"I just saw the flowers drive up."
"I just saw the flowers drive up."
"I just saw the flowers drive up."
Clorinda laughed. "What's the piece like?"
"I only saw one rehearsal. It seemed great twaddle. But the low com. has got a good catchword, so there's some chance of its going into the evening bills."
"Oh, by the way, have you seen anything of that—that—the man in the Ironed Mask, I think they call him?"
"Do you mean here—this afternoon?"
"Yes."
"No. Do you expect him?"
"Oh, no; but I was wondering if he would turn up. I hear he is so fond of this theatre."
"Bless your soul, he'd never be seen at a matinée."
"Why not?" asked Clorinda, her heart fluttering violently.
"Because he'd have to be in morning dress," said the actor-manager, laughing heartily.
To Clorinda his innocent merriment seemed the laughter of a mocking fiend. She turned away sick at heart. There was nothing for it but to propose outright at teatime. Clorinda did so, and was accepted without further difficulty.
"And now, dearest," she said, after she had been allowed to press the first kiss of troth upon his coy lips, "I should like to know who I am going to be?"
"Clorinda Bell, of course," he said. "That is the advantage actresses have. They need not take their husband's name in vain."
"Yes, but what amIto call you, dearest?"
"Dearest?" he echoed enigmatically. "Let me be dearest—for a little while."
She forbore to press him further. For the moment it was enough to have won him. The sweetness of that soothed her wounded vanity at his indifference to the prize coveted by men and convents. Enough that she was to be mated to a great man, whose speech and silence alike bore the stamp of individuality.
"Dearest be it," she answered, looking fondly into his Moorish eyes. "Dearest! Dearest!"
"Thank you, Clorinda. And now may I see your mother? I have never learnt what she has to say to me."
"What does it matter now, dearest?"
"More than ever," he said gravely, "now she is to be my mother-in-law."
Clorinda bit her lip at the dignified rebuke, and rang for his mother-in-law elect, who came from the sick room in her bonnet.
"Mother," she said, as the good dame sailed through the door, "let me introduce you to my future husband."
A Family Reunion.
A Family Reunion.
A Family Reunion.
The old lady's face lit up with surprise and excitement. She stood still for an instant, taking in the relationship so suddenly sprung upon her. Then she darted with open arms towards the Man in the Ironed Mask and strained his Mask to her bosom.
"My son! my son!" she cried, kissing him passionately. He blushed like a stormy sunset and tried to disengage himself.
"Do not crumple him, mother," said Clorinda pettishly. "Your zeal is overdone."
"But he is my long-lost Absalom! Think of the rapture of having him restored to me thus. O what a happy family we shall be! Bless you, Clorinda. Bless you, my children. When is the wedding to be?"
The Man in the Ironed Mask had regained his composure.
"Mother," he said sternly, "I am glad to see you looking so well. I always knew you would fall on your feet if I dropped you. I have no right to ask it—but as you seem to expect me to marry your daughter, a little information as to the circumstances under which you have supplied me with a sister would be not unwelcome.
"Stupid boy! Don't you understand that Miss Bell was good enough to engage me as mother and travelling companion when you left me to starve? Or rather, the impresario who brought her over from America engaged me, and Clorinda has been, oh, so good to me! My little drapery business failed three months after you left me to get a stranger to serve. I had no resource but—to go on the stage."
The old woman was babbling on, but the cold steel of Clorinda's gaze silenced her.
The outraged actress turned haughtily to the Man in the Ironed Mask.
"Sothisis your mother?" she said with infinite scorn.
"So this isnotyour mother!" he said with infinite indignation.
"Were you ever really simple enough to suspect me of having a mother?" she retorted contemptuously. "I had her on the hire system. Don't you know that a combination of maid and mother is the newest thing in actresses' wardrobes? It is safer then having a maid, and more comfortable than having a mother."
"But Ihavebeen a mother to you, Clorinda," the old dame pleaded.
"Oh, yes, you have always been a good, obedient woman. I am not finding fault with you, and I have no wish to part with you. I do find fault and I shall certainly part with your son."
"Nonsense," said the Man in the Ironed Mask. "The situation is essentially unchanged. She is still the mother of one of us, she can still become the mother-in-law of the other. Besides, Clorinda, that is the only way of keeping the secret in the family."
"You threaten?"
"Certainly. You are a humbug. So am I. United we stand. Separated, you fall."
"You fall, too."
"Not from such a height. I am still on the first rungs."
"Nor likely to get any higher."
"Indeed? Your experience of me should have taught you different. High as you are, I can raise you yet higher if you will only lift me up to you."
"How do you climb?" she said, his old ascendency reasserting itself.
