Linnet: A Romance

Linnet drew back with a convulsive gasp. Was this bloodshed they contemplated, and were talking of so calmly? Will laid his hand on Rue’s arm. Even in the heat of the moment, Linnet noticed that simple action, and, she knew not why, her heart sank within her.

“If I were you, Rue,” Will put in very hurriedly, “I’d let this man come in; drunk or sober, I’d see him. It’s better he should speak with Herr Hausberger here than anywhere else. Try to sink your own feelings and put up with him for a minute or two. If you don’t, I’m afraid I can’t answer for the consequences.”

He spoke very seriously. Rue drew back, still shrinking. Her face was pale but her voice was firm. “Very well, Will,” she answered, without another word of demur. “I hate a tipsy man; but if you wish it, I’ll see him here.”

Linnet noticed the lingering stress of her voice on the you, and the obvious familiarity that subsisted between them; and she thought to herself once more, what did it matter to her? – she was Andreas Hausberger’s wife now. Blessed Madonna, protect her!

Florian disappeared a second time, buoyant as usual, and came back in a minute – bringing Franz Lindner with him. The Seer had left the box some moments earlier; Linnet and Rue stood forward towards the door, as if to break the attack, with Andreas in the background, between Will and the manager. Florian flung the door open with his customary flourish. “Mr Franz Lindner!” he said, introducing him with a wave of his dainty small hand, “whose charming performance on the zither we had the pleasure of hearing, you will recollect, Rue, with Signora Casalmonte, some years ago at Innsbruck.”

The Robbler stepped into the box, erect, haughty, defiant. His handsome face was flushed and flown with drink; but his manner was alert, self-respecting, angry. He glared about him with fierce eyes. His left hand, held to his bosom, just defined between finger and thumb the vague shape of the bowie in his breast coat pocket; his right was disengaged with a tremulous quiver, as if in readiness to spring at Andreas Hausberger and throttle him.

With unexpected presence of mind, Rue extended her pretty gloved hand towards the Robbler, cordially, as if she fancied he had come on the most ordinary errand. “We’re so glad to see you, Mr Lindner,” she cried, in a natural voice, and with apparent frankness – though that was a fearful feminine fib; “I remember so well your delightful jodels! You were a member of Herr Hausberger’s company then, I recollect. How charmingly his wife has been singing here this evening!”

The Robbler gazed about him, a little disconcerted at so different a welcome from the one he had expected. However, as things stood, the acquired instincts of civilisation compelled him to hold in check for a moment the more deeply ingrained impulses of his mountain nature. Besides, Rue’s words appealed at once to his personal vanity. To think that this beautiful and exquisitely-dressed lady, with the diamonds on her white neck, and the dainty pale gloves on her tapering fingers, should receive him in her box like a gentleman and an equal! How could he jump at his enemy’s throat then and there before her eyes? How remain insensible to so much grace, so much tact, so much elegance? Moreover, he was taken aback by the number of persons in the box, the unexpected brilliancy, the imposing evening dress, Linnet’s stately costume, Rue’s dazzling jewellery. He had come up there, meaning to rush at his antagonist the very moment he saw him, and plunge a knife into his heart, like a true Tyrolese Robbler, even here in London. Instead of that, he paused irresolute, took the gloved hand in his, bent over it with the native dignity and courtesy of his race, and faltered, in broken English, some inarticulate words of genuine gratification that Mrs Palmer should deign to remember so kindly his poor performances on the zither at Innsbruck.

Then Will came forward in turn, seized the Robbler’s right hand, wrang it hard and long – just to occupy the time, and prevent possible mischief – and poured forth hurried remarks, one after another, hastily, about Linnet’s first appearance, and the success of her singing. It was a friendly meeting. The manager chimed in, with Florian in his most ecstatic mood for chorus. Franz Lindner’s blood boiled; dazed and startled as he was, more than ever now he felt in his heart of how great a prize Andreas Hausberger had defrauded him. By trickery and stealth that sordid wretch had defrauded him. The ladies at the London Pavilion, indeed! Why, Linnet on those boards – Linnet in that dress – Linnet in her transformed and transfigured beauty – she was worth the whole troupe of them! Yet what could he do? Linnet held out her frank hand; Franz grasped it fervently. Her beauty surprised him. She was no longer, he saw well, the mere musical peasant girl; she had risen to the situation; she was now a great artist, a great lady, a queen of the theatre.

