"I WILL NOT DIVORCE YOU"
In the "Stage Notes," or "Stage Whispers," or "Gossip of the Stage," of
the Sunday papers (next morning), there had been mention made of "A
pleasant little surprise at the Globe Theatre, where a lady had so
successfully secluded herself in the shadows of her box that the play
was half over before Mr. Thrall had discovered in her his wife, whom he
supposed to be still in London. Strict disciplinarian as he is, the
manager was so far lost in the husband that he hurried, all costumed as
he was, to the box to greet and warmly welcome her. The audience would
gladly have taken a hand in the greeting, had they been quite sure the
lady was Mrs. Thrall, but as she had arrived too late to make a proper
evening toilette, yet could not deny herself the pleasure of seeing at
once her husband's latest great production, she almost wrapped herself
in the box curtain, thus facing the stage while hiding herself from the
house. When discovered, the returned wanderer laughingly told Mr. Thrall
she hoped that, in common justice, he would place his own name at the
head of that week's 'docked list,' as a heavy forfeit is demanded of
anyone who appears in front of the house after taking any part, no
matter how brief, in the performance, and he was doubly guilty, in that
he was in full costume. He gravely argued there would be no one to
profit by the forfeit, since he was himself manager as well as offending
actor. But she quickly extended an open hand, and cheerfully offered to
receive the forfeit, and even to invest it wisely and cautiously, and
Mr. Thrall retired from both argument and box."
Also, there had been a brief mention of "The swooning of Miss Sybil
Lawton, between acts. The cause given was fatigue, the long run of the
play, and the double performance of Saturday, making a heavy draught
upon the strength of so young a girl."
One paper added that "Miss Lawton herself made light of the matter,
saying, 'Fainting was a mere family trait with the Lawtons, an
inheritance the same as a very long thumb or a peculiar ear,' but though
she laughed, she looked very white, and leaned heavily upon the arm of
her woman companion."
When the play ended that night the call-boy had been sent to tell Mr.
Roberts that "he was wanted at Mr. Thrall's dressing-room, as quickly as
possible," and presently, shabby and shambling, with every nerve
aquiver, and in a most savage temper, he obeyed. Outside the door he
stood respectfully enough, his hat in hand. Inside his manner became a
half-cowed insolence. He put his hat on, and, nervously buttoning and
unbuttoning his coat, said: "Well; you whistled your cur--here I am!
Whom am I to be sic'd at this time?"
The most of Romeo's delicate finery hung about on hooks; the splendor of
his waving, golden-brown locks graced a wooden block standing on the
dressing-shelf; his cloak and cap and sword were piled in a pell-mell
heap; his dainty shoes were most anywhere; while everywhere were
cigarettes--damp, spoiled, but unlighted, because of his own strict rule
against smoking in the dressing-rooms, and the man himself, bending over
the marble basin in that frenzy of soapy lather, without which the male
countenance may not be considered cleansed, answered from its midst:
"I'm not sic'ing you on anyone!"
"That's queer! There was a time when I was often sent for, to discuss an
important 'set,' or listen to some troublesome or involved scene, or was
sent to libraries to root out notes for your information, but Lord!
Lord! that was long ago! The stage-manager is your counsellor now, but I
can still do all those hateful services that pass under the general term
of 'dirty-work.' Whenever a request is to be refused; whenever a
discharge is to be made; whenever a furious woman is to be faced--that a
scene may be prevented at the theatre--I am summoned, and the damned
funny part of it is, I come and accept my orders and carry them out; but
even you can hardly expect me to enjoy the work of getting you out of
every scrape."
"You were not called upon in the Manice matter," Thrall somewhat
sullenly remarked from the folds of a towel.
"N--o!" assented Roberts, regretfully. "I should have enjoyed handing in
her dismissal. But go ahead with your orders! The job must be pretty
tough, judging from the way you hang fire in naming it."
