A London Season

by Anthea Bell

  She made a charming picture, sitting at the instrument in a gown of deep blue gauze which matched not only her azure eyes but the decoration of the room itself (Sir Edmund fancied his sister would have remembered its colour, and advised Persephone accordingly as to her toilette for the evening). A number of other young people stood or sat around her, the gentlemen openly admiring, many of the young ladies trying to suppress a certain envy. But Sir Edmund’s eyes did not linger on her long; he was looking for Elinor, and had just located her, seated on a sofa beside Isabella, when someone came striding rapidly out of the large music-room he had just passed, and almost elbowed him out of the doorway.

  He saw that it was the dark-haired man who had been helping the cellist to tune his instrument. The newcomer paused in the doorway and stood there perfectly still, staring at the singer. Persephone seemed to sense it, for she suddenly broke off short in her song, and looked up. Her hands fell to the keyboard with a small discordant clash, inadvertently knocking the sheets of music off the rack before her. There was a moment’s breathless silence, and then, incredulously, happily, Persephone gasped “Robert!”

  “Seffi!” cried the young man, in the same instant.

  Seated where she was, Elinor had an excellent view of both pianoforte and doorway, and thought that the couple would have flown instantly to one another’s arms, but for the fortunate circumstance that each felt impelled not simply to cast aside what he or she was holding, but to dispose of it with some care. The young man was still encumbered with his violin, which he now tenderly set down on top of the pianoforte, and as for Persephone, before she could rise to her feet she had to gather up the pile of sheet music which she had swept into her lap.

  Coming fresh from Bath and Mrs. Ford’s revelations, it took Sir Edmund a split second to grasp the significance of this encounter. Elinor, less well informed than himself, and momentarily confused in any case by the involuntary lurch her own heart gave at the sight of him there in the doorway, just behind the young man who was devouring Persephone with his eyes, was still quick to draw the conclusion that here was that mysterious friend whose loss had so distressed Miss Grafton. And unless something was done at once, Persephone was only too likely to betray herself in a manner which would do her reputation no good; rich and beautiful as she might be, even she could not, at eighteen, afford to be considered fast. Elinor therefore rose to her feet and walked quickly towards the doorway, saying, “Why, here is Sir Edmund, Persephone! I hope you had a good journey, sir?” Persephone did glance at her guardian, but very briefly. However, as he himself had moved forward towards Elinor, the prosaic greeting served to break the fascinated silence of the rest of the company; people began to talk again, Elinor urged another young lady to take Persephone’s place at the instrument, and then returned to the corner of the Blue Saloon nearest the doorway, where Sir Edmund was still standing.

  “And I had thought to surprise you with my news,” he said quietly, amusement in his eyes as they met hers.

  He had been joined by the puzzled Isabella, and the three of them, forming a small family group, effectively shielded Persephone and Robert Walter—for it could surely be none other—from the eyes of any curious onlookers. This was just as well, since the young couple’s own eyes were still locked in an intense and burning gaze, and Persephone at least seemed quite unaware of the presence of anyone else.

  “I knew it must be you!” uttered the young man. “As soon as I heard that voice, I knew!” His English, Sir Edmund noticed, was indeed excellent, with only the slightest trace of an accent.

  “But Robert, where were you?” cried Persephone. “Oh, such an age as it has been—and when I wrote to you in Bath, and had no reply...”

  Here, Sir Edmund observed, the young man made an impulsive movement towards her, but instantly, and considerably to his credit, checked it. “When I returned from Wales and found you gone—ah, imagine my distress!” he said in a low voice. “I had your letter, Seffi, indeed I did—but when she gave it to me, Mrs. Ford, good soul, made it a condition I should not reply.”

  “Oh no! Oh, how angry I am with her! For when I wrote to her asking your direction, she said she did not know it, and she must have known! I knew it could not be that you would never go back there! But why would she not at least tell me where to find you in London? I have been hoping—expecting, even—to see you at any moment, and now at last I do! Oh, Robert, only think, we were at the very first performance of Herr Weber’s Oberon, and you know, I wondered if you might have been playing in the orchestra, but though I looked and looked of course you were not! And I went to see the Kembles in search of you—oh, and such a kind friend has been making inquiries for me, but nothing came of them either. However, never mind that now! You are here! Oh, Robert, tell me—how does your own opera come along?”

