Young Mr. Barlowe started so violently that he spilt his tea over his knees; for just before James had uttered his last sentence the music stopped, but as it had been somewhat loud in the final bars, and James raised his voice in the same proportion, the inertia of his tone defied any attempt to modulate it, so that it was almost with a shout that he had declared that he had been sent to be educated in his profession to a murderer.
Fanny was too much overcome by the ludicrous aspect of the contretemps to be able to laugh. Her brother, who had had no intention of startling anyone in the room except young Mr. Barlowe, hung his head and was blushing under the South Sea tan of his skin; Sir Joshua Reynolds had heard nothing after the crashing chords that concluded the duet; but poor Miss Reynolds almost sprang from her chair in horror.
Mrs. Burney was very angry.
“You have been making a fool of yourself as usual, James,” she cried. “Pray give Mr. Barlowe another cup of tea, Fanny. I vow that ’tis a shame for you, James Burney, to treat such a company as though you were on the deck of theAdventurefacing your South Sea savages.”
But Dr. Burney, with his customary tact, raised a hand half reprovingly toward his wife.
“Give Mr. Barlowe his cup, and then pass one to me, Fanny,” he said, rising from the piano. “You know that James has spoken no more than the truth, my dear,” headded, smiling at his wife. “I can see that the rascal has been fooling while our backs were turned to him; but we know that he spoke no more than the truth—at least in that one sentence which he bawled out for us. He was, indeed, sent to a school where he was placed under an accomplished usher who was some time after hanged as a murderer. You see, madam—” he had turned, still smiling, to Miss Reynolds, thereby doing much to restore her confidence in the sanity of the family—“You see that James was from the first so desperate a young rascal that, just as a boy who is an adept at figures is educated for the counting-house, and one who spends all the day before he is six picking out tunes on the harpsichord should be apprenticed, as I was, to a musician, so we thought our James should be sent whither he could be properly grounded in the only profession at which he was likely to excel. But, alas! the poor usher was carried off by the police, tried at the next assizes and duly hanged before James had made much progress in his studies; but I believe that a few years in the navy does as much for a youth who has made up his mind to succeed, as a protracted course under a fully qualified criminal.”
Miss Reynolds looked as if she were not quite certain that, in spite of his smiles, Dr. Burney was jesting; but when Mrs. Burney, seeing how her husband’s mock seriousness was likely to produce a wrong impression upon plain people, said:
“You must recall hearing about Mr. Eugene Aram some years back, Mrs. Reynolds,” that lady showed that her mind was greatly relieved.
“I recall the matter without difficulty,” she said. “The man was usher at the grammar school at Lynn.”
“And no school had a more learned teacher than thatunfortunate man,” said Sir Joshua. Young Barlowe had been divided in his amazement at what Dr. Burney had said, and at the sight of Sir Joshua holding the trumpet to his ear, though the instrument remained mute. He had never found himself within the circle of so startling a society. He wished himself safe at home in the Poultry, where people talked sense and made no attempt to blow a trumpet with their ears.
“James had acquired quite a liking for poor Aram,” said Dr. Burney, “and, indeed, I own to having had a high opinion of the man’s ability myself. It was to enable him to purchase books necessary for his studies in philology that he killed his victim—a contemptible curmudgeon named Johnstone. I fear that all our sympathy was on the side of the usher.”
“I was greatly interested in Mr. Aram, and read a full account of his trial,” said Sir Joshua. “I wonder that a man of so sensitive a mind as his did not so brood over his crime as to cause suspicion to fall on him earlier than it did.”
“Only upon one occasion it seemed that he was affected by an incident which might possibly have awakened some suspicion in the mind of a person given to suspicion,” said Dr. Burney. “James had been presented with a copy of the translation of Gessner’s ‘Death of Abel’—everyone was going mad about the book that year—more copies were sold of it than of any translation since Pope’s ‘Homer,’ but I fancy James found it dull enough reading. He had it on his knee trying to get through a page or two in case the kind donor might question him upon it, when the usher came up. He took the volume in his hand and glanced at the title. Down the book fell from his grasp and he hurried away without a word—‘as if he had been stung,’ James said, intelling us about it, to excuse the broken cover. Of course, I never gave a thought to the matter at the time; but when I heard of the arrest of Eugene Aram the following year, I recalled the incident.”
“I should like to make a picture of the scene, and name it ‘Remorse,’” said Reynolds.
(He never did make such a picture; many years had passed, and Lieutenant Burney had become an Admiral before his narration of the incident touched the imagination of a poet who dealt with it in verse that has thrilled a good many readers.)
Thomas Barlowe was not greatly thrilled by the story as told by Dr. Burney. He seemed rather shocked to find himself at the table with someone who had been taught by a murderer. He glanced furtively at James Burney, who had remained silent since the contretemps that had prevented him from perfecting his fooling of Thomas; and the result of Thomas’s scrutiny at that moment was to cause Thomas a tremor; for who could say what fearful knowledge Lieutenant Burney might have acquired during his intercourse with the murderer—knowledge which might jeopardize the safety of a simple visitor like himself? Thomas felt that no ordinary person could be accounted absolutely safe in a company that included a tall, able-bodied young naval man who had begun his education under a murderer and had gone to complete it among the cannibals of the South Seas; and, in addition, an elderly gentleman who fancied that he could bring any sound out of a trumpet by pressing it to his ear instead of his lips, and had shown himself ready to extol the scholarship of any man who had been hanged.
But then Thomas looked at Fanny, and she pleased him more than ever. She was so demure, so modest, soshy. She had a very pretty blush, and she did not play on the piano. It was a thousand pities, he felt, that such a girl should be compelled to remain in such uncongenial companionship. All the time that Dr. Burney and his other daughter were playing a second duet, and the silly gentleman holding the bell of his trumpet to the case of the piano, still fondly believing that he was also a performer with the mouth-piece in his ear, Thomas Barlowe was feeling wave after wave of pity passing over him for the unhappy position of the shy girl in the midst of so doubtful a household. Before long his compassion for her so stimulated his imagination that he began to think of the possibility of his rescuing her—he began to think of himself in the character of a hero—he did not remember the name of any particular hero who had carried off a young woman who was placed in a similar situation to that occupied by Miss Burney; but he had no doubt that more than one romance was founded upon the doings of such a man as he felt himself fully qualified to be, if he made up his mind to assume such a rôle.
