THE MAN IS WHO WAS GOOD
BY
LEONARD MERRICK
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
J.K. PROTHERO
HODDER & STOUGHTON
LONDON--NEW YORK--TORONTO
1921
"That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.
If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you."
James Lee's Wife.
INTRODUCTION
There is a rare refreshment in the works of Leonard Merrick; gracious
yet distinctive, his style has a polished leisure seldom enjoyed these
days when perfection of literary form is at a discount. His art is
impossible of label; almost alone amongst the writers of to-day he has
the insight and the courage at once to admit the pitiless facts of life
and to affirm despite them--through hunger and loneliness, injustice
and disappointment--the spirit can and does remain unbroken; that if
there be no assurance of success, neither is there certainty of failure.
There is no sentimental weakness in the method he employs. A rare
genius for humour tempers all his work; he can record the progressive
starvation of an actor out of work in an economy of phrase that leaves
no room for gratuitous appeal, trace the long-drawn efforts to outpace
persistent poverty of pence with a simplicity that enforces conviction.
His pen is never so poignant or restrained as when he shows us a woman
sharpened and coarsened by cheap toil. But throughout the tale of
struggle and triumph, defeat and attainment, there persists that sense
of eternal quest which shortens the hardest road. Do you starve to-day?
Opportunity of plenty may wait at the street corner, the chance of a
lifetime alight from the next bus; for Leonard Merrick is not concerned
with people of large incomes and small problems; the men and women of
whom he writes earn their own living.
His most marked successes deal with stage life, indeed he is one of the
very few authors who convince one of the actuality of theatrical folk.
He shows us the chorus girl in her lodgings, in the Strand bars, at
the dramatic agency; we understand her ambitions, become familiar with
her unconquerable pluck and capacity for comradeship, even acquire a
liking for the smell of grease-paint. We meet the same girl out of an
engagement, follow her pilgrimage from Bloomsbury to Brixton seeking
an ever cheaper lodging; we watch the mud and wet of the streets soak
her inadequate boots, endure with her the pangs of hunger ill-allayed
by a fugitive bun. We accompany her to the pawnbroker's, and experience
the joys of combat with a recalcitrant "uncle" who refuses to lend more
than eighteenpence on a silk blouse. And still the sense of adventure
persists, the reality of romance endures, the joy of laughter remains.
We realise the compensation of precarious tenure on sufficiency,
appreciate the great truth that the adversity of to-day is lightened by
the uncertainty of to-morrow, that no matter how grim the struggle, how
sharp the hardship--and the hunger--the sense of adventure companions
and consoles. Authors who concern themselves only with men and women
of assured position and regular incomes have forgotten the truth which
Leonard Merrick so triumphantly affirms. Romance is no respecter of
persons. The freedom of the open road, its promise, its pitfalls,
sudden ecstasies and fugitive glamours is not a preserve of the rich
but the heritage of the people.
His psychological methods allure one by their seeming simplicity;
quietly, with a delicate deliberation, he emphasises the outline of
his characters until with sudden swift decision, in the utterance of
a phrase, the doing of some one of those small things that are life's
real revelations, he shows you the soul of the man or woman whose
externals he has so carefully portrayed. Half-forgotten words and acts
crowd in on the memory, as in _The Man who was Good_ when Carew appeals
to Mary to save his child--and her rival's. It needed the genius of
Merrick to make one realise that the high-water mark of betrayal was
reached not by the man's desertion of the woman who loved him, but by
his pitiful exploitation of that love.
I know of no author with a more subtle understanding of woman, her
generosity and meanness, her strange reticence, amazing candours. Mary
Brettan, that tragedy of invincible fidelity, could only have been
portrayed by a man able to sense feminine capacity for dumb fortitude.
One feels that had she made even a gesture of revolt, Mary would have
been freed of the paralysis of sterile constancy; and one knows that
women of her type can never make the ultimate defiance.
