Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

George Brand walked away from the house in Curzon Street in a sort of bewilderment of hope and happiness and gratitude. He would even try to accept Calabressa's well-meant counsel: why should he not be friends with everybody? The world had grown very beautiful; there was to be no more quarrelling in it, or envy, or malice.

In the dark he almost ran against a ragged little child who was selling flowers.

"Will you buy a rose-bud, sir?" said she.

"What?" he said, severely, "selling flowers at this time of night? Get away home with you and get your supper, and go to bed;" but he spoiled the effect of his sharp admonition by giving the girl all the silver he had in his pocket.

He found the little dinner-party in a most loquacious mood. O'Halloran in especial was in full swing. The internal economy of England was to be readjusted. The capital must be transferred to the centre of the real wealth and brain-power of the country--that is to say, somewhere about Leeds or Manchester. This proposition greatly pleased Humphreys, the man from the North, who was quite willing to let the Royal Academy, the South Kensington and National Galleries, and the British Museum remain in London, so long as the seat of government was transferred to Huddersfield or thereabouts. But O'Halloran drew such a harrowing picture of the effect produced on the South of England intellect by its notorious and intense devotion to the arts, that Humphreys was almost convicted of cruelty.

However, if these graceless people thought to humbug the hard-headed man from the North, he succeeded on one occasion in completely silencing his chief enemy, O'Halloran. That lover of paradox and idle speculation was tracing the decline of superstition to the introduction of the use of steam, and was showing how, wherever railways went in India, ghosts disappeared; whereupon the Darlington man calmly retorted that, as far as he could see, the railways in this country were engaged in making as many ghosts as they could possibly disperse in India. This flank attack completely surprised and silenced the light skirmisher, who sought safety in lighting another cigar.

More serious matters, however, were also talked about, and Humphreys was eager that Brand should go down to Wolverhampton with him next morning. Brand pleaded but for one day's delay. Humphreys reminded him that certain members of the Political Committee of the Trades-union Congress would be at Wolverhampton, and that he had promised to see them. After that, silence.

At last, as Humphreys and O'Halloran were leaving, Brand said, with an effort,

"No, it is no use, Humphreys. I must remain in London one more day. You go down to-morrow; I shall come by the first train next morning. Molyneux and the others won't be leaving for some days."

"Very well, sir; good-night, sir."

Brand returned into the room, and threw himself into an easy-chair; his only companion now was his old friend Evelyn.

The younger man regarded him.

"I can tell the whole story, Brand; I have been reading it in your face. You were troubled and perplexed before you got that letter. It gave some hope. Off you went to see Natalie; you came back with something in your manner that told me you had seen her and had been received favorably. Now it is only one more day of happiness you hunger for, before going up to the hard work of the North. Well, I don't wonder. But, at the same time, you look a little too restless and anxious for a man who has just won such a beautiful sweetheart."

"I am not so lucky as that, Evelyn," said he, absently.

"What, you did not see her?"

"Oh yes, I saw her; and I hope. But of course one craves for some full assurance when such a prize is within reach; and--and I suppose one's nerves are a little excited, so that you imagine possibilities and dangers--"

He rose, and took a turn up and down the room.

"It is the old story, Evelyn. I distrust Lind."

"What has that to do with it?"

"As you say, what has that to do with it? If I had Natalie's full promise, I should care for nothing. She is a woman; she is not a school girl, to be frightened. If I had only that, I should start off for the North with a light heart."

"Why not secure it, then?"

"Perhaps it is scarcely fair to force myself on her at present until her father returns. Then she will be more her own mistress. But the doubt--I don't know when I may be back from the North--" At last he stopped short. "Yes, I will see her to-morrow at all hazards."

By-and-by he began to tell his friend of the gay-hearted old albino he had encountered at Lind's house; though in the mean time he reserved to himself the secret of Natalie's mother being alive.

"Lind must have an extraordinary faculty," he said at length, "of inspiring fear, and of getting people to obey him."

"He does not look a ferocious person," Lord Evelyn said, with a smile. "I have always found him very courteous and pleasant--frank, amiable, and all the rest of it."

"And yet here is this man Calabressa, an old friend of his; and he talks of Lind with a sort of mysterious awe. He is not a man whom you must think of thwarting. He is the Invulnerable, the Implacable. The fact is, I was inclined to laugh at my good friend Calabressa; but all the same, it was quite apparent that the effect Lind had produced on his mind was real enough."

