'I think you couldn't do better,' Mrs. Carnaby replied to the last question; 'provided that'
She paused intentionally, with an air of soft solicitude, of bland wisdom.
'That's just what I wanted,' said Alma eagerly. 'Advise metell me just what you think.'
'You want to live alone, and to have done with all the silly conventionalities and proprietiesour old friend Mrs. Grundy, in fact.'
'That's it! You understand me perfectly, as you always do.'
'If it had been possible, we would have lived together.'
'Ah! how delightful! Don't speak of what can't be.'
'I was going to say,' pursued Sibyl thoughtfully, 'that you will meet with all sorts of little troubles and worries, which you have never had any experience of. For one thing, you know'she leaned back, smiling, at ease'people won't behave to you quite as you have been accustomed to expect. Money is very important even to a man; but to a woman it means more than you can imagine.'
'Oh, but I shan't be living among the kind of people'
'No, no. Perhaps you don't quite understand me yet. It isn't the people you seek who matter, but the people that will seek you; and some of them will have very strange ideasvery strange indeed.'
Alma looked self-conscious, kept her eyes down, and at length nodded.
'Yes. I think I understand.'
'That's why I said "provided". You are not the ordinary girl, and you won't imagine that I feared for you; I know you too well. It's a question of being informed and on one's guard. I don't think there's anyone else who would talk to you like this. It doesn't offend you?'
'Sibyl!'
'Well, then, that's all right. Go into the world by all means, but go preparedarmed; the word isn't a bit too strong, as I know perfectly. Some day, perhapsbut there's no need to talk about such things now.'
Alma kept a short silence, breaking it at length with note of exultation.
'I'm quite decided now. I wanted just to hear what you would say. I shan't wait a day longer than I can help. The old life is over for me. If only it had come about in some other way, I should be singing with rapture. I'm going to begin to live!'
She quivered with intensity of feeling, or with that excitement of the nerves which simulates intense feeling in certain natures. A flush stole to her cheek; her eyes were once more full of light. Sibyl regarded her observantly and with admiration.
'You never thought of the stage, Alma?'
'The stage? Acting?'
'No; I see you never did. And it wouldn't doof course it wouldn't do. Something in your lookit just crossed my mindbut of course you have much greater things before you. It means hard work, and I'm only afraid you'll work yourself all but to death.'
'I shouldn't wonder,' replied the girl, with a little laugh of pride in this possibility.
'Well, I too am going away, you know.'
Alma's countenance fell, shame again crept over it, and she murmured, 'O Sibyl!'
'Don't distress yourself the least on my account. That's an understood thing; no mention, no allusion, ever between us. And the truth is that my position is just a little like yours: on the whole, I'm rather glad. Hugh wants desperately to get to the other end of the world, and I dare say it's the best thing I could do to go with him. No roughing it, of course; that isn't in my way.'
'I should think not, indeed!'
'Oh, I may rise to those heights, who knows! If the new sensation ever seemed worth the trouble.In a year or two, we shall meet and compare notes. Don't expect long descriptive letters; I don't care to do indifferently what other people have done well and put into printit's a waste of energy. But you are sure to have far more interesting and original things to tell about; it will read so piquantly, I'm sure, at Honolulu.'
They drank tea together, and talked, in all, for a couple of hours. When she rose to leave, Alma, but for her sombre drapings, was totally changed from the limp, woebegone, shrinking girl who had at first presented herself.
'There's no one else,' she said, 'who would have behaved to me so kindly and so nobly.'
'Nonsense! But that's nonsense, too. Let us admire each other; it does us good, and is so very pleasant.'
'I shall say goodbye to no one but you. Let people think and say of me what they like; I don't care a snap of the fingers. In deed, I hate people.'
'Both sexes impartially?'
It was a peculiarity of their intimate converse that they never talked of men, and a jest of this kind had novelty sufficient to affect Alma with a slight confusion.
'Impartiallyquite,' she answered.
'Do make an exception in favour of Hugh's friend, Mr. Rolfe. I abandon all the rest.'
Alma betrayed surprise.
'Strange! I really thought you didn't much like Mr. Rolfe,' she said, without any show of embarrassment.
'I didn't when I first knew him; but he grows upon one. I think him interesting; he isn't quite easy to understand.'
'Indeed he isn't.'
They smiled with the confidence of women fancy-free, and said no more on the subject.
