Part 29 (1/2)
Among the gentlemen there was no other subject of conversation, and but one opinion. A little hum of curiosity ran round the table. It was far more exciting than tableaux, which was what some of the guests had expected to be arranged by the Contessa. Tableaux! nothing could have been equal to the effect of that dramatic entry and sudden revelation.
”As for Montjoie, all was up with him, but the Contessa knew what she was about. She was not going to throw away her effects,” they said.
”There could be no doubt for whose benefit it all was.” The Contessa graciously baffled with her charming smile all the questions that were poured upon her. She received the compliments addressed to her with gracious bows, but she gave no reply to any one. As she swept out of the room after dinner she tapped Montjoie lightly on the arm with her fan.
”I will sing for you to-night,” she said.
In the drawing-room the elements were a little heterogeneous without the gentlemen. The two girls in blue gazed at this wonderful new compet.i.tor with a curiosity which was almost alarm. They would have liked to make acquaintance, to draw her into their little party of youth outside the phalanx of the elders. But Bice took no more note of them than if they had been cabbages. She was in great excitement, all smiles and glory.
”Do I please you like this?” she said, going up to Lucy, spreading out all her finery with the delight of a child. Lucy shrank a little. She had a troubled anxious look, which did not look like pleasure; but Lady Anastasia, who wrote for the newspapers, walked round and round the _debutante_ and took notes frankly. ”Of course I shall describe her dress. I never saw anything so lovely,” the lady said. Bice, in the glow of her golden yellow, and of her smiles and delight, with the n.o.ble correspondent of the newspapers examining her, found the acutest interest in the position. The Contessa from her sofa smiled upon the scene, looking on with the air of a gratified exhibitor whose show had succeeded beyond her hopes. Lady Randolph, with an air of anxiety in her fair and simple countenance, stood behind, looking at Bice with protecting yet disturbed and troubled looks. The mother and daughters at the other side looked on, she all solid and speechless with disapproval, they in a flutter of interest and wonder and gentle envy and offence. More than a tableau; it was like an act out of a play. And when the gentlemen came in what a sudden quickening of the interest!
Bice rose to the action like a heroine when the great scene has come, and the others all gathered round with a spectators.h.i.+p that was almost breathless. The worst feature of the whole to those who were interested in Bice was her own evident enjoyment. She talked, she distributed her smiles right and left, she mimicked yet flattered Montjoie with a dazzling youthful a.s.surance which confounded Mr. Derwent.w.a.ter, and made Jock furious, and brought looks of pain not only to the face of Lucy but also to that of Sir Tom, who was less easily shocked. She was like a young actress in her first triumph, filling her _role_ with a sort of enthusiasm, enjoying it with all her heart. And when the Contessa rose to sing, Bice followed her to the piano with an air as different as possible from the swift, noiseless self-effacement of her performance on previous occasions. She looked round upon the company with a sort of malicious triumph, a laugh on her lips as of some delightful mystification, some surprise of which she was in the secret. ”Come and listen,” she said to Jock, lightly touching him on the shoulder as she pa.s.sed him. The Contessa's singing was already known. It was considered by some with a certain contempt, by others with admiration, as almost as good as professional. But when instead of one of her usual performances there arose in splendid fulness the harmony of two voices, that of Bice suddenly breaking forth in all the freshness of youth, unexpected, unprepared for, the climax of wonder and enthusiasm was reached. Lady Anastasia, after the first start and thrill of wonder, rushed to the usual writing-table and dashed off a hurried note, which she fastened to her fan in her excitement. ”Everybody must know of this!” she cried. One of the young ladies in the background wept with admiration, crying, ”Mamma, she is heavenly,” while even the virtuous mother was moved.
”They must intend her for the stage,” that lady said, wondering, withdrawing from her _role_ of disapproval. As for the gentlemen, those of them who were not speechless with enthusiasm were almost noisy in their excitement. Montjoie pressed into the first rank, almost touching Bice's dress, which she drew away between two bars, turning half round with a slight shake of her head and a smile in her eyes, even while the loveliest notes were flowing forth from her melodious throat. The listeners could hear the n.o.ble lord's ”by Jove,” in the midst of the music, and even detect the slight quaver of laughter which followed in Bice's wonderful voice.