"By standing still. Profound meditation on the philosophy of modern society has convinced me that the only way left for acquiring notoriety is to do nothing. Every other way has been exploited and is suspected. It is only a year since the discovery flashed upon me, it is only a year that I have been putting it in practice. And yet, mark the result! Already I am a known man. I had theentréeto no society; for half-a-guinea a night (frequently paid in paper money) I have mingled with the most exclusive. When there was nopremiereanywhere, I went to see you—not from any admiration of you, but because theLymarketis the haunt of the best society, and in addition, the virtue of Shakespeare and of yourself attracts there a highly respectable class of bishops whom I have not the opportunity of meeting elsewhere. Bydoing nothing I fascinated you—somebody was sure to be fascinated by it at last, as the dove flutters into the jaws of the lethargic serpent—by continuing to do nothing I completed my conquest. Had I met your advances, you would have repelled mine. My theories have been completely demonstrated, and but for the accident of our having a common mother——"
"Speak for yourself," said Clorinda haughtily.
"It is for myself that I am speaking. When we are one, I shall continue this policy of masterly inactivity of which I claim the invention, though it has long been known in the germ. Everybody knows for instance that not to trouble to answer letters is the surest way of acquiring the reputation of a busy man, that not to accept invitations is an infallible way of getting more, that not to care a jot about the feelings of the rest of the household, is an unfailing means of enforcing universal deference. But the glory still remains to him who first grasped this great law in its generalized form, however familiar one or two isolated cases of it may be to the world. 'Do nothing' is the last word of social science, as 'Nil admirari' was its first. Just as silence is less self-contradictory than speech, so is inaction a safer foundation of fame than action. Inaction is perfect. The moment you do anything you are in the region of incompleteness, of definiteness. Your work may be outdone—or undone. Your inventions may be improved upon, your victories annulled, your popular books ridiculed, your theories superseded, your paintings decried, the seamy side of your explanations shown up. Successful doing creates not only enemies but the material for their malice to work upon. Only by not having done anything to deserve success can you be sure of surviving the reaction which success always brings. To be is higher than to do. To be is calm, large, elemental; to do is trivial, artificial, fussy. To be has been the moth ofthe English aristocracy, it is the secret of their persistence.Qui s'excuse s'accuse.He who strives to justify his existence imperils it. To be is inexpugnable, to do is dangerous. The same principle rules in all departments of social life. What is a successful reception? A gathering at which everybodyis. Nobody does anything. Nobody enjoys anything. There everybodyis—if only for five minutes each, and whatever the crush and discomfort. You are there—and there youare, don't you know? What is a social lion? A man whoiseverywhere. What is social ambition? A desire tobein better people's drawing-rooms. What is it for which people barter health, happiness, even honor? Tobeon certain pieces of flooring inaccessible to the mass. What is the glory of doing compared with the glory of being? Let others elect to do, I elect tobe."
"So long as you do not choose to be my husband——"
"It is husband or brother," he said, threateningly.
"Of course. I become your sister by rejecting you, do I not?"
"Don't trifle. You understand what I mean. I will let the world know that your mother is mine."
They stood looking at each other in silent defiance. At last Clorinda spoke:
"A compromise! let the world know that my mother is yours."
"I see. Pose as your brother!"
"Yes. That will help you up a good many rungs. I shall not deny I am your sister. My mother will certainly not deny that you are her son."
"Done! So long as my theories are not disproved. Conjugate the verb 'to be,' and you shall be successful. Let me see. How does it run? I am—your brother, thou art—my sister, she is—my mother,—we are—her children, you are—my womankind, they are—all spoofed."
So the man in the Ironed Mask turned out to be the brother of the great and good actress, Clorinda Bell. And several people had known it all along, for what but fraternal interest had taken him so often to theLymarket? And when his identity leaked out, Society ran after him, and he gave the interviewers interesting details of his sister's early years. And everyone spoke of his mother, and of his solicitous attendance upon her. And in due course the tale of his virtues reached a romantic young heiress who wooed and won him. And so he continuedbeing, till he was—no more. By his own request they buried him in an Ironed Mask, and put upon his tomb the profound inscription
"Here Lies the Man Who Was."
And this was why Clorinda, disgusted with men and lovers, and unable to marry her brother, caught at the notion of the Old Maids' Club and called upon Lillie.
It was almost as good a cover as a mother, and it was well to have something ready in case she lost her, as you cannot obtain a second mother even on the hire system. But Lord Silverdale's report consisted of one word, "Dangerous!"—and he rejoiced at the whim which enabled him thus to protect the impulsive little girl he loved.
Clorinda divined from Lillie's embarrassment next day that she was to be blackballed.
"I am afraid," she hastened to say, "that on second thoughts I must withdraw my candidature, as I could not make a practice of coming here without my mother."
Lillie referred to the rules. "Married women are admitted," she said simply. "I presume, therefore, your mother——"
"It's just like your presumption," interrupted Clorinda, and flouncing angrily out of the Club, she invited a journalist to tea.
Next day theMoonsaid she was going to join the Old Maids' Club.
THE CLUB GETS ADVERTISED.
"I see you have disregarded my ruling, Miss Dulcimer!" said Lord Silverdale, pointing to the paragraph in theMoon. "What is the use of my trying the candidates if you're going to admit the plucked?"