Primitive natures are quick. Their emotions are few, but strong and overpowering. Mood succeeds mood with something of the rapidity and successive effacement we see in children. Franz Lindner had entered that box, full of rage and anger, thirsting only for blood, eager to wreak his vengeance on the man who had offended him. He had no thought of love for Linnet then; only a fierce, keen sense of deadly resentment towards Andreas. Now, in a moment, as Linnet let her soft hand lie passive in his, like an old friend recovered, another set of feelings rushed over him irresistibly. His heart leaped up into his mouth at her pressure. Why, Linnet was beautiful; Linnet was exquisite; Linnet was a prize worth any man’s winning. If he stabbed Andreas then and there before his wife’s very eyes, he might glut his revenge, to be sure – but what would that avail him? Why go and be hanged for killing Linnet’s husband, and leave Linnet herself for some other man to woo, and win, and be happy with? Herr Will, there, would thank him, no doubt, for that chance; for he could plainly see by his eyes Herr Will was still deeply in love with Linnet. No, no, – hot heart; down, down for the present! Keep your hands off Andreas’s throat; wait for sweeter vengeance! To win away his wife from him, to steal her by force, to seduce her by soft words, to wile her by blandishment – that were a better revenge in the end than to stick a knife in him now – though to stick a knife, too, is very good requital! Sooner or later, Franz meant to have Andreas Hausberger’s blood. But not to be hanged for it. He would rather live on.. to kill Hausberger first, and enjoy his wife afterwards.

All this, quick as lightning, not thought but felt in an indivisible flash of time, darted fast through Franz Lindner’s seething brain, at touch of Linnet’s fingers. She spoke a few words to him of friendly reminiscence. Then Andreas, stepping forward, held out his hand in turn. It was a critical moment. Linnet’s heart stood still. Franz lifted his arm, half hesitating, towards his breast coat pocket. Should he stab him – or wring his hand? The surroundings settled it. It’s a thousand times harder to plunge your knife into your man before the eyes of ladies and dramatic critics, in a box of a London theatre, than among the quarrelsome hinds on a Tyrolese hillside. Surlily and grudgingly, Franz lifted his right – extended it with an effort, and shook hands with his enemy. Rue and Linnet looked on in an agony of suspense. Once the grasp was over, every member of the party drew a deep breath involuntarily. The tension was relieved. Conversation ran on as if nothing had happened. The whole little episode occupied no more than two fleeting minutes. At its end they were all chatting with apparent unconcern about old times at Meran and old friends at St Valentin.

Franz was sobered by the conflict of emotion within him. The manager, with great tact and presence of mind, invited him promptly to join them at supper. Franz accepted with a good grace, uncertain yet how he stood with them, and became before long almost boisterously merry. He kept himself within due bounds, indeed, before the faces of the ladies, and drank his share of champagne with surprising moderation. But he talked unceasingly, for the most part to Linnet, Rue, and Florian; very little to Will; hardly at all to Andreas Hausberger. They sat late and long. They had all much to say, and Will, in particular, wished to notice with care the nature of the relations between Linnet and Andreas. At last they rose to go. Will saw Franz sedulously to the door of the supper-rooms. He wanted to make sure the man was really gone. Franz paused for a minute on the threshold of the steps, and gazed out with vague eyes on the slippery Strand. “Zat’s a fine woman,” he said, slowly; “a very fine woman. Andreas Hausberger took her from me. You saved his life zis night. But she’s mine by ze right, and some day I shall claim her!”

Will took Rue home; she dismissed Florian early. In the brougham, as they drove, for some time neither spoke of the subject that was nearest both their hearts; an indescribable shyness possessed and silenced them. At last, Will said, tentatively, in a very timid voice, striking off at a tangent, “She’s more beautiful than ever, and she sang to-night divinely. These years have done much for her, Rue. She returns to us still the same; and yet, oh, how altered!”

“Yes; she is beautiful,” Rue answered, in a very low tone – “more beautiful than ever. And such a perfect lady, too – so charming and so graceful, one can’t help loving her. I don’t wonder at you men, Will, when even we women feel it.”

They drove on for another minute or two, each musing silently. Then Will spoke again. “Do you think,” he inquired, in a very anxious voice, “she’s.. she’s happy with her husband?”

“No!” Rue answered, decisively. It was the short, sharp, extremely explosive “No” that closes a subject.

