A well-dressed lady walked slowly across the meadowA well-dressed lady ... walked slowly across the meadow to the group.[page288.
A well-dressed lady ... walked slowly across the meadow to the group.
[page288.
“Sir, you are, I protest, vastly polite,” said Mrs. Mathews; “but I am sure you will not be hard upon poor Captain Mathews’ frailties. ’Tis his misfortune to be over-susceptible to the charms of new faces. Who can blame him when the trait was born with him? After all, constancy is an acquired virtue.”
“True, madam, quite true,” said Major O’Teague. “But, Mrs. Mathews, I beg of you to permit me to say that if a gentleman who is fortunate enough to be married to so charming a lady as yourself does not acquire constancy, we may well distrust your theory.”
“I vow, sir, you overwhelm a simple country-bred woman with your flattery,” said she. “But I see that Mr. Long and his friends are feeling bored by our philosophy. Still, I should like to ask Mr. Long if his experience can suggest better advice to a woman married to so erratic a gentleman as Captain Mathews than to make the best of a bad bargain? Lud, sir, to spend my days weeping on a bed because of my husband’s peccadilloes would only be to make myself miserable, without improving him. After all, he doesn’t annoy me much. I have a fortune of my own and two sweet children, and he is a good deal from home, so that I have much to be thankful for. Come along, captain: you see that no one here wishes to fight with you. Perhaps at home you will have a better chance. A husband, if he keeps his eyes open, can always find some one at home to quarrel with. At the worst, there are always servants to be sworn at. ’Tis a great ease to a man’s mind to know that he can always curse a groom or a wife or a dog without being called to account. Come along, captain; you have still got your grooms and your wife left to you. You know as well as I do that if you succeeded in captivating a young beauty at Bath—though I haven’t seen much ofthis beauty—you would swear at her within the month as heartily as you do at me.”
Mathews looked quite ready to swear at her at that moment. He restrained himself, however, and, after only a short pause, went hastily to where his sword was still swaying on its point. He drew it out of the wound it had made in the earth, and rammed it back into its sheath. Then he took the shortest route to the gate; only when he was passing the line of trees in the plantation did he turn and glance back at the group whom he had left. The expression upon his face was one of disappointed malice; no trace of repentance was to be seen there.
With a laugh, his wife followed him, the golden-haired little boy running by her side. She cast an apologetic glance at the gentlemen, and they all made profound bows.
“Major O’Teague, I ask your pardon, sir, for having caused you to come here on a business which I knew must prove fruitless,” said Mr. Long.
“Sir,” said Major O’Teague, “I think that if there’s to be an apology it should come from me. But I give you my word of honour, sir, I had no idea that the fellow was such a rascal: he has only been acquainted with me for three days. I guessed that he was bad enough. But think of that lastcoupof his, sir—trying to run you through the body while you were speaking! By my soul, Mr. Long, ’tis something of a pity that he was obstructed in time, for ’twould be a pleasure to all of us to see him hanged for such an act.”
“I fear that I could not have shared that pleasure,” said Mr. Long.
“And pray why not, sir, when you would know that the fellow was the greatest rascal unhung?” cried Major O’Teague.
“Perhaps I am too tender-hearted, sir,” said Mr. Long,“but truth compels me to assure you that I could not bear to see a man hanged merely for killing me.”
“Faith, and you are mighty compassionate, sir,” said Major O’Teague. “I give you my word that there’s no sight I would enjoy so much as the hanging of the man that had killed me by a mortal wound when my attention was diverted elsewhere.”
Dick Sheridan believed that his ingenuity would be taxed to the uttermost to invent plausible answers to satisfy the curiosity of the many people who would be questioning him on the subject of Mr. Long’s meeting with Captain Mathews. When he had to make up so many replies to the questions put to him regarding the duels that had never been contemplated, what would he not have to do in respect of this meeting, which had actually taken place, though without an exchange of shots? His reasoning on this basis showed that he had but an imperfect acquaintance with the methods of the good people of Bath. He should have known that, having had two duels to talk about within the previous fortnight, and having, moreover, found out that neither of these encounters had taken place, they would lose all interest in duels real or imaginary. But that was just the view the people of Bath took of the incident. If any tale of the interrupted encounter—surely a most piquant topic!—reached the ears of the gossips of the Pump Room and the Parade, they were reticent on the subject. Not one question was put to Dick respecting Mr. Long and Captain Mathews, the fact being that all Bath was talking about quite another matter—namely, the infatuation of Mrs. Abington.
What a freak it was to be sure! There was the most charming actress of the day (her day had lasted a prettylong while), at whose feet had sat in vain some of the most distinguished men then living, infatuated with that young Linley, neglecting her engagements at Mr. Colman’s theatre, laughing at Mr. Cumberland, who had one of his most lugubrious comedies ready for her to breathe into it the spirit of life, and all on account of a youth who was certainly (they said) utterly incapable of appreciating her varied charms.
Mr. Colman had posted down from London to reason with her: in spite of his experience, he was still of the impression that a woman in love would listen to reason—and that woman an actress too! He made a step forward (he thought) in his knowledge of women and actresses, when he had had a talk with Mrs. Abington.
And Mr. Cumberland—— But then, Mr. Cumberland knew nothing whatever about the nature of men and women; he had taken the pains to prove this by the production of a dozen comedies—so that when he tried to wheedle her by obvious flatteries, she laughed in his face, and that annoyed Mr. Cumberland greatly; for he thought that laughter was always out of place except during the performance of one of his comedies, though people said that that was the only time when laughter was impossible.
Poor Tom Linley (the men who envied him alluded to him as poor Tom Linley) was having the finishing touch put to his education, all sensible people agreed. The wits said that he would learn more of what music meant by listening to Mrs. Abington’s voice, than he would by studying all the masters of harmony, from Palestrina to Handel.
Of course the scandal-mongers made a scandal out of this latest whim of Mrs. Abington, but the lovely lady was so well accustomed to be the centre of a cocoon of scandal (she had a good deal of the nature of the butterfly about her), she did not mind. She only wondered what DickSheridan thought of Tom Linley’s being the hero of so fascinating a scandal. She wondered how long it would be before Dick Sheridan would become jealous of the position to which his friend had been advanced. She judged of Dick Sheridan from her previous knowledge of him; but as the days went on, she began to feel that a change had come over him.
