CHAPTER XXX

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

How she got through that song, how she got through that scene, Linnet

never knew. She was conscious of but two things—Will Deverill’s

presence and the Blessed Madonna. Remorse and shame almost choked her

utterance. But mechanically she went on, and sang her part out to the

end—sang it exquisitely, superbly. Have you ever noticed that what we

do most automatically, we often do best? It was so that night at the

Harmony with Linnet. She knew her music well; she had studied it

carefully; and the very absence of self-consciousness which this

recognition gave her, made her sing it more artlessly, yet more

perfectly than ever. She forgot the actress and the singer in the woman.

That suited her best of all. Her mental existence was divided, as it

were, into two distinct halves; one conscious and personal, absorbed

with Will Deverill and Our Dear Lady in Britannia metal; the other

unconscious and automatic, pouring forth with a full throat the notes

and words it was wound up to utter. And the automatic self did its work

to perfection. The audience hung entranced; Andreas Hausberger, watching

them narrowly from a box at the side, hugged his sordid soul in rapture

at the thought that Linnet had captured them on this her first night in

that golden England.

She sang on and on. The audience sat enthralled. Gradually, by slow

stages, the sense of hearing came back to her. But she had done as well,

or even better without it. The act went off splendidly. Andreas

Hausberger was in transports. At the first interval between the scenes,

Rue debated in her own soul what to do about Linnet; but, being a wise

woman in her way, she determined to wait till the end of the piece

before deciding on action. Act the Second, Act the Third, Act the Fourth

followed fast; in Act the Fifth when Linnet, no longer a peasant girl,

but the bride of the Grand Duke, came on in her beautiful pale primrose

brocade, cut square in the bodice like a picture of Titian’s, the

audience cheered again with a vociferous outburst. Linnet blushed and

bowed; a glow of conscious triumph suffused her face; then she raised

her eyes timidly to the box on the first tier. Her victory was complete.

She could see by his face Will Deverill was satisfied—and the grand

lady with the diamonds was sincerely applauding her.

Was the grand lady his wife? Why not? Why not? What could it matter to

her now? She was Andreas Hausberger’s. And Will—why, Will was but an

old Zillerthal acquaintance.

Yet she clutched Our Blessed Frau tighter than ever in her grasp, at

that painful thought, and somehow hoped illogically Our Blessed Frau

would protect her from the chance of the grand lady being really married

to Will Deverill. Not even the gods, says Aristotle, in his philosophic

calm, can make the past not have been as it was. But Linnet thought

otherwise.

The curtain fell to a storm of clapping hands. After that a moment’s

lull; then loud cries of “Casalmonte!” The whole theatre rang with them.

The Papadopoli, revived by magic from his open-air deathbed on the

blood-stained grass, came forward before the curtain, alive and well,

his wounds all healed, leading Linnet on his right, and bowing their

joint acknowledgments. At sight of the soprano, even the cynical critics

yielded spontaneous homage. It was a great success; a very great

success. Linnet panted, and bowed low. Surely she had much to be

grateful for that night; surely the Blessed Madonna in heaven above had

stood by her well through that trying ordeal!

But in Rue Palmer’s box, after all was over, Florian’s voice rose loud

in praise of this new star in our musical firmament. “When first she

swam into my ken,” he said, “on her Tyrolese hillside—you remember it,

Deverill—I said to myself, ‘Behold a singer indeed! Some day, we may be

sure, we shall welcome her in London.’ And now, could any mortal mixture

of earth’s mould breathe purer music or more innate poesy?”

For it was Florian’s cue, as things stood, to make much of Linnet, for

many reasons. In the first place, it would reflect credit and glory on

his insight as a critic that he should have spotted this flaming comet

of a season while as yet it loomed no larger than the eleventh

magnitude. Indeed, he had gone down among the other critics between the

acts, and buttonholed each of them in the lobby, separately. “A

discovery of my own, I can assure you. I found her out as a peasant-girl

in a Tyrolese valley, and advised her friends to have her trained and

educated.” Then, again, his praise of Linnet no doubt piqued Rue; and

Florian, in spite of rebuffs, had still one eye vaguely fixed in reserve

on Rue’s seven hundred thousand. Faint heart, he well knew, never won

fair lady. Besides, Florian felt it was a good thing Will’s cow-girl

should have come back to him in London thus transformed and

transfigured; for he recognised in Will his one dangerous rival for

Rue’s affections, and he was bent as of old on getting rid of Will by

diverting him, if possible, upon poor helpless Linnet. The mere fact of

her being married mattered little to a philosopher. So he murmured more

than once, as Linnet bowed deeper and deeper, “What a beautiful creature

she is, to be sure! You remember, Will, what I said of her when we met

her first in the Zillerthal?”

