A Pasteboard Crown Part 18

"And you! Have you presumed to encourage that mere salaried clerk to hope to marry a Lawton? Understand this, if any child of mine ever went to live in a flat, I would not recognize her though she lay upon her death-bed! To be dragged down to poverty by another [the old man winced]

is no crime, but to deliberately choose poverty is a vulgarity that is worse than crime! You will forbid this thing at once! What--love? They love each other? Bah! He's got a straight, flat back and good teeth and eyes--will they make up for a shabby wardrobe and no visiting list?

Love? Love in poverty is an impossibility! I ought to know by this time!" she sneered, bitterly. "I've had plenty of opportunity for experimenting!" Without noticing the quivering of her husband's chin and mouth, she went on: "She's mad or a fool to throw away money and position for some hole-in-a-corner existence with a good-looking lawyer's clerk!"

"Let.i.tia," broke in her husband very gently, "I don't just know what you mean, my dear, but I suppose you are speaking figuratively of money and position; but if you will let me explain all about young Galt's present standing and his future prospects, I think you will yourself sanction an engagement."

"The prospects of a mere clerk!" she jeered. "What a poor-spirited, broken thing you have become, calmly permitting one daughter to go upon the public stage, and giving the other to the first poverty-stricken applicant that asks for her! No! I'm not speaking figuratively of money and position! They are within her reach, and she shall accept them! She has no right to keep me in poverty, because she prefers it for herself!

The time will come when she will thank me for my interference--that is, if she has not driven the man off forever! Perhaps even I may not be able to whistle back a Mr. Bulkley, once he is gone!"

"_My G.o.d!_" the words came in a sort of choking gasp. The man's pale eyes stared at her with a sort of questioning horror. "You do not mean--you can not mean?"

"I mean," recklessly responded the woman, "that with a few smiles and half promises from Dorothy and a little veiled management on my part, her well-ringed fingers might this moment be holding the strings of the Bulkley purse!"

"She must be mad!" interjected the trembling voice of the husband, as if thinking aloud. "It is a charity to believe her mad!"

"Then I'm mad from disappointment and wasted effort. Any opportunity is thrown away upon you! And Sybil hated him and opposed me at every turn!

Yet with a little more time my finesse would have brought William Henry Bulkley to the point of marrying Dorothy!"

"_d.a.m.nation!_" cried John Lawton, as he sprang to his feet and stood a hard, breathing moment, holding fast to the corner of the dressing-table for support. His pale eyes shone with the phosph.o.r.escent glare of the angry cat. His long fingers opened and closed convulsively. For the first time in all her life, Let.i.tia saw danger in him.

"You--are--an--infamous woman!" The words came slowly and with effort from his tremulous lips. "You have forgotten your motherhood, your womanhood! But you never forget the sweetly spicy savor of the flesh-pots of Egypt! No!" he cried with increasing anger, "nor have you forgotten the nature, the gross brutality, of this man, who has control of the flesh-pots you still dream of! You have not forgotten either the long, slow dying of his faithful wife, whom he crowned with public infamies! And since that time you know, as all people know, he has been one of the mightiest in a very sink of iniquity--know him to be a walking danger to unprotected innocence and a vainglorious 'friend' of fashionable vice! Yet to this immorality add an uncontrollably violent temper, impaired health, and a grandfather's years; and for a few fripperies and gew-gaws, a wrap or two of fur and velvet for the satisfaction of your vanity, you would fling, without a thought of her pure soul's fate--fling the white, sweet body of your innocent child into his foul embrace, relying on the name of wife to cover the iniquity! Dorothy, my little white-souled woman-child, and Bulkley? I--I wonder--I don't kill you, Let.i.tia!"

He advanced toward her so fiercely that she shrank back, crying out in terror: "John! John! don't hurt me!"

"Why not?" he asked, savagely. "Why not? Do you know what you have done for me? You have dragged down the woman I have loved and honored as my wife--down, down to within one step of being a procu----!"

Her sharp scream of shame and terror cut across the hideous word.

"No, I won't hurt you; but oh, G.o.d! oh, G.o.d! to wake and find the wife you have pillowed on your breast for twenty years is, after all, a stranger to you! That hurts!--yes, that hurts!"

He pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes, then he said, sternly: "Never bring that man into Dorothy's presence again--I forbid it! Yes, I told you you would make yourself ill!"

But as she lapsed into a faint she was dimly conscious that John was leaving the room. She had gone too far--her slave had rebelled for once. He who always had waited upon her himself in her previous attacks, now called on Lena to attend her and get her to bed, while he went to Dorothy's room and kissed and blessed her and made her very soul sing for joy, because he praised her beloved.

And in the silence, when his cheek rested on her piled-up sunny hair, she did not know of the bitter tears creeping down his face--tears of disapppointment and sorrow, because he had that day learned that the wife he believed to be but frivolous was in truth a personified selfishness.

