Annie felt a curious and altogether new sensation as she submitted
to be carried off to the hotel by her husband, whom success in this
small enterprise had restored to the happiest and most affectionate of
humors. It was the first time since the early days of their marriage,
when the privilege had soon palled, that she had gone about with him
as a protector, and the pride and pleasure in the position which he
ingenuously showed, surprised and amused her.
They were, as he had predicted, very comfortable at the hotel. With
astonishing tact, Harry forebore to press his grievances against his
wife, and devoted himself to banishing the remembrance of the “clever
man who could do everything” by taking her to theaters and picture
galleries, and to the park, and to expensive dinners at the best
restaurants, with an assiduity which could not fail to touch her.
Indeed Annie did not quite know what a happy passage in her life this
was until after it was over. She wished to be, and she thought she
was, tormented a little by self-reproach caused by her bad treatment
of Aubrey Cooke; but the feeling was not strong enough to outweigh
the delightful sense of repose she began to feel in the consciousness
that she was surrounded by a great love. Her husband was so watchful,
so affectionate, refrained so consistently from exacting demands of
demonstrative fondness from her, that she had no time, no excuse for
such a sentiment as real regret. He insisted, against her will, upon
taking her to and from the theater to rehearsal, and asked her, when
she objected, whether she was ashamed of him.
“If you are, say I am an old servant of the family,” said he, proudly.
But Annie silenced him imperiously; and the confession she made in the
theater that she was married, and that the handsome young fellow who
brought her backward and forward was her husband, while it brought down
upon her some accusations of coquetry, sent her up in popular opinion
as the possessor of such a tall, well-bred-looking lord and master.
Life had gone on very smoothly in this way for nearly a week, and it
was the day before the opening night of “Nathalie,” when Harry, finding
himself at the end of his ready money, thought of changing his check.
In the evening Annie noticed that he was rather preoccupied during
dinner, and when she asked whether he had got some gloves he had
promised her, he said he had not been able to get them yet, but she
should have them on the morrow.
“Did you change the check, Harry? You said you would give the money to
me to take care of,” she suggested, laughing.
“No, I haven’t changed it. The fact is,” he continued, seeing a look of
perplexity on his wife’s face. “George has overdrawn his account a good
deal, and they won’t cash such a big check until they have heard from
him.”
“But fifty pounds is not such a very large sum; and your family has
banked there for years and years, I know. Doesn’t it seem rather
strange, Harry, that they should refuse when they know you so well?”
This was a rather unfortunate suggestion, as the character of the
Braithwaite boys had not always stood high in money matters; but Harry
only said:
“Oh, it will be all right, of course! I wrote to George this afternoon,
and I shall get an answer to-morrow or Monday. Don’t you feel awfully
nervous about to-morrow night?”
“Indeed I do. If it were not for the way you take me about and divert
my thoughts, I believe I should make myself ill by the way I worry
myself about it. I must go now; rehearsal begins at seven, so I shall
be wanted at half-past.”
This was the night rehearsal, on the eve of the production of the new
piece. For a week the manager had not slept, weighted with doubts about
the success of a performance which had cost him months of thought,
care and actual labor of body and mind. He was a popular man, and the
members of the company sympathized with him, though their own lesser
responsibility sat far more lightly upon them, and the green-room during
the last rehearsals, when doubts far outweighed hopes regarding the
piece they were all at work upon, rang with laughter as the foremost
wits of the company made cruel jokes upon the “governor” and his
troubles.
The next morning, just as Annie was starting for the last rehearsal of
all, a telegram came for her husband. He read it and thrust it into his
pocket without any remark and without any offer to show it to her. She
was getting used to quiet self-reliance on her husband’s part: but this
action surprised her.
“From George?” she asked rather diffidently.
“Yes. Stephen is coming up this morning to see me, with statements from
George--not very cheerful ones, I fancy. But don’t trouble your head
about that, darling, or you will be unfit for to-night. We shall pull
through right enough, never fear!”
“Why, I am not nearly so anxious as you are, Harry! I shall get my
salary next week--six guineas--and then, if we only live a little more
economically, we shall get on splendidly.”
“Yes, yes; it will be all right. There is the hansom outside. I must
send you alone this morning, my darling, for I must stay at home to see
Stephen when he comes. Good-bye--good luck to you, Annie.”
