James Forster, of the great City firm of Forster and Forster, found himself at the early age of thirty-five a rich and prosperous man, with plenty of leisure and a simple taste for imaginative literature and the fine arts. He was a widower, his wife having died ten years previously in the first year of their marriage, leaving him an only son; and his fine mansion in Cromwell Road, South Kensington, was presided over by his spinster sister Margaret, his elder by some five years.
The cares of business sat lightly on this good man’s shoulders, and he could at any moment have retired with a large independence; but early habits and inclination kept him to the office, long after his daily presence there was unnecessary, and he wished to remain there until his son was old enough to take his place. His office hours, however, were very short, and when they were over he assiduously cultivated the society of painters and men of letters. Many a struggling artist had cause to bless his liberality. The walls of his house were decorated with some of the finest paintings of the period; and he loved nothing better than to add to his collection by discovering genius, and paying liberally for its works, long before the trumpet of fame had given those works a price in the market.
Although himself a strict man of business, he loved Bohemian society and Bohemian ways, always holding good-humouredly that it was the prerogative of artists and authors to play pranks denied to plain men like himself. His admiration for genius was quite simple and boy-like. In certain departments of literature, particularly in that of early English poetry, he had an almost special knowledge, gained in the course of his acquisition of a fine old-fashioned library; and nothing delighted him more than to communicate informally to the ‘Megatherium’ or to ‘Notes and Queries’ occasional notes and correspondence on the pet subjects of his study.
He had known White for years, and been his staunchest helper and benefactor. Poor White, the best and kindliest fellow in the world, had neither the art of making money nor the knack of keeping it when it came; so that he was generally neck deep in difficulties, and would have sunk often in the quagmire of bankruptcy had no helping hand been near. As a painter he was not a genius; yet Forster bought his pictures, very often commissioning and paying for them long before they had taken shape on the easel. So that the gentle Bohemian had been heard more than once to exclaim that, in the course of his long heavenward pilgrimage, he had encountered only one guardian angel, and that angel was James Forster.
The day after the interview described in a recent chapter, White and Forster sat alone dining at a quiet table in the Junior Athenæum Club, of which the merchant was a member.
‘I am glad she has told you,’ said Forster quietly. ‘Yes, I have asked her to become my wife.’
White did not speak for some minutes, and his expression was very sad and scared.
‘I am very sorry,’ he murmured at last. ‘I can’t tell how sorry I am. I—I don’t know what to say, upon my soul. It is such an honour—such a surprise too—and you, God knows you are the best man in the world. But it can’t be. You had it from her own lips. She will never marry.’
White’s eyes were full of tears, and he gulped down a glass of wine in extreme emotion.
‘After all,’ he added eagerly, not meeting the other’s eyes, ‘she’s only a poor girl, and it wouldn’t be right for a man in your position to marry an actress.’
‘I never loved a woman before,’ returned the merchant, ‘and I know I shall never love again. My first marriage was not altogether a happy one, and I was driven more than led into it; but, thank God, I did my duty, and I have my boy. But I’m a lonely man—you don’t know how lonely, and I thought—I thought this might have been.’
‘I wish to God it could, I do with all my soul.’
‘I am sure of that.’
‘And oh, my dear Forster,’ cried White, almost sobbing, ‘don’t fancy that my dear girl doesn’t value you at your worth. She knows how good you are. She knows what a friend you have been to us all, but—but——’
‘But she does not love me. Well, I could hardly dare to expect it.’
‘It’s not that. I swear it’s not that. As I’m a living man I believe she worships the very ground you tread on. “Dear Guardian,” she said to me last night, “I never was so happy and proud, and yet I never was so sad. Tell him how grateful I am, how gladly I would die to serve him—but as for marriage, you know it can never be.”’
‘Do you know that?’ asked Forster, looking keenly at his companion.
White’s face was pale as death.
‘I do know it.’
‘She will never marry?’
‘Never.’
I think I understand,’ said Forster, with a sigh of relief. ‘She has made up her mind to devote herself to her noble profession, and she believes, perhaps wisely, that a great artist should be free of all domestic ties. But do you think I am one of those idiots, those miserable moneybags, who account the profession of an actress a degradation? She should never leave the stage, unless of her own wish and will. She should be encouraged, helped as far as a plain fellow like myself could help her—in all the aspirations of her art. I should glory in her success, and triumph in her triumph—I should indeed.’
White looked at the bright open face of Forster, and fairly wrung his hands in despair.
‘I wish it were possible,’ he groaned. ‘For her sake, even more than yours.’
Forster leant over the table, and continued in rapid, eager tones.
‘If she loves another man, tell me, and I shall be satisfied. I don’t want to know his name, but if he is poor let me make him rich. More than anything in the world, even more than my own happiness, I seek her welfare. I love her, White, and mine is not a selfish love.’
‘You are wrong, dear friend. She loves no one else. Poor child! She has never known what love is, and she never will know it.’
Something in White’s manner at last awoke the other’s suspicion and wonder. The face of the poor fellow was so utterly forlorn, his words and gestures so extraordinary, that Forster began to share his agitation.
‘There is some mystery. Cannot I know it?’ ‘Impossible. But you are right.’
‘Does it concern Madeline herself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Her friends and relations?’
‘No.’
