night had fallen through. To my surprise, she jumped at Mr. Brancker’s
invitation. She said that she thought it would be extremely interesting.
I felt a little nervous at taking her. An invitation to dinner for the
first time is always a doubtful number. The social equation varies so
alarmingly and unexpectedly. My wife frequently dined at what she called
“smart” houses. How could old Brancker possibly manage a dinner in his
poky rooms? I warned her to wear her oldest and shabbiest, and to have a
sandwich before we started. Needless to say, my advice was ignored. She
appeared in a wonderful gown of pearl-gray. Experience told me it was
useless to protest, and I jogged along the street by her side in my tweed
suit. And then I had my second surprise. Old Brancker was in immaculate
evening-dress. Cunningly-modulated lights revealed a table glittering
with silver and glass. I mumbled some apology for my negligence, but
in his most courtly way he expressed his pleasure that I had treated
him with such friendly lack of ceremony, nevertheless this question of
dress—as so often happens—exercised a very definite effect upon my whole
evening. I felt a little out of it. My wife and old Brancker seemed to
belong to one world and I to another. Moreover, their conversation flowed
easily and naturally. The old actor was in his most brilliant mood, and
Alice sparkled and gurgled in response. Although she was younger and
Brancker older than I, I felt at times that I was the oldest of the
three, and that they were just children playing an absorbing game. And
the dinner was the third surprise.
The gaunt woman served it, gliding in and out of the room with a quiet
assurance. It was no lodging-house dinner, but the artful succession of
little dishes which symbolizes the established creed of superior-living
creatures. Wine, too, flowed from long-necked bottles, and coffee was
served in diminutive cups. At length, Mrs. Windsor collected the last
vestiges of this remarkable feast, but left on the table a silver tray on
which were set four liqueur glasses and a decanter of green Chartreuse.
“Let us all sit round the fire,” said our host. “But, first, let me
press you to have a little of this excellent beverage. It was given me
by a holy brother, a man who led a varied life, but who, alas! died in
disgrace.”
He passed his hand across his brow as though the memory were too sacred
to be discussed. I sighed involuntarily, and my wife said brightly:
“Not for me, Mr. Brancker; but you help yourself. And now you’re going to
tell us the story of the white frock.”
He raised his fine head and looked at her. Then he stretched out his long
arm across the table and gently pressed her hand.
“I beg of you, dear lady,” he said gently, “just one drop in memory of my
friend.”
The implied sanctity of the appeal could not be denied. Both my wife and
I partook of half a glass, and though I am by nature an abstainer, I
must acknowledge that it tasted very good. Old Brancker’s hand trembled
as he poured out the Chartreuse. He drank his at a gulp, and as though
the emotion were not yet stilled, he had another one. Then he rose, and,
taking my wife’s arm, he led her to the easy chair by the fire. I was
rather proud of my intimate knowledge of the old actor’s possessions,
and I pointed out the snuff-box which Nellie Farren had given him, and
the photograph of Irving, with its inscription “To my dear old friend.”
Brancker sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Perhaps one does not boast of
these associations. Perhaps it is vulgar, but I knew how interested Alice
would be. When we had done a round of the rooms, whither in his fatherly
way he had conducted my wife by the arm, and occasionally rested his hand
ever so lightly on her shoulder, we returned to the dining-room, and
Alice said:
“Now show me this little white frock!”
He bowed, and without a word went out into the hall, and returned with
the frock, which he spread reverently over the back of a chair.
“How perfectly sweet!” said my wife.
For a few moments he buried his head in his hands, and Alice and I were
silent. I could not but observe the interesting _mise-en-scène_ in which
I found myself. The dim recesses of the room, heavy with memories. My
wife cozily curled up in the high arm-chair, the firelight playing on her
fresh, almost childlike, face, a simple ring sparkling on her finger,
and on the pearly glint of her diaphanous gown. On the other side of the
table where the little glasses stood, the clear-cut features and long
snow-white hair of the old actor, silhouetted against a dark cabinet.
And then, like some fragile ghost recalled to bear witness to its tragic
past, the dim outline of the child’s white frock.
