“Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,
Eager tell-tales of her mind;
Paint with their impetuous stress
Of inquiring tenderness;
Those frank eyes, where deep doth lie
An angelic gravity.”
Matthew Arnold.
The last day of Evereld’s school life was drawing to a close, “packing day” as they called it, and when it had been a mere question of the beginning of the holidays it had always been a rather festive occasion. But on this last evening, standing at the threshold of a new untried life, there was a good deal of sadness about it, and her usually bright face was a little clouded as she paced up and down a shady garden walk with her special friend Bride O’Ryan. The merry voices of the younger children, as they played hide and seek, and now and then a distant sound of applause from those who were watching the tennis players, made her feel melancholy, for to-morrow she would no longer have her nook in this happy, busy hive of industry, would no longer have a share in the genial life, but would be in a very different home, a home which was not her own, which had never seemed in the least homelike, and to which she did not at all want to return. A happy remembrance caused her cheerfulness to return.
“Oh, Bride!” she exclaimed, “perhaps, after all, Sir Matthew will let me spend the next fortnight with you as we begged. He won’t let me go to Ireland, he was quite set against that, but he may say yes to your sister’s second letter.”
“To be sure,” said Bride, with her most good-humoured smile. “Why should he be saying no to such a sensible plan? He can’t wish to have you in town for the first part of August. Doreen has plenty of room for you in this house she has taken on the Parade, and we will bathe every day, and have no end of fun.”
“Here comes Aimee with a letter. Bride, I believe it will be from Sir Matthew; things come just when one is talking about them.”
A pretty dark-haired girl now approached them.
“Fraulein asked me to give you this note,” she said, “I believe it is from Cousin Doreen.”
“Yes, that’s Doreen’s writing,” said Bride. “Read it quickly, do.”
And Evereld read as follows:
“My Dear Evereld,
“We shall be delighted if you will spend the next fortnight with us here at Southbourne. Sir Matthew is quite willing that you should do so, though he cannot spare you to us after the 14th August, as he wishes you to go with him to Switzerland. I would have liked you to see our Irish mountains first; however, they can hold their own very well against any Alp ever created, and you must come and stay with us next year instead. Tell Bride to bring you as early to-morrow morning as you like.
“Yours affectionately,
“Doreen Hereford.”
This note gave general satisfaction, and the three friends yielded to the entreaties of some of the younger children and entered with spirit into the game of hide and seek, Evereld feeling all the delight of a reprieve as she realised that for a whole fortnight she should be able to stay at Southbourne and to postpone the parting with Bride.
The next morning when, somewhat saddened by all the partings they had been through, the two girls were driving down to the Parade, they suddenly caught sight of a huge poster announcing the advent on the following Monday of Mr. Hugh Macneillie’s Company, and the performance of “The Winter’s Tale” “The Rivals” and “The Lady of Lyons.” Evereld knew nothing of Ralph’s movements; nothing had been heard from him since the Easter holidays, when he had still been travelling in Scotland. She looked, however, with no small interest at this poster, having always remembered their childish worship of Macneillie.
“I have never seen ‘The Winter’s Tale,’” said Bride. “We must certainly go. Doreen is always delighted if we want to see one of Shakspere’s plays.”
By this time they had arrived at their destination and Evereld who already knew her friend’s family very intimately found herself in the midst of a lively babel of voices, warmly greeted by pretty Mrs. Hereford, hugged by her three children, and speedily made to feel quite at home.
“How is Dermot?” asked Bride.
“Much better,” replied her sister, “you will find him with Mollie in the drawing-room. Let me see, Evereld has not yet met him. We must present the family patriot to you. Poor boy he has always been unlucky, and since his release a year ago from Clonmel gaol he has been desperately ill.”
Evereld felt a little in awe of the released victim of the Coercion Act, but he proved to be the gentlest-mannered of mortals, and her womanly heart went out at once to the hollow-cheeked, large-eyed invalid whose humourous smile only seemed to add to the pathos of his face.
