So it was March before Linnet was in London once more. Andreas, ever business-like, had preceded her by a week or two, to conclude the needful arrangements with the people at the Harmony. By the time the prima donna herself arrived, everything was already well in train for the rehearsals. Linnet had studied her part, indeed, in Paris beforehand, till she knew every line, every word, every note of it. She had never learnt anything so easily in her life before, though she would hardly admit, even to herself, the true reason—because Will had written it. They met at the Harmony the very next afternoon, to discuss the details. Andreas was there, of course—he never left his wife’s side when business was in question; he must protect her interests: erect, inflexible, tall, powerful, big-built, with his resolute face and his determined mien, he was a man whom no theatrical manager on earth could afford to bully. He bargained hard with the Harmony for his wife’s services in this new engagement; for, indeed, her late Parisian vogue had put up her price another twenty per cent, or so; and now he stood there, triumphant, self-conscious, jubilant, aware that he had done a good stroke of business for himself, and ready to do battle again on his wife’s behalf with all and sundry. So satisfied was he, indeed, with their rising fortunes, that he had presented Linnet spontaneously with a five-pound note, all pocket-money of her own to do as she liked with, on their way to the theatre.
Linnet stood a little behind. Will grasped her hand eagerly. She took his in return without the faintest pressure—for Our Dear Lady knew well how wisely and circumspectly she meant to behave now towards him. The circumstances were dangerous: so much the more, Beloved Frau, would she strive to comport herself as becomes a good Catholic wife in the hour of temptation.
“You like your part, Signora?” Will asked of her, half-playfully, adopting her theatrical Italian style and title.
Linnet raised her big eyes. “I have never sung in anything I liked half so well,” she answered, simply.
The company assembled by degrees, and the usual preliminary discussion ensued forthwith as to parts, and cues, and costumes, and properties. Will’s own ideas, conceived among the virgin snows and pure air of the high Alps, were a trifle too ethereal and a trifle too virginal for that practical manager. He modified them considerably. Various points had to be talked over with various persons. In the midst of them all, Will was surprised to feel of a sudden a sturdy gloved hand laid abruptly on his shoulder, and a powerful though musical feminine voice exclaiming volubly at his ear in very high German, “Ach mein Gott! it’s Herr Will! So we meet again in London. Herr Andreas told me you had written this piece for Linnet; but one hardly knows you again, you’ve grown so much older—and better dressed—and richer! And, Dear Frau! in the Tyrol, you wore no beard and whiskers!”
Will turned in surprise. It was a minute, even so, before he quite recognised the stalwart speaker. It was Philippina, still good-humoured and buxom and garrulous as of old; but, oh, great heavens, how much changed from the brown-faced sennerin with the rough woollen petticoat who had offered them milk, all frothy from the cow, in the stoneware mug on the hillside at St Valentin! If Linnet was altered, Philippina was transmogrified. Her jolly round face was surmounted incongruously by the latest and airiest thing out in Parisian bonnets; her dress was the very glass and mirror of fashion; her delicate gloves looked as dainty as seven-and-a-halfs are ever likely to look upon feminine fingers. Civilisation, indeed, had done its worst for Philippina: it had transformed her outright from a simple and natural if somewhat coarse-fibred cow-girl into the jolly, bouncing, distinctly vulgar type of third-rate actress. With all the good-humoured coarseness of her original nature, she now possessed in addition all the airs and graces, all the coquettish affectations, all the noisy self-assertion of the theatrical utility.
“Why, I didn’t know you were in England,” Will exclaimed, taken aback at her unexpected salute, and surveying from head to foot with no very pleased eye the fly-away peculiarities of her over-trimmed costume. “Then you’ve taken to the stage!” He turned hastily to Linnet, and added in English, which Philippina did not understand when he last met her, “She isn’t surely going to play in this piece of mine, is she?”
“So!” Philippina answered, in a very Teutonic voice, indeed, but in our native vernacular. “Ach, yes; I am going to play in it; Herr Andreas has arranched all zat wis ze manager. You are surbrized to zee zat I shall blay in your biece. But I haf blay pevore in many bieces in Paris.”
Will glanced at Linnet, a mute glance of inquiry. He didn’t know why, but Linnet’s eyes fell, and a blush spread quick over that clear brown cheek of hers. It wasn’t the familiar blush he was accustomed to see there; he noted at once some tinge of shame and personal humiliation in the look that accompanied it. But she answered quickly, “Oh yes; Philippina’s to play. My husband and Mr Wells have settled all about it.”
“What part?” Will inquired, with a slight sense of sinking; for he wasn’t over-well pleased to hear those dainty lines of his were to be murdered by Philippina’s coarse guttural utterance.