“If I were loved, as I desire to be,
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
And range of evil between death and birth,
That I shall fear, if I were loved by thee?”
Tennyson.
If yer plase, yer honour, Mr. Geraghty is below, and would like to see yer honour if its convaniant,” said little Nora Doolan, thrusting her untidy head into the cheerless back room in Paradise Street.
Ralph, who was pacing to and from learning a part in a Shakesperian play which he was little likely to act as yet, glanced round with brightening face.
“What? Dear old Geraghty!” he exclaimed. “I’m glad he has looked me up. Show him upstairs Nora, for I should like to have a talk with him.”
The old man-servant responded with alacrity to the warm welcome he received.
“It’s delighted I am to see you again, Mr. Ralph,” he exclaimed, looking him over with an air of satisfaction as though he had some share in his well-being. “And it’s in good health that you are looking, sir, and no mistake.”
“Nothing like hard work, Geraghty, for keeping a man well,” said Ralph. “And I hope I’m settled now for some time to come. You can tell Miss Evereld that I’m at the very theatre we so often used to go to, and that I have the pleasure of seeing Washington act every night.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” said Geraghty. “We all knew long ago, sir, that you’d make a first-class actor; it took but a little small bit of discrimination to see that much.”
Ralph laughed. “Well, Geraghty, you mustn’t run away with the notion that I’m a star, for, as a matter of fact, I am nothing but a super at a pound a week. But it’s better to begin at the beginning in a good theatre than to be cock-of-the-walk in a fifth-rate one.”
“To be sure, sir, it’s just what I was saying but now to my sister about placing her eldest girl. ‘Never mind how little she earns the first year or two,’ said I, ‘but for heaven’s sake place her in a gentleman’s family, and don’t let her demean herself by takin’ service with them that hasn’t an ounce of breeding to bless themselves with. Let her be kitchen or scullery-maid or what you will, but have her with gentry.’”
“Geraghty,” said Ralph, with a mischievous smile, “You have such a respect for birth that it’s my firm conviction you’ll be the last and most staunch supporter left to the House of Lords.”
Geraghty laughed all over his face, and his broad shoulders shook.
“I’ve seen just a little too much of the aristocracy to pin my faith to them, sir. Handsome is as handsome does, and gentle is as gentle does. But from the House of Lords and their marrin’ and muddlin’—Good Lord deliver us!”
Ralph who had purposely provoked this tirade from the Irishman, laughed and changed the subject by an inquiry after Evereld.
“Well, thank God, she’s getting on finely, sir. Seems as if there was a special Providence over orphans, and Bridget she says why that’s natural enough, that their parents can see better how to guide them bein’ higher up so to speak. But, however that may be, at first we all thought she’d fret her heart out with missin’ you, sir. But in September, Bridget took her down to the school at Southbourne, and though she was a bit faint-hearted at the notion, she’d no sooner set eyes on the place than she was sure she’d be happy there. Bridget says it’s the most beautiful house and garden you ever saw, and all so comfortable and homelike in spite of the size. And Miss Evereld writes that she’s as happy as the day is long, and that they’re teaching her how to nurse sick folks, and that she’s learnt to darn her own stockin’s—a thing she never got a chance o’ doin’ at home—and to dance the minuet, and to do algebra, and I don’t know what beside. But, from what Bridget told me, I foregathered that it wasn’t a school where they cram them like turkeys for Christmas or geese for a Michaelmas fair, but just a home on a large scale for turnin’ out well-mannered young gentlewomen who’ll have a very good notion how to manage a home on a smaller scale.”
When the old Butler had gone, Ralph fell into a reverie. The effect of hearing all about Evereld had been to make him long very impatiently for the end of their separation. It was true that when she returned to the Mactavishes at Christmas he could write to her without any breach of regulations, but there seemed no chance of their meeting, and he greatly missed his old companion. He began to weave all manner of visions of future success, and to imagine that in an incredibly short space of time he had gained quite a high position at Washington’s theatre, that he met Evereld in society, and that Sir Matthew, who always paid homage to the successful, became quite friendly and cordial to him. How strange it would be to be invited as a distinguished guest to the very house in Queen Anne’s Gate where he had been snubbed and scolded as a boy.
It was with something of a shock that he came back to the prosaic present and found himself merely a super about to go through, for the fiftieth time, the wearisome business which was his allotted share in a play which was likely to run for many months more.
It was just at Christmas that he was confronted by one of those decisions that form the chief difficulty of an actor’s career. To seize the right opportunity of promotion, yet to avoid “Raw haste, half-sister to delay”; to have precisely that right judgment which often determines the success or failure of a life, is hard to all mortals, but hardest to those of the artistic temperament. The temptation to escape from the monotony of his present work came to him through the Professor’s granddaughter.
To little Ivy Grant he had from the very first seemed a full fledged hero. He was the first man she had ever looked up to, for although devoted to her old grandfather it was not easy to respect the Professor. He seemed, to shrewd little Ivy, a very weak old man, and she despised the weak, not understanding at all that habit of making large allowance for human infirmity which grows with the growing years. The old man was a confirmed opium eater. The habit, begun in a time of physical pain and great mental worry, had now bound him fast in its cruel chains, and the kindly benevolence which had struck Ralph at first sight as so strange a contrast with his blameworthy neglect of Ivy’s safety, was all due to the influence of the drug. His will was now not in the least his own, and though he had his moments of exquisite exaltation he had always to pay for them by times of black depression and misery. Under these circumstances the child’s life could hardly be a happy one; she was, moreover, scarcely strong enough for the late hours and the exposure to all sorts of weather which her work entailed, and in spite of her brisk, managing ways she began to crave for something more strong and trustworthy to support her than her grandfather whose simile of the lifeless trunk of the tree kept up by the ivy supporting it, had been singularly near the truth.
