“No action whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record, written by fingers ghostly,
As a blessing or a curse, and mostly
In the greater weakness or greater strength
Of the acts that follow it, till at length
The wrongs of ages are redressed,
And the justice of God made manifest.”
The Golden Legend.
Ralph’s anxieties came to an end while the Company were fulfilling their engagement at Nottingham. For one never to be forgotten day there arrived a letter from Mrs. Hereford, enclosing a long letter on foreign paper from Evereld. The sheet bore no address and she did not mention the name of the friends who were taking care of her, but she told him all about their kindness, and that Bride O’Ryan was with her, that she was quite safe from molestation and in the depths of the country far away among mountains and woods, where neither Sir Matthew nor Bruce Wylie could trouble her peace.
Later on came news from Mrs. Hereford that Evereld’s affairs had been put into the hands of Mr. Marriott, and that Mr. Hereford was in consultation with the old lawyer and would do everything he possibly could: offering, if it were thought well, to become Evereld’s guardian and trustee should the Lord Chancellor decide to deprive Sir Matthew of the Trusteeship. After that for some time came no news at all.
At last, growing anxious, Ralph made a hurried expedition to town late one Saturday night, and sought out his old friend Mr. Marriott on Sunday.
He could not however get anything very definite out of him. Mr. Marriott was always reserved and cautious, but he set him quite at rest as far as Evereld was concerned.
“She is perfectly safe and Sir Matthew can’t touch her, for she is now a ward of Court,” he said reassuringly. “I am not yet at liberty to speak to you as to details. I think however your old prejudice against Sir Matthew Mactavish was not without foundation. Unless I am much mistaken, he will soon be unmasked. Now to turn to quite another matter;—I understand from my client Lady Fenchurch, that you were present at Edinburgh last summer and met Sir Roderick. Tell me as carefully as you can all that passed while you were present.”
Ralph related all that he could remember.
“We have exactly the same sort of evidence from many other witnesses of similar scenes,” said the lawyer. “It will not be worth while calling you to appear at the trial. If you had witnessed any sort of violence, physical violence, we should subpoena you at once.”
“When does the case come on?” said Ralph.
“Possibly next week, but there is always great uncertainty as to the exact date.”
Ralph’s thoughts naturally turned to Macneillie and he remembered his words about suspense being tolerable because it was always so largely mixed with hope.
The lawyer, however, who knew nothing of his reasons for taking interest in the Fenchurch case, fancied the shadow on his face was caused by anxiety for Evereld Ewart, and began to talk in a kindly way of her future.
“Of course,” he said, “I can understand that under the circumstances it is hard for you not to be allowed even to know where Miss Ewart is. But it is safer that you should only communicate with her through Mr. and Mrs. Hereford. Who can tell that Sir Matthew may not pounce down on you again as he did at Rilchester. You know that she is safe and well and for the present that must suffice you. I have good reason to believe that the world will soon see Sir Matthew Mactavish in his true colours, and what will happen then no one can foretell. There are storms ahead, but I think they are storms which will at any rate clear your way.”
After this enigmatical speech Ralph went back to his work, somewhat perplexed, yet on the whole relieved and hopeful. There followed ten uneventful days and then one morning at Brighton, when he came down to breakfast and opened the paper, the first thing that caught his eye was a brief paragraph just before the leading article.
“In the Divorce Division yesterday the President and a Common Jury had before them the case of Fenchurch v. Fenchurch and Mackay. The adultery was not denied but the evidence failed to show legal cruelty on the part of the defendant. His Lordship was therefore unable to grant a decree nisi, but ordered a judicial separation with costs, and directed the amount to be paid into Court in a fortnight. Lady Fenchurch is well known to the public under her stage name of Miss Christine Greville.”
“She is not yet free from that brute then,” thought Ralph, a sick feeling of disappointment stealing over him as he realised how this news would darken his friend’s sky, how it would for ever cheat him of his heart’s desire. Hastily turning the paper to read the longer report, he found a whole column with the sensational heading, “Theatrical Divorce Suit,” and feeling how it would all grate upon Macneillie, longed to keep the newspaper from him. “He shall at any rate have his breakfast in peace,” he reflected, and crushing the paper in his hands he flung it into the fire.
The blaze had only just died down when Macneillie entered. He seemed in unusually good spirits; they had had good houses for three nights, moreover the weather was bright and clear, and the autumn sunshine of the south coast seemed doubly delightful after a gloomy tour in the midlands. Ralph thought he had never seen him look so young and buoyant and hopeful as just at that moment.
“Nothing like Brighton air for making a man hungry,” said Macneillie devouring a plateful of porridge and helping himself to eggs and bacon. “Have they brought round the letters from the theatre?”
Ralph handed him a budget, hoping that it would occupy him and make him forget the paper! But there were no letters of importance and Macneillie suddenly remembering that there might by chance be news of the Fenchurch case, which he was aware would probably come on during November, looked eagerly round the table.
“No newspaper?” he said. “How’s that? The Smith boy must have played us false.”
“I will run out and get one,” said Ralph. “Will you have any of the local ones, too?”
“Yes, let us see what they have to say about ‘The Winter’s Tale,’” said Macneillie.
Ralph disappeared and Macneillie having finished his breakfast rang for the maid to clear.
“Have you taken our newspaper to any of the other lodgers by mistake?” he asked, beginning to feel impatient for it.
“No, sir,” said the maid. “It’s in here, at least—” looking round in surprise, “I know it was in here. Mr. Denmead must have taken it away. I saw him open it when I brought in the coffee.”
Then in a flash it dawned upon Macneillie that Ralph had made away with the paper because it contained bad news.
“The boy couldn’t stand seeing me come upon it suddenly,” he thought to himself. “He wanted me to breakfast first. No one but Ralph would have thought of that! It is the worst news. I must be ready to bear it.”
