A BUNCH OF VIOLETS.
He had spent the greater part of the day looking for her, his
disappointment growing hour by hour as he grew convinced that he should
not find her; that he had lost her forever. If he had only known her
name, he could have inquired in the town; but he could scarcely go
about asking people if they had happened to see the loveliest girl on
earth, with dark hair and wonderful blue eyes; besides, there was, to
him, something almost sacred in his meeting with her, and he shrank
from putting commonplace questions about her.
By luncheon time he was, I am sorry to say, in anything but a good
temper. Fortunately the marquis rarely put in an appearance at that
meal, or, in all probability, there would have occurred an open quarrel
between him and his nephew, and Lord Cecil would have fled the house.
Lady Grace, too, did not appear; she had gone to pay a visit to a
friend in the neighborhood, and Lord Cecil, therefore, ate his cutlet
and drank his Chateau Margaux in solitude.
He was not at all sorry for this, for, to tell the truth, Lady Grace’s
candor, though extremely original, had very much embarrassed him, and
Lord Cecil was too little used to embarrassment to find it agreeable.
She was very beautiful, very charming, and he admired her very much,
but still he felt her absence a relief; he was free to muse over the
unknown, who had eluded his search all the morning.
Suddenly, as he finished his last glass of claret, he remembered the
play-bill he had picked up on the terrace, and it occurred to him that
here was the means of escaping dinner at the Towers; for this night, at
all events, he could get away from the marquis’ sneers and sarcasm.
“I shall not be home to dinner,” he said to the stately butler. “I
think I’ll go to the theatre.”
“Yes, my lord,” responded the butler, displaying not a sign of the
disgust which the announcement caused him. To think that any one--a
viscount, especially--should prefer going to the play to dining!
“What sort of a theatre is it?” asked Lord Cecil, carelessly, and for
the sake of talking.
“Very good, my lord, I believe,” was the solemn reply. “I’ve heard that
it’s almost as good as a London theatre, and that there is an excellent
company there. They play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to-night. That is,” he made
haste to add, “I heard some of the under-servants talking about it; I
never go to the theatre myself, my lord. I will send a small dinner, of
three or four courses, at an early hour in the breakfast room, for you,
my lord.”
“All right,” said Lord Cecil, carelessly. “That will give you a lot of
trouble, will it not? I can get a chop or something at the hotel in the
town, can’t I?”
“Oh, no, my lord; it will be no trouble,” the butler made haste to
reply; “the marquis would be much annoyed if your lordship were to be
inconvenienced.”
Lord Cecil nodded; he could scarcely suppress a smile at the butler’s
crediting the marquis with such hospitable sentiments.
“All right,” he said, again; “I’ll have it at half-past six.”
“Yes, my lord,” assented the butler, with a faint sigh; it seemed to
him a dreadful sacrifice; and Lord Cecil soon afterward took up his hat
and went out.
He made his way to the meadows, and stood looking down on the brook and
at the spot where Polly had landed him so nearly upon his head; and
at the bank where the fair unknown, whose face and voice haunted him
perpetually, had sat, and a vague hope dwelt in his breast that she
might, perhaps, revisit the scene as he was doing.
But an hour passed and she did not come, and he strode off, moodily,
full of disappointment and half angry with himself.
“I am a fool!” he thought. “She has forgotten me by this time. Why
should she come back here? If I were to meet her, what could I say to
her? She’d very likely think me an impertinent snob if I did more than
lift my hat. I couldn’t very well tell her that I have scarcely thought
of anything but her since we parted yesterday and to say anything less
to her would seem to me to be saying nothing at all!”
Thus musing, he went into the town, his stalwart figure, with its
military carriage, his handsome, patrician face, and his Poole-made
clothes, which he wore as if they had grown on him, causing no little
sensation amongst the inhabitants.
But though he stared into the shop windows and looked at every girl who
came in sight, he did not see the girl of whom he was thinking; and it
was nearly seven before he came back to the “small dinner of three or
four courses” which the considerate butler had served for him in the
breakfast room.
He was half inclined to give up the idea of the theatre, and if it had
not been for his dread of the marquis’ society he would have done so.
As it was, he ate his dinner slowly, and enjoyed it, although he was in
love; and then, and not till then, he fully made up his mind to go.
“I’ll have a brougham round in ten minutes, my lord,” said the butler,
but Lord Cecil declined it.