And then Mrs. Abington became a little reckless; for whenever she and Tom Linley were in the same room as Dick, her laugh was a little louder than usual and a good deal less melodious; and the way she allowed her eyes to rest on Tom’s face when she knew that Dick was looking, was rather too pictorial for everyday life, some people thought, and these were the people who said, “Poor Tom Linley!”
But there came a day when Tom Linley was announced to play at a concert. He was to take the violin part in a concerto, and to play in two duets with the harpsichord; but these selections had to be omitted from the programme, the fact being that Master Tom had that day gone a-driving into the country with Mrs. Abington.
It was a very pretty scene in high comedy, that in which the actress got the promise of the youth who had buried his heart in his violin, to fling his music-book to the unmelodious winds in order to take up the Book of Life and turn over its glowing pages with her. She had told him that she wished to take a drive into the country the next day, and had expressed the hope that he would act as her protector.
Of course he replied that it would be to him a trip to the Delectable Mountains to be by her side, or something to that effect; but he pointed playfully (now and again Tom could become playful, though never in the artless spirit of Mrs. Abington) at the bill of the concert in which his name figured.
What had the fact of his name being on the bill to dowith the question of his coming with her? she inquired in a sweetly simple way, with artless open eyes.
“Good heavens, sweet lady, surely you must see that I cannot be at the concert and in your carriage at the same time?” he cried.
“Did I assert that you could?” she asked. “All I did was to ask you to be my protector to-morrow. I did not say a word about your going to the concert. What is the concert to me—to you or me, Tom?”
“Nothing—oh, nothing!” he cried, and she allowed him to kiss her hand. “’Tis nothing. Have not I proved it by refraining from attending a single practice of the instruments, thereby making my father furious?”
“Then if the concert be nothing to you, am I something less than nothing?” she cried.
“Ah, you are everything—everything, only—— Heavens, if I were to absent myself my prospects would be ruined!”
“Ah, ’tis the old story!” sighed the lady,—there was more indignation in her sigh than Mr. Burke could incorporate in one of his speeches on the Marriage Act,—“the old story: a man’s ambition against a woman’s affection! Go to your concert, sir, but never let me see your face again.”
“Dear child!” he cried,—he sometimes called her “dear child,” because she was not (he thought) more than two years older than himself,—“cannot you see that when my name is printed——”
“Do you presume to instruct me on these points, sir?” she cried. “Does not all the world know that my name is down in every playbill that Mr. Colman prints, as a member of his company? and yet—— But you have taught me my duty. I shall go back to London to-morrow. I thank you, sir, for having given me a lesson. O man, man! always cruel!—always ready to slight the poor, trustful creature who gives up all for your sake.”
She dissolved into tears, and he was kneeling by her side, trying to catch the hand which she withheld from him, and all the time swearing that she was everything to him—his life, his soul, his hope, his future....
And so the pieces in which Tom Linley was to take part at the concert were omitted from the performance, and the manager assured Mr. Linley that his son’s career, so far as Bath was concerned, was at an end.
Mr. Linley that evening—at one moment weeping in the arms of his daughter, at another pacing the room declaring passionately that Tom need never again look near his house, that he would turn him out neck and crop into the street—said some severely accurate things about Mrs. Abington and the stage generally, and the Linley household was in a condition bordering on distraction.
But Mrs. Abington, sitting in an attitude of inimitable grace upon her little gilded sofa, passing her fingers through Tom’s curls as he sat on a stool at her feet, was in no way disturbed by the condition of things in Pierrepont Street, the fact being that she was just at that moment thinking more of Mrs. Abington than of any one else in the world. She knew that the next day every one in Bath would be talking about the completeness of her conquest of the ardent young musical genius who, it was well known, held the theory that there was nothing in the world worth living for save only music. She wondered what Dick Sheridan would think now. And she was quite right so far as her speculations in regard to Bath were concerned. Every one was talking of how she had been the ruin of Tom Linley, and most of the men who talked of it, envied Tom most heartily; all the women who talked of it, envied Mrs. Abington her taste in dress.
And as for Dick Sheridan—well, Dick was for quite anhour of that morning doing his best to comfort Betsy Linley in the grief that had overwhelmed her family. She had written to Dick to come to her, and he had obeyed. He found her alone, and, though not in tears, very close to the weeping point. He saw, when he had looked into her face, that she had not slept all night for weeping. She never looked lovelier than when bearing the signs of recent tears.
“O Dick, Dick, is not this dreadful?” she cried. “You have heard of it—of course you have heard of it? All Bath is talking of it to-day.”
Dick acknowledged that he had heard of Tom’s disappointing the audience at the concert-room the previous day, and of the roars of laughter that had greeted the manager’s announcement that Mr. Tom Linley had unfortunately contracted a severe indisposition which would, the doctors declared, prevent his appearing that day. He had not heard, however, that the manager, smarting from the ridicule of the audience, had told Mr. Linley that his son was to consider his career as a musician closed, so far as Bath was concerned.
“But ’tis so indeed; father told us so,” said Betsy. “Oh, poor father! what he has been called on by Heaven to suffer! How dismal his early life was! But he freed himself by his own genius from that life and its associations, and then, just when happiness seemed at the point of coming to him, he finds that he has instructed me in vain,—that was a great blow to him, Dick—oh, what a disappointment! But what was it compared to this? O Dick, Dick, something must be done to save Tom!”
“She will soon tire of his society,” said Dick. “She is not a woman of sentiment: when she finds that the topic of her conquest of Tom has ceased to be talked about, she will release him.”
“That is what you said to me long ago, and yet he isnot released, and people are talking more than ever,” she cried.
“We must have patience, Betsy.”
“What! do you suggest that we should do nothing—absolutely nothing? O Dick, I looked for better advice from you! What comfort is it to the friends of a prisoner immured in a dungeon to tell them that if they have patience his prison bars will rust away and he will then be free?”
“Do you fancy that my going to Mrs. Abington to plead for him will have any effect upon her? Do you really believe that all the eloquence of man has any influence upon a woman with a whim?”
“Ah, she will listen to you—you will be able to persuade her. She cares for you, Dick—I know that.”
