Chapter 4. Country And Town

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER IV. COUNTRY AND TOWN

On this Sunday morning, when all the good people had gone to church, there was no sign of life on these far-stretching Winstead Downs. The yellow roads intersecting the undulations of black-and-golden gorse were undisturbed by even a solitary tramp; so that Lionel Moore and his friend Mangan, as they idly walked along, seemed to be the sole possessors of the spacious landscape. It was a beautiful morning, warm and clear and sunny; a southerly breeze stirred the adjacent elms into a noise as of the sea, caused the chestnuts to wave their great branches bearing thousands of milky minarets, and sent waves of shadows across the silken gray-green of a field of rye. There was a windmill on a distant height, its long arms motionless. A strip of Scotch firs stood black and near at one portion of the horizon; but elsewhere the successive lines of wood and hill faded away into the south, becoming of a paler and paler hue until they disappeared in a silvery mist. The air was sweet with the resinous scent of the furze. In short, it was a perfect day in early June, on a wide, untenanted, high-lying Surrey common.

And Maurice Mangan, in his aimless, desultory fashion, was inveighing against the vanity of the life led by certain classes in the great Babylon out of which he had just haled his rather unwilling friend; and describing their mad and frantic efforts to wrest themselves free of the demon _ennui_; and their ceaseless, eager clamor for hurry and excitement, lest, in some unguarded moment of silence, their souls should speak.

"It is quite a fallacy," he was saying, as he walked carelessly onwards, his head thrown forward a little, his hands clasped behind his back, his stick trailing after him, "it is altogether a fallacy to talk of the 'complaining millions of men' who 'darken in labor and pain.' It is the hard-working millions of mankind who are the happiest; their constant labor brings content; the riddle of the painful earth doesn't vex them--they have no leisure; they don't fear the hour of sleep--they welcome it. It is the rich, who find time drag remorselessly on their hands, who have desperately to invent occupations and a whirl of amusements, who keep pursuing shadows they can never lay hold of, who are really in a piteous case; and I suppose you take credit to yourself, Linn, my boy, that you are one of the distractions that help them to lighten the unbearable weariness of their life. Well," he continued, in his rambling way, "it isn't quite what I had looked forward to; I had looked forward to something different for you. I can remember, when we used to have our long Sunday walks in those days, what splendid ambitions you had for yourself, and how you were all burning to begin--the organist of Winstead Church was to produce his Hallelujah Chorus, and the nations were to listen; and the other night, when I was in your room at the theatre, when I saw you smearing your face and decking yourself out for exhibition before a lot of fashionable idlers, I could not help saying to myself, 'And this is what Linn Moore has come to!'"

"Yes, that is what Linn Moore has come to," the other said, with entire good-nature. "And what has Maurice Mangan come to? I can remember when Maurice Mangan was to be a great poet, a great metaphysician, a great--I don't know what. Winstead was far too small a place for him; he was to go up and conquer London, and do great and wonderful things. And what is he now?--a reporter of the gabble of the House of Commons."

"I suppose I am a failure," said this tall, thin, contemplative-looking man, who spoke quite dispassionately of himself, just as he spoke with a transparent honesty and simplicity of his friend. "But at least I have kept myself to myself. I haven't sold myself over to the Moloch of fashion--"

"Oh, your dislike of fashionable people is a mere bundle of prejudice!" Lionel cried. "The truth is, Maurice, you don't know those fashionable people you seem to despise so heartily. If you did, you would discover that they had the ordinary human qualities of other people--only that they are better educated and more courteous and pleasant in manner. Then their benevolence--if you knew how much they give away in charity--"

"Benevolence!" Mangan broke in, impatiently. "What is benevolence? It is generally nothing more or less than an expression of your own satisfaction with yourself. You are stuffed with food and wine; your purse is gorged; 'here's a handful of sovereigns for you, you poor devil crouching at the corner!' What merit is in that? Do you call that a virtue? But where charity really becomes a heroism, Linn, is when a poor, suffering, neuralgic woman, without any impulse from abundance of health or abundance of comfort, sets laboriously to work to do what she can for her fellow-creatures. Then that is something to regard--that is something to admire--"

Lionel burst out laughing.

