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BERENICE
BY
E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
AUTHOR OF "THE LOST AMBASSADOR," "THE MISSIONER,"
"THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY
AND
HOWARD SOMERVILLE
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1911
_Copyright, 1907, 1911,_
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published, January, 1911
Second Printing
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
THE NOVELS OF
E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
A Prince of Sinners A Lost Leader
Anna the Adventuress The Great Secret
The Master Mummer The Avenger
A Maker of History As a Man Lives
Mysterious Mr. Sabin The Missioner
The Yellow Crayon The Governors
The Betrayal The Man and His
The Traitors Kingdom
Enoch Strone A Millionaire of Yesterday
A Sleeping Memory The Long Arm of
The Malefactor Mannister
A Daughter of the Jeanne of the Marshes
Marionis The Illustrious Prince
The Mystery of Mr. The Lost Ambassador
Bernard Brown Berenice
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
Her dark, wet eyes seemed touched with smouldering
fire _Frontispiece_
"What I have seen," Matravers said gravely, "I
do not like" _Page_ 15
But nothing in her words or in his alluded to it " 25
Her companion, who was intent upon the wine list,
noticed nothing " 31
"Friends," she repeated, with a certain wistfulness
in her tone " 65
At half-past four his servant brought in a small
tea equipage " 83
With an old-fashioned courtesy ... he offered
her his arm " 105
There seemed to him something almost unearthly
about this woman with her soft grey gown
and marble face " 111
Matravers was suddenly conscious of an odd sense
of disturbance " 135
"I can do it," she assured him. "I believe you
doubt my ability, but you need not" " 143
"Do you know that man is driving me slowly
mad?" " 149
Matravers found himself wondering at this new
and very natural note of domesticity in her " 169
She did not answer him. But indeed there was
no need " 173
"I am compelled to tell you, and these gentlemen,
that your statement is a lie!" " 191
"You mean this!" he cried thickly. "Say it
again--quick!" " 211
Berenice was lying in a crumpled heap on the low
couch " 233
But there was no answer--there never could be
any answer " 259
BERENICE
CHAPTER I
"You may not care for the play," Ellison said eagerly. "You are of the
old world, and Isteinism to you will simply spell chaos and vulgarity.
But the woman! well, you will see her! I don't want to prejudice you
by praises which you would certainly think extravagant! I will say
nothing."
Matravers smiled gravely as he took his seat in the box and looked out
with some wonder at the ill-lit, half-empty theatre.
"I am afraid," he said, "that I am very much out of place here, yet do
not imagine that I bring with me any personal bias whatever. I know
nothing of the play, and Isteinism is merely a phrase to me. To-night
I have no individuality. I am a critic."
"So much depends," Ellison remarked, "upon the point of view. I am
afraid that you are the last man in the world to have any sympathy
with the decadent."
"I do not properly understand the use of the word 'decadent,'"
Matravers said. "But you need not be alarmed as to my attitude.
Whatever my own gods may be, I am no slave to them. Isteinism has its
devotees, and whatever has had humanity and force enough in it to
attract a following must at least demand a respectful attention from
the Press. And to-night I am the Press!"
"I am sorry," Ellison remarked, glancing out into the gloomy well of
the theatre with an impatient frown, "that there is so bad a house
to-night. It is depressing to play seriously to a handful of people!"
"It will not affect my judgment," Matravers said.
"It will affect her acting, though," Ellison replied gloomily. "There
are times when, even to us who know her strength, and are partial to
her, she appears to act with difficulty,--to be encumbered with all
the diffidence of the amateur. For a whole scene she will be little
better than a stick. The change, when it comes, is like a sudden fire
from Heaven. Something flashes into her face, she becomes inspired,
she holds us breathless, hanging upon every word; it is then one
realizes that she is a genius."
"Let us hope," Matravers said, "that some such moment may visit her
to-night. One needs some compensation for a dinnerless evening, and
such surroundings as these!"
