CHAPTER V.
"THE PRINCESS OF PORTMAN SQUARE."
I am an only child. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, andalthough there was no royal crest on it, yet no princess could be morecomfortable in the purple than I was in the ordinary trappings ofbabyhood. From the cradle upwards I was surrounded with love and luxury.My pet name "Princess" fitted me like a glove. I was the autocrat of thenursery and my power scarce diminished when I rose to the drawing-room.My parents were very obedient and did not even conceal from me that Iwas beautiful. In short they did their best to spoil me, though I cannotadmit that they succeeded. I lost them both before I was sixteen. Mypoor mother died first and my poor father followed within a week;whether from grief or from a cold caught through standing bareheaded inthe churchyard, or from employing the same doctor, I cannot preciselydetermine.
After the usual period of sorrow, I began to pick up a bit and to go outunder the care of my duenna, a faded flower of the aristocracy whosedeclining years my guardian had soothed by quartering her on me. She wasa gentle old spinster, the seventh daughter of a penniless peer, andalthough she has seen hard times and has almost been reduced tomarriage, yet she has scant respect for my ten thousand a year. She hasnever lost the sense of condescension in living with me, and would behorrified to hear she is in receipt of a salary. It is to this sense ofsuperiority on her part that I owe a good deal of the liberty I enjoyunder her regime. She does not expect in me that rigid obedience tovenerable forms and conventions which she prescribes for herself; sheregards it as a privilege of the higher gentlewoman to be bound hand andfoot by fashionable etiquette, and so long as my liberty does notdegenerate into license I am welcome to as much as I please of it. Shehas continued to call me "Princess," finding doubtless some faintreverberation of pleasure in the magnificent syllables. I should addthat her name is the Honorable Miss Primpole and that she is not afraidof the butler.
Our town-house was situated in Portman Square and my parents tenanted itduring the season. There is nothing very poetic about the Square,perhaps, not even in the summer, when the garden is in bloom, yet it washere that I first learnt to love. This dull parallelogram was thebirthplace of a passion as spiritual and intangible as ever thrilledmaiden's heart. I fell in love with a Voice.
It was a rich, baritone Voice, with a compass of two and a half octaves,rising from full bass organ-notes to sweet, flute-like tenor tones. Itwas a glorious Voice, now resonant with martial ecstasy, now faint withmystic rapture. Its vibrations were charged with inexpressible emotion,and it sang of love and death and high heroic themes. I heard it first afew months after my father's funeral. It was night. I had been indoorsall day, torpid and miserable, but roused myself at last and took a fewturns in the square. The air was warm and scented, a cloudless moonflooded the roadway with mellow light and sketched in the silhouettes ofthe trees in the background. I had reached the opposite side of thesquare for the second time when the Voice broke out. My heart stoodstill and I with it.
On the soft summer air the Voice rose and fell; it was accompanied onthe piano, but it seemed in subtler harmony with the moonlight and theperfumed repose of the night. It came through an open window behindwhich the singer sat in the gloaming. With the first tremors of thatVoice my soul forgot its weariness in a strange sweet trance thattrembled on pain. The song seemed to draw out all the hidden longing ofmy maiden soul, as secret writing is made legible by fire. When theVoice ceased, a great blackness fell upon all things, the air grewbleak. I waited and waited but the Square remained silent. The footstepsof stray pedestrians, the occasional roll of a carriage alone fell on myanxious ear. I returned to my house, shivering as with cold. I had neverloved before. I had read and reflected a great deal about love, and wasabsolutely ignorant of the subject. I did not know that I loved now--forthat discover only came later when I found myself wandering nightly tothe other side of the parallelogram, listening for the Voice. Rarely,very rarely, was my pilgrimage rewarded, but twice or thrice a week theSquare became an enchanted garden, full of roses whose petals weremusic. Round that baritone Voice I had built up an ideal man--tall andstraight-limbed and stalwart, fair-haired and blue-eyed andnoble-featured, like the hero of a Northern Saga. His soul was vast asthe sea, shaken with the storms of passion, dimpled with smiles oftenderness. His spirit was at once mighty and delicate, throbbing withelemental forces yet keen and swift to comprehend all subtleties ofthought and feeling. I could not understand myself, yet I felt that hewould understand me. He had the heart of a lion and of a little child;he was as merciful as he was strong, as pure as he was wise. To be withhim were happiness, to feel his kiss ecstasy, to be gathered to hisbreast, delirium, But alas! he never knew that I was waiting under hiswindow.
I made several abortive attempts to discover who he was or to see him.According to the Directory the house was occupied by Lady Westerton. Iconcluded that he was her elder son. That he might be her husband--orsome other lady's--never even occurred to me. I do not know why I shouldhave attached the Voice to a bachelor, any more than I can explain whyhe should be the eldest son, rather than the youngest. But romance has alogic of its own. From the topmost window of my house I could see LadyWesterton's house across the trees, but I never saw him leave or enterit. Once, a week went by without my hearing him sing. I did not knowwhether to think of him as a sick bird or as one flown to warmer climes.I tried to construct his life from his periods of song, I watched thelights in his window, my whole life circled round him. It was only whenI grew pale and feverish and was forced by the doctors and my guardianto go yachting that my fancies gradually detached themselves from myblue-eyed hero. The sea-salt freshened my thoughts, I became ahealthy-minded girl again, carolling joyously in my cabin and takingpleasure in listening to my own voice. I threw my novels overboard(metaphorically, that is) and set the Hon. Miss Primpole chattinginstead, when the seascape palled upon me. She had a great fund ofstrictly respectable memories. Most people's recollections are of no useto anybody but the owner, but hers afforded entertainment for both ofus. By the time I was back in London the Voice was no longer part evenof my dreams, though it seemed to belong to them. But for accident itmight have remained forever "a voice and nothing more." The accidenthappened at a musical-afternoon in Kensington. I was introduced to atall, fair, handsome blue-eyed guardsman, Captain Athelstan by name. Hisconversation was charming and I took a lot of it, while Miss Primpolewas busy flirting with a seductive Spaniard. You could not tell MissPrimpole was flirting except by looking at the man. In the course of theafternoon the hostess asked the captain to sing. As he went to the pianomy heart began to flutter with a strange foreboding. He had no musicwith him, but plunged at once into the promontory chords. My agitationincreased tenfold. He was playing the prelude to one of the Voice'ssongs--a strange, haunting song with a Schubert atmosphere, a song whichI had looked for in vain among the classics. At once he was transfiguredto my eyes, all my sleeping romantic fancies woke to delicious life, andin the instant in which I waited, with bated breath, for the outbreak ofthe Voice at the well-known turn of the melody, it was borne in upon methat this was the only man I had ever loved or would ever love. My Sagahero! my Berserker, my Norse giant!
