TEARS AND A SMILE
IN the end the Syndicate left to Joe Halliday the responsibility of
deciding on the future of the unfortunate farce, so far as it had a
future on which to decide. On mature reflection Joe was for acting on
the sound business principle of 'cutting a loss,' and the turn of events
reinforced his opinion. They had taken the Burlington for four weeks
certain, and the liability for rent was a serious fact and a heavy item
to reckon with. Another dramatic venture wanted a home, and Joe had the
opportunity of sub-letting the theatre for the last two weeks of the
term. By and with the advice of Mr. Etheringham he closed with the
offer. _Did You Say Mrs?_ dragged on for its fortnight, never showing
vitality enough to inspire any hope of its recovering from the rude blow
of the first night. In the day-time new figures filled the stage of the
Burlington, new hopes and fears centred there. Only Mr. Etheringham
remained, producing the new venture with the same fiery and
inexhaustible energy, lifting dead weights with his hands, toiling,
moiling, in perpetual strife. Gone soon were all the others who had
become so familiar, from the great Mr. Spring, the Indefatigable,
downwards, some to other engagements, some left "out"--_débris_ from the
wreck of the unhappy _Did You Say Mrs?_
Gone too, soon, was Miss Ayesha Layard with her infectious laugh. For
her sake Arthur had sat through the farce once again--not even for her
sake twice, so inconceivably flat had it now become to him. He had gone
round and seen her, but she had other guests and no real conversation
was possible. Then he saw in the papers that she was to go to America; a
manager from that country had come to see the piece, and, though he did
not take that, he did take Miss Layard, with whose talents he was much
struck. He offered a handsome salary, and she jumped at it. Joe let her
go three days before the end of the hopeless little run. One of the last
items of the Syndicate's expenditure was a bouquet of flowers, presented
to her at Euston on the morning of her departure. Arthur went to see her
off, found her surrounded by folk strange to him, had just a hand-clasp,
a hearty greeting, a merry flash from her eyes, and, as he walked off,
the echo of her laugh for a moment in his ears. The changes and chances
of theatrical life carried her out of his orbit as suddenly as she had
come into it; she left behind her, as chief legacy, just that vivid
memory which linked her so fantastically with Bernadette.
So the whole thing seemed to him to end--the Syndicate, the speculation,
his voyage into the unknown seas of the theatre. It was all over,
shattered by a blow almost as sudden, almost as tragical, as that which
had smitten his adoration itself. Both of these things, always connected
together for him by subtle bonds of thought and emotion, making together
the chief preoccupation of the last six months of his life, now passed
out of it, and could occupy his days no longer. They had come like
visions--Bernadette in her barouche, the glittering thousands dangled in
Fortune's hand--and seemed now to depart in like fashion, transitory and
unsubstantial.
Yet to Arthur Lisle they stood as the two greatest things that had up to
now happened in his life, the most significant and the most vivid. Set
together--as they insisted on being set together from the beginning to
the end, from the first impulse of ambition roused by Bernadette to
the coming of her telegram on that momentous evening--they made his
first great venture, his most notable experience. They had revealed
and developed his nature, plumbed feeling and tested courage.
He was different now from Marie Sarradet's placid, contented,
half-condescending wooer, different from him who had worshipped
Bernadette with virgin eyes--different now even from the forsaken and
remorseful lover of that black hour at Hilsey. He had received an
initiation--a beginning of wisdom, an opening of the eyes, a glimpse of
what a man's life may be and hold and do for him. He had seen lights
glimmering on the surface of other lives, and now and then, however
dimly and fitfully, revealing their deeper waters.
Sitting among the ruins--if tangible results were regarded, scarcely any
other word could be considered appropriate--and acutely awake to what
had happened to his fortunes, he was vaguely conscious of what had
happened to himself. The feeling forbade remorse or despair; it
engendered courage. It enabled him to infuse even a dash of humour into
his retrospect of the past and his survey of the present. If he still
called himself a fool, he did it more good-naturedly, and perhaps really
more in deference to the Wisdom of the Wise and the Prudence of the
Elders than out of any genuine or deep-seated conviction. And anyhow, if
he had been a fool, he reckoned that he had learnt something from it.
