Linnet: A Romance
all, into the dining-room fireplace. In half-an-hour more, they were at
Charing Cross, on their way to Vienna. Linnet kept Will’s verses inside
the bosom of her dress, and close to her throbbing heart. Andreas asked
no more about them just then, but, all that winter through, he meditated
his plan of action for the future, in silence.
Their two months at Vienna were a great success, professionally. Linnet
went on to Rome laden with the spoils of susceptible Austrians. For the
first few weeks after their arrival in Italy, she noticed that Andreas
received no letters in Philippina’s handwriting; but, after that time,
notes in a familiar dark-hued scrawl began to arrive for him—at first,
once a fortnight or so, then, later, much more frequently. Andreas read
them before Linnet’s eyes, and burnt them cautiously, without note or
comment. Linnet was too proud to allude to their arrival in any way.
Early in April, with the swallows and sand-martins, they returned to
England. The spring was in the air, and Andreas thought the bracing
north would suit Linnet’s throat better now than that soft and relaxing
Italian atmosphere. On the very day when they reached Avenue Road,
Philippina came to see them. She greeted Andreas warmly; Linnet kissed
her on both cheeks. “Well, dear,” she said in German, clasping her
friend’s hand hard, “and how’s your husband?”
“What! that dreadful man! _Ach, lieber Gott_, my dear, don’t speak of
him!” Philippina cried, holding up both her hands in holy horror. Linnet
smiled a quiet smile. Florian’s forecast was correct; Andreas’s words
had come true. Her hot first love had cooled down again as quickly as it
had flared up, all aglow, like a straw fire in the first instance.
Then Philippina began, in her usual voluble style, to pour forth the
full gravamen of her charges against Theodore. She was living with him
still, oh yes, she was living with him,—for appearance’ sake, you
understand; and then besides—Philippina dropped her eyes with a
conventional smile, and glanced side-long at Andreas—there were
contingencies . . . well . . . which made it necessary, don’t you know,
to keep in with him for the present. But he was a dreadful man, all the
same, and she had quite seen through him. She wished to goodness she had
taken Herr Hausberger’s excellent advice at first, and never, never
married him. “Though there! when once one’s married to a man, like him
or lump him, my dear, the best thing one can do is to drag along with
him somehow, for the children’s sake, of course”—and Philippina
simpered once more like the veriest school-girl.
As soon as she had finished the recital of her troubles with that
dreadful man, she went on to remark, in the most offhand way, that Will
Deverill, presuming on his altered fortunes, had taken new and larger
rooms in a street in St James’s. They were beautiful rooms—oh yes, of
course—and Herr Florian had furnished them, _ach, so schön, so schön_,
was never anything like it. She saw Herr Florian often now; yes, he was
always so kind, and sent her flowers weekly—such lovely flowers. Herr
Will had heard that Linnet was coming back; and he was hoping to see
her. He would be round there that very night, he had told her so himself
just half-an-hour ago in Regent Street.
At those words, Andreas rose, without warning of any sort, and touched
the electric bell. The servant entered.
“You remember Mr Deverill?” he said to the girl; “the tall, fair
gentleman, with the light moustache, who called often last summer?”
“Oh yes, sir, I mind him well,” the girl answered, promptly “him as
brought the bokay for Mrs Hausberger the morning you was going away to
the Continent last October.”
It was an awkward reminiscence, though she didn’t intend it so. Andreas
frowned still more angrily than before at the suggestion. “That’s the
man!” he cried, savagely. “Now, Ellen, if he calls to-night and asks for
your mistress, say she isn’t at home, and won’t be at home in future to
Mr Deverill.”
His voice was cold and stern. Linnet started from her chair. Her face
flushed crimson. That Andreas should so shame her before Philippina and
her own servant—it was hateful, it was intolerable! She turned to the
girl with a tinge of unwonted imperiousness in her tone. “Say nothing of
the sort, Ellen,” she cried, in a very firm voice, standing forth and
confronting her. “If Mr Deverill comes, show him up to the
drawing-room.”
Andreas stood still and glared at her. He said never a word, but he
clenched his fists hard, and pressed his teeth together. The girl looked
from one to the other in feeble indecision, and then began to whimper.
“Which of you am I to take my orders from?” she burst out, with a little
sob. “From you, or my mistress?”
“From me!” Linnet answered, in a very settled voice. “This house is
mine, and you are _my_ servant. I earn the money that keeps it all
going. Mr Hausberger has no right to dictate to me here whom I may see
or not in my own drawing-room.”
The girl hesitated for a moment, and then left the room with evident
reluctance. As soon as she was gone, Andreas turned fiercely to his
wife. “This is open war,” he said, with a scowl; “open war, Frau
Hausberger. This is sheer rebellion. You are wrong in what you say. The
house is mine, and all that’s in it; I took it in my own name, I
furnished it, I pay the rent of it. The money you earn is mine; I have
your own signature to the document we drew up before I invested my hard
cash in getting you trained and educated. I’m your husband, and if you
disobey me, I’ll take you where I choose. Now mind, my orders are, you
don’t receive Mr Deverill in this house this evening. Philippina, you
are my witness. You hear what I say. If she does, all the world will
know what to think of it. She’ll receive him against my wish, and in my
absence. Every civilised court puts only one construction on such an act
of open disobedience.”