_Miss Primpole was flirting with a seductive Spaniard._]
When the Voice started it was not _my_ Voice. It was a thin, throatytenor. Compared with the Voice of Portman Square, it was as a tinklingrivulet to a rushing full-volumed river. I sank back on the lounge,hiding my emotions behind my fan.
When the song was finished, he made his way through the "Bravas" to myside.
"Sweetly pretty!" I murmured.
"The song or the singing?" he asked with a smile.
"The song," I answered frankly. "Is it yours?"
"No, but the singing is!"
His good-humor was so delightful that I forgave his not having my Voice.
"What is its name?"
"It is anonymous--like the composer."
&nbs
p; "Who is he?"
"I must not tell."
"Can you give me a copy of the song?"
He became embarrassed.
"I would with pleasure, if it were mine. But the fact is--I--I--had noright to sing it at all, and the composer would be awfully vexed if heknew."
"Original composer?"
"He is, indeed. He cannot bear to think of his songs being sung inpublic."
"Dear me! What a terrible mystery you are making of it," I laughed.
"O r-really there is no abracadabra about it. You misunderstand me. ButI deserve it all for breaking faith and exploiting his lovely song so asto drown my beastly singing."
"You need not reproach yourself," I said. "I have heard it before."
He started perceptibly. "Impossible," he gasped.
"Thank you," I said freezingly.
"But how?"
"A little bird sang it me."
"It is you who are making the mystery now."
"Tit for tat. But I will discover yours."
"Not unless you are a witch!"
"A what?"
"A witch."
"I am," I said enigmatically. "So you see it's of no use hiding anythingfrom me. Come, tell me all, or I will belabor you with my broomstick."
"If you know, why should I tell you?"
"I want to see if you can tell the truth."
"No, I can't." We both laughed. "See what a cruel dilemma you place mein!" he said beseechingly.
"Tell me, at least, why he won't publish his songs. Is he too modest,too timid?"
"Neither. He loves art for art's sake--that is all."
"I don't understand."
"He writes to please himself. To create music is his highest pleasure.He can't see what it has got to do with anybody else."
"But surely he wants the world to enjoy his work?"
"Why? That would be art for the world's sake, art for fame's sake, artfor money's sake!"
"What an extraordinary view!"
"Why so? The true artist--the man to whom creation is rapture--surely heis his own world. Unless he is in need of money, why should he concernhimself with the outside universe? My friend cannot understand whySchopenhauer should have troubled himself to chisel epigrams or Leopardilyrics to tell people that life was not worth living. Had either been atrue artist, he would have gone on living his own worthless life,unruffled by the applause of the mob. My friend can understand a poettranslating into inspired song the sacred secrets of his soul, but hecannot understand his scattering them broad-cast through the country,still less taking a royalty on them. He says it is selling your soul inthe market-place, and almost as degrading as going on the stage."
"And do you agree with him?"
"Not entirely, otherwise I should never have yielded to the temptationto sing his song to-night. Fortunately he will never hear of it. Henever goes into society, and I am his only friend."
"Dear me!" I said sarcastically. "Is he as careful to conceal his bodyas his soul?"
His face grew grave. "He has an affliction," he said in low tones.
"Oh, forgive me!" I said remorsefully. Tears came into my eyes as thevision of the Norse giant gave away to that of an English hunchback. Myadoring worship was transformed to an adoring matronly tenderness.Divinely-gifted sufferer, if I cannot lean on thy strength, thou shaltlean on mine! So ran my thought till the mist cleared from my eyes and Isaw again the glorious Saga-hero at my side, and grew strangely confusedand distraught.
"There is nothing to forgive," answered Captain Athelstan. "You did notknow him."
"You forget I am a witch. But I do not know him--it is true. I do noteven know his name. Yet within a week I undertake to become a friend ofhis."
He shook his head. "You do not know him."
"I admitted that," I answered pertly. "Give me a week, and he shall notonly know me, he shall abjure those sublime principles of his at myrequest."
The spirit of mischief moved me to throw down the challenge. Or was itsome deeper impulse?
He smiled sceptically.
"Of course if you know somebody who will introduce you," he began.
"Nobody shall introduce me," I interrupted.
"Well, he'll never speak to you first."
"You mean it would be unmaidenly for me to speak to him first. Well, Iwill bind myself to do nothing of which Mrs. Grundy would disapprove.And yet the result shall be as I say."
"Then I shall admit you are indeed a witch."
"You don't believe in my power, that is. Well, what will you wager?"
"If you achieve your impossibility, you will deserve anything."
"Will you back your incredulity with a pair of gloves?"
"With a hundred."
"Thank you. I am not a Briareus. Let us say one pair then."
"So be it."
"But no countermining. Promise me not to communicate with yourmysterious friend in the interval."
"I promise."
"But how shall I know the result?"
I pondered. "I will write--no, that would be hardly proper. Meet me inthe Royal Academy, Room Six, at the 'Portrait of a Gentleman,' aboutnoon to-morrow week."
"A week is a long time!" he sighed.
I arched my eyebrows. "A week a long time for such a task!" I exclaimed.
Next day I called at the house of the Voice. A gorgeous creature inplush opened the door.
