the novelty of her life in italy was full of charm for gertrude. she was still so young that she could escape, in any momentary emotion of pleasure, from the hardening influence of the past, and the entire change of scene had almost an intoxicating effect upon her. here was no association with anything in the past which could pain, or in the present which might have the power to disconcert her. her husband's foot had never trodden the paths in which she wandered daily, with all the pleasure of a stranger and all the appreciation of natural beauty which formed a portion of her artistic temperament. he had never gazed upon the classic waters of the arno, or roamed through the picture-galleries which afforded her such intense delight, and would have been almost without a charm for his cynical materialistic nature. at least, if he had ever visited italy, gertrude did not know it; and with all her very real indifference, despite the wonderfully thorough enfranchisement of her mind and heart from the trammels of her dead-and-gone relation to him, gertrude, with true womanly inconsistency, still occasionally associated him sufficiently with her present life to feel that distance from gilbert lloyd, that the strangeness of the unfamiliar places with which he was wholly unassociated, added to the reality of her sense of freedom, gave it zest and flavour. she understood this inconsistency. "if i go on like this," she would think, "it will never do. i am much too near hating him at present to be comfortable. so long as he is not absolutely nothing to me i am not quite free; so long as i prefer the sense of the impossibility of my seeing him by any accident--so long as i am more glad to know that he is staying with lord ticehurst, and lord ticehurst's reputable friends, than i should be to know that he was in the next house on the promenade--so long as either circumstance has the smallest appreciable interest or importance for me--i am not free. i must regard him as so utterly nothing, that if i were to meet him to-morrow at the cascine, or passing my door, it could have no importance, no meaning for me. i don't mean only in the external sense, of not appearing to agitate or concern me, but in the interior convictions of my own inmost heart. such freedom i am quite resolved to have. it will come, i am sure, but not just yet. i am far too near to hating him yet."
gertrude had unusual power in the distribution of the subjects on which she chose to exercise her thinking faculty, and in the absolute and sustained expulsion from her mind of such topics as she chose to discard. this faculty was useful to her now. there were certain phases and incidents of her life with gilbert lloyd which she never thought about. she deliberately put them out of her mind, and kept them out of it. among these were the occurrences which had immediately preceded the strange bargain which had been made between her and her husband. of that bargain herself she thought with ever-growing satisfaction, remembering with complacent content the obscurity in which she had lived, which rendered such an arrangement possible, without risk of detection. but she never travelled farther back in memory than the making of that bargain. so then she determined to carry it out to the fullest, to have all the satisfaction out of it she possibly could. "i am determined i will bring myself to such freedom that the sight of him could not give me even an unpleasant sensation--that the sound of his name announced in the room with me should have no more meaning for me than any other sound devoid of interest."
gertrude was more happily circumstanced now for the carrying out of this determination. all her surroundings were delightful and novel, she was in high health and spirits, and her prospects for the future were bright and near. the climate was enchanting, the hours and the ways of foreign life suited her; and her masters pronounced her voice all that could be desired in the case of a daughter of sunny italy, and something altogether admirable and extraordinary in the case of a daughter of foggy albion. she worked very hard. she kept her ambition, her purpose steadily before her, and her efforts to obtain the power of gratifying it were unrelaxing.
hitherto gertrude's experiences had been those only of a school-girl and a woman married to an unscrupulous man who lived by his wits. she had never been out of england before; and the interval of her life at the villa, under the beneficial influence of the carabas patronage, though very much pleasanter than anything she had before experienced, lad not tended much to the enlargement and cultivation of her mind or the expansion of her feelings. but this foreign life did tend to both. she was entirely unfettered, and the sole obligation laid upon her was the vigilant precaution it was necessary she should observe against taking cold. it was in gertrude's nature to prize highly this newly-acquired sense of personal freedom, and to enter with avidity into all that was strange in her life abroad. her enjoyment of the difference between the habits and customs of italy and those of england was unintelligible to mrs. bloxam, who had also never before been out of england, and who carried all the true british prejudice in favour of everything english with her. she could not be induced to admit the superiority of foreign parts even in those lesser and superfluous respects to which it is generally conceded. "i cannot see," she remarked to a sympathising soul, whose acquaintance she had made shortly after her arrival--a lady held in foreign bondage by a tyrannical brother and his wife addicted to travel--"i cannot see, miss tyroll, that the new milk can be so much better. just look at the cows! i'm sure i've seen some at hampstead twice the size; and as for condition! and then the bread again: how can we tell what stuff they put into it to make it white? at home, we know there's alum in it; and that's the worst of it, and all about it. but here, i never dare think about it. miss lambert is quite foolish about violets; and i don't deny it is very nice indeed to have them when you certainly could not in england, and i like them as well as anyone; but i don't know that it makes so much difference after all, in one's comfort, in the long-run."
"certainly not," replied miss tyroll, who was a person of decisive mind and manners. "foreign countries are much the best places for having things which you can very well do without; but, for my part, i like england best. don't you get very tired of marble and pillars and church-bells? i do."
