Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

The hostess rose from her chair and advanced a step to meet her guests. She touched the fingers of Mrs. Elstree. 'Very pleased, indeed,' she murmured, and turned to Armorel. 'My dear cousin' – she seized both her hands, and looked as well as spoke most motherly. 'My dear child, this is, indeed, a pleasure! And to think that we have known nothing about your very existence all the time! This is my daughter – my only daughter, Philippa.' Then she subsided into her chair, leaving Philippa to do the rest. 'We are cousins,' said Philippa, kindly but with cold and curious eyes. 'I hope we shall be friends.' Then she turned to the companion. 'Oh!' she cried, with a start of surprise. 'It is Zoe!'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Elstree, a quick smile on her lips. 'Formerly it was Zoe. How do you do, Philippa?' Her voice was naturally soft and sweet, a caressing voice, a voice of velvet. She glanced at Philippa as she spoke, and her eyes flashed with a light which hardly corresponded with the voice. 'I was wondering, as we came here, whether you would remember me. It is so long since we were at school together. How long, dear? Seven years? Eight years? You remember that summer at the seaside – where was it? One changes a good deal in seven years. Yet I thought, somehow, that you would remember me. You are looking very well, Philippa – still.'

A doubtful compliment, but conveyed in the softest manner, which should have removed any possible doubt. Armorel looked on with some astonishment. On Philippa's face there had risen a flaming spot. Something was going on below the surface. But Philippa laughed.

'Of course, I remember you very well,' she said.

'But, dear Philippa,' Mrs. Elstree went on, softly smiling and gently speaking, 'I am no longer Zoe. I am Mrs. Jerome Elstree – I am La Veuve Elstree. I am Armorel's companion.'

'I am sorry,' Philippa replied coldly. Her eyes belied her words. She was not sorry. She did not care whether good or evil had happened to this woman. She was too good a Christian to desire the latter, and not good enough to wish the former. What she had really hoped – whenever she thought of Zoe – was that she might never, never meet her again. And here she was, a guest in her own home, and companion to her own cousin!

Then Mr. Rosevean appeared, and welcomed the new cousin cordially. He seemed a cheerful, good-tempered kind of man, was sixty years of age, bald on the forehead, and of aspect like the conventional Colonel of Punch– in fact, he had been in the Army, and served through the Crimean war, which was quite enough for honour. He passed his time laboriously considering his investments – for he had great possessions – and making small collections which never came to anything. He also wrote letters to the papers, but these seldom appeared.

Then they went in to dinner. The conversation naturally turned at first upon Scilly, their common starting-point, and the illustrious family of the Roseveans.

'As soon as I heard about you, my dear young lady, I set to work to discover our exact relationship. My grandfather, Sir Jacob – you have heard of Sir Jacob Rosevean, Knight of Hanover? Yes; naturally – he was born in the year 1760. He was the younger brother of Captain Emanuel Rosevean, your great-grandfather, I believe.'

'My grandfathers were all named either Emanuel or Methusalem. They took turns.'

'Quite so,' Mr. Rosevean nodded his head in approbation. 'The preservation of the same Christian names gives dignity to the family. Anthony goes with Ashley: Emanuel or Methusalem with Rosevean. The survival of the Scripture name shows how the Puritanic spirit lingers yet in the good old stocks.' Philippa glanced at her mother, mindful of her own remarks on the old families of Scilly. 'We come of a very fine old family, cousin Armorel. I hope you have been brought up in becoming pride of birth. It is a possession which the world cannot give and the world cannot take away. We are a race of Vikings – conquering Vikings. The last of them was, perhaps, my grandfather, Sir Jacob, unless any of the later Roseveans – '

'I am afraid they can hardly be called Vikings,' said Armorel, simply.

'Sir Jacob – my grandfather – was cast, my dear young friend, in the heroic mould – the heroic mould. Nothing short of that. For the services which he rendered to the State at the moment of Britannia's greatest peril, he should have been raised to the House of Lords. But it was a time of giants – and he had to be contented with the simple recognition of a knighthood.'

'Jacob Rosevean' – who was it had told Armorel this – long before? And why did she now remember the words so clearly, 'ran away and went to sea. He could read and write and cipher a little, and so they made him clerk to the purser. Then he rose to be purser himself, and when he had made some money he left the service and became Contractor to the Fleet, and supplied stores of all kinds during the long war, and at last he became so rich that they were obliged to make him a Knight.'

