CHAPTER XXVIII

SIGNORA CASALMONTE

Three years and more had passed since Will’s visit to the Tyrol. Events

had moved fast for his fortunes meanwhile. He was a well-known man now

in theatrical circles. Florian Wood went about, indeed, boasting in

clubs and drawing-rooms that ’twas he who had discovered and brought out

Will Deverill. “It’s all very well to be a poet,” he said, “and it’s all

very well to be born with a head full of rhymes and tunes, of crochets,

clefs, and quavers; but what’s the use of all that, I ask you my dear

fellow, without a critic to push you? A Critic is a man with a fine eye

for potentialities. Before the world sees, he sees; before the world

hears, he listens. He sits by the world’s wayside, as it were, with open

eye or ear, and catches unawares the first faint lisping notes of

undeveloped genius. He divines in the bud the exquisite aroma and

perfect hue of the full-blown blossom. Long ago, I said to Deverill,

‘You have the power within you to write a good opera!’ He laughed me to

scorn; but I said to him, ‘Try!’—and the outcome was, _Honeysuckle_. He

took up a battered fiddle one day at an old inn in the Zillerthal, when

we two were rusticating on the emerald bosom of those charming

unsophisticated Tyrolese valleys; he struck a few notes on it of his own

composing; and I said to him, ‘My dear Will, Sullivan trembles on his

pedestal.’ At the time he treated it as a mere passing joke; but I made

him persevere; and what was the result?—why, those exquisite airs which

found their way before long to the sheep-runs of Australia, and

resounded from lumberers’ camps in the backwoods of Canada! The Critic,

I say, is the true prophet and sage of our modern world; he sees what is

to be, and he helps to produce it.”

But whether Florian was right in attributing Will’s success to himself

or not, it is certain, at least, that Will was rapidly successful. The

world recognised in him a certain genuine poetical vein which has seldom

been vouchsafed to the English librettist; it recognised in him, also, a

certain depth and intensity of musical sense which has seldom been

vouchsafed to the English dramatic composer.

One afternoon that spring, Will returned to town from a visit to the

Provinces in connection with his new opera, _The Lady of Llandudno_,

then about to be performed in several country theatres by Mr D’Arcy

Clift’s operatic company. He drove almost straight from the station to

Rue’s. Florian was there in great form; and Mr Joaquin Holmes, the

Colorado Seer, had dropped in for afternoon tea at his fair disciple’s.

In spite of Will’s ridicule, Rue continued to believe in Mr Holmes’

thought-reading and other manifestions. For the Seer had added by this

time a touch of spiritualism to the general attractions of his flagging

entertainments at the Assyrian Hall; and it is a mysterious dispensation

of Providence that wealthy Americans, especially widows, fall a natural

prey to all forms of transcendentalism or spiritualistic quackery. It

seems to be one of the strange devices which Providence adopts for

putting excessive or monopolised wealth into circulation.

“Mr Holmes wants me to go to the Harmony to-night,” Rue said, with a

smile—“you know what it is—the new Harmony Theatre. He says there’s a

piece coming out there this evening I ought to see—a pretty new piece

by an American composer. You’re going to be crushed, Will. They’ve got a

fresh tenor there, a very good man, whom Mr Holmes thinks a deal of.

I’ve half a mind to go; will you join our party?”

“You ought to hear it,” the Seer remarked, with his oracular air,

turning to Will, and looking critical. “This new tenor’s a person you

should keep your eye upon; I heard him rehearse, and I said to myself at

once, ‘That fellow’s the very man Mr Deverill will want to write a first

part for; if he doesn’t, I’ll retire at once from the prophetic

business.’ He has a magnificent voice; you should get Blades to secure

him next season for the Duke of Edinburgh’s. He’s worth fifty pounds a

night, if he’s worth a penny.”

“Very good trade, a tenor’s,” Florian mused philosophically. “I often

regret I wasn’t brought up to it.”

“What’s his name?” Will asked with languid interest, for he had no great

faith in the Seer’s musical ear and critical acumen.

“His name? Heaven knows,” the Seer answered, with a short laugh; “but he

_calls_ himself Papadopoli—Signor Romeo Papadopoli.”

