“On the oppressor’s side was power;
And yet I knew that every wrong,
However old, however strong,
But waited God’s avenging hour.”
Whittier.
|At length the day arrived when Christine Greville was to appear. A
rehearsal had been called for eleven, and it so happened that Ralph
reached the stage door just as the “star” with her maid in attendance
drove up. He had naturally been very anxious to see her, and was pleased
that their meeting should be in bright sunlight, not in the dreary gloom
of the empty theatre. He caught a vision of fair hair beneath a broad
black straw hat, and of blush roses that harmonised well with the
beautiful but rather grave face. Then it chanced that in alighting, Miss
Greville dropped her parasol, and Ralph of course promptly stooped to
pick it up for her.
“Thank you,” she said, and her low voice thrilled him. “It was careless
of me.” As she spoke her lips smiled, but he thought the brown eyes that
for a moment met his fully were the saddest as well as the sweetest he
had ever seen.
The doorkeeper having now perceived her hastened forward, and she passed
into the building.
It was with some surprise that in glancing round she saw that Ralph also
had entered. Something in his manner had pleased her, and she presently
turned to the manager with a question.
“Who is that young fellow behind us?” she inquired, lowering her voice.
“He is a pupil of Macneillie’s,” said the manager, “and at present is
only ‘walking gentleman,’ but he has the makings of a good actor in
him.”
“Introduce him to me,” said Miss Greville.
So Ralph, to his no small delight, was presented to the great lady, who
gave him a cordial hand-shake.
“They tell me you are Hugh Macneillie’s pupil,” she said.
Ralph flushed a little.
“He has taught me more than any one else,” he replied, “and it was
through him that I got this engagement. In August I am to join his
company.”
“Ah!” she said, and Ralph fancied there was a sort of envy in her tone.
“You are very fortunate to have such a chance. He is one of a thousand.
Where did you come across him?”
“At Callander, soon after Whitsuntide. He has built a house there for
his mother.”
“She is still living? I am glad of that. She never liked me, having a
rooted aversion to the stage and all connected with it, still she was
kind to me in her way, though disapproving all the time.”
“She still disapproves of the stage,” said Ralph. “But she is kindness
itself; if you could but have seen the plight I was in when Macneillie
found me, and took me home with him!”
At that moment they were interrupted, but when the rehearsal was over,
Miss Greville again spoke to him.
“We must finish our talk,” she said. “I like to hear all about my
old friends. To-morrow I am driving with my little invalid nephew to
Roslin--come and join us, we shall have plenty of room for you.”
Ralph was delighted with the invitation; it was quite impossible to
remain a stern judge of Miss Greville now that he had seen her and
spoken with her. He had wondered how it could be that Macneillie, after
her faithlessness, still for her sake remained single. But he wondered
no longer, for it seemed to him, that quite apart from any beauty of
feature or form, she was the most inexplicably fascinating woman he had
ever met. Her every movement seemed to possess a subtle charm; there
was a refinement and delicacy about her manner, a delicious originality
about her way of talking, that made all others in comparison with her
seem tame and commonplace. There was, moreover, something that specially
appealed to Ralph, in the sadness of her face when in repose, and its
brilliant beauty when animated.
There was no rehearsal the next day, and Ralph, punctual to the minute,
presented himself at the Windsor Hotel, at the time appointed for the
drive. He was shown into a private sitting-room where a little lame boy
of about nine years old sat by the open window.
“Aunt Christine will be here directly,” he said, greeting the visitor
with great friendliness. “She was reading to me and forgot the time. Did
you ever hear her read?”
“No,” said Ralph, “what book was it?”
“Oh, only about Roslin, but it doesn’t matter what she reads, she makes
everything beautiful--it’s the way she says the words. Mother used to
read to me in Ceylon, but I never cared for it--it sounded so droney.”
“Do you come from Ceylon?”
“Yes, I came last year,” said the small invalid. “I live now with Aunt
Christine, she’s mother’s sister, and I like her next best to mother in
all the world. But Sir Roderick’s a beast. You mustn’t say I said so,
but I hate him because he always says horrid, cutting things to Auntie.
He’s to meet us here, when Auntie’s engagement is over, and we are to
go to the Highlands to stay at a big country house belonging to his
cousin.”
It was impossible to check the confidences of this small child, who,
with his light brown hair, eager blue eyes and sunburnt face, was by no
means the typical invalid of romance, but just a restless, high-spirited
boy, brimming over with life and merriment. Perhaps it was as well that
at that moment his aunt came into the room.
“So sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Denmead,” she said, greeting him in
her charming way. “I was always a sadly unpunctual mortal, but Charlie
has no doubt been entertaining you. Is the carriage at the door? Then we
will ring for one of the waiters, Charlie, to take you down.”
