"Am I so dreadful, and will you run away again?"
"Don't tease me, Nigel," she pleaded, and laid her cheek against mine.
She was little more than a child, after all, and my heart beat high
and quick to think from what, under Providence, I had saved her that
day.
"What can I tell father?" she asked.
"You only left home this morning?"
[Illustration: "I TOOK THE LITTLE LADY IN MY ARMS AND KISSED HER."]
"Yes, cousin."
"Tell him that you ventured on to the road to see this strange cousin
of yours, and that he recognised you and picked you up."
"But that would be a story!"
"Well, I will tell it for you, if you will forgive me afterwards. Do
you think you will ever love me, Audrey?"
"I love you already, Cousin Nigel."
"Nigel, without the cousin."
"Nigel," she said.
And so, you see, the adventure ended happily for both of us, but I
told my Uncle Mortimer, privately, exactly what had really occurred,
in order that we might be on guard against the man Northfield. He,
however, had had his lesson; and his wound, I suppose, not proving
serious, he hid the scar and thought it best to keep a closed mouth.
Indeed, not long after, he disappeared from the country, and was heard
of later on in America, where I trust he was better appreciated than
he ever was here.
As for Audrey, no sweeter woman ever breathed than my wife, and she
has made up to me a thousand fold for thinking so lightly of me before
she had ever seen my face. And for myself, though I have had many
encounters since then and against heavier odds, none ever had so fair
a reward.
A FAMOUS WIGMAKER'S FAMOUS ALBUM.
SOME INTERESTING THEATRICAL AUTOGRAPHS.
BY GAVIN MACDONALD.
Mr. William Clarkson, of Wellington Street, where the wigs come from,
is almost as well known to the general public as the stars of the
theatrical and musical professions who frequent his establishment.
In the whole of London, I doubt if you could find a more interesting
place to spend an afternoon than the Wellington Street wig shop. And,
if you are to any extent a hero worshipper of stage players, it is
here you will find them, free, unconventional, Bohemian fellows all,
with the strait lace of the footlights gone.
Clarkson's is a sort of theatrical Rotten Row, where all the
professional world is wont to meet, and mix reminiscences and general
chit-chat of the stage with orders for wigs and make-ups.
The shop itself is hardly less remarkable than the business carried
on within it. It has a touch of the last century about it, with its
low-pitched ceilings and curious anterooms.
[Illustration: SKETCH BY SEYMOUR LUCAS, R.A.]
From the former hang hundreds of grotesque pantomime and fancy-dress
masks, scarcely clearing the heads of the customers. In glass cases
around the walls of shop and anterooms are wigs and disguises and
costumes of every description, an empire's ransom in paste jewels, and
the serving of an army corps in stage weapons.
[Illustration]
Almost any morning in the theatrical season you will find three or
four well-known faces among the crowd in the establishment. It is a
convenient meeting-place for one thing, and it teems with familiar
faces and opportunities for friendly chats for another.
[Illustration: PHILIP BURNE-JONES' SKETCH OF HIMSELF.]
The groups of actors, actresses, musicians or artists, as the case
may be, stand here and there chatting unconcernedly, while the various
_employés_ rush hither and thither, dodging between them like a pack
of startled deer. And down at the desk sits Mr. Clarkson himself,
characteristically occupied in doing twenty things at once. First, it
is a genial word with a well-known star across the top of his desk.
Then a word is exchanged with a distant group, during which the
telephone rings up, and there is the Prince of Wales' fancy-dress
ball costume to be discussed. Sir Henry Irving wants a wig curled,
or possibly a new elephant is required in a hurry for a West-end
pantomime.
[Illustration: THUMBNAIL BY PHIL MAY.]
Meanwhile assistants momentarily consult him, till you begin to think
it is a miracle his reason survives; yet somehow all are answered,
and additional orders are shouted to others in the far corners of the
building into the bargain. This strange mixture of hustle and scurry
on the one hand and on the other is a feature of Clarkson's I have
never yet missed, although I have visited the place times without
number.
Needless to say, there is scarcely a member of the artistic
professions whom Mr. Clarkson cannot number among his friends. He is
always ready with an apropos story should any of them be mentioned,
or should you evince any special interest in the subject it is quite
possible he will show you his famous albums, and point out the absent
one's autograph and remarks.
The autograph books--for there are two of them--are the most wonderful
of their kind in the world, containing as they do the signatures
of almost every member of the theatrical profession, both here and
abroad.
[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING'S AUTOGRAPH.]
