CHAPTER IV

"Angels, ever bright and fair"“Angels, ever bright and fair,Take, oh, take me to your care!”[page24.

“Angels, ever bright and fair,Take, oh, take me to your care!”

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“Ah, my sweet sister,” said the violin-player, “your singing has led me to perceive something of the beauty of thataria. I think I caught a glimpse of the countryto which it leads one. Thank you, my Betsy. Neither of us can go very far beyond the point that we have reached to-night.”

“That point has never been reached in the world before!” cried the father. “I know what has been done, and I give you my word that here, in this room, a point of musical expression has been reached beyond what the greatest of our musicians have ever aimed at.”

“What Tom said when a child has turned out true,” said Polly. “Yes, we are all geniuses, and the half of Bath may be seen outside the house enjoying a free concert.”

Tom drew one of the blinds and looked out; there was a crowd of some hundreds of persons in the street. The oil lamps shone upon the rich brocades of ladies who had been in both the Assembly Rooms, and upon the gold lace of the fine gentlemen who accompanied them. Richly painted chairs had been set down on the pavement, and the roofs tilted up to allow of the sound of the music reaching the occupants, whose heads, white with powder, sometimes protruded beyond the lacquered brass-work of the brim of their chairs. The linkboys stood with their torches in the roadway, making a lurid background to the scene. The moment that Tom drew back the blind, the yellow light from without flared into the room.

“Cielo!” he cried, lifting up his hands, “Pierrepont Street is turned into a concert-room.”

“The only marvel is that we have not had several visitors,” said his father. “It was widely known through Bath that you were to return to us this evening. I feared that we should not be allowed to have a quiet hour or two to ourselves. The good folk here are as fond of a new sensation as were the Athenians. How can we account for their considerate behaviour to-night?”

Betsy laughed.

“I think I can account for it,” she cried. “Look out again, Tom, and try if you cannot see a Cerberus at the door.”

“A Cerberus?” said he, peering out at the edge of the blind. “I’ faith, I do perceive something that suggests one of the great hounds which I saw at the Hospice of St. Bernard—an enormous mass of vigilance, not over-steady on his legs.”

“A three-decker sort of man, rolling at anchor?” suggested Polly, the pert one.

“An apt description,” said Tom.

“I will not hear a word said against Dr. Johnson,” cried Betsy. “He has kept his promise. When I told him that you were coming home to-day, he said: ‘Madam, though your occupation as a singer entitles every jackanapes to see you for half a crown, still, in order to inculcate upon you the charm of a life of domesticity, I shall prevent your being pestered with busybodies for one night. I shall take care that no eye save that of Heaven sees you kiss your brother on his return.’”

“Dr. Johnson is not without a certain sense of what is delicate, though he may be in one’s company a long time before one becomes aware of it,” said Mr. Linley.

“Betsy did not tell you what he said when she thanked him,” cried Polly. “But he rolled himself to one side, and pursed out his lips in a dreadful way. ‘Tell the truth, Miss Linnet,’ said he at last. ‘Tell the truth: do you indeed welcome my offer, or do you not rather regret that the young rascals—ay, and the old rascals too—will be deprived of the opportunity of having their envy aroused by observing the favours you bestow on the cold lips of a brother?’ Those were his very words.”

“And his very manner, I vow,” laughed her father; and indeed Miss Polly had given a very pretty imitation of the Johnsonian manner.

“Never mind,” said Betsy. “If he only succeeds in keeping away Mrs. Thrale, he deserves all our gratitude.”

And it was actually Mrs. Thrale whom Dr. Johnson was trying to convince that she had no right to enter the Linleys’ house at that moment.

Hearing that Tom Linley was to return after an absence of four years in Italy, and knowing the spirit of impudent curiosity that pervaded the crowds of idlers in Bath, Dr. Johnson had posted himself at the door of 5, Pierrepont Street, when he learned that Tom had reached the house, and he had prevented even those persons who had legitimate business with Mr. Linley from intruding upon the family party.

He was having a difficult task with Mrs. Thrale, for the sprightly little lady had made up her mind to visit the Linleys and have at least onebon motrespecting Tom circulated among the early visitors to the Pump Room before any of her rival gossips had a chance of seeing the youth. But she found herself confronted by the mighty form of Johnson a few yards from the door of their house.

“Dear sir,” she cried, “you are doing yeoman’s service to the family of Linley. Oh, the idle curiosity of the people here! How melancholy is the position of a public character! Every fellow who has ever heard Miss Linley sing fancies he is privileged to enter her house upon the most sacred occasion; and as for your modish young woman, she looks on the Linley family as she does upon the Roman baths—to be freely visited as one of the sights of the place.”

“Madam, you exaggerate,” said Dr. Johnson. “The persons in Bath whose inquisitiveness makes them disregardful of the decencies of life do not number more than a dozen.”

“Ah, sir,” said the lady, “you are charitably disposed.”

“Madam, to suggest that I am charitable were to suggest that I am incapable of taking a just view of a very simplematter, and that, let me tell you, madam, is something which no considerations of charity will prevent my contesting.”

“Dear sir,” said Mrs. Thrale, “you will force me to appeal to your charity at this time on behalf of Mr. Boswell. If you do not permit him to enter the house and bring us a faithful report of young Mr. Linley, a whole day may pass before the Pump Room knows anything of him.”

“Psha! madam, do you know the Pump Room so indifferently as to fancy that it will wait for any report of the young gentleman before forming its own conclusions on the subject of his return?”

“Ah, Dr. Johnson, but Mr. Boswell is invariably so accurate in his reports on everything,” persisted the lady.

Little Mr. Boswell smirked between the cross-fires of the yellow lamplight and the lurid links; he smirked and bowed low beneath the force of the lady’s compliment. He had not a nice ear either for compliment or detraction: he failed to appreciate the whisper of a zephyr of sarcasm.

But his huge patron was not Zephyrus, but Boreas.