He turned from the contemplation of the dreary, half-empty auditorium
with a faint shudder. The theatre was an ancient and unpopular one.
The hall-mark of failure and poverty was set alike upon the tawdry and
faded hangings, the dust-eaten decorations and the rows of bare seats.
It was a relief when the feeble overture came to an end, and the
curtain was rung up. He settled himself down at once to a careful
appreciation of the performance.
Matravers was not in any sense of the word a dramatic critic. He was a
man of letters; amongst the elect he was reckoned a master in his art.
He occupied a singular, in many respects a unique, position. But in
matters dramatic, he confessed to an ignorance which was strictly
actual and in no way assumed. His presence at the New Theatre on that
night, which was to become for him a very memorable one, was purely a
matter of chance and good nature. The greatest of London dailies had
decided to grant a passing notice to the extraordinary series of
plays, which in flightier journals had provoked something between the
blankest wonderment and the most boisterous ridicule. Their critic was
ill--Matravers, who had at first laughed at the idea, had consented
after much pressure to take his place. He felt himself from the first
confronted with a difficult task, yet he entered upon it with a
certain grave seriousness, characteristic of the man, anxious to
arrive at and to comprehend the true meaning of what in its first
crude presentation to his senses seemed wholly devoid of anything
pertaining to art.
The first act was almost over before the heroine of the play, and the
actress concerning whose merits there was already some difference of
opinion, appeared. A little burst of applause, half-hearted from the
house generally, enthusiastic from a few, greeted her entrance.
Ellison, watching his companion's face closely, was gratified to find
a distinct change there. In Matravers' altered expression was
something more than the transitory sensation of pleasure, called up by
the unexpected appearance of a very beautiful woman. The whole
impassiveness of that calm, almost marble-still face, with its set,
cold lips, and slightly wearied eyes, had suddenly disappeared, and
what Ellison had hoped for had arrived. Matravers was, without doubt,
interested.
[Illustration: "What I have seen," Matravers said gravely, "I do not
like"]
Yet the woman, whose appearance had caused a certain thrill to quiver
through the house, and whose coming had certainly been an event to
Matravers, did absolutely nothing for the remainder of that dreary
first act to redeem the forlorn play, or to justify her own peculiar
reputation. She acted languidly, her enunciation was imperfect, her
gestures were forced and inapt. When the curtain went down upon the
first act, Matravers was looking grave. Ellison was obviously uneasy.
"Berenice," he muttered, "is not herself to-night. She will improve.
You must suspend your judgment."
Matravers fingered his programme nervously.
"You are interested in this production, Ellison," he said, "and I
should be sorry to write anything likely to do it harm. I think it
would be better if I went away now. I cannot be blamed if I decline to
give an opinion on anything which I have only partially seen."
Ellison shook his head.
"No, I'll chance it," he said. "Don't go. You haven't seen Berenice at
her best yet. You have not seen her at all, in fact."
"What I have seen," Matravers said gravely, "I do not like."
"At least," Ellison protested, "she is beautiful."
"According to what canons of beauty, I wonder?" Matravers remarked. "I
hold myself a very poor judge of woman's looks, but I can at least
recognize the classical and Renaissance standards. The beauty which
this woman possesses, if any, is of the decadent order. I do not
recognize it. I cannot appreciate it!"
Ellison laughed softly. He had a marvellous belief in this woman and
in her power of attracting.
"You are not a woman's man, Matravers, or you would know that her
beauty is not a matter of curves and colouring! You cannot judge her
as a piece of statuary. All your remarks you would retract if you
talked with her for five minutes. I am not sure," he continued, "that
I dare not warrant you to retract them before this evening is over. At
least, I ask you to stay. I will run my risk of your pulverization."
