Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance was enough to satisfyhimthat there had been no fear of their not looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart and distinct from all the faces in the room—or in the world, for that matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs. Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed the case—people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace of unfashionable connections) not to own to them more than she could help.
He withdrew from their neighbourhood before they saw him, and went to seek his hostess, swelling with remonstrant wrath. He found her on a sofa at the other end of the room, talking volubly (she was always voluble, but now she was breathless in her volubility) to a lady who had never before honoured her Fridays, and who, by doing so to-night, had gratified an ambition that had long been paramount amongst the many ambitions which, enclosed in a narrow circle as they were, served to make the interest and occupation of Mrs. Aarons's life. She looked up at Paul as he approached her, and gave him a quick nod and smile, as if to say, "I see you, but you must be perfectly aware that I am unable to attend to you just now." Paul understood her, and, not having the honour of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance himself, fell back a little behind the sofa and waited for his opportunity. As he waited, he could not help overhearing the conversation of the two ladies, and deriving a little cynical amusement therefrom.
"And, as soon as I heard of it, Ibeggedmy husband to go and see if it wasreallya genuine example of Derby-Chelsea; and, you see, itwas," said Mrs. Aarons, with subdued enthusiasm—almost with tears of emotion.
"It was, indeed," assented Mrs. Duff-Scott earnestly. "There was the true mark—the capital D, with the anchor in the middle of it. It is extremely rare, and I had no hope of ever possessing a specimen."
"Iknewyou would like to have it. I said to Ben. 'Dogo and snatch it up at once for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.' And he was so pleased to find he was in time. We were so afraid someone might have been before us. But the fact is, people are so ignorant that they have no idea of the value of things of that sort—fortunately."
"I don't call it fortunate at all," the other lady retorted, a little brusquely. "I don't like to see people ignorant—I am quite ready to share and share." Then she added, with a smile, "I am sure I can never be sufficiently obliged to Mr. Aarons for taking so much trouble on my account. I must get him into a corner presently, and find out how much I am in his debt—though, of course, no money can represent the true worth of such a treasure, and I shall always feel that I have robbed him."
"Oh, pray, pray don't talk ofpayment," the hostess implored, with a gesture of her heavily-ringed hands. "You will hurt himdreadfullyif you think of such a thing. He feels himself richly paid, I assure you, by having a chance to do you a little service. And such a meretrifleas it is!"
"No, indeed, it is not a trifle, Mrs. Aarons—very far from it. The thing is much too valuable for me to—to"—Mrs. Duff-Scott hesitated, and her face was rather red—"to deprive you of it in that way. I don't feel that I can take it as a present—a bit ofrealDerby-Chelsea that you might never find a specimen of again—really I don't."
"Oh,please"—and Mrs. Aarons's voice was at once reproachful and persuasive—"please!I know you wouldn't wish to hurt us."
A little more discussion ensued, which Paul watched with an amused smile; and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave in.
"Well, if you insist—but you are really too good. It makes me quite uncomfortable to take such a treasure from you. However, perhaps, some day I may be able to contribute toyourcollection."
Like her famous model, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins, Mrs. Aarons stalked her big game with all kinds of stratagems, and china was the lure with which she had caught Mrs. Duff-Scott. This was a lady who possessed not only that most essential and valuable qualification of a lady, riches, but had also a history that was an open page to all men. It had not much heraldic emblazonment about it, but it showed a fair and honourable record of domestic and public circumstances that no self-respecting woman could fail to take social credit for. By virtue of these advantages, and of a somewhat imperious, though generous and unselfish, nature, she certainly did exercise that right to be "proud" which, in such a case, the most democratic of communities will cheerfully concede. She had been quite inaccessible to Mrs. Aarons, whom she was wont to designate a "person," long after that accomplished woman had carried the out-works of the social citadel in which she dwelt, and no doubt she would have been inaccessible to the last. Only she had a weakness—she had a hobby (to change the metaphor a little) that ran away with her, as hobbies will, even in the case of the most circumspect of women; and that hobby, exposed to the seductions of a kindred hobby, broke down and trampled upon the barriers of caste. It was the Derby-Chelsea specimen that had brought Mrs. Duff-Scott to occupy a sofa in Mrs. Aarons's drawing-room—to their mutual surprise, when they happened to think of it.
She rose from that sofa now, slightly perturbed, saying she must go and find Mr. Aarons and acknowledge the obligation under which he had placed her, while all the time she was cudgelling her brains to think by what means and how soon she could discharge it—regretting very keenly for the moment that she had put herself in the way of people who did not understand the fine manners which would have made such a dilemma impossible. Her hostess jumped up immediately, and the two ladies passed slowly down the room in the direction of the corner where our neglected girls were sitting. Paul followed at a respectful distance, and was gratified to see Mrs. Duff-Scott stop at the piano, in place of hunting for her host (who was never a conspicuous feature of these entertainments), and shake hands cordially with a tall German in spectacles who had just risen from the music-stool. He had come to Mrs. Aarons's Friday in a professional capacity, but he was a sufficiently great artist for a great lady to make an equal of him.
"Ah, my dear Herr Wüllner," she said, in a very distinct voice, "I was listening, and I thought I could not be mistaken in your touch. Heller'sWanderstunden, wasn't it?" And they plunged head first into musical talk such as musical people (who never care in the least how much unmusical people may be bored by it) love to indulge in whenever an occasion offers, while Mrs. Aarons stood by, smiling vaguely, and not understanding a word of it. Paul Brion listened to them for a few minutes, and a bright idea came into his head.
Our girls still sat in their corner, but a change had come over them within the last few minutes. A stout man sitting near them was talking to Elizabeth across Eleanor's lap—Eleanor lying back in her seat, and smiling amiably as she listened to them; and Miss King was looking animated and interested, and showed some signs of enjoying herself at last. Patty also had lost her air of angry dignity, and was leaning a little forward, with her hands clasped on her knees, gazing at Herr Wüllner's venerable face with rapt enthusiasm. Paul, regarding her for a moment, felt himself possessed of sufficient courage to declare his presence, and, waiting until he could catch her eye, bowed pleasantly. She looked across at him with no recognition at first, then gave a little start, bent her head stiffly, and resumed her attentive perusal of Herr Wüllner's person. "Ah," thought Paul, "the old fellow has woke her up. And she wants him to play again." Mrs. Duff-Scott had dropped into a chair by the piano, and sat there contentedly, talking to the delighted musician, who had been as a fish out of water since he came into the room, and was now swimming at large in his native element again. She was a distinguished looking matron of fifty or thereabouts, with a handsome, vivacious, intelligent face and an imposing presence generally; and she had an active and well-cultivated mind which concerned itself with many other things than china. Having no necessity to work, no children on whom to expend her exuberant energies, and being incapable of finding the ordinary woman's satisfaction in the ordinary routine of society pleasures, she made ardent pursuits for herself in several special directions. Music was one. Herr Wüllner thought she was the most enlightened being in female shape that he had ever known, because she "understood" music—what was really music and what was not (according to his well-trained theories). She had, in the first place, the wonderful good sense to know that she could not play herself, and she held the opinion that people in general had no business to set themselves up to play, but only those who had been "called" by Divine permission and then properly instructed in the science of their art. "We won't look at bad pictures, nor read trashy books," she would say. "Why should our artistic sense be depraved and demoralised through our ears any more than through our eyes? Mothers should know better, my dear Herr Wüllner, and keep the incapables in the background. All girls should learn, if theylikelearning—in which case it does them good, and delights the domestic circle; but if at sixteen they can't play—whatwecall play—after having had every chance given them, they should leave off, so as to use the time better, or confine their performances to a family audience." And Mrs. Duff-Scott had the courage of her convictions, and crushed unrelentingly those presumptuous amateurs (together with their infatuated mammas) who thought they could play when they couldn't, and who regarded music as a mere frivolous drawing-room amusement for the encouragement of company conversation. Herr Wüllner delighted in her. The two sat talking by the piano, temporarily indifferent to what was going on around them, turning over a roll of music sheets that had had a great deal of wear and tear, apparently. Mrs. Aarons sat beside them, fanning herself and smiling, casting about her for more entertaining converse. And Paul Brion stood near his hostess, listening and watching for his opportunity. Presently it came.