There are many hundreds of them, many accompanied by quotations from
favourite parts, snatches of verse, stage catch phrases identified
with their names, and so forth.
Many of the artists have contributed sketches. The musicians in
most cases have scribbled bars of their own compositions after their
autographs.
For the purpose of illustrating this article I have reproduced a few
autographs from this unique collection. To publish them all would need
a special edition.
Most if not all of the names will be familiar to the readers of this
magazine.
First we give some artists' thumbnails. The most ambitious is the pen
drawing of a Cavalier's head, by Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.
It is a pity that we are not able to give a larger reproduction of
the inimitable pencil drawing of a negro's head by Phil May. It is a
wonderful piece of drawing.
[Illustration: MISS TERRY'S QUOTATION--]
Perhaps the cleverest thing in the album is the sketch by that
versatile actor-artist, J. Bernard Partridge.
Not less interesting is the sketch of himself by Philip Burne-Jones.
After the artists come the actors and actresses.
Miss Ellen Terry quotes Shakespeare, "And mine, to eke out his."
Underneath is a particularly happy retort by Sir Arthur Sullivan, who
is inclined to baldness. He writes: "And his (Clarkson's), to eke out
mine (hair)."
[Illustration: --AND SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN'S RETORT.]
What Mr. Tree means by his quotation from _Henry V._ I am not prepared
to say. Is it the wig or the maker? I leave it to Mr. Clarkson.
[Illustration]
All playgoers will be glad to compare the diversified signatures,
whether their favourite be Sir Henry Irving, Sir Squire or Lady
Bancroft, Mr. Forbes Robertson, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, or the veteran
Mr. Toole.
Sarah Bernhardt writes a French sentence. Curiously enough, although
this appears at the very bottom of a page, it was the first autograph
in the book; another instance of the great Sarah's eccentricity.
[Illustration: SIR SQUIRE AND LADY BANCROFT'S CONTRIBUTION.]
Mr. Clarkson supplies Sarah Bernhardt with all her wigs, and they are
never even curled by anyone but him, being sent especially from Paris
for the purpose.
[Illustration: MR. G. R. SIMS ON THE "WIGGERIES."]
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA WISHES "GOOD LUCK."]
[Illustration: (Sketch and text by Toni Rankin)]
[Illustration: MR. DIOSY WRITES A SNATCH FROM "THE GEISHA" IN JAPANESE
AND ENGLISH.]
[Illustration: (Text by Emma Calvé)]
[Illustration: MADAME PATTI'S TEXT.]
[Illustration: MR. F. STOREY'S IDEA OF HIMSELF.]
[Illustration: AN AIR BY A POPULAR COMPOSER.]
[Illustration: (Pietro Mascagni's Signature)]
[Illustration: WHAT ONE OF THE "BABES IN THE WOOD" SAYS.]
[Illustration: MR. TREE QUOTES SHAKESPEARE.]
Mr. Fred Storey's portrait of himself was in all probability produced
by the aid of a particularly lissom quill pen.
Mr. George R. Sims contributes a funny travesty of a speech of one of
the witches in _Macbeth_--
"THE WIGGERIES.
"By the pricking of my thumbs
Something _wigged_ this way comes;
Open _locks_, whoever knocks."
The inimitable Dan Leno's "Yours with or without lace" is a
characteristically original way of saying that their friendship was
not one of a business nature merely.
One autograph is of special interest in view of the tragic happening
of a few months ago. It is the characteristically bluff signature of
the late William Terriss, written while he was playing with Sir Henry
Irving in the year 1890.
[Illustration: SARA BERNHARDT'S COMPLIMENTS.]
When Mr. Clarkson was a boy just fresh from school, Terriss used to
come into his father's workroom and give his order for wigs directly
to the younger Clarkson, insisting that he, and he alone, should make
them from beginning to end. The late Mr. Terriss may therefore be said
to have been Mr. Clarkson's first client.
One of the smallest spaces in the whole book contains quite a bunch
of prominent names, the signatures of Violet Cameron, Kyrle Bellew,
Yvette Guilbert, and Arthur Pinero occupying a space very little
larger than a postage stamp.
"My dear Clarkson," wrote the late Sir Augustus Harris, "what do you
wish me to say? Echo answers, What? You answer, Nix! So I wish you all
good luck."
The majority of the world's greatest musicians are represented in
the album. For example, Leon Cavalli has contributed two bars of his
_Pagliacci_; Mascagni, of _Cavalleria Rusticana_ fame, signs his
name across the musical stave, and Madame Melba contributes her best
wishes.
