Dismayed at the unexpected encounter, Madeline gazed at the Englishman for a time in speechless confusion; then she turned her head and gazed helplessly around.
‘Mademoiselle,’ said the young man, quietly, ‘I fear you are not prepared for this meeting with me. Well, let me tell you I am here on an errand of duty, not pleasure. My friend, the Marquis de Vaux, has placed this affair entirely in my hands—————-’
‘Oh, Monsieur!’
‘Pray do not interrupt me, Mademoiselle. I have little to say, so our interview can be brief—it will be better for us both. I had the pleasure of meeting you once before—only once, when I offered you my assistance, because I feared you needed some one to pluck you from the clutches of that Frenchman, in whose company you were staying at the hotel. But when I offered you my help I thought you were some pure-minded, misguided English girl. I did not know that you were the mistress of a scoundrel, and that you were making your way to Paris to become the decoy for a gambling hell.’
‘Monsieur! monsieur!’
‘Pray, hear me out. ’Tis some weeks now since I discovered whither my seemingly virtuous English girl had flown. I have seen you driving in the crowded thoroughfares of Paris, smiling and bowing to the miserable wretches whom your smiles have brought to ruin. I saw you, and said nothing. Had you been discreet, I should have spared you. But since you seem to have no discretion, since you have thought it pastime to delude and cause the ruin of a friend of mine, I give you due notice I shall spare you no more. Here are the letters which from time to time you have written to my friend, and which your trusty servant has delivered for you. I give you two days to leave Paris with your protector; if, at the end of that time, you still linger here, I shall speak to the police, and let the law take its course.’
Without another word he walked away.
Madeline did not move; she stood like one turned to stone. In her hand she held a packet of letters, while the words ‘decoy of a gambling hell’ rang with strange echoes in her brain. How long she stood there she did not know; the sharp breath of the night air brushing her cheek, as she tottered from the hotel, recalled her to herself. She shiveringly drew her cloak around her and walked—home.
The smart French maid was amazed to see her mistress back so early.
With a wave of the hand Madeline stopped all questioning and dismissed the girl for the night. Then she sat down to think. How her head ached! How cold and shivering and wretched she felt! Days and nights seemed to have gone by since she started off on her strange errand that evening. In reality only a few hours had passed. How those few hours had changed her!
Presently she remembered the packet which the Englishman had given her. She took it from her pocket, burst the band which held it, and the letters were scattered on her dressing-table. She took up one, opened it, and read, in what appeared to be her own handwriting—
Be not so hasty, my dear friend. I must break the news gently to my beloved mother, who cannot bear the thought of parting with me. Our behaviour in public must not alter, but be sure I adore you. A thousand greetings from Madeline.
Again—
Be cautious in your behaviour, and above all try to please the Vicomte, my cousin. Do anything he wishes you—it will come all right in the end. He has a stupid love of play—indulge him; if he wins from you he shall be made afterwards to restore.
Madeline read the letters over and over again. She picked up several others, and found them all to be in the same tone—protestations of love for the Marquis and prayers to him not to offend Monsieur Belleisle, of whom, she avowed, she stood in the greatest fear—and the forgeries were so good as almost to deceive herself.
The past was all clear to her now—she knew what she had done and what she was; she recognised the true worth of the man she had married, and of the woman who called herself her friend.
What should she do? whither should she go? For the first time in her life she could understand the feeling which prompted wretched outcast women to stand upon the parapet of a bridge and cast their miserable bodies into the depths of the blackened river; at least their woes would be ended—their weary bodies be at rest. She felt that such a death would be acceptable to her that night. Oh, if she could only leap into the darkness, and end it all!
She gathered up the letters, which still lay upon her table, threw off her bonnet, which lay like a weight upon her head, and opened her door. It was still early enough for Belleisle to be up. She would see him, speak to him; she could not wait another hour, with that newly acquired knowledge on he mind.
With this idea she left her chamber, looked first into one room, then another—and was about to return to her own in despair, when she was arrested by the sound of voices, which she recognised as those of her husband and Madame de Fontenay. She paused and listened. The pair were closeted in Madame de Fontenay’s private room, and their conversation was of an exciting nature.
Madeline soon heard her own name.
‘Emile, you are a fool,’ says Madame de Fontenay; ‘why he stays away I know not. I only know that one little note from Madeline will bring him back again.’
‘And if he comes?’
‘If he comes, mon ami, you can win from him a few more hundreds, and then make a quarrel, refuse to give him the little one’s hand, and rid yourself of him for ever.’
For a time they were silent, or spoke in undertones. Madeline was about to open the door and break up their converse, when the widow raised her voice and spoke again.
‘You are a fool,’ she said hotly, ‘and although I advise you well, you, by your bungling, upset all my plans. Did I not advise you to provide for the future by entering a good school, and marrying, either by fair means or foul, the richest girl that the rich school contained? Yes. But you, like a fool, ran off with the poorest, and did your very best to ensure your own ruin.’
