BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume

would follow on the second night; the next night burlesque would reign supreme; and when the curtain arose on the fourth night Mr Wopples and the star artistes would be acting melodrama, and throw one another off bridges and do strong starvation business with ragged clothes amid paper snowstorms.

      Kitty turned out to be a perfect treasure, as her pretty face and charming voice soon made her a favourite, and when in burlesque she played Princess to Fanny Wopples’ Prince, there was sure to be a crowded house and lots of applause. Kitty’s voice was clear and sweet as a lark’s, and her execution something wonderful, so Mr Wopples christened her the Australian Nightingale, and caused her to be so advertised in the papers. Moreover, her dainty appearance, and a certain dash and abandon she had with her, carried the audience irresistibly away, and had Fanny Wopples not been a really good girl, she would have been jealous of the success achieved by the new-comer. She, however, taught Kitty to dance breakdowns, and at Warrnambool they had a benefit, when ‘Faust, M.D.’ was produced, and Fanny sang her great success, ‘I’ve just had a row with mamma’, and Kitty sang the jewel song from ‘Faust’ in a manner worthy of Neilson, as the local critic—who had never heard Neilson—said the next day. Altogether, Kitty fully repaid the good action of Mr Wopples by making his tour a wonderful success, and the family returned to Melbourne in high glee with full pockets.

      ‘Next year,’ said Mr Wopples, at a supper which they had to celebrate the success of their tour, ‘we’ll have a theatre in Melbourne, and I’ll make it the favourite house of the city, see if I don’t.’

      It seemed, therefore, as though Kitty had found her vocation, and would develop into an operatic star, but fate intervened, and Miss Marchurst retired from the stage, which she had adorned so much. This was due to Madame Midas, who, driving down Collins Street one day, saw Kitty at the corner walking with Fanny Wopples. She immediately stopped her carriage, and alighting therefrom, went straight up to the girl, who, turning and seeing her for the first time, grew deadly pale.

      ‘Kitty, my dear,’ said Madame, gravely, ‘I have been looking for you vainly for a year—but I have found you at last.’

      Kitty’s breast was full of conflicting emotions; she thought that Madame knew all about her intimacy with Vandeloup, and that she would speak severely to her. Mrs Villiers’ next words, however, reassured her.

      ‘You left Ballarat to go on the stage, did you not?’ she said kindly, looking at the girl; ‘why did you not come to me?—you knew I was always your friend.’

      ‘Yes, Madame,’ said Kitty, putting out her hand and averting her head, ‘I would have come to you, but I thought you would stop me from going.’

      ‘My dear child,’ replied Madame, ‘I thought you knew me better than that; what theatre are you at?’

      ‘She’s with us,’ said Miss Fanny, who had been staring at this grave, handsomely-dressed lady who had alighted from such a swell carriage; ‘we are the Wopples Family.’

      ‘Ah!’ said Mrs Villiers, thinking, ‘I remember, you were up at Ballarat last year. Well, Kitty, will you and your friend drive down to St Kilda with me, and I’ll show you my new house?’

      Kitty would have refused, for she was afraid Madame Midas would perhaps send her back to her father, but the appealing looks of Fanny Wopples, who had never ridden in a carriage in her life, and was dying to do so, decided her to accept. So they stepped into the carriage, and Mrs Villiers told the coachman to drive home.

      As they drove along, Mrs Villiers delicately refrained from asking Kitty any questions about her flight, seeing that a stranger was present, but determined to find out all about it when she got her alone down at St Kilda.

      Kitty, on her part, was thinking how to baffle Madame’s inquiries. She knew she would be questioned closely by her, and resolved not to tell more than she could help, as she, curiously enough—considering how he had treated her—wished to shield Vandeloup. But she still cherished a tender feeling for the man she loved, and had Vandeloup asked her to go back and live with him, would, no doubt, have consented. The fact was, the girl’s nature was becoming slightly demoralised, and the Kitty who sat looking at Madame Midas now—though her face was as pretty, and her eyes as pure as ever—was not the same innocent Kitty that had visited the Pactolus, for she had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, and was already cultured in worldly wisdom. Madame, of course, believed that Kitty had gone from Ballarat straight on to the stage, and never thought for a moment that for a whole year she had been Vandeloup’s mistress, so when Kitty found this out—as she very soon did—she took the cue at once, and asserted positively to Madame that she had been on the stage for eighteen months.

      ‘But how is it,’ asked Madame, who believed her fully, ‘that I could not find you?’

      ‘Because I was up the country all the time,’ replied Kitty, quickly, ‘and of course did not act under my real name.’

      ‘You would not like to go back to your father, I suppose,’ suggested Madame.

      Kitty made a gesture of dissent.

      ‘No,’ she answered, determinedly; ‘I was tired of my father and his religion; I’m on the stage now, and I mean to stick to it.’

      ‘Kitty! Kitty!’ said Madame, sadly, ‘you little know the temptations—’

      ‘Oh! yes, I do,’ interrupted Kitty, impatiently; ‘I’ve been nearly two years on the stage, and I have not seen any great wickedness—besides, I’m always with Mrs Wopples.’

      ‘Then you still mean to be an actress?’ asked Madame.

      ‘Yes,’ replied Kitty, in a firm voice; ‘if I went back to my father, I’d go mad leading that dull life.’

      ‘But why not stay with me, my dear?’ said Mrs Villiers, looking at her; ‘I am a lonely woman, as you know, and if you come to me, I will treat you as a daughter.’

      ‘Ah! how good you are,’ cried the girl in a revulsion of feeling, falling on her friend’s neck; ‘but indeed I cannot leave the stage—I’m too fond of it.’

      Madame sighed, and gave up the argument for a time, then showed the two girls all over the house, and after they had dinner with her, she sent them back to town in her carriage, with strict injunctions to Kitty to come down next day and bring Mr Wopples with her. When the two girls reached the hotel where the family was staying, Fanny gave her father a glowing account of the opulence of Madame Midas, and Mr Wopples was greatly interested in the whole affair. He was grave, however, when Kitty spoke to him privately of what Madame had said to her, and asked her if she would not like to accept Mrs Villiers’ offer. Kitty, however, said she would remain on the stage, and as Wopples was to see Madame Midas next day, made him promise he would say nothing about having found her on the streets, or of her living with a lover. Wopples, who thoroughly understood the girl’s desire to hide her shame from her friends, agreed to this, so Kitty went to bed confident that she had saved Vandeloup’s name from being dragged into the affair.

      Wopples saw Madame next day, and a long talk ensued, which ended in Kitty agreeing to stay six months with Mrs Villiers, and then, if she still wished to continue on the stage, she was to go to Mr Wopples. On the other hand, in consideration of Wopples losing the services of Kitty, Madame promised that next year she would give him sufficient money to start a theatre in Melbourne. So both parted mutually satisfied. Kitty made presents to all the family, who were very sorry to part with her, and then took up her abode with Mrs Villiers, as a kind of adopted daughter, and was quite prepared to play her part in the comedy of fashion.

      So Madame Midas had been near the truth, yet never discovered it, and sent a letter to Vandeloup asking him to come to dinner and meet an old friend, little thinking how old and intimate a friend Kitty was to the young man.

      It was, as Mr Wopples would have said, a highly dramatic situation, but, alas, that the confiding nature of Madame Midas should thus have been betrayed, not only by Vandeloup, but by Kitty herself—the very girl whom, out of womanly compassion, she took to her breast.

      And