The Primadonna Part 36

CHAPTER XIII

The _Elisir d'Amore_ was received with enthusiasm, but the tenor had it all his own way, as Lushington had foretold, and when Pompeo Stromboli sang 'Una furtiva lacrima' the incomparable Cordova was for once eclipsed in the eyes of a hitherto faithful public. Covent Garden surrendered unconditionally. Metaphorically speaking, it rolled over on its back, with its four paws in the air, like a small dog that has got the worst of a fight and throws himself on the bigger dog's mercy.

Margaret was applauded, but as a matter of course. There was no electric thrill in the clapping of hands; she got the formal applause which is regularly given to the sovereign, but not the enthusiasm which is bestowed spontaneously on the conqueror. When she b.u.t.tered her face and got the paint off, she was a little pale, and her eyes were not kind. It was the first time that she had not carried everything before her since she had begun her astonishing career, and in her first disappointment she had not philosophy enough to console herself with the consideration that it would have been infinitely worse to be thrown into the shade by another lyric soprano, instead of by the most popular lyric tenor on the stage. She was also uncomfortably aware that Lushington had predicted what had happened, and she was informed that he had not even taken the trouble to come to the first performance of the opera. Logotheti, who knew everything about his old rival, had told her that Lushington was in Paris that week, and was going on to see his mother in Provence.

The Primadonna was put out with herself and with everybody, after the manner of great artists when a performance has not gone exactly as they had hoped. The critics said the next morning that the Senorita da Cordova had been in good voice and had sung with excellent taste and judgment, but that was all: as if any decent soprano might not do as well! They wrote as if she might have been expected to show neither judgment nor taste, and as if she were threatened with a cold. Then they went on to praise Pompeo Stromboli with the very words they usually applied to her. His voice was full, rich, tender, vibrating, flexible, soft, powerful, stirring, natural, cultivated, superb, phenomenal, and perfectly fresh. The critics had a severe attack of 'adjectivitis.'

Paul Griggs had first applied the name to that inflammation of language to which many young writers are subject when cutting their literary milk-teeth, and from which musical critics are never quite immune. Margaret could no longer help reading what was written about her; that was one of the signs of the change that had come over her, and she disliked it, and sometimes despised herself for it, though she was quite unable to resist the impulse. The appet.i.te for flattery which comes of living on it may be innocent, but it is never harmless.

Dante consigned the flatterers to Inferno, and more particularly to a very nasty place there: it is true that there were no musical critics in his day; but he does not say much about the flattered, perhaps because they suffer enough when they find out the truth, or lose the gift for which they have been over-praised.

The Primadonna was in a detestably uncomfortable state of mind on the day after the performance of the revived opera. Her dual nature was hopelessly mixed; Cordova was in a rage with Stromboli, Schreiermeyer, Baci-Roventi, and the whole company, not to mention Signor Bambinelli the conductor, the whole orchestra, and the dead composer of the _Elisir d'Amore_; but Margaret Donne was ashamed of herself for caring, and for being spoilt, and for bearing poor Lushington a grudge because he had foretold a result that was only to be expected with such a tenor as Stromboli; she despised herself for wickedly wishing that the latter had cracked on the final high note and had made himself ridiculous. But he had not cracked at all; in imagination she could hear the note still, tremendous, round, and persistently drawn out, as if it came out of a tenor trombone and had all the world's lungs behind it.

In her mortification Cordova was ready to give up lyric opera and study Wagner, in order to annihilate Pompeo Stromboli, who did not even venture _Lohengrin_. Schreiermeyer had unkindly told him that if he arrayed his figure in polished armour he would look like a silver teapot; and Stromboli was very sensitive to ridicule. Even if he had possessed a dramatic voice, he could never have bounded about the stage in pink tights and the exiguous skin of an unknown wild animal as Siegfried, and in the flower scene of _Parsifal_ he would have looked like Falstaff in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. But Cordova could have made herself into a stately Brunhilde, a wild and lovely Kundry, or a fair and fateful Isolde, with the very least amount of artificial aid that theatrical illusion admits.