“I’d rather walk,” he said. “I like a stroll after dinner.”
The butler--more in sorrow than in anger--asked what time he should
send the carriage, but Lord Cecil declined a conveyance for any part of
the evening.
“I’ll walk back,” he said; “I rather like a stroll after the theatre,”
and the butler, with a sigh of resignation, gave him up as a bad job.
As he walked along the lanes, fragrant with the breath of spring, a
thought--a hope--flashed through his mind that he might, perhaps, see
the girl in the theatre. He never asked himself what his object in
seeking her might be; men seldom ask themselves such questions. Lord
Cecil was not an altogether bad character. He was not a modern Lovelace
in pursuit of his prey, by any means. He was not, in fact, a Lovelace
at all. He had lived in a fast set--had been the star and centre of the
crack regiment in which he had held a commission--had gone through the
ordeal of London life as completely as most young men of title; but he
had come out of it, if he could be said to have come out of it, not
altogether unscathed, but not very badly burned or smirched.
The Nevilles had always been wild, and Lord Cecil had not been any
tamer than his ancestors; but in all his wildness he had drawn the
line. For women in general--for the sex, as a whole--he possessed a
respect which had sometimes amused his less scrupulous companions.
He had overspent his allowance; lost large sums at baccarat and
kindred games, turned night into day, risked his money and his neck
at steeplechases, and generally, as his friends put it, played Old
Harry, but no woman had, as yet, any indictment against him. He could
truthfully declare, with the Frenchman, on his deathbed: “No woman can
come to my grave and say that for want of heart I broke hers.”
To women he was always frank and gentle, and the women of his set
adored him. If he had broken no hearts in the sterner sense of the
word, he had all unwittingly caused many to ache, and many a belle of
the London season had “given herself away” to Cissy Neville, as his
intimate friends called him.
And now the marquis had intimated that he must marry Lady Grace. Lord
Cecil thought of last night’s after-dinner conversation as he strolled
along, tried to think of it gravely and seriously, but somehow he
could not; all his thoughts flew, whether he would or would not,
to the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl he had so nearly ridden over in
the meadows. After all, he was not obliged to marry Lady Grace. The
marquis could not compel him, and as for the money---- He shrugged his
shoulders, and, having reached the theatre, put the subject from him.
It must be confessed that he followed the box-keeper to the private box
he had taken with rather doubtful anticipations.
“Romeo and Juliet” in a country theatre is not always an entrancing
spectacle, and Lord Cecil only wondered how long he should stand it.
He was rather surprised at the air of elegance perceptible, and still
more surprised at the crowded state of the house, and he congratulated
himself, as he looked round at the well-dressed and aristocratic
audience, that he had come in evening dress, for he had at one time
thought of retaining his morning clothes.
He settled himself in his box--he had arrived during the
_entr’acte_--and looked at the programme.
“Juliet--Doris Marlowe.”
The name struck him at once as a pretty one, and he did not trouble
to read the rest of the cast. Then the curtain drew up on the balcony
scene, and, leaning forward carelessly, he looked at the stage and saw,
there in the balcony--the girl for whom he had been seeking, the girl
with the dark hair and blue eyes!
For a moment he thought he was dreaming, and the color rushed to his
face. Then he looked again, “all his soul in his eyes,” and saw that he
was not dreaming, but that it was in solemn truth she, herself.
If he had had any doubts her voice would have dispelled them. He would
have remembered and recognized those musical tones if he had heard them
fifty years hence instead of as many hours.
He was amazed, bewildered, engrossed, but not too engrossed to be aware
that the “Juliet” he looked upon, Miss Doris Marlowe, was a great
actress.
If she moved the rest of the vast audience, imagine how she moved him
who had been thinking of her and longing to see her!
His heart beat wildly, the color came and went in his face; he was lost
to everything but that bright, celestial, and yet purely human, being
on the stage, then rendering the exquisite lines of her part; and it
was not until he caught one or two curious glances directed at him that
he drew back a little and tried to look simply interested like the rest.
The drop scene went down on the act, and he, to use his own phrase,
“pulled himself together.”
He got up and went out into the lobby, and made his way to the
refreshment bar; and when he had obtained his brandy and soda he
lingered over it and got in conversation with the attendant.
“This Miss Doris Marlowe is a great success?” he said, trying to speak
indifferently.
