A London Season (21 page)

“Not now, Bella,” said Sir Edmund into her ear. “Don
’
t do it! If you have any sense in your pretty head, you
’
ll seem to countenance this.”

He was about to follow the young couple, with Elinor close on his heels, but there was no need. Franz, Josef and Johann had been on their own way to see what was keeping the fourth member of the Lark Quartet, and an ecstatic reunion now took place just outside the Blue Saloon. Exclamations of surprise and delight gave way to a perfect torrent of conversation in a mixture of English and German
—
for, as
Mr.
Ford had indicated, the other three young men were not so proficient in the former language as their friend, and Persephone had very little German, so the whole was necessarily held together by
Mr.
Walter
’
s fluency in both tongues.

“I
’
ll enlighten you about all this when I can,” Sir Edmund remarked quietly to Elinor, and joined the young people
’
s conversation in his own easy German, whereupon Persephone gave him another look of the liveliest apprehension. But whatever it was he was saying seemed to be quite unalarming. Indeed, though Elinor knew no German herself, she rather fancied that he was uttering the merest polite commonplaces, which were seized upon eagerly by Franz, Josef and Johann in their pleasure at being able to converse with someone outside their own small circle.

All, in fact, was a picture of the utmost propriety when Lady Mercer advanced upon the group, all smiles. “Ah, so you are already acquainted with our musicians, Sir Edmund!”

But he disclaimed previous acquaintance, explaining truthfully, “It is Miss Grafton who has met
Mr.
Walter and his friends before, at musical gatherings in Bath which she and her school friends attended.”

“Ah, yes!” Lady Mercer smiled graciously at Persephone. “You must know,
Mr.
Walter, that Miss Grafton herself is an excellent performer on the pianoforte, and the possessor of a remarkable singing voice.”

“I do know, Lady Mercer, I do! It is indeed remarkable!” agreed
Mr.
Walter, just a trifle too fervently, but her ladyship had moved on and was speaking to other guests, tactfully suggesting that they might now repair to the music-room, so that first a few persons, and then more, began to drift slowly in that direction. “But I believe it is nearly time for us to play, Seffi,” he told Miss Grafton. “You will like it! It is to be Haydn: the Sunrise. I had thought to play the new Beethoven
—
you recollect, the E flat, the one I brought back from Germany last year. But then I looked around me, I saw these people, all this fashionable crowd; no, said I to myself, I think
not
the Beethoven, is beyond them
—
but no matter, since we also play the Haydn very well indeed,” he finished, with a positively engaging lack of modesty. And with these words he seemed to gather up his three colleagues and sweep them off into the big music-room in one vigorous movement, Persephone eagerly following in their wake. In their turn, Elinor, Sir Edmund and the still bewildered Isabella closed ranks, and followed too.

Mr.
Walter
’
s confidence in the abilities of the Lark Quartet was not misplaced: they did indeed give an excellent account of the Haydn work. In other circumstances Elinor would have enjoyed it a great deal; the young men played with the greatest feeling and delicacy, and the applause at the end, considerably more than merely polite, was well deserved. However, a large part of her attention was taken up by Persephone, who had installed herself in a chair as close as she could get to the performers, and was listening and watching with an expression of perfect ecstasy on her face, never taking her eyes off the handsome and vital figure of
Mr.
Walter as he took the first violin part.

There was an encore: a lively scherzo for violin and piano, with
Mr.
Walter playing the former instrument while Johann (Elinor thought it was) moved to the pianoforte. “It is of Robert
’
s own composition!” Persephone whispered to Miss Radley, watching her beloved, who was playing with the utmost verve. At the end of the fiery little piece he flung back the lock of dark hair that tumbled over his forehead and smiled round at the whole audience. But it was on Persephone
’
s face that his eyes came to rest.

