Linnet: A Romance
Deverill hung modestly in the background by the door, talking, as was
his wont, to those neglected souls who seemed to him most in need of
encouragement and companionship.
Before two months were out, everybody was talking of Rue as “our new
acquisition.” It was Mrs Palmer this, and Mrs Palmer that. “We
understand Mrs Palmer will not be present at the Duchess of
Thingumabob’s dance on Tuesday.” “Among the guests on the Terrace, we
noticed Lord So-and-so, Lady What’s-her-name of Ware, and Mrs Palmer of
New York, whose pretty house in Hans Place is fast becoming a rallying
point for all that is most interesting in London Society.” Old Miss
Beard, indeed, when she arrived at the Langham Hotel early in May, and
found Rue in quiet possession of the Very Best Houses, was positively
scandalised. She declared, with a little sneer, it was perfectly
disgraceful the way That Woman had forced herself by pure brass on the
English Aristocracy. The widow of a dry-goodsman to give herself such
airs!—but there, Miss Beard had begun to despair before now of the
future of Europe! The Nobility and Gentry of England had degringolated.
For true blue blood, she was perfectly convinced, you could only look
nowadays to the heirs of the Puritans, the Knickerbockers, and the
Virginians.
The very first use Rue made of her new-found friends and position in
London was to push Will Deverill’s claims with theatrical managers. Will
had sent the manuscript score of his pretty little open-air operetta,
“Honeysuckle,” to Wildon Blades of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Theatre. And,
before Mr Blades had had time to consider the work submitted to him,
backed up as it was by Florian Wood’s powerful recommendation, Rue’s new
victoria drew up one day at the door of the manager’s house in St John’s
Wood, and Rue herself, in her most becoming and bewitching costume,
stepped out, with her blameless footman’s aid, to interview him.
The pretty little American looked prettier and more charming than ever
that morning. A dainty blush rose readily to her peach-blossom cheeks;
her eyes were cast down; an unwonted tinge of flutter in voice and
manner became her even better than her accustomed serenity. Mr Blades
bowed and smiled as he scanned her card; he was a bullet-headed man with
shifty grey eyes, a dubious mouth, and a sledge-hammer manner. He knew
her name well; Florian had already sung the American’s praises to the
astute manager. They sat down and talked. With many indirect little
feminine twists and turns, Rue gradually got round to the real subject
of her visit. She didn’t approach it straight, of course—what woman
ever does?—by stray hints and roundabout roads she let Mr Blades
understand in dim outline she was to some extent
interested—platonically interested—in the success of Will Deverill’s
Tyrolese operetta. Mr Deverill, she explained, was merely a young poet
of musical tastes, whom she had met last year at an hotel in the
Tyrol—a friend of their mutual friend’s, Mr Wood. The manager smiled
wisely with that dubious mouth. Rue saw he drew his own inference—and
drew it wrong; he thought it was Florian in whom her interest centred,
not the unknown poet. Indeed, Florian himself had done his very best
already to produce that impression; if you want to marry a rich woman,
it’s not a bad plan to let her friends and the world at large believe
the matter’s as good as settled already between you. So the manager
smiled, and looked intensely wise. “Anything I can do for any friend of
our friend Florian’s,” he said, politely, “I’m sure will give me the
very greatest pleasure.”
Rue was not wholly unwilling he should make this mistake; she could ask
the more easily the favour she had to beg on behalf of Will Deverill.
With many further circumlocutions, and many womanly wiles, she gradually
let the bullet-headed manager see she was very anxious “Honeysuckle”
should be duly produced at an early date at the Duke of Edinburgh’s. But
Mr Blades, for his part, like a man of the world that he was, was proof
against all the smiles and blandishments of the pretty enchantress. A
beautiful woman is thrown away, to say the truth, upon a theatrical
manager; they are his stock-in-trade; he’s accustomed to bargaining with
them, bullying them, quarrelling with them. He regards them merely as a
class of exceptionally exacting and irritating persons, who presume upon
their good looks and their popularity with the public to excuse the
infinite trouble and annoyance they give in their business relations. So
Mr Blades smiled again, this time a hard little mercantile smile, as of
a man unimpressed, and answered briefly, in his sledge-hammer style,
“Now, let’s be frank with one another, at once, Mrs Palmer. I run this
theatre, not for the sake of high art, nor to oblige a lady, but on the
vulgarest and commonest commercial grounds—just to make my living, and
get a fair percentage on the capital I invest in it. I judge by returns,
not by literary merit or artistic value. If Mr Deverill’s little piece
seems likely to pay—why, of course, I’ll produce it. If it don’t, why,
I won’t. That’s the long and the short of it!”
Rue seized her cue at once with American quickness. “Just so,” she
replied, catching him up very sharp, and going straight to the point;
“that’s exactly why I’ve come here. I want you to read this play very
soon, and to say as a candid business man what you think of it. Then I
want you to tell me what you’ll take, money down, to produce it at once,
and to run it on your boards till you see whether it’s likely to succeed
or fail—if I give you a guarantee, secured against bonds, to reimburse
you in full for any loss you may sustain, say, by giving it the chance
of a fortnight’s production.”