Margaret Donne, disgusted with Cordova, said that her voice was about as well adapted for one of those parts as a sick girl's might be for giving orders at sea in a storm. Cordova could not deny this, and fell back upon the idea of having an opera written for her, expressly to show off her voice, with a _crescendo_ trill in every scene and a high D at the end; and Margaret Donne, who loved music for its own sake, was more disgusted than ever, and took up a book in order to get rid of her professional self, and tried so hard to read that she almost gave herself a headache.

Pompeo Stromboli was really the most sweet-tempered creature in the world, and called during the afternoon with the idea of apologising for having eclipsed her, but was told that she was resting and would see no one. Fraulein Ottilie Braun also came, and Margaret would probably have seen her, but had not given any special orders, so the kindly little person trotted off, and Margaret knew nothing of her coming; and the day wore on quickly; and when she wanted to go out, it at once began to rain furiously; and, at last, in sheer impatience at everything, she telephoned to Logotheti, asking him to come and dine alone with her if he felt that he could put up with her temper, which, she explained, was atrocious. She heard the Greek laugh gaily at the other end of the wire.

'Will you come?' she asked, impatient that anybody should be in a good humour when she was not.

'I'll come now, if you'll let me,' he answered readily.

'No. Come to dinner at half-past eight.' She waited a moment and then went on. 'I've sent down word that I'm not at home for any one, and I don't like to make you the only exception.'

'Oh, I see,' answered Logotheti's voice. 'But I've always wanted to be the only exception. I say, does half-past eight mean a quarter past nine?'

'No. It means a quarter past eight, if you like. Good-bye!'

She cut off the communication abruptly, being a little afraid that if she let him go on chattering any longer she might yield and allow him to come at once. In her solitude she was intensely bored by her own bad temper, and was nearer to making him the 'only exception' than she had often been of late. She said to herself that he always amused her, but in her heart she was conscious that he was the only man in the world who knew how to flatter her back into a good temper, and would take the trouble to do so. It was better than nothing to look forward to a pleasant evening, and she went back to her novel and her cup of tea already half reconciled with life.

It rained almost without stopping. At times it poured, which really does not happen often in much-abused London; but even heavy rain is not so depressing in spring as it is in winter, and when the Primadonna raised her eyes from her book and looked out of the big window, she was not thinking of the dreariness outside but of what she should wear in the evening. To tell the truth, she did not often trouble herself much about that matter when she was not going to sing, and all singers and actresses who habitually play 'costume parts' are conscious of looking upon stage-dressing and ordinary dressing from totally different points of view. By far the larger number of them have their stage clothes made by a theatrical tailor, and only an occasional eccentric celebrity goes to Worth or Doucet to be dressed for a 'Juliet,' a 'Tosca,' or a 'Dona Sol.'

Margaret looked at the rain and decided that Logotheti should not find her in a tea-gown, not because it would look too intimate, but because tea-gowns suggest weariness, the state of being misunderstood, and a craving for sympathy. A woman who is going to surrender to fate puts on a tea-gown, but a well-fitting body indicates strength of character and virtuous firmness.

I remember a smart elderly Frenchwoman who always bestowed unusual care on every detail of her dress, visible and invisible, before going to church. Her niece was in the room one Sunday while she was dressing for church, and asked why she took so much trouble.

'My dear,' was the answer, 'Satan is everywhere, and one can never know what may happen.'

Margaret was very fond of warm greys, and fawn tints, and dove colour, and she had lately got a very pretty dress that was exactly to her taste, and was made of a newly invented thin material of pure silk, which had no sheen and cast no reflections of light, and was slightly elastic, so that it fitted as no ordinary silk or velvet ever could.

Alphonsine called the gown a 'legend,' but a celebrated painter who had lately seen it said it was an 'Indian twilight,' which might mean anything, as Paul Griggs explained, because there is no twilight to speak of in India. The dress-maker who had made it called the colour 'fawn's stomach,' which was less poetical, and the fabric, 'veil of nun in love,' which showed little respect for monastic inst.i.tutions.

As for the way in which the dress was made, it is folly to rush into compet.i.tion with tailors and dress-makers, who know what they are talking about, and are able to say things which n.o.body can understand.

The plain fact is that the Primadonna began to dress early, out of sheer boredom, had her thick brown hair done in the most becoming way in spite of its natural waves, which happened to be unfashionable just then, and she put on the new gown with all the care and consideration which so n.o.ble a creation deserved.

