Linnet: A Romance

A beautiful gift! A real lady might have worn it! Later on, when Linnet had diamonds and rubies at command, there was no trinket she prized among all her jewels like Will Deverill’s coral.

At last the eventful morning itself arrived. The little troupe set out on foot down the mountain to Mairhofen. There, their boxes, sent on over-night, awaited them. They drove in a large open brake to Jenbach – Andreas Hausberger, Franz Lindner, Linnet herself, Philippina, and the two other singers who composed the party. At Jenbach, they descended at the door of the railway station. For the first time in her life, Linnet saw, half-alarmed, a puffing and snorting machine, a sort of iron devil, breathing flames like purgatory, burst with smoke and stench upon the crowd by the waiting-room. Though she had heard all about it often enough before, and could see for herself that this great scurrying creature, for all its noise and bustle, kept rigidly to the rails as it approached the platform, she yet drew back in pure physical terror and surprise at the swiftness and irresistibility of the fire-fiend’s motion.

She had scant time to think, however, for scarce had it come to rest when Andreas Hausberger, little heeding, bundled them all unceremoniously into a third-class compartment; and before Linnet had leisure to recover her self-possession, the engine had uttered one wild discordant shriek, and with ringing of bells and rattlings of wheels in her ears, she found herself, willy-nilly, beyond hope of release, whirled along at the break-neck pace of what you and I know as an Austrian slow train, over the jolting rails, up the broad Inn valley.

In spite of her terror – for she knew the railway as yet chiefly by hearing reports of collisions and accidents – Linnet enjoyed to the full that first steam-borne journey. She whirled past turreted towers like Hall and Volders, which to you and me commend themselves as the absolute quintessence of old-world quaintness, but which, to Linnet’s young eyes, accustomed only to St Valentin and the grassy Alps, envisaged themselves rather in glowing hues as the kingdoms of the world and all their glory. They had been late to start, and their drive from Mairhofen had been tolerably leisurely, so dusk was closing in when they arrived at Innsbruck. Oh, the bustle, the din, the whirling awe of that arrival! Electric lamps lighted up the broad Platz in front of the station; on either side rose great hotels, grander and more palatial than any buildings on earth Linnet’s poor little fancy had ever yet dreamed of. Not to one of these, however, of course, did Andreas Hausberger take his little troupe of minstrels. But even the humbler inn on the south side of the Theresien Strasse, to which they repaired on foot, bearing their boxes between them, seemed to Linnet’s inexperienced and impressionable eye a most princely caravanserai. After the noise and bustle in that busy railway junction, which made her brain whirl with the unaccustomed dizziness of a great city, the comparative rest and quiet of the Golden Eagle seemed a positive relief both of mind and body. That night she slept little. Her head swam with excitement; for this was the first step on her journey through the world, which might lead her perhaps at last to England. And in England, she thought to herself once or twice with a little thrill, who could tell but peradventure she might meet.. Will Deverill?

For she knew little as yet of how big the world is, and how long you may live in it, going to and fro, without necessarily knocking up against this one or that of its component units.

Next morning they rose betimes, and went out into the street to view the city. For to Linnet, as to Mrs Palmer, a city it was – and a very great one. Such streets and streets seemed to frighten and appal her. Florian had admired in that picturesque old capital of a mountain land, the antiquated tone, the eighteenth-century flavour, the mediæval survivals, the air as of a world elsewhere gone from us utterly. But to Linnet, though it was beautiful and impressive too, it was above all things magnificent, grandiose, stately, imposing. She gazed with open eyes at the Golden Roof, admired the bronze statues at the base of the Anna Column, looked up with silent awe at the front of the Landhaus, and thought the Rudolfsbrunnen, with its attendant griffins and dragons, a wonderful work of art for the world’s delectation.

Philippina went with her, her companion on the alp. Linnet noticed with much surprise – for she knew not as yet the difference in fibre between them – that Philippina, though as interested as herself in the shops and their contents, seemed wholly unimpressed by these other and vastly more attractive features of a civilised city. For Linnet had been gifted by nature, to the fullest degree, with the profound Tyrolese artistic susceptibility. Though her mind came to art as a blank page, it responded to the stimulus, once presented to its ken, as the sensitive plate of a photographic camera responds in every line to the inspiring picture.