“Madam,” he cried, “I allow that Mr. Boswell is unimaginative enough to be accurate; but he is a busybody, and I will not allow him to cross this threshold. List to those sounds, Mrs. Thrale”—Polly in the room upstairs had just begun to sing, with her two sisters, a glee of Purcell—“list to those sounds. What! madam, would you have that nest of linnets disturbed?”

“Is Saul also among the prophets? Oh, ’tis sure edifying to find Dr. Johnson the patron of music,” said the lady with double-edged sweetness.

“Madam, let me tell you that one cannot rightly be said to be a patron of music,” said Dr. Johnson. “Music is an abstraction. One may be a patron of a musician or a painter—nay, I have even heard of a poet having a patron,and dying of him too, because, like a gangrene that proves fatal, he was not cut away in time.”

“And just now you are the patron of the musicians, sir?” said the lady.

“Just now, madam, I am hungry and thirsty. I have a longing to be the patron of your excellent cook, and the still more excellent custodian of your tea-cupboard. Come, Mrs. Thrale, sweet though the sounds of that hymn may be—if indeed it be a hymn and not a jig; but I hope it is a hymn—take my word for it, madam, a hungry man would like better to hear the rattle of crockery.”

“Dear sir, I feel honoured,” cried Mrs. Thrale. “But who will take charge of your nest of linnets in the meantime?”

“Our friend Dr. Goldsmith will be proud of that duty, dear madam,” said Johnson.

“Madam,” said Dr. Goldsmith, “I have my flute in my pocket; if any one tries to enter this house, I swear that I shall play it, and if every one does not fly then, a posse of police shall be sent for. You have heard me play the flute, doctor?”

“Sir,” said Johnson, “when I said that music was of all noises the least disagreeable, I had not heard you play upon your flute.”

“No, sir; for had you heard me, you would not have said ‘least disagreeable’—no, sir;leastwould not have been the word,” said Goldsmith.

“Pan-pipes would be an appropriate instrument to such a satyr,” said a tall thin gentleman in an undertone to another, when Johnson and Mrs. Thrale had walked away, and Goldsmith had begun to listen in ecstasy to Tom Linley’s playing of Pugnani’snocturne.

“Ah, friend Horry, you have never ceased to think ill of Dr. Goldsmith since the night you sat beside him at the Academy dinner,” said the other gentleman.

“I think no ill of the man, George,” said Horace Walpole. “Surely a man may call another a scarecrow without malice, if t’other be a scarecrow.”

“’Tis marvellous how plain a fellow seems when he has got the better of one in an argument,” laughed George Selwyn, for he knew that Walpole had not a good word to say for Goldsmith since the former had boasted, on the narrowest ground, of having detected the forgeries of Chatterton, thereby calling for a scathing word or two from Goldsmith, who had just come from the room where the unfortunate boy was lying dead.

The two wits walked on toward the house that Gilly Williams had taken for a month; but before they had gone a dozen yards they were bowing to the ground at the side of a gorgeous chair carried by men wearing the livery of the Duchess of Devonshire, and having two footmen on each side.

The beautiful lady whose head, blazing with jewels, appeared when the hood was raised, caused her folded fan to describe a graceful curve in the direction of Walpole, while she cried:

“You were not at the Assembly to-night, Mr. Walpole.”

“Nay, your Grace, I have scarce left it: we are on the fringe of it still,” replied Walpole.

“Under Miss Linley’s window,” said the duchess.

“Wherever Miss Linley sings and the Duchess of Devonshire listens is the Assembly,” said George Selwyn.

“I have heard of one Orpheus who with his lute drew inanimate things to listen to him,” said the duchess; “Miss Linley seems to have equal powers; for were it otherwise, I should not have seen my Lord Coventry in Pierrepont Street to-night.”

“Your Grace doubted whether the people flocked to Miss Linley’s concerts in the Assembly Rooms to hear her sing or to feast on her beauty,” said Walpole.

“Well, now I confess that I am answered,” said her Grace, “for the singer did not deign to appear even at a window. But I call it a case of gross improvidence for a young woman to be so beautiful of feature, and so divine of voice at the same time. Either of her attractions should be enough for one in a humble position in life. I call it a waste. Now tell me frankly, Mr. Selwyn, is Miss Linley as beautiful as your friend Lady Coventry was—the first of them, I mean.”

“Madam, there have been but three beautiful women in the world; the first was Helen of Troy, the second was Maria Lady Coventry, and the third is——”

“Miss Elizabeth Linley?” cried the duchess when George Selwyn made a pause—a pause that invited a question—the pause of the professedraconteurwho fully understands the punctuation of a sentence. “What? Miss Elizabeth Linley?”

“Madam, the third is her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire,” said Selwyn with a bow.

“Oh, sir,” cried the duchess, “you are unkind to offer me such a compliment when I am enclosed in my chair. I protest that you have no right to take me at such a disadvantage. Pray consider that I have sunk to the ground at your feet in acknowledgment of your politeness. But pray note the silence of Mr. Walpole.”

“’Tis the silence of acquiescence, madam,” said Selwyn.

“Pray let Mr. Walpole speak for himself, Selwyn,” said the duchess. “As a rule he is able to speak not only for himself, but for every one else.”

“’Twas but the verse of Mr. Dryden which came into my mind when George spoke of his three beauties, duchess,” said Walpole:

“‘The force of Nature could no further go;To make a third she joined the other two.’”

“’Tis the compliment of a scholar as well as a wit,” said her Grace—“a double-edged sword, keen as well as polished, which I vow there is no resisting. What return can I make for such favours—a sweet nosegay of favours in full bloom and tied with a riband of the finest brocade? The flowers of compliment are ever more welcome when tied with a riband of wit.”

“O Queen, live for ever!” cried Selwyn.

“Nay, sir, that is not a reply to my question,” said the duchess. “I asked you what return I can make for your compliments?”

“True, madam, and I reply, ‘O Queen, live for ever!’ in other words, give Mr. Gainsborough an order to paint your portrait,” said Mr. Selwyn.

“Ah, now ’tis Mr. Gainsborough whom you are complimenting,” said the duchess. “Alas! that we poor women must be dependent for immortality upon the pigments of a painter!”