When Ralph no longer played at the same theatre, and their meetings became less frequent, the little girl flagged and lost heart. She had good impulses but she was easily led, and her friendship with Ralph had filled her with a sense of dissatisfaction with her own life, and the lives that most nearly touched her own. Her busy little brain began to form eager plans for the future, and at last fate put in her way a chance which revived her drooping spirits, and lighted up her blue eyes with hope. Her good news arrived on Christmas day, otherwise the festival would have been cheerless enough, for the old Professor had slept in his invalid chair the whole of the morning, and Ivy, sitting in solitary state beside the fire, had eaten a sober little Christmas dinner consisting of a slice of cold meat and a mince-pie kindly given to her by the landlady. Then having tidied the bare little room, and stuck a solitary piece of holly in the window that people might see she was “keeping Christmas” properly, she returned to her place on the hearthrug, and tried to become interested in a penny novelette which should have been exciting, but somehow failed to touch her.
“Stupid thing!” she exclaimed presently, throwing the book to the further end of the room with a little petulant gesture. “I can’t even cry when the heroine dies. What is the good of a book if you can’t cry over it?”
Just then there came a tap at the door, and in walked Ralph with his cheerful face, and in his hands was a great bunch of ivy and mistletoe.
“A happy Christmas to you,” he said, taking her cold little hand in his. “How’s the Professor? Not worse I hope?”
“He is no worse,” said Ivy, “but he has been asleep all day, and it’s dreadfully dull. Where did you get such lovely evergreens?”
“Walked out into the country this morning, right away beyond Hampstead. As for the mistletoe, that’s a particular present from Dan Doolan, and I’ve just had to kiss seven small Doolans beneath it before they would let me out of the house. Now your turn has come.”
Ivy laughed and protested, but was thrilled through and through by the kiss, though it was just as matter-of-fact as that which he had bestowed on Tim Doolan, aged three. Her little, pale face lighted up radiantly, but unobservant Ralph saw nothing of that, he was bestowing all his energies on the decoration of the dreary, little room, and crowning with ivy the portraits of sundry great actors and actresses.
“Do you think Mrs. Siddons ever looked as stiff and forbidding as this?” he said, glancing round with a smile, as Ivy held him a laurel branch to put above the frame.
“Yes,” she replied, saucily. “She must have looked like that when she said in awful tones, ‘Will it wash?’ to the poor frightened shopman who was serving her.”
“Ah, perhaps. Well, Ivy, there is no fear that you will ever strike terror into any one’s heart.”
“Who cares for striking terror into people?” she replied, merrily, and as she spoke she began to float dreamily away into an exquisitely graceful skirt-dance; her little, childish face growing more and more sweet and tranquil as she proceeded.
Clearly dancing was her vocation. Ralph stood with his back to the fire watching her perfect grace: it seemed to him the very poetry of motion. And Ivy was at her very best when she was dancing; at other times her ways occasionally jarred on him, her acting left much to be desired, and a certain vein of silliness in her now and then awoke his contempt, but when dancing she seemed like one inspired; he could only wonder and admire.
“Some day you will be our greatest English dancer,” he said, as once more she settled down into her nook beside the fire.
“I don’t want to be that,” said Ivy, “English dancers are never made so much of as foreigners, and besides, a dancer’s position is not so good. I mean to be an actress.”
“It’s a thousand pities,” said Ralph. “Why do people always want to do things they can’t do well.”
Ivy pouted.
“Grandfather doesn’t wish me only to dance,” she said. “And besides I have just heard of quite a fresh opening. What would you say to earning two pounds a week?”
“I should say I’m not likely to do that yet awhile,” said Ralph, philosophically.
“But you can! you can!” said Ivy, clapping her hands joyfully. “There’s an opening for you as well as for me, for I specially asked. It’s a ‘fit up’ company and we should be wanted in February when the pantomime is over.”
“Where?” asked Ralph, looking incredulous.
“For a tour in Scotland. A ‘fit up’ company too, and nothing to provide but just wigs and shoes and tights.”
“Who is the manager?”
“The husband of the leading lady. His name is Skoot.”
“Don’t like the name,” said Ralph, laughing.
“Why what’s in a name?” said Ivy. “The poor man didn’t choose it. For my part I think it is better than assuming some grand name that doesn’t belong to him. And then his Christian name is Theophilus.”
But Ralph still laughed.
“Worse and worse,” he said. “Theophilus Skoot is a detestable combination. Dick, Tom, or Harry, would have been better. No, no, Ivy; I think we had better stay where we are.”
Ivy looked much disheartened, and to change the subject Ralph suggested that they should go together to the Abbey. This pleased her, she forgot the Scotch tour and only revelled in the bliss of the present. To walk to church on Christmas day with her ideal man, to feel the subtle influence of the beautiful Abbey, the lights, the music, the religious atmosphere, seemed to her a sort of foretaste of heaven, a slightly sensuous heaven perhaps, but the highest she was as yet capable of imagining. Ralph was not sorry to have the child with him, for his Christmas had been lonely enough. But his thoughts wandered far away from her during the service. He was back again at Whinhaven listening to his father’s voice, or he was with Evereld and her governess listening to solemn old chorales at Dresden.