As they strolled through the town, by Andreas Hausberger’s express desire – for the wise impresario had arranged their first appearance for that very evening, and wished the girls to come to it fresh, after a morning’s exercise – they paid comparatively little heed to what most of us regard as by far the most striking characteristic of Innsbruck – the great limestone crags that seem on every side to tower and overhang the very roofs of the city. They were accustomed, indeed, to crags, and made very small case of them. It was the houses, the shops, the noise, the crowd, the gaiety, that chiefly struck them. Innsbruck to Linnet was as a little Paris. But as they went on their way through the bustling streets, they came at last to a church door, which Linnet’s profound religious nature could hardly pass by without one minute’s prayer for Our Lady’s aid at this critical turning-point of her artistic history.

Philippina, nothing loth, for her part, opined it could do them no harm to make favour above with the blessed saints for this evening’s work by a little Pater Noster. The blessed saints dearly love attentions: much may be done with them by a small wax candle! So they opened the door, and stepped into the Hofkirche.

Even those of us who know well the world and its art, can remember vividly the strange start of surprise with which we gazed round for the first time on that oddest and most bizarre of Christian temples. It isn’t so much beautiful, indeed, as unexpected and startling. To push open the church door and find oneself at once ringed round and guarded close, as it were, by that great circle of mailed knights and bronze-wimpled ladies, who watch the long sleep of the kneeling Maximilian on his cenotaph in the centre, gives one a thrill of a novel sort from which some tinge of dim awe can hardly ever be wholly absent. There they stand, on their low pedestals, a congregation of bronze ancestors round their descendant’s tomb – Theodoric the Ostrogoth and King Arthur the Briton, Mary of Burgundy and Eleonora of Portugal – strange efforts of struggling art in its first faint steps towards the attainment of the beautiful – naïf, ungainly, crude, rising only once or twice within measurable distance of the ideal in the few figures cast in metal by Peter Vischer of Nuremberg. But to Linnet, a woman grown, instinct with the innate artistic taste of her countrymen, yet innocent till then of all forms of art save the saints and purgatories of her mountain chapels, the Hofkirche was a glimpse of some new and unseen world of infinite possibilities. She went through it all piecemeal with open-mouthed interest. Philippina could only laugh at the quaint vizors of the knights, the quainter dresses of the ladies. But Linnet was almost shocked Philippina should laugh at them. She herself half forgot her intended prayer to Our Lady in her delight and surprise at those wonderful figures and those beautiful bas-reliefs. She read all the names on the bases conscientiously; they didn’t mean much to her, to be sure – her historical ideas didn’t get as far as “Clovis, King of the Franks,” or even as “Count Frederick of Tyrol with the Empty Pockets”; but in a vague sort of way she gathered for herself that these were statues of archdukes and mighty heroes, keeping watch and ward silently round the great dead emperor who knelt in the centre on his marble sarcophagus. Good luck, too, attended them. The little hump-backed sacristan, seeing two pretty girls looking through the grating at the reliefs on its sides, relaxed his stony heart without the customary kreuzers, and admitted them within the railing to inspect at their leisure those exquisite pictures in marble which Thorwaldsen declared the most perfect work of their kind in the whole of Christendom. Philippina found the dresses quite grotesquely old-fashioned; but Linnet, hardly knowing why she lingered so long, gazed at each scene in detail with the profoundest interest.

While down in the town Linnet was thus engaged, high up in the hills Will Deverill sat alone by Mrs Palmer’s side on an outcrop of rock near the summit of the Lanser Kopf. Florian had gone off for a minute or two round the corner by the mountain indicator, with the giggling inarticulates. Mrs Palmer, pointing her moral with the ferrule of her parasol on the grass in front of her, was discoursing to Will earnestly of his work and his prospects. “I want to see you do something really great, Mr Deverill,” she said, with genuine fervour, looking deep into his eyes; “something larger in scale and more worthy of your genius – something that gives full scope to your dramatic element. I don’t like to see you frittering away your talents on these exquisite little lyrics – beautiful gems in their way, to be sure, but that way not the highest. I want to see you settled down for a long spell of hard work at some big undertaking – an epic, a play, a grand opera, a masterpiece. I know you could do it if only you took the time. You should go to some quiet place where there’s nothing to distract you, and make your mind up to work, to write something more lasting than even that lovely Gwyn, or that exquisite Ossian!”