He stood by the window looking out at the great expanse of sea with its blue surface crisply ruffled by the fresh wind. Away to the left the graceful outline of the chain pier seemed to speak of old fashioned Brighton, and it took him back to a time at least seventeen years ago in the very earliest days of his betrothal to Christine. How vividly the very tiniest details of the past came back to him. It had been in the days of aestheticism and high art colouring, a style which had suited Christine to perfection. He could remember, too, how at one of the little old-fashioned stalls he had bought her a dirk-shaped Scotch shawl brooch with a cairngorm stone in it; they had been far too poor in those days to dream of diamonds.
“She was only a child of seventeen,” he thought to himself, “younger than Evereld Ewart; and I was not perhaps so very much older than that young fellow over the way. Yes, I was though—it is Ralph! How slowly he is walking. I believe the boy cares for me, he hates to be the bearer of ill news.”
Ralph’s usually cheerful face was curiously over-cast; he put down the papers, muttered something about “going to Brill’s for a swim,” and made for the door.
“Rehearsal at eleven, don’t forget,” said Macneillie, taking up the London paper with a steady hand.
He was glad to be alone, and in the midst of his grievous pain he felt grateful to Ralph for that little touch of considerateness which had spared him to some extent,—that strategem which had deferred his evil day. For as he had said his suspense had been largely mixed with hope, he had tried to face the other alternative but his very sense of justice had inclined him to be hopeful. It surely could not be that after these long years of suffering there should be no release? Max Hereford’s words had chilled him for the time, but spite of them the hope had predominated. Now hope lay dead,—remorselessly slain by this unequal English law, which as a Scotsman seemed to him so extraordinary so intolerably unfair.
When a law is manifestly unjust,—when it flatly contradicts the foundation truth of Christianity that in Christ all are equal, that there is neither bond nor free, male nor female—there comes to every one of strong passions the temptation to break the law. It is such a hard thing to wait patiently for the slow tedious process of reform, that the headstrong and the impetuous and the self-indulgent, and all who have not learnt a stern self-control, will often take the law into their own hands and defy the world. Macneillie reaped now the benefit of long years of self-repression and suffering. He saw very clearly that it is only justifiable to break the law of the land when it interferes with a higher duty; that to break even a bad law because it interfered with one’s cherished desire could never be right; that to admit such a course to be right must sap the very foundations of society.
He saw it all plainly enough, yet, being human, could not at once shake himself free from the haunting consciousness that it lay in his power to choose present happiness, that in such a case the world would quickly condone the offence, and—greatest temptation of all—that he might shield Christine from the difficulties and dangers that were but too likely to assail one in her position.
Fortunately he had but little spare time on his hands, it was already a quarter to eleven and the mere habit of rigorous punctuality came to his help.
He walked down the parade, and the fresh air and the salt sea breeze invigorated him, his mind went back, sadly enough, yet with greater safety, from the future to the past, he seemed to be young once more and crossing this very Steyne with a tall golden-haired girl, who still retained something of the simplicity and innocence which she had brought with her from her quiet school in the country. She was beside him as he passed through Castle Square, beside him as he walked up North Street, beside him as he went along the Colonnade and entered the stage door of the very same theatre where they had acted together all those years ago.
There was a rehearsal of “Romeo and Juliet” chiefly for the sake of Ralph, who was the understudy for Romeo and was obliged to play the part that evening owing to the illness of the Juvenile Lead—John Carrington.
Though of course perfect in his words, he needed a good deal of instruction, and Macneillie who always found him a pupil after his own heart, receptive, quick, eager to learn, and with that touch of genius which is as rare as it is delightful, forgot for a time all his troubles in the pleasure of teaching. And if, after the night’s performance was over and his satisfaction with his pupil’s success had had time to pass into the background, the old temptation came back once more, it came back with lessened power and found a stronger man to grapple with it.
No word passed between master and pupil as to the bad news the morning had brought, except that as Ralph, somewhat sooner than usual, bade the Manager goodnight, Macneillie with his most kindly look said to him:—
“Your Romeo is the best thing you have done yet. The saying goes, you know, that no man has the power to act Romeo till he looks too old for the part; you have done something towards falsifying that axiom, and have cheered a dark day for me.”
“I owe everything to you, Governor,” said Ralph gripping his hand; and as he turned away he felt that he would have given up all and been content to play walking gentleman for the rest of his days if only Macneillie could be spared this grievous trial that had come upon him. He prayed for a reform of the law as he had never prayed in his life.
Left alone, Macneillie paced silently up and down the room, deep in thought. At length in the small hours of the night, he took pen and paper and wrote the following letter:—
“My dear Christine:
“It is impossible after our talk last summer in Scotland, to let such a time as this pass by in silence. You well know that I love you, nor will I pretend ignorance of your love for me. Let us be honest and face facts;—truth makes even what we are called on to bear more endurable. It is because I love and honour you that I write to bid you farewell. Let us at least be law-abiding citizens, even though the law be a one-sided, unjust law.
“I believe from my heart, that Christ, though disallowing divorce, with its natural sequence another marriage, for all the trivial reasons which the Jews were in the habit of putting forward, distinctly permitted them where a marriage had been broken by the faithlessness of a guilty partner. And assuredly He never set up one standard of morality for men and another for women; His words must apply equally to both.
“Doubtless some day the gross injustice of the existing English law will be removed, and as in Scotland there will be one and the same law for men and women in this matter. For that day I wait and hope. For many reasons I do not ask now to see you. Is it not better that we should not meet? I am convinced that it is safer and wiser that we should—both for our own sakes and for the sake of the profession—keep apart. Many may think this mere old-fashioned prejudice, but I believe I should serve you better at a distance than by dangling about you and so giving a handle to those scandal-mongers who love nothing so dearly as to make free with the name of some well-known actress.
