Prince Fortunatus by William Black (ebook reader with highlighter TXT) 📖

and then he asked her whether she ought not to call Miss Girond, for it was about time they were going down to the theatre.

Of course the forthcoming dinner that Mr. Lehmann was about to give at the Star and Garter created quite a stir behind the scenes, where the routine of life is much more monotonous than the people imagine who sit in the stalls and regard the antics of the merry folk on the stage. There were all kinds of rumors and speculations as to who was going with whom, as to the number and quality of the visitors, and as to the possibility of the manager presenting each of his lady-guests with a little souvenir in honor of the occasion. So when Lionel was summoned to Miss Burgoyne's room one evening, he was not surprised to find her begin to talk of the following Sunday.

"Will you make yourself some tea, Mr. Moore?" she said, from the inner room. "There's some cake on the top of the piano. Then you can bring a chair to the curtain, and I'll talk to you--for I'm not quite finished yet."

He drew a chair to the little opening in the curtain, where he could hear what she had to say, and answer, without any indiscreet prying.

"I am at your service, Miss Grace," said he, lightly.

"How are you going down to Richmond on Sunday?" she asked at once.

"By train, I suppose."

There was a moment's silence--perhaps she was waiting for him to ask a similar question.

"Lord Denysfort is going to drive down," said the voice in the inner room.

"Lord Denysfort!" he said, contemptuously. "What she is the attraction now? I don't like that kind of thing; it gets the theatre a bad name. If I were Lehmann, I wouldn't have a single stranger allowed in the wings."

"Not unless they were your own friends," said the unseen young lady, complacently. "Now I know you're scowling. But I believe you are quite wrong. Lord Denysfort is simply a business acquaintance of Mr. Lehmann's--there are money matters between them, and that kind of thing; and when he was asked to be present at the dinner, it was quite natural that he should offer to drive some of us down. You have no particular detestation of lords, have you? What has become of the tall, handsome young man you brought to us at Henley--the lazy man--and didn't he come to the theatre one night?"

"Lord Rockminster?--he is in Scotland still, I believe."

"Somebody ought to put fireworks in his coat-tail pockets; but he's awfully good-looking--he's just frightfully handsome. He quite fluttered me."

"I say, Miss Burgoyne," Lionel interposed, quickly, "there's a sister-in-law of his coming to town shortly, on her way to Brighton--a Miss Cunyngham--and I should like to have her mother and herself come behind for a little while, some night they were at the theatre--it is interesting to those people, you know--"

"You are the one who would have no strangers in the wings!" said the voice.

"And I want you to be civil to them--"

"Tea and cake? All right. But you haven't told me how you are going down to Richmond."

"Yes, I have. I'm going down by train, most likely."

"Oh, by train. I suppose I ought to accept Lord Denysfort's invitation."

"What's the good of driving at this time of year?" he asked. "It will be pitch dark."

"There will be a full moon, they say."

"You won't see it because of the fog. In fact, the whole thing is a mistake. The dinner should have been given in London."

"Oh, I think it will be great fun dining at a half-deserted hotel--it will be ghostly--and I'm going out on the terrace, if it is as black as midnight."

"And what are you going to do with your gallant warrior--with the furious fire-eater who wanted to bring my humble career to a premature end?"

"I don't know who you mean," said the voice, but with no great decision.

"You don't remember saving my life, then?" he asked. "Have you forgotten the duel that was to have been fought before I went to Scotland, and how you stepped in to protect me? If it hadn't been for you, I might have fallen on the gory field of battle--"

"It's all very well for you to mock," said she, "but there's nothing that young man wouldn't do for my sake; and I don't see anything to laugh at in true esteem and affection. They're too rare nowadays. I know one or two gentlemen who might be improved by a little more devotion and--and chivalry. But it's all persiflage nowadays. Everything is connu--"

"Behind the scenes, perhaps; but it's different when you import the fresh, the ingenuous element from the outer world," said he (but what interest had he in the discussion?--he did not wear his heart on his sleeve for Miss Burgoyne to peck at). "Aren't you going to take Mr. Miles down with you?"

"Poor Percy!" said the now muffled voice (perhaps she had a pin in her teeth, or perhaps she was still further touching-up her lips), "I suppose he would come if he were invited; but he doesn't know any of them."

"Why don't you ask Lehmann for an invitation for him?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Moore?" demanded the voice--sharply enough now.

"Oh, nothing."

"I consider you are very impertinent. Why should I ask for an invitation for Mr. Miles? What would that imply? Do you suppose I particularly wish him to be there?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to offend," Lionel said, quite humbly. "Only--you see--the other night you showed me that ingenious dodge of covering the ring you wear with a bit of white india-rubber--and--and I thought it might be an engagement ring--worn on that finger--"

"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 finishing 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 passed 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 amusement. 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 amusement, 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