“No action whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record, written by fingers ghostly,
As a blessing or a curse, and mostly
In the greater weakness or greater strength
Of the acts that follow it, till at length
The wrongs of ages are redressed,
And the justice of God made manifest.”
The Golden Legend.
|Ralph’s anxieties came to an end while the Company were fulfilling
their engagement at Nottingham. For one never to be forgotten day there
arrived a letter from Mrs. Hereford, enclosing a long letter on foreign
paper from Evereld. The sheet bore no address and she did not mention
the name of the friends who were taking care of her, but she told him
all about their kindness, and that Bride O’Ryan was with her, that she
was quite safe from molestation and in the depths of the country far
away among mountains and woods, where neither Sir Matthew nor Bruce
Wylie could trouble her peace.
Later on came news from Mrs. Hereford that Evereld’s affairs had
been put into the hands of Mr. Marriott, and that Mr. Hereford was in
consultation with the old lawyer and would do everything he possibly
could: offering, if it were thought well, to become Evereld’s guardian
and trustee should the Lord Chancellor decide to deprive Sir Matthew of
the Trusteeship. After that for some time came no news at all.
At last, growing anxious, Ralph made a hurried expedition to town
late one Saturday night, and sought out his old friend Mr. Marriott on
Sunday.
He could not however get anything very definite out of him. Mr. Marriott
was always reserved and cautious, but he set him quite at rest as far as
Evereld was concerned.
“She is perfectly safe and Sir Matthew can’t touch her, for she is now a
ward of Court,” he said reassuringly. “I am not yet at liberty to speak
to you as to details. I think however your old prejudice against Sir
Matthew Mactavish was not without foundation. Unless I am much mistaken,
he will soon be unmasked. Now to turn to quite another matter;--I
understand from my client Lady Fenchurch, that you were present at
Edinburgh last summer and met Sir Roderick. Tell me as carefully as you
can all that passed while you were present.”
Ralph related all that he could remember.
“We have exactly the same sort of evidence from many other witnesses of
similar scenes,” said the lawyer. “It will not be worth while calling
you to appear at the trial. If you had witnessed any sort of violence,
physical violence, we should subpoena you at once.”
“When does the case come on?” said Ralph.
“Possibly next week, but there
is always great uncertainty as to the exact date.”
Ralph’s thoughts naturally turned to Macneillie and he remembered his
words about suspense being tolerable because it was always so largely
mixed with hope.
The lawyer, however, who knew nothing of his reasons for taking interest
in the Fenchurch case, fancied the shadow on his face was caused by
anxiety for Evereld Ewart, and began to talk in a kindly way of her
future.
“Of course,” he said, “I can understand that under the circumstances it
is hard for you not to be allowed even to know where Miss Ewart is. But
it is safer that you should only communicate with her through Mr. and
Mrs. Hereford. Who can tell that Sir Matthew may not pounce down on you
again as he did at Rilchester. You know that she is safe and well and
for the present that must suffice you. I have good reason to believe
that the world will soon see Sir Matthew Mactavish in his true colours,
and what will happen then no one can foretell. There are storms ahead,
but I think they are storms which will at any rate clear your way.”
After this enigmatical speech Ralph went back to his work, somewhat
perplexed, yet on the whole relieved and hopeful. There followed ten
uneventful days and then one morning at Brighton, when he came down to
breakfast and opened the paper, the first thing that caught his eye was
a brief paragraph just before the leading article.
“In the Divorce Division yesterday the President and a Common Jury had
before them the case of Fenchurch v. Fenchurch and Mackay. The adultery
was not denied but the evidence failed to show legal cruelty on the part
of the defendant. His Lordship was therefore unable to grant a decree
nisi, but ordered a judicial separation with costs, and directed the
amount to be paid into Court in a fortnight. Lady Fenchurch is well
known to the public under her stage name of Miss Christine Greville.”
“She is not yet free from that brute then,” thought Ralph, a sick
feeling of disappointment stealing over him as he realised how this news
would darken his friend’s sky, how it would for ever cheat him of his
heart’s desire. Hastily turning the paper to read the longer report, he
found a whole column with the sensational heading, “Theatrical Divorce
Suit,” and feeling how it would all grate upon Macneillie, longed to
keep the newspaper from him. “He shall at any rate have his breakfast
in peace,” he reflected, and crushing the paper in his hands he flung it
into the fire.
The blaze had only just died down when Macneillie entered. He seemed
in unusually good spirits; they had had good houses for three nights,
moreover the weather was bright and clear, and the autumn sunshine of
the south coast seemed doubly delightful after a gloomy tour in the
midlands. Ralph thought he had never seen him look so young and buoyant
and hopeful as just at that moment.
“Nothing like Brighton air for making a man hungry,” said Macneillie
devouring a plateful of porridge and helping himself to eggs and bacon.