Leonard Merrick has the inimitable gift of inducing his readers to
experience the emotions he portrays. The zest of adventure grips
you, as it grips the hero of _Conrad in Quest of his Youth_, perhaps
the greatest of his triumphs. We share with that perfect lover his
mellow regrets and his anticipatory ardours; we wait in tremulous
expectancy outside the little restaurant in Soho for his delightful
Lady Parlington, falling, with him-from light-hearted confidence to
sickening uncertainty as time wears on and still she does not come. The
same emotional buoyancy stirs in all his work; his incomparable humour
endears to us the least of his creations. His adorable landladies
become our friends, his "walking gentlemen" our close acquaintance. I
do not know to this day whether I have met certain of these heavenly
creatures in life or in Mr. Merrick's novels, and it is difficult to
enter a theatrical lodging without feeling that you are living the
last story in _The Man who Understood Women_, or revisiting the first
beginnings of Peggy Harper.
London has many lovers, none so intimate with her allurements as
Leonard Merrick. He knows the glamour of her midnight pavements, the
hunger of her clamant streets, and the enchantments of her grey river
have drawn him. He has felt the deciduous charm of her luxury, the
abiding pleasure of her leafy spaces, and the intriguing alleys of
Fleet Street are to him familiar and dear. For the suburbs he has an
infinite kindness, and has companioned adventure on many a questing
tram.
It has long been a matter of insuperable difficulty to obtain Mr.
Merrick's novels; for years I have essayed to find a copy of _Conrad_,
and from every bookseller have been sent empty away. In a moment of
folly I lent my own copy to a neighbour--I cannot call him friend--who
forthwith adopted the volume as his most invaluable possession, and,
undeterred by savagery or threats, refused to give it up. And now after
long waiting, I am made glad by a reissue of these incomparable works,
and the knowledge that an ever-increasing public, too long denied the
opportunity of their acquaintance, will share my delight. Far removed
from the nightmare of the problem novel, his books centre on simple
human things savoured with the rare salt of his humour; and whether in
the suburbs or the slums, in Soho or the Strand, whether prosperous or
starving, the men and women of whom he writes are touched with that
high courage, that fine comradeship, which is the very essence of
romance.
J.K. PROTHERO.
CHAPTER I
There were three women in the dressing-room. Little Miss Macy, who
played a subaltern, was pulling off her uniform; and the "Duchess,"
divested of velvet, stood brushing the powder out of her hair. The
third woman was doing nothing. In a chair by the theatrical hamper
labelled "Miss Olive Westland's Tour: 'The Foibles of Fashion' Co.,"
she sat regarding the others, her hands idle in her lap. She was
scarcely what is called "beautiful," much less was she what ought to be
called "pretty"; perhaps "womanly" came nearer to suggesting her than
either. Her eyes were not large, but they were so pensive; her mouth
was not small, but it curved so tenderly; the face was not regular, but
it looked so deliciously soft. Somebody had once said that it "made
him admire God"; in watching her, it seemed such a perfect thing that
there should be a low white brow, and hair to shade it; it seemed such
an exquisite and consummate thing that there should be lips where the
Maker put lips, and a chin where the chin is modelled. Her age might
have been twenty-seven, also it might have been thirty. The wise man
does not question the nice woman's age--he just thanks Heaven she
lives; and she in the chair by the hamper was decidedly nice. Other
women said so.
"Have you been in front, Mrs. Carew?" asked the "Duchess."
She answered that she had. "I came round at the end. It was a very good
house; the business is improving."
"I should think," remarked the "subaltern," reaching for her skirt,
"you must know every line of the piece, the times you've seen it! But,
of course, you've nothing else to do."
"No, it isn't lively sitting alone all the evening in lodgings; and
it's more comfortable in the circle than behind. How you people manage
to get dressed in some of the theatres puzzles me; I look at you from
the front, remembering where your things were put on, and marvel. If
I were in the profession, my salary wouldn't keep me in the frocks I
ruined."
"I wonder Carew has never wanted you to go into it."
The nice woman laughed.
"Go into the profession!" she exclaimed--"I? Good gracious, what an
idea! No; Tony has a very flattering opinion of his wife's abilities,
but I don't think even he goes the length of fancying I could act."
"You'd be as good as a certain leading lady we know of, at any rate.
Nobody could be much worse than our respected manageress, I'll take my
oath!"
"Jeannie," said the "Duchess" sharply, "don't quarrel with your
bread-and-butter!"
