Fair Margaret Part 13

He might easily have been forgiven if he had shown that it hurt him, as well it might. Whatever reason he and Madame Bonanni might have had for changing his name, he was brave enough not to be falsely ashamed of her, in the presence of the woman he loved.

'You see,' Margaret said, looking at him, but speaking to the prima donna, 'Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton has been stopping with us at Versailles for a good while, but I did not tell him that I had been to see you, and he never even said that he know you, though he often spoke of your singing.'

'Did he?' asked Madame Bonanni with intense anxiety. 'What did he say?

Did he say that I was growing old and ought to give up the stage?'

'Mother!' exclaimed Lus.h.i.+ngton reproachfully.

'He never said anything of the kind!' cried Margaret, taking his part with energy.

'Because he always says just what he thinks,' explained Madame Bonanni, who seemed relieved. 'And the worst part of it is that he knows,' she added, thoughtfully. 'I do not pretend to understand what he writes, but I would take his opinion about music rather than any one's. You wretched little boy!' she cried, turning on Lus.h.i.+ngton suddenly. 'How you frightened me!'

'I frightened you? How?'

'I was sure that you had told everybody that I was growing old! How could you? My darling child, how could you be so unkind? Oh, you have no heart!'

'But he never said so!' cried Margaret vehemently and feeling as if she were in a madhouse. 'He has told me again and again that you are still the greatest lyric soprano living----'

'Angelo,' said Madame Bonanni, with perfect calm, 'change my plate.'

Margaret glanced at Lus.h.i.+ngton, who seemed to think it all quite natural. He was eating little bits of thin toast thoughtfully, and from time to time he looked at his mother with a gentle expression. But he did not meet Margaret's glance.

'You never sang better in your life than you did last night, mother,'

he observed.

The prima donna's face glowed with pleasure, and as she turned her big eyes to his Margaret saw in them a look of such loving tenderness as she had rarely seen in her life.

'I saw you, my dear,' said Madame Bonanni to her son. 'You were in the second row of the stalls. I sang for you last night, for I thought you looked sad and lonely.'

Lus.h.i.+ngton laid his hand on hers for a moment.

'Thank you,' he said simply.

There was a short silence, which was unusual when the prima donna was present. Margaret had recovered from her first surprise, and had understood that Madame Bonanni adored her son and that he felt real affection for her, though he suffered a good deal from the manner in which hers showed itself. If Lus.h.i.+ngton had fancied that he might fall in Margaret's estimation through her discovery of his birth, he was much mistaken. His patience and perfect simplicity did more to make her love him than anything he had done before. She had learned his secret, or a great part of it, and she understood him now, and the reason why he had changed his name, and she felt that he had behaved very well to her in going away, though she wished that he had boldly taken her into his confidence before leaving Mrs. Rushmore's. But she did not know all, though she was neither too young nor too innocent to guess a part of the truth. Few young women of twenty-two years are. Madame Bonanni's career as an artist had been a long series of triumphs, but her past as a woman had been variegated, of the sort for which the French have invented a number of picturesquely descriptive expressions, such as 'leading the life of Punch,' 'throwing one's cap over the windmills,'

and other much less elegant phrases. Margaret saw that Lus.h.i.+ngton was not ashamed of his mother, as his mother; but she knew instinctively that his mother's past was a shame which he felt always and to the quick.

Madame Bonanni ate a good deal before she spoke again, feeling, perhaps, that she had lost time.

'Schreiermeyer says she sings divinely,' she said at last, looking at Lus.h.i.+ngton and then nodding at Margaret. 'You know what that means.'

'London?' inquired Lus.h.i.+ngton, who knew the manager.

'London next year, and an appearance this season if any one breaks down. Meanwhile he signs for her _debut_ in Belgium and a three months'

tour. Twenty-four performances in three operas, fifty thousand francs.'

'I congratulate you,' said Lus.h.i.+ngton, looking at Margaret and trying to seem pleased.

'You seem to think it is too little,' observed Madame Bonanni.

'Little?' cried Margaret. 'It's a fortune!'