"A very pretty description of Francie Wright!" he cried. "Francie a poor, suffering, wretched woman--because she happened to have a touch of neuralgia the last Sunday you were down here! There's very little of the poor and suffering about Francie; she's as contented and merry a lass as you'd find anywhere."

Mangan was silent for a second or two; and then he said, with a little hesitation,

"Didn't you tell me Miss Wright had not been up yet to see 'The Squire's Daughter?'"

"No, she has not," Lionel answered, lightly. "I don't know whether you have been influencing her, Maurice, or whether you have picked up some of her highly superior prejudices; anyhow, I rather fancy she doesn't quite approve of the theatre--I mean, I don't think she approves of the New Theatre, for she'd go to any other one fast enough, I suppose, if you could only get her away from her sick children. But not the New Theatre, apparently. Perhaps she doesn't care to see me making myself a motley to the view."

"She has a great regard for you, Linn. I wouldn't call her opinions prejudices," Mangan said--but with the curious diffidence he displayed whenever he spoke of Lionel's cousin.

"Oh, Francie should have lived in the fifteenth century--she would have been a follower of Savonarola," Lionel said, with a laugh. "She's far too exalted for these present days."

"Well, Linn," said his friend, "I'm glad you know at least one person who has some notion of duty and self-sacrifice, who has some fineness of perception and some standard of conduct and aim to go by. Why, those people you associate so much with now seem to have but one pursuit--the pursuit of pleasure, the gratification of every selfish whim; they seem to have no consciousness of the mystery surrounding life--of the fact that they themselves are inexplicable phantoms whose very existence might make them pause and wonder and question. No, it is the amassing of wealth, and the expending of it, that is all sufficient. I used to wonder why God should have chosen the Jews, of all the nations of the earth, for the revelation that there was something nobler than the acquisition of riches; but I suppose it was because no race ever needed it so much. And what new revelation--what new message is coming to the multitudes here in England who are living in a paradise of sensual gratification, blinded, besotted, their world a sort of gorgeous pig-stye--"

"Oh, that's all right," Lionel said, cheerfully. "Octavius Quirk has settled all that. The cure for everything is to be a blowing of the whole social fabric to bits. Then we're going to begin again all over; and the New Jerusalem will be reached when each man has to dig for his own potatoes."

"Quirk!" said Maurice Mangan, contemptuously; and then he took out his watch. "We'd better be getting back, Linn. We'll just be in time to meet your people coming out of church."

So they turned and walked leisurely across the gorse-covered downs until they reached the broad and dusty highway leading towards Winstead village. And then again they struck into a by-lane with tall hedges, the banks underneath which were bright with stitchwort and speedwell and white dead-nettle. Now and again, through a gap or a gate, they caught a glimpse of the lush meadows golden with buttercups; in one of them there was a small black pony standing in the shadow of a wide-spreading elm. They passed some cottages with pretty gardens in front; they stopped for a second to look at the old-fashioned columbine and monkshood, the none-so-pretty, the yellow and crimson wall-flower, the peony roses. Then always around them was this gracious silence, which seemed so strange after the roar of London; and if the day promised to become still hotter, at least they had this welcome breeze, that rustled the quick-glancing poplars, and stirred the white-laden hawthorns, and kept the long branches of the wych-elms and chestnuts swaying hither and thither. They were not talking much now; one of them was thinking of a pair of gray eyes.

At last they came to a turnstile, and, passing through that, found themselves in one of those wide meadows; at the farther side of it the red-tiled roof, the gray belfry, and slated spire of Winstead Church just showed above the masses of green foliage. They crossed the meadow and entered the churchyard. A perfect silence reigned over the place; they could not hear what was going on within the small building; out here there was no sound save the chirping of the birds and the continuous murmur of the trees. They walked about, looking thoughtfully at the gravestones--many of them bearing names familiar enough to them in bygone years. And perhaps one or other of them may have been fancying that when the great, busy world had done with him--and used him up and thrown him aside--here at least there would be peace preserved for him--an ample sufficiency of rest under this greensward, with perhaps a few flowers put there by some kindly hand. The dead did not seem to need much pity on this tranquil day.