"I'm not," said the girl; "I'm criticising it--a very different matter,
my dear. I hate these amateurs with money, even if they do take out
companies and give shops to us pros. She queers the best line I've got
in the piece every night because she won't speak up and nobody knows
what it's an answer to. The real type of the 'confidential actress' is
Miss Westland; no danger of _her_ allowing anyone in the audience to
overhear what she says!"
"Tony believes she'll get on all right," said Mrs. Carew, "when she has
had more experience. You do, too, don't you, Mrs. Bowman?"
The "Duchess" replied vaguely that "experience did a great deal." She
had profited by her own, and at the "aristocratic mother" period of her
career no longer canvassed in dressing-rooms the capabilities of the
powers that paid the treasury.
"Get on?" echoed Jeannie Macy, struggling into her jacket, "of course
she'll get on; she has oof! If it's very much she's got, you'll see
her by-and-by with a theatre of her own in London. Money, influence,
or talent, you must have one of the three in the profession, and for
a short-cut give me either of the first two. Sweet dreams, both of
you; I've got a hot supper waiting for me, and I can smell it spoiling
from here!" The door banged behind her; and Mrs. Carew turned to the
"Duchess" with a smile.
"You're coming round to us afterwards, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes, Carew asked the husband in the morning: I hope he's got some
coppers; I reminded him. It's such a bother having to keep an account
of how we stand after every deal. We'll be round about half-past
twelve. Are you going?"
"I should think Tony ought to be ready by now. You remember our number?"
"Nine?"
"Nine; opposite the baker's."
Mrs. Carew hummed a little tune, and made her way down the stairs. The
stage, of which she had a passing view, was dark, for the foot-lights
were out, and in the T-piece only one gas-jet flared bluely between the
bare expanse of boards and the blackness of the empty auditorium. In
the passage, a man, hastening from the star-room, almost ran against
her; Mr. Seaton Carew still wore the clothes in which he finished the
play, and he had not removed his make-up yet.
"What!" she cried, "haven't you changed? How's that? What have you been
doing?"
"I've been talking to Miss Westland," he explained hurriedly. "There
was something she wanted to see me about. Don't wait any longer, Mary;
I've got to go up to her lodgings with her."
She hesitated a moment, surprised.
"Is it so important?" she asked.
"Yes," he said; "I'll tell you about it later on; I want to have a talk
with you afterwards. I shan't be long."
Whenever she came to the theatre, which was four or five times a week,
they, naturally, returned together, and she enjoyed the stroll in the
fresh air, "after the show," with Tony. Three years' familiarity with
the custom had not destroyed its charm to her. To-night she went out
into the Leicester streets a shade disconsolately. The gas was already
lighted when she reached the house, and a fire--for the month was
March--burnt clearly in the grate. The accommodation was not extensive:
a small ground-floor parlour, and a bedroom at the back. On the parlour
mantelpiece were some faded photographs of people who had stayed there
--Mr. Delancey as the Silver King; Miss Ida Ryan, smoking a cigarette,
as Sam Willoughby. She took off her coat, and, turning her back on the
supper-table, wondered what the conference with Miss Westland was about.
The tedium of the delay began to tell upon her. The landlady had
brought in her book of testimonials during the afternoon, to ask Mr.
and Mrs. Carew for theirs; and fetching it from where it lay, she began
listlessly to turn the leaves. These books were abominated by Carew,
for he never knew what to write; and, perusing the comments in this
one, she mentally agreed with him that it was not easy to find a medium
between curtness and exaggeration. Some she recognised, knowing before
she looked what signatures were appended. The "Stay but a little, I
will come again" quotation she had seen above the same name in a score
of lodgings, and there were two or three "impromptus" in rhyme that she
had met before.
She had been very happy this time at Leicester. They had arrived on
the anniversary of her and Tony's first meeting, and she had felt
additionally tender towards him all the week. The landlady had not
effected the happiness certainly, but her lodger was quite willing to
give her some of the benefit of it. She dipped the pen in the ink,
and wrote in a bold, upright hand, "The week spent in Mrs. Liddy's
apartments will always be a pleasant remembrance to Mr. and Mrs. Seaton
Carew." Then she put the date underneath.
She had just finished when Mrs. Liddy entered with the beer. The
Irishwoman said that she was going to bed, but that Mrs. Carew would
find more glasses in the cupboard when her friends came. She supposed
that that was all?
