Prince Fortunatus, William Black [pdf e book reader .txt] 📗

nothing to be said about that costume, anyway; I really had forgotten that Mlle. Girond had got her pretty little blue coat made with so long a skirt. Besides, Nina, with a voice like yours, you will soon be beyond having to take parts like that."

Indeed, she was so evidently anxious to obtain an engagement in the same theatre that he himself was engaged in that his vague reluctance ultimately vanished; and he began considering when he could bring her before Mr. Lehmann, the manager, and Mr. Carey, the musical conductor, so that they should hear her sing. As to their verdict, as to what the manager would do, he had no doubt whatever. She had a valuable voice, and her ignorance of stage requirements would speedily disappear. At the very time that Lehmann was trying to get new under-studies with a view to the formation of a second travelling company, why, here was a perfect treasure discovered for him. And Lionel made certain that, as soon as Antonia Rossi had had time to study Mlle. Girond's "business," and perhaps one or two chances of actually playing the part, she would be drafted into one or other of the travelling companies, and sent away through the provinces; so that any awkwardness arising from her being in the same theatre with himself, and he her only friend in England, to whom she would naturally appeal in any emergency, would thus be obviated.

"Nina," said he, as they were driving in a hansom to Sloane Street (all her belongings being on the top of the cab), "Lehmann, our manager, is to be at the theatre this afternoon, about some scenery, I fancy, and there's a chance of our catching him if we went down some little time before the performance. Would you come along and sing one or two things? you might have the arrangement made at once."

"Will you go with me, Leo?"

"Oh, yes," he said, "I mean Mrs. Grey will take you, you know; for I will try to get places for her and you in front afterwards; but I will go with you as well. You won't be afraid?"

She laughed.

"Afraid?--no, no--what I can do I can do--there is no Pandiani to scold me if they not satisfied--that is my own beezness--is it right?--oh, I say to you, Leo, if you hear Pandiani when I refuse to go to Malta--you think you know the Neapolitan deealet--dialect?--no, it is not good for you to know all the wicked words of Naples--and he is old and evil-tempered--it is no matter. But in this theatre there is no Pandiani and his curses--"

"No, no, not curses, Nina," he said. "I see old Debernardi has taught you some strange English. Of course the maestro did not use curses to his favorite pupil--oh, yes, you were, Nina, a great favorite, though he was always grumbling and growling. However, remember this, Nina, you must sing your best this evening, and impress them; and I shouldn't wonder if Lehmann gave you exceptional terms."

"More beezness?" she said, with a smile that showed a gleam of her pretty teeth; the sound of the word had tickled her ear, somehow; more than once, as the cab rolled away down Kensingtonwards, he could hear her repeat to herself--"beezness! beezness!"

This young Italian lady seemed to produce a most favorable impression on the little, pale-faced widow, who appeared to be very grateful to Lionel Moore for having thought of her. The ground-floor sitting-room and bedroom, she explained, were occupied by her sole lodger; the young lady could have the choice of any of the apartments above. The young lady, as it turned out, was startled beyond measure at the price she was asked to pay (which, in truth, was quite moderate, for the rooms were good rooms, in a good situation, and neatly furnished), and it was only on Lionel's insisting on it that she consented to take the apartments on the second floor.

"I beg you not miscomprehend," Nina said, somewhat earnestly, to the little landlady (for was she not a friend of Leo's?). "The price is, perhaps, not too large--it is to me that it is large--"

"Oh, that's all right, Nina," Lionel broke in; "that's all settled. You see, Mrs. Grey, Miss Rossi has come over here to get an engagement in comedy opera, or perhaps to sing at concerts; and if a manager calls to see her on business, why, of course, she must be in decent rooms. You can't go and live in a slum. Mrs. Grey knows what managers are, Nina; you must take up a good position and hold your own; and--and, in fact, Nina, when you are in London you can't afford to go and climb those frightful Neapolitan stairs and hide yourself in a garret. So it's settled; and I'm going out directly to hire a piano for you."

"For how much expense, Leo?" she said, anxiously.

"Oh, we'll see about that by and by," said he.

He then explained to Mrs. Grey that Miss Nina was that very evening going along to the New Theatre to be heard by the manager and the conductor; that thereafter she wished to see the performance of "The Squire's Daughter," in which she hoped ere long to take a part herself; and that, if Mrs. Grey could find it convenient to accompany the young lady, it would be a very great obligation to him, Mr. Moore. Mrs. Grey replied to this that her solitary lodger had gone down to Richmond for two or three days; she herself had no engagement of any kind for that evening; and when, she asked, did any one ever hear of an old actress refusing an invitation to go to the theatre?