He looked at her wonderingly. How was it possible, he asked himself, that she had found out Mrs. Abington’s secret? He himself had not found it out of his own accord, and he was a man. (He ventured to assume that such secrets were more likely to be guessed by a man than by a woman.)
“She likes me—yes, I suppose—in a way,” he said. “But I am not sure that this fact would make her the more ready to abandon a whim of the moment. On the contrary——”
“Ah, Dick, will you not help us?” she cried. “Surely if she cares about you——”
“Dear Betsy, I think we should do well to avoid giving any consideration to that particular point,” said Dick hastily. “I will go to Mrs. Abington and make an appeal to her, but ’twill not be on the ground that she cares for me; in fact, I do not at this moment know on what ground I can appeal to her.”
“But you will go? Ah, I knew that we could depend on you to do your best for us, Dick,” said she, and therepassed over her face a glimpse of gladness—a flash of sunshine making more transparent the azure of her eyes. “You are the one whom I can always trust, dear Dick, because I know that you can always trust yourself.”
“I have learned that from you, my Betsy; I can stand face to face with you, and yet—I can trust myself.”
“Ah, do not say that you learned it from me,” she cried. She had turned away from him suddenly and was looking pensively at the hand which she had rested on the back of a chair. “If you could know what is in my heart, Dick, you would not talk about learning anything from me—alas—! alas!”
“You can trust your heart,” he said—“you can trust your heart, for it is true.”
“Oh, do not talk in that way—for Heaven’s sake, do not talk in that way!” she cried. “My heart—true?—ah, I fancied that I could trust myself—I fancied that I was strong, that I could do all that I had set myself to do, but—ah, Dick, my heart, my poor heart! It is not strong, it is not true, and the worst of it is that I—I myself—I cannot be true to my heart, and I am too weak to be true to my resolution.”
She was walking to and fro nervously, and now she threw herself into a chair and put her hands up to her face.
He looked at her without moving, though it was in his heart to kneel before her and, taking her hands in his own, pour out the tale of his love to her. His heart whispered to him that she would at that moment give him kiss for kiss. A month ago no power would have restrained him from kneeling to her; but now he was under the control of another power and a stronger than that which set his heart beating as it was beating. He felt the controlling influence; but—well, he thought it would not be wise to look at her any longer.
He turned away from where she was sitting; his handswere behind him and his fingers locked together. He stood looking out of the window, but seeing nothing. The room was very silent. He thought he heard a movement behind him. He thought he heard her footfalls approaching him, he thought he heard a sigh close to him—a sigh with the inflection of a sob; but still he did not move—his fingers tightened about each other. He would not turn round. His heart beat more wildly, and the rhythm of its beats made up a siren-song hard to be resisted.
But there was another power upholding him in the struggle to which he had nerved himself, and he knew that that power was love. He felt that it was his love for her that saved him—that saved her. He did not turn round.
And then there came dead silence.
He knew that she had gone.
In another moment he was kneeling beside the chair in which she had sat, kissing the place where her hand had rested. It was still warm from her touch, and he kissed it again and again, crying in a voice tremulous not with passion, but with love:
“My beloved! my beloved! You have been true—true to true love—true to the truest love!”
With what story was he to go to her? What excuse was he to make for interfering between her and the carrying out of her whims? How was he to tell her that she was no longer to make a fool of the youth whom she had taken a fancy to fool?
He found no answer to any of these questions which he asked himself. But when he went on to ask himself if she would not have a right to accuse him of impudence and presumption were he to go to her for the purpose of remonstrating with her, he had no difficulty in finding an answer.
He had never set about any business for which he had less aptitude than this. He was sufficiently a man of the world to know that he was the last person who should go to Mrs. Abington to remonstrate with her. The man who interposes in a quarrel between a man and a wife is accounted a fool; but a man who interposes between an actress and her lover is much worse—he is a busybody, and he usually comes off as badly as does an arbitrator, who reconciles two of his friends in order to become the enemy of both.
Dick felt that not only would his mission be fruitless, he would be regarded by both the actress and the lover with righteous rage. And then he was a little afraid of Mrs. Abington. She had availed herself to the uttermost of heropportunities of studying men, and she had, he believed, acquired a knowledge of how to treat individual cases without risk to herself, that was little short of marvellous. A woman possessing such powers was one whom every sensible man feared; the others fell in love with her. And he had promised to go to her upon a mission that would have been odious to him if it had not been suggested by Betsy Linley.
He could not explain to Betsy that there are certain lessons in life that must be learned by all men who wish to be men, and that these lessons cannot be learned from the study of books, but only by experience, and that her brother was learning his lesson at the sacrifice only of a few weeks of his time (he did not believe that at the best—or was it the worst?—Mrs. Abington’s caprice would last longer than a week or two), at a period of his life that could by no means be called critical. Betsy would not have understood, and he was glad at the thought that she would not have understood.
When he had given himself up to thinking with what wisdom on his lips he should go to Mrs. Abington, he did what a wise man would do—that is, a moderately wise man; an entirely wise man would have stayed at home—he went to her without a portfolio. He had no idea what he would say to her; he had no policy to carry out. In dealing with a capricious woman, so much depends on her caprice. About Mrs. Abington nothing was steadfast except her capriciousness; and Dick felt that, in going to her, his success would be dependent on his treatment of her caprice of the moment.
He thought that the hour of his visit to her should be immediately following the departure of Tom Linley from her presence. He took it for granted that Tom would be paying her his usual afternoon visit, and he was not astray. Passing her lodgings, he heard the long and melancholywail of a violin in which a young man has hidden his heart, turning the instrument into an oubliette with air-holes, so that the moaning and the wailing of the immured can be heard at some distance. On and on went the moan of the imprisoned heart, until Dick felt that the lady was paying a high price for her caprice, if she was compelled to listen daily to such melodies.
No, this particular whim of hers could not possibly last longer than a few more weeks, he thought, as he strolled by and waited for Tom to leave the house. Tom stayed a long time; but Dick reflected that the longer he stayed the better chance there would be of Mrs. Abington’s listening to reason. After the dolorous complaint of the catgut, even reason, though usually unpalatable, would sound grateful to her ears.
