The Story Book Girls

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Under Royal Patronage

  Mrs. Leighton made use of the fact of the Clutterbuck's being in Londonto write to the Professor's wife.

  "We have been so anxious about Elma, who now however is picking up. Butwe have the saddest news of Miss Annie. It seems as though she wouldnot live more than a day or two. If I have bad news to send to Mabeland Jean, may I send it through you? It would be such a kindness to meif I knew you were there to tell them."

  Mrs. Clutterbuck responded in that loving tremulous way she had ofdelighting in being useful. She could not believe in her good fortunewith the Professor. After all, it had been worry, concern about materialthings, which had clouded his affection for a time. He had never beenable to give himself to the world, as he desired to give himself,because of that grind at lectures which he so palpably abhorred. Noweven the lectures were a delight, since he had leisure besides where hedid not need to reflect on the certainty of "the rainy day." He wasonce more the hero of her girlish dreams. How magnificent not to loseone's ideal! They both rejoiced in the young ardour of Elsie, whosecourage made leaps at each new unfolding of the "loveliness of life."

  It was very delightful now that the two Leightons should come underthose gently stretching wings of the reinvigorated Professor's wife.

  At the time of a call from Mrs. Clutterbuck, Mabel and Jean had justreceived tickets from Lady Emily for a concert at a great house. Theconcert, to those who bought guinea tickets, was not so important as thefact that royal ears would listen to it. Herr Slavska disposed of theaffair in a speech which could not be taken down in words. His themewas the rush of the "stupids" to see a royal personage, and the tragedyof the poor "stars" of artists who could hardly afford the cab whichprotected their costumes. Yet some members of his profession, heaverred, would rather lose a meal or two than lose the chance of seeingtheir name in red letters and of bowing to encores from royalty.

  "And why not?" asked Jean. "I think it would be lovely to bow toroyalty."

  "Where is ze art?" he asked as a wind-up. "Nowhere!"

  "That's nonsense, you know," Jean confided afterwards. "I think theremust be a lot of art in being able to sing to kings and queens.Besides, why shouldn't they wave their royal hands, and produce us, asit were--like Aladdin, you know."

  Jean already saw herself at Windsor.

  Mabel merely concerned herself with the fact that Mr. Green was to play.He had not the scruples of Herr Slavska. "Although it's an abominablepractice," said he. "It is the artists who make the sacrifice.Everybody else gets something for it. The crowd gets royalty, royaltygets music, charities get gold. We get momentary applause--that is all."

  "That's what I'm living for," declared Jean, "just a little, a verylittle momentary applause. Then I would swell like a peacock, Mabel, Ireally should. The artists don't get nothing out of it after all. Theyget appreciation."

  Mrs. Clutterbuck was intensely interested in the concert. "Do you meanto say there's to be a prince at it?" she asked.

  There were to be princesses also, it seemed.

  "Oh," said Mabel, "how lovely it would have been for Elsie and you togo."

  She saw the experience that it would be for a little home bird of theMrs. Clutterbuck type. She considered for a moment--"Couldn't she giveup her ticket for one of them?"

  Mrs. Clutterbuck saw the indecision in her face.

  "No, my dear, no," said she, "I know the thought in your mind. I have amuch better plan."

  The pleasure of being at last able to dispense favours--transformed herface. She turned with an expectant, delighted look to Elsie.

  "If we could go together," said she, "and it wouldn't be a bore to bothof you to sit with two country cousins like ourselves, I should take twotickets. It would be charming."

  This plan was received with the greatest acclamation.

  "We ought to have a chaperon anyhow," said Jean.

  It seemed the funniest thing in the world to Mabel that they should beabout to be chaperoned by Mrs. Clutterbuck. In some unaccountable wayit drew her more out of her loneliness than anything she had experiencedin London. On the other hand, she was constantly reminding herself howmuch amused some people in Ridgetown would be if they only knew.

  They drove to the concert on a spring day when the air had suddenlyturned warm. The streets were sparkling with a radiance of buddingleaves, of struggling blossom; and all the world seemed to be turning inat the great gates of the house beyond St. James'.

  It was not to be expected that one should know these people, though, asJean declared, "Every little boarding-house keeper in Bayswater couldtell you who was stepping out of the carriage in front of you."

  There was a great crowd inside; heated rooms and a wide vestibule, and ahall where a platform was arranged with crimson seats facing it anddenoting royalty.

  Mrs. Clutterbuck's timidity came on her with a rush. She could hardlyproduce her two tickets. It was Mabel who saved the situation andpiloted them in as though she understood exactly where to go. There wasa hush of expectancy in the beautifully costumed crowd within.Everybody looked past one with craning neck. Mabel began to laugh."It's exactly as though they were built on a slant," she declared.