Even poets are human. There was a malicious little twinkle in the corner

of Will’s eye as he answered briskly, “Oh yes; I remember it word for

word, my dear fellow. You said, you thought with time and training, she

ought to serve Andreas Hausberger’s purpose well enough for popular

entertainments. Her voice, though undeveloped, was not wholly without

some natural compass.”

Will had treasured up those words. Florian winced at them a little—they

were not quite as enthusiastic as he could have wished just now; but he

recovered himself dexterously. “And I told Hausberger,” he went on, “it

was a sin and a shame to waste a throat like that on a Tyrolese troupe;

and, happily, he took my advice at once, and had her prepared for the

stage by the very best teachers in Italy and Germany. I’m proud of her

success. It’s insight, after all—insight, insight alone, that makes and

marks the Heaven-born Critic.”

Rue was writing meanwhile a hurried little note in pencil on the back of

a programme. She had debated with herself during the course of the piece

whether or not to send down and ask Linnet to visit them. Her true

woman’s nature took naturally at last the most generous course—which

was also the safest one. She folded the piece of paper into a

three-cornered twist, and handed it with one of her sunny smiles to the

Seer. It was addressed “Herr Hausberger.” “Will you take that down for

me, Mr Holmes?” she asked, with a little tremor, “and tell one of the

waiting-girls to give it at once to Madame Casalmonte’s husband.”

The Seer accepted the commission with delighted alacrity. In a moment he

had spied game; his quick eye, intuitive as a woman’s, had read at a

glance conflicting emotions on Rue’s face, and Will’s and Florian’s.

Whatever else it might mean, it meant grist for the mill; he would make

his market of it. A suspicion of intrigue is the thought-reader’s

opportunity.

Linnet was standing at the wings in a flutter of excitement, all

tremulous from her triumph, and wondering whether or not Will would come

down to ask for her, when Andreas Hausberger bustled up, much

interested, evidently, with some pleasurable emotion. He had seen his

wife between the acts already, and assured her of his satisfaction at so

fortunate an event for the family exchequer. But now he came forward,

brimming over with fresh pleasure, and waving a note in his hand, as he

said to her briskly in German, “Don’t wait to change, Linnet. This is

really most lucky. Mrs Palmer—the lady we met at Innsbruck, you

know—wants to see you in her box. She’s immensely rich, I’m told; and

Florian Wood’s up there with her. The manager assures me he’s one of the

most influential critics in London. Come along, just as you are, and

mind you speak nicely to her.”

The lights were left burning long in the passages, as is often the case

on first nights in London. Andreas led the way; Linnet followed him like

one blindfolded. Oh, Blessed Madonna, how strangely you order things on

this earth of yours sometimes! It was her husband himself, then, of all

men in the world, who was taking her to the box where Will Deverill was

waiting for her!

As for Andreas Hausberger, he stalked on before, elated, hardly thinking

of Will—as indeed he had no cause to do. The rich woman of the world

and the influential critic monopolised his attention. Tyrolese though he

was, he was by no means jealous; greed of gain had swallowed up in him

all the available passions of that phlegmatic nature. Linnet was his

chattel now; he had married her and trained her; her earnings were his

own, doubly mortgaged to him for life, and no poet on earth, be he ever

so seductive, could charm them away from him.

He opened the box door with stately dignity. At St Valentin or in

London, he was a person of importance. Linnet entered, quivering. She

still wore her primrose brocade, as all through the last act, and she

looked in it, even yet, a very great lady. Not Rue herself looked so

great or so grand—charming, smiling Rue—as she rose to greet her. They

stood and faced each other. One second Rue paused; then a womanly

instinct all at once overcame her. Leaning forward with the impulse, she

kissed the beautiful, stately creature on both cheeks with effusion, in

unfeigned enthusiasm.

