The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals Part 12

Olympia saw that the rebellious spirit was but half subdued.

"What can I do?" she said, in her perplexity, addressing the maid, who lifted up both hands and shook her head as she answered:

"Ah, madame! if a toilet like that fails, who can say?"

"I will send for Brown. She will listen to him," said Olympia, driven to desperation. "With that spirit, she will never get the rollicking air for her first act."

She went to the door, and found the teacher lingering near, restless and anxious almost as herself.

"Brown--I say, Brown--come in! She is dressed, but so obstinate! If she were about to play Norma, it would be worth everything, but in this part--! Do come in, dear Brown, and get her up to the proper feeling."

Brown entered the room in absolute distress. He would gladly have kept that young creature from the stage; but having no power to aid her in avoiding it, was nervously anxious that she should make a success.

Caroline turned to him at once, and came forward with her hands held out.

"Oh, Mr. Brown, help me! It is not too late. Let them say I am sick.

Indeed, indeed, it will be true! She can take the part, and leave me in peace. Ask her, beg of her; say that I will go into her kitchen, be her maid, go out as a teacher--anything on earth, if she will only spare me this once! Ask her, Mr. Brown. Sometimes she will listen to you!"

Brown held both her hands. They were cold as ice, and he felt that she was trembling all over.

"My dear, dear child! I have pleaded with her. I have done my best."

"But again--again! Oh, Mr. Brown, do!"

Brown drew Olympia on one side, and entreated her to give the unhappy girl more time; but he knew well enough that he was asking almost an impossibility--that the woman had no power to grant that which he implored of her. In her arrogant power she had pledged that young creature, body and soul, to the public. How could she draw back, when the crowding rush of the audience might now be heard from the place where they stood.

Still the man pleaded with her, for he loved the girl better than anything on earth, and, knowing something of the feelings which made the stage so repulsive to her, would have died to save her from the pain of that night's experience.

Olympia was impatient, nervous, angry. What did the man think? Was she to throw away the chances of a great success and a brilliant fortune, because a romantic girl did not know her own mind? Was she to disgrace herself before all London?

Brown had no answer. The whole thing was unreasonable--he knew that well enough; but his heart ached for the poor girl. So he had done his best, and failed miserably.

"Go back and cheer the foolish thing up," said Olympia. "You can do it.

She loves you better than any one in the world. Now, if you want to oblige me, give her courage, soothe her. I never saw such a creature!

With the genius and voice of an angel, she has no ambition; but it will come. Before the drinking song is over, she will forget herself. Go, Brown, and give her courage."

Brown went back to the dressing-room, feeling like an executioner.

Caroline met him eagerly; but when she saw his face, her heart turned to stone.

"I see! I see!" she said. "I am doomed! But, remember, I was forced into this. Of my own choice, I would have died first; but she is my mother, and, in my ignorance, I promised her. Tell _him_ this, if you should ever see him. I never shall. After what he said of parts like this, I should perish with shame. Ha! what's that?"

"They are calling you," faltered Brown.

She caught a sharp breath and sprang away from him, like a deer when the hounds are in full cry.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRST PERFORMANCE.

The opera-house was full from floor to dome. A cheerful mult.i.tude crowded the body of the house with smiling faces, and filled it with gay colors, till it shone out gorgeously, like a thickly-planted flower-garden. The boxes filled, more slowly; but, after half an hour of soft, silken rustle and answering smiles, they, too, were crowded with distinguished men and beautiful women of the British aristocracy, and the whole arena was lighted up with the splendor of their garments and the flaming brightness of their jewels. Then came a movement, and a low murmur of discontent, which the grandest efforts of the orchestra could not silence. The hour had arrived, but the curtain was still down. Was there to be a disappointment, after all?

In the midst of this growing confusion a party entered one of the most prominent boxes that drew the general attention in that part of the house. A lady in crimson velvet, with some gossamer lace about her arms and bosom, and a cobweb of the same rich material floating from the thick braids of her coal-black hair, came into the box, followed by a gentleman so like her that people exclaimed at once:

"It is her brother!"

These two persons were accompanied by a bright young girl, in white muslin, with a blue ribbon drawn through her hair like a snood, and a string of large pearls on her neck. The girl was beautiful as a Hebe, and bright as a star--so bright and so beautiful that a whole battery of gla.s.ses was turned on the box the moment she entered it. Then a murmur ran from lip to lip.

"It is Lady Hope, that person who was once a governess, and the young lady must be Hope's daughter by his first marriage--the future Lady Ca.r.s.et, if the old countess ever dies, which she never will, if it is only to spite that woman yonder, whom she hates. Beautiful!"

"You are speaking of Lady Hope? Yes, very; but strange! Night and morning are not farther apart than those two. Yet I am told they are devoted to each other."

"Not unlikely. See how the woman smiles when the Hebe speaks to her!

Wonderful fascination in that face. Just the person to carry away a man like Hope."

Here the conversation was broken off by an impatient outburst of the audience.

In obedience to it the curtain rolled up, and the first act of "Traviata" commenced.

The tumult stopped instantly, and every face was turned with expectation on the stage, ready to greet "the lost one" with a generous welcome.

She came in hurriedly, with her head erect, her hand clenching that cloud of lace to her bosom, and her eyes bright as stars. A stag hunted to desperation would have turned at bay with a look like that; and the poor animal might have recoiled as she did, when that wild burst of admiration stormed over her. For the outcry of the most vicious hounds that ever ran could not have been more appalling to a victim than that generous welcome was to her.

She did not bow or smile, but retreated slowly back, step by step, until a voice from behind the scene startled her. Then she bent her tall figure a little forward, her head drooped to her bosom, and her hands were clenched pa.s.sionately under the laces.

Again those who were nearest heard the voice, but did not understand it as that poor girl did. In her panic the little acting that belonged to the scene was utterly overlooked; but this proud indifference was something new, and charmed the audience, which took her wounded pride for superb disdain of a pampered beauty, and accepted it as a graceful innovation; while she stood trembling from head to foot, conscious only of a burning desire to break away from it all and hide herself forever.

She did once move swiftly toward the wing, but there stood Olympia, and the first glimpse of that frowning face drove her back, panting for breath.

The audience, seeing her panic, encouraged her with applause less stormy and more sustaining.

She felt this kindness. The mult.i.tude were less her enemy than the woman who stood in the shadows, hounding her on. Among all that sea of faces she saw one--that of a young girl, leaning over the crimson cushions of a box near the stage, so eager, so earnest, so bright with generous sympathy, that youth answered back to youth; a smile broke over her own face, and with it came her voice, fresh, pure, soaring like a bird suddenly let loose on the air.

The audience listened in breathless sympathy, which encouraged her.

There was no doubt now; fear could not long hold such genius in thrall; her movements became free, her features brightened. She flung the lace back from her head, and gave herself up to the joyous riot of that drinking song.

In the midst of this scene, when every one present, on and off the stage, was lavishing homage upon her, she lifted her eyes to the young girl who leaned forward, poising herself in the box, like a bird preparing for flight, and clapped her little hand with the glee of a delighted child.

Once more their smiles met. Then a deathly faintness came over the debutante, and without a word or motion she sank upon the stage, like a statue of snow which the sun had touched.

In the next box, leaning forward like that young girl--but oh! with what a different expression--she had seen the Italian teacher, her lover.

The drinking-song was hushed in its most exultant swell--the revellers drew around the fainting girl and carried her from the stage, helpless as an infant, white as the lace that clouded her.

The audience watched them bear her away in silence; then it broke into murmurs of regret and sympathy.