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

her hair, kissed it, and dropped it to her enraptured lover below. It was the end of the act. She had to come down quickly from the platform for the recall that resounded through the theatre; she did not chance to notice Lionel; she was led on and across the stage by Harry Thornhill, she bowing repeatedly and gracefully, he reserving his acknowledgment until he had handed her off. The reception both of them got was most gratifying; there could be no doubt of the sincerity of the applause of this crowded house.

"It seems to me I am not wanted here any more," Lionel said to himself. "Even Nina won't take any notice of the stranger."

The next moment Nina, who was coming across the stage, caught sight of him, and with a little cry of delight she ran towards him--yes, ran; for what cared she about carpenters and scene-shifters?--and caught both his hands in hers.

"Ah, Leo!" she cried, with glad-shining eyes. "Oh, so brown you are!--a hunter!--you are from the forests! And to-day you arrive--and already at the theatre--did you hear the duet--no? Ah, it is good to see you again, after so long!--I could laugh and cry together, it is such a joy to see you--and see you looking so well--"

"I say, Nina," he said, "that fellow Doyle sings tremendously well--he's ever so much improved--they'll be wanting him to take my place altogether and sending me off into the country."

"You, Leo!" she said, with a merry laugh, and still she regarded him with those delighted, welcoming eyes. "Ah, yes, it is likely! Ah, you will see what reception they will give you on Monday. Yes, it is in all the papers already--everywhere I see it; but come--Miss Girond and I, we have Miss Burgoyne's room for the present--you can wait for a few minutes, then I come out to talk to you."

Lionel (feeling very much like a stranger in this place) followed her into Miss Burgoyne's room, where he found Mlle. Girond only too ready to throw away the French novel she was reading. Nina had to disappear into the dressing-room; but this small boy-officer in the gay uniform, with his or her pretty gesticulation and charm of broken English, was quite willing to entertain Mr. Moore, though at times she would forget all about him and walk across to the full-length mirror and twist her small moustache. She chatted to him now and again; she returned to the mirror to touch her eyebrows and adjust her sash; she walked about or flicked the dust from her shining Wellingtons with a silk handkerchief; again she contemplated herself in the glass, and lightly sang,


"En debordant de Saint-Malo
Nos longs avirons battaient l'eau!"


Then she was called away for the beginning of the last act; and Nina, having made the change necessary for her next appearance, came out from the dressing-room and sat down.

"Oh, you are wicked, Leo," she said, as she contentedly crossed her hands in her lap and looked at the young man with those friendly eyes, "that you stayed away so long. I wished to sing the duet with you--but no--you begin Monday--and Miss Burgoyne comes back Monday--"

"Does she? I thought she was ordered a long rest."

Nina laughed.

"She sees in the papers that you come back--it is to be a great occasion--she says to herself, 'Will he sing with that Italian girl? No! Let my throat be well or ill, I am going back;' and she is coming, Leo. Never mind; I am to have the part of Clara; is it not an advancement? And everything is so much more comfortable now; Miss Girond has taken a room with Mrs. Grey; then we go home always together, and she has the use of the piano--"

"Miss Ross, please!" called a voice at the door.

"All right!" she called in reply.

"The chorus is on, miss."

"All right!"

"Ah," she continued, "it is so good to see you back, Leo; yes, yes? London was a stranger city when you were away--there was no one. And it is all you I have to thank, Leo, for my introduction here and my good-fortune--"

"Oh, nonsense, Nina!" he said. "What else could I have done? It isn't you who ought to thank me--it's Lehmann; I consider him precious lucky to have got a substitute for Miss Burgoyne so easily. So Miss Burgoyne is coming back on Monday?"

"Yes," said Nina, as she went to the door. "Shall I see you again, Leo, to-night?"

"Oh, I'm coming to hear you sing 'Now to the dance,'" he said, as he followed her out into the corridor and ascended with her into the wings.

This was a busy act for Nina; and the next time he had an opportunity of talking with her was after she had dressed herself in her bridal robes and was come up ready to go on the stage. Nina looked a little self-conscious when she first encountered him in this attire; perhaps she was afraid of his contrasting her appearance with that of Miss Burgoyne. If he did, it was certainly not to Nina's disadvantage. No; Nina was much more distinguished-looking and refined than the pert little doll-like bride represented by Miss Burgoyne; she wore the gorgeous costume of flowered white satin with ease and grace; and her portentous white wig, with its feathered brilliants and strings of pearls, seemed to add a greater depth and softness and mild lustre to her dark, expressive eyes. For an instant, as she came up to him, those beautiful, liquid eyes were turned to the ground.

"I did not choose anything, Leo," she said, modestly; "I have had to copy Miss Burgoyne."

"Well, there's a difference somehow, Nina," said he, "and I think Miss Burgoyne had better begin and copy you."

