FullReads

“It is very annoying,” thought Tommy, “when you have to eat, drink, sleep, and dress twelve months in the year, that the income by which you do these things should cease abruptly for four months. Still, furriers can’t sell furs in hot weather, and summer boarders can’t board in winter, so I suppose other people have to make enough money in eight months to spend in twelve.”

“‘Hark, hark, the lark at Heaven’s gate sings,
And Phoebus ‘gins to rise!'”

she caroled, splashing about in her morning tub as she finished making these reflections, the tub being an excellent place for trills and scales.

Proceeding from tub to her sitting-room to make things ready for toilet and breakfast, her mind ran on her little problems.

“I want to learn more, see more, hear more,” she thought. “I have one of those nasty, unserviceable, betwixt-and-between talents: voice not high enough for ‘Robert, toi que j’aime,’ nor low enough for ‘Staendchen’; not flexible enough for ‘Caro Nome,’ nor big enough for ‘Ocean, Thou Mighty Monster’; poor French accent, worse German; awfully good English, but that doesn’t count. Can sing old ballads, folk-songs, and nice, forgotten things that make dear old gentlemen and ladies cry–but not pay. If I were billed at all, it ought to be

“First Appearance in Public[[v:small-caps]]
of[[v:small-caps]]
Behind-the-Times Tommy”[[v:small-caps]]

This appellation so tickled her fancy that she nearly upset the coffee-pot, and she continued to laugh at her own wit until a fat letter was pushed under her door from the hall outside. She picked it up. It had an English postmark.

“Helena Markham!” she cried, joyously.

DEAR TOMMY: [the letter read]

Don’t you want to come over to London for the season? You never
make any money at home from June to October, and if by chance
you have a penny in the bank (I don’t know why I say “if” when
none of us ever had such a thing!) I think I can put enough in
your way to pay part of your expenses. I am really beginning to
get on!–three engagements in the provincial towns all arranged.
My accompanist plays lots better than you do, but I don’t sing
half so well with him as I used to with you. You somehow infuse
the spirit into me that I lack. I incline to be lumpy and heavy.
They may not notice it in the provinces, for I dare say they are
lumpy and heavy there, too. However, though I shall have to have
somebody well known over here for concerts of any great
pretensions, I could work you into smaller ones, and coach with
you, too, since I must have somebody. And you are so
good-looking, Tommy dear, and have such a winning profile! I am
plainer than ever, but no plainer than Madame Titiens, so the
papers say. I never saw or heard her, of course, but the critics
say I have the same large, “massive” style of voice and person.
My present accompanist would take first prize for ugliness in
any competition; he is more like a syndicate of plainness than
one single exemplification of it! I must have a noble nature to
think more of my audiences than of myself, but I should like to
give them something to please their eyes–I flatter myself I can
take care of their ears!

Oh, do come, Tommy! Say you will!

HELENA.

Tommy pirouetted about the room like an intoxicated bird, waving the letter, and trilling and running joyful chromatic scales, for the most part badly done.

“Will I go to London?” she warbled in a sort of improvised recitative. “Will I take two or two and a half lessons of Georg Henschel? Will I grace platforms in the English provinces? Will I take my two hundred dollars out of the bank and risk it royally? Perhaps the bystanders will glance in at my windows and observe me giving the landlady notice, and packing my trunk, both of which delightful tasks I shall be engaged in before the hour strikes.”