CHAPTER IV.
A PERILOUS PROTEGEE.
EVEN the icy December blast, which buffeted Mr. Desmond, as his hansom descended the Islingtonian Mont Blanc, could not blow away his sense of impotent indignation against the Nemesis who had presided over the youth of Miss Alford. His slumbers were rendered restless by the thought of her wrongs; and the picture of a desolate girl, travelling alone through a bleak wintry landscape, was the first image that presented itself to his mind when he awoke.
He disposed of his breakfast in about ten minutes, and from nine to half-past eleven worked at his desk as even he rarely worked. For scarcely any one but a helpless girl, whose sorrows had enlisted all his sympathy, would the editor of the Areopagus have sacrificed the noon of a business day. He glanced with a guilty look at a pile of proofs that lay unread amongst his chaos of papers, and then departed to keep his appointment with Lucy.
He took her to the prison, and was present during the interview between father and daughter. Lucy’s tenderness and sweetness touched him to the heart. Never before had he seen such patience, such unselfish affection; never had he imagined so perfect a type of womanhood.
“And she will go to that country theatre, utterly friendless and alone, to sing the ‘Cat’s-meat Man,’ and to dance a cellar-flap breakdown,” Mr. Desmond said to himself, as he stood in the background, watching this Grecian Daughter of Ball’s Pond, who would have given her heart’s best blood for the captive father, upon whose neck she hung so fondly.
“I would rather see her under the wheels of Juggernaut than dancing a cellar-flap breakdown,” thought Mr. Desmond. And at this moment there arose in Laurence Desmond’s mind a desperate resolution. He would do something—he knew not what, but something—to prevent any further dancing of cellar-flap breakdowns on the part of Miss Alford. During that brief interview of the preceding night his quick eye had noted a mysterious rose-coloured satin garment of the tunic family lying on a table beside a shabby little workbox and a paper of spangles, whereby he opined that Miss Alford had been sewing spangles upon this rose-coloured garment, and that it was to be worn by her in the character of Gennaro, together with a pair of little rose-coloured silk boots, very much the worse for wear, but laboriously darned, and renovated by spangles.
“She might surely be a nursery-governess—a companion to some kind elderly lady; anything would be better than the ‘Cat’s-meat Man,’” he said to himself; and, being prone to act with promptitude and decision in all the affairs of life, he broke ground with Miss Alford immediately after leaving the prison. They had travelled from Islington in a cab; but as it was a fine clear day, and as Lucy seemed to consider walking no hardship, he offered her his arm, and began the homeward journey on foot. He wanted to talk seriously to her, undistracted by the rattle of a cab.
“Are you very fond of acting?” he began.
“Oh yes, Mr. Desmond; I love it dearly, when I play my own parts—Pauline and Julia—Juliet and Ophelia, you know.”
“Yes; but there is so much hardship, so many discouragements.”
“I do not mind either hardship or discouragement,” the girl answered, bravely.
“Not now perhaps, while you are very young and very hopeful; but the day must come when——”
“Oh don’t, please don’t!” cried Lucy, piteously. “You are talking like Mrs. M’Grudder. ‘Wait till you’ve been in the profession as long as I have, my dear,’ she says, ‘and then you’ll know what it is to be an actress. Look at me, and see where I am, after five-and-twenty years’ slavery; and I had talent, when I began;’ and she lays such an insulting emphasis on the ‘I’ and makes me feel utterly wretched for the rest of the evening, unless I get a little more applause than usual to give me courage. There is a chimney-sweep, a regular playgoer, at Market Deeping, who is said to be quite the king of the gallery—all the other gallery people form their opinion by his, you know; and I believe he likes me. He always gives me a reception.”
“A reception?”
“Yes; he applauds me when I first come on;—that is a reception, you know; and a good reception puts one in spirits for the whole evening. The sweep cries ‘Bravo,’ or ‘Brayvo’ as he calls it, poor fellow; and then they all applaud.”
Her face quite softened as she thought of the chimney-sweep, and Laurence Desmond watched her with a smile, half pitying, half amused—she seemed such a childish creature, in her ignorant hopefulness, and dependence on the approbation of chimney-sweeps.
