Charteris's place, just outside of Fairhaven. And I am delighted to
meet you, Miss Montmorenci. So now, you see, we have been quite
properly introduced, haven't we? And, by the way," I suggested, after
a moment's meditation, "there is a very interesting old college here--
old pictures, records, historical association and such like. I would
like to inspect it, vastly. Can't I call for you in the morning. We
can do it together, if you don't mind, and if you haven't already seen
it. Won't you, Miss Montmorenci? You really ought to see King's
College, you know; it is quite famous, because I was educated there,
and no end of other interesting things have happened within its
venerable confines."
She had drawn close to the hedge. "You really mean it?" she asked.
"You would walk through the streets of this Fairhaven with me--with a
barn-stormer, with a strolling actress? You'd be afraid!" she cried,
suddenly; "oh, yes, you talk bravely enough, but you'd be afraid, of
course, when the time came! You'd be afraid!"
I had taken the hat, but my head was still uncovered. "I don't think,"
said I, reflectively, "that I am afraid of many things, somehow. But
of one thing I am certainly not afraid, and that is of mistaking a
good woman for--for anything else. Their eyes are different somehow,"
I haltingly explained, as to myself; then I smiled. "Shall we say
eleven o'clock?"
Miss Montmorenci laid one hand upon the hedgetop and slowly twisted
off four box-leaves what while I waited. "I--I believe you," she said,
in' meditation; "oh, yes, I believe you, somehow, Mr. Townsend. But we
rehearse in the morning, and there is a matinee every day, you know,
and--and there are other reasons--" She paused, irresolutely. "No,"
said Miss Montmorenci, "I thank you, but--good night."
"Oh, I say! am I never to see any more of you?"
A century or so of silence now. Her deliberation seemed endless.
At last: "Matinees and rehearsal keep us busy by day. But I am
boarding here for the week, and--and I rest here in the garden after
the evening performance. It is cool, it--it is like a glass of water
after taking rather bitter medicine. And you aren't a bad sort, are
you? No; you look too big and strong and clean, Mr. Townsend. And,
besides, you're just a boy--"
"In that case," cried Mr. Townsend, "I shall say goodnight with a
light heart." And I turned to go.
"A moment--" said she.
"An eternity," I proffered.
"Promise me," she said, "that you will not come again this week to the
Opera House."
My brows were raised a trifle. "I adore the drama," I pleaded.
"And I loathe it. And I act very badly--hopelessly so," said Miss
Montmorenci, with an indolent shrug; "and, somehow, I don't want you
to see me do it. Why did you mind my calling you a boy? You _are_, you
know."
So I protested I had not minded it at all; and I promised. "But at
least," I said, triumphantly, "you can't prevent my remembering
Juliet!"
She said of course not, only I was not to be silly.
"And therefore," quoth I, "Juliet shall be remembered always." I
smiled and waved my hand. "_Au revoir_, Signorina Capulet," said I.
And I took my departure. My blood rejoiced, with a strange fervor, in
the summer moonlight. It was good to be alive.
7.
_He Goes Mad in a Garden_
"And, oh, but it is good to be with you again, Signorina!" cried I, as
I came with quick strides into the moonlit garden. I caught both her
hands in mine, and laughed like an ineffably contented person. There
was nothing very subtle about the boy that then was I; at worst, he
overacted what he really felt; and just at present he was pleased with
the universe, and he saw no possible reason for concealing the fact.
It was characteristic, also, that she made no pretence at being
surprised by my coming. She was expecting me and she smiled very
frankly at seeing me. Also, in place of the street dress of Tuesday,
she wore something that was white and soft and clinging, and left her
throat but half concealed. This, for two reasons, was sensible and
praiseworthy; one being that the night was warm, and the other that it
really broadened my ideas as to the state of perfection which it is
possible for the human throat to attain.
2
"So you don't like my stage-name?" she asked, as I sat down beside
her. "Well, for that matter, no more do I." "It doesn't suit you," I
protested--"not in the least. Whereas, you might be a Signorina
Somebody-or-other, you know. You are dark and stately and--well, I
can't tell you all the things you are," I complained, "because the
English language is so abominably limited. But, upon the whole, I am
willing to take the word of the playbill,--yes, I am quite willing to
accept you as Signorina Capulet. She had a habit of sitting in gardens
at night, I remember. Yes," I decided, after reflection, "I really
think it highly probable that you are old Capulet's daughter. I shall
make a point of it to pick a quarrel as soon as possible, with that
impertinent, trespassing young Montague. He really doesn't deserve
you, you know."