“Your Grace is in the happy position of being independent of his pigments except on his canvas,” said Walpole. “But let me join my entreaty to Mr. Selwyn’s. Give to posterity a reflection of the privilege which is enjoyed by us.”

“I vow that the king I feel like to is King Herod,” cried the duchess.

“And with great reason, madam,” said Walpole: “we are the innocents slain by your Grace’s beauty.”

“Nay, that was not the episode that was in my mind,” laughed the lady. “Nay, ’twas t’other one: I offered you a favour, and you, like the daughter of Herodias, have demanded a human head—in pigment. But I have pledged myself, and I will e’en send a note to Mr. Gainsborough in the morning. What! the concert is over? Gentlemen, I trust that you are satisfied with your night’s work?”

“Madam, should it be known that it was George andmyself who brought about this happy accident, we should rest secure in the thought that we too shall live among the immortals,” cried Walpole.

“Future generations shall rise up and call us blessed,” said Selwyn.

“And what will Mr. Gainsborough say?” asked the duchess.

“If he were a man like one of us, he would be in despair of ever being able to execute the task which your Grace imposes on him,” said Walpole.

“True, if he were not supported from one day to the next by the thought of being for another hour in your Grace’s presence,” said Selwyn.

The beautiful lady held up both her hands in pretty protest, while she cried:

“If I tarry here much longer, I shall find myself promising to give sittings to Sir Joshua Reynolds and the full company of Academicians; so a good-night to you pair of flatterers. Heaven grant that I get safe home! Youral frescoconcert-goers jostle one horribly.”

The two gentlemen bowed while her Grace’s chair was borne on through the sauntering crowd, for the house which had been the centre of the gathering had now become silent, and the candles in the drawing-room were extinguished. The clocks had chimed out the first quarter past eleven—an hour when most Londoners were in bed; but Bath during the eighteenth century was the latest town in England, and long after the duchess’s chair had been borne away, long after Walpole and his friend had sauntered on to Gilly Williams’s; long after Johnson had lectured the saturnine brewer, Mr. Thrale, on the evil of Mr. Thrale’s practice of over-eating (Johnson himself was enough of an anchorite to limit himself when at Streatham to fifteen peaches before breakfast, and an equal number before dinner, and had never been known to swallow more thantwenty cups of tea at a sitting); long after Dr. Goldsmith had worried poor Mr. Boswell by pretending to be taking a note of Dr. Johnson’s sayings for the day, having, as he affirmed, an eye to a future biography of the great man; long after Miss Linley had knelt down by her bedside to thank Providence for having restored her dear brother to his home, even though Providence had seen fit to supplant her in her brother’s affection by an abstraction which he called his Art; long after the night had closed upon all these incidents in the beautiful city of Bath, some people were still sauntering through Pierrepont Street.

From the left there sauntered a young man of good figure and excellent carriage. He wore a cloak, and he had tilted his hat over his eyes, in imitation of the prowling young man on the stage. He kept on the dark side of the street and looked furtively round every now and again. He slipped into a deep doorway when almost opposite the house of the Linleys, and stood there with his eyes fixed on the highest windows.

“Sleep, beloved, sleep,” he murmured, with a sentimental turn of his head. “Sleep, knowing naught of the passion that burns in the heart of thy faithful swain, who wakes to watch over thy slumbers.”

He was so absorbed in his rhapsodising that he failed to notice the approach of another young man from the opposite direction to that from which he himself had come. The other was somewhat taller, and his carriage was better displayed by the circumstance of his being uncloaked, and of his walking frankly along the street until he too had reached the dim doorway. Then with a glance up to the windows of the Linleys’ house, he too slipped into that doorway.

He started, finding that another person was there—a man who quickly turned away his head and let his chin fall deep into the collar of his cloak.

“What! Charles?” cried the newcomer. “Why, I left you at home going to your bedroom half an hour ago. What, man, have you turned footpad that you steal out in this fashion and wearing a cloak?”

“I trust, brother, that one may take a quiet walk without having to give an explanation of its purport,” said the first sulkily.

“To be sure—to be sure,” said the other. “I suppose that Joseph, even before he became a patriarch, took many a stroll in the cool of the night through the streets of Thebes—or was it Memphis?—without reproach.”

“For that matter,” cried the first, with some irritation in his voice, “what was your motive in coming hither, brother Dick? Did not you say that you were going to bed also?”

“I—oh, I only came out to search for you, Joseph—I mean Charles,” said the second. “Yes, Jo—Charles, hearing you leave the house by the back, I thought it the duty of a younger brother to see that you did not get into any harm. Good heavens, brother! what would become of the Sheridan family if the elder son were to fall among thieves? Do you think that our patriarchal father would be satisfied if he were shown his Joseph’s cloak saturated with red claret? Come home, Joseph, come home, I entreat of you. You can compose your sonnet to Betsy Linley much more fluently at your desk at home. Besides, father has a rhyming-dictionary—an indispensable work of reference to a lover, Charles.”

“What do you mean, Dick?” said Charles in an aggrieved voice—the aggrieved voice afterwards assumed by the representative of the part of Joseph inThe School for Scandal. “Brother, I really am surprised to find you making light of so estimable a family.”

“As the Linleys or the Sheridans—which?” cried Dick. “Oh, man, come home; the girl is asleep hours ago anddreaming of—of you, maybe, Charles. Think of that, man—think of that—dreaming of you! Oh, if you have any appreciation of a true lover’s duty, you will hasten to your bed to return the compliment by dreaming of her.”

Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan put his arm through his brother’s, and Charles suffered himself to be led away to their house on the Terrace Walks, protesting all the time that the man who rushed hastily to conclusions was more to be execrated than the footpad, for the latter was content when he had stolen a man’s purse, whereas the other....

“True—true—quite true, Joseph,” said Dick. “We can make another score or two of those sentiments when we get home. Father has a copy of the ‘Sentiments of all Nations’ as well as a rhyming-dictionary.”