“Have they brought round the letters from the theatre?”
Ralph handed him a budget, hoping that it would occupy him and make him
forget the paper! But there were no letters of importance and Macneillie
suddenly remembering that there might by chance be news of the Fenchurch
case, which he was aware would probably come on during November, looked
eagerly round the table.
“No newspaper?” he said. “How’s that? The Smith boy must have played us
false.”
“I will run out and get one,” said Ralph. “Will you have any of the
local ones, too?”
“Yes, let us see what they have to say about ‘The Winter’s Tale,’” said
Macneillie.
Ralph disappeared and Macneillie having finished his breakfast rang for
the maid to clear.
“Have you taken our newspaper to any of the other lodgers by mistake?”
he asked, beginning to feel impatient for it.
“No, sir,” said the maid. “It’s in here, at least--” looking round in
surprise, “I know it was in here. Mr. Denmead must have taken it away. I
saw him open it when I brought in the coffee.”
Then in a flash it dawned upon Macneillie that Ralph had made away with
the paper because it contained bad news.
“The boy couldn’t stand seeing me come upon it suddenly,” he thought to
himself. “He wanted me to breakfast first. No one but Ralph would have
thought of that! It is the worst news. I must be ready to bear it.”
He stood by the window looking out at the great expanse of sea with its
blue surface crisply ruffled by the fresh wind. Away to the left the
graceful outline of the chain pier seemed to speak of old fashioned
Brighton, and it took him back to a time at least seventeen years ago
in the very earliest days of his betrothal to Christine. How vividly the
very tiniest details of the past came back to him. It had been in the
days of aestheticism and high art colouring, a style which had suited
Christine to perfection. He could remember, too, how at one of the
little old-fashioned stalls he had bought her a dirk-shaped Scotch shawl
brooch with a cairngorm stone in it; they had been far too poor in those
days to dream of diamonds.
“She was only a child of seventeen,” he thought to himself, “younger
than Evereld Ewart; and I was not perhaps so very much older than that
young fellow over the way. Yes, I was though--it is Ralph! How slowly he
is walking. I believe the boy cares for me, he hates to be the bearer of
ill news.”
Ralph’s usually cheerful face was curiously over-cast; he put down the
papers, muttered something about “going to Brill’s for a swim,” and made
for the door.
“Rehearsal at eleven, don’t forget,” said Macneillie, taking up the
London paper with a steady hand.
He was glad to be alone, and in the midst of his grievous pain he felt
grateful to Ralph for that little touch of considerateness which had
spared him to some extent,--that strategem which had deferred his evil
day. For as he had said his suspense had been largely mixed with hope,
he had tried to face the other alternative but his very sense of justice
had inclined him to be hopeful. It surely could not be that after these
long years of suffering there should be no release? Max Hereford’s
words had chilled him for the time, but spite of them the hope had
predominated. Now hope lay dead,--remorselessly slain by this unequal
English law, which as a Scotsman seemed to him so extraordinary so
intolerably unfair.
When a law is manifestly unjust,--when it flatly contradicts the
foundation truth of Christianity that in Christ all are equal, that
there is neither bond nor free, male nor female--there comes to every
one of strong passions the temptation to break the law. It is such a
hard thing to wait patiently for the slow tedious process of reform,
that the headstrong and the impetuous and the self-indulgent, and all
who have not learnt a stern self-control, will often take the law into
their own hands and defy the world. Macneillie reaped now the benefit of
long years of self-repression and suffering. He saw very clearly that it
is only justifiable to break the law of the land when it interferes with
a higher duty; that to break even a bad law because it interfered with
one’s cherished desire could never be right; that to admit such a course
to be right must sap the very foundations of society.
He saw it all plainly enough, yet, being human, could not at once shake
himself free from the haunting consciousness that it lay in his power
to choose present happiness, that in such a case the world would quickly
condone the offence, and--greatest temptation of all--that he might
shield Christine from the difficulties and dangers that were but too
likely to assail one in her position.
Fortunately he had but little spare time on his hands, it was already a
quarter to eleven and the mere habit of rigorous punctuality came to his
help.
He walked down the parade, and the fresh air and the salt sea breeze
invigorated him, his mind went back, sadly enough, yet with greater
safety, from the future to the past, he seemed to be young once more
and crossing this very Steyne with a tall golden-haired girl, who still
retained something of the simplicity and innocence which she had brought
with her from her quiet school in the country. She was beside him as he
passed through Castle Square, beside him as he walked up North Street,
beside him as he went along the Colonnade and entered the stage door of
the very same theatre where they had acted together all those years ago.
There was a rehearsal of “Romeo and Juliet” chiefly for the sake of
Ralph, who was the understudy for Romeo and was obliged to play the part
that evening owing to the illness of the Juvenile Lead--John Carrington.