"I want to see--to see--gracious! I've forgotten his name," I said inpatent chagrin. I clucked my tongue, puckered my lips, tapped the stepwith my parasol, then smiled pitifully at the creature in plush. Heturned out to be only human, for a responsive sympathetic smileflickered across his pompous face. "You know--the singer," I said, as ifwith a sudden inspiration.
"Oh. Lord Arthur!" he said.
"Yes, of course," I cried, with a little trill of laughter. "How stupidof me! Please tell him I want to see him on an important matter."
"He--he's very busy, I'm afraid, miss."
"Oh, but he'll see me," I said confidently.
"Yes, miss; who shall I say, miss?"
"The Princess."
He made a startled obeisance, and ushered me into a little room on theright of the hall. In a few moments he returned and said--"His lordshipwill be down in a second, your highness."
Sixty minutes seemed to go to that second, so racked was I withcuriosity. At last I heard a step outside and a hand on the door, and atthat moment a horrible thought flashed into my mind. What certainty wasthere my singer was a hunchback? Suppose his affliction were somethingmore loathly. What if he had a monstrous wen! For the instant after hisentry I was afraid to look up. When I did, I saw a short, dark-hairedyoung man, with proper limbs and refined features. But his face wore ablank expression, and I wondered why I had not divined before that mymusician was blind!
He bowed and advanced towards me. He came straight in my direction sothat I saw he _could_ see. The blank expression gave place to one ofinquiry.
"I have ventured to call upon your lordship in reference to a CharityConcert," I said sweetly; "I am one of your neighbors, living justacross the square, and as the good work is to be done in this district,I dared to hope that I could persuade you to take part in it."
I happened to catch sight of my face in the glass of a chiffonier as Ispoke, and it was as pure and candid and beautiful as the face of one ofGuido's angels. When I ceased, I looked up at Lord Arthur's. It wasspasmodically agitated, the mouth was working wildly. A nervous dreadseized me.
After what seemed an endless interval, he uttered an explosive "Put!"following it up by "f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-or two g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g----"
"It is very kind of you," I interrupted mercifully. "But I did notpropose to ask you for a subscription. I wanted to enlist your servicesas a performer. But I fear I have made a mistake. I understood yousang." Inwardly I was furious with the stupid creature in plush forhaving misled me into such an unpleasant situation.
"I d-d-d-o s-s-s-s-s----" he answered.
As he stood there
hissing, the truth flashed upon me at last. I hadheard that the most dreadful stammerers enunciate as easily as anybodyelse when they sing, because the measured swing of the time keeps themsteady. My heart sank as I thought of the Voice so mutilated! Poor youngpeer! Was this to be the end of all my beautiful visions?
As cheerfully as I could I cut short his sibilations. "Oh, that's allright, then," I said. "Then I may put you down for a couple of items."
He shook his head, and held up his hands deprecatingly.
"Anything but that!" he stammered; "Make me a patron, a committee-man,anything! I do not sing in public."
While he was saying this I thought long and deeply. The affliction wasafter all less terrible than I had a right to expect, and I knew fromthe advertisement columns that it was easily curable. Demosthenes, Iremembered, had stoned it to death. I felt my love reviving, as I lookedinto his troubled face, instinct with the double aristocracy of rank andgenius. At the worst the singing Voice was unaffected by the disability,and as for the conversational, well there was consolation in theprospect of having the last word while one's husband was still havingthe first. _En attendant_, I could have wished him to sing his repliesinstead of speaking them, for not only should I thus enjoy his Voice butthe interchange of ideas would proceed less tardily. However that wouldhave made him into an operatic personage, and I did not want him to lookso ridiculous as all that.
It would be tedious to recount our interview at the length it extendedto. Suffice it to say that I gained my point. Without letting out that Iknew of his theories of art for art's sake, I yet artfully pleaded thatwhatever one's views, charity alters cases, inverts everything,justifies anything. "For instance," I said with charming _naivete_, "Iwould not have dared to call on you but in its sacred name." He agreedto sing two songs--nay, two of his own songs. I was to write to himparticulars of time and place. He saw me to the door. I held out my handand he took it, and we looked at each other, smiling brightly.
"B-but I d-d-d-don't know your n-n-name," he said suddenly."P-p-p-rincess what?"
He spoke more fluently, now he had regained his composure.
"Princess," I answered, my eyes gleaming merrily. "That is all. TheHonorable Miss Primpole will give me a character, if you require one."He laughed--his laugh was like the Voice--and followed me with his eyesas I glided away.
I had won my gloves--and in a day. I thought remorsefully of the poorSaga hero destined to wait a week in suspense as to the result. But itwas too late to remedy this, and the organization of the Charity Concertneeded all my thoughts. I was in for it now, and I resolved to carry itthrough. But it was not so easy as I had lightly assumed. Getting theartists, of course, was nothing--there are always so many professionalsout of work or anxious to be brought out, and so many amateurs in searchof amusement. I could have filled the Albert Hall with entertainers. Nordid I anticipate any difficulty in disposing of the tickets. If you areat all popular in society you can get a good deal of unpopularity byforcing them on your friends. No, the real difficulty about this CharityConcert was the discovery of an object in aid of which to give it. In myinnocence I had imagined that the world was simply bustling withunexploited opportunities for well-doing. Alas! I soon found thatphilanthropy was an over-crowded profession. There was not a single nookor corner of the universe but had been ransacked by these restlessfree-lances; not a gap, not a cranny but had been filled up. In vain Iexplored the map, in the hopes of lighting on some undiscoveredhunting-ground in far Cathay or where the khamsin sweeps the Africdeserts. I found that the wants of the most benighted savages werecarefully attended to, and that, even when they had none, they werethoughtfully supplied with them. Anxiously I scanned the newspapers insearch of a calamity, the sufferers by which I might relieve, but onlyone happened during that week, and that was snatched from between myvery fingers by a lady who had just been through the Divorce Court. Inmy despair I bethought myself of the preacher I sat under. He was a veryhandsome man, and published his sermons by request.
