Linnet: A Romance
seemingly irresponsive dress-coated stalls, those stolidly brutal and
square-faced pittites. Her mere beauty stirred them. Even the gentlemen
of the press, smiling cynically still, drummed their fingers gently on
the flat tops of their opera-hats. Thus encouraged, Linnet opened her
mouth and sang. Her throat rose and fell in a rhythmical tide. She
rendered the first stanza of her first song almost faultlessly. She
knew, herself, she had never sung better. Then came a brief pause before
she went on to the second. During that pause, she raised her eyes to a
box of the first tier. The Blessed Madonna in Britannia metal on the
oval pendant, ever faithful at a pinch, almost crumpled in her grasp as
she looked and started. It was Will she saw there, Will, Will, her dear
Englishman; and Herr Florian by his elbow, and the grand foreign Frau,
the fair-haired Frau, the Frau with the diamonds, ever still beside
them!
In a second, Linnet felt from head to foot a great thrill break over
her. It broke like a wave of fire, in long, undulating movement, as she
had felt it at Innsbruck. The wave rose from her feet, as before, and
coursed hot through her limbs, and burnt bright in her body, till it
came out as a crimson flush on neck and chin and forehead. Then it
descended once more, thrilling through her as it went, in long,
undulating movement, from her neck to her feet again. She felt it as
distinctly as she could feel Our Blessed Lady clenched hard in her
little fist. Her Englishman was there, whom she thought she had lost; as
at Innsbruck, so in London, he had come to hear her sing her first song
in public!
All at once, yet again, the same strange seizure came over her. As her
eyes met Will’s, and that wave of fire ran resistlessly through her, she
was conscious of a weird sense she had known but once in all her life
before—a sudden failure of sound, a numb deadening of the orchestra.
Not a note struck her ear. It was all a vast blank to her.
Instinctively, as she sang, her right hand toyed with Will’s coral
necklet, but her left, with all its might, still gripped and clasped Our
Lady with trembling fingers. She heard not a word she herself was
uttering; she knew not how she sang, or whether she sang at all; in an
agony of terror, of remorse, of shame, she kept her eyes fixed on the
conductor’s _bâton_. By its aid alone she kept true to her
accompaniment. But her heart went up silently in one great prayer to Our
Lady. When she felt this at Innsbruck she knew it was love. If it meant
love still—Andreas Hausberger’s wife—Oh! Blessed Mother, help! Oh!
Dear Lady, protect her!
CHAPTER XXX
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
How she got through that song, how she got through that scene, Linnet
never knew. She was conscious of but two things—Will Deverill’s
presence and the Blessed Madonna. Remorse and shame almost choked her
utterance. But mechanically she went on, and sang her part out to the
end—sang it exquisitely, superbly. Have you ever noticed that what we
do most automatically, we often do best? It was so that night at the
Harmony with Linnet. She knew her music well; she had studied it
carefully; and the very absence of self-consciousness which this
recognition gave her, made her sing it more artlessly, yet more
perfectly than ever. She forgot the actress and the singer in the woman.
That suited her best of all. Her mental existence was divided, as it
were, into two distinct halves; one conscious and personal, absorbed
with Will Deverill and Our Dear Lady in Britannia metal; the other
unconscious and automatic, pouring forth with a full throat the notes
and words it was wound up to utter. And the automatic self did its work
to perfection. The audience hung entranced; Andreas Hausberger, watching
them narrowly from a box at the side, hugged his sordid soul in rapture
at the thought that Linnet had captured them on this her first night in
that golden England.
She sang on and on. The audience sat enthralled. Gradually, by slow
stages, the sense of hearing came back to her. But she had done as well,
or even better without it. The act went off splendidly. Andreas
Hausberger was in transports. At the first interval between the scenes,
Rue debated in her own soul what to do about Linnet; but, being a wise
woman in her way, she determined to wait till the end of the piece
before deciding on action. Act the Second, Act the Third, Act the Fourth
followed fast; in Act the Fifth when Linnet, no longer a peasant girl,
but the bride of the Grand Duke, came on in her beautiful pale primrose
brocade, cut square in the bodice like a picture of Titian’s, the
audience cheered again with a vociferous outburst. Linnet blushed and
bowed; a glow of conscious triumph suffused her face; then she raised
her eyes timidly to the box on the first tier. Her victory was complete.
She could see by his face Will Deverill was satisfied—and the grand
lady with the diamonds was sincerely applauding her.
Was the grand lady his wife? Why not? Why not? What could it matter to
her now? She was Andreas Hausberger’s. And Will—why, Will was but an
old Zillerthal acquaintance.
Yet she clutched Our Blessed Frau tighter than ever in her grasp, at
that painful thought, and somehow hoped illogically Our Blessed Frau
would protect her from the chance of the grand lady being really married
to Will Deverill. Not even the gods, says Aristotle, in his philosophic
calm, can make the past not have been as it was. But Linnet thought
otherwise.
The curtain fell to a storm of clapping hands. After that a moment’s
lull; then loud cries of “Casalmonte!” The whole theatre rang with them.