As the music continued—it was an arrangement of Gluck’sOrfèo—Thomas Barlowe became more and more resolute. He would be the heroic person who should appear at the right moment and achieve the emancipation of that sweet and shy girl, who by no fault of hers was forced to live in that house and remain, if she could, on friendly terms with her father and sisters, who kept strumming on the piano, and with her brother, who was ready to boast of having received the rudiments of his education from a murderer. All that he needed was the opportunity to show his heroism, and he did not doubt that when he set his mind to work on the matter, he would have such an opportunity.
If anyone had whispered in his ear that his inward consciousness of being equal to the doing of great deeds was solely due to the music which was being played, and to which he was unwillingly listening, he would have been indignant. He would have thought it preposterous had it been suggested to him that the effect of that strumming was to make him feel more like a god than a man—to be ready to face hell for the love of a woman, as Jean Sebastian Bach imagined Orpheus doing for Eurydice. But Christoph Gluck knew what he was about when he had composed hisOrfèo, and Dr. Burney was quite equal to the business of interpreting his aims, and of urging his daughter Susan to join with him in impressing them upon even so unimpressionable a nature as that of Thomas Barlowe; so that while Thomas Barlowe believed that this music was one of the most petty of all human interests, it was making him think such thoughts as had never before entered his mind—it was giving him aspirations from which in ordinary circumstances he would have shrunk.
The master musician and his interpreters were making sport of him, leading him if not quite into the region of the heroic, at least to the boundary of that region, and supplying him with a perspective glass, as the Interpreter did to the Pilgrims, by the aid of which he might see the wonderful things that had been beyond his natural scope.
And that was how it came about that he gazed into Miss Burney’s eyes and pressed her hand at parting with a tenderness he had never previously associated with his leave-taking. He felt sure that Miss Burney would understand what he meant, though he knew that he would have difficulty in expressing it all to her in words; for the effect of the music was to make him feelthat he could put so much feeling into a look, into a squeeze of the hand, as would touch the heart of any young woman and cause her to be certain that she might trust him though all other help might fail her.
That was the effect which the heroic music had upon him, though he did not know it; it made him feel willing to face hell for her sake at that moment, and even until he had walked through more than a mile of the network of streets that lay between Leicester Fields and the Poultry.
But the effect of such an intoxicant as music upon such a nature as his is not lasting. Before he had reached Cheapside his own individuality was beginning to assert itself; and he wondered if he had not gone too far for discretion—discretion being, according to his reckoning, the power to withdraw from a position that might compromise him. And before he reached his home he had got the length of wondering how he had so far forgotten himself as to yield to that compromising impulse represented by the gaze and the squeeze. He could not for the life of him understand what had come over him at that moment; for he had by no means satisfied himself that Miss Burney was the young woman who would make him comfortable as his wife. He still thought highly of her on account of her modesty and her dainty shyness, but marriage was a serious matter, and he was not sure that he should take her for his wife.
On the whole, he felt that he had had a very trying evening—between the Lieutenant who had so nearly qualified to practise as a murderer, and the father and daughter who seemed ready to strum their duets until midnight, to say nothing of the foolish gentleman who tried to play the trumpet with his ear; and Thomasmade up his mind that he would not trust himself into the midst of so unusual a circle until he was certain that he wanted to marry the young woman whose hand he had, for some reason or other, pressed at parting.
But Mrs. Burney had noticed much more clearly than Fanny had done the expression that the face of Thomas Barlowe had worn when he had looked into the girl’s eyes; she had measured to the fraction of a second the duration of his holding of her hand beyond the time essential for the discharge of the ordinary courtesy of a hand-shake; and she was satisfied that Thomas was progressing in his wooing of the least attractive and certainly the least accomplished member of the family. The good woman thought, however, that it was rather a pity that her husband and Susan had persisted in the practice of their duets; for by doing so they had not given a chance to Thomas and Fanny of being alone together.
But, looking back upon the incidents of the evening, she came to the conclusion that, on the whole, she had no reason to complain of the progress that was being made in the young man’s wooing. She was no believer in undue haste in this respect; and had not Thomas looked into Fanny’s eyes at the close of the evening? Yes, at the close; and that proved to her satisfaction that he had not suffered discouragement by the maladroit conversation about Mr. Eugene Aram. The unhappy episode upon which her husband had dwelt with far too great attention to its details, was one to which she herself had never alluded; for at Lynn, where she had lived all her life previous to being married to Dr. Burney, the Eugene Aram episode was regarded as a scandal to be ignored by those of the inhabitants whose children had attended the school where he had beenusher. It was a distinctly favourable sign of the impression made upon young Mr. Barlowe by Fanny, that he had gazed into her eyes in spite of his having been made aware of the connection of the family with the tragedy of that wretched schoolmaster. Mrs. Burney took no account of the effect of Bach’s marvellous music upon a young man who was a lover in the rough. In this respect, as has been indicated, she did not differ from the young man himself.
It was at the Pantheon in the Oxford Road a fortnight later, that Mrs. Thrale, the brewer’s lively wife, had an opportunity of shining, by a display of thatespritwhich caused Mr. Garrick to affirm solemnly that if she had gone upon the stage she would have been a dangerous rival to Mistress Clive; and Fanny Burney, with her father and Mr. Linley, the father of the beautiful Mrs. Sheridan, was a witness of the ease with which the lady sparkled as she described for the benefit of the circle how Mr. Garrick’s jest at the expense of poor Mr. Kendal and the Widow Nash had set all the Wells laughing. She imitated Mr. Garrick to his face, in offering his congratulations to Mr. Kendal and so setting the ball a-rolling until within an hour the poor, silly gentleman had been offered the felicitations of half the Wells upon his engagement to Widow Nash. Mrs. Thrale re-enacted with great gravity the part she had played in Mr. Garrick’s plot, and then she hastened to imitate Mrs. Cholmondeley’s part, and even Mr. Sheridan’s, upon that lively morning at Tunbridge Wells.
But there was much more to tell, and Mrs. Thrale took very good care to abate nothing of her narrative; it gave her so good a chance of acting, and it gave Mr. Garrick so good a chance of complimenting her before all the company.
“Oh, I vow that we played our parts to perfection,” she cried, “and without any rehearsal either. But then what happened? You will scarce believe it, Mr.Garrick has always borne such a character for scrupulous honour in his dealings with his companies, but indeed ’tis a fact that our manager decamped as soon as he found that the poor man had been teased to the verge of madness by the fooling he had started—off he went, we knew not whither; leaving no message for any of us. He was not to be found by noon; and what happened by dinner-time? Why, the poor gentleman whom we had been fooling had also fled!”
“That was indeed too bad of Mr. Kendal,” said Dr. Burney.