I went to him and I said: "How is the church?"
"It is all right, thank you," he said.
"Doesn't it want anything done to it?"
"No, it is in perfect repair. My congregation is so very good."
I groaned aloud. "But isn't there any improvement that you would like?"
"The last of the gargoyles was put up last week. Mediaeval architectureis always so picturesque. I have had the entire structure made mediaeval,you know."
"But isn't the outside in need of renovation?"
"What! When I have just had it made mediaeval!"
"But the interior--there must be something defective somewhere!"
"Not to my knowledge."
"But think! think!" I cried desperately. "Theaisles--transept--nave--lectern--pews--chancel--pulpit--apse--porch--altar-cloths--organ--spires--is there nothing in need of anything?"
He shook his head.
"Wouldn't you like a colored window to somebody?"
"All the windows are taken up. My congregation is so very good."
"A memorial brass then?"
He mused.
"There is only one of my flock who has done anything memorable lately."
My heart gave a great leap of joy. "Then why do you neglect him?" Iasked indignantly. "If we do not perpetuate the memory of virtue----"
"He's alive," he interrupted.
I bit my lips in vexation.
"I think you need a few more choristers," I murmured.
"Oh no, we are sending some away."
"The Sunday School Fund--how is that?"
"I am looking about for a good investment for the surplus. Do you knowof any? A good mortgage, perhaps?"
"Is there none on the church?" I cried with a flicker of hope.
"Heaven forbid!"
I cudgelled my brains frantically.
"What do you think of a lightning-rod!"
"A premier necessity. I never preach in a building unprotected by one."
I made one last wild search.
"How about a reredos?"
He looked at me in awful, pained silence.
I saw I had stumbled. "I--I mean a new wing," I stammered.
"I am afraid you are not well this morning," said the preacher, pattingmy hand soothingly. "Won't you come and talk it over, whatever it is,another time?"
"No, no," I cried excitedly. "It must be settled at once. I have it. Anew peal of bells!"
"What is the matter with the bells?" he asked anxiously. "There isn't asingle one cracked."
I saw his dubiety, and profited by it. I learnt afterwards it was due tohis having no ear of his own.
"Cracked! Perhaps not," I replied in contemptuous accents. "But theydeserve to be. No wonder the newspapers keep correspondences going onthe subject."
"Yes, but what correspondents object to is the bells ringing at all."
"I don't wonder," I said. "I don't say your bells are worse than themajority, or that I haven't got a specially sensitive ear for music, butI know that when I hear their harsh clanging, I--well I don't feelinclined to go to church and that's the truth. I am quite sure if youhad a really musical set of chimes, it would increase the spiritualityof the neighborhood."
"How so?" he asked sceptically.
"It would keep down swearing on Sunday."
"Oh!" He pondered a moment, then said: "But that would be a greatexpense."
"Indeed? I thought bells were cheap."
"Certainly. Area bells, hand-bells, sleigh-bells. But Church-bells arevery costly. There are only a few foundries in the kingdom. But why areyou so concerned about my church?"
"Because I am giving a Charity Concert, and I should like to devote theproceeds to something."
"A very exemplary desire. But I fear one bell is the most you could getout of a Charity Concert."
I looked disappointed. "What a pity! It would have been such a niceprecedent to improve the tone of the Church. The 'constant readers'would have had to cease their letters."
/> "No, no, impossible. A 'constant reader' seems to be so called becausehe is a constant writer."
"But there might have been leaders about it."
"Hardly sensational enough for that! Stay I have an idea. In thebeautiful Ages of Faith, when a Church-bell was being cast, the piousused to bring silver vessels to be fused with the bell-metal in thefurnace, so as to give the bell a finer tone. A mediaeval practice isalways so poetical. Perhaps I could revive it. My congregation is sovery good."
"Good!" I echoed, clapping my hands. "But a Concert will not suffice--weshall need a Bazaar," said the preacher.
"Oh, but I must have a Concert!"
"Certainly Bazaars include Concerts."
_How the Duchess wanted to appear._]
That was how the Great Church Bazaar originated and how the Rev. MelitosSmith came to resurrect the beautiful mediaeval custom which brought himso much kudos and extracted such touching sentiments from hardenedjournalists. The Bazaar lasted a week, and raised a number of ladies inthe social scale, and married off three of my girl-friends, and cut meoff the visiting list of the Duchess of Dash. She was pining for achance of coming out in a comic opera chanson, but this being a ChurchBazaar I couldn't allow her to kick up her heels. Everything could bebought at that Bazaar, from photographs of the Rev. Melitos Smith toimpracticable mouse-traps, from bread-and-cheese to kisses. There wereendless side-shows, and six gipsy girls scattered about the rooms, sothat you could have your fortune told in six different ways. I shouldnot like to say how much that Bazaar cost me when the bill for the Bellscame in, but then Lord Arthur sang daily in the Concert Hall, and Icould also deduct the price of the pair of gloves Captain Athelstan gaveme. For the Captain honorably stood the loss of his wager, nay, more,cheerfully accepted his defeat, and there on the spot--before the"Portrait of another Gentleman"--offered to enlist in the Bazaar. Andvery useful he proved, too. We had to be together, organizing it, nearlyall day and I don't know what I should have done without him. I don'tknow what his Regiment did without him, but then I have never been ableto find out when our gallant officers do their work. They seem always tobe saving it up for a rainy day.
I was never more surprised in my life than when, on the last night ofthe Bazaar-boom, amid the buzz of a brisk wind-up, Lord Arthur andCaptain Athelstan came into the little presidential sanctum, which hadbeen run up for me, and requested a special interview.
"I can give you five minutes," I said, for I felt my finger was on thepulse of the Bazaar, and my time correspondingly important.
They looked grateful, then embarrassed. Captain Athelstan opened hismouth and closed it.
"_You_ had better tell her," he said, nervously, to Lord Arthur.
"N-n-no, y-y-y-y----"
"What is it, Captain Athelstan?" I interrupted, pointedly, for I hadonly five minutes.