Betsy Linley awoke in the morning with a feeling of having been disappointed about something, and she was disappointed with herself for being so weak as to be conscious of such an impression. In short, she was disappointed with herself for awaking in disappointment. She should have felt gladness, only gladness, to think that the brother, who had ever been so dear to her, had escaped all the perils of the years he had spent among the artistic barbarians of Italy, all the perils of the long journey through the land of brigands to land of highwaymen. No other consideration should have produced any impression on her.

The previous morning she had awakened with the one thought dancing before her, “He will be at home when I next wake in this house!” and it seemed to her then that this was all she required to make her happy. What more than this could she need? If he returned to her side safe and well, what could anything else matter? There was nothing else in the world of sufficient importance in comparison with such an occurrence to be worth a thought. The feeling that he was near her would absorb every thought of her heart, and nothing that might occur afterwards could diminish from the joy of that thought.

Well, he had come—she had felt his kisses on her cheek, and for an hour she had felt that he was her dear brotheras he had been in the old days. She felt sure that he would understand her, and, understanding her, sympathise with her. But from the moment that he had taken his violin out of its baize bag—he had nursed the instrument on his knees, as a mother carries her baby, during the entire journey from Italy—from the moment that she had seen that divine light in his eyes, when he drew his bow across the strings, she knew that there was a barrier between them. She felt as a sister feels when a well-beloved only brother returns to her with a wife by his side.

His art—that was what he had brought home with him, and she saw that it held possession of all his heart. She felt that she occupied quite a secondary place in his affections compared with music—that he loved music with the passionate devotion of a lover, while to her he could only give the cold, calculable affection of a brother. She felt all the sting of jealousy which an affectionate sister feels when her brother, in her presence, looks into the eyes of the woman whom he loves and puts his arm about her. She felt all the bitterness of the step-daughter who sees her father smiling as he looks into the eyes of his new wife.

She had hoped that Tom’s home-coming would make her father less exacting than he always had been in regard to her singing—that Tom would take her part when she protested against being forced to sing so constantly in public. Her nature was one of extraordinary sensitiveness, and it was this fact that caused her to be the most exquisite singer of her day. But then it was her possession of this very sensitiveness that caused her to shrink from an audience. It was with real terror that she faced the thousands of people whom her singing delighted. The reflection that her singing delighted every one who heard her gave her no pleasure, and the tumult of applause which greeted her gave her no exultation; it only added to theterror she felt on appearing on a platform. She wept in her room, refusing anything to eat or drink for hours preceding an evening when she had to sing in public. More than once she had actually fainted on reaching the concert-room; and these were the occasions when she had thrilled every one present with the divine charm of her voice.

She was the most sensitive instrument that ever the spirit of music breathed through; but the cruelty of the matter was, that although without this sensitiveness she would never have been able to move the hearts of every man and woman who heard her sing, yet possessing it unfitted her for therôleof a great singer.

This was the paradox of the life of this woman of genius. The most cruel jest ever perpetrated by Nature was giving this creature the divinest voice that ever made a mortal a little lower than the angels, and at the same time decreeing that it should be an agony for her to exercise her powers as infinitely less gifted women exercise their talents.

It is all to be seen in her face as we can see it on the canvases of Gainsborough and Reynolds—two of the greatest pictures ever painted by the hand of man. If the face of Miss Linley in Gainsborough’s picture is divine, the face of Sir Joshua’s “Saint Cecilia” is sublime. In both one may perceive the shrinking of a sensitive soul from anything less divine than itself.

And her father, an excellent man, who had made himself a musician in spite of many difficulties, insisted on her singing in public as frequently as he thought consistent with the preservation of her voice. He was incapable of understanding such a nature as hers, and she had this fact impressed upon her every day. He would tell her what Handel meant to accomplish in certain of his numbers, and she would listen as in a dream, and then sing the number in her own way, going to the very soul of itsmystery, and achieving an effect of which her father had never dreamed. She used to wonder how any one could be content, as her father was, to touch merely upon the surface of the matter and make no attempt to reach the soul underlying it.

Every day she startled him by her revelation of the depths of Handel’s music—the blue profundity of his ocean, the immeasurable azure of his heaven; and sometimes he could not avoid receiving the impression that this daughter, whom he had taught the rudiments of his art, knew a great deal more about it than he did; and he only recovered his position as her master by pointing out her technical mistakes to her: she had dwelt too long on a certain note; the crescendo in the treatment of a certain phrase had not been gradual enough; her finish had been staccato. She must go over the air again.

So it was that he worried her. He was trying to teach a nightingale to sing by playing the flute to it. But the nightingale sang, in spite of his instruction; the nightingale sang, sang, and longed all the time for the wings of a dove, so that she might fly away and be at rest.

She knew that her father was incapable of understanding her sensitiveness, and she had looked forward to the return of her brother, who might help her father to understand. Alas! the instant she saw that strange light in his eyes she knew that she had nothing to hope for from him. And now she was putting on her clothes to begin another day which should be as all the weary days which had gone before—a day of toiling over exercises with her father at the harpsichord, so that her voice should not be wanting in flexibility when she would appear before an audience in the Assembly Rooms on the evening of the next day.

“Oh for the wings of a dove!” her heart was singing, when, pausing for a moment, with her beautiful hair falling over her shoulders, she heard the strains of her brother’sviolin floating from the room below. He played the violin beautifully, but.... “Oh for the wings of a dove to fly away and be at rest!”

Mr. Garrick called upon them before they had left the music-room. The children were delighted with Garrick, who could imitate, in such a funny way, their father giving a lesson, and Dr. Johnson assisting by the superiority of his lungs the excellence of his argument on some very delicate question—say, the necessity for building a hospital for spiders which had grown old and past work. This he made the subject of an animated discussion between Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds, keeping the whole family in fits of laughter at Dr. Johnson’s polysyllabic references to the industry of the spider, and then bringing tears to their eyes at his picture of the heartlessness of allowing a grey-haired spider to be cast upon the world in its declining years. Of course the children appreciated the ludicrous mistakes made by Sir Joshua, whose infirmity of deafness caused him to assume that Johnson had said exactly the opposite to what he was saying. And then he pretended that he heard a knock at the door. He hastened to admit a gentleman with a very lugubrious face, and before he had opened his mouth there was a cry of “Mr. Cumberland! Mr. Cumberland!” In the truest style of Richard Cumberland, he hastened to decry the whole spider family. Their spinning was grossly overrated, he declared; for his part, he had known many spiders in his time, but he had never known one that was a spinster.