“He carries so badly,” said the small invalid, querulously. “I wish
Dugald were here.”
“Well, he will come with Sir Roderick on Saturday,” said the aunt. “What
does the waiter do?”
“I don’t know, but he hurts,” said Charlie, wriggling in his big chair.
“Will you let me carry you?” said Ralph.
“Yes,” said the child, with the air of a monarch bestowing a favour.
“Your hands are so nice and long, not podgy little things like the
waiter’s.”
The journey to the Stanhope having been safely accomplished, and the
child comfortably installed in the back seat, Christine gathered up the
reins, and with Ralph in the front seat beside her, drove off in the
direction of Roslin.
“There is nothing I enjoy so much as driving,” she said. “It is the one
real pleasure of my life.”
“Greater than such a triumph as you had last night,” said Ralph.
She glanced at him with a sort of surprise.
“Did you really think I cared for that?” she said.
“How young you are--how worn and _blasée_ you make me feel. I cared
nothing at all for that ovation--was thankful when the din ceased and I
could go home and be quiet. When one is miserable, there is at any rate
some comfort in being miserable alone--you can throw aside your smiling
mask, and so get something approaching to ease. It is off now, you see,
and I am treating you as if you were a trustworthy, old friend, but then
you are trustworthy, I could tell that the moment I saw you. Now tell me
candidly, did not Mrs. Macneillie tell you she detested me?”
“No, but I heard something of your first acquaintance with them long
ago,” said Ralph; and then he coloured and hesitated, feeling that he
had perhaps said too much.
And oddly enough Christine felt that he understood all, and knew that
he would soon find out how, having sacrificed everything to ambition, it
now profited her nothing.
“Auntie,” cried a small voice from the back seat.
She glanced round with love and tenderness in the face that a moment
before had been so sad.
“What is it, darling?”
“Why those two girls were so awfully delighted to see you. I saw one
catch hold of the other’s arm and say, ‘There she is!’ just as if you’d
been the Queen herself.”
She laughed, but the child’s pride in her, and perhaps the remembrance
that the public really loved her, touched her heart for a moment, and
brought back a look of youth and gladness to her wistful eyes. She
turned again to Ralph.
“Now take up our talk where it was interrupted yesterday. You were
telling me what a plight you were in when Hugh Macneillie found you. How
had you got into such difficulties? Couldn’t you get an engagement? Tell
me your story, for we two must be friends.”
She was so _simpatica_ that it was impossible to resist her, and
Ralph told her his story; all about the old days at Whinhaven, and his
father’s death; all about his adoption by Sir Matthew Mactavish and his
final dismissal; all about his search for work, his first engagement,
and his experiences at Washington’s Theatre. Christine would have blamed
him more for his folly. In relinquishing his position there had she not,
with her womanly insight, guessed all that he left untold of his feeling
for Evereld, and understood why just at Christmas time he was in such
desperate haste to get on in his profession.
With the keen interest of one who had lived the same wandering life, she
heard of the adventures of Skoots’ Company, and listened pityingly
to the account of what Ralph called his “sixpenny tramp” through the
Highlands. But when he told of the friendly shepherd who had met him in
the wilds of Gaiek, she made a sudden exclamation.
“Did you say the name was Linklater? Why then I think I can help you to
find the lost son--my husband’s man is named Dugald Linklater. He has
been with us for a year, and would scarcely have endured it so long, I
think, had he not been very fond of Charlie, and anxious too to get a
good character. He had been valet to Lord Ederline, but had left him
under a cloud, and had been out of a situation for a long while.
My husband had had a succession of men, and really took this one in
despair.”
“Then there can be no doubt about it,” said Ralph, his face lighting up.
“For I know the son was Lord Ederline’s servant. This will be good news
for the shepherd and his wife. How odd that one should come across him
in this way. The world is but a small place after all. What is he like?”
“A dark-haired Kelt, very well-mannered, and a decidedly clever fellow.
I know something of his past life, for he is going to marry my maid as
soon as they have each of them saved a little money. Dugald is steady
enough now, but he was nearly ruined by betting. We have very little
notion, I fancy, of the sort of temptation our servants are often
exposed to.”
“Will he be coming to Edinburgh? Can I see him?”
“Certainly. I expect my husband on Saturday evening. Come and call on
Sunday afternoon, and I will make some excuse to send Dugald round to
your rooms afterwards. Then you can tell him all about his home people.
But now tell me about the rest of your journey.”
Ralph told the whole tale, and there were tears in his companion’s eyes
as he described the dire struggle of the last day of his wanderings, and
his final collapse in the Pass of Leny.
“And it was there Hugh Macneillie found you?” she said tremulously.