“I dare not write more, save just to beg and pray that if there should ever be a time when you are in any danger or difficulty, and others—better fitted to serve because more indifferent—are not at hand, you will then turn to me for help.
“God bless you. Good bye.
“Yours ever,
“Hugh Macneillie.”
The letter reached Christine at Monkton Verney and the sight of it made the colour rush to her pale face. What she hoped, what she feared she scarcely knew herself, her heart was all in tumult. She read it in feverish haste, then again slowly and carefully, and yet a third time through fast gathering tears. How strangely it contrasted with the so-called love letters she had received from some men! And yet how infinitely more it moved her by its calmness and self-restraint!
“I was unworthy of you in the past,” she thought. “But God helping me I will try to be more worthy now.”
And without further delay,—dreading perhaps to put off the difficult task—she wrote him a letter which had in it the fervour of a new and strong resolve, and the beauty of a perfectly sincere response of soul to soul.
After that she plunged straight into business, and about noon sought out Miss Claremont and, walking with her in the quiet grounds near the ruined priory, told her of the plans she had made for the future.
“I have as you know made over the management of the theatre to Barry Sterne. He and his wife have been very good to me for many years, and it is better now that I should not again be burdened with all the cares of a Manageress. He proposes that I should take the part of the heroine in the new play that he is bringing out in January and I have just written to him accepting the proposal.”
“Are you fit yet for work?” asked Miss Claremont looking a little doubtfully into her companion’s face; it was curiously beautiful this morning, but not with the beauty of physical strength. Indeed Christine had never looked capable of bearing any very great strain and the last few days had taxed her powers to the utmost.
“I must get to work,” she said quietly. “There is no safety in idleness. How odd it seems that a physical break-down comes generally through overwork, and a moral break-down through too little work.”
“When must you leave us?” asked Miss Claremont.
“I think I had better go next week, and if you will keep Charlie a few days longer I can settle into that flat in Victoria Street which I have the refusal of. I shall manage very well there with my maid, and with Dugald to wait on Charlie; it will be necessary to live a quiet life for many reasons.”
Miss Claremont assented, nor was it possible to raise any objection to her companion’s plans. But she could not help secretly wondering whether, with all her good intentions, Christine was strong enough either in health or in character to live a life so beset with difficulties.
“It seems indeed one of the deepest of moral laws, that under the stress of trial men will strongly tend at least to be whatever in quieter hours they have made themselves.”—“The Spirit of Discipline.”
Dean Paget.
December was now half over and Macneillie’s company had got as far as Southampton in their progress along the south coast. It was no slight pleasure to Ralph to find himself back in his old neighbourhood, and to act in the very theatre where long ago his father had taken him to see Washington in “The Bells.” He had heard nothing more from Mr. Marriott, and Evereld’s letters contained no reference to business matters, but were taken up with descriptions of life in the French country house, and of the happy time she was having with Bride O’Ryan.
It happened one day that as there was no rehearsal Ralph was able to walk over to Whinhaven. There were however very few of his old friends left in the neighbourhood.
Sir John and Lady Tresidder were in India, pretty Mabel Tresidder had married an officer and he had no idea of her present whereabouts, while even in the village there were many changes. Langston his coast-guard friend had got promotion and others had left the place or had died. He felt like a returned ghost as he wandered about the well-known lanes, and glanced at the familiar garden and at the unchanged outlines of the Rectory. A little child was playing with a pet rabbit on the lawn just as he had played in old times. He stood for a minute at the gate watching it with a strange feeling at his heart which was not all pain, but rather a sort of tender regret and a glad sense of gratitude for a happy childhood of which no one could ever rob him. For the rest his return was like all such returns. He found the church unaltered, the houses bereft of some of their old inhabitants and the church-yard more full.
Ralph however was not a man who liked to linger among graves, he stood only for a minute by the tomb of his father and mother, and passed on to that little nook in the park which they had always called the “goodly heritage.” It was as beautiful as ever, even in leafless December. The robins were singing blithely, the little brook rippled at the foot of the steep descent, and an adventurous squirrel had stolen out of his sleeping place to investigate his secret stores and to take a brief scamper among the branches. Some day, Ralph thought to himself, he would bring Evereld to see it all, and with that his thoughts travelled away into a happy future, and as he walked back to the nearest station regrets for the past were merged in the realisation that the best part of his life was still before him, and that many of his dark days had been lived through.
He was only just in time to catch the train and was hurriedly searching for a place when he was startled to hear himself called by his Christian name, and glancing round he saw someone beckoning to him from a carriage at a little distance. The door was opened for him, he stepped in, and to his amazement recognised in the dim light the well-known features of his Godfather. There was no other occupant of the carriage and Ralph remembering how they had parted at Rilchester would fain have beat a retreat.
“You are going to Southampton?” asked Sir Matthew. “I heard Macneillie’s company was there and I came partly for the sake of seeing you.”
“Do you bring news of Evereld?” asked Ralph eagerly.
“No,” said Sir Matthew, “she has succeeded in baffling me, you were right there. It is to her wilfulness that all my misfortunes are due.”
Ralph bit his lip to keep back the retort that occurred to him. For a minute the two looked at each other searchingly. Sir Matthew felt a sinking of the heart as he noticed the angry light in his companion’s eyes. Ralph on the other hand was perplexed by the pallor and dejection of hiss Godfather’s face. The Company promoter seemed quite another man, he looked old and broken, all his suavity of manner, his business-like, capable air had vanished.
“I am ruined,” he said; “worse than ruined—I am disgraced. At any moment I may be arrested unless I can succeed in leaving the country unnoticed.”
Ralph listened to this startling announcement with an impassive face. He hardened his heart against the man who had dealt harshly with him.
“I suppose it means,” he said, “that another of your Companies has failed and that this time you have suffered yourself, besides ruining hundreds as you ruined my father.”