"So that's all settled, too," said this young man, who seemed to be carrying everything his own way.

Then he went out and hired a piano--necessarily a small upright--which was to be taken down to Sloane Street that same evening; next he sought out a telegraph-office, and sent a message to Mr. Lehmann and to Mr. Carey; finally he called at a florist's, and bought a whole heap of flowers for the better decoration of Signorina Rossi's new apartments. In this last affair he was really outrageously extravagant, even for one who was habitually careless about his expenditure; but he said to himself,

"Well, I throw away lots of money in compliments to people who are quite indifferent to me; and why shouldn't I allow myself a little latitude when it is my old comrade Nina who has come over to England?"

When at length he got back to the house he found it would soon be time for them to be thinking of getting down to the theatre; so he said,

"Now, look here, Mrs. Grey, when Miss Nina has done with her singing and her talk with the manager, you must take her to some restaurant and get some dinner for both of you, for you can't go on without anything until eleven. You will just have time before the performance begins. I'm sorry I can't take you; but, you see, as soon as I hear what the manager says, I must be off to dress for my part. Then, at the end of the performance, I can't ask you to wait for me; you will have to bring her home, either in a cab or by the Underground, for Nina is very economical. I hope you won't think I am treating you ill in leaving you to yourselves--"

"Why, Leo, you have given up the whole day to me!" Nina exclaimed.

"You gave up many an afternoon to me, Nina," he rejoined, "when I sprained my ankle down at that confounded Castello Dell' Ovo."

The ordeal that the debutante had now to undergo was, of course, made remarkably easy for her through the intervention of this good friend of hers. When they got down to the theatre they went at once on to the stage, where Nina found herself in the midst of an old-fashioned English village, with a gayly bedecked Maypole just behind her, while in front of her was the great, gaunt, empty, musty-smelling building, filled with a dim twilight, though, also, there were here and there one or two orange-points of gas. Lionel sent a messenger to the manager's office, and also told him to ask if Mr. Carey had come; then he opened Nina's roll of music for her, and began to discuss with her which piece she should choose. Fortunately Mr. Lehmann had not yet left--here he was--a stout, clean-shaven, sharp-eyed sort of person, in a frock-coat and a remarkably shiny hat; he glanced at the young lady in what she considered a very rude and unwarrantable manner, but the fact was he was merely, from a business point of view, trying to guess what her figure was like. Lionel explained all the circumstances of the case to him, and gave it as his own confident opinion that, as soon as they had heard Mlle. Rossi sing, there would be little doubt of her being engaged. At the same moment Mr. Carey appeared--a tall, blond, extremely handsome person of the fashion-plate sort; and, at a word from the manager, two or three scene-shifters went and wheeled on to the stage a small upright piano.

Nina did not seem at all disconcerted by their business-like air and want of little formal politenesses. Quite calmly she took out "Caro nome " from her music and handed it to the conductor, who was at the piano. He glanced at the sheet, appeared a little surprised, but struck the opening chords for her. Then Nina sang; and though for a second or two the sound of her own voice in this huge, empty building seemed strange--seemed wrong almost and unnatural--she had speedily recovered confidence, and was determined she would bring no discredit upon her friend Leo. Very well indeed she sang, and Lionel was delighted; while, of course, Mr. Carey was professionally interested in hearing for the first time a voice so fresh and pure and so perfectly trained; but when she had finished the manager merely said,

"Thank you, that will do; I needn't trouble you further." Then, after a word or two, partly aside, with Mr. Carey, he turned to Lionel and abruptly asked what salary she wanted--just as if Lionel had brought him some automaton and made it work.

"I think you ought to give her a very good salary," the young man said, in an undertone; "she has studied under Pandiani at Naples. And if I were you I wouldn't ask her to sing in the chorus at all; I would rather keep a voice like that fresh and unworked until she is fit to take a part."

"Singing in the chorus won't hurt her," said he, briefly, "for a while, at least, and she'll become familiar with the stage."

But here Lionel drew the manager still further aside; and then ensued a conversation which neither Nina nor Mr. Carey could in the least overhear. At the end of it Mr. Lehmann nodded acquiescence, and said, "Very well, then;" and straightway he departed, for he was a busy man, and had little time to waste on the smaller courtesies of life--especially in the case of debutantes.

Lionel returned to the young lady whose fate had just been decided.

"That's all right, Nina," he said. "You are engaged as under-study to Mlle. Girond, and you'll have three pounds a week as soon as you have studied her business and are ready to take the part when you're wanted. I will find you a full score, and you may get up some of the other music, when you've nothing