“I should be very sorry to seem as disagreeable to you, as Mrs. M’Grudder does,” he said, presently; “but I am very deeply interested in your career—for auld lang syne, you know—and I want to discuss your prospects seriously. I do not think the stage, as it is at present constituted, offers a brilliant prospect for any woman. Of course there are exceptional circumstances, and there is exceptional talent; but, unhappily, exceptional talent does not always win its reward unless favoured by exceptional circumstances. Your surroundings are against you, my dear Miss Alford. Your father’s ignorance of the dramatic world, your own inexperience of any world except the world of books, must tell against you when you fight for precedence with people who have been born and bred at the side-scenes of a theatre. The prizes in the dramatic profession are very few, and the blanks are the most worthless of all ciphers. And for the chance of winning one of these rare prizes you must stake so much. Even in these enlightened days, there are prejudiced people who hold in abhorrence the profession of Garrick and the Kembles, of Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Kean; and by and by, when you have failed, perhaps, to realize one of the bright hopes that sustain you now, and have entered upon some other career, malicious people will reproach you with your dramatic associations, and discredit the truth and purity of your nature, because you tried to support your father by the patient exercise of your talents and your industry. You see I know what the world is, Lucy, and know that it can be a very hard and bitter world; above all things, bitter for a woman whose youth is unguarded by any natural protector.”
Miss Alford looked at him wonderingly. “I have papa,” she said. “What other protector can I want?”
“Your papa loves you very fondly, I have no doubt; but his circumstances do not enable him to——”
“You mean that he is poor?” Lucy interposed, a little wounded.
“No, it is not of his poverty I am thinking, but of his inexperience. In all matters relating to the profession you have chosen, your father is as inexperienced as yourself. He cannot help you, as other girls who aspire for dramatic success are helped by those about them.”
“Yes, that is quite true,” answered the girl, rather sadly; “but I hope to succeed in spite of that. And by and by, when I get a London engagement, and have a salary of three or four pounds a week, papa and I can live in nice lodgings, and be very happy.”
“And you really like your theatrical life, with all its difficulties; even with its Mrs. M’Grudders?”
“I like it so much, that neither Mrs. M’Grudder nor you can discourage me,” answered Lucy. “I know that you speak very kindly, and that you are the best and most generous of friends; but I cannot tell you how it pains me to hear you run down the profession.”
This was a difficulty which Mr. Desmond had never contemplated. In a moment of generous feeling, he had resolved to rescue this fair young flower from the foul atmosphere in which her freshness was fading, and, behold! the fair young flower rejoiced in that unwholesome atmosphere, and refused to be restored to loftier and purer regions. He would have snatched this brand from the burning, but the brand preferred to remain in Tophet. For the first time in his life, Mr. Desmond understood the nature of that midsummer madness which affects the ignorant aspirant for dramatic fame; for the first time he beheld what it was to be “stage-struck.” If he had been talking to a young actress, familiar from the cradle with the mysteries of her art, she would have heartily coincided with his abuse of “the profession;” but Lucy Alford was fresh from the little parlour at Henley, where she had rehearsed Shakspeare, Sheridan Knowles, and Bulwer Lytton, before the looking-glass, in a fever of poetic feeling, and she had all the amateur’s fond, ignorant love of her art.
She knew that Mr. Desmond meant kindly by her, but she was cruelly affected by the tenor of his advice. “Et tu, Brute,” she said to herself, sadly. So many people had tortured and tormented her by their dismal croakings about the career she had chosen; and now he, even he, the friend who had promised to help her, went over to the enemy, and spoke to her in the accents of M’Grudder. She had been very happy that morning as they drove to Whitecross Street—yes, actually happy—though the father she loved was languishing in captivity; but her heart sank with a new despondency as she walked by Mr. Desmond’s side after this serious conversation.
Was it all true that people had told her? she asked herself; was there no such thing as success possible for her, let her study never so diligently, and labour never so industriously? And then she thought of Mrs. Siddons, who appeared in London, young, beautiful, gifted, only to fail ignominiously, and then went quietly back to her provincial drudgery, and plodded on with inimitable patience, to return in due time and take the town by storm. It was from the consideration of this little history she was wont to obtain consolation when depressed by the advice of her acquaintance; but even this failed to console her to-day. Discouragement from Laurence Desmond seemed more depressing than from any one else. Was he not her kindest—nay, indeed, her only—friend, and could she doubt the sincerity of his counsel?
