by Anthea Bell
Mr. Smith, who favoured a loosely knotted neckerchief instead, retorted with spirit, “W-wouldn’t be seen d-dead in a confection like that th-thing you’re wearing, Charley! W-what is it?”
“Variation of my own on the Mathematical Tie,” said Charley grandly. “I’ll teach it to you, if you like. Mind, I don’t guarantee you could ever master the trick of it.”
“I’ve g-got b-better things to do,” returned the poet.
“Of course he has!” said Persephone, taking up the cudgels on Mr. Smith’s behalf, to his intense gratification. “As if anyone in his senses would want to prop his chin on a great starched edifice like that, Charley! Or wear such a waistcoat either!” she added, gratuitously.
The waistcoat Mr. Hargrave was sporting was the gem of his extensive collection, being made of black velvet with little stars sewn all over it, and he was excessively proud of it. He therefore replied, in kind, “Well, and I never saw anything half as ridiculous as those sleeves you have on!” They were certainly striking: made of fine muslin and extremely full from shoulder to wrist, where they were gathered in and tied.
“Let me tell you,” Persephone informed her cousin, “that they are the very latest thing! What was it Mademoiselle Hortense said the style is called?” she appealed to Elinor. “Oh, I remember—the Imbecile Sleeve.”
At this Charley laughed immoderately, and said, “Imbecile, eh? That’s a good ‘un, ain’t it, Zack?”
However, Mr. Smith was not disposed to agree with him, and nor was Lord Conington, who put an end to this juvenile altercation by telling Persephone that on her at least they looked charmingly. She smiled very kindly at his lordship, and Mr. Smith, jealousy overcoming his awed shyness of her, plucked up courage to say that he had several lyrics, besides his work on Steam, which he would like, with Miss Grafton’s permission, to dedicate to her. “One of them I b-began to compose only t-two days ago,” he offered, blushing slightly. “It isn’t quite f-finished yet, b-but I shall address you in it, M-Miss Grafton! It opens: As fair D-Diana, b-breaking through the c-clouds...”
“My cousin’s name ain’t Diana,” objected Mr. Hargrave.
“Mr. Smith means the moon, and I shall be happy for him to dedicate it to me,” said Persephone warmly.
The poet, overcome with delight, plunged on somewhat incoherently into an account of a passage from the Ode in which he also wished, so far as anyone could make out, to address Miss Grafton as Presiding Goddess of that mighty power, Whose amiable beaming eyes have shone, Upon the wonders of the hydraulic wheels, whereupon Charley, listening with growing incredulity, begged him not to make more of a fool of himself than he could help.
“Time you were off, anyway!” he added, glancing at the clock.
It was true that Mr. Smith had now overstepped the half-hour which was the correct length of time to be spent on a formal call, but as formality was not a feature of the household in Upper Brook Street, and Lord Conington, who had arrived before him, showed no sign of being about to take his leave or even of feeling that it was expected of him, this was rather hard on the poet. However, Charley’s reminder evidently cut off his conversational powers as effectively as if it had been a valve in one of his steam engines, and he stammeringly made his farewells to Lady Yoxford and Elinor. He then turned to Persephone, and uttered, in one last burst of painful eloquence, “W-when f-first I saw you, M-Miss Grafton, I th-thought of ... of that f-fair field of Enna, where Proserpin g-gathering f-flowers, herself a f-fairer flower ... b-but I must go!”
“I should just about think so, too!” said the bewildered Charley, as his friend left the room without deigning to spare him a glance. “Told you his poetry was sad stuff! Did you ever hear such fustian?”
Surprisingly, Persephone rounded on her cousin quite fiercely. “I think it was a very pretty compliment!”
“I fancy that was not Mr. Smith’s own verse, but was written by the poet Milton,” remarked Elinor.
“Yes, and what’s more, it was very well thought of, because Proserpina is my name,” Persephone added.
Mr. Hargrave sighed. “No, it ain’t! Females! Don’t you even know your own name? First there’s Zack calling you Diana, now you say you’re called P—Proser—what the deuce was it?”