“’Twas too inconsiderate of him truly,” cried Mrs. Thrale. “’Tis no great matter if the manager of the playhouse runs away when his play is produced—you remember that Mr. Colman hurried off to Bath to escape lampooners when the success of Dr. Goldsmith’s comedyShe Stoops to Conquerhad proved to all the town that he was no judge of a play; but for the one who has been made the object of such a jest as ours to escape without giving us a chance of bringing our teasing to a fitting climax is surely little short of infamous.”
“And when did you design the fitting climax to arrive, madam?” asked one of the circle.
“Why, when the gentleman and lady should come face to face in the Assembly Rooms, to be sure,” replied Mrs. Thrale. “We were all there to await the scene of their meeting; and you can judge of our chagrin when only the lady appeared.”
“We can do so, indeed,” said Mrs. Damer, who was also in the circle. “I can well believe that you were furious. When one has arranged a burletta for two characters ’tis infamous when only one of the actors appears on the stage.”
Mrs. Thrale smiled the smile of the lady who knows that she is harbouring a surprise for her friends and only awaits the right moment to spring it upon them—a cat to be let out of the bag at the pulling of a string.
“I knew that we should have your sympathy, Mrs. Damer,” she said demurely. “You have, I doubt not, more than once experienced all the chagrin that follows the miscarrying of a well-planned scheme. But as it so happened, we were more than compensated for our ill-usage at that time by the unlooked-for appearance of the missing actor two nights later.”
“Oh, lud!” cried Mrs. Damer, holding up both her hands in a very dainty way.
Mr. Garrick also lifted up his hands in amazement, but he did not need to exclaim anything to emphasize the effect of his gesture.
Dr. Burney smiled, trying to catch the eye of Mr. Garrick, but Mr. Garrick took very good care that he should not succeed in doing so.
“You may well cry, ‘oh, lud!’” said Mrs. Thrale. “But if you had been in the Rooms when the man entered you would not have been able to say a word for surprise, I promise you. The poor gentleman had posted all the way from town to Tunbridge, apparently for our diversion only, and what a sight he was! It seems that he had got over his fright at the coupling of his name with the lady’s, while flying to London, but from this point a reaction set in, and he spent all the time that he was posting back to the Wells adding fuel to the fire of his resolution to throw himself at the feet of the lady at the earliest possible moment. Was there ever such a comedy played, Mr. Garrick?”
“’Twould be too extravagant for the theatre, madam, but not for Nature’s playhouse,” replied Garrick. “Ihave more than once been told the story of soldiers having fled in a panic from the field of battle, but on finding themselves in a place of safety they returned to the fight and fought like demons. Was there aught that could be termed demoniacal in the gentleman’s conduct on finding himself face to face with the enemy—I mean the lady?”
“Aught demoniacal, do you ask me?” cried Mrs. Thrale. “Oh, sir, have you not heard the parable of the demon that was cast out of a man, but finding its homeless condition unsupportable, sought out seven of its friends and returned with them to its former habitation, so that the last state of the man was more demoniacal than the first?”
“I fancy I have heard the parable, madam, but its application—” began Garrick, when Mrs. Darner broke in upon him, crying:
“Do not ever attempt to point out the aptness of the application of a parable, Mrs. Thrale. Do not, if you are wise. Would you lead us to believe that the unhappy wretch found it necessary to post up to town to obtain his relay of demons for his own discomfiture when so much rank and fashion was at the Wells, though at the fag end of the season?”
“Leaving parables aside, demons and all, I can bear witness to the condition of the man when he entered the Rooms and strode with determination on his face up to where the Widow Nash was fanning herself—not without need,” said Mrs. Thrale. “It so happened that she was seated under the gallery at the furthest end of the Rooms, but our gentleman did not pause on entering to look round for her—I tell you that it seemed as if he went by instinct straight up to her, and bowing before her, said: ‘Madam, may I beg the honour of aword or two with you in private?’—I was close by and so were several other equally credible witnesses, and we heard every word. The widow looked at him coolly—”
“Yes, you said she had been fanning herself,” remarked Mrs. Damer, but without interrupting the flow of the narrative.
“There was no need of a fan for her voice, I can assure you, when she had completed her survey of the dusty gentleman and thought fit to reply to him,” continued Mrs. Thrale. “‘I vow, sir,’ said she, ‘that I consider this room sufficiently private for anything you have to say to me.’ She had plainly got wind of Mr. Garrick’s plot and so was fully prepared for the worst—though some people might call it the best—that could happen. ‘Madam,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘what I have to say is meant for your ear alone,’ and I am bound to admit that he spoke with suavity and dignity. ‘Pray let my friends here be the judges of that,’ said the widow. That was a pretty rebuff for any gentleman with a sense of his own dignity, you will say; but he did not seem to accept it in such a spirit. He hesitated, but only for a few moments, then he looked around him to see who were within hearing, and with hardly a pause, he said in the clearest of tones, ‘I perceive that we are surrounded just now with some ladies who, two days ago, offered me congratulations upon my good fortune in winning your promise, madam; and I venture now to come before you to implore of you to give me permission to assume that their congratulations were well founded’—those were his words; we did not think that he had it in him to express himself so well.”
“And what was the lady’s reply?” asked Dr. Burney, recalling the prophecy in which he had indulged when parting from Garrick at his own door.
“The lady’s reply was disappointing, though dignified,” replied Mrs. Thrale. “‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I have oft heard that the credulity of a man has no limits, but I have never before had so conspicuous an instance of the truth of this. Surely the merest schoolboy would have been able to inform you that you were being made the victim of one of Mr. Garrick’s silly jests—that these ladies here lent themselves to the transaction, hoping to make a fool of me as well as of you; but I trust that they are now aware of the fact that I, at least, perceived the truth from the first, so that whoever has been fooled I am not that person; and so I have the honour to wish you and them a very good evening.’ Then she treated us to a very elaborate curtsey and stalked away to the door, leaving us all amazed at her display of dignity—real dignity, not the stage imitation, Mr. Garrick.”
“You should have been there, if only to receive a lesson, Mr. Garrick,” said Mrs. Damer.
“I hope those who had the good fortune to be present were taught a lesson,” said another lady in the circle.
“If you mean me, madam,” said Mrs. Thrale, with tactful good humour, “I frankly allow that I profited greatly by observing the scene. ’Tis a dangerous game to play—that of trying to show others in a ridiculous light, and in future I vow that all my attention shall be given to the duty of avoiding making a fool of myself. Your jest miscarried, Mr. Garrick; though how that gentleman who fled from the Wells in that headlong fashion was induced to return, is beyond my knowledge.”