‘I did not know that the girl was poor.’
‘Did not know! it was your duty, my friend, to ascertain that she was rich. Well, we need not complain now. Thanks to me again, the silly girl has been useful to you, and will be so again. Listen, then——’
But Madeline, trembling outside, could bear it no longer; she turned the handle of the door, and entered the room.
She still wore her walking dress; her face was white as death, her hands trembling and cold; while her fingers closed nervously around the packet of letters which she held.
Madame de Fontenay, who believed that her dupe was quietly sleeping, gave a little scream; Belleisle started to his feet.
‘Madeline, diable! what brings you here?’ he exclaimed, thrown off his guard.
For a moment Madeline did not answer him. She stood apparently calm and collected, but with a face whiter than that of the dead, fixing her large blue eyes upon first one and then another of the faces before her.
‘You are a villain!’ she said at length, walking steadily up to Monsieur Belleisle; ‘you have tried by cruel, cold-blooded falsehood to compass my ruin; you have nearly succeeded, but, thank God, I have found you out at last.’
Livid with rage, and completely taken off his guard, Belleisle stood with clenched fists, as if ready to strike his victim.
Madame de Fontenay stepped forward to restrain him, but Madeline stood her ground.
‘Do not think to frighten me,’ she said; ‘those days are past, Monsieur Belleisle; though you were fifty times my husband, you shall be punished for all that you have done to me.’
‘Madeline, my love, be reasonable,’ said Madame de Fontenay, ‘you are under some misapprehension—let me explain!’
‘Let you explain, Madame! you did that admirably to Monsieur Belleisle before I entered the room. I know that you are the cause of all this evil; I know it is through your wicked prompting that Monsieur Belleisle has been induced to make me what I am; I know that you have plotted together to bring about the ruin of a poor girl who never did you harm. With regard to you I am powerless, but upon that man, if there is any justice in the world, I will be revenged.’
By this time Belleisle had partly recovered his composure. He walked up to the angry girl, and asked quietly—
‘How will you be revenged? Tell me that!’
‘I will prosecute you for forgery; you wrote these letters to the Marquis de Vaux; you forged Mr. White’s writing, and sent a letter to me; he shall prosecute you too.’
Monsieur Belleisle turned whiter still.
‘It would be a new sensation in court,’ he said; ‘a young English girl prosecuting her French paramour. It would give you notoriety doubtless, Mademoiselle.’
‘What do you mean?——’
‘What I say—you are not my wife, thank God. I was by no means such a fool as you think, Mademoiselle. I went through a mock ceremony with you—thinking I would have a real one if I found your fortune was worth the sacrifice. I found it was not; therefore I have pleasure in informing you that you are free.—After all, there is not very much harm done, Mademoiselle, and it may give you pleasure to know that by gracing my table with your presence, and smiling upon my guests, you have been the means of bringing some money to me. No one but my good aunt knows that you have been my mistress—and with her I am sure your secret is safe.’
Still Madeline was silent; so, after a pause, Belleisle continued.
‘Now that I have explained you will perceive, I am sure, the necessity for silence. If you dare to make a scene I shall tell the whole story, and I will bring dozens of witnesses to prove that you played very willingly into my hands. If you are silent, I too will be silent. You can go to England, marry an Englishman, and become a model English wife——’
The Frenchman paused, for Madeline, uttering a low moan, at last sank swooning upon the floor.
When Madeline recovered her senses she was lying upon her bed, with her maid bending anxiously above her. As she opened her eyes the girl uttered a cry.
‘Oh, thank God, you have awakened, dear Mademoiselle. I feared your eyes were closed for ever.’
But, without replying, Madeline only closed her eyes and became insensible again.
What was happening nobody knew, and the servants became very alarmed. It was strange, they thought, that at such a time, when the young lady was sick to death, her mother and cousin should leave the house; and yet they had gone, and had only just left a little note for Mademoiselle. It was well for Madeline that her own maid was kindly. She kept by her mistress’s side, although, one by one, the other servants fled.
Two days after the departure of Monsieur Belleisle, a strange English gentleman called at the hotel and asked for him. On being told that he was gone, and that the only occupant of the rooms now was a young lady who was supposed to be dying, he asked to be allowed to see her, and was conducted at once to Madeline’s apartment.
The young man walked up the stairs with the memory of his last meeting with the girl still in his mind. He felt very bitter against her, but the moment he entered the room where she was lying his bitterness melted away. How pale and ill she looked! How wasted, wretched, and sad! He bent for a moment to sadly regard the unconscious face, he pressed the wasted hand, felt the pulse; then turned to the maid, who stood looking on in mute amazement.