It was a curious offer. The manager’s shifty grey eyes ran her over with
a sharp little stare of astonishment. Her directness amused him. “Well
now,” he said, “that’s odd; but it’s business-like—for a woman.”
“You understand,” Rue said, blushing crimson, and letting her eyelids
drop once more, “I make this suggestion in strict confidence; I don’t
want it talked about.”
“Certainly, certainly,” Mr Blades replied, with a scrutinising glance.
“Not even to our friend Florian?” And he eyed her quizzingly.
Rue’s face flushed deeper still. “Above all, not to him,” she answered
firmly. “But what do you say to my offer? Is it business or not? Does it
seem to you possible?”
The manager hesitated, and drummed with his finger on the desk before
him. “Well, to tell you the truth, my dear lady,” he answered,
evasively, “I couldn’t very well give you any opinion, good, bad, or
indifferent, till I’ve read the manuscript, and considered it carefully.
You see, a play’s not quite like a book or picture; a deal of capital’s
involved in its production; and, besides, its success or its failure
don’t stand quite alone; they mean so much in the end to the theatre. It
won’t do for me to reckon only how many hundreds or thousands I may
possibly lose on this or that particular venture if it turns out badly;
there’s the indirect loss as well to take into consideration. Every
success in a house means success in future; every failure in a house
means gradual increase in the public coldness. It wouldn’t pay me, you
understand, if you were merely to offer me a big lump sum down to
produce a piece with no chance of a run in it. I never produce anything
for anybody on earth unless I believe myself there’s really money in it.
But I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” and he brightened up most amiably;
“I’ll read it this very day; and then, if I think it won’t prejudice the
Duke’s to bring it out at once, why, . . . I’ll consider whether or not
I can accept your offer.”
“Oh, thank you!” Rue cried, very gratefully indeed; for she was a simple
soul, in spite of her thousands.
The manager drew himself up, and looked stonily grave. He shook his
bullet-head. This charge was most painful. It hurt his feelings as a
business man that a pretty woman should even for one moment suppose he
meant to make a concession to her.
“You’ve nothing to thank me for,” he answered, truthfully; and indeed
she hadn’t; for his answer, after all, amounted merely to this: that if
he thought the play likely to prove a success, he would generously
permit the rich American to indemnify him beforehand against the
off-chance of a failure. In other words, if it turned out well, he stood
to win all; while if it turned out ill, it was Rue who stood to lose
whatever was lost upon it.
Nevertheless, after a few more preliminary arrangements, Rue drove off,
not ill-satisfied with her partial success, leaving behind her many
injunctions of profoundest secrecy with the blandly-smiling manager. As
she disappeared down the road, Mr Blades chuckled inwardly. Was he
likely to tell any one else in the world, indeed, that he had even
entertained so unequal a bargain? He would keep to himself his own
clever compact with the American heiress. But two days later, Rue’s
heart was made glad, when she came down to breakfast, by a letter from
the manager, couched in politest terms, informing her that he had read
Mr Deverill’s manuscript; that he thought on the whole there was
possibly money in it; and that he would be pleased to talk over the
question of its production on the basis of the arrangement she had
herself proposed at their recent interview. Rue read it, overjoyed. In
the innocence of her heart, she agreed to promise whatever the astute Mr
Blades demanded. Moreover, this being a strictly confidential matter,
she couldn’t even submit it to her lawyer for advice; she was obliged to
act for once on her own initiative. She longed to rush off the very
moment it was settled and tell Will the good news; but prudence and
womanly reserve prevented her. However, she had her reward none the less
next day, when Will hurried round immediately after breakfast to
announce the splendid tidings which had come by that morning’s post,
that Blades had accepted “Honeysuckle,” without any reserve, and
intended to put it in rehearsal forthwith at the _Duke of Edinburgh’s_.
His face beamed with delight; Rue smiled contentment. She was pleased he
should burst in upon her first of all the world in London with news of
his good fortune; that really looked as if he rather liked her! And
then, how sweet it was to feel she had managed it all herself, and he
didn’t know it. It was such a delightful secret that, womanlike, she
longed to tell it to him outright—only that, of course, to divulge it
would be to spoil the whole point of it. So she merely smiled a tranquil
smile, to her own proud heart, and felt as happy as a queen about it.
’Tis delicious to do something for the man you love, and to know he
doesn’t even suspect you of doing it. . . . Some day, perhaps, she would
be able to tell him. But not till he’d made a great name for himself.
Then she might say to him with pride, at some tender moment, “Before the
world found you out, Will, I knew what you were, and, all unknown to
yourself, it was I who stretched out the first helping hand to your
fortunes!”
CHAPTER XXIII
A PROPHET INDEED!
While Will Deverill’s operetta was still in rehearsal at the Duke of
Edinburgh’s, a little episode occurred at Rue’s house in Hans Place,
which was not without a certain weird influence of its own on the
after-life of herself and her companions.
Rue gave an At Home one night early in March, to which Florian and Will
Deverill were invited. Will brought his sister with him—the sister who
was married to an East End curate, and who had called upon Rue at her
brother’s bidding.
“Well, what do you think of her to-night, Maud?” Will asked a little
anxiously as they stood alone for a minute or two in the middle of the