“The grace of friendship—mind and heart,
Linked with their fellow heart and mind;
The gains of science, gifts of art;
The sense of oneness with our kind;
The thirst to know and understand—
A large and liberal discontent:
These are the goods in life’s rich hand,
The things that are more excellent.”
William Watson.
The moment the door had closed behind the boy Sir Matthew’s anger cooled. For the time it had been genuine, for quite unintentionally Ralph had used words which stung him as no others could have done. There were two things in the world that the company promoter sincerely cared about—successful speculation, and his reputation as a philanthropist. His adoption of Ralph had been almost entirely a speculation, one of the specious bits of kindness which he had intended to redound to his own honour and glory. Having once undertaken the lad’s education he could not for his own credit’s sake turn back, but from the very first he had shrewdly guessed that it would prove a bad investment, and Ralph had been a thorn in his side. To begin with, the boy was in face curiously like his father, and Sir Matthew had some lingering remains of affection for his old friend, even though in his heart he despised him for not being more of a man of the world. He had not lived the life of a company promoter without having grown perfectly callous to the sufferings of his victims, but yet the conscience that was not dead but dormant within him had been faintly stirred at Whinhaven when he realised that the Rector’s ruin had been his work. Partly to salve his conscience, but chiefly because the world would applaud the action, he had adopted Ralph. The boy, however, had not taken kindly to the part assigned him. He never showed off well before visitors, never learnt to pose as a grateful recipient of unmerited kindness. On the contrary, Sir Matthew always had an uncomfortable feeling that Ralph saw through him, and knew him to be a humbug. As a matter of fact, the taunting allusions he had just made to Mr. Denmead’s mistakes and errors of judgment had driven his hearer far from all recollection of Sir Matthew’s actions or character; Ralph had thought only of that inward picture stamped indelibly upon his brain of the high-minded and scrupulously honourable father, who somehow seemed to him more of a living reality as he spoke than the angry, self-important patron confronting him.
“He was at least an honest man!” The words had intended no reflection on Sir Matthew, but they had gone straight to the company promoter’s one vulnerable spot, and for the moment had sharply pained him. Incensed at the perception that this fellow might hurt his jealously guarded reputation,—that reputation for benevolence which was part of his stock-in-trade, he had burst forth into angry denunciation, and in one indignant sentence had severed all connection between them.
He took out a memorandum book now, and made an entry in it with much deliberation, then sat for some time wrapped in thought, gnawing absently at his pencil case, a trick which he had acquired, and of which the dinted surface of the silver bore tokens.
“One may trust a Denmead to be honourable,” he reflected with a curious sense of satisfaction. “The boy will never mention that little private arrangement as to Crosbie’s retiring in four years. I have bought the living and now the question is how can I use it best to further my own ends? After all, it’s just as well that this fool has refused it. I can use it as a bait for some one else, and I’m quit of Ralph for ever. Though the boy is so like his father in face there’s much more go in him than there ever was in poor Denmead. He has a bit of the sturdy pluck and energy of his little Welsh mother. Pshaw! I needn’t trouble about him. He’s the sort that will swim and not sink, and a little course of starvation will bring him down from his impossible heights and teach him that he must do as other men do.”
With that he rose and left the library in search of his wife, and having chatted pleasantly enough with her at afternoon tea, he casually alluded to Ralph’s departure.
“What!” said Lady Mactavish, “Is he going out to India, do you mean.”
“Not that I know of,” said Sir Matthew with a laugh. “He has failed ignominiously in his examination, and has been most insufferably impertinent to me. I have given him hiscongé, and he will trouble us no more.”
“The ungrateful boy!” said Lady Mactavish indignantly, “after all that you have done for him too.”
“He has behaved very badly,” said Sir Matthew; “and I think, my dear, we are well quit of him. I shall not see him again, but you had better just say good-bye to him, and by-the-by, I think you might give him a couple of five-pound notes; I should be sorry to launch him into the world without a penny in his pockets. It might make people think that I had been harsh with him.” Ralph had gone straight up to the schoolroom in search of Evereld, but something had delayed her and he found the place deserted. Throwing himself down on the window-seat, he let the soft west wind cool his flushed face and tried to think calmly over the interview with Sir Matthew. The attack on his father had angered him as nothing else could have done, and it was over this rather than over his own future that he mused. The sound of Evereld’s voice singing in the passage roused him, but before she had reached the schoolroom, the red baize door leading from the other part of the house creaked on its hinges, and Lady Mactavish appeared upon the scene.
“I was looking for you, Ralph,” she said, entering the room in front of Evereld. “I learn, to my great annoyance, that you have failed in your examination, failed ignominiously. It is quite clear to us all that you have not been working properly.”
“But every one says that the Indian Civil is such a dreadfully stiff exam,” said Evereld, “and he did work very hard in Germany; they all said so.”
“Don’t interrupt me, my dear,” said Lady Mactavish. “It is not a matter you can understand. After all that Sir Matthew has done for you. Ralph, I think at least you might have behaved properly to him. He tells me that you were so impertinent that he has been forced to order you out of the house.”
“I had no intention of being rude,” said Ralph, standing before her with much the same expression of impatience, curbed by a sense of obligation with which he had always taken her fault-finding.