For a swift instant she raised her eyes; she was more than pleased. But she said nothing--indeed, she had now to go on the stage. And if he had contrasted her appearance favorably with that of Miss Burgoyne, he was now inclined to give a similar verdict with regard to her acting. It certainly wanted the self-confidence of long experience and also the emphasis and exaggeration of comedy-opera; it was not nearly impudent enough for the upper gallery; but it was graceful and natural to a degree that surprised him. As for her voice, that was incomparably better than Miss Burgoyne's; it was a fresh, sympathetic, finely modulated voice that had been uninjured by excessive training or excessive work. Lionel was quite proud of his protegee; unseen, here in the wings, he could applaud as loudly as any; if Nina did not hear, she must have been deaf. And when she came off at the end of the act--or, rather, immediately after the recall, which was as enthusiastic as the soul of actor or actress could desire--there was no stint to his praise; and Nina's heartfelt pleasure on hearing this warm commendation shone through all her stage make-up. He asked if he should wait to act as escort to Miss Girond and herself; but Nina said no; Miss Girond and she went home every night by themselves in a four-wheeled cab; she knew he must be tired after his long journey; and he must go away and get to bed at once. So Lionel shook hands with her and left the theatre, and walked carelessly and absently home to his lodgings in Piccadilly.

Well, he was glad to find his old friend and comrade, Nina, getting on so well and so proud of her success and looking so charming in her new part; and he guessed that she must have written to the grumbling old Pandiani, and sent photographs of herself as Grace Mainwaring to Andrea and Carmela and her other Neapolitan friends. But it was not of Nina that he thought long, as he lay in the easy-chair and smoked, and listened to the heavy murmur of the streets without. He had not got used to London yet. The theatre seemed to him a great, glaring thing; the lime-light an impertinent sham; even the applause of the delighted audience somehow brutal and offensive. There was no repose, no reticence, no self-respect and modesty about the whole affair; it was all too violent; a fanfaronade; a coarse and ostentatious make-believe, that seemed a kind of insult to a quiet mind. He turned away from it altogether. His fancies had fled to the North again; the long railway journey was annihilated; again he was driving out to the still and beautiful valley, where those kind friends were standing at the door of the lodge, fluttering a white welcome to him. He goes down the steep hillside; he crosses the stream at the Horse's Drink; he reaches the hall-door and is shaking hands with this one and that. And if the tall, proud maiden with the fine forehead and the clear, calm hazel eyes is not among this group, be sure she will be here in the evening to add her greeting to the rest. Oh, to think of that next morning--the sweet air blowing down from the hills--the silver lights among the purple clouds--the Aivron swinging along its gravelly bed, a deep, clear bronze where the sunlight strikes the shallows! Farther and farther into the solitudes these two idly wander--away from human ken--until the dogs in the kennels are no longer heard, nor is there even a black-cock crowing in the woods; nothing but the hum of the bees, and the whisper of the birch branches, and the hushed, low thunder of the Geinig falls. He could almost hear it now; or was not the continuous murmur that dazed and dinned his ears a sadly different sound--the muffled roar of cabs and carriages along Piccadilly, bearing home this teeming population from the blare and glare of the crowded theatres? A different sound indeed! He had come into another world; and the Aivron and Geinig, far away, were alone with the darkness and the stars.


CHAPTER XIV.


A MAGNANIMOUS RIVAL.

That Monday night at the New Theatre was a great occasion; for, although there were a few people (themselves not of much account, perhaps) who went about saying there was no one in London, an enormous house welcomed back to the stage those well-known favorites, Miss Burgoyne and Mr. Lionel Moore. And what had become of the Aivron and the Geinig now?--their distant murmurs were easily drowned in the roar of enthusiasm with which the vast audience--a mass of orange-hued faces they seemed across the footlights--greeted the prima-donna and the popular young baritone. Nina was here also, in her subordinate part. And all that Miss Burgoyne could do, on the stage and off the stage, to attract his attention, did not hinder Lionel from watching, with the most affectionate interest, the manner in which his protegee, his old comrade Nina, was acquitting herself. Clara was perhaps a little bit too eager and anxious; she anticipated her cues; her parted lips seemed to repeat what was being said to her; lights and shadows of expression chased each other over the mobile features and brightened or darkened her eloquent eyes; and in her passages with Grace Mainwaring she was most effusive, though that other young lady maintained a much more matter-of-fact demeanor.

"Capital, Nina! Very well done!" Lionel exclaimed (to himself) in the wings. "You're on the right track. It is easier to tone down than to brace up. Don't be afraid--keep it going--you'll grow business-like soon enough."

Here Clara had to come tripping off the stage, and Lionel had to go on; he had no opportunity of speaking to her until the end of the