In course of time Tom went away; Dick saw him go with his fiddle tucked under his arm in its baize cover. A rapt look was on his face. He had a double inspiration: he was a musical genius, and he was in love for the first time.
“Surely you have the kindest heart of any woman in the whole world!” cried Dick, when he had kissed her hand.
“Yes,” she said, “I believe that I have—at times; but how have you found me out? I fancied that I had done my best to conceal that fact from you.”
“Enough that I have found it out,” said he.
“’Tis not enough, sir,” she cried. “What! do you make an accusation against a poor woman and then refuse to say on what grounds it is made?”
“’Tis a fault that carries its own punishment, madam,” said he, “so I will reproach you no further. Faith, there are few ladies nowadays who lay themselves open to such a charge.”
“All the greater reason why I should know your reasons for making me an exception,” said she.
He laughed, saying:
“Well, if you must know, I passed by this house a quarter of an hour ago.”
“That is evidence of your lack of a kind heart, Dick, not of my possession of such a disqualification for success in the world,” said she.
“True; but I heard the wail of the catgut, and yet when I saw Tom Linley just now his face wore a look of triumph, and so far as I could see, his fiddle was intact.”
“Psha! Dick, you should not cultivate that roundabout mode of speech unless you mean to be taken for a poet. I was not thinking of Tom Linley—’tis minutes since he was here. No, I had a fancy that you called me kind-hearted because I did not reproach you for failing to visit me once, though I have now been here several weeks.”
“I was wrong—very wrong. But, you see, with Tom Linley——”
“Ah, poor Tom! Yes, he has certainly been here more than once. I have really become quite fond of Tom. He is such a nice boy—surely the handsomest boy that—that——”
“That was ever made a fool of,” suggested Dick, when the lady paused.
“Well, we shall say that ever made a fool of himself—that frees every one else from responsibility,” laughed the lady. “Dick, the man who is wise enough to make a fool of himself every now and again is indeed the wise man. But Tom is a mighty pretty fellow. He is coming up to London, too.”
Dick’s face became grave. He shook his head.
“That is past a jest,” said he.
“Past a jest? Pray, who was talking of jesting?” she asked quite gravely.
“Would you not regard his going to London in the light of a jest?” he asked.
“Not I, sir!” she cried. “On the contrary, I have done my best to dissuade him from such a project, knowing as I do, how serious a thing it would be for him. But you boys are all equally self-willed, Dick; I can do nothing with any of you. I am as the potter’s clay in your hands.”
“How does Tom Linley mean to live when he goes to London?” he asked, after a pause.
“Lud, sir! how should I know?” she cried very prettily, holding up her hands.
“You do not mean to take him up to London with you to starve?” he said.
“And this is the man who swore just now that I had the kindest heart among living women!” she cried. “Mr. Sheridan, did you come hither to-day solely to talk about Tom Linley?”
“Yes,” he said, “solely to talk about Tom Linley. My dear creature, I shall have to throw myself on the kindness of your heart before I have done, for I want to tell you the truth.”
“You had much better refrain, sir, from venturing into such an unexplored region,” said she. “I have noticed that when people threaten you with telling the truth they invariably become rude.”
“It will not be rudeness on my part to suggest to you that it is not quite fair for you to stake counters in a game where the other player stakes gold.”
“In other words?—pray let me have the interpretation of this fable.”
“In other words, Tom Linley has staked his heart against—against——”
“Against what, sir? Against mine, do you say?—against my heart—my kind heart? And you hold thatmy heart is a counter—something spurious—something base?”
“Nay, madam, I was not so foolish as to fancy for a moment that your heart had any connection with this game. But that is where you do not play fair. You know that poor Tom Linley’s heart is laid at your feet, and yet——”
“And yet? Pray continue your criticism of the game, sir—I vow ’tis vastly diverting. And yet—— Well, sir?”
“And yet—well, surely with your many conquests, Mrs. Abington, you cannot set any store upon the devotion of Tom Linley!”
“Why should not I?” she cried. “Why should not I do so, if it so please me? He is, I repeat, a delightful boy, and why I should not value his devotion simply because I have had conquests and he has had none—that is your argument, I think—I cannot at this moment perceive.”
“If you had any real affection for him you would not seek to spoil his career at the outset. The manager of the concerts told his father that Tom need never hope to get a hearing in Bath so long as he lives. You took him out driving with you when he should have been playing at the concert. Ah, my dear madam, one who is so strong as you are should be merciful.”
“You come here to tell me that, do you? O Dick, you have, after all, no true sense of comedy, though I fancied that none could surpass you in that respect. Is’t possible that you fail to see how ludicrous is your appearance here to-day pleading to me for—for—what? You have not yet told me what ’tis that you plead for.”
“I plead with you to send Tom Linley back to the career which will surely be his if you set him free. Dear madam, you can have no idea in what anxiety his family are about him just now.”
“They have been reading the parable of the one ewe lamb. They ask if Mrs. Abington has not at her feet flocks and herds which she devours at her leisure and when she has an appetite, and demand to know why she should want their one ewe lamb. They have not the wit to perceive that one may tire of beef and mutton, and so ask lamb by way of change. They are not good housekeepers. Besides, now that I come to think on’t, they have more than one ewe lamb: are they not at the point of sacrificing one of them—the flower of the flock?”
“Leaving parables out of the question, dear madam, let me ask you if you do not think that it would be to the advantage of Tom Linley to remain under the influence of his home for some years, free from the distractions of the town? I have heard that he promises to become a very great musician; but if——”
“You have some skill as a pleader, Dick. But I am thinking at this moment what it is you hope to gain by bringing me to a sense of my own iniquity in listening for an hour or two every day to the fiddling of a youth who is fresh and natural and a genius to boot.”
“What do I hope to gain?”
“Yes. I take it for granted that the eldest sister of the genius implored of you to come to me: you would not be such a fool as to come of your own accord. You know too much of the nature of women, Dick, to believe that one would relinquish even the youngest and most innocent of her adorers just when she had the satisfaction of learning that she was looked on as dangerous—so few women attain the distinction of being thought dangerous, though most of them aim at it.”
Dick laughed approvingly; he felt that it would never do for him to neglect any of the conciliatory arts of the pleader.