"Princess, we both love you," began the Captain, blushing like ahobbledehoy, and rushing _in medias res_. I allowed them to call mePrincess, because it was not my Christian name.
"Is this the time--when I am busy feeling the pulse of the Bazaar?"
"You gave us five minutes," pleaded the Captain, determined to do ordie, now he was in the thick of it.
"Go on," I said, "I will forgive you everything--even your love ofme--if you are only brief."
"We both love you. We are great friends. We have no secrets. We toldeach other. We are doubtful if you love either--or which. We have cometogether."
He fired off the short, sharp sentences as from a six-barrelledrevolver.
"Captain Athelstan--Lord Arthur," I said. "I am deeply touched by thehonor you have done your friendship and me. I will be equally frank--andbrief--with you. I cannot choose either of you, because I love you both.Like every girl, I formed an ideal of a lover. I have been fortunate infinding my ideal in the flesh. I have been unfortunate in finding it intwo pieces. Fate has bisected it, and given the form to one and thevoice to the other. My ideal looks like you, Captain Athelstan, andsings like you, Lord Arthur. It is a stupid position, I know, and I feellike the donkey between two bundles of hay. But under the circumstancesI have no choice."
They looked at each other half-rapturously, half-despairingly.
"Then what's to be done?" cried the Captain.
"I don't know," I said, hopelessly. "Love seems not only blind, but ablind alley, this time."
"D-do you m-m-ean," asked Lord Arthur, "'how happy could I be witheither, were t'other dear charmer away?'"
I was glad he sang it, because it precipitated matters.
"That is the precise position," I admitted.
"Oh, then, Arthur, my boy, I congratulate you," said the Captain,huskily.
"N-n-no, I'll g-g-go away," said the singer.
They wrangled for full ten minutes, but the position remained a block.
_Bazaar proposal of Marriage._]
"Gentlemen," I interposed, "if either of you had consented to accept theother's sacrifice, the problem would have been solved; only I shouldhave taken the other. But two self-sacrifices are as bad as none."
"Then let us toss up for you, Princess," said the Captain, impulsively.
"Oh, no!" I cried, with a shudder. "Submit my life to the chances ofhead or tail! It would make me feel like a murderess, with you forgentlemen of the jury."
A painful silence fell upon the sanctum. Unwitting of the tragedyplaying within, all the fun of the fair went on without.
"Listen," I said, at last. "I will be the wife of him who wins me.Chance shall not decide, but prowess. Like the princesses of old, I willset you a task. Whoever accomplishes it shall win my hand."
"Agreed," they said eagerly, though not simultaneously.
"Ay, but what shall it be?" I murmured.
"Why not a competition?" suggested the Captain.
"Very well, a competition--provided you promise to fight fair, and notplay into each other's hands."
They promised, and together we excogitated and rejected all sorts ofcompetitions. The difficulty was to find something in which each wouldhave a fair chance. At length we arranged that they should play a gameof chess, the winner to be mated. They agreed it would be a real "matchgame." The five minutes had by this time lasted half an hour, so Idismissed them, and hastened to feel the pulse of the Bazaar, which wasgetting more and more feverish as the break-up drew nigh.
They played the game in Lord Arthur's study. Lord Arthur was white andthe Captain black. Everything was fair and above board. But they playedrather slowly. Every evening I sent the butler over to make inquiries.
"The Princess's compliments," he was told to say, "and how is itto-day?"
"It is getting on," they told him, and he came back with a glad face. Hewas a kind soul despite his calves, and he thought there was a childdying.
Once a week I used to go over and look at it. Ostensibly I called inconnection with the Bazaar accounts. I could not see any difference inthe position from one week's end to another. There seemed to be a clumpof pawns in the middle, with all the other pieces looking idly on; therewas no thoroughfare anywhere.
They told me it always came like that when you played cautiously. Theysaid it was a French opening. I could not see any opening anywhere; itcertainly was not the English way of fighting. Picture my suspenseduring those horrible weeks.
"Is this the way all match-games are played?" I said once.
"N-n-o," admitted Lord Arthur. "We for-g-g-ot to p-p-p-ut at-t-t-t-t-time-limit."
"What's the time-limit?" I asked the Captain, wishing my singer couldlearn to put one to his sentences.
"So many moves must be made in an hour--usually fifteen. Otherwise theyounger champion would always win, merely by outliving the elder. Weforgot to include that condition."
At length our butler brought back word that "it couldn't last muchlonger." His face was grave and he gave the message in low tones.
"What a blessing. It's been lingering long enough! I wish they wouldpolish it off," I murmured fretfully. After th
at I frequently caught himlooking at me as if I were Lucrezia Borgia.
The end came suddenly. The butler went across to make the usual inquiry.He returned, with a foolish face of horror and whispered, "It is allover. It has been drawn by perpetual check!"
"Great Heavens!" I cried. My consternation was so manifest that heforgave the utterance of a peevish moment. I put on my nicest hat atonce and went over. We held a council of war afresh.
"Let's go by who catches the biggest trout," suggested the Captain.
"No," I said. "I will not be angled for. Besides, the biggest is notgrammatical. It should be the bigger."
Thus reproved, the Captain grew silent and we came to a deadlock oncemore. I gave up the hunt at last.
"I think the best plan will be for you both to go away and travel. Goround the world, see fresh faces, try to forget me. One of you willsucceed."
"But suppose we both succeed?" asked the Captain.
"That would be more awkward than ever," I admitted.
"And if neither succeed?" asked Lord Arthur at some length.
"I should say neither succeeds," I remarked severely. "Neither takes asingular verb."
"Pardon me," said Lord Arthur with some spirit. "The plurality is merelyapparent. 'Succeed' is subjunctive after if."
"Ah, true," I said. "Then suppose you go round the world and I give myhand to whoever comes back and proposes to me first."
"Something like the man in Jules Verne!" cried the Captain. "Glorious!"
"Except that it can be done quicker now," I said.