Elinor resolved, if need be, to stick close as any limpet to Miss Grafton, lest she devote herself too exclusively to the young man for the rest of the evening, but as it turned out, she need not have-feared. With the greatest ease of manner, Sir Edmund again took charge, joining in the conversation of the Lark Quartet in German, breaking into English now and then so as to draw Isabella and Elinor into it, and making it seem there could have been no more happy coincidence than this encounter. As Persephone certainly thought! Elinor saw how her delight brought a kind of incandescent glow to the delicate rose of her cheeks, and made her a very different creature from the languid girl who had taken to moping disconsolately about Yoxford House these last two weeks. Lovely as Persephone always was, Elinor thought she had never seen her appear to better advantage, and the members of her little court of admirers plainly thought so too. Sir Edmund casually hailed those of them he knew, first one and then another, so that soon there was quite a crowd around the Yoxford party, all desiring an introduction to the gifted
Mr.
Walter.

Nothing could have been better; the embarrassment of that first moment of reunion was quite smoothed over. Conversation became general once more, Persephone was persuaded back to the piano in the Blue Saloon, and although
Mr.
Walter went with her and indeed insisted on accompanying her in some songs by Schubert, by now it seemed quite unexceptionable. He nodded approval of her singing several times, but also criticized now and then, something no one else present would have dared to do. Nor, indeed, would Persephone have accepted criticism so meekly from anyone else! One dowager did inquire, in tones of slightly malicious curiosity, “One might almost suppose you had performed with
Mr.
Walter before, Miss Grafton?” To which Persephone, turning guileless eyes on the lady, immediately replied, “Oh yes, I Have! I took singing lessons from him at my school in Bath.”

This caused Sir Edmund to choke slightly, and Elinor
’
s eyes were full of amusement as her gaze met his, for he had seized an opportune moment while Persephone was at the piano to give her a rapid account of his visit to Bath, and she correctly imagined that the notion of the Miss Maddens countenancing any such singing lessons from a good-looking young man was ludicrously inapposite.

She feared there might be some difficulty in inducing Miss Grafton to leave the party at all, but that obstacle was surmounted when
Mr.
Walter told her, in a brisk and almost business-like tone, “And now that we have met again by this lucky chance, Seffi, and I find your guardian not so terrible after all, I must hear your voice in Angelina
’
s aria before I can be sure whether the conclusion I had in mind will do. Where may we see one another?”

Had Elinor thought there was anything but music in the young man
’
s head just then, she would have gasped at the audacity of this. But it was Sir Edmund who answered the question, in as matter-of-fact a voice as that in which
Mr.
Walter himself had put it.

“You had better call at Yoxford House
—
hadn
’
t he, Isabella?”

“Y-yes!” said Lady Yoxford, faintly. “Yes, to be sure! Pray do call,
Mr.
Walter. How delightful it is for Persephone to meet old friends!” She was still pretty much at a loss, but earned a smile of approval from her brother for this effort.

The prospect of a further meeting next day allowed Persephone to take leave of Robert Walter with equanimity, favouring his friends as well as himself with radiant smiles. She almost danced the short way home from Grosvenor Square to Upper Brook Street, impulsively kissed Isabella and Elinor goodnight, and positively ran upstairs with a buoyant spring in her step.

“I think that between us all, we managed to brush through
that
tolerably well,” remarked Sir Edmund, left downstairs with the two older ladies.

“Yes, tolerably well,” said Elinor, smiling, and then looked grave. “Only
—
only it won
’
t
do
, Cousin Edmund, will it?”

“It certainly will not do,” he agreed. “But you know, I think we need
n
ot fear that that young man will act improperly.”

“No, indeed! I should hope not!” said Isabella, a good deal shocked.

“He seems to be a young fellow of reasonable good sense, under the excitability,” continued her brother, “and I fancy that when he sees the kind of circles in which Persephone moves, he will recognize for himself that it really is as
Mrs.
Ford told him, and any alliance would be out of the question. For I don
’
t think him a fortune-hunter.”

“
Alliance
?” gasped Isabella, who had not yet heard the full tale as revealed by Amelia Ford. Controlling her feelings with a strong effort, she said, “Edmund, do you mean to tell me that
—
that there has been an attachment
—
an attachment of a
serious
nature between that young man and Persephone?”

“Why not? Nothing more likely, once they had met
—
and what
’
s more, found a strong community of interests. You must own they are a good-looking couple. He reminds me of somebody, too, though I can
’
t think who it is,” he added thoughtfully.

