i am an only child. i was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and although there was no royal crest on it, yet no princess could be more comfortable in the purple than i was in the ordinary trappings of babyhood. from the cradle upwards i was surrounded with love and luxury. my pet name "princess" fitted me like a glove. i was the autocrat of the nursery and my power scarce diminished when i rose to the drawing-room. my parents were very obedient and did not even conceal from me that i was beautiful. in short they did their best to spoil me, though i cannot admit that they succeeded. i lost them both before i was sixteen. my poor mother died first and my poor father followed within a week; whether from grief or from a cold caught through standing bareheaded in the churchyard, or from employing the same doctor, i cannot precisely determine.
after the usual period of sorrow, i began to pick up a bit and to go out under the care of my duenna, a faded flower of the aristocracy whose declining years my guardian had soothed by quartering her on me. she was a gentle old spinster, the seventh daughter of a penniless peer, and although she has seen hard times and has almost been reduced to marriage, yet she has scant respect for my ten thousand a year. she has never lost the sense of condescension in living with me, and would be horrified to hear she is in receipt of a salary. it is to this sense of superiority on her part that i owe a good deal of the liberty i enjoy under her régime. she does not expect in me that rigid obedience to venerable forms and conventions which she. prescribes for herself; she regards it as a privilege of the higher gentlewoman to be bound hand and foot by fashionable etiquette, and so long as my liberty does not degenerate into license i am welcome to as much as i please of it. she has continued to call me "princess," finding doubtless some faint reverberation of pleasure in the magnificent syllables. i should add that her name is the honorable miss primpole and that she is not afraid of the butler.
our town-house was situated in portman square and my parents tenanted it during the season. there is nothing very poetic about the square, perhaps, not even in the summer, when the garden is in bloom, yet it was here that i first learnt to love. this dull parallelogram was the birthplace of a passion as spiritual and intangible as ever thrilled maiden's heart. i fell in love with a voice.
it was a rich, baritone voice, with a compass of two and a half octaves, rising from full bass organ-notes to sweet, flute-like tenor tones. it was a glorious voice, now resonant with martial ecstasy, now faint with mystic rapture. its vibrations were charged with inexpressible emotion, and it sang of love and death and high heroic themes. i heard it first a few months after my father's funeral. it was night. i had been indoors all day, torpid and miserable, but roused myself at last and took a few turns in the square. the air was warm and scented, a cloudless moon flooded the roadway with mellow light and sketched in the silhouettes of the trees in the background. i had reached the opposite side of the square for the second time when the voice broke out. my heart stood still and i with it.
on the soft summer air the voice rose and fell; it was accompanied on the piano, but it seemed in subtler harmony with the moonlight and the perfumed repose of the night. it came through an open window behind which the singer sat in the gloaming. with the first tremors of that voice my soul forgot its weariness in a strange sweet trance that trembled on pain. the song seemed to draw out all the hidden longing of my maiden soul, as secret writing is made legible by fire. when the voice ceased, a great blackness fell upon all things, the air grew bleak. i waited and waited but the square remained silent. the footsteps of stray pedestrians, the occasional roll of a carriage alone fell on my anxious ear. i returned to my house, shivering as with cold. i had never loved before. i had read and reflected a great deal about love, and was absolutely ignorant of the subject. i did not know that i loved now—for that discover only came later when i found myself wandering nightly to the other side of the parallelogram, listening for the voice. rarely, very rarely, was my pilgrimage rewarded, but twice or thrice a week the square became an enchanted garden, full of roses whose petals were music. round that baritone voice i had built up an ideal man—tall and straight-limbed and stalwart, fair-haired and blue-eyed and noble-featured, like the hero of a northern saga. his soul was vast as the sea, shaken with the storms of passion, dimpled with smiles of tenderness. his spirit was at once mighty and delicate, throbbing with elemental forces yet keen and swift to comprehend all subtleties of thought and feeling. i could not understand myself, yet i felt that he would understand me. he had the heart of a lion and of a little child; he was as merciful as he was strong, as pure as he was wise. to be with him were happiness, to feel his kiss ecstasy, to be gathered to his breast, delirium, but alas! he never knew that i was waiting under his window.
[pg 53] i made several abortive attempts to discover who he was or to see him. according to the directory the house was occupied by lady westerton. i concluded that he was her elder son. that he might be her husband—or some other lady's—never even occurred to me. i do not know why i should have attached the voice to a bachelor, any more than i can explain why he should be the eldest son, rather than the youngest. but romance has a logic of its own. from the topmost window of my house i could see lady westerton's house across the trees, but i never saw him leave or enter it. once, a week went by without my hearing him sing. i did not know whether to think of him as a sick bird or as one flown to warmer climes. i tried to construct his life from his periods of song, i watched the lights in his window, my whole life circled round him. it was only when i grew pale and feverish and was forced by the doctors and my guardian to go yachting that my fancies gradually detached themselves from my blue-eyed hero. the sea-salt freshened my thoughts, i became a healthy-minded girl again, carolling joyously in my cabin and taking pleasure in listening to my own voice. i threw my novels overboard (metaphorically, that is) and set the hon. miss primpole chatting instead, when the seascape palled upon me. she had a great fund of strictly respectable memories. most people's recollections are of no use to anybody but the owner, but hers afforded entertainment for both of us. by the time i was back in london the voice was no longer part even of my dreams, though it seemed to belong to them. but for accident it might have remained forever "a voice and nothing more." the accident happened at a musical-afternoon in kensington. i was introduced to a tall, fair, handsome blue-eyed guardsman, captain athelstan by name. his conversation was charming and i took a lot of it, while miss primpole was busy flirting with a seductive spaniard. you could not tell miss primpole was flirting except by looking at the man. in the course of the afternoon the hostess asked the captain to sing. as he went to the piano my heart began to flutter with a strange foreboding. he had no music with him, but plunged at once into the promontory chords. my agitation increased tenfold. he was playing the prelude to one of the voice's songs—a strange, haunting song with a schubert atmosphere, a song which i had looked for in vain among the classics. at once he was transfigured to my eyes, all my sleeping romantic fancies woke to delicious life, and in the instant in which i waited, with bated breath, for the outbreak of the voice at the well-known turn of the melody, it was borne in upon me that this was the only man i had ever loved or would ever love. my saga hero! my berserker, my norse giant!
