"I fear it was a less distinguished part," said Captain Armytage.
"May I understand that you will help us?" said Lancelot. "I heard of you at Devereux Castle."
"I don't think you heard much of my capabilities, especially musical ones. I was the stick of the party," said Captain Armytage.
It was explained that Captain Armytage had actually arrived that afternoon at the Cliff Hotel, and had walked over to call at Clipstone, whence he found the young ladies setting out to walk to Rockstone. He could not deny that he had acted and sung, though, as he said, his performance in both cases was vile. Little Miss Primrose had most comically taken upon her to patronize him, and to offer him as buccaneer captain had been a freak of her own, hardly to be accounted for, except that Purser Briggs's unsuitableness had been discussed in her presence.
"Primrose is getting to be a horrid little forward thing," observed Gillian to her aunt.
"A child of the present," said Miss Mohun. "Infant England! But her suggestion seems to be highly opportune."
"I don't believe he can sing," growled Gillian, "and it will be just an excuse for his hanging about here."
There was something in Gillian's "savagery" which gave Aunt Jane a curious impression, but she kept it to herself.
Late in the evening Lance appeared in his sister's drawing-room with-
"I have more hopes of it. I did not think it was feasible when Anna wrote to me, but I see my way better now. That parson, Flight, has a good notion of drilling, and that recruit of the little Merrifield girl, Captain Armytage, is worth having."
"If he roared like a sucking dove we would have him, only to silence that awful boatswain," said Gerald; "and as to the little Cigaretta, she is a born prima donna."
"Your Miranda? Are you content with her?" said his aunt.
"She is to the manner born. Lovely voice, acts like a dragon, and has an instinct how to stand and how to hold her hands."
"Coming in drolly with her prim dress and bearing. Though she was dreadfully frightened," said Lance. "Being half-foreign accounts for something, I suppose, but it is odd how she reminds me of some one. No doubt it is of some singer at a concert. What did they say was her name?"
"Ludmilla Schnetterling, the Little Butterfly they call her. Foreign on both sides apparently," said Gerald. "Those dainty ankles never were bred on English clods."
"I wonder what her mother is," said Mrs. Grinstead.
"By the bye, I think it must have been her mother that I saw that morning when little Felix dragged me to a cigar-shop in quest of an ornamental crab-a handsome, slatternly hag sort of woman, who might have been on the stage," said Lance.
"Sells fishing-tackle, twine, all sorts," came from Adrian.
"Have you been there?" asked his sister, rather disturbed.
"Of course! All the fellows go! It is the jolliest place for"-he paused a moment-"candies and ginger-beer."
"I should have thought there were nicer places!" sighed Anna.
"You have yet to learn that there is a period of life when it is a joy to slip out of as much civilization as possible," said Lance, putting his sentence in involved form so as to be the less understood by the boys.
"Did you say that Flight had got hold of them?" asked Clement.
"Hardly. They are R.C.'s, it seems; and as to the Mother Butterfly, I should think there was not much to get hold of in her; but Mrs. Henderson takes interest in her marble-workers, and the girl is the sort of refined, impressible creature that one longs to save, if possible. To-morrow I am going to put you all through your parts, Master Gerald, so don't you be out of the way."
"One submits to one's fate," said Gerald, "hoping that virtue may be its own reward, as it is in the matter of 'The Inspector's Tour', which the 'Censor' accepts, really enthusiastically for a paper, though the Mouse-trap would have found it-what shall I say?-a weasel in their snare."
"Does it indeed?" cried Anna, delighted. "I saw there was a letter by this last post."
"Aye-invites more from the same pen," he replied lazily.
"Too much of weasel for the 'Pursuivant' even?" said Geraldine.
"Yes," said Lance; "these young things are apt to tear our old traps and flags to pieces. By the bye, who is this Captain Armytage, who happily will limit Purser Briggs to 'We split, we split, we split,' or something analogous?"
"I believe," said Gerald, "that he joined the Wills-of-the-Wisp, that company which was got up by Sir Lewis Willingham, and played at Devereux Castle a year or two ago. Some one told me they were wonderfully effective for amateurs."
"That explains the acquaintance with Lady Merrifield," said Mrs. Grinstead.
"Oh, yes," said Anna. "Mysie told me all about it; and how Mr. David Merrifield married the nicest of them all, and how much they liked this Captain Armytage."
"Was not Mysie there when he arrived?"
"No, she was gone to see the Henderson children, but Gillian looked a whole sheaf of daggers at him. You know what black brows Gillian has, and she drew them down like thunder," and Anna imitated as well as her fair open brows would permit, "turning as red as fire all the time."
"That certainly means something," said Geraldine, laughing.
"I should like to see Gillian in love," laughed Anna; "and I really think she is afraid of it, she looked so fierce."
The next evening there was time for a grand review in the parish school-room of all possible performers on the spot. In the midst, however, a sudden fancy flashed across Lancelot that there was something curiously similar between those two young people who occupied the stage, or what was meant to be such. Their gestures corresponded to one another, their voices had the same ring, and their eyes wore almost of the same dark colour. Now Gerald's eyes had always been the only part of him that was not Underwood, and had never quite accorded with his fair complexion.
"Hungarian, I suppose," said Lance to himself, but he was not quite satisfied.
What struck him as strange was that though dreadfully shy and frightened when off the stage, as soon as she appeared upon it, though not yet in costume, she seemed to lose all consciousness that she was not Mona.
Perhaps Mrs. Henderson could have told him. Her husband being manager and partner at Mr. White's marble works, she had always taken great interest in the young women employed, had actually attended to their instruction, assisted in judging of their designs, and used these business relations to bring them into inner contact with her, so that her influence had become very valuable. She was at the little room which she still kept at the office, when there was a knock at the door, and "Miss Schnetterling" begged to speak to her. She felt particularly tender towards the girl, who was evidently doing her best in a trying and dangerous position, and after the first words it came out-
"Oh, Mrs. Henderson, do you think I must be Mona?"
"Have you any real objection, Lydia? Mr. Flight and all of them seem to wish it."
"Yes, and I can't bear not to oblige Mr. Flight, who has been so good, so good!" cried Lydia, with a foreign gesture, clasping her hands. "Indeed, perhaps my mother would not let me off. That is what frightens me. But if you or some real lady could put me aside they could not object."
"I do not understand you, my dear. You would meet with no unpleasantness from any one concerned, and you can be with the fairy children. Are you shy? You were not so in the fairy scenes last winter-you acted very nicely."
"Oh yes, I liked it then. It carries me away; but-oh! I am afraid!"
"Please tell me, my dear."
Lydia lowered her voice.
"I must tell you, Mrs. Henderson, mother was a singer in public once, and a dancer; and oh! they were so cruel to her, beat her, and starved her, and ill-used her. She used to tell me about it when I was very little, but now I have grown older, and the people like my voice, she is quite changed. She wants me to go and sing at the Herring-and-a-Half, but I won't, I won't-among all the tipsy men. That was why she would not let me be a pupil-teacher, and why she will not see a priest. And now-now I am sure she has a plan in her head. If I do well at this operetta, and people like me, I am sure she will get the man at the circus to take me, by force perhaps, and then it would be all her life over again, and I know that was terrible."