“There’s a deal in a name, in spite of that vastly overrated man,

Shakespeare,” Florian murmured, musingly. “It’s my belief, if the late

lamented Lord Beaconsfield had only been christened Benjamin Jacobs, or

even Benjamin Israels, he never would have lived to be Prime Minister of

England. But as Benjamin Disraeli—ah, what poetry, what mystery, what

Oriental depth, what Venetian suggestiveness! And Romeo’s good, too;

Signor Romeo Papadopoli! Why, ’twas of Romeo himself the Bard first

asked, ‘What’s in a name? the rose,’ etcætera. And in the fulness of

time, this singer man crops up with that very name to confute him. ‘Ah,

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?’ Why, because it looks so

extremely romantic in a line of the playbill, and helps to attract the

British public to your theatre! Papadopoli, indeed! and his real name’s

Jenkins. I don’t doubt it’s Jenkins. There’s a Palazzo Papadopoli on the

Grand Canal. But this fellow was born, you may take your oath, at

Haggerston or Stepney!”

“Well, your own name has floated you in life, at any rate,” Rue put in,

a little mischievously.

Florian gazed at her hard—and changed the subject abruptly. “And

there’s a woman in the troupe who sings well, too, I’m told,” he

interposed, with airy grace—the airy grace of five feet—turning to

Joaquin Holmes. “I haven’t heard her myself; I’ve been away from

town—you know how engaged I am—visits, visits in the country—Lady

Barnes; Lady Ingleborough. But they say she sings well; really, Will,

you ought to come with us.”

“Yes; she’s not bad in her way,” the Seer admitted, with a stifled yawn,

stroking his long moustache, and assuming the air of a connoisseur in

female voices. “She’s got a fine rich organ, a little untrained,

perhaps, but not bad for a _débutante_. A piquante little Italian;

Signora Carlotta Casalmonte she calls herself. But Papadopoli’s the man;

you should come, Mr Deverill; my friend Mr Florian has secured us a box;

I dine at Mrs Palmer’s, and we all go together to the Harmony

afterwards.”

“I should like to go,” Will replied with truth; for he hated to leave

Rue undefended in that impostor’s clutches; “but, unfortunately, I’ve

invited my sister and her husband to dine with me to-night at my rooms

in Craven Street.”

“Well, wire to them at once to come on and dine here instead,” Rue

suggested, with American expansiveness; “and then we can all go in a

party together—the more the merrier.”

Will thought not badly of this idea; it was a capital compromise: the

more so as he had asked nobody else to meet the Sartorises, and a family

_tête-à-tête_ with Maud and Arthur wasn’t greatly to his liking. “I’ll

do it,” he said, after a moment’s reflection, “if they’re at home and

will answer me.”

Rue sent out a servant to the nearest office with the telegram at once;

and, in due time, an answer arrived by return that Arthur and Maud would

be happy to accept Mrs Palmer’s very kind invitation for this evening.

It was most properly worded; Maud was nothing if not proper. Her husband

had now been appointed incumbent of St Barnabas’s, Marylebone; and her

dignity had received an immense accession. Indeed, she debated for ten

minutes with dear Arthur whether it was really quite right for them to

go at all on such hasty notice; and she was annoyed that Will, after

inviting her himself, should have ventured to put her off with a

vicarious dinner-party. But she went all the same, partly because she

thought it would be such a good thing for Will, “and for our own dear

boys, Arthur, if Will were to marry that rich bourgeoise American,” and

partly because she remembered it would give her such an excellent

opportunity of displaying her pretty new turquoise-blue dinner-dress

among the best company, in a box at the Harmony. Besides, a first night

is a thing never to be despised by the wise man or woman; it looks so

well to see next day in the Society papers, “Mrs Palmer’s box contained,

amongst others, Mr Florian Wood, Mr W. Deverill, his sister, Mrs

Sartoris, and her husband, the incumbent of St Barnabas’s, Marylebone.”

So, at half-past seven, Maud Sartoris sailed in, torquoise-blue and all,

and, holding out her hand with a forgiving smile, murmured gushingly to

her hostess, “We thought it _so_ friendly of you, dear Mrs Palmer, to

invite us like that at a moment’s notice, as soon as you knew we were

engaged to Will, and that Will couldn’t possibly go unless he took us

with him! We want to see this new piece at the Harmony so much; a first

night to us quiet clerical folks, you know, is _always_ such a treat.

We’re _immensely_ obliged to you.”

Dinner went off well, as it usually did where Florian was of the party.