Everybody must be a fool sometimes. In prudent eyes he had been a
tolerably complete one, and had paid and must pay for the indulgence.
But it had not been all loss--so his spirit insisted, and refused
sack-cloth and ashes for its wear.
Meanwhile, however, the bill! Not the rather nebulous balance-sheet of
his soul's gains and losses, but the debit account in hard cash. A few
sovereigns from the five hundred still jingled forlornly in his pocket;
a few might possibly, thanks to the sub-let, stray back from the
Burlington Theatre, but not many. In round figures he was fifteen
hundred pounds out, and was left with an income barely exceeding a
hundred pounds a year. Now that would not support the life and meet the
necessary expenses of counsel learned in the law. Other prospects he had
none; what his mother had Anna was to take. He did not want to give up
the Bar; he still remembered Mr. Tiddes with a thrill; Wills and Mayne
were alive--at any rate Mayne was; a third defeat from fortune was not
to his liking. Moreover to abandon his chosen career would nearly break
his mother's heart. He came to a swift determination to "stick it out"
until he had only a thousand pounds left. If that moment came, a plunge
into something new! For the present, all useful expenditure, but strict
economy! He instructed his broker to sell out two hundred pounds' worth
of stock and felt that he had achieved a satisfactory solution of his
financial troubles.
For a mind bent on industry--and Arthur flattered himself that his
really was now--his chambers offered new opportunities. Norton Ward had
got his silk gown. His pupils had disappeared; Arthur could have the run
of his work, could annotate and summarise briefs, and try his hand on
draft "opinions." This was much more alluring work than reading at
large. He could sit in court too, and watch the progress of the cases
with a paternal, a keener, and a more instructed interest. This was how
he planned to spend the winter sittings, rejecting the idea of going
circuit--the chances of gain were so small, the expenses involved so
great. But in the immediate future things fell out differently from what
he had planned.
The morning after the Courts opened, he received a summons to go and see
Mr. Justice Lance in his private room. The old Judge gave him a very
friendly greeting and, being due to take his seat in five minutes,
opened his business promptly.
"My old friend Horace Derwent, who generally comes with me as Marshal,
is down with influenza and won't be available for three or four weeks.
Esther Norton Ward was at my house yesterday and, when she heard it, she
suggested that perhaps you'd like to take his place. I shall be very
glad to take you, if you care to come. If anything crops up for you
here, you can run up--because Marshals aren't absolutely indispensable
to the administration of justice. Your function is to add to my comfort
and dignity--and I shan't let that stand in your way."
"It's most awfully kind of you. I shall be delighted," said Arthur.
"Very well. We start on Monday, and open the Commission at Raylesbury.
My clerk will let you know all the details. If you sit in court
regularly, I don't think your time will be wasted, and a grateful
country pays you two guineas a day--not unacceptable, possibly, at this
moment!" His eyes twinkled. Arthur felt that his theatrical speculation
had become known.
"It's uncommonly acceptable, I assure you, Sir Christopher," said he.
"Then let's hope poor Horace Derwent will make a leisurely
convalescence," smiled the Judge.
In high spirits at the windfall, Arthur started off in the afternoon to
thank Esther for her good offices. He had not seen her since they
parted, with forced cheerfulness, at the doors of the Burlington
Theatre; neither had he carried out his idea of going to one of her
husband's meetings; the urgency of his own affairs would have dwarfed
those of the nation in his eyes, even had his taste for politics been
greater than it was.
"I thought you'd like it. You'll find Sir Christopher a pleasant chief,
and perhaps it'll keep you out of mischief for a few weeks--and in
pocket-money," said Esther, in reply to his thanks.
"I've got no more mischief in view," Arthur remarked, almost wistfully.
"My wild course is run."
"I hope so. Did you ever believe in that terrible farce?"
"Oh yes, rather! That is, I believed in it generally--Moments of qualm!
That's what made it so interesting."
"That evening, Arthur! I declare I still shudder! What did you do after
you got rid of us? Knock your head against the wall, or go to bed to
hide your tears?"
Arthur smiled. "Not exactly, Mrs. Norton Ward. I took part in a sort of
Privy Council, about ways and means, though there weren't any of either,
to speak of--and Claud Beverley swore eternal friendship to me, heavens
knows why! And I had a talk with Miss Layard."