“Psha! madam, the fellow is a coxcomb and not worth discussing,” cried Garrick. “He got no more than his deserts when the lady left him to be the laughing-stock of the Assembly. I knew that that would be his fate ifhe ever succeeded in summing up sufficient courage to face her.”
“But strange to say, we did not laugh at him then,” said Mrs. Thrale. “He seemed to be quite a different man from the one whom we had tried to fool two days earlier. There was a certain dignity about him that disarmed us. You must allow, Mr. Garrick, that only the bravest of men would have had the courage to march up the Assembly Rooms and make his proposal to the lady in public.”
“That is the courage of the coxcomb who believes himself to be irresistible to the other sex, madam,” said Garrick; “and I affirm that ’twas most reprehensible to refrain from laughing at him.” Then, putting his arm through that of Burney as if to stroll on with him, and so give the others to understand that he had had enough of Mr. Kendal as a topic, he whispered:
“Ha, my friend, did not I prophesy aright what would be the fellow’s fate? I know men, and women, too—ay, in some measure, though they are sealed books, eh, friend Burney? And you tried to persuade me that she would not snub him? I knew better—I knew that she—eh, what—what are they staring at?”
“They are staring at the appearance of Mr. Kendal with the Widow Nash on his arm—there they are, David, and you are staring at them too,” said Burney with a smile.
“Angels and Ministers of Grace! ’Tis a man and his wife we are staring at! The woman has married him after all!” cried David, his hand dropping limply from Burney’s shoulder. “A man and his wife: I know the look in their faces!”
It was, indeed, the same man who had come to consult Dr. Burney, but had not been allowed the chance of doing so by Garrick, a fortnight before—the same man, but with a marked difference, who was now walking across the pillared room in the Pantheon, with a smiling, well-favoured lady by his side; and toward the pair the eyes of all the circle whom Mrs. Thrale had been addressing were directed.
Mrs. Thrale and her friends were too much amazed to be able to speak, but the lips of every one of them were holding back some exclamation of surprise: an acute observer would have been able easily to set down the various unuttered exclamations of the party, from the simple “Oh, Lud!” of Mrs. Thrale to the more emphatic “Merciful Powers!” of Mrs. Cholmondeley, though not a word was spoken between them, while Mr. Kendal and the lady walked straight through the room to where they were standing.
“Slip behind the pillar: I will cover you, my friend,” whispered Dr. Burney to Garrick.
But Garrick had no intention of doing anything so ignominious—more especially as he perceived that Mr. Kendal had caught sight of him; and it was really Garrick who advanced to meet the couple, with the air of a host about to welcome two long-expected guests—it was really Garrick who received them with one of his finest bows, and who—to add to the amazement of the group behind him—was greeted by Mr. Kendal and thelady with the friendliest of smiles (the lady was blushing, not Mr. Garrick).
And then it was to Dr. Burney the gentleman turned.
“Dear sir,” he cried, “with what words should I approach you? It is to your counsel and Mr. Garrick’s that I owe my happiness.” Then he made his bow to the others of the group.
“Mrs. Thrale,” he said, when he had recovered himself, “we hoped to find you here with your friends, so that we might lose no moment in offering you our thanks for the tactful way in which you brought us together. Only such genius as yours, madam, could have perceived—well, all that you did perceive. I protest that neither Mrs. Kendal nor myself apprehended the too flattering truth. But the heart of a woman who has herself loved—ah, that is the source of such genius as you displayed with such subtlety. She is mine, madam; we have been married a whole week, and I, at least, know what a treasure—but I cannot trust myself to talk of my happiness just now. Perhaps at some future time I shall be able to tell you coherently how I felt within me that my Diana—Mrs. Nash, as she was then—did not mean her rebuff as a final dismissal, and thus I was led to her side—to implore an audience of her, in the course of which she confessed to me that—”
But his bride prevented the flow of his eloquence by tapping him under the chin in exquisite playfulness with her fan, smiling roguishly at him first, and then looking round the group with an air of chastened triumph while she said:
“Foolish man! Prithee remember, Ferdinand, that you are in a public place, and that the secrets of the confessional are sacred. I protest that you are exceeding a husband’s privilege in revealing aught that I confessedwhen taken aback at your sudden appearance before me!”
“I ask your pardon, my angel,” he cried. “I had no right to say even the little that I have said. I suppose I shall learn discretion in time and with practice. But when I think of the kindly interest that some of our friends here showed in bringing us together, I feel that they should be rewarded by a repetition of the whole story.”
“Nay, nay, sir, you may take my word for it that we look not for such a reward,” cried Garrick. “Such philanthropists as Mrs. Thrale and myself feel more than rewarded when we succeed in bringing together a lady and gentleman who were so plainly intended by Providence for each other’s happiness.”
“It was Mr. Garrick who looked with the eyes of Providence into your case as associated with Mr. Kendal, madam. That is, if Puck may ever be thought of as assuming the rôle of Providence,” said Mrs. Thrale. “For myself, I believe that Puck has more to do with the making of matches than heaven; and assuredly in this particular case the mischievous fairy had more than a finger. But however that may be, we can still wish you every happiness in life, and offer you an apology for—”
“H’sh!” whispered Garrick, raising a hand. “Rauzzini is beginning to sing. I am sure, Mrs. Kendal, that you will willingly accept Signor Rauzzini’s song in lieu of Mrs. Thrale’s apology, however admirably worded the latter were sure to be.”
The bride smiled benignly at Mrs. Thrale, and there was more than a trace of triumph in her smile.
Dr. Burney smiled also at the adroitness of the actor, who, he could perceive, had no intention of allowinghimself to be incriminated by any confession, assuming the form of an apology, that Mrs. Thrale might make in a moment of contrition for having been a partner with him in a piece of fooling that had had a very different result from the one he (and she) had looked for.
Garrick, still holding up a warning finger as if he had at heart the best interests of the composer as well as the singer of “Waft her, Angels,” prevented another word from being spoken, though more than a full minute had passed before Rauzzini had breathed the first notes of the recitativo.
But incautiously lowering his finger when the handsome Roman had begun, Mrs. Thrale took advantage of her release from the thraldom imposed upon her, to say in a low tone, looking toward the gallery in front of which the singer stood:
“It is one angel talking to the others! Was there ever so angelic a man?”
And little Miss Burney, who had also her eyes fixed upon the singer, felt that little Mrs. Thrale was not merely an angel, but a goddess. She expressed her opinion to this effect in her next letter to Mr. Crisp.
