Annie turned with a piteous expression of face to George when her angry
husband had left them.
“What can one do with a man like that?” she said. “It is impossible to
reason with him, impossible to understand him. He is like an overgrown
child.”
“I don’t know about that,” answered George, quietly. “I think I can
understand this last outbreak pretty well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, when you left him, you were a little timid lily, whose charm was
quite lost upon a great senseless brute like that,” said George, with
sentiment; “now you have come back a----”
“A great flaunting dahlia, whose charm must be apparent to the meanest
observation, and particularly to a person of my husband’s tastes!”
finished Annie, looking up at him very gravely.
His sentiment was dispelled; he was obliged to burst out laughing.
“You are too sharp for me. You know very well I did not mean that.
You are a charming woman who can hold your own in any society; you
have caused quite a flutter among us poor rustics; and Harry, finding
himself the possessor of something everybody else admires, with
dog-in-the-manger instincts, wishes to keep all to himself the treasure
whose value he himself would never have discovered and is quite unable
to appreciate.”
“You are too severe upon poor Harry. He has a lot of good
qualities--you know I always said so; only--unfortunately they are
qualities which don’t harmonize very well with mine.”
“Nor with anybody else’s. It is unfortunate, certainly. He would be
charming on a desert island.”
“I really think he would be happier there,” said Annie, with a sigh,
“if he had a horse and some dogs. He is kind to animals, and they seem
to understand him. Good-night, George; I must go to him now. And the
chances are even whether he will try to hit me if I go near him, or
insist on my remaining in the room till he goes to sleep.”
She shook hands, and left the baronet gazing admiringly at her little
figure, as she disappeared swiftly and silently down the corridor
toward the room her husband occupied. She tapped at the door; but,
getting no answer and hearing no sound, she opened it and went in.
Harry was lying on the bed in his dressing-gown, and her first thought
was that he was not sober. But when she opened the door to Mrs. Stanley
a minute after, and saw that that dignified lady held a spirit-decanter
in her hand, she whispered:
“Take that away, please. He has gone to sleep, I think.”
“That is all right. I was as long as I could be, and I brought it
myself, in hopes that you would be here when I came back.”
The housekeeper went away, and Annie, fearful he might take cold, drew
a rug softly over her sleeping husband. The touch roused him; he turned
over toward her, and, just half opening his eyes, threw his right arm
round her neck as she was bending down, and instantly dozed off again,
tired out. The action moved Annie, and she knelt down beside the bed,
careful not to disturb him by displacing the arm that held her in an
unconscious caress until his next movement, when she woke him up, told
him to go to bed, and left him before he had time to remember his anger
against her and spoil the effect of that half-unconscious embrace.
But the next morning he was in a gentle mood, and did not allude to her
distasteful career when she brought him his breakfast. This good-humor
lasted until he went down-stairs, and, after looking in the various
rooms, found his wife in the library with William, having tracked them
by their voices and laughter.
William, with great tact, instantly assumed an appearance of
preternatural solemnity on his brother’s entrance.
“What is all this mystery? What are you doing in here?” asked Harry,
crossly.
“I am helping William with his studies,” said Annie.
Upon this her promising pupil grew blue with suppressed laughter, and
Harry’s manner got more and more unpleasant.
“Oh, I should have thought you had had enough of schoolroom work!
However, since you haven’t, and I’m not too proud to take a lesson,
you shall give me one, too,” and he flung himself into a chair with an
uncompromising surliness which was not encouraging to a teacher.
Taking no further notice of him, Annie proceeded with her dictation.
“Lorsque Telemaque et ses compagnons--virgule----”
“Oh, confound your French!” growled Harry.
And William burst into a roar of laughter; while Annie, seeing that her
amiable husband had started up with evil intentions toward her pupil,
made signs to the latter to leave the room, which he did, exploding
again as soon as he got outside the door.
“Why do you encourage that donkey to take up your time?” asked Harry,
when he had exhausted all the offensive epithets at his command on his
youngest brother.
“I am very fond of William,” said Annie, quietly. “It was I who first
encouraged him to study; and now it is a great pleasure to me to help
him.”
“A fine lot of study you get through, I have no doubt! You were
studying very hard when I came in, weren’t you?”