“Proserpina,” put in Lord Conington, amused. “The Latin version of the Greek name Persephone—am I right, Miss Grafton? To the ancients, the goddess of the underworld.”
“Oh, well, the ancients’.” said Mr. Hargrave, with the profound scorn of one who, while supposed to be devoting himself to the study of those worthies at the university, would never, as the son of a viscount and thus eligible to be termed a Nobleman while at Cambridge, be called upon to take the examination which conferred a degree, but would gain that distinction regardless of merit. Not for him the spirit of emulation which had led Lord Palmerston in his youth to petition (unsuccessfully) that he should be subject to the Tripos examinations, though Elinor suspected that Lord Conington, a young man of parts, might well have shared Palmerston’s sentiments.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Persephone, with a warmer smile than she usually bestowed upon Conington. “And it is not really a very cheerful name, is it? But I can’t help that!”
“I dare say the recipient of a given name is never quite satisfied with it,” said Elinor, steering the conversation into less poetic channels, and deploring her own commonplace name which, she said, she had always been used to wish were romantically spelt Elena, in the Italian fashion. Lord Conington contributed some humorous remarks on the trials of bearing a family name which was passed on from generation to generation, he himself being burdened with the name of Hadstock, like his father and grandfather before him. “It has always suggested fish to my mind; I must be thinking of haddock, or stockfish, or both! And I suppose any firstborn son of mine will be saddled with it too, since it takes determination to break with such a tradition.”
“But surely you have determination, Lord Conington?” asked Elinor absently, with a sudden concerned glance at Persephone, whose cheerfulness all seemed to have melted away. She had gone back to the window and was looking out, her back turned to them, with an uncharacteristic droop to her shoulders.
“Yes, I believe I have,” he said seriously, following the direction of her gaze. “At least, I do not lack steadfastness of purpose, Miss Radley.”
Later, as Elinor retired with Persephone to dress for dinner, she ventured to ask gently, “My dear, are you feeling quite well? You have been so very quiet since Mr. Smith and Lord Conington called. I wondered if something was troubling you?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Persephone said, almost crossly. And then, suddenly, her lip quivered and she burst out, “It—it was only when Mr. Smith said that! About Proserpin gathering flowers, I mean. I -I remembered how R—how a friend of mine said the same thing, and explained to me what it was about, so that is how I knew. That—that’s all,” she finished bravely. And, Elinor felt sure, quite untruly. For if she were not still brooding over the loss of her Bath admirer, then why should such a little thing as the repetition of a pretty compliment have brought the tears to Persephone’s lovely eyes?
7
“So I fancy,” said Elinor, “that this friend has a name beginning with the letter R.”
Calling for the first time at Yoxford House on his return from Westmorland, Sir Edmund had found her alone in the drawing room while Signor Pascali gave Persephone her singing lesson, and sat down beside her, asking, “Well, and how do you go on in London?” Elinor had determined not to burden Sir Edmund with too many of her own misgivings over Persephone’s failure to respond as her family would have wished to the pleasures of London life; after all, had she not been engaged specifically to relieve the minds of Persephone’s relations of undue concern? None the less, she found herself confiding to him her suspicion that Miss Grafton still believed she had left her heart in Bath (or perambulating about the mountainous scenery of Wales).
“Of course, the mere initial
tells one nothing,” said Sir Edmund. “It could be Richard, Robert-er, Reuben...”
“Roderick, Roland, Rudolph...”
“Yes, well, there must be scores of names!”
“Very true, but it does tell one she is still thinking of him, and one might have expected her to have forgotten him by now.”
“I dare say she doesn’t wish to appear fickle in her own eyes,” said Sir Edmund, smiling. “Allow her a little self-respect! No doubt the young man in question has quite forgotten her by now, and in time she will let him become a mere romantic memory.”
“You think I am making too much of it? I do hope so! In a way, I should be easier in my mind if I thought this man were so entirely ineligible it must strike Persephone herself before long that the connection would not do—but if he quoted Milton in her praise, he must at least be a man of some education,” said Elinor thoughtfully.
“No doubt the unhappy young tutor who once aspired to her hand was a man of some education too. It didn’t make him any the more eligible!”