When Madeline was apparently prosperous, she did not enter into his calculations at all. Once, when he thought her in need of help, he had offered it—now, when he knew her to be in need, he gave it. By a few well-applied questions he extracted from the maid such facts as, coupled with those in his own knowledge, gave him a pretty correct idea of how things stood.
He still believed Madeline to be culpable—there was nothing to convince him to the contrary; but she was a countrywoman in distress, and he was still man enough to assist her. He announced his intention of looking after her, until such time as her relations could be communicated with and she could be left in proper hands.
He provided a proper doctor, and sent a professional nurse to share the vigils of Madeline’s French maid.
It was during these nights of nursing that the poor parched lips of the invalid muttered words which astonished the Englishman. For, little by little, word by word, she told him all. Sometimes she called on Belleisle for mercy, begging him to take her back to school; then she reproached him for having forced her into a marriage; then she cried and sobbed, vowing vehemently that she was his wife. She spoke again and again of the forged letters to the Marquis de Vaux; then she cried passionately, saying she could never face her guardian any more.
‘Delirious people never lie,’ said the young man to himself one evening, as he stood by the bed, plaintively regarding the pale, pinched face. ‘If she had not been so ill I could not have extracted so much from her by days of cross-questioning. Poor, misguided, miserable child—another instance of the martyrdom of woman to the treachery of man. God help her! God help her!’
Having told this much, Madeline told more. By interrogating her during her saner moments, he learned that her guardian was a Mr. White, who lived in a studio in St. John’s Wood. He risked sending a telegram, and somewhat to his amazement got a reply—
‘God bless you for the information. I am starting for Paris forthwith.’
Having read the telegram, which came to his lodgings, he folded it, put it in his pocket, and walked up to the house where Madeline still lay. Good news awaited him there. The maid’s face was very bright, and the cause of that brightness was that Mademoiselle had awakened, taken some nourishment, and fallen into a natural sleep. The fever had abated, and the doctor said that the crisis was now past.
‘Would Monsieur like to see Mademoiselle?*
He shook his head.
‘You must not mention to her that I have been here at all. But there will be an English gentleman here to-morrow, whom she will be glad to see.’
Having arranged everything to his satisfaction, he returned to his lodgings, sat down before a roaring wood fire, lit a cigar, and began to think.
His watching was at an end; his long, sad looks at Madeline were over; and, to his own surprise, he felt a sort of regret. During the last few days he had never been free from self-reproach. He had met her at a time when his help might have saved her—yet, because she repulsed him, he had quietly stood aloof and let her drift to her ruin. Yes, although his reason told him he was not to blame, in his own mind he felt culpable.
Well, it was all over now; self-accusation and recrimination would never obliterate that dark past from the girl’s life—she must live and suffer—but he vowed to himself that it should be his endeavour to make that suffering easy for her to bear.
During that night he slept little, but when he did sleep he dreamed of Madeline. Now he clasped her in his arms and plunged with her into wild waters—again he drew her from some darkly surging river, or with uplifted knife stood waiting to plunge it into the heart of the grinning Frenchman. He was glad when daylight relieved him from such dreams.
His first care was to ascertain how his charge was thriving. The report was favourable again; she had passed a peaceful night, and in the morning she had lain for half an hour talking rationally to her maid. She heard with perfect equanimity of the departure and continued absence of Madame de Fontenay and Monsieur Belleisle. She opened and read the letter which Monsieur had left for her, then quietly burned it in the candle which stood beside her bed. She thanked her maid for her kindness, said she must be removed from that place, and then dropped into an exhausted sleep again.
Well satisfied with the account, the young man again returned home to await the arrival of Mr. White. In the afternoon White came. ’Twas no other, of course, than our old acquaintance, but so changed that his nearest friend would hardly know him. His cheeks were ghastly, his eyes sunken, his hair and beard unkempt, and his clothes in a deplorable condition with the long and tedious travel. Despite his disreputable appearance, however, the young man’s heart went out to him at once. He gave him a cordial welcome, and tenderly told him all that he knew about his ward. In return, White gave his confidence, and then the two men walked together to the house where Madeline lay. White’s hands trembled, his cheeks turned very pale, when the maid came to conduct him to Madeline’s room. He went up alone.
In one of the lower salons the other awaited his return.
One hour passed, then another; he read one, read all the papers, walked restless up and down in growing excitement—till White returned to him, with cheeks more pinched and ghastly than they had been before, and pitiful tears in his eyes. He laid his tremulous hand upon the young man’s shoulder.
‘She has sobbed herself to sleep,’ he said. ‘Would you like to see her now?’ The other, unable to resist, went again into the room where Madeline lay. She was quite unconscious of his presence, in a deep but troubled sleep. Her loose fair hair was scattered upon the pillow—her breath came in short quick pants, which sometimes turned to sobs. Upon one hand her cheek was resting, the other lay carelessly upon the coverlet.