'The simple recognition of a Knighthood,' Mr. Rosevean went on. 'This it is to live in an age of heroes.'

Armorel waited for further details. Later on, perhaps, some of the heroic achievements of the great Sir Jacob would be related. Meantime, every hero must make a beginning: why should not Jacob Rosevean begin as purser's clerk? It was pleasing to the girl to observe how large and generous a view her cousins took of the family greatness – never before had she known to what an illustrious stock she belonged. The smuggling, the wrecking, the piloting, the farming – these were all forgotten. A whole race of heroic ancestors had taken the place of the plain Roseveans whom Armorel knew. Well: if by the third generation of wealth and position one cannot evolve so simple a thing as an ancient family, what is the use of history, genealogy, heraldry, and imagination? The Roseveans were Vikings: they were the terror of the French coast: they went a-crusading with short-legged Robert: they were rovers of the Spanish Main: the great King of Spain trembled when he heard their name: they were buccaneers. Portraits of some of these ancestors hung on the wall: Sir Jacob himself, of course, was there; and Sir Jacob's great-grandfather, a Cavalier; and his grandfather, an Elizabethan worthy. Presumably, these portraits came from Samson Island. But Armorel had never heard of any family portraits, and she had grown up in shameful ignorance of these heroes. There was a coat-of-arms, too, with which she was not acquainted. Yet there were circumstances connected with the grant of that shield by the Sovereign – King Edward the First – which were highly creditable to the family. Armorel listened and marvelled. But her host evidently believed it all: and, indeed, it was his father, not himself, who had imagined these historic splendours.

'It is pleasing,' he said, 'to revive these memories between members of different branches. You, however, are fresh from the ancestral scenes. You are the heiress of the ancient island home: yours is the Hall of the Vikings: to you have been entrusted the relics of the past. I look upon you and seem to see again the Rovers putting forth to drag down the Spanish pride. There are noble memories, Armorel – I must call you Armorel – associated with that isle of Samson, our ancient family domain. Let us never forget them.'

The dinner came to an end at last, and the ladies went away.

Mrs. Elstree sat down in the most comfortable chair by the fire and was silent, leaning her face upon her hands and looking into the firelight. Mrs. Rosevean took a chair on the other side and fell asleep. Philippa and Armorel talked.

'I cannot understand,' said Philippa, bluntly, 'how such a girl as you could have come from Scilly. I have been reading a book about the place, and it says that the people are all poor, and that Samson, your island – our island – is quite a small place.'

'I will tell you if you like,' said Armorel, 'as much about myself as you please to hear.' The chief advantage of an autobiography – as you shall see, dear reader, if you will oblige me by reading mine, when it comes out – is the right of preserving silence upon certain points. Armorel, for example, said nothing at all about Roland Lee. Nor did she tell of the chagreen case with the rubies. But she did tell how she found the treasure of the sea-chest, and the cupboard, and how she took everything, except the punch-bowls and the silver ship and cups, to London, and how she gave them over to the lawyer to whom she had a letter. And she told how she was resolved to repair the deficiencies of her up-bringing, and how, for five long years, she had worked day and night.

'I think you are a very brave girl,' said Philippa. 'Most girls in your place would have been contented to sit down and enjoy their good fortune.'

'I was so very ignorant when I began. And – and one or two things had happened which made me ashamed of my ignorance.'

'Yet it was brave of you to work so hard.'

'At first,' said Armorel, 'when this good fortune came to me I was afraid, thinking of the Parable of the Rich Man.' Philippa started and looked astonished. In the circle of Dives this Parable is never mentioned. No one regardeth that Parable, which is generally believed to be a late interpolation. 'But when I came to think, I understood that it might be the gift of the Five Talents – a sacred trust.'

Philippa's eyes showed no comprehension of this language. Armorel, indeed, had learned long since that the Bryanite or Early Christian language is no longer used in society. But Philippa was her cousin. Perhaps, in the family, it would still pass current.

'I worked most at music. Shall I play to you?'

'Nothing, dear Philippa,' said Zoe, half-turning round, 'would please you so much as to hear Armorel play. You used to play a little yourself' – Philippa had been the pride and glory of the school for her playing – 'A little!' Had she lost her memory?

'Will you play this evening?'