Mrs. Duff-Scott lifted up a sheet of crabbed manuscript as yellowed by time as Patty's Brussels lace, and said: "This is not quite the thing for a mixed audience, is it?"
"Ah, no, you are right; it is the study of Haydn that a friend of mine asked of me yesterday, and that I propose to read to him to-night," said Herr Wüllner, in that precise English and with that delicate pronunciation with which the cultivated foreigner so often puts us to shame. "It is, you perceive, an arrangement for one violin and a piano only—done by a very distinguished person for a lady who was for a short time my pupil, when I was a young man. You have heard it with the four-stringed instruments at your house; that was bad—bad! Ach! that second violin squeaked like the squeaking of a pig, and it was always in the wrong place. But in good hands it is sublime. This"—and he sighed as he added more sheets to the one she held and was steadily perusing—"this is but a crippled thing, perhaps; the piano, which should have none of it, has it all—and no one can properly translate that piano part—not one in ten thousand. But it is well done. Yes, it is very well done. And I have long been wanting my friend to try it with me."
"And what about the young lady for whom it was written?—which part did she take?"
"The piano—the piano. But then she had a wonderful execution and sympathy—it was truly wonderful for a lady, and she so young. Women play much better now, as a rule, but I never hear one who is an amateur play as she did. And so quick—so quick! It was an inspiration with her. Yes, this was written on purpose for that lady—I have had it ever since—it has never been published. The manuscript is in her own hand. She wrote out much of her music in her own hand. It was many, many years ago, and I was a young man then. We were fellow-pupils before I became her master, and she was my pupil only for a few weeks. It was a farce—a farce. She did not play the violin, but in everything else she was better than I. Ah, she was a great genius, that young lady. She was a great loss to the world of art."
"Did she die, Herr Wüllner?"
"She eloped," he said softly, "she ran away with a scapegrace. And the ship she sailed in was lost at sea."
"Dear me! How very sad. Well, you must make your friend try it over, and, if you manage it all right, bring him with you to my house on Monday evening and let me hear it."
"That shall give me great pleasure," said the old man, bowing low.
"You have your violin with you, I suppose?" she asked.
"It is in the hall, under my cloak. I do not bring it into this room," he replied.
"Why not?" she persisted. "Go and fetch it, Herr Wüllner, and let Mrs. Aarons hear you play it"—suddenly bethinking herself of her hostess and smiling upon that lady—"if she has never had that treat before."
Mrs. Aarons was eager to hear the violin, and Herr Wüllner went himself, though reluctantly, to fetch his treasure from the old case that he had hidden away below. When he had tuned up his strings a little, and had tucked the instrument lovingly under his chin, he looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott and said softly, "What?"
"Oh," cried Mrs. Aarons, striking in, "play that—you know—what you were talking of just now—what Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted so much to hear.Iwant to hear it too."
"Impossible—impossible," he said quickly, almost with a shudder. "It has a piano part, and there is no one here to take that."
Then Paul Brion broke in, conscious that he was running heavy risks of all sorts, but resolved to seize his chance.
"I think thereissomeone who could play it," he said to Mrs. Aarons, speaking with elaborate distinctness. "The Miss Kings—one of them, at any rate—"
"Nonsense," interrupted Mrs. Aarons, sharply, but under her breath. "Not at all likely." She was annoyed by the suggestion, and wished to treat it as if unheard (it was unreasonable, on the face of it, of course); but Mrs. Duff-Scott caught at it in her direct way. "Who are they? Which are the Miss Kings?" she asked of Paul, putting up her eye-glass to see what manner of man had taken upon himself to interfere.
"My dear lady," sighed Herr Wüllner, dropping his bow dejectedly, "it is out of the question, absolutely. It is not normal music at its best—and I have it only in manuscript. It is impossible that any lady can attempt it."
"She will not attempt it if she cannot do it, Herr Wüllner," said Paul. "But you might ask her."
Mrs. Duff-Scott had followed the direction of his eyes, and her attention was violently arrested by the figures of the three girls sitting together, who were so remarkably unlike the majority of Mrs. Aarons's guests. She took note of all their superficial peculiarities in a moment, and the conviction that the lace and the pearls were real flashed across her like an inspiration. "Is it the young lady with the bright eyes?" she inquired. "What a charming face! Yes, Herr Wüllner, wewillask her. Introduce her to me, Mrs. Aarons, will you?"
She rose as she spoke and sailed towards Patty, Mrs. Aarons following; and Paul Brion held his breath while he waited to see how his reckless enterprise would turn out. In a few minutes Patty came towards the piano, with her head up and her face flushed, looking a little defiant, but as self-possessed as the great lady who convoyed her across the room. The events of the evening had roused her spirit, and strung up her nerves like Herr Wüllner's fiddle-strings, and she, too, was in a daring and audacious mood.
"This is it," said the old musician, looking at her critically as he gave a sheet of manuscript into her hand. It was a wonderful chance, of course, but Patty had seen the facsimile of that manuscript many times before, and had played from it. It is true she had never played with the violin accompaniment—had never so much as seen a violin until she came to Melbourne; but her mother had contrived to make her understand how the more delicate and sensitive instrument ought to be deferred to in the execution of the piano part, and what the whole should sound like, by singing the missing air in her flexible trilling voice; and just now she was in that peculiar mood of exaltation that she felt inspired to dare anything and assured that she should succeed. "You will not be able to read it?" Herr Wüllner suggested persuasively, drawing hope from her momentary silence.
"Oh, yes," she said, looking up bravely: "I think so. You will stop me, please, if I do not play it right." And she seated herself at the piano with a quiet air of knowing what she was doing that confounded the two ladies who were watching her and deeply interested Mrs. Duff-Scott. Paul Brion's heart was beating high with anticipated triumph. Herr Wüllner's heart, on the contrary, sank with a mild despair.
"Well, we will have a few bars," he sighed. "And pray, my dear young lady, don't bang the piano—I mean don't play over me. And try to keep time. But you will never do it—with the best intentions, my dear, you will never be able to read it from such a manuscript as that."
Patty looked up at him with a sort of radiant calmness, and said gently, "Go on. You see you have an opening movement to yourself."
