"Terrible gales," said my father, rustling the newspaper comfortably
in his easy chair. "Great disasters among the shipping. I shouldn't
wonder if the yacht young what's-his-name went out in were come to
grief."
I grew pale, and thin, and dispirited. I knew the ladies of our
company made nasty remarks about me. One day I overheard two of them
talking.
"She never was much of an actress, and now she merely walks through
her part. They never had any feeling for art, not one of those
Gascoigne girls."
No feeling for art! What a low, mean, spiteful, wicked thing to say.
And the worst of it was that it was so true.
I resolved at once that I would do something desperate. The last
piece brought out at our theatre had been a "frost." It had dragged
along until the advertisements were able to announce "Fifteenth Night
of the Great Realistic Drama." And various scathing paragraphs from
the papers were pruned down and weeded till they seemed unstinted
praise. Thus: "It was not the fault of the management that the new
play was so far from being a triumphant success," was cut down to one
modest sentence, "A triumphant success." "A few enthusiastic cheers
from personal friends alone broke the ominous silence when the
curtain fell," became briefly "Enthusiastic cheers."
But nobody was deceived. One week the public were informed that they
could book their seats a month in advance; the next that the
successful drama had to be withdrawn at the height of its popularity,
owing to other arrangements. What the other arrangements were to be
our manager was at his wit's end to decide. There only wanted three
weeks to the close of the season. Fired with a wild ambition born of
suspense and disappointment, I suggested that Shakespeare should fill
the breach. "Romeo and Juliet," with me, Sybil Gascoigne, as the
heroine.
"Pshaw!" said our good-humoured manager, "you do not know what you
are talking about. Juliet! You have not the depth, the temperament,
the experience for a Juliet. She had more knowledge of life at
thirteen than most of our English maids have at thirty. To represent
Juliet correctly an actress must have the face and figure of a young
girl, with the heart and mind of a woman, and of a woman who has
suffered."
"And have I not suffered? Do you think because you see me tripping
through some foolish, insipid _rôle_ that I am capable of nothing
better? Give me a chance and see what I can do."
"Oh! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,"
I began, and declaimed the speech with such despairing vigour that
our manager was impressed.
Well, the end of it was that he yielded to my suggestion.
It seemed a prosperous time to float a new Juliet. At a
neighbouring theatre a lovely foreign actress was playing the part
nightly to crowded houses. We might get some of the overflow, or the
public would come for the sake of comparing native with imported
talent. Oh! the faces of my traducers, who had said, "Those
Gascoigne girls have no feeling for art," when it was known that they
were out of the bill, and that Sybil Gascoigne was to play
Shakespeare. I absolutely forgot Jack for one moment. But the next,
my grief, my desolation, were present with me with more acuteness
than ever. And I was glad that it was so. Such agony as I was
enduring would surely make me play Juliet as it had never been played
before.
At rehearsals I could see I created a sensation. I felt that I was
grand in my hapless love, my desperate grief. I should make myself a
name. If Jack were dead or had forsaken me, my art should be all in
all.
The morning before the all important evening dawned, I had lain awake
nearly an hour, as my custom was of nights how, thinking of Jack,
wondering if ever woman had so much cause to grieve as I. Then I
rose, practised taking the friar's potion, and throwing myself upon
the bed, until my mother came up and told me to go to sleep, or my
eyes would be red and hollow in the morning. But I told my mother
that hollow eyes and pale cheeks were necessary to me now--that my
career depended upon the depths of my despair.
"To-morrow, mother, let no one disturb me on any account. Keep away
letters, newspapers, everything. Tomorrow I am Juliet or nothing."
My mother promised, and I got some hours of undisturbed slumber.
Rehearsal was over--the last rehearsal. I had gone through my part
thinking of my woes. I had swallowed the draught as if it had indeed
been a potion to put me out of all remembrance of my misery. I had
snatched the dagger and stabbed myself with great satisfaction, and I
felt I should at least have the comfort of confounding my enemies and
triumphing over them.
I was passing Charing Cross Station, delayed by the streams of
vehicles issuing forth, when in a hansom at a little distance I saw a
form--a face--which made me start and tremble, and turn hot and cold,
and red and white, all at the same time. It could not be Jack. It
ought not, must not, should not be Jack. Had I not to act in
suffering and despair to-night? Well, even if he had returned in
safety from his cruise it was without a thought of me in his heart.
He was engaged--married--for aught I knew. It was possible, nay,
certain, that I should never see him again.
And yet I ran all the way home. And yet I told the servant
breathlessly--"If any visitors call I do not wish to be disturbed."
And yet I made my mother repeat the promise she had given me the
previous night. Then I flew to my den at the top of the house; bolted
myself in, and set a chair against the door as if I were afraid of
anyone making a forcible entry. I stuffed my fingers in my ears, and
went over my part with vigour, with more noise even than was
absolutely necessary. Still, how strangely I seemed to hear every
sound. A hansom passing--no, a hansom drawing up at our house. I went
as far from the window as possible. I wedged myself up between the
sofa and the wall, and I shut my eyes firmly. Surely there were
unaccustomed sounds about, talking and laughing, as if something
pleasant had happened. Presently heavy footsteps came bounding up,
two steps at a time. Oh! should I have the courage not to answer if
it should be Jack?