“So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness
Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain,
And his beneath drank in the bright caress
As thirstily as would a parched plain,
That long hath watched the showers of sloping grey
For ever, ever, falling far away.”--Lowell.
|After Ralph had left, a more sombre hue stole over Evereld’s glowing
sky. She began to think a little of the future, of the countless
partings in store for them, and the more she thought the more silent and
grave she became.
“You look tired, my dear,” said Mrs. Hereford as they walked back from
church. “Come in with me and rest. The others have set their hearts on a
stroll by the sea, but you had a long walk this afternoon.”
“Yes,” said Evereld, sitting down beside her hostess near the open
window and looking out into the calm summer evening. “I wanted to tell
you about our walk. And if ever you have time Ralph would so much like
to talk to you too.”
The words were said with an effort and Mrs. Hereford glanced at the
sweet girlish face with its downcast eyes and understood in a moment
what was coming.
“You two are very old friends,” she said. “Bride told me that you had
been brought up together and that a very nice German lady had done a
great deal for you.”
“Yes,” said Evereld, falling naturally into all the old memories. “I
don’t know what we should have done without her. You see the Mactavishs
never really cared for us. But she cared, and dear old Bridget and
Geraghty the butler; and Ralph was just like my brother until the day
Sir Matthew turned him out of the house. He failed you know in the exam,
for the Indian Civil, and they had a quarrel and Ralph had to go. It
was only in that dreadful time after he had gone that I understood how I
cared for him.”
“And had you not met him at all since then?” asked Mrs. Hereford.
“Yes, we met once by accident in the Christmas holidays and then I
thought, I fancied, that he cared a little. But he said nothing till
to-day, and now we understand each other, only Ralph will not let me
bind myself in any way; he had not meant to speak yet at all, he said,
but oh, I am so glad he didn’t wait.”
Mrs. Hereford took the girl’s hand in hers and stroked it silently.
Her thoughts had flown back to a day in her own life when just such an
understanding had been arrived at, she had been about the same age as
Evereld, and looking back now she felt sad as she realised how
much inevitable pain and suspense lay before this girl, what dire
possibilities of misunderstanding, what weary hours of separation.
“That is just what I should have said,” she answered after that brief
pause. “But now, understanding all it involves, I confess I don’t want
Mollie and Bride to be in a hurry to follow your example. I want them to
have five or six years of free happy girlhood before all the deeper joys
and cares begin. Of course we can’t choose, and for you and Mr. Denmead,
who have no real home, no near relations, very likely it is the best and
happiest way. I am glad you told me about it, and you must promise
if ever you need anyone to help you, to come to me. I suppose you can
hardly make a confidant of Lady Mactavish?”
“No,” said Evereld, half laughing, half crying. “They are all so horrid
about Ralph. When I am one and twenty and we can really be engaged of
course they must all know, but to tell them this could do no good and
might do great harm.”
“Sir Matthew did not insist then on your altogether breaking with your
friend when he was sent away?”
“No,” said Evereld, “I don’t think anyone troubled to think about it
until last Christmas. Then when I met him and told Sir Matthew about it,
he did say something of the sort, but I told him I couldn’t leave off
being Ralph’s friend, and he was very kind and did not forbid my writing
to him in the holidays. If Ralph succeeds on the stage I believe Sir
Matthew will be rather proud of him after all. He does so like people
who succeed. I suppose we may still write to each other now and then.”
“Oh, I think as long as there is nothing underhand about it you may
continue to write,” said Mrs. Hereford. “You will write as friends, not
as lovers; you must deny yourselves that luxury until you come of age.
I am not preaching what I haven’t practised, dear, for we had four years
of that sort of thing before I was actually engaged. There are great
drawbacks but I think some advantages.”
“Surely many advantages,” said Evereld. “And I am much more alone in the
world than you were. You had brothers and sisters.”
