Part 66

The Gibsons came back to Düsseldorf in time for the performance, which was admirable, in spite of Barty. From his coign of vantage, amongst the second tenors, he could see Julia's head with its golden fleece; Julia, that rose without a thorn--

"Het Roosje uit de dorne!"

She was sitting between Lady Jane and the Captain.

He looked in vain for the Gibsons, as he sang his loudest, yet couldn't hear himself sing (he was one of a chorus of avenging furies, I believe).

But there were three vacant seats in the same row as the Royces'. Presently three ladies, silken hooded and cloaked--one in yellow, one in pink, and one in blue--made their way to the empty places, just as the chorus ceased, and sat down. Just then Orestes (Stockhausen) stood up and lifted his noble barytone.

"Die Ruhe kehret mir zurück"--

And the yellow-hooded lady unhooded a shapely little black head, and it was Leah's.

"Prosit omen!" thought Barty--and it seemed as if his whole heart melted within him.

He could see that Leah and Julia often looked at each other; he could also see, during the intervals, how many double-barrelled opera-glasses were levelled at both; it was impossible to say which of these two lovely women was the loveliest; probably most votes would have been for Julia, the fair-haired one, the prima donna assoluta, the soprano, the Rowena, who always gets the biggest salary and most of the applause.

The brunette, the contralto, the Rebecca, dazzles less, but touches the heart all the more deeply, perhaps; anyhow, Barty had no doubt as to which of the two voices was the voice for him. His passion was as that of Brian de Bois-Guilbert for mere strength, except that he was bound by no vows of celibacy. There were no moonlit platonics about Barty's robust love, but all the chivalry and tenderness and romance of a knight-errant underlay its vigorous complexity. He was a good knight, though not Sir Galahad!

Also he felt very patriotic, as a good knight should ever feel, and proud of a country which could grow such a rose as Julia, and such a lily as Leah Gibson.

Next to Julia sat Captain Reece, romantic and handsome as ever, with manly love and devotion expressed in every line of his face, every movement of his body; and the heaviest mustache and the most beautiful brown whiskers in the world. He was either a hussar or a lancer; I forget which.

"By my halidom," mentally ejaculated Barty, "I sincerely wish thee joy and life-long happiness, good Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe. Thou art a right fit mate for her, peerless as she may be among women! A benison on you both from your poor Wamba, the son of Witless."

As he went home that night, after the concert, to his tryst with Martia, the north came back to him--through the open window as it were, with the fire-flies and fragrances, and the song of fifty nightingales. It was for him a moment of deep and harassing emotion and keen anxiety. He leaned over the window-sill and looked out on the starlit heavens, and whispered aloud the little speech he had prepared:

"Martia, I have done my best. I would make any sacrifice to obey you, but I cannot give up my freedom to love the woman that attracts me as I have never been attracted before. I would sooner live a poor and unsuccessful straggler in the art I have chosen, with her to help me live, than be the mightiest man in England without her--even with Julia, whom I admire as much, and even more!

"One can't help these things. They may be fancies, and one may live to repent them; but while they last they are imperious, not to be resisted. It's an instinct, I suppose; perhaps even a form of insanity! But I love Leah's little-finger nail better than Julia's lovely face and splendid body and all her thousands.

"Besides, I will not drag Julia down from her high position in the world's eye, even for a day, nor owe anything to either man or woman except love and fidelity! It grieves me deeply to disappoint you, though I cannot understand your motives. If you love me as you say you do, you ought to think of my happiness and honor before my worldly success and prosperity, about which I don't care a button, except for Leah's sake.

"Besides, I know myself better than you know me. I'm not one of those hard, strong, stern, purposeful, Napoleonic men, with wills of iron, that clever, ambitious women conceive great passions for!

"I'm only a 'funny man'--a gringalet-jocrisse! And now that I'm quite grown up, and all my little funniments are over, I'm only fit to sit and paint, with my one eye, in my little corner, with a contented little wife, who won't want me to do great things and astonish the world. There's no place like home; faire la popotte ensemble au coin du feu--c'est le ciel!

"And if I'm half as clever as you say, it'll all come out in my painting, and I shall be rich and famous, and all off my own bat. I'd sooner be Sir Edwin Landseer than Sir Robert Peel, or Pam, or Dizzy!

"Even to retain your love and protection and interest in me, which I value almost as much as I value life itself, I can't do as you wish. Don't desert me, Martia. I may be able to make it all up to you some day; after all, you can't foresee and command the future, nor can I. It wouldn't be worth living for if we could! It would all be discounted in advance!

"I may yet succeed in leading a useful, happy life; and that should be enough for you if it's enough for me, since I am your beloved, and as you love me as your son.... Anyhow, my mind is made up for good and all, and...."

Here the sensation of the north suddenly left him, and he went to his bed with the sense of bereavement that had punished him all the preceding week: desperately sad, all but heart-broken, and feeling almost like a culprit, although his conscience, whatever that was worth, was thoroughly at ease, and his intent inflexible.

A day or two after this he must have received a note from Julia, making an appointment to meet him at the Ausstellung, in the Allee Strasse, a pretty little picture-gallery, since he was seen there sitting in deep conversation with Miss Royce in a corner, and both seeming much moved; neither the Admiral nor Lady Jane was with them, and there was some gossip about it in the British colony both in Düsseldorf and Riffrath.

Barty, who of late years has talked to me so much, and with such affectionate admiration, of "Julia Countess," as he called her, never happened to have mentioned this interview; he was very reticent about his love-makings, especially about any love that was made to him.

I made so bold as to write to Julia, Lady Ironsides, and ask her if it were true they had met like this, and if I might print her answer, and received almost by return of post the following kind and characteristic letter:

"96 Grosvenor Square.

"Dear Sir Robert,--You're quite right; I did meet him, and I've no objection whatever to telling you how it all happened--and you may do as you like.