Lady Cheyne followed Lola up. She arrived in the tiny bedroom, whose ceiling sloped down to two small windows, breathless and laughing. “You can’t swing a cat in here,” she said. “But, after all, who ever does swing a cat? I hope you’ll be comfortable and I know you’ll be amused. I just want to tell you one thing, my dear. You are at perfect liberty to do whatever you like, to wander away out of range of the piano, with or without any of my dear delightful babies, or stay and listen to them and watch the fun. Until sleep overcomes them they will sing and play and applaud and have the time of their lives,—which is exactly what I’ve brought them here to do, poor things. All the men will fall in love with you, of course. But you’re perfectly used to that, aren’t you? You’ll look like a miniature among oleographs, but the change will do you good and show you another side of life. One thing I can guarantee. You won’t be disturbed in the morning before eleven o’clock. No one thinks of getting up until then. I’m particularly anxious for you to like Zalouhou. I predict that he will have an extraordinary success in London when he makes his appearance next week at Queen’s Hall. Did you ever see such a man? If I know anything about it at all, women will rush forward to the platform to kiss his feet,—not because he plays the violin like Kreisler but because of those magnetic eyes. Success in every walk of life is due entirely to eyes. You know that, my dear. And as to the Great Affair, I will ask no questions, see nothing and hear nothing, but rejoice in believing that I am being of use. It is exactly right, isn’t it, golden head? Ah, me, those dear dead days. Now come and have some tea and taste my strawberries. They’re wonderful this year.”
But before going down—and how kind everybody was—Lola stood at one of her windows from which she could see a corner of Chilton Park, and her heart went out to Fallaray like a white dove. It was in the air, in the cloudless sky, in the birds’ songs, in the rustle of the leaves, in the beauty and glory of the flowers that her time had come at last, that all her work and training were to be put to the supreme test. Success would mean the little gold cage of which she had heard again in her dream but which would be the merest lead without love. Failure——
Her appearance eventually in the hall, a long, many-windowed room, with great bowls of cut flowers on gate-legged tables and old dressers, was celebrated by Salo Impf with an improvisation on the piano that was filled with spring and received with noisy approval. Imbued with a certain amount of crude tact, the men of the party did nothing more than pay tribute to Lola with their eyes while they surrounded Lady Cheyne as though she were a queen, as indeed she was, having it in her power not only to provide them with bed and board but to bring them out and give them a chance in a country always ready to support talent. It was a funny sight to see this amazingly fat, kind woman pouring tea at a tiny table into tiny cups surrounded by people who seemed to be perpetually hungry, but who sang even while they ate, and laughed and jabbered in between.
“What would Simpkins say if he could see me here?” thought Lola. “And Mother and Ernest and Sir Peter Chalfont—and Lady Feo?”
But she felt happy and in a way comforted among these people. Like her, they were all struggling towards a goal, all striving after something for which they had served their apprenticeship. Not one of them had yet successfully emerged and they were living on what Mrs. Rumbold called, “the scraggy diet of hope.” It did her good to be among them at that moment, to hear their discussions in amazingly broken English of a début in London, to be aware of the extraordinary encouragement which they gave to each other, without jealousy,—which was so rare. She found herself listening enthralled to the arias sung by Anna Stezzel, and the Grieg songs which were so perfectly played by Impf. But it was when Zalouhou stood up with his violin and played some of the wistful folk songs of his country that she sat with her hands clasped together, leaning forward and moved to a deep emotion. Hunger, the daily wrestle with surly earth, illness, the subjection to a crushing autocracy, and beneath it self-preservation,—they were all in these sad, fierce songs, which sometimes burst into passionate resentment and at others laughed a little and jogged along. What a story they told,—so much rougher and so much sterner than her own. They gave her courage to go forward but they left her uncertain as to what was to be her next step.
When Zalouhou played, it was with his eyes on Lola. Her sympathy and understanding drew out his most delicate and imaginative skill and gave him inspiration; and when he had finished and laid aside his violin, he went to the sofa on which she was sitting and crouched hugely at her feet, and said something softly in his own tongue. He spoke no English, but she could guess his meaning because in his eyes there was the look with which she was familiar in the eyes of Treadwell, Simpkins and Chalfont. And she said to herself, “As there is something in me that stirs the hearts of men, give me the chance, O God, to let it be felt by the only man I shall ever love and who is all alone on earth!” And while the room rang with music, she went forward in spirit to the gate in the wall of Chilton Park, which she had seen from her window, opened it and went inside to look for Fallaray. The intuition which had been upon her so long that she might touch the heart of Fallaray in Chilton Park was strong upon her then, once more.
But she had to wait until after dinner before her opportunity came to slip away, and this she did when her fellow-workers had returned to the hall, drawn back to the piano as by a magnet. And then she escaped, in Feo’s silver frock, stole into the placid garden which was filled with the aroma of sweet peas and June roses, went down to the gate in the high wall, and stood there, trembling.
(Go on, de Brézé, go on!)
IX
Except for the servants, Fallaray was alone in his house.