“Now look here, Harry; you are absurdly unreasonable,” said Annie,
wearily. “Of course William and I don’t sulk through a long morning’s
work, as if I were a snuffy old professor of fifty who didn’t care a
straw about his pupil except as a mere learning-machine. I couldn’t
care for William more if he were really my brother. You never used to
complain when he and I were out in the fields and woods together all
day long. He was my constant companion when I was very miserable and
lonely; and am I to snub and sit upon him, now that he has taken to
reading so that he may be more of a companion to me than ever?”
“What do you want with his companionship? I can’t think what you can
see in a great, clumsy gawk like that. He isn’t even clever.”
“He is good-tempered, and--he is fond of me.”
“Much you care about anybody’s being fond of you! You are the coldest
woman I ever saw, and all your pretty--I mean all your affected little
ways are just acting. Yes, that is what they are--just acting!”
repeated Harry, as if struck by a happy idea.
“Very well, Harry. Then why don’t you let me go and act on the stage,
where I shall get applauded instead of worried about it?”
“Because I don’t choose to let you go,” said he doggedly. “And I don’t
choose to see myself slighted and treated as if I were nobody at all,
just for that great ignorant, ill-mannered boy. And I won’t allow any
more of these humbugging lessons--do you hear?”
“I hear you certainly,” answered Annie softly.
“That means that you won’t obey me, I suppose?” She did not reply.
“Very well then; I sha’n’t say any more,” said Harry, shaking with
passion; “but, when I find him again grinning at you over his copy-book
and swaggering about with his French, I shall just pitch his books and
his tomfoolery into the fire and punch his head for him.”
“That will be very wise,” remarked Annie gravely. “And, if you were
only to treat in the same way every other person who can talk to me on
subjects that interest me and who does not grumble at me from morning
till night, I am sure I should become a much better wife and a much
more entertaining companion for yourself.” She had risen and walked
toward the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Harry sharply.
“To meet Lilian at the station. You know she is coming to-day, and
Stephen with her.”
He let her go without further comment; but, when she came down-stairs
again, ready to start, she found him in the hall playing with a
hunting-crop.
“I say, Annie, are you going to the library at Beckham?”
“Yes.”
“Will you get some books for me?”
“For you!” said his wife, in amazement.
“Yes, for me”--very irritably.
“Oh, yes, certainly! What books shall I get?”
“Oh, anything you like!”--and, without looking at her, he marched off
into the billiard-room.
“I hope there is nothing the matter with his head,” thought Annie,
anxiously, as she got into the carriage.
Annie went to the station to meet her sister-in-law, without any of the
nervousness she had once felt before an interview with that imperious
beauty. If Lilian should resent the change in her position at the
Grange, Annie was quite ready to go, and was rather hoping that Mrs.
Falconer’s arrival might pave the way for her own departure. She bought
the _Era_ on her entrance into the station, and, having some minutes to
wait before the train from London was due, went into the waiting-room,
cut the leaves of the paper roughly with a pencil she happened to have
in her pocket, and glanced through the pages eagerly. She found what
she wanted--a notice of a morning performance in which she knew that
Aubrey Cooke was to play a part; and, with flushed cheeks and beating
heart, she read that he had made the chief success in the piece, in a
character so well played that the critic pronounced him “the coming
comedian.” Annie knew that this sentence was one she had heard before
of other young actors who never came to anything in particular. But
her pleasure in reading this testimony to his talent was none the less
great, and with trembling fingers, she almost involuntarily drew a
shaky line with her pencil down that part of the notice which referred
to him.
She was looking brilliant when she met Lilian, who complimented her on
her appearance, and said she had heard from her brothers that she would
now have to subside meekly into the second place, since Annie had grown
into such a charming woman.
“But you might have let me know you were on the stage,” said Lilian,
with good-humored reproach. “I find now that I know several of the
actors who were with you at the Regency. And only think! I went there
one night when you were playing in the piece, and never recognized you.”
“I recognized you, though.”
“Did you? Can you see people you know among the audience when you are
acting?”
“Oh, yes! And I saw Colonel Richardson.”
“Most people can see him when you are about,” broke in Stephen, who
had come from town with his cousin, but had sat silent in the carriage
until now.
This was a bolder speech than he would have ventured to make in the old
times to Lilian, Annie thought. She noted that the cripple had grown
much older-looking; his face, which had once been handsome, was thin
and wasted, and he looked sullen and discontented.
Lilian took no notice of his remark, and asked Annie if she had seen
many of the people of the neighborhood since she had been at the Grange.
