‘Of course,’ observed Alphonsine, seeing that Margaret would soon be able to speak again, ‘money is no object to Madame either!’
This subtle flattery was evidently meant to forestall reproof. But Margaret was now splashing vigorously, and as both taps were running the noise was as loud as that of a small waterfall; possibly she had not even heard the maid’s last speech.
Some one knocked at the door, and knocked a second time almost directly. The Primadonna pushed Alphonsine with her elbow, speaking being still impossible, and the woman understood that she was to answer the summons.
She asked who was knocking, and some one answered.
‘It is Mr. Griggs,’ said Alphonsine.
‘Ask him to wait,’ Margaret succeeded in saying.
Alphonsine transmitted the message through the closed door, and listened for the answer.
‘He says that there is a lady dying in the manager’s room, who wants Madame,’ said the maid, repeating what she heard.
Margaret stood upright, turned quickly, and crossed the room to the door, mopping her face with a towel.
‘Who is it?’ she asked in an anxious tone.
‘I’m Griggs,’ said a deep voice. ‘Come at once, if you can, for the poor girl cannot last long.’
‘One minute! Don’t go away — I’m coming out.’
Alphonsine never lost her head. A theatrical dresser who does is of no use. She had already brought the wide fur coat Margaret always wore after singing. In ten seconds the singer was completely clothed in it, and as she laid her hand on the lock to let herself out, the maid placed a dark Russian hood on her head from behind her and took the long ends twice round her throat.
Mr. Griggs was a large bony man with iron-grey hair, who looked very strong. He had a sad face and deep-set grey eyes. He led the way without speaking, and Cordova walked quickly after him. Alphonsine did not follow, for she was responsible for the belongings that lay about in the dressing-room. The other doors on the women’s side, which is on the stage left and the audience’s right at the Opera, were all tightly closed. The stage itself was not dark yet, and the carpenters were putting away the scenery of the last act as methodically as if nothing had happened.
‘Do you know her?’ Margaret asked of her companion as they hurried along the passage that leads into the house.
‘Barely. She is a Miss Bamberger, and she was to have been married the day after to-morrow, poor thing — to a millionaire. I always forget his name, though I’ve met him several times.’
‘Van Torp?’ asked Margaret as they hastened on.
‘Yes. That’s it — the Nickel Trust man, you know.’
‘Yes,’ Margaret answered in a low tone. ‘I was asked to sing at the wedding.’
They reached the door of the manager’s room. The clerks from the box-office and several other persons employed about the house were whispering together in the little lobby. They made way for Cordova and looked with curiosity at Griggs, who was a well-known man of letters.
Schreiermeyer stood at the half-closed inner door, evidently waiting.
‘Come in,’ he said to Margaret. ‘The doctor is there.’
The room was flooded with electric light, and smelt of very strong Havana cigars and brandy. Margaret saw a slight figure in a red silk evening gown, lying at full length on an immense red leathern sofa. A young doctor was kneeling on the floor, bending down to press his ear against the girl’s side; he moved his head continually, listening for the beating of her heart. Her face was of a type every one knows, and had a certain half-pathetic prettiness; the features were small, and the chin was degenerate but delicately modelled. The rather colourless fair hair was elaborately done; her thin cheeks were dreadfully white, and her thin neck shrank painfully each time she breathed out, though it grew smooth and full as she drew in her breath. A short string of very large pearls was round her throat, and gleamed in the light as her breathing moved them.
Schreiermeyer did not let Griggs come in, but went out to him, shut the door and stood with his back to it.
Margaret did not look behind her, but crossed directly to the sofa and leaned over the dying girl, who was conscious and looked at her with inquiring eyes, not recognising her.
‘You sent for me,’ said the singer gently.
‘Are you really Madame Cordova?’ asked the girl in a faint tone.
It was as much as she could do to speak at all, and the doctor looked up to Margaret and raised his hand in a warning gesture, meaning that his patient should not be allowed to talk. She saw his movement and smiled faintly, and shook her head.
‘No one can save me,’ she said to him, quite quietly and distinctly. ‘Please leave us together, doctor.’
‘I am altogether at a loss,’ the doctor answered, speaking to Margaret as he rose. ‘There are no signs of asphyxia, yet the heart does not respond to stimulants. I’ve tried nitro-glycerine—’
‘Please, please go away!’ begged the girl.
The doctor was a young surgeon from the nearest hospital, and hated to leave his case. He was going to argue the point, but Margaret stopped him.
‘Go into the next room for a moment, please,’ she said authoritatively.
He obeyed with a bad grace, and went into the empty office which adjoined the manager’s room, but he left the door open. Margaret knelt down in his place and took the girl’s cold white hand.
‘Can he hear?’ asked the faint voice.
‘Speak low,’ Margaret answered. ‘What can I do?’
‘It is a secret,’ said the girl. ‘The last I shall ever have, but I must tell some one before I die. I know about you. I know you are a lady, and very good and kind, and I have always admired you so much!’