'I brought her violin in the carriage,' said Zoe, softly. 'I wanted to give you as many delightful surprises as possible, Philippa. To find your cousin so beautiful: to hear her play: and to receive me again! This will be, indeed, an evening to remember.'

'I will play if you like,' said Armorel, simply. 'But perhaps you have made other arrangements.'

'No – no – you can play? But of course, you have had good masters. You shall play instead of me.'

Zoe murmured her satisfaction, and turned again her face to the fire.

'Tell me, Armorel,' said Philippa, 'all this about the Vikings – the Hall of the Vikings – the Rovers – and the rest of it. Was it familiar to you?'

'No; I have never heard of any Vikings or Rovers. And there is no Hall.'

'We are, I suppose, really an old family of Scilly?'

'We have lived in the same place for I know not how many years. One of the outlying rocks of Scilly is called Rosevean. Oh! there is no doubt about our antiquity. About the Crusaders, and all the rest of it, I know nothing. Perhaps because there was nobody to tell me.'

'I see,' said Philippa, thoughtfully. 'Well, it does no harm to believe these things. Perhaps some of them are true. Sir Jacob, certainly, cannot be denied; nor the Roseveans of Samson Island. My dear, I am very glad you came.'

CHAPTER II

THE SONATA

The room was full of people. It was the average sort of reception, where one always expects to meet men and women who have done something: men who write, paint, or compose; women who do the same, but not so well; women who play and sing; women who are æsthetic, and show their appreciation of art by wearing hideous dresses; women who recite: men and women who advocate all kinds of things – mostly cranks and cracks. There are, besides, the people who know the people who do things: and these, who are a talkative and appreciative folk, carry on the conversation. Thirdly, there are the people who do nothing, and know nobody, who go away and talk casually of having met this or that great man last night.

'Armorel,' said Philippa, 'let me introduce Dr. Bovey-Tracy. Perhaps you already know his works.'

'Unfortunately – not yet,' Armorel replied.

The Doctor was quite a young man, not more than two- or three-and-twenty. His degree was German, and his appearance, with long light hair and spectacles, was studiously German. If he could have Germanised his name as well as his appearance he would certainly have done so. As a pianist, a teacher of music, and a composer, the young Doctor is already beginning to be known. When Armorel confessed her ignorance, he gently spread his hands and smiled pity. 'If you will really play, Armorel, Dr. Bovey-Tracy will kindly accompany you.'

Armorel took her violin out of the case and began to tune it.

'What will you play?' asked the musician: 'Something serious? So?'

Armorel turned over a pile of music and selected a piece. It was the Sonata by Schumann in D minor for violin and pianoforte. 'Shall we play this?'

Philippa looked a little surprised. The choice was daring. The Herr Doctor smiled graciously: 'This is, indeed, serious,' he said.

I suppose that to begin your musical training with the performance of heys and hornpipes and country dances is not the modern scientific method. But he who learns to fiddle for sailors to dance may acquire a mastery over the instrument which the modern scientific method teaches much more slowly. Armorel began her musical training with a fiddle as obedient to her as the Slave of the Lamp to his master. And for five years she had been under masters playing every day, until —

The pianist sat down, held his outstretched fingers professionally over the keys, and struck a chord. Armorel raised her bow, and the sonata began.

I am told that there is now quite a fair percentage of educated people who really do understand music, can tell good playing from bad, and fine playing from its counterfeit. In the same way, there is a percentage – but not nearly so large – of people who know a good picture when they see it, and can appreciate correct drawing if they cannot understand fine colour. Out of the sixty or seventy people who filled this room, there were certainly twenty – but then it was an exceptionally good collection – who understood that a violinist born and trained was playing to them, in a style not often found outside St. James's Hall. And they marvelled while the music delivered its message – which is different for every soul. They sat or stood in silence, spellbound. Of the remaining fifty, thirty understood that a piece of classical music was going on: it had no voice or message for them: they did not comprehend one single phrase – the sonata might have been a sermon in the Bulgarian tongue: but they knew how to behave in the presence of Music, and they governed themselves accordingly. The Remnant – twenty in number – containing all the young men and most of the girls, understood that here was a really beautiful girl playing the fiddle for them. The young men murmured their admiration, and the girls whispered envious things – not necessarily spiteful, but certainly envious. What girl could resist envy at sight of that dress, with its lace, and that command of the violin, and – which every girl concedes last of all, and grudgingly – that face and figure?

