by Anthea Bell
14
There could be no doubting the fact that Miss Grafton was a girl transformed. She had been in the seventh heaven that evening, waiting to waylay Elinor when she came upstairs to bed, and it was plain that her reunion with Robert Walter engendered in her such goodwill to the whole world as to dispel that coolness and withdrawal Elinor had recently sensed in her. She impulsively embraced Elinor, crying, “Oh, how happy I am! I couldn’t tell you all before, you see, because I felt you would disapprove, like Mrs. Ford, but now that you have met him I know you must understand! Even Cousin Edmund did, didn’t he?” Dismayed to find that Sir Edmund seemed to have played his part a little too well, Elinor said hesitantly, “Well, I do understand, my dear, and Mr. Walter is certainly a very agreeable young man, and most gifted. But you cannot be thinking that your meeting again by chance will—will lead to anything!”
Persephone took no notice whatever of this, but continued blithely, “You see, I was afraid, just a little, that he had forgotten me, or did not love me any more—but I might have known he could not forget me, any more than I could forget him, and now everything will be all right!”
“Persephone,” said Elinor, more firmly, “you cannot be thinking of marriage!”
“Well, of course we are! Not directly, of course, because Robert says Mrs. Ford is right, and it would be wrong in him to offer for me yet, and I think it was very stuffy of her to put such a notion into his head, but there! I do not like having to wait, but if I must, I will! You see, Robert will very soon obtain a post in one of the German courts where they are sure to require a person of his genius to—to conduct in the theatre, and arrange all the concerts, and everything of that nature. And his own opera will make his name, and he will be rich and famous, and we can get married, because then no one will care a button for my fortune, and there will be no objection in the world!”
Contemplating this hopeful programme, Elinor reflected that even if the events so confidently predicted by Persephone came to pass, there would be every objection from Persephone’s family. She scarcely saw them countenancing the heiress’s marriage to a professional musician in the employ of some German princeling. It seemed hard to cast a damper on Persephone’s high spirits, but she hoped she was being cruel only to be kind when she suggested, “Perhaps, Persephone, Mr. Walter sees the difficulties of such a course of action a little more clearly.” For she believed, from what Sir Edmund had said and she herself had observed, that such was probably (and very fortunately) the case.
She need not have feared to dash Persephone’s spirits; at the moment nothing had power to do that. “Oh, yes!” said Persephone cheerfully. “I fancy he may have some silly scruples, but nothing to signify! I promise you, I shall soon overcome them.”
This was hardly reassuring to Elinor, who thought Persephone capable of doing exactly as she said, unless Mr. Walter could sustain an attitude of proper resolution. But one good thing, she thought as she prepared for bed, was that Grenville Royden’s nose would be thoroughly put out of joint!
Neither he nor Charlotte had been at Lady Mercer’s party, and before the more startling events of the evening began to unfold, Persephone had expressed mild surprise to Elinor, saying she knew they had received cards. Elinor, only too thankful for Mr. Royden’s absence, did not stop to wonder much at it, and pretty soon, in any case, Persephone’s reunion with Robert Walter drove all else from her mind. However, the reason for the Roydens’ failure to attend the Brindisi became clear the next morning. The three ladies of the Yoxford household had come down to breakfast at much the same time—Persephone, though Elinor suspected her of having slept very little that night, appearing none the less with the previous evening’s radiance quite undimmed. It was otherwise with Lady Yoxford, whose face clearly showed her own lack of sleep and was marked with unwonted lines of anxiety. She was listlessly scanning the Morning Post as she sipped tea, and suddenly put her cup down, exclaiming in a tragic manner, “Oh no! Oh, this is above everything! And to happen now! I declare, it is too bad of them!”
“Too bad of whom, Cousin Isabella?” asked Elinor, and even Persephone emerged from her dream of bliss for long enough to inquire, “Why, what is the matter?”
For answer, Isabella merely pointed to the page before her, where her companions, bending over the newspaper to look at the lines indicated by the quivering finger, read the announcement of the forthcoming marriage between Hadstock James Morrell, Viscount Conington, elder son of the Earl and Countess of Wintringham (here followed a rather imposing list of residences), and Miss Charlotte Jane Royden, second daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. John Royden, of Royden Manor in Essex.