He put her carefully into the hansom, giving her hand a tender
lover-like little squeeze as he helped her in, and went back into the
hotel for his cigar-case, to pass away the time with a cigar as he
walked up and down outside, waiting for his cousin.
When she returned from rehearsal, in a hansom by Harry’s orders, she
found Stephen waiting outside the hotel to receive her. He was looking
pale and anxious, and she asked him hurriedly what was the matter.
“Come in and I’ll tell you,” said he.
He led her into the coffee-room, which was empty.
“You have bad news, Stephen, I am sure! What is it? Where is Harry?”
“He told me to break it to you. He has quite given way under it. You
will try not to be very much shocked, won’t you? It is about George.
He----”
“Not dead?” whispered she, white to the lips.
“Oh, no; he is quite well! But he has smashed up.”
“Poor fellow!” said she sympathizingly, but much relieved. “Is he
really quite ruined?”
“Yes, I am afraid so; he has been in difficulties for a long time now,
you know. The Grange will have to be sold, of course; but it and the
land are so heavily mortgaged that that won’t relieve him much. He has
expected the crash for a long time, and Wilfred and I had some notion
of it too; but Harry never dreamed of such a thing, and it has knocked
him over altogether.”
“But why does he take it so much to heart? He will be better off than
anybody now I’ve got such a good engagement.”
“It seems he wanted to persuade you to give up acting and go and live
with him at the Grange; he told William and me so just now.”
“William!”
“Yes: I brought him up with me, and he is with Harry now, unless Harry
has turned him out of the room; for, when your husband said you were
growing fond of him, William said that was nonsense, and I had a lot of
trouble in getting them to leave each other alone.”
“But it is true, and it was very wrong of William to contradict him.
He has been very kind to me, and I am quite glad that at last I can do
something for him.”
“Frankly, Annie, I don’t think he’ll let you. He is very obstinate,
you know, when once he gets an idea into his head; and he has taken to
thinking that it would be beneath his dignity to live on your earnings.
And really, you know, I think he is right.”
“But how is he to live any other way?”
“I don’t know, I am sure; I think that is what is bothering him, and
the thought that he will have to leave you.”
“But he mustn’t do that.”
“Then you had better go and tell him so; he has been crying about that.
He says, just as you were beginning to like him, all his work is undone
again, and you will call him a loafer.”
“I will go to him,” said Annie; and she left Stephen, and went
up-stairs to her sitting-room, where William rushed at her directly she
opened the door.
She saw that Harry was lying on the sofa, with his face in the
cushions; but she could not get at him at once, for “the child” was
dancing round her, glancing at Harry and crossing his fingers with an
expressive grimace, to intimate that his brother was in a bad temper
and had better be left to the solitary enjoyment of it.
“He will only snap at you,” whispered he, as Annie pushed past him
gently and went toward the sofa; and William, with his soft whistle,
went out of the room.
She passed her fingers through her husband’s rough hair, and turned his
face gently toward her. She could see that he had been crying, and,
with a sudden great tenderness, she drew his head on to her breast and
kissed him without a word.
It was only by a great effort that he kept back the tears which came
to his eyes again at this demonstration; and Annie wondered how it was
that he was so much overcome.
“Don’t give way like this, Harry, I can’t understand you,” said she
reprovingly, as he sat by her side and drew her toward him.
“It is very hard for poor old George, especially as he has known so
long that it was coming; but William is provided for, as your uncle in
Ireland is looking after him, and Stephen has a little money of his own
and Lilian is all right, and you and I will have plenty of money next
week.”
But Harry bounced up from the sofa at this point saying that it was
luncheon-time, and she must be starving after her long rehearsal; and
ten minutes later they, with William and Stephen, were sitting together
at table, trying to divert their thoughts from their gloomy prospects
by talking of the piece Annie was to play in for the first time that
night.
As soon as luncheon was over, Harry insisted upon making his wife lie
down to get some rest before the exciting duties of a “first night”
began. Sleep was out of the question for her; she lay repeating
the words of her part, which she had known for weeks, in a fever
of unnecessary anxiety, lest the words should slip from her memory
at the last, or lest, in the excitement of the all-important first
performance, she should hurry her speeches unduly--a fault to which she
was prone.
Harry softly opened the door from time to time and crept in, sometimes
without her even hearing him. He always found her engaged in the
same way, softly going over her lines to herself, and each time he
retreated, looking harassed, and rather disappointed.