‘For God’s sake, tell me—that is, if it can be told.’
White fell back in his chair, and let his hands drop heedlessly by his side, ‘It cannot be told. My poor darling! It is something in her past life.’
There he paused in despair. But Forster, himself trembling violently, touched him on the arm.
‘Her past life? What is that to me? I know nothing of it, and I seek to know nothing. If there is any page in her life she wishes me not to read, let her close the book; I will never ask her to open it. I love her too absolutely not to be content with what she is, the sweetest and purest woman I have ever known.’
‘You think her pure? So she is, God knows.’
‘I think she is worthy to be a queen. I think I am not worthy to tie her shoe-strings. But this does not prevent me loving her; it only makes my love something like idolatry. Don’t think that it is mere infatuation. I know my own mind well, and I shall never change.’
More followed in the same strain, but Forster did not succeed in eliciting any further explanation.
So White remained the very picture of misery, and, with his eyes full of tears, wrung the merchant’s hand again and again, uttering wild professions of personal attachment.
Some hours later they parted. White, with somewhat unsteady steps, for he had drunk liberally, made his way to his favourite club. Forster walked rapidly to Piccadilly, and, entering an omnibus, rode in sad reverie to South Kensington.
A footman in gorgeous livery admitted the plain man into his princely home; and along a lobby hung with choice pictures, up a staircase ornamented with some of the most perfect specimens of modern sculpture, he found his way to the drawing-room, where his sister Margaret was sitting in solitary state.
Margaret Forster was fresh and wholesome-looking like her brother, but her forehead was lower, her lips thinner and tighter, her whole expression colder, harder, and more respectable, and she wore much more gorgeous apparel She adored her brother and his child, with the quiet adoration of a frosty and impeccable well-dressed virgin. In matters of religion she was very High Church, a staunch follower of the Rev. Father Seraphin, of the Kensington Oratory, and there was scarcely a day in the year on which she did not hear morning and evening mass.
‘You are late, James,’ she said as he entered. ‘I suppose you have dined?’
‘Yes, at the club. I have just time to dress for the theatre. Will you come and bring James? I have a box.’
‘What theatre, James?’
‘The Parthenon.’
‘What are they playing?’
‘Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline.”’
‘Why, James, you have seen that performance twice already to my knowledge,’ said Margaret, lifting her eyebrows. ‘Is it so very good?’
‘So much so that I want you to see it again, and—and I want James to see it. The new actress is charming. But there is no time to lose, and the carriage will be at the door in half an hour.’
Margaret rose, smiling, well pleased at the attention of her brother, and passed upstairs to prepare her little nephew. Left alone in the drawing-room, Forster paced up and down in a somewhat gloomy brown study, muttering again and again to himself, and pausing from time to time to gaze into one of the great mirrors; he was not, however, gazing at his own reflection, though he seemed to be doing so—he was contemplating a visionary figure far away.
Later on in the evening, Forster, with his sister and his son, occupied a box in the Parthenon. They arrived late, and when they entered ‘Imogen’ was in the middle of her first parting with ‘Posthumus,’ but as she left the stage she glanced up and met Forster’s eyes. Margaret Forster saw that look, and in a moment her suspicions were awakened. For the rest of the evening she was busily engaged, not following the play, but jealously watching her brother. As she did so, her face hardened and her eyes grew cold as steel; for she had discovered his secret.
The play ended, the curtain descended, and in answer to the enthusiastic applause of the audience Imogen came before the curtain. Then Margaret Forster saw the actress glance up again with a smile of recognition.
They drove home and supped together in the great dining-room. Forster was generally a water-drinker, but on this occasion he ordered champagne, and pressed his sister to partake of it with him. The wise virgin, who saw that something was coming, was not to be persuaded.
Presently Forster dismissed the footman in waiting; then, looking to Margaret with a bright but somewhat nervous smile he asked—
‘Well, how did you like her?’
‘Miss Vere? I think she is rather pretty and acts intelligently.’
‘Intelligently! She is a genius. Do take some champagne.’
Margaret shook her head. She saw that her brother was excited, and determined to keep cool. To try him, she changed the subject.
‘How pretty the Princess looked. I suppose the greyheaded gentleman with her was her father, the King of Denmark?’
‘Yes—but Miss Vere! How beautifully she spoke those lines at the mouth of the cave!’
‘I liked her best in the earlier portions of the play,’ returned Margaret quietly. ‘I have a prejudice against seeing women dressed up in male attire. I suppose she is a modest woman, but—by the way, James, she seemed to recognise you? Do you know her?’
‘Yes.’
‘You cannot have met her in society?’
‘I was introduced to her by her guardian, White, the dramatic author. We have been acquainted for some time.’
‘Indeed!’ said Margaret, more coldly than ever.
She drew back her chair, and rose to go. ‘I am very tired. I think I will say good-night.’ ‘Don’t go yet,’ exclaimed Forster. ‘I—I want to talk to you.’
‘Yes?’
‘About Miss Vere.’ Then he continued, nervously and hurriedly, ‘I have not only a great respect for her, Margaret, but a stronger feeling. I should have spoken to you concerning her before, but I had certain reasons for keeping silence. Now I think you ought to know everything. I have asked her to marry me.’
Margaret Forster gazed at her brother in horror. Her face went ghastly pale, and she felt as if a sharp knife had stabbed her to the heart.