Then into this universal silence came suddenly a low, booming sound that caused Lionel Moore's heart to stand still: it was the church organ--that awakened a multitude of associations and recollections, that seemed to summon up the vanished years and the dreams of his youth, when it was he himself who used to sit at the instrument and call forth those massive chords and solemn tones. Something of his boyhood came back to him; he seemed again to be looking forward to an unknown future; wondering and eager, he painted visions; and always in them, to share his greatness and his fame, there was some radiant creature, smiling-eyed, who would be at his side in sorrow and in joy, through the pain of striving and in the rapture of triumph. And now--now that the years had developed themselves--what had become of these wistful hopes and forecasts? Boyish nonsense, he would have said (except just at such a moment as this, when the sudden sound of the organ seemed to call back so much). He had encountered the realities of life since then; he had chosen his profession; he had studied hard; he had achieved a measure of fame. And the beautiful and wonderful being who was to share his triumphs with him? Well, he had never actually beheld her. A glimmer here and there, in a face or a form, had taken his fancy captive more than once; but he remained heart-whole; he was too much occupied, he laughingly assured Maurice Mangan again and again, to have the chance of falling in love.

"Getting married?" he would say. "My dear fellow, I haven't time; I'm far too busy to think of getting married."

So the radiant bride had never been found, even as the new Hallelujah Chorus that was to thrill the hearts of millions had never been written; and Linn Moore had to be content with the very pronounced success he had attained in playing in comic opera, and with a popularity in the fashionable world of London, especially among the women-folk therein, that would have turned many a young fellow's head.

When they thought the service was about over they went round to the porch and awaited the coming out of the congregation. And among the first to make their appearance--issuing from the dusky little building into this bewilderment of white light and green leaves--were old Dr. Moore and his wife, and Miss Francie Wright, who passed for Lionel's cousin, though the relationship was somewhat more remote than that. Maurice Mangan received a very hearty welcome from these good people; and then, as they set out for home, Lionel walked on with his father and mother, while Lionel's friend naturally followed with the young lady. She was not a distinctly beautiful person, perhaps, this slim-figured young woman, with the somewhat pale face, the high-arched eyebrows, and light-brown hair; but at least she had extremely pretty gray eyes, that had a touch of shrewdness and humor in them, as well as plenty of gentleness and womanliness; and she had a soft and attractive voice, which goes for much.

"It is so kind of you, Mr. Mangan," said she, in that soft and winning voice, "to bring Linn down. You know he won't come down by himself; and who can wonder at it? It is so dull and monotonous for him here, after the gay life he leads in London."

"Dull and monotonous!" he exclaimed. "Why, I have been preaching to him all the morning that he should be delighted to come down into the quietude of the country, as a sort of moral bath after the insensate racket of that London whirl. But no one ever knows how well off he is," he continued, as they walked along between the fragrant hawthorn hedges; "it's the lookers-on who know. Good gracious, what wouldn't I give to be in Linn's place!"

"Do you mean in London, Mr. Mangan?" she asked, and for an instant the pretty gray eyes looked up.

"Certainly not!" he said, with unnecessary warmth. "I mean here. If I could run down of a Sunday to a beautiful, quiet, old-fashioned place like this, and find myself in my own home, among my own people, I wonder how many Sundays would find me in London? You can't imagine, you have no idea, what it is to live quite alone in London, with no one to turn to but club acquaintances; and I think Sunday is the worst day of all, especially if it is fine weather, and all the people have gone to the country or the seaside to spend the day with their friends."

"But, Mr. Mangan," said Miss Francie Wright, gently, "I am sure, whenever you have a Sunday free like that, we should be only too glad if you would consider us your friends--unless you think the place too dreadfully tedious, as I'm afraid my cousin finds it."

"It is very kind of you--very," said he. "And I know the old doctor and Mrs. Moore like to see me well enough, for I bring down their boy to them; but if I came by myself, I'm afraid they wouldn't care to have an idling, dawdling fellow like me lounging about the place of a Sunday afternoon."

"Will you come and try, Mr. Mangan?" said she, quietly. "For Linn's sake alone I know they would be delighted to have you here. And if it is rest and quiet you want, can't we give you the garden and a book?"

"You mustn't put such visions before me," he said. "It's too good to be true. I should be sighing for Paradise all through the week and forgetting my work. And shouldn't I hate to wake up on Monday morning and find myself in London!"