“Yes, most of them have called, to my surprise, since William let out
to old Mrs. Knowles that I had been on the stage. She and her niece
made a tentative call, and I suppose the rumor spread that I did
not bite, so everybody came and praised my wifely devotion, which I
certainly did not deserve.”
Lilian laughed.
“Harry ill must be a great trial, though.”
“He is rather; he has such strange freaks.”
“Husbands always have, dear. Only fancy--my husband wanted to prevent
my coming to the Grange!”
“Really? For what reason?”
“Oh, he disapproves of my brothers, or some such nonsense!” said Lilian
lightly.
But Stephen raised his eyes to his cousin’s face with a penetrating
look which Annie noted and remembered.
Dinner that night was a banquet of rejoicing. The two ladies were both,
in different ways, among the most charming women of the day. Lilian
was very handsomely dressed in dark red velvet, which showed off her
fair, queenly beauty well; Annie, in maize-colored silk, with soft
folds of Indian muslin about the throat, looked like a little fairy.
The style of each was so different from that of the other that their
attractions did not clash, and Annie’s quiet, simple manner of saying
amusing things was the best contrast possible to Lilian’s laughing
impertinences.
Lilian was very anxious to know at once all about her sister-in-law’s
stage-experiences, and was seized with a strong desire to become an
actress herself.
“Don’t you find people off the stage very dull after the nice, amusing
people you meet in the theater?” she asked at dinner.
“Oh, no! Some stage-people are dreadful bores, and many are coarse
and many commonplace. They are not all alike, you know, any more than
people off the stage.”
“But all the actors I have ever met have been so bright and amusing. I
know two who were at the Regency, where you acted--Mr. Gibson and Mr.
Cooke.”
“Oh, yes; I heard them say they knew you!”
“Don’t you like them? Are they nice in the theater? They are two of the
best-bred men I have ever known.”
“They are very nice men, indeed, and very clever actors; I like them
both immensely.”
“And Mr. Gibson is so handsome, and does not seem to know it. But he
must, for I should think all the women in the theater must be in love
with him. Were you not a little in love with him?”
“In love with a beggarly cad of an actor?” shouted Harry, scandalized.
“You don’t know what you are talking about!” said his sister, coolly.
“Of course your manners are not those of Mr. Gibson; they are those of
his valet. Didn’t you think him very handsome, Annie?”
“Yes, very. And he has such a sweet voice.”
Her husband’s voice, for the moment not at all sweet, uttered a
growling protest.
“And Mr. Cooke? He is not handsome, but he is charming. Don’t you like
him? Oh, I know you must, for I saw that you had marked his name in a
critique in your paper!”
Annie blushed as she answered that he was very nice, too, and very
clever; she had an uneasy feeling that her husband was glaring at her
across the table and noting her change of color.
During the few minutes which remained of the ladies’ stay in the
dining-room, Harry never took his eyes off his wife’s face; and she was
conscious of this, though she did not once look at him.
In the drawing-room Lilian was quite affectionate.
“You were always a good little girl; but I had no idea you would bloom
into such a clever woman,” said she, with her white hands on the
shoulders of the smaller woman.
“How--clever?” asked Annie, laughing.
“Why, at keeping your own counsel! But you may trust me. There is
always some one nicer than one’s husband, and when one’s husband is
Harry! I think your discretion does you great credit. As soon as I
heard you were on the stage, I tried to find out who it was that
had induced you to go on, or to remain on; and you had been so very
discreet that nobody could link your name with any other. And it was
not until I mentioned those two names at dinner that I found you out.
And nobody could have seen you wince but me. I am very clear-sighted in
these matters.”
“Indeed!” said Annie, calmly. “And may I know which of my fellow-actors
I am dying for love of?”
“I did not say that. I know your conduct is circumspection itself. But
I know which of these two gentlemen is--nicer than Harry.”
“Oh, you might put them both together and bracket a good many more with
them under that heading!” said Annie.
“I dare say. But you need not look so ostentatiously indifferent. I
should think it must be impossible to know Mr. Gibson well without
admiring him.”
“Well, that is true, certainly,” assented Annie, not giving the least
sign of the relief she felt at hearing Lilian utter the wrong name.
She did not in the least mind that her sister-in-law should imagine
her to have a preference for Mr. Gibson; but she would not for worlds
have it suspected that she could have the faintest warmth of feeling
for--Mr. Cooke.
When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room, Harry was not among
them, and William said he had gone up-stairs to his room. A few minutes
later a servant came in to Annie, asking if she would go to Mr. Harold,
who had sent word to say that he was ill and wanted her particularly.