Carnaby came home to dinner brisk and cheerful; he felt better than for many a day. Brightly responsive, Sibyl welcomed his appearance in the drawing-room.
'Saw old Rolfe for a minute at the club. In a vile temper. I wonder whether he really has lost money, and won't confess? Yet I don't think so. Queer old stick.'
'By-the-bye, what is his age?' asked Alma unconcernedly.
'Thirty-seven or eight. But I always think of him as fifty.'
'I suppose he'll never marry?'
'Rolfe? Good heavens, no! Too much sensehang it, you know what I mean! It would never suit him. Can't imagine such a thing. He gets more and more booky. Has his open-air moods, too, and amuses me with his Jingoism. So different from his old ways of talking; but I didn't care much about him in those days. Well, now, look here, I've had a talk with a man I know, about Honolulu, and I've got all sorts of things to tell you.Dinner? Very glad; I'm precious hungry.'
CHAPTER 7
About the middle of December, Alma Frothingham left England, burning with a fever of impatience, resenting all inquiry and counsel, making pretence of settled plans, really indifferent to everything but the prospect of emancipation. The disaster that had befallen her life, the dishonour darkening upon her name, seemed for the moment merely a price paid for liberty. The shock of sorrow and dismay had broken innumerable bonds, overthrown all manner of obstacles to growth of character, of power. She gloried in a new, intoxicating sense of irresponsibility. She saw the ideal life in a release from all duty and obligationsave to herself.
Travellers on that winter day from Antwerp into Germany noticed the English girl, well dressed, and of attractive features, whose excited countenance and restless manner told of a journey in haste, with something most important, and assuredly not disagreeable, at the end of it. She was alone, and evidently quite able to take care of herself. Unlike the representative English Fraulein, she did not reject friendly overtures from strangers; her German was lame, but she spoke it with enjoyment, laughing at her stumbles and mistakes. With her in the railway carriage she kept a violin-case. A professional musician? 'Noch nicht' was her answer, with a laugh. She knew Leipzig? Oh dear, yes, and many other parts of Germany; had travelled a good deal; was an entirely free and independent person, quite without national prejudice, indeed without prejudice of any kind. And in the same breath she spoke slightingly, if not contemptuously, of England and everything English.
At Leipzig she stayed until the end of April, living with a family named Gassner, people whom she had known for some years. Only on condition that she would take up her abode with this household had Mrs. Frothingham consented to make her an allowance and let her go abroad. Alma fretted at the restriction; she wished to have a room of her own in a lodging-house; but the family life improved her command of Germansomething gained. To music, meanwhile, she gave very little attention, putting off with one excuse after another the beginning of her serious studies. She seemed to have quite forgotten that music was her 'religion', and, for the matter of that, appeared to have no religion at all. 'Life' was her interest, her study. She made acquaintances, attended concerts and the theatre, read multitudes of French and German novels. But her habits were economical. All the pleasures she desired could be enjoyed at very small expense, and she found her stepmother's remittances more than sufficient.
In April she gained Mrs. Frothingham's consent to her removal from Leipzig to Munich. A German girl with whom she had made friends was going to Munich to study art. For reasons, vague even to herself (so ran her letters to Mrs. Frothingham), she could not 'settle' at Leipzig. The climate did not seem to suit her. She had suffered from bad colds, and, in short, was doing no good. At Munich lived an admirable violinist, a friend of Herr Wilenski's, who would be of great use to her. 'In short, dear Mamma, doesn't it seem to you rather humiliating that at the age of four-and-twenty I should be begging for permission to go here and there, do this or that? I know all your anxieties about me, and I am very grateful, and I feel ashamed to be living at your expense, but really I must go about making a career for myself in my own way.' Mrs. Frothingham yielded, and Alma took lodgings in Munich together with her German friend.
English newspapers were now reporting the trial of the directors of the Britannia Company, for to this pass had things come. The revelations of the law-court satisfied public curiosity, and excited indignant clamour. Alma read, and tried to view the proceedings as one for whom they had no personal concern; but her sky darkened, her heart grew heavy. The name of Bennet Frothingham stood for criminal recklessness, for huge rascality; it would be so for years to come. She had no courage to take up her violin; the sound of music grew hateful to her, as if mocking at her ruined ambition.