It was now twelve o'clock, and Mrs. Carew, with an occasional glance
at the cold beef and the corner of rice pudding, began to walk about
the room. Presently she stopped and listened. A whistle had reached her
from outside--the whistle of eight notes that is the actor's call. She
surmised that young Dolliver had forgotten their number, as he did in
every town. She drew aside the blind and let the light shine out. Young
Dolliver it was.
"I've been whistling all up and down the road," he said, aggrieved;
"what were you doing?"
"Well, that isn't bad," she laughed. "Why don't you remember addresses
like anybody else?"
"Can't," he declared; "never could! Never know where I'm staying myself
if I don't make a note of it as soon as I go in. In Jarrow, one Monday,
I had to wander all over the place for three' mortal hours in the
pouring rain, looking for someone in the company to tell me where I
lived. Hallo! where's Carew?"
"He'll be in directly," she said. "Sit down."
"Oh! I'm awfully sorry to have come so early," he exclaimed; "why, you
haven't fed or anything."
He was a bright-faced boy, with a cheery flow of chatter, and she was
glad he had appeared.
"I expect the Bowmans any minute," she assured him; "you aren't early.
Do sit down, there's a good child, and don't stand fiddling your hat
about; put it on the piano! Have you banqueted yourself?"
"To repletion. What did you think of Carew's notice in the Great
Sixpennyworth on Saturday? Wasn't it swagger? 'The rôle finds an ideal
exponent in Mr. Seaton Carew, an actor who is rapidly making his way
into the foremost ranks of his profession'!"
"A line and a half," she said, "by a provincial correspondent! I shan't
be satisfied till----well!"
"I know--till you see him with sixteen lines all to himself in the
_Telegraph_! No more will he, I fancy. He's red-hot on success, is
Carew--do anything for it. So'm I; I should like to play Claude."
"Claude?" she exclaimed. "Why, you're funny!"
"Not by disposition," he declared. "Miss Westland is responsible for
my being funny. When they said 'a small comedy-part is still vacant,'
I said small comedy-parts are my forte of fortes! Had it been an 'old
man' that was wanted, I should have professed myself born to dodder.
But if it comes to choice--to the secret tendency of the sacred fire--I
am lead, I am romantic, I have centre-entrances in the limelight. Look
here: 'A deep vale, shut out by Alpine----' No, wait a minute; you
do the Langtry business and let the flowers fall, while I 'paint the
home.' Do you know, my private opinion is that Claude only took those
lessons so that the widow shouldn't be put to any expense doing up the
home. Haven't got any flowers? Anything else then--where are the cards?"
He found the pack on the sideboard, and pushed a few into her hand.
"These'll do for the flowers," he said; "finger 'em lovingly; think
you're holding a good nap."
"Don't be so ridiculous!"
"I'm not," said Dolliver, with dignity; "I really want to hear your
views on my reading. Where was I--er--er----
"'Near a clear lake margin'd by fruits of gold
And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies
As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows....
As I would have thy fate.'
"You see I make a pause after 'shadows'--I'm natural. I gaze
hesitatingly at the floats, and the borders, and a kid in the pit. Then
I meet the eyes of the fair Pauline, and conclude with 'As I would have
thy fate,' smiling dreamily at the excellence of the comparison. That's
a new point, I take it?"
He was seriously enamoured of his "new point," and was still
expatiating on it when they heard Carew unlocking the street-door.
It was a man much of the woman's own age who came in. His face was
clean-shaven, and his hair was worn a trifle longer than the hair of
most men. Now that he was seen in a good light, it was plain that he
was disturbed; but he shook Dolliver by the hand as if relieved to find
him there.
"What, not had supper? You must be starving, Mary?"
"I _am_ pretty hungry," she admitted; "aren't you?"
"Well, I've had something--still, I'll come to the table." She had
looked disappointed, and he drew his chair up. "Dolliver?"
"Nothing for me, thanks. Oh! a glass of beer--I don't object to that."
Despite her assertion, Mary made no great progress with her supper,
and Carew's evident disquietude even damped the garrulity of the boy.
It was not until the Bowmans arrived and a game of napoleon had been
begun, that the faint restraint caused by his manner wore away.
