CHAPTER V

The night was warm under a slowly-floating moon. Full of compassion for

the poor girl, who had moved him if she had failed in winning the

assembly, Wilfrid stepped into the garden, where he expected to find her,

and to be the first to pet and console her. Threading the scented shrubs,

he came upon a turn in one of the alleys, from which point he had a view

of her figure, as she stood near a Portugal laurel on the lawn. Mr.

Pericles was by her side. Wilfrid's intention was to join them. A loud

sob from Emilia checked his foot.

"You are cruel," he heard her say.

"If it is good, I tell it you; if it is bad; abominable, I tell it you,

juste ze same," responded Mr. Pericles.

"The others did not think it very bad."

"Ah! bah!" Mr. Pericles cut her short.

Had they been talking of matters secret and too sweet, Wilfrid would have

retired, like a man of honour. As it was, he continued to listen. The

tears of his poor little friend, moreover, seemed to hold him there in

the hope that he might afford some help.

"Yes; I do not care for the others," she resumed. "You praised me the

night I first saw you."

"It is perhaps zat you can sing to z' moon," returned Mr. Pericles. "But,

what! a singer, she must sing in a house. To-night it is warm, to-morrow

it is cold. If you sing through a cold, what noise do we hear? It is a

nose, not a voice. It is a trompet."

Emilia, with a whimpering firmness, replied: "You said I am lazy. I am

not."

"Not lazy," Mr. Pericles assented.

"Do I care for praise from people who do not understand music? It is not

true. I only like to please them."

"Be a street-organ," Mr. Pericles retorted.

"I must like to see them pleased when I sing," said Emilia desperately.

"And you like ze clap of ze hands. Yez. It is quite natural. Yess. You

are a good child, it is clear. But, look. You are a voice uncultivated,

sauvage. You go wrong: I hear you: and dese claps of zese noodels send

you into squeaks and shrills, and false! false away you go. It is a

gallop ze wrong way."

Here Mr. Pericles attempted the most horrible reproduction of Emilia's

failure. She cried out as if she had been bitten.

"What am I to do?" she asked sadly.

"Not now," Mr. Pericles answered. "You live in London?--at where?"

"Must I tell you?"

"Certainly, you must tell me."

"But, I am not going there; I mean, not yet."

"You are going to sing to z' moon through z' nose. Yez. For how long?"

"These ladies have asked me to stay with them. They make me so happy.

When I leave them--then!"

Emilia sighed.

"And zen?" quoth Mr. Pericles.

"Then, while my money lasts, I shall stay in the country."

"How much money?"

"How much money have I?" Emilia frankly and accurately summed up the

condition of her treasury. "Four pounds and nineteen shillings."

"Hom! it is spent, and you go to your father again?"

"Yes."

"To ze old Belloni?"

"My father."

"No!" cried Mr. Pericles, upon Emilia's melancholy utterance. He bent to

her ear and rapidly spoke, in an undertone, what seemed to be a vivid

sketch of a new course of fortune for her. Emilia gave one joyful outcry;

and now Wilfrid retreated, questioning within himself whether he should

have remained so long. But, as he argued, if he was convinced that the

rascally Greek fellow meant mischief to her, was he not bound to employ

every stratagem to be her safeguard? The influence of Mr. Pericles

already exercised over her was immense and mysterious. Within ten minutes

she was singing triumphantly indoors. Wilfrid could hear that her voice

was firm and assured. She was singing the song of the woods. He found to

his surprise that his heart dropped under some burden, as if he had no

longer force to sustain it.

By-and-by some of the members of the company issued forth. Carriages were

heard on the gravel, and young men in couples, preparing to light the

ensign of happy release from the ladies (or of indemnification for their

absence, if you please), strolled about the grounds.

"Did you see that little passage between Laura Tinley and Bella Pole?"

said one, and forthwith mimicked them: "Laura commencing:-'We must have

her over to us.' 'I fear we have pre-engaged her.'--'Oh, but you, dear,

will do us the favour to come, too?' 'I fear, dear, our immediate

engagements will preclude the possibility.'--'Surely, dear Miss Pole, we

may hope that you have not abandoned us?'--'That, my dear Miss Tinley, is

out of the question.'--'May we not name a day?'--'If it depends upon us,

frankly, we cannot bid you do so.'"

The other joined him in laughter, adding: "'Frankly' 's capital! What

absurd creatures women are! How the deuce did you manage to remember it

all?"

"My sister was at my elbow. She repeated it, word for word."

"Pon my honour, women are wonderful creatures!"

The two young men continued their remarks, with a sense of perfect

consistency.