“I am quite aware that your intentions are always, according to your own account, immaculate,” she said scathingly, “but, unfortunately, your words and actions don’t correspond with them. You have behaved abominably to the man who has fed, and clothed, and housed you all these years, a man who has wasted hundreds of pounds on your schooling.”
“Believe me, I do not forget what he has done for me,” said Ralph eagerly. “I am grateful for it. But he used words of my father which were cruel, words which no son could patiently have listened to.”
“Nothing can excuse the way you have behaved,” said Lady Mactavish, “so say no more about it. What are your plans?”
“I have made none,” said Ralph, “except to go by the six o’clock train.”
“Where are you going?”
“To London,” he replied.
Lady Mactavish glanced at him a little uneasily. She could not without prickings of conscience think of turning this boy adrift.
“Sir Matthew, with his usual kindness and generosity, asked me to give you these,” she said, holding out the bank notes. “Though you have so much disappointed and pained him, he will not let you be sent away without money.”
But Ralph drew back; there was a look in his eyes which half frightened Evereld.
“Thank you,” he said, “but I cannot take them; after what passed just now in the library it is out of the question.”
Lady Mactavish looked uncomfortable. “You have been so shielded and cared for that you don’t realise what the world is. You will certainly be getting into trouble. I desire you to take these.”
“I am sorry to refuse you anything,” he said with studied politeness. “But you ask what is impossible.”
“Your pride is perfectly ridiculous,” she said, turning away with a look of annoyance. “However, I shall retain these notes for you, and when you have realised your foolishness, you can write and ask me for them.”
Something in her tone, touched Ralph. It seemed to him that perhaps after all she had taken some little thought for his well-being, and that behind her grumbling, ungracious manner, there was more real heart than he had dreamed.
“Will you not let me say good-bye to you?” he said. “You must not think I am ungrateful for the home you have given me all these years.”
She took leave of him more kindly than he had expected, after which he turned thoughtfully back into the schoolroom, where he found poor Evereld sobbing her heart out.
“Oh, don’t cry,” he said as if the sight of her tears had added the last straw to his burden. “It can’t be helped, Evereld, and after all, had I got through my exam. I should have been going abroad before so very long. And you are going to school for a year. There will be no end of friends for you there.”
“They won’t be like you,” sobbed Evereld, “You are just like my brother now. Oh, how I wish we were really brother and sister, then they couldn’t turn you out like this.”
“I wish we were,” said Ralph with a sigh, as he realised how utterly he had now cut himself off from intercourse with her.
“All we can do, I suppose, is to hear of each other through the Professor and Frau Rosenwald. They will never let me write to you at school. It’s not as if I were your brother really or even your cousin. They’re awfully strict at schools about that.”
“Well,” said Evereld, resolutely drying her eyes, “We can write in the holidays, and in a little more than three years’ time I can do just exactly what I like. Promise, Ralph, that you will come to me when I am one and twenty. Promise me faithfully.”
“I promise,” he said. But as he spoke it seemed to him that by that time a thousand things might have happened to divide them. He had a perception somehow that, once broken, that brotherly and sisterly intimacy could never again be the same thing. Later on, Evereld knew that it was indeed at an end, but for the moment his promise cheered her, and she set herself to work to make the most of the present. “Come,” she said, “tea is getting cold, and you must eat all you can, for who knows where you will dine. Oh, Ralph! what do you mean to do? Where shall you go in London?”
“I think I shall go first to my father’s solicitor, old Mr. Marriott. He was kind to me when I left Whinhaven, and he will know the whole truth about things, and will perhaps advise me.”
“Shall you go in for the Indian Civil again?”
“I don’t think so, for most likely all that part is true enough. I must have failed badly; I never was any good at exams. No, I have a great idea of trying my luck on the stage. That was always my wish since the day when my father took me to see Washington. We often laughed over the plan and discussed it, and he had none of that horror of the stage which so many parsons profess to have.”
“That would be delightful,—a thousand times better than going to India! And perhaps we shall go to see you act. And oh! perhaps you’ll get to know Macneillie!”
“I have no idea where Macneillie has gone to,” said Ralph. “He has not played in London for the last six years; somebody told me he had started a Company of his own in the provinces. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to find out, and write to him. Unless our hero-worship threw a very deceptive halo round him, he must be an awfully kind-hearted man. Come! drink to my good fortune, and then like an angel just help me to sort out my things. Tea, and this notion of yours about Macneillie make me feel like a giant refreshed. After all, it will be jolly enough to be on one’s own hook after eating the bitter bread of charity all this time.”
“Yet I rather wish you had taken those hank notes,” said Evereld. “How much money have you, Ralph, to start with?”
He felt in one pocket and produced a florin. “That will take me to London,” he said. He felt in another and produced half a sovereign, “on that I can live for a week,” he remarked.
“And after that?” said Evereld.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“There are night refuges I believe, where for a penny one can lie in a box and warm oneself with a leather coverlet. And failing these, there is always the Park, where you can enjoy part of a bench without any charge at all.”
“Ralph, I’m not going to allow it,” said Evereld, her firm little mouth assuming its most resolute expression. “Do you think I should have let Dick go away to starve upon twelve shillings while I was lapped in luxury? I took you for my brother, the very first night you came, and I’m not going to give you up, whatever you say.” She unlocked her desk and took out four sovereigns. “This is all I have left of my allowance; I wish it were bank notes like the ones you refused. But you can’t refuse mine, Ralph.”