“Oh, yes, she is, indeed,” said the girl, with a long sigh; she had
dreamed of being an actress herself, poor thing; “I just stole out and
looked in at the last act. A success?--I should think so! I call it
magnificent. I never saw anything like it; did you, sir?”
“No, never,” responded Lord Cecil. “She is a London actress, I suppose?
And yet I don’t remember seeing her in London,” he added.
“No, I don’t think she’s ever played in London, but always in the
provinces. This is the first time she’s ever done anything like this.
She’s played here in small parts; this is her first appearance in
Shakespeare.”
“Who is she?” he asked, endeavoring to make his question commonplace,
yet feeling that he was hanging on her reply.
The girl paused in the wiping of a glass and looked puzzled.
“Who is she? I don’t know, sir. I question whether anybody knows
rightly, excepting Mr. Jeffrey.”
“Mr. Jeffrey? Who’s he?” asked Lord Cecil, with a sharp pang. Could
this man be her husband?
“Oh, the old gentleman who goes about with her. He ain’t her father,
but a kind of guardian. He was an actor once. It was he, so they say,
who taught her to act. Anyhow, she treats him just like a father.”
Lord Cecil drew a breath of relief.
“They are always together; they go from theatre to theatre. He is a
very extraordinary old gentleman, and very trying at rehearsals, so
I’ve heard the actors say; but he knows all about it, quite as well as
the stage manager.”
At this moment the two London critics came up for a drink, and one of
them bowed to Lord Cecil.
“Quite an eventful evening, my lord,” he said, with the easy respect of
a fellow-Londoner.
“Yes,” said Lord Cecil. “It is a great success, I suppose. Do you know
who Miss Doris Marlowe is?”
The critic shrugged his shoulders.
“Haven’t the least idea. Quite a _stella incognita_, but she will not
be so after to-night. We shall see her in Drury Lane before many months
are passed.”
“Who was that?” his friend, the other critic, asked.
“Lord Cecil Neville,” was the reply. “The heir to the Marquisate of
Stoyle. A splendid fellow, and, strange to say, not a bit spoiled,
though all the women make a dead set at him.”
“The Marquis of Stoyle,” said the other thoughtfully. “That old
villain? And this is his nephew. He is immensely good-looking.”
“Oh, a splendid fellow. Did you ever hear that story about him----?”
and they moved away.
Lord Cecil drank half his soda and brandy, and then went back to his
box.
Meanwhile, a thrill of excitement seemed to run through those engaged
behind the scenes. A theatre is rendered famous by its actors, and it
seemed that the Theatre Royal, Barton, was going to be made celebrated
as the place of the first appearance of a great actress.
“If she can only carry us through to the end!” muttered Jeffrey, as he
paced to and fro, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes flashing
fire.
“Oh, she’ll do it!” said the manager, who happened to hear him. “Don’t
you be afraid, Mr. Jeffrey; that young lady is a genius! I knew it from
the first. She will carry it through to the very last. And about the
engagement now? You make your own terms, and I’ll agree to them. You’ll
find me straight and honest----”
But Jeffrey paced on. He was an old theatrical hand, and he knew, full
well, that a Juliet may score in the balcony scene and yet fail in the
later and more important ones.
But there did not seem much fear of failure with Doris.
Off the stage, and in her dressing room, she was quiet and subdued,
but the moment she got on the boards her eyes flew to the centre box,
and she seemed to draw inspiration from the handsome face that leaned
forward in rapt, almost devout, attention.
The play proceeded. The great scene, in which Romeo takes leave of
Juliet, his newly-made wife, went with a rush. The audience cheered
until it was hoarse. Thrice the young actress was called to the front,
and everybody who had brought a bouquet flung it at her feet.
Jeffrey, pale and statuesque, implored Doris to be calm.
“It is not all over yet!” he said, warningly. “There is the last scene.
Remember what I taught you! It is the last scene in which a Juliet,
who is a Juliet, declares herself! Do not let their applause make you
forget what is due to your art! I would rather that they remained mute
and silent, Doris.”
And for answer she simply smiled. She did not tell him that while she
could see a certain face in the centre box all would be well.
The pause before the last scene arrived. The whole house was talking
in excited whispers. To the Barton folk, ardent theatre-goers as they
were, nothing like this had befallen them. A twitter of excitement ran
through the house, and amongst the crowd that thronged the lobbies Lord
Cecil walked about, as excited as the rest.