Presently a very slight thing recalled him to his actual surroundings. The sermon was about to begin and some one sitting in front of him rose to go just as the text was given out:
“And in the fulness of time God sent———”
He heard no more for the vacant place had revealed to him, at a little distance in front, a profile which arrested his whole attention. Something in its earnest, absorbed expression, in its exquisite purity, in the listening look of one who is eager to learn, appealed to him strongly. Then suddenly his heart gave a bound, for it was borne in upon him that he was looking at Evereld. Not the Evereld he had left on that summer day as a playmate and comrade, but a new Evereld who had developed into a woman—the one woman in all the world for him. He did not wish the sermon ended, he could have been almost content to sit on there for ever just watching her; that curious description of heaven as a place
“Where congregations ne’er break up,
And Sabbaths never end,”—
a notion which has cast a gloom over so many children’s hearts, seemed to him in his present mood after all not so impossible.
When the service was really over, and the people began to disperse, he was in a fever lest he should be unable to reach her, and it was not until he had discovered that Bridget was her companion that he could feel at all secure of any real talk with her.
Ivy, quite unconscious of all this, wondered a little when he paused in the nave; but she did not at all object to standing there with him, looking into the dim beauty of the stately building, and with a proud little consciousness that many people glanced at them as they passed by. It was so nice, she reflected, to go to church with a man like Ralph, a man wholly unlike any other she had yet come across in her short and rather dreary life.
Meanwhile, Evereld was drawing nearer. Ivy was just admiring her dark-green jacket and toque with their beaver trimmings, and longing to have just such a costume herself, when she saw a vivid colour suffuse the wearer’s face, her blue eyes shone radiantly, her lips smiled such a welcoming smile at Ralph that no words, no hand-clasp, seemed necessary. Side by side they passed together out of the Abbey, while Ivy, in blank surprise, followed in their wake.
“To think that you were there all the time and that I never knew it,” said Evereld, when the greetings were over. “Where is Bridget? How surprised she will be. Look, Bridget, here is Mr. Ralph come back.”
“An’ it’s glad I am to see you, sir. There’ll be no need, I’m thinkin’, to wish you a happy Christmas, for I can see by your face that you’ve got it.”
Ralph did, indeed, seem to be in the seventh heaven of happiness, but as he gave a cordial greeting to the old servant he happened to notice Ivy’s wistful, little face, and, with a pang of reproach for having altogether forgotten her, he took her hand in his and introduced her to Evereld.
“This is a little friend of mine,” he said. “The granddaughter of Professor Grant, my elocution master.” Evereld liked the look of the little fairylike figure, but she seemed to her the merest child, and after a few kindly words she thought no more of her, being naturally absorbed in Ralph and having so much to say to him after their long separation.
Ivy, with a sigh, dropped behind with Bridget, who, in her motherly fashion, took her under her special protection as they crossed the wide road near the Aquarium, little guessing that this small person was well used to going about London quite alone at all hours.
“And how are things going at Queen Anne’s Gate?” asked Ralph, when Evereld had told him all about her life at Southbourne.
“It’s so dull I hardly know how to bear it,” said Evereld. “You see, I’m too big now for children’s parties, and, of course, I’m not out yet. I miss you all day long, and no one so much as speaks of you, except now and then Mr. Bruce Wylie, and he always did like you.”
“Not he,” said Ralph. “He made believe, though, for the sake of pleasing you.”
“I see that you have not lost your way of thinking evil of people,” said Evereld, reproachfully. “Mr. Wylie is the kindest man I know.”
“But you don’t know him,” said Ralph. “You merely see him now and then and like his pleasant way of talking, and find him a relief from the Mactavish clan.”
“And how much do you know him?” said Evereld, teasingly.
“Not much, certainly,” he was constrained to own with a smile, “and it may be jealousy that makes me decry him. Yet, if instinct goes for anything, he is a man I should never trust.”
“What! such a frank, straightforward sort of man as that?” she exclaimed, in dismay.
“I know he’s very plausible, I know he has many good points even, but I fancy he could persuade himself that anything was right if only it promoted his own ends.”
“At any rate, he is the one person who ever troubles to inquire after you, and I believe that is the chief reason I have for liking him.”
Ralph was so well content with this speech that he let the subject drop, and, as Evereld was eager to hear all that he had been doing since they had been separated, he began to give her an amusing account of the straits he had been in and the work he had obtained. Far too soon they reached Sir Matthew’s house, and were obliged to part.
“You will write when you can?” said Evereld, wistfully, as she lingered for a moment on the steps with her hand in his. “I don’t think Sir Matthew has any right to object, and I shall want to know what you decide about Scotland.”
“Yes, you shall hear directly it is decided,” said Ralph, trying to feel hopeful. “I wish I knew what would be the wisest thing to do.”
Then, with a lingering glance into the sweet eyes lifted to his, he bade her good-bye and turned away.
“How I wish I were the Professor’s little granddaughter,” she thought to herself as she glanced down the dark road after them, with a sick longing to be going too. And, had she but known it, Ivy was at that very time thinking enviously of Ralph’s old friend and of her many advantages.
Meanwhile Geraghty threw open the front door, and in the cheerful light that streamed through the hall Evereld caught a vision of Sir Matthew coming down the stairs, and, taking her courage in both hands, she entered the house and went straight up to him.
“Savage at heart, and false of tongue,
Subtle with age, and smooth to the young,
Like a snake in his coiling and curling.”
T. Hood.
So you have been to the Abbey?” he said, smiling benevolently upon her.
“Yes,” she replied, her blue eyes looking straight into his. “And we have seen Ralph. He was there, too, just behind us. He walked back with us.”
Sir Matthew frowned slightly. Then, recollecting the presence of the servants, he beckoned Evereld to his study.
“Come in here, my dear,” he said, in his soft voice. “You are quite right to tell me all so frankly, and it is natural enough that you should be pleased to meet your old playfellow. But you must remember that things are not now as they once were.”