when the voice started it was not my voice. it was a thin, throaty tenor. compared with the voice of portman square, it was as a tinkling rivulet to a rushing full-volumed river. i sank back on the lounge, hiding my emotions behind my fan.
when the song was finished, he made his way through the "bravas" to my side.
"sweetly pretty!" i murmured.
"the song or the singing?" he asked with a smile.
"the song," i answered frankly. "is it yours?"
"no, but the singing is!"
his good-humor was so delightful that i forgave his not having my voice.
"what is its name?"
"it is anonymous—like the composer."
"who is he?"
"i must not tell."
"can you give me a copy of the song?"
he became embarrassed.
"i would with pleasure, if it were mine. but the fact is—i—i—had no right to sing it at all, and the composer would be awfully vexed if he knew."
"original composer?"
"he is, indeed. he cannot bear to think of his songs being sung in public."
"dear me! what a terrible mystery you are making of it," i laughed.
"o r-really there is no abracadabra about it. you misunderstand me. but i deserve it all for breaking faith and exploiting his lovely song so as to drown my beastly singing."
"you need not reproach yourself," i said. "i have heard it before."
he started perceptibly. "impossible," he gasped.
"thank you," i said freezingly.
"but how?"
"a little bird sang it me."
"it is you who are making the mystery now."
"tit for tat. but i will discover yours."
"not unless you are a witch!"
"a what?"
"a witch."
"i am," i said enigmatically. "so you see it's of no use hiding anything from me. come, tell me all, or i will belabor you with my broomstick."
"if you know, why should i tell you?"
"i want to see if you can tell the truth."
"no, i can't." we both laughed. "see what a cruel dilemma you place me in!" he said beseechingly.
"tell me, at least, why he won't publish his songs. is he too modest, too timid?"
"neither. he loves art for art's sake—that is all."
"i don't understand."
"he writes to please himself. to create music is his highest pleasure. he can't see what it has got to do with anybody else."
"but surely he wants the world to enjoy his work?"
"why? that would be art for the world's sake, art for fame's sake, art for money's sake!"
"what an extraordinary view!"
"why so? the true artist—the man to whom creation is rapture—surely he is his own world. unless he is in need of money, why should he concern himself with the outside universe? my friend cannot understand why schopenhauer should have troubled himself to chisel epigrams or leopardi lyrics to tell people that life was not worth living. had either been a true artist, he would have gone on living his own worthless life, unruffled by the applause of the mob. my friend can understand a poet translating into inspired song the sacred secrets of his soul, but he cannot understand his scattering them broad-cast through the country, still less taking a royalty on them. he says it is selling your soul in the market-place, and almost as degrading as going on the stage."
"and do you agree with him?"
"not entirely, otherwise i should never have yielded to the temptation to sing his song to-night. fortunately he will never hear of it. he never goes into society, and i am his only friend."
"dear me!" i said sarcastically. "is he as careful to conceal his body as his soul?"
his face grew grave. "he has an affliction," he said in low tones.
"oh, forgive me!" i said remorsefully. tears came into my eyes as the vision of the norse giant gave away to that of an english hunchback. my adoring worship was transformed to an adoring matronly tenderness. divinely-gifted sufferer, if i cannot lean on thy strength, thou shalt lean on mine! so ran my thought till the mist cleared from my eyes and i saw again the glorious saga-hero at my side, and grew strangely confused and distraught.
"there is nothing to forgive," answered captain athelstan. "you did not know him."
"you forget i am a witch. but i do not know him—it is true. i do not even know his name. yet within a week i undertake to become a friend of his."
he shook his head. "you do not know him."
"i admitted that," i answered pertly. "give me a week, and he shall not only know me, he shall abjure those sublime principles of his at my request."
the spirit of mischief moved me to throw down the challenge. or was it some deeper impulse?
he smiled sceptically.
"of course if you know somebody who will introduce you," he began.
"nobody shall introduce me," i interrupted.
"well, he'll never speak to you first."
"you mean it would be unmaidenly for me to speak to him first. well, i will bind myself to do nothing of which mrs. grundy would disapprove. and yet the result shall be as i say."
"then i shall admit you are indeed a witch."
"you don't believe in my power, that is. well, what will you wager?"
"if you achieve your impossibility, you will deserve anything."
"will you back your incredulity with a pair of gloves?"
"with a hundred."
"thank you. i am not a briareus. let us say one pair then."
"so be it."
"but no countermining. promise me not to communicate with your mysterious friend in the interval."
"i promise."
"but how shall i know the result?"
i pondered. "i will write—no, that would be hardly proper. meet me in the royal academy, room six, at the 'portrait of a gentleman,' about noon to-morrow week."
"a week is a long time!" he sighed.
i arched my eyebrows. "a week a long time for such a task!" i exclaimed.
next day i called at the house of the voice. a gorgeous creature in plush opened the door.