Philippa stood beside the piano, rather pale. She knew, now, why her old schoolfellow had been so anxious that Armorel should play. Kind and thoughtful Zoe!

The playing of the first movement surprised her. Here was one who had, indeed, mastered her instrument. At the playing of the second, which is a scherzo, bright and lively, she acknowledged her mistress – not her rival. At the playing of the third, which contains a lovely, simple, innocent, and happy tune, her heart melted – never, never, could she so pour into her playing the soul of that melody: never could she so rise to the spirit of the musician and put into the music what even he himself had not imagined. But Zoe was wrong. Her soul was not filled with envy. Philippa had a larger soul.

It was finished. The twenty who understood gasped. The thirty who listened murmured thanks, and resumed their talk about something else. The twenty who neither listened nor understood went on talking without any comment at all.

'You have had excellent masters,' said the Doctor. 'You play very well indeed – not like an amateur. It is a pity that you cannot play in public.'

'You have made good use of your opportunities,' said Philippa. 'I have never heard an amateur play better. I play a little myself; but – '

'I said you would be pleased,' Zoe murmured softly at her side. 'I knew you would be pleased when you heard Armorel play.'

'You will play yourself, presently?' said the Herr Doctor.

'No; not this evening,' Philippa replied. 'Impossible – after Armorel.'

'Not this evening!' echoed Zoe, sweetly.

Then there came walking tall and erect through the crowd, which respectfully parted right and left to let him pass, a young man of striking and even distinguished appearance.

'Philippa,' he said, 'will you introduce me to your cousin?'

'Armorel, this is another cousin of mine – unfortunately not of yours – Mr. Alec Feilding.'

'I am very unfortunate, Miss Rosevean. I came too late to hear more than the end of the sonata. Normann-Néruda herself could not interpret that music better.' Then he saw Zoe, and greeted her as an old friend. 'Mrs. Elstree and I,' he said, 'have known each other a long time.'

'Fifty years, at least,' Zoe murmured. 'Is it not so long, Philippa?'

'Will you play something else?' he asked. 'The people are dying to hear you again.'

Armorel looked at Philippa. 'If you will,' she said kindly. 'If you are not tired. Play us, this time, something lighter. We cannot all appreciate Schumann.'

'Shall I give you a memory of Scilly?' she replied. 'That will be light enough.'

She played, in fact, that old ditty – one of those which she had been wont to play for the Ancient Lady – called 'Prince Rupert's March.' She played this with variations which that gallant Cavalier had never heard. It is a fine air, however, and lends itself to the phantasy of a musician. Then those who had understood the sonata laughed with condescension, as a philosopher laughs when he hears a simple story; and those who had pretended to understand pricked up their ears, thinking that this was another piece of classical music, and joyfully perceiving that they would understand it; and those who had made no pretence now listened with open mouths and ears as upright as those of any wild-ass of the desert. Music worth hearing, this. Armorel played for five or six minutes. Then she stopped and laid down her violin.

'I think I have played enough for one evening,' she said.

She left the piano and retired into the throng. A girl took her place. The Herr Doctor placed another piece of music before him, lifted his hands, held them suspended for a moment, and then struck a chord. This girl began to sing.

Mr. Alec Feilding followed Armorel and led her to a seat at the end of the room. Then he sat down beside her and, as soon as the song was finished, began to talk.

He began by talking about music, and the Masters in music. His talk was authoritative: he laid down opinions: he talked as if he was writing a book of instruction: and he talked as if the whole wide world was listening to him. But not quite so loudly as if that had been really the case.

He was a man of thirty or so, his features were perfectly regular, but his expression was rather wooden. His eyes were good, but rather too close together. His mouth was hidden by a huge moustache, curled and twisted and pointed forwards.

Armorel disliked his manner, and for some reason or other distrusted his face.

He left off laying down the law on music, and began to talk about things personal.

'I hope you like your new companion,' he said. 'She is an old friend of mine. I was in hopes of being able to advance her husband in his profession. But he died before I got the chance. Mr. Jagenal told me what was wanted, and I was happy in recommending Zoe – Mrs. Elstree.'

'Thank you,' said Armorel, coldly. 'I dare say we shall get to like each other in time.'

'If so, I shall rejoice in having been of some service to you as well as to her. What is her day at home?'