“It was before your time, _mes enfants_, long, long before your time,” he
said suddenly. “You would not remember the famous Charles Carside Company
who starred the provinces. We became known as the Capacity Company. The
title was doubly-earned. We always played to full houses, and in those
days—”
He turned to me with a penetrating, almost challenging look, and added:
“There were _actors_. Comedy, and tragedy, history, everything worth
doing, in the legitimate, was in our répertoire. We changed our bill
every night, and sometimes twice a day. Ay, and we changed our parts,
sir. I remember Terry O’Bane and I reversing the parts of Othello and
Iago on alternate nights for two weeks at a stretch. I played Lord
Stamford to his Puttick in ‘The Golden Dawn.’ He played Shylock to my
Bassanio. I will not bore you with these details. Ah! poor old Terry!
Poor dear old Terry!”
He stopped and looked down at his hands, and neither of us spoke.
“When I say that Terry O’Bane and I were friends, I want to tell you that
we were friends as only artists can be friends. We loved each other.
For three years we worked together side by side—never a suspicion of
envy, never a suspicion of jealousy. I remember one night, after Terry’s
delivery of Jaques’ speech on the fool, he did not get a hand. I found
him weeping in the wings. ‘Old fellow!’ I said, but he gripped me by
the arm. ‘Colly boy,’ he answered, ‘I was thinking of you. I knew how
distressed you would be!’ Think of that! His only concern was that I
should be distressed. Ah! in those days....”
He stretched his long white fingers and examined them; then, turning
suddenly to my wife, he said:
“I want to ask you, mademoiselle” (he persisted in calling her
‘mademoiselle’ all the evening), “to make allowances in what I am about
to tell you for the _tempora et mores_. In my young days love had a
different significance to what it has now. In this modern world I
observe nothing but expediency and opportunism. No one is prepared to
sacrifice, to run risks. The love between O’Bane and me was an epic of
self-sacrifice, and it ran its full course. It found its acid test on the
day when Sophie Wiles joined our company at Leeds.”
He stood up, and his voice trembled in a low whisper. Looking at Alice,
he said:
“She was as beautiful, as fragile, as adorable as you are, mademoiselle.
Strange how these great secrets are conveyed imperceptibly. O’Bane and I
looked at each other, and instinctively we understood. We said nothing.
We made no comment about her. We were entirely solicitous of each other’s
feelings. We referred to her as ‘Miss Wiles’ and we addressed her as
‘Miss Wiles.’ Before we had been three weeks on the road I knew that if
I had not known O’Bane’s feelings I should have gone to her and said,
‘Sophie, my darling, my angel, I love you, I adore you. Will you marry
me?’ But would it have been chivalrous to do this, knowing O’Bane’s
sentiments? We were two months on the road before the matter reached its
climax. And during that time—under an unspoken compact—neither of us made
love to Sophie. And then, one night, I could bear it no longer. I saw
the drawn and hungry look in my colleague’s eye as he watched her from
the wings. I went up to him and whispered, ‘Old fellow, go in and win.
She’s worthy of you.’ He understood me at once, and he pressed my hand.
‘Colly,’ he said, ‘you’re right. This can’t go on. Meet me after the show
and come round to my rooms.’”
The old actor’s lips were trembling. He drew his chair nearer to my
wife’s. “I cannot tell you of the heart-burning interview I had with
my old friend that night. Each tried to give way to the other. It was
very terrible, very moving. At length we decided that the only solution
would be to put the matter to a hazard. We could not cut cards or throw
dice. It seemed profane. We decided to play a game of chess. We set out
the pieces and began. But at the end of a few moments it was apparent
that each was trying to let the other win. ‘Stay,’ I said; ‘we must
leave the verdict to impartial destiny, after all,’ and I rose. On the
sideboard—as it might be here—was a large bowl of Gloire-de-Dijon roses.
I took the largest bloom and said, ‘Terry, old boy, if there are an odd
number of petals in this rose, she is yours. If an even number, I will
pay her court.’ He agreed. Slowly and deliberately, petal by petal, I
destroyed the beautiful bloom. There were fifty-eight petals. When Terry
saw the last petal fall he turned white and swayed. I helped him to the
easy-chair and handed him a little grog. It was nearly dawn. Already the
birds were twittering on the window-sill.”