“God knows how I regretted his losses,” said Sir Matthew and for the time there was a ring of genuine feeling in his voice. “It was for that reason I adopted you, that I educated you, that I took you straight to my own home. Have you forgotten that?”
“Sir, you never gave me a chance of forgetting it,” said Ralph bitterly, all his worst self called out by contact with this man whom he detested. “Had I listened to your temptation I should now have been pledged to become a money-grubbing priest, a trader in holy things, a disgrace to the church.”
He pulled himself up, recollecting that he was not much to boast of as it was—but a faulty, irritable mortal, full now of resentment, and hatred and contemptuous anger.
“Perhaps you were right,” said Sir Matthew with a sigh. “I admit that I was harsh with you that day, and you have a right to hit me now that I am down.”
Ralph instantly responded to this appeal as the astute Sir Matthew had calculated.
“Don’t let us speak of the past,” he said in an altered tone, “I owe you my education and I try to be grateful for that. Why did you wish to see me? What do you want with me?”
“We are almost at Southampton,” said Sir Matthew glancing at the lights of the town. “Let me come to your rooms with you and I will there explain matters. Is this St. Denys? They stop for tickets here I suppose; have the goodness to give mine to the collector.”
He moved to the further end of the carriage and began to unstrap some rugs from which he took a highland maud. He was still stooping over the straps when the tickets wore collected. Then as soon as they moved on once more he began to swathe himself elaborately in his tartan.
“Can I see you alone?” he inquired.
“Yes,” said Ralph, “I am usually with Mr. Macneillie, but he has friends in Southampton and is staying with them, so I happen to be quite alone.”
“All the better” said Sir Matthew a touch of his old manner returning to him. “We will take a cab. I have only this gladstone with me.”
And accepting Ralph’s offer to carry his bag, he drew the tartan carefully over the lower part of his face and crossed the platform swiftly to the cabstand.
Ralph felt like one in a dream as they drove through the town to his lodgings, and several times he recalled the day when as a child he had last left Whinhaven, and Sir Matthew and he had sat thus side by side driving through the crowded London streets to Queen Anne’s Gate.
The tables were turned indeed! It occurred to him even more strikingly as he took Sir Matthew into his snug little sitting-room in Portland Street and saw him warming his hands at the fire. Recollecting that his Godfather was a great tea-drinker, he rang at once and ordered the landlady to make some ready.
“That will be coals of fire on his head,” he thought to himself with a smile as he recalled the afternoon when he had sat hungrily in Lady Mactavish’s great drawing-room privileged only to hand cups to other people.
Sir Matthew was curiously silent, and as he sat by the fire seemed to care for nothing but the warmth and the food. By and bye, however, glancing at his watch he seemed to remember that his time was limited.
“You are acting this evening?” he inquired.
“Yes,” said Ralph, “in the ‘Rivals.’ I must be at the theatre in three quarters of an hour. Can you tell me now what you want with me?”
“I want your help,” said Sir Matthew. “At any moment I may be traced. Though I hope I have eluded pursuit and set them on a wrong track one can never tell in these days of telegrams and espionage. I don’t ask much of you. All I want is this; go down to the agents’ and take a place on board the Havre boat for to-night; let me shelter here until the passengers are allowed to go on to the steamer and, since you are a practised hand in making up, help me to disguise myself. I ask nothing but this.”
The audacity of the request roused all Ralph’s angry resentment again. He clenched his hands fiercely and began to pace up and down the room.
“You ask me to help you to escape,” he said indignantly, “when I am certain that you richly deserve to be brought to justice!”
“I ask you,” replied Sir Matthew, “to help your Godfather in his great need. To show a kindness to your father’s old friend.”
“You had no kindness for him,” said Ralph. “How can you—howdareyou come to me. You who have desolated homes and broken hearts! Why there are few things I should like better than to see you arrested and properly punished.”
Sir Matthew’s face grew whiter.
“Would you betray me?” he said, “after I have trusted you?”
“No,” said Ralph indignantly, “certainly not. But I will not stir a finger to help you. How can you expect me to forget the way in which you have wronged Evereld?”
Sir Matthew’s keen eyes scrutinised him closely for a minute; he was puzzled to know how much Ralph had learnt of the truth.
“Wronged her?” he said questioningly, “what do you mean?”
“I mean that you traded on her innocence and ignorance of the world; that you tried by the most foul means to force her and frighten her into marrying Bruce Wylie. That you drove her to escape from you, and that but for the care and kindness of others she might have got into great difficulties.”
A look of relief crossed Sir Matthew’s face. Ralph certainly did not know that he had speculated with Evereld’s fortune and lost almost the whole of it.
“You misjudge me,” he said assuming a tone of some dignity. “I cannot explain matters to you, but I had the best intentions in desiring to see Evereld safely married to Bruce Wylie. For the rest, it is highly probable that you will have your wish. You may even see me arrested to-night in Southampton. However I shall take good care not to remain long in custody. It will be merely the change of foregoing the journey to Havre and instead taking a much less costly ticket for a journey to the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.”
He stood up and began slowly to button his overcoat. The easy tone in which he had made the quotation, and the look of quiet determination on his set face made a very painful impression on Ralph. His anger died away. Horror and perplexity suddenly overwhelmed him.
“What am I to do?” he thought desperately. “What would my father have done? If it were possible to imagine a man like Macneillie coming with such a request why I would shelter him and help him. Must I do as much for a man I loathe. It would be more just to let him be arrested? Why should I aid a guilty man to escape? It’s conniving at his wickedness. But then again it’s true that I ate his bread for years. If he should indeed take his own life I shall certainly wish I had helped him. Good Heavens! how is a fellow to see the right and wrong of such a case?” He looked round; Sir Matthew had folded his plaid about him and now moved towards the door.