Suddenly, as if he had been stricken by an idea, he turned up the
collar of his coat and made his way through the press to the streets,
and looked about him eagerly.
Some women selling oranges came hurrying up to him, and amongst them a
woman with a basket of violets.
He bought the whole contents of her basket, and bade her tie them
together; then, with the flowers in his hand, he went back to the
theatre; but, instead of going to his box, he made his way to the
stalls and stood close to the orchestra.
The last scene came on. Again it is unnecessary to describe it; the
grim and solemn vault, the beautiful figure of the girl in the death
throes, the terrible agony of Romeo, were all here, rendered real and
lifelike by the genius of the actors.
Spellbound, the house watched and listened in profound silence.
Listened to the passionate, despairing plaint of Romeo, and the deeper
agony of Juliet, who awakes to find her lover dead.
Never, perhaps, since the play was played, was actress more touching,
more tear-compelling than Doris Marlowe that night at the Theatre
Royal, Barton; and as her last words died away in solemn silence, a
great sob seemed to rise from the crowded house.
Then the sob gave place to a thunder of applause. Once more the sober
audience seemed possessed by a spirit of delirium; men sprang to their
feet and waved their hats, women rose and waved their handkerchiefs
with which they had wiped away their tears; and cries of “Juliet!
Juliet!” resounded through the theatre.
A pause, and presently Romeo appeared, leading Juliet by the hand.
The audience stormed and cheered as one man, and those who had not
already thrown their bouquets to her threw them now.
She was pale to the lips, and the blue eyes looked almost black as she
bent them on the cheering crowd, and like a queen bowed beneath the
tribute of their devotion, she bent her girlish head low.
She had nearly crossed the stage, had reached the spot exactly opposite
that on which Lord Cecil stood. Then, and not till then, he raised his
bunch of violets and tossed them at her feet.
She paused a moment in her triumphant progress, for it was nothing
less, then stooped and picked up the rough-and-ready bouquet; Romeo’s
arms were quite full.
For an instant her eyes rested on Lord Cecil’s face, then, as if with
an involuntary movement, she raised the bunch of violets to her lips
and passed off, the side wings engulfing her.
Three times more they called her, as if they could not let her go from
their sight, and thrice she came before them, and, modestly, girlishly,
bowed her acknowledgments.
Then--tired, hot and thirsty--the crowd began to disperse.
Lord Cecil Neville alone remained on the spot from which he had thrown
his bouquet. He could scarcely believe that it was over, until the
attendants began to cover up the seats with their calico wrappings,
and, taking the hint, he made his way out.
The groups of people he passed through were talking about her triumph.
He caught a word here and there, and, all unconsciously, found himself
at the stage door. At least, he thought, he should get a glimpse of her
as she drove away from the theatre.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes the greatest excitement prevailed. There
had never been a Juliet like her, they were declaring; and they
prophesied a success in London which should even eclipse that of Barton!
And Doris, looking pale, stood smiling dreamily through it all. Even
while Jeffrey paced to and fro in her dressing-room, too excited for
speech, she remained calm and serene, wrapt in a kind of spiritual veil.
Managers, actors, thronged round her with congratulations; even the old
dresser, declared, with tears, that “nothing had been seen like it.”
At last, the porter announced that Miss Marlowe’s fly was waiting, and
Jeffrey took her away from the excited crowd.
“Draw your cloak well round your throat,” he said, as anxiously as if
she were so fragile that a breath of wind would sweep her away. “Give
me those violets to hold for you,” he said.
She drew her hand back, almost with a gesture of dread, and a dash of
color came flying into her pale face.
“No, no--I can manage, thanks,” she said, quickly. “How sweet they
smell, do they not?” and she held them up to him for a second.
“Yes,” he said, absently. “Were they thrown with the rest?”
“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.
“Some one of the poor people in the pit, I daresay,” he said; “a
graceful and spontaneous tribute, worth, I was going to say, all the
rest of them, beautiful and costly though some of the bouquets are. But
I daresay you don’t agree with me?” and he smiled.
“But I do,” she said, averting her eyes. “Yes, I think them worth all
the rest!”
They had traversed the long passage by this time, and reached the
fly. Jeffrey put her in carefully, and was himself following, when he
stopped suddenly, frowning and biting his lips.
