A London Season

by Anthea Bell

  But here he was interrupted by a dismayed exclamation of “Oh dear!” from Mrs. Ford. Her rosy face crumpled slightly, and large tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  “Amelia!” said her husband, alarmed. “What can be the matter?” Looking around for some means of succour, he took his own glass of Madeira in one hand and the plate of cake in the other, and urged both upon her, begging her distractedly, “Take a little wine, Amelia—take a slice of cake, my dear, and you will feel better directly!”

  “No, no!” uttered Mrs. Ford, through her tears.

  Sir Edmund, who had certainly not meant to provoke such a reaction, was quite alarmed by the effect of his own words. “Please, my dear ma’am, don’t let anything I have said distress you. I had no intention of—”

  “Oh, I might have known how it would be!” wept Mrs. Ford, firmly thrusting aside the cake, but taking a sip from her husband’s glass. She mastered her sobs. “Of course I told her they must not think of such a thing—I told them both! I even represented it to them strongly, John, that you and I would be held to blame! And he perfectly understood—and even she promised me—but I have wondered if they did continue to meet after all!”

  Ah, thought Sir Edmund, now we are getting somewhere! “My dear Mrs. Ford, no one blames you for anything,” he said soothingly. “It is only that my cousin and I did suspect some affair of the heart lay behind Persephone’s unhappiness, and I wished to discover the facts of the matter. Do you think you could manage to tell me?”

  “And you say she has had no letter? Oh—I can’t wish her unhappy, but I am glad of it too, since it means he has done just as he ought,” said Mrs. Ford obscurely, stemming the last of her tears.

  “Quite so, Amelia, quite so,” her husband calmed her. “Who has done just as he ought?” he added, and then, apparently searching his memory, “Can you mean young Robert? Dear me, how very shocking! Not that he has done as he ought, I mean, but that—that the necessity for it should arise. Do I understand, Amelia, that you mean to tell us an attachment of some sort existed between young Robert and Persephone? Well, I am astonished! Who would ever have thought of it?”

  “I ought to have thought of it! From the very outset!” said Mrs. Ford remorsefully. “But I swear, Sir Edmund, I saw no harm in it, not at the start. You see, he is a most gifted musician, and while he is only five and twenty or so, nonetheless that is some years older than Persephone, and I would never have supposed that a Bath miss still at school ... but there! It was the voice that first caught his fancy, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Sir Edmund.

  “And then they came to know each other better, and—and yes, they did become attached. Most sincerely attached, as it seemed.”

  “Young Robert!” Mr. Ford continued to marvel. “Well, well, well! Young Robert!”

  “Go on,” said Sir Edmund encouragingly. “Tell me about young Robert!”

  “Oh, most promising, highly talented, just as Amelia says,” replied Mr. Ford enthusiastically. “An excellent violinist, you know, and a fine pianist too, but his real interest is in his own compositions, and I am pretty sure he will make his name one of these days—oh yes, he will make his name, but meanwhile, of course, one must keep body and soul together, and he has not as yet realized his hopes of obtaining a congenial post providing a regular salary in his native Germany.”

  “So the young man is German?”

  “German or Austrian, I am not perfectly sure which—but having spent long periods of time in this country, he speaks excellent English. The same cannot be said of his young friends, but then the language of music, you know, is universal!”

  “Let’s hear about the young friends too,” suggested Sir Edmund.

  “Ah, well, Franz and Josef and Johann are in the way of making up a quartet with Robert from time to time. Robert Walter—that is his full name. They lodge in London, you understand, living, I suppose, on what musical engagements they can get—I believe that Robert does not in fact share the lodgings of the others, but when they come together they call themselves the Lark Quartet. Nothing to do with larking about, or anything of that nature,” Mr. Ford hastily added, lest his guest be led astray by the slang term, “but on account of that bird’s tuneful song, and I think also with reference to Haydn’s Lark Quartet, a work they frequently perform, as indeed they did when they first came here to entertain our friends at a Musical Evening.”