[Illustration: (Johnston Forbes Robertson's Autograph)]
Another quotation of special interest, as it is written by the great
singer Madame Patti, runs as follows: "A beautiful voice is the gift
of God.--Adelina Patti-Nicolini."
Then by way of contrast there is a portion of one of Miss Hope
Temple's songs, in the handwriting of the composer.
One of the most interesting contributions is that supplied by Mr.
Diosy, the popular Secretary of the Japan Society. It consists of a
message to Mr. Clarkson, and a few lines from _The Geisha_ in Japanese
writing and characters.
"From an artiste in airs to an artiste in hairs," over the
signature and music of Mr. Isidore de Lara, is a particularly happy
contribution.
Many of the illustrations are self-explanatory, and we have therefore
omitted mention of them in this article.
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE'S MODESTY.]
[Illustration: A WORD FROM DRURY LANE.]
[Illustration: (Isodore de Lara - Prologo: 'The Light of Asia')]
[Illustration: A MURDERED MAN'S AUTOGRAPH. (William Terriss)]
[Illustration: (Judicie H. Cohen)]
[Illustration: (Violet Vanburgh)]
[Illustration: DAN LENO'S INTIMATION.]
[Illustration: (Meril Tempest)]
[Illustration: MR. PINERO FINDS HIMSELF IN PLEASANT COMPANY.]
[Illustration: Kyrle Bellew]
[Illustration: Yvette Guilbert]
[Illustration: Jean de Herzke]
DAPHNE.
A COMPLETE STORY BY WALTER E. GROGAN.
_Illustrated by Harold Copping._
When a man has looked at death out in Nevada, has rioted in a
brawling mining camp, and has lived for years where the constraint of
civilisation is considerably relaxed, he may outwardly conform to the
decorum of an English village, but underneath you may be certain he is
as lawless as ever.
Gustave Derwent locked up the memories of the days when he was known
as "Wild Gus," banished the recollection of the rough life he had
spent, and brought to Grorepound, on the confines of Dartmoor,
only the knowledge of his great wealth; but at heart the master of
Grorespound Hall was "Wild Gus" still.
County society received him rapturously. He was very wealthy, and
happily of a good family. The Derwents of Gloucestershire were quite
in the very best set. It is true that younger sons had little besides
the old name, and it was therefore sometimes inconvenient to know
them; but Gustave had made quite a fortune in mining, and the name
made it easy for him to step into the set which had been his in past
days.
His connections were anxious that his subscriptions to the hunt and
other county institutions, and also his entertainments generally,
might be taken as part payment of their own debts to society. There
was little doubt that Derwent understood this, and therefore chose
Devon.
Grorepound had little to recommend it. Those who called upon him
were few, because there were very few to call; the village was merely
rural.
"I have been hunted--it's much more exciting than chasing foxes; and
as for shooting, there isn't much sport in butchering tame pheasants,"
he said to the Squire, standing squarely against his mantelpiece.
The Squire remonstrated.
[Illustration: "DAPHNE BLAKISTON WAS PRETTY."]
"It's all very well for me, Derwent. I know every inch of the place
and every fool living within twenty miles. I was born here. I fit it
and it fits me. I was at sea at Oxford, and when I came down I was
glad. My father mortgaged most of the land, I've done the rest. I'm
not rich. I'm growing poorer every day. Land isn't what it was. But I
love the place. There's a whole army of Blakistons in the church, and
please God I shall add to their number. I am someone here--I'm nobody
away. I like to potter after the hounds on a half-bred. I like to
catch my trout. I have old friends here, and can talk to them of old
times. But you? Why, bless me, Derwent, you are rich, not bad looking,
and young. What do you want to bury yourself here for? It's no life
for you. It isn't as though you were married even."
At all of which Derwent smiled. He smiled habitually. It was not a
pleasant smile, for in it lurked a suspicion of irony.
"Blakiston, no man can understand another. This place suits me. It's
quiet, and I want quiet. I have had my fill of excitement out West. I
am young--but forty does not mean a boy."
"Forty! pooh! what's forty?" cried the Squire. He was well over
sixty, and looked upon the vault in the church of which he was fond of
speaking as a possibility very hazy from its remoteness.
"Forty, my friend, is middle age. I am not married, and am not anxious
for a wife. A wife seems to me a risky bargain; because you are lucky,
that is no reason why I should be."
The Squire shifted his hands from his knees and shuffled his feet. He
did not regard his wife as absolutely essential to his happiness.