Bewildered, the old man dropped his bow upon the strings, and set forth on his hopeless task. And at exactly the right moment the piano glided in, so lightly, so tenderly, and yet with such admirable precision and delicate clearness, that it justified, for once, its trespass upon ground that belonged to more aerial instruments. It was just what Paul Brion had counted on—though Paul Brion had not the least idea what a wild chance had brought about the fulfilment of his expectations. Patty was able to display her chief accomplishment to the very best advantage, and the sisters were thereby promoted to honour. The cold shade of neglect and obscurity was to chill them no more from this happy moment. It was a much greater triumph than Patty herself had any idea of, or than anybody had had the least reason to expect.Sheknew that piles of music, all in this self-same handwriting (she had never seen any other and supposed that all manuscript music was alike), were stowed away in the old bureau at home, and in the ottoman which she had constructed out of a packing-case, and that long familiarity had made it as easy to her to read as print; but Herr Wüllner was not in a position to make the faintest guess at such a circumstance. When Elizabeth moved her seat nearer to the piano, as if to support her sister, though he was close enough to see it, he did not recognise in the miniature round her neck the face of that young lady of genius who eloped with a scapegrace, and was supposed to have been drowned at sea with her husband. And yet it was that lady's face. Such wonderful coincidences are continually happening in our small world. It was not more wonderful than that Herr Wüllner, Mrs. Duff-Scott, Paul Brion, and Patty King should have been gathered together round one piano, and that piano Mrs. Aarons's.
The guests were laughing and talking and flirting, as they were wont to do under cover of the music that generally prevailed at these Friday receptions, when an angry "Hush!" from the violinist, repeated by Mrs. Duff-Scott, made a little circle of silence round the performers. And in this silence Patty carried through her responsible undertaking with perfect accuracy and the finest taste—save for a shadowy mistake or two, which, glancing over them as if they were mere phantoms of mistakes, and recovering herself instantly, only served to show more clearly the finished quality of her execution, and the thoroughness of her musical experience. She was conscious herself of being in her very best form.
"Ah!" said Herr Wüllner, drawing a long breath as he uttered the exclamation, and softly laying down his violin, "I was mistaken. My dear young lady, allow me to beg your pardon, and to thank you." And he bowed before Patty until his nose nearly touched his knees.
Mrs. Duff-Scott, who was a woman of impulses, as most nice women are, was enthusiastic. Not only had she listened to Patty's performance with all her intelligent ears, but she had at the same time investigated and appraised the various details of her personal appearance, and been particularly interested in that bit of lace about her neck.
"My dear," she said, putting out her hand as the girl rose from the music-stool, "come here and sit by me and tell me where you learned to play like that."
Patty went over to her readily, won by the kind voice and motherly gesture. And, in a very few minutes, Paul had the pleasure of seeing the great lady sitting on a sofa with all three sisters around her, talking to them, and they to her, as if they had known one another for years.
Leaving them thus safe and cared for, he bade good-night to his hostess, and went home to his work, in a mood of high contentment.
When Paul Brion bade Mrs. Aarons good-night, he perceived that she was a little cold to him, and rather wondered at himself that he did not feel inclined either to resent or to grieve over that unprecedented circumstance.
"I am going to steal away," he said in an airy whisper, coming across her in the middle of the room as he made his way to the door. "I have a good couple of hours' work to get through to-night."
He was accustomed to speak to her in this familiar and confidential fashion, though she was but a recent acquaintance, and she had always responded in a highly gratifying way. But now she looked at him listlessly, with no change of face, and merely said, "Indeed."
"Yes," he repeated; "I have a lot to do before I can go to bed. It is delightful to be here; but I must not indulge myself any longer. Good-night."
"Good-night," she said, still unsmiling, as she gave him her hand. "I am sorry you must go so soon." But she did not look as if she were sorry; she looked as if she didn't care a straw whether he went or stayed. However, he pressed her hand with the wonted friendly pressure, and slipped out of the room, unabashed by her assumed indifference and real change of manner, which he was at no great trouble to interpret; and he took a cab to his office—now a humming hive of busy bees improving the shining hours of the gaslit night—and walked back from the city through the shadowy gardens to his lodgings, singing a tuneless air to himself, which, if devoid of music, was a pleasant expression of his frame of mind.
When he reached Myrtle Street the town clocks were striking twelve. He looked up at his neighbours' windows as he passed the gate of No. 6, and saw no light, and supposed they had returned from their revels and gone peaceably to bed. He opened his own door softly, as if afraid of waking them, and went upstairs to his sitting-room, where Mrs. M'Intyre, who loved to make him comfortable, had left him a bit of supper, and a speck of gas about the size of a pea in the burner at the head of his arm-chair; and he pulled off his dress coat, and kicked away his boots, and got his slippers and his dressing-gown, and his tobacco and his pipe, and took measures generally for making himself at home. But before he had quite settled himself the idea occurred to him that his neighbours mightnothave returned from Mrs. Aarons's, but might, indeed (for he knew their frugal and unconventional habits), be even then out in the streets, alone and unprotected, walking home by night as they walked home by day, unconscious of the perils and dangers that beset them. He had not presumed to offer his escort—he had not even spoken to them during the evening, lest he should seem to take those liberties that Miss Patty resented so much; but now he angrily reproached himself for not having stayed at Mrs. Aarons's until their departure, so that he could, at least, have followed and watched over them. He put down his pipe hastily, and, opening the window, stepped out on the balcony. It was a dark night, and a cold wind was blowing, and the quarter-hour after midnight was chiming from the tower of the Post Office. He was about to go in for his boots and his overcoat, when he was relieved to hear a cab approaching at a smart pace, and to see it draw up at the gate of No. 6. Standing still in the shadow of the partition that divided his enclosure from theirs, he watched the girls descend upon the footpath, one by one, fitfully illuminated from the interior of the vehicle. First Eleanor, then Elizabeth, then Patty—who entered the gate and tapped softly at her street door. He expected to see the driver dismissed, with probably double the fare to which he was entitled; but to his surprise, the cab lingered, and Elizabeth stood at the step and began to talk to someone inside. "Thank you so much for your kindness," she said, in her gentle but clear tones, which were perfectly audible on the balcony. A voice from the cab answered, "Don't mention it, my dear. I am very glad to see as much of you as possible, for I want to know you. May I come and have a little gossip to-morrow afternoon?" It was the voice of Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, after keeping them late at Mrs. Aarons's, talking to them, had frustrated their intention of making their own way home. That powerful woman had "taken them up," literally and figuratively, and she was not one to drop them again—as fine ladies commonly drop interesting impecuniousprotégéeswhen the novelty of their acquaintance has worn off—save for causes in their own conduct and circumstances that were never likely to arise. Paul Brion, thoroughly realising that his little schemes had been crowned with the most gratifying success, stole back to his rooms, shut the window softly, and sat down to his pipe and his manuscripts. And he wrote such a maliciously bitter article that, when he took it to the office, his editor refused to print it without modifications, on the ground that it would land the paper in an action for libel.
