第93章

A CRUEL mental stroke, like a heavy blow upon the body, sometimes benumbs and sickens at first, but does not torture; yet that is to follow.

It was so with Ina Klosking. The day she just missed Edward Severne, and he seemed to melt away from her very grasp into the wide world again, she could drag herself to the theater and sing angelically, with a dull and aching heart. But next day her heart entered on sharper suffering. She was irritated, exasperated; chained to the theater, to Homburg, yet wild to follow Severne to England without delay. She told Ashmead she must and would go. He opposed it stoutly, and gave good reasons. She could not break faith with the management. England was a large place. They had, as yet, no clew but a name. By waiting, the clew would come. The sure course was to give publicity in England to her winnings, and so draw Severne to her. But for once she was too excited to listen to reason. She was tempest-tossed. "I will go--I will go," she repeated, as she walked the room wildly, and flung her arms aloft with reckless abandon, and yet with a terrible majesty, an instinctive grace, and all the poetry of a great soul wronged and driven wild.

She overpowered Ashmead and drove him to the director. He went most unwillingly; but once there, was true to her, and begged off the engagement eagerly. The director refused this plump. Then Ashmead, still true to his commission, offered him (most reluctantly) a considerable sum down to annul the contract, and backed this with a quiet hint that she would certainly fall ill if refused. The director knew by experience what this meant, and how easily these ladies can command the human body to death's door _pro re nata,_ and how readily a doctor's certificate can be had to say or swear that the great creature cannot sing or act without peril to life, though really both these arts are grand medicines, and far less likely to injure the _bona fide_ sick than are the certifying doctor's draughts and drugs. The director knew all this; but he was furious at the disappointment threatened him. "No," said he; "this is always the way; a poor devil of a manager is never to have a success. It is treacherous, it is ungrateful: I'll close. You tell her if she is determined to cut all our throats and kick her own good fortune down, she can; but, by ----, I'll make her smart for it! Mind, now; she closes the theater and pays the expenses, if she plays me false.""But if she is ill?"

"Let her die and be ----, and then I'll believe her. She is the healthiest woman in Germany. I'll go and take steps to have her arrested if she offers to leave the town."Ashmead reported the manager's threats, and the Klosking received them as a lioness the barking of a cur. She drew herself swiftly up, and her great eye gleamed imperial disdain at all his menaces but one.

"He will not really close the theater," said she, loftily; but uneasiness lurked in her manner.

"He will," said Ashmead. "He is desperate: and you know it _is_ hard to go on losing and losing, and then the moment luck turns to be done out of it, in spite of a written bargain. I've been a manager myself.""So many poor people!" said Ina, with a sigh; and her defiant head sunk a little.

"Oh, bother _them!"_ said Ashmead, craftily. "Let 'em starve.""God forbid!" said Ina. Then she sighed again, and her queenly head sunk lower. Then she faltered out, "I have the will to break faith and ruin poor people, but I have not the courage."Then a tear or two began to trickle, carrying with them all the egotistical resolution Ina Klosking possessed at that time. Perhaps we shall see her harden: nothing stands still.

This time the poor conquered.

But every now and then for many days there were returns of torment and agitation and wild desire to escape to England.

Ashmead made head against these with his simple arts. For one thing, he showed her a dozen paragraphs in MS. he was sending to as many English weekly papers, describing her heavy gains at the table. "With these stones," said he, "I kill two birds: extend your fame, and entice your idol back to you." Here a growl, which I suspect was an inarticulate curse. Joseph, fi!

The pen of Joseph on such occasions was like his predecessor's coat, polychromatic. The Klosking read him, and wondered. "Alas!" said she, "with what versatile skill do you descant on a single circumstance not very creditable.""Creditable!" said Ashmead; "it was very naughty, but it is very nice."And the creature actually winked, forgetting, of course, whom he was winking at, and wasting his vulgarity on the desert air; for the Klosking's eye might just manage to blink--at the meridian sun, or so forth; but it never winked once in all its life.

One of the paragraphs ran thus, with a heading in small capitals:

"A PRIMA DONNA AT THE GAMBLING TABLE.

"Mademoiselle Klosking, the great contralto, whose success has been already recorded in all the journals, strolled, on one of her off nights, into the Kursaal at Homburg, and sat down to _trente et quarante._ Her melodious voice was soon heard betting heavily, with the most engaging sweetness of manner; and doubling seven times upon the red, she broke the bank, and retired with a charming courtesy and eight thousand pounds in gold and notes."Another dealt with the matter thus:

"ROUGE ET NOIR.

"The latest coup at Homburg has been made by a cantatrice whose praises all Germany are now ringing. Mademoiselle Klosking, successor and rival of Alboni, went to the Kursaal, _pour passer le temps;_ and she passed it so well that in half an hour the bank was broken, and there was a pile of notes and gold before La Klosking amounting to ten thousand pounds and more. The lady waved these over to her agent, Mr. Joseph Ashmead, with a hand which, _par parenthe'se,_ is believed to be the whitest in Europe, and retired gracefully."On perusing this, La Klosking held _two_ white hands up to heaven in amazement at the skill and good taste which had dragged this feature into the incident.

"A DRAMATIC SITUATION.