  Having offered this punctilious explanation, he paused for breath, and his wife took up the tale, reminding him that she fancied Sir Edmund would rather know about Robert and Persephone than the repertoire of the Lark Quartet.

  “You see, the young men have sometimes given recitals here in Bath, and so we have all become good friends, because they come to stay with us—if some of the children sleep two to a bed, we can put them up without too much difficulty.”

  “Yes, indeed! Most agreeable to have such talented young fellows about the place!” said her husband cheerfully, his mind straying again from the matter under discussion.

  “All the same,” said Mrs. Ford, resolutely, “I do hold myself to blame! When he—Robert, that is—was so amazed by Persephone’s voice on first hearing it—oh, I ought to have been on my guard! No use now crying over spilt milk, but I should have seen it sooner!”

  “You are really telling us, Amelia,” the still faintly bewildered music master inquired, “that Robert has taken a warm liking to Persephone herself? Not only her voice?”

  “Well, why not?” asked his wife, reasonably. “You know very well she is a most engaging girl, John! And he is a remarkably handsome young man.”

  “He would be,” observed Sir Edmund, resigned.

  “So that while I did not anticipate it because of her youth, I suppose it was not so very wonderful, once they had first become attracted. But of course, it will never do!”

  “Yes, that is the point, I fancy,” said Sir Edmund. “You mustn’t think I am angry, my dear ma’am, but if I know more of this it may well be helpful to all of us, not least Persephone.”

  “And of course,” put in Mr. Ford, still working it all out in his own head, “when they had such an interest as music in common, too—no, you are right, Amelia, it is not very wonderful!”

  “Well, never mind that now, my dear: it is the outcome Sir Edmund wants to know about—and I am glad to say, sir, there was no outcome. ” She paused, and added, doubtfully, “At least, I had thought not. You see, when first I discovered that they had been meeting privately, out there in the garden, or sometimes all alone together in the music room upstairs, though I am perfectly sure nothing wrong took place, Sir Edmund—well, then I represented all the impropriety of it to them both. And Robert perfectly understood, and said he would postpone approaching Persephone’s guardian—meaning yourself, of course, Sir Edmund—until he could do so as a man of—of sufficient means to ask for her hand. Oh, such a castle in Spain, poor boy! What chance could he look for to bring that about? But then, you see, I think he did not quite realize Persephone’s own station in the world.”

  “How long have they known each other?” interrupted Sir Edmund.

  “Oh, it must be since last summer. And then, at about Christmas time—for the Lark Quartet gave us a recital in December, and Robert lingered here, so to speak, after his friends went away again—yes, it was then that I saw what was happening, and spoke to them. And I was sure it was all over! But from what you say—and yes, I own I had wondered, later—I suppose she cajoled him into further private meetings.”

  “You’re sure,” asked Persephone’s guardian, “that it was she who did the cajoling? No, I beg your pardon. I should not ask you that, since I see the young man is a favourite of yours.” He saw, too, that poor Mrs. Ford was looking distressed again, and added, “She can certainly cajole well enough when she wants to, so I dare say you are right. I take it, from what you and my cousin Elinor have told me, that she wrote to him from London.”

  “Oh!” wailed Mrs. Ford. “Oh yes,
she did, for the letter came here, addressed to him care of myself! You see, he had gone off on a tour of Wales when she left for London—”

  Ah, yes: Miss Radley had that much from Persephone herself.”

  “And it was a settled thing that he would return here, when he had got the inspiration he sought in the wild scenery of the mountains.”

  “What kind of inspiration was he looking for?” inquired Sir Edmund, mildly interested.

  “For his opera, which promises to be very fine,” put in Mr. Ford, with suddenly revived enthusiasm. “It is to have an Ancient British setting, and while I own I think the story quite absurd, what Robert has so far written of the score is remarkable, truly remarkable!”