Meanwhile our girls parted from their new friend with affectionate good-nights, and were let into their house by the landlady, who had herself been entertaining company to a late hour. They went upstairs with light feet, too excited to feel tired, and all assembled in Elizabeth's meagrely-appointed bedchamber to take off their finery and to have a little happy gossip before they went to rest. Elizabeth herself, who was not a gushing person, had the most to say at first, pouring out her ingenuous heart in grateful reminiscences of the unparalleled kindness of Mrs. Duff-Scott. "What a dear, dear woman!" she murmured, with soft rapture, as she unwound the watch-chain and locket from her neck and disembarrassed herself of her voluminous fichu. "You canseethat what she does and says is real and truthful—I am certain you can trust her. I do not trust Mrs. Aarons—I do not understand her ways. She wanted us to go and see her, and when we went she was unkind to us; at least, she was not polite. I was very sorry we had gone to her house—until Mrs. Duff-Scott came to our sofa to speak to us. But now I feel so glad! For it has given usher. And she is just the kind of friend I have so often pictured to myself—so often longed to know."
"I think it was Patty's playing that gave us Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Eleanor, who was sitting by the dressing table with her frock unbuttoned. "She is fond of music, and really there was no one who could play at all except Herr Wüllner—which was a very strange thing, don't you think? And the singing was worse—such sickly, silly sort of songs, with such eccentric accompaniments. I could not understand it, unless the fashion has changed since mother was a girl. I suppose it has. But when Patty and Herr Wüllner got together it was like another atmosphere in the room. How did you come to play so well, Patty?—to be so collected and quiet when there was so much to frighten you? I was so nervous that my hands shook, and I had to squeeze them to keep myself still."
"I was nervous, too, at first," said Patty, who, divested of her dress and laces, was lying all along on Elizabeth's bed, with her pretty bare arms flung up over the pillows, and her hands clasped one over the other at the back of her head. "When we got there, that impudent maid in the room where we took our things off upset me; she looked at our old hats and water-proofs as if she had never seen such things before—and theydidseem very shabby amongst all the pretty cloaks and hoods that the other ladies were taking off. And then it was so ignominious to have to find our way to the drawing-room by following other people, and to have our names bawled out as if to call everybody's attention to us, and then not tohaveattentions. When we trailed about the room, so lost and lonely, with all those fine people watching us and staring at us, my knees were shaking under me, and I felt hot and cold—I don't know how I felt. The only comfort I had was seeing how calm Elizabeth was. She seemed to stand up for us all, and to carry us through it.Ifelt—I hate to think I could be such an idiot—so nervous and so unhinged, and so miserable altogether, that I should have liked to go away somewhere and have a good cry. But," added Patty, suddenly sitting up in the bed, and removing her hands from the back of her head to her knees, "but after a little while it gottoohorrid. And then I got angry, and that made me feel much better. And by-and-bye, when they began to play and sing, and I saw how ridiculous they made themselves, I brightened up, and was not nervous any more—for I saw that they were rather ignorant people, in spite of their airs and their fine clothes. When the girl in that beautiful creamy satin dress sang her whining little song about parting and dying half a note flat, while she dashed her hands up and down the keyboard, and they all hung round her when she had done and said how charming it was, I felt thatreally—" Patty paused, and stared into the obscurity of the room with brilliant, humorous, disdainful eyes, which expressed her sentiments with a distinctness that made further words unnecessary.
"But, you see, if people don'tknowthat you are superior to them—" suggested Eleanor, folding up Elizabeth's best gloves, and wrapping them in tissue paper, with a reflective air.
"Who would care about their knowing?" interposed Elizabeth. "We should not be very much superior to anyone if we could indulge in a poor ambition to seem so. That is not one of Patty's feelings, I think."
"But it is, then," Patty confessed, with honest promptness. "I found it out to-night, Elizabeth. When I saw those conceited people sweeping about in their splendid trains and looking as if all Melbourne belonged to them—when I heard that girl singing that preposterous twaddle, and herself and all her friends thinking she was a perfect genius—I felt that I would give anything,anything, just to rise up and be very grand and magnificent for a little while and crush them all into vulgarity and insignificance."
"Patty!" murmured Elizabeth.
"Yes, my dear, it shocks you, I know. But you wouldn't have me disguise the truth from you, would you? I wanted to pay them out. I saw they were turning up their noses at us, and I longed—Iraged—to be in a position to turn up my nose at them, if only for five minutes. I thought to myself, oh, if the door should suddenly open and that big footman shout out, 'His Grace the Duke of So and So;' and they should all be ready to drop on their knees before such a grand person—as you know they would be, Elizabeth; they wouldgrovel, simply—and he should look with a sort of gracious, ducal haughtiness over their heads and say to Mrs. Aarons, 'I am told that I shall find here the daughters of my brother, who disappeared from home when he was young, along with his wife, the Princess So and So.' You know, Elizabeth, our father, who never would talk about his family to anybody,mighthave been a duke or an earl in disguise, for anything we know, and our mother was the very image of what a princessoughtto be—"
"We should have been found out before this, if we had been such illustrious persons," said Elizabeth, calmly.
"Yes, of course—of course. But one needn't be so practical. You are free to think what you like, however improbable it may be. And that is what I thought of. Then I thought, suppose a telegram should be brought in, saying that some enormously wealthy squatter, with several millions of money and no children, had left us all his fortune—"
"I should think that kind of news would come by post," suggested Eleanor.
"It might and it mightn't, Nelly. The old squatter might have been that queer old man who comes to the Library sometimes, and seems to take such interest in seeing us reading so hard. He might have thought that girls who were so studious would have serious views of life and the value of money. Or he might have overheard us castle-building about Europe, and determined to help us to realise our dreams. Or he might have fallen in love with Elizabeth—at a distance, you know, and in a humble, old-fashioned, hopeless way."
"But that doesn't account for the telegram, Patty."
"And have felt himself dying, perhaps," continued Patty, quite solemnly, with her bright eyes fixed on her invisible drama, "and have thought he would like to see us—to speak to Elizabeth—to give some directions and last wishes to us—before he went. No," she added, checking herself with a laugh and shaking herself up, "I don't think it was that. I think the lawyer came himself to tell us. The lawyer had opened the will, and he was a friend of Mrs. Aarons's, and he came to tell her of the wonderful thing that had happened. 'Everyone has been wondering whom he would leave his money to,' he says to her, 'but no one ever expected this. He has left it to three poor girls whom no one has ever heard of, and whom he never spoke to in his life. I am now going to find them out, for they are living somewhere in Melbourne. Their name is King, and they are sisters, without father or mother, or friends or fortune—mere nobodies, in fact. But now they will be the richest women in Australia.' And Mrs. Aarons suddenly remembers us, away there in the corner of the room, and it flashes across her thatweare the great heiresses. And she tells the other ladies, and they all flock round us, and—and—"
"And you find yourself in the position to turn up your nose at them," laughed Eleanor. "No one would have guessed your thoughts, Patty, seeing you sitting on that sofa, looking so severe and dignified."
"But I had other thoughts," said Patty, quickly. "These were just passing ideas, of course. What reallydidtake hold of me was an intense desire to be asked to play, so that I might show them how much better we could play than they could. Especially after I heard Herr Wüllner. I knew he, at least, would appreciate the difference—and I thought Mrs. Duff-Scott looked like a person who would, also. And perhaps—perhaps—Paul Brion."