He hesitated. “I don’t think I ought to take them,” he said.
“Why not?”
“The world would be shocked. What right have I to your money?”
“Every right, since we belong to each other. And as to the world it has nothing whatever to do with the matter. Don’t waste time, Ralph. Please take it for my sake.”
He could not resist the blue eyes brimming with tears, but let her place the money in his hand and gave her a brotherly hug. Then they hastily began to collect his possessions, talking bravely of the future, and many times alluding to their old hero Macneillie.
In the meantime in Geraghty’s pantry two other friends were colloguing; Bridget having learnt the fate that was to befall her young gentleman was opening her heart to her elderlyfiancé.
“It’s turnin’ of him out that they’re after,” she said indignantly, “And him a fine handsome boy and knowin’ just nothin’ of the world. Sure thin, Geraghty, it’s a sin, it’s just a mortal sin, and him without connictions, let alone relations.”
“Where will he be goin’?” asked Geraghty thoughtfully.
“I heard them say he was goin’ to London, and you know what that will be meanin’ when a boy’s got neither money nor friends to keep him in the right way. It breaks me heart to think of it.”
“Well, maybe I’d better be tellin’ him of Dan Doolan’s house at Vauxhall. He’d be with good dacent folk there and they’d not be askin’ a high rint. Here, give me that tray. I’ll fetch down the schoolroom cups for ye, and that’ll give me a chance to speak with him.”
Geraghty had always been a favourite in the schoolroom, and Ralph turned to the old fellow now with a hearty appreciation of his kindly thoughtfulness.
“We shall all miss you, Mr. Ralph,” he said. “And if I might make so bold as to be giving you the ricommindation of some rooms in London, where they tell me you’re going, I think you’d find them respectable, which is more than can be said for many places. The house belongs to Dan Doolan, that’s my sister’s husband’s uncle, he and his wife are very dacent folk and they would do their utmost for you and give you a warm welcome.”
“Trust the Irish for that,” said Ralph, “I’m very much obliged to you, Geraghty, for I hadn’t an idea where to look for lodgings. Come, Evereld, now you will feel much happier about me.”
He took down the address, and then, with the help of Geraghty and Bridget and Evereld, the packing was finished and the moment of leave-taking arrived. The butler had carried down the last portmanteau, Bridget had invoked blessings on his head and gone away wiping her eyes with her apron, and the two friends were left in the quiet schoolroom.
“Remember your promise,” said Evereld earnestly.
“I will remember,” said Ralph. “And after all it is likely enough that we shall meet before that. Courage, dear! Don’t fret. The time will soon pass.”
“Here is a book for you to read in the train,” she added, afraid to say much, lest she should break down. “You must have a Dickens to comfort you, and this will be the best, for the wind is very much in the east to-day, as dear old Mr. Jarndyce would have said.”
She gave him her own copy of “Bleak House” and Ralph, with a choking sensation in his throat, bent down and kissed the sweet rosy face that was still so childlike. After that, without another word, he left the house, and Evereld, running to her bedroom, watched him until he had disappeared in the distance, then, throwing herself on the bed, cried as though her heart would break.
“Is our age an age of genuine pity? I have my doubts. It is pre-eminently an age of bustle, and fuss, and fidget; but I think we are lacking in tenderness.”—Dr. Jessop.
After the pain of his farewells had begun to wear off a little, Ralph, being naturally of a hopeful temperament, turned not without some pleasurable feelings to the thought of the future that lay before him. More and more his old dreams of becoming an actor filled his mind, and in the sudden change which had befallen his fortunes he saw something not unlike a distinct call to return to his first ideal. He clung all the more to the thought because of the uprooting he had just undergone, and as he travelled through the Surrey hills on that summer evening, found comfort in the anchorage of a firm resolve to do all that was in his power to fit himself for his new vocation. That one did not climb the ladder at a bound he of course knew well enough, and he had sense to guess that it would be a difficult matter to get room even on the lowest step of the ladder. A hard struggle lay before him, but he was full of vigorous young life and did not shrink from the prospect. Then, too, he was keenly conscious of the relief of no longer depending upon the Mactavishes. He could exactly sympathise with Esther in “Bleak House,” who was always sensible of filling a place in her godmother’s establishment which ought to have been empty. It was something after all to be free, even though not precisely knowing how he was to keep body and soul together.
With the exception of old Mr. Marriott there seemed few to whom he could apply for advice. His late master at Winchester was away in Switzerland; the Professor and Frau Rosenwald were in Dresden and were little likely to be able to help him, while of friends of his own age he had scarcely any, owing to Lady Mactavish’s dislike to his accepting invitations for the holidays which would have made return invitations necessary.
On reaching Charing Cross he went straight to Sir Matthew’s house in Queen Anne’s Gate, left his luggage there, arranged to come the next day and pack the few things he had in his room, and then walked to Ebury Street to inquire whether Mr. Marriott were at home. London had such a deserted air that he began to fear that the solicitor would have joined in the general exodus. But fortune favoured him, Mr. Marriott was in town still and had just returned from the City. He was ushered into a comfortable library, where, in a few moments, the old lawyer joined him, receiving him in such a kindly and courteous way that the friendless feeling which had taken possession of him on his arrival in London quite left him.