She listened in a dream to the singing that no one could hear and remain unmoved, even though one had not the advantage of looking at the singer at the same time. Fanny Burney was too short-sighted to be able to distinguish one face from another at such a distance; but this made no difference to her; she had the face of the sweet singer ever before her—most clearly when she closed her eyes, as she did now, and listened to him.
“Waft her, angels, to the skies—Waft her, angels, waft her, angels, waft her to the skies,” rang out his fervent imploration, and she felt that there were no powers that could withstand the force of such an appeal.For herself she felt carried away on the wings of song into the highest heaven. She felt that harps of heaven alone could provide an adequate accompaniment to such a voice as his; and she gave herself up to it as unreservedly as a bride gives herself to the arms of her lover. She had that sensation of a sweet yielding to the divine influence of the music until she could feel it enfolding her and bearing her into the infinite azure of a realm more beautiful than any that her dreams had borne her to in the past. She wanted nothing better than this in any world. All that she wanted was an assurance that it would continue for ever and ever....
With the cessation of the singing she seemed to awaken from a dream of divine delight and in her awaking to retain the last thought that had been hers—the longing for an assurance that the delight which she was feeling would endure. She was awake now, and she knew that love had been all her dream, and that what she longed for was the assurance that that love would continue. And now she remembered that it was this same longing that had brought about her resolution that she would never go to her King as the beggar maid had gone to King Cophetua. There would be no assurance of the continuing of love between them if she had the humiliating feeling that he had stooped to raise her to his level.
That was the thought which took possession of her mind when she had returned from the sublimities to which she had been borne by her lover’s singing, and in another minute the reaction had come. She had been soaring high, but now she was conscious of a sinking at heart; for the whole building was resounding with acclamations of the singer. There did not seem to be anyone silent, save only herself, throughout the hall. Everyone seemed calling the name of Rauzzini—allseemed ready to throw themselves at his feet; and when he stood up to acknowledge their tribute of enthusiasm to his marvellous powers, there was something of frenzy in the way his name was flung from hundreds of voices—it was not enough for the people whom he had stirred to shout his name, they surrounded him with the banners of a great conqueror—the air was quivering with the lace and the silk that were being waved on all sides to do him honour—handkerchiefs, scarves, fans—the air was full of them.
And there he stood high above them, smiling calmly and bending his head gravely to right and left in acknowledgment of all....
That was his position before the world. Her heart sank within her as she asked herself what was hers. How could she ever hope to attain to such a place as should win from the world such applause as this? How could she ever be so vain as to think that the giving of a little book to the world should have an effect worthy of being compared with this demonstration which was shaking the Pantheon?
Her heart sank to a deeper depth still when the thunders had passed away—reluctantly as the reverberations of a great storm—and there was a buzz of voices all about her—exclamations of delight—whispers of admiration—ladies with clasped hands, fervent in their words about the marvellous face of the young Roman—and her father and his friend, Mr. Fulke Greville, exchanging recollections of the singing of the same air by other vocalists, and coming gradually to the conclusion that none had put such feeling into it as had Rauzzini.
The buzz of voices did not cease when the singer had come down from his gallery and was greeting some of his friends on the floor of the great hall. He hadtrouble in making his way as far as the group which he meant to reach. The most distinguished ladies of high quality had pressed round him with uncritical expressions of appreciation of his singing, and there was no lack of gentlemen of fashion to follow their example, though wondering greatly that the ladies of quality should allow themselves to show such transports respecting a man with no trait of a true-born Englishman about him. Signor Rauzzini might have indulged in a score of pinches of snuff out of the gold and enamelled boxes that were thrust forward for his acceptance with the finest artificial grace of a period when it was not thought effeminate to be graceful over small things.
He bowed low to the ladies of quality, and smiled his polite rejection of the snuff of the gentlemen of fashion. But such convenances made it impossible for him to keep his eyes upon the group toward which he was making a necessarily slow way, and he only reached the side of Dr. Burney to find that Dr. Burney’s daughter had disappeared. He had no chance of seeing how Miss Burney at his approach had slipped behind a pillar and suffered herself to be conducted thence to a seat by her cousin Edward: the fact that Edward was learning to be a painter was a sufficient excuse for his paying an occasional visit to such scenes of colour as were unfolded before the eyes of a frequenter of the fashionable Pantheon every night.
Fanny felt that if Signor Rauzzini had come to her side after passing through the ranks of lace and velvet and brocade, she would have sunk through the floor of the hall. But she knew that it was to her side he was coming, and she took the opportunity of flying when he was compelled to make a pause in front of the flattery of the Duchess of Ancaster.
She was painfully shy at all times, but overwhelmingly so at that moment, though she knew that she was the only woman in the place who would make the attempt to evade the distinction which threatened her. How could she remain where she had been with all eyes in the room upon her? She felt that it would be impossible.
Her heart was beating quickly as she thought:
“Not yet—not yet.”
After all there is no more womanly trait than that of fleeing from a lover; but Fanny Burney was yielding to its impulse without an attempt to analyse it, and without being consoled by the reflection of the woman of the younger world that if it is woman’s instinct to fly from a lover, it is a lover’s instinct to pursue.
She had scarcely finished the cup of ice which her cousin had brought her, before the man had found her.
But now the Gabrielli was beginning to sing, and all eyes were directed upon the Gabrielli, so that no one but Rauzzini saw how Dr. Burney’s over-shy daughter was flushing.
They spoke in French, with an occasional phrase in Italian when they found the other tongue lacking in melody or in the exact shade of meaning that they sought to express. Edward Burney thought that the moment was one that favoured his ambition to study the pose of Madame Gabrielli, with a view to starting on a portrait that should make him famous. He asked Fanny’s permission to allow him to take up a place a few yards beyond the pillar. He promised not to be long absent, and Fanny had not the heart to detain him.
“You fled from me—was that kind?” asked Rauzzini when the cousin had moved away, but was still in view.
“Ah,” said she, “one who has my odious self-consciousness does not ask what is kind or unkind, she simply flies.”
“But you knew that I was coming to your side?” said he.
“I know that you are wise enough to value the criticism of a musician like my father above the vapid phrases of the people of fashion,” replied Fanny.
“That is true indeed,” said he. “I value a word of praise or blame from Dr. Burney as precious. But Dr. Burney has a daughter whose words are to me as precious.”
“She is not here to-night,” said Fanny. “My sister Esther, to whom you refer, is indeed a discriminating critic. She told me how exquisitely you sang at theconcert where you met her—it is scarcely a fortnight ago.”
“Dr. Burney has more daughters than that one,” said he.
Fanny laughed.