Though of course perfect in his words, he needed a good deal of
instruction, and Macneillie who always found him a pupil after his own
heart, receptive, quick, eager to learn, and with that touch of genius
which is as rare as it is delightful, forgot for a time all his troubles
in the pleasure of teaching. And if, after the night’s performance was
over and his satisfaction with his pupil’s success had had time to pass
into the background, the old temptation came back once more, it came
back with lessened power and found a stronger man to grapple with it.
No word passed between master and pupil as to the bad news the morning
had brought, except that as Ralph, somewhat sooner than usual, bade the
Manager goodnight, Macneillie with his most kindly look said to him:--
“Your Romeo is the best thing you have done yet. The saying goes, you
know, that no man has the power to act Romeo till he looks too old for
the part; you have done something towards falsifying that axiom, and
have cheered a dark day for me.”
“I owe everything to you, Governor,” said Ralph gripping his hand;
and as he turned away he felt that he would have given up all and been
content to play walking gentleman for the rest of his days if only
Macneillie could be spared this grievous trial that had come upon him.
He prayed for a reform of the law as he had never prayed in his life.
Left alone, Macneillie paced silently up and down the room, deep in
thought. At length in the small hours of the night, he took pen and
paper and wrote the following letter:--
“My dear Christine:
“It is impossible after our talk last summer in Scotland, to let such a
time as this pass by in silence. You well know that I love you, nor
will I pretend ignorance of your love for me. Let us be honest and face
facts;--truth makes even what we are called on to bear more endurable.
It is because I love and honour you that I write to bid you farewell.
Let us at least be law-abiding citizens, even though the law be a
one-sided, unjust law.
“I believe from my heart, that Christ, though disallowing divorce, with
its natural sequence another marriage, for all the trivial reasons which
the Jews were in the habit of putting forward, distinctly permitted
them where a marriage had been broken by the faithlessness of a guilty
partner. And assuredly He never set up one standard of morality for men
and another for women; His words must apply equally to both.
“Doubtless some day the gross injustice of the existing English law will
be removed, and as in Scotland there will be one and the same law for
men and women in this matter. For that day I wait and hope. For many
reasons I do not ask now to see you. Is it not better that we should not
meet? I am convinced that it is safer and wiser that we should--both for
our own sakes and for the sake of the profession--keep apart. Many may
think this mere old-fashioned prejudice, but I believe I should serve
you better at a distance than by dangling about you and so giving a
handle to those scandal-mongers who love nothing so dearly as to make
free with the name of some well-known actress.
“I dare not write more, save just to beg and pray that if there
should ever be a time when you are in any danger or difficulty, and
others--better fitted to serve because more indifferent--are not at
hand, you will then turn to me for help.
“God bless you. Good bye.
“Yours ever,
“Hugh Macneillie.”
The letter reached Christine at Monkton Verney and the sight of it made
the colour rush to her pale face. What she hoped, what she feared she
scarcely knew herself, her heart was all in tumult. She read it in
feverish haste, then again slowly and carefully, and yet a third time
through fast gathering tears. How strangely it contrasted with the
so-called love letters she had received from some men! And yet how
infinitely more it moved her by its calmness and self-restraint!
“I was unworthy of you in the past,” she thought. “But God helping me I
will try to be more worthy now.”
And without further delay,--dreading perhaps to put off the difficult
task--she wrote him a letter which had in it the fervour of a new and
strong resolve, and the beauty of a perfectly sincere response of soul
to soul.
After that she plunged straight into business, and about noon sought
out Miss Claremont and, walking with her in the quiet grounds near the
ruined priory, told her of the plans she had made for the future.
“I have as you know made over the management of the theatre to Barry
Sterne. He and his wife have been very good to me for many years, and it
is better now that I should not again be burdened with all the cares of
a Manageress. He proposes that I should take the part of the heroine in
the new play that he is bringing out in January and I have just written
to him accepting the proposal.”
“Are you fit yet for work?” asked Miss Claremont looking a little
doubtfully into her companion’s face; it was curiously beautiful this
morning, but not with the beauty of physical strength. Indeed Christine
had never looked capable of bearing any very great strain and the last
few days had taxed her powers to the utmost.
“I must get to work,” she said quietly. “There is no safety in idleness.
How odd it seems that a physical break-down comes generally through
overwork, and a moral break-down through too little work.”
“When must you leave us?” asked Miss Claremont.
“I think I had better go next week, and if you will keep Charlie a few
days longer I can settle into that flat in Victoria Street which I have
the refusal of. I shall manage very well there with my maid, and with
Dugald to wait on Charlie; it will be necessary to live a quiet life for
many reasons.”
Miss Claremont assented, nor was it possible to raise any objection
to her companion’s plans. But she could not help secretly wondering
whether, with all her good intentions, Christine was strong enough
either in health or in character to live a life so beset with
difficulties.