"i want to see—to see—gracious! i've forgotten his name," i said in patent chagrin. i clucked my tongue, puckered my lips, tapped the step with my parasol, then smiled pitifully at the creature in plush. he turned out to be only human, for a responsive sympathetic smile flickered across his pompous face. "you know—the singer," i said, as if with a sudden inspiration.
"oh. lord arthur!" he said.
"yes, of course," i cried, with a little trill of laughter. "how stupid of me! please tell him i want to see him on an important matter."
"he—he's very busy, i'm afraid, miss."
"oh, but he'll see me," i said confidently.
"yes, miss; who shall i say, miss?"
"the princess."
he made a startled obeisance, and ushered me into a little room on the right of the hall. in a few moments he returned and said—"his lordship will be down in a second, your highness."
sixty minutes seemed to go to that second, so racked was i with curiosity. at last i heard a step outside and a hand on the door, and at that moment a horrible thought flashed into my mind. what certainty was there my singer was a hunchback? suppose his affliction were something more loathly. what if he had a monstrous wen! for the instant after his entry i was afraid to look up. when i did, i saw a short, dark-haired young man, with proper limbs and refined features. but his face wore a blank expression, and i wondered why i had not divined before that my musician was blind!
he bowed and advanced towards me. he came straight in my direction so that i saw he could see. the blank expression gave place to one of inquiry.
"i have ventured to call upon your lordship in reference to a charity concert," i said sweetly; "i am one of your neighbors, living just across the square, and as the good work is to be done in this district, i dared to hope that i could persuade you to take part in it."
i happened to catch sight of my face in the glass of a chiffonier as i spoke, and it was as pure and candid and beautiful as the face of one of guido's angels. when i ceased, i looked up at lord arthur's. it was spasmodically agitated, the mouth was working wildly. a nervous dread seized me.
after what seemed an endless interval, he uttered an explosive "put!" following it up by "f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-or two g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g——"
"it is very kind of you," i interrupted mercifully. "but i did not propose to ask you for a subscription. i wanted to enlist your services as a performer. but i fear i have made a mistake. i understood you sang." inwardly i was furious with the stupid creature in plush for having misled me into such an unpleasant situation.
"i d-d-d-o s-s-s-s-s——" he answered.
as he stood there hissing, the truth flashed upon me at last. i had heard that the most dreadful stammerers enunciate as easily as anybody else when they sing, because the measured swing of the time keeps them steady. my heart sank as i thought of the voice so mutilated! poor young peer! was this to be the end of all my beautiful visions?
as cheerfully as i could i cut short his sibilations. "oh, that's all right, then," i said. "then i may put you down for a couple of items."
he shook his head, and held up his hands deprecatingly.
"anything but that!" he stammered; "make me a patron, a committee-man, anything! i do not sing in public."
while he was saying this i thought long and deeply. the affliction was after all less terrible than i had a right to expect, and i knew from the advertisement columns that it was easily curable. demosthenes, i remembered, had stoned it to death. i felt my love reviving, as i looked into his troubled face, instinct with the double aristocracy of rank and genius. at the worst the singing voice was unaffected by the disability, and as for the conversational, well there was consolation in the prospect of having the last word while one's husband was still having the first. en attendant, i could have wished him to sing his replies instead of speaking them, for not only should i thus enjoy his voice but the interchange of ideas would proceed less tardily. however that would have made him into an operatic personage, and i did not want him to look so ridiculous as all that.
it would be tedious to recount our interview at the length it extended to. suffice it to say that i gained my point. without letting out that i knew of his theories of art for art's sake, i yet artfully pleaded that whatever one's views, charity alters cases, inverts everything, justifies anything. "for instance," i said with charming naïveté, "i would not have dared to call on you but in its sacred name." he agreed to sing two songs—nay, two of his own songs. i was to write to him particulars of time and place. he saw me to the door. i held out my hand and he took it, and we looked at each other, smiling brightly.
[pg 62] "b-but i d-d-d-don't know your n-n-name," he said suddenly. "p-p-p-rincess what?"
he spoke more fluently, now he had regained his composure.
"princess," i answered, my eyes gleaming merrily. "that is all. the honorable miss primpole will give me a character, if you require one." he laughed—his laugh was like the voice—and followed me with his eyes as i glided away.
i had won my gloves—and in a day. i thought remorsefully of the poor saga hero destined to wait a week in suspense as to the result. but it was too late to remedy this, and the organization of the charity concert needed all my thoughts. i was in for it now, and i resolved to carry it through. but it was not so easy as i had lightly assumed. getting the artists, of course, was nothing—there are always so many professionals out of work or anxious to be brought out, and so many amateurs in search of amusement. i could have filled the albert hall with entertainers. nor did i anticipate any difficulty in disposing of the tickets. if you are at all popular in society you can get a good deal of unpopularity by forcing them on your friends. no, the real difficulty about this charity concert was the discovery of an object in aid of which to give it. in my innocence i had imagined that the world was simply bustling with unexploited opportunities for well-doing. alas! i soon found that philanthropy was an over-crowded profession. there was not a single nook or corner of the universe but had been ransacked by these restless free-lances; not a gap, not a cranny but had been filled up. in vain i explored the map, in the hopes of lighting on some undiscovered hunting-ground in far cathay or where the khamsin sweeps the afric deserts. i found that the wants of the most benighted savages were carefully attended to, and that, even when they had none, they were thoughtfully supplied with them. anxiously i scanned the newspapers in search of a calamity, the sufferers by which i might relieve, but only one happened during that week, and that was snatched from between my very fingers by a lady who had just been through the divorce court. in my despair i bethought myself of the preacher i sat under. he was a very handsome man, and published his sermons by request.
i went to him and i said: "how is the church?"