“Ralph and I shall always be friends,” said Evereld, gently, but with a firmness which startled her guardian. “Things are not altered between us because we don’t live under the same roof now. How could that alter us?”
“My dear, it is for Lady Mactavish and myself to decide who shall or who shall not be your friends,” he said, with quiet decision.
“That may be,” said Evereld, “as far as new friends are concerned, but I cannot unmake a friend to order—no, not even if the Queen commanded it.”
They both smiled a little. Sir Matthew paced the room in silence.
“I must not forbid her to hold any communication with him,” he reflected, “or let her feel that I am a tyrant and they a couple of martyrs. After all, she is so young and simple and innocent; no mischief will come of it.”
“Has Ralph found work?” he inquired, not unkindly.
“Yes,” she said, “at Washington’s theatre; and perhaps he is going on a Scotch tour.”
“Good!” said Sir Matthew, approvingly. “After all, he has talent, and will make himself a name in time. His best chance would be to marry some experienced actress older than himself. That has answered very well in one or two cases. His birth and education would go for something, and if he plays his cards well the stage may make his fortune. By-the-by, Bruce Wylie is to dine with us to-night. You like him, do you not?”
“Oh, yes,” said Evereld, “I like him very much.”
And Sir Matthew, satisfied with the warmth of her tone, dismissed her with a paternal kiss, and an injunction to put on her prettiest gown in honour of the festival.
Bruce Wylie was certainly the most attractive and amusing of the men who visited the Mactavishes. He had the easy, comfortable air of an old friend, and he came and went at all hours, yet never seemed to be present when he was not wanted. His fair hair and short, fair beard contrasted rather curiously with his dark, keen eyes. He had a brisk, kindly, pleasant manner, and a particularly winning voice. There was about him, too, a saving sense of humour, and the rather heavy atmosphere of Sir Matthew’s household always seemed less oppressive when he was present. He was a first-rateraconteur, and Evereld was never tired of listening to his stories.
It was all in vain that she tried to see him with Ralph’s eyes. She decided in her own mind that his hard experience of the world had made Ralph somewhat cynical and distrustful. He had convinced her with regard to Sir Matthew, but to belief in Bruce Wylie she still clung with all the loyalty of her fresh, innocent youth.
And yet the ladies had only left the dining-room a few moments when Bruce Wylie revealed a very different side of himself.
“Ewart’s little girl is looking prettier than usual tonight,” he remarked, as he picked out the preserved apricots from a small dish in front of him, leaving only bitter oranges and citrons for those who might come after.
“Yes,” said Sir Matthew, “Southbourne has done wonders for her. She had better have another six months there.”
“Was she not eighteen in the autumn? She will want to come out next season.”
“I don’t think it,” said Sir Matthew. “She is happy enough there, and we shall do well to keep her from the heiress-hunters till she is safely betrothed to you.”
“Poor little soul!” said Bruce Wylie, reflectively. “There would be no danger in letting her see a little of the world first.”
“We won’t risk that,” said his companion. “What’s to prevent her falling in love with some young fellow and refusing to look at you. If she ever lost her heart, she would be the veriest little shrew to manage—there would be no taming her. We might prevent her marrying till she was of age, but you know what revelations would come about when her affairs were looked into. No, no; she must be safely married to her worthy solicitor, Bruce Wylie, as soon as possible after she leaves school.”
Bruce Wylie seemed lost in thought. Sir Matthew watched him, half-suspiciously. They were friends and confederates, but the company promoter trusted no one in the world implicitly.
“You are thinking that it is a risky venture,” he said, quietly, “but under the circumstances it’s far the best thing that can be done. If the South African affair goes on as well as it promises, her money will be safe enough in the long run; and if a smash comes, why her money will be gone, but our names and reputations will be safe, and no great harm will come of it.”
“I was not thinking of that,” said Bruce Wylie. “There’s another side to the business, and one can’t altogether overlook it. I am fond of the little thing, and I honestly believe she likes me, but if anything of this should ever leak out, if, after we were married, her suspicions were roused, why then, as you say, I can imagine that the taming process might be difficult. Spite of her china-blue eyes, there’s a pretty spice of determination in Ewart’s little girl.”
“My dear fellow, you astonish me,” said Sir Matthew, impatiently. “With enough on your mind to burden most men heavily, you can yet find time to worry over the matrimonial squabbles that may ruffle your future peace. When once she’s your wife you’ll be able to do what you please with her.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Bruce Wylie. “It’s just those little, gentle women with hardly a word to say for themselves who are always astonishing people by hidden stores of force and courage and daring at some critical moment.”
“The only possible difficulty with Evereld would be her friendship for Ralph Donmead,” said Sir Matthew, “and, as ill luck will have it, the fellow turned up again to-day.”
“D——— him!” exclaimed Bruce Wylie. “How was that?”
“Saw her at the Abbey, and had the audacity to walk home with her. She told me all about it with the utmost frankness, and without so much as a change of colour. I don’t think there is any mischief done yet, but the less she sees of him the better. It seems that he is doing pretty well on the stage; at least, I gathered so.”
“Well,” said Bruce Wylie, reflectively, “it is always easy to set a scandal afloat about an actor, and if she seems losing her heart to him that is the line we must take.”
And therewith the two friends fell to talking of other business arrangements.