She was sitting the next day beside his Bath-chair on the Parade while Mrs. Hereford read to her children when, as she was watching the sedate couples who passed by in their Sunday best, she suddenly perceived at a little distance a figure that seemed strangely familiar. Surely no one but Ralph had precisely that quick, light step? His face was turned away from her, he was intent on the sea, watching the waves like one who loved them and had no attention to bestow on anything else. He was almost passing them with only the breadth of the Parade between when a puff of wind suddenly whirled away a paper which Dermot had been reading, and hastily glancing round he picked it up and crossed over to restore it to its owner. “Ralph!” exclaimed Evereld springing to her feet.
“You are here still!” he cried, his whole face lighting up, “I thought your holidays would certainly have begun. What good fortune to find you so unexpectedly.”
“I have left school and am staying with Mrs. Hereford for a fortnight. I must introduce you to her.”
Mrs. Hereford knew all about Ralph Denmead, and had always felt that he had been harshly treated by Sir Matthew Mactavish. She looked at him now searchingly and she liked him. He had one of those sensitive mouths that droop a little at the corners in depression or fatigue, but smile as other mouths cannot smile. The classical nose and well-moulded chin added character to what was otherwise just a pleasant, boyish face, bearing upon it the stamp—“good cricketer.” And the thick brown hair not quite so closely cropped as the hideous prevailing fashion demanded, and the absence of beard or moustache bespoke him an actor. What she liked best about him, however, were his clear honest brown eyes, which had the power of lighting up with a most refreshing mirthfulness. There was something touching in the unfeigned delight of the friends in this wholly unexpected meeting, and Mrs. Hereford was determined that they should have the chance of an uninterrupted talk.
“There is still an hour before tea-time,” she said, glancing at her watch. “Take Mr. Denmead to see the view at the end of the Parade, Evereld, and then let us all come home together.”
The two fell in with this plan very readily. The only difference between them and the couples Evereld had lately been watching was that they walked much faster and talked a great deal more. For there was much to tell and to hear, and Evereld wanted to learn every detail of the unlucky Scotch tour, and was delighted above measure to think that their hero Macneillie should have come to the rescue so opportunely.
“We saw that his Company was here to-morrow for a week,” she said, blithely. “How little I dreamed that you were with him, Ralph. Mrs. Hereford is going to take us to see ‘The Winter’s Tale.’ I do hope you have a nice part.”
“Yes, I am Florizel. It’s a very nice part indeed,” said Ralph. “And there is such a jolly country dance. You’ll like that. You can’t think what a difference it is to be in a Company like this after travelling with those awful Skoots.”
“Which was the worst of the two, the husband or the wife?”
“Oh the husband was a swindler, but Mrs. Skoot passes description. How she did hate me, too! If I had had the money to do it I might easily have brought an action against her for abusive language. Towards the end of the time she was never quite sober and once at a railway station she was so hopelessly drunk that she tumbled headlong down a flight of steps, alighting exactly on the top of my bath, which she nearly knocked into a cocked hat! We know now that all the weeks they were not paying us a penny, so that many of us were half starved, she had money of her own hoarded away, and no doubt they are living on it comfortably enough.”
“What became of that poor little Ivy Grant?”
“She stayed for a week with my old landlady and then managed to get into another travelling company, where she seems to be getting on well. The Professor died just after her return. He was no protection to her, poor old man, in fact it was quite the other way. She had to support him, he was invalided and a confirmed opium-eater. Still it seems lonely for Ivy. She is a very plucky little girl though, and will, I fancy, get on well in the profession. Now tell me about yourself. How did you get to know Mrs. Hereford? and who is she?”
“She is the married sister of my great friend at school, Bride O’Ryan; you will see Bride when we go back to tea, and I know you’ll like her. Every one likes her, she is such fun and she is always so good-tempered. Mrs. Hereford lives partly in Ireland, but most of the year in Grosvenor Square because her husband is in Parliament. And Bride will live with her now that she has left school. They were all left orphans, and Mrs. Hereford, who was a good deal older than the others, brought them up. I never knew anyone so good and delightful as she is.”