Thrall turned, and his face startled Roberts. It was so pale, so drawn,
so anxious, he seemed to have washed away all its youth and pride and
brightness, along with the grease paint and the rouge, in the basin of
soapy water. He turned his troubled eyes in silent reproach upon the
speaker, who asked, in a more respectful tone: "Well, what is it?"
"It is," said Thrall, turning to the shelf and taking up a brush, which
he began to use hurriedly upon his hair, "it's the child, Jim--the
Princess! She--well, she's had a blow. The moment I'm out of here I'll
run against some of the boys from the papers, then I'll have to see the
Missus home--and stay there. And, Jim, those two women are all alone in
that house, and should the child go to pieces, and need a doctor's
care----"
Jim muttered an oath. "As bad as that?" he asked, fiercely. "Didn't she
know?"
"Oh, I don't know--I don't know anything to-night," groaned Thrall,
"except her need of protection! Jim, can't you go there? Jane Stivers
will let you in, quietly; she'll give you a couch in the parlor to rest
until dawn, and you can carry that old medicine case with you, too, so
that any early rising neighbor may mistake you for a doctor leaving the
house. Then, should any need arise, you would be on hand to serve her,
and I--[he dropped the brush and held his head hard between his hands] I
should be a trifle farther away from the insane asylum! Will you do it?
Say, speak quick! I've got to hurry down to the Missus! Jim, what the
devil brought her back from London so suddenly, though she will tell me
presently herself, I suppose?"
And Jim answered: "Manice brought her back--well, you see if I'm not
right! She's been sending anonymous letters. Y-e-s, I'll follow Stivers,
and stand by till morning. Hand down that medicine-case. But I'm doing
it for her sake, not yours, mind you!"
And then Stewart Thrall, with a pang at his heart, had seen Sybil leave
the theatre on Stivers's arm, while he, with seeming gayety, was
presenting Mrs. Thrall to a little group of friends, among whom were a
couple of ubiquitous newspaper men--hence the "Stage Notes" next day.
Early Sunday morning Stewart had slipped from his room and the house,
and hurrying off in search of Jim Roberts had found him at his
boarding-house, already well on the way to complete inebriation, early
as it was; and so unruly, headstrong, and unmanageable that it was
difficult indeed to learn anything about the passing of the night at
Stivers's house; and what he did wring from him only added to his own
pain.
"For two hours by that cussed watch," said Jim, flinging the scratched
and dented timepiece across the room, "minute by minute, I watched and
listened to her unceasing walk--walk--walk over my head. She had shut
Stivers out! She had acted a five-act tragedy twice that day, she had
had neither dinner nor supper, and there she was walking miles up there
alone--in the night! And then we heard speaking, and Jane and I listened
on the stairs, and she was saying, over and over--oh, how I wish you had
died last summer, Thrall, you with your infernal soft eyes and girl
lashes and stony, hard heart! Friendship?--nothing! How can there be
friendship without mutual respect and esteem and good will? You've a lot
of esteem for me, haven't you? Well, I've less for you! Why should I
tell you what she said or did? Oh, the _past_! You let that past alone,
do you hear? Poor child, saying over and over, 'Too early seen unknown
and known too late! known too late! _known too late!_' Oh, you're going,
are you? Well, I was starting for a doctor when that cat Stivers played
her last card. She said: 'Miss Sybil, dear, you _must_ take a little
nourishment, or I shall send this telegram I've written to your mamma,
Mrs. Lawton, and she will be here by ten in the morning. I can't have
you fainting from exhaustion, and me getting the blame;' and at that the
door opened quickly, and the cup of beef-tea was accepted. Stivers even
got the chance to brush her hair a bit, but not one word did she speak
of any trouble or worry, other than that she 'was suffering from an
attack of the nerves.' Poor, plucky little soul! She'd never give anyone
away! Well, go! I'm devilish glad to see your back, for your face puts
murder in my heart!"
