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

You haven't seen them?" asked Mr. Quirk, lifting his heavy and boiled-gooseberry eyes and looking at Lionel.

"Oh, no," was the answer. "My judgment is of no use to her; she is aware of that. I hope you were pleased with what you saw of it. Her last novel was not quite so successful as they had hoped, was it?"

"My dear fellow!" Mr. Quirk exclaimed, in astonishment (for he could not have the power of the log-rollers called in question). "Not successful? Most successful!--most successful! I don't know that it produced so much money--but what is that to people in their sphere?"

"Perhaps not much," said Lionel, timidly (for what did he know about such esoteric matters?). "I suppose the money they might get from a novel would be of little consideration--but it would show that the book had been read."

"And what, again, do they care for vulgar popularity?--the approbation of the common herd--of the bovine-headed multitude? No, no, it is the verdict of the polished world they seek--it is fame--eclat--it is recognition from their peers. It may be only un succes d'estime--all the more honorable! And I must say Lady Adela is a very clever woman; the pains she takes to get 'Kathleen's Sweethearts' mentioned even now are wonderful. Indeed, I propose to give her an additional hint or two to-morrow. Of course you know ---- is doomed?" asked Mr. Quirk, naming a famous statesman who was then very seriously ill.

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. Gout at the heart; hopeless complications; he can't possibly last another ten days. Very well," continued Mr. Quirk, with much satisfaction, as if Providence were working hand in hand with him, "I mean to advise Lady Adela to send him a copy of 'Kathleen's Sweethearts.' Now do you understand? No? Why, man, if there's any luck, when he dies and all the memoirs come out in the newspapers, it will be mentioned that the last book the deceased statesman tried to read was Lady Adela Cunyngham's well-known novel. Do you see? Good business? Then there's another thing she must absolutely do with her new book. These woman-suffrage people are splendid howlers and spouters; let her go in for woman-suffrage thick and thin--and she'll get quoted on a hundred dozen of platforms. That's the way to do it, you know! Bless you, the publishers' advertisements are no good at all nowadays!"

Lionel was not paying very much heed; perhaps that was why he rather indifferently asked Mr. Quirk whether he himself was in favor of extending the suffrage to women.

"I?" cried Mr. Quirk, with a boisterous horse-laugh. "What do I care about it? Let them suffer away as much as ever they like!"

"Yes, they're used to that, aren't they?" said Lionel.

"What I want to do is to put Lady Adela up to a dodge or two for getting her book talked about; that's the important and immediate point, and I think I can be of some service to her," said Mr. Quirk? and then he added, more pompously, "I think she is willing to place herself entirely in my hands."

Happily at this moment there came into the room two or three young gentlemen, intent upon supper and subsequent cards, who took possession of the farther end of the table; and Lionel was glad to get up and join the new-comers, for he felt he could not eat in the immediate neighborhood of this ill-favored person. He had his poached eggs and a pint of hock in the company of these new friends; and, after having for some time listened to their ingenuous talk--which was chiefly a laudation of Miss Nellie Farren--he lit a cigarette and set out for home.

So it was Octavius Quirk who was now established as Lady Adela's favorite? It was he who was shown the first sheets of the new novel; it was he who was asked to dinner immediately on the return of the family from Scotland; it was he who was to be Lady Adela's chief counsellor throughout the next appeal to the British public? And perhaps he advised Lady Sybil, also, about the best way to get her musical compositions talked of; and might not one expect to find, in some minor exhibition, a portrait of Octavius Quirk, Esq., by Lady Rosamund Bourne? It seemed a gruesome kind of thing to think of these three beautiful women paying court to that lank-haired, puffy, bilious-looking baboon. He wondered what Miss Georgie Lestrange thought of it; Miss Georgie had humorous eyes that could say a good deal. And Lord Rockminster--how did Lord Rockminster manage to tolerate this uncouth creature?--was his good-natured devotion to his three accomplished sisters equal even to that?

Lionel did not proceed to ask himself why he had grown suddenly jealous of a man whom he himself had introduced to Lady Adela Cunyngham. Yet the reason was not far to seek. Before his visit to Scotland, it would have mattered little to him if any one of his lady friends--or any half dozen of them, for the matter of that--had appeared inclined to put some other favorite in his place; for he had an abundant acquaintance in the fashionable world; and, indeed, had grown somewhat callous to their polite attentions. But Lady Adela and her two sisters were relations of Honnor Cunyngham; they were going down to Brighton this very week; he was anxious (though hardly knowing why) to stand well in their opinion and be of importance in their eyes. As he now walked home he thought he would go and call on Lady Adela the following afternoon; if she were going down to that house in Adelaide Crescent, there would be plenty of talk among the women-folk; his name might be mentioned.

