Chapter I: Celia Makes Her Professional Début in London

It was the height of the season, and London was very full. One had only to take a stroll “down west” to be convinced of the fact, for there was scarcely a house to be seen in any of the squares that did not display the window-boxes and sun-blinds, which signified that the owners were in residence. The fashionable hotels were crowded, the restaurants thronged; and big social functions were the order of the day.

A stream of carriages and hansoms rolled down Regent Street, giving the weary pedestrian a panorama of gaily-trimmed hats and dainty sunshades. Portly dowagers accompanied beautiful girls; and it was a noticeable fact that whilst the dowagers sat bolt upright, alert and on the _qui vive_, most of the _débutantes_ leant languidly against the cushions with an air of supercilious boredom, the exacting demands of the season combined with the oppressive heat having apparently drained their vitality.

All roads seemed to lead to the Queens Hall that afternoon, and judging by the ornate escutcheons on the panels of some of the equipages, there were great people on the road. The occasion was the much-advertised charity _matinée_, organized by the popular dramatist, Guy Haviland, in aid of a well-known London hospital. Society had been pleased to bestow its patronage, and as the tickets had been disposed of at fancy prices, it was sufficiently select for the _élite_ to honour with their presence.

The function promised to be a highly interesting and successful one, for Haviland had prevailed upon several stars of the musical and dramatic professions to give their services in the cause of charity. Moreover, the gifted young singer, Celia Franks, who had made her _début_ in Paris--where she had finished her studies--was to make her first appearance before the English public; and as her wealth, beauty, and attainments had been so fully discussed in the society papers, society was curious to see whether the numerous eulogies of her merits were justified.

The hall was packed long before the concert began. Stalls and balconies were filled with women of fashion and men of note. Those who knew said it was one of the most brilliant gatherings of the season, and that the names of some of those present would have made a condensed edition of Debrett. Everybody seemed to know everybody else; and the hum of conversation buzzed loud and strong.

A well-groomed man of forty, with a gardenia in his button-hole, sauntered leisurely about the hall, stopping every now and then to greet an acquaintance, and chat about the weather and the opera. He was a popular man about town, being a peer in fairly prosperous circumstances, and still unmarried. Anxious mothers, with several daughters on their hands, made much of him, and the girls themselves declared him “so interesting, don’t you know.” But the wiles of the mothers, and the charms of the daughters were alike of no avail, for wherever he went he proclaimed himself a confirmed bachelor.

As he was about to return to his seat, a lady sailed up to him, her long silken skirts trailing on the ground. She was a regal-looking woman, magnificently dressed with perfect taste; and her bearing indicated that she was fully conscious of her own importance.

With a bewitching smile she invited the noble lord to buy a programme; she had only three left, she said, and was very anxious to sell them before the concert began.

“Mrs. Neville Williams a vendor of programmes!” exclaimed the peer with mock astonishment. “I am indeed sorry that it should have come to this!”

“One can do anything for such a good cause,” she answered sententiously; and then, with a coquettish glance from her dark eyes, “Of course I cannot hope to compete with the pretty actresses who are my colleagues, but will you buy a programme, Lord Bexley?”

She spoke with a slightly foreign accent, and had a peculiar way of pronouncing her “r’s.” There was a suggestion of artificiality about her voice, as there was also about the brilliancy of her eyes, the bloom of her complexion, and the whiteness of her teeth. Bexley did not consider her beautiful, for what good points she possessed were due to art--the art of her French maid; but he admired her personality, albeit there was some thing about it which repelled him.

“Where have you been hiding yourself all the season?” he asked, when he had allowed her to sell him a programme for sixpence and keep the change out of a sovereign. “I really believe this is the first time I have seen you since we met in Cairo last winter.”

“Yes, I have been abroad for some time,” she replied, trying to cool herself with a small ivory fan. “I was in retreat at a convent near Cimiez for nearly three months, and since then I have been to Paris and Trouville. You see, the poor Duke’s death upset me terribly--we were to have been married a fortnight later, you know--and so I thought that a few months spent right away from society would prove beneficial to my health. My nerves seemed quite unstrung.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Bexley, sympathetically. “It was very sad about poor Wallingcourt’s death. I never had the slightest idea that he was consumptive. Do you feel better after your period of seclusion?”