“Yes, he is fond of going up and down that path by the river, he says
it is good practice to rehearse a part in that roar of many waters.
I dreamt I was back again in the theatre with Evereld, then I heard
footsteps, and looked up to see his face. You can’t think what a
contrast it was to the faces I had seen just before in the road, with
their cruel contemptuous stare; it was like looking up into the face of
the Christ.”
By the time they had returned from Roslin, Christine had heard all that
there was to be heard, with the exception of course of the Richmond Park
incident, and she was able fully to realise the sort of life which her
old lover was living. She did not presume to pity Hugh Macneillie. She
knew indeed that, compared with her lot, his was one to be envied; but
she felt intuitively that he would never recover from the wound she had
dealt him, and knew that she had deliberately robbed him of all that a
man most values. Her heart was very sore that night, and Ralph, now that
he knew more of her, understood with how weary an effort she laughed and
talked in the green room. He longed to be able to serve her, but there
was of course little he could do, beyond showing Charlie the sort of
kindness which a small boy best appreciates.
It was with some trepidation that, on the Sunday afternoon at the close
of her engagement, he called to take leave of her. Other visitors
were in the room. She just introduced him to Sir Roderick--a tall,
grey-haired, and decidedly good-looking man, and then left him to make
his way as usual to Charlie’s couch.
The child greeted him with delight and eagerly showed him a Kodak which
Christine had just given him, and with which he was longing to take
snap-shots at the people in Prince’s Street. “But I mustn’t do it, Sir
Roderick says, because of the fourth commandment and the Scotch being
so particular. Now do you really think that the fourth commandment was
meant to forbid Kodaks on Sunday?”
“Well no,” said Ralph smiling. “I don’t think it has much to do with
photography or with our Sunday.”
“And you see,” continued the child eagerly, “even if we are not to
do any manner of work--and of course, every one really does a good
deal--you can’t possibly call it work to take a snap-shot. Why it says,
you know, in the advertisement, that it’s no labour at all. ‘_You_ press
the button, _we_ do all the rest,’ and one wouldn’t ask them to do the
developing to-day. It’s really not so bad as Sir Roderick’s ringing the
bell as he’s doing now, for when he rings twice like that, Dugald has to
come hurrying upstairs like lightning, and I know he has had hardly any
time for his dinner.”
At that moment the servant entered in response to his master’s
peremptory summons. Ralph watched him keenly, and had no manner of
doubt that this man was the shepherd’s son, for the likeness to Angus
Linklater was marked. An expressive little bit of pantomime followed;
he could not hear the actual words spoken by Sir Roderick, but the
insufferable tone and manner of the master and the expression of
long-enduring but sorely tried patience on the face of the man, were
quite sufficient to reveal much of their characters. Soon after this the
visitors rose to go, and Sir Roderick having taken leave of them in a
pleasant and courteous fashion, turned round on his wife the moment the
door was closed, and apparently forgetting that they were not alone,
hurled at her a torrent of abuse and scathing sarcasm, which made Ralph
long to kick him down-stairs. It seemed to be about some salmon flies
which had been left behind in London, Dugald having failed to find
them in their right place, and imagining that they had been sent by his
master with the first instalment of luggage brought to Edinburgh by the
rest of the family some weeks ago.
In Lady Fenchurch’s manner of receiving her husband’s anger there was
the calmness of long use, but her colour rose a little because of the
injustice of the attack, and from a sort of shame that Ralph Denmead
should witness the scene.
“I am sorry the mistake was made, but you forget we are not alone,” she
said, seizing on a moment when for want of breath he ceased to swear.
He glanced towards the window with annoyance, and with a malice which
his hearers perfectly understood, suddenly changed his line.
“Well, if it is not your fault then it must be Dugald’s fault. The
d------d scoundrel shall leave the very day. I can get another man. I’m
sick of the sight of him. He shall see that I’m not to be imposed upon
by an idle fellow who doesn’t know his duties. He shall go, and with the
worst character I ever gave to a servant. He came to me with a bad one,
and I’ll add a telling bit to it.”
“I only wonder he has endured the situation so long.” said Christine,
stung by the unfairness of this retaliation. “But you punish yourself
more than you punish him; think what trouble you had before he came. The
best servants must now and then make mistakes.”
“The best mistresses are supposed to look to the ways of their
household,” he said maliciously, “and to have some regard for their
husbands’ comfort. D------ you, say no more. I tell you the man shall
go, and if he chooses to bring an action against me for giving him a
worse character than he brought with him, I’ll show up his whole past
life.”
With that he sauntered out of the room and Ralph, with some presence of
mind, picked up the Kodak and began to talk to Charlie about the best
position for taking a photograph of the Scott memorial just opposite.