  At this, although the young man had obviously been feeling a little awkward, and rather more conscious of his very public surroundings than Persephone was, he forgot them entirely; his eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, “Ach, Seffi, I am making such progress! Wales! Everything that is sublime! The mountains! The mists, the torrents and cascades, the wild Welshmen! Such inspiration as I found there! Influenced by those grand scenes, I have completed the Druids’ Chorus, and your song too nears completion—Angelina’s last aria. It cannot fail, Seffi, it will surely take all Europe by storm, and then—then, whatever the good Mrs. Ford may say, then I approach this formidable guardian of yours, of whom you wrote to me. I shall make myself known to him. I shall let nothing stand in my way!” Realizing that Mr. Walter was becoming decidedly carried away, and that Persephone, clasping her hands ecstatically, was about to break into further raptures at any moment, Sir Edmund judged it time to intervene. “Pray don’t let anything stand in your way, Herr Walter,” said he, mildly. “I am happy to make your acquaintance.”

  Brought abruptly back to earth and an awareness of her family’s presence, Persephone darted him a glance of the utmost suspicion, but he continued urbanely, to the young man, “I am only just back from Bath, where I have been hearing a great deal about you from Mr. and Mrs. Ford.” A stricken gasp from Miss Grafton was lost in Robert Walter’s enthusiastic response. “Ah, the good Fords! So delightful, so amiable a family!’

  “Just so,” said Sir Edmund. “And providing something of a home from home, I collect, for otherwise friendless young people of musical talent on their travels. Not, of course, that Persephone is to be included in that category,” he added, the slightest hint of steel in his voice, “since she is far from friendless.”

  The young man flushed a little, and said rather stiffly, “Sir, I think you perhaps misapprehend! You are Sir Edmund Grafton? Delighted to make your acquaintance. Miss Grafton and I, you understand, are old friends.” After what had just passed, Sir Edmund could not but be amused by this masterpiece of understatement, but he said only, “Yes, so I had concluded. Isabella, Elinor, let me make Mr. Robert Walter known to you. Mr. Walter: my sister, Lady Yoxford, and my cousin, Miss Radley. And is it you whom we are to have the pleasure of hearing perform this evening?”

  “Ah, yes, indeed!” he was assured. “Seffi, only think—Franz and Josef and Johann, they are all here; the Quartet is to play. How glad they will be to see you! Lady Yoxford, Miss Radley, your servant!” he added punctiliously, if a little late in the day. “Come, Seffi: let us go and find them.” And grasping Persephone’s hand, he drew her towards the doorway.

  “I believe,” said Isabella ominously, “I am going to faint!”

  “Not now, Bella,” said Sir Edmund into her ear. “Don’t do it! If you have any sense in your pretty head, you’ll seem to countenance this.”

  He was about to follow the young couple, with Elinor close on his heels, but there was no need. Franz, Josef and Johann had been on their own way to see what was keeping the fourth member of the Lark Quartet, and an ecstatic reunion now took place just outside the Blue Saloon. Exclamations of surprise and delight gave way to a perfect torrent of conversa
tion in a mixture of English and German—for, as Mr. Ford had indicated, the other three young men were not so proficient in the former language as their friend, and Persephone had very little German, so the whole was necessarily held together by Mr. Walter’s fluency in both tongues.

  “I’ll enlighten you about all this when I can,” Sir Edmund remarked quietly to Elinor, and joined the young people’s conversation in his own easy German, whereupon Persephone gave him another look of the liveliest apprehension. But whatever it was he was saying seemed to be quite unalarming. Indeed, though Elinor knew no German herself, she rather fancied that he was uttering the merest polite commonplaces, which were seized upon eagerly by Franz, Josef and Johann in their pleasure at being able to converse with someone outside their own small circle.

  All, in fact, was a picture of the utmost propriety when Lady Mercer advanced upon the group, all smiles. “Ah, so you are already acquainted with our musicians, Sir Edmund!”