‘You cannot be serious!’ she cried.
‘Quite serious!’
‘My dear James, you are joking with me. I will never believe you capable of such folly.’
‘You think it is folly to marry again?’
‘That is for you to determine, James; but whenever you marry, you will at least marry a lady.’
Forster’s face darkened. ‘He knew his sister’s strong prepossessions on certain subjects, but he hardly expected so decided an opposition, ‘Listen to me, Margaret,’ he said firmly; ‘and before we go further let me beseech you, for my sake, to refrain from saying anything offensive concerning Miss Vere. Understand me clearly. I love her—deeply, passionately; and with a man at my age, love means the highest sort of respect. She is as far my superior in every gift of nature as I, perhaps, am hers in worldly position.’
He paused, but Margaret made no sign. She kept her cold eyes fixed upon his face, as if fascinated by the horror of a degrading confession; but her pulses temperately kept time, and her self-control was perfect.
Then he continued:—
‘I repeat, that I ought possibly to have consulted you earlier on this subject, and I am not at all astonished at your surprise. I never thought to have married a second time. My first experience, as you know, was not encouraging, and since her death you have made my home very happy. My dear Margaret, forgive me if I have seemed unkind, but setting aside the reasons to which I have alluded, I thought it better not to speak of this until I had spoken to Miss Vere. Well, I have spoken, and I thought you ought to know the result. That is why I took you to the theatre. That is why I have spoken.’
He paused again. This time his sister replied—
‘Of course, James, you are your own master. I have no right to object.’
‘That is not the question,’ he cried impatiently. ‘I should certainly take no important step in life without consulting you. I am to understand, then, that you object?’
‘Most certainly.’
‘To my marrying?’
‘No, James. To your marrying a person in Miss Vere’s position.’
Forster rose to his feet with an angry exclamation.
‘Her position is as good as mine. I am a clod, she is a genius.’
‘She is not a lady,’ returned Margaret, compressing her lips firmly.
‘Good heavens, what do you mean? There is not a whisper against her, she is divinely gifted, all the world is raving about her. Not a lady! she is a queen!’
Margaret smiled—a cold sickly smile of supreme feminine pity. Irritated by the smile, and driven out of his usual reticence by the wine he had taken at supper, Forster took a rapid turn round the room, and then, turning back to his sister, cried in a voice broken with agitation—
II thought you above these shameful prejudices. The profession of an actress is one of the noblest under the sun. The same insane bigotry which still pursues theatrical performers persecuted until lately all the arts, literature and painting more particularly. At the bottom of it all is the Church—the Church which denied Adrienne Lecouvreur Christian burial, and which from the beginning of time has been the enemy of light, freedom, knowledge.’
He was going on in the same strain when his sister quietly interfered—
‘My dear James, how absurd! I am very fond of the theatre, as you know.’
‘But you despise those who act.’
‘Nothing of the kind. I only desire to see them in their proper place in society.’
‘Where is that, pray?’
‘Among themselves—in their own artistic world. In point of fact, they are much happier there.’
‘Stop a moment, Margaret,’ said Forster, with a short, excited laugh. ‘You speak of their world. What is mine? To what sphere do I belong?’
‘You? My dear James, you are a merchant and a gentleman.’
‘I am atradesman, Margaret, received in certain circles because I have so much money, rejected in others because I have neither the birth nor the breeding of an aristocrat. The same measure you mete to Miss Vere is meted to me—to you also—by those who affect to be our social superiors. What nonsense it all is! What d—d nonsense!’
Margaret Forster shuddered. She had never before in her life heard her brother swear, and his use of even so mild an oath showed the situation to be desperate. She went up to him gently, and put her cheek for his goodnight salute.
‘I think I had better go now,’ she said. ‘We are both tired, and if you are really in earnest, we can talk it over to-morrow. Good-night, James.’
‘Good-night,’ returned Forster, just touching her cheek with his lips. ‘But don’t go till you have heard me out, I have told you that I love Miss Vere, and that I have proposed to her, but there is something more.’
‘Yes?’
‘She has refused me—that is all.’
All this time Madeline was dwelling with White in a familiar corner of Bohemia—a quarter of the world which is fast disappearing before the brand-new dwellings of artistic gentility—and which, when it finally disappears (as seems inevitable), will take something with it that even respectability can never quite replace.
The dwellers in Bohemia, now rapidly disappearing like the dear old quarter itself, had many faults and not a few vices, but these were all forgotten in the presence of natural charm and irresistiblebonhomie. They wore great beards, drank beer, and smoked great pipes; their clothes were seedy and eccentric, their manners rough and merry, their tastes the very reverse of refined; they had very little money, but that little they freely shared among one another; they loved late hours, wild talk, song-singing, and the social glass; they still regarded the theatre as an educational institution, and talked with pagan enthusiasm of the old gods of the stage. They were neither very clever nor very wise, and they have left no literary monuments to keep their memories fresh; but they enjoyed life, and in their own rough way respected the literary craft to which they belonged. For them Bohemia was a pleasant place.