“Good-bye Ralph,” he said, “many thanks for your hospitality.” But Ralph though he mechanically took the proffered hand spoke no farewell, merely held the hand in his grasp while over his curiously mobile face a hundred lights and shades succeeded one another.
“Wait,” he said at length, “I cannot let you go like that, Sir Matthew.” His perplexity and distress were so genuine that for the first time in all their intercourse the Company Promoter felt a sort of liking for this boy whom he had wronged and patronised, snubbed and educated, scolded and secretly hated. He saw that Ralph had all his father’s gentleness and generosity, but a good deal more strength and warmth of temperament than the Rector had ever possessed.
In dire suspense he waited to know his fate. There was a silence of some minutes; then Ralph, who had moved across to the fireplace and had wrestled out his problem with arms propped on the mantelpiece and face hidden, lifted up his head and once more met the gaze of his father’s old friend. Sir Matthew was astonished to see that he looked pale and haggard with the struggle he had passed through.
“I will try to help you,” he said simply.
“Then,” said Sir Matthew with warmth, “I am justified in having come to you. You are—as I thought—your father’s son. You are a true Denmead.”
Ralph for the life of him could not help laughing at the words. “You told me that in a different tone at Rilchester,” he remarked. “The Denmeads, I think you were good enough to say, were always unpractical fools, aiming at impossible ideals. I was angry then, but after all perhaps you are right. I believe I am a fool to help you, but just because you have so wronged us in the past I am afraid to refuse lest there should be anything of private spite or revenge in the refusal. What class do you wish to travel? I will go at once for your ticket.”
“Take a second return to Havre, it may be a precaution,” said Sir Matthew. “The steamer does not leave I think till 11.45. I did not come down by the boat train for that might very probably have been watched. How about disguise?”
“I will go to the theatre on my way back to you,” said Ralph, “and bring a grey beard which I think is all that will be needed.”
He hurried off, for there was not very much time to spare. Now that his decision was made he was comparatively at rest, and as he sped along the dark streets his thoughts went back to Whinhaven and all the quiet familiar scenes he had just visited. It was strange that Sir Matthew should have encountered him just as he returned from his old home, and perhaps, if the truth were known, the Company Promoter might never have gained his help had it not been for the softening influence of that visit to the old Rectory and the “goodly heritage.”
Having secured the ticket, he made his way to the theatre, where, early though it was, Macneillie had already arrived and was discussing some knotty question with the assistant stage manager and the master carpenter. Ralph slipped by them and ran up to his dressing-room, unearthed the beard he wanted from his dress-basket, tucked his make-up box under his arm and hastened away.
“Where are you off to?” said Macneillie.
“Back again in ten minutes, Governor,” he replied.
It was no use now to reflect how little he liked doing the work he had undertaken, and indeed when he was again in his own room a sort of pity for his godfather stirred once more in his heart. Sir Matthew was so broken down, so aged by all that he had gone through! The nervous haste with which he took the ticket, the hurried questions he put, were so unlike the hard business man of old times, that it was impossible not to feel some compassion for one who was the mere wreck of his former self.
Utterly exhausted by the high pressure at which he had lately been living, the sham philanthropist sat by the fire and allowed himself to be done for like a child, watching with a strange sort of admiration Ralph’s intent face as with deft touches to the eyebrows and accentuating of certain wrinkles, he entirely transformed him. When the process of fixing on the beard with spirit-gum was over and he looked at himself in the glass Sir Matthew hardly recognised his own features, and saw before him a man at least twenty years his senior.
“Stoop a little more,” said Ralph. “That is better. Now I don’t think even Lady Mactavish would know you.”
Sir Matthew sighed heavily.
“It’s mostly for her sake that I care to escape to-night,” he said with a touch of real feeling in his manner. “She will always be grateful to you, Ralph, for helping me.”
“I will order them to bring you some dinner at eight,” said Ralph, “and if you like I can drive down to the docks with you at eleven or a little after.”
Sir Matthew caught at this suggestion, and Ralph having finished his work at the theatre, refused two or three invitations to supper and hurried back to wind up the most curious service he had yet been called upon to render to any man.
“Don’t think too harshly of me,” said Sir Matthew as they drove down to the starting-place of the Havre steamer. “Remember that I always expected the speculation to succeed, that I still think I could have recovered myself if only things had not all conspired against me at the same time. You Denmeads can’t understand the temptations that assail an average man in the city. You were born without the love of money in you, and whatever happens you are always strictly honourable. Some men are made so. Had I not felt implicit trust in you how should I dare have put myself now in your power? You own that you would like to see me arrested and punished, but I know that you won’t betray me for all that.”
“I don’t wish to see you punished now,” said Ralph, “and of course I can’t betray you. But perhaps the best way after all would be for you to give yourself up to justice.”
Sir Matthew broke into a laugh.
“You might be your father sitting there and talking! It’s exactly what he would have said. My dear fellow your ideals are above me, and they are about as little likely to be adopted by ordinary men of the world as the ideals in Plato’s republic. I shall certainly not give myself up. I shall instead try my very best, for the sake of others, to recoup my losses and to start afresh.”
A curiously sanguine look crept over his worn face, and Ralph felt certain that like a gambler he would return as soon as possible to his great game of speculation, very likely persuading himself, with the ease of one who has posed hypocritically for many years, that he did it all from the purest philanthropic motives.
“You had better not come on board with me,” he said as they drew near to the docks. “And on the whole perhaps I had better not take this tartan with me, it is too marked. I will bequeath it to you. Good-bye Ralph. Many thanks to you for what you have done for me.”
With the first hearty grip of the hand he had ever given his godson he bade him farewell and passing up the gangway on board the steamer disappeared from view. The cold wintry wind came sweeping over the water; Ralph shivered and was glad enough to wrap the highland maud about him as he paced up and down watching to see the actual start of the Havre boat.