"Oh, Patty!" exclaimed Elizabeth, smiling, but reproachful. "Did you really want to go to the piano for the sake of showing off your skill—to mortify those poor women who had not been taught as well as you had?"
"Yes," said Patty, hardily. "I really did. When Mrs. Duff-Scott came and asked me to join Herr Wüllner in that duet, I felt that, failing the duke and the lawyer, it was just the opportunity that I had been looking and longing for. And it was because I felt that I was going to do so much better than they could that I was in such good spirits, and got on—as I flatter myself I did—so splendidly."
"Well, I don't believe you," said Elizabeth. "You could never have rendered that beautiful music as you did simply from pure vindictiveness. It is not in you."
"No," said Patty, throwing herself back on the bed and flinging up her arms again, "no—when I come to think of it—I was not vindictive all the time. At first I wassavage—O yes, there is no doubt about it. Then Herr Wüllner's fears and frights were so charming that I got amused a little; I felt jocose and mischievous. Then I felt Mrs. Duff-Scott looking at me—studyingme—and that made me serious again, and also quieted me down and steadied me. Then I was a little afraid that Imightblunder over the music—it was a long time since I had played that thing, and the manuscript was pale and smudged—and so I had to brace myself up and forget about the outside people. And as soon as Herr Wüllner reached me, and I began safely and found that we were making it, oh, so sweet! between us—then I lost sight of lots of things. I mean I began to see and think of lots of other things. I remembered playing it with mother—it was like the echo of her voice, that violin!—and the sun shining through a bit of the red curtain into our sitting-room at home, and flickering on the wall over the piano, where it used to stand; and the sound of the sea under the cliffs—whish-sh-sh-sh—in the still afternoon—" Patty broke off abruptly, with a little laugh that was half a sob, and flung herself from the bed with vehemence. "But it won't do to go on chattering like this—we shall have daylight here directly," she said, gathering up her frock and shoes.
Mrs. Duff-Scott came for her gossip on Saturday afternoon, and it was a long one, and deeply interesting to all concerned. The girls took her to their trustful hearts, and told her their past history and present circumstances in such a way that she understood them even better than they did themselves. They introduced her to their entire suite of rooms, including the infinitesimal kitchen and its gas stove; they unlocked the drawers and cupboards of the old bureau to show her their own and their mother's sketches, and the family miniatures, and even the jewels they had worn the night before, about which she was frankly curious, and which she examined with the same discriminating intelligence that she brought to bear upon old china. They chattered to her, they played to her, they set the kettle on the gas-stove and made tea for her, with a familiar and yet modest friendliness that was a pleasant contrast to the attitude in which feminine attentions were too often offered to her. In return, she put off that armour of self-defence in which she usually performed her social duties, fearing no danger to pride or principle from an unreserved intercourse with such unsophisticated and yet singularly well-bred young women; and she revelled in unguarded and unlimited gossip as freely as if they had been her own sisters or her grown-up children. She gave them a great deal of very plain, but very wholesome, advice as to the necessity that lay upon them to walk circumspectly in the new life they had entered upon; and they accepted it in a spirit of meek gratitude that would have astonished Paul Brion beyond measure. All sorts of delicate difficulties were touched upon in connection with the non-existent chaperon and the omnipotent and omnipresent Mrs. Grundy, and not only touched upon, but frankly discussed, between the kindly woman of the world who wished to serve them and the proud but modest girls who were but too anxious to learn of one who they felt was authorised to teach them. In short, they sat together for more than two hours, and learned in that one interview to know and trust each other better than some of us will do after living for two years under the same roof. When at last the lady called her coachman, who had been mooning up and down Myrtle Street, half asleep upon his box, to the gate of No. 6, she had made a compact with herself to "look after" the three sweet and pretty sisters who had so oddly fallen in her way with systematic vigilance; and they were unconsciously of one mind, that to be looked after by Mrs. Duff-Scott was the most delightful experience, by far, that Melbourne had yet given them.
On the following Monday they went to her house, and spent a ravishing evening in a beautiful, cosy, stately, deeply-coloured, softly-lighted room, that was full of wonderful and historical bric-à-brac such as they had never seen before, listening to Herr Wüllner and three brother artists playing violins and a violoncello in a way that brought tears to their eyes and unspeakable emotions into their responsive hearts. Never had they had such a time as this. There was no Mr. Duff-Scott—he was away from home just now, looking after property in Queensland; and no Mrs. Aarons—she was not privileged to join any but large and comprehensive parties in this select "set." There were no conceited women to stare at and to snub them, and no girls to sing sickly ballads, half a note flat. Only two or three unpretentious music-loving ladies, who smiled on them and were kind to them, and two or three quiet men who paid them charmingly delicate attentions; nothing that was unpleasant or unharmonious—nothing to jar with the exquisite music of a well-trained quartette, which was like a new revelation to them of the possibilities of art and life. They went home that night in a cab, escorted by one of the quiet men, whose provincial rank was such that the landlady curtsied like an English rustic, when she opened the door to him, and paid her young lodgers marked attentions for days afterwards in honour of their acquaintance with such a distinguished individual. And Paul Brion, who was carefully informed by Mrs. M'Intyre of their rise and progress in the world that was not his world, said how glad he was that they had been recognised and appreciated for what they were, and went on writing smart literary and political and social criticisms for his paper, that were continually proving too smart for prudent journalism.
Then Mrs. Duff-Scott left Melbourne for a visit to some relations in Brisbane, and to join her husband on his homeward journey, and the girls fell back into their old quiet life for a while. It was an exceedingly simple and homely life. They rose early every morning—not much after the hour at which their neighbour on the other side of the wall was accustomed to go to bed—and aired, and swept, and scrubbed their little rooms, and made their beds, and polished their furniture, and generally set their dwelling in an exquisite order that is not at all universal with housewives in these days, but must always be the instinct of really well-bred women. They breakfasted frugally after the most of this was done, and took a corresponding meal in the evening, the staple of both being bread and butter; and at mid-day they saved "messing" and the smell of cooking about their rooms, and saved also the precious hours of the morning for their studies, by dining at a restaurant in the city, where they enjoyed a comfortable and abundant repast for a shilling apiece. Every day at about ten o'clock they walked through the leafy Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and the bright and busy streets that never lost their charm of novelty, to the Public Library, where with pencils and note-books on the table before them, they read and studied upon a systematic principle until the clock struck one; at which hour they closed their books and set off with never-failing appetites in search of dinner. After dinner, if it was Thursday, they stayed in town for the organ recital at the Town Hall; but on other days they generally sauntered quietly home, with a new novel from Mullen's (they were very fond of novels), and made up their fire, and had a cup of tea, and sat down to rest and chat over their needlework, while one read aloud or practised her music, until the time came to lay the cloth for the unfashionable tea-supper at night-fall. And these countrified young people invariably began to yawn at eight o'clock, and might have been found in bed and asleep, five nights out of six, at half-past nine.
So the days wore on, one very much like another, and all very gentle and peaceful, though not without the small annoyances that beset the most flowery paths of this mortal life, until October came—until the gardens through which they passed to and from the city, morning and afternoon (though there were other and shorter routes to choose from), were thick with young green leaves and odorous with innumerable blossoms—until the winter was over, and the loveliest month of the Australian year, when the brief spring hurries to meet the voluptuous summer, made even Melbourne delightful. And in October the great event that was recorded in the annals of the colony inaugurated a new departure in their career.
