A railway train is sometimes the scene of much misery in those who
travel by its carriages; sometimes of much mirth, most often of the
assumed indifference adopted by English people as a rule, and which,
despite the contempt with which it is spoken of by dwellers on the
Continent, is also the theme of admiration to chatterers.
Two people occupying a first class carriage, of congenial sympathies,
can often while away the tedium of several hours. If their sympathies
are opposed, they will of course entertain mutual distrust and dislike.
When they are of opposite sexes, and experienced enough to judge of
character impartially, friendships are often formed which endure for a
lifetime.
“I owe you many thanks for the pleasure you have permitted me to enjoy.
I looked forward to a wearisome journey only, but you have accepted my
society, and made me your debtor as well.”
“I could not help myself, you see,” smiling.
“But you might have frozen me up in the true British style, and
then I should have had to wait in helpless misery for the first
stopping-place. You looked very annoyed when I got in at Swindon.”
“I am sorry; but the guard was fee’d to let me be alone if possible.
Perhaps the desire of wanting to hide yourself, to get away even from
one’s best friends, is happily strange to you.”
He was silent for a little, not looking at her.
Had anyone told Muriel that she would be holding a conversation with
a perfect stranger less than an hour after she had started, she would
have repudiated the imputation with scorn.
Her nature was a very proud and reticent one, she was not given to
sudden confidences.
But there was in her as in all natural women--a hidden spring of
impulse, and on meeting a nature sympathetic with her own, she almost
unconsciously broke down her guard, with the result that she and her
companion were talking as naturally as if they had known each other for
years.
“May I hope that you will forgive my presumption in expressing
sympathy? You are so young to experience suffering.”
“I am twenty-one in years, but I feel quite old,” she said, quietly. “I
am going to London to make my fortune--or to fail.”
“You have resolution enough to succeed, but a woman has many
difficulties to encounter. And you aren’t of the calibre to be a
governess.”
“Never.” She shuddered a little. “I possess no certificates.”
“Had you a dozen, your face and air would debar you,” he said, with
quiet courtesy. “May one ask which of the professions you are wishing
to enter? I know a great many people, and perhaps you may allow me the
pleasure of being of some service to you.”
“I thank you very much, but I am thinking of the stage.”
He started, and looked at her for a moment or two, at which she
laughed, and drew farther into her corner.
“Your offer of introduction had better be withdrawn. You did not expect
to hear that.”
“You are right. I did not expect to hear that,” he repeated.
“You think that it is a pity I have chosen this--career?”
“It is fraught with many dangers, particularly for one gently born and
brought up with luxury.”
“My father and my mother were; but I lost them both in earliest
childhood, and all my life has been passed in a farmhouse amid
middle-class poverty.”
“But your friends? Pardon me if I am impertinent; I do not mean to be.”
“I know that you do not,” she said, simply. “My mother had changed her
name, so that no one knew me. The lawyer of the place was appointed
my guardian; he and his wife were very kind to me, even when--” She
paused, then went on again. “I was a great deal with them and their
family, in fact, we grew up together. They are all in the world now,
most of them married. The girls live abroad, too far for me to visit
them.”
“Have you made up your mind to become an actress?”
“It is the only thing I am fit for. I can sing a little; the organist
at Idleminster Cathedral was a good musician, and he trained my voice.
I used to sing the solo in the anthems and oratorios on special
occasions--hidden behind a screen, of course. And I have had lessons in
elocution and declamation from an actor. He knew Shakespeare and most
of the French and English dramatists by heart. I used to listen to him
for hours.”
“What was his name?”
“Gray Leighton.”
He started violently with excitement.
“Gray Leighton. You knew him well. I have been trying to find him for
four years. You are fortunate to have had lessons from one of the most
gifted actors of the day. Did you know his history?”
“No. He was crippled, and could not stand for more than a few minutes
at a time. He came to Idleminster about four years ago, and lived very
quietly, making no friends nor ever reciting in public. I got to know
him through his little boy. The child was very lovely. I used to play
with him, teach him music, and take him out. His father would always
trust Bertie with me.”
Watching her lovely face, with its look of sweet girl-woman’s sympathy
in the deep clear eyes, the man thought it was matter for small wonder
that a father had trusted her with his only child.