“Yes, and a profession which was very absorbing,” said Mrs. Hereford,
suppressing a sigh. “Oh, I do think it is a very great gain for you,
only I want you to realise that it is the sort of life that needs no end
of patience and courage and strength. There will be days when all will
not be so bright as you fancy. But I won’t croak any more. You are
likely to be much better at waiting than I was, for impulsiveness is the
bane of all Irish folk.”
“And you will talk to Ralph?” pleaded Evereld, knowing how much he would
value the sympathy and counsel of such a woman, and secretly longing
that Mrs. Hereford should know him and appreciate him better.
“Yes, to be sure,” said her hostess, with the smile that had won so many
hearts. “We will collogue together after breakfast.”
She was true to her promise and while Macneillie was amusing everyone
with stories of various _contretemps_ of stage life, she contrived to
carry off Ralph to see the invalided patriot; after which they had
a cosy little talk in the drawing-room with no one but Baby Donal, a
sturdy little man of three, to keep them company.
“Evereld has told me about yesterday afternoon,” said Mrs. Hereford, who
was quite well aware that she must plunge boldly into the very heart of
the matter and not wait for him to beat about the bush.
“I should never have spoken so soon if it had not been for the thought
of her Swiss tour with that knave and his solicitor,” said Ralph hotly.
“Forgive me for the expression, but it is not too strong for him.”
Mrs. Hereford laughed a little.
“You needn’t measure your words so carefully; a Kelt is accustomed to
much more fiery language than that. And you really think Sir Matthew
Mactavish a knave? I confess he is a man I intuitively dislike, but I
thought he was a great philanthropist and very much respected.”
“So he is,” said Ralph, his face hardening, “but some day the world
will find him out. Some day when he has ruined and murdered others as he
ruined and murdered my father. What a mistake it is only to hang people
who are taken red-handed! They should rather hang the speculators whose
victims may be reckoned by hundreds. There are far more cruel ways of
murdering people than by poison, or knives, or guns.”
She had watched him closely as he spoke and saw that his wrath and
indignation were genuine and deep. A great pity filled her heart, and
she understood how intolerable it must seem to Ralph that the girl
he loved should still be in the power of this despicable sham
philanthropist.
“I think you were quite right to speak to Evereld,” she said warmly.
“And now that you have spoken, the worst of your anxiety ought to be
over. The knowledge that you belong to each other will be strength to
both of you.”
All the bitterness died out of his face at her words, leaving it once
more frank and boyish, and ingenuous as it was meant to be. The rasping
sense of injustice had done some damage to his character, but the
goodness of Macneillie and the gift of Evereld’s love had already done
much to obliterate the traces of the evil influence. His heart went out
now to the brave noble-minded woman who so readily gave him her thought
and sympathy.
“Evereld told me you would understand,” he said gratefully, “I don’t
think I could have kept silent, but of course evil-minded people are
sure to say that it is only her fortune I want.”
“Evil be to him that evil thinks,” said Mrs. Hereford. “No one who
had talked with you for half an hour even could believe you a fortune
hunter. And when you have lived as many years as I have done in public
life, you will learn to trouble yourself very little indeed as to what
people say. We shall never be true to ourselves, or of much use to any
good cause, till the fear of public opinion has died in us.”
“Does living in public life teach one that? I should have thought it
would have taught one to howl with the wolves, to be always on the
look-out for ways of pleasing the public and stroking people the right
way, to dread nothing so much as alienating or offending your audience.”
“Many people would agree with that view, but I believe it is false for
all that. Why meddle with what does not concern you? Your work is to
live your own life, to be just and independent, to be true to your own
conscience, and to be a hard-working actor. You have nothing to do with
the result on other people, you can never tell what it may be; and even
if you pare down your actions till you fancy they will please everyone
you will end by forfeiting the esteem of all. It’s like the old fable of
the man who first rode his ass to market and finally carried it.”
“Certainly Macneillie’s life is ruled in the way you approve,” said
Ralph thoughtfully. “There never was a manager who so sturdily refused
to bow down to the public. He will not humour the depraved taste for
morbid and dubious plays which has taken possession of the country
of late, but insists on giving only what is really good. The result,
however, is that while a manager who runs one of these risky modern
plays makes a fortune, Macneillie merely earns a competence.”