“I hope you will excuse my coming at such an hour and to your private house, but I half feared you might be away and I was very anxious for your advice,” he said, when the old man’s greetings were ended.
“I’m heartily glad you did come to-night,” said Mr. Marriott. “For to-morrow I go to Switzerland with my sister and my daughter. Is Sir Matthew still in town? Are you staying with him?”
“He has this very day turned me out of his house,” said Ralph, and he briefly told the lawyer what had passed.
“This seems a serious matter,” said Mr. Marriott. “We must talk it over together, but in the meantime, I will send round for your things, and you will, I hope, spend the night here. After dinner, we will put our heads together, and see what can be done.”
Ralph could only gratefully accept the hospitality, and it proved to be just the genuine old-fashioned hospitality that does the heart good, and is as unlike its forced counterfeit as real fruit is unlike its waxen imitation.
Old Mr. Marriott’s sister proved to be one of those eternally young people who at seventy have more capacity for enjoying life than many girls of eighteen. Her vivacious face, with its ever varying expression, her kindly human interest in all things and all people, did more to drive bitter recollections from Ralph’s mind than anything else could have done. Moreover, he lost his heart to pretty Katharine Marriott, though she was many years his senior. Her large, serious, brown eyes, and her air of gentle dignity seemed to him perfection; he could have imagined her to be some stately Spanish lady in her black, lace dress, and though she said little to him, her whole manner was full of sympathetic charm. When the ladies had left the table, Mr. Marriott began to make further inquiries as to what had passed that afternoon.
“Is it not possible,” he suggested, “that you too readily took Sir Matthew at his word? He has been kind to you all these years, has he not?”
“He has carried out what he undertook,” said Ralph, “and twice, no—three times—I remember that he really spoke kindly to me. For the rest of the six years he has never noticed me at all except to find fault.”
“Do you mean that you got into trouble? That your school reports were bad or anything of that sort?”
“No, they were decent enough, and I was never exactly in any scrape, but somehow, in little ways I always managed to displease him; spoke too much, or too little, or too loud, or not distinctly. If one made the least noise in coming into a room or closing a door he couldn’t endure it, or if one stole in with elaborate care and quietness, he would start and say a stealthy step was intolerable to him. As to breakfast, the only meal we ever had with him as children, it used to be a time of torture, for if you held your knife or fork in a way which did not exactly meet his ideal way of holding a knife and fork, he made you feel that you had committed a crime.”
“So there was never much love lost between you,” said Mr. Marriott, with a smile. “Well it is what I feared would happen when I last saw you. Did he often mention your father’s name?”
“Hardly ever, except when some guest was there who was likely to be impressed with his kindness in having adopted a poor clergyman’s son,” said Ralph, flushing hotly at certain galling recollections. “It was never until this afternoon, though, that he dared to speak of my father as an unpractical fool who had left me a beggar, and to taunt me with the high ideals which would never have kept me from starving.”
“And did this lead to your quarrel?” said the lawyer, his brows contracting a little.
“Yes,” said Ralph, “I replied that my father was at least an honest man, and he seemed to take that as a sort of personal affront—I’m sure I don’t know why. He went into a towering rage and ordered me out of his sight.”
“He is morbidly sensitive as to his reputation,” said Mr. Marriott, “and no doubt he thought you knew something to his disadvantage. Did it ever occur to you as strange that he should have adopted you?”
“At first I thought it was because he had really cared for my father and because he was my godfather, but before long I began to think it was chiefly as a sort of telling advertisement,” said Ralph, with a touch of bitterness in his tone.
“All three notions were probably right,” said the lawyer, “but there was yet another reason of which I can tell you something. On the day we reached Whinhaven and began to look through your father’s papers, one of the very first things I came across in his blotting-book was the rough draft of a letter with a blank for the name in the first line. Seeing that it bore reference to the unlucky investment he had made, I glanced through it. It bitterly reproached the man he was writing to, for having recommended him to place his money in the company which had just gone into liquidation, and alluded to assurances that had been given him of this friend’s close knowledge of all the details, and complete confidence in the safety of the company. I recollect that one sentence referred to you, and your father said, ‘Should this illness of mine prove fatal, I look to you, as Ralph’s godfather, to do what you can for him, for it was in consequence of your advice that I made this unfortunate speculation.’”
Ralph started to his feet. “It was Sir Matthew then who ruined him!”
“Well,” said the lawyer, “on reading that I looked up and casually asked him if he knew who your godfathers were, he replied that he was one, and that to the best of his recollection, the other had been a distant kinsman of your father’s, a certain Sir Richard Denmead, who had died a few years before. Then, without further comment, I handed him the letter, remarking that of course, I had no idea on reading it that it bore reference to himself. He was naturally annoyed and upset, but was obliged to own that it was the draft of the letter he had received. He was doing what he could to justify himself when you came into the room, and what passed after that you no doubt remember.”
“I remember,” said Ralph, “that he patronised me—he—my father’s murderer. The word is not a bit too strong for him. He murdered my father just as truly as if he had stabbed him to the heart. It was not the cold that killed him, it was the misery and the depression and the anxiety for the future. And this false friend of his is the man that goes about opening bazaars, and posing as a profoundly religious man! Faugh! It’s revolting!”