There was a bustle of arrival as the passengers were transferred from the boat train; he stood in the shadow watching them, and apparently another man, unobtrusively dressed, was engaged in the same occupation. Ralph felt sure that the fellow was a detective; he folded the plaid more closely about his mouth and pulled his hat over his eyes; the man furtively glanced at him and drew a few steps nearer, whereupon the spirit of mischief and love of acting overcame all other recollections, and Ralph as though most desirous of eluding pursuit, slipped quietly away into the darkness and vanished in the crowd. The detective, with all his suspicions aroused, gave chase, but presently coming to a place where two streets branched off, was baffled for a moment.
In a deep porch of one of the houses close by, a young man stood bareheaded, sheltering a flickering fusee with his hat while he tried to light his pipe.
“Seen a man wrapped in a plaid go by this way?” asked the detective panting.
“He has not gone past here,” said Ralph coolly.
The man took the other street and just at that moment the sounding of a steam whistle and the chiming of a clock in a neighbouring house told Ralph that it was a quarter to twelve and that the boat for Havre was safely underweigh.
He quietly picked up the highland maud from the well shaded corner of the porch where it had been snugly tucked behind a pillar, and then walked back to Portland Street musing over Sir Matthew’s fate and wondering what news the morning would bring.
“O, gear will buy me rigs o’ land,
And gear will buy me sheep and kye;
But the tender heart o’ leesome luve,
The gowd and siller canna buy.
We may be poor—Robie and I;
Light is the burden luve lays on,
Content and luve bring peace and joy,
What mair hae queens upon a throne?”—Burns.
Ralph slept late the next day and only escaped a fine at Rehearsal by the merciful rule which permitted ten minutes’ grace.
“You have done it by the skin of your teeth,” said Macneillie with a laugh, “but of course you found the newspaper absorbing.”
“I have not even seen it. What is the news?”
“There’s a warrant out for the arrest of Sir Matthew Mactavish on a charge of swindling, and Mr. Bruce Wylie they say is already in Holloway gaol having been arrested last night.”
“Good heavens!” said Ralph, “Bruce Wylie in prison!”
“What matters more,” said Macneillie, “is that some South African company of which they were the leading directors has failed. And this following closely on the failure of that other Company with which they were connected will probably cause more failures to follow. Thousands will be ruined. Mr. Marriott was right enough when he darkly hinted to you that startling revelations were in store. Well we must get to work. What a mercy it is that Miss Ewart is safely out of her guardian’s power.”
A sudden panic seized Ralph. What if Sir Matthew were to come across Evereld in France? He had no idea whereabouts she was but for the first time he wondered whether any possible scheme for getting her again into his power could have occurred to the Company Promoter.
On the previous night such a thought had never entered his head, he had adopted the more reasonable conclusion that Sir Matthew chose Havre merely as a possible starting place for America or some distant port where he could safely shelter. It needed all his patience and self-control to wait through the tedious rehearsal, and the instant he was free he ran to the telegraph office and begged Mr. Marriott to send him tidings as soon as possible with regard to Evereld.
The answer set him at rest before the evening’s performance. Evereld was safe and well and Mr. Marriott begged that Ralph would if possible spend the following Sunday at his house since there were many things to discuss.
It was now only Wednesday so he had still some time to wait, but the worst of his suspense was over and it was with a very buoyant heart that early on Sunday morning he presented himself at the old lawyer’s house. After a pleasant breakfast with the kindly ladies who had always taken an interest in his career, he was carried off to the study by Mr. Marriott for a business talk.
“I asked you to come up to town,” said the lawyer, “because you have a right to know the whole truth of things. Sir Matthew Mactavish was not only a scheming speculator, he was a fraudulent trustee. Miss Ewart’s affairs were entirely in his hands, and Bruce Wylie her solicitor aided and abetted the speculations which have dissipated her fortune.”
“The brutes!” said Ralph. “Still I can forgive them that. It’s their abominable scheme for trapping her into a marriage that I can’t forgive.”
“Perhaps you hardly realise things yet,” said the lawyer, “I mean exactly what I say. Instead of being an heiress she has now nothing whatever left but a couple of hundred a year which, being her mother’s property, and in the funds, could not be tampered with.”
“If she is much troubled about it I am sorry,” said Ralph. “But personally I don’t care a straw. No one will be able to say now that I was running after her fortune. How soon do you think we might be married? There is nothing to wait for now.”
“Well, you will have to get the leave of the Lord Chancellor, but I don’t suppose he will disapprove,” said the lawyer with a smile, “if you are in a position to support a wife that is. I can’t see any objection to your marrying before long if Miss Ewart desires it. Go and talk it over with Mr. Hereford, she is under his guardianship and he is in town till to-morrow evening.”
“What good luck,” said Ralph. “I will go round at once and try to catch him before he goes out.”
“Very well. We shall meet again later on then,” said the old lawyer kindly. “We can put you up for the night and then you can let me know what arrangement you and Mr. Hereford have arrived at. I will walk round with you to Grosvenor Square; these bright frosty mornings are tempting.”
Ralph received a friendly greeting from Max Hereford who was amused by his extreme haste and anxiety to win the Lord Chancellor’s consent to his marriage with Evereld.
“You see, we have been practically engaged for several months,” he argued, “and I shall never have a moment’s peace about her while she is drifting about the world. Who can tell whether we have heard the last of Sir Matthew Mactavish even now! It’s unbearable to think that I don’t even know where she is.”
“Well I can set you at rest on that point,” said Max Hereford laughing. “She is on her way to Ireland, and my wife will take the greatest care of her.”
“She has left France?”
“Yes, I went myself to bring her home and my sister-in-law came with her. Dermot will spend the winter in the south and I am taking the two girls across to Dublin to-morrow night. They are here now.”
Ralph’s face was a sight to see.
