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

freezes me--he nods his head--it is the Commendatore!" And then she sang, in portentous bass 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 shining shirt-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 passage 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 passing 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 passage 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 glass 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 noble."

"Noble?--trash!" he said; and he hurried these young people along to the disrobing-room and left them there. Then he went to the manager, who was still in the hall.

"I say," he began, without more ado, "there's a young friend of mine in this hotel whom I wish you'd invite to dine with us."

The manager looked rather startled--then hesitated--then stroked his waxed moustache.

"I--I presume a gentleman friend?"

"Yes, of course," said Lionel, angrily. "It's a Percival Miles--why, you must have heard of Sir Barrington Miles, and this is his eldest son, though he's quite a young fellow--"

"Oh, very well; oh, yes, certainly!" said Mr. Lehmann, apparently very much relieved. "Will you ask him?"

"Well, no, I can't exactly," Lionel said. "But I will send him a formal note in your name--'Mr. Lehmann presents his compliments'--may I?"

"All right; but dinner will be served almost directly. Would you mind telling the waiters to lay another cover?"

About five minutes thereafter, when the company had swarmed into the dining-room--most of them chatting and laughing, but the more business-like looking for their allotted places at table--Mr. Percival Miles put in an appearance, very shy and perhaps a little bewildered, for he knew not to whom he owed this invitation. Lionel had got a seat for him between Mlle. Girond and Mr. Carey, the musical conductor; if he could, and if he had dared, he would have placed him next Miss Burgoyne; but Miss Burgoyne was at the head of the table, between Lord Denysfort and Mr. Lehmann--besides, that fiery young lady might have taken sudden cause of offence. As it was, the young gentleman could gaze upon her from afar; and she had bowed to him--with some surprise clearly showing in her face--just as their eyes had met on his coming into the room. Lionel was next to Nina; he had arranged that.

It was a protracted banquet, and a merry one withal; there was a perfect Babel of noise; and the excellent old custom of drinking healths with distant friends was freely adopted. Miss Girond did her best to amuse the good-looking boy whom she had been instrumental in rescuing from his solitary dinner in the coffee-room; but he did not respond as he ought to have done; from time to time he glanced wistfully towards the head of the table, where Miss Burgoyne was gayly chatting with Lord Denysfort. As for Nina, Nina was very quiet, but very much interested, as her dark, expressive eyes eloquently showed.

"It is so beautiful, Leo," she said. "Every one looks so well; is it the light reflected from the table?" And then she said, in a lower tone, "Do you see Miss Burgoyne, Leo? She is acting all the time. She is acting to the whole table."

"That Albanian jacket of hers is gorgeous enough, anyway," Lionel responded; he was not much interested apparently in the question of Miss Burgoyne's behavior.

When dinner had been some little time over, the women-folk went away and got wraps and shawls, and the whole company passed outside, the men lighting their cigars at the top of the steps. The heavens overhead were now perfectly clear; the moonlight shone full on the long terrace, with its parapets and pedestals and plaster figures, while all the world below was shut away in a dense fog. Indeed, as the various groups idly walked about or stood and talked--their shadows sharply cut as out of ebony on the white stone--the whole scene was most extraordinary; for it appeared as though these people were the sole occupants of some region in cloud-land--a clear-shining region raised high above the forgotten earth.

"Lehmann is lucky," Lionel said to Nina. "I thought his moonlight effect was going to be a failure."

Miss Girond came up, in an eager and excited fashion.

"Nina!"

"What is it, Estelle?"

"Monsieur of the pretty face," she said, in a whisper, "oh, so sad he was all dinner!--regarding Miss Burgoyne, and she coquetting, oh, frightful, frightful!--but it is all right now--he was at the door when we come out--he takes her hand--'How you do, Miss Burgoyne?'--'Oh, how you do, Mr. Miles?'--and he leads her away before she can go to any one else. And there--away down there--do you see them? He has compensation, do you think?"

She drew Nina a little aside, and sang into her ear--

"--Ce soir, as-tu vu La fille a notre maitre, D'un air resolu Guettant a sa fenetre? Eh bien! qu'en dis tu? --Je dis que j'ai tout vu, Mais je n'ai rien cru; Je l'aime, je l'aime, Je l'aime quand meme!"

and then she broke into a malicious laugh.

"What are you two conspiring about, now?" Lionel asked--from the bench on which he had carelessly seated himself, the better to enjoy his cigar.

"You must know the consequence of doing a good action, Leo," Nina said to him. "Do you see the black bushes--yonder--and the two figures? Estelle says it is Miss Burgoyne and the young gentleman who would have been all alone but that you intercede. Is he not owing a great deal to you?"

"Well, Nina, if there is any gratitude in woman's bosom, Miss Burgoyne ought to be indebted to me too. She has got her pretty dear. I dare say he would have managed to procure a little interview with her, in some surreptitious way, in any case--I dare say that was his intention in coming down; but now that he is one of the party, one of the guests, she can talk to him before every one. And since I have been the means of bringing the pair of turtle-doves together, I hope they're happy."