The Ghost | Page 4

Council. It was through him I met my wife. Did you ever see Emmeline
when she was Sissie Vox?"
"I'm afraid I didn't."
"You missed a treat, old man. There was no one to touch her in boys'
parts in burlesque. A dashed fine woman she is--though I say it, dashed
fine!" He seemed to reflect a moment. "She's a spiritualist. I wish she
wasn't. Spiritualism gets on her nerves. I've no use for it myself, but it's

her life. It gives her fancies. She got some sort of a silly notion--don't
tell her I said this, Carlie--about Rosetta Rosa. Says she's
unlucky--Rosa, I mean. Wanted me to warn Smart against engaging her.
Me! Imagine it! Why, Rosa will be the making of this opera season!
She's getting a terrific salary, Smart told me."
"It's awfully decent of you to offer me a seat," I began to thank him.
"Stuff!" he said. "Cost me nothing." A clock struck softly. "Christopher!
it's half-past twelve, and I'm due at the Diana at twelve. We're
rehearsing, you know."
We went out of the club arm in arm, Sullivan toying with his eye-glass.
"Well, you'll toddle round to-night, eh? Just ask for my box. You'll find
they'll look after you. So long!"
He walked off.
"I say," he cried, returning hastily on his steps, and lowering his voice,
"when you meet my wife, don't say anything about her theatrical career.
She don't like it. She's a great lady now. See?"
"Why, of course!" I agreed.
He slapped me on the back and departed.
It is easy to laugh at Sullivan. I could see that even then--perhaps more
clearly then than now. But I insist that he was lovable. He had little
directly to do with my immense adventure, but without him it could not
have happened. And so I place him in the forefront of the narrative.
CHAPTER II
AT THE OPERA
It was with a certain nervousness that I mentioned Sullivan's name to
the gentleman at the receipt of tickets--a sort of transcendantly fine

version of Keith Prowse's clerk--but Sullivan had not exaggerated his
own importance. They did look after me. They looked after me with
such respectful diligence that I might have been excused for supposing
that they had mistaken me for the Shah of Persia in disguise. I was
introduced into Sullivan's box with every circumstance of pomp. The
box was empty. Naturally I had arrived there first. I sat down, and
watched the enormous house fill, but not until I had glanced into the
mirror that hung on the crimson partition of the box to make sure that
my appearance did no discredit to Sullivan and the great lady, his wife.
At eight o'clock, when the conductor appeared at his desk to an
accompaniment of applauding taps from the musicians, the house was
nearly full. The four tiers sent forth a sparkle of diamonds, of silk, and
of white arms and shoulders which rivalled the glitter of the vast crystal
chandelier. The wide floor of serried stalls (those stalls of which one
pair at least had gone for six pound ten) added their more sombre
brilliance to the show, while far above, stretching away indefinitely to
the very furthest roof, was the gallery (where but for Sullivan I should
have been), a mass of black spotted with white faces.
Excitement was in the air: the expectation of seeing once again Rosetta
Rosa, the girl with the golden throat, the mere girl who, two years ago,
had in one brief month captured London, and who now, after a period
of petulance, had decided to recapture London. On ordinary nights, for
the inhabitants of boxes, the Opera is a social observance, an exhibition
of jewels, something between an F.O. reception and a conversazione
with music in the distance. But to-night the habitués confessed a
genuine interest in the stage itself, abandoning their rôle of players.
Dozens of times since then have I been to the Opera, and never have I
witnessed the candid enthusiasm of that night. If London can be naïve,
it was naïve then.
The conductor raised his baton. The orchestra ceased its tuning. The
lights were lowered. Silence and stillness enwrapped the auditorium.
And the quivering violins sighed out the first chords of the "Lohengrin"
overture. For me, then, there existed nothing save the voluptuous music,
to which I abandoned myself as to the fascination of a dream. But not

for long. Just as the curtain rose, the door behind me gave a click, and
Sullivan entered in all his magnificence. I jumped up. On his arm in the
semi-darkness I discerned a tall, olive-pale woman, with large
handsome features of Jewish cast, and large, liquid black eyes. She
wore a dead-white gown, and over this a gorgeous cloak of purple and