CHAPTER XXV

A DRAMATIC VENTURE

Among the minor successes of that London season, all the world reckoned

the Colorado Seer’s Psycho-physical Entertainment at the Assyrian Hall

in Bond Street, and Will Deverill’s dainty operetta, “Honeysuckle,” at

the Duke of Edinburgh’s Theatre in Long Acre. The Seer, indeed, had been

well advertised beforehand by the _Morning Post_ and other London

dailies, which gave puffs preliminary of his marvellous performance, “as

privately exhibited to a select audience at Mrs Palmer’s charming and

hospitable residence in Hans Place, Chelsea.” A well-known society

writer, with a lingering love of the occult and the supernatural, saw in

Mr Joaquin Holmes’s abstruse gifts “a genuine case of Second Sight, and

a curious modern parallel to the most famous feats of the Delphic oracle

and the Indian Yogis.” The _Spectator_ suggested in a learned article

that “Mahatmas were about”; the _Daily News_ averred that “Nothing like

Mr Holmes’s extraordinary powers had been seen on earth since the

Egyptian magicians impiously counterfeited the miracles of Moses and

Aaron before the throne of Pharaoh.” Every one of the accounts

particularly insisted on the presence at the first trial of Mr Florian

Wood, the distinguished musical and dramatic critic; whose inmost

thoughts the Seer had read offhand like an open book, and whose

quotations from little-known and unpopular sources he had instantly

assigned to their proper origin. But when Florian himself was questioned

on the subject, he shook his head with an air of esoteric knowledge, put

two soft white fingers to his delicate lips, and smiled mysteriously. To

say the truth, Florian loved a mystery. It flattered his sense of

personal importance. Nay, he would almost have joined Mr Joaquin Holmes

as a confederate in his little tricks for pure love of mystification,

were it not for a wholesome and restraining dread that others might find

them out as he himself had done. So the Seer, thus well and cheaply

advertised by anticipation, made a hit for the moment, as dozens of such

quacks have done before and since, from Home and Bishop to the Little

Georgia Magnet.

As for Will Deverill’s play, the first night was crowded. All London was

there, in the sense that the Savage, the Garrick, and the Savile give to

all London. Rue had taken tickets for stalls with reckless extravagance,

and bestowed them right and left, as if on the author’s behalf, to every

influential soul among her fine acquaintance. Florian whipped up a fair

number of first-nighters of the literary clique, and not a few great

ladies from Belgravia drawing-rooms. The audience was distinctly and

decidedly favourable. But not all the packed houses that ever were can

save a bad play, if bad it is, from condign damnation. The incorruptible

pit and the free and independent electors of the gallery are no

respecters of persons, in their critical capacity. Fortunately, however,

as it happened, Will’s play was a good one. It didn’t take the audience

by storm at the first hearing, but it pleased and satisfied them. One or

two of the melodies had a catchy ring; one or two of the scenes were

both brilliant and pathetic. The house encored all the principal tunes;

and when the curtain fell on virtue triumphant, in the person of

_Honeysuckle_, vociferous cries arose on every side for “Author!

Author!”

Will sat in a stage box, throughout the whole performance, with Florian,

Rue, his sister, Mrs Sartoris, and her husband, the amiable East End

curate. It was a three-act piece. As far as the end of the second act,

Maud Sartoris was delighted; it was a distinct success, and Rue was very

well pleased. Maud thought that was good; after all, whether she “smelt

of drapery” or not, it’s well for one’s brother to produce a favourable

impression on a woman with a fortune of seven hundred thousand. But the

third act, she felt sure, was distinctly inferior to the two that

preceded it. She said as much to Rue, while Will, trembling with

excitement from head to foot, slipped off to make his expected bow

before the curtain.

At those words of hers, Rue turned pale. She had thought so all through,

though she would hardly acknowledge it, even to herself, and she feared

in her own heart she knew the reason. Could Will have written the first

two acts during those happy days when his head was stuffed full of

Linnet at Meran, and gone on with the third in a London lodging after he

learned of her marriage to Andreas Hausberger? Rue more than

half-suspected that obvious explanation—for _Honeysuckle_ was

Linnet—and the thought disquieted her.

“You’re quite right,” Florian interposed, with his airy eloquence. “The

first two acts are good—distinctly good. Will wrote them in the Tyrol.

The third’s a poor thing—mere fluff and feather: oh, what a falling off

was there! It was written in London! But who can sing aright of Arcady

in the mud of Mayfair? Who can sing of Zion by the willows of Babylon?

Will drew his first inspiration from the sparkling air of Meran; it

faded like a mist with the mists of the Channel.”

“The audience doesn’t seem to think so,” Rue put in, somewhat anxiously,

as a hearty round of applause greeted Will by the footlights. “They feel

it’s all right. They’re evidently satisfied, on the whole, with the

nature of the _dénoument_.”

“If you look at the papers to-morrow morning,” Florian answered,

carelessly, “you’ll find every candid critic disagrees with the audience

and agrees with Mrs Sartoris. But what matter for that! It’s a very good

play, with some very good tunes in it; and the actors have made it. I

really didn’t think our dear friend Will could do anything so good—till

I saw it interpreted. I call the reception, on the whole, most

promising.”