This sort of fooling was what Garrick enjoyed better than anything else, and he brought all his incomparable powers to bear upon it. He played this form of comedy with the same supreme perfection that he displayed in the tragedy ofHamlet. Even Tom Linley, who was inclined to becoldly critical of such buffoonery, soon became aware of the difference between the fooling of a man of genius and that of an ordinary person. He laughed as heartily as his younger brothers and sisters during the five minutes that Garrick was in the room.

“By the way,” cried the actor when he was taking his leave (Mr. Linley had just entered the room), “our friend Tom Sheridan goes to Ireland to-morrow. He has been released from his little difficulties which sent him to France. It seems that his chief creditor in Dublin actually petitioned the court to grant Tom exemption from any liability to pay what he owes. Is not that an ideal creditor for one to have? What persuasive letters Tom must have written to him! But for that matter, he could persuade the most obdurate man out of his most cherished belief.”

“Could he persuade you that his Hamlet is superior to yours, Mr. Garrick?” said Linley with a twinkle.

“Well, sir, he might succeed in persuading me of that, but that would be of little value to him, for he could persuade no one else in the world of it. Just now he was trying to persuade me that his elder son, Charles, is a man of parts, and that his second son, Dick, is a nincompoop.”

He gave a casual glance round the Linley circle; his eyes did not rest for a longer space of time upon Elizabeth than upon any of the others, but he did not fail to notice that a delicate pink had come to her cheeks, and that for the second that elapsed before her eyes fell there was an unusual sparkle in them. He did not need to look at the girl again. He had learned enough to make him certain that she was interested in at least one of the Sheridan family. But he was left wondering which of them it was that interested her. He had sufficient experience of the world, as well as of the Green Room, which he believed to be a world in itself, to be well aware of the fact that a beautiful girl may be as greatly interested in a nincompoopas in his astuter brother; and this might mean that Miss Linley was interested in Charles Sheridan rather than in Dick.

“And did he succeed in persuading you?” asked Linley.

“Faith, sir, he had no trouble persuading me to believe that if it is a wise son who knows his own father, ’tis a wiser father than Tom Sheridan that knows his own sons,” said Garrick, giving another glance round the circle. This time he saw Miss Linley’s long lashes flash from her cheek; but her eyes were not dancing, they were full of mournfulness.

Garrick found that he would have to give time to the consideration of what this expression of mournfulness meant.

“Tom was, as usual, combining the arts of devotion and elocution in his household,” continued the actor. “He holds that devotion is the handmaid to elocution. He has morning prayer in his house, not only because he is a good Churchman, but because he is an excellent teacher of elocution. He makes his children learn Christian principles and correct pronunciation at the same time.”

“That is the system of the copybooks,” said Linley. “By giving headlines of notable virtue, they inculcate good principles as well as good penmanship.”

“I call it killing two birds with the one stone,” said Polly.

“Mr. Sheridan is a copybook-heading sort of man in himself,” cried Garrick. “He is an admirable sentiment engraved in copper-plate. He thinks that Heaven will pay more attention to a petition that is pronounced according to the rules of Sheridan’s dictionary than to one which is founded on Johnson. This is how he says grace:—‘For these and all Thy mercies——’ ‘Observe, children, I say “mercies,” not “murcies.” There is not nearly enough attention given in England to discriminating between the vowel sounds—— Observe I say “vowel sounds,” not “vowilsounds.” I have now and again heard Mr. Garrick say “vowil” instead of “vowel,” which would almost lead me to believe that he has more Irish blood in his veins than his shocking parsimony would suggest. But for that matter, Mr. Garrick is constantly making errors in his elocution—— Pray note that I say “errors,” not “errurs”—and the only wonder is that any educated audience can follow the fellow. You perceive that I say “follow the fellow,” not “folly the feller,”—to be sure, it is folly to follow the fellow, but that is a matter of taste, not truth. You mark me, Richard?’ ‘Faith, sir,’ says Richard, ‘I am thinking more of swallowing than of following at the present moment; but if you begin upon the rashers, I promise you that I shall follow and say in the purest English, “For these and all Thy mercies, make us to be truly thankful.“’ Thereat brother Charles shakes his head, and says, ‘You were remarking, sir, that the English are most careless over their quantities.’ ‘That is because they have not had the privilege of being born Irishmen,’ says Dick; ‘but we have, and for this and all Thy mercies, make us to be truly thankful. Let me help you to one of these excellent rashers, father.’ Then the girls grin, looking down at their plates. Brother Charles shakes his head over Dick’s levity, and the father puts on his best ‘Cato’ face, and remains dignified and, like the breakfast, cold. But by the Lord Harry, I am worse than Tom Sheridan; I am keeping you from your breakfast of sweet sounds. There is Master Tom tuning his violin in a suggestive way. Is it true what people say, Miss Polly, that the Linley family break their fast on buttered fugues, dine off a sirloin of sonatas, and sup off jugged symphonies, drinking mugs of oratorio, and every mug with a Handel? Farewell, dear friends—farewell! ‘Oh, now for ever, farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content.’”

In a second he had become Othello, and the laughter was frozen on the face of every one in the circle. Thismagician carried them at will from world to world. They were powerless before him. He left them gasping, looking at one another as if they had just awakened from a dream.

“A genius!” murmured Mr. Linley, when Garrick had gone, and a long silence followed in the room. “’Tis a doubtful privilege to be visited by a genius. It unfits one for one’s daily work.”

“Nay, sir,” cried Tom, “I would fain believe that the visits of a genius are like those of an angel—that he brings us food, in the strength of which we can face the terrors of a wilderness as the prophet did—the wilderness of the commonplace.”

“True—true,” said his father. “Still, I think that ’tis just as well for us all that the visits of a genius have the qualities which have been ascribed to those of an angel. Now we shall begin our studies. After all, Mr. Garrick only delayed us for twenty minutes. It might have been much worse.”