“I can’t think where I heard the name of Hereford just lately,” said Ralph musingly.
“Perhaps it was from Mr. Macneillie, I think Mrs. Hereford has met him once or twice.”
“That was it,” said Ralph, “Macneillie was telling me how Mr. Hereford gave up his property, Monkton Verney, and turned it into a sort of Cave of Adullam.”
He did not mention to Evereld that Christine Greville was now staying at this very place. Sooner or later she was sure to hear the whole story, but he shrank from telling her what had passed at Mearn Castle, and in no other way could he explain the step Lady Fenchurch had taken. “What is Mr. Hereford like?” he inquired.
“I like him very much,” said Evereld; “he is down here until to-morrow, so you will see him for yourself. Bride says that till he was married he never seemed to settle down to anything, that he was the sort of man everyone expected to do great things, and he never did them. But afterwards it was quite different; he began to work very hard, and now she says out in county Wicklow the peasants love him, and he makes such a good landlord. Bride says he’s almost as Irish as they are.”
“And you are here with them for a fortnight? Where after that?”
“With the Mactavishs in Switzerland. We shall be a party of six altogether. I am to go to keep Lady Mactavish company, for Minnie will be a good deal taken up you see with Major Gillot; they are engaged, the wedding is to be this autumn. Then there will be Sir Matthew and Mr. Bruce Wylie.”
“The inevitable Wylie!” said Ralph impatiently. “I hate that man.”
“And I like him very much,” said Evereld perversely. “You always had a most unfair prejudice against him. He will certainly be the life of the party. I was delighted to hear that he was going.”
Ralph’s face grew grave, there was an expression in it which startled Evereld as he turned towards her.
“Tell me in earnest,” he said anxiously. “Do you really like this man?”
Her truthful eyes met his fully.
“Only as I like an elderly man who used to give us chocolates and treats when we were children,” she said quietly.
Ralph in his relief laughed aloud.
“He wouldn’t be flattered if he knew that you called him elderly. He thinks himself just in his prime. How long shall you be abroad?”
“Six weeks I think,” said Evereld.
There was a silence. They had walked to the extreme end of the Parade and had wandered down to the sea itself. “Let us sit here by this boat,” she suggested. “It is so hot walking.”
Ralph silently assented; she glanced at him in some perplexity. Why had he so suddenly become quiet and troubled.
“Something has vexed you,” she said gently, yet with a smile. “A penny for your thoughts.”
“I am thinking,” said Ralph, “how hard it is that every holiday-maker, every idle lounger in Switzerland will have the chance of being with you while I am altogether cut off from your set, and can only think how other men will be making love to you.”
“They won’t,” she said in low tones. “A girl can always stop that if she chooses. I have heard Mrs. Hereford say so.”
“If you were going to be with her it would be more bearable. But you will be with Sir Matthew, whose one idea is how to make other people and other people’s money serve his purposes. Don’t stop me Evereld—I can’t help it—I distrust him and with very good cause. He and his hateful speculations were the death of my father. I have proof of that, actual proof.”
“Then I am surprised at nothing,” said Evereld, understanding now all the ill-concealed dislike and antagonism between Sir Matthew and Ralph which had often puzzled her in past times.
“He ruined my childhood,” said Ralph hotly, “and must I now stand calmly by while he ruins the rest of my life? Evereld!”—there was a passionate appeal in his voice which stirred the very depths of her heart, “I have no right yet to ask you to be my wife—my career is only beginning—but my darling, I love you—I love you!”
He saw her flush and tremble, but she was quite silent. Her words about a girl always being able to stop that sort of thing if she chose came back to his mind.
“Are you angry with me?” he said pleadingly. “I meant to have waited for years before speaking, but I was carried away.”
She lifted her blue eyes to his, they were bright and dewy, and in her face there seemed to be the glow of sunrise.
“I am glad you didn’t wait, Ralph,” she said softly.