“You must talk to her and find out what her wishes are,” said his host pleasantly. “I am the last man to advise a prolonged engagement. And since Marriott has told you that Miss Ewart is no longer an heiress but has been robbed by those precious scoundrels of almost the whole of her fortune, I think it only remains for you two to decide upon your own course of action, subject of course to the approval of the Lord Chancellor. She shall always find a home with us, as she very well knows, if you think it advisable to wait.”
“I don’t think it advisable,” said Ralph eagerly. “But of course I must ask whether she is really willing to put up with the discomforts of a wandering life.”
“I will go and find her,” said Max Hereford, “and you can have an interview in peace.”
Evereld and Bride were in the great drawing-room, both looking rather pale and tired after their long journey.
“Time to go to church?” asked Bride with a portentous yawn.
“No my dear, you would only go to sleep,” he said teasingly, “as your brother-in-law and Evereld’s guardian I strictly prohibit church-going this morning. Rest and be thankful, and don’t forget that you will be travelling all to-morrow night. Evereld, if you have energy enough for the interview, Mr. Marriott has sent someone round on business. Should you mind just going down to the library? He wants to put a few questions to you.” Evereld started up, looking rather nervous.
“How odd of him to come about business on a Sunday morning,” she said. “I hope he is not an alarming sort of person. Will you not come down with me?”
“Well I think on the whole you had better be alone,” said Max Hereford with profound gravity. “I always think it is a mistake to have a third person at an interview. I should only make you more nervous.”
She said no more, but set off bravely for what to her was no slight ordeal, her first business interview.
The touch of dignity, which even as a child she had possessed, was more noticeable now in the poise of her head and in her whole manner; but the face was not in the least altered: it was the same sweet gentle face which had for so long reigned in Ralph’s heart.
He sprang up to greet her, and Evereld with a joyous laugh ran towards him.
“Oh, Ralph! is it you?” she eried, radiant with happiness. “What a tease Mr. Hereford is! He told me it was someone from Mr. Marriott on business!”
Ralph laughed as he released her from his embrace. “We have not begun in a very business like way!” he said, “but it is quite true that I have come from Mr. Marriott’s house. He has been telling me of this fraudulent trustee who has treated you so shamefully. Are you very angry with those two rogues? How does it feel to be robbed of a fortune?”
“It feels anything but pleasant,” said Evereld warmly. “But what I find it hardest to forgive is the hypocrisy. Of course it is sad to think that the money which my father and grandfather earned by such hard work has all been wasted, specially as I thought it would have been useful to you some day. Do you realise, dear, that I shall be quite poor?”
“I don’t care a fig about that,” said Ralph. “But when I remember that those vile knaves nearly succeeded in trapping you into a marriage which must have been lifelong misery to you, then—well, I feel like killing.”
“But they never did nearly succeed, Ralph,” she said slipping her hand into his. “I would have died sooner than marry Bruce Wylie. Oh, how good it is to be here with you, and quite safe! That time at Glion was dreadful.”
“Do you know that you at nineteen have baffled two of the cleverest rogues of the present time?” said Ralph. “It is delicious to think of that. How did you think of such a plan and carry it out so pluckily?”
“I don’t know how,” said Evereld. “But I knew that somehow I must get away out of their power. Then, when, I was so very unhappy this thought suddenly came to me of Bride O’Ryan and Aimée Magnay in Auvergne, and after that it was all quite simple—except, indeed, the Continental Bradshaw which nearly drove me distracted!”
“You told me in your letter about that jolly old priest who took care of you. We must go and see him some day. I should like to thank him.”
“Yes, I should so like you to see him, and you must go to Mabillon. It is such a dear old place. I have grown to love it almost as if it were my own home.”
“Don’t you think we ought now to come to the business part of the interview?” said Ralph with a mirthful glance. “Do you think, darling, that you are really willing to become the wife of an actor who has still to fight his way up the ladder? Remember that as yet you are quite free, that there is no engagement even between us.”
“The engagement really began for me that Sunday at Southbourne,” said Evereld shyly.
“And for me, too,” said Ralph. “But think once more, darling, and try to realise what it will mean. Ours will have to be, at any rate for some time, a wandering life. For Macneillie has been so very good to me that I must stay with him and try to repay him a little for all his training. Even if a London engagement were to be offered me, and that is not likely, I should feel bound to stay with him as long as he cares to have me.”
“Oh, yes of course,” said Evereld. “Why, we owe everything to him! I wonder if he would like———” she broke off rather abruptly.
“What were you going to propose?” said Ralph trying to read her face. There was a wistful look in it now which he did not understand.
“Only I have felt so dreadfully sorry for him since the Fenchurch Case. Of course I heard people talking about it, and I can’t help fancying that he must still care for Miss Greville.”
“Yes,” said Ralph. “It is very rough on him.”
“I shouldn’t like to take you away from him, Ralph,” she continued, “specially just now, for I could see quite well at Southbourne that you are almost like a son to him; you don’t know what things he said about you when you were talking to Mrs. Hereford that morning. He would miss you dreadfully. Do you think we could still be in the same house with him when we are married? Or should I bother him?”
“I don’t think you would be likely to do that,” said Ralph smiling. “When I tell him about our marriage I will see how the land lies. I wonder, darling, whether you will be able to put up with all the discomforts of life in a travelling company?”
“Why it will be the greatest fun!” cried Evereld.
“Well, I have found it a very jolly life, but, you know, wayfaring men naturally have to put up with some discomforts. You will find the endless packing and unpacking, and the settling into fresh lodgings once a week an awful bore.”
“But I shall have you, dear,” she said happily. “And nothing else will matter much.”
“Then it only remains for us to win the Lord Chancellor’s consent and to tell Macneillie, and find out when he can spare me for a few days. You won’t make me wait long will you?”