On the Thursday immediately preceding the opening of the Exhibition they did not go to the Library as usual, nor to Gunsler's for their lunch. Like a number of other people, their habits were deranged and themselves demoralised by anticipations of the impending festival. They stayed at home to make themselves new bonnets for the occasion, and took a cold dinner while at their work, and two of them did not stir outside their rooms from morn till dewy eve for so much as a glance into Myrtle Street from the balcony.
But in the afternoon it was found that half a yard more of ribbon was required to complete the last of the bonnets, and Patty volunteered to "run into town" to fetch it. At about four o'clock she set off alone by way of an adjoining road which was an omnibus route, intending to expend threepence, for once, in the purchase of a little precious time, but every omnibus was full, and she had to walk the whole way. The pavements were crowded with hurrying folk, who jostled and obstructed her. Collins Street, when she turned into it, seemed riotous with abnormal life, and she went from shop to shop and could not get waited on until the usual closing hour was past, and the evening beginning to grow dark. Then she got what she wanted, and set off home by way of the Gardens, feeling a little daunted by the noise and bustle of the streets, and fancying she would be secure when once those green alleys, always so peaceful, were reached. But to-night even the gardens were infested by the spirit of unrest and enterprise that pervaded the city. The quiet walks were not quiet now, and the sense of her belated isolation in the growing dusk seemed more formidable here instead of less. For hardly had she passed through the gates into the Treasury enclosure than she was conscious of being watched and peered at by strange men, who appeared to swarm all over the place; and by the time she had reached the Gardens nearer home the appalling fact was forced upon her that a tobacco-scented individual was dogging her steps, as if with an intention of accosting her. She was bold, but her imagination was easily wrought upon; and the formless danger, of a kind in which she was totally inexperienced, gave a shock to her nerves. So that when presently, as she hurriedly pattered on, hearing the heavier tread and an occasional artificial cough behind her, she suddenly saw a still more expeditious pedestrian hastening by, and recognised Paul's light figure and active gait, the words seemed to utter themselves without conscious effort of hers—"Mr. Brion!—oh, Mr. Brion, is that you?"
He stopped at the first sound of her voice, looked back and saw her, saw the man behind her, and comprehended the situation immediately. Without speaking, he stepped to her side and offered his arm, which she took for one happy moment when the delightful sense of his protection was too strong for her, and then—reacting violently from that mood—released. "I—I ammortifiedwith myself for being such a fool," she said angrily; "but really that person did frighten me. I don't know what is the matter with Melbourne to-night—I suppose it is the Exhibition." And she went on to explain how she came to be abroad alone at that hour, and to explain away, as she hoped, her apparent satisfaction in meeting him. "It seems to promise for a fine day, does it not?" she concluded airily, looking up at the sky.
Paul Brion put his hands in his pockets. He was mortified, too. When he spoke, it was with icy composure.
"Are you going to the opening?"
"Yes," said Patty. "Of course we are."
"With your swell friends, I suppose?"
"Whom do you mean by our swell friends? Mrs. Duff-Scott is not in Melbourne, I believe—if you allude to her. But she is not swell. The only swell person we know is Mrs. Aarons, and she is not our friend."
He allowed the allusion to Mrs. Aarons to pass. "Well, I hope you will have good seats," he said, moodily. "It will be a disgusting crush and scramble, I expect."
"Seats? Oh, we are not going to have seats," said Patty. "We are going to mingle with the common herd, and look on at the civic functions, humbly, from the outside.Weare not swell"—dwelling upon the adjective with a malicious enjoyment of the suspicion that he had not meant to use it—"and we like to be independent."
"O yes, I know you do. But you'll find the Rights of Woman not much good to you to-morrow in the Melbourne streets, I fancy, if you go there on foot without an escort. May I ask how you propose to take care of yourselves?"
"We are going," said Patty, "to start very early indeed, and to take up a certain advantageous position that we have already selected before the streets fill. We shall have a little elevation above the heads of the crowd, and a wall at our backs, and—the three of us together—we shall see the procession beautifully, and be quite safe and comfortable."
"Well, I hope you won't find yourself mistaken," he replied.
A few minutes later Patty burst into the room where her sisters were sitting, placidly occupied with their bonnet-making, her eyes shining with excitement. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," she cried breathlessly, "Paul Brion is going to ask you to let him be our escort to-morrow. But you won't—oh, youwon't—have him, will you?"
"No, dear," said Elizabeth, serenely; "not if you would rather not. Why should we? It will be broad daylight, when there can be no harm in our being out without an escort. We shall be much happier by ourselves."
"Much happier than withhim," added Patty, sharply.
And they went on with their preparations for the great day that had been so long desired, little thinking what it was to bring forth.
They had an early breakfast, dressed themselves with great care in their best frocks and the new bonnets, and, each carrying an umbrella, set forth with a cheerful resolve to see what was to be seen of the ceremonies of the day, blissfully ignorant of the nature of their undertaking. Paul Brion, out of bed betimes, heard their voices and the click of their gate, and stepped into his balcony to see them start. He took note of the pretty costumes, that had a gala air about them, and of the fresh and striking beauty of at least two of the three sweet faces; and he groaned to think of such women being hustled and battered, helplessly, in the fierce crush of a solid street crowd. But they had no fear whatever for themselves.
However, they had not gone far before they perceived that the idea of securing a good position early in the day had occurred to a great many people besides themselves. Even sleepy Myrtle Street was awake and active, and the adjoining road, when they turned into it, was teeming with holiday life. They took their favourite route through the Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and found those sylvan glades alive with traffic: and, by the time they got into Spring Street, the crowd had thickened to an extent that embarrassed their progress and made it devious and slow. And they had scarcely passed the Treasury buildings when Eleanor, who had been suffering from a slight sore throat, began to cough and shiver, and aroused the maternal anxiety of her careful elder sister. "O, my dear," said Elizabeth, coming to an abrupt standstill on the pavement, "have you nothing but that wisp of muslin round your neck? And the day so cold—and looking so like rain! It will never do for you to stand about for hours in this wind, with the chance of getting wet, unless you are wrapped up better. We must run home again and fix you up. And I think it would be wiser if we were all to change our things and put on our old bonnets."
"Now, look here, Elizabeth," said Patty, with strong emphasis; "you see that street, don't you?"—and she pointed down the main thoroughfare of the city, which was already gorged with people throughout its length. "You see that, and that"—and she indicated the swarming road ahead of them and the populous valley in the opposite direction. "If there is such a crowd now, what will there be in half-an-hour's time? And we couldn't do it in half-an-hour. Let us make Nelly tie up her throat in our three pocket-handkerchiefs, and push on and get our places. Otherwise we shall be out of it altogether—we shall seenothing."
But the gentle Elizabeth was obdurate on some occasions, and this was one of them. Eleanor was chilled with the cold, and it was not to be thought of that she should run the risk of an illness from imprudent exposure—no, not for all the exhibitions in the world. So they compromised the case by deciding that Patty and Eleanor should "run" home together, while the elder sister awaited their return, keeping possession of a little post of vantage on the Treasury steps—where they would be able to see the procession, if not the Exhibition—in case the crowd should be too great by-and-bye to allow of their getting farther.