“I have never liked Sir Matthew Mactavish,” said Mr. Marriott, quietly. “It is wonderful to me how he impresses people; there must be some germ of greatness in him or he couldn’t do it. I am quite aware that the discovery of the truth must make you feel very bitterly towards him, but if you will take an old man’s advice you will dwell upon the past as little as possible. You can do no good by thinking of the injury he has done you, and you will have to be very careful how you speak of him, or in an angry moment you may make yourself liable to an action for slander; legally you know a thing may be perfectly true, but if maliciously uttered and in a way that injures another in his calling it may be nevertheless slander. So you must not proclaim your wrongs from the housetops. Now the question is what are you to do to support yourself?”
“I want to try my luck on the stage,” said Ralph. “It was my wish long ago, and I believe that I might make something of it. I shall never be much good at examinations.”
“It seems rather the fashion for young fellows to try it nowadays,” said the lawyer, “but I should think the life was a very hard one, and like all other callings in this country it is much overcrowded. Still you might do worse. I will give you a letter to Barry Sterne; he is a client of mine and might possibly be able to help you. At any rate he would give you his advice.”
Ralph caught at the suggestion, and when the next morning the Marriotts started for Switzerland they left him in excellent spirits.
“Are you quite sure you have enough to live on until you get work,” asked the old lawyer, drawing him aside at the last moment. “I will gladly lend you something.”
“Thank you,” replied Ralph. “But I have enough to live on till the end of September.”
“And by that time we shall be in London again,” said Mr. Marriott. “Be sure you come to see us and let us know how you prosper.”
It was not without some trepidation that later in the morning Ralph presented himself at the house of Barry Sterne, the great actor. He sent in Mr. Marriott’s letter of introduction and waited nervously in a small back sitting-room, the window of which opened into one of those miniature ferneries which one associates with the operating room of a dentist. Three dejected gold-fish swam aimlessly up and down the narrow tank, and the ferns looked as if they pined for country air. It was a relief when at length he was summoned into the adjoining room. Here the sun was shining, and there was a general sense of ease and comfort, Barry Sterne himself harmonising very well with his setting, for he was a good-natured looking giant with a most genial manner, and his broad, expansive face beamed in a very kindly fashion on his visitor.
“I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you,” he said, but the words carried no sting because the tone was so delightful. “I have hundreds of these applications, and it’s about the most disagreeable part of my life to be for ever saying ‘no’ to people.”
He put a few questions to him, all the while observing him attentively with his keen eyes.
“Well, you see,” he remarked, leaning back easily in his chair and telling off the various items on his fingers as he proceeded. “Things seem to me to stand like this. You have a good presence, a good voice, a good manner; but you have no experience, you have had no special preparation, you have no money, and you have no friends or relatives in the profession. There are three points for you and four against you. That means that you will have a very hard struggle, and will have to be content to take any mortal thing you can get. Are you prepared for that?”
“I am prepared to begin at the very bottom of the profession if only it will give me a real chance of getting on,” said Ralph.
“To make a fool of yourself in a pantomime, for instance,” said the actor, eyeing him keenly. “Or to walk on and say nothing in a piece that runs for a couple of hundred nights?”
“Yes, I would do it,” said Ralph, thoughtfully. “If, in the meantime, I was really learning and making some way.”
“Right,” said Barry Sterne. “That’s the way to set to work. But as a rule a gentleman thinks he must step into the first ranks of the profession straight away, which is a confounded mistake. I’ll write you a note of introduction to Costa, the agent. You may thoroughly trust him, and he may perhaps be able sooner or later to put you in the way of something. I wish I knew of any opening for you. But I’m off to America next month with Miss Greville’s Company.”
The name instantly recalled Macneillie to Ralph’s mind.
“When I was a small boy,” he said, “Mr. Macneillie was once very good to me. If he were in London still, I might have gone to him. Do you know what has become of him.”
“Hugh Macneillie? Why he would be precisely the man for you. He went to America about six years ago, had a tremendous success over there, and when he came back to England started a travelling company of his own. Oh, Macneillie is a sterling fellow, you couldn’t do better than try to get in with him. Costa will be able to tell you his whereabouts.”
After that, with a few kindly words and good wishes, Ralph found himself dismissed.
The day was intensely hot; however, he set off at once for the agent’s, handed in Barry Sterne’s letter, was sharply scrutinised by Costa’s keen Jewish eyes, and had his name entered upon the books, after paying five shillings.
“You must not be too sanguine,” said the agent, his dark melancholy face contrasting oddly with Ralph’s fresh colouring, and hopeful eyes. “I have one thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine names down of members of the profession who are out of employment, or of people who seek to enter the profession. You bring up the total to two thousand.”
Ralph turned a little pale. “Is it so bad as that,” he said. “Then I have no chance at all it seems to me.”
He asked for Macneillie’s present address and went off in very low spirits to write his letter, pack up his worldly goods, and take up his quarters in the rooms which Geraghty had recommended.
