Linnet: A Romance
still wore her primrose brocade, as all through the last act, and she
looked in it, even yet, a very great lady. Not Rue herself looked so
great or so grand—charming, smiling Rue—as she rose to greet her. They
stood and faced each other. One second Rue paused; then a womanly
instinct all at once overcame her. Leaning forward with the impulse, she
kissed the beautiful, stately creature on both cheeks with effusion, in
unfeigned enthusiasm.
“Why, Linnet,” she said, simply, as if she had always known her; “we’re
so glad to see you—to be the very first to congratulate you on your
success this evening!”
A flood of genuine passion rushed hot into Linnet’s face. Her warm
southern nature responded at once to the pressure of Rue’s hand. She
seized her new friend by either arm, and returned her double kiss in a
transport of gratitude. “Dear lady,” she said, with fervour, in her
still imperfect English, “how sweet that you receive me so! How kind and
good you English are to me!”
Andreas Hausberger’s white shirt-front swelled with expansive joy. This
all meant money. They were really making wonderful strides in England.
Will held his hand out timidly. “Have you forgotten me, Frau
Hausberger?” he asked her in German.
Linnet’s face flushed a still deeper crimson than before, as she
answered frankly, “Forgotten you, Herr Will. _Ach, lieber Gott_, no! How
kind of you . . . to come and hear my first performance!”
“Nor me either, Linnet, I hope,” Florian interposed more familiarly, in
his native tongue; for he had caught at the meaning of that brief
Teutonic interlude. “I shall always feel proud, Herr Andreas, to think
it was I who first discovered this charming song-bird’s voice among its
native mountains.”
But Will found no such words. He only gazed at his recovered
peasant-love with profound admiration. Fine feathers make fine birds,
and it was wonderful how much more of a personage Linnet looked as she
stood there to-night in her primrose brocade, than she had looked nearly
four years since in her bodice and kirtle on the slopes of the
Zillerthal. She was beautiful then, but she was queenly now—and it was
not dress alone, either, that made all the difference. Since leaving the
Tyrol, Linnet had blossomed out fast into dignified womanhood. All that
she had learnt and seen meanwhile had impressed itself vividly on her
face and features. So they sat for awhile in blissful converse, and
talked of what had happened to each in the interval. Rue sent Florian
down with a message to ask their friend the manager not to turn his gas
off while the party remained there. The manager, bland and smiling, and
delighted at his prima donna’s excellent reception, joined the group in
the box, and insisted that they should all accompany him to supper. To
this, the Sartorises demurred, on the whispered ground of dear Arthur’s
position. Dear Arthur himself, indeed, resisted but feebly; it was Maud
who was firm; but Maud was firm as a rock about it. Let dear Arthur go
to supper with a theatrical manager, to meet a bedizened young woman
from a playhouse like that—and him a beneficed clergyman with an eye to
a canonry! Maud simply put her foot down.
So the Sartorises went home in a discreet four-wheeler; but the rest
lingered on, and gossipped of old times in the Tyrol together, and heard
each others’ tales with the deepest interest.
“And your mother?” Will asked at last; he was the first who had thought
of her.
Linnet’s face fell fast. She clasped her dark hands tight. “Ah, that
dear mother,” she said, with a deep-drawn sigh, and a mute prayer to Our
Lady. “She died last winter, when I was away from home—away down in
Venice. I couldn’t get back to her. ’Twas the Herr Vicar’s fault. He
never wrote she was ill till the dear God had taken her. It was too late
then. I couldn’t even go home to say a pater noster over her.”
“So now you’re alone in the world,” Will murmured, gazing hard at her.
“Yes; now I’m alone in the world,” Linnet echoed, sadly.
“But you have your husband, of course,” Florian put in, with a wicked
smile, and a side glance at Andreas, who for his part was engaged in
paying court most assiduously to the rich young widow.
Linnet looked up with parted lips. “Ah, yes; I have my husband,” she
answered, as by an afterthought, in a very subdued tone, which sent a
pang and a thrill through Will’s heart at once—so much did it tell him.
He knew from those few words she wasn’t happy in her married life. How
could she be, indeed—such a soul as hers, with such a man as Andreas?
Their first gossip was over, and they were just getting ready to start
for supper, when one of the box-keepers knocked at the door with a card
in his hand, which he passed to Andreas Hausberger. “There’s a gentleman
here who’s been waiting outside for some time to see you,” he said; “and
he asked me to give you this card at once, if you’ll kindly step down to
him, sir.”
Andreas took it with a smile, and gazed at it unconcernedly. But a dash
of colour mounted suddenly into those pale brown cheeks, as his eye
caught the words neatly engraved on the card, “Mr Franz Lindner,” and
below in the corner, “Signor Francesco, The London Pavilion.”
CHAPTER XXXI
WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
Andreas handed the card to Will with a sardonic smile. “That wild fellow
again,” he muttered. “I didn’t know he was in England. I suppose I must
go down to the door to see him.”
But Will glanced at the name in profound dismay. It was an awkward
moment. Heaven knew what might come of it. As he gazed and paused, all
that Franz had said to him at the Criterion bar a year before recurred
to his mind vividly. He seized Hausberger’s arm with a nervous clutch,
and drew him a little aside. “Take care of this man Lindner,” he said in
a warning whisper. “He doesn’t love you. He is not to be trusted. If I
were you, I wouldn’t see him alone. He owes you a grudge. Ask him up
here, and talk with him before us all and the ladies.”