Lord Arthur fell in joyously with the idea, which was a godsend to me,for the worry of having about you two men whom you love and who love youcannot be easily conceived by those who have not been through it. They,too, were pining away and felt the journey would do them good. CaptainAthelstan applied for three months' furlough. He was to put a girdleround the earth from West to East, Lord Arthur from East to West. It wasthought this would work fairly--as whatever advantages one outgoingroute had over the other would be lost on the return. Each drew up hisscheme and prepared his equipment. The starting-point was to be myhouse, and consequently this was also the goal. After forty-eight dayshad passed (the minimum time possible) I was to remain at home day andnight, awaiting the telegram which was to be sent the moment eithertouched English soil again. On the receipt of the telegram I was to takeup my position at the front window on the ground floor, with a whiterose in my hair to show I was still unwon, and to wait there day andnight for the arrival of my offer of marriage, which I was not to havethe option of refusing. During the race they were not to write to me.
The long-looked-for day of their departure duly arrived. Two hansomswere drawn up side by side, in front of the house. A white rose in myhair, I sat at the window. A parting smile, a wave of my handkerchief,and my lovers were off. In an instant they were out of sight. For amonth they were out of mind, too. After the exhausting emotions I hadundergone this period of my life was truly halcyon. I banished my loversfrom my memory and enjoyed what was left of the season and of my girlishfreedom. In two months I should be an affianced wife and it behoved meto make the best of my short span of spinsterhood. The season waned,fashion drifted to Cowes, I was left alone in empty London. Then mythoughts went back to the two travellers. As day followed day, myanxiety and curiosity mounted proportionately. The forty-eight days wentby, but there was no wire. They passed slowly--oh, so slowly--intofifty, while I waited, waited, from dawn to midnight, with ears prickedup, for that double rat-tat which came not or which came about somethingelse. The sands of September dribbled out, and my fate still hung in thebalance. I went about the house like an unquiet spirit. In imagination Iwas seeing those two men sweeping towards me--one from the East of theworld, one from the West. And there I stood, rooted to the spot, whilefrom either side a man was speeding inevitably towards me, across oceansand continents, through canals and tunnels, along deserts or rivers,pressing into his service every human and animal force and every blindenergy that man had tamed. To my fevered imagination I seemed to bebetween the jaws of a leviathan, which were closing upon me at aterrific rate, yet which took days to snap together, so wide were theyapart, so gigantic was the monster. Which of the jaws would touch mefirst?
The fifties mounted into the sixties, but there was no telegram. Thetension became intolerable. Again and again I felt tempted to fly, but alingering sense of honor kept me to my post. On the sixty-first day mypatience was rewarded. Sitting at my window one morning I saw atelegraph-boy sauntering along. He reached the gate. He paused. I rushedto the door and down the steps, seized the envelope and tore itfrantically open.
"_Coming, but suppose all over._--ARTHUR."
I leaned on the gate, half fainting. When I went to my room, I read thewire again and noted it had been handed in at Liverpool. In four or fivehours at most I should cease to belong to myself. I communicated thenews to the Honorable Miss Primpole who congratulated me cordially. Shemade no secret of her joy that the nobleman had won. For my part I wasstill torn with conflicting emotions. Now that I knew it was to be theone, I hankered after the other. Yet in the heart of the storm there waspeace in the thought that the long suspense was over. I ordered amagnificent repast to be laid for the home-coming voyager, which wouldalso serve to celebrate our nuptials. The Honorable Miss Primpoleconsented to grace the board and the butler to surrender the choicestvintages garnered in my father's cellar.
Two hours and a half dragged by; then there came another wire--I openedit with some curiosity, but as my eye caught the words I almost swoonedwith excitement. It ran:
"_Arrived, but presume too late._--ATHELSTAN."
With misty vision I strove to read the place of despatch. It was Dover.A great wave of hope surged in my bosom. My Saga-hero might yet arrivein time. Half frenziedly I turned over the leaves of Bradshaw. No, aftersending that wire, he would just have missed the train to Victoria!Cruel! Cruel! But stay! there was another route. He might have bookedfor Charing Cross. Yes! Heaven be praised, if he did that, he would justcatch a train. And of course he would do that--surely he would haveplanned out every possibility while crossing the Channel, have arrangedfor all--my Captain, my blue-eyed Berserker! But then Lord Arthur hadhad two and a half hours' start.--I turned to Liverpool and essayed todiscover whether that was sufficient to balance the difference of thetwo distances from London. Alas! my head swam before I had travelled twostations. There were no less than four routes to Euston, to St. Pancras,to King's Cross, to Paddington! Still I made out that if he had kept hishead very clear, and been very, very fortunate, he might just get levelwith the Captain. But then on a longer route the chances of accidentaldelays were more numerous. On the whole the odds were decidedly in favorof the Captain. But one thing was certain--that they would both arrivein time for supper. I ordered an additional cover to be laid, then Ithrew myself upon a couch and tried to read. But I could not. Terribleas was the strain, my thoughts refused to be distracted. The minutescrawled along--gradually peace came back as I concluded that only by amiracle could Lord Arthur win. At last I jumped up with a start, for theshades of evening were falling and my toilette was yet to make. Idressed myself in a dainty robe of white, trimmed with sprays of wildflowers, and I stuck the white rose in my hair--the symbol that I wasyet unasked in wedlock, the white star of hope to the way-worn wanderer!I did my best to be the fairest sight the travellers should have seen inall the world.
The Honorable Miss Primpole started when she saw me. "What have you beendoing to yourself, Princess?" she said. "You're lovelier than I everdreamed."
And indeed the crisis had lent a flush to my cheek and a flash to my eyewhich I would not willingly repay. My bosom rose and fell withexcitement. In half an hour I should be in my Saga-hero's arms! I wentdown to the ground-floor front and seated myself at the open window andgazed at the Square and the fiery streaks of sunset in the sky. TheHonorable Miss Primpole lay upon an ottoman, less excited. Every now andagain she asked,
"Do you see anything, Princess?"