"I am surprised at you, Lord Silverdale. I thought you had more wisdom than to base a reproach on aMoonparagraph. You might have known it was not true."
"That is not my experience, Miss Dulcimer. I do not think a statement is necessarily false because it appears in the newspapers. There is hardly a paper in which I have not, at some time or other, come across a true piece of news. Even theMoonis not all made of green cheese."
"But you surely do not think I would accept Clorinda Bell after your warning. Not but that I am astonished. She assured me she was ice."
"Precisely. And so I marked her 'Dangerous.' Are there any more candidates to-day?"
"Heaps and heaps! From all parts of the kingdom letters have come from ladies anxious to become Old Maids. There is even one application from Paris. Ought I to entertain that?"
"Certainly. Candidates may hail from anywhere—excepting naturally the United States.
"But what, I wonder, has caused this tide of applications?"
"TheMoon, of course. The fiction that Clorinda Bell intended to take the secular veil has attracted all these imitators. She has given the Club a good advertisement in endeavoring merely to give herself one."
"You suspect her, then, of being herself responsible for the statement that she was going to join the Club?"
"No. I am sure of it. Who but herself knew that she was not?"
"I can hardly imagine that she would employ such base arts."
"Higher arts are out of employment nowadays."
"Is there any way of finding out?"
"I am afraid not. She has no bosom friends. Stay—there is her mother!"
"Mothers do not tell their daughters' secrets. They do not know them."
"Well, there's her brother. I was introduced to him the other day at Mrs. Leo Hunter's. But he seems such a reticent chap. Only opens his mouth twice an hour, and then merely to show his teeth. Oh, I know! I'll get at theMoonman. My aunt, the philanthropist, who is quite a journalist (sends so many paragraphs round about herself, you know), will tell me who invents that sort of news, and I'll interview the beggar."
"Yes, won't it be fun to run her to earth?" said Lillie gleefully.
Silverdale took advantage of her good-humor.
"I hope the discovery of the baseness of your sex will turn you again to mine." There was a pleading tenderness in his eyes.
"What! to your baseness? I thought you were so good."
"I am no good without you," he said boldly.
"Oh, that is too rich! Suppose I had never been born?"
"I should have wished I hadn't."
"But you wouldn't have knownIhadn't."
"You're getting too metaphysical for my limited understanding."
"Nonsense, you understand metaphysics as well as I do."
"Do not disparage yourself. You know I cannot endure metaphysics."
"Why not?"
"Because they are mostly made in Germany. And all Germans write as if their aim was to be misunderstood. Listen to my simple English lay."
"Another love-song to Chloe?"
"No, a really great poem, suggested by the number of papers and poems I have already seen thisMoonparagraph in."
He took down the banjo, thrummed it, and sang:
THE GRAND PARAGRAPHIC TOUR.
I composed a little storyAbout a cockatoo,With no desire of glory,To see what would ensue.It took the public likingFrom China to Peru.The point of it was striking,Though perfectly untrue.It began in a morning journalWhen gooseberries were due,The subject seemed eternal,So many scribes it drew.
I composed a little storyAbout a cockatoo,With no desire of glory,To see what would ensue.
It took the public likingFrom China to Peru.The point of it was striking,Though perfectly untrue.
It began in a morning journalWhen gooseberries were due,The subject seemed eternal,So many scribes it drew.
And in every evening columnIt made a great to-do,Sub-editors so solemnJust adding thereunto.In the London Correspondence'Twas written up anew,And then a fog came on denseAnd hid me quite from view.And some said they had heard itFrom keepers in the Zoo,While others who averred itHadseenthat cockatoo.It lived, my little fable,I chuckled and I crewAs at my very tableFriends twisted it askew.It leapt across the Channel,A bounding kangaroo.It did not shrink like flannelBut gained in size and hue.It appeared in French and SpanishWith errors not a few,In Russian, Greek and Danish,Inaccurately, too.And waxing more romanticWith every wind that blew,It crossed the broad AtlanticAnd grew and grew and grew.At last, like boomerang, itSped back across the blue,And tall and touched with twang, itAppeared whence first it flew.An annual affliction,It tours the wide world through,And I who bred the fictionHave come to think it true.
And in every evening columnIt made a great to-do,Sub-editors so solemnJust adding thereunto.
In the London Correspondence'Twas written up anew,And then a fog came on denseAnd hid me quite from view.
And some said they had heard itFrom keepers in the Zoo,While others who averred itHadseenthat cockatoo.
It lived, my little fable,I chuckled and I crewAs at my very tableFriends twisted it askew.
It leapt across the Channel,A bounding kangaroo.It did not shrink like flannelBut gained in size and hue.
It appeared in French and SpanishWith errors not a few,In Russian, Greek and Danish,Inaccurately, too.
And waxing more romanticWith every wind that blew,It crossed the broad AtlanticAnd grew and grew and grew.
At last, like boomerang, itSped back across the blue,And tall and touched with twang, itAppeared whence first it flew.
An annual affliction,It tours the wide world through,And I who bred the fictionHave come to think it true.