“Yes, it might have been Mr. Foote,” said Polly.

“That would indeed have been much worse,” said her father. “Mr. Foote makes us laugh, and leaves us laughing; Mr. Garrick makes us laugh, and leaves us thinking.”

And then the lessons began.

Even the delight of hearing her brother play one of Bach’s most ethereal compositions for the violin and harpsichord failed to make Betsy submissive to the ordeal from which she shrank. Her father seemed especially exacting on this morning, but he was not so in reality; it was only that Betsy felt more weary of the constant references to the technicalities which her fine feeling now and again discarded, greatly to the advantage of the composition which she was set to interpret, but which her father, with all the rigid scruple of the made musician, insisted on her observing.

And Tom, whom she had trusted to take her part, believing that he would understand her feelings byconsidering his own—Tom stood by, coldly acquiescing in her father’s judgment in all questions oftechnique; nay, he showed himself, by his criticism of her phrasing at one part of an air fromOrféo, more a slave to precision than was her father. She had had some hope of Tom when he had begun to improvise that mysterious accompaniment to her singing on the previous evening. Surely any one who could so give himself up to his imagination as he had done would understand how she should become impatient of the reins oftechnique! Surely he would understand that there are moments when one can afford to sing out of the fulness of one’s heart rather than in strict accordance with the suggestions of the composer!

Alas! Tom had failed her in her hour of need. He seemed to think that the privilege of improvising should be enjoyed only by a player on the violin, and that it would be the grossest presumption on the part of a vocalist so to indulge her imagination. And thus, bringing weariness and disappointment to the girl, the day wore away.

When the family dinner was over, there were numerous callers at the house in Pierrepont Street. Among them there was an elderly gentleman named Long, who was treated with marked civility by Mr. Linley.

When he had left the house, and Tom and Betsy were alone, the former, after referring to some of the visitors, inquired:

“Who is that old gentleman whom you called Mr. Long?”

“He is nothing in particular; that is why I am going to marry him,” said she.

Apparently Tom was not greatly startled by the declaration which his sister had made to him. He was screwing up a new string which he had just put on his violin, and he continued twanging it with his thumb as he raised it to the proper note in the scale. She watched him, with his head slightly turned to one side, and she heard the string creep up by quarter-tones until at last it satisfied his fastidious ear. Then he played pizzicato on all the strings for a while before he said:

“He is an old man, is he not?”

“He is the man whom I am going to marry,” said she.

“He must be over fifty,” said he.

“He is the man I am going to marry,” said she.

“I saw by the papers that were sent to me from time to time that you had many suitors,” said he. “I did not pay much attention to the papers, but now I recollect that some of them made sport of an elderly admirer. I suppose Mr. Long was he?”

“I daresay. Mr. Long cannot help his age. ’Tis not more absurd for him to be old than it is for me to be young. I suppose some newspapers would think it no shame to slight me for being young.”

He gave a passable imitation of an Italian’s shrug—he had learned something beyond the playing of the violin in Italy.

“Che sarà sarà,” said he, and there was a shrug in his voice. “After all, what does it matter whom one marries?”

“That’s exactly what I say!” she cried, her quick ear catching his cynical tone. “What does it matter? I must marry some one, and is it not better for me to marry a man to whom I am indifferent than one whom I detest?”

He mused for a few moments, and then he said:

“I have not given much thought to the matter, but I think I should prefer marrying a woman who hated me rather than one who looked on me with indifference. Never mind. I suppose this Mr. Long is rich?”

“He is very rich. I may be able to save Maria from having to be a singer. I shall certainly save myself from continuing one.”

His violin dropped upon his knees.

“What do you mean?” he cried. “It cannot be possible that it is your wish to cease from singing in public?”

“That is the only reason I have for agreeing to marry any one,” she replied.

“Dio mio!You—you—you, who can become the greatest singer in the world; you, who have been given a voice such as might be envied by the very greatest of lyric artists; you with an intelligence that could not be surpassed, an imagination that actually stands in need of being restrained; you, who have it in your power to sway the souls of men and women as the tide of the sea sways the ships that are borne on its surface—you talk of ceasing to sing! Psha! ’tis not in your power to cease to sing. ’Tis laid upon you as a duty—a sacred duty.”

“Ah, Tom—brother, cannot you understand something—a little—of what I feel?” she cried almost piteously. “I looked forward to your return with such happiness, and felt sure that you would understand how it is that I shrink from coming forward on a platform to sing for theamusement—for the gratification of every one who can afford to pay half a crown to hear me—foolish men, and still more foolish women, caring nothing for music. You and I have always thought of music as something sacred, a gift of God, given to us as it is given to the angels—to be used in the service of God. Idle curiosity, fashion—foolish fashion, that is why they come to hear me sing. I know it. I know it. I have overheard them chattering about me. The Duchess of Devonshire, I overheard her say to Mrs. Crewe that she had come to see if I was as beautiful as she—as beautiful as Mrs. Crewe! And Mrs. Crewe said how lucky it was that they had an opportunity of judging upon this point for so small a sum as half a guinea. And there was I, compelled to stand up before them and sing, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ while they smiled, criticising me through their glasses, just as if I were a horse being put through its paces! Oh, my brother, I felt all the time that I was degrading my gift, that I was selling those precious words of comfort and joy and their wonderful interpretation into music that goes straight to the soul of men and women—selling them for money which I put into my own pocket! There they sat smiling before me, and Mrs. Crewe said she did not like the way my hair was dressed. I heard her whisper it just as I had sung the first phrase of ‘For now is Christ risen from the dead,’ just as the joy—the note of triumph that rings through the passage had begun to sound through my heart as it always does! Oh, what humiliation! I broke down; no one but myself knew it, for I sang the notes correctly to the end—the notes, but not the music. It is one thing to sing notes correctly and quite another to make music: the music is the spirit that goes to the soul of those who listen, producing its effect upon them either for good or bad. Alas! there was nothing spiritual in my singing that night. I was telling them that ourRedeemer had risen from the dead, and they replied that they did not like the way my hair was dressed! Oh, brother, can you wonder that I shrink with absolute terror from coming before an audience—that all my longing is for a cottage among trees, where I may sing as the birds sing, without caring whether or not any one hears me?”