"it is all right, thank you," he said.
"doesn't it want anything done to it?"
"no, it is in perfect repair. my congregation is so very good."
i groaned aloud. "but isn't there any improvement that you would like?"
"the last of the gargoyles was put up last week. mediæval architecture is always so picturesque. i have had the entire structure made mediæval, you know."
"but isn't the outside in need of renovation?"
"what! when i have just had it made mediæval!"
"but the interior—there must be something defective somewhere!"
"not to my knowledge."
"but think! think!" i cried desperately. "the aisles—transept—nave—lectern—pews—chancel—pulpit—apse—porch—altar-cloths—organ—spires—is there nothing in need of anything?"
he shook his head.
"wouldn't you like a colored window to somebody?"
"all the windows are taken up. my congregation is so very good."
"a memorial brass then?"
he mused.
"there is only one of my flock who has done anything memorable lately."
my heart gave a great leap of joy. "then why do you neglect him?" i asked indignantly. "if we do not perpetuate the memory of virtue——"
"he's alive," he interrupted.
i bit my lips in vexation.
"i think you need a few more choristers," i murmured.
"oh no, we are sending some away."
"the sunday school fund—how is that?"
"i am looking about for a good investment for the surplus. do you know of any? a good mortgage, perhaps?"
"is there none on the church?" i cried with a flicker of hope.
"heaven forbid!"
i cudgelled my brains frantically.
"what do you think of a lightning-rod!"
"a premier necessity. i never preach in a building unprotected by one."
i made one last wild search.
"how about a reredos?"
he looked at me in awful, pained silence.
i saw i had stumbled. "i—i mean a new wing," i stammered.
"i am afraid you are not well this morning," said the preacher, patting my hand soothingly. "won't you come and talk it over, whatever it is, another time?"
"no, no," i cried excitedly. "it must be settled at once. i have it. a new peal of bells!"
"what is the matter with the bells?" he asked anxiously. "there isn't a single one cracked."
i saw his dubiety, and profited by it. i learnt afterwards it was due to his having no ear of his own.
"cracked! perhaps not," i replied in contemptuous accents. "but they deserve to be. no wonder the newspapers keep correspondences going on the subject."
"yes, but what correspondents object to is the bells ringing at all."
"i don't wonder," i said. "i don't say your bells are worse than the majority, or that i haven't got a specially sensitive ear for music, but i know that when i hear their harsh clanging, i—well i don't feel inclined to go to church and that's the truth. i am quite sure if you had a really musical set of chimes, it would increase the spirituality of the neighborhood."
"how so?" he asked sceptically.
"it would keep down swearing on sunday."
"oh!" he pondered a moment, then said: "but that would be a great expense."
"indeed? i thought bells were cheap."
"certainly. area bells, hand-bells, sleigh-bells. but church-bells are very costly. there are only a few foundries in the kingdom. but why are you so concerned about my church?"
"because i am giving a charity concert, and i should like to devote the proceeds to something."
"a very exemplary desire. but i fear one bell is the most you could get out of a charity concert."
i looked disappointed. "what a pity! it would have been such a nice precedent to improve the tone of the church. the 'constant readers' would have had to cease their letters."
"no, no, impossible. a 'constant reader' seems to be so called because he is a constant writer."
"but there might have been leaders about it."
"hardly sensational enough for that! stay i have an idea. in the beautiful ages of faith, when a church-bell was being cast, the pious used to bring silver vessels to be fused with the bell-metal in the furnace, so as to give the bell a finer tone. a mediæval practice is always so poetical. perhaps i could revive it. my congregation is so very good."
"good!" i echoed, clapping my hands. "but a concert will not suffice—we shall need a bazaar," said the preacher.
"oh, but i must have a concert!"
"certainly bazaars include concerts."
that was how the great church bazaar originated and how the rev. melitos smith came to resurrect the beautiful mediæval custom which brought him so much kudos and extracted such touching sentiments from hardened journalists. the bazaar lasted a week, and raised a number of ladies in the social scale, and married off three of my girl-friends, and cut me off the visiting list of the duchess of dash. she was pining for a chance of coming out in a comic opera chanson, but this being a church bazaar i couldn't allow her to kick up her heels. everything could be bought at that bazaar, from photographs of the rev. melitos smith to impracticable mouse-traps, from bread-and-cheese to kisses. there were endless side-shows, and six gipsy girls scattered about the rooms, so that you could have your fortune told in six different ways. i should not like to say how much that bazaar cost me when the bill for the bells came in, but then lord arthur sang daily in the concert hall, and i could also deduct the price of the pair of gloves captain athelstan gave me. for the captain honorably stood the loss of his wager, nay, more, cheerfully accepted his defeat, and there on the spot—before the "portrait of another gentleman"—offered to enlist in the bazaar. and very useful he proved, too. we had to be together, organizing it, nearly all day and i don't know what i should have done without him. i don't know what his regiment did without him, but then i have never been able to find out when our gallant officers do their work. they seem always to be saving it up for a rainy day.
i was never more surprised in my life than when, on the last night of the bazaar-boom, amid the buzz of a brisk wind-up, lord arthur and captain athelstan came into the little presidential sanctum, which had been run up for me, and requested a special interview.
"i can give you five minutes," i said, for i felt my finger was on the pulse of the bazaar, and my time correspondingly important.
they looked grateful, then embarrassed. captain athelstan opened his mouth and closed it.