"so do i," assented mrs. bloxam; "and all the places one is obliged to go to are so large and bare." and then the two ladies discussed the subject just started at great length. even the climate had little merit in the prejudiced estimation of mrs. bloxam. she had felt it quite as cold by the arno as ever she had felt it by the thames; and she thought the tramontana was only a piercing wind with a pretty name. she had felt very much the same sort of thing in london, where she could take refuge from it in a snug room with warm curtains and a coal fire. she had no fancy for sitting with her feet baking over braise, and she had seen at dulwich and hampton court pictures enough to satisfy all her aspirations after art. there was something educational in the way in which visitors to florence--and, indeed, gertrude herself--did the churches and the galleries which was rather oppressive to mrs. bloxam. she hated all that reminded her of the life of sordid toil she had lived through and freed herself from; she did not like to learn anything, because she could not get rid of the feeling that by doing so she was exposing herself to the danger of having to teach it again. but all her personal discontent did not interfere with mrs. bloxam's interest in gertrude, and did not render her an unpleasant companion. she was not sympathetic; but gertrude had been little used to sympathy, and she did not greatly care about it--it never interfered with her enjoyment of anything, that she had to enjoy it alone. she did all in her power to make mrs. bloxam's life comfortable and happy, and she never interrupted or withheld her assent from the frequent reminiscences of bayswater in which her friend indulged; but she liked her life in italy, and she entertained a strong conviction that, as she had never been so happy before (for she had come to regard the brief period of her love for lloyd as an interval of hallucination), so the future could hardly bring her anything better. she had no doubts, no fears about success in her adopted profession. the favourable opinions which had been pronounced by competent judges in england were confirmed and strengthened by those to which she attached most value in italy, and her progress was surprising to herself and her instructors.
the correspondence between mrs. bloxam and lord sandilands was frequent and suivie. mrs. bloxam was a clever letter-writer, and the recipient of her epistles found in them a source of interest which life had long lacked for him. if the young lady in whom he had discovered gertrude gautier's daughter had been merely handsome, he would have been pleased with her, doubtless would have taken a kindly interest in her; had she been only clever he would have felt a secret pride in her talent, and watched its manifestations with a hidden interest: but she was both handsome and clever, and highly gifted; and all the feelings which, but for his own fault, he might once have declared and indulged openly, had been gratified to the fullest extent.
as time went on, the "working of the oracle" was done in london by the impresario and his assistants in a masterly fashion. the higher branch of the same industry was also conducted by the marchioness of carabas with all the success to which her ladyship was so well accustomed in her social manoeuvrings. to such members of her coterie as understood her passionate devotion to art, her untiring exertions in its interests, and to its professors, she spoke in raptures of her "dear grace lambert," carefully avoiding the distant precision of the "miss" and the too fond familiarity of the "grace;" she read what she called "pet bits" of her young protégée's letters, which were neither numerous nor lengthy; predicted the future value of those precious autographs, and contrived to keep a flickering flame of interest in grace lambert alive, which her appearance would readily blow into a blaze. the steadiness of dear lady carabas to this "fancy," as her friends called it, created some astonishment among her circle. she was more remarkable for the vehemence than for the duration of her attachments. it had happened to many aspirants for fame, or for social success, or some other of the many objects--which people think worth attainment, even if a little self-respect has to be sacrificed in the process, to find themselves somehow unaccountably set aside by lady carabas after a certain season of favour--happily, sometimes, long enough to have enabled them to extract from it all the profit they desired: not "dropped"--that is a rude proceeding, wanting in finesse, quite unworthy of the carabas savoir faire--but calmly, imperceptibly set aside; whereat the wise among the number were amused, and the foolish were savage. but grace lambert held her place even during her absence. there was something captivating to the fancy in the idea of the cultivation in "seclusion" of that great talent of which the world had got an inkling, under the auspices of lady carabas, and which would inevitably be a splendid testimony in the future to her judgment and taste. thus, the way for her appearance and success in london being made plainer, easier, and pleasanter for her day by day, and the purpose of her sojourn in italy fulfilled in a like ratio, time slipped away, and the period named for the return of grace lambert and mrs. bloxam--who hailed it with delight, and who now positively pined for bayswater--drew near.
there had not been seen such a house at the grand scandinavian opera for years; there had not been heard such long-continued thunders of applause, such rounds of cheering, since the br?dchen's début. lady carabas and mr. munns had each "worked the oracle," according to their lights; but the discrimination of her ladyship's friends rendered the managerial claque quite unnecessary. the opera was the trovatore, and gertrude's entrance as leonora was the signal for a subdued murmur of applause. people were too anxious to see and hear her to give vent to any loud expression of their feelings; but when, with perfect composure, and without the smallest trace of nervousness in face or voice, the girl burst into the lovely "tacea la notte," the connoisseurs knew that her success was accomplished; and long before the enthusiastic roar surged forth at the conclusion of the air mr. boulderson munns, who had been nervously playing with the ends of his dyed moustache, shut up his opera-glass, and said to his treasurer and alter-ego, mr. william duff, "by--, billy, she'll smash the other shop!"
the lobbies and the refreshment-room were emptying of the crowds which had been raving to each other after the first act of the beauty and talent of the débutante, when lord ticehurst, who had been among the loudest demonstrators in the omnibus-box, whither he was returning, met gilbert lloyd quietly ascending the stairs.
"only just come in?" asked his lordship.
"only this instant; straight from arlington-street; it's all right about charon."
"o, d--n charon!" said lord ticehurst; "you've missed the most splendid reception--miss grace lambert, you know!"
"my dear fellow, i know nothing--except that lady carabas insisted on my going to her box to-night, to hear a new singer."
"there never was such a cold-blooded fish, as you, gilbert! now be quick, and you'll be in time to see her come on in the second act!"
gilbert lloyd walked very leisurely to lady carabas' box on the grand tier, and received his snubbing for being late with due submission. when the roar of applause announced the reappearance of the evening's heroine, he looked up still leisurely; but the next instant his glass was fixed to his eyes, and then his hand shook and his cheeks were even whiter than usual, and his nether-lip was firmly held by his teeth, as in miss grace lambert, the successful débutante, he recognised his wife.