“I thought not, myself,” Will went on, with still greater constraint. “I was afraid she wasn’t. But.. I thought.. I might be prejudiced.”

Rue lifted her eyes, and met his, by the gloom of the gas-lamps. “She’s very unhappy with him,” she burst out all at once with a woman’s instinct. “She does not love him, and has never loved him. How could she – that block of ice – that lump of marble. She tries to do everything that’s right and good towards him, because he’s her husband, and she ought to behave so to him. She’s a good woman, I’m sure – a pure, good woman; her soul’s in her art, and she tries not to think too much of her unhappiness. But she loves somebody else best – and she knows she loves him. I saw it in her eyes, and I couldn’t be deceived about it.”

“You think so?” Will cried, eagerly. Her words were balm to him. Rue drew a deep sigh. “I don’t think it; I know it,” she answered, sadly.

“O Rue, how good you are,” Will murmured, with a feeling very much like remorse. “What other woman on earth but yourself would tell me so?”

Rue sighed a second time. “I saw it in her eyes,” she went on, looking hard at him still, “when first she noticed you; I saw it still more when that dreadful man Lindner came up into the box, and she waited trembling, to see what was going to happen. I watched her face; it was full of terror. But it wasn’t the loving terror of a woman who thinks the husband she adores is just about to be attacked; it was the mere physical terror of a shrinking soul at the sight of a crime, a quarrel, a scuffle. You saved that man’s life, Will; whether you know it or not, you saved it; for the other was a quarrelsome, revengeful fellow, who came there fully prepared, as Florian told us, to stab his rival. You saved his life; and when I looked at yourself, and Linnet standing by, I thought at the time what a bad turn you had done – ”

“For her?” Will suggested, in a very low tone.

“Oh no,” Rue answered aloud; “not for her alone, but for you as well – for you and her – for both of you.”

CHAPTER XXXII

WEDDED FELICITY

Signora Casalmonte scored a distinct success. She was the great dramatic and musical reality of that London season. All the world flocked to hear her; her voice made the fortune of the Harmony Theatre. She was invited everywhere – “You must have the Casalmonte,” Florian laid down the law in his dictatorial way to Belgravian hostesses – and Andreas Hausberger went always in charge, wherever she moved, to guard his splendid operatic property. And what care Andreas took of her! It was beautiful, beautiful! Unobservant people thought him a most devoted husband. He lingered always by the Signora’s side; he supplied wraps and shawls on the remotest threat of a coming chill; he watched what she ate and drank with the composite eye of a lynx and a physician; he guarded her health from the faintest suspicion of danger in any way. On off-nights, he would seldom allow her to dine out or attend evening parties; on Sundays, he took her down for change of scene and fresh air to the sea or the country. Ozone was his hobby. Every day, the prima donna drove out in the Park, and then walked for exercise a full hour in Kensington Gardens. Unobservant people set all this down to the account of the domestic affections; Will Deverill noticed rather that Andreas guarded his wife as a racing man guards the rising hope of his stables. Andreas was far too sensible a man of the world to run any needless risks with the throat of the woman who made his fortune. He had staked a great deal on her, and he meant to be repaid with compound interest.

As for London itself, it went wild about Linnet. ’Twas the Casalmonte here, the Casalmonte there; the diva will sing at Lady Smith’s to-night; the diva will go with Sir Thomas Brown and party to supper. Linnet’s head was half-turned with so much admiration; if she hadn’t been Linnet, indeed, it would have been turned altogether. But that simple childlike nature, though artistically developed and intellectually expanded, remained in emotion as straightforward and unaffected and confiding as ever. Still, that season did the best it knew to spoil her. She was queen of the situation. It rained choice flowers; diamond bracelets and painted fans showered down upon her plentifully. Linnet accepted all this homage, hardly realising its money worth; she was pleased if she gave pleasure; what others gave in return, she took as her right, quite simply and naturally. This charm of her simplicity surprised and delighted all who grew to know her; she had none of the affected airs and graces of the everyday great singer; she sang because she must; at heart she was, as always, the mountain-bred peasant-girl.

Will Deverill saw but little of her. ’Twas better so, he knew, and kinder so for Linnet. Once or twice that year, however, he supped after the theatre in the Strand with “the Hausbergers,” as he had learned to call them. On all these occasions, he noticed, Andreas watched his wife close. “One glass of champagne, Linnet; you remember, last time, when you dined at the Mowbrays’, you took two glasses, and you sang next day very much less well for it”; or else – “If I were you, Linnet, I wouldn’t touch that lobster. It disagreed with you once, and I noticed in the evening one or two of your high notes were decidedly not so clear or so sharp as usual.”