They had dinner early, for she had to be at the theater at half past
seven. Harry went with her, and, as they drove along together in
a hansom, he was very quiet and silent, holding her hand in his,
and speaking only in answer to her. If she had not been so greatly
preoccupied by anticipations of the night’s performance and nervousness
about her own share in it, she must have noticed that there was still
something unaccounted for in the unusual gravity, which was not
sullenness, of her husband’s manner. As they drove up to the stage-door
she noticed that he was shaking like a girl.
“You are not well, Harry,” she said, anxiously. “What is the matter
with you?”
“It is only about you,” said he, in a low voice.
“Oh, I shall be all right; through all my excitement I feel sure of
that! Why, you are more nervous for me than I am for myself! Look here,
Harry--I am sure you are not well; the shock you had this morning has
been too much for you. Don’t come for me to-night--indeed, there is no
need; I will send for a cab and come back as safely as possible.”
Rather to her surprise, he said quickly, as he helped her out of the
hansom:
“Yes, yes, that will be the best; I am not very well, I think William
shall bring you home.”
He had paid the fare, and they had reached the stage-door together.
Two of the actors were outside, and they raised their hats and began
speaking to Annie. Without pausing in her talk, she gave her hand
lightly to her husband, as he stood there still, anxious to be with her
as long as he could. She felt again that his hand was trembling, and
she turned to him to say:
“Don’t watch the piece, Harry; it will make me more nervous than ever
to know that you are sitting in front, in a fever lest I should make
some slip.”
“I’m all right; I must see you through it,” said he, huskily; and
he snatched away his hand, and, wishing the others, whom he knew,
good-evening and success, went off very quickly, almost, it seemed to
Annie, as if he were afraid of breaking down if he stayed. She went
into the theater very much affected by this proof of his attachment
to her, and, as she took from the box where they had been lying the
flowers he had brought from Covent Garden that afternoon for her
to wear that night, she raised the heavy white roses and the sweet
stephanotis to her lips before she fastened them in the front of the
cream-white muslin dress in which she was first to appear.
The audiences at the fashionable comedy theaters are not, as a rule,
demonstrative; but, when Annie came off the stage, after her best
scene that night, she knew that she had made a “hit.” It was the first
distinct, noteworthy success of her career, and her heart beat fast
as she thought that now she had her foot firmly upon the ladder, and
the future seemed to be clear before her. She did not for a moment
think she had got to the top; she knew quite well that struggles and
some failures lay still in her path; but that a good beginning toward
a prosperous artistic career had been made was a fact which set the
blood tingling in her veins and brought the fierce light of hopeful
ambition into her dark eyes, when, her share in the work of the evening
over, she exchanged the dress she had worn on the stage for the one in
which she had come to the theater, and went down from her dressing-room
to the green-room to wait for the end of the performance and the final
verdict of the first-night audience upon the piece.
It was a favorable one; and Annie found her way to the stage-door, on
her way out, with congratulations ringing in her ears and the knowledge
that, as certainly as certainty is possible in theatrical matters, the
long weeks of anxious and tedious rehearsal were to be rewarded by a
calm and prosperous run of the new piece.
At the door she found William dancing about, having been with
difficulty restrained by the hall doorkeeper from rushing through the
door which led on to the stage. He dragged her arm through his, and
in high glee helped her into the hansom, and, as he flung himself in
afterward, began at once:
“Oh, Annie, you were splendid, you were immense! I didn’t think you
could act like that. It wasn’t like acting at all, I’m sure, the way
you take that toffee! Oh, well, it was just like life, just like the
way you used to go on with me at the Grange! Poor, old Grange! I wonder
if I shall ever see it again?”
“I used to think of you sometimes at rehearsal, when I came to that
bit. Was Harry sitting with you?”
“Yes; he nearly went off his head. He kept saying, ‘Isn’t she perfect?
Isn’t she lovely?’ And I had to keep him from jumping up two or three
times. I think if I hadn’t he would have tried to climb on to the stage
to you.”
“Dear old boy! How nice of him! I am so glad he was pleased with me.”
“Well, I don’t see much merit in that. He couldn’t help being proud of
you when all the people about were saying how good you were. If he had
been a decent sort of husband, he would have waited himself to take you
home, instead of telling me to do so and prancing off himself goodness
knows where.”
“Didn’t he say where he was going?”