  But he disclaimed previous acquaintance, explaining truthfully, “It is Miss Grafton who has met Mr. Walter and his friends before, at musical gatherings in Bath which she and her school friends attended.”

  “Ah, yes!” Lady Mercer smiled graciously at Persephone. “You must know, Mr. Walter, that Miss Grafton herself is an excellent performer on the pianoforte, and the possessor of a remarkable singing voice.”

  “I do know, Lady Mercer, I do! It is indeed remarkable!” agreed Mr. Walter, just a trifle too fervently, but her ladyship had moved on and was speaking to other guests, tactfully suggesting that they might now repair to the music-room, so that first a few persons, and then more, began to drift slowly in that direction. “But I believe it is nearly time for us to play, Seffi,” he told Miss Grafton. “You will like it! It is to be Haydn: the Sunrise. I had thought to play the new Beethoven—you recollect, the E flat, the one I brought back from Germany last year. But then I looked around me, I saw these people, all this fashionable crowd; no, said I to myself, I think not the Beethoven, is beyond them—but no matter, since we also play the Haydn very well indeed,” he finished, with a positively engaging lack of modesty. And with these words he seemed to gather up his three colleagues and sweep them off into the big music-room in one vigorous movement, Persephone eagerly following in their wake. In their turn, Elinor, Sir Edmund and the still bewildered Isabella closed ranks, and followed too.

  Mr. Walter’s confidence in the abilities of the Lark Quartet was not misplaced: they did indeed give an excellent account of the Haydn work. In other circumstances Elinor would have enjoyed it a great deal; the young men played with the greatest feeling and delicacy, and the applause at the end, considerably more than merely polite, was well deserved. However, a large part of her attention was taken up by Persephone, who had installed herself in a chair as close as she could get to the performers, and was listening and watching with an expression of perfect ecstasy on her face, never taking her eyes off the handsome and vital figure of Mr. Walter as he took the first violin part.

  There was an encore: a lively scherzo for violin and piano, with Mr. Walter playing the former instrument while Johann (Elinor thought it was) moved to the pianoforte. “It is of Robert’s own composition!” Persephone whispered to Miss Radley, watching her beloved, who was playing with the utmost verve. At the end of the fiery little piece he flung back the lock of dark hair that tumbled over his forehead and smiled round at the whole audience. But it was on Persephone’s face that his eyes came to rest.

  Elinor resolved, if need be, to stick close as any limpet to Miss Grafton, lest she devote herself too exclusively to the young man for the rest of the evening, but as it turned out, she need not have-feared. With the greatest ease of manner, Sir Edmund again took charge, joining in the conversation of the Lark Quartet in German, breaking into English now and then so as to draw Isabella and Elinor into it, and making it seem there could have been no more happy coincidence than this encounter. As Persephone certainly thought! Elinor saw how her delight brought a kind of incandescent glow to the delicate rose of her cheeks, and made her a very different creature from the languid girl who had taken to moping disconsolately about Yoxford House these last two weeks. Lovely as Persephone always was, Elinor thought she had never seen her appear to better advantage, and the members of her little court of admirers plainly thought so too. Sir Edmund casually hailed those of them he knew, first one and then another, so that soon there was quite a crowd around the Yoxford party, all desiring an introduction to the gifted Mr. Walter.

  Nothing could have been better; the embarrassment of that first moment of reunion was quite smoothed over. Conversation became general once more, Persephone was persuaded back to the piano in the Blue Saloon, and although Mr. Walter went with her and indeed insisted on accompanying her in some songs by Schubert, by now it seemed quite unexceptionable. He nodded approval of her singing several times, but also criticized now and then, something no one else present would have dared to do. Nor, indeed, would Persephone have accepted criticism so meekly from anyone else! One dowager did inquire, in tones of slightly malicious curiosity, “One might almost suppose you had performed with Mr. Walter before, Miss Grafton?” To which Persephone, turning guileless eyes on the lady, immediately replied, “Oh yes, I Have! I took singing lessons from him at my school in Bath.”