The young man raised her hand gently, and pressed it to his lips.
‘Farewell!’ he murmured. ‘God knows if we shall meet again!’
Behind the scenes of the Royal Parthenon Theatre, on a sultry evening in July. The first act of the play was over, and the carpenters were busy setting and preparing the scenes for the next act, while Hart, the stage manager, stood perspiring under his white hat with his back to the curtain. Figures in all kinds of costumes coming and going; female voices chattering, and male voices grumbling, made the confusion worse confounded, when Abrahams, the manager, sumptuously attired in a dress suit which might have been borrowed from a slop-shop in Hounds-ditch, came panting on to the stage.
‘Well,’ he asked, gazing at Hart with a bloodshot, questioning eye; ‘is it a go, will she do?’
The stage manager was too old a bird to commit himself so early in the evening, but he answered off-hand, with one eye on the carpenters, the other on his employer—
‘I think she will; what do they say in front?’
‘Say! They’re in ecstasies. Cakeford says she is the biggest thing he’s seen since Desclée. Why the devil doesn’t Brady act up to her? Well, it’ll depend now on her legs—if her legs are all right when she comes on as the boy.’
‘That’s in Act III.?’
‘Yes, in Act III. Hay says she’s too thin, but didn’t she have them in the garden scene? It was splendid. Well, I’m going to speak to her, and tell her the impression she has made. I think it’s all right.’
So saying, the manager pushed his way across the stage, and, winding in and out among set pieces, wings, loose pieces of canvas, and all the flotsam and jetsam of the theatre, made his way along a dirty passage till he came to a dingy door which stood ajar. Here he knocked, and, without waiting for an invitation, entered a largish chamber, hastily fitted up as an actress’s retiring room. Mirrors in various degrees of magnificent dinginess were hung on every side; a large gilded sofa, occasionally used on the stage in so-called ‘banqueting’ scenes, stood in a corner, chairs of divers gaudy patterns were scattered here and there, and in the centre was a white table with gilded legs.
At the further end of the room were drawn crimson curtains, communicating with the more private portion of the dressing-room.
‘Hallo, White, here you are!’ exclaimed the manager to a solitary figure sitting on the gilded sofa, and smoking a cigar.
The dramatic author (for it was he) rose and seized the manager’s hand. His own was trembling like a leaf, and his eyes were dim with moisture very like tears.
‘It’s all right, then?’ he said eagerly, almost pleadingly.
‘If she goes on as she has begun she’ll astonish the town. Ah, here she is.’
As he spoke the curtains were drawn back by the hand of a female attendant, and the heroine of the evening appeared, clad in her ‘change’ for the second act—an exquisite dress of white samite thinly embroidered with silver. Locks of flaxen hair fell loosely over her shoulders, and set in its midst was a face of the most dream-like and spiritual beauty, lit by two large eyes which, once seen, were never to be forgotten. In another woman perhaps those eyes might have seemed too pale, too forget-me-not like in hue, but in her they harmonised strangely with the wonderful hair and tremulous mobile lips. Tall, slight, and yet finely and even fully formed, the actress was in the prime of her womanhood, and as she advanced with eyes full of limpid light and mouth tremulously smiling, she looked supremely bright and fair.
Yet despite her loveliness and despite her air of evanescent happiness, there was something in her look, and still more in her manner, which seemed full of nameless trouble. There was too quick an attempt to seem unrestrained and gay, too strange a readiness to seize light occasions for nervous laughter, too impatient a sense of her own beauty, and of the light sparkling upon it. Her very gesture at times was at once imperious and reckless; she seemed like one who commands, yet shrinks from the obedience of, some wild animal crouching at her feet.
What was strangest of all, she seemed suddenly, in the midst of her gayest laughter, to pause with a kind of listening terror, while the light faded from her eyes, and the sickness of a nameless horror touched every feature of her face.
It is not to be supposed that these fluctuations of feeling would at once have struck any one but a very close observer. To the ordinary eye, such as that of Abrahams, hers was simply a lovely face, characterised by marvellous lights and shades of expression.
She advanced smiling into the room, and held out both her hands to White.
‘Oh, Mr. White,’ she said, with something of her childish manner, ‘I am so glad you have come round.’
White took both her hands and held them tenderly in his own, while the manager beamed and nodded.
‘How do you feel, my dear?’ asked the latter. ‘Nerves all right, eh? Shall I send you up some champagne?’
‘No, thank you; I never drink wine.’
‘And right you are,’ said Abrahams. ‘It’s the curse of the profession, and death to a pretty face. Look at Mrs. Claudesley! She was the talk of the town for a whole season, and yet she drank herself to death. The very year she died they offered her one hundred pounds a night to star in the States, and if she had gone and kept sober she might have come back with twenty thousand pounds.’