She went at once, and judged, as soon as she entered his room, that
his ailment concerned his temper more than his health.
“You sent for me, Harry? What is the matter? Don’t you feel well?” she
asked kindly.
In answer, he suddenly produced the _Era_ from the side of his chair,
and brought his fist down with a thump upon the unfortunate pencil-mark
by Aubrey Cooke’s name.
“Who is this man Cooke?” he asked savagely.
Annie glanced carelessly down at the paper, and said:
“Mr. Aubrey Cooke? Oh, he is one of the actors whom I knew at the
Regency--one of the very actors Lilian was speaking of at dinner!”
“Yes, I know that very well; and you need not pretend to be so
mightily indifferent, because I know more than that,” he said, with an
affectation of penetration through which Annie easily read anxiety and
curiosity.
“Do you?” said she, smiling. “Then, if you know so much you must know
that this curious jealousy you have been cultivating lately was never
more out of place than in the case of the men I have acted with. And,
if you don’t know as much as you pretend, ask Lilian.”
Harry looked at her searchingly for a few minutes, and then dropped the
paper, disarmed.
She was looking so pretty in the light evening dress, with her graceful
head crowned with the coils and curls of her shining brown hair, that
he would have liked to drop his offended dignity and draw her into
his arms and kiss her. But the unconscious Annie had another blow to
inflict. She held in her arms a pile of books, and, when his face
relaxed a little after her reassuring answer, she took one up in her
hand.
“I have brought you some books from Beckham, as you asked me to do,”
she said. “And you don’t know what trouble I had in finding anything I
thought you would like. I turned over half the books on the shelves,
I think. Here is ‘Sponge’s Sporting Tour,’ and ‘How I Became an M. F.
H.,’ and a book about horses, and----”
She handed him a volume with her eyes still bent upon the others as she
read their titles. But she looked up startled, as he snatched it from
her and flung it with all his force against the opposite wall.
“Harry!” she exclaimed, amazed at the fury in his face. “What have I
done now? It is impossible to please you!”
“Yes, because you don’t care--you don’t try. I am just an ignorant
boor, to be fed and clothed, and smoothed into good temper when I am
growing dangerous, and to be slighted and told lies to when I protest
against such treatment. You see I know all about it, though I am such
a clod!”
She had walked to the other end of the room, picked up the book
without any show of annoyance, and was trying to restore an unruffled
appearance to the crumpled leaves. This action exasperated him still
more.
“There now--it doesn’t matter what I do, because it’s only Harry! Very
well then! There--and there--and there--and there!”
At each repetition of the word he flung another of the volumes she had
incautiously placed within his reach, not at his wife, but at the wall
by which she was standing.
“Really, Harry, you ought to be in a lunatic asylum!” said Annie, out
of patience at last.
“So I shall be very soon, if you go on treating me like a child, when I
love you like a man!” burst out Harry, passionately.
His wife looked up at him, from where she was standing at the other
side of the room, in astonishment.
“Yes, yes--stare at me as much as you like; I do love you, and I’m not
the fool you think me, except in caring for you! Do you think I don’t
know that you look down upon me, and that everybody thinks you thrown
away upon me? Why, I knew that in the old days when I first married
you; but then you just avoided me, and I didn’t care. But now you come
back, pretty and bright and charming, not cold and shy as you used to
do, you flutter about me and nurse me and coax me into good-humor, and
make me laugh and get me to do everything you wish; and then, when
I want to show you I love you for it, you shut me off with a little
laugh, just to show me that I am only Harry, and whatever I say and
whatever I do doesn’t matter. I say it is cruel, wicked, and, however
good and clever you may be, you are treating me badly!” he ended, his
voice breaking down.
“Harry!” was all his astonished wife could utter.
“I know I’m not a companion for you,” he went on, “but you don’t want
me to be, you won’t understand that I want to be. I asked you to get
me some books; but I wanted books that you liked, so that I might read
them and talk to you about them, like William and George. And then you
bring me a lot of sporting trash, as if I wasn’t fit for anything but
the stable!”
“Harry!” whispered his wife again, making a step toward him.
He looked up at her eagerly, waiting for her to come to him. But she
stopped.
“Well, are you afraid of me?” said he.
His tone was not inviting; but Annie understood him this time, knelt
down by his chair, and let him put his arm round her.
“Annie, will you try to love me?” he asked, huskily.
“Yes, Harry, I will try.”