“True,” Elinor agreed, and added, brightening, “And of course she has forgotten all about him, and very likely half a dozen others besides. I fancy she couldn’t even tell us his name now! You know, it does appear to me that as Persephone is always happiest when she can give most time to her music, it is that which will best distract her mind from the young man in Bath. At her age, after all, one does not commonly form a lasting passion.”
“No—though you will hardly get a girl of her age to admit as much! So you see music not as the food of love, but the cure for it?”
“Not precisely that—but it means so much to her, you know, that she can forget everything else in her playing and singing. And in hearing music too. We have now been to three concerts at the Argyll Rooms, and I never saw anyone’s attention so rapt!”
“And has she ruffled the feathers of all the proud mamas anxious to show off the musical accomplishments of their own progeny?”
Elinor smiled. “Yes, a little! But she cannot help it if her performance is so superior—one would not wish it less so! And most of the time she behaves very prettily, always giving up the piano stool to some other young lady at the end of her piece, and very seldom choosing to play or sing anything that is—well, especially long and brilliant! She knows she may do that in the Yellow Parlour here. But one thing that has me in a worry,” she added, frowning slightly, “is that much as Lord Conington admires her talent, I do not believe he is himself particularly fond of music.”
“Conington? Ah, yes, you told me: the suitor of whom Isabella approves.”
“Yes, but then, if you don’t mind my saying so, Cousin Isabella is not much addicted to music either.”
“No, and nor, I fancy, is George. Which reminds me: have you been to the Opera yet?”
“No, and I own I should like to go—for Persephone’s sake.”
“Not for your own? Have you no wishes in the matter?” She thought he must be quizzing her, and it was a moment before she saw that he was perfectly serious. “Good gracious, it doesn’t signify what my wishes are, though I should certainly enjoy it!” she said. “But it would be just the thing to draw Persephone out of herself. As I was telling you, she has been a little melancholy lately.”
“Now I come to think of it, George doesn’t rent a box at the Opera, does he?” said Sir Edmund. “No: I recollect his saying that as he and Bella had no great taste for it, he saw no reason to take a box just to keep up with the fashionable world. But I see I must do something about that, or Persephone will have good reason to think we’ve failed in our promises to her. In fact, I believe I know of something which will take the child’s fancy, so leave it to me! Well—I have heard quite enough about Persephone for the time being, so let us talk of something else until she and Signor Pascali have finished. You have been telling me all about my ward, but what I asked was: how do you go on in London?”
Elinor could hardly suppose that her experiences would interest him, but she gave him her impressions of the hallowed precincts of Almack’s, and made him laugh by reciting all she could remember of Mr. Smith’s extracts from his Ode on the Wonders of Steam. In return, he talked of his journey to Westmorland, and they found that they shared a taste for the works of the Lake poets, though agreeing that Mr. Wordsworth could sometimes become rather prosy. When Persephone joined them, Elinor could scarcely believe her lesson had lasted so short a time, but when she looked at the clock on the Adam mantelpiece, she saw that Signor Pascali had indeed stayed his full hour.
Sir Edmund was as good as his word. Walking into the Grey Saloon next day to find his sister and brother-in-law there as well as Miss Radley, Persephone and Charley, he produced a playbill and handed it to Isabella.
“Here, Bella—do you care to see this? Any of the rest of you are very welcome to come, of course. I’ve taken a box for the first performance; they tell me it’s expected to be very fine.”
“An opera?” said Lady Yoxford, dubiously.
“Yes, though it is not to be performed at the Opera House, but at Covent Garden theatre. I understand Charles Kemble thinks himself very lucky to have secured it.”
“Oh, what is it?” cried Persephone eagerly.
George Yoxford chuckled. “No need to ask this little puss if she wants to make one of your party, Edmund!”
“No, so I rather expected! It’s a new piece by the German composer Herr Weber, Persephone. I gather he has come over from Germany himself on purpose for the first production of this work, despite his very indifferent health.”