Rue felt positively annoyed that Florian should speak so condescendingly

of Will’s beautiful music. He damned it with faint praise, while Rue

herself felt for it a genuine enthusiasm. For she knew it was good,—all

except that third act,—and even there she saw touches of really fine

composition.

In a minute or two more, Will came back to them, radiant. Florian

boarded him at once. “Ten thousand congratulations, dear boy,” he cried,

affectedly. “We’re all delighted. Laurel wreaths for the victor! Bays

drape your lute. Everybody’s been saying the first two acts are a

triumphal progress, though the third, we agree, fails to sustain the

attention—flags in interest somewhat.”

Will coloured up to his eyes. Rue noted the blush; her heart sank at

sight of it. “I knew it was weak myself,” he admitted, a little

shamefacedly. “The inspiration died down. Perhaps it was natural. You

see, Maud,” he went on, turning round to his sister as to a neutral

person, and avoiding Rue’s eye, “I wrote and composed the first two acts

at Innsbruck and Meran, under the immediate influence of the Tyrolese

air and the Tyrolese music; they welled up in me in the midst of peasant

songs and cow-bells. The third act, I had to manufacture at my rooms in

Craven Street. Surroundings, of course, make a deal of difference to

this sort of thing. I was _in_ the key there, and _out_ of it in London.

Pumped-up poetry and pumped-up music are poor substitutes after all for

the spontaneous article.”

He didn’t dare to look at Rue as he spoke those words. He was conscious

all the while, let him boggle as he might, that she _knew_ the real

reason for the failure of the _dénoument_. And he was conscious, too,

though he was a modest man, that Rue would feel hurt at the effect

Linnet’s marriage had had upon his music. As for Rue herself, poor girl,

her face was crimson. To think she should have done so much, and wronged

her modesty so far with Mr Wildon Blades to get Will’s operetta put on

the stage that evening; to think she should have risked her own money to

ensure its success, and then to find it owed its inspiration wholly and

solely to the charms of her peasant rival, Linnet! Rue was more than

merely vexed; she was shamed and humiliated. Will’s triumph was turned

for her into gall and bitterness. His heart, after all, was still fixed

on his cow-girl!

They drove home together in Rue’s luxurious brougham to Hans Place,

Chelsea—Mr Sartoris and Florian following close in a hansom. The party

were engaged to sup at Rue’s. Florian had invited them, indeed, to a

banquet at Romano’s, as more strictly in keeping with the evening’s

entertainment; but Maud Sartoris had objected to such a plan as

“improper,” and likely to damage dear Arthur’s prospects. So at Rue’s

they supped. But, in spite of Will’s success, and his health which they

drank in Rue’s finest champagne, with musical honours, the party somehow

lacked go and spirit. Will was dimly conscious in his own soul of having

unwittingly behaved rather ill to Rue; Rue was dimly conscious of

harbouring some deep-seated but indefinite resentment towards Will and

Linnet. It was some consolation, at least, to know that the girl was now

decently married and done for; sooner or later, for certain, such a man

as Will Deverill was sure to get over a mere passing fancy for a

handsome up-standing Tyrolese peasant-girl.

After supper, Will Deverill and the Sartorises went home in a party. But

Florian lingered late. This was an excellent opportunity. Rue was

annoyed with Will, and therefore all the more likely to accept another

suitor. He gazed around the room—that little palace of art he had

decorated with such care for his soul to dwell in. “Upon my word, Rue,”

he murmured at last, after some desultory talk, glancing around him

complacently, “I’m proud of this place; I never knew before what a

decorator I was. It’s simply charming.” He gazed at her fixedly. “It’s

the sweetest home in all London,” he went on in a rapt voice, “and it’s

inhabited by the sweetest and brightest creature in the whole of

Christendom. I sometimes think, Rue, as I gaze round this house, how

happy I should be—if I too lived in it.”

For a moment, Rue stared at him without quite understanding what he

meant to convey by this singular intimation. Then all at once it flashed

across her. In spite of her distress, a smile stole over her face. She

held out her hand frankly. “Good night, Florian,” she said, in a very

decided tone. “Let me urge upon you to be content with your chambers in

Pimlico. You’re a delightful and always most amusing friend; I hope

you’re not going to make your friendship impossible for me. I like you

very much, in your own sort of way; but if ever you re-open that subject

again, . . . I’m afraid I could give you no further opportunity of

admiring your own handicraft in this pretty little house of mine. That’s

why I say good-night to you now so plainly. It’s best to be plain—best

to understand one another, once for all, and for ever.”

Two minutes later, a dejected creature named Florian Wood found himself

walking disconsolate, with his umbrella up, on the sloppy wet flags of

ill-lighted Sloane Street. He had sustained a loss of seven hundred

thousand pounds on a turn of fortune’s wheel, at an inauspicious moment.

And Rue, with her face in her hands by the fire, was saying to herself

with many tears and sighs that, Linnet or no Linnet, she never would and

never could love anyone in the world except that dear Will Deverill.