The actress was not listening, her smile had faded, and she was gazing with strange wistfulness into White’s face. She did not speak; but her look said something more significant than words, something that filled his eyes and throat with tears, and misted the glasses of his spectacles. He squeezed her little fingers in his trembling hands.
‘I can’t tell you how happy I am,’ he said. ‘More than happy; proud! This is a great night for all of us—a great night.’
‘You think so?’ she returned sweetly; ‘then I am quite satisfied. I don’t care for what the others think; I only want to please you!’ and though her eyes were quite dry, she passed her hands lightly across them, as if brushing away a tear.
Abrahams looked at her with growing admiration.
‘How about the big scene in Act III.?’ he asked. ‘Do you feel quite up to it, my dear? Well, that’s right; and what White here says I say—this will be a great night for all of us, if you only finish as you’ve begun.’
Here there was a rap at the door and a shrill voice, ‘Overture’s finished, Miss Vére;’ whereupon the three, still in conversation, moved slowly towards the stage.
The play was ‘Cymbeline,’ and it was ‘Miss Vere’s’ first appearance in the character of ‘Imogen.’ The regular season at the Parthenon being over, and the eminent tragedian who was generally its chief ornament being away in the provinces, Abrahams had been persuaded to try the new actress in an unfamiliar Shakespearian character.
Of course, as is usual in such cases, the play was ‘scamped.’ All the old scenery of the theatre was called into requisition, and the costumes were a startling combination of all the early periods. This gave the critics of the daily newspapers an opportunity of saying, next morning, that ‘the new and appropriate scenery was everything that could be desired, and that the strictest accuracy was observed in the minutest detail of properties and costumes.’
But the play-going public had come that night not to see the fine scenery or good costumes, not to listen to the dreary spouting of the members of the stock company, but to witness the first London appearance of a young lady of whom rumour had prophesied great things. The house was crammed with ‘paper.’ The critics of the big papers sat in the stalls, and the critics of the small papers were sprinkled through the dress circle. Literature, art, and the drama were well represented. Sir Tilbury Swallow, who had married the once famous actress, Miss Fawn, and who had been knighted for his literary services by the reigning family, occupied a private box with his still beautiful wife. Professional beauties, of less conspicuous virtue, shone resplendent everywhere. Deep in a stall, buried in the abyss of his own personality, and glaring thence occasionally, with saturnine cheek and lack-lustre eye, sat the great Mr. Blanco Serena, the pre-Raphaelite painter. The fact was, nearly every individual present in the better parts of the house possessed, or was supposed to possess, some sort of interest in dramatic, pictorial, or literary art.
In the centre of the stalls, however, sat a figure whose appearance was in striking contrast to that of the habitual theatre-goers surrounding him. In any gathering he would have attracted attention; in the present he was specially remarkable. He was a broad-shouldered muscular man of about thirty, with a face bronzed to a deep brown by exposure to the tropical sun. He had a high forehead, black eyes, a square, determined jaw; a thick, black moustache covered his upper lip, but his cheeks were clean shaven. Even in his well-made dress suit, with faultless linen and spotless tie, he had the appearance of a man whose true place would be leading a forlorn hope or standing alone in some position of loneliness and peril. He sat and listened, or rose and looked about him between the acts, with the air of one to whom a theatre was more or less unfamiliar, and he listened to the whole play, even to the ranting of the subordinate actors, with the approval of a man enjoying a new sensation, and quite unable or unwilling to be dissatisfied or critical.
But from the first moment the new actress appeared upon the stage this man had watched her in fascinated amazement, and as long as she remained there he had eyes for nothing else but her face. As the play proceeded, his expression changed from one of wonder and doubt to another of deep surprise and pain. His brows were knitted, his countenance strangely troubled. When the curtain fell on the first act he sat moveless, and made no attempt to join in the general applause.
Throughout the second act he remained in the same position, troubled and expectant. When it ended he rose quietly, and made his way to the saloon.
Various excited groups were congregated here. One group, consisting of several very young gentlemen, a little bald-headed man with a simpering voice, and a swarthy lean man wrapt up to the throat in a large white muffler, clearly representing the fourth estate.
The lean man in the muffler was holding forth with more zeal than eloquence on the personal appearance of the débutante.
‘Where did she come from?’ asked one of the very young gentlemen. ‘Where did Abrahams pick her up?’
‘I’ve heard that her parents lived in Paris,’ answered the lean man, ‘and that she used to sing once, when quite a young girl, at a café chantant. White knows all about her, I believe.’
‘What power she showed in the cave scene!’ said another very young gentleman.
‘Do you think so?’ the lean man said, reflectively. ‘She rather disappointed me there. And I don’t like her delivery of the blank verse.’
‘Beastly immoral play!’ drawled the man with the bald head. ‘What the French call scabreux?’
‘Why, it’s Shakespeare,’ gasped one of the very young gentlemen.