But Persephone was not listening; she was already hanging over Lady Yoxford’s shoulder to study the bill, which announced the performance in three acts, for the first time, of a Grand Romantic and Fairy Opera entitled Oberon: or, The Elf-king’s Oath, with entirely new Music, Scenery, Machinery, Dresses and Decorations. Having enumerated these important items, it went on to inform the public that the Overture and the whole of the Music were composed by Carl Maria von Weber, who would preside in the Orchestra.
Isabella, warily scanning the list of promised delights, said, “Oh, I do not know! A new opera? And three acts—should I not find it taxing to sit through such a piece? Can you be sure I should like it, Edmund?”
Sir Edmund was about to say mildly that no one could be sure of that, but Persephone, generously anxious that no one should miss this high treat, forestalled him, exclaiming, “Oh yes, Cousin Isabella, I am persuaded that you would!”
She received unexpected support from Charley, who was looking over his mother’s other shoulder, and said, “Yes, Mama, do come! It sounds good fun.” Evidently he had glanced lower down the bill, for he added, “What’s more, there will be a farce afterwards, called The Scapegoat—”
“Pooh! Who cares for farces?” said Persephone scornfully.
“I do!” Charley stoutly maintained. “And as far as I remember, you used to like them as well as anyone when last you were in London, miss.”
Paying no heed to this provocative remark, Persephone returned to her perusal of the playbill. “Do look, Cousin Isabella! Mr. Braham is to sing the part of Sir Huon of Bordeaux, and Madame Vestris that of somebody called Fatima, who is listed among the Arabian characters—and Miss Paton is to be the Daughter of the Caliph. That must be the singer Mary Anne Paton. Oh, I should so much like to hear her—and Mr. Braham, as well!”
“By Jove, just look at the Order of the Scenery, too!” pursued Charley, whose surprising enthusiasm for the opera, it now transpired, sprang from anticipation of the spectacle it offered. “Go on, Mama, read it!”
Lady Yoxford complied, and found that the setting ranged from Oberon’s Bower (where the audience was promised a Vision), to a Distant View of Bagdad and the adjacent Country on the Banks of the Tigris by Sunset, and the Grand Banqueting Chamber of Haroun-Al-Raschid, subsequently transporting the spectators to the Gardens of the Palace, the Port of Ascalon, and a Ravine amongst the Rocks of a Desolate Island, the Haunt of the Spirits of the
Storm. The audience was further promised a Perforated Cavern on the Beach, with the Ocean in a Storm, a Calm, by Sunset, Twilight, Starlight and Moonlight. The scene would then change to a humbler spot, namely the Exterior of the Gardener’s House in the Pleasure Grounds of the Emir of Tunis, before rising again to the probable glories of a Hall and Gallery in Almansor’s Palace, a Myrtle Grove in the Gardens of the Emir, the Golden Saloon in the Kiosk of Roshana, the Palace and Gardens by Moonlight, and the Court of the Harem. The whole was to end, in what would surely be a veritable blaze of splendour, in the Hall of Arms in the Palace of Charlemagne.
Lady Yoxford allowed that it certainly sounded pretty and entertaining.
“I should just think so!” exclaimed her son. “By Jupiter, I wonder how they contrive to change the scenery so often, don’t you, Uncle Edmund? And I dare say the costumes will be something like, too-what with the Franks, Arabians and Tunisians, with Officers, Slaves and Soldiers of the different courts, Fairies, Sprites, etc!”
“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” said his uncle. “Indeed, I can hardly wait to see what characters are left to come under the heading of etcetera!”
Persephone had passed on from these frivolous considerations to more serious matters. “Books of the Songs to be had in the Theatre, price l0d.” she read out aloud. “I shall purchase one.”
“You astonish me, Persephone,” said Sir Edmund, good-humouredly. “I hope you will come, Cousin Elinor? And you, George—shall you accompany us?”
“Well, well, I dare say it will be agreeable enough,” said Yoxford amiably, “and just what little puss here will like.” Now that Persephone was, as he put it, a grown-up young lady, and he was assured that she would not be a source of anxiety to his cherished Isabella, he had taken a great liking to her. “Tell me, my dear, what’s so great about this Weber fellow?” he asked her now.