The second song, “Lochaber,” had been chosen by Mariposa’s teacher to show off her lower register—those curious, disturbing notes that were so deep and full of vague melancholy. She had gained such control as she had over her voice and sang with an almost joyous exultation. She had never realized what it was to sing before people who knew and who listened in this way in a place that was large enough.
When the last notes died away, the tinkling of the piano sounding like the frail specters of music gafte the tones of the rich, vibrant voice, there was a sudden noise of clapping hands. It came from the box on the right, where the woman in the ulster was leaning over the rail, clapping with her bare hands held far out.
“Brava!” she cried in a loud, full voice. “Brava! La belle voix! Et quel volume! Brava!”
She bounced round on her chair to look at the man beside her, and, leaning forward, clapped again, crying her gay “brava.”
Mariposa walked toward the box, feeling suddenly shy. As she drew nearer she saw the woman’s face more distinctly. It was a dark French face, with a brunette skin warming to brick-dust red on the cheeks, set in a frame of wiry black hair, and with a big mouth that, laughing, showed strong white teeth, well separated. As Mariposa saw it fairly in the light of an adjacent lamp she recognized it as that of the Leonora of “Il Trovatore.” It was the prima donna.
She started forward with flushing cheek and held out a hesitating hand. The fat, ungloved palms of the singer closed on it with Gælic effusion. Mariposa was aware of something delightfully wholesome and kind in the broad, ruddy visage, with its big, smiling mouth and the firm teeth like the halves of cleanly-broken hazelnuts. The singer, leaning over the rail, poured a rumbling volume of French into the girl’s blushing, upturned face. Mariposa understood it and was trying to answer in her halting schoolgirl phrases, when the voice of Mrs. Willers, at the bottom of the steps, summoned her.
“Come down, quick! They think it’s fine. Oh, dearie,” stretching up a helping hand as Mariposa swept her skirts over the line of the footlights, “you did fine. It was great. You’ve just outdone yourself. And you looked stunning, too. I only wished the place had been full. Heavens! but I thought I’d die at first. While you were standing there waiting to begin I felt seasick. It was an awful moment. And you looked just as cool! Mr. Shackleton don’t say much, but I know he’s tickled to death.”
They walked up the aisle as she talked to where Shackleton and the two men were standing in earnest conversation. As they approached Lepine turned toward her and gave a slight smile.
“We were saying, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that you have unquestionably a voice. The lower register is remarkably fine. Of course, it is very untrained; absolutely in the rough. But Signor Tojetti, here, finds that a strong point in your favor.”
“Signor Tojetti,” said Shackleton, “seems to think that two years of study would be ample to fit you for the operatic stage.”