“Different versions of his story will reach your ears in London, so
it is as well that you should know the truth. Leighton’s professional
name was Lyon Fenton. His mother was an Italian, and he inherited her
southern nature. As an actor, it is hardly too extravagant to say
that he took the world by storm. Paris, Florence, Milan, and Vienna
idolised him. He was five-and-thirty when he came to London, and there
his slight foreign accent was the only impediment to his success. His
Romeo, Othello, Shylock, and Hamlet were the constant theme among
critics, who almost to a man praised him. But he did not like London
and left it after the second year for Italy. On the eve of his marriage
with a beautiful young actress who played Juliette to his Romeo, his
_fiancée_ eloped with his best friend.”
Muriel was listening with breathless attention, her eyes full of
indignation at his last sentence.
“What horrible treachery!”
“Unfortunately no new thing. The girl was duped into believing some
base fabrications about Fenton, and impetuously went off with the
man who considered nothing so long as he attained his object. Fenton
followed them, and a duel was fought, in which he was unfortunately
wounded in the hip. His adversary escaped, for Fenton generously fired
in the air rather than injure the man who had married the girl he
himself loved.
“Here you have the man’s character--erratic, quixotic, impetuous, but
noble to the core.
“When the girl discovered her husband’s treachery she poisoned him and
herself, leaving a letter for Fenton, entreating his forgiveness. The
child Bertie is theirs.”
Muriel drew a long breath, unconscious that tears were trembling on her
eyelashes.
“Oh!” she said with feeling, “what a tragedy, and all occasioned by a
man’s perfidy. The world has lost a great actor, whose whole life is
spoiled. Then Mr. Leighton is not Bertie’s father?”
“He has never married; the man’s nature is not one to change. He must
be about five-and-forty now. I knew all this, as I was a personal
friend of Fenton, for whom I had the greatest admiration. But when his
injury necessitated his leaving the stage, he disappeared, and none
of his former friends nor acquaintances ever heard of him. Knowing
his sensitive nature, I understood, and did not try to find his
whereabouts. From time to time he sent me tidings, but it is quite four
years since I heard anything.”
“How strange it is that we should both know him,” Muriel said,
reflectively.
“Very. I can understand your desire for the dramatic profession if you
have been under the spell of Leighton’s influence. He gave you lessons,
you said?”
“Three times a week for the last two years and a half. I thought it
wisest to prepare myself as much as possible; but I did not like to
tell Mr. Gascoigne, the lawyer, that I was thinking of the stage. He
knows that I can sing a little, and that I am wanting to come out
by-and-bye.”
“It is but a step from the vocal to the dramatic stage,” he said,
smiling a little. Then, very gravely: “I have lived so many years
longer in the world than you, that you will possibly permit me to give
you my opinion. For one absolutely alone in the world, as you are, of
gentle birth, you will be cruelly exposed to fearful dangers, from
which it will be next to impossible to escape.”
“But I am not so very young,” she said wistfully “and the Gascoignes
will never lose sight of me, I think. I am going to live in Bloomsbury,
with a very respectable woman and her husband who let lodgings, and I
should pay her to accompany me to the theatre. She used to be one of
the maids at the farm.
“What other can I do? I have about £70 a year of my own, which will
just keep me from starving; barely that in London, but I detest the
country. I cannot be a governess, nor serve in a shop. Mr. Leighton has
given me two letters of introduction to the managers of the ‘Coliseum,’
and ‘Opera Comique.’”
“So, then he has a very high opinion of your powers or you would not
have obtained those introductions.”
“To the two best theatres, owning the most critical of managers? But I
would rather be condemned by them than praised by the inferior ones.
Mr. Gascoigne has promised to come up and see me in three or four
weeks, and I am to go down there for Easter. I suppose he thinks that I
shall fail.”
They were nearing Charing Cross by this, and Muriel looked out at the
densely packed houses.
“Is this your first visit to town?”
“Yes,” she said, wondering whether he would tell her what his name was,
or whether they would never meet again.
“In a very short time we shall have arrived,” he said quickly. “You
will permit me to say that I hope we shall meet as friends? Here is my
card. Please do not look at it now--I have a reason,” meeting her look
of inquiry with a smile as he handed her the little slip of cardboard
to her. “If you will grant me permission I will send you seats for the
‘Coliseum’ to-morrow, as I--know the manager, Mr. Harbury, and so it is
nothing. You will like to see _Hamlet_?”