"you had better tell her," he said, nervously, to lord arthur.
"n-n-no, y-y-y-y——"
"what is it, captain athelstan?" i interrupted, pointedly, for i had only five minutes.
"princess, we both love you," began the captain, blushing like a hobbledehoy, and rushing in medias res. i allowed them to call me princess, because it was not my christian name.
"is this the time—when i am busy feeling the pulse of the bazaar?"
"you gave us five minutes," pleaded the captain, determined to do or die, now he was in the thick of it.
"go on," i said, "i will forgive you everything—even your love of me—if you are only brief."
"we both love you. we are great friends. we have no secrets. we told each other. we are doubtful if you love either—or which. we have come together."
he fired off the short, sharp sentences as from a six-barrelled revolver.
"captain athelstan—lord arthur," i said. "i am deeply touched by the honor you have done your friendship and me. i will be equally frank—and brief—with you. i cannot choose either of you, because i love you both. like every girl, i formed an ideal of a lover. i have been fortunate in finding my ideal in the flesh. i have been unfortunate in finding it in two pieces. fate has bisected it, and given the form to one and the voice to the other. my ideal looks like you, captain athelstan, and sings like you, lord arthur. it is a stupid position, i know, and i feel like the donkey between two bundles of hay. but under the circumstances i have no choice."
they looked at each other half-rapturously, half-despairingly.
"then what's to be done?" cried the captain.
"i don't know," i said, hopelessly. "love seems not only blind, but a blind alley, this time."
"d-do you m-m-ean," asked lord arthur, "'how happy could i be with either, were t'other dear charmer away?'"
i was glad he sang it, because it precipitated matters.
"that is the precise position," i admitted.
"oh, then, arthur, my boy, i congratulate you," said the captain, huskily.
"n-n-no, i'll g-g-go away," said the singer.
they wrangled for full ten minutes, but the position remained a block.
"gentlemen," i interposed, "if either of you had consented to accept the other's sacrifice, the problem would have been solved; only i should have taken the other. but two self-sacrifices are as bad as none."
"then let us toss up for you, princess," said the captain, impulsively.
"oh, no!" i cried, with a shudder. "submit my life to the chances of head or tail! it would make me feel like a murderess, with you for gentlemen of the jury."
a painful silence fell upon the sanctum. unwitting of the tragedy playing within, all the fun of the fair went on without.
"listen," i said, at last. "i will be the wife of him who wins me. chance shall not decide, but prowess. like the princesses of old, i will set you a task. whoever accomplishes it shall win my hand."
"agreed," they said eagerly, though not simultaneously.
"ay, but what shall it be?" i murmured.
"why not a competition?" suggested the captain.
"very well, a competition—provided you promise to fight fair, and not play into each other's hands."
they promised, and together we excogitated and rejected all sorts of competitions. the difficulty was to find something in which each would have a fair chance. at length we arranged that they should play a game of chess, the winner to be mated. they agreed it would be a real "match game." the five minutes had by this time lasted half an hour, so i dismissed them, and hastened to feel the pulse of the bazaar, which was getting more and more feverish as the break-up drew nigh.
they played the game in lord arthur's study. lord arthur was white and the captain black. everything was fair and above board. but they played rather slowly. every evening i sent the butler over to make inquiries.
"the princess's compliments," he was told to say, "and how is it to-day?"
"it is getting on," they told him, and he came back with a glad face. he was a kind soul despite his calves, and he thought there was a child dying.
once a week i used to go over and look at it. ostensibly i called in connection with the bazaar accounts. i could not see any difference in the position from one week's end to another. there seemed to be a clump of pawns in the middle, with all the other pieces looking idly on; there was no thoroughfare anywhere.
they told me it always came like that when you played cautiously. they said it was a french opening. i could not see any opening anywhere; it certainly was not the english way of fighting. picture my suspense during those horrible weeks.
"is this the way all match-games are played?" i said once.
"n-n-o," admitted lord arthur. "we for-g-g-ot to p-p-p-ut a t-t-t-t-t-time-limit."
"what's the time-limit?" i asked the captain, wishing my singer could learn to put one to his sentences.
"so many moves must be made in an hour—usually fifteen. otherwise the younger champion would always win, merely by outliving the elder. we forgot to include that condition."
at length our butler brought back word that "it couldn't last much longer." his face was grave and he gave the message in low tones.
"what a blessing. it's been lingering long enough! i wish they would polish it off," i murmured fretfully. after that i frequently caught him looking at me as if i were lucrezia borgia.
the end came suddenly. the butler went across to make the usual inquiry. he returned, with a foolish face of horror and whispered, "it is all over. it has been drawn by perpetual check!"
"great heavens!" i cried. my consternation was so manifest that he forgave the utterance of a peevish moment. i put on my nicest hat at once and went over. we held a council of war afresh.
"let's go by who catches the biggest trout," suggested the captain.
"no," i said. "i will not be angled for. besides, the biggest is not grammatical. it should be the bigger."
thus reproved, the captain grew silent and we came to a deadlock once more. i gave up the hunt at last.
"i think the best plan will be for you both to go away and travel. go round the world, see fresh faces, try to forget me. one of you will succeed."
"but suppose we both succeed?" asked the captain.
"that would be more awkward than ever," i admitted.
"and if neither succeed?" asked lord arthur at some length.
"i should say neither succeeds," i remarked severely. "neither takes a singular verb."
"pardon me," said lord arthur with some spirit. "the plurality is merely apparent. 'succeed' is subjunctive after if."