'You may talk of a fortune when you get three hundred pounds a night,'

said Lus.h.i.+ngton. 'But it is a good beginning. I wonder that Schreiermeyer agreed to it so easily.'

'Easily!' Madame Bonanni laughed. 'I wish you had been there, my dear boy! He kicked and screamed, and we called him bad names. The King told him he was a dirty little Jew, which he is not, poor man, but it had a very good effect.'

'Oh!' Lus.h.i.+ngton did not seem surprised at the royal personage's reported language. 'Then it was the King who pa.s.sed me in that smart brougham? I thought so.'

'Yes,' answered Madame Bonanni rather brusquely, and she became very busy with some little birds.

'It's funny,' Margaret said to Lus.h.i.+ngton. 'One always imagines a king with a crown and a sort of ermine dressing-gown, and a sceptre like the Lord Mayor's mace! Of course it s perfectly ridiculous, isn't it?'

'I believe His Majesty possesses those things,' answered Lus.h.i.+ngton, as if he did not like the subject.

'He looked and talked much more like an old friend than anything else,'

Margaret went on, remembering that Madame Bonanni had used the same expression before Schreiermeyer.

To her surprise and sudden discomfiture neither of the two paid the least attention to her remark.

'What train shall you take, mother?' asked Lus.h.i.+ngton so abruptly upon Margaret's speech that she understood her mistake.

Though she had guessed something, it had somehow not occurred to her to connect the royal personage with Madame Bonanni's past; but now she scarcely dared to glance at Lus.h.i.+ngton. When she did, he seemed to be avoiding her eyes again, and she saw the old look of pain in his face, though he was talking about the timetables and the turbine channel-boat.

'You must come over to London and see me before your _debut_, my dear,'

Madame Bonanni said, breaking off the discussion of trains and turning to Margaret. 'That is, if Schreiermeyer will let you,' she added. 'You will have to do exactly what he tells you, now, and he is always right.

He will be a father to you, now that he is going to make money out of you.'

'Will he call me his "darling"?' inquired Margaret, with a shade of anxiety.

'Of course he will! And when you sing well he will kiss you on both cheeks.'

'Indeed he won't!' cried Margaret, turning red.

Madame Bonanni laughed heartily, but Lus.h.i.+ngton looked annoyed.

'My dear, why not?' asked the prima donna. 'Everybody kisses us artists, when we have a triumph, and we kiss everybody! The author, the manager, the dressmaker and the stage carpenter, besides all our old friends! What difference can it make? It means nothing.'

'But it's such an unpleasant idea!' Margaret objected.

'Of course,' returned Madame Bonanni, licking her fingers between the words, 'there are artists who ride the high horse and insist on being treated like d.u.c.h.esses. The other artists hate them, and real society laughs at them. It is far better to be simple, and kiss everybody. It costs so little and it gives them so much pleasure, as Rachel said of her lovers!'

'It was Sophie Arnould,' said Lus.h.i.+ngton, correcting her mistake.

'Was it? I don't care. I say it, and that is enough. Besides I hate children who are always setting their parents right! It's my own fault, because I was so anxious to have you well educated. If I had brought you up as I was brought up, you would never have left me! As it is'--she turned to Margaret with suddenly flas.h.i.+ng eyes--'do you know, my dear? that atrocious little wretch will never take a penny from me, from me, his own mother! Ah, it is villainous! He is perfectly heartless! He denies me the only pleasure I wish for. Even when he was at school, at Eton, my dear, at the great English school, you know, he worked like a poor boy and won scholars.h.i.+ps--money! Is it not disgusting? And at Oxford he lived on that money and won more! And then he worked, and worked at those terrible books, and wrote for the abominable press, and never would let me give him anything. Ah, you ungrateful little boy!

She seemed perfectly furious with him and shook her fist in his face; but the next moment she laughed and patted his cheek with her fat hand.

'And to say that I am proud of him!' she said, beaming with motherly smiles. 'Proud of him, my dear, you don't know! He is beating them all, as he always did! At the school, at the university, he was always the best! He used to get what they call firsts and double firsts every week!'