Prince Fortunatus Part 32

"Then you're quite wrong, Mr. Clever," said the voice. "That ring was given me by a very dear friend, a very, very dear friend--I won't tell you whether a he or a she--and it fits that finger; but all the same I don't want the public to think I am engaged. So there--for your wonderful guessing!"

"I'm sure I beg your pardon," said he; "I didn't mean to be inquisitive."

But at this moment the intervening curtains were thrown open, and here was Grace Mainwaring, in full panoply of white satin and pearls and powdered hair. She was followed by her maid. She went to the long mirror in this larger room, and began to put the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the set of her costume and also to her make-up. Then she told Jane to go and get the inner room tidied; and when the maid had disappeared she turned to the young baritone.

"Mr. Moore," said she, rather pointedly, "you are not very communicative."

"In what way?"

"I understand you are going to take Miss Ross and Miss Girond down to Richmond on Sunday; I don't see myself why you should conceal it."

"I never thought of concealing it!" he exclaimed, with a little surprise. "Why should a trifling arrangement like that be concealed--or mentioned either?"

Miss Burgoyne regarded herself in the mirror again, and touched her white wig here and there and the black beauty-spots on her cheek and chin.

"I have been told," she remarked, rather scornfully, "that gentlemen are fond of the society of chorus-girls--I suppose they enjoy a certain freedom there that they don't meet elsewhere."

"Neither Miss Ross nor Miss Girond is a chorus-girl," he said--though he wasn't going to lose his temper over nothing.

"They have both sung in the chorus," she retorted, snappishly.

"That is neither here nor there," he said. "Why, what does it matter how we go down, when we shall all meet there on a common footing? It was an obviously simple arrangement--Sloane Street is on my way, whether I go by road or rail--"

"Oh, pray don't make any apology to _me--I_ am not interested in the question," she observed, in a most lofty manner, as she still affected to be examining her dress in the mirror.

"I wasn't making any apology to anybody," he said, bluntly.

"Or explanation," she continued, in the same tone. "You seem to have a strange fancy for foreigners, Mr. Moore; and I suppose they are glad to be allowed to practice talking with any one who can speak decent English."

"Nina--I mean Miss Ross--is an old friend of mine," he said, just beginning to chafe a little. "It is a very small piece of courtesy that I should offer to see her safely down to Richmond, when she is a stranger, with hardly any other acquaintance in London--"

"But pray don't make any excuse to _me_--what have _I_ to do with it?"

Miss Burgoyne said, sweetly. And then, as she gathered up her long train and swung it over her arm, she added, "Will you kindly open the door for me, Mr. Moore?" And therewith she pa.s.sed out and along the corridor and up into the wings--he attending her, for he also was wanted in this scene.

Well, Miss Burgoyne might drive down to Richmond with Lord Denysfort or with any one else; he was not going to forsake Nina. On the afternoon appointed, just as it was dark, he called at the house in Sloane Street, and found the two young ladies ready, with nothing but their bonnets to put on. Both of them, he thought, were very prettily dressed; but Nina's costume had a somewhat severe grace, and, indeed, rather comported with Nina's demeanor towards this little French chatterbox, whom she seemed to regard with a kind of grave and young-matronly consideration and forbearance. When they had got into the brougham which was waiting outside for them and had started away for Putney Bridge, it was Mlle.

Girond who was merry and excited and talkative; Nina only listened, in good-humored amus.e.m.e.nt. Mlle. Girond had never been to Richmond, but she had heard of it; she knew all about the beautiful view and the terrace overlooking the river, and she was promising herself the romance and charm of a stroll in the moonlight.

"I don't see much sign of that full moon as yet," Lionel said to her, peering through the window of the brougham, "but I suppose the glare of the gas-lamps would hide it in any case. However, there's a good deal of fog always along the Thames at this time of year; don't be disappointed, Miss Girond, if you have to remain in-doors. Indeed, it is far too cold to go wandering about among statues in the moonlight."

"And if in the dark, they will be all the more mysterieuz, do you not think?" said Mlle. Girond, eagerly. "And there will be surprises--perhaps a laugh, perhaps a shriek--if you run against some one."

"Oh, no, I am not going to allow anything of that kind," said he. "I have to look after you young ladies, and you must conduct yourselves with the strictest decorum."

"Yes, for Nina," Mlle. Girond cried, gayly. "That is for Nina--for me, no! I will have some amus.e.m.e.nt, or I will run away. Who gave you control of me, monsieur? I thank you, but I do not wish it."

"Estelle!" said Nina, in tones of grave reproach.

"Ah!" said the wilful young lady, and she put out the tips of her fingers as though she would shake away from her these too-serious companions. "You have become English, Nina. Very well. If I have no more gay companion, I go out and seek a statue--I beckon to him--I defy him--ah! he freezes me--he nods his head--it is the Commendatore!" And then she sang, in portentous ba.s.s notes--

"Don Giovanni, a cenar teco M' invitasti--e son venuto!"