"ah, true," i said. "then suppose you go round the world and i give my hand to whoever comes back and proposes to me first."
"something like the man in jules verne!" cried the captain. "glorious!"
"except that it can be done quicker now," i said.
lord arthur fell in joyously with the idea, which was a godsend to me, for the worry of having about you two men whom you love and who love you cannot be easily conceived by those who have not been through it. they, too, were pining away and felt the journey would do them [pg 73] good. captain athelstan applied for three months' furlough. he was to put a girdle round the earth from west to east, lord arthur from east to west. it was thought this would work fairly—as whatever advantages one outgoing route had over the other would be lost on the return. each drew up his scheme and prepared his equipment. the starting-point was to be my house, and consequently this was also the goal. after forty-eight days had passed (the minimum time possible) i was to remain at home day and night, awaiting the telegram which was to be sent the moment either touched english soil again. on the receipt of the telegram i was to take up my position at the front window on the ground floor, with a white rose in my hair to show i was still unwon, and to wait there day and night for the arrival of my offer of marriage, which i was not to have the option of refusing. during the race they were not to write to me.
the long-looked-for day of their departure duly arrived. two hansoms were drawn up side by side, in front of the house. a white rose in my hair, i sat at the window. a parting smile, a wave of my handkerchief, and my lovers were off. in an instant they were out of sight. for a month they were out of mind, too. after the exhausting emotions i had undergone this period of my life was truly halcyon. i banished my lovers from my memory and enjoyed what was left of the season and of my girlish freedom. in two months i should be an affianced wife and it behoved me to make the best of my short span of spinsterhood. the season waned, fashion drifted to cowes, i was left alone in empty london. then my thoughts went back to the two travellers. as day followed day, my anxiety and curiosity mounted proportionately. the forty-eight days went by, but there was no wire. they passed slowly—oh, so slowly—into fifty, while i waited, waited, from dawn to midnight, with ears pricked up, for that double rat-tat which came not or which came about something else. the sands of september dribbled out, and my fate still hung in the balance. i went about the house like an unquiet spirit. in imagination i was seeing those two men sweeping towards me—one from the east of the world, one from the west. and there i stood, rooted to the spot, while from either side a man was speeding inevitably towards me, across oceans and continents, through canals and tunnels, along deserts or rivers, pressing into his service every human and animal force and every blind energy that man had tamed. to my fevered imagination i seemed to be between the jaws of a leviathan, which were closing upon me at a terrific rate, yet which took days to snap together, so wide were they apart, so gigantic was the monster. which of the jaws would touch me first?
the fifties mounted into the sixties, but there was no telegram. the tension became intolerable. again and again i felt tempted to fly, but a lingering sense of honor kept me to my post. on the sixty-first day my patience was rewarded. sitting at my window one morning i saw a telegraph-boy sauntering along. he reached the gate. he paused. i rushed to the door and down the steps, seized the envelope and tore it frantically open.
"coming, but suppose all over.—arthur."
i leaned on the gate, half fainting. when i went to my room, i read the wire again and noted it had been handed in at liverpool. in four or five hours at most i should cease to belong to myself. i communicated the news to the honorable miss primpole who congratulated me cordially. she made no secret of her joy that the nobleman had won. for my part i was still torn with conflicting emotions. now that i knew it was to be the one, i hankered after the other. yet in the heart of the storm there was peace in the thought that the long suspense was over. i ordered a magnificent repast to be laid for the home-coming voyager, which would also serve to celebrate our nuptials. the honorable miss primpole consented to grace the board and the butler to surrender the choicest vintages garnered in my father's cellar.
two hours and a half dragged by; then there came another wire—i opened it with some curiosity, but as my eye caught the words i almost swooned with excitement. it ran:
"arrived, but presume too late.—athelstan."
with misty vision i strove to read the place of despatch. it was dover. a great wave of hope surged in my bosom. my saga-hero might yet arrive in time. half frenziedly i turned over the leaves of bradshaw. no, after sending that wire, he would just have missed the train to victoria! cruel! cruel! but stay! there was another route. he might have booked for charing cross. yes! heaven be praised, if he did that, he would just catch a train. and of course he would do that—surely he would have planned out every possibility while crossing the channel, have arranged for all—my captain, my blue-eyed berserker! but then lord arthur had had two and a half hours' start.—i turned to liverpool and essayed to discover whether that was sufficient to balance the difference of the two distances from london. alas! my head swam before i had travelled two stations. there were no less than four routes to euston, to st. pancras, to king's cross, to paddington! still i made out that if he had kept his head very clear, and been very, very fortunate, he might just get level with the captain. but then on a longer route the chances of accidental delays were more numerous. on the whole the odds were decidedly in favor of the captain. but one thing was certain—that they would both arrive in time for supper. i ordered an additional cover to be laid, then i threw myself upon a couch and tried to read. but i could not. terrible as was the strain, my thoughts refused to be distracted. the minutes crawled along—gradually peace came back as i concluded that only by a miracle could lord arthur win. at last i jumped up with a start, for the shades of evening were falling and my toilette was yet to make. i dressed myself in a dainty robe of white, trimmed with sprays of wild flowers, and i stuck the white rose in my hair—the symbol that i was yet unasked in wedlock, the white star of hope to the way-worn wanderer! i did my best to be the fairest sight the travellers should have seen in all the world.
the honorable miss primpole started when she saw me. "what have you been doing to yourself, princess?" she said. "you're lovelier than i ever dreamed."
and indeed the crisis had lent a flush to my cheek and a flash to my eye which i would not willingly repay. my bosom rose and fell with excitement. in half an hour i should be in my saga-hero's arms! i went down to the ground-floor front and seated myself at the open window and gazed at the square and the fiery streaks of sunset in the sky. the honorable miss primpole lay upon an ottoman, less excited. every now and again she asked,
"do you see anything, princess?"