Lady Gosstre, as she was being conducted to her carriage, had pronounced

aloud that Emilia was decidedly worth hearing.

"She's better worth knowing," said Tracy Runningbrook. "I see you are all

bent on spoiling her. If you were to sit and talk with her, you would

perceive that she's meant for more than to make a machine of her throat.

What a throat it is! She has the most comical notion of things. I fancy

I'm looking at the budding of my own brain. She's a born artist, but I'm

afraid everybody's conspiring to ruin her."

"Surely," said Adela, "we shall not do that, if we encourage her in her

Art."

"He means another kind of art," said Lady Gosstre. "The term 'artist,'

applied to our sex, signifies 'Frenchwoman' with him. He does not allow

us to be anything but women. As artists then we are largely privileged, I

assure you."

"Are we placed under a professor to learn the art?" Adela inquired,

pleased with the subject under such high patronage.

"Each new experience is your accomplished professor," said Tracy. "One

I'll call Cleopatra a professor: she's but an illustrious example."

"Imp! you are corrupt." With which my lady tapped farewell on his

shoulder. Leaning from the carriage window, she said: "I suppose I shall

see you at Richford? Merthyr Powys is coming this week. And that reminds

me: he would be the man to appreciate your 'born artist.' Bring her to

me. We will have a dinner. I will despatch a formal invitation to-morrow.

The season's bad out of town for getting decent people to meet you. I

will do my best."

She bowed to Adela and Tracy. Mr. Pole, who had hovered around the

unfamiliar dialogue to attend the great lady to the door, here came in

for a recognition, and bowed obsequiously to the back of the carriage.

Arabella did not tell her sisters what weapons she had employed to effect

the rout of Mrs. Chump. She gravely remarked that the woman had consented

to go, and her sisters thanked her. They were mystified by Laura's

non-recognition of Emilia, and only suspected Wilfrid so faintly that

they were able to think they did not suspect him at all. On the whole,

the evening had been a success. It justified the ladies in repeating a

well-known Brookfield phrase: "We may be wrong in many things, but never

in our judgement of the merits of any given person." In the case of Tracy

Runningbrook, they had furnished a signal instance of their discernment.

Him they had met at the house of a friend of the Tinleys (a Colonel's

wife distantly connected with great houses). The Tinleys laughed at his

flaming head and him, but the ladies of Brookfield had ears and eyes for

a certain tone and style about him, before they learnt that he was of the

blood of dukes, and would be a famous poet. When this was mentioned,

after his departure, they had made him theirs, and the Tinleys had no

chance. Through Tracy, they achieved their introduction to Lady Gosstre.

And now they were to dine with her. They did not say that this was

through Emilia. In fact, they felt a little that they had this evening

been a sort of background to their prodigy: which was not in the design.

Having observed, "She sang deliciously," they dismissed her, and referred

to dresses, gaucheries of members of the company, pretensions here and

there, Lady Gosstre's walk, the way to shuffle men and women, how to

start themes for them to converse upon, and so forth. Not Juno and her

Court surveying our mortal requirements in divine independence of

fatigue, could have been more considerate for the shortcomings of

humanity. And while they were legislating this and that for others, they

still accepted hints for their own improvement, as those who have

Perfection in view may do. Lady Gosstre's carriage of her shoulders, and

general manner, were admitted to be worthy of study. "And did you notice

when Laura Tinley interrupted her conversation with Tracy Runningbrook,

how quietly she replied to the fact and nothing else, so that Laura had

not another word?"--"And did you observe her deference to papa, as

host?"--"And did you not see, on more than one occasion, with what

consummate ease she would turn a current of dialogue when it had gone far

enough?" They had all noticed, seen, and observed. They agreed that there

was a quality beyond art, beyond genius, beyond any special cleverness;

and that was, the great social quality of taking, as by nature, without

assumption, a queenly position in a circle, and making harmony of all the

instruments to be found in it. High praise of Lady Gosstre ensued. The

ladies of Brookfield allowed themselves to bow to her with the greater

humility, owing to the secret sense they nursed of overtopping her still

in that ineffable Something which they alone possessed: a casket little

people will be wise in not hurrying our Father Time to open for them, if

they would continue to enjoy the jewel they suppose it to contain.

Finally, these energetic young ladies said their prayers by the morning

twitter of the birds, and went to their beds, less from a desire for rest

than because custom demanded it.

Three days later Emilia was a resident in the house, receiving lessons in

demeanour from Cornelia, and in horsemanship from Wilfrid. She expressed

no gratitude for kindnesses or wonder at the change in her fortune, save

that pleasure sat like an inextinguishable light on her face. A splendid

new harp arrived one day, ticketed, "For Miss Emilia Belloni."