“Oh!” exclaimed Persephone. “I am so glad! I thought that might come about, didn’t you, Elinor? Dear Charlotte!”
“Dear Charlotte, indeed!” said Isabella, crossly. “Sly, scheming Charlotte, if you want my opinion! She has snatched Conington up from under your very nose, Persephone, that’s what she has done, and you could easily have prevented it, if only you had made the slightest push to do so!”
“But good gracious, why in the world should I wish to? Especially now!” said Persephone, in transparent amazement. Elinor, afraid that she was about to start singing the praises of Mr. Robert Walter and pointing out that neither Conington nor any other young man of her acquaintance could hold a candle to him, quickly put in, “But this is excellent, Cousin Isabella! You may certainly acquit Charlotte of scheming! She is in love with Conington, I am sure, and I have seen him paying her a great deal of attention recently. Her fortune may not be great, but the Wintringhams cannot object to her birth or breeding, and are sure to like her. She will make Conington a very conformable wife, which Persephone would never have done, you know.”
“No, I would not!” agreed Miss Grafton, decidedly.
Her spurt of bad temper subsiding, Isabella smiled a little at this, and was able to greet the blushing Charlotte graciously when Conington brought her to call in Upper Brook Street later that day. Inevitably (as it seemed to Miss Radley) they were accompanied by her brother, who watched with evident satisfaction as Charlotte and her betrothed received congratulations.
They had dined with Conington’s parents last night, so Charlotte confided to Persephone and Elinor, while Conington and Grenville Royden were engaged in conversation by Lord Yoxford and Sir Edmund, who had just come in: Yoxford from his man of business, Sir Edmund from the Foreign Office. The Earl and Countess had been so welcoming, so very kind! Everything that was amiable! Her eyes kept straying to Conington as she spoke, an adoring expression in them, and Elinor saw that his sought her face and rested on it with almost equal warmth. That augured well, she thought. Charlotte expressed herself amazingly happy, and only hoped Persephone too might find such a husband!
“Oh yes!” cried Persephone. “Oh, Charlotte, I have so much to tell you—you will never guess what happened last night! If you were to come up to my room, where we may be private...”
But Charlotte demurred, evidently not wishing to go anywhere that took her from the sight of her beloved, and in any case, Persephone’s own desire to be private with her was instantly dissipated by the entry of Beale to announce Mr. Robert Walter (whose name he firmly pronounced in the English manner).
Mr. Walter, as remarkably handsome in his sober but well cut morning dress as he had appeared in Grosvenor Square last night, behaved, Elinor had to admit, with great propriety, accepting introductions, modestly receiving compliments on the performance of the Lark Quartet by those who had been at the Brindisi, proffering his own polite congratulations to the engaged couple when their recent betrothal was mentioned to him, shaking hands with Mr. Royden, and bearing with fortitude Lord Yoxford’s remarks to the effect that he, for one, thought it very strange for a fellow to spend all his time scraping the fiddle, but he would be the first to admit he hardly knew one note of music from another, and there was no accounting for tastes! Mr. Walter then exerted himself to be agreeable to Lady Yoxford, whose initially chil
ly manner towards him soon thawed. Persephone had nothing to blush for in her musician’s social manners, thought Miss Radley; indeed, she seemed a little put out by the fact that he was wisely not paying her very much attention.
But her moment was to come. A civil query from Sir Edmund concerning the progress of the opera mentioned to him by Mr. Ford caused Robert Walter to produce a small sheaf of music paper, with a modest flourish, from an inner pocket of his coat, and turn to Persephone.
“Here it is, Miss Grafton,” he announced. (Thank goodness, thought Elinor, he has realized that it is most improper for him to address her as Seffi the whole time, and in public too!) “Angelina’s second song! I added the ending after parting from you last night, and now we shall see if it will do. You may sing it in English, because by a most fortunate chance, I fell in with a very amiable clergyman walking in Wales, who undertook to put the words of the opera into your own tongue for me, and he did part of the work while we were staying at an inn, and it rained. Where may we try out the song?”
