by Grant Allen
Will looked down a little nervously. “I’ve often thought,” he said, with a stifled sigh; “I should love to write something on purpose for you, Linnet. I know your voice and its capabilities so well, I’ve watched you so close — for your career has interested me; and I think it would inspire one, both in the lines and in the music, to know one was working for a person one — well . . . one knew and liked, and . . . had met before, under other circumstances.”
He looked away, and hesitated. Linnet clasped her hands in front of her between her knees, on her simple tweed frock, and stared studiously at the mountains. “Oh, that would be lovely!” she cried, pressing her fingers ecstatically. “That would be charming! that would be beautiful! I should love that I should sing in something you’d written, and, above all, in something you’d written for me, Will. I’m sure it would inspire me too — it would inspire both of us. I do not think you could write for anybody, or I could sing for anybody, as we could write and sing, each one of us, for one another. We should do ourselves justice then. Why don’t you try it?”
She looked deep into his eyes. Will quailed, and felt his heart stand still within him. “There are difficulties in the way, my child,” he answered, deliberating. “You’re more or less bound to the Harmony, I think; and I’m more or less bound to the Duke of Edinburgh’s. And then, there’s Herr Hausberger to consider as well. Even if we could arrange things with our respective managers, do you think he’d be likely to fall in with our arrangements?”
Linnet seized his arm impulsively. With these warm southern natures, such acts are natural, and mean less than with us northerners. “Oh, do try, dear Herr Will!” she exclaimed, bending forward in earnest entreaty. “Do try if we can’t manage it. Never mind about Andreas. I’m sure he would consent, if he saw it was a good piece, and I could sing in it with spirit. And I would sing in it — ach, lieber Gott, — how well I would sing in it! You would see what I could do, then! It would be splendid, splendid!”
“But I’m afraid Willdon Blades — —”
Linnet cut him short impatiently, jerking her little curled forefinger with a contemptuous gesture. “What matter about Willdon Blades!” she cried. “We can easily settle him. If you and I decide to work this play together, the manager must give in: we can arrange it somehow.” And she looked at him with more conscious dignity and beauty than usual; for, simple peasant-girl as she was, and a child still at heart, she knew by this time she was also a queen of the opera. How the gommeux had crowded her salon in her Paris hotel; how great ladies had fought for stalls at her triumphant première!
“I might think about it,” Will answered, after a brief pause, half-alarmed at her eagerness. Was it not too dangerous?
But Linnet, quite sure in her own soul she was urging him from purely artistic motives, had no such scruples. “Do try,” she cried, laying her hand impulsively on his arm once more. “Now, promise me you’ll try! Begin to-day! I should love to see what sort of a part you’d write for me.”
Will stammered, and hesitated. “Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve begun already, Linnet,” he answered, fingering the pencil-case that hung from his watch chain with ill-concealed agitation. “I’ve been walking about for a fortnight through the mountains alone — Florian wanted to come, but I wouldn’t bring him with me, that I might have time for thinking; and everything I saw seemed somehow to recall . . . well, why shouldn’t I confess it? — those days on the Küchelberg. I thought of you a great deal — I mean of your voice and the sort of words and chords that would be likely to suit you. I always compose best in the open air. The breeze whispers bars to me. And I’ve begun a few songs — just your part in the play, you know — words and airs together, Wagner-wise — that’s how I always do it. The country I passed through brought the music of itself; it all spoke to me direct — and I thought it would be something new to bring this breezy Alpine air to freshen the stuffy atmosphere of a London theatre.”
“Have you got what you’ve done with you?” Linnet inquired, with deep interest.
“It’s here in my knapsack,” Will answered, half reluctant.
“Ah, do let me see it!” And she pressed one hand to her breast with native southern vehemence.
“It’s only in pencil, roughly scratched on bits of paper over rocks or things anyhow,” Will replied, apologetically. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to read one word of it. But, if you like, you can try,” and he pulled it forth and opened it.
