Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  The poor “old bundle” was by this time completely done up, and meekly submitted to be put comfortably back on her pillow, where in a few minutes she was sound asleep. The kind-hearted Betty resumed her ironing, and, glancing up once wistfully at the interested visitor who had witnessed the little scene, remarked —

  “It do seem a pity that she can’t ‘ave what she wants! She won’t last long!”

  The visitor agreed sympathetically, and presently withdrew.

  It was then the “season” in town, and in due course it was announced in the papers that the Queen would visit London on a certain day to hold a special “drawing-room,” returning to Windsor the next afternoon. Betty was told of this, and was also informed that if she got a bath-chair for her “old bundle,” and started early, a friendly constable would see that she was properly placed outside Buckingham Palace in order to view the Queen as she drove by on her arrival from the station, and before the carriages for the Drawingroom commenced to block the thoroughfare. There would, of course, be a crowd, but the English crowd being the best-natured in the world, and invariably kind to aged persons and little children, no danger to “Granny” need be anticipated. The joy of the old lady, when she was told of the treat in store for her, was extreme, though her great age and frail health made her nervous, and filled her with fears lest again she should be disappointed of her one desire.

  “Are you sure I shall see the Queen, Betty?” she asked, twenty times a day. “Is there no mistake about it this time? I shall really see ‘er; ‘er own darling self? God bless ‘er!”

  “Quite sure, granny!” responded the cheery Betty. “You’ll be just at the Palace gates, an’ you can’t help seeing ‘er. An’ I shouldn’t wonder if she smiled at you like the Prince o’ Wales!”

  This set the “old bundle” off into a fit of chuckles, and kept her happy for hours.

  “Like the Prince o’ Wales!” she mumbled; then nodding to herself mysteriously: “Ah, he do smile kind! Everybody knows that. He do smile!”

  The eventful morning at last arrived, ushered in by the usual “Queen’s weather” — bright sunshine and cloudless skies. The “old bundle” was wrapped up tenderly and carried into a comfortable bath-chair, wheeled by an excessively sympathetic man, with an extremely red face, who entered con amove into the spirit of the thing.

  “A rare fine old lady she be,” he remarked, as he fastened the leather apron across his vehicle. “Ninety-five! Lord bless me! I hope I’ll have as merry an eye as she has when I’m her age! See the Queen? To be sure she shall; and as close as I can manage it. Come along, mother!”

  And off he trotted with his charge, Betty bringing up the rear, and enjoying to the full the fresh beauty of the fine sunny spring morning. Outside Buckingham Palace a crowd had commenced to gather, and a line of mounted soldiery kept the road clear. Betty looked around anxiously. Where was the friendly constable? Ah, there he was, brisk and business-like, though wearing a slightly puzzled air. He joined her at once and shook hands with her, then bent kindly towards the aged granny.

  “Lovely morning, mother,” he said, patting the mittened hand that lay trembling a little on the apron of the bath-chair. “Do you a world of good.”

  “Yes, yes,” murmured the old woman; “an’ the Queen?”

  “Oh, she’s coming,” returned the “Bobby,” looking about him in various directions; “we expect her every minute.”

  “The fact is,” he added, in an aside to Betty, “I can’t rightly tell which gate of the Palace Her Majesty will enter by. You see, both are guarded; the crowd keeps to this one principally, just about where we are, so I suppose it will be this one, but I couldn’t say for certain. It is generally this one.”

  “Is it?” said Betty, her heart sinking a little. “Shall granny be placed here then?”

  “Yes, you can wheel her as far as here,” and he designated the situation. “If the Queen drives in by this gate, she will pass quite close; if she goes by the other, well — it can’t be helped.”

  “Oh, surely she won’t!” exclaimed the sensitive Betty. “It would be such a disappointment.”

  “Well, you see, Her Majesty doesn’t know that—” began the constable, with an indulgent smile.

  “But the crowd is here — outside this gate,” persisted Betty.

  “That’s just why she may go in at the other,” said the guardian of the peace, thoughtfully. “You see, the Queen can’t abear a crowd.”

  “Not of ‘er own subjects?” asked Betty; “when they love ‘er so?”