The tears gathered slowly in her downcast eyes as she walked silently by his side, thinking thus; but she contrived to brush those unbidden tears away, almost unseen by her companion. Almost, but not quite unseen. Laurence saw that she was depressed, and he had a faint suspicion that she had been crying; and immediately his heart smote him, and he was angry with himself for the recklessness with which his rude hand had smitten down her airy castle.
“Poor little girl!” he said to himself, very sadly; “and she really thinks that she will be a great actress some day, and win her reward for all the patient drudgery of the present. Well, she must keep her day-dream, since it is so dear. Mine shall not be the hand to let in the common light of reason on her dream-world. But I am very sorry for her, notwithstanding.”
And hereupon Mr. Desmond tried to cheer his companion with much pleasant and hopeful talk; and the innocent young face brightened, and the shy, blue eyes glanced up at him with a grateful look which went straight to his heart, whither, indeed, all this girl’s unsophisticated words and looks seemed to go.
“She is born to melt the hearts of men,” he said to himself; “a tender, Wordsworthian creature—plaintive, and grateful, and confiding. She will make a very sweet Juliet, if she ever acquire dramatic tact and power; but I cannot endure the preliminary ordeal of the ‘Cat’s-meat Man.’ Free-trade in the drama is no doubt a supreme good, but there are times when one sighs for the days of the patent theatres, when every provincial manager kept a Shakspearian school, and would have shrunk appalled from the idea of street-boy dances and street-boy songs.”
Mr. Desmond and the young actress walked all the way from Whitecross Street to Paul’s Terrace, and it seemed to Laurence quite a natural occurrence to be walking with the girl’s shabby little glove upon his arm. He was quite conscious that she was poorly dressed, that her shawl would have been despised by the tawdry factory-girls they met near the Old Street Road; but he knew that she looked like a lady, in spite of her well-worn shawl, and he had no sense of shame in the companionship. He had never felt a more unselfish regard than he felt for this girl; and during the visit to the prison he had decided upon taking a step, the desperation whereof he was by no means inclined to underrate. He had determined to obtain Emily Jerningham’s friendship for Lucy Alford, if sympathy for any human creature could be awakened in that lady’s heart and mind.
“I have never yet asked her a favour,” he said to himself. “I will ask her to interest herself in this poor girl’s fate. My friendship can serve Lucy Alford very little; but the friendship of a woman, an accomplished woman like Emily, who is in every way independent, may help to shape her future, and rescue her at once from ‘cellar-flap breakdowns’ and ‘cat’s-meat men.’ Emily is always bewailing the emptiness of her life. It might be at once an amusement and a consolation to her to befriend this girl. I know it is a generous heart to which I shall make my appeal. The only question is, whether I can contrive to touch that heart with Lucy Alford’s story.”
Mr. Desmond only apprehended one difficulty in the matter, but that was rather a serious one. Might not Mrs. Jerningham—of late the victim of such morbid fancies, such frivolous suspicions—take it into her head to be jealous of this girl? and in that case there was an end to all hope for Lucy. Let the green-eyed monster show but the tip of his forked tail, and friendship between Mrs. Jerningham and Miss Alford would be an impossibility.
Reasoning upon the matter within himself, as he walked by Lucy’s side, Laurence Desmond decided that jealousy in this case must needs be out of the question.
“No, no; she has been foolish and absurd enough in her fancies, Heaven knows; but here it is impossible. The girl is nearly twenty years younger than I am, and has nothing in common with me, or the world I live in.”
After arguing with himself thus, Mr. Desmond decided that there was no possibility of any such feeling as jealousy upon Emily Jerningham’s part; and yet it seemed to him that it would be a desperate and awful thing to address the lady of River Lawn on the subject of Lucy Alford.
They arrived at Paul’s Terrace while the editor was still meditating upon the young lady’s future, and, indeed, before he had altogether decided upon what was best to be done on her behalf. An unexpected difficulty had arisen, in the girl’s enthusiastic regard for her profession. It was quite out of the question that Mr. Desmond should introduce Lucy to Mrs. Jerningham while the girl still hankered after the triumphs of Market Deeping. All thought of “cellar-flap breakdowns,” and “cat’s-meat men,” must be put away before Lucy could approach the wife of Harold Jerningham.
In this perplexity of mind, Mr. Desmond could not bring himself to bid Lucy Alford good-bye upon the threshold of No. 20, Paul’s Terrace, as she evidently expected him to do. He lingered doubtfully for a minute or two, and then went into the parlour with her.