Will looked down and sighed. ’Tis pleasant to be appreciated by a beautiful woman. And every man thinks, if he had but the chance, he could show the world yet the sort of stuff that’s in him. “I only wish I could,” he answered, regretfully. “But I’ve my living to earn. That ties me down still to the treadmill of journalism. When my holiday’s over – the first for two years – I must get back once more, well content, to Fleet Street and drudgery.”

Mrs Palmer sighed too. She felt his difficulty. Her parasol played more nervously on the grass than before. She answered nothing, but she thought a great deal. How small a matter for her to secure this young poet whom she admired so much, six months of leisure for an immortal work – and yet, how impossible! There was only one way, she knew that very well; and the first step towards that way must come, not from her, but from this modest Will Deverill.

’Twas a passing thought, half formed, or scarce half formed, in the pretty widow’s mind. But nothing came of it. As she paused, and sighed, and played trembling with her parasol, and doubted what to answer him, Florian came up once more with the giggling inarticulates, “Well, Mr Wood?” she said, looking up, just by way of saying something, for the pause was an awkward one.

“Pardon me,” the mannikin of culture answered in his impressive way; “my name is Florian.”

“But I can’t call you so,” Mrs Palmer answered, recovering herself, with a merry little laugh.

“It’s usual in Society,” Florian responded with truth. “Just ask Will Deverill.”

Will nodded assent. “Quite true,” he admitted. “Men and women alike in London know him only as Florian. It’s a sort of privilege he has, an attribute of his own. He’s arrogated it to himself, and the world at large acquiesces in his whim, and grants it.”

“It makes things seem so much more real and agreeable, you see, as Dick Swiveller said to the marchioness,” Florian continued blandly. “Now suppose we five form an elective family, a little brotherhood of our own, a freemasonry of culture, and call one another, like brothers and sisters, by our Christian names only! Wouldn’t that be delightful! I’ve just been explaining to Ethel and Eva that I mean henceforth to Ethel and Eva them. Soul gets nearer to soul without these flimsy barriers. I’m Florian; this is Will; and you, Mrs Palmer, your Christian name is – ?”

The pretty widow drew back with a little look of alarm. “Oh no,” she said, shortly; “I never could tell you my given name for anything. It’s much too dreadful.” She pulled out a pencil from the pocket at her side. “See here,” she said to Will, writing down one word for him on the silver-cased tablets that hung pendant from her delicate Oriental chatelaine, “there’s a name, if you like, for two Puritan parents to burden the life of their poor innocent child with! Don’t tell Mr Wood – or Florian if he wishes it; he’d make fun of it behind my back, I’m perfectly certain. I know his way. To him nothing, not even a woman’s name, is sacred.”

Will glanced at the word curiously. He couldn’t forbear a quiet smile. “It’s bad enough, I must admit,” he answered, perforce. The Vision of Beauty had been christened Jerusha!

“But I make it Rue for short,” she added, after a moment, with a deprecating smile.

Florian caught at the word, enraptured. “The very thing!” he cried, eagerly. “Capital, capital, capital! ‘There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-o’-grace o’ Sundays.’ But Rue shall be your weekday name for the Brotherhood. Let’s read the roll-call! Florian, Will, Rue, Ethel, Eva! Those are our names henceforth among ourselves. We scorn formalities! No mystery for us. We abolish the misters!”

And so indeed it was. As Will, Rue, and Florian, those three of the Elective House knew each other thereafter.

CHAPTER XIII

A FIRST NIGHT

’Twas with no little trepidation that Linnet arrayed herself that eventful night for her first appearance on this or any other public platform. When her hair was dressed and her costume complete, Philippina declared, with good-humoured admiration, she looked just lovely – for Philippina at least was never jealous of her. And Philippina was right: Linnet did look beautiful. She had tied her crossed kerchief very low about the neck, so as to leave her throat bare for the better display of Will Deverill’s corals. They became her admirably. Andreas Hausberger inspected his prima donna with well-satisfied eye. The wise impresario had heard, of course, where the necklet came from; but that didn’t in the least disturb his serenity. Will Deverill was gone, evaporated into space; and the coral at least was “good for trade,” inasmuch as it enhanced and set off to the utmost the nut-brown alp-girl’s almost gipsy-like beauty. For the sake of trade, Andreas could pardon much. And Will Deverill in England was no serious rival.