Unaccountably, her face saddened. Then, "Signorina? Signorina?" she
appraised the title. "It _is_ rather a pretty name. And the other is
horrible. Yes, you may call me Signorina, if you like."
3
She would not tell me her real name. She was unmarried,--this much she
told me, but of her past life, her profession, or of her future she
never spoke. "I don't want to talk about it," she said, candidly. "We
play for a week in Fairhaven, and here, once off the stage, I intend
to forget I am an actress. When I am on the stage," she added, in
meditative wise, "of course everyone knows I am not."
I laughed. I found her very satisfying; she was not particularly
intelligent, perhaps, but then I was beginning to consider clever
women rather objectionable creatures. There was a sufficiency of them
among the Charteris house-party--Alicia Wade, for instance, and
Pauline Ashmeade and Cynthia Chaytor,--and I thought of them almost
resentfully. The world had accorded them not exactly what they most
wanted, perhaps, but, at least, they had its luxuries; and they said
sharp, cynical things about the world in return. In a woman's mouth
epigrams were as much out-of-place as a meerschaum pipe.
Here, on the contrary, was a woman whom the world had accorded nothing
save hard knocks, and she regarded it, upon the whole, as an eminently
pleasant place to live in. She accepted its rebuffs with a certain
large calm, as being all in the day's work. There was, no doubt, some
good and sufficient reason for these inconveniences; not for a moment,
however, did she puzzle her handsome head in speculating over this
reason. She was probably too lazy. And the few favours the world
accorded her she took thankfully.
"You see," she explained to me--this was on Thursday night, when I
found her contentedly eating cheap candy out of a paper bag,--"the
world is really very like a large chocolate drop; it's rather bitter
on the outside, but when you have bitten through, you find the heart
of it sweet. Oh, how greedy!--you've taken the last candied cherry,
and I am specially fond of candied cherries!" And indeed, she looked
frankly regretful as I munched it.
I thought her adorable; and in exchange for that last candied cherry I
promised her some of the new books,--_David Harum_ certainly, and,
_When Knighthood Was in Flower_, because everybody was reading it, and
Mr. Dooley, because they said this young fellow Dunne was nearly as
funny as Bill Nye....
4
In fact, the moon seemed to shine down each night upon that particular
garden in a more and more delightful and dangerous manner. And I being
a fairly normal and healthy young man, the said moonshine affected me
in a fashion which has been peculiar to moonshine since Noah was a
likely stripling; my blood appeared to me, at times, to leap and
bubble in my veins as if it had been some notably invigorating and
heady tipple; and my heart was unreasonably contented, and I gave due
thanks for this woman who had come to me unsullied through the world's
gutter. For she came unsullied; there was no questioning that.
I pictured her in certain execrable rhymes as the Lady in _Comus_,
moving serene and unafraid among a rabble of threatening, bestial
shapes. And I rejoiced that there were women like this in the world,--
brave, wholesome, unutterably honest women, whose very lack of
cleverness--oh, subtle appeal to my vanity!--demanded a gentleman's
protection.
As has been said, I was a well-grown lad, but when I thought in this
fashion I seemed to myself, at a moderate computation, ten feet in
height,--and just the person, in short, who would be an ideal
protector.
Thus far my callow meditations. My course of reasoning was perhaps
faulty, but then there are, at twenty-one, many processes more
interesting and desirable than the perfecting of a mathematical
demonstration. And so, for a little, my blood rejoiced with a strange
fervour in the summer moonlight, and it was good to be alive.
5
Thursday was the twenty-third of the month, so upon that afternoon I
wrote to Bettie Hamlyn, in far-off Colorado.
It was a lengthy letter. It told her of how desolate her garden was
and of how odd Fairhaven seemed without her. It told how I had half
changed my mind, and would probably not go to Europe with Mr.
Charteris, after all. Bettie had been at pains, in the letter I was
answering, to expatiate upon her hatred of Charteris, whom she had
never seen. My letter told her, in fine, of a variety of matters. And
it ended:
"I went to the Opera House on Monday. But that, like everything else,
isn't the same without you, dear. The woman who played Juliet was, I
believe, rather good-looking, but I scarcely noticed her in worrying
over the pitiful circumstance that the Apothecary and the Populace of
Verona had only one pair of shoes between them. Besides, Mercutio kept
putting on a bathrobe and insisting he was Friar Laurence.... I would
write more about it, if I had not almost used up all my paper. There
is just room to say--"
6
This was, as I have stated, on Thursday afternoon. Upon the following
evening--
"And why not?" I demanded, for the ninth time.