  “Yes, yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Ford. “But the thing is, Sir Edmund, that he came back here as we had agreed, so as to have a quiet place—” Quiet? marvelled Sir Edmund “—where he could write more of the music. And when I saw the letter, in Persephone’s hand—well, I supposed it was a kind of sentimental farewell, that would do her good to write, and you may think it was very wrong of me, Sir Edmund,” said Mrs. Ford, bravely meeting his gaze, “but I could not bring myself to suppress it entirely, and so I did give it to Robert. But you may be very sure I charged him not to answer it, and he swore most solemnly he would not! And then she wrote to me, asking for his direction in London. It was then that I began to fear they had been meeting in secret after all, since Christmas time. But of course I would not tell her where to find him—believe me, I knew that would be fatal, since it would serve only to keep both their affections alive.” Mrs. Ford’s kind heart evidently still bled for the young lovers, thought Sir Edmund, a good deal less affected, himself, by the pathos of this sad story. “I told her,” finished Mrs. Ford, “that I did not know where he was to be found, and very likely he was gone home to Germany. Which was not true, I am afraid, because I did know it, and he had not gone back, but I really could not connive any further, could I?” And she began to weep once again, but more quietly this time, while her husband endeavoured to console her. “I was so sorry for them, though I knew it would never have done,” she repeated.

  Sir Edmund felt considerably more sympathy for Mrs. Ford than for the objects of her pity; it sounded to him as if the pair of them had found the poor woman so much wax in their hands, and if, as appeared likely, Persephone’s musical suitor had as much engaging charm as she, it was not to be wondered at. He also acknowledged that, despite Mrs. Ford’s soft heart, she had done her best to nip the affair in the bud, and so he applied himself to the task of soothing her distress. To that end, he allowed the Fords to persuade him to stay for dinner—an excellent notion, for Mrs. Ford, a hospitable soul, brightened perceptibly as she hurried away to see what Cook was about in the kitchen, and to supervise the laying of another place at table.

  He was glad he had stayed, too. The dinner was excellent; Mr. Ford produced a bottle of surprisingly good claret to grace it; and the meal was enlivened by the company of most of the children. Sir Edmund was at last able to count them and establish that the full tally came to eight, including Baby and the toddler who had not, after all, been preserved from the lily pond, but emerging from the currant bushes had tumbled straight in, to be fished out directly, apparently none the worse for it, by his attendant sister and a passing brother. The two youngest did not come in to dinner, but were brought in later by a nursemaid, to be rocked in their mother’s arms and fussed over by their brothers and sisters. The presence of so many children might not have been thought conducive to the peace of the dinner table, but in fact the six who shared the meal were very prettily behaved, and Sir Edmund greatly enjoyed the informality of it all. No wonder, he reflected again, that Persephone—and no doubt the impecunious young musicians from Germany too—had liked the easy-going spirit of this house, so different from the starchy atmosphere of the seminary! It was with much mutual goodwill that he eventually parted from the Fords, charged with loving messages to Persephone, and the information that little Eliza was coming along nicely on the pianoforte and often sang the songs Persephone had taught her.

  13

  Sir Edmund set off very early the next morning, being anxious to reach London before it would be too late in the day to call at Yoxford House for a word with Miss Radley. A private word, he hoped. He looked forward to telling her what he had discovered: it was news which he hoped and trusted would effectively quieten her fears. From all he had heard in Bath, there seemed little likelihood that Persephone’s musician would re-enter her life: he appeared to have accepted his dismissal at Mrs. Ford’s hands. Sir Edmund felt some sympathy for his ward, whose own musical gifts had obviously contributed to her attachment—apparently a stronger one than he and Elinor had at first supposed—but time would certainly heal the wounds. That he knew from his own experience of a deeper hurt.