“He has indeed more daughters than one,” she said. “We were a household of daughters before Esther married and when my brother was in the South Seas. But only Esther is critical as a musician.”
“In the name of heaven, do you think that it is only possible for me to value words that refer to my singing?” he asked. “Do you not know that I would rather listen to your voice than—”
“Than Madame Gabrielli’s?” said Fanny; he had spoken his last sentence in too loud a tone, even though the Gabrielli’s brilliant vocalism usually admitted of a conversation being carried on with some vehemence in the great room of the Pantheon without causing remark.
He smiled at her warning, and it was in a subdued voice that he said:
“I am tired of hearing the Gabrielli; but what of your voice? How often have you given me the chance of hearing it? Even now you fled from me as though I carried the plague about with me! Was that kind or unkind?”
“You do not entertain the thought that perhaps I have not yet tired of Madame Gabrielli’s vocalism: I knew that she was at the point of beginning her aria.”
“You would sacrifice me on the altar of your favourite? Well, perhaps you would be justified in doing so. Hold up your finger now and I shall be mute as a fish until Gabrielli has had her last shriek. I can still look at you—it will not spoil your appreciation of the aria if I merely look at you.”
“I think I would rather that you talked to me than merely looked at me. I do not invite people to look at me, and happily few people do. I am not conspicuous I am the insignificant one. There is Mrs. Thrale, for instance; she has been several times at our house, and every time she comes she inquires who is the little one.”
He smiled and held up his finger in imitation of the way she had rebuked him for talking too loud.
“H’sh; I am anxious to hear the Signora Gabrielli,” he said, and the expression that he made his face assume at that moment would have convinced anyone that he was giving all his attention to the singing—drinking in every note with the earnestness of an enthusiast. There was a certain boyish exaggeration in his expression that was very amusing to Fanny, though less observing persons would have been ready to accept it as evidence of the generous appreciation on the part of one great singer of the success of another.
So he remained until thecavatinahad come to an end; and then he was loudest in his cry of “Brava!”
“It is a treat—a great—a sacred treat,” said he, turning to Fanny. “I do not think I ever heard that song before. Has it a name, I wonder?”
“If I mistake not it is from an opera in which a certain Roman tenore made a name for himself last year, in happy conjunction with Madame Gabrielli,” said Fanny.
“Is it possible? I had not heard of that circumstance,” said he, with a look of the most charming innocence in his large eyes. It was his hands that were most expressive, however, as he added:
“But it was last year, you say, mademoiselle? Ah, who is it that remembers an opera from one year to another? No one, except theimpresariowho has losthis good money, or somebody’s else’s money, over its production. Enough, thecantatricehas given us of her best, and is there now any reason why we should remain dumb? The great charm of the singing of these brilliant artistes of last year’s operas is that when they have sung, they have sung—they leave one nothing to think about afterward. Is not that so, mademoiselle?”
“They leave one nothing to think about—except their singing,” said Fanny. “For myself, I am still thinking of ‘Waft her, angels,’ although nearly half an hour must have passed since I heard the last notes. And it seems to me that when half a century will have passed I shall still be thinking of it.”
He did not offer her the conventional acknowledgment of a bow. He only looked at her with those large eyes of his; they were capable of expressing in a single glance all the tenderness of feeling of a poem.
“I have not sung in vain,” he said in a low tone. “My oldmaestrogave me the advice one day when I was proving to him my success in reaching the high note which I had been striving for years to bring into my compass: ‘That is all very well,’ he said. ‘You have aimed at touching that rare note, now your aim must be to touch the heart of everyone who hears you sing.’ I sometimes think that he set for me too difficult a task.”
“Not too difficult—for you,” said she.
“There are dangers,” he said thoughtfully. “I have known singers who tried to reach the hearts of their hearers by tricks—yes, and they succeeded through these illegitimate means in making themselves popular, while far better singers who had a scorn of such tricks and gave their best to all who listened to them, failed to please anyone who had not a knowledge of the true boundary of music.”
“I have seen these tricksters, too,” said Fanny. “I have witnessed their sentimental grimaces—their head shakings—their appeal to the feelings with pathetic eyes turned heavenward. They made me ashamed of them—ashamed of myself for listening to them, though people about me had been moved to tears. But I think that the people who are easily moved to tears are those who retain an impression the shortest space of time.”
“You give me confidence—encouragement,” he cried. “I have made up my mind that if I cannot reach a heart by the straight King’s highway, I will not try to do so by any bypath. Bypaths are, we know, the resorts of brigands: they may captivate a heart or two, but only to leave them empty afterwards.”
So they talked together for many minutes. Fanny Burney had a sufficient acquaintance among musicians, vocal as well as instrumental, to have learned, long ago, that they can easily be prevented from talking on any other subject than music, and the same reflection that had caused her to say that “Not yet—not yet,” had impelled her to lead Rauzzini in another direction than that in which he had shown so strong a tendency to go. He had been trying to make her understand that he had travelled through the obstructions of the hall not in order that he might obtain the criticism of so accomplished amaestroas Dr. Burney upon his singing, but in order that he should have a chance of talking to Dr. Burney’s unaccomplished daughter; he had shown her that his wish was to converse on the topic of this unaccomplished daughter; but she had no mind to acquiesce in his aims for the present. She still felt herself to be the beggar maid, and she would not allow her king to get any nearer to her.
It was not until her cousin had returned to whereshe was seated, that the young Italian found that he had not made much progress with his suit. He had intended that thistête-à-têtewith her should make her aware of how he felt in regard to her, but he had allowed his opportunity to pass, and in place of talking about her he had been led to talk of himself.
That was how he expressed himself to her when he found that theirtête-à-têtewas at an end.
“How has this come about?” he cried in surprise. “How is it that I have shown myself to be so vain as to make speeches about my singing when I meant to talk to you of yourself?”
“’Twas I who found a more profitable topic for you,signore mio,” she replied, feeling her way through the words of his native tongue, for he had spoken out his surprise in Italian.
He shook his head and made a gesture with his hands.
“But it is a mystery!” he said in French. “I had no desire to talk about myself or my singing. I meant to tell you what was in my mind when I saw you entering this place with your father. Shall we retrace our steps in our conversation until I find how it was that I took a wrong turning? Alas! I fear that it would not be possible!”
“It would not be possible, indeed,” she replied. “Did you not say something about the bypaths being dangerous with banditti? We kept our feet upon the King’s highway, which is safe. I was swept off my feet—carried away—away—by your singing of the aria; I had scarce touched the earth once more when you came to my side, and now we are parting happily, you to realize your aspirations, I to—to—well, to retain for ever the memory of your singing—the memory of those celestial harmonies into the midst of which I was waftedby the angels of your imploration. That is enough for one evening of my life. Nay, you must not speak another word lest the charm of all should fade away. I shall go home to dream of angels.”