She was weeping in his arms before she had finished speaking. He was deeply affected.

“My poor sister—my poor dear sister!” he said, caressing her hair; “I feel for you with all my heart. You are too highly strung—you are over-sensitive. What can I say to comfort you? How have you come to allow yourself to be carried away by the foolishness of some members of your audience? Good heavens! Think that if Handel had suffered from such sensitiveness the world would to-day be without some of its sublimest music!”

“How did he do it? I cannot understand how he could suffer his music to be played and sung, knowing the people as he did,” she said. “It is all a mystery to me. It must have been an agony to him. But he was a genius; it may be different with a genius. A genius may be able so to absorb himself in his music that he becomes oblivious of the presence of every one. Alas! I am not a genius—I am only a girl. I cannot understand how Handel felt; I only know that I feel.”

“And I feel for you,” he said soothingly, as one addresses a frightened child.

“You do—I think that you do; and you will join your voice to mine in imploring our father to spare me the agony of appearing before an audience? Oh, surely there is something to live for besides singing to divert the people here! Surely Heaven has not given me a voice to make me wretched! Has Heaven given me a voice instead of happiness?”

“Do you indeed fancy that you could find any happiness apart from music?” said he. “If you do, you are not my sister. There is nothing in the world that is worth a thought save only music.”

“What, have you never loved?” she cried.

“Love—love! Ah, yes; ’tis a sentiment, a beautiful sentiment. I do not say that it was created solely to give a musician a sentiment to illustrate—I do not talk so wildly; but I do say that it lends itself admirably to illustration at the hands of a competent musician; so that if Heaven had decreed that it should exist for this purpose, I would not hesitate to say that the object of its existence was a worthy one.”

She put him away from her.

“I have talked to you to no purpose: you do not understand,” she said. “It is left to me to work out my own freedom, and I mean to do it by marrying Mr. Long.”

“I do not think that your feeling for Mr. Long would lend itself to interpretation through the medium of music,” said he, smiling, as he picked up his violin.

She threw herself wearily into the chair that it vacated, and listlessly, hopelessly, watched him screwing up another of the strings.

“Listen to me, Betsy,” said he, after a pause filled up by his twanging of the catgut: “I remember how good Bishop O’Beirne called you a link between an angel and a woman. Pray do not let the link be snapped, for in that case you would be all angel; let me talk to you as if there was still something of the woman in your nature. Handel was a genius. Mr. Garrick is a genius, too; each of them is the greatest in his own art that the world has ever known. And yet you do not hear that either of them thought as you do; you do not hear that Handel ever said that he was degrading himself because he overheard some fool saying that his suggestion of the hailstones in his treatment of thePlagues was only worthy of the ingenuity of the carpenter of a theatre; we have never heard that Mr. Garrick resolved to retire from Drury Lane stage because some fools preferred Spranger Barry’s Romeo to his.”

“Ah, genius; but I am only a girl.”

“Handel was a genius, and when he found that the public did not want his operas, he showed himself quite ready to give them what they did want. And yet there were as many fools and coxcombs in his day as there are in ours. My dear sister, it is for you and me to do what we can without minding what foolishness those who hear us may speak, being incapable of understanding us. When I was at Florence I was present one night at a great concert at which Maestro Pugnani was to play. Just before he began, one of the princes entered the theatre, and began to talk and jest in a loud tone with an officer who was in attendance. It was clear that he was not quite sober, and he continued to make himself offensive even after the Maestro had begun to play. We were all very indignant, and we felt certain that Pugnani would retire from the stage. He did not do so. When he had played his first movement, he looked up to the royal box, and then he smiled down at us. I saw the look that was upon his face, a look of determination—the look which is on the face of a master of fence when he is about to engage a tyro. In a second he had drawn his bow across the strings, and the jest that the prince was in the act of uttering remained frozen on his lips. We saw that—we saw the Maestro smile as he went on playing; he had the prince in his grasp as surely as if he had had his hand on the fellow’s throat; he kept him enthralled for a quarter of an hour, and then, without a pause, he went on to theAndante. Before he had reached the second bar the prince was in tears. We saw that—yes, for a few bars, but after that we could see nothing,for we also were in tears. At the conclusion of that incomparable performance the Maestro left the stage, smiling his smile of triumph. He had conquered that scoffer by the sheer power of his genius. When he appeared later on he was wearing on his breast the diamond order that the prince had worn.... Dear sister, let that be an example to you. When you find that you have scoffers among your hearers, you should feel yourself stimulated, rather than discouraged. You should remember that you are the greatest singer in the world, and that to be a great singer is to be able to sway at will the souls of men. You sent me a copy of Dr. Goldsmith’s lovely poem. You remember that line in it, ‘Those who went to scoff remained to pray’! That is how it should be when you are singing.”

“How can you liken me to these men—all of them geniuses?” she cried with some measure of impatience. “Their life is their music; they live in a world of their own, and it is a world the air of which I have never breathed. It is the breath of their nostrils to face a great audience: I have been told that they feel miserable if they see a single vacant chair. But my life—— Ah, if I could but be allowed to live in a cottage!”

“What folly!” he cried. “And you intend to marry this old man in order to be released from the necessity to sing?”

“Is it an unworthy reason?” she asked. “I think ’tis not so. I shall be a good wife to Mr. Long.”

“Oh, what folly! You—a good wife! Heavens! a girl with such a voice as you possess talking of becoming a good wife—a good wife—in a cottage, counting the eggs, milking the cows!” He was almost fierce in his scorn. “Is it possible that this is the sum of your ambition!”

“I ask for nothing better.”