The curtain rang up again, the play proceeded. But not the same
play--at least, so it seemed to Matravers--not the same play, surely
not the same woman! A situation improbable enough, but dramatic, had
occurred at the very beginning of the second act. She had risen to the
opportunity, triumphed over it, electrified her audience, delighted
Ellison, moved Matravers to silent wonder. Her personality seemed to
have dilated with the flash of genius which Matravers himself had been
amongst the first to recognize. The strange pallor of her face seemed
no longer the legacy of ill-health; her eyes, wonderfully soft and
dark, were lit now with all manner of strange fires. She carried
herself with supreme grace; there was not the faintest suspicion of
staginess in any one of her movements. And more wonderful than
anything to Matravers, himself a delighted worshipper of the beautiful
in all human sounds, was that marvellously sweet voice, so low and yet
so clear, expressing with perfect art the highest and most hallowed
emotions, with the least amount of actual sound. She seemed to pour
out the vial of her wrath, her outraged womanhood in tones raised
little above a whisper, and the man who fronted her seemed turned into
the actual semblance of an ashamed and unclean thing. Matravers made
no secret now of his interest. He had drawn his chair to the front of
the box, and the footlights fell full upon his pale, studious face
turned with grave and absolute attention upon the little drama working
itself out upon the stage. Ellison in the midst of his jubilation
found time to notice what to him seemed a somewhat singular incident.
In crossing the stage her eyes had for a moment met Matravers' earnest
gaze, and Ellison could almost have declared that a faint, welcoming
light flashed for a moment from the woman to the man. Yet he was sure
that the two were strangers. They had never met--her very name had
been unknown to him. It must have been his fancy.
The curtain fell upon the second and final act amidst as much applause
as the sparsely filled theatre could offer; but mingled with it,
almost as the last words of her final speech had left her lips, came a
curious hoarse cry from somewhere in the cheaper seats near the back
of the house. It was heard very distinctly in every part; it rang out
upon the deep quivering stillness which reigns for a second between
the end of a play which has left the audience spellbound, and the
burst of applause which is its first reawakening instinct. It was
drowned in less than a moment, yet many people turned their startled
heads towards the rows of back seats. Matravers, one of the first to
hear it, was one of the most interested--perhaps because his sensitive
ears had recognized in it that peculiar inflection, the true ring of
earnestness. For it was essentially a human cry, a cry of sorrow, a
strange note charged in its very hoarseness and spontaneity with an
unutterable pathos. It was as though it had been actually drawn from
the heart to the lips, and long after the house had become deserted,
Matravers stood there, his hands resting upon the edge of the box, and
his dark face turned steadfastly to that far-away corner, where it
seemed to him that he could see a solitary, human figure, sitting with
bowed head amongst the wilderness of empty seats.
Ellison touched him upon the elbow.
"You must come with me and be presented to Berenice," he said.
Matravers shook his head.
"Please excuse me," he said; "I would really rather not."
Ellison held out a crumpled half-sheet of notepaper.
"This has just been brought in to me," he said.
Matravers read the single line, hastily written, and in pencil:--
"Bring your friend to me.--B."
"It will scarcely take us a moment," Ellison continued. "Don't stop to
put on your coat; we are the last in the theatre now."
Matravers, whose will was usually a very dominant one, found himself
calmly obeying his companion. Following Ellison, he was bustled down a
long, narrow passage, across a bare wilderness of boards and odd
pieces of scenery, to the door of a room immediately behind the stage.
As Ellison raised his fingers to knock, it was opened from the inside,
and Berenice came out wrapped from head to foot in a black satin coat,
and with a piece of white lace twisted around her hair. She stopped
when she saw the two men, and held out her hand to Ellison, who
immediately introduced Matravers.
Again Ellison fancied that in her greeting of him there were some
traces of a former knowledge. But nothing in her words or in his
alluded to it.
"I am very much honoured," Matravers said simply. "I am a rare
attendant at the theatre, and your performance gave me great
pleasure."