He turned and gazed at the window as though even now the magic of that
early morning was upon him.
“The dawn was clear for me, but for my friend how dark and foreboding!
Or so it seemed to both of us at that hour. But, as Mahomet said, ‘With
women, life is a condition of flux.’ At eleven o’clock that morning I was
on my bended knees to Sophie. I poured out all my pent-up feelings of the
two months. There are some things too sacred to repeat even to those who
are—dear to us.”
He gasped and, stretching out his arm, poured out another glass of the
Chartreuse.
“She refused me, or if she did not actually refuse me—indeed, she did
not; she was sympathetic, almost loving, but so—indeterminate that I was
almost driven to a frenzy of despair. When one is young, one is like
that. One must have all, and at once, or go crazy with despair. For a
week I courted her day and night, and I could not make her decide. She
liked me, but she did not love me. At the end of that time, I went to
O’Bane, and I said, ‘Old man, it is your call. My part is played.’ Under
great pressure from me he consented to enter the lists, and I withheld
my hand as he had done. Even now the memory of that week of anguish when
I knew that my greatest friend was making love to my adored is almost
unbearable. At the end of the week he came to me and said, ‘Old boy, I
don’t know how I stand. She likes me, but I hardly think she loves me.’
I will not burden you with the chronicle of our strange actions which
followed. We decided that as the question was identical it should be an
open fight in a fair field, otherwise, between us, we should lose her
altogether. We would both pay court to her wherever and whenever the
opportunity occurred. And we would do so without animosity or ill-will.
The tour lasted three months, and I knew that O’Bane was winning.
There was no question about it. He was the favorite. Every minute I
was expecting to hear the dread glad tidings. And then a strange thing
happened.”
He leant back in his chair and passed his hands through his hair with a
graceful gesture.
“An uncle in Australia died and left O’Bane an enormous fortune. He was
rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The company all knew of it, and were
delighted, all—all except one person.”
He glanced towards my wife, and sighed.
“I have lived a good many years, and yet I seem to find the heart of
woman as unfathomable, as unexplorable as ever. They are to me the magic
casements opening on the night. There is no limit ... every subtle human
experience is capable of endless variation. Sophie refused to marry
O’Bane because people would think she married him for his money. The
anguish of those last weeks I shall never forget. She definitely refused
him, and I was torn between my love for O’Bane and my love for Sophie. I
can say with perfect truth—literal truth—that the fortune killed O’Bane.
When we arrived in London, he began to squander. He drank, gambled, and
led a depraved life, all because the woman he loved would not marry him.
In the spring he left the company and took a house in town. It became
the happy hunting-ground of loose characters. It is needless to say that
if Sophie wouldn’t marry him, there were plenty of other women willing
to marry a young millionaire. He became entangled with a fast and pretty
creature called Annabel Peacock. He married her, and in the following
year they had a child.”
The fire crackled on the hearth; my wife did not take her eyes from the
old actor’s face. A black cat strolled leisurely across the room and
stretched itself before the fire. He continued:
“It was then that I experienced an entirely novel vision of woman’s
character. Sophie, who would not marry O’Bane because he was rich, and
who shivered with disgust in the presence of Annabel Peacock, developed
an amazing affection and interest for their child. We were out again in
the Capacity Company. I had her all to myself. I laid siege to her heart.
I was patient, tactful, importunate, imploring, passionate. But it was
all no good, my boy ... no good at all. Heigho! would you believe it?—for
ten years of my life from that date I was that woman’s slave, and she
was the slave of Terry’s child. Company after company I joined in order
to be with her. I gave up good parts. I sacrificed leads, and in fact I
even accepted a walk-on—anything to be with Sophie. Sophie, who would
not listen to me, who treated me like a little pet, to run hither and
thither, and who spent all her money and time on toys and clothes for
Terry’s child. Would you believe it?”
To my surprise, my wife spoke for the first time. She said: “Yes.”
Brancker looked at her keenly, and nodded.