The commotion of applause, enthusiasm, and wonder afterwards was indescribable. The gentlemen crowded round the singers--even the parliamentary gentlemen had lost their self-control, while the young lady who had wept forgot her timidity to make an eager approach to the _debutante_.
”It was heavenly: it was a rapture: oh, sing again!” cried Miss Edith, which was much prettier than Lord Montjoie's broken exclamations, ”Oh, by Jove! don't you know,” to which Bice was listening with delighted mockery.
Bice had been trained to pay very little attention to the opinions of other girls, but she gave the young lady in blue a friendly look, and launched over her shoulder an appeal to Jock. ”Didn't you like it, you?” she cried, with a slight clap together of her hands to call his attention.
Jock glared at her over Miss Edith's shoulder. ”I don't understand music,” he said, in his most surly voice. These were the distinct utterances which enchanted Bice amid the murmurs of more ordinary applause. She was delighted with them. She clapped her hands once more with a delight which was contagious. ”Ah, I know now, this is what it is to have _succes_,” she cried.
”Now,” said the Contessa, ”it is the turn of Lord Montjoie, who is a dab--that is the word--at singing, and who promised me three for one.”
At this there rose a hubbub of laughter, in the midst of which, though with many protestations and remonstrances, ”don't you know,” that young n.o.bleman was driven to the fulfilment of his promise. In the midst of this commotion, a sign as swift as lightning, but, unlike lightning, imperceptible, a lifting of the eyebrows, a movement of a finger, was given and noted. In such a musical a.s.sembly the performance of a young marquis, with n.o.body knows how many thousands a year and entirely his own master, is rarely without interest. Mr. Derwent.w.a.ter turned his back with marked indifference, and Jock with a sort of snort went away altogether. But of the others, the majority, though some with laughter and some with sneers, were civil, and listened to the performance. Jock marched off with a disdain beyond expression; but he had scarcely issued forth into the hall before he heard a rustle behind him, and, looking back, to his amazement saw Bice in all the glory of her golden robes.
”Hus.h.!.+” she cried, smothering a laugh, and with a quick gesture of repression, ”don't say anything. It must not be discovered that I have run away!”
”Why have you run away? I thought you thought no end of that little scug,” cried savage Jock.
Bice turned upon him that smile that said everything and nothing, and then flew like a bird upstairs.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI.
THE EVENING AFTER.
The outcry that rose when, after Montjoie's comic song, a performance of the broadest and silliest description, was over, it was discovered that Bice had disappeared, and especially the blank look of the performer himself when turning round from the piano he surveyed the company in vain for her, gratified the Contessa beyond measure. She smiled radiantly upon the a.s.sembly in answer to all their indignant questions.
”It has been for once an indulgence,” she said; ”but little girls must keep early hours.” Montjoie was wounded and disappointed beyond measure that it should have been at the moment of his performance that she was spirited away. His reproaches were vehement, and there was something of the pettishness of a boy in their indignant tones. ”I shouldn't have sung a note if I'd thought what was going on,” he cried. ”Contessa, I would not have believed you could have been so mean--and I singing only to please you.”
”But think how you have pleased me--and all these ladies!” cried the Contessa. ”Does not that recompense you?” Montjoie guessed that she was laughing at him, but he did not, in fact, see anything to laugh about.
It was natural enough that the other ladies should be pleased; still he did not care whether they were pleased or not, and he did care much that the object of his admiration had not waited to hear him. The Contessa found the greatest amus.e.m.e.nt in his boyish sulk and resentment, and the rest of the evening was pa.s.sed in baffling the questions with which, now that Bice was gone, her friends overpowered her. She gave the smallest possible dole of reply to their interrogations, but smiled upon the questioners with suns.h.i.+ny smiles. ”You must come and see me in town,”
she said to Montjoie. It was the only satisfaction she would give him.
And she perceived at a much earlier hour than usual that Lucy was waiting for her to go to bed. She gave a little cry of distress when this seemed to flash upon her.
”Sweet Lucy! it is for me you wait!” she cried. ”How could I keep you so late, my dear one?”
Montjoie was the foremost of those who attended her to the door, and got her candle for her, that indispensable but unnecessary formula.
”Of course I shall look you up in town; but we'll talk of that to-morrow. I don't go till three--to-morrow,” the young fellow said.