‘Are you sure of that? And if it is? Shakespeare or no Shakespeare, the licenser would suppress it if it were submitted to him now for the first time.’
‘Oh, oh!’ groaned several voices.
‘And what is more,’ persisted the man with the bald head, ‘no manager could look at such rubbish. It’s very good poetry, and all that sort of thing, but it’s what I call a——bad play, though you fellows haven’t the pluck to say so!’
Here there was a general laugh.
‘What do you think of the Imogen?’ asked the lean man.
‘Pretty good,’ drawled, the other. ‘When I was an attache in Constantinople, I once saw a woman’s hand waving out of a house on the Bosphorus. I jumped out of my boat, and went into the house, tripping an eunuch at the door who tried to prevent me. I ran from room to room till I came to a splendid open court with a fountain, and there I saw a veiled woman sitting in the sun. The moment I appeared she lifted up the veil, and showed the loveliest face I ever saw. I need not give you the sequel of the story. She had seen me at a distance, and been struck by my style of beauty. I afterwards found she was the favourite wife of the Grand Vizier. Well, she was the very image of the girl who is playing “Imogen” tonight. Poor little Schelsalmaigàr.’
‘Was that her name?’
‘Yes; old Muzid afterwards found out about my visits, and the cruel bowstring and sack business terminated the adventure. I tried to save her, but they found some of my Turkish letters (I write Turkish rather better than I write English) on her person. She kept them too long, in the hopes of getting some one to read them to her, for she couldn’t read herself.’
Standing close to the group the swarthy gentleman with the moustache had listened to the close with a smile as he sipped a glass of lemonade. Suddenly he felt himself touched upon the shoulder, while a hasty voice exclaimed, ‘Sutherland! is it possible!’
Turning quietly, he found himself face to face with a bright-eyed, full-bearded little man of forty, who used an eye-glass, and spoke with the greatest suspicion of a Scottish accent.
‘Crieff?’
‘Yes,’ returned the little man. ‘But is it yourself? How long have you been in England?’
‘Just one month,’ said Sutherland.
‘When I last heard of you, you were somewhere in the wilds of North America. There was a paragraph going round that you had joined a Free-love community in the Western States. Well, of all the places in the world, the last I should expect to find you in is a theatre. Do you like the new actress?’
‘I am not a very good judge of acting,’ replied Sutherland, quietly; ‘but if you mean do I like her personally——’
‘Well, it comes to that.’
‘Then I think she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.’
‘You don’t say that!’ said the little man, opening his eyes.
‘Only once in my life before, and that was years ago, under extraordinary circumstances, have I seen such a face. Should it be the same—but no, that is scarcely possible. Do you know anything of Miss Vere’s history?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Of course, it is not her first appearance on the stage.’
‘I think not. She has had some years of practice in the provinces. If you are interested in the lady, come and sup with me to-night at the Harum-Scarum.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A club of night-birds, where the small critics compare their notes and pick each other’s brains for ideas. The strongest will and the loudest voice settle the matter, and what they say overnight is echoed in a dozen newspapers next morning.’
‘But what has that to do with Miss Vere?’ i Everything. You’ll hear all that is known concerning her, for the night-birds know everything, and—but the curtain’s going up. Of course you’ll come?’
‘Yes,’ said Sutherland; and the two men returned to their places in the auditorium.
The third act was a revelation and a surprise, even to those who believed most in the new actress. In the great scene with Pisanio, when, on her way to Milford Haven, Imogen learns for the first time her husband’s diabolical suspicions, the actress fairly took the house by storm, till, at the great speech ending:
Prithee dispatch.
The lamb entreats the butcher; where’s thy knife?
Thou art too slow to do thy master’s bidding,
When I deserve it, too!—
the whole audience rose in one surge of vehement applause. Pale as death, with her large eyes gleaming, and her delicate frame trembling like a leaf, Miss Vere trembled before the unexpected tempest, and it was some minutes before the scene could proceed. When it did so the actress seemed moved to the quick, and the pensive wail:
Talk thy tongue weary; speak
I have heard. I am a strumpet; and mine ear,
Therein false struck, can make no greater wound,
Nor tent to bottom that—
was uttered with a melancholy so infinite, pathos so despairing, that Sutherland, who had heard the excitement and enthusiasm, felt the words sink like lead into his heart. His own face was livid now, despite its tan, and a shiver ran through his veins.
A scene or two later, when Imogen is transformed into
Fidele, the actress still held her audience, but with a less mysterious fascination. In her boy’s dress, which was charmingly delicate and becoming, she fully warranted the exclamation of Belarius on first beholding her:
By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,
An earthly paragon! Behold divineness
No elder than a boy.
Her acting, moreover, was pathetic in the extreme; and thenceforth, until the end of the play, her success was assured.