But she was resolute. "Oh, it is dear of you!" she cried; "and I--I do
care for you,--how could I help it? But it can't be,--it can't ever
be," she repeated wearily; and then she looked at me, and smiled a
little. "Oh, boy, boy! dear, dear boy!" she murmured, half in wonder,
"how foolish of you and--how dear of you!"
"And why not?" said I--for the tenth time.
She gave a sobbing laugh. "Oh, the great, brave, stupid boy!" she
said, and, for a moment, her hand rested on my hair; "he doesn't know
what he is doing,--ah, no, he doesn't know! Why, I might hold you to
your word! I might sue you for breach of promise! I might marry you
out of hand! Think of that! Why I am only a strolling actress, and
fair game for any man,--any man who isn't particular," she added, with
the first trace of bitterness I had ever observed in her odd, throaty
voice. "And you would marry me,--you! you would give me your name, you
would make me your wife! You have actually begged me to be your wife,
haven't you? Ah, my brave, strong, stupid Bobbie, how many women must
love you,--women who have a right to love you! And you would give them
all up for me,--for me, you foolish Bobbie, whom you haven't known a
week! Ah, how dear of you!" And she caught her breath swiftly, and her
voice broke.
"Yes," I brazenly confessed; "I really believe I would give them all
up--every blessed one of them--for you." I inspected her, critically,
and then smiled. "And I don't think that I would be deserving any very
great credit for self sacrifice, either, Signorina."
"My dear," she answered, "it pleases you to call me old Capulet's
daughter,--but if I were only a Capulet, and you a Montague, don't you
see how much easier it would be? But we don't belong to rival
families, we belong to rival worlds, to two worlds that have nothing
in common, and never can have anything in common. They are too strong
for us, Bobbie,--my big, dark, squalid world, that you could never
sink to, and your gay little world which I can never climb to,--your
world that would have none of me, even if--even _if_--" But the
condition was not forthcoming.
"The world," said I, in an equable tone--"My dear, I may as well warn
you I am shockingly given to short and expressive terms, and as we are
likely to see a deal of each other for the future, you will have to be
lenient with them,--accordingly, I repeat, the world may be damned."
And I laughed, in unutterable content. "Have none of you!" I cried.
"My faith, I would like to see a world which would have none of you!
Ah, Signorina, it is very plain to me that you don't realize what a
beauty, what a--a--good Lord, what an unimaginative person it was that
invented the English language! Why, you have only to be seen, heart's
dearest,--only to be seen, and the world is at your feet,--my world,
to which you belong of rights; my world, that you are going to honour
by living in; my world, that in a little will go mad for sheer envy of
blundering, stupid, lucky me!" And I laughed her to scorn.
There was a long silence. Then, "I belonged to your world once, you
know."
"Why, of course, I knew as much as that."
"And yet--you never asked--" "Ah, Signorina, Signorina!" I cried;
"what matter? Don't I know you for the bravest, tenderest, purest,
most beautiful woman God ever made? I doubt you--I! My word!" said I,
and stoutly, "that _would_ be a pretty go! You are to tell me just
what you please," I went on, almost belligerently, "and when and where
you please, my lady. And I would thank you," I added, with appropriate
sternness, "to discontinue your pitiful and transparent efforts to
arouse unworthy suspicions as to my future wife. They are wasted,
madam,--utterly wasted, I assure you."
"Oh, Bobbie, Bobbie!" she sighed; "you are such a beautiful baby! Give
me time," she pleaded weakly.
And, when I scowled my disapproval, "Only till tomorrow--only a
little, little twenty-four hours. And promise me, you won't speak of
this--this crazy nonsense again tonight. I must think."
"Never!" said I, promptly; "because I couldn't be expected to keep
such an absurd promise," I complained, in indignation.
"And you look so strong," she murmured, with evident disappointment,--
"so strong and firm and--and--admirable!"
So I promised at once. And I kept the promise--that is, I did
subsequently refer to the preferable and proper course to pursue in
divers given circumstances "when we are married;" but it was on six
occasions only, and then quite casually,--and six times, as I myself
observed, was, all things considered, an extremely moderate allowance
and one that did great credit to my self-control.
7
"And besides, why _not_?" I said,--for the eleventh time.
