by F. Anstey
wasted so much time and money for nothing wasbitter at first, and I very nearly decided to discontinue my studiesthere and then. But I conquered my feelings. Though the Professor wasno relation to this young lady, he must know her name, he must be ableto give me some information about her; a little judicious pumpingmight render him communicative.
"My dear Sir," he said, after I had been beating about the bush forsome time with cautious delicacy, "I think I understand. You areanxious to make this young lady's acquaintance with a view to payingyour addresses to her? Is not that so?"
I confessed that he had managed to penetrate my motives, though Icould not imagine how.
"You will not be the first who has sought to win Lurana'saffections," he said; "more than one of my pupils--but the child isambitious, difficult to please. Unfortunately, this is your finallesson--otherwise I might, after preparing the ground, so to say, havepresented you to her, and I daresay she would have been pleased togive you a cup of tea occasionally after your labours. Indeed, as MissLurana de Castro's stepfather, I can answer for that--however, sinceour acquaintance unhappily ceases here----"
It did not cease there; I took another dozen tickets at once, and ifeven Polkinghorne had sounded sweetly to my enamoured ear, you mayconceive what enchanting melody lay in a name so romantic and soeuphonious as Lurana de Castro.
The Professor was as good as his word; at the end of the very nextlesson I was invited to follow him to the drawing-room, where I foundthe owner of the brilliant face that had so possessed me seated at hertea-table.
She gave me a cup of tea, and I can pay her witchery no highercompliment when I state that it seemed to me as nectar, even thoughmy trained palate detected in it an inartistic and incongruous blendof broken teas, utterly without either style or quality. I am not surethat I did not ask for another.
The Introduction of Mr Blenkinsop to Miss Lurana deCastro.]
She was astonishingly lovely; her Spanish descent was apparent in hermagnificent black tresses, lustrous eyes, and oval face of olivetinted with richest carmine. As I afterwards learnt, she was thedaughter of a Spanish Government official of an ancient Castilianfamily, who had left his widow in such straitened circumstances thatshe was compelled to support herself by exhibiting performing mice andcanaries at juvenile parties, until she met and married the Professor,who at that time was delivering recitations illustrated by anoxy-hydrogen lantern.
The second marriage had not been altogether a success, and, now thatthe Professor was a widower, I fancy that his relations with hisimperious stepdaughter were not invariably of the most cordial nature,and that he would have been grateful to any one who succeeded inwinning her hand and freeing him from her sway.
I did not know that then, however, though I was struck by thedeferential politeness of his manner towards her, and the alacritywith which, after he had refreshed himself, he shuffled out of theroom, leaving Lurana to entertain me single-handed.
That first evening with her was not unmixed joy. I had theconsciousness of being on trial. I knew that many had been tried andfound wanting before me. Lurana's attitude was languid, indifferent,almost disdainful, and when I went away I had a forlorn convictionthat I should never again be asked to tea with her, and that the lastseries of tickets represented money absolutely thrown away!
And yet I _was_ asked again--not only once, but many times, which wasfavourable as far as it went, for I felt tolerably certain that theProfessor would never have ventured to bring me a second time into hisdaughter's presence, unless he had been distinctly given to understandthat my society was very far from distasteful to her.
As I grew to know her better, I learnt the secret of her listlessnessand discontent with life. She was tormented by the unbounded ambitionsand the distinct limitations which embitter existence for so manyyoung girls of our day.
The admiration which her beauty excited gave her little satisfaction;such social success as Highbury or Canonbury could offer left her coldand unmoved. She was pining for some distinction which should travelbeyond her own narrow little world, and there did not seem to be anyobvious way of attaining it. She would not have minded being a popularauthor or artist--only she could find nothing worth writing about, andshe did not know how to draw; she would have loved to be a greatactress--but unfortunately she had never been able to commit theshortest part to memory, and the pride of a de Castro forbade her toaccept anything but leading _roles_.