“Oh, in the Yellow Parlour!” cried Persephone eagerly, her eyes lighting up as she leapt to her feet.
Elinor made an impulsive movement, and was on the point of exclaiming, “No, Persephone!” But she was forestalled. Miss Grafton was prevented from the impropriety of bearing Mr. Walter off to the seclusion of her own apartments by Sir Edmund, who at once said amiably, “Do let us all have the pleasure of hearing it, Mr. Walter!” Nothing loth, Robert Walter seated himself at the pianoforte in the corner of the saloon and embarked upon a few trial passages, meanwhile informing his hearers that the opera in question, a grand romantic work set at the time of the Roman conquest, was to be entitled Boadicea Queen of Britain, and took as its subject the resistance of that Ancient British lady to the Romans, a circumstance which he intended as a compliment to the country that had shown him such hospitality. The main part of the action, he added, took place in the mountains of Wales.
“Wales?” inquired Lord Conington, of the well-informed mind. “Did not Queen Boadicea rule the Iceni? Forgive me, Mr. Walter, but I fancy they inhabited quite a different part of these islands—the eastern counties, I believe!”
“Yes, but you have no mountains there,” said Mr. Walter, simply. “It does not signify—the music is all! Though the story, written for me by a friend of mine in Germany, is also very affecting. Besides the dramatic conflict of Boadicea and the Roman governor Paulinus, there is a love story between Sempronius, a captain in the Roman army, and Angelina!” “Angelina?” ventured Elinor, who had been wondering for some time who this character might be.
“Yes, she is Boadicea’s daughter, and torn between love and her duty! Do you not think the name good, Miss Radley?” he asked, suddenly anxious. “I confess I had my doubts, but my friend was sure that was the name for my younger heroine. Of course, he has never been to England, and may not be quite conversant with British nomenclature of the time ... however,” continued the composer, dismissing so minor a point from his mind, “the couple first meet in the forest, while Sempronius is out hunting. Here we have the Hunting Chorus—so!” And he played a snatch of a very rousing tune, the words of which the helpful clergyman in Wales had evidently not yet tackled, although they were simple enough, being in the main cheerful cries of “Juchheisa! Juchhei!” He then continued with his tale. “Overcoming all obstacles, the couple confess their love to an aged Druid, a small but fine part for bass voice, who consents to wed them, and the Druids sing a chorus of blessing. Failing to free the Queen, they are obliged to flee, and Boadicea, after uttering a noble defiance to the might of Rome, takes her own life. But here is Angelina’s aria, in which she declares her readiness to fly with Sempronius to the ends of the earth!”
Persephone had been rapidly casting her eye over the music as he spoke. Preposterous the plot of the opera might be, but there was no denying the power of the wild, sweet music which presently issued from her throat. Mr. Walter accompanied; the words, as rendered into English by his chance-met acquaintance, were certainly not very distinguished, consisting as they did largely of Angelina’s declaration, “Over the ocean, over the sea, over the waves I will fly with thee,” repeated a great many times over. But the music was quite another matter. At the end, when Robert Walter nodded to Miss Grafton in a matter-of-fact way and said simply, “Good!” Elinor could not prevent herself exclaiming, “Good? Mr. Walter, it is remarkable!”
“You like it? I am glad. A little less vibrato on the high C, I think,” he said to Persephone.
“Yes,” said she with perfect docility, to her family’s amazement. “I will remember.”
“Well, well—and so what becomes of this Angelina and—what’s his name—Sempronius?” asked Lord Yoxford.
“Ah, here my friend who wrote the words had a very happy thought!” said Mr. Walter with enthusiasm, turning to his host. “At first I had Angelina and Sempronius thrown to the lions in the Circus of Rome! But then it struck me that it might not be possible for the management of every theatre to present such a scene, which must be very magnificent or it is nothing! Nowadays gladiators, wild beasts, all must be shown, or I fear the audience will not like it. So we thought of your legend of King Arthur and the island of Avilion, whither the lovers are to flee, and there is a grand processional scene with the Knights of the Round Table. They rejoice at the couple’s escape, and offer thanks to Hymen—thus!” And he turned back to the keyboard, breaking into a song which declared, presumably through the agency of the Knights of the Round Table, “All hail to the Patron of marriage and mirth! Was ever such merriment know upon earth?”