  This caused Sir Edmund to choke slightly, and Elinor’s eyes were full of amusement as her gaze met his, for he had seized an opportune moment while Persephone was at the piano to give her a rapid account of his visit to Bath, and she correctly imagined that the notion of the Miss Maddens countenancing any such singing lessons from a good-looking young man was ludicrously inapposite.

  She feared there might be some difficulty in inducing Miss Grafton to leave the party at all, but that obstacle was surmounted when Mr. Walter told her, in a brisk and almost business-like tone, “And now that we have met again by this lucky chance, Seffi, and I find your guardian not so terrible after all, I must hear your voice in Angelina’s aria before I can be sure whether the conclusion I had in mind will do. Where may we see one another?”

  Had Elinor thought there was anything but music in the young man’s head just then, she would have gasped at the audacity of this. But it was Sir Edmund who answered the question, in as matter-of-fact a voice as that in which Mr. Walter himself had put it.

  “You had better call at Yoxford House—hadn’t he, Isabella?”

  “Y-yes!” said Lady Yoxford, faintly. “Yes, to be sure! Pray do call, Mr. Walter. How delightful it is for Persephone to meet old friends!” She was still pretty much at a loss, but earned a smile of approval from her brother for this effort.

  The prospect of a further meeting next day allowed Persephone to take leave of Robert Walter with equanimity, favouring his friends as well as himself with radiant smiles. She almost danced the short way home from Grosvenor Square to Upper Brook Street, impulsively kissed Isabella and Elinor goodnight, and positively ran upstairs with a buoyant spring in her step.

  “I think that between us all, we managed to brush through that tolerably well,” remarked Sir Edmund, left downstairs with the two older ladies.

  “Yes, tolerably well,” said Elinor, smiling, and then looked grave. “Only—only it won’t do, Cousin Edmund, will it?”

  “It certainly will not do,” he agreed. “But you know, I think we need not fear that that young man will act improperly.”

  “No, indeed! I should hope not!” said Isabella, a good deal shocked.

  “He seems to be a young fellow of reasonable good sense, under the excitability,” continued her brother, “and I fancy that when he sees the kind of circles in which Persephone moves, he will recognize for himself that it really is as Mrs. Ford told him, and any alliance would be out of the question. For I don’t think him a fortune-hunter.”

  “Alliance?” gasped Isabella, who had not yet heard the full tale as revealed by Amelia Ford. Controlling her feelings with a strong effort, she said, “Edmund, do you mean to tell m
e that—that there has been an attachment—an attachment of a serious nature between that young man and Persephone?”

  “Why not? Nothing more likely, once they had met—and what’s more, found a strong community of interests. You must own they are a good-looking couple. He reminds me of somebody, too, though I can’t think who it is,” he added thoughtfully.

  Not to be side-tracked by such considerations, Lady Yoxford said tragically, “I might have known it, after that Unfortunate Business of the tutor! And I had thought her to be beyond the age of such escapades now. But after all, it is just as I feared before you ever brought her here, Edmund. I confess, when I saw the warmth with which they met, the glances they exchanged, I did wonder—but you sat there talking all the time, and in that horridly difficult language too, as if there were nothing at all the matter, so that I was soon sure there was nothing in it.”

  “What do you think I should rather have done—played the part of outraged tyrant?” inquired Sir Edmund, smiling. “I fancy that’s what Persephone expected.”

  “You must own, Cousin Isabella, he did bring the thing off splendidly if he could even take you in.” added Elinor.

  “But Edmund, I still do not perfectly understand,” Isabella complained. “You positively invited him to call here!”

  “Exactly so!” said Sir Edmund, unperturbed. “I feel none of us wishes to see Persephone revelling in the part of star-crossed lover, don’t you agree? I’m persuaded, Isabella, you can’t want to have her mooning about in the sulks, bearing us all a hearty grudge.”

  “No, very true,” admitted his sister, much struck by this piece of sagacity. “Only—will it answer?”

  “Well, forbidding her to see him certainly won’t. As has already been proved! And if absence makes the heart grow fonder, we may as well try whether presence won’t have the opposite effect.”