"You might wake up on Monday morning, and find yourself in Winstead," said she, "if you would take Linn's room for the night."

"Ah, no," he said, "it isn't for the like of me to try to take Linn's place in any way whatever. He has always had everything--everything seemed to come to him by natural right; and then he has always been such a capital fellow, so modest and unaffected and generous, that nobody could ever grudge him his good-fortune. Prince Fortunatus he always has been."

"In what way, Mr. Mangan?" his companion asked, rather wonderingly.

"In every way. People are fond of him; he wins affection without trying for it; as I say, it all comes to him as if by natural right."

"Yes, they say he is very popular in London, among those fine folk," observed Miss Francie, quite good-naturedly.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of his fashionable friends," Mangan rejoined. "Being made much of by those people doesn't seem to me one of the great gifts of fortune. And yet I wonder it hasn't spoiled him. He doesn't seem the least bit spoiled, does he?"

"Really, I see so little of him," Miss Francie said, with a smile, "he honors us with so few visits, that I can hardly tell."

"No, he is not spoiled--you may take my word for it," her companion said, with decision. And then he added, "I suppose he gets too much of that petting; he is kept in such a turmoil of gayety that its evil effects have no time to sink into him. He is too busy--as he said this morning about marrying."

"What was that, Mr. Mangan?" she asked.

"He said he was too busy to think of getting married."

"Oh, indeed?" she said, with her eyes directed towards the ground. "We--we have always been expecting to hear of his being engaged to some young lady--seeing he is made so much of in London--" She could say no more, for now they were arrived at the doctor's house, which was separated from the highway by a little strip of front garden. They passed in through the gate and found the door left open for them.

"Well, Miss Savonarola," said Lionel, as he hung up his hat in the hall and turned to address her, "how have you been all this time?"

"I have been very well, Mr. Pagan," said she, smiling.

"And how are all those juvenile Londoners that you've planted about in the cottages?"

"They're getting on nicely, every one of them," said she, with quite an air of pride; and then she added, "When is your Munificence going to give me another subscription?"

"Just now, Francie," was the instant reply. "How much do you want?"

"As much as ever you can afford," said she.

He pulled from his pocket a handful of loose coin, and began to pick out the sovereigns. But Miss Francie, with a little touch of her fingers, put the money away.

"No, Linn, not from you. You've given me too much already. You give too freely; I like to have a little difficulty in obtaining subscriptions; it feels nicer somehow. But if my funds should run very low, then I'll come to you, Linn."

"Whenever you like, Francie," said he, carelessly; he poured the money into his pocket again and bade Maurice Mangan come up to his room, to get the dust of travel removed from his hands and face before going in to luncheon.

Then while Mangan was busy with his ablutions in this small upper chamber, Lionel drew a chair to the open window and gazed absently abroad on the wide stretch of country visible from the doctor's house. It was a familiar view; yet it was one not easy to get tired of; and of course on such a morning as this it lost none of its charm. Everywhere in the warm breeze and the sunshine there was a universal rustling and trembling and glancing of all beautiful things--of the translucent foliage of the limes, the pendulous blossoms of lilacs and laburnums, the swaying branches of the larch, and the masses of blue forget-me-nots in the garden below. Then there were all the hushed sounds of the country: the distant, quick footfall of a horse on some dusty road; the warning cluck of a thrush to her young ones down there among the bushes; the glad voices and laughter of some girls in an adjacent garden--they, too, likely to be soon away from the maternal nest; the crow of a cock pheasant from the margin of the wood; the clear, ringing melody of an undiscoverable lark. Everywhere white light, blue skies, and shadows of great clouds slow-sailing over the young green corn and over the daisied meadows in which the cows lay half-asleep. And when he looked beyond that low green hill, where there were one or two hares hopping about on their ungainly high haunches, and past that great stretch of receding country in which strips of red-and-white villages peeped here and there from the woods, behold! a horizon as of the sea, faint and blue and far, rising and ever rising in various hues and tones, until it was lost in a quivering mist of heat; and he could only guess that there, too, under the glowing sky, some other fair expanse of our beautiful English landscape lay basking in the sunlight and sweet air of the early summer.