“I think Parliament meets on the 5th,” said Evereld, “and we are to come back from Ireland in the first week of February. I know the Hereford’s will let me be married from this house, and we will have a quiet wedding. You see we are both of us alone in the world; except the Marriotts and Mr. Macneillie there is really no one to ask, for of course the Mactavishs will keep away from town for some time to come.”
“I wonder what will become of poor Lady Mactavish,” said Ralph. “I fancy she has something of her own, so as far as money goes she will be all right. But how she will feel the disgrace!”
“I’m not at all sure,” said Evereld, “that now real trouble has overtaken her she won’t give up grumbling. If not I am sorry for Janet for she will have to bear the brunt of it. Oh, Ralph! what a strange world it is! Only last spring the Mactavishs seemed at the very height of their prosperity, and were so enchanted about Minnie’s engagement, and now here is Sir Matthew ruined and disgraced, and Bruce Wylie in prison.”
“Well,” said Ralph, “it’s a much better fate than the one they tried to force upon you. It’s not of them I think, but of the thousands they have cruelly injured: if you had seen your father die of a broken heart as I saw mine, you would think prison and exile a very light punishment for those cursed speculators.”
“Yes,” assented Evereld, “it was more of the suddenness of the change I was thinking. Last spring, too, you were tramping through Scotland, ill and half starved, and now——”
“Now I am the happiest man in the world,” said Ralph his face aglow with ardent love.
And after that they forgot all the troubles of the past and sat weaving delicious plans for the future, and enjoying to the full the happy present.
The next day Ralph rejoined the company in the Isle of Wight and in the evening, when supper was over, he with some trepidation told his story to the Manager.
Macneillie had of late been very silent and depressed and Ralph hated having to speak of his own happiness to one who was in the depths of dejection. However with an effort he broke the ice.
“I saw Miss Ewart’s new guardian Mr. Hereford in town,” he began, “and it seems that almost the whole of her fortune has been lost by that swindling trustee of hers. She has nothing left but a couple of hundred a year which luckily was tied up and out of Sir Matthew’s reach.”
“The scoundrel!” exclaimed Macneillie, “so he had the audacity to put her fortune into his rotten companies I suppose?”
“Yes. However it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. The fortune is gone but so is Sir Matthew, and the new guardian permits our engagement and sees no reason why it should be a long one, he is distantly related to the Lord Chancellor and thinks he will consent to our being married shortly.”
“And what does Miss Ewart say? have you heard from her?”
“I have seen her, she was passing through London on her way to Ireland. Well, she talked very sensibly about the money, had hoped it might be useful to us, but chiefly looked on it in my fashion as a hindrance to our immediate marriage now safely removed.”
Macneillie’s grave face was suddenly convulsed with merriment. He laughed aloud at this view of the case.
“Was there ever such a couple of babies!” he said. “Pray how do you mean to live?”
“On my salary to be sure,” said Ralph, “and on the two hundred which Evereld has left.”
“You are over young yet to get much of a salary in London, and, even if we succeeded in getting you an engagement there, who can tell how long you would be secure of keeping it? Then living and rent is much higher in London, and Miss Ewart has never been used to anything except the very best.”
“But why do you speak of London?” said Ralph. “Do you mean to give me the sack, Governor, if I marry?”
Macneillie turned and looked at him in some surprise.
“I naturally concluded that having gained some experience with me you meant to go off at the earliest opportunity. That is the way of the world. You don’t mean that you intend to bring your wife to travel with us?”
“Why not? It is often done. Harden’s wife used to go about with him, they say.”
“Oh, of course it is often done, but after the sort of life Miss Ewart has been accustomed to——”
Ralph broke in eagerly.
“We talked it over very carefully, I told her exactly what it would be like, and she is only longing for the fun of it all. Indeed she made a very audacious proposal.”
“What was that?” said Macneillie pleased and interested in spite of himself.
“Her old hero worship of you is as keen as ever, she thinks nothing would be more delightful than to house-keep for you, and pour out the tea—women always think they do those things best—It’s quite a mistake! Then, too, she has a notion that you might miss me if we went off into rooms by ourselves. I told her that was nonsense.”
“No,” said Macneillie, “it’s true enough, my boy. I should miss you very much. But all the same I hardly know whether it is fair to you both to spoil the early days of your married life. I am growing a very ‘dour’ sort of man and that’s a fact.”
“You have been a second father to me,” said Ralph, “and Evereld knows that: so if, as she says, we shall not bother you——”
Macneillie laughed. “If she can put up with a ‘dour’ man as third fiddle, and promise to speak the truth when his playing jars too much with your harmony I should like nothing better than to have you both with me. To tell the truth Ralph I dread being alone just now. By the bye, have you heard Jack Carrington say anything about his part in the new play? Brinton had a notion he didn’t take to it.”
“Yes, I heard him say it didn’t suit him,” said Ralph. “I don’t see why. It seems to me rather a decent part.”
“I’m not at all sure that he will renew his engagement,” said Macneillie. “And if he leaves, why there is no reason at all why you should not become Juvenile Lead, and I could raise your salary to five pounds a week. However that is between ourselves. As for Carrington he has been with me three years and is likely enough to get a good berth somewhere before long. When do you two hope to be married?”
“Early in the spring if possible,” said Ralph.
“Well, I would never counsel a long engagement,” said Macneillie with a sigh. “You are not obeying the advice of Mrs. Siddons but, after all, there are exceptions to every rule, and Miss Ewart is one of a thousand. By the bye, I never told you—little Miss Ivy Grant wrote to ask if I could give her an engagement and I have offered her the part of the French girl. She seems to me to have exactly the face for it.”
“Oh, it will suit her down to the ground!” said Ralph looking pleased. “I am glad poor Ivy has left the Delaines, she was too good for them. Evereld will be glad that she is to be one of the Company.”