“That may be,” said Mrs. Hereford, “but the result also is that the one
Manager is a curse to his country and the other a Godsend. Your habit of
mind isn’t so commercial that you measure success by the solid gold it
brings in.”
“I hope not,” said Ralph laughing. “But to one who knows how hard and
wearing and anxious the life of such a man is bound to be, want of great
visible success seems rather rough. However, to return to the point we
started from, it is a great comfort to know that you don’t think I was
wrong to speak to Evereld yesterday. And a greater comfort still to know
that she has you for a friend; one never feels safe somehow with a man
like Sir Matthew Mactavish, but if she may turn to you in any difficulty
I shall not worry half so much.”
“I will promise you to be to her just what I would try to be to one
of my own sisters,” said Mrs. Hereford. “And you, too, must promise to
treat us all as friends. Come in whenever you like, this week; you must
make the most of your chance of seeing Evereld.”
Macneillie in the meantime had been learning to know Ralph’s future
wife. He had been a little surprised at first to find that she was a
decidedly reserved girl, not strikingly pretty, rather short, and wholly
unlike the being he would have expected Ralph to fall in love with. This
was, however, merely his first impression, he had not been two minutes
in the room with her before he observed how well her head was set on
her shoulders; how in spite of her want of height there was that
indescribable touch of dignity in her carriage which he had vainly tried
to impart to many a novice on the stage. Then she spoke to him during a
pause in the general talk, most of her talking he discovered was done
to fill up gaps, and when she spoke a sort of transformation scene took
place. Her face suddenly became lovely, the china-blue eyes seemed to
radiate light and sweetness, the colour deepened in the softly-rounded
cheeks and the most charming dimple made itself seen.
“We are all so much looking forward to ‘The Winter’s Tale’ to night,”
she said.
“You have not seen Ralph act before?” asked Macneillie, knowing quite
well what the answer would be but wishing for another variety of the
transformation scene.
The blue eyes seemed to deepen in colour and an exquisite tenderness
softened the whole face.
“Never on the stage,” she said. “Of course I have seen him just as an
amateur. Do you think he is getting on well?”
Now this last question was one to enthrall the heart of any Manager.
Actually this girl did not leap to the conclusion that her lover was by
nature a full-fledged actor, but asked if he was getting on.
“She is the most sensible little woman I ever came across,” thought
Macneillie to himself. “In such a case even Mrs. Siddons might have
qualified her advice as to marriage.”
By and bye Evereld found herself keeping guard over Baby Donal in the
drawing-room and talking to Ralph, while Macneillie and Max Hereford
adjourned to the smoking-room. The two lovers were serenely happy and
saw the future opening before them in all the gorgeous hues of dawn.
But Macneillie received a stab from his unconscious companion which
was destined to rankle in his heart. They had been speaking of Monkton
Verney and not unnaturally Max Hereford, knowing that Christine Greville
was a friend but knowing nothing of the true state of affairs, referred
to her case.
“I only hope she will be able to get her divorce,” he said casually,
“but of course there is a doubt.”
“A doubt?” said Macneillie frowning. “Why Sir Roderick never attempted
to deny his guilt.”
“Oh, yes, there is no doubt as to his guilt, and had she been married in
Scotland all would have been well, for Scotland has one and the same law
for men and women. Unluckily she was married in England.”
“I don’t understand you. I know little of the law,” said Macneillie,
“but certainly in my country there would be no difficulty when it was a
clear case of the breach of the seventh commandment.”
“There would be no difficulty in England for a man,” said Max Hereford,
“but a woman cannot get a divorce here unless she can prove cruelty
as well as adultery on the part of her husband. It is only one of the
instances of our scandalous habit of setting up different standards of
morality for men and women.”
“How much longer are the English going to put up with such a grave
injustice?” said Macneillie.