In a few minutes Christine slowly crossed the room and sat down in a low
chair beside Charlie’s couch. Her white taper fingers played with the
child’s light hair, but she was quite silent, sitting there listlessly,
with the exhausted look which people wear when they have been battling
with a strong wind.
“And she might have been Macneillie’s wife!” thought Ralph. “How can she
endure this wretched existence!”
He was made so miserable by the sight of that worst tragedy of life--a
mistaken marriage--and by the thought of the grievous pain and sorrow
it had entailed, that he was quite unable to perceive how immensely both
Christine and Macneillie had been developed by the consequences of that
very mistake.
The woman who at seven-and-twenty had sacrificed the entire happiness
of another to her own ambition and the worldly arguments of her
parents, who had allowed the love in her heart to grow weak for lack
of nourishment, who had been capable of utterly deceiving herself and
stifling her conscience, had at four-and-thirty grown clear-eyed and
humble through much sorrow. And as for Macneillie, his years had been
spent to such good purpose that no one with deep insight could have
wished that he had married Christine Greville as she had been seven
years ago. There had, perhaps, been truth in her assertion in St.
James’s Park--she might have dragged him down to a lower level.
Undoubtedly, apart, they had each of them climbed a step higher, and she
was more worthy of him now than in the old days.
“Auntie,” said the child, breaking the silence at last, “you won’t
really let Dugald go, will you?”
She sighed.
“Not if I can help it, dear, but of course he is Sir Roderick’s servant.
Say no more about it, though. I know you are fond of him and would be
sorry to lose him, but we can’t always have what we like.”
“I should have thought you might,” said the child. “You who earn such
lots of money. _Can’t_ you have all you like?”
She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes.
“I can have you, dear, and you are my chief pleasure now,” she said
caressingly. Then, shaking off her cares for awhile, she began to talk
to Ralph, who at the end of the call felt more ready than ever to be her
devoted servant for the rest of his life.
“How Evereld will like to hear all about her,” he reflected as he went
down the stairs, “there will be no end to tell her next time we meet.”
He was unpleasantly roused from these reflections by encountering on the
staircase Sir Roderick Fenchurch, who paused to shake hands with him in
the most courteous and pleasant way imaginable, as though he had utterly
forgotten that Ralph had been a witness of the stormy scene in the
private sitting-room. As a matter of fact, it was so entirely his custom
to abuse and swear at his wife before the child, before the servants,
and before any one staying in the house, that he never for a moment
imagined that this young actor would have liked to horse-whip him for
daring so to treat a woman.
All the world seemed out of joint to Ralph as he walked away from
the hotel through the beautiful city whose noble buildings and grand
situation made such an incongruously fair setting to the sad picture he
had just looked on. He chafed bitterly against the thought of such a man
as Sir Roderick ruining the happiness of his hero Macneillie, and went
back to his rooms with a heart full of indignation to write the letter
he felt bound to send to Callander after meeting Christine Greville.
Having written sundry details as to the play they had been giving
during the week, he turned to the subject which he knew would interest
Macneillie.
“Miss Greville has been staying at the Windsor Hotel with her small
nephew, a boy of nine, to whom she is devoted. I have been there several
times, as the child took a fancy to me. He is lame, but likely they say
to recover, and it is wonderful to see her care of him. Two or three
times we went out driving together. She spoke much of you and of the old
days. She looks as young as ever on the stage, but off it her face is
careworn and awfully sad. To-day, when I went to take leave of her,
Sir Roderick Fenchurch was there. He was decent enough till the other
visitors were gone, but then fell into a rage with her about some salmon
flies that had been forgotten; he has a tongue that cuts like a sharp
razor; there’s not a pin to choose between him and the ordinary,
wife-beating ‘pleb,’--in fact, I prefer the latter, for at any rate
he can be properly punished, while this polished scoundrel with his
sarcasms and his cruelties of the tongue can’t be touched. She was very
quiet and dignified all through this scene, but when at last he went out
she looked dead tired; this sort of thing at home, and the hard work
of professional life, must be more than any one could stand for long,
I should think. An odd thing has happened. I have found the son of
Linklater, the shepherd who housed me so kindly in the Gaick Forest.
He is now Sir Roderick Fenchurch’s man, but will not be with him much
longer as the brute has given him warning--chiefly to annoy his wife I
believe. Dugald Linklater has just been in to see me, and I told him I
had been to his home, and that they were always looking for him to
come back. He promises to write to his father at once. So there is
one pleasant thing in this day, which Sir Roderick Fenchurch has
overclouded. What can be the purpose in creation of such brutes? They
are enough to have staggered even your prophet Erskine of Linlathen.”