“Tom is, as you say, young and innocent, Mrs. Abington,” he said indulgently. “That is why I offer to you the parable of the fisherman. A good fisherman—one who fishes for sport and not for the fish-kettle—never fails to take the hook out of the jaws of a young and innocent fish, and to send it back to its sorrowing relations.”
“Faith, ’tis a pretty parable, Dick,” said she. “But how if your fisherman has been angling all the day for a fish on which he has set his heart? Failing to catch it, is he to be greatly blamed if he retain the little one which he has hooked, and try to make the most of it, dangling it at the end of the line before the onlookers?”
“Nay. When he has in his basket all the fish that swim in the river—when he——”
“Dick Sheridan,” whispered the actress, going close to him and putting her face closer still,—“Dick Sheridan, I will let Tom Linley go down the stream if you will take his place.”
He started back and felt himself flushing all over—the woman had revealed herself; and she too was flushing through the force of her revelation.
They stood there looking at each other, separated by only a few feet. Some moments had passed before he said:
“Ah, you were born a coquette! Dangerous—you were born dangerous, you beautiful creature! You would lure me on to make a fool of myself. Nay, seriously, my dear madam——”
He did not act the part very well; she could have given him a lesson as to the exact inflection of the phrases. But just then she was not inclined to be a severe critic.
“Dick,” she whispered, with tremulous tenderness, “is it so hard for you to love me—to love me a little—not as I love you, Dick—I don’t expect so much as that—you are only a man, but still——”
“Stop! for Heaven’s sake, stop! Ah, you do not know what you say—you do not know what you ask!” he said.
“Alas! I know it but too well,” she said, her voice broken by sobs. “Dick, dear Dick, I can be a good woman for your sake. I know that I am older than you by some years—oh, what do the years matter when the heart has not grown old? Dick, there is not a grey hair in my heart. I have been vain, I know; I have loved seeing men make fools of themselves, but none of them all has ever made a fool of me. No, don’t tell me that I am making a fool of myself before you now! I am not—I am not!”
“No—no, that is not what is in my heart,” said he gently. The thought that was in his heart at that moment was that though he had gone to her to plead, it was she who was doing all the pleading with him.
“Am I unwomanly? Ah, my fault has been that I am too womanly.”
“I do not know what it is that you suggest,” he said slowly.
“Ah, Dick, do not overwhelm me with scorn. Say a word to me—speak words to me, not icicles, that cut me as icicles cut one.”
“I am thinking,” he said. “You give me so much to think about. My first thought is that you are a free woman. You can marry whomsoever you will?”
“I am free,” she said. “I can marry—one—one.”
“You would not be afraid to marry that one?” said he.
“Afraid! Ah, my only fear would be that I could not do enough to make him happy.”
“Would you be afraid to marry me?” he said in a low voice.
“Ah, Dick, only for the reason that I have said!” she cried.
“You need not be afraid on that account. I shall be happy—I shall be happy. Dear madam, I kiss your hand.”
“O Dick, my own dear Dick! I shall make you happy—not so happy as you have made me, but still—— No, no, Dick, not my hand, my cheeks—my lips—all are yours, Dick, and you are mine—mine—at last—at last!”
It was on the evening of the next day that Tom Linley entered the house at Pierrepont Street, and ran upstairs and flung himself into the music-room, where his father was giving Polly and Maria a lesson on a part song. They had gone over the lines:
“Sigh no more, ladies:Men were deceivers ever,One foot on sea and one on land,To one thing constant never.”
“‘Deceivers ever—deceivers ever,’” came Maria’s pretty treble.
“‘Sigh no more—sigh no more,’” whispered Polly in simple harmony, and then their voices joined with Betsy’s in the half-mocking bourdon—
“With a hey nonny, nonny—”
when Tom entered and threw himself on the sofa. The singers ceased their song and stared at him. He held his violin laid across his knees, and then a sudden horror came over the girls, paralysing them where they stood, for they saw that the violin was broken. Its long neck was severed close to the body of the instrument, and hung down, suspended by the strings, from his knees. It was as if they were looking at a strangled infant—the droop of the severed neck had about it all the limpness of death.It was ludicrously ghastly, and Tom was gazing at the wreck with unspeculative eyes.
“Heavens above us! What has happened?” cried Mr. Linley.
“I broke it—God forgive me—I broke it in my anger!” sobbed Tom. “What does it matter?” he cried, recovering himself. “’Tis not alone the fiddle that is broken; my heart is broken, and I shall never touch the instrument again!”
He flung it away from him, but Betsy saw that he took good care that it should alight on the cushion of the sofa. The moan that came from the headless trunk striking the soft place was distractingly human. Maria had lately been reading of a decapitated prince whose head, after the operation, had rolled off the sawdust, so that all could see the disdainful expression on the face; and here was the decapitated violin moaning.
She shuddered.
“It can be mended,” said Mr. Linley, examining the wreck.
“I shall never play again,” moaned Tom. “My heart is broken.”
“Thank Heaven!” murmured his father.
Betsy went to her brother’s side, and put an arm about his neck.
“You have come back to us, dear Tom,” she said; “and you will never go away from us again. We all here love you, Tom. Ah, you know that nothing can change our love for you.”
"Curse Dick Sheridan!"“Curse Dick Sheridan! he has done it all!”[page313.
“Curse Dick Sheridan! he has done it all!”
[page313.
“Delilah—Delilah—traitress!” murmured Tom. “O Betsy, there has been no deception like mine since the days of Delilah! She told me plainly that she was tired of me—that she had never thought of me except as a nice boy—she actually called me a pretty boy! And my playing—she said that it was dreary—it gave her the vapours; she asked me to play a jig—an Irish jig, too—Irish! I told her that sooner than see my instrument desecrated I would break it across my knee. ‘Virginius, the Roman father!’ she cried, pointing a finger at me. I always thought her fingers shapely; but I saw then that they were not fingers, but talons—talons!... and I broke my violin before her, and yet she laughed.... O Delilah—Delilah!... But I shall set the scene to music that shall wring her heart, if she have one. I see clearly how it can be dealt with by a small orchestra. Handel fell lamentably short of the truth when he wrote the music to Delilah. I have the prelude in my mind. This is how it will go.”