"There are a thousand reasons. I am not your equal, I am just an
ostensible actress--Why, it would be your ruin!"
"My dear Mrs. Grundy, I confess that, for the moment, your disguise
had deceived me. But now: I recognize your voice."
She laughed a little. "And after all," the grave voice said, which
was, to me at least, the masterwork of God, "after all, hasn't one
always to answer Mrs. Grundy--in the end?"
"Why, then, you disgusting old harridan," said I, "I grant you it is
utterly impossible to defend my behaviour in this matter, and, believe
me, I don't for an instant undertake the task. To the contrary, I
agree with you perfectly,--my conduct is most thoughtless and
reprehensible, and merits your very severest condemnation. For look
you, here is a young man, well born, well-bred, sufficiently well
endowed with this world's goods, in short, an eminently eligible
match, preparing to marry an 'ostensible actress' a year or two his
senior,--why, of course, you are,--and of whose past he knows
nothing,--absolutely nothing. Don't you shudder at the effrontery of
the minx? Is it not heart-breaking to contemplate the folly, the utter
infatuation of the misguided youth who now stands ready to foist such
a creature upon the circles of which your ladyship is a distinguished
ornament? I protest it is really incredible. I don't believe a word of
it."
"I cannot quite believe it, either, Bobbie--"
"But you see, he loves her. You, my dear madam, blessed with a wiser
estimation of our duties to society, of the responsibilities of our
position, of the cost of even the most modest establishment, and,
above all, of the sacredness of matrimony and the main chance, may
well shrug your shoulders at such a plea. For, as you justly observe,
what, after all, is this love? only a passing madness, an exploded
superstition, an irresponsible _ignis fatuus_ flickering over the
quagmires and shallows of the divorce court. People's lives are no
longer swayed by such absurdities; it is quite out of date."
"Yes; you are joking, Bobbie, I know; yet it is really out of date--"
"But I protest, loudly, my hand upon my heart, that it is true; people
no longer do mad things for love, or ever did, in spite of lying
poets; any more than the birds mate in the spring, or the sun rises in
the morning; popular fallacies, my dear madam, every one of them. You
and I know better, and are not to be deceived by appearances, however
specious they may be. Ah, but come now! Having attained this highly
satisfactory condition, we can well afford to laugh at all our past
mistakes,--yes, even at our own! For let us be quite candid. Wasn't
there a time, dear lady, before Mr. Grundy came a-wooing, when,
somehow, one was constantly meeting unexpected people in the garden,
and, somehow, one sat out a formidable number of dances during the
evening, and, somehow, the poets seemed a bit more plausible than they
do today? It was very foolish, of course,--but, ah, madam, there _was_
a time,--a time when even our staid blood rejoiced with a strange
fervour in the summer moonlight, and it was good to be alive! Come
now, have you the face to deny it,--Mrs. Methuselah?"
"It has not been quite bad to be alive, these last few hours--"
"And, oh, my dear, how each of us will look back some day to this very
moment! And we are wasting it! And I have not any words to tell you
how I love you! I am just a poor, dumb brute!" I groaned.
Then very tenderly she began to talk with me in a voice I cannot tell
you of, and concerning matters not to be recorded.
And still she would not promise anything; and I would give an arm, I
think, could it replevin all the idiotic and exquisite misery I knew
that night.
8.
_He Duels with a Stupid Woman_
Yet I approached the garden on Saturday night with an elated heart.
This was the last evening of the engagement of the Imperial Dramatic
Company. To-morrow the troupe was to leave Fairhaven; but I was very
confident that the leading lady would not accompany them, and by
reason of this confidence, I smiled as I strode through the city of
Fairhaven, and hummed under my breath an inane ditty of an extremely
sentimental nature.
As I bent over the little wooden gate, and searched for its elusive
latch, a man came out of the garden, wheeling sharply about the hedge
that, until this, had hidden him; and simultaneously, I was aware of
the mingled odour of bad tobacco and of worse whiskey. Well, she would
have done with such people soon! I threw open the gate, and stood
aside to let him pass; then, as the moon fell full upon the face of
the man, I gave an inarticulate, startled sound.
"Fine evening, sir," suggested the stranger.
"Eh?" said I; "eh? Oh, yes, yes! quite so!" Afterward I shrugged my
shoulders, and went into the garden, a trifle puzzled.