Whereupon Ralph had the audacity to kiss her in the full light of day as they sat under the shelter of the boat; and no one was any the wiser save an old fisherman who was blest with exceptionally long eyesight; he, with a smile, fell to thinking of his own young days, and softly sang as he filled his Sunday pipe the refrain of a sailor’s song:
“Polly, my Polly,
She is so jolly,
The bonniest lass in the world!”
The two were silently but rapturously happy, and it was some little time before any thought of other people came to trouble Ralph. As for Evereld her heart seemed to beat to the rhythm of his words, “I love you!” and she was not at all disposed to consider the question which soon formed itself in his mind.
“I wonder whether I was wrong to speak,” he said. “You must remember darling that you are free, altogether free. After all, you have seen nothing of the world. You are not to let the thought of my love bind you.”
“Perhaps I ought not to make a promise while I am Sir Matthew’s ward,” said Evereld. “That is the only thing which would make me wish to wait; and now that we understand each other the waiting ought not to be too hard.”
“Suppose you tell Mrs. Hereford just the whole truth,” said Ralph, “and see what she advises. I shall feel happier about it if you have someone to turn to, and if she is what she seems to be one could trust her with anything. I wish I could talk to her some day.”
“Well that can easily be managed,” said Evereld. “I will tell her to-night. I am sure you are right about that. Though Sir Matthew is untrustworthy we can trust her, and as I am under her care here it seems right somehow that she should know.”
“She will certainly think me the most presumptuous fellow she ever met,” said Ralph. “Looking at it from an outsider’s point of view it is as bad as it can be. A fellow who is not quite one and twenty, and only earning three pounds a week! Mrs. Hereford will call me ‘The first of the Fortune Hunters,’ and will warn you against me.”
“We shall see,” said Evereld laughing. “I shall be very much disappointed in her if she doesn’t understand you better.”
“Are you sure that you understand me?” he said wistfully.
“Yes,” she said, her sweet eyes smiling into his. “I have summered and wintered you a great many times, as Bridget would say, and I very well know Ralph that you would much prefer it if my father had left me three hundred instead of three thousand a year. I think it is a little foolish of you, for as long as we share it what does it matter which side it comes from?”
A church clock striking four warned them that they must hasten back, and when they rejoined the others they were chatting together so naturally that no one dreamt what an important scene in their drama had been played at the other end of the beach.
Ralph found himself speedily made to feel at home in the delightful atmosphere of the Irish household, with its mirth and good humour, its cheerful babel of voices. It delighted him to think that Evereld who had known nothing of real family life should have found such friends, and he went back to his rooms later on in the highest spirits.
The Herefords had guessed nothing of his story and the O’Ryans had been too much taken up with their own merry discussions to be very observant, but Macneillie saw at a glance the change that had come over his pupil.
“Well?” he said in his genial voice. “What good fortune has befallen you?”
“I have found Evereld,” said Ralph blithely. “She is staying on the Parade with the Max Herefords. Here’s a note for you, by the bye. They want us to breakfast with them to-morrow at half past nine, it was the only free time, for they lunch at one, as he has to go up to town, and I knew rehearsal wouldn’t be over by then.”
“No,” said Macneillie lighting a cigarette, “in your present mood you’re about as likely to give your mind to Shakspere as that lover and his lass,” glancing at a very demonstrative couple on the other side of the road.
“We shall have a long and wearing rehearsal to-morrow.”
“I don’t understand you, Governor,” said Ralph, using the old stage word for the Manager as he generally did now to Macneillie, and somehow conveying by it just the reverence and affection which he felt for the Scotsman.
“I have an unfair advantage over you,” said Macneillie smiling. “I have heard a great deal about Miss Evereld Ewart and know that she is likely to distract you from your labours.”
“You have heard of her? From whom?”
“From you yourself, to be sure, in the feverish nights you had at Callander. I have long been wishing for the opportunity of quoting Mrs. Siddons to you, ‘Study, study, study, and don’t marry until you are thirty.’