The curtain fell. Call after call greeted the actress, who looked completely exhausted by her efforts, and could scarcely conjure up a smile, as she accepted the bouquets which had been liberally provided for her. White sat in the dark background of a box, crying for joy.
As the audience streamed out of the theatre, Sutherland came shoulder to shoulder with little Crieff, who had invited him to sup at the Harum-Scarum.
‘How glum you look!’ said Crieff. ‘Are you disappointed?’
‘Disappointed, no!’
‘You don’t seem to share the general enthusiasm?’
‘I do share it, but, as I told you, I am no judge of acting.’
‘Well, come and hear what the night-birds say about it. Shall we walk to the club? It’s only a few streets off.’
Arm-in-arm in the moonlight the two men walked away. Sutherland had lighted a cigar, and now, while the other chattered, he scarcely uttered a word.
Mr. J. Watson Crieff was assistant editor of the ‘Charing Cross Chronicle,’ an evening newspaper devoted to smart writing and the conservation of Church and State. He was a hard-working Scotchman, with no pretensions to literary attainments, but honourably connected with journalism in many ways. He was not a regular theatre-goer, still less a professed critic, but he sometimes, as on the present occasion, went to see a Shakespearian performance, and wrote about it afterwards honestly and well.
Passing along the Strand, he led his friend down a street running at right angles to the banks of the Thames, and soon entered the dingy building where the Harum-Scarums were accustomed to hold high festival. Proceeding upstairs, he entered a large room, at one end of which was a fire and a silver grill, presided over by a man-cook dressed in white. The room was becoming crowded by men of all degrees and ages, clean-shaven actors and hirsute journalists having the preponderance, and more than one greeted Crieff by name. He soon found a table, and ordered a plain supper for himself and friend. A loud chatter filled the air, and every one was talking of the débutante at the Parthenon. Among the other faces around him Sutherland at once recognised the very young gentleman and the lean man in the muffler whom he had heard discoursing at the theatre saloon.
‘It’s all right,’ said Crieff quietly. ‘The jury are bringing in an unanimous verdict of “successful.” I think I shall abuse her in the “Chronicle” just to show I’ve a mind of my own.’
‘If you do, I’ll call you out!’
‘There’s Abrahams the manager, button-holing Day of the “Sun,” and rolling his eyes in well-feigned enthusiasm. If you watch him, you’ll see him take the jury seriatim, and go through the same performance with every one of them. I thought so! He’s ordering champagne.’
‘Who is that gentleman?’ asked Sutherland, glancing towards the next table, where a little bald-headed man, surrounded by many admiring friends, was trifling with the cruet. Sutherland had recognised the individual who, in the saloon of the theatre, had introduced the little anecdote of his amours in Constantinople.
‘What, don’t you know him? That’s Lagardère, of the “Plain Speaker.”’
‘Indeed! A journal, I presume?’ ‘The journal of the period, based upon the new principle of extenuating nothing and setting down everything in malice. Lagardère can tell you to a nicety where La Perichole buys her false teeth, how much money Mrs. Harkaway Spangle pays her washerwoman weekly, and when any given leader of society is likely to pawn her diamonds or elope with her cook. You know Tennyson’s lines—
A lie which is all a lie can be met with and fought with outright,
But a lie which is half a truth is a harder matter to fight!
Lagardère has achieved the complete art of so mingling truth and falsehood together that it is impossible even for himself to distinguish the one from the other. What wine will you take?’
‘None. I am a water drinker.’
‘Still! Well, you thrive upon the crystal draught. Hallo, what’s Lagardère romancing about now?’
As he spoke the gentleman in question was leaning back in his chair, and in his peculiar drawl, to the edification of his immediate friends and admirers, speaking as follows:—
‘When I was with the army in Schleswig-Holstein, the Hereditary Duke of Schlagberg-Schwangau lived in the same hotel, and there was an English girl stopping with him, disguised as a young officer. The Duke laid a wager that this girl would smoke more cigars than I could in the course of twelve hours. Bismarck, who dropped in by accident, held the stakes. We began at six p.m. and smoked on till four in the morning, when the girl gave in and had to be carried off to bed. I mention the fact because she was exactly the same height as the girl who acted to-night.’
‘Impossible! Can’t be the same!’ said some one, feebly.
‘Can’t say, I’m sure. But it’s the same sort of face, and the girl, when you provided her with champagne, used to recite splendidly.’
‘How long was this ago, Lagardère?’ asked Crieff, leaning over towards the other table.
‘About twelve years. The date is fixed in my memory, because it was the year I fought the duel with the Austrian general at Vienna.’
Crieff smiled.
‘And if,’ he said, ‘we put down Miss Vere’s age at four-and-twenty (I believe she’s scarcely twenty-two), she must have been, at the period you name, exactly twelve years old.’
A general laugh greeted this retort; but the journalist was not at all disconcerted.
