Part 37 (2/2)
”Really, Mr. Moore,” said she, ”you must have an astonis.h.i.+ng amount of good-nature and tolerance. If I had complete command of any art, and saw a band of amateurs attempting something in it and not even conscious of their own amateurishness, I don't know whether I should be more inclined to laugh or to be angry. I used to be amused, up there in Strathaivron, with the confidence Georgie Lestrange showed in singing a duet with you--”
”Ah, but Miss Lestrange sings very well,” said he. ”And, you know, if Lady Adela and her sisters perform a piece like ”The Chaplet”--well, that is a Watteau-like sort of thing--Sevres china--force or pa.s.sion of any kind isn't wanted--it's all artificial, and confessedly so. And then, when the professional actor finds himself acting with amateurs, I dare say he modifies himself a little--”
”Becomes an amateur, in short,” she said.
”In a measure. Otherwise he would be a regular bull in a china shop. And surely, when you get a number of people in a remote place like Strathaivron, the efforts of amateurs to amuse them should be encouraged and approved. I thought it was very unselfish of them--very kind--though they generally succeeded in sending Lord Fareborough to bed. By the way, Miss Cunyngham, did Lord Fareborough ever get a stag?”
For it was observable that this young man, whenever he got the chance, was anxious to lead away the conversation from the theatre and all things pertaining thereunto, and would rather talk about Strathaivron and salmon-fis.h.i.+ng and Miss Honnor's plans with regard to the coming year.
”Oh, no,” she said, ”he never went out but that once, and then he nearly killed himself, according to his own account. We never quite knew what happened; there was some dark mystery that Roderick wouldn't explain; and, you know, Lord Fareborough himself is rather short-tempered. He ought not to have gone out--a man who has imagined himself into that hypochondriacal state. However, it has given him an excuse for thinking himself a greater invalid than ever; and he has got it into his head now that we all of us persuaded him to try a day's stalking--a conspiracy, as it were, to murder him. There was some accident at one of the fords, I believe. He came home early. I never heard of his having fired at a stag at all.” And then she added, with a smile. ”Mr. Moore, what made you send me such a lot of salmon-flies?”
”Oh, well,” he said, ”I thought you ought to have a good stock.” How could he tell her of his vague hope that the Jock Scotts and Blue Doctors might serve for a long time to recall him to her memory?
”I suppose you have got the stag's head by now?” she asked.
”Oh, yes, indeed; and tremendously proud of it I am,” he responded, eagerly. ”You know I should never have gone deer-stalking but for you. I made sure I was going to make a fool of myself--”
”I remember you were rather sensitive, or anxious not to miss, perhaps,”
she said, in a very gentle way. ”I thought of it again last night, when I saw you so completely master in your own sphere--so much at home--with everything at your command--”
”Oh, yes, very much at home,” he answered her, with just a touch of bitterness. ”Perhaps it is easy to be at home--in harlequinade--though you may not quite like it.” And then once more he refused to talk of the theatre. ”I am going to send old Robert some tobacco at Christmas,” said he.
”I heard of what you did already in that way,” she said, smiling. ”Do you know that you may spoil a place by your extravagance? I should think all the keepers and gillies in Strathaivron were blessing your name at this very moment.”
”And you go up in the spring, you said?”
”Yes. That is the real fis.h.i.+ng-time. My brother Hugh and I have it all to ourselves then; Lady Adela and the rest of them prefer London.”
And then it was almost in his heart to cry out to her, ”May not I, too, go up there, if but for a single week--for six clear-s.h.i.+ning days in the springtime?” Ben More, Suilven, Canisp--oh, to see them once again!--and the windy skies, and Geinig thundering down its rocky chasm, and Aivron singing its morning song along the golden gravel of its shoals! what did he want with any theatre?--with the harlequinade in which he was losing his life? Could he not escape? Euston station was not so far away--and Invers.h.i.+n? It seemed to him as though he had already shaken himself free--that a gladder pulsation filled his veins--that he was breathing a sweeter air. The white April days shone all around him; the silver and purple clouds went flying overhead; here he was by the deep, brown pools again, with the gray rocks and the overhanging birch-woods and the long shallows filling all the world with that soft, continuous murmur. As for his singing?--oh, yes, he could sing--he could sing, if needs were,
”O lang may his lady-love Look frae the Castle Doune, Ere she see the Earl o' Moray Come sounding through the toun”--
but there is no gaslight here--there are no painted faces--he has not to look on at the antics of a clown, with shame and confusion in his heart--
The wild fancy was suddenly snapped in twain; Lady Cunyngham rose; the two younger people did likewise.
”Now, I know you gentlemen like a cigar or cigarette after luncheon,”
she said to Lionel, ”and we are going to leave you quite by yourself--you will find us in the drawing-room when you please.”
Of course he would not hear of such a proposal; he opened the door for them, and followed them up-stairs; what were cigars or cigarettes to him when he had such a chance of listening to Honnor Cunyngham's low, modulated voice, or watching for a smile in the calmly observant hazel eyes? Indeed, in the drawing-room, as Miss Honnor showed him a large collection of a.s.siout ware which had been sent her by an English officer in Egypt (by what right or t.i.tle, Lionel swiftly asked himself, had any English officer made bold to send Miss Cunyngham a hamperful of these red-clay idiotcies?), this solitary guest had again and again to remind himself that he must not outstay his welcome. And yet they seemed to find a great deal to talk about; and the elder of the two ladies was exceedingly kind to him; and there was a singular fascination in his finding himself entirely _en famille_ with them. But alas! Even if he or they had chosen to forget, the early dusk of the November afternoon was a sufficient warning; the windows told him he had to go. And go he did at last. He bade them good-bye; with some friendly words still dwelling in his ears he made his way down the dim stairs and had the door opened for him; then he found himself in this now empty and hopeless town of Brighton, that seemed given over to the low, mult.i.tudinous murmur of that wide waste of waves.
He did not go along to the Orleans Club; his heart and brain were too busy to permit of his meeting chance acquaintances. He walked away towards Sh.o.r.eham till a smart shower made him turn. When he got back to the town the lamps were lit, throwing long, golden reflections on the wet asphalt, but the rain had ceased; so he continued to pace absently along through this blue twilight, hardly noticing the occasional dark figures that pa.s.sed. What was the reason, then, of this vague unrest--this unknown longing--this dissatisfaction and almost despair?
Had he not been more fortunate than he could have hoped for? He had met Miss Honnor and her mother in the morning, and had been with them all the way down; they had been most kind to him; he had spent the best part of the day with them; they had parted excellent friends; looking back, he could not recall a single word he would have liked unsaid. Then a happy fancy struck him: the moment he got up to town he would go and seek out Maurice Mangan. There was a wholesome quality in Mangan's saturnine contempt for the non-essential things of life; Mangan's clear penetration, his covert sympathy, his scorn or mock-melancholy, would help him to get rid of these vapors.
When Lionel returned to town a little after ten o'clock that night he walked along to Mangan's rooms in Victoria Street, and found his friend sitting in front of the fire alone.
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