Of course Lionel was the hero of the hour when they were all assembled in the dining-room--at a very sumptuously furnished board, by the way, for the hale old doctor was fond of good living and a firm believer in the virtues of port wine. Moreover, the young man had an attentive audience; for the worthy old lady at the head of the table never took her admiring eye's off this wonderful boy of hers; and Miss Francie Wright meekly listened too; while as for Maurice Mangan, who was he in his humble station to interrupt this marvellous tale of great doings and festivities? Not that Lionel magnified his own share in these things; nay, he modestly kept himself out altogether; it was merely to interest these simple country folk that he described the grand banquets, the illuminated gardens, the long marquees, and told them how the princess looked, and who it was who had the honor of taking her in to supper. But when he came, among other things, to speak of the rehearsal of the little pastoral comedy, in the clear light of the dawn, by Lady Adela Cunyngham and her friends, he had to admit that he himself was present on that occasion; and at once the fond mother took him to task.

[Illustration: "_They passed in through the gate, and found the door left open for them._"]

"It's wicked, Lionel," she said, severely; "it's downright wicked to keep such hours. Look at the result of it all. You can't eat anything--you're not taking a mouthful!"

"But, you know, mother, I'm not used to luncheon," he said, cheerfully enough. "I have to dine at five every day--and I've no time to bother with luncheon, even if I could eat it."

"Take a glass of port, my lad," the old doctor said. "That will put some life into you."

"No, thanks," he said, indifferently, "I can't afford to play tricks. I have to study my throat."

"Why, what better astringent can you have than tannic acid?" the old gentleman called down the table. "I suppose you drink those washy abominations that the young men of the day prefer to honest wine; what's that I hear about lemonade? Lemonade!" he repeated, with disgust.

"It's home-brewed--it's wholesome enough; Miss Burgoyne makes some for me when she is making it for herself," the young man said; and then he turned to his mother: "Mother, I wish you would send her something from the garden--"

"Who, Lionel?"

"Miss Burgoyne--at the theatre, you know. She's very good to me--lends me her room if I have any swell friends who want to come behind--and makes me this lemonade, which is better than anything else on a hot night. Couldn't you send her something from the garden?--not flowers--she gets too many flowers, and doesn't care for them; but if you had some early strawberries or something of that kind, she would take them as a greater compliment, coming from you, than if some idiot of a young fool spent guineas on them at a florist's. And when are you coming up to see 'The Squire's Daughter,' Francie? The idea that you should never have been near the place, when I hear people confessing to each other that they have been to see it eight and ten, or even a dozen times!"

"But I am so busy, Lionel!" she said; and then perhaps an echo of something that had been said in the morning may have recurred to her mind; for she seemed a trifle confused, and kept her eyes downcast, while Lionel went on to tell them of what certain friends of his were going to do at Henley Regatta.

After luncheon they went out into the garden, and took seats in the shade of the lilac-trees, in the sweet air. Old Mrs. Moore had for form's sake brought a book with her; but she was not likely to read much when the pride of her eyes had come down on a visit to her, and was now talking to her, in his off-hand, light-hearted way. Maurice Mangan had followed the doctor's example and pulled out his pipe--which he forgot to light, however. He seemed dissatisfied. He kept looking back to the house from time to time. Was there no one else coming out? There was the French window of the drawing-room still open; was there no glimmer of a gray dress anywhere--with its ornamentation of a bunch of scarlet geraniums? At last he made bold to say to the doctor:

"Where has Miss Francie gone to? Isn't she coming out too?"

"Oh, she's away after those London brats of hers, I have no doubt," the old gentleman said. "You won't see her till teatime, if even then." Whereupon Mangan lit his pipe, and proceeded to smoke in silence, listening at times and absently to Lionel's vivacious talking to his mother.

In fact, before Miss Francie Wright returned that afternoon, Lionel found that he had to take his departure, for there are no trains to Winstead on Sunday, and he would have to walk some three miles to the nearest station. When he declared he had to go, the old lady's protests and entreaties were almost piteous.

"You come to see us so seldom, Lionel! And of course we thought you'd dine with us, at the very least; and if you could stay the night as well, you know there's a room for Mr. Mangan too. And we were looking forward to such a pleasant evening."