Life's burden it has doubled,For peace of mind it slew,My dreams by it are troubled,My days are filled with rue.Its horrors yearly thicken,It sticks to me like glue,And sad and conscience-strickenI curse that cockatoo.
Life's burden it has doubled,For peace of mind it slew,My dreams by it are troubled,My days are filled with rue.
Its horrors yearly thicken,It sticks to me like glue,And sad and conscience-strickenI curse that cockatoo.
"That is what will happen with Clorinda Bell's membership of our club," continued the poet. "She will remain a member long after it has ceased to exist. Once a thing has appeared in print, you cannot destroy it. A published lie is immortal. Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety. It thrives by contradiction. Give me a cup of tea and I will go and interview theMoon-man at once."
The millionaire, hearing tea was on the tray, came in to join them, and Silverdale soon went off to his aunt, Lady Goody-Goody Twoshoes, and got the address of the man in theMoon.
"Lillie, what's this I see in theMoonabout Clorinda Bell joining your Club?" asked the millionaire.
"An invention, father."
The millionaire looked disappointed.
"Will all your Old Maids be young?"
"Yes, papa. It is best to catch them young."
"I shall be dining at the Club sometimes," he announced irrelevantly.
"Oh, no, papa. You are not admissible during the sittings."
"Why? You let Lord Silverdale in."
"Yes, but he is not married."
"Oh!" and the millionaire went away with brighter brow.
The Millionaire.
The Millionaire.
The Millionaire.
The rest of the afternoon Lillie was busy conducting the Preliminary Examination of a surpassingly beautiful girl who answered to the name of "Princess," and would give no other name for the present, not even to Turple the magnificent.
"You got my letter, I suppose?" asked the Princess.
"Oh, yes," said the President. "I should have written to you."
"I thought it best to come and see you about it at once, as I have suddenly determined to go to Brighton, and I don't know when I may be back. I had not heard of your Club till the other day, when I saw in theMoonthat Clorinda Bell was going to join it, and anything she joins must of course be strictly proper, so I haven't troubled to ask the Honorable Miss Primpole's advice—she lives with me, you know. An only orphan cannot be too careful!"
"You need not fear," said Lillie. "Miss Bell is not to be a member. We have refused her."
"Oh, indeed! Well, perhaps it is as well not to bring the scent of the footlights over the Club. It is hard uponMiss Bell, but if you were to admit her, I suppose other actresses would want to come in. There are so many of them that prefer to remain single."
"Are you sureyoudo?"
"Positive. My experience of lovers has been so harassing and peculiar that I shall never marry, and as my best friends cannot call me a wall-flower, I venture to think you will find me a valuable ally in your noble campaign against the degrading superstition that Old Maids are women who have not found husbands, just as widows are women who have lost them."
"I sincerely hope so," said Lillie enthusiastically. "You express my views very neatly. May I ask what are the peculiar experiences you speak of?"
"Certainly. Some months ago I amused myself by recording the strange episodes of my first loves, and in anticipation of your request I have brought the manuscript."
"Oh, please read it!" said Lillie excitedly.
"Of course I have not given the real names."
"No, I quite understand. Won't you have a chocolate cream before you commence?"
"Thank you. They look lovely. How awfully sweet!"
"Too sweet for you?" inquired Lillie anxiously.
"No, no. I mean they are just nice."
The Princess untied the pretty pink ribbon that enfolded the dainty, scented manuscript, and pausing only to munch an occasional chocolate cream, she read on till the shades of evening fell over the Old Maids' Club and the soft glow of the candles illuminated its dainty complexion.
"THE PRINCESS OF PORTMAN SQUARE."
I am an only child. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and although there was no royal crest on it, yet no princess could be more comfortable in the purple than I was in the ordinary trappings of babyhood. From the cradle upwards I was surrounded with love and luxury. My pet name "Princess" fitted me like a glove. I was the autocrat of the nursery and my power scarce diminished when I rose to the drawing-room. My parents were very obedient and did not even conceal from me that I was beautiful. In short they did their best to spoil me, though I cannot admit that they succeeded. I lost them both before I was sixteen. My poor mother died first and my poor father followed within a week; whether from grief or from a cold caught through standing bareheaded in the churchyard, or from employing the same doctor, I cannot precisely determine.
After the usual period of sorrow, I began to pick up a bit and to go out under the care of my duenna, a faded flower of the aristocracy whose declining years my guardian had soothed by quartering her on me. She was a gentle old spinster, the seventh daughter of a penniless peer, and although she has seen hard times and has almost been reduced to marriage, yet she has scant respect for my ten thousand a year. She has never lost the sense of condescension in living with me, and would be horrified to hear she is in receipt of a salary. It is to this sense ofsuperiority on her part that I owe a good deal of the liberty I enjoy under her régime. She does not expect in me that rigid obedience to venerable forms and conventions which she. prescribes for herself; she regards it as a privilege of the higher gentlewoman to be bound hand and foot by fashionable etiquette, and so long as my liberty does not degenerate into license I am welcome to as much as I please of it. She has continued to call me "Princess," finding doubtless some faint reverberation of pleasure in the magnificent syllables. I should add that her name is the Honorable Miss Primpole and that she is not afraid of the butler.