Mr. Bowman, mindful of his wife's injunction, had provided himself with
several shillings'-worth of coppers, and, profiting by his forethought,
each of the party started with a rouleau of pence. These occasional
card parties after the performance had become an institution in "The
Foibles of Fashion" company, and it was seldom that anyone found them
expensive. Mary's capital, coppers included, was half a sovereign, and
to have won or lost such a sum as that at a sitting would have been
the subject of allusion for a month. To-night, however, the luck was
curiously unequal, and, to the surprise of all, Dolliver found himself
losing seven shillings before he had been playing half an hour. Much
sympathy was expressed for Dolliver.
"Never mind, dear boy; it's always a mistake to win early in the
evening," said Carew. "There's plenty of time. I pass!"
"Pass," said the "Duchess."
Mary called three, and made them.
"How do you stand, Mrs. Carew?" asked Bowman.
"I'm just about the same as when we began. Tony, Mr. Bowman has nothing
to drink.--Oh, what a shame, Dolliver!--thanks! Fill up your own, won't
you?--He's a perfect martyr, this boy," she went on; "he cleared the
table before you two people came in--didn't you?"
"Four!" cried Dolliver. "Yes; I cleared it beautifully. Utility is my
line of business."
"Since when? I thought just now----"
"Oh, confidences, Mrs. Carew!" He turned scarlet. "Don't give me
away!... Now, Mrs. Bowman, which is it to be?"
She played trumps, and led with a king.
A breathless moment, crowned by an unsuspected "little one" from
Dolliver. His "four" were safe, and he leant back radiant.
The "Duchess" prepared to deal.
"Who's got an address for the next town?" she inquired.
"Haven't you written yet?"
"No, we haven't got a place to write to; hateful, isn't it? If there's
a thing I loathe, it's having to look for rooms after we get in. We've
--pass!--always stayed in the same house, and--everybody to put in the
kitty again!--and now the woman's left, or something. My! isn't the
kitty getting big--look at all those sixpences underneath. Somebody
count it!"
"Now then, Carew, don't go to sleep!"
Carew, thus adjured, gathered up the cards. Fitfully he was almost
himself again, and only Mary was really sure that anything was amiss.
"There's a little hotel I've stopped at there," he said. "Not at all
bad--they find you everything for twenty-five bob the week; for two
people there'd be a reduction, too. Remind me, and I'll give you the
name; I have it in my book. Bowman, you to call!"
Bowman called nothing; everybody passed again, and the kitty was
augmented once more.
"What time do we travel Sunday--anybody know?"
"You can be precious sure," said Bowman, "that it will be at some
unearthly hour. I've had a good many years' experience in the
profession, but I never in my life was in a company where they did
so many night journeys as they do in this one. I believe that little
outsider arranges it on purpose!"
"A daisy of an acting-manager, isn't he? I once knew another fellow
much the--two, I call two--and then, at the end of the tour, hanged if
they didn't rush us for a presentation to him!"
"So they will for this chap. Presentations in the profession, upon my
soul, are the----"
"Three," said the "Duchess."
"And when the time comes, not a member of the crowd will have the pluck
to refuse. You see!"
"Did you ever know an actor who had, when he was asked?"
Dolliver flushed excitedly.
"Nap!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, oh, oh! Dolliver goes nap!"
"No; d'ye mean it? Very well, fire ahead, then; play up!"
There was two minutes' silence, and the youngster smacked down his last
card, preparing a smile for defeat.
"He's made it! Mrs. Bowman, you threw it away; if you'd played hearts,
instead----"
"No, no, she couldn't help it. She had to follow suit."
"Of course!"--the "Duchess" caught feebly at the explanation--"I had
to follow suit. What a haul! good gracious!"
"That puts you right again, eh, dear boy?"
"'I am once more the great house of Lyons!'" remarked Dolliver, piling
up the pennies. "Six, seven, eight! Look at the silver, great Scott!
Mrs. Carew, there's the ninepence I owe you."
"'I have paid this woman, and I owe her nothing,'" quoted Carew.
"Dolliver, you've ruined me, you beggar! Where's the 'bacca?"
At something to three there was a murmur about its being late, but the
loser now was Mrs. Bowman, and as her shillings had drifted into the
possession of Mary, the hostess said it really was not late at all.'