“And I shall go to dream of you,” he said in a low tone.
He did not hold her hand so long as Thomas Barlowe had done when parting from her, but she felt that somehow he had accomplished more by his reserve than Thomas had achieved by his impetuosity. She hoped that she might never see Thomas again; but for Signor Rauzzini—
They parted.
“These foreigners!” exclaimed young Edward Burney when Rauzzini had left them, and Fanny was asking her cousin if her father was not looking for her. “These foreigners! Your father is talking with another of them—an Italian too, as I live—I have seen him in St. Martin’s Street—Signor Piozzi. But I suppose Uncle Burney likes to keep in touch with them. The town is swarming with them: they are even to be found about Leicester Fields. Why do some people fancy that we must have Italians to sing for us? There are plenty of good singers in England, without a drop of foreign blood in their veins. A good sea song with a chorus that is easy to get into the swing of—that’s English and honest.”
“Honest down to the hoarsest note,” said Fanny. “You and James are at one in the matter of songs.”
“Cousin Jim hates foreigners, as is quite proper that an officer in a King’s ship should,” said Edward stoutly.
“Not all foreigners,” said Fanny smiling. “You forget how kindly he took to Prince Omai.”
“Oh, a South Sea Islander is different,” cried her cousin. “I expect that the South Seas will soon become as English as ourselves if Captain Cook goes on discovering islands.”
“Edward,” said Fanny, after a pause sufficient to allow of the introduction of a new topic; “Edward, could you make it convenient to call at the OrangeCoffee House some day soon to inquire if there is another letter for Mr. Grafton?”
“I’ll not omit it on any account,” he replied. “Oh, yes, Mr. Grafton, I’ll collect your correspondence for you, never fear. You have not let anyone else into the secret, I hope?”
“No one knows it except Susy and Lottie and Charles and Hetty; but Hetty only knows that I wrote the book, not that it is to be printed—Charles is still away from us, or I would not trouble you, Edward.”
“Poor Charlie grew tired of the Orange Coffee House, did he not? He told me how you made him your messenger at first, disguising him in a cloak and a gentleman’s hat, so that he might not seem quite the boy that he was. But how the secret has been kept so well is a wonder to me—kept from the powers that be, I mean—uncle and aunt. I wonder if your mother never had a suspicion of what was going on, especially as she knew all about your writing long ago.”
“I think that it was the copying out of the padre’s History that saved me,” said Fanny. “Many a page of my novel I wrote when she believed that I was copying the notes for the History—yes, that, and the letters which Mr. Crisp insists on my sending him every week. But even with these excuses I could sometimes not get through more than three or four pages of my own book during a whole week.”
“How will you look when the secret is let out—it must be let out some day, you know? If the writing a novel is thought shocking, how will Uncle Burney receive the news, think you? He has not yet given you leave to publish it.”
There was a troubled look on poor Fanny’s face as she replied, after a pause:
“I have often meant to ask father’s permission, but I was not able to summon up courage enough to face him with the whole truth. But it cannot be delayed much longer. Perhaps I might write him a letter about it some time when I am at Chessington.”
“I don’t envy you the duty, my dear Fanny,” said he. “But I think that the sooner you get it over the easier you will feel. I suppose that writing a novel is worse than writing a ‘History of Music.’ I wonder why you took so much trouble over the business.”
“I could not help it,” she cried. “I have often wondered myself why I was sitting up in that cold room at the top of the house, writing until my fingers were benumbed, when I might have been at my comfortable sewing in front of a fire downstairs; but I could not help it—I could not help doing it, Eddy.”
Eddy never reached that point in his career as a painter when he found the artist’s impulse to create too great to be resisted. He could not appreciate her explanation.
“‘I couldn’t help it,’ that’s what we were used to say long ago, when we got into mischief; I hope that Uncle Burney and Aunt Burney—don’t forget her in this matter—I hope that they will accept your excuse. Anyhow, you may trust me to act as your ‘Mr. Grafton’ at the Orange Coffee House some day this week.”
He caught a glimpse of his uncle, Dr. Burney, sitting with Mr. Greville, so that he had no trouble in placing Fanny once more in charge of her father. He could see that the girl was a little downcast, and tried to cheer her up a bit by whispering in a sly way into her ear:
“Good-night, Mr. Grafton; my best respects to Mrs. Grafton and the children—especially Evelina.”
The smile that Fanny gave in acknowledgment of his pleasantry did not quite carry conviction that his well-meant effort had been successful. He went away feeling as much sympathy for her as was possible for him to have in common with the reflection that if she was in a difficult position, it was wholly one of her own seeking. What could have induced a girl who had been carefully brought up, and provided with an excellent stepmother, to write a novel, placing herself thereby on a level with those dreadful ladies whose productions were prohibited in every self-respecting household and only read by stealth when obtained at a cost of twopence—more than the best of them were worth—at the circulating library?
Yes, poor Fanny was undoubtedly to be pitied; but she had really only herself to blame for the trouble that was looming in front of her when the secret of her authorship should be revealed to her father and her excellent stepmother—one of the best judges to be found anywhere of all sorts of needlework—not merely plain sewing and button-holing, but satin stitch, herring-boning and running and felling.
The very next day Cousin Edward called at St. Martin’s Street, carrying with him a small parcel neatly done up in white paper. He was lucky enough to find Fanny and Susan alone in the work-room; and after asking mysteriously if there was any chance of his uncle or aunt coming upon them, and being assured that they were both away for the day, he carefully locked the door of the room, saying in the whisper of a man of plots and mysteries:
“’Tis better to be sure than sorry. In matters of this nature ’tis impossible to be too cautious.”
He then handed the parcel to Fanny, who gave an exclamation when she saw that it was addressed:
“To Mr. Grafton, at the Orange Coffee House, Orange Street.”
She opened the parcel, and found it to contain a printer’s unbound copy of a book, the title page of which stared up at her: “Evelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World,” and with it was a letter from Mr. Lowndes, the bookseller, presenting his compliments to Mr. Grafton, with the request that Mr. Grafton would read the book and prove it as soon as possible, returning the list of errata to Mr. Lowndes, so that the edition might go to press for early publication.