Our town-house was situated in Portman Square and my parents tenanted it during the season. There is nothing very poetic about the Square, perhaps, not even in the summer, when the garden is in bloom, yet it was here that I first learnt to love. This dull parallelogram was the birthplace of a passion as spiritual and intangible as ever thrilled maiden's heart. I fell in love with a Voice.
It was a rich, baritone Voice, with a compass of two and a half octaves, rising from full bass organ-notes to sweet, flute-like tenor tones. It was a glorious Voice, now resonant with martial ecstasy, now faint with mystic rapture. Its vibrations were charged with inexpressible emotion, and it sang of love and death and high heroic themes. I heard it first a few months after my father's funeral. It was night. I had been indoors all day, torpid and miserable, but roused myself at last and took a few turns in the square. The air was warm and scented, a cloudless moon flooded the roadway with mellow light and sketched in the silhouettes of the trees in the background. I had reached the opposite side of the square for the second time when the Voice broke out. My heart stood still and I with it.
On the soft summer air the Voice rose and fell; it wasaccompanied on the piano, but it seemed in subtler harmony with the moonlight and the perfumed repose of the night. It came through an open window behind which the singer sat in the gloaming. With the first tremors of that Voice my soul forgot its weariness in a strange sweet trance that trembled on pain. The song seemed to draw out all the hidden longing of my maiden soul, as secret writing is made legible by fire. When the Voice ceased, a great blackness fell upon all things, the air grew bleak. I waited and waited but the Square remained silent. The footsteps of stray pedestrians, the occasional roll of a carriage alone fell on my anxious ear. I returned to my house, shivering as with cold. I had never loved before. I had read and reflected a great deal about love, and was absolutely ignorant of the subject. I did not know that I loved now—for that discover only came later when I found myself wandering nightly to the other side of the parallelogram, listening for the Voice. Rarely, very rarely, was my pilgrimage rewarded, but twice or thrice a week the Square became an enchanted garden, full of roses whose petals were music. Round that baritone Voice I had built up an ideal man—tall and straight-limbed and stalwart, fair-haired and blue-eyed and noble-featured, like the hero of a Northern Saga. His soul was vast as the sea, shaken with the storms of passion, dimpled with smiles of tenderness. His spirit was at once mighty and delicate, throbbing with elemental forces yet keen and swift to comprehend all subtleties of thought and feeling. I could not understand myself, yet I felt that he would understand me. He had the heart of a lion and of a little child; he was as merciful as he was strong, as pure as he was wise. To be with him were happiness, to feel his kiss ecstasy, to be gathered to his breast, delirium, But alas! he never knew that I was waiting under his window.
I made several abortive attempts to discover who he was or to see him. According to the Directory the house was occupied by Lady Westerton. I concluded that he was her elder son. That he might be her husband—or some other lady's—never even occurred to me. I do not know why I should have attached the Voice to a bachelor, any more than I can explain why he should be the eldest son, rather than the youngest. But romance has a logic of its own. From the topmost window of my house I could see Lady Westerton's house across the trees, but I never saw him leave or enter it. Once, a week went by without my hearing him sing. I did not know whether to think of him as a sick bird or as one flown to warmer climes. I tried to construct his life from his periods of song, I watched the lights in his window, my whole life circled round him. It was only when I grew pale and feverish and was forced by the doctors and my guardian to go yachting that my fancies gradually detached themselves from my blue-eyed hero. The sea-salt freshened my thoughts, I became a healthy-minded girl again, carolling joyously in my cabin and taking pleasure in listening to my own voice. I threw my novels overboard (metaphorically, that is) and set the Hon. Miss Primpole chatting instead, when the seascape palled upon me. She had a great fund of strictly respectable memories. Most people's recollections are of no use to anybody but the owner, but hers afforded entertainment for both of us. By the time I was back in London the Voice was no longer part even of my dreams, though it seemed to belong to them. But for accident it might have remained forever "a voice and nothing more." The accident happened at a musical-afternoon in Kensington. I was introduced to a tall, fair, handsome blue-eyed guardsman, Captain Athelstan by name. His conversation was charming and I took a lot of it, while Miss Primpole was busy flirtingwith a seductive Spaniard. You could not tell Miss Primpole was flirting except by looking at the man. In the course of the afternoon the hostess asked the captain to sing. As he went to the piano my heart began to flutter with a strange foreboding. He had no music with him, but plunged at once into the promontory chords. My agitation increased tenfold. He was playing the prelude to one of the Voice's songs—a strange, haunting song with a Schubert atmosphere, a song which I had looked for in vain among the classics. At once he was transfigured to my eyes, all my sleeping romantic fancies woke to delicious life, and in the instant in which I waited, with bated breath, for the outbreak of the Voice at the well-known turn of the melody, it was borne in upon me that this was the only man I had ever loved or would ever love. My Saga hero! my Berserker, my Norse giant!