“Well we can’t even be engaged yet,” said Ralph; “but we understand each other and that is something. Tomorrow you must see her.”
“I will devote myself to her entirely,” said Macneillie with a mirthful twinkle in his grey eyes. “And you in the meantime can be profitably improving your Irish accent with Mrs. Hereford with a view to Sir Lucius O’Trigger. Your brogue doesn’t quite satisfy me yet.”
“So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness
Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain,
And his beneath drank in the bright caress
As thirstily as would a parched plain,
That long hath watched the showers of sloping grey
For ever, ever, falling far away.”—Lowell.
After Ralph had left, a more sombre hue stole over Evereld’s glowing sky. She began to think a little of the future, of the countless partings in store for them, and the more she thought the more silent and grave she became.
“You look tired, my dear,” said Mrs. Hereford as they walked back from church. “Come in with me and rest. The others have set their hearts on a stroll by the sea, but you had a long walk this afternoon.”
“Yes,” said Evereld, sitting down beside her hostess near the open window and looking out into the calm summer evening. “I wanted to tell you about our walk. And if ever you have time Ralph would so much like to talk to you too.”
The words were said with an effort and Mrs. Hereford glanced at the sweet girlish face with its downcast eyes and understood in a moment what was coming.
“You two are very old friends,” she said. “Bride told me that you had been brought up together and that a very nice German lady had done a great deal for you.”
“Yes,” said Evereld, falling naturally into all the old memories. “I don’t know what we should have done without her. You see the Mactavishs never really cared for us. But she cared, and dear old Bridget and Geraghty the butler; and Ralph was just like my brother until the day Sir Matthew turned him out of the house. He failed you know in the exam, for the Indian Civil, and they had a quarrel and Ralph had to go. It was only in that dreadful time after he had gone that I understood how I cared for him.”
“And had you not met him at all since then?” asked Mrs. Hereford.
“Yes, we met once by accident in the Christmas holidays and then I thought, I fancied, that he cared a little. But he said nothing till to-day, and now we understand each other, only Ralph will not let me bind myself in any way; he had not meant to speak yet at all, he said, but oh, I am so glad he didn’t wait.”
Mrs. Hereford took the girl’s hand in hers and stroked it silently. Her thoughts had flown back to a day in her own life when just such an understanding had been arrived at, she had been about the same age as Evereld, and looking back now she felt sad as she realised how much inevitable pain and suspense lay before this girl, what dire possibilities of misunderstanding, what weary hours of separation.
“That is just what I should have said,” she answered after that brief pause. “But now, understanding all it involves, I confess I don’t want Mollie and Bride to be in a hurry to follow your example. I want them to have five or six years of free happy girlhood before all the deeper joys and cares begin. Of course we can’t choose, and for you and Mr. Denmead, who have no real home, no near relations, very likely it is the best and happiest way. I am glad you told me about it, and you must promise if ever you need anyone to help you, to come to me. I suppose you can hardly make a confidant of Lady Mactavish?”
“No,” said Evereld, half laughing, half crying. “They are all so horrid about Ralph. When I am one and twenty and we can really be engaged of course they must all know, but to tell them this could do no good and might do great harm.”
“Sir Matthew did not insist then on your altogether breaking with your friend when he was sent away?”
“No,” said Evereld, “I don’t think anyone troubled to think about it until last Christmas. Then when I met him and told Sir Matthew about it, he did say something of the sort, but I told him I couldn’t leave off being Ralph’s friend, and he was very kind and did not forbid my writing to him in the holidays. If Ralph succeeds on the stage I believe Sir Matthew will be rather proud of him after all. He does so like people who succeed. I suppose we may still write to each other now and then.”
“Oh, I think as long as there is nothing underhand about it you may continue to write,” said Mrs. Hereford. “You will write as friends, not as lovers; you must deny yourselves that luxury until you come of age. I am not preaching what I haven’t practised, dear, for we had four years of that sort of thing before I was actually engaged. There are great drawbacks but I think some advantages.”