“As if there were any scarcity of good wives in the world!Any girl may become a good wife, but only one in a generation can become a great singer, and I tell you that you may be the greatest singer that lives. ’Tis not I alone who have said it, though I have heard the best in Italy and I am capable of judging; no, ’tis your rivals who have said it—and Mr. Garrick. Would he have offered such sums to get you to sing at Drury Lane if he had not known that you were without an equal? And you talk about a cottage! I tell you, my sister, if you were to give up singing you would be guilty of a crime—the crime of spurning the greatest gift that Heaven can bestow upon a human being!”

“Ah, no!” she said. “If Heaven had designed that I should sing in the presence of all those frivolous people who pay their money to see me as well as to hear me, should I not have been endowed also with that talent which your maestro was able to exercise? Should I feel that shrinking from the platform which I now feel every time I have to sing? Should I not feel the pride which comes to every great musician on stirring an audience to its depths?”

“You tell me that you feel not that pride?—that you remain unmoved, no matter how greatly you have moved your hearers?”

“Weariness—only weariness, that is what I feel. My sole joy comes from the thought that it is all over. Indeed, I can honestly tell you, my brother, that when I get more applause than usual, I feel no pride, I only feel oppressed by the thought that I have pleased so well that the managers will be anxious to have me to sing soon again.”

He looked at her with wonder in his eyes for a long time. Then he shook his head, saying:

“You were wrong to fancy that I would understand you. I confess that ’tis beyond my power to sympathise with you in your weakness. I could understand the nervousness ofa girl such as you on coming forward to sing an exacting part in an opera or an oratorio; but for one to be endowed with such a gift as yours, and yet to feel—as you say you do—— Oh, it is impossible for me to fathom such a mystery! ’Twere unjust to blame you, but—— Oh, well, a girl is a queer thing. My Maestro holds that every woman comes into the world not merely as a portion of that mystery—Woman, but as an individual mystery in herself. He might have founded his theory on you. But I will not say a word of blame to you—no, not a word, unless you marry Mr. Long and then give up singing.”

“I will marry Mr. Long,” she said after another pause.

She walked firmly to the door, and then upstairs to her room. Before she had got to the top of the stairs she heard him play the first bars of Bach’sChaconnewhich he was practising.

It was no new topic that found favour in the Pump Room on the morning following the concert in the Assembly Rooms. Yes, Miss Linley had never looked more beautiful and had never sung more beautifully. Most people took the view that had been expressed by the Duchess of Devonshire, and affirmed that it was quite improvident on the part of Nature to give so exquisite a voice to so exquisite a creature. It was quite a new departure, this combination of song and beauty. Nature had revealed her system in the case of the nightingale—a divine voice coming from a body that is no more attractive than that of a sparrow; and in the case of the peacock—a beautiful creature with the shriek of a demon.

But Mr. Walpole, who had a whole night to think over a reply to the suggestion made by her Grace, found himself quite equal to the task of facing such persons as were ready—as he expected they would be—to repeat the Duchess’s phrase. People at Bath liked repeating the words of a Duchess, just as people like to sit on a chair in which a Prince has sat.

It seemed that her Grace had expressed her views regarding the prodigality of Nature in the case of Elizabeth Linley more than once before she had met Mr. Walpole, and more than once after thatrencontre,so that her phrases were vieing with the sparkle of the waters the next morning.

“Have you heard what the Duchess of Devonshire said about Miss Linley, Mr. Walpole?” cried Mrs. Thrale.

“Madam,” said Mr. Walpole, “her Grace forgot that even Shakespeare is enhanced when bound in fine levant.”

“To be sure, sir,” said the lady; “but in the case of a singer——”

“Madam, you have in your mind the nightingale and Dr. Goldsmith,” said Walpole. “But I do not mean to destroy the printing-press at Strawberry Hill because a clown can read the types in theAdvertiserwithout a qualm.”

And Dr. Johnson, too, had his views on the subject of Nature and Miss Linley.

“Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, when his friend Beauclerk made an allusion to the topic which was being turned into verse in half the garrets in Grub Street, “sir, ’twere preposterous to assume that Nature works solely for the gratification of such people as have ears. I am more gratified to see Miss Linley sing than I should be to hear a less beautiful songstress.”

“Nature created Miss Linley to set my mind at rest on a matter which has been puzzling me for years,” said Dr. Goldsmith, when in the company of his dear friends, the beautiful Miss Horneck and her sister, Mrs. Bunbury.

“Then Miss Linley has not been created in vain,” said Mr. Bunbury, who was busy with his sketch-book.

“Nay, let us hear what is your puzzle which has been solved,” cried Mrs. Bunbury.

“I never could make out whether it was my beauty or my music that so charmed the people among whom Itravelled in Europe, but, listening to Miss Linley last evening, the truth was revealed to me.”

And while the two beautiful ladies held up their hands and laughed merrily at the solemn face of their friend, Mr. Boswell, who had been hiding behind one of Dr Johnson’s legs, went off with another story of Dr. Goldsmith’s extraordinary vanity.

The next day it became known that the beautiful Miss Linley had actually promised to marry the elderly gentleman who had been so attentive to her for some months, thereby giving quite an impetus to the business of the lampooner. Mr. Walter Long was the gentleman’s name, and he was known to have large estates in Wiltshire.

The news overwhelmed Bath.

“What, a third attraction accruing to Miss Linley!” cried the Duchess of Devonshire with uplifted hands.

“Poor Miss Linley!” said George Selwyn.

“Poor Mr. Long!” said Horace Walpole.

“’Pon my word,” said Garrick, when the news of Miss Linley’s engagement to Mr. Long was coupled with the information that she would not sing after her marriage, “Linley is thrown away as a musician. Such adroitness as he has shown in this matter should be sufficient to avert ruin from many a manager of a play-house.”

Indeed, the general opinion that prevailed among the cynical people, who knew what an excellent man of business was Linley, and how thoroughly he believed in the duty of his children to contribute to their support, was either that he wished to add to the elements of interest associated with his eldest daughter in order to make her more attractive to the public who paid to hear her sing, or that he had made an uncommonly good bargain with Mr. Long in respect of the compensation which he should receive for the loss of his daughter’s services. The receipts of the next three concerts, people wereready to affirm, were to be regarded as the basis of the negotiations respecting the sum to be paid to him for the loss of his daughter.

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