“But, Andreas,” Linnet answered, on one such occasion, “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt me. I must take something. I’ve hardly eaten a single mouthful yet, and to-night I’m so hungry.”

“It does you no harm to be hungry,” Andreas answered, philosophically. “Nobody ever reproached himself afterwards for having eaten too little. A taste of something to eat, after playing a trying part like Melinda, before you go to bed, helps you to sleep sound, and keeps you well and healthy; but a square meal at this hour can’t be good for anybody. It interferes with rest; and what interferes with rest, tells, of course, upon the voice – which is very serious. You may have a bit of that sweetbread, if you like – no; that’s a great deal too much; half that quantity, if you please, Mr Florian. Pull your woollen thing over your shoulder, so, Linnet; there’s a draught from that door! I can’t have you getting as hoarse as a frog to-night, with the Prince and Princess coming to hear you on Monday!”

“Why on earth does she stand it?” Florian asked of Will afterwards, as they walked home together down the unpeopled Strand. “I can’t make it out. There she’s earning Heaven only knows how much a night, and filling the treasury; yet she allows this fellow to bully her and badger her like this; to dictate to her how much she’s to eat and to drink; to make her whole life one perpetual torment to her. Why doesn’t she rise and strike for freedom, I wonder? He’d have to come to terms; she’s too useful to him, you see, for him to risk a quarrel with her.”

“She’s too good – that’s where it is,” Will responded, with a tinge of stifled sadness in his voice; “and, besides, she doesn’t care for him.”

“Of course she doesn’t,” Florian answered, airily. “How could she, indeed! – a mass of selfishness like him! – so mean, so sordid! But that only makes it all the stranger she should ever put up with it. If she doesn’t love him, why on earth does she permit him to dictate to her as he does – to order her and domineer over her?”

“Ah, that’s how it looks to you,” Will answered, with a sigh; “but Linnet – well, Linnet sees things otherwise. You must remember, Florian, above all things, she’s a Catholic. She doesn’t love that man, but she’s entered with him into the sacrament of marriage. To her, it has all a religious significance. The less she loves Andreas, the more does she feel she must honour and obey him, and be a good true wife to him. If she loved him, she might perhaps sometimes rebel a little; because she doesn’t love him, she has become a mere slave to do his bidding.”

“I suppose that’s it,” Florian answered, swinging his stick in his hand, and stepping along gingerly. “Drôle de croyance, isn’t it? Still, I call it disgraceful. An exquisite creature like that – a divinely-inspired singer, a supply-moulded form of Hellenic sculpture, whom the Gods above have given us as a precious gift for the common delight and the common enjoyment – to be thwarted and pulled up short at every twist and turn – and by whom, I’d like to know? Why, by a Tyrolese innkeeper – a mere village host – who arrogates to himself the right of monopolising what Heaven meant for us all – Ach! I call it detestable, just simply detestable. He hardly allows her enough to eat and drink. She might just as well be a sennerin on her hillside again, for any pleasure or delight she gets out of her success, tied and hampered as she is with this creature Hausberger.”

“That’s quite true,” Will replied. “She was happier in the Zillerthal. She has money, and fine dresses, and jewellery, and applause; but, for any good they can do her, she might as well be without them. Hausberger treats her as a mere machine for making money for him. He’s careful to see the machine works thoroughly well, and doesn’t get out of order – absurdly careful, in fact, for he’s by nature over-cautious; but as for allowing her to enjoy anything of what she earns herself, in any reasonable way – why, it never even occurs to him.”

“Do you think he’s unkind to her?” Florian asked, somewhat carelessly. “I mean, do you think he ill-treats her – keeps her short, and so forth?”

“He doesn’t actively ill-treat her, I’m sure,” Will answered with confidence; “he has far too great a sense of the value of her health to do anything to injure it. And I don’t suppose he even keeps her actually short; she’s always beautifully dressed, of course – that’s part of the advertisement; and he takes her about as much as he can, without risk to her voice, and lavishes a certain sort of wooden care upon her. But I don’t think he ever regards her as a human being at all; he regards her as a delicate musical instrument in which he has invested money, and out of which, during a given number of years, he has to recoup himself and make his fortune. As to sympathy between them, why, naturally, that’s quite out of the question; he’s a harsh, stern man who hardly knows how to be kind, I should say, to anyone.”