For twenty minutes or more of terrestrial time Linnet sat entranced in the seventh heavens. She tried over parts of the songs, half to herself, half to Will, with many an “Oh” and an “Ach, Gott,” and was charmed and delighted with them. They were written straight at her — not a doubt in the world about that; and they suited her voice and manner admirably. It’s so innocent for a singer to sit on the grassy mountain sides like this, with a poet and composer close at hand to consult and talk over the work they mean to produce together. This was art, pure art; the sternest moralist could surely find nothing to object to in it Linnet didn’t even feel bound to give another hard squeeze to the poor much-battered, and hardly-used Madonna. She only sat and sang — with Will smiling by her side — there in the delicate mountain air, among the whispering pines, gazing across at the stainless peaks, and thrilling through to the finger tips.
“O Herr Will,” she cried at last, “how lovely it is out here — how high, how soft, how pure — how much lovelier than in London! I’ve never enjoyed anything in my life so much, since,” . . . her voice sank low — ”since those days on the Küchelberg.”
Will leant over towards her for a moment. His heart beat hard. He laid one palm on the ground and rested on it as he looked at her. He was trembling all over. Surely, surely he must give way! For a moment he paused and debated; then he rose to his feet suddenly. “I think, Linnet,” he said, in a very serious voice, “for your sake — I think — we ought to go on and find your husband.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
When Will, with fear and trembling, explained his plan half-an-hour later at the châlet to Andreas Hausberger, that wise man of business, instead of flouting the idea, entered into his suggestion with the utmost alacrity. He knew Linnet was still very fond of Will Deverill — and, being a practical man, he was perfectly ready to make capital out of her fondness. It was good for trade; and whatever was good for trade appealed at once to Andreas on the tenderest point of his nature. He had perfect confidence in Linnet’s honour — as well, indeed, he might have; but if she chose to cherish an innocent sentimental attachment of the German sort — in point of fact, a schwärmerei — towards a young man she had known and liked before her marriage, that was no business of his; or, rather, it was just so much his business as it might help him to make a little more money out of her. Andreas Hausberger was a proud and self-respecting person, but his pride and his self-respect were neither of them touched by a purely romantic feeling on his young wife’s part towards a rising poet-composer who was anxious to write and score an opera to suit her. Indeed, he rather congratulated himself than otherwise on the thought that very few husbands of theatrical favourites had such very small cause for jealousy as he had.
So he listened to Will’s humming and hawing apology with a quiet face of subdued amusement. What a bother about nothing! If Will wrote a piece for Linnet, why, of course, he’d write it excellently, and write it with most intimate knowledge of her voice, as well as with close sympathy for all its shades of feeling. Will knew her exact compass, her range, her capabilities; he knew also her weak points, her limitations, her dramatic failings. And Linnet, for her part, was sure to sing well whatever Will wrote for her — both because it was Will’s, and because it was suited to her voice and character. The idea was an excellent one; how absurd to make a fuss about it!
“And he
has some of it scored already, he says,” Linnet put in, half-trembling.
“Let me see it,” Andreas exclaimed, in his authoritative way; and he skimmed it over carefully. “H’m, h’m . . . that’s not bad,” he muttered from time to time as he went along . . . “suits her style very well . . . not at all a weak close; fine opportunity for that clear upper G of hers; excellently considered piece — have you tried it over, Linnet? I should think it ought to do very nicely indeed for you.”
“I just sang it a bit at sight,” Linnet answered, “on the hillside. When I met Herr Will first, we sat down and talked, because Herr Will was tired; and he showed me his score, and I tried part of it over a bit. But it was not that which you would quite call fairly trying it, for I had not seen it before, and had no time to study it. Still, I thought it very good — oh, exquisite, perfect! — and I should like so much the chance to sing in it.”
“Try it now!” Andreas said, in his dictatorial tone.
And Linnet, without any affected hesitation, or professional airs, opened her rich mouth naturally, and trilled forth upon Will’s delighted ear in a raptured flood her native first reading of his own graceful music.
“That’ll do!” Andreas said, with decision, as soon as she’d finished. “That’ll do, Linnet. We’ll arrange for it.”