“Oh yes. It was so quiet and restful at the convent. The very atmosphere breathed unworldliness and sanctity. I read no books and attended to no correspondence whilst I was there, but, in company with the Sisters, passed my time in prayer and meditation. It was quite a delightful change.”

Lord Bexley turned away his face to hide a smile. The idea of Mrs. Neville Williams as a kind of temporary nun tickled him immensely. He was far more inclined to think that her absence from society had been in order to undergo a treatment of rejuvenescence at the hands of a Parisian beauty doctor. However, it would never do to doubt the word of a lady.

“It must indeed have been delightful,” he said, glancing at her again, and noting the unwonted demureness of her countenance. “But I am glad that they have allowed you to return to the world. By-the-by, your niece, Miss Gladys Milnes, is here. She is up on a visit to my sister. Won’t you come and speak to her?”

Mrs. Neville Williams frowned. “No, thanks,” she answered tersely. “I scarcely know her. She is a _gauche_ little country wench, is she not? My late husband’s relations have not treated me very kindly, and we are not on the best of terms.”

Her gaze suddenly became riveted on two gentlemen who were passing in front of the stalls to the artists’ room. They seemed to possess some fascination for her, for she stopped fanning herself, and her eyes dilated. Her expression reminded Bexley of a warhorse, when it scents the battle-field; he did not quite know what to make of it. In another moment, however, her sudden agitation had passed; she was demure and calm again.

“Those gentlemen,” she murmured, having noticed Bexley look over to them and bow--“you know them?”

“Yes. The one is Mr. Haviland, the giver of this concert.”

“And the other?”

“The other is Herbert Karne.”

“Ah!” The exclamation was short and sharp. Bexley was not sure whether it implied surprise or relief.

“I dare say you have seen his ‘Farewell to the World’ at the Academy?” he inquired. “It is a beautiful picture.”

“No,” she replied nervously. “I have not been to the Royal Academy this season. I have only just returned to town.”

She toyed absently with her long neck-chain, from which were suspended, in cheerful incongruity, a small ebony and silver crucifix, a tiny ivory death’s-head with diamonds set in the eye-holes, a miniature horse-shoe, and a diminutive champagne-bottle designed in solid gold. Bexley wondered why she wore them; they were certainly not pretty, and, as charms, he considered them out of place.

“Mr. Karne is the half-brother of Miss Celia Franks,” he informed her. “Did you hear Miss Franks sing in Paris? She made her _début_ there.”

“Yes, I heard her sing. She sang very well. I had no idea, though, that she was Herbert Karne’s half-sister. I was not aware that he had a half-sister.”

“Then you do know him?” Bexley interpolated quickly.

“I just know him, that is all,” she answered evenly. “I do not suppose, however, that he remembers me. Our introduction took place many years ago.”

The performers were taking their places for the trio with which the concert opened. Mrs. Neville Williams bowed and swept away. She carried herself with more hauteur than usual, and there was a bright spot, which was not rouge, on either of her cheeks.

Lord Bexley returned to his seat, and affected not to notice his sister’s expression of disapproval. He passed the programme to Gladys Milnes, and then leant back and appeared absorbed in the music. The trio was one composed by Beethoven for piano, violin, and ’cello, all three performers being skilled executants. When the second movement came to a close, Lady Marjorie spoke.

“You seem to have found plenty to say to that woman,” she remarked caustically. “I should advise you to be careful, Bexley, or you will find yourself the next on her list.”

Bexley shrugged his shoulders. When one lady designates another fair dame as “that woman,” it is an infallible sign that there is no love lost between the two.

“I presume you mean Mrs. Neville Williams,” he answered _sotto voce_. “I am sure I don’t know why you are so dead against her. It is not like you to be uncharitable, Marjorie.”

“I remember Dr. Williams, and I remember the poor infatuated Duke of Wallingcourt,” she returned in a whisper. “They were good men in their way, and she ruined them both. I don’t like to see good men ruined, therefore I am uncharitable.”

The musicians struck up the third movement of the trio. Bexley was silent, and his sister gave her attention again to the music.

