A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Mr. Linley that evening—at one moment weeping in the arms of his daughter, at another pacing the room declaring passionately that Tom need never again look near his house, that he would turn him out neck and crop into the street—said some severely accurate things about Mrs. Abington and the stage generally, and the Linley household was in a condition bordering on distraction.

But Mrs. Abington, sitting in an attitude of inimitable grace upon her little gilded sofa, passing her fingers through Tom’s curls as he sat on a stool at her feet, was in no way disturbed by the condition of things in Pierrepont Street, the fact being that she was just at that moment thinking more of Mrs. Abington than of any one else in the world. She knew that the next day every one in Bath would be talking about the completeness of her conquest of the ardent young musical genius who, it was well known, held the theory that there was nothing in the world worth living for save only music. She wondered what Dick Sheridan would think now. And she was quite right so far as her speculations in regard to Bath were concerned. Every one was talking of how she had been the ruin of Tom Linley, and most of the men who talked of it, envied Tom most heartily; all the women who talked of it, envied Mrs. Abington her taste in dress.

And as for Dick Sheridan—well, Dick was for quite an hour of that morning doing his best to comfort Betsy Linley in the grief that had overwhelmed her family. She had written to Dick to come to her, and he had obeyed. He found her alone, and, though not in tears, very close to the weeping point. He saw, when he had looked into her face, that she had not slept all night for weeping. She never looked lovelier than when bearing the signs of recent tears.

“O Dick, Dick, is not this dreadful?” she cried. “You have heard of it—of course you have heard of it? All Bath is talking of it to-day.”

Dick acknowledged that he had heard of Tom’s disappointing the audience at the concert-room the previous day, and of the roars of laughter that had greeted the manager’s announcement that Mr. Tom Linley had unfortunately contracted a severe indisposition which would, the doctors declared, prevent his appearing that day. He had not heard, however, that the manager, smarting from the ridicule of the audience, had told Mr. Linley that his son was to consider his career as a musician closed, so far as Bath was concerned.

“But ’tis so indeed; father told us so,” said Betsy. “Oh, poor father! what he has been called on by Heaven to suffer! How dismal his early life was! But he freed himself by his own genius from that life and its associations, and then, just when happiness seemed at the point of coming to him, he finds that he has instructed me in vain,—that was a great blow to him, Dick—oh, what a disappointment! But what was it compared to this? O Dick, Dick, something must be done to save Tom!”

“She will soon tire of his society,” said Dick. “She is not a woman of sentiment: when she finds that the topic of her conquest of Tom has ceased to be talked about, she will release him.”

“That is what you said to me long ago, and yet he is not released, and people are talking more than ever,” she cried.

“We must have patience, Betsy.”

“What! do you suggest that we should do nothing—absolutely nothing? O Dick, I looked for better advice from you! What comfort is it to the friends of a prisoner immured in a dungeon to tell them that if they have patience his prison bars will rust away and he will then be free?”