  “Bobby” discreetly made no answer. He was busy instructing the man who wheeled the bath-chair to place it in a position where there would be no chance of its being ordered out of the way. Once installed near the Palace gates, the “old bundle” perked her wizened head briskly out of her wrappings, and gazed about her with the most lively interest. Her aged eyes sparkled; her poor wrinkled face had a tinge of colour in it, and something like an air of juvenility pervaded her aspect. She was perfectly delighted with all her surroundings, and the subdued murmur of the patiently waiting crowd was music to her ears.

  “Ain’t it a lovely day, Betty?” she said, in her piping, tremulous voice. “And, ain’t there a lot of nice good-looking people about?”

  Betty nodded. There was no denying the fact. There were “nice good-looking” people about — an English crowd respectfully waiting to see their Sovereign is mostly composed of such. Honest hard-workers are among them, men of toil, women of patience; and all loyal to the backbone — loyal, loving, and large-hearted, and wishful to see their Queen and Empress, and cheer her with all the might of wholesome English lungs as she passes them by.

  “It’s lucky it’s a fine day,” said a man standing close to Betty, “else we shouldn’t see the Queen at all — she’d be in a close carriage.”

  “She won’t be in one to-day,” said Betty confidently.

  “I don’t think so. She may. Let’s hope not!” Again Betty’s faithful heart felt an anxious thrill, and she glanced nervously at her “old bundle.” That venerable personage was sitting up quite erectly for her, and seemed to have got some of her youth back again in the sheer excitement of hope and expectation. Presently there was a stir among the people, and the sound of horses’ hoofs approaching at a rapid trot.

  “Here she comes!” exclaimed the bath-chair attendant, somewhat excitedly, and Betty sprang to her grandmother’s side.

  “Here she comes, granny! Here comes the Queen!”

  With an access of superhuman energy the old woman lifted herself in the chair, and her eyes glittered out of her head with a falcon-like eagerness. Nearer and nearer came the measured trot of the horses, a murmur of cheering rose from the outskirts of the crowd. Betty strained her eyes anxiously to catch the first glimpse of the royal equipage, then — she shut them again with a dizzy sense of utter desolation — it was a closed vehicle, and not the smallest glimpse could be obtained of England’s Majesty. The Queen, no doubt fatigued, sat far back in the carriage, and never once looked out. The horses turned in at the very gate near which the “old bundle” waited, alert — and in an almost breathless suspense — trotted past and were gone.

  “We must go now, granny,” said Betty, the tears rising in her throat. “It’s all over.”

  The old woman turned upon her fiercely.

  “What’s all over?” she demanded quaveringly. “Ain’t I come here to see the Queen?”

  “Well, you’ve seen ‘er,” answered Betty, with an accent of bitterness which she could not help, poor soul. “You’ve seen all anybody has seen. That was ‘er in that carriage.”

  Granny stared in vague perplexity.

  “In the carriage?” she faltered. “That was ‘er? Who? Who? Where? There worn’t nothin’ to see — nobody—”

  “Get home, mother; you’ll get mixed up in the crowd if you don’t. We’ll be having all the carriages along for the Drawing-room presently,” said the friendly constable kindly. “The Queen’s in th
e palace by now.”

  At this, the poor old dame stretched out her trembling hands towards the palace walls.

  “Shut up again!” she wailed. “Poor dear — poor dear! Lord help ye in your greatness, my lovey! God bless ye! I’d a’ given the world to see your face just once — just once — eh, dearie, dearie, dearie me! It’s a cruel day, an’ I’m very cold — very cold — I shall never see — the Queen, now!”

  The constable gave a startled glance at Betty, and sprang to the side of the bath-chair.

  “What, what, mother! Hold up a bit!” he said. “Here, Betty — I say — be quick!”

  Two or three bystanders clustered hurriedly round, while Betty caught the drooping venerable head, and, laying it against her bosom, burst out crying.

  “Oh, granny, granny dear!”

  But “Granny” was dead. Betty’s “old bundle” had been suddenly moved out of her way, leaving empty desolation behind, and an empty corner never to be filled. Some of the crowd, hearing what had chanced, whispered one to another —

  “Poor old soul! She wanted to see the Queen just once before she died. She’d never seen her, they say. Ah, well, the Queen has a rare kind heart — she’d be sorry if she knew.”