"Of course, of course," he said, testily. "Mary is an excellent woman,
a really excellent woman."
"Yes, but it was a lottery. She might not have been excellent,
Blakiston; she might have been bad-tempered, she might have attempted
to rule you."
The Squire looked at him with a gleam of suspicion. His wife Mary was
bad-tempered and did rule him, and that in an unpleasantly harsh way.
Derwent smiled still, and the Squire merely reached for his glass of
whisky and water and hoped that his host was unconsciously ironical.
"Then you won't marry?" he asked.
"I don't say that," Derwent answered. At moments in his life he had
thought that love might be the beautiful thing of which men raved.
Those moments were rare, for the making of money is an occupation
which gives little leisure.
"No, I don't say that," he went on. "But I am in no hurry."
"Got my niece coming to-morrow, Derwent," the Squire growled, after a
period of silence. "She has no nearer relations, worse luck! Been with
a girl friend for a year--father was killed in India, mother died when
she was a baby. So she comes to us."
"It is fortunate for her that she has so excellent a home open to
her."
"Yes," the Squire answered, lamely. He was not sure whether Derwent
did not see under the surface. He was conscious of his wife's outcry
about the new expense and the new inconvenience.
A few days later Derwent saw the niece and fell in love with her with
all the fierceness of his nature.
She was pretty, but a critical observer would have ended at that
qualification. The question was whether anyone could be critical in
her presence and under the spell of her eyes.
Her hair was of that shade of brown which has kindred with the sun,
but is dusky in the shade. Her nose was small and not very straight,
her mouth was small, and her chin set forward with a determined
tilt; but her eyes were her glory--large, brown, trusting, and yet
unfathomable. Derwent, seeing them, thought of stars in a midnight
sky, the stars out West, which had spoken to him in those rare moments
when he had respite from dollar making.
Daphne Blakiston was high-spirited. In two or three days she conquered
both the Squire and his wife, who were surprised to find themselves in
accord in liking anyone.
There was a breeziness in her manner which carried them away in spite
of themselves.
"She is a thorough Blakiston," the Squire said.
"She might have been a Courtenay to hear her speak," said his wife.
They set much store by family in Devon.
Derwent found her so pleasant that he went exploring the gardens with
her. They had never seemed so worthy of notice before.
"You like this place?" he asked her.
"Of course--it's lovely. You can breathe here. Did you ever try to
breathe in London? You can't really--you only cough."
"I have had room to breathe in my life."
"You come from the West. It must be grand to be in the forefront of
civilisation--to get away from the restrictions of society."
"One gets away from all restrictions," he answered, slowly, "but I do
not know that it is grand."
"But you live out there; you work for your living, and you work hard."
"Yes."
"It must be glorious! I wish I could go there."
"God forbid!" he cried.
"Why? I have grit--that's what you call it, isn't it?"
He smiled. "I don't doubt it, Miss Blakiston; but you have also a
conscience. A conscience is inconvenient without settled laws to back
it up."
"But right is right everywhere," she expostulated.
"Right there is in the possession of a good revolver and a quick eye."
"You have had a wild life," she murmured, looking at him with some
curiosity and a little awe.
"Wild enough; and I sometimes wonder whether the wildness is all out
yet. Who says habit is second nature? There is a great deal of truth
in it. They may put me into English dress and place a riding-whip in
my hand in exchange for a pick or a revolver, but if anything I really
wanted was to come into my life and there was any obstacle--" He broke
off and looked hardly through the hedge, seeing something that was not
there. His hands clenched themselves, and his face becoming set made
him look more than his forty years.
She watched him with a new interest.
"Well?"
"I think it would go hard with the obstacle."
Daphne was about to continue her investigation when she caught sight
of a straw hat over the hedge which bordered the meadow from the road.
"There's Jack!" she cried. "I know there is only one straw hat so
dilapidated in the world!"
He looked at her narrowly.
"Who's Jack?" he demanded.
"Jack's--well, Jack. He is the son of the rector. I knew him in
London. He's on long leave. Jack!" she called.
Jack found a gap in the hedge--the Squire's hedges had many gaps--and
came towards them. Derwent saw that he was good-looking, tall, young,
and carried himself with the easy air of a military man. He hated him.
It was a new experience; he had never hated men before--he had only
disliked them.
[Illustration: "'COME,' HE SAID, 'I WISH TO SPEAK TO YOU. I CAN'T TALK
IN THIS CROWD OF FOOLS.'"]