“Yes. In any affair between a man and a woman, a man finds himself at a
disadvantage. Mademoiselle, you see, understands. Women have all kinds
of mysterious intuitions and senses which we wot not of. She is armed
at every point. She has more resources. She is better-equipped than
man. Sophie even made a friend of Annabel. She wrote her loving letters
and called her ‘my dearest.’ For you must know that two years after
his marriage my old friend Terry O’Bane went under. He awakened one
night feeling ill; he groped in a chest where he usually kept a flask
of brandy. He took a gulp. The liquid he drew into his throat was pure
liquid ammonia which Annabel had been using for photographic work. She
was a keen amateur photographer. He rushed out into the street in his
pajamas, and died in the arms of a policeman at the corner.”
The horror of this episode was written plainly in the old man’s face.
He delivered it with a kind of dramatic despair, as though he knew it
had to be told and he could not control himself. Then he seemed to fall
to pieces, and lay huddled at the back of his chair. I looked at Alice
furtively, and I could see a tear swimming on the brink of her eye. It
was some moments before he could continue.
“These were all the best years of my life, _mes enfants_, when my powers
were at their highest. My old friend Toole offered me a good part in
London. He said to me, ‘Brancker, old man, you’re wasting yourself in
the provinces. Come to town and take a lead.’ I could only press his
hand and thank him. In another week or two I was on the road again with
Sophie. As the years went by she became more and more absorbed by Terry’s
unattractive child, and more and more distressed concerning it. For you
must know that in spite of his profligate life, Terry still had left a
considerable fortune, and Annabel continued to live in the same way. And
it was the worst possible atmosphere to bring a child up in. Annabel was
kind to the child in a spasmodic way, passionate and unreliable. She
would pet it and coax it, and buy it expensive toys and dresses, and
then suddenly neglect or scold it. Sophie knew this, and all the time
she could spare she went to London and tried to help the situation. She
humored and flattered Annabel, who was quite manageable if you treated
her like this, and she did what she could to influence the early training
of the child for good. But, as you may imagine, the little minx grew up
the spit and image of her mother. She was vain, fickle, and spoilt. By
the time she was ten she thought of nothing but her looks and her frocks;
and she was indeed a very pretty child. She had all the prettiness of
her mother, with something of her father’s grace and charm. She was
encouraged to amuse the vulgar people who came to the house, and she was
allowed to listen to all the loose talk, and to sit up to any hour she
liked, unless Annabel happened to be in a contrary mood, when she would
slap the child and lock her in her room.
“‘Aunt Sophie,’ as she called her, was a favorite with Lucy, but only,
I’m afraid, because ‘Aunt Sophie’ gave her expensive toys, and lavished
her love persistently upon the child. She wrote to her nearly every day,
wherever she happened to be, and sent her little gifts.”
The old man mopped his forehead. He was evidently laboring under the
severe strain which the invoking of these memories put upon him. He
walked to the sideboard and poured himself out a glass of water, into
which he poured—an as after-thought—a tiny drop of rum. After taking two
long, meditative gulps, he resumed his seat. He seemed to have forgotten
all about our presence. He was living in the past. But suddenly he turned
to my wife and said:
“I have many of the beautiful frocks which Sophie made for little
Lucy. They have come down to me. If it would not bore you to call one
afternoon, mademoiselle, I could show you some that might interest you.”
There was a strange, eager appeal in his voice. It seemed a matter of
tremendous moment that Alice should go and inspect the frocks. My heart
bled for him. “Of _course_ she will go,” I thought, but to my surprise,
she said nothing. She just looked at him with that queer, watchful
expression that women alone are capable of. Perhaps it is part of what
the old chap referred to—their equipment. She toyed with the chain on her
frock, and his eye meditated her movements. He hesitated, and then rather
nervously proceeded, as though talking to himself.
“Frocks! What a part they play in our lives. Carlyle was right. Sophie
was extraordinarily clever with her needle. She had a genius for
combining materials. Her theatrical experience helped her. She made the
most alluring frocks. The child adored ‘Aunt Sophie’s’ frocks. They
always looked so striking and so professional. The crisis in my life,
and which I am about to tell you of, was indeed occasioned by one of the
frocks which Sophie made for Lucy. It came about in this way.”