“I should like to have a few minutes’ chat before I bid you good-bye,” he said. “I suppose you really must go to-morrow?”
“Yes, to-morrow is the latest. It seems very dreadful to leave papa in that horrible dingy place; but he says it will be only for a few days. I ought to have been at Market Deeping on Monday, for the rehearsals. Mr. Bungrave is very particular.”
“What time do you start?”
“At a quarter-past five.”
“In the afternoon, I suppose?”
“Oh no, in the morning.”
“At a quarter-past five on a December morning!” cried Laurence, with a shudder. “Isn’t that a very inconvenient hour?”
“Yes, it is rather disagreeable to start before it is light, because cabmen are always so ill-tempered at that time in the morning. But the train goes at a quarter past five, and I must contrive to be at the station at five.”
“The train?” repeated Laurence. “There must be several trains for Lincolnshire in the course of the day.”
“Oh yes, there are other trains; but, you see, that is the parliamentary train, and in the profession, people generally travel by the parliamentary train, because it is so much cheaper, you know, and it comes to the same thing in the end. One meets most respectable people, generally with large families of children and canary-birds; and sometimes people even play cards, if one can get something flat—a tea-tray, or a picture—to play on. One has to hide the cards, of course, when the guard comes round, unless he happens to be a very good-natured guard, who pretends not to see them. Oh, I assure you, it is not at all disagreeable to travel by the parliamentary train.”
“Well, I can fancy there might be a combination of circumstances under which a journey to—say the Land’s End—in the slowest of parliamentaries would be delightful,” said the editor, looking at the girl’s innocent, animated face with a very tender smile. “But I think I could willingly forego the children and the canaries, and even the card-playing on a tea-tray. Suppose you go by the mid-day express, Lucy, upon this occasion, as the weather is cold, and you will he travelling alone? I will meet you at the station, and see to your ticket, and all that sort of thing; and then, when I have placed you in the care of the most indulgent guard who ever ignored card-playing on a tea-tray, I can go to Whitecross Street, and assure your father of your comfortable departure.”
“You are too kind. I cannot accept so much kindness,” murmured Lucy, to whom it was a very new thing to receive such evidence of disinterested friendship.
As she faltered her grateful acknowledgments, with a confusion of manner that was not without its charm, her eyes wandered to the chimney-piece, where there was a letter, directed in a sprawling, masculine hand.
“It is from the manager,” she said, as she took the letter. “Perhaps to scold me for not being at the theatre last Monday. Will you excuse me if I read it, Mr. Desmond?”
“I would excuse you if you read all the epistles of Pliny,” said Laurence; and in the next moment would have cut his tongue out.
Lucy tore open her letter with nervous haste. The change in her countenance as she read, told Mr. Desmond that the missive brought her no good tidings.
“Is there anything amiss?” he asked.
“Oh, it is cruel, it is shameful!” cried the girl, indignantly. “Mr. Bungrave has given Gennaro to another lady, because I was not there for the rehearsal yesterday. Papa wrote to him to say when we were coming; and if he had telegraphed to say I must positively be there, I should have gone. And now I have lost my engagement, after studying my part so carefully, and altering my dress, and——”
Here the young lady stopped abruptly, and Laurence saw that it cost her no small effort to keep back her tears. She was very young, and the fever of the amateur, the devotee of a beloved art, was strong upon her. Laurence perceived also her regretful glance in the direction of a little old-fashioned sofa, on which there lay, neatly folded, the rose-coloured satin garment he had seen the night before; and he felt that to be disappointed of the glory of appearing in this costume was a grief to her.
“I must confess that I am not sorry for this, Lucy,” he said, earnestly. “I do not think there could have been any lasting triumph won by the ‘Cat’s-meat Man.’”
Miss St. Albans could not be brought all at once to see that the ‘Cat’s-meat Man’ was an abomination.
“Gennaro is a beau-beau-tiful part,” she said, struggling with her emotion; “it is full of good puns, and the parodies are splendid, and——. If I had a regular written engagement, Mr. Bungrave couldn’t treat me so; but there was only a verbal understanding between him and papa. I dare say it is all Mr. de Mortemar’s doing, because of my leaving the Oxford Road Theatre. Mr. de Mortemar can do anything at Market Deeping; he is such an immense favourite.”