When Ralph turned away from the house in Queen Anne’s Gate, the happy excitement of the past hour suddenly gave place to a sobering realisation of things as they were. He, Ralph Denmead, a super at a pound a week, had had the audacity to fall in love with a girl of whose fortune he had, indeed, very vague ideas, but who had always been considered an heiress. That was a situation he liked very little, but it was characteristic of him that he did not sink into any very great depths of depression. He was not easily depressed, having been born with one of those equable tempers which are as delightful as they are rare. Then, too, his very indifference to money for its own sake, the habit he had inherited from his unworldly father of a positive dislike of all display and a contempt for all but the simplest tastes, came now to his aid. Extremes meet. And the marriage, which would have seemed a perfectly simple and desirable arrangement to a selfish fortune-hunter, seemed also perfectly possible to Ralph with his unconventional way of looking at things. He disliked her fortune, would gladly have foregone it altogether, but saw no reason in the world why it should stand as a barrier between them. If she loved him all would be well. He hoped she did love him, but was not certain. Only in that last quiet good-bye of hers something in its very self-control had given him hope; for the first time she seemed to shrink a little from showing how much she felt the parting. She was wholly unlike the little girl he had left sobbing in the schoolroom at Sir Matthew’s country cottage a few months before.
As he thought of this, a sort of wild desire to succeed in his profession, and to succeed quickly, took possession of him. His present position at the foot of the ladder seemed no longer tolerable. Patient plodding had been well enough earlier in the day, but now the fiery impatience of youth began to get the better of him. He turned eagerly to Ivy. They had by this time reached Westminster Bridge, and the cold, fresh wind from the river and the wider view seemed in harmony with his eager longing for a fuller, freer life, for an escape from the dull routine of his present work.
“Tell me more about this Scotch tour” he said, eagerly. “Do you think there is really a chance of our getting into the company? Does your grandfather think Skoot a decent sort of fellow?”
“Oh yes,” said Ivy, her face lighting up radiantly. “Come and talk to him about it. He has seen both the manager and his wife: he used to know them long ago. Oh, do think it over again. Just fancy how beautiful it would be to see Scotland! We would go to Ellen’s Isle together and see the Trossachs!”
Ralph laughed. “I fear there are no theatres on the shores of Loch Katrine,” he said.
“Well,” said Ivy, looking disappointed, “we should at any rate see mountains, and the travelling would be such fun. I have never been on tour in my life, hardly ever out of London even. Come in and see grandfather and talk about it.”
Ralph was persuaded to follow her into the dreary, little house, and much to Ivy’s satisfaction her grandfather was awake and seemed in excellent spirits. He was inclined to see everything in the world through rose-coloured spectacles, and was about as fit to advise any one as a baby of three years old. But his venerable aspect and his smiling benevolent face were, nevertheless, impressive and Ralph listened eagerly to all that he said. It was quite true that he had known this manager and his wife many years ago: they were most estimable people. Skoot himself had real talent, his wife not much more than a pretty face, but they were thoroughly worthy people; she was a woman with whom he could trust Ivy, he had never heard a word against her. He should miss Ivy, but the landlady would take care of him and the experience and even the change of air would be very good for the child. He strongly advised Ralph to try and get into the Company, it was a chance which did not occur every day. He would give him a letter of introduction and he could see the manager to-morrow.
At any other time Ralph would have perceived that the old man’s advice while he was under the influence of the opium was worth nothing at all. But now the bland, comfortable voice and hopeful auguries weighed with him. He accepted the offer of the introduction, and the Professor, urged by Ivy, who brought him ink and paper and put the pen between his limp, lazy fingers, actually wrote the letter. After that Ralph bade them good-bye, went home to dress for the evening, and then set out for the Marriotts’ house where he had been kindly invited to dine; while Ivy went to the dress rehearsal of the pantomime. In the evening he talked over his prospects with Miss Marriott and her niece, giving a very roseate description of the Scotch proposal. The ladies both advised him to close with so good an offer; Mr. Marriott would not commit himself, only counselling him to be sure to have his agreement drawn up in a legal way, and suggesting that he might take the advice of Washington. But this, as Ralph knew, would not be so easy; for Washington was a busy man and though greatly beloved by all his employés had little to do with them personally. Moreover in his heart of hearts Ralph knew that the great actor would counsel him to plod on patiently, and every moment he felt that this had become less possible to him.
The end of it was that he seized the very first opportunity of seeing Theophilus Skoot, and finding him a very decent-looking man, exceedingly hopeful as to the business they would do in Scotland, and quite willing to come to terms, he signed the agreement for a six months’ provincial tour for which he was to receive a salary of two pounds a week, and went back to Paradise Street in excellent spirits to receive Ivy’s congratulations.
“We ought all to count the cost before we enter upon any line of conduct, and I would most strongly warn any one against the self-deception of fancying that he who wishes to be an ambassador of peace can do otherwise than weep bitterly.”—Frederick Denison Maurice.
During the weeks that followed, the only thing which marred Ivy’s complete happiness was a certain jealousy of the bright-faced girl they had met at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day. She was constantly asking Ralph questions about Evereld Ewart; at times he seemed pleased to talk of her, at other times his face would grow grave and he would answer only in monosyllables in a way which perplexed his small devotee not a little. However, she gathered that he did not see any more of his old friend and consoled herself by hurrying off to Whiteley’s sale to buy a jacket and hat as much like Evereld’s as her purse would afford.
She wore them for the first time on the foggy February morning when Ralph called for her at her grandfather’s rooms to take her to King’s Cross. For it had been arranged that she should travel with him to Dumfries where he was to place her under the special care of the manager’s wife. The old Professor seemed much depressed when the parting actually came; he kept looking at the child with wistful eyes and slowly counting out money for the journey with a small, a very small surplus, in case of accidents as he said.
“Have you kept enough for yourself?” asked Ivy, throwing her arms round his neck. “I shall be away six months you know.”
“I have enough to last me a couple of months,” said the old man, “with what my pupils will bring in. And by that time you will be able to send me a little. You are to have a good salary—a very good salary and no travelling expenses when once you’re in Scotland.”