2
I found her beneath a great maple in the heart of the enclosure. It
was a place of peace; the night was warm and windless, and the moon,
now come to its full glory, rode lazily in the west through a froth of
clouds. Everywhere the heavens were faintly powdered with stardust,
but even the planets seemed pale and ineffectual beside the splendour
of the moon.
The garden was drenched in moonshine--moonshine that silvered the
unmown grass-plots, and converted the white rose-bushes into squat-figured
wraiths, and tinged the red ones with dim purple hues. On every side the
foliage blurred into ambiguous vistas, where fireflies loitered; and the
long shadows of the nearer trees, straining across the grass, were wried
patterns scissored out of blue velvet. It was a place of peace and light
and languid odours, and I came into it, laughing, the possessor of an
over-industrious heart and of a perfectly unreasoning joy over the fact
that I was alive.
"I say," I observed, as I stretched luxuriously upon the grass beside
her, "you put up at a shockingly disreputable place, Signorina."
"Yes?" said she.
"That fellow who just went out," I explained--"do you know the police
want his address, I think? No," I continued, after consideration, "I
am sure I'm not mistaken,--that is either Ned Lethbury, the embezzler,
or his twin-brother. It's been five years since I saw him, but that is
he. And that", said I, with proper severity, "is a sample of the sort
of associate you prefer to your humble servant! Ah, Signorina,
Signorina, I am a tolerably worthless chap, I admit, but at least I
never forged and embezzled and then skipped my bail! So you had much
better marry me, my dear, and say good-bye to your peculating friends.
But, deuce take it! I forgot--I ought to notify the police or
something, I suppose."
She caught my arm. Her mouth opened and shut again before she spoke.
"He--he is my husband," she said, in a toneless voice. Then, on a
sudden, she wailed: "Oh, forgive me! Oh, my great, strong, beautiful
boy, forgive me, for I am very unhappy, and I cannot meet your eyes--
your honest eyes! Ah, my dear, my dear, do not look at me like that,--
you don't know how it hurts!"
The garden noises lisped about us in the long silence that fell. Then
the far-off whistling of some home going citizen of Fairhaven tinkled
shrilly through the night, and I shuddered a bit.
"I don't understand," I commenced, strangely quiet. "You told me--"
"Ah, I lied to you! I lied to you!" she cried. "I didn't, mean to--
hurt you. I did not know--I couldn't know--I was so lonely, Bobbie,"
she pleaded, with wide eyes; "oh, you don't know how lonely I am. And
when you came to me that first night, you--why, you spoke to me as the
men I once knew used to speak. There was respect in your voice, and I
wanted that so; I hadn't had a man speak to me like that for years,
you know, Bobbie. And, boy dear, I was so lonely in my squalid
world,--and it seemed as if the world I used to know was calling me--
your world, Bobbie--the world I am shut out from."
"Yes," I said; "I think I understand."
"And I thought for a week--just to peep into it, to be a lady again
for an hour or two--why, it didn't seem wicked, then, and I wanted it
so much! I--I knew I could trust you, because you were only a boy. And
I was hungry--_so_ hungry for a little respect, a little courtesy,
such as men don't accord strolling actresses. So I didn't tell you
till the very last I was married. I lied to you. Oh, but you don't
understand, this stupid, honest boy doesn't understand anything except
that I have lied to him!"
"Signorina," I said, again, and I smiled, resolutely, "I think I
understand." I took both her hands in mine, and laughed a little.
"But, oh, my dear, my dear," I said, "you should have told me that you
loved another man; for you have let me love you for a week, and now I
think that I must love you till I die."
"Love him!" she echoed. "Oh, boy dear, boy dear, what a Galahad it is!
I don't think Ned ever cared for anything but Father's money; and I--
why, you have seen him. How _could_ I love him?" she asked, as simply
as a child.
I bowed my head. "And yet--" said I. Then I laughed again, somewhat
bitterly. "Don't let's tell stories, Mrs. Lethbury," I said; "it is
kindly meant, I know, but I remember you now. I even danced with you
once, some seven years ago,--yes, at the Green Chalybeate. I remember
the night, for a variety of reasons. You are Alfred Van Orden's
daughter; your father is a wealthy man, a very wealthy man; and yet,
when your--your husband disappeared you followed him--to become a
strolling actress. Ah, no, a woman doesn't sacrifice everything for a
man in the way you have done, unless she loves him."
I caught my breath. Some unknown force kept tugging down the corners
of my mouth, in a manner that hampered speech; moreover, nothing
seemed worth talking about. I had lost her. That was the one thing
which mattered.