"But I have a long-standing engagement, mother; a dinner engagement--I could not get out of it."

"And you are dragging Mr. Mangan away up to town again, on a beautiful afternoon like this, when we know he is so fond of the country and of a garden--"

"Not at all," Lionel said. "I need not spoil Maurice's day, if I have to spoil my own; he'll stay, of course; and I suppose Francie will be back directly."

"I'm sure, Mr. Mangan," the old lady said, turning at once to her other guest, "if Lionel must really go, we shall be delighted if you will remain and dine with us--I hope you will--and you can have Lionel's room if you will stay the night as well."

"Thank you, I couldn't do that," said he, very gratefully, "but if you will have me, I shall be very glad to stay on, and go up by a late train. In the meantime, I think I'll walk to the station with Linn."

"And come back with a good appetite for dinner," said the doctor, calling after him. "We'll have something better than lemonade, I warrant ye!"

They have slow trains on these Surrey lines on Sunday; by the time that Lionel had got up to town and driven to his rooms and dressed, it was very near the hour at which he was due at the Lansdowne Gallery, where Lord Rockminster was giving a dinner-party, as a preliminary to the concert and crush that were to follow. And no sooner had he alighted from his hansom, and entered the marble vestibule of the gallery, than whom should he descry ascending the stairs in front of him but Mr. Octavius Quirk.

"Lady Adela hasn't let the grass grow under her feet," he said to himself. "Captured her first critic already!"

Lady Adela was at the head of the stairs receiving her brother's guests; and the greeting that she accorded to Mr. Octavius Quirk was of a most special and gracious kind. She was very complaisant to Lionel also, and bade him go and see if the place they had given him at dinner was to his liking. He took this as a kind of permission to choose what he wanted (within discreet limits); and as he just then happened to meet Miss Georgie Lestrange, he proposed to that smiling and ruddy-haired damsel that they should go and examine for themselves--and perhaps alter the dispositions a little. So they passed away through those brilliantly lit galleries (which served as a picture-exhibition on week-days), and at the farther end of the largest room they found the oblong dinner-table, which was brilliant with flowers and fruit, with crystal and silver. Of course Lionel and his companion had to be content with very modest places, for this was a highly distinguished company which Lord Rockminster had invited; but at all events they made sure they were to sit together, and that arrangement seemed to be satisfactory to them both.

This was rather a magnificent little banquet; and Lionel, looking down the long, richly colored table, may once or twice have thought of the quiet, small dining-room at Winstead (perhaps with the curtains still undrawn, and the evening light shining blue in the panes), and of the solitary guest whom he had left to talk to those good people; but indeed he was not permitted much time for reverie, for the young lady with the _pince-nez_ was a most lively chatterer; she knew everything that was going on in London, and seemed to take a particularly active interest therein. Among other solemn items of information which she communicated to her companion, she mentioned that the issue of Lady Adela's novel had been postponed.

"Yes, it's quite ready, you know," she continued, in her blithe, discursive, happy-go-lucky fashion; "all quite ready; but she doesn't want it to go before the public until there has been a little talk about it, don't you understand? She wants some of the society papers to mention it; but she isn't quite sure how to get that done, and nobody seems able to help her--it's really distressing. Do you see that hideous creature down there at the corner?"

"Yes."

"He's a writer," observed this artless maiden, in mysterious tones.

"You don't say so!"

"Yes, he is--writes in all kinds of places. Why, now I think of it, Lady Adela said he was a friend of yours! I'm sure she did. So you pretend not to know him--is that on account of his complexion? Have you any more such _beauties_ among your acquaintances, Mr. Moore? I thought he might be taking me in to dinner; and that's why I was so glad you brought me to look at the cards. Very rude, wasn't it? but you had permission, hadn't you? And there's another one coming to-night."

"Another what?"

"A writing man. But this other one is an American. Of course Lady Adela wants to have the curiosity of the American public excited just as well as the English. Have you heard Lady Sybil's marching-song yet?"

"No."

"Well, I think it is charming--really charming. Rockminster was dining with the officers of the Coldstream Guards the other evening, and he promised to send a copy to the bandmaster as soon as it is published. But Sybil wants more than that, of course; she wants to see whether the commander-in-chief wouldn't recommend it, so that it could be taken up by all the regiments. Wouldn't that be splendid?--to think that Sybil should provide a marching-song for the whole British army!"

