Читать книгу Doreen, The Story of a Singer - Ada Ellen Bayly - Страница 12

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"A smile that turns the sunny side o' the heart

On all the world, as if herself did win

By what she lavished on an open mart!

Let no man call the liberal sweetness sin,—

For friends may whisper as they stand apart,

'Methinks there's still some warmer place within.'"—E. Barrett Browning.

"Was I right?" said Max to his mother, as they drove that afternoon from Bernard Street. "Is she what I described to you?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Hereford. "I don't think you said a word too much in her praise. If success does not spoil her, I think she will be a very noble woman. And I don't think it will spoil her, for she seems too large-hearted for petty vanity."

"I wish she need never take up this hateful profession," said Max, with a sigh. "Think of the mixed lot of people she will be forced to associate with; some of them no better than they should be."

"You might say just the same of Miriam, in her society life," said his mother. "I don't see that it is more objectionable to sing with a bad man than to dance with him: the tares and the wheat are together, and we have not the separating of them. Doreen seems to me the sort of girl who would pass unscathed through the most difficult life. 'Mailed complete in her white innocence,' as Whittier puts it. By innocence I don't mean ignorance, but a nature without guile,—a nature that will neither harm nor be harmed."

"Yet the fate of her nation seems to be upon her," said Max. "Think of the troubles that have from her very childhood persistently beset her! Do you remember the account she gave us of her father's arrest?"

"Yes, poor child; and for all her brightness you can easily see that the shock of last January has, in a sense, ended her girlhood. Though so much younger than Miriam, she has already about her an almost motherly tenderness which I doubt whether Miriam will ever gain."

"You are always a little hard on Miriam," said Max, laughing; "but we should fare very ill without her. She is quite unique, you must admit, and, like Phyllis in the song, 'never fails to please.'"

Mrs. Hereford did not reply; for in truth her niece was a sore perplexity to her, and she had for the last three years lived in terror lest Max should fall in love with her,—a possible, but highly undesirable, ending to the cousinly friendship and intimacy which had so long existed between them. She ardently longed to see Miriam satisfactorily married and settled, but the girl seemed in no haste to comply with this wish; she flirted and amused herself, and used Max as a convenient cavalière servente, when no one more desirable was to be had. It was, perhaps, natural that Mrs. Hereford, in her terror of what this might lead to, and her desire to rescue her son from a position which chafed her motherly pride, should turn with relief to such a woman as Doreen O'Ryan. She had immediately learnt, from her son's way of talking about the girl, that he greatly admired her, and she was too unworldly and unconventional to care in the least for wealth or social standing. Doreen was good, loving, well bred, well educated. What did it matter that her father had been on the staff of a rebel paper, and had been imprisoned at the time of the Fenian rising? The important thing was that this sweet-voiced, sweet-natured Irish girl would be far, far more likely to make Max a good wife, than Miriam, with her restless craving for incessant amusement and incessant admiration.

She left the choice of seats for the concert to Max, and was secretly amused at his chagrin when he returned.

"Nothing to be had in the stalls till the tenth row," he said; "however, it is the right side, so perhaps after all it is not so bad. Are there any decent flowers in the conservatory that we could send Miss O'Ryan?"

"Plenty of lilies-of-the-valley, if they will do," said Mrs. Hereford. "You had better let Harding arrange them for you; she made two lovely sprays for Miriam the other night."

But this did not suit Max at all. His mother learnt from the maid that he had insisted on arranging the flowers himself, and the result seemed satisfactory; for when, on the eventful night, they called for Doreen, the white lilies in her dark hair, skilfully arranged by Mrs. Muchmore's clever fingers, looked really charming.

"The rest of them I have here," she said, throwing back her cloak, and showing the lilies nestled against her snowy neck.

"And there is the real, original, 'Colleen Bawn' cloak," said Max; "now I can imagine myself once more at Castle Karey."

"Well, not exactly the original one," said Doreen, laughing; "that has been cut up for Mollie. You seem to forget that I have grown since we were in Ireland."

Presently a silence fell upon them. Mrs. Hereford guessed that the girl was somewhat nervous; yet there were no signs of special excitement about her face, when now and then it became clearly visible, as the light from a street lamp flashed across it. "It is a noble face," thought Mrs. Hereford; and, in truth, that was the first impression that Doreen usually made upon people. Later on they would describe her as charming and winsome; but the first thought was invariably of a certain indefinable air of goodness, a loftiness of soul, which invested the face with a strange power.