“Yes, yes,” said Ivy, gaily. “I shall be as rich as a queen when I come back.”
The old man’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, when you come back,” he said, huskily, “When you come back. You will do what you can for her if she needs help?” he added, shaking hands tremulously with Ralph.
“I will, indeed,” said Ralph, heartily; and there was something in his look and tone which satisfied the Professor and robbed the parting of its worst pain.
Ivy, too much excited to feel the leave-taking, sprang into the cab with a joyous sense that at last, like the heroine of a fairy tale, she was setting out into the world to seek her fortune. It was scarcely right that she should be starting with the fairy prince beside her, he ought to have turned up later in the plot and just at some critical moment. Still real life could not always be regulated by the rules of fiction and she reflected that it was much nicer to have him at once.
She leant back in her corner of the third-class carriage, and thought what care he had taken of her, how much more gentle his manner was than the manner of any one else she knew, and how blissful it would be to act with him for six whole months. He did not talk to her very much, being still busy with his parts, but she was quite content with the mere pleasure of his presence and with the delightful novelty of her first long journey. The Company were to play “Macbeth,” “East Lynne,” “Guy Mannering,” “Rob Roy,” “The Man of the World,” “Jeannie Deans,” and several short plays such as “Cramond Brig,” a great favourite in Scotland. Ivy was not well pleased with her parts in “Macbeth,” being cast forDonal Bain, Fleance and Macduff’sboy. But she reflected that in the first part she would always come on with Ralph since he was to playMalcolm, as well as the part of second witch, while later on she should have the pleasure of being killed by him in his character of first murderer. Ralph seeing irrepressible mirth in her face asked what was amusing her.
“I have to call you ‘a shag-haired villain,’” she said, laughing till the tears ran down her face, “and you have to stab me in the fourth act.”
“We will have a private rehearsal then, beforehand,” said Ralph, smiling. “And you will find my red wig very awe-inspiring, I can tell you.”
Ivy looked pityingly at her fellow-travellers, wondering how they endured their humdrum lives, and full of radiant hopes for her own future.
The fogs of London had soon given place to bright sunshine, and it seemed to her that she had left behind all that was cheerless and was going forth into a glorious world of possibilities. It was certainly a red-letter day in her life’s calendar.
The arrival in Scotland, however, was not so cheerful. The cold which they had not greatly noticed in the railway carriage, seemed bitter indeed when they left the train at Dumfries.
It was nearly six o’clock and there was little light left. What there was, revealed snowy roads and slippery pavements. Ivy shivered and clung fast hold of Ralph’s hand as they made their way to the manager’s rooms, a red-headed porter, much resembling the shag-haired murderer in “Macbeth,” going on before them with a luggage truck. He paused at a high house in a particularly dingy street. The door was opened by a shrewd, hard-featured woman who, upon Ralph’s inquiry, told them that Mrs. Skoot was in, and ushered them upstairs to a room where the remains of dinner still lingered on the table, and a large, portly lady, with blonde hair and big cow-like eyes, sat with her feet in the fender reading a novel.
“So there you are, dear,” she said, greeting Ivy affectionately, but retaining a greasy thumb in the book to keep her place. “I’m glad you’ve come, for Mr. Skoot has just arranged to have an extra rehearsal to-night.”
“Is this Mr. Denmead?” she inquired, extending her hand graciously and taking a rapid survey of him from head to foot. “Have you found rooms yet?”
“No, I have not,” said Ralph, his low-toned voice and quiet manner contrasting most curiously with her loud accents. “I was going to ask you if there is any list of lodgings.”
“To be sure,” she said. “Here it is; you’ll find those all very good and reasonable. I’ve known most of them myself in past years.”
Ralph thanked her and turned to go, glancing with some compassion at Ivy. “I shall see you again at rehearsal,” he said. “Mind you have something to eat first.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll see to her,” said Mrs. Skoot, vociferously. “She’s to board with me you know, her grandfather made me promise that. Half-past seven for the rehearsal, don’t forget. Your landlady will be able to direct you to the theatre.”
“What an awful woman!” thought Ralph to himself. “The Professor must be out of his mind to let Ivy be with her for six whole months. She may be all that’s virtuous—but as a constant companion! Poor Ivy! I wonder how such a decent little fellow as Skoot comes to have such a wife!”
At this point in his reflections they reached the first house on his list, but found the rooms already secured by other members of the company. The same result followed the next application, and yet again the next. He began to grow tired of wandering about the snowy streets, and catching sight of a card in a window announcing that rooms were to be had, he paused at a neat but unpretentious house and once more made his inquiry.
A very prim-looking widow appeared in answer to his knock; she seemed favourably impressed with his appearance and mentioned her terms.
“That will do very well. I want the rooms for a week,” said Ralph, longing to get into a house, for he was half-frozen and very hungry.
“I don’t take lodgers that keep late hours,” said the widow, cautiously. “I like to lock up by half-past ten, sir.”
Ralph made an ejaculation of dismay. “I’m afraid I can’t promise that,” he said. “I’m an actor, you see, and am not likely to be in by that time.”
The woman’s whole face stiffened, her very cap seemed to grow as rigid as buckram, her upper lip lengthened. “We only takeChristianshere,” she said in a severe way, and then without another word she closed the door.
It was the first time he had ever been made to feel himself an outcast on account of his profession, and for a minute the words, by their injustice, stung him. Then his sense of fun conquered and he laughed to himself as he walked on with bent head in the teeth of the bitter, east wind.
Referring once again to the list of professional lodgings, he consulted the porter who told him which was the nearest house, and here he at last got taken in, by a dishevelled but smiling landlady.