This disposed of the breaking-up question for half an hour. Then Bowman
began to talk of concluding the game after a couple of rounds. When
two such arrangements had been made and set at naught, the "Duchess"
proposed that they should finish at the next "nap." To "finish at the
next nap" was a euphemism for continuing for a good: long while, and
the resolution was carried unanimously.
The clock had struck four when the nap was made, and the winner was
Mary. She had won more than six shillings, and the "Duchess," who was
the poorer by the amount, smiled with sleepy resignation.
"You had the luck after all, Mrs. Carew," laughed Dolliver.
"Good-night."
"Yes," she said carelessly; "I've made something between me and the
workhouse, anyhow! Good-night."
She loitered about the room, putting little aimless touches to things,
while Carew saw the trio to the door. She heard him shut it behind
them, and heard their steps growing fainter on the pavement. He was
slow returning, queerly slow. Dolliver's voice reached her, taking
leave of the Bowmans at the corner, and still he had not come in.
"Tony!" she called.
He rejoined her almost as she spoke.
"Don't go to bed, Mary," he said huskily; "I've something to say to
you."
"What is it?" she asked.
He hesitated for an instant, seeking an introductory phrase. The
agitation that he had been fighting all the night had conquered him.
"My release has come at last," he answered. "My wife is dead."
"Dead?"
She stood gazing at him with dilated eyes, the colour ebbing from her
cheeks.
"She was ill some time. Drink it was, I hear; I daresay! Anyhow, she's
gone; the mistake is finished. I've paid for it dearly enough, Lord
knows!"
He had paused midway between her and the hearth, and he moved to the
hearth. She was sensible of a vague pang as he did so. A tense silence
followed his words. In thoughts that she had been unable to escape,
the woman who had paid for his mistake more dearly still had sometimes
imagined such a moment as this--had sometimes foreseen him crying to
her that he was free. Perhaps, now that the moment was here, it was a
little wanting--a little barer than the announcement of freedom that
she had pictured.
"You're bound to feel the shock of it," she said, almost inaudibly.
"It's always a shock, the news of death." But she felt that the burden
of speech should be his. "Were you--used you to be very fond of her?
Does it come back?"
"I was twenty. 'Fond'? I don't know. I wasn't with her three months
when----She had walked Liverpool; I never saw her from the day I found
it out. She didn't want me; the money was enough for her--to be sure of
it every week!"
His attitude remained unchanged, his hands thrust deep into his
trouser-pockets. Opposite each other, both reviewed the past. She
waited for him to come to her--to touch her. Yes, the reality was barer
than the picture that she had seen.
"When was it?" she murmured.
"It was some weeks ago."
"So long?"
He left the hearth moodily, and began to pace the room from end to end.
The woman did not stir. The memory was with her of the morning that
he had avowed this marriage--of the agony that had wept to her for
pity--of the clasp that would not let her go. She looked abstractedly
at the fire; but in her heart she saw his every step, and counted the
turns that kept him from her side.
"It makes a great difference!" he said abruptly.
The consciousness of the difference was flooding her reason, yet she
did not speak. It should not be by her that the sanctification of her
sacrifice was broached. The wish, the reminder, the reparation, all
should be his! She nodded assent.
"A great difference," he repeated hoarsely. He smeared the dampness
from his mouth and chin. "If--if my reputation were made now, Mary, I
should ask you to be my wife."
And then she did not speak. There was an instant in which the wall swam
before her in a haze, and the floor lurched. In the next, she was still
fronting the fireplace; she was staring at it with the same intentness
of regard; and his voice was sounding again, though she heard it dully:
"--while a poor due can't choose! I would--I'd ask you to marry me.
I know what you've been to me--I don't forget--I know very well! But,
as it is, it'd be madness--it'd be putting a rope round my own neck.
I want you to hear how I'm situated. I want you to listen to the
circumstances----"
"You won't ... make amends?"
"I tell you I'm not my own master."
"You tell me that--that we're to part! We can't remain together any
longer unless I'm your wife."
"We can't remain together any longer at all; that's what I'm coming
to." He went back to the mantelpiece, and leant his elbows on it,
kicking the half-hot coals. "I'm going to marry Miss Westland!"