"This must be a great day for you," said Mrs. Hereford, guessing a little what was passing in the girl's mind.

"Do you know," said Doreen, "it feels to me like my confirmation day; and I am so glad that what may be counted as my first real appearance in public is to be in the 'Messiah.' How I have dreamed of attempting it, and longed to try!"

"I suppose you do not come in just at first?" said Max; "doesn't the soprano always have an effective little entrance all to herself just before the pastoral symphony?"

"Yes," said Doreen, "disturbing the first violins, and making an unnecessary fuss. I don't mean to do that, but shall come in at the beginning with the others; it seems to me in better taste, especially for a novice."

With a little shudder she saw that they were fast approaching their destination,—there upon one side was the Albert Memorial, while in advance she could see the lights in the great hall, and the throng of carriages.

"There goes Madame St. Pierre!" she exclaimed, as they paused while the brougham in advance of them set down its occupants. "That is fortunate; now I can go to the artistes' room under her wing."

For a moment her hand rested in Max Hereford's as he helped her to alight; then with hasty farewells she ran up the steps, pushed open the swing door before he could forestall her, and hurried away in pursuit of the retreating contralto. Max, feeling baffled and unaccountably miserable, returned to the carriage.

"Stalls' entrance!" he said sharply to the coachman as he closed the door.

"Well, she seems in good spirits," said Mrs. Hereford; "it is a terrible ordeal for a girl of that age."

"Yes," said Max grimly; "but her whole heart is in her work. She is, in every sense of the word, an artiste."

"True artiste, yet true woman," said Mrs. Hereford quietly; and the words came back to Max comfortingly as he sat in the vast hall, listening to that somewhat stirring process of the tuning of a great orchestra, and watching the chorus as they assembled, yet never letting his eyes roam far from that particular little opening whence he knew the solo singers would shortly emerge.

But first of all came the conductor, with evident intention of making a speech. A thrill of disapprobation ran through the assembly; for was not Clinton Cleve, the great tenor, to sing that evening, and had he not, owing to his terribly susceptible throat, a most trying habit of disappointing people at the last moment? There was perfect silence for a minute, and the conductor, to the general relief, announced that, owing to the indisposition of Miss Latouche, the soprano solos had been undertaken, at very short notice, by Miss Doreen O'Ryan. The people clapped, not because they cared at all for this unknown débutante, but because they were intensely relieved that it was the soprano and not the tenor who had failed. In another minute, there was a burst of applause, as the bass appeared, leading Madame St. Pierre, followed by loud cheers as the beloved tenor, the idol of the public, emerged from the back of the platform, graciously ushering in the white-robed débutante, and making her smile by a low-toned injunction to remember the words spoken to Fanny Kemble, and to regard the audience as so many rows of cabbages. Fortunately for Doreen, the very size of the vast assembly was in her favour; the place seemed vague and dream-like, the huge gathering, just an impersonal mass, gorgeously coloured like some brilliant and crowded flower-garden. Then, when Clinton Cleve had sung, as no other tenor could sing, "Comfort ye," and "Every Valley," she no longer thought of success or failure, of criticism or of the children's daily bread, but lost everything in the perfect enjoyment of the music, and in the strong desire to tell forth her divine message in the most perfect manner possible. In the last chorus before her trying recitatives, she sang a few bars, gaining confidence as her voice blended with the others, and falling more and more into the spirit of the oratorio, as with her heart and soul she sang of "The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