‘You see these sort of women are all so much alike,’ he drawled. ‘I’ve seen the same type of face in the harem at Stamboul, among the nautch-dancers of India, and at the Jardin Mabille.’
Sutherland, who had with difficulty kept his temper during this little scene, now turned his dusky eyes full on Lagardère.
‘What do you mean by these sort of women?’
Lagardère shrugged his shoulders.
‘What I meant was simply this, sir. Just as we recognise in certain faces the Jewish physiognomy; just as we see in certain religious orders the ascetic or separatist experience; just as in another way we distinguish the blood of the racehorse, or the breed of the greyhound, so we recognise in a certain type of women the type of the hetairai. The type is so uniform on the stage that if we take up a whole album of theatrical beauties, we shall find the features of a family, the characteristics of twin sisters.’
‘Am I to understand,’ said Sutherland, still retaining his self-possession, ‘that in Miss Vere you recognise the type of woman without virtue?’
‘Certainly,’ drawled Lagardère. ‘Observe, I am making no personal accusation. If the lady is a friend of yours——’
Sutherland rose to his feet.
‘And if she is, Mr. Lagardère, since that is your name——’
‘Why, then, I envy your luck, that’s all.’ returned Lagardère, with an ugly smile; and there was a general laugh.
Sutherland’s hands came down, and they were clenched as if for a blow; but Crieff placed a warning hand upon his arm, and drew him away.
‘Don’t excite yourself/ he said. ‘It’s only Lagardère.’ ‘The man is insufferable.’
‘Everybody knows that.’
‘He deserves to be horsewhipped.’
‘Bless you, he has been horsewhipped over and over again; I think he rather likes it, and whenever it occurs he publishes a full account in his own journal. Come, you’re no match for him, with his poisoned shafts. He’d find out the weak point in your armour at once. Come to the smoking-room, and have a cigar.’
As they crossed the room together, they heard the voice of Lagardère beginning again, with its usual drawling monotony—
‘I say, Day, who’s the fire-eater with Crieff? He reminds me of a man who once threatened to thrash me at St. Petersburg. It began at a card-party, where four of us were playing—the Grand Duke Nicolas, Prince Necrolowski, old Gortschenkoff, and myself.’
They heard no more. Sutherland strode on to the smoking-room, which was almost empty, and threw himself into a seat. His face was convulsed, and his frame shook with agitation.
‘My dear Sutherland, you’re exciting yourself for nothing. What is Miss Vere to you?’
‘She is this much,’ said Sutherland, ‘that if I thought it would serve her I would kill that man like a dog.’
‘Kill Lagardère! Ridiculous! Why, he’s excellent fun.’ ‘Crieff, don’t talk like that—it’s not worthy of you. You know that man is a villain.’
‘Upon my word, I don’t think so.’
‘What!’
‘He only talks as most men do when actresses are in question, and I assure you he is a man of experience.’
‘Experience!’ echoed Sutherland bitterly. ‘Yes, he has rolled in the shambles like the rest of us; he has polluted his body and his soul, and because he knows pollution, he dares to speak of one who is perhaps a martyr, and is, to him, an angel to a devil. Well, you are right, he only talks like the rest. Crieff, when I think of what that man is, of what most of us are, I hate my life, I wish I had never been born.’
‘If you go on like this, old fellow, I shall think you are in love.’
‘With my own ideal, yes. With that woman, though she almost realises it, no.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Crieff, earnestly. ‘You’re too good stuff to be wasted on an actress.5
‘There again. You, too, sneer at one whose soul you cannot comprehend. Crieff, neither you nor I am worthy to tie that woman’s shoestrings. Grant that her life has been evil—I’ll not believe it, but assume it for the moment—what she has been society has made her. If she has fallen, it has been through the lusts of our accursed sex; and even now, her divine face, in its almost supernatural sorrow and sweetness, rebukes our lusts and puts our wicked experiences to shame. Oh, we men, we men! We who talk of purity, and seek it in our mothers and our wives! What are we? What are our lives? Sinks of foul passion, privileged by society and protected by the spirit of the law. I tell you, until a man’s life is as pure as he would have the life of the woman he loves, he has no right to throw one stone at the most fallen woman in the world.’
There was silence for the space of some minutes. The two men smoked their cigars—Sutherland looking at vacancy, Crieff watching his face. The latter broke silence first.
‘There’s more in this than you’ve yet told me. Are you sure you have seen Miss Vere to-night for the first time!’
‘I am not sure.’
‘You know her?’
‘No, but she is the ghost of a woman I once saw.’
Another pause, then Crieff spoke again.
‘I tell you what, the best thing you can do is to make her acquaintance. Shall I ask Abrahams to introduce you?’
To his friend’s surprise, Sutherland turned upon him a look of the uttermost consternation, and then said in a low voice—
‘Not yet.’