Here Marmaduke White was born, and bred, and was, in due season, to die. All attempts to coax him to cleaner and cosier quarters were unavailing. Although one by one his fellow-Bohemians fell away, corrupted by the heresy of respectability and clean linen; although those who were born in the same quarter with him listened to the new commercial culte and became prosperous men of business; although Jones the novelist drove his brougham and frequented genteel parties, while Brown the painter wore fine raiment, sold his pictures for splendid prices, and put up at a fashionable club, White still remained as he had been—impecunious, irresponsible, generally out-at-elbow. It was his constant complaint that the old landmarks were fast changing. ‘If I live long enough,’ he said, ‘I shall stand on the ruins of the last chop-house and see the last night-house turned into a temperance hotel. The downfall of Bohemia dates from the day when Thackeray became famous, smoked cigars, and built that nice house at Kensington. It is the apotheosis of the Snob. Even at the Garrick, where one used to meet all the talent, the Snob is rampant. There is not afoyerof the old kind in all London. The literary man has become a commercial gent the artist is a spiritualised bagman—even the actor wears fine clothes and goes to swell garden-parties.Sic transit gloria Bohemio!I begin to feel like a man who has endured beyond his due time; a sort of Wandering Jew, the old clothes-man of an extinct existence and a perished creed. I should not so much care if people were much better for the change—but they are not. Fellows are valued now, not for what they are, but for what they earn. The very journals are grown brazen-fronted and rave of Mammon. A great book is a book that makes a great deal of money; a great artist is one who earns a great sum. At my time of life I can’t, set up as a swell, I like my glass of good beer, and my pipe, and my shirt sleeves. When I die my epitaph will be “Et ille in Bohemia fuit”—and I suppose I shall be the last of the race.’
Now the good man, though he had the perennial heart of a boy, was not young. Time, which had dealt gently with his disposition, had thinned his once flowing hair, made his limbs feeble, and set many a crowsfoot under his kindly eyes. Nor where the habits of the Bohemia he still inhabited favourable to longevity. The small hours always found him up, at work or play, and he saw little of the early sunshine. He was always behindhand with his work, always working against time; feeding irregularly, and at unreasonable hours; drinking, alas! more than was good for him, and even consuming that nicotine which would destroy even a Promethean liver. He had saved nothing, so that rest was denied him; and indeed he could not have rested, for he loved labour, in the old, reckless, perfunctory, Bohemian way. His old friends had gradually drifted away from him, died and been buried, or passed up to those shining social heights where dress suits and white linen are provided for aspiring pilgrims. Even managers of theatres, grown genteel too, pitied him. ‘Poor White,’ they would say; ‘he is such a Bohemian!’ So that his occupation partly failed him Good old blank-verse plays were no longer in demand. Brand-new adaptors, fresh from picking the pockets of French authors in Parisian forays, splashed him with the wheels of their triumphal chariots; gorgeous Jewentrepreneursshook their heads at him. ‘Vat ve vant now, my boy, is realism; plenty of swell clothes, and upholstery, and last cackle; the public don’t vant poetry, and as for blank verse, it ventilates de theatre. They’ll stand Shakespeare now and then, especially when Eugene Aram does it, because it’s genteel; but all de rest of de drama comsh from France.’ In his anxiety to suit the market he too tried pocket-picking, but he lacked the deft rapidity and supreme impudence of the dramatic thief by profession. He took too much trouble with work of this kind, and the public found it old-fashioned.
So it came to pass that from one reason and another, whether because he was physically tired out or intellectually weary of a race in which he was unevenly handicapped, White began to show signs of failing health. Once or twice he took to his bed with some trifling ailment, and on each occasion so weak were his bodily powers that he found it hard work to get up again. He himself attached no importance to those indications of weakness; he was as cheerful to outward seeming, as sanguine, and as full of magnificent ‘subjects,’ as ever. He still sketched out tragedies which no one would produce on such pert subjects as ‘Semiramis,’ ‘Julian the Apostate,’ and ‘Boadicea,’ and infinitely laboured comedies full of the spirit of the Restoration. His style was still that of the last decadence, when Lalor Shiel was a genius and Sheridan Knowles a prophet. He still clung to the superstition which placed Bulwer Lytton in the pantheon of tinsel divinities. But the game was all over.Et ille in Bohemia fuit, that was all.
One night, or rather early one morning, he came home to the old studio in St. John’s Wood, evidently under the influence of violent fever. He had caught cold, he thought, at the wings of the Duchess’s Theatre, and, though he had tried the panacea of hot whisky and water, applied in allopathic doses, it had only seemed to make him worse. He went to bed, and the next day he was unable to rise.
When Madeline went to his bedside she was shocked at his appearance. He looked haggard and old, the great veins on his temple were blue and swollen, and he gasped like one who could hardly get his breath. The ghost of his old smile came to his face as he reached out his trembling hands, which were hot as fire.
‘Don’t be alarmed, my dear,’ he said cheerily, but in a strange, faint voice. ‘I’m not quite myself, but I shall be all right presently. I think it’s the effect of Burnard’s jokes. He was at the “Harum-Scarum” last night, so I’m afraid I partook too freely of pun-salad, which is worse than the nightmare-producing lobster.’
He tried to laugh, but the laugh died away into a moan, and he sank back upon his pillow.
Later on in the day the symptoms became so alarming that a physician was sent for. He made light of the patient’s condition, but wrote him a prescription, and ordered him to be kept as quiet as possible.
