The next day I saw that great preparations were making for the concert to be given in the grand salon, and heard from Miss Errington that much interest was felt by the Americans and English because Katy was to sing. Several times the Earl came to our villa to consult with her, and once the Italian tenor and contralto came and practiced one or two pieces, and Katy went with the Earl to the hotel to see just where she was to stand and where enter. Taken altogether, there seemed to be quite a professional air about it all which I didn’t quite like, and I said so to Jack, who answered “Oh, let Katy sing, if she wants to. It won’t hurt her.”
“But what will Fan and Carl say? I wish he were here,” I continued, whereupon Jack was more provoking than ever, and replied, “I don’t think Carl need say much after his racket with Madame!” and then he whistled again in what I thought a very exasperating way and told him so, from which it will be seen that we were getting quite like married people.
For answer he laughed and said “Nous verrons,” about the only French he had picked up, and I heard him laughing in his dressing-room where he was making his toilet for the evening. We went early to the salon, but early as we were the party from the Grand Villa were there before 437us, all except Madame, who was probably enjoying herself at play, undisturbed by Katy, or myself. We were not far from the front and could not see who entered behind us, but we knew the salon was filling fast and that some were standing near the door. Behind the curtain of the improvised stage shadowy figures were flitting, and we caught occasionally the sound of suppressed voices evidently giving orders. Jack had gone to the villa, after my fan which I had forgotten, and I had fought one or two battles over his chair and was longing for him to return and wondering why he was gone so long, when he came tearing in. I can use no other expression than tear, he was so excited and warm, as if he had been running. “By George,” he said, handing me my fan and sinking into his seat, “It’s the best joke I ever knew.”
“What’s the best joke? Are you crazy, Jack?” I asked, as he seemed about to roar.
Then he pulled himself together and answered quite soberly, “You wished Carl were here, and he is here,—in this hotel,—or was; came on the evening train. I glanced at the register and saw his name, and Paul’s and Sam’s. Norah is here, too, at the villa; came on the same train, but could not have known Carl was in it, as she said nothing of having seen him.”
“Norah! I am so glad,” Miss Errington said, while I exclaimed, “Carl and Paul! Then, they must be in the salon. Look, Jack, and find them.”
He did look, and saying “Nix,” sat down again, and continued: “Carl is undoubtedly in the Casino by this time cheek-by-jowl with Madame. She passed the villa with her maid while Norah and I were standing on the piazza. I got one flash of her black eyes in the moonlight. 438She looked rather haggard, I thought, in spite of the color on her cheeks. I don’t believe she half likes our proximity to her.”
Then he laughed and was about to say more when I warned him to stop, as the orchestra had ceased playing and the curtain was going up. Everything which could be done to make the stage attractive and like a private parlor had been done. The furniture was of the daintiest kind and most artistically arranged; the lights were shaded just right, and there were flowers and potted plants everywhere, with a whole forest of palms, tall ferns and azaleas at the rear, where the singers were to enter.
The first on the programme was a quartette sung in Italian, and mildly cheered. Then a violin solo played by the Earl,—also mildly cheered, with a faint attempt at an encore. “Stupid,” I whispered to Jack, who did not seem to be listening at all. Once, when there was a commotion near the door he turned his head and then said to me in a whisper, “That Yankee has just come in with Paul. He’ll have a good time getting a seat.”
I asked Jack to bring Paul to me, for I was longing for a sight of his face, and wanted to see what effect the sight of Katy would have upon him. But Jack said that was impossible.
“Are you sure Carl is not with him?” I asked, and he replied, “Yes, sure. He is probably at the Casino.”
And he was! Since leaving Berlin he had traveled slowly from place to place,—not quite certain whether he was sufficiently scrubbed and boiled and ironed to join the girl whom he felt a great desire to see. He had heard of her triumphs in Berlin from some friends who were at the concert, and for a moment had set his teeth together hard that she should thus go against his known wishes.
439Then he thought, “Who or what am I that I should raise so high a standard for her, and have so low a one for myself? If she sings every day in the week I want her, and mean to have her.”
Of Madame he frequently thought;—sometimes with disgust, when he remembered Homburg, and again kindly and charitably as one who was not to blame for being a French woman, with all the instincts of her class. She had amused and interested him, and shown that she cared for him, and no young man is wholly insensible to the preference of a handsome woman. Just where she was he did not know, but fancied she was at Cannes. Of Katy’s whereabouts he knew as little as of Madame’s, but had an impression that she might be in Monte Carlo, as in her last letter to Paul she had spoken of going there. If so, he knew Jack and I must be with her, as we were to join her in southern France, and with a hope to find her and us he had come on the evening train.
As our names were not on the hotel register he decided to look for us in the Casino,—the resort of the most of Monte Carlo’s visitors. Paul knew he could not enter the play-rooms, but was anxious to see the place. Taking him and Sam with him Carl left them to look about in the vestibule, while he slowly made the circuit of the rooms. Not finding us, or anyone he knew, he decided to enquire at the different hotels and was about to leave when he came upon Madame who was so heartily glad to see him that for a time he was glad to see her. She was thinner than when he left her in Homburg, with something quiet and subdued in her manner, and a shade of anxiety in her face which softened and toned down her striking beauty.