Miss Primpole was flirting with a seductive Spaniard.
Miss Primpole was flirting with a seductive Spaniard.
Miss Primpole was flirting with a seductive Spaniard.
When the Voice started it was notmyVoice. It was a thin, throaty tenor. Compared with the Voice of Portman Square, it was as a tinkling rivulet to a rushing full-volumed river. I sank back on the lounge, hiding my emotions behind my fan.
When the song was finished, he made his way through the "Bravas" to my side.
"Sweetly pretty!" I murmured.
"The song or the singing?" he asked with a smile.
"The song," I answered frankly. "Is it yours?"
"No, but the singing is!"
His good-humor was so delightful that I forgave his not having my Voice.
"What is its name?"
"It is anonymous—like the composer."
"Who is he?"
"I must not tell."
"Can you give me a copy of the song?"
He became embarrassed.
"I would with pleasure, if it were mine. But the fact is—I—I—had no right to sing it at all, and the composer would be awfully vexed if he knew."
"Original composer?"
"He is, indeed. He cannot bear to think of his songs being sung in public."
"Dear me! What a terrible mystery you are making of it," I laughed.
"O r-really there is no abracadabra about it. You misunderstand me. But I deserve it all for breaking faith and exploiting his lovely song so as to drown my beastly singing."
"You need not reproach yourself," I said. "I have heard it before."
He started perceptibly. "Impossible," he gasped.
"Thank you," I said freezingly.
"But how?"
"A little bird sang it me."
"It is you who are making the mystery now."
"Tit for tat. But I will discover yours."
"Not unless you are a witch!"
"A what?"
"A witch."
"I am," I said enigmatically. "So you see it's of no use hiding anything from me. Come, tell me all, or I will belabor you with my broomstick."
"If you know, why should I tell you?"
"I want to see if you can tell the truth."
"No, I can't." We both laughed. "See what a cruel dilemma you place me in!" he said beseechingly.
"Tell me, at least, why he won't publish his songs. Is he too modest, too timid?"
"Neither. He loves art for art's sake—that is all."
"I don't understand."
"He writes to please himself. To create music is hishighest pleasure. He can't see what it has got to do with anybody else."
"But surely he wants the world to enjoy his work?"
"Why? That would be art for the world's sake, art for fame's sake, art for money's sake!"
"What an extraordinary view!"
"Why so? The true artist—the man to whom creation is rapture—surely he is his own world. Unless he is in need of money, why should he concern himself with the outside universe? My friend cannot understand why Schopenhauer should have troubled himself to chisel epigrams or Leopardi lyrics to tell people that life was not worth living. Had either been a true artist, he would have gone on living his own worthless life, unruffled by the applause of the mob. My friend can understand a poet translating into inspired song the sacred secrets of his soul, but he cannot understand his scattering them broad-cast through the country, still less taking a royalty on them. He says it is selling your soul in the market-place, and almost as degrading as going on the stage."
"And do you agree with him?"
"Not entirely, otherwise I should never have yielded to the temptation to sing his song to-night. Fortunately he will never hear of it. He never goes into society, and I am his only friend."
"Dear me!" I said sarcastically. "Is he as careful to conceal his body as his soul?"
His face grew grave. "He has an affliction," he said in low tones.
"Oh, forgive me!" I said remorsefully. Tears came into my eyes as the vision of the Norse giant gave away to that of an English hunchback. My adoring worship was transformed to an adoring matronly tenderness. Divinely-gifted sufferer, if I cannot lean on thy strength, thou shalt lean on mine! So ran my thought till the mistcleared from my eyes and I saw again the glorious Saga-hero at my side, and grew strangely confused and distraught.
"There is nothing to forgive," answered Captain Athelstan. "You did not know him."
"You forget I am a witch. But I do not know him—it is true. I do not even know his name. Yet within a week I undertake to become a friend of his."
He shook his head. "You do not know him."
"I admitted that," I answered pertly. "Give me a week, and he shall not only know me, he shall abjure those sublime principles of his at my request."
The spirit of mischief moved me to throw down the challenge. Or was it some deeper impulse?
He smiled sceptically.
"Of course if you know somebody who will introduce you," he began.
"Nobody shall introduce me," I interrupted.
"Well, he'll never speak to you first."
"You mean it would be unmaidenly for me to speak to him first. Well, I will bind myself to do nothing of which Mrs. Grundy would disapprove. And yet the result shall be as I say."
"Then I shall admit you are indeed a witch."
"You don't believe in my power, that is. Well, what will you wager?"
"If you achieve your impossibility, you will deserve anything."
"Will you back your incredulity with a pair of gloves?"
"With a hundred."
"Thank you. I am not a Briareus. Let us say one pair then."
"So be it."
"But no countermining. Promise me not to communicate with your mysterious friend in the interval."
"I promise."
"But how shall I know the result?"