“Surely many advantages,” said Evereld. “And I am much more alone in the world than you were. You had brothers and sisters.”
“Yes, and a profession which was very absorbing,” said Mrs. Hereford, suppressing a sigh. “Oh, I do think it is a very great gain for you, only I want you to realise that it is the sort of life that needs no end of patience and courage and strength. There will be days when all will not be so bright as you fancy. But I won’t croak any more. You are likely to be much better at waiting than I was, for impulsiveness is the bane of all Irish folk.”
“And you will talk to Ralph?” pleaded Evereld, knowing how much he would value the sympathy and counsel of such a woman, and secretly longing that Mrs. Hereford should know him and appreciate him better.
“Yes, to be sure,” said her hostess, with the smile that had won so many hearts. “We will collogue together after breakfast.”
She was true to her promise and while Macneillie was amusing everyone with stories of variouscontretempsof stage life, she contrived to carry off Ralph to see the invalided patriot; after which they had a cosy little talk in the drawing-room with no one but Baby Donal, a sturdy little man of three, to keep them company.
“Evereld has told me about yesterday afternoon,” said Mrs. Hereford, who was quite well aware that she must plunge boldly into the very heart of the matter and not wait for him to beat about the bush.
“I should never have spoken so soon if it had not been for the thought of her Swiss tour with that knave and his solicitor,” said Ralph hotly. “Forgive me for the expression, but it is not too strong for him.”
Mrs. Hereford laughed a little.
“You needn’t measure your words so carefully; a Kelt is accustomed to much more fiery language than that. And you really think Sir Matthew Mactavish a knave? I confess he is a man I intuitively dislike, but I thought he was a great philanthropist and very much respected.”
“So he is,” said Ralph, his face hardening, “but some day the world will find him out. Some day when he has ruined and murdered others as he ruined and murdered my father. What a mistake it is only to hang people who are taken red-handed! They should rather hang the speculators whose victims may be reckoned by hundreds. There are far more cruel ways of murdering people than by poison, or knives, or guns.”
She had watched him closely as he spoke and saw that his wrath and indignation were genuine and deep. A great pity filled her heart, and she understood how intolerable it must seem to Ralph that the girl he loved should still be in the power of this despicable sham philanthropist.
“I think you were quite right to speak to Evereld,” she said warmly. “And now that you have spoken, the worst of your anxiety ought to be over. The knowledge that you belong to each other will be strength to both of you.”
All the bitterness died out of his face at her words, leaving it once more frank and boyish, and ingenuous as it was meant to be. The rasping sense of injustice had done some damage to his character, but the goodness of Macneillie and the gift of Evereld’s love had already done much to obliterate the traces of the evil influence. His heart went out now to the brave noble-minded woman who so readily gave him her thought and sympathy.
“Evereld told me you would understand,” he said gratefully, “I don’t think I could have kept silent, but of course evil-minded people are sure to say that it is only her fortune I want.”
“Evil be to him that evil thinks,” said Mrs. Hereford. “No one who had talked with you for half an hour even could believe you a fortune hunter. And when you have lived as many years as I have done in public life, you will learn to trouble yourself very little indeed as to what people say. We shall never be true to ourselves, or of much use to any good cause, till the fear of public opinion has died in us.”
“Does living in public life teach one that? I should have thought it would have taught one to howl with the wolves, to be always on the look-out for ways of pleasing the public and stroking people the right way, to dread nothing so much as alienating or offending your audience.”
“Many people would agree with that view, but I believe it is false for all that. Why meddle with what does not concern you? Your work is to live your own life, to be just and independent, to be true to your own conscience, and to be a hard-working actor. You have nothing to do with the result on other people, you can never tell what it may be; and even if you pare down your actions till you fancy they will please everyone you will end by forfeiting the esteem of all. It’s like the old fable of the man who first rode his ass to market and finally carried it.”
