told that the poet was gone; none of the servants could say where nor when he would return. So that is probably the last of the reformed poet. I suppose last night's excitement proved too much for him."

Anne's feeling was almost insupportable, but she forced her tone into the register which Miss Bargarny and her kind would employ to express lively detached regret. "That would be quite dreadful, and most ungrateful. But I do not believe--anything of the sort. No doubt all that reading of his own work stirred his muse and he has shut himself up to write."

"Well, as he always shuts himself up with a quart of brandy at the same time, that is equally the end of him as far as we are concerned.

For my part I have never been able to make out what all of you find in him to admire. He would be quite ordinary to look at if it were not for a few good lines, and I never heard him utter a remark worth listening to. And as for fashion! Compare him last night with Lord Hunsdon or Mr. Abergenny!"

"I think myself he made a mistake not to appear in a rolling collar and a Turkish coat and turban! I don't fancy that he emulates Lord Hunsdon or Mr. Abergenny in anything."