All nervousness had now left her; it was Max who was nervous, as he sat there in the stalls, watching the absorbed, sweet face of the girl he loved. Had she, indeed, forgotten this great assembly of critical people? It seemed like it, for she looked as happy and peaceful as though she had been listening to the angels' music on the far-away, quiet hillside near Bethlehem. And when the violins ceased, she stood up with a simple, straightforward, almost childlike air, her clear, reedy voice sounding softly through the great hall, as she told how "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night." Max lost all fear for her, as she delivered the message of the angel; he lost that shrinking from the thought of the solitary girl standing up in the huge building, for it was no longer possible to doubt that Doreen had found her true vocation. He wondered that he had wished it to be otherwise, so great a thing did it seem to him that she should be able to keep thousands spell-bound, to raise them, if but for a time, into such divine enjoyment. It was not until the end of her most trying solo, "Rejoice Greatly,"—a song which taxed her strength very severely,—that she could receive any recognition from the audience; but then, just as she became conscious of her excessive exhaustion, there came a stimulating burst of applause. This was renewed so vigorously and persistently after "Come unto Him all ye that labour," that it became really necessary to repeat the song, and there were tears in many eyes as the exquisite air, all the better loved because so familiar to every one, fell once more upon the listening throng in that wooingly sweet voice. In the interval, she realized that her career had begun most auspiciously, for every one spoke to her with the greatest kindness. Clinton Cleve laid a fatherly hand on her shoulder, genuine pleasure lighting up his rugged old face, as he looked down at her.

"You did very well,—very well indeed," he said. "I like your style, and the timbre of your voice is sympathetic. Would to heaven that I were at your age, with my career just beginning!"

He patted her cheek as though she had been a child, and turned away with a sigh, wandering off in search of a mirror, that he might see whether his wig was well adjusted. Doreen was next accosted by the conductor, who, at the rehearsal on the previous day, had been somewhat brusque with her, but was now full of compliments and congratulations; and then Madame St. Pierre came up to introduce her husband, the well-known harpist.

"We have a little project to suggest to you," she said. "Monsieur St. Pierre and I intended to get up a company this autumn for a provincial tour. Mr. Freen tells me you have at present no engagements for the autumn, and I am quite willing to accede to the terms he requires for you. Possibly we may have Madame Gauthier, the pianist; but there will be no other lady in the party, and you would find her rather a pleasant travelling-companion; we hope to induce Ferrier, the celebrated bass, to be one of the party."

Doreen could only thankfully accept a proposal which would, as she well knew, do much to give her an assured position in the musical world; and when, at length, her work for that evening was over, and she found Max Hereford waiting outside the door to help her into the brougham, her face was radiant.

"My dear, how tired you must be," was Mrs. Hereford's motherly greeting, as she made room for the girl beside her. "You have, indeed, given us a treat to-night."

"They were all so kind to me afterwards," said Doreen. "And, oh, it is a wonderful oratorio to sing in! I am so glad my first appearance was in that, for it is the Irish Oratorio, you know."

"How is that?" said Max.

"Handel was very fond of the Irish," she replied, "and the 'Messiah' was first performed in Dublin, and the proceeds were given to the distressed prisoners' fund. Many of those who were in gaol for debt were really freed by it. I kept on thinking of that to-night: it was the performance, you know, when all the great ladies agreed to leave off their hoops, that there might be more room."

"What did it feel like to have that huge audience applauding you so heartily?" said Max.

"It felt lovely," she said, with the utmost frankness; "as refreshing as ice-cream soda on a hot day in New York."

They laughed at her simile; but a passing gas-lamp revealed to her the same look on Max Hereford's face that had startled her when she spoke of Brian Osmond, the doctor, a few days before.

"You said you grudged me to the aldermen, and I believe you had the same feeling to-night," she said, smiling. "And that is very unfair, since you yourself were among the audience. Or is it that you grudge me the applause? That is even more unfair. You see the short-lived triumph, but you don't at all realize the years of study and preparation, the scales and the exercises and the monotony of hard work, to say nothing of the anxiety."

Max wondered how she had discovered from his manner that vague discomfort which he could not at all justify.

"Every one must have realized to-night that you had found your vocation," he said, "and to-morrow I shall seize the opportunity of laying trophies at your feet in the shape of the daily papers."

"Ah! the critics! I had forgot that they were there taking notes to-night. How I dread them! It is horrible to think how much depends on a few lines in a paper. And if the writer happens to be in a bad temper or to have the toothache, ten to one he will visit his discomfort on others, and put in words of carping criticism that may ruin a singer's reputation."

"Somehow, I don't think they will be hard on you," said Max. "If they are, you must follow the example of Vaughan the novelist. I met him at the club the other day, and the talk happened to turn on a most ruffianly attack made upon him lately in the 'Hour.' Now I happened to know who had written it, and said so. 'Don't tell me his name,' said Vaughan, with that quietly humorous smile of his; 'I prefer to picture him as a poor, struggling, penny-a-liner, working in a garret, soured by lack of success and desperately hungry. With the proceeds of that critique, he went out and had a rattling good dinner, and upon my word I am glad to have furnished him with a meal.'"