“Certainly Macneillie’s life is ruled in the way you approve,” said Ralph thoughtfully. “There never was a manager who so sturdily refused to bow down to the public. He will not humour the depraved taste for morbid and dubious plays which has taken possession of the country of late, but insists on giving only what is really good. The result, however, is that while a manager who runs one of these risky modern plays makes a fortune, Macneillie merely earns a competence.”
“That may be,” said Mrs. Hereford, “but the result also is that the one Manager is a curse to his country and the other a Godsend. Your habit of mind isn’t so commercial that you measure success by the solid gold it brings in.”
“I hope not,” said Ralph laughing. “But to one who knows how hard and wearing and anxious the life of such a man is bound to be, want of great visible success seems rather rough. However, to return to the point we started from, it is a great comfort to know that you don’t think I was wrong to speak to Evereld yesterday. And a greater comfort still to know that she has you for a friend; one never feels safe somehow with a man like Sir Matthew Mactavish, but if she may turn to you in any difficulty I shall not worry half so much.”
“I will promise you to be to her just what I would try to be to one of my own sisters,” said Mrs. Hereford. “And you, too, must promise to treat us all as friends. Come in whenever you like, this week; you must make the most of your chance of seeing Evereld.”
Macneillie in the meantime had been learning to know Ralph’s future wife. He had been a little surprised at first to find that she was a decidedly reserved girl, not strikingly pretty, rather short, and wholly unlike the being he would have expected Ralph to fall in love with. This was, however, merely his first impression, he had not been two minutes in the room with her before he observed how well her head was set on her shoulders; how in spite of her want of height there was that indescribable touch of dignity in her carriage which he had vainly tried to impart to many a novice on the stage. Then she spoke to him during a pause in the general talk, most of her talking he discovered was done to fill up gaps, and when she spoke a sort of transformation scene took place. Her face suddenly became lovely, the china-blue eyes seemed to radiate light and sweetness, the colour deepened in the softly-rounded cheeks and the most charming dimple made itself seen.
“We are all so much looking forward to ‘The Winter’s Tale’ to night,” she said.
“You have not seen Ralph act before?” asked Macneillie, knowing quite well what the answer would be but wishing for another variety of the transformation scene.
The blue eyes seemed to deepen in colour and an exquisite tenderness softened the whole face.
“Never on the stage,” she said. “Of course I have seen him just as an amateur. Do you think he is getting on well?”
Now this last question was one to enthrall the heart of any Manager. Actually this girl did not leap to the conclusion that her lover was by nature a full-fledged actor, but asked if he was getting on.
“She is the most sensible little woman I ever came across,” thought Macneillie to himself. “In such a case even Mrs. Siddons might have qualified her advice as to marriage.”
By and bye Evereld found herself keeping guard over Baby Donal in the drawing-room and talking to Ralph, while Macneillie and Max Hereford adjourned to the smoking-room. The two lovers were serenely happy and saw the future opening before them in all the gorgeous hues of dawn. But Macneillie received a stab from his unconscious companion which was destined to rankle in his heart. They had been speaking of Monkton Verney and not unnaturally Max Hereford, knowing that Christine Greville was a friend but knowing nothing of the true state of affairs, referred to her case.
“I only hope she will be able to get her divorce,” he said casually, “but of course there is a doubt.”
“A doubt?” said Macneillie frowning. “Why Sir Roderick never attempted to deny his guilt.”
“Oh, yes, there is no doubt as to his guilt, and had she been married in Scotland all would have been well, for Scotland has one and the same law for men and women. Unluckily she was married in England.”
“I don’t understand you. I know little of the law,” said Macneillie, “but certainly in my country there would be no difficulty when it was a clear case of the breach of the seventh commandment.”
“There would be no difficulty in England for a man,” said Max Hereford, “but a woman cannot get a divorce here unless she can prove cruelty as well as adultery on the part of her husband. It is only one of the instances of our scandalous habit of setting up different standards of morality for men and women.”
“How much longer are the English going to put up with such a grave injustice?” said Macneillie.