"Nothing," I answered.
Of course she did not take my answer literally. Several times cabs andcarriages rattled past the window, but with no visible intention ofdrawing up. Duskier, duskier grew the September evening, as I satpeering into the twilight.
"Do you see anything, Princess?"
"Nothing."
A moment after a hansom came dashing into sight--a head protruded fromit. I uttered a cry and leant forward, straining my eyes. CaptainAthelstan. Yes! No! No! Yes! No! _No!_ Will it be believed that (such isthe heart of woman) I felt a sensation of relief on finding the issuestill postponed? For in the moment when the Captain seemed to flash uponmy vision--it was borne in upon me like a chilling blast that I had lostmy Voice. Never would that glorious music swell for me as I sat alonewith my husband in the gloaming.
The streaks of sunset faded into gray ashes.
"Do you see anything, Princess?"
"Nothing."
Even as I spoke I heard the gallop of hoofs in the quiet Square, and,half paralyzed by the unexpected vision, I saw Lord Arthur dashingfuriously up on horseback--Lord Arthur, bronzed and bearded andtravel-stained, but Lord Arthur beyond a doubt. He took off his hat andwaved it frantically in the air when he caught sight of my white figure,with the white rose of promise nestling in my hair. My poor Saga-hero!
_At the winning Post._]
He reined in his beautiful steed before my window and commenced hisproposal breathlessly.
"_W-w-w_----"
Even Mr. Gladstone, if he had been racing as madly as Lord Arthur mightwell have been flustered in his speech. The poor singer could not getout the first word, try as he would. At last it came out like asoda-water cork and '_you_' with it. But at the '_be_' there was--O direto tell!--another stoppage.
"_B-b-b-b-b_----"
"Fire! Fire! Hooray!" The dull roar of an advancing crowd burst suddenlyupon our ears, mingled with the piercing exultation of small boys. Thethunderous clatter of the fire-engine seemed to rock the soil of theSquare.
But neither of us took eyes off the other.
"_Be!_" It was out at last. The end was near. In another second I shouldsay "Yes."
"Fire! Fire!" shrieked the small boys.
"_M-m-m-y_----"
Lord Arthur's gallant steed shifted uneasily. The fire-engine wasthundering down upon it.
"_W-w-w_----"
"_Will you be_----" The clarion notes of the Captain rang out above theclatter of the fire-engine from which he madly jumped.
"_Wife?_" } the two travellers exclaimed together."_Mine?_" }
"Dead heat," I murmured, and fell back in a dead faint. My overwroughtnerves could stand no more.
* * * * *
Nevertheless it was a gay supper-party; the air was thick withtravellers' tales, and the butler did not spare the champagne. Wecould not help being tickled by the quaint termination of thecolossal globe-trotting competition, and we soothed Lord Arthur'ssusceptibilities by insisting that if he had only remembered the shorterproposal formula employed by his rival, he would have won by a word. Itwas a pure fluke that the Captain was able to tie, for he had notthought of telegraphing for a horse, but had taken a hansom at thestation, and only exchanged to the fire-engine when he heard peopleshouting there was a fire in Seymour Street. Lord Arthur obliged fivetimes during the evening, and the Honorable Miss Primpole relaxed morethan ever before and accompanied him on the banjo. Before we parted, Ihad been persuaded by my lovers to give them one last trial. That nightthree months I was to give another magnificent repast, to which theywere both to be invited. During the interval each was to do his best tobecome famous, and at the supper-party I was to choose the one who wasthe more widely known throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom.They were to place before me what proofs and arguments they pleased, andI was to decide whose name had penetrated to the greater number ofpeople. There was to be no appeal from my decision, nor any limitationto what the candidates might do to force themselves upon the universalconsciousness, so long as they did not merely advertise themselves at somuch a column or poster. They could safely be trusted not to do anythinginfamous in the attempt to become famous, and so there was no need toimpose conditions. I had a secret hope that Lord Arthur might thus beinduced to bring his talents before the world and get over his objectionto the degradation of public appearances. My hope was more thanjustified.
"_Ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee._"]
I grieve to say neither strove to benefit his kind. His lordship went onthe music-hall stage, made up as a costermonger, and devoted hiswonderful voice and his musical genius to singing a cockney ballad witha chorus consisting merely of the words "Ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee"repeated sixteen times. It caught on like a first-class epidemic. "Ba,ba, ba, boodle-dee" microbes floated in every breeze. The cholera-chorusraged from Piccadilly to Land's End, from Kensington to John o'Groats.The swarthy miners hewed the coal to it. It dropped from passingballoons, the sailors manned the capstan to it, and the sound of itsuperseded fog-horns. Duchesses danced to it, and squalid infants criedfor it. Divines with difficulty kept it out of their sermons,philosophers drew weighty lessons from it, critics traced its history,and as it didn't mean anything the greatest Puritans hummed itinaccurately. "Ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee," sang Lord Arthur nightly at sixhalls and three theatres, incidentally clearing off all the debts on thefamily estates, and, like a flock of sheep, the great British publictook up the bleat, and in every hall and drawing-room blossomed the bigpearl buttons of the cockney costermonger.