‘You can trust me,’ said the singer. ‘What is the secret I am to keep for you?’
‘Do you believe in God? I do, but so many people don’t nowadays, you know. Tell me.’
‘Yes,’ Margaret answered, wondering. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Will you promise, by the God you believe in?’
‘I promise to keep your secret, so help me God in Heaven,’ said Margaret gravely.
The girl seemed relieved, and closed her eyes for a moment. She was so pale and still that Margaret thought the end had come, but presently she drew breath again and spoke, though it was clear that she had not much strength left.
‘You must not keep the secret always,’ she said. ‘You may tell him you know it. Yes — let him know that you know — if you think it best—’
‘Who is he?’
‘Mr. Van Torp.’
‘Yes?’ Margaret bent her ear to the girl’s lips and waited.
Again there was a pause of many seconds, and then the voice came once more, with a great effort that only produced very faint sounds, scarcely above a whisper.
‘He did it.’
That was all. At long intervals the dying girl drew deep breaths, longer and longer, and then no more. Margaret looked anxiously at the still face for some time, and then straightened herself suddenly.
‘Doctor! Doctor!’ she cried.
The young man was beside her in an instant. For a full minute there was no sound in the room, and he bent over the motionless figure.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do anything,’ he said gently, and he rose to his feet.
‘Is she really dead?’ Margaret asked, in an undertone.
‘Yes. Failure of the heart, from shock.’
‘Is that what you will call it?’
‘That is what it is,’ said the doctor with a little emphasis of offence, as if his science had been doubted. ‘You knew her, I suppose?’
‘No. I never saw her before. I will call Schreiermeyer.’
She stood still a moment longer, looking down at the dead face, and she wondered what it all meant, and why the poor girl had sent for her, and what it was that Mr. Van Torp had done. Then she turned very slowly and went out.
‘Dead, I suppose,’ said Schreiermeyer as soon as he saw t
he Primadonna’s face. ‘Her relations won’t get here in time.’
Margaret nodded in silence and went on through the lobby.
‘The rehearsal is at eleven,’ the manager called out after her, in his wooden voice.
She nodded again, but did not look back. Griggs had waited in order to take her back to her dressing-room, and the two crossed the stage together. It was almost quite dark now, and the carpenters were gone away.
‘Thank you,’ Margaret said. ‘If you don’t care to go all the way back you can get out by the stage door.’
‘Yes. I know the way in this theatre. Before I say good-night, do you mind telling me what the doctor said?’
‘He said she died of failure of the heart, from shock. Those were his words. Why do you ask?’
‘Mere curiosity. I helped to carry her — that is, I carried her myself to the manager’s room, and she begged me to call you, so I came to your door.’
‘It was kind of you. Perhaps it made a difference to her, poor girl. Good-night.’
‘Good-night. When do you sail?’
‘On Saturday. I sing “Juliet” on Friday night and sail the next morning.’
‘On the Leofric?’
‘Yes.’
‘So do I. We shall cross together.’
‘How delightful! I’m so glad! Good-night again.’
Alphonsine was standing at the open door of the dressing-room in the bright light, and Margaret nodded and went in. The maid looked after the elderly man till he finally disappeared, and then she went in too and locked the door after her.
Griggs walked home in the bitter March weather. When he was in New York, he lived in rooms on the second floor of an old business building not far from Fifth Avenue. He was quite alone in the house at night, and had to walk up the stairs by the help of a little electric pocket-lantern he carried. He let himself into his own door, turned up the light, slipped off his overcoat and gloves, and went to the writing-table to get his pipe. That is very often the first thing a man does when he gets home at night.
The old briar pipe he preferred to any other lay on the blotting-paper in the circle where the light was brightest. As he took it a stain on his right hand caught his eye, and he dropped the pipe to look at it. The blood was dark and was quite dry, and he could not find any scratch to account for it. It was on the inner side of his right hand, between the thumb and forefinger, and was no larger than an ordinary watch.
‘How very odd!’ exclaimed Mr. Griggs aloud; and he turned his hand this way and that under the electric lamp, looking for some small wound which he supposed must have bled. There was a little more inside his fingers, and between them, as if it had oozed through and then had spread over his knuckles.
But he could find nothing to account for it. He was an elderly man who had lived all over the world and had seen most things, and he was not easily surprised, but he was puzzled now. Not the least strange thing was that the stain should be as small as it was and yet so dark. He crossed the room again and examined the front of his overcoat with the most minute attention. It was made of a dark frieze, almost black, on which a red stain would have shown very little; but after a very careful search Griggs was convinced that the blood which had stained his hand had not touched the cloth.
He went into his dressing-room and looked at his face in his shaving-glass, but there was certainly no stain on the weather-beaten cheeks or the furrowed forehead.
‘How very odd!’ he exclaimed a second time.
He washed his hands slowly and carefully, examining them again and again, for he thought it barely possible that the skin might have been cracked somewhere by the cutting March wind, and might have bled a little, but he could not find the least sign of such a thing.