And Will, leaning across to her over the plain deal table, as she stood blushing in front of him, exclaimed with delight, “Why, Linnet — Frau Hausberger, I mean — that’s charming, charming! I couldn’t have believed how pretty my own song was, till I heard you sing it!”
So that very day the whole matter was settled, as far, at least, as those three could settle it. It was decided and contracted that Will should definitely write an opera for Linnet; that he should offer it first to Mr Wells, the manager of the Harmony; and that if Wells refused it, it should go next to the Duke of Edinburgh’s, on condition that Linnet was engaged for the title-role. Before evening, Will had shouldered his knapsack once more (though Andreas would fain have constrained him to stay the night at their inn), and, with a timorous farewell to Linnet at the châlet door, had gone on his way rejoicing, to descend towards Oberwesel.
That interview gave him courage. During the course of the autumn he completed his piece, for he was a man of inspirations, and he worked very rapidly when the fit was upon him. The greater part of his opera he wrote and composed in the open air, beneath the singing larks, on those green Swiss hillsides. And the larks themselves did not sing more spontaneous, with heart elate, for pure joy of singing. That one short tête-à-tête with Linnet at her châlet had filled his teeming brain with new chords and great fancies. Words and notes seemed to come of themselves, and to suggest one another; moods seemed to mirror themselves in becoming music. Besides, Will thought with no little pleasure, this new venture would bring him, for a time at least, into closer personal connection with Linnet. While rehearsals and other preliminary arrangements went on, he must be thrown a great deal perforce into Linnet’s company. And how delightful to think they would be working together for a common end; that success, if achieved, would be due in part and in equal degrees to each of them.
Will didn’t return to London till the end of October. He had spent the time meanwhile partly in the Bernese Oberland, and partly, later, on the south side of the Alps, among the valleys and waterfalls of the Canton Ticino. But when he arrived at Charing Cross, it was not empty-handed; he carried in his portmanteau the almost complete manuscript of Cophetua’s Adventure, that exquisite romance of no particular time and place, with its fanciful theme and its curious episodes, which proved at last that poetry is not stone-dead on our English stage, and that exquisite verse wedded to exquisite harmonies has still its fair chance of a hearing in England. He had only to polish it at his rooms in Craven Street, before submitting it to the opinion of the manager of the Harmony.
Linnet came later. She had a two months’ engagement first to fulfil in Paris, where Will read, with a little pang of regret, in the Figaro how she had turned the heads and captured the hearts (if any) of ten thousand boulevardiers. Her very innocence and simplicity at once delighted and surprised the profoundly sophisticated Parisian mind. All the world of the foyer unanimously voted her tout ce qu’il-y-a de plus enfantin. “She has afforded us,” said a famous lady-killer of the Avenue Victor Hugo, “the rare pleasure of a persistent and unreasoning refusal.” So all Paris was charmed, as all Paris always is at any new sensation. An opera-singer insensible to the persuasiveness of diamonds and the eloquence of bank-notes — all Paris shugged its shoulders in incredulous astonishment. “Incroyable!” it muttered: “mais enfin, elle est jeune, cette petite — ça viendra!”
So it was March before Linnet was in London once more. Andreas, ever business-like, had preceded her by a week or two, to conclude the needful arrangements with the people at the Harmony. By the time the prima donna herself arrived, everything was already well in train for the rehearsals. Linnet had studied her part, indeed, in Paris beforehand, till she knew every line, every word, every note of it. She had never learnt anything so easily in her life before, though she would hardly admit, even to herself, the true reason — because Will had written it. They met at the Harmony the very next afternoon, to discuss the details. Andreas was there, of course — he never left his wife’s side when business was in question; he must protect her interests: erect, inflexible, tall, powerful, big-built, with his resolute face and his determined mien, he was a man whom no theatrical manager on earth could afford to bully. He bargained hard with the Harmony for his wife’s services in this new engagement; for, indeed, her late Parisian vogue had put up her price another twenty per cent, or so; and now he stood there, triumphant, self-conscious, jubilant, aware that he had done a good stroke of business for himself, and ready to do battle again on his wife’s behalf with all and sundry. So satisfied was he, indeed, with their rising fortunes, that he had presented Linnet spontaneously with a five-pound note, all pocket-money of her own to do as she liked with, on their way to the theatre.