“Indeed!” said Laurence, on whose editorial ear the “immense favourite” grated unpleasantly; “and it is my fault that you offended Mr. de Mortemar—my fault, my very great fault. But do you know, Lucy, that I cannot bring myself to be sufficiently sorry for what I have done. You see I feel a very real interest in your career; and I do not think your Market Deeping experience could be of any actual benefit to you. I admit that you must arrive at Drury Lane and Juliet by easy stages; but I cannot see why you should begin by dancing silly dances, and singing still more silly songs. In March Mr. Hartstone will give you an engagement at the Pall Mall; and in the meantime your father will get through his difficulties, and you will have leisure for the study of your beloved art.”
“Yes,” answered Lucy, consoled but not elated, “I shall study with all my might. Oh, Mr. Desmond, what would become of us if your kindness had not secured me a London engagement!”
She was thinking sadly enough of the bitter shifts to which she and her father must needs be driven for want of the pittance that would have rewarded her labours at the little country theatre; and then, at Market Deeping lodgings and provisions were very cheap, and in London everything was so dear. The kindness and generosity of Mr. Desmond seemed boundless; but there must be some limit to their acceptance of such help. They could not go on living upon this gentleman’s charity.
Laurence saw her despondency, and had some idea of the cares that troubled her. He could find no way of telling her that the dread spectre Poverty was a shadow she need fear no longer, since he was ready to place his purse at her disposal until—until when? Well, she would have a salary from the lessee of the Pall Mall in March; and then, of course, he need be Tristram Alford’s banker no longer; and, in the meantime, what would his kindness cost him?—a ten-pound note now and then—a ten-pound note, which would be better bestowed thus than lost at a club-house whist-table, or squandered at a sale of books or bric-à-brac.
“You must try to make yourself happy while your father is under a cloud, Lucy,” he said, cheerily. “Rely upon it he will weather the storm, and right himself speedily. I will answer for that. In the interim, it will be rather dreary for you in these lodgings, I dare say; and I should much like to introduce you to a lady, a friend of mine.”
“I—I am sure you are very kind,” faltered Lucy; “and I shall be pleased to know any lady whom you like. Is she a relation of yours, Mr. Desmond?”
“No, not a relation, but a friend of many years’ standing. Her father and my father were very intimate; in fact, I have known her a long time. I think she was as young as you, Lucy, when I first knew her.”
His thoughts went back to the little garden at Passy, the white wall, and scarlet blossoms bright against the deep blue sky, and Emily Jerningham in all the glory of her girlhood. Well, those days were gone, and, unhappily, the Emily and Laurence of those days had vanished with them.
“She is not young now, then, the lady?” Lucy asked, with an interest that was a little warmer than the occasion warranted.
“Well, she is not what you would call young. I believe she is nearly thirty; and that to a young lady of eighteen seems a venerable age, no doubt. She is a very agreeable woman, generous-minded, and refined”—Laurence felt a little twinge of conscience as he remembered certain occasions upon which the lady in question had not shown herself so very generous-minded—“and I am sure her friendship would be a source of happiness for you.”
“It is very good of you to think of this. It will be a pleasure to me to know any friend of yours; but—but—I am so unused to society; and while poor papa is in that dreadful place, I think I would rather not see any stranger, please, Mr. Desmond.”
“Very well, we will see about it. If Mrs. Jerningham should call upon you some morning, you will not refuse to see her?”
“Mrs. Jerningham!” repeated Lucy; “she is a married lady, then?”
“Yes, she is married. Her husband is rather an eccentric person—a great traveller; so she lives by herself, in a very charming house near Hampton Court.”
“Indeed!” said Lucy, with a little sigh that sounded rather like a sigh of relief; and then she repeated her protestations of gratitude, which this time seemed less constrained.
After this, Mr. Desmond had nothing more to do than to say good-bye.
“I should recommend you not to go to Whitecross Street again,” he said, at parting. “It is an unpleasant place for you to visit alone; and your father will soon get his release. If my time were less engaged, I should be happy to take you there again; but I am too busy for friendship. Good-bye. I dare say you will see Mrs. Jerningham before long. You can be as frank with her as you are with me; but I am sure there is no occasion to tell you that, for it is your nature to be truthful and confiding. Once more, good-bye.”
He pressed the little hand kindly, and departed. He felt that he had conducted himself in an eminently paternal manner, and it seemed to him that the sentiment of paternal regard had a strange sweetness—a sweetness that was not all sweet.