  In the end they found seats on the stairs beside the wife of anambassador.

  "My dear," said Mrs. Clutterbuck in rather a breathless way to Mabel."My dear, just think of it."

  Mabel immediately regretted having brought her there.

  "But everybody is sitting on the stairs," she said gravely. "It's quiteall right. Lady Emily told me she once took a seat in an elevator insomebody's house because there was no room elsewhere. She spent an hourgoing up and down, not having the courage to get out."

  Mrs. Clutterbuck smiled nervously.

  "It isn't that, my dear. It's the gown, that one in front of you.Every inch of the lace is hand-made."

  Mrs. Clutterbuck was quite enervated by the discovery.

  "Oh," said Mabel in quite a relieved way, "was that it? I began toblame myself for bringing you to the stairs."

  "Isn't it fun?" said Elsie. "Much funnier looking at these people thanit will be looking at royalty. I never saw so many lorgnettes."

  A sudden movement made them rise. A group of princesses with bouquetsappeared and took their seats on the red chairs.

  "Oh," said Jean with a sigh, as they sat down again. "Think of the poorartists now."

  She had grown quite pale.

  "I don't think I shall ever be able to perform," she said. "My heartsimply stops beating on an occasion of this sort."

  The crowd parted again, and a singer, radiant in white chiffon withsilver embroidery, and wearing a black hat with enormous plumes,ascended the platform. She curtseyed elaborately to the princesses, andcasually bowed in the direction of the applause which reached her fromother sources. She began to sing, and in that hall of reserved voices,of deferential attitudes, of eager, searching glances and generalceremonious curiosity, her voice rang out a clear, beautiful, alienthing. It danced into the shadows of minds merely occupied withstaring, it filled up crevices as though she had appeared in an emptyroom. One moment every one had been girt with a kind of fashionablemelancholy which precluded anything but polite commonplaces. The nextminute something living had appeared, a liquid voice sang notes of joy,mockery and despair; it lit on things which cannot be touched upon withthe speaking voice, and it brought tears to the eyes of one littleprincess.

  Jean was shrouded in longing. Nothing so intimately delicious had evercome near her. She might as well shut up her music books and saygood-bye to Herr Slavska. Elsie sat beside the lady in real lace. Shewas in the woods with the fresh air blowing over her; buttercups anddaisies at her feet.

  "Is she not then charming?" asked a voice at her side. The real lacehad spoken at last. That was how they discovered afterwards that shewas the wife of an ambassador. The lady had her mind distracted fir
stby the sheer beauty of a famous voice which she loved, next by thedelicate profile of the face beside her--a type not usual in London.

  Elsie turned her eyes with a start.

  "It's like summer, the voice," she said simply.

  "It's like the best method I've ever heard," said Jean darkly. (Oh, howto emulate such a creature!)

  "Ah, yes. But she returns. And now, while yet she bows and does notsing--a leetle vulgar is it not?"

  The ambassador's wife could discount her favourite it seemed. That wasjust the difficulty in art. To remain supreme in one art and yetrecognize other forms of it, that was the fortune of few. The singerhad enormous jewels at her neck.

  "She would wear cabbage as diamonds," said the lady, "but with her voiceone forgives."

  Thereafter there was a procession of the most talented performers atthat moment in London. Magicians with violins drew melodies in afaultless manner from smooth strings and a bow which seemed to beplaying on butter. Technique was evident nowhere, only the easy lovelyresult of it. In an hour it became as facile a thing to play anyinstrument, sing any song, as though practice and discouragement did notexist in any art at all.

  "Mr. Green played decorously and magnificently," said Elsie. "They areall a little decorous, aren't they?" she asked, "except that wonderfulthing in the white and silver gown."

  Nothing had touched the daring beauty of that voice.

  Mrs. Clutterbuck leant forward to Elsie eagerly.

  "I was right, Elsie," said she. "You know I was right."

  "Right?" asked Elsie. Her eyes shone with a. dark glamour. "You meanabout it's being so nice here, romantic and that sort of thing?"

  "No," said Mrs. Clutterbuck. She sometimes had rather a superb way oftreating Elsie's little imaginative extravagances. "I mean aboutmauve--mauve is the colour this year, don't you see?"

  "Mamma," she said radiantly, "I quite forgot. I was simply wonderinghow long all this would last, or whether they'd suddenly cut us off theway Jean says they do."