No wonder that she was devoured by dulness, or that there were momentswhen she beat her pinions like some captive wild bird against the cageof her own incompetence. Even I, although fairly content with my lot,would sometimes flap my own wings, so to speak, from sheer sympathy.
"It's maddening to be a nobody!" she would declare, as she threwherself petulantly back in her chair, with her arms raised behind herand her interlaced fingers forming a charming cradle for her head--afavourite attitude of hers. "It does seem so stupid not to becelebrated when almost everybody is! And to think that I have a friendlike Ruth Rakestraw, who knows ever so many editors and people, andcould make me famous with a few strokes of the pen--if only I didsomething to give her the chance. But I never _do_!"
Miss Rakestraw, I should explain, was an enterprising young ladyjournalist, who contributed society news and "on dits" to the leadingIslington and Holloway journals, and was understood to have had"leaderettes" and "turnovers" accepted by periodicals of even greaterimportance.
"If only," Lurana burst out on one of these occasions, "if only Icould do something once which would get my name into all the papers,set everybody thinking of me, talking of me, staring after me whereverI went, make editors write for my photograph, and interviewers beg formy biography, I think I should be content."
I made the remark, which was true but not perhaps startling in itsoriginality, that fame of this kind was apt to be of brief duration.
"What should I care?" she cried; "I should have _had_ it. I could keepthe cuttings; they would always be there to remind me that once atleast--but what's the use of talking? I shall never see my name in allthe papers. I know I shan't!"
"There _is_ a way!" I ventured to observe; "you might have your namein all the papers, if you married."
"As if I meant _that_!" she said, with a deliciously contemptuouspout. "And whom should I marry, if you please, Mr Blenkinsop?"
"You might marry me!" I suggested humbly.
"You!" she retorted. "How would _that_ make me a celebrity. You arenot even one yourself."
"And whom should I marry, Mr Blenkinsop?"]
"I do not care to boast," I said, "but it is the simple fact thatnobody in the entire tea-trade has a palate approaching mine forkeenness and delicacy. Ask any one and they will tell you the same."
"You may be the best tea-taster in the world," she said, "but thepurity of your palate will never gain you a paragraph in a singlesociety paper. And even if it did, what should _I_ gain? At the besta reflected glory. I want to be a somebody myself!"
"What's the use of trying to make ourselves what we are not?" I brokeout. "If Fate has made us wooden ninepins in the world's nursery, wemay batter our head against the walls as much as we like--but we cannever batter it into a profile!"
I thought this rather neatly put myself, but it did not appeal to Missde Castro, who retorted with some asperity that I was the best judgeof the material of my own head, but hers, at least, was not wooden,while she had hitherto been under the impression that it alreadypossessed a profile--such as it was.
She could not be brought to understand that I was merely employing ametaphor, and for the remainder of the evening her demeanour was socrushingly chilling, that I left in the lowest spirits, persuaded thatmy unlucky tongue had estranged me from Lurana for ever.
For some time I avoided Canonbury Square altogether, for I feltunequal to facing an elocution lesson unrecompensed by tea with Missde Castro, and the halfhour or more of delightful solitude _a deux_which followed the meal--for it had never occurred to the Professor toprovide his stepdaughter
with a chaperon.
At last, when on the verge of despair, hope returned in the form of alittle note from Lurana, asking whether I was dead, and inviting me,if still in existence, to join a small party to visit the World's Fairat the Agricultural Hall the next evening, and return to supperafterwards at Canonbury Square, an invitation which, need I say, Ijoyfully accepted.
We were only four; Miss Rakestraw and her _fiance_, a smart youngsolicitor's clerk, of the name of Archibald Chuck, whose employer hadlately presented him with his articles; myself, and Lurana. TheProfessor was unable to accompany us, having an engagement to read"Hiawatha" to a Young Men's Mutual Improvement Society that evening.
Part of the hall was taken up by various side-shows,shooting-galleries, and steam