Within the next twenty-four hours the symptoms became manifestly those of low or gastric fever. Madeline wrote a hurried line for Forster, who came almost immediately, accompanied by the celebrated Dr. Tain, well known for his kindness to literary men. The good doctor looked somewhat grave, but expressed his opinion that the case would yield to treatment.
From that time forward Madeline scarcely left her guardian’s bedside, ministering to him with infinite tenderness and care. The fever ran its course for fourteen days, during several of which White was more or less insensible. On the morning of the fourteenth day he opened his eyes, saw Madeline seated by his bedside, and smiled brightly.
‘Are you there, my dear?’ he asked. ‘I was dreaming about you. I thought you were a little girl again, and I—dear me, how weak I feel! Have I been very ill?’
‘Very ill,’ answered Madeline. ‘But do not talk; the doctor says you must not. Let me bring your beef-tea.’
The doctor had ordered him to have beef-tea in liberal portions every hour: it was the only way, he said, to combat the fever.
‘I think I shall soon be all right,’ said White, presently. ‘I must take more care of myself for the future, though. I’m getting quite an old fellow, and must go to bed at ten.
When Dr. Tain entered, White looked up and nodded cheerfully.
‘Here I am, you see!Pallida Morswon’t have me this time, after all, and I was thinking that I could eat a mutton chop, well peppered.’
The doctor replied cheerfully, and patted White gently on the shoulder; but Madeline, catching the expression of his face as he turned away, was somewhat troubled.
‘Keep him quiet,’ he whispered to her at the door.
‘I’ll look in again in the afternoon.’
From this intimation it became clear that the doctor was uneasy. Scarcely had he gone when the patient exhibited great restlessness and difficulty of breathing; and when the doctor returned in the afternoon he found him rambling incoherently.
Leaving the sick room, he went into the studio, where Forster, whose attentions had been unremitting, was impatiently waiting.
‘My fears are realised,’ said the physician, gravely.
‘Peritonitis has supervened.’
Before long it became manifest that White was sinking; as the hours progressed he grew weaker and weaker, until the end seemed likely to come in stupor. With despairing love and pity, but almost with dry eyes, Madeline sat by the bedside; and as she gazed upon the wild, worn face, watched the thin, white hand laying outside the coverlet, and heard the quiet, monotonous breathing, she already seemed to feel the shadow of death upon her life. As one standing safe on some dark river’s shore watches the struggles of an almost spent drowning man, and forgets everything in the intense dread and horror of the contemplation, so she watched the sick bed; unable to weep, unable to pray (for, indeed, her hopes and fears seldom at any time took the shape of prayer), but feeling always as if with the slow ebb of her guardian’s life her life was ebbing too. For White, she felt, was her only friend in this hard world, the only being who knew the full extent of her own sorrow, the only kind soul for whom she cared to live. In all her gentle theatrical ambition her thought had been of him; how she could bring comfort to his heart, see the pride and pleasure kindle on his face, make his old age pleasant, and walk by his side the dark descent to the grave. And now, if he left her, what remained?
In these hours of sorrow the frequent presence of Forster was a secret source of irritation to the troubled girl. His very devotion troubled her, for she seemed to read in it, not merely friendly kindness and affection, but an ever-encroaching assumption of a higher sympathy. He was a good man, a true friend, she knew, but she would have loved him far better if he had loved her less, and her mind was quite made up—if her dear guardian died, no living man, friend or husband, should ever take his place.
The shadow came nearer, and it became clear at last that White was drifting away beyond all human hope. He suffered little or no pain, but momentarily grew weaker. At last one morning he seemed to rally a little, and spoke clearly and collectedly on his approaching end.
‘I am going to leave you, my dear,’ he said softly, while she held his hand fondly in her own. ‘I wanted to live a little longer, just to see a dear girl at the top of the tree, but I suppose it is all for the best. Well, I want you to promise me one thing before I go.’
‘Do not talk so,’ cried Madeline, kissing the hot hand and sobbing wildly. ‘You will get well! We will be so happy together.’
‘Don’t cry, Madeline! I’m not afraid to die, and after all I’m an old fogey, and the world has left me far behind. I used to think I should live to regenerate the drama. Ah, well! that dream is over. I shan’t even finish “Semiramis,” the best thing I ever wrote; but you’ll give the first two acts and the scenario to Eugene Aram when I am gone.’
He paused, and Madeline cried between her sobs—
‘If you die, I shall die too! You are my only friend.’
‘You mustn’t talk like that, my dear. You have a great future before you, and perhaps—who knows?—I shall be able to see it from afar off. If the dead can watch over those they love, I shall still take care of you—ah, yes!—and if there’s a heaven as the preachers say, I shall meet poor Fred your father there, and we shall both look down and bless you.’
‘I have no father but you! You are all the world to me! You will not die!’
But White continued quietly, as if pursuing his own thoughts—
‘And while dear Forster lives you will not be without a friend; many a time has he lightened my load, and I wish you’d let him help you to carry yours. If you would promise me to become his wife, I should be very happy.’
‘I cannot! You know I cannot!’
As she uttered the words, he became conscious of a movement in the room, and looking round saw Forster standing at the foot of the bed.
‘Is that you, Forster?’ asked White, faintly. ‘Come here, I wish to speak to you;’ and he added when Forster had passed round and stood looking down sadly upon him.