At eight o’clock sharp the concert was to begin at one of the big hotels. To the guests in the house it was just a matter of “some music, I hear, to-night – the usual thing, don’t you know – Tyrolese singers with a zither in the salon.” But to Linnet, oh, the difference! It was the most important musical event, the most momentous performance in the world’s history. She trembled like a child at the thought of standing forth and singing her simple mountain songs alone, in a fine-furnished room, before all those grand well-dressed and well-fed Britons. She would have given thousands (in kreuzers), if only she had them, to forego that ordeal. But Andreas Hausberger said “You must,” and she had to obey him. And the blessed Madonna, in Britannia metal, on an oval pendant, gave her courage for the trial.

By eight o’clock sharp, then, the troupe trooped in. Electric light, red velveted chairs, soft carpet on the floor, gilded mirrors by the mantelpiece and opposite console. So much grandeur and magnificence fairly took poor Linnet’s breath away. ’Twas with difficulty she faltered across the open space to a chair by the table which was placed at one end of the room for the use of the performers. Then she raised her eyes timidly – to know the worst. Some twenty-five people, more or less listless all of them, composed the audience. Some leaned back in their chairs and crossed their hands resignedly, as who expects to be bored, and makes up his mind betimes to bear his boredom patiently. Some read the latest Times or the Vienna papers, hardly deigning to look up as the performers entered. ’Twas a lugubrious function; more chilling reception prima donna never met with. Linnet clutched the blessed Madonna in her pocket convulsively. One breath of mild applause alone reached her ears. “Pretty girl,” one stout Briton observed aloud in his own tongue to his plentiful mate. Linnet looked down and blushed, for he was staring straight at her.

“Let’s sit it out, here,” Florian exclaimed in the smoking-room. The folding doors stood open, so that all might hear; but their group sat a little apart – Will, Rue, and he – in the farther corner, away from the draught, and out of sight of the musicians. “It’s more comfortable so – just the family by itself; and besides, I’ve a theory of my own that one should hear the zither through an open door; it mitigates and modifies the metallic twang of the instrument.”

Will and Rue were all acquiescence. Next to a tête-à-tête, a parti-à-trois is the pleasantest form of society. So they kept their seats still, in the rocking-chairs by the corner, and let the sound float idly in to them through the open portal.

Linnet waited, all trembling. Thank heaven, it wasn’t her part to begin. Franz Lindner came first with a solo on the zither. Bold, confident, defiant, with his hat stuck a little on one side of his head, and his feather in his band, turned Robbler-wise, wrong way, quite as jaunty as ever, Franz faced his audience as if his life had been passed in first-class hotels, and an Edison light had been the lamp of his childhood. Nothing daunted or disconcerted by the novelty of the circumstances, he played his piece through with a certain reckless brilliancy, wholly in keeping with the keynote of the Tyrolese character. Florian observed outside, with connoiseur complacency, that the fellow had brio. But the audience went on unmoved with its Times and its Tagblatt. The audience was chilling; Franz Lindner, accustomed to his own mercurial and magnetic fellow-countrymen, could hardly understand it. His self-love was mortified. He had expected a triumph, a sudden burst of wild applause; he received instead a faint clap of the hands from Ethel and Eva, and an encouraging nod from the mercantile gentleman of nonconformist exterior.

Franz sat down – a smouldering and seething volcano.

Then came Linnet’s turn. She rose, all tremulous, in her pretty costume, with her beautiful face and her shrinking timidity. Old gentlemen peeped askance over the edge of their papers at the good-looking girl; young ladies took stock of her abundant black hair and her dainty kerchief. “She’s going to sing,” Ethel whispered. “Isn’t she pretty, Eva? And just look, how very odd, she’s got a necklet exactly like the ones Mrs Palmer gave us!”

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