'Madame is adorable,' observed Alphonsine. 'Madame is a dream. Madame has only to lift her little finger, and kings will fall into ecstasy before her.'

'That would be very amusing,' said Margaret, looking at herself in the gla.s.s, and less angry with the world than she had been. 'I have never seen a king in ecstasy.'

'The fault is Madame's,' returned Alphonsine, possibly with truth.

When Margaret went into the drawing-room Logotheti was already there, and she felt a thrill of pleasure when his expression changed at sight of her. It is not easy to affect the pleased surprise which the sudden appearance of something beautiful brings into the face of a man who is not expecting anything unusual.

'Oh, I say!' exclaimed the Greek. 'Let me look at you!'

And instead of coming forward to take her hand, he stepped back in order not to lose anything of the wonderful effect by being too near.

Margaret stood still and smiled in the peculiar way which is a woman's equivalent for a cat's purring. Then, to Logotheti's still greater delight, she slowly turned herself round, to be admired, like a statue on a pivoted pedestal, quite regardless of a secret consciousness that Margaret Donne would not have done such a thing for him, and probably not for any other man.

'You're really too utterly stunning!' he cried.

In moments of enthusiasm he sometimes out-Englished Englishmen.

'I'm glad you like it,' Margaret said. 'This is the first time I've worn it.'

'If you put it on for me, thank you! If not, thank you for putting it on! I'm not asking, either. I should think you would wear it if you were alone for the mere pleasure of feeling like a G.o.ddess.'

'You're very nice!'

She was satisfied, and for a moment she forgot Pompeo Stromboli, the _Elisir d'Amore_, the public, and the critics. It was particularly 'nice' of him, too, not to insist upon being told that she had put on the new creation solely for his benefit. Next to not a.s.suming rashly that a woman means anything of the sort expressly for him, it is wise of a man to know when she really does, without being told. At least, so Margaret thought just then; but it is true that she wanted him to amuse her and was willing to be pleased.

She executed the graceful swaying movement which only a well-made woman can make just before sitting down for the first time in a perfectly new gown. It is a slightly serpentine motion; and as there is nothing to show that Eve did not meet the Serpent again after she had taken to clothes, she may have learnt the trick from him. There is certainly something diabolical about it when it is well done.

Logotheti's almond-shaped eyes watched her quietly, and he stood motionless till she was established on her chair. Then he seated himself at a little distance.

'I hope I was not rude,' he said, in artful apology, 'but it's not often that one's breath is taken away by what one sees. Horrid weather all day, wasn't it? Have you been out at all?'

'No. I've been moping. I told you that I was in a bad humour, but I don't want to talk about it now that I feel better. What have you been doing? Tell me all sorts of amusing things, where you have been, whom you have seen, and what people said to you.'

'That might be rather dull,' observed the Greek.

'I don't believe it. You are always in the thick of everything that's happening.'

'We have agreed to-day to lend Russia some more money. But that doesn't interest you, does it? There's to be a European conference about the Malay pirates, but there's nothing very funny in that. It would be more amusing to hear the pirates' view of Europeans. Let me see. Some one has discovered a conspiracy in Italy against Austria, and there is another in Austria against the Italians. They are the same old plots that were discovered six months ago, but people had forgotten about them, so they are as good as new. Then there is the sad case of that Greek.'

'What Greek? I've not heard about that. What has happened to him?'

'Oh, nothing much. It's only a love-story--the same old thing.'

'Tell me.'

'Not now, for we shall have to go to dinner just when I get to the most thrilling part of it, I'm sure.' Logotheti laughed. 'And besides,' he added, 'the man isn't dead yet, though he's not expected to live. I'll tell you about your friend Mr. Feist instead. He has been very ill too.'

'I would much rather know about the Greek love-story,' Margaret objected. 'I never heard of Mr. Feist.'

She had quite forgotten the man's existence, but Logotheti recalled to her memory the circ.u.mstances under which they had met, and Feist's unhealthy face with its absurdly youthful look, and what he had said about having been at the Opera in New York on the night of the explosion.

'Why do you tell me all this?' Margaret asked. 'He was a disgusting-looking man, and I never wish to see him again. Tell me about the Greek. When we go to dinner you can finish the story in French. We spoke French the first time we met, at Madame Bonanni's. Do you remember?'