"Yes, indeed," said he, with great politeness. "And why shouldn't the commander-in-chief recommend it? A marching-song is as important as a new button. But I must get a look at the music, if we are all to join in the chorus."

The dinner was not long-protracted, for there was to be a concert during the evening; and, indeed, people began to arrive early--strolling through the galleries, looking at the pictures, or talking together in small groups. It was during this promiscuous assembling that Octavius Quirk got hold of Lionel, and, with savage disgust, drew his attention to a hostler-looking person who had just come into the room.

"Do you see that ill-conditioned brute; what's he doing here?"

Lionel glanced in the direction indicated.

"I don't know who he is."

"Don't you know Quincey Hooper? the correspondent of the _Philadelphia Roll-Call_--a cur who toadies every Englishman he meets, and at the same time sneers at everything English in his wretched Philadelphia rag."

Then Lionel instantly bethought him of Miss Lestrange's hint; was this the correspondent who was to arouse the interest of the great American Continent in Lady Adela's forthcoming novel, even as Octavius Quirk was expected to write about it in England? But surely, with the wide Atlantic lying between their respective spheres of operation, there was no need for rivalry? Why did Mr. Quirk still glare in the direction of the new-comer with ill-disguised, or rather with wholly undisguised, disdain?

"Why," said he, in his tempestuously frothy fashion, "I've heard that creature actually discussing with another American what sort of air a man should assume in entering a drawing-room! Can you conceive of such a thing? Where _did_ all that alarmed self-consciousness of the modern American come from--that unceasing self-consciousness that makes the American young man spend five sixths of his waking time in asking himself if he is a gentleman? Not from the splendid assurance, the belief in himself, the wholesome satisfaction of old John Bull. It's no use for the modern American to say he is of English descent at all!" continued this boisterous controversialist, who was still glaring at the hapless mortal at the door, as if every windy sentence was being hurled at his head. "Not a bit! there's nothing English about him, or his ways, or his sympathies, or character. Fancy an Englishman considering what demeanor he should assume before entering a drawing-room! The modern American hasn't the least idea from whom he is descended; what right has he to claim anything of our glorious English heritage?--or to say there is English blood in him at all? Why, as far back as the Declaration of Independence, the people of English birth or parentage in the Eastern States were in a distinct minority! And as to the American of the future--look at the thousands upon thousands of Germans pouring into the country as compared with the English immigration. That is the future American--a German; and it is to be hoped he will have some back-bone in him, and not alarm himself about his entering a drawing-room! America for the Americans?--it's America for the Germans! I tell you this: in a generation or two the great national poet of America will be--Goethe!"

Happily, at this moment, Lady Adela came up, and Lionel most gladly turned aside, for she had evidently something to say to him privately.

"Mr. Moore, I want to introduce you to Mr. Hooper--to Mr. Quincey Hooper--he doesn't seem to know anybody, and I want you to look after him a little--"

"No, no, Lady Adela, you must really excuse me," said he, in an undertone, but he was laughing all the same. "I can't, really. I beg your pardon, but indeed you must excuse me. I've just had one dose of literature--a furious lecture about--about I don't know what--oh, yes, immigration into America. And do you know this--that in a generation or two the great national poet of America will be Goethe?"

"What?" said she.

He repeated the statement; and added that there could be no doubt about it, for he had it on Mr. Octavius Quirk's authority.

"Well, it's a good thing to be told," she said, sweetly, "for then you know." And therewithal, as there was a sudden sound of music issuing from the next gallery, she bade Lionel take her to see who had begun--it was Lady Sybil, indeed, who was playing a solo on the violin to an accompaniment of stringed instruments, while all the crowd stood still and listened.

The evening passed pleasantly enough. There were one or two courageous amateurs who now and again ventured on a song; but for the most part the music was instrumental. A young lady, standing with her hands behind her back, gave a recitation, and attempted to draw pathetic tears by picturing the woes of a simple-minded chimney-sweep who accidentally killed his tame sparrow, and who never quite held up his head thereafter; he seemed to pine away somehow, until one morning they found him dead, his face downward on the tiny grave in which he had buried his little playfellow. Another young lady performed a series of brilliant roulades on a silver bugle, which seemed to afford satisfaction. A well-known entertainer sat down to the piano and proceeded to give a description of a fashionable wedding; and all the people laughed merrily at the clever and sparkling way in which he made a fool of--not themselves, of course, but their friends and acquaintances. And then Lionel Moore went to his hostess.