To give Florian his due, he bubbled and sparkled, like the Apollinaris

spring, with unfailing effervescence. That evening, too, he was in

specially fine form; it amused him to hear Mr Joaquin Holmes discourse

with an air of profound conviction on his own prophetic art, and then

watch him glancing across the table under his long dark eyelashes to see

between whiles how Florian took it. The follies and foibles of mankind

were nuts to Florian. It gave the epicurean philosopher a calm sense of

pleasure in his own superiority to see Rue and Arthur Sartoris drinking

in open-mouthed the mysterious hints and self-glorificatory nonsense of

the man whom he knew by his own confession to be a cheat and a humbug.

Their eyes seldom met; Joaquin Holmes avoided such disconcerting

experiences; but whenever they did, Florian’s were brimful of suppressed

amusement, while the Seer’s had a furtive hang-dog air as of one who at

once would deprecate exposure and beseech indulgence.

After dinner, the Seer kept them laughing so long at his admirable

stories of the Far West of his childhood (which Arthur Sartoris received

with the conventional “Ah really, now, Mr Holmes!” of forced clerical

disapprobation) that they were barely in time for the beginning of the

opera. As they entered, the tenor held possession of the stage. Will

didn’t think so much of him; Florian, his head on one side in a critical

attitude, observed oracularly, at the end of his first song, that the

Papadopoli was perhaps not wholly without capabilities. That’s the sort

of criticism that Florian loved best; it enables a man to hedge in

accordance with the event. If the fellow turns out well in the near

future, you can say you declared from the very first he had

capabilities; if the public doesn’t catch on, you can remark with

justice that he hasn’t developed what little promise he once showed, and

that from the beginning you never felt inclined to say much for him.

Presently, from the rear of the stage, down the mimic rocks that formed

the background of the scenery, a beautiful woman, entering almost

unobserved, sprang lightly from boulder to boulder of the torrent bed,

with the true elastic step of a mountain-bred maiden. She had a fine

ripe figure, very lithe and vigorous-looking; her features were full,

but extremely regular; her mouth, though large and somewhat rich in the

lips, was yet rosy and attractive. Eyes full of fire, and a rounded

throat, with a waxy softness of outline that recalled a nightingale’s,

gave point to her beauty. She was exquisitely dressed in a pale cream

bodice, with what passes on the stage for a peasant kirtle, and round

her rich brown neck she wore a drooping circlet of half-barbaric-looking

lance-like red coral pendants. Before she opened her mouth, her mere

form and grace of movement took the house by surprise. A little storm of

applause burst spontaneous at once from stalls, boxes, and gallery. The

singer paused, and curtsied. She looked lovelier still as she flushed up

with excitement. Every eye in the house was instinctively fixed upon

her.

Will had been gazing round the boxes as the actress entered, to see what

friends of his they might contain, and to nod recognition. The burst of

applause recalled him suddenly to what was passing on the stage. He

looked round and stared at her. For a moment he saw only a very

beautiful girl, in the prime of her days, gracefully clad for her part,

and most supple in her movements. At the self-same instant, before he

had time to note more, the singer opened her mouth, and began to pour

forth on his ear lavish floods of liquid music. Will started with

surprise; in a flash of recognition, voice and face came back to him. He

seized Florian by the arm. “Great God!” he cried, “it’s Linnet!”

Florian struck a little attitude. “Oh, unexpected felicity! Oh, great

gain!” he murmured, in his supremest manner. “You’re right! So it is! A

most undoubted Linnet!”

And Linnet it was; dressed in the impossible peasant costume of

theatrical fancy; grown fuller and more beautiful about the neck and

throat; with her delicate voice highly trained and developed by all that

Italian or Bavarian masters could suggest to improve it; but Linnet

still for all that—the same beautiful, simple, sweet Linnet as ever.

Joaquin Holmes glanced at the programme. “And this,” he murmured low,

“is Signora Carlotta Casalmonte that I spoke about.”

Florian’s eyes opened wide. “Why, of course!” he exclaimed with a start.

“I wonder we didn’t see it. It’s a mere translation:

Casalmonte—Hausberger: Carlotta—Carolina—Lina—Linnet; there you have

it!” And he turned, self-applausive of his own cleverness, to Rue, who

sat beside him.

As for Rue, her first feeling was a sudden flush of pain; so this girl

had come back to keep Will still apart from her! One moment later that

feeling gave place with lightning speed to another; would he care for

this peasant woman so much, and regret her so deeply, if he saw her here

in England, another man’s wife, and an actress on the stage, dressed up

in all the vulgar tinsel gew-gaws, surrounded by all the sordid

disenchanting realities of theatrical existence?

But Will himself knew two things, and two things alone. That was Linnet

who stood singing there—and she wore the necklet he had sent her from

Innsbruck.