I pondered. "I will write—no, that would be hardly proper. Meet me in the Royal Academy, Room Six, at the 'Portrait of a Gentleman,' about noon to-morrow week."
"A week is a long time!" he sighed.
I arched my eyebrows. "A week a long time for such a task!" I exclaimed.
Next day I called at the house of the Voice. A gorgeous creature in plush opened the door.
"I want to see—to see—gracious! I've forgotten his name," I said in patent chagrin. I clucked my tongue, puckered my lips, tapped the step with my parasol, then smiled pitifully at the creature in plush. He turned out to be only human, for a responsive sympathetic smile flickered across his pompous face. "You know—the singer," I said, as if with a sudden inspiration.
"Oh. Lord Arthur!" he said.
"Yes, of course," I cried, with a little trill of laughter. "How stupid of me! Please tell him I want to see him on an important matter."
"He—he's very busy, I'm afraid, miss."
"Oh, but he'll see me," I said confidently.
"Yes, miss; who shall I say, miss?"
"The Princess."
He made a startled obeisance, and ushered me into a little room on the right of the hall. In a few moments he returned and said—"His lordship will be down in a second, your highness."
Sixty minutes seemed to go to that second, so racked was I with curiosity. At last I heard a step outside and a hand on the door, and at that moment a horrible thought flashed into my mind. What certainty was there my singer was a hunchback? Suppose his affliction were something more loathly. What if he had a monstrouswen! For the instant after his entry I was afraid to look up. When I did, I saw a short, dark-haired young man, with proper limbs and refined features. But his face wore a blank expression, and I wondered why I had not divined before that my musician was blind!
He bowed and advanced towards me. He came straight in my direction so that I saw hecouldsee. The blank expression gave place to one of inquiry.
"I have ventured to call upon your lordship in reference to a Charity Concert," I said sweetly; "I am one of your neighbors, living just across the square, and as the good work is to be done in this district, I dared to hope that I could persuade you to take part in it."
I happened to catch sight of my face in the glass of a chiffonier as I spoke, and it was as pure and candid and beautiful as the face of one of Guido's angels. When I ceased, I looked up at Lord Arthur's. It was spasmodically agitated, the mouth was working wildly. A nervous dread seized me.
After what seemed an endless interval, he uttered an explosive "Put!" following it up by "f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-or two g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g——"
"It is very kind of you," I interrupted mercifully. "But I did not propose to ask you for a subscription. I wanted to enlist your services as a performer. But I fear I have made a mistake. I understood you sang." Inwardly I was furious with the stupid creature in plush for having misled me into such an unpleasant situation.
"I d-d-d-o s-s-s-s-s——" he answered.
As he stood there hissing, the truth flashed upon me at last. I had heard that the most dreadful stammerers enunciate as easily as anybody else when they sing, because the measured swing of the time keeps them steady. My heart sank as I thought of the Voice so mutilated! Poor young peer! Was this to be the end of all my beautiful visions?
As cheerfully as I could I cut short his sibilations. "Oh, that's all right, then," I said. "Then I may put you down for a couple of items."
He shook his head, and held up his hands deprecatingly.
"Anything but that!" he stammered; "Make me a patron, a committee-man, anything! I do not sing in public."
While he was saying this I thought long and deeply. The affliction was after all less terrible than I had a right to expect, and I knew from the advertisement columns that it was easily curable. Demosthenes, I remembered, had stoned it to death. I felt my love reviving, as I looked into his troubled face, instinct with the double aristocracy of rank and genius. At the worst the singing Voice was unaffected by the disability, and as for the conversational, well there was consolation in the prospect of having the last word while one's husband was still having the first.En attendant, I could have wished him to sing his replies instead of speaking them, for not only should I thus enjoy his Voice but the interchange of ideas would proceed less tardily. However that would have made him into an operatic personage, and I did not want him to look so ridiculous as all that.
It would be tedious to recount our interview at the length it extended to. Suffice it to say that I gained my point. Without letting out that I knew of his theories of art for art's sake, I yet artfully pleaded that whatever one's views, charity alters cases, inverts everything, justifies anything. "For instance," I said with charmingnaïveté, "I would not have dared to call on you but in its sacred name." He agreed to sing two songs—nay, two of his own songs. I was to write to him particulars of time and place. He saw me to the door. I held out my hand and he took it, and we looked at each other, smiling brightly.
"B-but I d-d-d-don't know your n-n-name," he said suddenly. "P-p-p-rincess what?"
He spoke more fluently, now he had regained his composure.
"Princess," I answered, my eyes gleaming merrily. "That is all. The Honorable Miss Primpole will give me a character, if you require one." He laughed—his laugh was like the Voice—and followed me with his eyes as I glided away.
