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

learned with regard to the Signorina Rossi, to communicate farther. There was no hope in that quarter.

But one morning Estelle made a new suggestion.

"There is something I have recalled; yes, it is perhaps of not great importance; yet perhaps again," she said. "One day Nina and I, we were speaking of this thing and the other, and she said it was right and proper that a young lady should have a dot--what is the English?--no matter. She said the young lady should bring something towards the--the management; and she asked how she or I could do that. Then comes her plan. She was thinking of it before she arrives in England. It was to go to America--to be engaged for concerts--oh, they pay large, large salaries, if you have a good voice--and Nina would take engagements for all the big cities, until she got over to San Francisco, and from there to Australia--a great tour--a long time--but at the end, then she has the little fortune, and she is independent, whatever happens. Marriage?--well, perhaps not, but she is independent. Yes, it was Nina's plan to go away on that long tour; but she comes to England--she is engaged at the New Theatre--she practises her little economies--but not so as it would be in America, and now, now if she wishes to go away for a long, long time, is it not America? She goes on the long voyage; she forgets--what she wishes to forget. Her singing, it is constant occupation; she must work; and they welcome a good voice there--she will have friends. Do you consider it not possible? Yes, it is possible--for that is to go entirely away, and there is no danger of any one interfering."

"It's just frightful to think of," he said, "if what you imagine is correct. Fancy her crossing the Atlantic all by herself--landing in New York unknown to any human being there--"

"Ah, but do you fear for Nina?" Estelle cried. "No, no--she has courage--she has self-reliance, even in despair--she will have made preparations for all. Everywhere she has her passport--in her voice. 'I am Miss Ross, from the New Theatre, London,' she says. 'How do we know that you are Miss Ross?' 'Give me a sheet of music, then.' Perhaps it is in a theatre or a concert-room. Nina sings. 'Thank you, mademoiselle, it is enough; what are the terms you wish for an engagement?' Then it is finished, and Nina has all her plans made for her by the management; and she goes from one town to the other, far away perhaps; perhaps she has not much time to think of England. So much the better; poor Nina!"

And for a while he took an eager interest in the American newspapers. Such of them as he could get hold of he read diligently--particularly the columns in which concerts and musical entertainments were announced or reported. But there was no mention of Miss Ross, or of any new singer whom he could identify with her. Gradually he lost all hope in that direction also. He did not forget Nina. He could not; but he grew to think that--whether she were in America, or in Australia, or in whatever far land she might be--she had gone away forever. Her abrupt disappearance was no momentary withdrawal; she had sundered their familiar association, their close comradeship, that was never to be resumed; according to the old and sad refrain, it was "Adieu for evermore, my dear, and adieu for evermore!" Well, for him there were still crowded houses, with their dull thunders of applause; and there were cards and betting to send the one feverish hour flying after the other; and there were the lonely walks through the London streets in the daytime--when the hours did not fly so quickly. He had carefully put away those trinkets that Nina had returned to him; he would fain have forgotten their existence.

And then there was Miss Burgoyne. Miss Burgoyne could be very brisk and cheerful when she chose; and she now seemed bent on showing Mr. Lionel Moore the sunnier side of her character. In truth, she was most assiduously kind to the young man, even when she scolded him about the life he was leading. Her room and its mild refreshments were always at his disposal. She begged for his photograph, and, having got it, she told him to write something very nice and pretty at the foot of it; why should formalities be used between people so intimately and constantly associated? On more than one occasion she substituted a real rose (which was not nearly so effective, however) for the millinery blossom which Grace Mainwaring had to drop from the balcony to her lover below; and of course Lionel had to treasure the flower and keep it in water, until the hot and gassy atmosphere of his dressing-room killed it. Once or twice she called him Lionel, by way of pretty inadvertence.

There came an afternoon when the fog that had lain all day over London deepened and deepened until in the evening the streets were become almost impassable. The various members of the company, setting out in good time, managed to reach the theatre--though there were breathless accounts of adventures and escapes as this one or that hurried through the wings and down into the dressing-room corridor; but the public, not being paid to come forth on such a night, for the most part preferred the snugness and safety of their own homes, so that the house was but half filled, and the faces of the scant audience were more dusky than ever--were almost invisible--beyond the blaze of the footlights. And as the performance proceeded, Miss Burgoyne professed to become more and more alarmed. Dreadful reports came in from without. All traffic was suspended. It was scarcely possible to cross a street. Even the policemen, familiar with the thoroughfares, hardly dared leave the pavement to escort a bewildered traveller to the other side.

When Lionel, having dressed for the last act, went into Miss Burgoyne's room, he found her (apparently) very much perturbed.

