Old Maids' Club — The Princess of Portman Square
"THE PRINCESS OF PORTMAN SQUARE."
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.
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!
[Illustration: _Miss Primpole was flirting with a seductive Spaniard.
_] 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.
"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.