And as Thrall left Jim, who was dragging a full flask from his pocket,
he muttered to himself: "God! I begin to understand what makes drunkards
of some men! Oh, my beloved! my beloved! If I could only go to
you--claim you before all the world--do you public reverence! Perhaps--I
wonder if Lettice would accept her freedom, we are such utter strangers
to each other--perhaps----"
He hastened back home, and was surprised to find that Mrs. Thrall had
already breakfasted in her own room. He would have been more surprised
had he known that her quick ears had heard and her pale eyes had watched
his early departure, and that the suspicion it had aroused in her mind
would add much to the difficulties of the interview he sought. For what
he had to face, he faced without hesitation or delay.
Stewart Thrall's knowledge of feminine character was considerable, yet
it was neither deep nor thorough--it was superficial. He understood the
tastes, the fancies, the caprices of women; he was a past-master in
delicate flattery; he was quick to recognize the almost unconscious pose
of a pretty woman. Was she literary, he was earnest and intellectual and
quoted her favorite poet; was she artistic, he straightway saw in her
the potential painter, only handicapped by circumstance; while, if she
were simply coquettish, he was indeed upon solid ground. Women loved to
be appreciated; he not only accepted them at their own valuation, but
added something to the appraisement. What wonder, then, that he thought
of them as conceited, vain, full of pride, without merit? But even what
knowledge he had was to-day useless and unavailing, for there was
probably no woman in the world so hopelessly incomprehensible to him as
this chill, ashen-blonde creature, whom he had called his wife these
twelve years past, though she remained abroad so long at a time for her
health (which was perfect) that other people almost forgot he was a
Benedick. Save in the theatre one never heard her mentioned. Long ago, a
low-class English servant had habitually referred to her as the
"Missus," and with gleeful unanimity the actors adopted the title, and
thus Sybil remained all ignorant that behind the screening nickname of
the "Missus" stood a secure and dominant Mrs. Stewart Thrall.
The pair, who had been talking long, were sitting facing each other. The
table between them had a dish of half-dead ferns in a handsome
receptacle. Though meant for ornament, they were sadder even than the
paper-dry, stick-dead contents of the window jardiniere, for they at
least no longer struggled, no longer suffered for loving care. Stewart
had remarked apropos of their condition: "You see they have felt your
absence, Lettice?"
And she had given the little downward pull to the corners of her mouth
that always made him wince, and answered: "But _you_ were never looking
better or younger in your life than"--(she glanced at his thin, pale,
anxious face, and significantly finished)--"than you were yesterday."
There was a litter, too, of Sunday papers, a Tauchnitz novel, and
writing materials keeping the dead ferns company, and now, in the pause
that was lengthening out between them, he carefully piled up the pencils
and penholders, building and unbuilding pens, some square, some
three-cornered, while all the time the ash-blonde woman opposite sat
steady, self-contained; and, though her satirical lightness of manner
was changing fast into a sullen anger that settled heavily about her
lips and clouded her brow, her hands yet rested quietly in her lap,
while her cold eyes watched the man she wondered at not a little--for
he was changed. Heretofore, innuendoes had ever had power to drive him
to hot rage, to-day his tolerance might have passed for indifference,
but for the quick trembling of those ever-building fingers.
She told him of the anonymous letters that had convinced her that he was
making a fool of himself, publicly enough, to endanger her dignity as a
wife, and so----
"And so," he interrupted, "you broke faith with me on the strength of an
anonymous lie? You have returned, not to find the scandal in existence,
but to learn that your presence here makes life much harder for us both.
You must feel proud to know that a creature like Manice has used you so
easily!"
"Almost as proud as you must be to recall certain love passages between
you," retorted Lettice.
"Pardon me, one cannot 'recall' what has never existed. I have even yet
a little respect for the word and the sentiment of love, and would never
think of casting such pearls into the Manice trough!"