  And there was many a wistful, upward glance at the windows of the palace, as the “old bundle” was reverently covered and borne home, giving place to the daintier burdens of rich-robed beauty and jewels brought freely to “see the Queen” on Drawing-room day.

  MADEMOISELLE ZEPHYR.

  AVISION of loveliness? A dream of beauty?

  Yes, she was all this and more. She was the very embodiment of ethereal grace and dainty delicacy. The first time I saw her she was queen of a fairy revel. Her hands grasped a sceptre so light and sparkling that it looked like a rod of moonbeams; her tiny waist was encircled by a garland of moss rosebuds, glittering with dew, and a crown of stars encircled her fair white brow. Innocent as a snow-flake she looked, with her sweet serious eyes and falling golden hair; yet she was “Mademoiselle Zéphyr” — a mere danseuse on the stage of a great and successful theatre — an actress whose gestures were simple and unaffected, and therefore perfectly fascinating, and whose trustful smile at the huge audience that nightly applauded her efforts startled sudden tears out of many a mother’s eye, and caused many a fond father’s heart to grow heavy with foreboding pity. For “Mademoiselle Zéphyr” was only six years old! Only six summers had gilded the “refined gold” of the little head that now wore its wreath of tinsel stars; and scarcely had the delicate young limbs learned their use, than they were twisted, tortured, and cramped in all those painful positions so bitterly known to students of the “ballet.”

  “A very promising child,” the wealthy manager of the theatre had said, noticing her on one of the “training” days, and observing with pleasure the grace with which “Mademoiselle” lifted her tiny rounded arms above her head, and pointed her miniature foot in all the approved methods, while she smiled up into his big fat face with all the fearless confidence of her age and sex.

  And so the “promising child” advanced step by step in her profession, till here she was, promoted to the honour of being announced, on the great staring placards outside the theatre, as “Mademoiselle Zéphyr,” the “Wonderful Child-Dancer!” and, what was dearer far to her simple little soul, she was given the part of the “Fairy Queen,” in the grand Christmas pantomime of that year — a rôle in which it was her pride and pleasure to be able to summon elves, gnomes, witches, and flower-sprites with one wave of her magic wand. And she did it well too; never could wand or sceptre sway with prettier dignity or sweeter gravity; never did high commands issuing from the lips of mighty potentates sound so quaintly effective as “Mademoiselle Zéphyr’s” tremendous utterance —

  “You naughty elves! begone to you dark wood!

  You’ll all be punished if you are not dood!”

  This word “dood,” pronounced with almost tragic emphasis in the clearest of baby voices, was perhaps one of the greatest “hits” in Mademoiselle’s small repertoire of “effects though I think the little song she sang by herself in the third act was the culminating point of pathos after all. The scene was the “Fairies’ Forest by Moonlight,” and there Mademoiselle Zéphyr danced a pas seul round a giant mushroom, with stage moonbeams playing upon her long fair curls in a very picturesque manner. Then came the song — the orchestra was hushed down to the utmost softness in order not to drown the little notes of the tiny voice that warbled so falteringly, yet so plaintively, the refrain —

  “I see the light of the burning day

  Shine on the hill-tops far away,

  And gleam on the rippling river, —

  Follow me, fairies! follow me soon,

  Back to my palace behind the moon,

  Where I reign for ever and ever!”