He mechanically stretched across the sofa for the violin. Crash went the pegs, drooping with the neck by the catgut strings, against the hollow body of the instrument. He started up as if he had become aware of the disaster for the first time. For some moments he stood handling the wreck, and then he laid it down very gently on the sofa. He went with the bowed head of a father in the death-chamber of his child, to the door; but when he had opened it, and was in the act of departing, he turned and stood up straight like a man; his hands were clenched, his eyes were blazing, while he cried:
“Curse Dick Sheridan! he has done it all. Curse him! Curse him!”
He banged the door behind him, leaving the girls white and awed. They had never before witnessed a really tragic scene ending up with a curse, and they felt that it was very awful.
“Yes,” said Mr. Linley quietly, “we can all join in his prayer and say, ‘Bless Dick Sheridan! Bless Dick Sheridan!’—that will be poor Tom’s prayer in another month—perhaps another week.”
“Oh, no, no! not another week,” said Betsy. “I should be sorry to think that Tom could be himself within a week. Tom has too deep feeling for that.”
“Let us return to our lesson,” said her father. “Dwell lightly on ‘deceivers ever,’ Maria; and I think, Betsy, you might give full value to the minim rest before ‘Sigh no more,’ after the ‘hey nonny!’ I think I see the delicate humour of the composer’s treatment of the song better now than I did ten minutes ago.”
But the girls were too unnerved to be able to return to their lesson just then. They remonstrated with their father.
“Well, perhaps one lesson in the day is enough,” said he, “and Tom has just had his.”
It was altogether very amusing and quite infamous, Bath said. Heavens! the way in which that woman pursued her course, being on with a new love quite two days before she was off with the old, was absolutely shameless.
“A female comet with an ardent train—no fixed star in the firmament,” said Mr. Walpole, when it was found that Mrs. Abington had discarded Tom Linley and had taken on Dick Sheridan. It was found that she had done so within an hour of Tom’s dismissal.
“The comet has in all ages been looked on as a portent of disaster,” said George Selwyn. “I wonder what does this particular heavenly body portend?”
“I am no astrologer, but I dare swear that Mr. Cumberland’s new comedy will be damned,” said Walpole.
“My dear Horry, the obvious needs no portent! ’Twould be a ridiculous waste of fuel to send a comet flaring through the sky merely to let the world know that Sir Joshua’s macaw will lose his tail-feathers in the moulting season,” said Selwyn. “Mrs. Abington has not come to Bath for a whole month solely to give Nan Cattley a chance of making the damning of Cumberland’s play a certainty.”
“Nay, but her acting might save it if she were to return to town,” said Walpole.
“Then it must be our duty to keep her here,” said Selwyn.
“’Tis two days since she found young Sheridan attractive,” said Walpole; “so that she is not the fickle creature some people have called her.”
“With economy she may be faithful to Dick Sheridan till the end of the week,” said Selwyn. “Can Bath furnish another swain with ruddy cheeks and a glib tongue to follow him?”
The cynical pleasantries of the Walpole circle, dealing with the case of Mrs. Abington and young Sheridan, were echoed by the inferior wits of the Pump Room—for the flare of a comet affects other systems besides the solar. Dick Sheridan was in as active attendance upon the lady as Tom Linley had been even in the early days of his attachment to her. He did not play the violin to her, and this fact, some people declared, should not be lost sight of by those who were venturing to assign a duration of just one week to this new caprice on the part of the actress. There was no predicting the length of time that she might remain faithful to a good-looking youth, provided that he refrained from playing the violin to her—her constancy might even last out the fortnight.
But these were the optimists.
Dick Sheridan knew perfectly well what the people were saying when they shrugged their shoulders and smiled significantly as he went by with Mrs. Abington; but he too shrugged his shoulders, and his smile also had a significance of its own. He went everywhere with the lady, even to her own house; but this was when she entertained some of her friends to supper.
Once when by the side of Mrs. Abington in Spring Gardens he caught sight of Betsy Linley in the distance.She was looking toward him across the green lawn, and their eyes met. He fancied that there was something of gratitude in the smile which she sent to him—he knew that there was something of sadness in it; and then—he could not doubt that the expression on her face was one of reproach—reproach and indignation.
For a moment he omitted to reply to a casual question put to him by his gay companion, and she quickly followed the direction of his eyes. She saw Betsy and gave a laugh. She accepted the reproachful look in the girl’s eyes as a tribute to her own powers. She was not astute enough to keep her satisfaction to herself.
“Lud!” she cried, “that young woman has strange notions of the duty of a censorship. She is e’en reproving you, Dick, for being in my company. That is like enough a woman to serve you for a lesson, my dear. A woman has no sense of gratitude for a favour done to her by a man whom she loves and whom she has discarded.”
“Madam,” said Dick, “it is not for such as we are to judge Miss Linley by our standards: we are only men and women.”
“That is all, praise Heaven!” cried the actress. “I claim to be nothing more than a woman, and I don’t know that one can be much better—ay, or worse, Dick. God made me a woman, and I don’t believe that He will be hard on a woman for being womanly. If He had meant me to be an angel, He would have given me wings, and then I should be angelic—and to be angelic is to be insipid. But take my word for it, Miss Linley, though she judge us from the standpoint of an angel, is just as much a woman as the best of us—ay, or the worst of us. She is just as jealous of me, thank God, as I am of her at this moment; and that’s the last word that you and I will have about Miss Linley.”
Dick resolved that, so far as he was concerned, thereshould be no need for another word on the subject of Miss Linley to pass between them; and when he came to think over the matter, he was glad that so much had already passed between them regarding Betsy. He had been warned, from what Mrs. Abington had said, that she was under no delusion respecting Betsy and himself. That same astuteness which she had shown in reading the secret of his love for Betsy, had enabled her to perceive that the fact of his having entered into an agreement with herself did not in a moment cause him to forget Betsy Linley.
And thus, day by day, he was in attendance upon Mrs. Abington, appearing by her side in all public places, and at many private suppers and card-tables, so that a good many people looked on him as an extremely fortunate young man.
As for Dick himself, he began to feel that he was indeed fortunate. Had he not been able to do a great service to the only one whom he loved, at a sacrifice of himself? He was proving his love to Betsy Linley by marrying Mrs. Abington. Yes, he felt that he was fortunate.