'I believe we are to be at home on Wednesdays.'

'As for me,' he said lightly, 'I am always at home in my studio. I am a triple slave – Miss Rosevean – as you may have heard. I am a slave of the brush, the pen, and the wastepaper-basket. If you will come with Mrs. Elstree to my studio I can show you one or two things that you might like to see.'

'Thank you,' she replied, without apparent interest in his studio. The young man was not accustomed to girls who showed no interest in him, and retired, chilled. Presently she heard his voice again. This time he was talking with Philippa. They were talking low in the doorway beside her, but she could not choose but hear.

'You recommended her – you?' said Philippa.

'Why not?'

'Do you know how – where – she has been living for the last seven years?'

'Certainly. She married an American. He died a year ago, leaving her rather badly off. Is there any reason, Philippa, why I should not recommend her? If there is I will speak to Mr. Jagenal.'

'No – no – no. There is no reason that I know of. Somebody told me she had gone on the stage. Who was it?'

'Gone on the stage? No – no: she was married to this American.'

'You have never spoken to me about her.'

'Reason enough, fair cousin. You do not like her.'

'And – you – do,' she replied slowly.

'I like all pretty women, Philippa. I respect one only.'

Then other people came and were introduced to Armorel. One does not leave in cold neglect a girl who is so beautiful and plays so wonderfully. None of them interested Armorel very much. At the beginning, when a girl first goes into society, she expects to be interested and excited at a general gathering. This expectation disappears, and the current coin of everybody's talk takes the place of interest.

Suddenly she caught a face which she knew. When a girl has been travelling about for five years she sees a great many faces. This was a face which she remembered perfectly well, yet could not at first place it in any scene or assign it to any date. Then she recollected. And she walked boldly across the room and stood before the owner of that face.

'You have forgotten me,' she said abruptly.

'I – I – can I ever have known you?' he asked.

'Will you shake hands, Mr. Stephenson? You were Dick Stephenson five years ago. Have you forgotten Armorel, of Samson Island in Scilly?'

No. He had not forgotten that young lady. But he would never have known her thus changed – thus dressed.

'Where is your friend Roland Lee?'

Dick Stephenson changed colour. 'I have not seen him for a long time. We are no longer – exactly – friends.'

'Why not?' she asked, with severity. 'Have you done anything bad? How have you offended him?'

'No, no; certainly not.' He coloured more deeply. 'I have done nothing bad at all,' he added with much indignation.

'Have you deserted him, then? I thought men never gave up their friends. Come to see me, Mr. Stephenson. You shall tell me where he is and what he is doing.'

In the press of the crowd, as they were going away, she heard Mr. Jagenal's voice.

'You are burning the candle at both ends, Alec,' he was saying. 'You cannot possibly go on painting, writing, editing your paper, riding in the Park, and going out every evening as you do now. No man's constitution can stand it, young gentleman. Curb your activity. Be wise in time.'

CHAPTER III

THE CLEVEREST MAN IN LONDON

Alec Feilding – everybody, even those who had never seen him, called him Alec – stood before the fire in his own den. In his hand he held a manuscript, which he was reading with great care, making dabs and dashes on it with a thick red pencil.

Sometimes he called the place his studio, sometimes his study. No other man in London, I believe, has so good a right to call his workshop by either name. No other man in London, certainly, is so well known both for pen and pencil. To be at once a poet, a novelist, an essayist, and a painter, and to do all these things well, if not splendidly, is given to few.

The room was large and lofty, as becomes a studio. A heavy curtain hung across the door: the carpet was thick: there was a great fireplace, as deep and broad as that of an old hall, the fire burning on bricks in the ancient style. Above the fireplace there was no modern overmantel, but dark panels of oak, carved in flowers and grapes, with a coat of arms – his own: he claimed descent from the noble House of Feilding: and in the centre panel his own portrait let into the wall without a frame – the work was executed by the most illustrious portrait-painter of the day – the face full of thought, the eyes charged with feeling, the features clear, regular, and classical. A beautiful portrait, with every point idealised. Three sides of the room were fitted with bookshelves, as becomes a study, and these were filled with books. The fourth side was partly hung with tapestry and partly adorned with armour and weapons. Here were also two small pictures, representing the illustrious Alec in childhood – the light of future genius already in his eyes – and in early manhood.