There it lay on the table in front of her. She read the letter standing, and remained on her feet, looking down at the unbound book. It had a queer, half-dressed appearance, lacking covers; and when, after some minutes of silence, Susy took a step or two closer to it, and, with her hand on Fanny’s arm, looked down on it also, the picture that they made suggested two sisters looking into the cradle where the first baby of one of them lay. The expression on Susy’s face—a mingling of wonder and curiosity, with delight not far off—was exactly that which the younger sister of the picture might be expected to wear, catching a glimpse of the undressed morsel of humanity in its first cot.
Susy put her hand down to it, and moved the printed sheets about. She read the title page down to the last name on the imprint, and then she flung up her hands, crying:
“How lovely! how lovely! But it seems wonderful!How did it come into being? It looks like a real thing now that we see it printed. The copy that you wrote out in that disguised hand seemed somehow quite different from this. There is life in this. It feels warm, actually warm, Fanny. Oh, don’t you love it, dear?”
Fanny, the young mother, shook her head, but with no significance, so far as Susy could see.
“’Tis too late now,” said Edward gloomily, taking on himself the burden of interpreting that head-shake. “You are bound down to go on with it now. You should have thought of all this before.”
“What nonsense is this you are talking?” cried Susy, turning upon him almost indignantly; for his tone suggested an aspersion upon the offspring. “What do you say is too late now? Do you mean to say that there’s anything to be ashamed of in this? Cannot you see that she did not put her name to it? Who is there to know that it came from this house? The name of Burney nowhere appears on it.”
“That’s so much, at any rate,” said he.
“Do you mean to say that you don’t think it quite wonderful, Eddy?” cried Susy. “And getting twenty pounds for it—twenty pounds! And you say something about it being too late!”
“I only judged from the way Fanny shook her head,” said he.
“Oh, that was not what Fanny was thinking at all—now was it, Fanny?” said Susy encouragingly to her sister.
“I don’t know quite what I meant or what I mean even now,” replied Fanny. “It made me feel for the moment somehow as if I had appeared in a street full of people before I had quite finished dressing!”
“Ah!” exclaimed Edward.
“But that is nonsense, dear,” said Susy, still consolatory. “The book is not yourself.”
“Not all myself, but part of myself—that is what I feel,” said Fanny.
“I cannot see that that is so. You are you—you yourself quite apart from the book. Whatever the book may be, you will still remain Fanny Burney, the best daughter and the best sister in the world. What does it matter if people—foolish people who know nothing about it—laugh at it or say nasty things about it? Do you think that that will make any of us like you the less?”
She put her arm about Fanny and kissed her on the cheek, and Fanny’s tears began to fall. The young man standing by felt more uneasy than he had ever felt in his life. He crossed the room and looked out of the window, turning his back upon the scene of the sisters. He did not know what to say to a girl when once she allowed herself to weep. He wished with all his heart that he had not been dragged into this business. But Fanny’s tears convinced him that his first impression of her reception of her book was the correct one: she was, like other young mothers he had heard of, bitterly repentant when it was too late.
The next sound of which he became aware was of the crinkling of the stiff paper of the wrapper. One of the girls was folding up the parcel. He glanced round and saw that it was Fanny herself who was so engaged. She had dried her tears; the expression on her face was one of resignation—one of determination to make the best of a bad matter.
“Ah, that’s better,” said he, going to her and picking up the string from the floor. “There’s no use crying over spilt milk, is there, Fanny? We have allkept your secret loyally, and no one need ever know that you so far forgot yourself. Certainly the revelation will never come from my lips.”
Fanny burst out laughing.
“Oh, dear Eddy, you are the best cousin that any poor girl could have,” she said. “Your words have helped me greatly. They have helped to make me feel what is the aspect of the world in regard to my poor little story. It has been my constant companion night and day for three years and more. I worked at it in the cold and I tried how I could improve pages of it, copying it and recopying it; I practised a duplicity which was foreign to my nature in writing it—I have deceived my father and my mother about it—I wasted my eyesight over it—I robbed myself of sleep so that I might complete it, and when it was completed I lay awake in anxiety lest no bookseller would look at it, all this trouble I had with it, so that the world might have of my best, and what is the verdict of the world after all this? You have pronounced it, dear Eddy—you said thoughtfully and consolingly—‘There’s no use crying over spilt milk.’ You are quite right. Not another tear will I shed over this poor little bantling of mine. ‘A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World’? Nay, call it rather a rickety brat that should never have made its entrance into the world at all.”
“I should be ashamed of myself if I ever spoke of it in such terms,” cried Susy, looking indignantly at her cousin as though he had abused it in that phrase. “‘Rickety brat,’ indeed! Oh, I should be ashamed. It looked so much alive—more alive, I think, than if it was in its covers. Let us sit down and read it together, Fanny.”
Cousin Edward felt that he was being badly treatedbetween these sisters. That last remark of Susy was rather more than a suggestion that he might go as soon as it pleased him. He had not any previous experience of young women and their offspring. He could not know that their attitude in such circumstances is one of hostility to the male—that they resent his appearance as an intrusion.
“I am glad that you are so pleased,” said he, with only a trace of irritability in his voice. “And I am glad that I have been of any use to you, Cousin Fanny. After all, the thing is yours, not Susy’s.”
“That is true, indeed,” cried Fanny. “And it is I who offer you my gratitude for your help. Believe me, Eddy, I am sensible of the adroitness you have shown in this matter ever since we let you into our secret; and if any trouble comes from what we have done you may be quite sure that I will accept the entire responsibility for it.”
“Oh, so far as that goes, I do not shrink from taking my share,” said he magnanimously. “I do not feel quite without blame—I am a man and I should have warned you at the outset. But you had nearly finished it before I heard anything of it—you must not forget that.”
“That is true indeed,” said Fanny. “I was self-willed. I wonder was it vanity that impelled me. Never mind! It cannot be helped now. It may never be heard of again.”
“There’s always that to remember,” said he, with the eagerness of a drowning man grasping at a straw.
“And I believe that the chances are greatly in favour of that hope being realized. Thank you again for your encouragement, dear Eddy,” said she.
“Oh, that’s nothing—nothing worth talking about,”said he, picking up his gloves. “You can command me always, Cousin Fanny. And you have seen that I can keep a secret. Now mind you don’t leave that lying about”—he pointed to the parcel, the string of which Susy was knotting—“and, be advised by me, turn the key in the lock when you are working at it.”
“Yes,” said Susy, “we’ll be sure to do our best to prevent anyone from suspecting that we have a secret, by locking ourselves in.”
“Caution—nothing like caution,” said he in a whisper, unfastening the door and putting his head out to glance to right and left of the short corridor. He held up his finger. “All safe so far,” he whispered; “no one is in sight.”