  "They do," said Jean, "at these charity concerts. One after another runson and makes its little bow. And some are detained, you know, and thenthe programme just comes to an end."

  "They seem to be going on all right," said Mrs. Clutterbuck placidly,"and mauve is the colour, you see."

  Another singer appeared, and Jean's heaven was cleared of clouds by theevidence in this performer of a bad method. Now, indeed, it seemed aneasy matter to believe that one could triumph over anything.

  That first, victorious, delicious voice had trodden on every ambitionJean ever possessed. But the frailty of a newcomer set her once more onher enthusiastic feet.

  "I should say it would be easy enough to get appearing at a concert likethis," she said dimly to Elsie. Her eye was on the future, and theplatform was cleared. At the piano sat Mr. Green, grown older a little,and more companionable as an accompanist; and in the centre, in radiantsilver and white, and--and diamonds, sang Jean, the prima donna, Jean!

  She was startled by the sudden departure of the ambassador's wife.

  "For the leaving of the princess I wait not," said this lady. With acool little nod to Elsie, she descended the crowded stairs.

  Her remarks on the vulgarity of the singer rankled with Jean. Thecostume seemed so appropriate to that other fair dream.

  "I didn't think her vulgar, did you?" she asked Elsie.

  "Not on a platform, perhaps," said Elsie vaguely. Her thoughtsinvariably strayed from dress. "But in a drawing-room she would look,look----"

  "Well, what Elsie?" asked Jean impatiently.

  Elsie's dreamy eyes came down on her suddenly. "In a drawing-room shewould look like a lamp shade," she blurted.

  It really was rather a tragedy for them that the golden voice shouldhave been framed in so doubtful a setting.

  Elsie's eyes were on the princesses.

  "They have eyes like calm lakes," said she. "How clever it must be tolook out and feel and know, only to express very often somethingentirely different. Don't you wonder what princesses say to themselveswhen they get alone together after an affair of this sort?"

  "I know," said Mabel. "They say, 'I wonder what girls like these girlson the stairs say of us after we are gone; do they say we are charming,as the newspapers do, or do they say----' But they couldn't think that,for they are charming, aren't they?" asked Mabel.

  "Yes," said Elsie sadly. "But I never could keep a bird in a cage. Itmust be like being in a cage sometimes for them."

  There was an abrupt movement among the royal party. The last of theillustrious performers had appeared, and it was time to go. Everybodyrose once more. Then there was a hurried fight for a tea-room wherecountesses played hostess.

  Mrs. Clutterbuck, now finally in the spirit of the thing, moved alongblithely. She spoke, however, in low modulated whispers as though shewere attending some serious ceremony.

  "I'm sure your mother would have enjoyed this," she said, as they satdown to ices served in filagree boats. "The countesses and, you know,the general air of the thing--so different to Ridgetown."

  "Ridgetown!" The girl laughed immoderately. "We couldn't sit on thestairs at Ridgetown, could we?" Mrs. Clutterbuck was getting away fromher subject.

  "Take some tea, my dear," she said to Mabel in the tone of voice as onewho should say, "you will need it." "It's invigorating after the ice,"said the Professor's wife.

  Mabel took tea.

  Now that the great event of the concert was over, they were a littletired, and glad of the idea of fresh air.

  "Miss Grace, dear--have you heard from Miss Grace lately?" asked Mrs.Clutterbuck.

  "No. It's a funny thing," said Mabel. "We supposed it was because ofElma's illness, you know. Miss Grace would be in such a state. Shallwe go now?"

  They got out and arranged to walk through St. James' Park together.

  "I had a message," said Mrs. Clutterbuck quietly, "about Miss Grace. Iam to have another when I get back just now. Will you come with me?It's about Miss Annie. She has been very ill."

  It was impossible for her to tell them that the same illness as Elma'shad done its work there. They seemed to have no suspicion of that.

  "Oh, poor Miss Annie!" said Mabel. "If I had only known!"

  "That was just it; they couldn't tell you that too with all you had tohear about Elma. Elma is very well now, you understand, but MissAnnie--well, Miss Annie is not expected to live over to-night."

  The news came to them in an unreal way. It was the break-up of theirchildhood. That Miss Annie should not always be there, the charmingbeautiful invalid, seemed impossible.

  "Oh, but," said Mabel, "she has been so ill before, won't she getbetter?"

  "She was never ill like this before," said Mrs. Clutterbuck. "We willsee what the message says."

  They found a wire at home. At the end of a sparkling day, it came tothat. While they had listened to these golden voices, Miss Anniehad----

  The telegram lay there to say that Miss Annie had died.