Esther was looking at his smiling face in some amazement; he seemed to
find the memory of the evening pleasant and amusing. Her own impressions
were so different that she was stirred to resentment. "I believe I
wasted some good emotion on you," she observed severely.
"Oh, I forgot! I had a telegram from Bernadette--from Genoa. Good
wishes, you know--but I never got it till it was all over." He was
smiling still, in a ruminative way now.
"Very attentive of her! It seems to amuse you, though."
"Well, it was rather funny. It came when I was in Ayesha Layard's
dressing-room, talking to her, and she--well, rather made fun of it."
Esther eyed him with curiosity. "Did you like that?" she asked.
"I didn't seem to mind it at the time." His tone was amused still, but
just a little puzzled. "No, I didn't mind it."
"I believe--yes, I do--I believe you were flirting with the impudent
little creature! Oh, you men! This is what we get! We cry our eyes out
for you, and all the time you're----!"
"Men must work and women must weep!" said Arthur.
"That's just what Judith was doing--literally--all the way home in the
car; and in bed afterwards, very likely." Esther rapped out the
disclosure tartly. "And all the while you were----!" Words failed the
indignant woman.
"Cried? What, not really? Poor old Judith! What a shame! I must write to
her and tell her I'm as jolly as possible."
"Oh, I daresay she's got over it by now," said Esther, with a dig at his
vanity. But he accepted the suggestion with a cheerful alacrity which
disappointed her malice.
"Of course she has! She's a sensible girl. What's the good of crying?"
"Would you have liked to be asked that at all moments of your life,
Arthur?"
He laughed. "Rather a searching question sometimes, isn't it? But poor
Judith! I had no idea----" His remorse, though genuine enough, was still
tinged with amusement. The smile lurked about his mouth.
Esther's resentment, never very serious, melted away. In the end there
was something attractive in his disposition to refuse even a sympathy
which was too soft. She thought that she saw change there. Hard knocks
had been chipping off a youthful veneer of sentimentality. But she would
not have him impute a silly softness to Judith. "And Judith's not a
crying woman. I know her," she said.
"I know. She's got no end of courage. That's why it's so queer."
"She thought your heart was broken, you see."
"Yes, but--well, I think she ought to know me better than that."
"Perhaps she doesn't always keep up with you," Esther suggested.
Rather to her surprise he let the suggestion go by, and did not seize
the opportunity it offered of considering or discussing himself--his
character and its development. Instead, he began to talk about the
Marshalship once more, full of interest and pleasure in it, looking
forward to the companionship of Sir Christopher, to seeing and learning,
to the touches of old pomp and ceremony in which he was to assist,
unimportantly indeed, but as a favourably placed spectator.
"I'm more grateful to you than I can say," he declared. "And not for the
two guineas a day only!"
His gratitude gave her pleasure, but she could not understand his mood
fully. Her nature moved steadily and equably on its own lines; so far as
she could remember, it always had, aided thereto by the favouring
circumstances of assured position, easy means, and a satisfactory
marriage. She did not appreciate the young man's reaction after a long
period of emotion and excitement, of engrossment in his personal
feelings and fortunes. With these he was, for the moment, surfeited, and
disposed, consequently, to turn on them a critical, almost a satiric,
eye. The need of his mind now was for calmer interests, more impersonal
subjects of observation and thought. He was looking forward to being a
spectator, a student of other people's lives, acts, and conditions--he
was welcoming the prospect of a period during which his mind would be
turned outward towards the world. He had had enough of himself for the
time being.
It was not, then, a moment in which he was likely to ask himself very
curiously the meaning of Judith's tears, or to find in them much stuff
to feed either remorse or vanity. He was touched, he was a little
ashamed, though with twitching lips, as he contrasted them with his
farewell to Ayesha Layard at approximately the same moment. But on the
whole he felt relieved of a matter with which he had little inclination
to occupy himself when Esther said, at parting, "I think on the whole
you'd better not say anything to Judith about what I told you; she might
be angry with me for giving her away."