But all these days he failed to call upon Mr. Long. The truth was that it now and again occurred to him that Mr. Long might not understand without more explanation than he was inclined to offer, the position which he had taken up. He shrank from the duty—if he might call it a duty—of making it plain to Mr. Long that he was marrying Mrs. Abington in order that Betsy Linley might get back her brother. But there came a day when he learned that Mr. Long was waiting on him, and he found himself in the presence of that gentleman in the room in which he had received Mrs. Abington a short time before.
Mr. Long greeted him cordially.
“You will pardon my obtruding upon you at this time, Mr. Sheridan,” said he; “but I must confess that I thoughtit strange that we should separate good friends a fortnight ago and then remain apart. Surely our friendship promised better things than this, sir!”
Dick made up his mind to be bold. He smiled, examined the tips of his fingers, and then said:
“I assure you, sir, that I retain all the liveliest sentiments of regard for you. Dear sir, you have been kindness itself to me, and I should be most ungrateful if I were to fail in my duty to you. But the fact is, Mr. Long, that—that—— Ah well, sir, you will understand my seeming neglect when I inform you that I have been successful in engaging the affections of a lady to whom I have been devoted for—for—some time. When I tell you the lady’s name, sir, I know I shall be the more easily excused.”
“Do not tell me that the lady’s name is Mrs. Abington,” said Mr. Long gravely.
“I am sorry—I mean I am glad—yes, I am glad, sir, that it is not in my power to obey you in this matter,” said Dick, still smiling, but with more than a little self-consciousness. He was beginning to feel uneasy beneath the grave, searching look of his visitor. “Yes, dear sir, we are to be married very shortly, so that you will understand, I am sure, that, just now, I do not count my time my own.”
“You are to marry Mrs. Abington, the actress—the actress?” said Mr. Long.
“Ah, sir, there is only one Mrs. Abington in the world, and—my father is an actor,” said Dick.
“And you expect to be happy with her as your wife?” said Mr. Long.
“If I am not, sir, it will be because I am not easily made happy; ’twill not be the lady’s fault.”
“Then I wish you every happiness, Mr. Sheridan.”
Mr. Long rose from his chair and took up his hat.
“There is a forlorn hopefulness in your tone, sir, that has a chilling effect upon me,” said Dick. “May I ask why itshould appear ridiculous to expect that I should be happy—at least as happy as most wedded folks are?”
“You have disappointed me, Dick, that is all I can say to you—you have grievously disappointed me. That one who had ever loved Elizabeth Linley could bring himself to marry—— I ask your pardon, sir; I exceed my privileges as a friend. I have no right to express myself in such terms. I have the honour to wish you a very good day, sir.”
“Mr. Long,” said Dick, “I seek for your good opinion more than that of any man living. I pray of you to think the best of me—not the worst.”
“And what is the best that you would have me think?” cried Mr. Long. “Just state with some show of reason what you wish me to think of you, and I promise that I will be influenced by what you say. You talked to me of loving Elizabeth Linley.”
“Nay, sir, ’twas you who talked to me of it. ’Twas you strange to say—you, to whom Miss Linley has given her promise—’twas you who talked to me of my love for her.”
“I allow it. Alas! I believed—in my ignorance of men and of their motives—in my ignorance of how men regard love—I prayed of you to allow your love for her—her love for you—to urge you to achieve something noble in life. I flattered myself that I had impressed upon you the true nature of love—the sentiment that exalts, that ennobles, that leads a man into deeds of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty; and yet—you are ready to marry Mrs. Abington.”
For a moment Dick was stung with a sense of the injustice that was being done to him.
“I am ready to marry Mrs. Abington,” he cried, “and you, sir, are ready to marry Elizabeth Linley.”
“You fool!” said Mr. Long, “I have no hope of marrying her. I knew too well that she loved you, and—as I fancied—that you loved her, ever to think of marryingher. My only hope was to see her happy—to look at her happiness through another man’s eyes—through your eyes, Dick—your eyes. But now—alas! alas!”
He spoke rapidly, almost passionately, facing Dick. His breaking off was abrupt; it seemed as if he had a great deal more to say, but that words failed him unexpectedly. His lips were parted, his hand was upraised, but he stopped short, saying:
“Alas! Alas!”
Then he turned quickly and walked out of the room.
Dick dropped into a chair.
In no house in Bath was Dick Sheridan’s conduct regarded in the same light as it was in the home of the Linleys. That was, of course, because only by the Linley family was his conduct regarded as a personal matter. His perfidy in professing a friendship for Tom, while all the time he was contriving to take poor Tom’s place in the affections of Mrs. Abington, was referred to with great bitterness by Tom’s mother, and by Polly and Maria in wrathful whispers. They referred to Tom daily as “poor Tom!”—sometimes “poor dear Tom!” All their sympathy went forth for Tom in these days, and every one in the household—not even excepting Mr. Linley and Betsy—felt that it was necessary to treat him with the greatest tenderness. He was the victim of an unhappy attachment to one who was unworthy of the inestimable treasure of his young affections; and, in addition, he had been the dupe of an unscrupulous man who had not hesitated to elbow him aside in order to take his place. Surely one would be quite heartless who failed to have the deepest sympathy with poor Tom, or to heap reprobation on the head of his perfidious friend!
To be sure, Tom’s attachment to Mrs. Abington had been a terror to the household. The father had stormed about it, and the mother had wept over it. The father had threatened in no undertone to turn Tom out of the house,and the mother—with the true instincts of a woman and the experience of a wife—had made her crispestpâtésto tempt him to stay at home. But Tom disregarded alike threats and tartlets, and his sisters had sat daily in terror of a catastrophe. But the remembrance of those awful days did not in the least tend to mitigate their abhorrence of the perfidy of Dick Sheridan. They could not contain their anger when one day they caught sight of him flaunting his success in the face of all the people of Bath while he took the air by the side of Mrs. Abington in her chariot.
Maria, with great tact, drew Tom away from the window on some pretext. Her heart was beating in the excitement of the moment. If Tom had chanced to see that sight it would, she felt, have been impossible to predict what might happen. Tom was a man of spirit—so much was certain—and he had brought home with him from Italy a stiletto with beautiful jewels and pieces of coral set in the haft....