Linnet stood a little behind. Will grasped her hand eagerly. She took his in return without the faintest pressure — for Our Dear Lady knew well how wisely and circumspectly she meant to behave now towards him. The circumstances were dangerous: so much the more, Beloved Frau, would she strive to comport herself as becomes a good Catholic wife in the hour of temptation.
“You like your part, Signora?” Will asked of her, half-playfully, adopting her theatrical Italian style and title.
Linnet raised her big eyes. “I have never sung in anything I liked half so well,” she answered, simply.
The company assembled by degrees, and the usual preliminary discussion ensued forthwith as to parts, and cues, and costumes, and properties. Will’s own ideas, conceived among the virgin snows and pure air of the high Alps, were a trifle too ethereal and a trifle too virginal for that practical manager. He modified them considerably. Various points had to be talked over with various persons. In the midst of them all, Will was surprised to feel of a sudden a sturdy gloved hand laid abruptly on his shoulder, and a powerful though musical feminine voice exclaiming volubly at his ear in very high German, “Ach mein Gott! it’s Herr Will! So we meet again in London. Herr Andreas told me you had written this piece for Linnet; but one hardly knows you again, you’ve grown so much older — and better dressed — and richer! And, Dear Frau! in the Tyrol, you wore no beard and whiskers!”
Will turned in surprise. It was a minute, even so, before he quite recognised the stalwart speaker. It was Philippina, still good-humoured and buxom and garrulous as of old; but, oh, great heavens, how much changed from the brown-faced sennerin with the rough woollen petticoat who had offered them milk, all frothy from the cow, in the stoneware mug on the hillside at St Valentin! If Linnet was altered, Philippina was transmogrified. Her jolly round face was surmounted incongruously by the latest and airiest thing out in Parisian bonnets; her
dress was the very glass and mirror of fashion; her delicate gloves looked as dainty as seven-and-a-halfs are ever likely to look upon feminine fingers. Civilisation, indeed, had done its worst for Philippina: it had transformed her outright from a simple and natural if somewhat coarse-fibred cow-girl into the jolly, bouncing, distinctly vulgar type of third-rate actress. With all the good-humoured coarseness of her original nature, she now possessed in addition all the airs and graces, all the coquettish affectations, all the noisy self-assertion of the theatrical utility.
“Why, I didn’t know you were in England,” Will exclaimed, taken aback at her unexpected salute, and surveying from head to foot with no very pleased eye the fly-away peculiarities of her over-trimmed costume. “Then you’ve taken to the stage!” He turned hastily to Linnet, and added in English, which Philippina did not understand when he last met her, “She isn’t surely going to play in this piece of mine, is she?”
“So!” Philippina answered, in a very Teutonic voice, indeed, but in our native vernacular. “Ach, yes; I am going to play in it; Herr Andreas has arranched all zat wis ze manager. You are surbrized to zee zat I shall blay in your biece. But I haf blay pevore in many bieces in Paris.”
Will glanced at Linnet, a mute glance of inquiry. He didn’t know why, but Linnet’s eyes fell, and a blush spread quick over that clear brown cheek of hers. It wasn’t the familiar blush he was accustomed to see there; he noted at once some tinge of shame and personal humiliation in the look that accompanied it. But she answered quickly, “Oh yes; Philippina’s to play. My husband and Mr Wells have settled all about it.”
“What part?” Will inquired, with a slight sense of sinking; for he wasn’t over-well pleased to hear those dainty lines of his were to be murdered by Philippina’s coarse guttural utterance.
“Ze Brincess Berylla,” Philippina replied, with glib promptitude and great self-satisfaction. “It’s a very schmall part; bod I shall do my best in it.”