“Not long, I fancy, when once they realise it. But at present half of them are ignorant of the true state of things, while the evil-minded are of course unwilling to rob themselves of what they regard as a prerogative. The law as it stands is not only unjust to women but to all moral men. How easily one can picture a case where, because divorce was not granted, it was impossible for the innocent woman to marry a man who loved her.”
Macneillie assented quietly. No one could have guessed how terribly this suggestion moved him, how clearly he saw in his own mind the picture of an innocent woman and an upright law-abiding man with their lives wrecked by this double-standard of morality.
“I think,” he said presently, “that at any rate in Miss Greville’s case there will be little difficulty in proving Sir Roderick’s cruelty.”
“I hope it may be so,” said Max Hereford, “but I understand from her solicitor that different views prevail as to what does exactly constitute legal cruelty. The case is not likely to come on yet for many months and the suspense must be terribly trying for her, far worse of course than for anyone in private life.”
“Her decision to stay at Monkton Verney till the case is over seems to me wise,” said Macneillie. “Your Cave of Adullam is a great Godsend. I wonder what made you think of such a plan.”
“Oh, the ‘cave’ was my wife’s doing,” said Max Hereford. “Miss Claremont is delighted to have her old friend Miss Greville there, and since Barry Sterne has undertaken the entire management of her theatre there is no need for her to be troubled in any way about outside things. Why Flo, Kittie,” he exclaimed breaking off as two pretty little girls darted into the room, their sunburnt faces aglow with eagerness.
“Daddy, there’s a man with the beautifullest voice you ever heard and we want sixpence for him,” they cried in a breath, “do come and hear him.”
And by sheer force of determination the two small elves dragged their father from the depths of his easy chair.
“The tyranny of daughters is a thing you have yet to learn, Mr. Macneillie,” he said with a smile, as with one elf on his shoulder and the other impetuously pulling at his hand he sauntered out to the front door.
Macneillie flung the end of his cigarette into the grate and began to pace the room restlessly. The words so unconsciously spoken seemed to put the finishing touch to his pain, the fatherly pride of his companion’s face haunted him and filled him with envy, and over and over in his mind he revolved the torturing doubt which had first been suggested to him that morning. Would the law free Christine?
Meanwhile through the open door there was wafted to him only too distinctly the familiar song of the street tenor:
“Love once again: Meet me once again:
Old love is waking, shall it wake in vain?”
Such a life as Macneillie’s may have two very different effects on the man called upon to endure it. Either it will harden and embitter him, and he will gradually become a mere cynical observer of others; or it will deepen and widen his whole character, and he will become more and more tender towards the lives of other people. Lynx-eyed to detect and prompt to check as far as possible all that he deemed undesirable or in the least risky among the members of his company, he was nevertheless always kind-hearted with regard to any genuine attachment. He knew Ralph now very intimately and was quite well aware that his feeling for Evereld was no mere passing fancy. In his own grievous anxiety and suspense there was comfort in throwing himself into the affairs of his protégé, and a growing desire to see this love story happily worked out took possession of him. He had, moreover, taken a great fancy to Evereld, and began now to consider things from her point of view, trying to picture to himself just how she would probably feel with regard to Ralph’s profession. She had never seen him on the stage, had never in fact seen him act at all since the time she had been of an age to understand what love meant. He wondered how the play that night would strike her. Would Florizel’s lovemaking possibly jar a little upon her as she sat there watching it from her place in the stalls? Or would that gracious womanly wisdom which he had noticed in her save her from all petty jealousies, all thoughts unworthy of a great art? He thought it would. Still a girl of nineteen in love with a man like Ralph Denmead might perchance be excused if she were not entirely able to forget herself and her own story in the contemplation of Shakspere’s play.
“I know what I will do,” he thought to himself. “No one who understands the training, the learning, the drilling, the matter of fact element of sheer hard work that makes up the life of an actor is likely to think stage lovemaking a dangerous pastime. I will persuade Mrs. Hereford to bring her this morning to rehearsal.”