‘You’ll be kind to Madeline, old fellow, after——’
And he turned his face on the pillow to hide his tears. Forster did not reply in words, but with tears glistening on his own cheeks laid his hand softly on the sick man’s shoulder. Presently White looked round, and, fixing his great dim eyes on Madeline’s face, whispered—
‘My dear! Will you go—only a little while? I wish to speak to Forster.’
She bent over the bed and kissed him tenderly on the forehead; then with a sob as if her heart was breaking she left the room.
She went into the next chamber, a small room overlooking the garden, and, sitting at the window, looked out through streaming tears. Many minutes passed, and at last, anxious and impatient, she rose to return to her post. As she did so, Forster appeared at the door and beckoned.
‘Will you come now?’ he whispered. ‘He is asking for you.’
She stepped softly in, and approached the bedside. With a smile of ineffable love and tenderness the dying man turned his face up to hers and, reaching out his tremulous hands, gave one to her, the other to Forster; then he said in a voice so indistinct that they had to stoop their heads to catch the word—
‘I have spoken to Forster... he will take care of of you, my dear... a good fellow... always my best friend, God bless him... now I can go in peace.’
Then feebly but firmly he drew the two hands together and joined them; that of Madeline lay in that of Forster, with the fingers of the dying man encircling both; and she did not draw hers away for fear of disturbing her dear guardian’s last moments. In this position he closed his eyes, and seemed to doze. A little while after the breath fluttered, the feeble frame trembled, and the gentle spirit was gone for ever.
What followed was to Madeline a dark and painful dream. Ever wild and impressionable in her grief as well as her joyful impulses, she yielded to such a storm of grief as threatened for a time to overthrow her reason. During this time of sorrow Madame de Berny watched her with maternal tenderness, and the touch of her tender ministration brought a certain comfort.
But when the first wild shock was over, the brave disposition of the girl asserted itself, and, hushing the tumult of her pain, she went with Madame de Berny to see the place which Forster had chosen for his friend’s last resting-place, It was a pretty spot, in a green corner of the cemetery at Hampstead, with green boughs all round, flowers on every side, and the spires of the great city in the distance; and standing here, near the place chosen for the grave, Madeline could hear the chimes of London sounding faint and far away.
When the day of the funeral came, she went as chief mourner, for her soul revolted at the cruel custom which keeps our womankind from following the dead. She stood by the side of the grave, heard the solemn words of blessing, and saw the coffin lowered to its place; and she raised her weeping face to the bright skies, praying and believing that her guardian’s spirit had gonethere.
Near her that day stood a motley crowd of artistic Bohemians, bearded men for the most part, shabby of apparel, but full of honest grief; some of them, with true tears in their eyes, came softly up to speak a few words of sympathy to the mourning girl; and she loved the rough fellows for their resemblance to him who had passed away.
Then Madeline went back to the home that was home no longer, and thought day and night of the beloved dead.
It was many weeks after these sad events that Forster came one day to St. John’s Wood, and found Madeline still sitting in the shadow of her great grief; but she had found one sweet comfort in looking over her guardian’s papers and placing them in order with her loving hand, for she remembered one lifelong dream of the poor Bohemian—to see his beloved plays arranged together and published in book form; and she thought to herself that the world should know what a beautiful genius it had lost, when it saw the creatures of his imagination gathered together for the first time.
When Forster came they talked for some time of the proposed publication. An old friend of White, eminent as a critic and a dramatic poet, was to revise the work, and prepare it with a short biography, and at the end of the book were to be printed a few last memorials, and some obituary verses by members of the Bohemian Club, to which White had belonged.
Presently, however, Forster changed the subject, and spoke of the wish which was still nearest his heart. Then, when Madeline turned away as if shocked and pained, he took her hand and said earnestly—
‘It washiswish, do not forget that. He knew I loved you, and he joined our hands together.’
‘No, no!’ said Madeline. ‘Do not speak of it—he knew it was impossible—he could not wish it.’
‘Madeline, hedidwish it, with all his heart. Listen to me, my darling! That day before he joined our hands together he asked to speak to me alone—do you remember?
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know what he wished to say?’
Madeline shook her head sadly.
‘He wished to tell me something concerning yourself. “Forster,” he said, “I tell you these things because I trust you before God, because I think that it is best that you should know, and because I feel you will never love my darling less.” Then, Madeline, he told me why you refused to marry me, why you had said you would never marry any living man.’
Pale as death, Madeline turned her face away.
‘He told you that!’ she murmured, shivering as if chilled.
‘He told me everything, my darling; and now, knowing everything, knowing your great sorrow, and knowing and loving you a thousandfold, I ask you again to become my wife.’
Afew months later the following announcement appeared amongst the ‘Births, Deaths, and Marriages,’ on the first page of the ‘Times’:—
On the 23rd, at Christ Church, Hampstead, James Forster, of Hampden House, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, to Madeline, only daughter of the late Fred. Hazelmere, Esq., of the Inner Temple.
Only a few of those who read this announcement were aware that the lady in question was the young actress known under another name to the audiences of the Theatre Royal Parthenon.