"Well, make yourself as big as you can," said Patty, resignedly.
"And, whatever you do," implored Eleanor, "don't stir an inch from where you are until we come back, lest we should lose you."
Upon which they set off in hot haste to Myrtle Street.
Elizabeth, when they were gone, saw with alarm the rapid growth of the crowd around her. It filled up the street in all directions, and condensed into a solid mass on the Treasury steps, very soon absorbing the modest amount of space that she had hoped to reserve for her sisters. In much less than half-an-hour she was so hopelessly wedged in her place that, tall and strong as she was, she was almost lifted off her feet; and there was no prospect of restoring communications with Patty and Eleanor until the show was over. In a fever of anxiety, bitterly regretting that she had consented to part from them, she kept her eyes turned towards the gate of the Gardens, whence she expected them to emerge; and then she saw, presently, the figure of their good genius and deliverer from all dilemmas, Paul Brion, fighting his way towards her. The little man pursued an energetic course through the crowd, which almost covered him, hurling himself along with a velocity that was out of all proportion to his bulk; and from time to time she saw his quick eyes flashing over other people's shoulders, and that he was looking eagerly in all directions. It seemed hopeless to expect him to distinguish her in the sea of faces around him, but he did. Sunk in the human tide that rose in the street above the level of his head, he made desperately for a footing on a higher plane, and in so doing caught sight of her and battled his way to her side. "Oh,hereyou are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "I have been so anxious about you. But where is Miss Patty? Where are your sisters?"
"Oh, Mr. Brion," she responded, "you always seem to turn up to help us as soon as we get into trouble, and I amsothankful to see you! The girls had to go home for something, and were to meet me here, and I don't know what will become of them in this crowd."
"Which way were they to come?" he inquired eagerly.
"By the Gardens. But the gates are completely blocked."
"I will go and find them," he said. "Don't be anxious about them. They will be in there—they will be all right. You will come too, won't you? I think I can manage to get you through."
"I can't," she replied. "I promised I would not stir from this place, and I must not, in case they should be in the street, or we should miss them."
"'The boy stood on the burning deck,'" he quoted, with a laugh. He could afford a little jest, though she was so serious, for he was happy in the conviction that the girls had been unable to reach the street, that he should find them disconsolate in the gardens, and compel Miss Patty to feel, if not to acknowledge, that he was of some use and comfort to her, after all. "But I hate to leave you here," he added, glaring upon her uncomfortable but inoffensive neighbours, "all alone by yourself."
"Oh, don't mind me," said Elizabeth, cheerfully. "If you can only find Patty and Nelly, and be so good as to take care of them,Ishall be all right."
And so, with apparent reluctance, but the utmost real alacrity, he left her, flinging himself from the steps into the crowd like a swimmer diving into the sea, and she saw him disappear with an easy mind.
Then began the tramp of the procession, first in sections, then in imposing columns, with bands playing, and flags flying, and horses prancing, and the people shouting and cheering as it went by. There were the smart men of the Naval Reserve and the sailors of the warships—English and French, German and Italian, eight or nine hundred strong—with their merry buglers in the midst of them; and there were the troops of the military, with their music and accoutrements; and all the long procession of the trades' associations, and the fire brigades, with the drubbing of drums and the blare of trumpets and the shrill whistle of innumerable fifes accompanying their triumphal progress. And by-and-bye the boom of the saluting guns from the Prince's Bridge battery, and the seven carriages from Government House rolling slowly up the street and round the corner, with their dashing cavalry escort, amid the lusty cheers of Her Majesty's loyal subjects on the line of route assembled.
But long before the Queen's representative made his appearance upon the scene, Elizabeth had ceased to see or care for the great spectacle that she had been so anxious to witness. Moment by moment the crowd about her grew more dense and dogged, more pitilessly indifferent to the comfort of one another, more evidently minded that the fittest should survive in the fight for existence on the Treasury steps. Rough men pushed her forward and backward, and from side to side, treading on her feet, and tearing the stitches of her gown, and knocking her bonnet awry, until she felt bruised and sick with the buffetings that she got, and the keen consciousness of the indignity of her position. She could scarcely breathe for the pressure around her, though the breath of all sorts of unpleasant people was freely poured into her face. She would have struggled away and gone home—convinced of the comforting fact that Patty and Eleanor were safely out of it in Paul Brion's protection—but she could not stir an inch by her own volition. When she did stir it was by some violent propelling power in another person, and this was exercised presently in such a way as to completely overbalance her. A sudden wave of movement broke against a stout woman standing immediately behind her, and the stout woman, quite unintentionally, pushed her to the edge of the step, and flung her upon the shoulder of a brawny larrikin who had fought his way backwards and upwards into a position whence he could see the pageant of the street to his satisfaction. The larrikin half turned, struck her savagely in the breast with his elbow, demanding, with a roar and an oath, where she was a-shoving to; and between her two assailants, faint and frightened, she lost her footing, and all but fell headlong into the seething mass beneath her.
But as she was falling—a moment so agonising at the time, and so delightful to remember afterwards—some one caught her round the waist with a strong grip, and lifted her up, and set her safely on her feet again. It was a man who had been standing within a little distance of her, tall enough to overtop the crowd, and strong enough to maintain an upright position in it; she had noticed him for some time, and that he had seemed not seriously incommoded by the bustling and scuffling that rendered her so helpless; but she had not noticed his gradual approach to her side. Now, looking up with a little sob of relief, her instant recognition of him as a gentleman was followed by an instinctive identification of him as a sort of Cinderella's prince.
In short, there is no need to make a mystery of the matter. At half-past ten o'clock in the morning of the first of October in the year 1880, when she was plunged into the most wretched and terrifying circumstances of her life—at the instant when she was struck by the larrikin's elbow and felt herself about to be crushed under the feet of the crowd—Elizabeth King met her happy fate. She found that friend for whom, hungrily if unconsciously, her tender heart had longed.
"Stand here, and I can shelter you a little," he said, in a quiet tone that contrasted refreshingly with the hoarse excitement around them. He drew her close to his side by the same grip of her waist that had lifted her bodily when she was off her feet, and, immediately releasing her, stretched a strong left arm between her exposed shoulder and the crush of the crowd. The arm was irresistibly pressed upon her own arm, and bent across her in a curve that was neither more nor less than a vehement embrace, and so she stood in a condition of delicious astonishment, one tingling blush from head to foot. It would have been horrible had it been anyone else.
"I am so sorry," he said, "but I cannot help it. If you don't mind standing as you are for a few minutes, you will be all right directly. As soon as the procession has passed the crowd will scatter to follow it."
They looked at each other across a space of half-a-dozen inches or so, and in that momentary glance, upon which everything that mutually concerned them depended, were severally relieved and satisfied. He was not handsome—he had even a reputation for ugliness; but there are some kinds of ugliness that are practically handsomer than many kinds of beauty, and his was of that sort. He had a leathery, sun-dried, weather-beaten, whiskerless, red moustached face, and he had a roughly-moulded, broad-based, ostentatious nose; his mouth was large, and his light grey eyes deeply set and small. Yet it was a strikingly distinguished and attractive face, and Elizabeth fell in love with it there and then. Similarly, her face, at once modest and candid, was an open book to his experienced glance, and provisionally delighted him. He was as glad as she was that fate had selected him to deliver her in her moment of peril, out of the many who might have held out a helping hand to her and did not.