"Was the critic really poor and half-starved?" said Doreen.

"No, nothing of the sort; just a conceited young jackanapes fresh from Oxford, and much spoiled by the flattery of his home circle; a fastidious, narrow-minded prig, who, if he lives to be a hundred, will never do as much for the world as Vaughan has already done."

"And the moral of that is, 'A fig for the critics,'" said Doreen, laughing. "But all the same, I shall want to see what they say, and I don't at all want to share the fate of Kingsley's 'Feckless hairy oubit,' when 'The saumon fry they all arose and made their meals of him.'"

The talk turned upon the arrangements for sending the children to Firdale, and Doreen, tired but very happy, was set down in Bernard Street, where every one but Hagar Muchmore had retired to bed.

"Cold and hungry, ain't you," said the kindly nurse; "come and sit you down by the fire, and eat this basin of mock turtle. 'Twill hearten you up nicely."

Doreen, dreamily happy and content, took the proffered chair, and held out her dainty white-shod feet to the fire.

"Please take the lilies out of my hair," she said. "I want to keep them. Oh, Hagar! it has been a wonderful evening; I wish it were just beginning over again instead of all being over."

"Bless your heart!" said Hagar, almost tenderly; "you're young,—yes, very young."

But it was not the applause, or the sense of triumph, or even the recollection of the music, which lingered in Doreen's memory so deliciously. It was the close pressure of Max Hereford's hand as he bade her farewell on the doorstep, and the glance which had said so plainly, "I belong to you, and you to me."

All night long she seemed to dream of him, and it was with no surprise that soon after twelve the next morning, as she was practising in the drawing-room, she heard his name announced. He came in looking unusually blithe and contented, some half-dozen newspapers in his hand.

"Here are the trophies," he said, when she had replied to his inquiries, and had persuaded him that she was none the worse for the fatigue of the previous night. "Oh yes, you need not be afraid; you can read them without calling up that picture of the hungry scribe in the attic, for they are one and all agreed about you."

"And prophesy the great career, no doubt," said Doreen, laughing merrily as she glanced through the critiques. "Well, they are very kind to me,—quite wonderfully kind. Such praise makes one inclined to quote Dr. Watts, and sing, 'Not more than others I deserve.' And yet do you know last night when it was all over, and I went up to look at the children in bed, and found them sleeping so peacefully, and was so happy to know that their education and bringing up was now quite safe, I couldn't help feeling that I should be very, very sorry if Mollie or Bride had to be professional singers. I don't think I could bear to think of it for them."

"Now you understand me," said Max, triumphantly; "now you realize that grudging feeling of which you accused me."

"But to be a singer is my vocation," said Doreen, musingly; "I am as certain of that as that we are talking together at this moment. I couldn't be a painter, or a governess, or a do-nothing sort of person, or a nun. Even before the Castle Karey days I knew quite well that I had to be a singer."

"Yet you own that you would not wish one you love to take up the work?"

"If it were their vocation, they would be obliged to take it up, but I hope it will not be their special work. I would so much rather they could just be quietly at home."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I see now that the life of any artiste must be a double life, and that it must be very, very difficult to make both the lives what they should be. It is bad enough to face it for oneself, and a great deal worse to think of my sweet Mollie having to play so hard a part."

Max seemed about to speak, but something in his look made her hurriedly proceed, as though she were anxious to check him.

"But it is ungrateful to speak thus of the life, when all the time I know there will be much that is enjoyable about it, and that it is my clear duty to live it. And now, as to the children's journey to Firdale. I am the worst hand in the world at Bradshaw, but auntie assures me that the 2.45 is the best train, and that they won't have any change."

Max found himself remorselessly plunged into the dreary discussion of practical details, and knew that it would now be impossible to say what had been trembling on his lips but a minute ago. However, he consoled himself by the remembrance that Doreen would soon be at Firdale herself, and that it would be hard indeed if the fir woods, the lake, or the ivy-grown ruins of the Priory would not afford him place and opportunity to open his heart to her.