It was a very quiet marriage. After the ceremony the newly married couple drove to the cemetery, in the immediate neighbourhood, and Madeline placed a fresh garland on White’s grave; then with a heavy heart she returned to a quiet wedding breakfast, to which only a few very intimate friends were invited, and in the afternoon departed with her husband to Switzerland.
Long before that wedding day Madeline had discovered, by secret inquisition of her own heart, that the tender respect she felt lor James Forster was not yet love—not such love, at least, as blends the lives of man and woman in perfect sympathy and joy; and she would have given the world, therefore, if he had been content to remain what he had been—her friend, her brother, her benefactor. But seeing clearly that his happiness depended on the formation of a closer relationship, she, by slow degrees, was reconciled to the possibility. What weighed with her more than any other consideration was the thought of poor White’s last injunction. He had wished this union—had, indeed, enjoined it upon her—so that to shrink from fulfilling his fond request seemed selfish and ungrateful, and the more so as she remembered so vividly the noble and unselfish devotion of Forster during all the last years of poor White’s earthly struggle.
So she consented, not without many secret tears and forebodings, for the shadow of her first cruel experience was still upon her, and she could not stifle the secret sense of shame.
Before finally yielding her hand, however, she questioned Forster again, and more explicitly, concerning his secret interview with White, just before the latter’s death.
‘You wish me to be your wife,’ she said, ‘but are you sure that you know what you are asking? I feel quite an old woman, and I am not good enough to be your wife. Sometimes, even now, the old restless fit is on me, the old wicked wilfulness. I shall never bring happiness to any one, I am sure.’
‘You are unjust to yourself. Dear Madeline, trust me. I will try to deserve your trust.’
Do you know that there are some things, some thoughts and acts, which seem to pollute the very air we breathe; to make the bright world hateful; to chill the very heart within us, like the touch of death? I feel like a girl who has been shrouded for the grave and who still exists, but who will never have the wholesome, happy life of good people. Do not ask me to marry. Choose some innocent girl, and give your love to her.’
‘We cannot love as we will,’ said Forster, earnestly, ‘but as God wills; and I have given my love to you. Dearest, it is just because you have been unhappy that I yearn to bring you happiness; just because you have been wronged that I long to make amends. You must leave these sorrowful thoughts behind you; you must rise from the tomb of your dead grief, and live anew.’
‘I cannot; it is too late.’
‘Yet you are so young, so beautiful; and I love you so much.’
‘I do not deserve such love.’
‘You deserve far more than I can bring you.’
‘Did Mr. White tell you what I had been? Do not turn away, but look me in the face—you see I am not afraid. What did he say to you? Tell me everything.’
‘He told me that you had been deceived by a villain, who afterwards abandoned you. Dearest, he did you full justice—he knew that you were innocent, an angel deluded by a devil.’
‘I was not innocent,’ returned Madeline, sadly. ‘I was to blame, and ah! I was so ungrateful. If I had been innocent, do you think I should ever have placed myself in that man’s power?’
‘You were very young, and it is an evil world. Do not speak of it again. Bury the past, and become my honoured wife.’
‘You say that now; but some day, years hence, perhaps, the past would rise like a ghost, and your life would be darkened by regret and shame.’
‘Never by shame! never!’
‘I am not fit to make connections, I am not fit to have friends; it is better for such women as I to be alone in the world, and then, if shame comes, it falls only on the one who has the most right to suffer. It is this thought that reconciles me to the death of my dear guardian. I am alone in the world now, and can bring harm to no one.’
To a man like Forster it was terrible to hear her talk so. He was willing to forget the past, and he saw no dark cloud looming in the future. He had set his heart on making Madeline his wife, and he would never rest until his object had been attained. ‘She hesitates to take the plunge,’ he said to himself, ‘but once she has taken it all will be well.’ So he pleaded and pleaded, until at length Madeline was brought to consent.
It was a short honeymoon, but to Madeline, at least, it was a tolerably happy one. She had refused to take a maid with her, and he had consented to dispense with the services of a valet, so they spent their days in happy unconcern, roaming about among the Swiss mountains, travelling from one picturesque village to another, and living in little quaint rustic inns, whose primitive accommodation would have made Miss Forster turn cold with dismay.
It was just the kind of life which Madeline loved. After all, the unnatural atmosphere of town smoke and footlights had not left much taint upon her; she felt once more the little girl who, with tangled hair and disordered dress, had raced like a young untrained colt about the marshes of Grayfleet.
But the pleasures of the honeymoon were not destined to continue. Forster, though a rich man, could never be spared long from the office—so at the end of a month he told his young wife that the two must turn their faces towards home. ‘That’s the penalty of marrying a City man,’ he said; ‘things always seem to go wrong when I’m away; and though I grumble about the office a good deal, I think, after all, I like it.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘I shall have to leave you a good deal alone, my darling.’
‘Never mind that. While you are away I’ll be thinking what I can do to make you comfortable when you come home again.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, my dear. I’ll not have my Madeline made a drudge. You’ll enjoy yourself as you do now, and my sister is quite willing to look after things a bit. She’s used to it, and doesn’t mind.’
‘Miss Forster?’
‘Yes, Margaret.’
‘Is she going to live with us?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so. You see she has lived with me for years, and it never occurred to me that you would wish her to go. She will be very useful to you, Madeline; besides, she’ll be company for you while I’m away.’