"nothing," i answered.
of course she did not take my answer literally. several times cabs and carriages rattled past the window, but with no visible intention of drawing up. duskier, duskier grew the september evening, as i sat peering into the twilight.
"do you see anything, princess?"
"nothing."
a moment after a hansom came dashing into sight—a head protruded from it. i uttered a cry and leant forward, straining my eyes. captain athelstan. yes! no! no! yes! no! no! will it be believed that (such is the heart of woman) i felt a sensation of relief on finding the issue still postponed? for in the moment when the captain seemed to flash upon my vision—it was borne in upon me like a chilling blast that i had lost my voice. never would that glorious music swell for me as i sat alone with my husband in the gloaming.
the streaks of sunset faded into gray ashes.
"do you see anything, princess?"
"nothing."
even as i spoke i heard the gallop of hoofs in the quiet square, and, half paralyzed by the unexpected vision, i saw lord arthur dashing furiously up on horseback—lord arthur, bronzed and bearded and travel-stained, but lord arthur beyond a doubt. he took off his hat and waved it frantically in the air when he caught sight of my white figure, with the white rose of promise nestling in my hair. my poor saga-hero!
he reined in his beautiful steed before my window and commenced his proposal breathlessly.
"w-w-w——"
even mr. gladstone, if he had been racing as madly as lord arthur might well have been flustered in his speech. the poor singer could not get out the first word, try as he would. at last it came out like a soda-water cork and 'you' with it. but at the 'be' there was—o dire to tell!—another stoppage.
"b-b-b-b-b——"
"fire! fire! hooray!" the dull roar of an advancing crowd burst suddenly upon our ears, mingled with the piercing exultation of small boys. the thunderous clatter of the fire-engine seemed to rock the soil of the square.
but neither of us took eyes off the other.
"be!" it was out at last. the end was near. in another second i should say "yes."
"fire! fire!" shrieked the small boys.
"m-m-m-y——"
lord arthur's gallant steed shifted uneasily. the fire-engine was thundering down upon it.
"w-w-w——"
"will you be——" the clarion notes of the captain rang out above the clatter of the fire-engine from which he madly jumped.
"wife?" }
"mine?" } the two travellers exclaimed together.
"dead heat," i murmured, and fell back in a dead faint. my overwrought nerves could stand no more.
nevertheless it was a gay supper-party; the air was thick with travellers' tales, and the butler did not spare the champagne. we could not help being tickled by the quaint termination of the colossal globe-trotting competition, and we soothed lord arthur's susceptibilities by insisting that if he had only remembered the shorter proposal formula employed by his rival, he would have won by a word. it was a pure fluke that the captain was able to tie, for he had not thought of telegraphing for a horse, but had taken a hansom at the station, and only exchanged to the fire-engine when he heard people shouting there was a fire in seymour street. lord arthur obliged five times during the evening, and the honorable miss primpole relaxed more than ever before and accompanied him on the banjo. before we parted, i had been persuaded by my lovers to give them one last trial. that night three months i was to give another magnificent repast, to which they were both to be invited. during the interval each was to do his best to become famous, and at the supper-party i was to choose the one who was the more widely known [pg 80] throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. they were to place before me what proofs and arguments they pleased, and i was to decide whose name had penetrated to the greater number of people. there was to be no appeal from my decision, nor any limitation to what the candidates might do to force themselves upon the universal consciousness, so long as they did not merely advertise themselves at so much a column or poster. they could safely be trusted not to do anything infamous in the attempt to become famous, and so there was no need to impose conditions. i had a secret hope that lord arthur might thus be induced to bring his talents before the world and get over his objection to the degradation of public appearances. my hope was more than justified.
i grieve to say neither strove to benefit his kind. his lordship went on the music-hall stage, made up as a costermonger, and devoted his wonderful voice and his musical genius to singing a cockney ballad with a chorus consisting merely of the words "ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee" repeated [pg 81] sixteen times. it caught on like a first-class epidemic. "ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee" microbes floated in every breeze. the cholera-chorus raged from piccadilly to land's end, from kensington to john o'groats. the swarthy miners hewed the coal to it. it dropped from passing balloons, the sailors manned the capstan to it, and the sound of it superseded fog-horns. duchesses danced to it, and squalid infants cried for it. divines with difficulty kept it out of their sermons, philosophers drew weighty lessons from it, critics traced its history, and as it didn't mean anything the greatest puritans hummed it inaccurately. "ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee," sang lord arthur nightly at six halls and three theatres, incidentally clearing off all the debts on the family estates, and, like a flock of sheep, the great british public took up the bleat, and in every hall and drawing-room blossomed the big pearl buttons of the cockney costermonger.