“Did you know he was in London?” Andreas inquired, scarcely flinching.
“Yes; I met him by accident in Bond Street a year ago. I’ve been to hear
him sing at the music hall where he works, and he came with Mr Wood and
myself to the Duke of Edinburgh’s to see _Sweet Maisie_, one of my
pieces. But he was breathing forth fire and slaughter against you, even
then, for leaving him in the lurch that time at Meran. To tell you the
truth, he’s a dangerous man in a dangerous mood; I can’t answer for what
may happen if you go down alone to him.”
“Let _me_ go down and fetch him,” Florian suggested, blandly. “The job
would just suit me. I’m warranted to disarm the most truculent fool in
Christendom with a smile and a word or two.”
To this middle course Andreas consented somewhat doubtfully. He knew
Franz’s temper and his Tyrolese impetuosity; but, as a Tyroler himself,
hot-hearted at core for all his apparent phlegm, he didn’t feel inclined
to parley through an ambassador with a pretentious Robbler. However, a
scene on the first night would be bad business. That touched a tender
point. So he gave way ungraciously. Florian departed, full of importance
at his post of envoy, and returned in a minute or two with the Robbler’s
ultimatum. “He’s been drinking, I fancy,” he said, “and he’s very wild
and excited; Montepulciano in his eye, Lacrima Christi in his gait,
Falernian in his utterance. But he’ll come up if you like; only I
thought, Rue, as it’s your box, I’d better ask you first whether you’d
care to see him.”
“He isn’t drunk, is he?” Rue asked, shrinking back. “We couldn’t have a
drunken man shown up into the box here.”
“Not more drunk than a gentleman should be,” Florian answered, airily.
“He can walk and talk, and I think he can behave himself. But he’s a
good deal flushed, and somewhat flustered, and he expresses a burning
desire for Herr Hausberger’s heart-blood, in a guttural bass, with quite
unbecoming ferocity.”
Rue shrank away with a frightened face. “Oh, don’t bring him up here!”
she cried. “Please, Florian, don’t bring him up here. I’m so afraid of
tipsy men; and you don’t really think he wants to murder Herr
Hausberger?”
“Well, not exactly to _murder_ him, perhaps,” Florian replied, with a
tolerant and expansive smile; “that would be positively vulgar; but to
fight him, no doubt; and, if possible, to put an end to him. The duel in
one form or another, you see, is a most polite institution. We don’t
call it murder in good Society. Lindner feels himself aggrieved—there’s
a lady in the case—” and he gave an expressive side-glance over his
shoulder towards Linnet, “so he desires to bury his knife to the hilt in
the gentleman’s body whom, rightly or wrongly, he conceives to have
acted ill towards him. Nothing vulgar in _that_ you’ll allow: a most
natural sentiment. Only, as Herr Hausberger’s friends in this little
affair, we must strive our best to see that all things are done, as the
apostle advises, decently and in order.”
Linnet drew back with a convulsive gasp. Was this bloodshed they
contemplated, and were talking of so calmly? Will laid his hand on Rue’s
arm. Even in the heat of the moment, Linnet noticed that simple action,
and, she knew not why, her heart sank within her.
“If I were you, Rue,” Will put in very hurriedly, “I’d let this man come
in; drunk or sober, I’d see him. It’s better he should speak with Herr
Hausberger here than anywhere else. Try to sink your own feelings and
put up with him for a minute or two. If you don’t, I’m afraid I can’t
answer for the consequences.”
He spoke very seriously. Rue drew back, still shrinking. Her face was
pale but her voice was firm. “Very well, Will,” she answered, without
another word of demur. “I hate a tipsy man; but if _you_ wish it, I’ll
see him here.”
Linnet noticed the lingering stress of her voice on the _you_, and the
obvious familiarity that subsisted between them; and she thought to
herself once more, what did it matter to her?—she was Andreas
Hausberger’s wife now. Blessed Madonna, protect her!
Florian disappeared a second time, buoyant as usual, and came back in a
minute—bringing Franz Lindner with him. The Seer had left the box some
moments earlier; Linnet and Rue stood forward towards the door, as if to
break the attack, with Andreas in the background, between Will and the
manager. Florian flung the door open with his customary flourish. “Mr
Franz Lindner!” he said, introducing him with a wave of his dainty small
hand, “whose charming performance on the zither we had the pleasure of
hearing, you will recollect, Rue, with Signora Casalmonte, some years
ago at Innsbruck.”
The Robbler stepped into the box, erect, haughty, defiant. His handsome
face was flushed and flown with drink; but his manner was alert,
self-respecting, angry. He glared about him with fierce eyes. His left
hand, held to his bosom, just defined between finger and thumb the vague
shape of the bowie in his breast coat pocket; his right was disengaged
with a tremulous quiver, as if in readiness to spring at Andreas
Hausberger and throttle him.
With unexpected presence of mind, Rue extended her pretty gloved hand
towards the Robbler, cordially, as if she fancied he had come on the
most ordinary errand. “We’re so glad to see you, Mr Lindner,” she cried,
in a natural voice, and with apparent frankness—though that was a
fearful feminine fib; “I remember so well your delightful jodels! You
were a member of Herr Hausberger’s company then, I recollect. How
charmingly his wife has been singing here this evening!”
The Robbler gazed about him, a little disconcerted at so different a
welcome from the one he had expected. However, as things stood, the
acquired instincts of civilisation compelled him to hold in check for a