  In the event, having washed off the dust of the road and changed into evening dress, he arrived in Upper Brook Street only to find that the family had dined and gone out for the evening. Beale informed him that, except for his lordship, who had gone to his club, they were at Lady Mercer’s Brindisi.

  “Where?” inquired Sir Edmund.

  “I believe, sir, that the term denotes a Musical Evening of a convivial nature. From the circumstance of a drinking song’s being known by the name of the Italian city of Brindisi, sir,” explained Beale. “I am not perfectly sure that such a derivation is correct,” he added scrupulously, “but of course, one might ascertain that by reference to Miss Grafton’s singing master, Signor Pascali, when next he—”

  However, he had lost his hearer’s attention as soon as the words Musical Evening were out of his mouth.

  “You mean they’re all round in Grosvenor Square?” interrupted Sir Edmund, taking back his hat and gloves. “Then I’ll follow them there! Don’t trouble to call a hack; it’s only a step to walk.”

  There was obviously a considerable attendance at the so-called Brindisi. Sir Edmund was well acquainted with the host and hostess of the evening, and although he had received no formal invitation, the lady of the house was delighted to welcome him. “Dear Isabella was saying, just now, she fancied you might join us if you were back in town in time.”

  “A large gathering!” said Sir Edmund, surveying the scene from the top of the shallow flight of stairs where he and Lady Mercer stood. “And just to my ward’s liking—as soon as I heard the occasion was a musical one, I knew how eager she must have been to attend.” He was looking about him for the Yoxford party—which, as Charley had returned to Cambridge, would consist of the ladies only—but had so far failed to see any of them.

  “Dear Miss Grafton! I hope she will play and sing for us all a little later,” said Lady Mercer graciously. Since her own two daughters were very eligibly married, she was able to see Persephone shine in company with more equanimity than some of the other middle-aged ladies present. “I hear that people have taken to calling her the Nightingale of Upper Brook Street! Charming! But you must not think we are to depend solely on ourselves for entertainment—dear me, no! I have engaged musicians to play for us, one of whom, I am told, is quite a prodigy! But do go in. I think you will find Isabella and her party in the Blue Saloon.” And she turned to greet the next guests ascending the staircase.

  Sir Edmund was not surprised to hear that professional musicians had been engaged; it was some time since he had spent a full Season in London, but he knew the Mercers had a great taste for music, and frequently obtained the services of such people to grace their parties. A friend of his had mentioned hearing Henriette Sontag at this house last year, as well as a boy of fourteen then on a visit to England, called Franz Liszt, who played the piano very brilliantly. If such was to be the evening’s entertainment, Sir Edmund was not surprised to hear that Yoxford had preferred his club, and poor Isabella would probably find it a bore; he gave her full credit for coming, for he had dropped a tactful word into her ear on the night of the ball, after seeing how tired and anxious Elinor looked, to
the effect that she must not delegate all her duties to Miss Radley.

  He stood on the broad landing, taking his bearings. Through a half-open door, he caught a glimpse of a large music-room where he supposed the professional musicians were to perform, since it contained a good many chairs arranged in short rows and informal groups, a grand pianoforte, and a number of music stands. Just at the moment it was more or less empty. In passing, Sir Edmund briefly noted a few people in sober-hued coats; someone was tuning a cello, while a young man with a great deal of waving dark hair, who was holding a violin, gave him a note on the piano now and then, and meanwhile conversed volubly with a small group of guests whom Sir Edmund did not know. He went on, in search of the Yoxford party.

  There were refreshments laid out in a supper room; there was a card room for those whose taste ran to entertainments less elevated than music; and the Blue Saloon, to which Sir Edmund’s hostess had directed him, was evidently given over to such of the guests as wished or could be persuaded to perform themselves. It was no surprise to Sir Edmund to find Persephone in occupation of the piano stool in this room. Indeed, he heard her before he saw her: an introductory passage of music, faultlessly executed, caught his ear, and next moment Persephone’s voice was raised in a pretty Italian cavatina.