Three months had passed since she received her one and only letter from Honolulu; two months since she had written to Sibyl. On a blue day of spring, when despondency lowered upon her, and all occupation, all amusements seemed a burden, she was driven to address her friend on the other side of the world, to send a cry of pain and hopelessness to the dream-island of the Pacific.
'What is the use of working at music? The simple truth is, that since I left England I have given it up. I am living here on false pretences; I shall never care to play the violin again. What sort of a reception could I expect from an English audience? If I took another name, of course it would get known who I was, and people would just come to stare at mepleasant thought! And I have utterly lost confidence in myself. The difficulties are great, even where there is great talent, and I feel I have nothing of the kind. I might toil for years, and should do no good. I feel I am not an artistI am beaten and disgraced. There's nothing left but to cry and be miserable, like any other girl who has lost her money, her hopes, everything. Why don't you write to me? If you wait till you get this, it will be six or seven weeks before I could possibly hear. And a letter from you would do me so much good.'
Some one knocked at her door. She called 'Herein!' and there appeared a little boy, the child of her landlady, who sometimes ran errands for her. He said that a gentleman was asking to see her.
'Ein Deutscher?'
'Nein. Ein Englander, glaub'ich, und ein schnurriges Deutsch ist's, das er verbricht!'
Alma started up, shut her unfinished letter in the blotting-case, and looked anxiously about the room.
'What is his name? Ask him to give you his name.'
The youngster came back with a card, and Alma was astonished to read the name of 'Mr. Felix Dymes'. Why, she had all but forgotten the man's existence. How came he here? What right had he to call? And yet she was gladnay, delighted. Happily, she had the sitting-room (shared with her art-studying friend) to herself this morning.
'Bring him up here,' she said to the boy hurriedly, 'and ask him to wait a minute for me.'
And she escaped to make a rapid change of dress. For Alma was not like Sibyl Carnaby in perpetual regard for personal finish; she dressed carelessly, save when the occasion demanded pains; she liked the ease of gowns and slippers, of loose hair and free throat; and this taste had grown upon her during the past months. But she did not keep Mr. Dymes waiting very long, and on her entrance he gazed at her with very frank admiration. Frank, too, was his greetingthat of a very old and intimate friend, rather than of a drawing-room acquaintance. He came straight from England, he said; a spring holiday, warranted by the success of his song 'Margot', which the tenor, Topham, had sung at St James's Hall. A few days ago he had happened to see Miss Leach, who gave him Miss Frothingham's address, and he could not deny himself the pleasure of calling. Chatting thus, he made himself comfortable in a chair, and Alma sat over against him. The man was loud, conceited, vulgar; but, after all, he composed very sweet music, which promised to take the public ear; and he brought with him a waft from the happiness of old days; and how could one expect small proprieties of a bohemian, an artist? Alma began to talk eagerly, joyously.
'And what are you doing, Miss Frothingham?'
'Oh, fiddling a little. But I haven't been very well.'
'I can see that. Yet in another sense you look a better than ever.'
He began to hum an air, glancing round the room.
'You haven't a piano. Just listen to this; how do you think it will do?' He hummed through a complete melody. 'Came into my head last night. Wants rather sentimental wordsthe kind of thing that goes down with the British public. Rather a good air, don't you think?'
Felix Dymes had two manners of conversation. In a company at all ceremonious, and when it behoved him to make an impression, he talked as the artist and the expert in music, with many German phrases, which he pronounced badly, to fill up the gaps in his knowledge. His familiar stream of talk was very different: it discarded affectation, and had a directness, a vigour, which never left one in doubt as to his actual views of life. How melody of any kind could issue from a nature so manifestly ignoble might puzzle the idealist. Alma, who had known a good many musical people, was not troubled by this difficulty; in her present mood, she submitted to the arrogance of success, and felt a pleasure, an encouragement, in Dymes's bluff camaraderie.
'Let me try to catch it on the violin,' she said when, with nodding head and waving arm, he had hummed again through his composition.
She succeeded in doing so, and Dymes raised his humming to a sentimental roar, and was vastly pleased with himself.
'I like to see you in a place like this,' he said. 'Looks more business-likeas if you really meant to do something. Do you live here alone?'
'With a friend.'
Something peculiar in Dymes's glance caused her to add, 'A German girl, an art student.' Whereat the musician nodded and smiled.
'And what's your idea? Come now, let's talk about it. I wonder whether I could be of any use to youawfully glad if I could.'