People seldom do things well when they are in low spirits, and Ralph, who detested giving trouble or asking favours, wrote a stiff, short letter to Macneillie, asking his advice and inquiring whether he could possibly give him a place in his company. It was precisely the sort of letter which Macneillie received by the dozen from stage-struck youths in all parts of the country. Had he spoken of his boyish hero-worship of the actor, or of their encounter at Richmond, there would have been a human touch about the letter which would at once have appealed to the Scotsman; he would certainly have made a special effort for one so closely connected with the most tragic day of his life. But Ralph after floundering hopelessly in a sentence which alluded to the past, tore up his sheet of paper and wrote the bald, curt note, which so ill conveyed the real state of his case.
Macneillie, wearily returning from a rehearsal of four hours’ length, in which his temper had been severely tried, found the missive in his dreary lodgings at a south-coast watering place, hastily glanced through the contents and thrust the letter into his letter-clip among other similar requests, about which there was no immediate hurry. A fortnight later he wrote the following short reply:
“Dear Sir,
“I have no opening at present in my company, and if you really intend to go into the profession, and have realised that it demands incessant and most arduous work, I should strongly advise you to begin at the beginning of all things. Try to get taken on as a super at one of the leading theatres, where you will have opportunities for studying really great actors. Costa is a trustworthy agent.
“Yours truly,
“Hugh Macneillie.”
The letter chanced to arrive in Paradise Street on a foggy September evening when Ralph was in particularly low spirits. He had expected much from Macneillie and was proportionately disappointed. It seemed almost as if an old friend had shut the door in his face, nor did he quite realise that few men as busy, and as much tormented by importunate scribblers as Macneillie, would have troubled to answer his appeal at all. What was he to do? Where was he to turn for work? And how much longer would Evereld’s money hold out? The question was more easily than satisfactorily answered. It was clearly impossible that he could exist much longer in Paradise Street, and though its dingy room and bare, scanty furniture was far from inviting, yet he had grown fond of his good-natured landlord and took a kindly interest in the whole family of Doolans, with their easy, happy-go-lucky ways, and strong sense of humour. Life was lonely enough now. What would it be if he were altogether without a home in this great wilderness of London?
“A man who habitually pleases himself will become continually more selfish and sordid, even among the most noble and beautiful conditions which nature, history, or art can furnish; and, on the other hand, any one who will try each day to live for the sake of others, will grow more and more gracious in thought and bearing, however dull and even squalid may be the outward circumstances of his soul’s probation.”—Dean Paget.
Ralph’s chief comfort at this time was in a certain free library at no great distance from his lodgings. He made his way there now, and for a time lost the sense of his troubles in the world of books. This evening he had the good fortune to light upon Stanley Weyman’s “House of the Wolf,” a story which gave him keener and more healthy enjoyment than he had known for many a day. When he came back to the everyday world again and set out for his return walk to Paradise Street, he found that the fog had very much increased and it was with great difficulty that he could make out his way. As he was groping cautiously along an almost deserted street, he was startled by the sound of a shrill, childish voice.
“Let me go! Let me go!” it cried passionately. “How dare you stop me? How dare you?”
Ralph ran in the direction of the sound, until in the fog and darkness, he cannoned against the form of a man who turned angrily upon him, revealing as he did so, in the dim lamplight which struggled through the murky air, the evil face of an oldroué. Fighting to free herself from him, like a little wild-cat, was the figure of a mere child; her vigour and agility were wonderful to behold and it was a task of no great difficulty for Ralph to help in freeing her from the clutches of the two-legged brute. Spite of the imperfect light, the child had been quickwitted enough to recognise the new comer as a protector, and she clung firmly to his hand as they went down the foggy street, never pausing until all fear of further molestation was over. Then, panting for breath, she stopped for a minute beneath a lamp-post, and in the little oasis of light, looked searchingly up into his face as though to make quite sure what manner of man he was. He saw now that she must be older than he had thought; from her height he had fancied her about eleven but he realised both by her face and her expression, that she must be at least fifteen. Her colouring was curiously like Evereld’s but the face was sharper, and had a funny look of assurance and knowledge of the world, which was, nevertheless, belied by the childish curves of cheek and chin, and by the nervous pressure with which she still clasped his hand.
“I don’t know a bit what this street is,” she said, with tears in her voice, “And if I don’t soon get home grandfather will be dreadfully anxious about me.”
“Where is your home?” asked Ralph, feeling curiously drawn to the forlorn little mortal who had crossed his path so strangely.
“It’s in Paradise Street, Vauxhall,” said the child.
“Ah, that’s lucky!” said Ralph. “My rooms are there too. What takes you out at this time of night? It’s not safe for you to be wandering about London alone.”
“I always do go alone,” said the child, a little indignantly. “And no one ever dared to bother me before. One of the dressers always walks with me as far as our roads lie together, but this bit I always do alone ever since I went to the theatre.”
“Oh you are on the stage,” said Ralph, his interest increasing; “Well, you are lucky to have work; it’s more than I can get.”
“I used only to dance,” said the child, eagerly. “But now I have a little part of my own, but of course you won’t know my name yet, it’s not much known. I am Miss Ivy Grant.”
There was a comical touch of pride and dignity in the words. Ralph’s lip twitched, but he bowed gravely and said he was delighted to make her acquaintance. Then, having walked a little further, they suddenly realised what road they were in and without much more difficulty groped their way home to Paradise Street.
“I want you to come in and see my grandfather,” said Ivy, pausing at her door. “He will be very grateful to you for having helped me.”