Conington appeared about to open his mouth—perhaps, thought Elinor, watching appreciatively, to suggest that a considerable period of time separated Boadicea from King Arthur, even supposing the existence of that legendary hero to have any basis in fact. But much to his credit he refrained, and exchanged a glance of amusement with Charlotte instead. “And so,” concluded Mr. Walter, as the last chord died away, “all ends well!”
“Except for Boadicea! But I suppose you could not go against history there,” suggested Sir Edmund.
“No, just so. Moreover,” said Mr. Walter, engagingly, “I was by then writing the part of Angelina for Sef—for Miss Grafton, and how could I endure to make her dead? So, a happy ending for the lovers!”
“You were writing it for Persephone?” said Isabella, rather faintly. “But, Mr. Walter, you surely did not envisage her performing it? Upon a public stage?”
Robert Walter looked as if he would say something, but thought better of it. Persephone was plainly not going to show any such restraint, but Sir Edmund, coming to the rescue yet again, said, “Not on the public stage, I’m sure, Bella—but perhaps in private theatricals, some day.”
Neither composer nor singer looked as if this suggestion found much favour with them, but Elinor was quick to back Sir Edmund up, declaring, “How pleasant that would be! Of course, Mr. Walter, you did not so much imagine Persephone herself in the part as take her voice for your inspiration!”
“To be sure,” he said, but a little brusquely, and though Miss Grafton looked as if she violently disagreed, she held her tongue.
“What a very pretty story!” commented Mr. Royden, who had kept remarkably silent until now. “Exceedingly affecting!”
He was looking directly at Elinor as he spoke, and she was unable to tell whether he referred solely to the subject matter of Boadicea Queen of Britain, or meant anything else besides.
“And how we must rejoice,” he added, “ at such a happy outcome!”
Now what, thought Elinor crossly, as she remembered his remarks from time to time during the next few days, what was there in that to destroy her new-found peace of mind?
For peace of mind, oddly enough, was what the advent of Mr. Robert Walter had brought her. It should not have done so: it prolonged, if it did not perpetuate, a relationship that could never come to anything. And yet she felt instinctively that Mr. Walter could be trusted to beh
ave as he ought, and that much as he plainly felt for Persephone, he would not overstep the line. She knew she could never have placed any such reliance on Grenville Royden, by his own confession! But then, perhaps that was only because she knew him all too well, and he had felt free to be devastatingly frank with her. Perhaps all men were really like Grenville at heart? If so, it behoved her to guard Persephone all the more carefully.
But no, she answered herself, all men were not like that. She sensed that Mr. Walter was not; she knew Sir Edmund was not. It was a source of chagrin to her (and had she known it, even more to him) that only a couple of days after his return to London, duty, in the authoritative form of Mr. Canning, had summoned Sir Edmund to meet a very influential Austrian minister at Dover, accompany him to London, and on account of his own knowledge of the matters of policy on which this personage was visiting the country, remain close to him during the whole of his stay. This meant that he was very seldom seen in Upper Brook Street, and much as Elinor would have liked to talk to him about Persephone, she was unable to do so. Well, she told herself, she must just rely on her own judgment.
Unfortunately, this faculty told her not only that she might trust Robert Walter, but that the mutual infatuation between himself and Persephone showed no signs of abating. Mr. Walters’s calls were frequent, and countenanced by Isabella because Sir Edmund himself had first invited him. He gave the Yoxford family seats for a concert at the Argyll Rooms in which the Lark Quartet was performing; by means of influence with the management he procured a box at the Opera for a performance of Medea, with Giuditta Pasta in the name part, which Persephone had wished to see but which was sold out by the time she heard of it; he wrote a couple of little songs for the children, so catchy in their rhythm that even the twins found the tunes caught their fancy. Elinor saw with dismay that what Sir Edmund had described as the community of interest between Robert Walter and Persephone showed every sign of actually strengthening their attachment.