"Ah, Daphne!" cried Jack; "I hardly hoped to see you."
"This is Mr. Derwent--Mr. De Courcy. I knew you were coming down
yesterday. Your father told me." She poured out her words in excited
gasps. To Derwent it seemed that she ignored him, and he did not like
it.
"You are in the army?" he asked curtly of the young man named Jack.
"Yes, the 10th Lancers. I was too much of a muff for anything else. I
can ride a bit, I am fairly well made," he looked down at his length
of limb complacently, "and--and I don't think I should funk."
"No man knows until he has been tried."
"I suppose so."
The two left Derwent somewhat unceremoniously. From that he gathered
that Daphne merely looked upon him as her uncle's friend. No man likes
to awake suddenly and find that he has become middle-aged. He may be
fond of joking about it, but that is because he believes he is far
from its border. When the knowledge comes to him suddenly, and, above
all, through a woman who has found favour in his eyes, it is bitter.
Derwent watched them go, cursing the young soldier.
"An insolent puppy--a mere boy!" he said. "It is dishonourable for him
to be making love to _her_. He is a pauper!"
De Courcy hardly noticed Derwent beyond a vague wonder at his
churlishness.
"Rum beggar, Daphne," he said. "I suppose living so long in a savage
place has made him grumpy. Beastly rich, isn't he?"
"Yes. Made it all himself. Nevada must be a glorious place!"
"What a mercenary being you are, Daphne!" he laughed. "I prefer
Canterbury, or Grorepound, even. I suppose I shall be jealous of him."
"Mr. Derwent? Why, he is an old man."
"He seems over forty--not old, you know; and he has dollars, which
mean diamonds."
He smiled throughout, because it seemed manifestly impossible that
any woman should prefer anyone to himself. Jack De Courcy was well
satisfied with the work of Nature in fashioning himself.
"Oh, Jack!" she protested.
"And I am a pauper," he went on.
He certainly was a pauper in comparison with Derwent; but, poverty
being only comparative, he was a rich man to many. His mother's
private fortune--some four hundred a year--was added to the pay which
a grateful country gave him for his exertions on parade.
Derwent lived for a week in the agony of jealousy. He had never cared
for anyone very much in all his previous life. He had indeed been
aware of an innate capacity for affection, but the business of making
money had left him no leisure.
One day he came to a decision.
"You are a fool," he said, apostrophising himself. "You are a fool.
Go and ask her whether she can care for you. You don't know yet
for certain; you only imagine. The soldier is a boy. Women--young
women--don't care for boys. Besides, he is poor, and women like
jewels."
The same afternoon he sought her out from a number of guests playing
tennis on the Squire's lawn. She was flushed with victory, having,
mainly by the aid of Jack's long legs and skill, succeeded in
vanquishing the antagonistic couple in a hard fight. Derwent hated
tennis, because he did not play it and Jack did. Tennis is not much
practised in mining camps; they prefer shooting.
"Come," he said, very quietly, yet in the tone of one who is set upon
a purpose. "I wish to speak to you. I can't talk in this crowd of
fools. I have not yet got the hang of it."
She looked at him and laughed.
"What a dear old grumbler you are!" she cried. She really liked
him--it is possible that there was something to like in him, and that
if matters had run easily he would have been a pleasant member of
society. A man after all is largely shaped by his surroundings.
He did not answer her, at which she was surprised, for his general
taciturnity had usually disappeared at her bidding.
"You are bad-tempered," she said. "Don't be bad-tempered. The sun is
just lovely and I shall be freckled. I hate being freckled, but the
process is alluring. And I have news." She added the last softly to
herself, expecting him to question her. He did not. He led her to a
seat in the shade of a tree and stood behind her looking down on her
wide straw hat.
"I am not young," he began; "I have nearly reached forty----"
"I thought you were more," she interrupted, and his brows contracted.
"I have lived hardly. I have done many things which I wish to forget,
and which I cannot. I have made money where to make money needs grit
and--and a conscience not too tender."
"Are you going to write an autobiography?" she asked. She had no idea
of the seriousness of his mood, for all of his moods struck her as
more or less serious.
"I am stating broadly the manner of man I am. I don't want to appear a
saint. I would rather you did not know how I lived when I was heaping
dollars. My past life belongs to the past. I have now another life
before me. It may be happier than the drag of years behind."
"It ought to be--you are rich."
"It depends upon you."
She tilted her hat upwards, but the brim was wide and she could not
see him.
"On me?"