He had said it; the echo of the utterance sung in his ears. Behind
him her figure was motionless--its its--stillness frightened him.
Intensified by the riotous ticking of the clock, through which his
pulses were strained for the relief of a rustle, a breath, the pause
grew unendurable.
"For God's sake, why don't you say something?" he exclaimed. He faced
her impetuously, and they looked at each other across the table. "Mary,
it's my chance in life! She cares for me, don't you see? You think me a
scoundrel--don't you see what a chance it is? What can I come to as I
am? With her--she'll get on, she has money--I shall rise, I shall be a
manager, I shall get to London in time. Mary!"
"You're going to ... marry Miss Westland?"
"I must," he said.
For the veriest second it was as if she struggled to understand. Then
she threw out her hands dizzily, crying out.
"That is what your love was, then--a lie, a shameful lie?"
"It wasn't; no, Mary, it was real! I cared for you--I did; the thing is
forced on me!"
"'Cared'? when you use your liberty like this? You 'cared'? And I
pitied you--you wrung the soul of me with your despair--I forgave you
keeping back the tale so long. I came to you to be your wife, and you
went down on your knees and vowed you hadn't had the courage to tell
me before, but your wife was living--some awful woman you couldn't
divorce. I gave myself to you, I became the thing you can turn out of
doors, all because I loved you, all because I believed in your love
for me." She caught at her throat. "You deserved it, didn't you?--you
justify it now so nobly, the faith that has made me a ----"
"Mary!"
"Oh, I can say it!" she burst forth hysterically. "I _am_, you know;
you have made me one--you and your 'love'! Why shouldn't I say it?"
"I told you the truth; if I had been free at that time----"
"When did you hear the news of the death? Answer me--it wasn't
to-night?"
"What's the difference," he muttered, "when I heard?"
"Oh!" she moaned, "go away from me, don't come near me! You coward!"
She sank on to the edge of the sofa, rocking herself to and fro. The
man roamed aimlessly around. Once or twice he glanced across at her,
but she paid no heed. His pipe was on the sideboard; he filled it
clumsily, and drew at it in nervous pulls.
He was the first to speak again.
"I know I seem a hound, I know it all looks very bad; but I don't
suppose there's a man in five hundred who would refuse such an
opportunity, for all that. No, nor one in five thousand, either! You
won't see it in an unprejudiced light, of course; but it seems to
me--yes, it does, and I can't help saying so--that if you were really
as fond of me as you think, if my interests were really dear to you,
you yourself 'd counsel me to leap at the chance, and, what's more,
feel honestly glad that a prospect of success had come in my way....
You know what it means to me," he went on querulously; "you have been
in the profession--at least, as good as in the profession--three years;
you know that, in the ordinary course of events, I should never get any
higher than I am, never play in London in my life. You know I've gone
as far as I can ever expect to go without influence to back me, that
in ten years' time I should be exactly what I am now, a leading-man
for second-rate tours; and that ten years later I should be playing
heavy fathers, or Lord knows what, still on the road, and done for--the
fire all spent, wasted and worn out in the provinces. That's what it
would be; you've heard me say it again and again; and I should go on
seeing Miss Somebody's son, and Mr. Somebody-else's-daughter, with
their parents' names to get them the engagements, playing prominent
business in London theatres before they've learnt how to walk across
a stage. Miss Westland's a fine-looking girl, and she knows a lot of
Society people in town; and she has money enough to take a theatre
there when she's lost her amateurishness a bit. Right off I shall be
somebody, too--I shall manage her affairs. I'll have a big ad. in _The
Era_ every week: 'For vacant dates apply to Mr. Seaton Carew!' Oh,
Mary, it's such a chance, such a lift! I _am_ fond of you, you know I
am; I care more for your little finger than for that woman's body and
soul. Don't think me callous; it's damnable I've got to behave so--it
takes all the light, all the luck, out of the thing that the way to it
is so hard. I wish you could know what I'm feeling."
"I think I do know," she said bitterly--"better than you, perhaps.
You're remembering how easily you could have taken the luck if your
prayers to me had failed. And you're angered at me in your heart
because the shame you feel spoils so much of the pleasure now."
He was humiliated to recognise that this was true. Her words described
a mean nature, and his resentment deepened.
"When did you tell Miss Westland?" she faltered.