Lionel let down the window.

"Do you see that, Miss Girond?"

Far away, above the blue mists and the jet-black trees (for they were out in the country by this time), hung a small, opaque disk of dingy orange.

"It is the moon, Leo!" cried Nina. "Ah, but so dull!"

"That is the fog lying over the low country," he said; "it may be clearer when we get to the top of the hill. It is to be hoped so, at all events. Fancy a theatrical company going out to a rustic festivity and not provided with a better moon than that!"

However, when they finally reached the Star and Garter, they had forgotten about the moon and the aspect of the night; for here were the wide steps and the portico all ablaze with a friendly yellow glow; and just inside stood Mr. Lehmann, with the most s.h.i.+ning s.h.i.+rt-front ever beheld, receiving his guests as they arrived. Here, too, was Lord Denysfort, a feeble-looking young man, with huge ears and no chin to speak of, who, however, had shown some sense in engaging a professional whip to drive the four-in-hand down through the fog. Of course there was a good deal of bustle and hurry and confusion--friends anxious about the non-arrival of other friends and so forth--in the midst of which Lionel said to his two companions,

"Dinner will be a long time yet. The ladies who have driven down will be making themselves beautiful for another quarter of an hour. Suppose we go out on the balcony, and see whether any of Miss Girond's statues are visible."

They agreed to this, for they had not taken off their cloaks; so he led them along the hall and round by a smaller pa.s.sage to a door which he opened; they got outside, and found themselves in the hushed, still night. Below them, on the wide terrace, they could make out the wan, gray, plaster pillars and pediments and statues among the jet-black shrubs; but beyond that all was chaos; the river and the wooded valley were shrouded in a dense mist, pierced only here and there by a small orange ray--some distant window or lamp. They wandered down the wide steps; they crossed to the parapet; they gazed into that great unknown gulf, in which they could descry nothing but one or two spectral black trees, their topmost branches coming up into the clearer air. Then they walked along to the southern end of the terrace; and here they came in sight of the moon--a far-distant world on fire it seemed to be, especially when the sombre golden radiance touched a pa.s.sing tag of cloud and changed it into lurid smoke. All the side of the vast building looking towards them was dark--save for one window that burned red.

"Is that where we dine?" asked Nina, as they returned.

"Oh, no," Lionel answered. "Our room is at the end of the pa.s.sage by which we came out--I suppose the shutters are closed. I fancy that is the coffee-room."

"I am going to have a peep in," Mlle. Girond said, as they ascended the steps again; and when they had reached the balcony she went along to the window, leaving her companions behind, for they did not share in this childish curiosity. But the next moment little Capitaine Crepin came back, in a great state of excitement.

"Come, come, come!" she said, breathlessly. "Ah, the poor young gentleman--all alone!--my heart feels for him--Mr. Moore, it is piteous."

"Well, what have you discovered now?" said Lionel, indifferently, for he was getting hungry.

"Come and see--come and see! All alone--no one to say a word--"

Lionel and Nina followed their eager guide along the dark balcony, until they had got near the brilliant red window. They looked in. The room was bright with crimson-shaded lamps, and its solitary occupant they made out clearly enough; it was Mr. Percival Miles--in evening dress, standing before the fireplace, gazing into the coals, his hands in his pockets.

"Ah," said Nina, as she quickly drew back, "that is the young gentleman who sometimes waits for Miss Burgoyne, is it not, Leo? And he is all by himself. It is hard."

"You think it is hard, Nina?" Lionel said, turning to her, as the three spies simultaneously withdrew.

"Oh, yes, yes!" Nina exclaimed.

"Well, you see," continued Lionel, as he opened the gla.s.s door to let his companions re-enter the hotel, "an outsider who comes skylarking after an actress, and finds her surrounded by her professional friends and her professional interests, has to undergo a good deal of tribulation. That poor fellow has come down here to dine all by himself, merely to be near her. But, mind you, it was that same fellow who wanted to kill me."

"He, kill you!" Nina said, scornfully. "You allowed him to live--yes?"

"But I don't bear any malice. No, I don't. I'm going to make that boy just the very happiest young man there is in the kingdom of Great Britain this evening."

"Ah, I know, I know!" exclaimed Nina, delightedly.

"Oh, no, you don't know. You don't know anything about it. What you and Miss Girond have got to do now is to go into the cloak-room and leave your things, and afterwards I'll meet you in the dining-room."

"Yes, but you are going to Mr. Lehmann!" said Nina, with a laugh. "I do not know?--yes, I do know. Ah, that is generous of you, Leo--that is n.o.ble."