“Doris,” he said, “you leave all to me? You leave all to my judgment,
as hitherto? You are a famous woman now, or will be to-morrow, and may
like to be independent. Would you rather wait till to-morrow and make
your own arrangements with the manager, or shall I, as of old----”
“Jeffrey!” she broke in, with a reproachful look in her eyes.
“Very well,” he said. “Brown has made me a very large offer for a
month. I put him off just now, but I think I will go back and accept
for you. I shall not be many minutes.”
Doris leaned back, and, closing her eyes, pressed the violets against
her cheek. She could see the handsome face all aglow with excitement
and admiration as he raised his right arm and flung the flowers; she
could see it at that moment, and the mental vision shut out all the
rest of that eventful night.
Suddenly she heard her name spoken beside the carriage window, and,
leaning forward, she saw, in real earnest, the face which had been her
inspiration. It was Lord Cecil Neville’s.
“Miss Marlowe,” he said, learning forward and speaking quietly,
pleadingly. “Don’t be angry! Pray forgive me! I--I could not pass on
without saying a word--one word of thanks.”
“Thanks?” she murmured.
Her eyes were lifted for a moment to his ardent face, then dropped to
the violets and rested there.
“Yes. I was in the theatre,” he said. “You did not see me, of course,
but I was there, and--I can’t tell you how we all felt, how we all
feel. It was superb; it was--but there, I can only thank you.”
“You have done that already,” she said, with a smile, as she raised the
violets.
Lord Cecil Neville blushed. I am afraid it would be rather difficult to
get credit for this statement in certain quarters in London.
“I couldn’t get any better ones,” he said, apologetically.
“No,” she said; “I think you could not! Yes, I saw you in the theatre,”
she added, as if she had been thinking of his first sentence.
“Were--were you surprised, or did you know?” and she glanced at him
with a half curious smile.
“Surprised!” he said. “I could scarcely believe my senses! I had no
idea, until I saw you on the stage, that you, who were so good to me
yesterday, were a great actress.”
“I am not,” she said, in a low voice. “I am only a very little one.
To-night I succeeded, another night I might fail----” a faint shadow
came on her face, as he looked puzzled; then she smiled, as she broke
off, to add: “I have something of yours----”
“Yes, my heart!” was his mental comment, but he said aloud: “Of mine?”
“Yes,” she said. “A handkerchief, I haven’t it here,” and she smiled
again; then, suddenly, her face grew crimson, for she remembered that
she had left it in the bosom of her dress. “I--I will send it to you if
you tell me where.”
“Let me call for it,” he said, eagerly.
Doris’ brows came together, and she shook her head gently. She knew
that Jeffrey’s welcome to a stranger would be a rough one.
“I will send it,” she said. “I think I know--the Towers, you said, did
you not?”
A sudden inspiration seized him, and, bending forward, he said, in a
low voice:
“If you should walk in the fields to-morrow morning--you may, you
know!--lay it on the bank where you sat yesterday. Will you do this,
Miss Marlowe? I will fetch it in the afternoon.”
The beautiful eyes dwelt upon his face with a deep gravity for a
moment, as if she were wondering what his object could be in making the
request; then she said, gently:
“Yes, why should I not?” as she held out her hand; “good-night.”
“Thanks, thanks!” he said, in his deep, musical voice. “Good-night! You
should be happy to-night, for you have made so many people miserably
so! I shall dream of Juliet all night!”
She let her hand rest in his for a moment, then drew it away and he was
gone.
But at that moment it chanced that a handsomely-appointed carriage
came round the bend of the road, and a lady, with softly-shimmering
hair and darkly-brilliant eyes, who was leaning back in a corner of
it, suddenly caught sight of the fly and the stalwart figure standing
beside it.
She bent forward eagerly, and her keen eyes took in, as the carriage
rolled past, not only the expression of Cecil Neville’s face, but the
face of the girl in the fly.
For an instant the warm blood rushed to Lady Grace’s face; then, as she
sank back again into her corner, she laughed, a laugh of cold, insolent
contempt.
“Some actress or shop-girl,” she murmured. Then her expression changed,
and she bit her lip thoughtfully. “And yet he looked terribly in
earnest!” she added. “Shall I take him up?” and her hand went out to
the check-string; then she let it fall, and the carriage go on its
way. “No; I think I’ll keep my little discovery to myself--it may be
useful--and let you walk home, Lord Cecil!”