“Is in straits again I dare say,” Carl thought, resolving if she were he would not come to the rescue.
440But Madame soon undeceived him. She had had splendid luck as a rule at the tables, and, best of all, her brother-in-law in Passy had been very generous and made over to her more of the estate than she had hoped for.
“I feel quite rich again,” she said, “and can pay you what you have loaned me.”
At this Carl laughed. She was welcome to all he had advanced to her, he said, as he took a seat beside her at one of the tables, more to see her play than to play himself. After a little, however, the fever seized him, and he was about to put down his first piece of gold when there came an unexpected diversion in the shape of a young boy, whose English voice rang out shrill and clear above the hum of the room and startled every player there.
“Carl, Carl, come quick! Katy is singing at the hotel, and the people are yelling like mad. Come on.”
It was Paul, bareheaded and breathless, as he grasped Carl’s hand before the gold was upon the table. In an instant Carl was on his feet, electrified by the news Paul brought and by the sight of him in those rooms so rigidly forbidden to all under twenty-one. Close behind him was an official, but before he could seize the child Carl interposed and led him into the vestibule, where he met Sam who had come in hot pursuit of the boy. Paul and Sam had looked about the Casino until they were tired and had then returned to the hotel, where they heard of the concert in progress, but not who the singers were. Paul, who was very fond of music, begged to go in, and securing a ticket Sam managed to find standing-room for himself at the rear of the salon, where, putting Paul upon the window seat so that he could see over the heads of the people, he stood, little dreaming of the surprise which awaited him. The quartette was finished and the solo, 441and then there fell a great hush of expectancy as the people studied their programs and waited during what seemed to me an eternity, I was so nervous and excited.
Would Katy fail? Would she mind that sea of heads, or care for the eyes and glasses so soon to be leveled at her? I didn’t know, and I felt as if I should scream if the suspense were not soon ended. There was a stir among the palms and azaleas, and something which sounded like a long breath ran through the audience, as a tall slim girl walked easily and gracefully to the front of the stage, where she stood, acknowledging the cheers which greeted her as composedly as if she had been at home and about to sing a ballad to me. She was very lovely in her simple white gown, with neither paint nor powder on her face. Her fair hair was twisted into a loose coil at the back of her head and kept in place by a long gold pin, her only ornament, if I except the bunch of roses fastened in her bosom. Nor did she need anything to set off the matchless beauty of her face and the light which shone in her eyes as they swept the house in one swift glance until they fell upon Jack and me. Then she began singing to us,—I was sure,—with a thought of home in her heart,—singing in a language I could not understand, but the music of which made me grow faint as a great joy sometimes affects us. I could feel the stillness of the people, which continued for a brief instant after she finished; then, there was a perfect hail-storm of cheers and flowers, which she received with the same composure which had characterized her singing.
It was at this point that Paul had started in quest of Carl. He had been very quiet, Sam said, through the quartette and solo, and was beginning to yawn when Katy appeared.
442“Oh-h!” he began aloud, when Sam put his hand over his mouth to stop him.
Then putting his arms around Sam’s neck and nearly strangling him Paul whispered, “Is it she? Is it Katy? It is! It is!”
Shaking like a leaf he listened till the song was over and then, before Sam knew what he was doing, he sprang from the window stool and started for the Casino to find Carl. Fortunately for him a party was just entering the rooms, and taking advantage of the open door he shot through it under the nose of the astonished official, who put out his arm to detain him. But Paul was off like the wind, darting from point to point until he found Carl and startled him with the news that Katy was singing at the hotel and the people were yelling like mad.
Madame was white to her lips as she watched Carl going from the room and knew that he was going from her forever,—the only man she had ever really cared for. Then she turned to her game with nerveless fingers which could hardly hold the gold which she lost as fast as she put it down.
Meanwhile Carl was hurrying to the hotel, questioning Paul as he went, but getting no very satisfactory replies. Katy was singing and the house was full, was all Paul could say. Carl had fancied it a little parlor entertainment, but when he saw the crowd filling the salon and all the scenic effect of stage accessories, he thought to himself, “Katy has commenced her Career,” and a sting like the cut of a knife ran through him for an instant, with a feeling that he had lost her. With some difficulty he made his way to a window, where, with Paul again on the stool, he waited while an English girl wailed through some sentimental trash about “Kissing me quick if you 443love me.” Then there was another hush, reminding me of the stillness said to brood in the air before the coming of a cyclone. I believe I could have heard a pin drop, and I did hear the beating of my heart and leaned over on Jack just as the palms and azaleas stirred again, and the tall slim girl in the white dress stood before us a second time, her cheeks flushed with excitement and her face beautiful as the faces of the angels whose pictures we sometimes see. Two or three curls had escaped from the coil at the back of her head and fallen down upon her neck. These she tossed back with a graceful motion, putting up her hands to fasten them in their place as readily and naturally as if she had been in her dressing-room at home. She was wholly unconventional, and this was one of her great charms as she stood there, her eyes again sweeping the house, but failing to take in the group by the window watching her so eagerly, Paul only restrained from calling out to her by Carl’s warning “sh-sh,” spoken very low. If she had seen them and known Carl was there she might not have sung as she did,—clearer, sweeter than before,—going up and up without a break until she reached a point from which it seemed as if her voice could go no farther, and there it staid and warbled and trilled with perfect ease like the robins she used to imitate. And I was sure she saw and heard them, and that The Elms and evergreens and woods were full of them singing to her of Virginia and home, and she hated to leave them. But with an easy movement she slid down at last from the dizzy heights to which she had carried us, and with a bow her song was ended.