"He does not know I have a second Christian name," was her first remark,

after an examination of the instrument.

"'He?'" quoth Adela. "May it not have been a lady's gift?"

Emilia clearly thought not.

"And to whom do you ascribe it?"

"Who sent it to me? Mr. Pericles, of course."

She touched the strings immediately, and sighed.

"Are you discontented with the tone, child?" asked Adela.

"No. I--I'll guess what it cost!"

Surely the ladies had reason to think her commonplace!

She explained herself better to Wilfrid, when he returned to Brookfield

after a short absence. Showing the harp, "See what Mr. Pericles thinks me

worth!" she said.

"Not more than that?" was his gallant rejoinder. "Does it suit you?"

"Yes; in every way."

This was all she said about it.

In the morning after breakfast, she sat at harp or piano, and then ran

out to gather wild flowers and learn the names of trees and birds. On

almost all occasions Wilfrid was her companion. He laughed at the little

sisterly revelations the ladies confided concerning her too heartily for

them to have any fear that she was other than a toy to him. Few women are

aware with how much ease sentimental men can laugh outwardly at what is

internal torment. They had apprised him of their wish to know what her

origin was, and of her peculiar reserve on that topic: whereat he assured

them that she would have no secrets from him. His conduct of affairs was

so open that none could have supposed the gallant cornet entangled in a

maze of sentiment. For, veritably, this girl was the last sort of girl to

please his fancy; and he saw not a little of fair ladies: by virtue of

his heroic antecedents, he was himself well seen of them. The gallant

cornet adored delicacy and a gilded refinement. The female flower could

not be too exquisitely cultivated to satisfy him. And here he was,

running after a little unformed girl, who had no care to conceal the fact

that she was an animal, nor any notion of the necessity for doing so! He

had good reason to laugh when his sisters talked of her. It was not a

pleasant note which came from the gallant cornet then. But, in the

meadows, or kindly conducting Emilia's horse, he yielded pretty music.

Emilia wore Arabella's riding-habit, Adela's hat, and Cornelia's gloves.

Politic as the ladies of Brookfield were, they were full of natural

kindness; and Wilfrid, albeit a diplomatist, was not yet mature enough to

control and guide a very sentimental heart. There was an element of dim

imagination in all the family: and it was this that consciously elevated

them over the world in prospect, and made them unconsciously subject to

what I must call the spell of the poetic power.

Wilfrid in his soul wished that Emilia should date from the day she had

entered Brookfield. But at times it seemed to him that a knowledge of her

antecedents might relieve him from his ridiculous perplexity of feeling.

Besides though her voice struck emotion, she herself was

unimpressionable. "Cold by nature," he said; looking at the unkindled

fire. She shook hands like a boy. If her fingers were touched and

retained, they continued to be fingers for as long as you pleased.

Murmurs and whispers passed by her like the breeze. She appeared also to

have no enthusiasm for her Art, so that not even there could Wilfrid find

common ground. Italy, however, he discovered to be the subject that made

her light up. Of Italy he would speak frequently, and with much simulated

fervour.

"Mr. Pericles is going to take me there," said Emilia. "He told me to

keep it secret. I have no secrets from my friends. I am to learn in the

academy at Milan."

"Would you not rather let me take you?"

"Not quite." She shook her head. "No; because you do not understand music

as he does. And are you as rich? I cost a great deal of money even for

eating alone. But you will be glad when you hear me when I come back. Do

you hear that nightingale? It must be a nightingale."

She listened. "What things he makes us feel!"

Bending her head, she walked on silently. Wilfrid, he knew not why, had

got a sudden hunger for all the days of her life. He caught her hand and,

drawing her to a garden seat, said: "Come; now tell me all about yourself

before I knew you. Do you mind?"

"I'll tell you anything you want to hear," said Emilia.

He enjoined her to begin from the beginning.

"Everything about myself?" she asked.

"Everything. I have your permission to smoke?"

Emilia smiled. "I wish I had some Italian cigars to give you. My father

sometimes has plenty given to him."

Wilfrid did not contemplate his havannah with less favour.

"Now," said Emilia, taking a last sniff of the flowers before

surrendering her nostril to the invading smoke. She looked at the scene

fronting her under a blue sky with slow flocks of clouds: "How I like

this!" she exclaimed. "I almost forget that I long for Italy, here."

Beyond a plot of flowers, a gold-green meadow dipped to a ridge of gorse

bordered by dark firs and the tips of greenest larches.