Ralph hesitated. “It is late for me to come in now,” he said.
“It won’t be late for grandfather, he never settles in till after midnight. He is half paralysed. Please come.”
He couldn’t find it in his heart to resist the pleading little voice, and Ivy took him through the narrow passage and into the front sitting-room, where they found a fine looking old man whose flowing, white beard and many coloured dressing-gown gave him a sort of Eastern look. The small, grey, critical eyes, however, were not Eastern at all and when he spoke Ralph fancied that he could detect a slight Scotch accent, which together with the tone of voice made him think somehow of Sir Matthew Mactavish.
He looked searchingly at the new comer, but on Ivy’s hurried explanation held out his hand cordially, thanking him for coming to the child’s aid with a warmth which was evidently genuine.
“She has to be breadwinner-in-chief to the establishment,” he said, with a smile, “And being a wise-like little body seldom gets into difficulties. Being a useless old log myself I should long ago have been hewn down and cast into the Union had it not been for the Ivy that supported me.”
“You say those pretty things because you know it will make me come and kiss you,” said Ivy, saucily, as she threw off her cloak and hat and wreathed her arms about the old man’s neck. “And now while I get your coffee ready you must talk to Mr. Denmead, for he wants work at the theatre and can’t get it.”
“Half a dozen years ago when I was dramatic critic for thePennonI might have done something for you,” said the old man, wistfully. “But now I am little but a burden as I told you. A few pupils come to me still for lessons in elocution, and I have the training of Ivy who is going to be a credit to me.”
As he spoke he glanced towards the little housewife who with an air of importance was preparing the supper. Ralph thought he had never before seen any one move with such grace, and though her face was lacking in the simplicity and peace which characterised Evereld, it was a particularly winsome little face.
“How did you get on to-night little one?” said the old man.
“Very well,” said Ivy as she poured the coffee out of an ancient percolator into three earthenware cups which had seen hard service. Ralph observed that she kept the cup without a handle for herself, and carefully selected him one which was without a chip on the drinking side of the rim. “But I might easily have broken my leg,” she continued, cheerfully; “for that stupid Jem had forgotten to shut one of the traps properly, and Mr. Merrithorne stumbled and hurt his ankle badly.”
“What part does he play?” said her grandfather.
“Oh he hasn’t very much to do, he is a rather stupid footman and he was bringing in the luncheon tray with the property pie and that old fowl which wants painting again so badly, and when he tripped up, the pie went bowling down the stage, and the fowl landed in Miss West’s lap and every one roared with laughter. She was dreadfully angry, but afterwards when it seemed that Mr. Merrithorne was really hurt she was rather sorry for him.”
“Who is his understudy?”
“I don’t know. It is such a little part, perhaps he hasn’t one. But he was limping dreadfully as he went away. I shouldn’t think he could act to-morrow.”
“It’s possible that might give you a chance,” said the professor of elocution. “A stupid, countrified man-servant you say, Ivy? Are you pretty good at dialect?”
Ralph laughed, for he knew that he was an adept at a certain south country dialect, and without more ado stood up and gave the Professor a short and highly humourous dialogue between a ploughman and his boy, with which he had often made Evereld and her governess laugh.
“Good,” said the Professor, his grey eyes twinkling, “I think you’ll do young man; but come to me to-morrow morning at nine o’clock and I’ll give you a few hints about voice production.”
Ralph coloured. “You are very good,” he said, “but to tell the truth I am at my wit’s end for money and much as I would like lessons can’t possibly afford them.”
“Pshaw! nonsense,” said the Professor, knitting his brows. “I’m already in your debt, for it might have fared ill with the child had you not taken care of her tonight. If I can give you a helping hand, nothing would please me better. And after the lesson you might go round with Ivy, and I’ll give you an introduction to the manager. He’s a man I knew well at one time.”
Ralph’s face lighted up. “I should be very grateful,” he said, eagerly, “for this waiting about for work is tedious enough, and I shall be starved out before long.”
He went home much cheered and with great expectations. The Professor interested him; there was something half mysterious about the white-haired old man which puzzled him and piqued his curiosity. He was particularly benevolent and kindly and yet he seemed as unpractical as a mere visionary, and was surely to blame in letting a child like Ivy go to and from the theatre each night alone.
Clearly the granddaughter was manager-in-chief as well as breadwinner, and as he thought of her winsome little face with its shrewd, light-blue eyes, slightlyretroussénose, and small, firm mouth he felt a keen desire to see more of her. She was so quaint in her brisk, housewifely arrangements, so deft and clever in all her ways; a little conscious at times, and quite capable of posing for effect, but lovable in spite of that.
“I could soon laugh her out of those little affectations,” he thought to himself. “And there is such a look of Evereld about her that she must at heart be good. She is very clever, possibly she is even cunning, and she has extraordinary tact—almost too much for such a child.”
He went to sleep and was haunted all night by that funny, pathetic, little face of the child actress. Together they fled from a thousand perils, and when next morning he saw her again face to face, it seemed to him that they were quite old companions.
“Good day,” said the Professor in his bland, pleasant voice as Ralph was ushered into the dreary little room. “Sit down for a minute, I have not yet finished with my other pupil. Now sir! don’t mumble like a bee in a bottle. You know well enough how to get the clear shock of the glottis and that’s the secret of voice production. You have the voice and the lungs and the knowledge of the method, but you are lazy, incorrigibly lazy!”