  A burst of the heartiest applause always rewarded this vocal effort on the part of little “Mademoiselle,” who replied to it by graciously kissing her small hands to her appreciative audience; and then she entered with due gravity on the most serious piece of professional work she had to do in the whole course of the evening. This was her grand dance — a dance she had been trained and tortured into by an active and energetic French ballet-mistress, who certainly had every reason to be proud of her tiny pupil. “Mademoiselle Zéphyr” skimmed the boards as lightly as a swallow — she leaped and sprang from point to point like a bright rosebud tossing in the air — she performed the most wonderful evolutions, always with the utmost grace and agility; and the final attitude in which she posed her little form at the conclusion of the dance, was so artistic, and withal so winsome and fascinating, that a positive roar of admiration and wonderment greeted her as the curtain fell. Poor little mite! My heart was full of pity as I left the theatre that night, for to give a child of that age the capricious applause of the public instead of the tender nurture and fostering protection of a mother’s arms, seemed to me both cruel and tragic. Some weeks elapsed, and the flitting figure and wistful little face of “Mademoiselle Zéphyr” still haunted me, till at last, with the usual impetuosity that characterizes many of my sex, I wrote to the manager of the theatre that boasted the “Wonderful Child-Dancer,” and, frankly giving my name and a few other particulars. I asked him if he could tell me anything of the “Zéphyr’s” parentage and history. I waited some days before an answer came; but at last I received a very courteous letter from the manager in question, who assured me that I was not alone in the interest the talented child had awakened, but that he had reason to fear that the promise she showed thus early would be blighted by the extreme delicacy of her constitution. He added en passant, that he himself was considerably out of pocket by the “Zéphyr’s” capricious health; that she had now been absent from the boards of his theatre for nearly a week; that on making enquiries, he had learned that the child was ill in bed and unable to rise, and that he had perforce stopped her salary and provided a substitute, an older girl not nearly so talented, who gave him a great deal of trouble and vexation. He furthermore mentioned in a postscript that the “Zéphyr’s” real name was Winifred M — , that she was the daughter of a broken-down writer of libretti, and that her mother was dead, her only female relative being an elder sister whose character was far from reputable. He gave me the “Zéphyr’s” address, a bad street in a bad neighbourhood; and assuring me that it was much better not to concern myself at all with the matter, he concluded his letter. His advice was sensible enough, and yet somehow I could not follow it. It is certainly a worldly-wise and safe course to follow, that of never enquiring into the fates of your unfortunate fellow-voyagers across the tempestuous sea of life; it saves trouble, it prevents your own feelings from being harrowed, and it is altogether a comfortable doctrine. But the sweet plaintive voice of the “Zéphyr” haunted my ears, the serious child-face, with its frame of golden curls, got into my dreams at night, and at last I made up my mind to go, accompanied by a friend, to that questionable street in a still more ques
tionable neighbourhood, and make enquiries after the “Zéphyr’s” health. After some trouble, I found the dirty lodging-house to which I had been directed, and stumbling up a very dark rickety flight of stairs, I knocked at a door, and asked if “Miss M—” was at home. The door was flung suddenly wide open, and a pretty girl of some seventeen years of age, with a quantity of fair hair falling loosely over her shoulders, and large blue eyes that looked heavy and tear-swollen, demanded in a somewhat hardened tone of voice, “Well; what do you want?” My companion answered, “A lady has come to know how your little sister is, the one that acts at the theatre.” I then stepped forward and added as gently as I could, “I heard from Mr. — , the manager, that the child was ill — is she better?”

  The girl looked at me steadily without replying. Then suddenly, and as if with an effort, she said, “Come in.” We passed into a dark and dirty room, ill-smelling, ill-ventilated, and scarcely furnished at all, and while I was trying to distinguish the objects in it, I heard the sound of a feeble singing. Could it be the “Zéphyr’s” voice that sounded so far away, so faint and gasping? I listened, and my eyes filled unconsciously with tears. I recognized the tune and the refrain —

  “Follow me, fairies! follow me soon

  Back to my palace behind the moon,

  Where I reign for ever and ever!”

  “Where is she?” I asked, turning to the fairhaired girl, who stood still regarding me, half-wistfully, half-defiantly. She nodded her head towards a corner of the room, a corner which, though very dark, was still sheltered from any draught from either window or door, and there, on a miserable pallet bed, lay the poor little “Fairy Queen,” tossing from side to side restlessly, her azure eyes wide open and glittering with feverish trouble, her lovely silken hair tangled and lustreless, and her tiny hands clenching and unclenching themselves mechanically and almost fiercely. But as she tossed about on her miserable pillow, she sang unceasingly, if such a feeble wailing might be called singing. I turned from the heartrending sight to the elder girl, who, without waiting to be asked, said abruptly, “She has got brain-fever. The doctor says she cannot live over to-morrow. It’s all been brought on through overwork, and excitement and bad food. I can’t help it. I know she has never had enough to eat. I am often half-starved myself. Father drinks up every penny that we earn. It’s a good thing, I think, that Winnie will get out of it all soon. I wish I were dead myself, that I do!” And here the hardened look on the pretty face suddenly melted, the defiant flash in the eyes softened, and, flinging herself down by the little pallet, she broke into a passion of sobs and tears, crying out, “Poor Winnie — poor little Winnie!”