When he was finally convinced that he could not account for the stain he had now washed off, he filled his old pipe thoughtfully and sat down in a big shabby arm-chair beside the table to think over other questions more easy of solution. For he was a philosophical man, and when he could not understand a matter he was able to put it away in a safe place, to be kept until he got more information about it.
The next morning, amidst the flamboyant accounts of the subterranean explosion, and of the heroic conduct of Madame Margarita da Cordova, the famous Primadonna, in checking a dangerous panic at the Opera, all the papers found room for a long paragraph about Miss Ida H. Bamberger, who had died at the theatre in consequence of the shock her nerves had received, and who was to have married the celebrated capitalist and philanthropist, Mr. Van Torp, only two days later. There were various dramatic and heart-rending accounts of her death, and most of them agreed that she had breathed her last amidst her nearest and dearest, who had been with her all the evening.
But Mr. Griggs read these paragraphs thoughtfully, for he remembered that he had found her lying in a heap behind a red baize door which his memory could easily identify.
After all, the least misleading notice was the one in the column of deaths: —
BAMBERGER. — On Wednesday, of heart-failure from shock, IDA HAMILTON, only child of HANNAH MOON by her former marriage with ISIDORE BAMBERGER. California papers please copy.
CHAPTER II
IN THE LIVES of professionals, whatever their profession may be, the ordinary work of the day makes very little impression on the memory, whereas a very strong and lasting one is often made by circumstances which a man of leisure or a woman of the world might barely notice, and would soon forget. In Margaret’s life there were but two sorts of days, those on which she was to sing and those on which she was at liberty. In the one case she had a cutlet at five o’clock, and supper when she came home; in the other, she dined like other people and went to bed early. At the end of a season in New York, the evenings on which she had sung all seemed to have been exactly alike; the people had always applauded at the same places, she had always been called out about the same number of times, she had always felt very much the same pleasure and satisfaction, and she had invariably eaten her supper with the same appetite. Actors lead far more emotional lives than singers, partly because they have the excitement of a new piece much more often, with the tremendous nervous strain of a first night, and largely because they are not obliged to keep themselves in such perfect training. To an actor a cold, an indigestion, or a headache is doubtless an annoyance; but to a leading singer such an accident almost always means the impossibility of appearing at all, with serious loss of money to the artist, and grave disappointment to the public. The result of all this is that singers, as a rule, are much more normal, healthy, and well-balanced people than other musicians, or than actors. Moreover they generally have very strong bodies and constitutions to begin with, and when they have not they break down young.
Paul Griggs had an old traveller’s preference for having plenty of time, and he was on board the steamer on Saturday a full hour before she was to sail; his not very numerous belongings, which looked as weather-beaten as himself, were piled up unopened in his cabin, and he himself stood on the upper promenade deck watching the passengers as they came on board. He was an observant man, and it interested him to note the expression of each new face that appeared; for the fact of starting on a voyage across the ocean is apt to affect people inversely as their experience. Those who cross often look so unconcerned that a casual observer might think they were not to start at all, whereas those who are going for the first time are either visibly flurried, or are posing to look as if they were not, though they are intensely nervous about their belongings; or they try to appear as if they belonged to the ship, or else as if the ship belonged to them, making observations which are supposed to be nautical, but which instantly stamp them as unutterable land-lubbers in the shrewd estimation of the stewards; and the latter, as every old hand is aware, always know everything much better than the captain.
Margaret Donne had been the most sensible and simple of young girls, and when she appeared at the gangway very quietly dressed in brown, with a brown fur collar, a brown hat, a br
own veil, and a brown parasol, there was really nothing striking to distinguish her from other female passengers, except her good looks and her well-set-up figure. Yet somehow it seems impossible for a successful primadonna ever to escape notice. Instead of one maid, for instance, Cordova had two, and they carried rather worn leathern boxes that were evidently heavy jewel-cases, which they clutched with both hands and refused to give up to the stewards. They also had about them the indescribable air of rather aggressive assurance which belongs especially to highly-paid servants, men and women. Their looks said to every one: ‘We are the show and you are the public, so don’t stand in the way, for if you do the performance cannot go on!’ They gave their orders about their mistress’s things to the chief steward as if he were nothing better than a railway porter or a call-boy at the theatre; and, strange to say, that exalted capitalist obeyed with a docility he would certainly not have shown to any other passenger less than royal. They knew their way everywhere, they knew exactly what the best of everything was, and they made it clear that the great singer would have nothing less than the very, very best. She had the best cabin already, and she was to have the best seat at table, the best steward and the best stewardess, and her deck-chair was to be always in the best place on the upper promenade deck; and there was to be no mistake about it; and if anybody questioned the right of Margarita da Cordova, the great lyric soprano, to absolute precedence during the whole voyage, from start to finish, her two maids would know the reason why, and make the captain and all the ship’s company wish they were dead.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1197