The young man crimsoned and with an effort burst out with one of Prospero’s speeches:
“I pray thee, mark me.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind
With that which, but by being so retired,
O’er prized all popular rate, in my false brother
Awaked an evil nature.”
There he was arrested; for the Professor thundered on the floor with his walking stick, looking as if he would much have enjoyed laying it about the victim’s shoulders.
His scathing sarcasms, his merciless interruptions, his sharp criticism, would have tried the patience of Job himself, but his unfortunate pupil struggled on and really improved marvellously, while Ralph sat an observant spectator, learning not a little from all that went on. At the close of the instruction the old man’s serenity of manner returned—he even praised the youth he had so violently abused but a minute before. The reason of this soon transpired; he needed his help with the next pupil. “You are not pressed for time?” he asked, with a smile. “Then I shall be much obliged if you will kindly help my new pupil, Mr. Denmead, with the first exercise.”
The victim glanced somewhat anxiously at the clock, but the Professor was evidently an autocrat, and it would have been easier to refuse a request made by the Czar himself.
“You will lie at full length on the floor,” said the Professor, with a lordly wave of the hand towards Ralph. “My pupil, Mr. Bourne, will then kneel on your chest, and you will in this position practise the art of breathing.”
Ralph obeyed, not without a strong sense of the absurdity of the whole scene. Could Sir Matthew Mactavish have seen him at that moment, lying on the bare boards of a dingy lodging-house in Vauxhall, with a young reciter of no mean weight kneeling on his chest, with a paralytic and mysterious old sage roaring and shouting instructions and beating impatient tattoos with his stick at intervals, while a pretty young girl sat by the window covering stage shoes with cheap pink satin, how amazed he would have been.
This was certainly beginning at the beginning of all things. By eleven o’clock that morning he was for the first time in his life entering the stage door of a theatre,—it was one of the outlying suburban houses at which there was a stock company and a frequent change of plays,—while Ivy, with her funny little air of importance, showed him all that she thought would interest him.
The manager, a somewhat harassed looking man, took the Professor’s note, read it hurriedly, and glanced keenly at Ralph.
“Does Mr. Merrithorne act to-night?” asked Ivy, anxiously.
“No, my dear; he won’t be fit to go on again for a month at least. I understand, Mr. Denmead, that you are a pupil of Professor Grant.”
“Yes,” said Ralph, “but I am quite a novice.”
“H’m,” said the manager, taking a long look at him. “You’re positively the first man that ever made that confession to me. I’ve a mind to try you. Come with me, and I will give you the part. You can read it at rehearsal if you haven’t time to learn it.”
Ivy beamed with delight when he returned to her.
“The manager was just in his very best temper,” she said, happily. “Come to this quiet corner, and I’ll see that no one interrupts you.”
The part was short and simple, and Ralph, who had an excellent memory, learnt it easily enough. But when it came to rehearsing his scenes in the dreary vastness of the empty theatre amid distant sounds of hammering and scrubbing, and the perfectly audible comments of his fellow actors, he felt in despair; there was no getting inside the character, he could only feel himself Ralph Denmead, in uncomfortable circumstances, and breathing a curious atmosphere of hostility. He went home feeling nervous and miserable, but Ivy’s talk helped to amuse him, and distract his attention.
“They will like you when they get used to you,” she said, philosophically. “But some of them think you are just a wealthy amateur, and that you have paid for the chance of appearing in public. We all hate that kind of man. Some others say you are an Oxonian wanting a little amusement during the long vacation, and that you will be going back to the University next month. And Miss West thinks you are a disguised nobleman.”
“Well, then, they’re all of them wrong,” said Ralph, obliged to laugh in spite of himself. “I’m not a disguised duke, nor even a marquis, but just plain Ralph Denmead, with very few coins in his pocket, and not a single relation or rich friend to help him.”
When the evening came, Ralph found that the flatness and coldness of the morning had entirely passed; every one seemed in better spirits, and the two men who shared his dressing-room were friendly enough directly they found he was a genuine worker, not a meredilettante.
A youngster who was neither conceited nor grasping, but was content to begin with a very small part, and a still smaller salary, was quite a phenomenon, and, as usual, Ralph’s good humour and common-sense, together with his readiness to see fun in everything, stood him in good stead.
When the last awful moment arrived, and he stood at the wings in his gorgeous livery of drab and scarlet, with powdered hair and knee-breeches, he found that the atmosphere of hostility which he had felt so oppressive at rehearsal was entirely gone.
“Good luck to you!” said the heavy man, laying a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “Never fear; you’ll do well enough.”
And with these words to hearten him, he took that first desperate plunge into the icy-cold waters of publicity.
Ivy’s face beamed upon him as he returned.
“That applause was for you,” she said, rapturously, “and they don’t generally laugh nearly as much after that blunder with the luncheon table.”
“But I see where I might improve it,” said Ralph, thoughtfully. And truly enough he did improve each night he played the servant and other small parts.
Then, at the end of a month, Merrithorne’s ankle recovered, he returned to the theatre, and Ralph once more found himself out of work.
What was his next step to be?