Not to be side-tracked by such considerations, Lady Yoxford said tragically, “I might have known it, after that Unfortunate Business of the tutor! And I had thought her to be beyond the age of such escapades now. But after all, it is just as I feared before you ever brought her here, Edmund. I confess, when I saw the warmth with which they met, the glances they exchanged, I did wonder
—
but you sat there talking all the time, and in that horridly difficult language too, as if there were nothing at all the matter, so that I was soon sure there was nothing in it.”

“What do you think I should rather have done
—
played the part of outraged tyrant?” inquired Sir Edmund, smiling. “I fancy that
’
s what Persephone expected.”

“You must own, Cousin Isabella, he did bring the thing off splendidly if he could even take
you
in.” added Elinor.

“But Edmund, I
still
do not perfectly understand,” Isabella complained. “You positively invited him to call here!”

“Exactly so!” said Sir Edmund, unperturbed. “I feel none of us wishes to see Persephone revelling in the part of star-crossed lover, don
’
t you agree? I
’
m persuaded, Isabella, you can
’
t want to have her mooning about in the sulks, bearing us all a hearty grudge.”

“No, very true,” admitted his sister, much struck by this piece of sagacity. “Only
—
will it
answer
?”

“Well, forbidding her to see him certainly won
’
t. As has already been proved! And if absence makes the heart grow fonder, we may as well try whether presence
won
’
t have the opposite effect.”

14

T
here could be no doubting the fact that Miss Grafton was a girl transformed. She had been in the seventh heaven that evening, waiting to waylay Elinor when she came upstairs to bed, and it was plain that her reunion with Robert Walter engendered in her such goodwill to the whole world as to dispel that coolness and withdrawal Elinor had recently sensed in her. She impulsively embraced Elinor, crying, “Oh, how happy I am! I couldn
’
t tell you all before, you see, because I felt you would disapprove, like
Mrs.
Ford, but now that you have met him I
know
you must understand! Even Cousin Edmund did, didn
’
t he?” Dismayed to find that Sir Edmund seemed to have played his part a little too well, Elinor said hesitantly, “Well, I
do
understand, my dear, and
Mr.
Walter is certainly a very agreeable young man, and most gifted. But you cannot be thinking that your meeting again by chance will
—
will lead to anything!”

Persephone took no notice whatever of this, but continued blithely, “You see, I was afraid, just a little, that he had forgotten me, or did not love me any more
—
but I might have known he could not forget me, any more than I could forget him, and now everything will be all right!”

“Persephone,” said Elinor, more firmly, “you cannot be thinking of marriage!”

“Well, of course we are! Not
directly
, of course, because Robert says
Mrs.
Ford is right, and it would be wrong in him to offer for me yet, and
I
think it was very stuffy of her to put such a notion into his head, but there! I do not like having to wait, but if I must, I will! You see, Robert will very soon obtain a post in one of the German courts where they are sure to require a person of his genius to
—
to conduct in the theatre, and arrange all the concerts, and everything of that nature. And his own opera will make his name, and he will be rich and famous, and we can get married, because then no one will care a button for my fortune, and there will be no objection in the world!”

Contemplating this hopeful programme, Elinor reflected that even if the events so confidently predicted by Persephone came to pass, there would be every objection from Persephone
’
s family. She scarcely saw them countenancing the heiress
’
s marriage to a professional musician in the employ of some German princeling. It seemed hard to cast a damper on Persephone
’
s high spirits, but she hoped she was being cruel only to be kind when she suggested, “Perhaps, Persephone,
Mr.
Walter sees the difficulties of such a course of action a little more clearly.” For she believed, from what Sir Edmund had said and she herself had observed, that such was probably (and very fortunately) the case.

She need not have feared to dash Persephone
’
s spirits; at the moment nothing had power to do that. “Oh, yes!” said Persephone cheerfully. “I fancy he
may
have some silly scruples, but nothing to signify! I promise you, I shall soon overcome them.”

This was hardly reassuring to Elinor, who thought Persephone capable of doing exactly as she said, unless
Mr.
Walter could sustain an attitude of proper resolution. But
one
good thing, she thought as she prepared for bed, was that Grenville Royden
’
s nose would be thoroughly put out of joint!