“No; he knew better than to tell me, because I should have just given
him a bit of my mind about it; but I’ve no doubt he’s gone off to
supper with somebody or other,” said William, with rigid disgust.
“William, how dare you talk like that? Do you know you are speaking
about my husband?”
“Oh, yes, of course I know! Why, Annie, you are not really angry, are
you?”
“Yes, I am--very angry. When the poor fellow has spent a miserable day,
and made himself quite ill between his nervousness for me and his grief
over the shock he had this morning, you take the first opportunity of
abusing him to me, his wife.”
“But, Annie, you haven’t grown fond of Harry, have you?” said William,
with pity and fear in his voice.
“Yes, I have--very fond. I couldn’t help it,” sobbed Annie,
apologetically. “He has been so kind to me lately.”
“Poor girl!” said “the child,” with compassion. “Never mind; you will
soon get over it when he leaves you alone again, and you are full
of your success on the stage, and people will crowd round you and
compliment you and tell you what a great actress you are, and----”
“When he leaves me again? What do you mean?”
“Why, he will, Annie--on some excuse or other, he will. He will never
stay quietly in London without anything to ride. I know Harry.”
But she was too indignant to let him go on, and for the rest of the
drive she maintained a frigid attitude of offended dignity toward her
indiscreet brother-in-law; and she repulsed him freezingly when he
tried to kiss and be friends.
On reaching the hotel, she ran quickly up-stairs, anxious to find
her husband and prove to William that she had not overestimated his
devotion. But in neither room was he to be found. On her dressing-room
table, however, she discovered a note directed to her in her husband’s
handwriting. She tore it open; but she was for some minutes too much
excited and frightened to read it. It ran as follows:
“MY DARLING ANNIE,--I dont know whether you will think I am doing
something very wrong and cruel or whether you wont care a straw. I am
going away though I love you with all my heart just as much as ever
and it hurts me awfully not to say goodby to you even but if I did I
know you would ask me to stay and I cant do that and be a loafer and
live on your money you would be quite right to despise me if I did
and say I was nothing but an idler like I used to be. I am going to
work. I dont know quite what I am going to do but I cannot try any
what are called gentlemanly occupations because you know I would be so
bad at them but I will make some money somehow and I wont steel it I
promise you that but you must not be too particular how I make it as
long as it is honestly--will you now. I have paid the bill and gone
to your old lodging and paid the rent for a week and the gloves will
be sent tonight and I leave you all the money I can to go on with. I
am going to see you act tonight and I know you will be successfull
becaus you are so clever and so pretty and all the men will try to
turn your head but dont let them my darling Annie becaus all the time
I am working for you and mean to get rich for you--and now you see I
love you so and only go away becaus I do. I think you will try not to
like _anybody_ else--but to think how I can be nice to you and make
you happy even though I am not clever like some of the men you know.
I dont know exactly where I am going just at first--but if you write
to me and give your letters to Stephen I shall get them and he will
let you know how I get on. You will not see me again yet because it
would knock me over just at first and I know you would not like what
I am going to do and you might talk me out of it. But I shall see you
very often you may be sure as long as I have a shilling to go in the
gallery with
“Your ever loving husband
“HARRY.”
She found a sovereign inside the letter and the hotel-bill receipted.
She did not cry, but went into the sitting-room where William was
waiting for her.
“Annie, you are ill! You are so white! You have overexcited yourself.
Sit down and let me get you some brandy-and-water.”
“No, no, I am not ill. You were quite right, William; Harry has left me
already.”
The young fellow stood before her, shocked, silent.
“Never mind, Annie, you have your old brother,” said he, as soon as
he could speak, in a soothing voice. “Perhaps, after all, it was best
that he should go soon, before you had got used to him, and might have
missed him. Now I have an idea, Annie, that we might be very happy if
you and I were to take a cottage--now we are poor, it won’t run to more
than a cottage--and you might keep house for me, as lots of sisters do
for their brothers; and of course I couldn’t be always at home because
of my military duties very soon,” said he, proudly, “but I could be
always running down there, even when I was away, and we should be so
jolly together.”
“My dear William; what are you thinking about? I am not really your
sister, you know, and such an arrangement wouldn’t be thought proper.”
“Annie, I am afraid--I begin to think--you are really fond of Harry.”
“Yes, William,” said poor Annie, while the tears rolled down her
cheeks, “I am afraid--I begin to think--I am.”