“Why, Linnet,” she said, simply, as if she had always known her; “we’re

so glad to see you—to be the very first to congratulate you on your

success this evening!”

A flood of genuine passion rushed hot into Linnet’s face. Her warm

southern nature responded at once to the pressure of Rue’s hand. She

seized her new friend by either arm, and returned her double kiss in a

transport of gratitude. “Dear lady,” she said, with fervour, in her

still imperfect English, “how sweet that you receive me so! How kind and

good you English are to me!”

Andreas Hausberger’s white shirt-front swelled with expansive joy. This

all meant money. They were really making wonderful strides in England.

Will held his hand out timidly. “Have you forgotten me, Frau

Hausberger?” he asked her in German.

Linnet’s face flushed a still deeper crimson than before, as she

answered frankly, “Forgotten you, Herr Will. _Ach, lieber Gott_, no! How

kind of you . . . to come and hear my first performance!”

“Nor me either, Linnet, I hope,” Florian interposed more familiarly, in

his native tongue; for he had caught at the meaning of that brief

Teutonic interlude. “I shall always feel proud, Herr Andreas, to think

it was I who first discovered this charming song-bird’s voice among its

native mountains.”

But Will found no such words. He only gazed at his recovered

peasant-love with profound admiration. Fine feathers make fine birds,

and it was wonderful how much more of a personage Linnet looked as she

stood there to-night in her primrose brocade, than she had looked nearly

four years since in her bodice and kirtle on the slopes of the

Zillerthal. She was beautiful then, but she was queenly now—and it was

not dress alone, either, that made all the difference. Since leaving the

Tyrol, Linnet had blossomed out fast into dignified womanhood. All that

she had learnt and seen meanwhile had impressed itself vividly on her

face and features. So they sat for awhile in blissful converse, and

talked of what had happened to each in the interval. Rue sent Florian

down with a message to ask their friend the manager not to turn his gas

off while the party remained there. The manager, bland and smiling, and

delighted at his prima donna’s excellent reception, joined the group in

the box, and insisted that they should all accompany him to supper. To

this, the Sartorises demurred, on the whispered ground of dear Arthur’s

position. Dear Arthur himself, indeed, resisted but feebly; it was Maud

who was firm; but Maud was firm as a rock about it. Let dear Arthur go

to supper with a theatrical manager, to meet a bedizened young woman

from a playhouse like that—and him a beneficed clergyman with an eye to

a canonry! Maud simply put her foot down.

So the Sartorises went home in a discreet four-wheeler; but the rest

lingered on, and gossipped of old times in the Tyrol together, and heard

each others’ tales with the deepest interest.

“And your mother?” Will asked at last; he was the first who had thought

of her.

Linnet’s face fell fast. She clasped her dark hands tight. “Ah, that

dear mother,” she said, with a deep-drawn sigh, and a mute prayer to Our

Lady. “She died last winter, when I was away from home—away down in

Venice. I couldn’t get back to her. ’Twas the Herr Vicar’s fault. He

never wrote she was ill till the dear God had taken her. It was too late

then. I couldn’t even go home to say a pater noster over her.”

“So now you’re alone in the world,” Will murmured, gazing hard at her.

“Yes; now I’m alone in the world,” Linnet echoed, sadly.

“But you have your husband, of course,” Florian put in, with a wicked

smile, and a side glance at Andreas, who for his part was engaged in

paying court most assiduously to the rich young widow.

Linnet looked up with parted lips. “Ah, yes; I have my husband,” she

answered, as by an afterthought, in a very subdued tone, which sent a

pang and a thrill through Will’s heart at once—so much did it tell him.

He knew from those few words she wasn’t happy in her married life. How

could she be, indeed—such a soul as hers, with such a man as Andreas?

Their first gossip was over, and they were just getting ready to start

for supper, when one of the box-keepers knocked at the door with a card

in his hand, which he passed to Andreas Hausberger. “There’s a gentleman

here who’s been waiting outside for some time to see you,” he said; “and

he asked me to give you this card at once, if you’ll kindly step down to

him, sir.”

Andreas took it with a smile, and gazed at it unconcernedly. But a dash

of colour mounted suddenly into those pale brown cheeks, as his eye

caught the words neatly engraved on the card, “Mr Franz Lindner,” and

below in the corner, “Signor Francesco, The London Pavilion.”