Mr. Linley only smiled when he was alone, and repeated in whispers those words, “God bless Dick Sheridan!” He felt truly grateful to Dick, but not quite so grateful as to make the attempt to force him upon the family as their benefactor; and as for his flaunting it with Mrs. Abington—well, that was Dick’s own affair. He was not in the least offended at his triumph. It was better for Dick Sheridan to make a fool of himself than for Tom Linley to be made a fool of. That was what Mr. Linley thought; and he helped Tom to mend his violin. Tom was ready to begin the work just two days after his breaking of the instrument, and when the glue had properly dried—before the touch of varnish that he gave to the fractured part had ceased to perfume the room, he was improvising that “Elegy to a Dead Love” which, later on, caused some of his audience (women) at a concert to be moved to bitter tears. Love was dead, and a musical elegyhad been played over its grave, because Tom Linley had been jilted by Mrs. Abington! And when Mr. Linley declared that nothing more classical than that composition had been produced by an English musician, Tom began to recover from the effects of his wound as speedily as his violin had done. Only once did his sister Maria hear him murmur, while he breathed hard and his eyes were alight with the true fire of genius:
“A jig—an Irish jig! O heavens! an Irish jig!”
The expression on his face was one of bitterness—bitterness tempered by the thought that he had produced an immortal work: the mortality of his love had given him immortality.
But Betsy did not speak a word. Tom was too full of himself and of setting his sorrow to rhythm to notice how often during every day her eyes filled with tears. But one of her sisters who occupied the same bedroom, had awakened once in the night hearing Betsy sob on her pillow, and had asked her what was the matter—was it toothache? “Ah, the ache! the ache!” Betsy had answered. The little girl had expressed her sympathy with her sister’s suffering, and had straightway fallen asleep, forgetting in the morning that she had ever been awakened.
But Mr. Long was not among those who were insensible of any change in Betsy. He did not fail to perceive that some trouble was upon her. He wondered if it was the family trouble in regard to Tom’s promise that oppressed her, or was it due to something more closely affecting herself?
After Tom had renounced the enchantress, and it might have been expected that Betsy would become herself again, Mr. Long noticed that she was more tristful than ever. He made up his mind that, failing to find out by chance the cause of the change, he would ask her concerning it. Forsome days, however, he had no chance of talking with her apart from the members of her family. But at the end of a week, he found her alone in the music-room. He had met Mr. Linley and his wife on their way to look at a house in the Circus, which their improving circumstances seemed to warrant their taking, and he perceived that there was a likelihood of Betsy’s being at home and alone. He knew that he was fortunate when he heard the sound of her voice while he rang the bell. She was singing, and he knew that now she rarely sang unless she was alone.
She sprang from the harpsichord when he entered the room, and turned away for a suspicious moment before greeting him.
“My dear child, why should you wipe the tears from your eyes?” he said, retaining her hand. “Do you fancy that I am one of those people who think tears a sign of weakness? Nay, you should know that I regard them as an indication of strength—of womanliness, which is the strongest influence that remains with us in the world.”
“Ah, no, no! with me they are a proof of weakness,” she cried quickly—“weakness—weakness! Oh, I am in great trouble, Mr. Long, because I am conscious daily of doing you a great wrong. But you will bear with me—you will forgive me when I confess it to you?”
“Before you confess—before,” he said. “But what can you have to confess?”
“It is terrible—terrible, for though I have given you my promise to marry you, I find that I cannot do it—I cannot do it.”
She remained standing before him, but put both her hands up to her face. The movement was ineffectual; her hands failed to conceal her tears.
“Why?” he asked, after a pause.
There was another and a longer pause before she said:
“Because ’twere to do you a great wrong, sir. I believedwhen I gave you my promise that I would be strong enough to keep it. But I find that I am too weak. Oh, I am miserable on account of it! ’Tis not that I have failed in my respect for you—in my regard—but I feel that ’twould be impossible. Oh, I cannot do it—I cannot marry you, Mr. Long.”
“You do not love me as a girl should love her lover?” said he, and he was actually smiling.
She could not answer him. The truth seemed too cruel. She could only put her hand in his. That was her instinct. She knew that she could trust him to understand her.
“Yes, I see that you do not love me,” said he; “and I too have to confess that I cannot give to you the love of a lover.”
Her eyes opened wide as she looked at him; there was deep pathos in her look of innocent inquiry.
“You have found that your love is given to some one else?” he said, with great gentleness.
A flush came to her face; she turned away her head.
“And I—I too have given all my love to another,” he said still more gently.
Quickly she turned to him again. She laid the hand which he was not holding on the hand that held hers.
He led her to the sofa, and she seated herself, wondering.
“My Betsy,” he said, “I hoped that I would never be led to do you a wrong, and I hope that I did not wrong you when I asked you for the promise which you gave me; but at that time, and before it, all my love was given to another—another even younger than yourself.”
A little coldness had come to her eyes. She drew back an inch from him. He recognised how womanly was the movement.
“You will see her—one day; but I cannot show her to you now. I can only show you her likeness.”
He took out of an inner pocket a miniature enclosed in aplain red gold case. It was attached to a black watered silk riband which he wore round his neck. He looked at the picture for a long time before handing it to her, which he did with a sigh.
She took the case in her hands, and saw that the picture was of a girl’s face, lovely in its spirituality, pathetic in its innocence. The eyes were of the softest grey, and their expression had a certain indefinable sadness in it, in spite of the smile that illuminated the face.
“She is beautiful,” said Betsy gently.
“Ah, she is more beautiful than that picture now,” said he. “It was painted forty years ago. She is more beautiful now.”
“Only an angel could be more beautiful,” said Betsy.
“That is true—only an angel. She is among the angels,” said he. “Dear child, it was Mr. Jackson, the organist of Exeter, who told me that when you sang your face was like the face of one who is looking at an angel. I wondered if I should think so when I saw you. I found that he spoke the truth: I have seen you when you seemed to be looking into her face. It was for her sake, my dear, that I wished to do something to help you. I hoped that this privilege might be granted to me.”
“And you have helped me—no one has helped me more.”
“Have I helped you to understand yourself—to understand what love means? That is sometimes the last thing that women understand.”
“I think that you helped me to understand myself, and the result is, pain—self-reproach.”