But Captain Athelstan came to the front far more easily, if lessprofitably. He sent a testimonial to the Perfect Cure Elixir. The Elixirwas accustomed to testimonials from the suffering millions. The spellinggenerally had to be corrected before they were fit for publication. Italso received testimonials which were useless, such as: "I took only onebottle of your Elixir and I got fourteen days." But a testimonial from aCaptain of the Guards was a gold-mine. The Captain's was the best namethe Elixir had ever had, and he had enjoyed more diseases than it hadhitherto professed to cure. Astonished by its own success the Elixirresolved to make a big spurt and kill off all its rivals. For the nextfew months Captain Athelstan was rammed down the throats of all England.He came with the morning milk in all the daily papers, he arrived by thefirst post in a circular, he stared at people from every dead wall whenthey went out to business, he was with them at lunch, in little plaquesand placards in every restaurant, he nodded at them in every bar, rodewith them in every train and tram-car, either on the wall or on the backof the ticket, joined them at dinner in the evening papers and suppliedthe pipe lights after the meal. You took up a magazine and found he hadslipped between the sheets, you went to bed and his diseased figurehaunted your dreams. Life lost its sweetness, literature its charm. Theloathsome phantasm of the complexly-afflicted Captain got between youand the sunshine. Stiff examination papers (compiled from the Captain)were set at every breakfast-table, and you were sternly interrogated asto whether you felt an all-gone sensation at the tip of your nose, andyou were earnestly adjured to look at your old diseases. You began toread an eloquent description of the Alps, and lo! there was the Captainperched on top. You started a thrilling story of the sea, and theCaptain bobbed up from the bottom; you began a poetical allegoryconcerning the Valley of the Shadow, and you found the Captain had beenliving there all his life--till he came upon the Elixir. A littleinnocent child remarked, "Pater, it is almost bath-time," and you feltfor your handkerchief in view of a touching domestic idyl, but theCaptain froze your tears. "Why have sunstroke in India?" you were asked,and the Captain supplied the answer. Something came like a thief in thenight. It was the Captain. You were startled to see that there was "ABlight Over All Creation," but it turned out to be only the Captain.Everything abutted on the Captain--Shakespeare and the musical glasses,the Venus of Milo and the Mikado, Day and Night and all the seasons, thepotato harvest a
nd the Durham Coal Strike, the advantages of earlyrising, and the American Copyright Act. He was at the bottom of everypassage, he lurked in every avenue, he was at the end of everyperspective. The whole world was familiar with his physical symptoms,and his sad history. The exploits of Julius Caesar were but a blur in thecommon mind, but everybody knew that the Captain's skin grew Gobelinblue, that the whites of his eyes turned green, and his tongue stuck inhis cheek, and that the rest of his organism behaved with correspondinggruesomeness. Everybody knew how they dropped off, "petrified by mybreath," and how his sympathetic friends told him in large capitals
"YOU WILL NEVER GET BETTER, CAPTAIN,"
and how his weeping mother, anxious to soothe his last hours, remarkedin reply to a request for another box of somebody else's pills,
"THE ONLY BOX YOU'LL EVER WANT WILL BE A COFFIN,"
and how
"HE THOUGHT IT WAS ONLY CHOLERA,"
but how one dose of the Elixir (which new-born babies clamoredfor in preference to their mother's milk) had baffled all theirprognostications and made him a celebrity for life. In private theCaptain said that he really had these ailments, though he onlydiscovered the fact when he read the advertisements of the Elixir. Butthe Mess had an inkling that it was all done for a wager, and christenedhim "The Perfect Cure." To me he justified himself on the ground that hehad scrupulously described himself as having his tongue in his cheek,and that he really suffered from love-sickness, which was worse than allthe ills the Elixir cured.
I need scarcely say that I was shocked by my lovers' practical methodsof acquiring that renown for which so many gifted souls have yearned invain, though I must admit that both gentlemen retained sufficient senseof decorum to be revolted by the other's course of action. Theyremonstrated with each other gently but firmly. The result was thattheir friendship snapped and a week before the close of the competitionthey crossed the Channel to fight a duel. I got to hear of it in timeand wired to Boulogne that if they killed each other I would marryneither, that if only one survived I would never marry my lover'smurderer, and that a duel excited so much gossip that, if both survived,they would be equally famous and the competition again a failure.
These simple considerations prevented any mishap. The Captain returnedto his Regiment and Lord Arthur went on to the Riviera to while away thefew remaining days and to get extra advertisement out of not appearingat his halls through indisposition. At Monte Carlo he accidentally brokethe bank, and explained his system to the interviewers. To my chagrin,for I was tired of see-sawing, this brought him level with the Captainagain. I had been prepared to adjudicate in favour of the latter, on theground that although "Ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee" was better known than thePatent Cure Elixir, yet the originator of the song remained unknown tomany to whom the Captain was a household word, and this in despite ofthe extra attention secured to Lord Arthur by his rank. The secondsupper-party was again sicklied over with the pale cast of thought.
"No more competitions!" I said. "You seem destined to tie with eachother instead of with me. I will return to my original idea. I will giveyou a task which it is not likely both will perform. I will marry theman who asks me, provided he comes, neither walking nor riding, neithersailing nor driving, neither skating nor sliding nor flying, neither byboat nor by balloon nor by bicycle, neither by swimming nor by floatingnor by anybody carrying or dragging or pushing him, neither by anymovement of hand or foot nor by any extraordinary method whatever. Tillthis is achieved neither of you must look upon my face again."
"They looked aghast when I set the task. They went away and I have notseen them from that day to this. I shall never marry now. So I may aswell devote myself to the cause of the Old Maids you are so noblychampioning." She rolled up the MS.
"But," said Lillie excitedly, breaking in for the first time, "what isthe way you want them to come?"
The Princess laughed a silvery laugh.
"No way. Don't you understand? It was a roundabout way of saying I wastired of them."
"Oh!" said Lillie.
"You see, I got the idea from a fairy-tale," said the Princess. "There,the doer evaded the conditions by being dragged at a horse's tail--Ihave guarded against this, so that now the thing is impossible." Againher mischievous laughter rang out through the misanthropic room.
Lillie smiled, too. She felt certain Lord Silverdale would find no flawin the Princess's armor, and she was exultant at so auspicious anaccession. For the sake of formality, however, she told her that shewould communicate her election by letter.
The next day a telegram came to the Club.
"_Compelled to withdraw candidature. Feat accomplished._ PRINCESS, HOTELMETROPOLE, BRIGHTON."
Equally aghast and excited, Lillie wired back, "_How?_" and prepaid thereply.
"_Lover happened to be here. Came up in lift as I was waiting to godown._"
Still intensely piqued by curiosity and vexation, Lillie telegraphed.
"_Which?_"
"_Leave you to guess_," answered the electric current.
The Old Maids' Club Page 5