If the applause was great before it was thunderous now, and she stood as if wondering what it all was for. Then suddenly it subsided,—stopped by the same shrill, penetrating 444voice which had so startled the players in the Casino. Paul had nearly tumbled off the window stool with his stamping, and as soon as there was a lull he called out “Hurrah, Katy! That was splendid, and we are all here, Carl and Sam and me. Look!”
Three-fourths of the audience were English and Americans, who understood him, and all turned towards the window where the little fellow’s hands were still in the air clapping his approval. Then the cheers broke forth again, louder than before, and this time almost as much for Paul as for Katy. She was as white as her dress, and it seemed to me had scarcely strength to leave the stage. In response to the protracted calls for her reappearance she only came in front of the palms and bowed. She was not down to sing again, but when the program was finished some of the English, who knew she was a southern girl, sent up a request for a negro song, such as was sung before the war. This everyone seconded and Katy came again, looking now like a water-lily she was so pale, as she stood for a moment wondering what to sing.
“I hope it will be Old Kentucky Home,” I whispered to Jack, and as if my wish had been communicated to her she began it at once, without any accompaniment, filling the room with the old-time melody I had so often heard as a child in the hemp fields and cabins at home, but which had never sounded as it did now when Katy sang it with so much feeling and pathos.
This time I feared the people would break through the floor, and was told that the proprietor did look in alarmed at the noise. One more song was asked for and this time it was Swannee River which she chose, changing the words of the last two lines of each verse into
“Oh, how my heart is growing weary, Far from my old Virginia home!”445There was now a difference in her singing which I was quick to detect. It was just as sweet and full, but she was tired and her voice showed it, and was like the homesick cry of a child longing to lie down and rest in the sunshine and beside the running brooks of its distant home. And the people who knew she was from Virginia understood it, and there was scarcely a dry eye in the house when she finished. I was crying outright, while Paul by the window was sobbing on Carl’s neck,—“Less go home; it’s a heap nicer than here.”
It was over at last. The people were hurrying out,—some to try their luck at the Casino before the doors closed, and all talking of the girl who had so delighted them. As soon as he could Jack brought Carl and Paul to me, and we made our way across the stage in quest of Katy. She had already gone to the villa, where we found her, limp and exhausted, lying upon a couch with Norah ministering to her and piles of flowers around her, tributes to her genius,—bouquets, baskets, horse-shoes, harps,—everything, except pillows and crosses, which would have made the room look more like a funeral than it did. With a shout Paul threw himself upon Katy, nearly strangling her with hugs, and saying, “Oh, Katy, how you did sing! It made me think of the angels first, and then I got sick at my stomach, didn’t I Carl?”
Miss Errington, Jack and I had all congratulated Katy and kissed her, when Carl came up. At sight of him she started to rise, but he put her gently back, saying, “Stay where you are and rest. You sang splendidly, Katy. I was proud of you,” and then he, too, kissed her on her forehead. A wonderful light shone in Katy’s eyes as she looked up at him; the tire all left her face, which was bright with smiles and blushes as she declared she was not fatigued at all.
446“Just for a moment when Paul hurrahed and I knew he was there I did feel as if I should drop, it was so sudden,” she said, “but after that I was all right, and when I sang the Swannee River I was at home with the negroes, and a part of the time falling into the duck pond with Carl fishing me out.”
“You were!” Carl exclaimed, bending over her until his face almost touched hers; “that’s exactly where I was,—there and in the woods after you were ill.”
He had somehow gotten possession of her hand and kept it until it was wanted to repress Paul, who, on the other side of the couch, was hugging and kissing her at intervals as the fancy took him. We were a very happy family, and sat talking together until Norah, the only sensible one among us, insisted that Katy must go to bed.
“There’s another day comin’, and it’s to-morrow now,” she said, pointing to the clock which was striking one.
Sam had been in to see us, and in his characteristic way had expressed his approval of Katy’s singing. The foreign lingo he didn’t understand, he said, but the tune was tip-top, while Kentucky Home and Swanny River took the cake, and made him think of Mirandy and the little baby who died, and he snummed if he could keep from crying.
Carl, Paul and Sam went back to their hotel and the lights were soon out in the little villa. In the Grand Villa, however, there was one shining in Madame’s room, and I could see her in full undress, moving rapidly about as if packing her trunks.
“I believe she is going away,” I said to Jack, who gave his little tantalizing whistle, and replied, “Shouldn’t wonder!”
447