Next morning there was no further word of Nina. When he had got his fencing over, he went along to Sloane Street, but hardly with any expectation of news. No, Estelle had nothing to tell him; Nina had gone away--and wished to remain undiscovered.

"Poor Nina!" said Estelle, with a sigh.

Somewhat early in the afternoon he went up to Campden Hill. Lady Adela was at home. He noticed that the man-servant who ushered him into the drawing-room was very slow and circumspect about it, as if he wished to give ample warning to those within; and, indeed, just as he had come into the hall, he had fancied he heard a faint shriek, which startled him not a little. When he now entered the room he found Miss Georgie Lestrange standing in the middle of the floor, while Lady Adela was seated at a small writing-table a little way off. They both greeted him in the most friendly fashion; and then Miss Georgie (a little embarrassed, as he imagined) went towards the French window and looked out into the wintry garden.

"You have come most opportunely, Mr. Moore," said Lady Adela, in her pleasant way. "I'm sure you'll be able to tell us: how high would a woman naturally throw her arms on coming suddenly on a dead body?"

He was somewhat staggered.

"I--I'm sure I don't know."

"You see, Georgie has been so awfully kind to me this morning," Lady Adela continued. "I have arrived at some very dramatic scenes in my new story, and she has been good enough to act as my model; I want to have everything as vivid as possible; and why shouldn't a writer have a model as well as a painter; I hope to have all the attitudes strictly correct--to describe even the tone of her shriek when she comes upon the dead body of her brother. Imagination first, then actuality of detail; Rose tells me that Mr. Mellord, after he has finished a portrait, won't put in a blade of grass or a roseleaf without having it before him. If there's to be a crust of bread on the table, he must have the crust of bread."

"Yes, but Mr. Moore," said Miss Georgie, coming suddenly back from the window--and she was blushing furiously, up to the roots of her pretty golden-red hair, and covertly laughing at the same time, "my difficulty is that I try to do my best as the woman who unexpectedly sees her dead brother before her; but I've got nothing to come and go on. I never saw a dead body in my life; and it would hardly do to try it with a real dead body--"

"Georgie, don't be horrid!" Lady Adela said, severely. "Here is Mr. Moore, who can tell you how high the hands should be held, and whether they should be clenched or open."

"Well, Lady Adela," he said, in his confusion (for he was in mortal terror lest she should ask him to get up and posture before her), "the fact is that on the stage there are so many ways of expressing fear or dismay that no two people would probably adopt the same gestures. Would you have her hands above her head? Wouldn't it be more natural for her to have them about the height of her shoulders--the elbows drawn tightly back--her palms uplifted as if to shut away the terrible sight?--"

"Yes, yes!" said Lady Adela, eagerly; and she quickly scribbled some notes on the paper before her. "The very thing!--the very thing!"

"But don't you think," he ventured to say, "that that would look rather mechanical--rather stagey, in fact? I know nothing about writing; but I should think you would want to deal mostly with the expression of the woman's face--"

"I want to have it all!" the anxious authoress exclaimed. "I want to have attitudes--gestures--everything; to make the picture vivid. I must have the actual tone of her shriek--"

"Which Mr. Moore heard as he came in," Miss Georgie said, as a kind of challenge.

"Yes, I thought I heard a slight cry," he admitted, gravely.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Moore," said Lady Adela, with her most charming smile, as she began to fold up her notes. "The little piece of realism you have suggested will come in admirably; and I think I've done enough for to-day--thanks to Georgie here, who has just been an angel of patience."

Tea followed, and some idle talk, during which Lionel learned that Lady Adela and her sisters were going down to Brighton the following day. He incidentally mentioned Octavius Quirk's name; whereupon his hostess, who was a sharp and a shrewd woman when she was not dabbling in literature, instantly and graciously explained to him that she had been corresponding a good deal with Octavius Quirk of late, over her new work. She informed him, further, that Octavius Quirk was coming to dine there that evening--what a pity it was that Mr. Moore was engaged every evening at the theatre! When Lionel left, she had persuaded him that he was just as much a favorite as ever; he could very well understand that she had cultivated Octavius Quirk's acquaintance only in his capacity as a kind of pseudo-literary person.

Day after day of this lonely week passed; Lionel, all unknown to himself, was marching onward to his fate. On the Saturday there were two performances of "The Squire's Daughter;" at night he felt very tired--which was unusual with him; that, or some other palpable excuse, was sufficient to take him down to Victoria station on the Sunday morning. He had forgotten, or put aside, all Maurice Mangan's cool-blooded presentation of his case; undefined longings were in his brain; the future was to be quite different from the past--and somehow Honnor Cunyngham was the central figure in these mirage-like visions. He had formed no definite plans; he had prepared no persuasive appeal; the only and immediate thing he knew was that he wished to be in