“There’s Mr. Dudley, one of Mr. Skoot’s company, in my house now,” she said. “Maybe you could share the sitting-room.”
Ralph hesitated, but without more ado the woman stepped into her front parlour and put the case to the present occupant.
“Oh, by all means,” said a hearty voice; and the door was thrown back and into the narrow passage stepped a tall, powerful-looking man of about forty, his large, clean-shaven face, twinkling eyes, and broad mouth full of good humour. Ralph knew at a glance that it was not at all a face of high type, but it was genial and attractive and it contrasted most singularly with the forbidding face of the widow who only housed Christians.
“Come in, my boy,” said the hearty voice; “you look half frozen.”
“It was the landlady’s proposal,” said Ralph. “You are sure you don’t mind?”
“To be sure not! ‘Mine enemy’s dog, though he had bit me, should stand this night against my fire.’ Skoot was telling me about you. The little brute has called a special rehearsal; you had better look sharp and get something to eat for there’s no knowing how long they will keep us at it. The Skoots were always great hands at rehearsing.”
“You have travelled with them before?”
“Yes, many years ago, and there’s not much love lost between us. Shouldn’t have taken this berth now, if I hadn’t been out of an engagement for some time. I have my doubts if the tour will be a success. Skoot is awfully hampered, you see, by having to run his wife as leading lady.”
Ralph prudently forbore to make any comment, but the thought of acting with Mrs. Skoot was a sort of nightmare to him.
“Have the rest of the company all arrived?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so. There’s little Ivy Grant—she’s coming on very well indeed, devilish pretty girl into the bargain. Then there’s Miss Myra Kay, a brunette, rather prudish, used to be in Macneillie’s company, but lost her health, and is now only just starting afresh. As for the men—well, you’ll see for yourself by-and-by—half of them in my opinion are sticks, and the other half roaring ranters. Hulloa, you’ll find that a bad speculation. Never order coffee in Great Britain, for they don’t know how to make it. Take to whisky, my boy. It’s the only thing for strolling players.”
“Thanks, I detest it,” said Ralph, “and if professional landladies don’t understand coffee-making, why I’ll brew it myself as we used to do at Winchester.”
“I thought you had been at a public school. What made you take up with the stage? Didn’t your people object?”
“I am alone in the world,” said Ralph. “My guardian wanted me to be a parson, but I couldn’t go in for that, and so, being turned out of his house, I thought I would try to realise an old dream of mine and be an actor.”
Dudley had watched him keenly during this speech. He was a man who had led a notoriously evil life, but he had a good deal of kindliness in his nature, and there was something in Ralph’s transparent honesty, in his evident purity of heart and life that appealed to him. Bad as his own record had been he was wholly without the fiendish desire to drag other men down with him.
“Your dreams were probably very unlike the reality.” he said, with a smile. “Are you prepared to rough it?” Ralph laughed, and gave him the account of the straits he had been reduced to, and Dudley having described the merits and drawbacks of a provincial tour under Skoot’s management, suggested that they had better be setting off for the rehearsal.
They had scarcely opened the stage door when Mrs. Skoot’s shrill voice made itself heard. She was vehemently complaining about some mistake made by the baggage man, and the poor harassed culprit stood meekly to receive her angry threats of dismissal, not daring to proffer excuse or explanation. Ivy looking scared and cold, stood not far off; her whole face lighted up when she caught sight of Ralph, and she stole over to whisper in his ear, “Isn’t Mrs. Skoot dreadful?”
“Suggests the queen in ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” he replied, smiling. “Off with his head!”
Ivy was obliged to laugh a little.
“That is Miss Myra Kay,” she said, indicating a pale, slim girl, who was pacing to and fro, book in hand. “I think she is very selfish; they say she hardly speaks to any one, but just takes care of herself and is quite wrapped up in her own affairs.”
“Take care,” said Ralph, warningly; “you may be overheard.”
Dudley now introduced him to one or two of the actors, and before long the manager himself arrived. He seemed in good spirits, greeted Ralph pleasantly, pacified his wife, and promptly set them all to work.
Only too soon, however, they realised that the length of the rehearsal depended on Mrs. Skoot and not on her husband. Although it was no business of hers she seemed unable to refrain from constant interruption and fault-finding, and before the evening was over she had reduced Miss Kay to tears, had tormented poor Ivy into the worst of tempers and had goaded most of the men into a state of sullen wrath.
At last, after four hours of this, Mr. Skoot looked at his watch and announced that it was half-past eleven. Time was the only thing which had ever been known to conquer Mrs. Skoot; she wisely bowed to the inevitable, and having reminded Miss Kay that the call was for eleven on the following morning, she allowed herself to be helped into a handsome fur cloak, and telling Ivy to follow her, quitted the theatre.
Ralph went back to his rooms in low spirits and the next morning did not much mend matters, for they were kept rehearsing from eleven in the morning till five in the afternoon. Had it not been for Dudley’s unfailing good humour, his flashes of fun, and his genial kindliness, Ralph thought he could not have endured so great a contrast to the whole atmosphere of Washington’s theatre.
He began to feel a sort of angry contempt for the manager who seemed but a tool in the hands of his wife and was quite indifferent to the annoyance she gave to others.
But in the evening when “Macbeth” was given, when, for the first time in his life, he had one of Shakspere’s characters to portray, he forgot all the previous misery. Into the comparatively small part ofMalcolmhe had put an amount of thought and study and imagination which surprised Dudley, and the elder man, as they walked home together, spoke words of hearty commendation and encouragement which cheered the novice’s heart as nothing else could have done.