Florian brought down his stick on the pavement with a bang. “It’s atrocious,” he said, snorting; “I declare, quite atrocious. Here’s this exquisite creature – a banquet fit for the Gods – with her superb voice and her queenly beauty; a creature almost too ethereal for ordinary humanity to touch or handle; one that should be reserved by common consent for the delectation of the very pink and pick of the species” – and he drew himself up to his five feet nothing with a full consciousness of his own claim to be duly enrolled in that select category – “here’s this exquisite creature, who should be held in trust, as it were, for the noblest and truest and best of our kind – a Koh-i-noor among women – flung away upon a solid, stolid, three-per-cent. investing, money-grubbing, German-speaking beerhouse-keeper. Pah! It makes me sick! This Danae to a Satyr! How a Greek would have writhed at it!”

“And yet I thought,” Will murmured, reflectively, with a quiet little smile, “you considered her a cow-girl, and looked upon her as just fit for gentlemen to play skittles with!”

It took a great deal to abash Florian. He paused for a second, then he answered with warmth, “Now, there, Deverill! that’s just like you. You want me to be consistent! But the philosophic mind, as Herbert Spencer remarks, is always open to modification by circumstances. Consistency is the virtue of the Philistine intellect; it means, inability to march abreast with events, to readjust one’s ideas, one’s sympathies, one’s sentiments, to the ever-changing face of circumambient nature. When we saw Linnet first in the Tyrol, long ago, why, the girl was a cow-girl; a cow-girl she was, and a cow-girl I called her. I frankly recognised the facts of life as I found them – though I saw even then, with a voice like that, there was no perilous pinnacle of name or fame to which fate might not summon her. Now that she reappears in London once more, a flaming meteor of song, the cynosure of neighbouring eyes, a flashing diamond of the purest water, I recognise equally the altered facts. I allow that training, education, travel, the society of cultivated men and women, have practically made a brand-new Linnet of her. It’s that brand-new Linnet I admire and adore – that queen of the stage, not the Tyrolese cow-girl.”

Will turned sharp down Craven Street “And I,” he said, with a Parthian shot, “I admire and adore the real woman herself – the same Linnet still that we knew in the Zillerthal.”

Meanwhile, Andreas Hausberger, lighting a big cigar, had taken his wife down to a cab outside the supper-room.

“O Andreas!” Linnet cried, in German, “you’ve called a hansom. I can’t bear those things, you know. I wanted a four-wheeler.”

Andreas looked at her fixedly. “Get in!” he said, with curt decision. “Don’t stand and talk like that out here in the cold street, opening your throat in this foggy air after those over-heated rooms. It’s simply ridiculous. And mind you don’t knock your dress against that muddy wheel! Pick it up, I say! pick it up! You are so careless!”

“But, Andreas!” Linnet exclaimed, in an imploring tone, “I hate these hansoms so. Whenever I go in one, the horse invariably either kicks or jibs. I wish, just this once, you’d let me have a four-wheeler.”

She spoke almost coaxingly. Andreas turned to her with an angry German oath. “Didn’t I tell you to get in at once?” he cried. “Pull that thing over your shoulder. Don’t stand here chattering and catching cold all night. Jump in when I bid you. A pretty sort of thing, indeed, if you’re going to stop and discuss in a dress like that on an English evening upon these muddy pavements!” He helped her up the step, guarding her skirt with one hand, and jumped after her sulkily. “Avenue Road, St John’s Wood!” he called out through the flap to the attentive cabman. “Half-past twelve! Ach, donner-wetter! How late we’ve stayed! We’ll have to pay double fare! Have you got your purse with you?”

“Yes,” Linnet half sobbed out; “but I’ve hardly any money – not enough for the cab in it. You gave me half-a-sovereign, you know, and I paid for those gloves, and got a new bottle of that mixture at the chemist’s.”

“Only three shillings left!” Andreas exclaimed, opening the purse, and screwing his mouth up curiously. “Only three shillings left, out of a whole half-sovereign! So! London’s the dearest town for everything on earth I ever lived in. Only three shillings left! Well, that’s enough for the cab; it’s a one-and-sixpenny fare, and I rather think they double it at midnight.”

“Mayn’t I have sixpence over for trinkgeld?” Linnet ventured to inquire, in a timid voice. “When they go so far at this time of night, they always expect something.”