"Tell her?"
"What I am. That I'm not----When was it?"
"This evening. It won't make any awkwardness for you; I mean, she won't
speak of it to any of the others. Nobody will know for----"
"The whole company may know to-morrow!" she answered, drying her eyes.
"Seeing that I shall be gone, they may as well know to-morrow as later.
Oh, how they will talk, all of them, how they'll talk about me--the
Bowmans, and that boy, too!"
"You'll be gone to-morrow--what do you say?"
"Do you suppose----"
"Mary, there are--I must make some--good heavens! how will you
go?--where? Mary, listen: by-and-by, when something is settled, in--in
a month or more--I want to arrange to send--I couldn't let you want for
money, don't you see!"
"I would not take a penny from you," she said, "not the value of a
penny, if I were dying. I wouldn't, as Christ hears me! Our life
together is over--I am going away."
He looked at her aghast.
"Now," he ejaculated, "at once? In the middle of the night?"
"Now at once--in the middle of the night."
"Be reasonable"--he caught her fingers, and held them in miserable
expostulation--"wait till day, at any rate. You're beside yourself,
there's nothing to be gained by it. In the morning, if you _must_----"
"Oh!" she choked, "did you think I would stop here an hour after this?
Did you--did you think so? You man! Yes, I should be no worse to you
I but to me, the lowness of it! All in a moment the lowness of it!
I've tried to feel that we were married; I always believed it was your
trouble that I had to be what I was. If you had ever heard--as soon
as it was possible, I thought every minute 'd have been a burden to
you till you had made it all real and right. To stop with you now, the
thing I am--despised--on sufferance----"
She dragged her hand from him and stumbled into the bedroom. There it
was quite dark, and, shaking, she groped about for matches and the
candle. A small bag, painted with the initials of "Mary Brettan,"
her own name, was under the toilet-table. She pulled it out, and,
dropping on her knees before the trunk that held her clothes, hastily
pushed in a little of the top-most linen. As she did so, her eyes
fell on the wedding-ring that she wore. Painful at all times, the
sight of it now was horrible. She strangled a sob, and, lifting the
candlestick, peered stupidly around. By the parlour grate she could
hear Tony knocking his pipe out on the bars. Above the washhand-stand
a holland "tidy" contained her brushes; she rolled it up and crammed
the bundle among the linen. In fastening the bag she hesitated,
and looked irresolutely at the trunk. Going over to it, she paused
again--left it; returned to it. She plunged her arm suddenly into its
depths, and thrust the debated thing into her bag as if it burnt her.
Across the photographer's address was written, "Yours ever, Tony." Her
preparations for leaving him had not occupied ten minutes. Then she
went back.
Her coat and hat lay by the piano where she had cast them when she came
in from the theatre. The man watched her put them on.
"Here's your ring!" she said.
The tears were running down her cheeks; she dabbed at them with a
handkerchief as she spoke. The baseness of it all was eating into him.
Though the ardour of his earlier passion was gone and his protestations
of affection had been insults, her loss and her aversion served
to display the growth of a certain attachment to her of which her
possession and her constancy had left him unaware. Twice a plea to
her to remain rose to his lips, and twice his tongue was heavy from
self-interest, and from shame. He followed her instinctively into the
passage; his limbs quaked, and his soul was cowed. She had already
opened the door and set her foot on the step.
"Mary!" he gasped.
It was just beginning to get light. Under the faint paling of the sky
the pavements gleamed cold and grey, forlornly visible in the darkness.
"Mary, don't go!"
A rush of chill air swept out of the silence, raising the hair from
her brow. The coat fell about her loosely in thick folds. He put
out nervous hands to touch her, and nothing but these folds seemed
assailable; they enveloped and denied her to him.
"Don't go," he stammered; "stay--forget what I've done!"
She saw the impulse at its worth, but she was grateful for its
happening. She knew that he would regret it if she listened, knew that
he knew he would regret it. And yet, knowing and disdaining as she did,
the gladfulness and thankfulness were there that he had spoken.
"I couldn't," she said--her voice was gentler; "there can never be
anything between you and me any more. Good-bye, Tony."
She walked from him firmly. The receding figure was
distinct--uncertain--merged in gloom. He stood gazing after it till it
was gone----