"Well, you know," said Lord Evelyn, "Lind has a great organization to control, and he must be a strict disciplinarian. It is the object of his life; everything else is of minor importance. Even you confess that you admire his tremendous power of work."

"Yes, I do. I admire his administrative capacity; it is wonderful. But I don't believe for a moment that it was his mind that projected this big scheme. That must have been the work of an idealist, perhaps of a dozen of them, all adding and helping. I think he almost said as much to me one night. His business is to keep the machinery in working order, and he does it to perfection."

"There is one thing about him: he never forgets, and he never forgives. You remember the story of Count Verdt?"

"I have cause to remember it. I thought for a moment the wretch had committed suicide because I caught him cheating."

"I have been told that Lind played with that fellow like a cat with a mouse. Verdt got hints from time to time that his punishment as a traitor was overtaking him; and yet he was allowed to live on in constant fear. And it was the Camorra, and not Lind, or any of Lind's friends, who finished him after all."

"Well, that was implacable enough, to be sure; to have death dogging the poor wretch's heels, and yet refusing to strike."

"For myself, I don't pity him much," said Lord Evelyn, as he rose and buttoned his coat. "He was a fool to think he could play such a trick and escape the consequences. Now, Brand, how am I to hear from you to-morrow? You know I am in a measure responsible."

"However it ends, I am grateful to you, Evelyn; you may be sure of that. I will write to you from Wolverhampton, and let you know the worst, or the best."

"The best, then: we will have no worsts."

He said good-bye, and went whistling cheerfully down the narrow oak staircase. He at least was not very apprehensive about the results of the next day's interview.

But how brief was this one day, with its rapidly passing opportunities; and then the stern necessity for departure and absence. He spent half the night in devising how best he could get speech of her, in a roundabout fashion, without the dread of the interference of friends. And at last he hit upon a plan which might not answer; but he could think of nothing else.

He went in the morning and secured a box at Covent Garden for that evening. Then he called at Lisle Street, and got Calabressa's address. He found Calabressa in his lodgings, shivering and miserable, for the day was wet, misty, and cold.

"You can escape from the gloom of our climate, Signor Calabressa," said he. "What do you say to going to the opera to-night?"

"Your opera?" said he, with a gesture indicative of still deeper despair. "You forget I come from the home, the nursery of opera."

"Yes," said Brand, good-naturedly. "Great singers train in your country, but they sing here: that is the difference. Do not be afraid; you will not be disappointed. See, I have brought you a box; and if you want companions, why not ask Miss Lind and Madame Potecki to go with you and show you the ways of our English opera-houses?"

"Ah, the little Natalushka!" said Calabressa, eagerly. "Will she go? Do you think she will go? Ma foi, it is not often I have the chance of taking such a beautiful creature to the opera, if she will go! What must I do?"

"You will have to go and beg her to be kind to you. Say you have the box--you need not mention how: ask if she will escort you, she and Madame Potecki. Say it is a kindness: she cannot help doing a kindness."

"There you are right, monsieur: do not I see it in her eyes? can I not hear it in her voice?"

"Well, that you must do at once, before she goes out for her walk at noon."

"To go out walking on a day like this?"

"She will go out, nevertheless; and you must go and intercept her, and pray her to do you this kindness."

"Apres?"

"You must come to me again, and we will get an English evening costume for you somehow. Then, two bouquets; I will get those for you, and send them to them to the box to await you."

"But you yourself, monsieur; will you not be of the party?"

"Perhaps you had better say nothing about me, signore; for one is so busy nowadays. But if I come into the stalls; if I see you and the ladies in the box, then I shall permit myself to call upon you; do you understand?"

"Parfaitement," said Calabressa, gravely. Then he laughed slightly. "Ah, monsieur, you English are not good diplomatists. I perceive that you wish to say more; that you are afraid to say more; that you are anxious and a little bit demure, like a girl. What you wish is this, is it not: if I say to Madame Potecki, 'Madame, I am a stranger; will you show me the promenade, that I may behold the costumes of the beautiful English ladies?' madame answers, 'Willingly.' We go to see the costumes of the beautiful English ladies. Why should you come? You would not leave the young lady all alone in the box?"

"Calabressa," he said, frankly, "I am going away to-morrow morning: do you understand that?"

Calabressa bowed gravely.

"To comprehend that is easy. Allons, let us play out the little plot for the amusement of that rogue of a Natalushka. And if she does not thank me--eh bien! perhaps her papa will: who knows?"