"Don't you want me to do anything?" he said.

"You're too kind," Lady Adela made answer, with grateful eyes. "It's hardly fair. Still, if I had the courage--"

"Yes, you have the courage," he said, smiling.

"If I had the courage to ask you to sing Sybil's song for her?"

"Of course I will sing it," he said.

"Will you? Will you really? You know, I'm afraid those two girls will never give enough force to it. And it is a man's song--if you wouldn't mind, Mr. Moore."

"Where can I get the music? I'll just look it over."

Quite a little murmur of interest went through the place when it was rumored that Lionel Moore was about to sing Lady Sybil's "Soldiers' Marching Song," and when he stepped on to the platform at the upper end of the gallery, people came swarming in from the other rooms. Lady Sybil herself was to play the accompaniment--the grand piano being fully opened so as to give free egress to the marshalled chords; and when she sat down to the keyboard, it was apparent that the tall, pale, handsome young lady was not a little tremulous and anxious. Indeed, it was a very good thing for the composer that she had got Lionel Moore to sing the song; for the quite trivial and commonplace character of the music was in a large measure concealed by the fine and resonant quality of his rich baritone notes. The chorus was not much of a success--Lady Sybil's promised accomplices seemed to have found their courage fail them at the critical moment; but as for the martial ditty itself, it appeared to take the public ear very well; and when Lionel finally folded the music together again, there was quite a little tempest of clapping of hands. Here and there a half-hearted demand for a repetition was heard; but this was understood to be merely a compliment to Lady Sybil; and indeed Lionel strolled out of the room as soon as his duties were over. Fortunately no one was so indiscreet as to ask him what he privately thought of the "Soldiers' Marching Song," or of its chances of being recommended to the British Army by his royal highness the commander-in-chief.

When at length Lionel thought it was about time for him to slip away quietly from these brilliant, busy, murmuring rooms, he went to bid his hostess privately good-night.

"It was so awfully kind of you, Mr. Moore," she said, graciously, "to give us the chance of making Mr. Quirk's acquaintance. He is so interesting, you know, so unconventional, so original in his opinions--quite a treat to listen to him, I assure you. I've sent him a copy of my poor little book; some time or other I wish you could get to know what he thinks of it?"

"Oh, yes, certainly. I will ask him," Lionel said; and again he bade her good-night, and took his leave.

But as he was going by the entrance into a smaller gallery, which had been turned into a sort of supper-room (there was a buffet at one end, and everywhere a number of small tables at which groups of friends could sit down, the gentlemen of the party bringing over what was wanted) he happened to glance in, and there, occupying a small table all by himself, was Mr. Octavius Quirk, Lionel at once made his way to him. He found him with a capacious plate of lobster-salad before him, and by the side of that was a large bottle of champagne.

"Going to sit down?" Quirk asked--but with no great cordiality; it was for one person, not for two, that he had secured that bottle.

"No; I dined here," said Lionel, with innocent sarcasm.

"My dear fellow," observed the other, earnestly, "a good dinner is the very best preparation in the world for a good supper."

"I hear Lady Adela has sent you her book; have you looked at it?" Lionel asked.

"Yes, I have," said the other, with his mouth full of lobster-salad. "Capital! I call it capital! Plenty of _verve_ and go--knowledge of society--nobody can do that kind of thing like the people who are actually living in it. Her characters are the people one really meets, you know--they are in the world--they belong to life. Oh, yes, a capital novel! Light, airy, amusing, sparkling--I tell you it will be the book of the season!"

"Oh, I'm very glad to hear that," said Lionel, thoughtfully; and then he went and got his light overcoat and crush-hat, and descended the wide stone-steps, and made his way home to his rooms in Piccadilly. _

Read next: Chapter 5. Wars And Rumors

Read previous: Chapter 3. Nina

Table of content of Prince Fortunatus


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book