"Have you heard? It's worse than ever!" she called to him from the inner apartment.

"So they say."

"Whatever am I to do?" she exclaimed, her anxiety proving too much for her grammar.

"Well, I think you couldn't do better than stop where you are," Harry Thornhill made answer, carelessly.

"Stop where I am? It's impossible! My brother Jim would go frantic. He would make sure I was run over or drowned or something, and be off to the police-stations."

"Oh, no, he wouldn't? he wouldn't stir out on such a night, if he had any sense."

"Not if he thought his sister was lost? That's all you know. There are some people who do have a little affection in their nature," said Miss Burgoyne, as she drew aside the curtain and came forth, and went to the tall glass. "But surely I can get a four-wheeled cab, Mr. Moore? I will give the man a sovereign to take me safe home. And even then it will be dreadful. I get so frightened in a bad fog--absolutely terrified--and especially at night. Supposing the man were to lose his way? Or he might be drunk? I wish I had asked Jim to come down for me. There's Miss Constance's mother never misses a single night; I wonder who she thinks is going to run away with that puny-faced creature!"

"Oh, if you are at all afraid to make the venture alone, I will go with you," said he. "I don't suppose I can see farther in a fog than any one else; but if you are nervous about being alone, you'd better let me accompany you."

"Will you?" she said, suddenly wheeling round, and bestowing upon him a glance of obvious gratitude. "That is indeed kind of you! Now I don't care for all the fogs in Christendom. But really and truly," she added--"really and truly you must tell me if I am taking you away from any other engagement."

"Not at all," he said, idly. "I had thought of going up to the Garden Club for some supper, but it isn't the sort of night for anybody to be wandering about. When I've left you in the Edgeware Road, I can find my way to my rooms easily. Once in Park Lane, I could go blindfold."

And very proud and pleased was Miss Burgoyne to accept his escort--that is to say, when he had, with an immense amount of trouble, brought a four-wheeled cab, accompanied by two link-boys with blazing torches, up to the stage-door. And when they had started off on their unknown journey through this thick chaos, she did not minimize the fears she otherwise should have suffered; this was thanking him by implication. As for the route chosen by the cabman, or rather by the link-boys, neither he nor she had the faintest idea what it was. Outside they could see nothing but the gold and crimson of the torches flaring through the densely yellow fog; while the grating of the wheels against the curb told them that their driver was keeping as close as he could to the pavement. Then they would find themselves leaving that guidance, and blindly adventuring out into the open thoroughfare to avoid some obstacle--some spectral wain or omnibus got hopelessly stranded; while there were muffled cries and calls here, there, and everywhere. They went at a snail's pace, of course. Once, at a corner, the near wheels got on the pavement; the cab tilted over; Miss Burgoyne shrieked aloud and clung to her companion; then there was a heavy bump, and the venerable vehicle resumed its slow progress. Suddenly they beheld a cluster of dim, nebulous, phantom lights high up in air.

"This must be Oxford Circus, surely," Lionel said.

He put his head out of the window and called to the cabman.

"Where are we now, cabby?"

"Blessed if I know, sir!" was the husky answer, coming from under the heavy folds of a cravat.

"Boy," he called again, "where are we? Is this Oxford Circus?"

"No, no, sir," responded the sharp voice of the London gamin. "We ain't 'alf way up Regent Street yet!"

He shut the window.

"At this rate, goodness only knows when you'll ever get home," he said to her. "You should have stopped at the theatre."

"Oh, I don't mind," said she, cheerfully. "It's an adventure. It's something to be talked of afterwards. I shouldn't wonder if the theatrical papers got hold of it--just the kind of paragraph to go the round--Harry Thornhill and Grace Mainwaring lost in a fog together. No, I don't mind. I'm very well off. But fancy some of those poor girls about the theatre, who must be trying to get home on foot. No four-wheeled cabs for them; no companion to keep up their spirits. I sha'n't forget your kindness, Mr. Moore."

Indeed, Lionel was much more anxious than she was. He would rather have done without that paragraph in the newspapers. All his senses were on the rack; and yet he could make out absolutely nothing of his whereabouts in this formless void of a world, with its opaque atmosphere, its distant calls, inquiries, warnings, its murky lamp-lights that only became visible when they were over one's head. Miss Burgoyne seemed to be well content, to be amused even. She liked to see her name in the newspapers. There would be a pretty little paragraph to get quoted in gossippy columns, even if she and her more anxious fellow-adventurer did not reach home till breakfast-time.

The link-boys certainly deserved the very substantial reward that Lionel bestowed on them; for when, after what seemed interminable hours--with all kinds