"You are so remarkably frank about this malicious young person, perhaps
you will be equally so about this rare conservatory blossom--this quite
wonderful Juliet, this new 'chere amie'? Oh, you can't deny--save to the
blind--your infatuation for her! Admitting that you have had so far an
eye to appearances, that no open scandal is yet afoot, it is still plain
to all that you love her! Silence? That's odd--from you! Does she
understand how she is honored? Have you acquainted her with the number
she should wear upon her breast? Don't break that holder! What
creatures men are! Deception, ingratitude, and treachery were your very
wedding-gifts to me. Disloyalty has long become a habit with you."
"Lettice, did it ever occur to you that a wife's unjust suspicions may
help a man on to disloyalty? You no sooner took my name than you became
a personified suspicion. You claimed dominion over my very thoughts. My
every movement seemed to arouse your mistrust. You put spies upon me,
when I had not even a thought of disloyalty. I discovered it, and,
though I am ashamed now of the boyish folly, it's none the less true
that I first broke my solemn vow to you out of revenge for your unjust
suspicion. Then you helped me with your money and with your astonishing
ability to twist and turn everything to our advantage and profit; and
let me say that your audacious plans were not always quite scrupulous,
Lettice! But when I found that that troubled you not a bit, I somehow
felt that my disloyalty was not worth troubling about either. I was
truly grateful for your help, but you wanted me on my knees, and you
rubbed the service in so hard that it became unendurable, and I was in
torment until I paid you the money back, with interest. But still you
feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude, because, finding me an artist,
full of dreams and willing to wait for their fulfilment, you have made
of me a showman instead--a successful one at that. And now we have
become such strangers that we place the ocean between us, for the
comfort of its vast breadth dividing us. Lettice, we can't be less to
each other than we are, and yet you reproach me with my infidelities. I
can't understand why. I can't even understand why you married me. If you
had ever loved me"--(he was busy with the pencils, he never saw the
slowly rising blood creeping up even to the roots of her hair)--"but you
never did, even at the first. I suppose you could not resist that
craving you had to show what you could do with me, how you could push
me. Lettice, don't you want to accept half of my earnings, and--and take
your freedom--your legal freedom, I mean--without any blame being
attached to you? Lettice, cast back my name, you can't care for it
longer. See, I humble myself to entreat your favor in this matter!
Accept your freedom--become once more Lettice Rowland!"
And, as the urgent voice ceased, Lettice asked, coldly: "Why?" and then
had followed the silence.
And the man with the restless fingers saw all the time the dark,
stricken face of the girl he loved, and seemed to hear the rapid, uneven
footfalls of the young creature pursued by bitter memories through the
heavy hours of the night, and the perspiration stood upon his forehead.
The pale eyes opposite that watched saw he suffered, and bitterness grew
evenly with the wonder that filled her heart. She was a tenacious woman,
one who would even hold fast a thing which she no longer valued, simply
because it belonged to her. She was clever and shrewd, and she was
making some astonishingly correct deductions from Thrall's looks and
manner as well as his words. Hitherto his amours had been lightly
formed and lightly broken, and she had been conscious at times of a sort
of contemptuous pity for the women whose reign she knew would be so
brief--but this was different. She had known last night--she told
herself, she had seen, she had heard the new tenderness in his glance
and tone. She saw in Sybil a new type of rival, a creature of
intelligence as well as of beauty; and then and there had lighted even
the dull anger that was burning in her now. She looked at his goodly
length of limb, at his well-shaped, closely cropped head, at the black
sweep of lashes she knew he hated. A sudden quiver came about her pale
lips as she recalled how, in their early married days, she had often
called his attention to something on the floor just for the pleasure of
seeing their silky length sweep downward. He had never known, or he
would probably have repeated the deed of his boyhood, when in a rage he
had cut them off close to the lids and had been shut up under the
doctor's care in consequence. And now he wanted her to give him up.
"Why?" She had not known that she had spoken the word until his start
told her. Then he said, slowly:
"You would be happier, I think, Lettice" (he smiled faintly). "You would
not be distressed, then, by my bad conduct, you know."