I had won my gloves—and in a day. I thought remorsefully of the poor Saga hero destined to wait a week in suspense as to the result. But it was too late to remedy this, and the organization of the Charity Concert needed all my thoughts. I was in for it now, and I resolved to carry it through. But it was not so easy as I had lightly assumed. Getting the artists, of course, was nothing—there are always so many professionals out of work or anxious to be brought out, and so many amateurs in search of amusement. I could have filled the Albert Hall with entertainers. Nor did I anticipate any difficulty in disposing of the tickets. If you are at all popular in society you can get a good deal of unpopularity by forcing them on your friends. No, the real difficulty about this Charity Concert was the discovery of an object in aid of which to give it. In my innocence I had imagined that the world was simply bustling with unexploited opportunities for well-doing. Alas! I soon found that philanthropy was an over-crowded profession. There was not a single nook or corner of the universe but had been ransacked by these restless free-lances; not a gap, not a cranny but had been filled up. In vain I explored the map, in the hopes of lighting on some undiscovered hunting-ground in far Cathay or where the khamsin sweeps the Afric deserts. I found that the wants of the most benighted savages were carefully attended to, and that, even when they had none, they were thoughtfullysupplied with them. Anxiously I scanned the newspapers in search of a calamity, the sufferers by which I might relieve, but only one happened during that week, and that was snatched from between my very fingers by a lady who had just been through the Divorce Court. In my despair I bethought myself of the preacher I sat under. He was a very handsome man, and published his sermons by request.
I went to him and I said: "How is the church?"
"It is all right, thank you," he said.
"Doesn't it want anything done to it?"
"No, it is in perfect repair. My congregation is so very good."
I groaned aloud. "But isn't there any improvement that you would like?"
"The last of the gargoyles was put up last week. Mediæval architecture is always so picturesque. I have had the entire structure made mediæval, you know."
"But isn't the outside in need of renovation?"
"What! When I have just had it made mediæval!"
"But the interior—there must be something defective somewhere!"
"Not to my knowledge."
"But think! think!" I cried desperately. "The aisles—transept—nave—lectern—pews—chancel—pulpit—apse—porch—altar-cloths—organ—spires—is there nothing in need of anything?"
He shook his head.
"Wouldn't you like a colored window to somebody?"
"All the windows are taken up. My congregation is so very good."
"A memorial brass then?"
He mused.
"There is only one of my flock who has done anything memorable lately."
My heart gave a great leap of joy. "Then why do you neglect him?" I asked indignantly. "If we do not perpetuate the memory of virtue——"
"He's alive," he interrupted.
I bit my lips in vexation.
"I think you need a few more choristers," I murmured.
"Oh no, we are sending some away."
"The Sunday School Fund—how is that?"
"I am looking about for a good investment for the surplus. Do you know of any? A good mortgage, perhaps?"
"Is there none on the church?" I cried with a flicker of hope.
"Heaven forbid!"
I cudgelled my brains frantically.
"What do you think of a lightning-rod!"
"A premier necessity. I never preach in a building unprotected by one."
I made one last wild search.
"How about a reredos?"
He looked at me in awful, pained silence.
I saw I had stumbled. "I—I mean a new wing," I stammered.
"I am afraid you are not well this morning," said the preacher, patting my hand soothingly. "Won't you come and talk it over, whatever it is, another time?"
"No, no," I cried excitedly. "It must be settled at once. I have it. A new peal of bells!"
"What is the matter with the bells?" he asked anxiously. "There isn't a single one cracked."
I saw his dubiety, and profited by it. I learnt afterwards it was due to his having no ear of his own.
"Cracked! Perhaps not," I replied in contemptuous accents. "But they deserve to be. No wonder the newspapers keep correspondences going on the subject."
"Yes, but what correspondents object to is the bells ringing at all."
"I don't wonder," I said. "I don't say your bells are worse than the majority, or that I haven't got a specially sensitive ear for music, but I know that when I hear their harsh clanging, I—well I don't feel inclined to go to church and that's the truth. I am quite sure if you had a really musical set of chimes, it would increase the spirituality of the neighborhood."
"How so?" he asked sceptically.
"It would keep down swearing on Sunday."
"Oh!" He pondered a moment, then said: "But that would be a great expense."
"Indeed? I thought bells were cheap."
"Certainly. Area bells, hand-bells, sleigh-bells. But Church-bells are very costly. There are only a few foundries in the kingdom. But why are you so concerned about my church?"
"Because I am giving a Charity Concert, and I should like to devote the proceeds to something."
"A very exemplary desire. But I fear one bell is the most you could get out of a Charity Concert."
I looked disappointed. "What a pity! It would have been such a nice precedent to improve the tone of the Church. The 'constant readers' would have had to cease their letters."
"No, no, impossible. A 'constant reader' seems to be so called because he is a constant writer."
"But there might have been leaders about it."
"Hardly sensational enough for that! Stay I have an idea. In the beautiful Ages of Faith, when a Church-bell was being cast, the pious used to bring silver vessels to be fused with the bell-metal in the furnace, so as to give the bell a finer tone. A mediæval practice is alwaysso poetical. Perhaps I could revive it. My congregation is so very good."
"Good!" I echoed, clapping my hands. "But a Concert will not suffice—we shall need a Bazaar," said the preacher.
"Oh, but I must have a Concert!"
"Certainly Bazaars include Concerts."