Gladys Milnes, who sat the other side of Lady Marjorie, also listened attentively, her face aglow with interest and excitement. She might have been what her aunt had termed her, a _gauche_ little country wench, but she was very charming for all that. There was no deception about _her_ wavy golden hair and peach-like complexion; they were the gifts of Nature--which her aunt’s were not. And if she were not a fashionable young lady with the fashionable affectation of _ennui_, at least she was genuinely healthy in body, mind, and soul--which, too, her aunt was not. It was her first visit to the metropolis, and she had come for the sole purpose of attending this concert. She was greatly impressed by all that she saw; the brilliancy of the audience almost took her breath away. Never before had she seen such a galaxy of fair women, such a profusion of beautiful dresses and magnificent jewels. She began to wonder if this were what her father meant, when from the pulpit he denounced the “pomps and vanity of this wicked world;” for the elegant “creations” and “confections” represented an amount of money which, it seemed to her, might have been devoted to a much more useful purpose than the display of dress. She enjoyed watching them, nevertheless, and was keenly observant of all that went on around her.

The trio was followed by a vocal duet, after which came a humorous duologue. Gladys enjoyed them both, but she was longing impatiently for Celia’s contribution to the programme, which did not come until just before the interval. She had not seen Celia for nearly a year, and wondered if her professional _début_ had changed her in any way. She could not imagine how her friend could have the courage to face that vast audience. Her heart beat quite fast when the short wait before Celia’s appearance occurred.

By the steps at the side of the platform stood M. Lambert, the professor of singing. He wore an antiquated opera-hat rakishly tipped on one side, and a yellow rose in his dress-coat. Lambert always made a point of getting into evening dress as soon as the clock chimed the midday hour, and loftily refused to comply with the conventions of what he termed “tin-pot” society. He was a Bohemian to his finger-tips. At a given sign he took off his hat, and, having placed it carefully on the floor, made way for the accompanists--there were three of them--to pass to their respective instruments. Then with great dignity he himself escorted the fair singer on to the platform, and, having favoured the audience with a bow all on his own account, took his seat by the piano in order to turn over the music.

“Isn’t she sweet!” exclaimed Lady Marjorie, almost tenderly. “She looks for all the world as if she had just stepped out of a picture.”

Her remark was justified. Attired in a prettily made frock of shimmering white silk, with roses at her belt and in her Gainsboro’ hat, Celia stood, a charming representation of feminine beauty. She held herself erect, with gracefully poised head and loosely clasped hands; and, looking straight over the heads of her audience, awaited with composure the close of the instrumental prelude to the French ballad, “La Voix d’un Ange.”

It was the story of a forsaken and poverty-stricken mother, who, as she is rocking her weakly babe to sleep one stormy night in her miserable garret, receives an angelic visitation. Being asked to choose whether the babe shall be left to grow up in puny ill-health, or whether the angel shall take it before it knows aught of sorrow, she--although the babe is the one bright spot in her life--chooses the latter alternative, and with patient resignation watches the angel carry it away.

It was a dramatic little poem, and Celia told it well. Beginning in a low but well-modulated voice, accompanied only by the low rumbling of the organ, which depicted the approaching storm, she recited with unaffected gesture the opening verses. It was the more difficult for her, being in French, but she had acquired a good accent, and spoke distinctly.

When, accompanied by the rippling _arpeggi_ of the piano and harp, and the melting notes produced by the _vox humana_ stop of the organ, her glorious voice burst forth in all its rich fulness--“La Voix d’un Ange”--a thrill of pleasure ran through the audience, and with almost breathless tension, they drank in every note.

Higher and with more intensity rose the voice, deeper swelled the organ, more celestial sounded the sweet notes of the harp; the effect was almost entrancing. Then, in a little minor melody of exquisite beauty, the enchanting voice gradually died away; the organ resumed its low rumbling, and a few lines of recitative brought the ballad to a close.

A sigh of keen enjoyment broke from the listening crowd, and, after a moment’s silence, the hall reverberated with applause. There was not another number on the programme which elicited such enthusiasm as this. For once society was taken out of itself, for once it forgot its usual placid indifference, and forebore to grudge the singer her success.

Again and again she reappeared to bow her acknowledgments, and still the audience clamoured and thumped for an encore.

“You must sing something else,” Haviland said excitedly. “Quick! what shall it be?”

“Sing ‘Allerseelen,’” suggested Herbert Karne.

“No; give ’em something popular. They are just in the mood for it,” put in Lambert with authority. “Sing ‘Killarney’--that’s sure to take.”

He hastily found the music; then, turning round to the young singer, gave an exclamation of dismay.

“The heat and the excitement have been too much for her,” said Haviland, regretfully.

Celia had fainted.