Judith might well have thought herself betrayed by the disclosure which
Esther had made in her irritated curiosity, in her resentful desire to
confront the smiling young man with the pathetic picture of a girl in
tears. When a woman says to a man, of another woman, "See how fond she
is of you!" there is generally implied the reproach, "And you
under-rate, you slight, you don't return, her affection." Such a
reproach had certainly underlain the contrast Esther drew between
Judith's tears and the smiles in which Arthur had presumably indulged
during his talk with Ayesha Layard. But Arthur took the contrast
lightly; it did not really come home to him; he did not seek to explore
its possible meaning, the suggestion contained in it. Lightly too he
seemed to have taken Bernadette's telegram--her recollection of him at a
crisis of his fortunes, coming out of the silence and darkness in which
her flight had wrapped her. Here was a thing which might surely have
moved him to emotion, rousing poignant memories? But when Miss Ayesha
Layard rather made fun of it, he had not minded! Even this account of
what had happened--this faint adumbration of the truth--agreed ill with
Esther's previous conception of him.
But it was of a piece with his new mood, with the present turn of his
feelings under the stress of fortune. To this mood matters appertaining
to women--to use the old phrase, the female interest--did not belong. He
was liberated for the time from the attack of that, from his obsession
with it, and in his freedom was turning a detached, a critical, eye on
his days of bondage. Rather oddly it had been a woman's work, not indeed
to bring about his release, but still to mark the moment when he began
to be conscious of it; for the turn of the tide of his mind was marked
by the moment when, in kissing Ayesha Layard, he forgot his telegram.
That little episode satirically mocked the erstwhile devotee and the
inconsolable lover, and all the more because it hovered itself
pleasantly near the confines of sentiment. It pointedly and recurringly
reminded him that there were more women than one in the world, that
there were, in fact, a great many. And when a young man's heart is open
to the consideration that there are a great many women in the world, it
is, for all serious purposes, much the same with him as though there
were none.
Esther Norton Ward was not in possession of the full facts, or she might
better have understood why Arthur's smile had resisted even the appeal
of Judith's tears.
On the last evening before he left London, he dined with Joe Halliday
and, with a heart opened by good wine, Joe gave his personal view of the
Burlington Theatre disaster.
"I'm sorry I let the Sarradets and Amabel in," he said, "and of course
I'm awfully sorry I stuck you for such a lot--though that was a good
deal your own doing----"
"It was all my own doing," Arthur protested.
"And I'm sorry for everybody involved, but for myself I don't care much.
As long as a fellow's got a dinner inside him and five quid in his
pocket, what's there to worry about? I've got lots of other jobs
maturing. In fact, as far as I'm personally concerned, perhaps it's
rather a good thing we did take such a toss. The fact is, old chap, I
was getting most infernally gone on Ayesha."
"I thought you were touched! Well, she's very attractive."
"You're right! If we'd run a hundred nights, I should have been a fair
goner! And on the straight too, mind you! Even as it is, I don't mind
telling you--as a pal--that I'm hardly my usual bright self since she
went to Yankeeland. Keep thinking what's she up to--like a silly ass!
Beastly! And what did I get out of it? Nothing!" His voice grew
plaintively indignant. "On my word, not so much as that, Arthur!" With
the words he put two fingers to his lips and flung a kiss to the empty
air.
"That was rather hard lines," Arthur remarked, smiling, pleased to hear
that, so far as Joe was concerned at least, Miss Ayesha's promise about
her medicine had been handsomely kept.
"Well, I suppose you wouldn't notice it much"--(A veiled allusion to the
Romantic and Forsaken Lover!)--"but she's enough to make any man make a
fool of himself over her." He heaved a ponderous sigh. "I expect I'm
well out of it! She'd never have given me more than a string of beads to
play with. And if by a miracle she had succumbed to my charms, I should
have been as jealous as a dog every time she went to the theatre! No
sound way out of it! All just silly!" He looked up and caught Arthur
smiling at him. He burst into a laugh, "Lord, what an ass I am! Come
along, old chap! If we get moving, we shall be just in time to see
Trixie Kayper at the Amphitheatre. I hear she knocks stars out of High
Heaven with her twinkling feet!"
Arthur agreed that the performance was one not to be missed.