He paused again, and tapped the top of the table with his beautiful white
hands.
“That last year—that year when Lucy reached her tenth birthday—the
excesses in Annabel’s house reached their zenith. The place became
notorious. Annabel had taken to herself a drunken lord, Lord Starborough.
He was a dissipated young _roué_. He rather took a fancy to Lucy, and
he spoilt her in the same way that Annabel did. We heard stories of the
goings on. The child was taken to houses to dance. I believe she was even
taught to put on rouge. There was a rich family called the Arkwrights,
who also had children, and who lived a similar life. These children were
Lucy’s great friends. They vied with each other in their infantile
snobbery. The parents gave elaborate parties and tried to outshine each
other in the lavishness of their entertainment, and the overdressing of
the children. It was very, very painful. Even I, whose life was being
wrecked by Sophie’s adulation of this child, felt sorry. My heart bled
for my old friend’s daughter.
“We had a long tour that autumn, Sophie and I. We wore out in ‘The Woman
Who Failed.’ Sophie had a lead, but I was only playing the part of a
butler. It was a long and trying tour up North. The weather was very
bitter. There was a good deal of sickness, and our chief was a hard
man. Early in December Sophie caught a cold which rapidly developed
into bronchitis. She had a narrow escape. She was, however, only out of
the bill for ten days. She insisted on returning and struggling on. The
tour was to end on Christmas Eve. One day she had a letter from Lucy. I
remember the exact words to this day. ‘Dear Aunt Sophie, do make me a
lovely frock for Christmas Eve. The Arkwrights are having a lovely ball,
and I know Irene is having a gold and green, with a sparkling veil. Your
loving Lucy.’
“When Sophie got this letter she smiled. She was happy. She was always
happy when doing a service. Ah! me.... For nearly a week she thought and
dreamt about the frock she was going to make for Lucy for the Arkwrights’
party. She knew what the child wanted—a frock to outshine all the
others. Then another story reached us. I have forgotten what it was:
some distressing record of these Arkwright people. One night after the
show she sent for me. I could tell she was very agitated. She clutched
my arm, and said, ‘Old man, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to
make Lucy a frock which will outshine all the others. And it will be
just a plain white frock, with no adornment of any sort. Just think of
it,—amongst all those vulgar, overdressed children, one little girl, as
pretty as Lucy,—in plain white. And they will be bound to appreciate it.
It will tell. And perhaps she will realize—what it means. Good taste and
refinement will always tell against vulgarity.’ I applauded Sophie’s
idea, and I went with her to get the material. But she fainted in the
shop. During those last few days I began to realize that Sophie was very
ill. She was simply living on her nervous force, keeping herself going in
order to complete the tour, and to deliver Lucy’s frock in time for the
ball.
“Our last journey back was from Nottingham. We arrived in London at
five o’clock on Christmas Eve. I was in a fever of dread. I believed
that Sophie was dying. She kept swaying in the train as though she was
going to drop. Her face was deadly-white, her eyes unnaturally bright,
and her fingers were still busy on the frock. So absorbed had I been in
Sophie’s affairs, I had made no arrangements about lodgings in town.
Neither had she. But my old friend, Joe Gadgers, seeing my distress,
said, ‘Old boy, leave it to me. I know a snug little place where they’ll
take you in. I’m not stopping. I’m going straight through to Hastings.’
I thanked my old friend and embraced him. When we got to Euston, we got
Sophie into a four-wheeled cab, and Joe Gadgers came with us to arrange
the introduction. I hardly noticed where the lodgings were—somewhere in
Clapham, I think. We arrived there, and a good lady took us in without
hesitation. We put Sophie to bed. She was almost delirious, but still
the frock was not quite finished. Joe left us, and I sat by her bedside,
watching her busy fingers. I knew it was useless to protest. The clock on
the mantelpiece ticked, and outside the snow was beginning to fall.”
Colin Brancker stood up, and suddenly picked up the little white frock
from the back of the chair. He held it in his arms reverently and
tenderly. His voice was strong and resonant. He stood there, and acted
the scene vividly before our eyes.