CHAPTER XX

A PROFESSIONAL LESSON

Sybil, hurried by a message from Leslie Galt, had come flying back from the city to the aid of her injured sister; and, as she dropped upon her knees beside the bed, she cried, breathlessly: "Oh, Dorrie! what an unfortunate, lucky, lucky girl you are!"--a bull that scattered threatening tears and set them both laughing.

As Sybil tossed off her street garments and prepared to make Dorothy more comfortable, she said, heedlessly: "No wonder you believe so in your G.o.d, when He never fails to save you from danger. Let me put myself behind a vicious, bolting brute of a horse, and the Supreme Power would leave me to the broken neck appropriate to the situation; and a good diamond and a lover saved for--why! why! silly girl! I meant no harm!

Did I say something irreverent? Oh, don't you understand? My heart's so full of grat.i.tude for your safety, dear, that my head is turning a bit silly. You would trust Him anyway? Of course you would, you loyal little Christian! I have known your prayers unanswered many a long month, and that you thought the fault was somehow yours. You are one of those wonderful beings who could wring joy out of sorrow, believing that 'whom G.o.d loveth, He chasteneth'! I am not saint enough for that, but at this moment my very heart is beating out the triumphant old Doxology, 'Praise G.o.d from whom all blessings flow!' because you were not killed yesterday; but are here at home only a little chipped and scratched, and because you have a promised husband and I have a strapping big-promised brother. And I do pray, I honestly do! on my knees, dear! that G.o.d will bless you both, and so renew your love each day that it may never grow old. And there's a kiss for _you_ [kissing her on the lips], and here's a kiss for _him_ [kissing Dorothy's cheek], and, ah! you simpleton-- you--you boiled beet! Oh, why have you an arm in splints? To blush so idiotically before just _me_! Oh, what joy it would be to pound you with a pillow! But sit up instead, and let me brush that tangled hair. The idea of poor papa trying to arrange it for the night, and yet his efforts were to be preferred to Lena's. Now, miss, while I am engaged behind you with the brush, you may proceed to explain how it feels to wear a solitaire--such a solitary solitaire! Poor little ringless-fingers girl! And you may also throw some light upon the feelings of a young person who engages herself to be married over her elder sister's head."

But Dorothy had groaned a little from pain, and Sybil silenced her teasing tongue, made Dorothy all orderly and comfortable, cast hemp-seed recklessly before noisy d.i.c.k to buy his quiet; and then, seating herself by the bed, was studying Juliet's lines while Dorothy dozed, until awakened by the arrival of a big bunch of flowers and a note.

For several days there seemed to be an odd constraint upon the household. John Lawton, always rather silent, now became fairly dumb. He never entered the sitting-room, but remained out of doors nearly all the time.

Mrs. Lawton looked heavy-eyed and nervous, and evidently greatly missed Dorothy's care and gentle coddling. Lena she had attempted to ignore; but, alas, she depended too utterly upon that sole servitor for food and drink and warmth and order. So she had to content herself with giving commands in a very cold voice, using very large words, and averting her face during their delivery. Her manner during her short visits to the girls' room was one of poorly restrained anger. She had not seen Dorothy alone since her attempted lecture on the day of the accident; and, as John Lawton had never resumed the interrupted subject of the hated engagement, she remained uninformed as to Leslie Galt's bright prospects until that day when, with nerve worthy of respect, he had presented himself before the irate mother of his sweetheart, and, remembering her contemptuous disregard of the famous warning against "Greeks bearing gifts"--knowing, indeed, that she really had no use for Greeks otherwise engaged--he kept some suggestive small packages in evidence as he entered the sitting-room.

And as he brought himself a chair and placed it close to her never-resting "rocker," he recognized in the buzzing swarm of verbal wasps she turned loose upon him the words "disrespectful--unnerved-- paralysed--disingenuous--stealthy--infringing--intruding--inveigling,"

and with failing breath the last warning injunction: "And let me hear no panegyrical eulogy on poverty, if you please, sir!"

Then with a wisdom far beyond his years he retired to the background his lover's raptures, his glowing admiration for her daughter's beauty; and bringing forward the thrilling question of "pounds, shillings, and pence," they soon resolved themselves into a "ways and means committee."

And presently Let.i.tia's wasps turned to bees, and the bees began to bear the honey of sweet words.

Then she accepted most graciously these offerings, and bridled and declared she "already felt quite old at the prospect of mothering such a great wicked man!" And when he made the usual complimentary rejoinder, she p.r.o.nounced him "saucy," and "wondered, if he talked in that fashion to her, what on earth he would not say to Dorothy!" and was full of regret when he insisted upon going out to look for Mr. Lawton. Then up she went to the room above, where Dorothy was holding the play-book in her free hand and giving the cues, while Sybil repeated her lines to see how nearly letter perfect she was.