"Your consideration for my feelings is as touching as it is novel, but
it is not a convincing reason for the putting away of a wife."
"A wife?" repeated Thrall, as he raised his eyes and looked steadily,
meaningly, at her. "I think the precise and unemotional dictionary
itself will describe wife as a 'woman united to a man by marriage.' Are
we united, Lettice? It is nearly three years since our tenderly
emotional public parting at the steamer, but our real parting dates much
farther back."
She interrupted, to say, sharply: "Well, no one knows of that, and I'm
sure my presence in London was of great service to you. At least two
important plays would have escaped you, but for me and my clever
planning."
"Yes," he answered, a little weariedly. "But I was not speaking of our
relations as manager and agent--they are quite satisfactory; but I was
about to state that while I am not an unmarried man--I am wifeless."
"Ah!" she ejaculated; "that never troubled you before!"
He paid no heed, but went on, steadily: "The law cannot put us one inch
farther asunder than we are now, but it can free us from this hypocrisy
and pretence, and restore us our dignity and independence and freedom."
"My friend," came in the well-modulated voice that was the sole charm of
the woman opposite, "do you then take me for a fool? It required two to
make our bargain, it will require two to break it. I am Mrs. Stewart
Thrall as surely to-day as I have ever been. You have broken your vows;
but I have kept mine, at least [in answer to an accusing look] I have
not broken them--I have been loyal."
"Why?" dryly put in Thrall.
A little of color came into her face as she answered: "From
self-respect, sir! I have pushed your interests, I have seen you rise,
and I mean to stand by your side and share your honors! You are mine!
You can't divorce me, and I won't divorce you, without more reason than
this new whim of yours for a swarthy, black-browed girl with a red mouth
that you will tire of in six months' time, and who, in spite of her good
breeding, which is evident enough, may give you sufficient trouble for
you to be glad to have this marriage service to hide behind!"
"_Lettice!_" cried Thrall, springing to his feet, "so help me God, you
tempt me to strangle you! Oh, but see here! You are hard as nails in
seeming, but how can I tell what is in your heart? Perhaps it is big and
generous and warm enough to pity the innocent victim of your husband's
lust; yes, and there you have a reason strong enough for a divorce."
Perhaps she might, in sheer swift contempt, have cast him his freedom
had he not blundered, as men will in their dealings with women; and, in
a sudden passionate burst of love and pity and remorse for the girl not
yet twenty years old, whose life and honor were resting in their hands,
"prayed her to be generous and great in magnanimity; to leave him free
to right the horrible wrong he had done, and in return to accept his
lifelong service, his reverent friendship!" His eyes were misty, his
voice was trembling, his very soul was at his lips.
She rose, and, looking coldly into his pleading face, she said: "I am
Mrs. Stewart Thrall. I will not be cast aside!"
Patiently he answered: "I ask you to put _me_ away!"
Steadily she resumed: "I will not act against the law. Collusion is
illegal!"
He picked up a book, and bent it back and forth unconsciously.
"You are my husband!"
"That is false!" he said, sharply.
"In the eyes of the law," she went on, unheedingly, "if I choose to
condone your offences, that is sufficient. Your light o' love is naught
to me. _I_ have been a faithful wife!" Thrall laughed aloud.
"Hereafter I shall live here at your side. I will not divorce you, and
so give you to another. I shall remain Mrs. Stewart Thrall, while I live
and while I die. I am a good woman, and therefore you cannot be divorced
by any law on earth!"
Glancing down at the book, Thrall saw it was Milton's "Paradise Lost,"
and, flinging it on the table, he cried: "I wonder why Milton didn't
make a virtuous woman the keeper of the gate of hell!"
As he left the room he added: "Lettice, against your hard, repellent
virtue a generous sinner shines like an angel!" And he went forth to the
bitterest hour of his life--his next meeting with Sybil Lawton.