"I am very glad," she answered. "Do you know that you made me
wretchedly nervous? I was told just as I was going on that you had
come to smash us all to atoms in that terrible _Day_."
"I came as a critic," he answered, "but I am a very incompetent one.
Perhaps you will appreciate my ignorance more when I tell you that
this is my first visit behind the scenes of a theatre."
[Illustration: But nothing in her words or in his alluded to it]
She laughed softly, and they looked around together at the dimly
burning gas-lights, the creaking scenery being drawn back from the
stage, the woman with a brush and mop sweeping, and at that dismal
perspective of holland-shrouded auditorium beyond, now quite deserted.
"At least," she said, "your impressions cannot be mixed ones. It is
hideous here."
He did not contradict her; and they both ignored Ellison's murmured
compliment.
"It is very draughty," he remarked, "and you seem cold; we must not
keep you here. May we--can I," he added, glancing down the stone
passage, "show you to your carriage?"
She laughed softly.
"You may come with me," she said, "but our exit is like a rabbit
burrow; we must go in single file, and almost on hands and knees."
She led the way, and they followed her into the street. A small
brougham was waiting at the door, and her maid was standing by it.
The commissionaire stood away, and Matravers closed the carriage door
upon them. Her white, ungloved hand, loaded--overloaded it seemed to
him--with rings, stole through the window, and he held it for a moment
in his. He felt somehow that he was expected to say something. She was
looking at him very intently. There was some powder on her cheeks,
which he noted with an instinctive thrill of aversion.
"Shall I tell him home?" he asked.
"If you please," she answered.
"Madam!" her maid interposed.
"Home, please," Berenice said calmly. "Good-by, Mr. Matravers."
"Good night."
The carriage rolled away. At the corner of the street Berenice pulled
the check-string. "The Milan Restaurant," she told the man briefly.
Matravers and Ellison lit their cigarettes and strolled away on foot.
At the corner of the street Ellison had an inspiration.
"Let us," he said, "have some supper somewhere."
Matravers shook his head.
"I really have a great deal of work to do," he said, "and I must write
this notice for the _Day_. I think that I will go straight home."
Ellison thrust his arm through his companion's, and called a hansom.
"It will only take us half an hour," he declared, "and we will go to
one of the fashionable places. You will be amused! Come! It all
enters, you know, into your revised scheme of life--the attainment of
a fuller and more catholic knowledge of your fellow-creatures. We will
see our fellow-creatures _en fete_."
Matravers suffered himself to be persuaded. They drove to a restaurant
close at hand, and stood for a moment at the entrance looking for
seats. The room was crowded.
"I will go," Ellison said, "and find the director. He knows me well,
and he will find me a table."
[Illustration: Her companion, who was intent upon the wine list,
noticed nothing]
He elbowed his way up to the further end of the apartment. Matravers
remained a somewhat conspicuous figure in the doorway looking from one
to another of the little parties with a smile, half amused, half
interested. Suddenly his face became grave,--his heart gave an
unaccustomed leap! He stood quite still, his eyes fixed upon the bent
head and white shoulders of a woman only a few yards away from him.
Almost at the same moment Berenice looked up and their eyes met. The
colour left her cheeks,--she was ghastly pale! A sentence which she
had just begun died away upon her lips; her companion, who was intent
upon the wine list, noticed nothing. She made a movement as though to
rise. Simultaneously Matravers turned upon his heel and left the room.
Ellison came hurrying back in a few moments and looked in vain for his
companion. As he stood there watching the throng of people, Berenice
called him to her.
"Your friend," she said, "has gone away. He stood for a moment in the
doorway like Banquo's ghost, and then he disappeared."
Ellison looked vaguely bewildered.
"Matravers is an odd sort," he remarked. "I suppose it is one of the
penalties of genius to be compelled to do eccentric things. I must
have my supper alone."
"Or with us," she said. "You know Mr. Thorndyke, don't you? There is
plenty of room here."