The Papadopoli, revived by magic from his open-air deathbed on the
blood-stained grass, came forward before the curtain, alive and well,
his wounds all healed, leading Linnet on his right, and bowing their
joint acknowledgments. At sight of the soprano, even the cynical critics
yielded spontaneous homage. It was a great success; a very great
success. Linnet panted, and bowed low. Surely she had much to be
grateful for that night; surely the Blessed Madonna in heaven above had
stood by her well through that trying ordeal!
But in Rue Palmer’s box, after all was over, Florian’s voice rose loud
in praise of this new star in our musical firmament. “When first she
swam into my ken,” he said, “on her Tyrolese hillside—you remember it,
Deverill—I said to myself, ‘Behold a singer indeed! Some day, we may be
sure, we shall welcome her in London.’ And now, could any mortal mixture
of earth’s mould breathe purer music or more innate poesy?”
For it was Florian’s cue, as things stood, to make much of Linnet, for
many reasons. In the first place, it would reflect credit and glory on
his insight as a critic that he should have spotted this flaming comet
of a season while as yet it loomed no larger than the eleventh
magnitude. Indeed, he had gone down among the other critics between the
acts, and buttonholed each of them in the lobby, separately. “A
discovery of my own, I can assure you. I found her out as a peasant-girl
in a Tyrolese valley, and advised her friends to have her trained and
educated.” Then, again, his praise of Linnet no doubt piqued Rue; and
Florian, in spite of rebuffs, had still one eye vaguely fixed in reserve
on Rue’s seven hundred thousand. Faint heart, he well knew, never won
fair lady. Besides, Florian felt it was a good thing Will’s cow-girl
should have come back to him in London thus transformed and
transfigured; for he recognised in Will his one dangerous rival for
Rue’s affections, and he was bent as of old on getting rid of Will by
diverting him, if possible, upon poor helpless Linnet. The mere fact of
her being married mattered little to a philosopher. So he murmured more
than once, as Linnet bowed deeper and deeper, “What a beautiful creature
she is, to be sure! You remember, Will, what I said of her when we met
her first in the Zillerthal?”
Even poets are human. There was a malicious little twinkle in the corner
of Will’s eye as he answered briskly, “Oh yes; I remember it word for
word, my dear fellow. You said, you thought with time and training, she
ought to serve Andreas Hausberger’s purpose well enough for popular
entertainments. Her voice, though undeveloped, was not wholly without
some natural compass.”
Will had treasured up those words. Florian winced at them a little—they
were not quite as enthusiastic as he could have wished just now; but he
recovered himself dexterously. “And I told Hausberger,” he went on, “it
was a sin and a shame to waste a throat like that on a Tyrolese troupe;
and, happily, he took my advice at once, and had her prepared for the
stage by the very best teachers in Italy and Germany. I’m proud of her
success. It’s insight, after all—insight, insight alone, that makes and
marks the Heaven-born Critic.”
Rue was writing meanwhile a hurried little note in pencil on the back of
a programme. She had debated with herself during the course of the piece
whether or not to send down and ask Linnet to visit them. Her true
woman’s nature took naturally at last the most generous course—which
was also the safest one. She folded the piece of paper into a
three-cornered twist, and handed it with one of her sunny smiles to the
Seer. It was addressed “Herr Hausberger.” “Will you take that down for
me, Mr Holmes?” she asked, with a little tremor, “and tell one of the
waiting-girls to give it at once to Madame Casalmonte’s husband.”
The Seer accepted the commission with delighted alacrity. In a moment he
had spied game; his quick eye, intuitive as a woman’s, had read at a
glance conflicting emotions on Rue’s face, and Will’s and Florian’s.
Whatever else it might mean, it meant grist for the mill; he would make
his market of it. A suspicion of intrigue is the thought-reader’s
opportunity.
Linnet was standing at the wings in a flutter of excitement, all
tremulous from her triumph, and wondering whether or not Will would come
down to ask for her, when Andreas Hausberger bustled up, much
interested, evidently, with some pleasurable emotion. He had seen his
wife between the acts already, and assured her of his satisfaction at so
fortunate an event for the family exchequer. But now he came forward,
brimming over with fresh pleasure, and waving a note in his hand, as he
said to her briskly in German, “Don’t wait to change, Linnet. This is
really most lucky. Mrs Palmer—the lady we met at Innsbruck, you
know—wants to see you in her box. She’s immensely rich, I’m told; and
Florian Wood’s up there with her. The manager assures me he’s one of the
most influential critics in London. Come along, just as you are, and
mind you speak nicely to her.”
The lights were left burning long in the passages, as is often the case
on first nights in London. Andreas led the way; Linnet followed him like
one blindfolded. Oh, Blessed Madonna, how strangely you order things on
this earth of yours sometimes! It was her husband himself, then, of all
men in the world, who was taking her to the box where Will Deverill was
waiting for her!
As for Andreas Hausberger, he stalked on before, elated, hardly thinking
of Will—as indeed he had no cause to do. The rich woman of the world
and the influential critic monopolised his attention. Tyrolese though he
was, he was by no means jealous; greed of gain had swallowed up in him
all the available passions of that phlegmatic nature. Linnet was his
chattel now; he had married her and trained her; her earnings were his
own, doubly mortgaged to him for life, and no poet on earth, be he ever
so seductive, could charm them away from him.
He opened the box door with stately dignity. At St Valentin or in
London, he was a person of importance. Linnet entered, quivering. She