He went out into the hall, fiery hot, and returned with his hat. “I’m
going out,” he said, curtly. “I don’t want to coerce you. I leave it in
your own hands whether you’ll see this man alone against my will or not,
Frau Hausberger. But, recollect, if you see him, I shall take my own
course. I’ll not be bearded like this before my own servants by a
woman—a woman I’ve raised from the very dregs of the people, and put by
my own act in a position she’s unfit for.”
Linnet’s blood was up. “You can go, sir,” she said, briefly. “If Mr
Deverill calls, I shall see for myself whether or not I care to receive
him.”
Andreas strode out all on fire. As soon as he was gone, Linnet sank into
a chair, buried her face in her hands, pressed her nails against her
brow, and sobbed long and violently. The little Madonna in Britannia
metal gave scant comfort to her soul. She rocked herself to and fro in
unspeakable misery. Though she had spoken up so bravely to Andreas to
his face, she knew well in her heart this was the end of everything. As
a wife, as a Catholic, let him be ever so unworthy, let him be ever so
unkind, her duty was plain. She must never, in his absence, receive Will
Deverill!
Her strength was failing fast. She knew that well. Dear Lady, protect
her! If she saw Will after this, Heaven knew what might happen—for, oh,
in her heart, how she loved him, how she loved him! She had prayed to
the Blessed Frau that she might love Will Deverill less; but she never
meant it. The more she prayed, the better she loved him. And now, why,
the Madonna was crumpled up almost double in her convulsive grasp.
Philippina leant over her with a half-frightened air. Linnet rose and
rang the bell. It was terrible, terrible. Though it broke her poor
heart, she would obey the Church; she would obey her husband. “If Mr
Deverill calls,” she said, half-inaudibly, to the servant, once more,
“you may tell him . . . I’m not at home.”
The Church had conquered.
Then she sank back in her chair, sobbing and crying bitterly.
CHAPTER XXXIX
DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
Mr Joaquin Holmes was making a morning call one of those days on Mrs
Theodore Livingstone—better known to the readers of these pages as
Philippina—at her furnished apartments in Bury Street, Bloomsbury. Of
late, Mr Joaquin Holmes had been down on his luck; and the weather in
London that day was certainly not of a sort to propitiate the nerves of
a man who had been raised on the cloudless skies of Southern Colorado.
Though it was early April, a settled gloom, as of November, brooded
impartially over city and suburbs. Mr Joaquin Holmes was by no means
happy. Society in London had grown tired of his seership; the
Psycho-physical Entertainment at the Assyrian Hall attracted every night
an ever-dwindling audience; Maskelyne and Cooke had learnt to
counterfeit all the best of his tricks; and things in general looked so
black just then for the trade of prophet that the Seer was beginning to
wonder in his own inmost soul whether he wouldn’t be compelled before
long to fall back for a while on his more lucrative but less reputable
alternative profession of gambler and card-sharper. However, being a man
of sentiment, he consoled himself meanwhile by a morning call on Mrs
Theodore Livingstone.
Philippina was looking her very best that afternoon, attired in a
coquettish costume, half _peignoir_, half tea-gown, especially designed
for the reception of such casual visitors. And Mr Joaquin Holmes was one
of Philippina’s most devoted admirers. Florian had introduced him long
ago to the good-natured singer, before her marriage, and the Seer had
ever since been numbered among her most frequent and attentive callers.
He could talk with her in German; for, as befits his trade, he was an
excellent linguist; and Philippina was glad when she could relieve
herself for a while from the constant strain of speaking English by an
occasional return to the free tongue of her Fatherland. Theodore was
out, she said, glibly, with her accustomed volubility; oh yes, he was
out, and he wouldn’t be back, she supposed, till dinner. No fear about
that; the horrid man never came near her now, except at meal times, or
to go down to the theatre. He was off, she had no doubt, with some of
his hateful companions in some billiard-room or something, wasting the
money that ought to go to the support of the household. If it weren’t
for herself, and for some _very_ kind friends, Philippina really didn’t
know what on earth would become of them.
The Seer smiled sweetly. He was an engaging man, and when he flooded
Philippina with the light of his great eyes she thought him really as
nice as anybody on earth, except Herr Andreas. They sat there long, and
chatted in that peculiar vein which Philippina affected when she found
herself alone with one of her male admirers. She was a born flirt,
Philippina, and though she was a matron now, with a distinct tendency to
grow visibly stouter on good English fare, she had still all that
archness and that liveliness of manner which had captivated Florian the
first morning they met her on the hill-top at St Valentin.
As they sat there, exchanging a quiet fire of repartee, with many
_ach’s_ and _so’s_ of very Teutonic playfulness, the lodging-house
servant came up with a note, which Philippina tore open and read through
somewhat eagerly. The Seer noticed that as she read it her colour
deepened—such signs of feeling seldom escaped the eyes of that
observant thought-reader. He noticed also that the envelope, though
directed in English letters, bore evident traces of a German hand in the
twists and twirls of the very peculiar manuscript. He could see from
where he sat an unmistakable curl over the _u_ of Bury Street. A curl
like that could only have been produced by a person accustomed to German
writing.