“Not long, I fancy, when once they realise it. But at present half of
them are ignorant of the true state of things, while the evil-minded
are of course unwilling to rob themselves of what they regard as a
prerogative. The law as it stands is not only unjust to women but to all
moral men. How easily one can picture a case where, because divorce was
not granted, it was impossible for the innocent woman to marry a man who
loved her.”
Macneillie assented quietly. No one could have guessed how terribly this
suggestion moved him, how clearly he saw in his own mind the picture
of an innocent woman and an upright law-abiding man with their lives
wrecked by this double-standard of morality.
“I think,” he said presently, “that at any rate in Miss Greville’s case
there will be little difficulty in proving Sir Roderick’s cruelty.”
“I hope it may be so,” said Max Hereford, “but I understand from
her solicitor that different views prevail as to what does exactly
constitute legal cruelty. The case is not likely to come on yet for many
months and the suspense must be terribly trying for her, far worse of
course than for anyone in private life.”
“Her decision to stay at Monkton Verney till the case is over seems to
me wise,” said Macneillie. “Your Cave of Adullam is a great Godsend. I
wonder what made you think of such a plan.”
“Oh, the ‘cave’ was my wife’s doing,” said Max Hereford. “Miss Claremont
is delighted to have her old friend Miss Greville there, and since Barry
Sterne has undertaken the entire management of her theatre there is no
need for her to be troubled in any way about outside things. Why Flo,
Kittie,” he exclaimed breaking off as two pretty little girls darted
into the room, their sunburnt faces aglow with eagerness.
“Daddy, there’s a man with the beautifullest voice you ever heard and we
want sixpence for him,” they cried in a breath, “do come and hear him.”
And by sheer force of determination the two small elves dragged their
father from the depths of his easy chair.
“The tyranny of daughters is a thing you have yet to learn, Mr.
Macneillie,” he said with a smile, as with one elf on his shoulder and
the other impetuously pulling at his hand he sauntered out to the front
door.
Macneillie flung the end of his cigarette into the grate and began to
pace the room restlessly. The words so unconsciously spoken seemed
to put the finishing touch to his pain, the fatherly pride of his
companion’s face haunted him and filled him with envy, and over and
over in his mind he revolved the torturing doubt which had first been
suggested to him that morning. Would the law free Christine?
Meanwhile through the open door there was wafted to him only too
distinctly the familiar song of the street tenor:
“Love once again: Meet me once again:
Old love is waking, shall it wake in vain?”
Such a life as Macneillie’s may have two very different effects on the
man called upon to endure it. Either it will harden and embitter him,
and he will gradually become a mere cynical observer of others; or it
will deepen and widen his whole character, and he will become more and
more tender towards the lives of other people. Lynx-eyed to detect and
prompt to check as far as possible all that he deemed undesirable or in
the least risky among the members of his company, he was nevertheless
always kind-hearted with regard to any genuine attachment. He knew
Ralph now very intimately and was quite well aware that his feeling
for Evereld was no mere passing fancy. In his own grievous anxiety and
suspense there was comfort in throwing himself into the affairs of his
protégé, and a growing desire to see this love story happily worked
out took possession of him. He had, moreover, taken a great fancy to
Evereld, and began now to consider things from her point of view, trying
to picture to himself just how she would probably feel with regard to
Ralph’s profession. She had never seen him on the stage, had never
in fact seen him act at all since the time she had been of an age to
understand what love meant. He wondered how the play that night would
strike her. Would Florizel’s lovemaking possibly jar a little upon her
as she sat there watching it from her place in the stalls? Or would that
gracious womanly wisdom which he had noticed in her save her from all
petty jealousies, all thoughts unworthy of a great art? He thought it
would. Still a girl of nineteen in love with a man like Ralph Denmead
might perchance be excused if she were not entirely able to forget
herself and her own story in the contemplation of Shakspere’s play.
“I know what I will do,” he thought to himself. “No one who understands
the training, the learning, the drilling, the matter of fact element of
sheer hard work that makes up the life of an actor is likely to think
stage lovemaking a dangerous pastime. I will persuade Mrs. Hereford to
bring her this morning to rehearsal.”