"I am afraid you cannot see very well," he remarked presently. There were sounds in the distance that indicated the approach of the vice-regal carriages, and people were craning their necks over each other's shoulders and standing on tiptoe to catch the first glimpse of them. Just in front of her the exuberant larrikin was making himself as tall as possible.
"Oh, thank you—I don't want to see," she replied hastily.
"But that was what you came here for—like the rest of us—wasn't it?"
"I did not know what I was coming for," she said, desperately, determined to set herself right in his eyes. "I never saw anything like this before—I was never in a crowd—I did not know what it was like."
"Some one should have told you, then."
"We have not any one belonging to us to tell us things."
"Indeed?"
"My sisters and I have lived in the bush always, until now. We have no parents. We have not seen much yet. We came out this morning, thinking we could stand together in a corner and look on quietly—we did not expect this."
"And your sisters—?"
"They went home again. They are all right, I hope."
"And left you here alone?"
Elizabeth explained the state of the case more fully, and by the time she had done so the Governors' carriages were in sight. The people were shouting and cheering; the larrikin was dancing up and down in his hob-nailed boots, and bumping heavily upon the arm that shielded her. Shrinking from him, she drew her feet back another inch or two; upon which the right arm as well as the left was firmly folded round her. And the pressure of those two arms, stretched like iron bars to defend her from harm, the throbbing of his heart upon her shoulder, the sound of his deep-chested breathing in her ear—no consideration of the involuntary and unromantic necessity of the situation could calm the tremulous excitement communicated to her by these things. Oh, how hideous, how simply insupportable it would have been, had she been thus cast upon another breast and into other arms than HIS! As it was, it was all right. He said he feared she was terribly uncomfortable, but, though she did not contradict him, she felt in the secret depths of her primitive soul that she had never been more comfortable. To be cared for and protected was a new sensation, and, though she had had to bear anxious responsibilities for herself and others, she had no natural vocation for independence. Many a time since have they spoken of this first half hour with pride, boasting of how they trusted each other at sight, needing no proofs from experience like other people—a foolish boast, for they were but a man and woman, and not gods. "I took you to my heart the first moment I saw you," he says. "And I knew, even as soon as that, that it was my own place," she calmly replies. Whereas good luck, and not their own wisdom, justified them.
He spoke to her with studied coldness while necessarily holding her embraced, as it were, to protect her from the crowd; at the same time he put himself to some trouble to make conversation, which was less embarrassing to her than silence. He remarked that he was fond of crowds himself—found them intensely interesting—and spoke of Thackeray's paper on the crowd that went to see the man hanged (which she had never read) as illustrating the kind of interest he meant. He had lately seen the crowd at the opening of the Trocadero Palace, and that which celebrated the completion of Cologne Cathedral; facts which proclaimed him a "globe-trotter" and new arrival in Melbourne. The few words in which he described the festival at Cologne fired her imagination, fed so long upon dreams of foreign travel, and made her forget for the moment that he was not an old acquaintance.
"It was at about this hour of the day," he said, "and I stood with the throng in the streets, as I am doing now. They put the last stone on the top of the cross on one of the towers more than six hundred years after the foundation stone was laid. The people were wild with joy, and hung out their flags all over the place. One old fellow came up to me and wanted to kiss me—he thought I must be as overcome as he was."
"And were you not impressed?"
"Of course I was. It was very pathetic," he replied, gently. And she thought "pathetic" an odd word to use. Why pathetic? She did not like to ask him. Then he made the further curious statement that this crowd was the tamest he had ever seen.
"Idon't call it tame," she said, with a laugh, as the yells of the larrikin and his fellows rent the air around them.
He responded to her laugh with a pleasant smile, and his voice was friendlier when he spoke again. "But I am quite delighted with it, unimpressive as it is. It is composed of people who are notwanting anything. I don't know that I was ever in a crowd of that sort before. I feel, for once, that I can breathe in peace."
"Oh, I wish I could feel so!" she cried. The carriages, in their slow progress, were now turning at the top of Collins Street, and the hubbub around them had reached its height.
"It will soon be over now," he murmured encouragingly.
"Yes," she replied. In a few minutes the crush would lessen, and he and she would part. That was what they thought, to the exclusion of all interest in the passing spectacle. Even as she spoke, the noise and confusion that had made a solitude for their quiet intercourse sensibly subsided. The tail of the procession was well in sight; the heaving crowd on the Treasury steps was swaying and breaking like a huge wave upon the street; the larrikin was gone. It was time for the unknown gentleman to resume the conventional attitude, and for Elizabeth to remember that he was a total stranger to her.
"You had better take my arm," he said, as she hastily disengaged herself before it was safe to do so, and was immediately caught in the eddy that was setting strongly in the direction of the Exhibition. "If you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes longer, you will be able to get home comfortably."
She struggled back to his side, and took his arm, and waited; but they did not talk any more. They watched the disintegration and dispersion of the great mass that had hemmed them in together, until at last they stood in ease and freedom almost alone upon that coign of vantage which had been won with so much difficulty—two rather imposing figures, if anyone had cared to notice them. Then she withdrew her hand, and said, with a little stiff bow and a bright and becoming colour in her face—"Thankyou."
"Don't mention it," he replied, with perfect gravity. "I am very happy to have been of any service to you."
Still they did not move from where they stood.
"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" she asked timidly.
"Do you?" he responded, looking at her with a smile.
"O dear no, thank you! I have had quite enough, and I am very anxious to find my sisters."
"Then allow me to be your escort until you are clear of the streets." He did not put it as a request, and he began to descend the steps before she could make up her mind how to answer him. So she found herself walking beside him along the footpath and through the Gardens, wondering who he was, and how she could politely dismiss him—or how soon he would dismiss her. Now and then she snatched a sidelong glance at him, and noted his great stature and the easy dignity with which he carried himself, and transferred one by one the striking features of his countenance to her faithful memory. He made a powerful impression upon her. Thinking of him, she had almost forgotten how anxious she was to find her sisters until, with a start, she suddenly caught sight of them sitting comfortably on a bench in an alley of the Fitzroy Gardens, Eleanor and Patty side by side, and Paul Brion on the other side of Eleanor. The three sprang up as soon as they saw her coming, with gestures of eager welcome.
"Ah!" said Elizabeth, her face flaming with an entirely unnecessary blush, "there are my sisters. I—I am all right now. I need not trouble you any further. Thank you very much."
She paused, and so did he. She bent her head without lifting her eyes, and he took off his hat to her with profound respect. And so they parted—for a little while.
When he had turned and left her, Elizabeth faced her sisters with that vivid blush still on her cheeks, and a general appearance of embarrassment that was too novel to escape notice. Patty and Eleanor stared for a moment, and Eleanor laughed.
"Who is he?" she inquired saucily.
"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Where have you been, dears? How have you got on? I have been so anxious about you."
"But who is he?" persisted Eleanor.
"I have not the least idea, I tell you. Perhaps Mr. Brion knows."
"No," said Mr. Brion. "He is a perfect stranger to me."