To this Madeline said nothing. She felt she had no right to object to this arrangement, but she was sorry it had been made. However, for her husband’s sake she resolved to make the best of it, and to look upon Miss Forster henceforth as an affectionate sister and friend.
One afternoon, about a month after the wedding-day, a carriage and pair drove up to the door of Forster’s town house, the large handsomely furnished mansion in South Kensington, and Forster, alighting, handed out his bride.
‘Welcome home, my darling,’ he said, giving her hand a tender pressure.
Madeline’s heart bounded at the touch, and, with flushed cheek and sparkling eyes, she ran up the steps to the open door. On the threshold stood Miss Forster, with a distant smile and a cordial ‘how do you do?’ Madeline held forth both her hands, but the lady’s stately figure became more stately as she coldly placed her fingers in one of the palms, and graciously led the way into the house. Somewhat chilled at so cold a greeting, Madeline followed her through a stately hall into a handsomely furnished room. Madeline sat down, and Miss Forster paused before her.
‘If you will be so good as to give me your keys,’ she said politely, ‘your maid shall unpack your things. James asked me to engage one for you, and I hope she will give satisfaction.’
With a nod and a smile Madeline handed over the keys, and Miss Forster retired.
Madeline sighed, leaned back in her chair, and looked around her. She was in the drawing-room of Hampden House, a spacious apartment, elegantly furnished in the most costly style. Her eyes, carelessly scanning the costly pictures which covered the walls, became suddenly fixed upon one. She leapt up from her seat, ran over to it, stood for a moment regarding it with tear-dimmed gaze. Then, raising herself on tiptoe, she pressed upon it her warm, ripe, trembling lips. It was a pretty little landscape, looking insignificant enough in its golden setting, but trebly dear to Madeline, for it was almost the last picture which poor White had painted. Saddened a little at the memory it brought her, she stood looking at it in a dream; she felt the tears roll slowly down her cheeks, the sobs contract her throat—she was growing almost hysterical, when a voice recalled her to herself.
‘Shall I show you to your rooms?’
She started, turned, and found herself face to face with her husband’s sister. Unable to hide her tears, she said, turning faintly—
‘Thank you, I think I should like to be alone. I feel rather tired and depressed to-day.’
Miss Forster said nothing, but quietly led the way out of the room.
Two of the best rooms in the house had been fitted up for Madeline’s special use, and as she walked into them she felt for the first time that day that she had really come home. Here, as elsewhere, there were splendid upholstery, splendid pictures, tastefully designed ceilings, and dim rose-coloured curtains to moderate the light; but besides all this Madeline saw some of the crude but well-loved pictures which brought to her the fond memory of her guardian; there was a little bookcase, containing his favourite volumes; and, above all, there were his favourite plays. She saw all this, but she saw more. Passing on through the sitting-room she looked into the dressing-room adjoining it. She found her dresses laid out, and a smart maid kneeling before a box which was half unpacked. The girl rose and asked which dress her mistress would wear for dinner, but Madeline said—
‘I don’t know; any one; will you leave me alone, please: and when I want you I will ring.’
The maid retired, and Madeline, left to herself, returned to the sitting-room. She took off her bonnet and cloak, and sat down in an easy chair close to a gipsy table on which stood a silver tray and some tea. She poured out a cup, and, while sipping it, looked with dubious eyes around her.
‘I ought to be happy,’ she said. ‘So I am; so I will be. He is so good and kind! I trust to God he will never be made to repent. If his sister knew—if the world knew—but why should they?—I cannot undo the past, but I can guide the future. Yes, I will bury my dead, as he said, and try to forget.’
A light tap upon the door. Madeline started up, but before she could speak the door opened and a tiny figure came in—a little bright-eyed boy, who ran forward with outstretched hands, and sprang with a joyful cry into her lap. She clasped him fondly in her arms, and kissed him eagerly.
‘My darling, you have come to bid me welcome home?’
‘Yes, mamma.’
‘Who sent you?’
‘Papa. Kiss me again, please. Papa says if I am good you are sure to love me.’
He held up his rosy lips and she kissed them again and again; then she caught him up in her arms and carried him to her dressing-room. She turned over the things in her unpacked boxes and produced some toys—these she gave to the child, embracing him the while.
‘Do you know why I brought these, dear?’
‘No, mamma, unless because, as papa says, you are so good.’
‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘it is because I love you, and I want you to love me.’
Late that night Madeline came quietly down from her room and entered the library. Forster was still there; he was smoking a cigar, and looking through a batch of letters which had accumulated during his absence.
‘Why, Madeline, can’t you sleep?’ he asked, as she came forward.
‘No, James, not till I have thanked you for all your goodness to me. Tell me, how can I repay you?’
‘By being happy in your home.’
Good advice, and for a time at least Madeline followed it. She was happy. Her husband was a good deal away, but she had always his boy to comfort her, and upon the child she lavished all the affection of her impulsive heart. There was one thing only in the house which chilled and repelled her; it was the presence of her husband’s sister.
Madeline had not been long in the house before she found that the cold eyes of Margaret Forster watched her continually in suspicious distrust, as if trying in vain to penetrate the mystery which shrouded the young girl’s life. But this Madeline soon forgot. Why should she fear Miss Forster? The past was buried; and as yet she had no idea that the future had its hidden mystery to disclose.