On the day before they were to leave Dumfries for Ayr, it chanced that, being released earlier than usual from rehearsal, Ralph suggested a walk to Ivy. It was the first chance they had had for any sort of relaxation, and Ivy listened with delight to the proposal of a visit to the grave of Burns and to Lincluden Abbey.
She was not at all pleased when as they drew near to the Burns’ mausoleum they caught sight of Myra Kay. As yet Ralph had made no way at all with this pale, dark-eyed girl, they had scarcely exchanged a dozen words, and her manner was very reserved and distant. All that he knew about her was the little he had gleaned from the men of the company. It was reported that her marriage was to take place in the summer, and that she was engaged to an actor named Brinton who was now in Macneillie’s Company. She had the reputation of being cold, cautious, and conventional, but in comparison with Mrs. Skoot she was so delightful that Ralph felt drawn to her and was chafed by a perfectly clear consciousness that for some reason she disapproved of him. He was pleased when she volunteered a few tepid remarks about Turnerelli’s sculpture, and to Ivy’s disgust he asked her if she would not join them in their walk to Lincluden Abbey.
She hesitated for a moment, then with a glance at his open, boyish face seemed suddenly to arrive at some determination more important than that of the mere decision to take a walk.
“I will come part of the way with you,” she said. “But since my illness I am not much of a walker. It is one of the few grudges I harbour against Mr. Macneillie.”
“You were in his Company?”
“Yes, and at Oxford, while playing in an outdoor representation of ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ got soaked to the skin and had to wear the wet clothes. The rest of them escaped with colds but I was laid up for six months. The manager was extremely good to me I must say, and in August I hope to be back again in his Company.”
“You like him then as a manager?”
“Yes, indeed, there couldn’t be a better. I don’t know how I shall ever endure all these months with the Skoots, and had I known that that scoundrel Dudley was to be in the Company I should never have accepted the engagement.”
Ralph raised his eyebrows. “That’s a severe word,” he said.
“It’s no more than he deserves,” said Myra Kay, frowning. “I am astonished that you can share rooms with him and make him your friend.”
“He is very likely no worse than many others,” said Ralph, nettled by her tone.
“No worse!” she said, scornfully. “Is it possible you do not know that he is the wretch who figured in the Houston case? You must remember it—the stir was so great and it is not eighteen months ago.”
“I was at school eighteen months ago and never troubled my head withcauses célèbres.”
Myra Kay walked on in silence for a few moments; then she briefly told him the facts of the case and was pleased to see him wince.
“The man has been properly punished,” she continued, with satisfaction, “and now no decent manager wall have him—at any rate, till the details of the case are forgotten. He is desperately hard up for money, and every one cuts him. I hope, now that you know all this, you will have no more to say to him.”
“Perhaps he has turned over a new leaf,” said Ralph, looking up from the discoloured track where they were walking to the pure white fields beyond.
Myra Kay gave a sarcastic little laugh.
“You are far too innocent, Mr. Denmead,” she said; and Ralph thought there was an unpleasant touch of patronage in her tone. “Does he look as if he were repenting?”
“Men can’t go about in sackcloth and ashes,” said Ralph; “and you surely wouldn’t have him cultivate a face a yard long? It’s his nature to be full of fun, and, for my part, I would far rather have to do with a man who has been openly punished than with a hypocrite who sins with impunity and goes about posing as a philanthropist.”
He thought resentfully of Sir Matthew.
“I can’t think how you can speak to him,” said Myra Kay bitterly, “For your own sake, and for the sake of the profession, you ought to have nothing to do with him. It was not just a common case of wrongdoing—it was a specially atrocious affair throughout. They say you are the son of a clergyman. I should have thought you would have had better judgment than to mix yourself up with such a man.”
“He is precisely the sort of man my father would have befriended,” said Ralph, warmly. “There was nothing of the Pharisee about him. I remember how when all the village cut a man who had been in prison for some bad offence, he found out the fellow’s one vulnerable point—a love of flowers—and had him up with us at the Rectory the whole of one Bank-holiday, pottering about the garden and greenhouse, and as happy as a king in exchanging plants with us, and helping to bud roses.”
“That may be well enough for a clergyman, but for you—a mere boy, knowing so little of the world—it is different. You ought not to have chosen such a man as your companion.”
“I didn’t choose him,” said Ralph, with some warmth. “An ‘unco guid’ widow shut the door in my face, because I was an actor, and said she only took in Christians. Then at the next place I went to they gave me shelter and kind words, and Dudley was goodness itself to me. If I cut him now I should be a contemptible cad.”
“Well,” said his companion, with a shrug of her shoulders, “you must ‘gang your own gait.’ But remember that I have warned you.”
She turned back soon after this, and Ivy, who had thought the whole discussion very tiresome, skipped for joy when a bend in the road hid her from view.
But Ralph seemed unusually silent, and as they looked at the ruins of the old abbey, Ivy could not at all understand the shadow that seemed to have come over his face.
Not a word ever passed Dudley’s lips about his previous life, but there were not lacking people who promptly told him that Ralph Denmead had just learnt all about it; and when they moved on to Ayr, he said in his blunt way:
“You’ll not care that we should pig together any longer, I daresay?”
“I had much rather share diggings with you than with any of the others,” said Ralph, heartily. “If I’m not in your way, that is? You are the only man who has shown me the least kindness.”
Dudley made an inarticulate exclamation. He was more touched than he would have cared to own.
“You are thankful for small mercies,” he said, “and gratitude is a rare thing in the profession. But I like you, lad, and am glad to have you as a chum. You shall not have cause to be ashamed of me.”
And so throughout the strange vicissitudes of the Scotch tour these two oddly-contrasting characters bore each other company, and for some time Myra Kay kept aloof from them both.