Both girls exclaimed: "Why, mamma!" Her expression had changed so completely and her walk was so important--quite her old-time society movement. And then as she approached the bed they caught the first glimpse of a long fine chain of exquisite workmanship, strung at intervals of five or six inches with pale pink coral beads that were in turn girdled with a circle of tiny diamonds.

Mrs. Lawton ostentatiously lifted her lorgnon, and again the girls exclaimed: "Why, mamma!" And then, as she stooped over to kiss Dorothy, she remarked, quite patronizingly: "Yes, our Leslie is very generous and thoughtful. He wanted me to have a little memento of your engagement, dear fellow!"

She did not add that the other memento was a large Strasbourg pate. She kept that fact, like the pate, to herself.

Some weeks slipped by, and early winter was turning the old white house into a very Franz Joseph Land. "Oh!" cried Dorothy one day, "to think of your having to buy all the coal, Sybil! What stupid things the conventions are! I may accept any extravagant outlay of money in flowers or candy or fruit, but the entire family would be under the grand taboo if I received a ton of coal or a barrel of flour."

"Is the flour out, dear?" quickly asked Sybil, laying down her play-book. "Have you been worrying your poor little head? Don't hide things from me, Dorrie! If I have the money, I love to spend it for home. Of course my salary is small, but, dear heaven! what should we have done without it in this old sieve of a building, where fuel simply melts away, and the grate or stove is always calling out for more? Oh, Dorrie, if I could only make a hit in Juliet! Mr. Thrall would surely raise my salary; yes, in spite of the cost of those costumes that fall upon him, poor man! Are they not a wonderful people--Claire Morrell and Stewart Thrall? Think of the kindness of that woman to me, a n.o.body! And think of such an actor as Thrall--Stewart Thrall--taking the trouble to teach me the business of Juliet, his very self. Oh, I shall be so frightened! Dorrie, Mr. Roberts has been very patient, going over and over the scenes with me; telling me where I am to stand and where the other people will be, and what they will do, but he never has taught me anything about the actual acting of Juliet. And now to think that I am to be coached at G.o.d-mother Van Camp's house by Mr. Thrall in person! I only hope and pray he may not light up as he does sometimes when he is acting, for, if he does, I shall forget my own lines in rapturously listening to him. Do you know, Mr. Roberts is sorry that Mr. Thrall ever undertook the management of a theatre?"

"Why?" asked Dorothy, "he is successful--he must make a great deal of money?"

"That is the very thing poor Mr. Roberts bemoans. He says the artist in him has been suffocated by his commercially won money. He says that Mr.

Thrall will himself admit that his acting to-day is not as convincingly true and fine as it was five years ago. Because then he was all enthusiasm, and believed in the dignity and beauty of the art of acting, while to-day he regards it as a means to an end--and that end, money.

Poor Mr. Roberts, he seems to know so much about the profession, and yet only plays such small parts. It must be very humiliating. His lip curled so contemptuously when he told me he was going to play the Apothecary. Do you know, Dorrie, I have a suspicion about him, poor man!

He always, always smells of cloves, and twice yesterday when he pulled out his handkerchief some cloves fell to the floor, and I said: 'I believe you have a corner on cloves, Mr. Roberts.' And, oh, his poor face turned so red, and I added, hurriedly, 'Don't you think the excessive use of cloves may be injurious to the digestion?' 'Possibly,'

he answered, satirically, 'and doubtless still more injurious to the reputation.' I saw his trembling hands; I recalled the watery look his eyes sometimes have; his rapid, almost incoherent speech as opposed to his long silences; and, all at once, I suspected him of drinking."

"Sybil!" exclaimed Dorothy in a shocked voice, "and you have been under his care, and may be again, and he----"

"Has acted like some kind and patient old relative or friend of the family; don't let us forget that. Besides, I may be wrong and ungrateful in suspecting such a thing, but--but it would explain why Mr. Thrall, whom he so admires, only trusts him with such poor, small parts."

Sybil had been nursing her right elbow in her left hand while speaking, and now suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, where's the arnica bottle? I can't bear this last bruise--it's the worst one yet!"

"The bottle is on the wash-stand behind the ewer, but I'm afraid it's nearly empty, for Lena fairly baptized me with it that day of the----"

"Circus?" put in Sybil. "Just look, Dorrie." She pushed up her loose sleeve, and her sister gave a cry of pity at sight of a cruel black bruise on that most sensitive spot--the elbow.

"And your poor shoulder only yesterday?"

"And my poor knees only last week!" ruefully groaned Sybil, tenderly sopping some arnica dregs upon the bruised member.

"Oh, those black knees!" giggled Dorothy, "they looked as if you had knelt in the coal cellar!"

"You heartless little beast!" cried Sybil. "See here, if you laugh at my professional troubles and ensuing physical pains--I'll----"