“Very much indeed. I have the greatest longing to see Francis Keene,
and to compare him with Mr. Leighton.”
“He will not bear the comparison,” her companion smiled. “You would
not, I suppose, entertain the idea of acting as secretary to a literary
man?” he said presently. “And possibly writing his wife’s letters
as well? I have a friend who is wanting a lady in that capacity,
and I think you would suit him admirably, that is, if I am not too
impertinent?”
“Oh! no; you are very kind to think of me. How you must dislike the
stage,” laughing a little, “to endeavour to persuade even a stranger to
leave it alone.”
He turned to her and held out his hand.
“It is because I no longer think of you as a stranger, Miss----”
“Winstanley,” putting her hand into his.
“Thank you. I will give you the address of my friend, so that if you
should care to see him you might write in a day or two; in any case,
he would be a good person for you to know. May I mention your name?
His wife gives ‘At Homes’ every Saturday, and you would meet many
professionals there. Here is the address.”
“Meanwhile I am not to know of whom I am to think as a true friend.”
“Until the day after to-morrow,” smiling; “that is if you think your
landlady will accompany you to the theatre. I imagine you see that you
have no one else at present, though that will not be for long.”
“Mrs. Armstrong will look rather strange--”
“She will not be noticed much in a box. Here we are. What a pleasant
journey it has been. Shall I get you a cab?”
And as Muriel found herself driving to Charlotte Street in a hansom
she thought that if all her days in London were only half as pleasant
as this had proved, she would never have cause to regret leaving Abbot
Mansfield.
* * * * *
The “Coliseum” was crowded as usual.
Nine months in the year the cultivated and impassioned acting of
Francis Keene drew rapt admiration from packed audiences, who listened
to every syllable that fell from his firm mouth.
As lessee, stage-manager, and principal actor, he had his hands full,
and his genius for staging a play from Shakespeare downwards was known
throughout Europe.
Critics could find no flaw in this, though they occasionally differed
about his rendering of a part.
His tall, well-proportioned figure moved easily on the stage, and
the clearly-cut features and musical, perfectly-trained voice were
especially fitted for picturesque _rôles_, although Keene was too true
an actor to adhere to them.
His Shylock was as fine as his Romeo, and King Lear as Benedict,
Othello as Iago.
Down in rural little Abbot Mansfield his name of course was known, but
as he was particularly averse to being interviewed and would not allow
his photographs to be exhibited in any shop or photographer’s window,
his face was totally unfamiliar to Muriel Winstanley.
Even Gray Leighton had no portrait amongst his large collection of
celebrated members of the profession.
Her delight at being about to witness the finest play of the greatest
dramatist the world has ever produced, and of seeing the great actor in
his favourite part--many pronouncing him to be absolutely unrivalled
in it--was so intense that she was strung up to the greatest pitch of
excitement.
Mrs. Armstrong had been with her husband in the pit she told Muriel,
and in her own language, “he looked that beautiful, miss, but so sad as
made me quite miserable, I did want him to ’ave ’ad the poor young lady
all comf’table at the end, and she so pretty, but it goes contrary all
through.”
Muriel’s black evening gown would not attract much, if any, attention
she hoped in their box on the second tier, and Mrs. Armstrong was,
as she expressed it frequently, that flustered at being for the first
time in such an exalted position, that she kept well backward from
observation in the intervals between the acts.
It was a grand performance.
Keene’s theory was that _Hamlet_ was a man about thirty years of age.
His eccentricity and madness merely assumed of course, and in the scene
with Ophelia, his
“Get thee to a nunnery, go,”
was uttered with regretful longing rather than peremptory harshness,
great love for her was revealed beneath the stern language, and his
last wild embrace was full of a man’s passionate agony in parting from
all that made life worth living to him.
The girl sat as one entranced, drinking in every word, not letting a
single gesture escape her keen scrutiny.
Her eyes flashed responsively, her breath came in gasps, she was deaf
and blind to her surroundings.
Once or twice Keene himself glanced up at the beautiful sympathetic
face, and his own eyes glowed with quiet triumph.