but captain athelstan came to the front far more easily, if less profitably. he sent a testimonial to the perfect cure elixir. the elixir was accustomed to testimonials from the suffering millions. the spelling generally had to be corrected before they were fit for publication. it also received testimonials which were useless, such as: "i took only one bottle of your elixir and i got fourteen days." but a testimonial from a captain of the guards was a gold-mine. the captain's was the best name the elixir had ever had, and he had enjoyed more diseases than it had hitherto professed to cure. astonished by its own success the elixir resolved to make a big spurt and kill off all its rivals. for the next few months captain athelstan was rammed down the throats of all england. he came with the morning milk in all the daily papers, he arrived by the first post in a circular, he stared at people from every dead wall when they went out to business, he was with them at lunch, in little plaques and placards in every restaurant, he nodded at them in every bar, rode with them in every train and tram-car, either on the wall or on the back of the ticket, joined them at dinner in the evening papers and supplied the pipe lights after the meal. you took up a magazine and found he had slipped between the sheets, you went to bed and his diseased figure haunted your dreams. life lost its sweetness, literature its charm. the loathsome phantasm of the complexly-afflicted captain got between you and the sunshine. stiff examination papers (compiled from the captain) were set at every breakfast-table, and you were sternly interrogated as to whether you felt an all-gone sensation at the tip of your nose, and you were earnestly adjured to look at your old diseases. you began to read an eloquent description of the alps, and lo! there was the captain perched on top. you started a thrilling story of the sea, and the captain bobbed up from the bottom; you began a poetical allegory concerning the valley of the shadow, and you found the captain had been living there all his life—till he came upon the elixir. a little innocent child remarked, "pater, it is almost bath-time," and you felt for your handkerchief in view of a touching domestic idyl, but the captain froze your tears. "why have sunstroke in india?" you were asked, and the captain supplied the answer. something came like a thief in the night. it was the captain. you were startled to see that there was "a blight over all creation," but it turned out to be only the captain. everything abutted on the captain—shakespeare and the musical glasses, the venus of milo and the mikado, day and night and all the seasons, the potato harvest and the durham coal strike, the advantages of early rising, and the american copyright act. he was at the bottom of every passage, he lurked in every avenue, he was at the end of every perspective. the whole world was familiar with his physical symptoms, and his sad history. the exploits of julius cæsar were but a blur in the common mind, but everybody knew that the captain's skin grew gobelin blue, that the whites of his eyes turned green, and his tongue stuck in his cheek, and that the rest of his organism behaved with corresponding gruesomeness. everybody knew how they dropped off, "petrified by my breath," and how his sympathetic friends told him in large capitals
"you will never get better, captain,"
and how his weeping mother, anxious to soothe his last hours, remarked in reply to a request for another box of somebody else's pills,
"the only box you'll ever want will be a coffin,"
and how
"he thought it was only cholera,"
but how one dose of the elixir (which new-born babies clamored for in preference to their mother's milk) had baffled all their prognostications and made him a celebrity for life. in private the captain said that he really had these ailments, though he only discovered the fact when he read the advertisements of the elixir. but the mess had an inkling that it was all done for a wager, and christened him "the perfect cure." to me he justified himself on the ground that he had scrupulously described himself as having his tongue in his cheek, and that he really suffered from love-sickness, which was worse than all the ills the elixir cured.
i need scarcely say that i was shocked by my lovers' practical methods of acquiring that renown for which so many gifted souls have yearned in vain, though i must admit that both gentlemen retained sufficient sense of decorum to be revolted by the other's course of action. they remonstrated with each other gently but firmly. the result was that their friendship snapped and a week before the close of the competition they crossed the channel to fight a duel. i got to hear of it in time and wired to boulogne that if they killed each other i would marry neither, that if only one survived i would never marry my lover's murderer, and that a duel excited so much gossip that, if both survived, they would be equally famous and the competition again a failure.
these simple considerations prevented any mishap. the captain returned to his regiment and lord arthur went on to the riviera to while away the few remaining days and to get extra advertisement out of not appearing at his halls through indisposition. at monte carlo he accidentally broke the bank, and explained his system to the interviewers. to my chagrin, for i was tired of see-sawing, this brought him level with the captain again. i had been prepared to adjudicate in favour of the latter, on the ground that although "ba, ba, ba, boodle-dee" was better known than the patent cure elixir, yet the originator of the song remained unknown to many to whom the captain was a household word, and this in despite of the extra attention secured to lord arthur by his rank. the second supper-party was again sicklied over with the pale cast of thought.
"no more competitions!" i said. "you seem destined to tie with each other instead of with me. i will return to my original idea. i will give you a task which it is not likely both will perform. i will marry the man who asks me, provided he comes, neither walking nor riding, neither sailing nor driving, neither skating nor sliding nor flying, neither by boat nor by balloon nor by bicycle, neither by swimming nor by floating nor by anybody carrying or dragging or pushing him, neither by any movement of hand or foot nor by any extraordinary method whatever. till this is achieved neither of you must look upon my face again."
"they looked aghast when i set the task. they went away and i have not seen them from that day to this. i shall never marry now. so i may as well devote myself to the cause of the old maids you are so nobly championing." she rolled up the ms.
"but," said lillie excitedly, breaking in for the first time, "what is the way you want them to come?"
the princess laughed a silvery laugh.
"no way. don't you understand? it was a roundabout way of saying i was tired of them."
"oh!" said lillie.
"you see, i got the idea from a fairy-tale," said the princess. "there, the doer evaded the conditions by being dragged at a horse's tail—i have guarded against this, so that now the thing is impossible." again her mischievous laughter rang out through the misanthropic room.
lillie smiled, too. she felt certain lord silverdale would find no flaw in the princess's armor, and she was exultant at so auspicious an accession. for the sake of formality, however, she told her that she would communicate her election by letter.
the next day a telegram came to the club.
"compelled to withdraw candidature. feat accomplished. princess, hotel metropole, brighton."
equally aghast and excited, lillie wired back, "how?" and prepaid the reply.
"lover happened to be here. came up in lift as i was waiting to go down."
still intensely piqued by curiosity and vexation, lillie telegraphed.
"which?"
"leave you to guess," answered the electric current.
