A Pasteboard Crown Part 25

In the "Stage Notes," or "Stage Whispers," or "Gossip of the Stage," of the Sunday papers (next morning), there had been mention made of "A pleasant little surprise at the Globe Theatre, where a lady had so successfully secluded herself in the shadows of her box that the play was half over before Mr. Thrall had discovered in her his wife, whom he supposed to be still in London. Strict disciplinarian as he is, the manager was so far lost in the husband that he hurried, all costumed as he was, to the box to greet and warmly welcome her. The audience would gladly have taken a hand in the greeting, had they been quite sure the lady was Mrs. Thrall, but as she had arrived too late to make a proper evening toilette, yet could not deny herself the pleasure of seeing at once her husband's latest great production, she almost wrapped herself in the box curtain, thus facing the stage while hiding herself from the house. When discovered, the returned wanderer laughingly told Mr. Thrall she hoped that, in common justice, he would place his own name at the head of that week's 'docked list,' as a heavy forfeit is demanded of anyone who appears in front of the house after taking any part, no matter how brief, in the performance, and he was doubly guilty, in that he was in full costume. He gravely argued there would be no one to profit by the forfeit, since he was himself manager as well as offending actor. But she quickly extended an open hand, and cheerfully offered to receive the forfeit, and even to invest it wisely and cautiously, and Mr. Thrall retired from both argument and box."

Also, there had been a brief mention of "The swooning of Miss Sybil Lawton, between acts. The cause given was fatigue, the long run of the play, and the double performance of Sat.u.r.day, making a heavy draught upon the strength of so young a girl."

One paper added that "Miss Lawton herself made light of the matter, saying, 'Fainting was a mere family trait with the Lawtons, an inheritance the same as a very long thumb or a peculiar ear,' but though she laughed, she looked very white, and leaned heavily upon the arm of her woman companion."

When the play ended that night the call-boy had been sent to tell Mr.

Roberts that "he was wanted at Mr. Thrall's dressing-room, as quickly as possible," and presently, shabby and shambling, with every nerve aquiver, and in a most savage temper, he obeyed. Outside the door he stood respectfully enough, his hat in hand. Inside his manner became a half-cowed insolence. He put his hat on, and, nervously b.u.t.toning and unb.u.t.toning his coat, said: "Well; you whistled your cur--here I am!

Whom am I to be sic'd at this time?"

The most of Romeo's delicate finery hung about on hooks; the splendor of his waving, golden-brown locks graced a wooden block standing on the dressing-shelf; his cloak and cap and sword were piled in a pell-mell heap; his dainty shoes were most anywhere; while everywhere were cigarettes--damp, spoiled, but unlighted, because of his own strict rule against smoking in the dressing-rooms, and the man himself, bending over the marble basin in that frenzy of soapy lather, without which the male countenance may not be considered cleansed, answered from its midst: "I'm not sic'ing you on anyone!"

"That's queer! There was a time when I was often sent for, to discuss an important 'set,' or listen to some troublesome or involved scene, or was sent to libraries to root out notes for your information, but Lord!

Lord! that was long ago! The stage-manager is your counsellor now, but I can still do all those hateful services that pa.s.s under the general term of 'dirty-work.' Whenever a request is to be refused; whenever a discharge is to be made; whenever a furious woman is to be faced--that a scene may be prevented at the theatre--I am summoned, and the d.a.m.ned funny part of it is, I come and accept my orders and carry them out; but even you can hardly expect me to enjoy the work of getting you out of every sc.r.a.pe."

"You were not called upon in the Manice matter," Thrall somewhat sullenly remarked from the folds of a towel.

"N--o!" a.s.sented Roberts, regretfully. "I should have enjoyed handing in her dismissal. But go ahead with your orders! The job must be pretty tough, judging from the way you hang fire in naming it."

Thrall turned, and his face startled Roberts. It was so pale, so drawn, so anxious, he seemed to have washed away all its youth and pride and brightness, along with the grease paint and the rouge, in the basin of soapy water. He turned his troubled eyes in silent reproach upon the speaker, who asked, in a more respectful tone: "Well, what is it?"

"It is," said Thrall, turning to the shelf and taking up a brush, which he began to use hurriedly upon his hair, "it's the child, Jim--the Princess! She--well, she's had a blow. The moment I'm out of here I'll run against some of the boys from the papers, then I'll have to see the Missus home--and stay there. And, Jim, those two women are all alone in that house, and should the child go to pieces, and need a doctor's care----"

Jim muttered an oath. "As bad as that?" he asked, fiercely. "Didn't she know?"

"Oh, I don't know--I don't know anything to-night," groaned Thrall, "except her need of protection! Jim, can't you go there? Jane Stivers will let you in, quietly; she'll give you a couch in the parlor to rest until dawn, and you can carry that old medicine case with you, too, so that any early rising neighbor may mistake you for a doctor leaving the house. Then, should any need arise, you would be on hand to serve her, and I--[he dropped the brush and held his head hard between his hands] I should be a trifle farther away from the insane asylum! Will you do it?

Say, speak quick! I've got to hurry down to the Missus! Jim, what the devil brought her back from London so suddenly, though she will tell me presently herself, I suppose?"

And Jim answered: "Manice brought her back--well, you see if I'm not right! She's been sending anonymous letters. Y-e-s, I'll follow Stivers, and stand by till morning. Hand down that medicine-case. But I'm doing it for her sake, not yours, mind you!"

And then Stewart Thrall, with a pang at his heart, had seen Sybil leave the theatre on Stivers's arm, while he, with seeming gayety, was presenting Mrs. Thrall to a little group of friends, among whom were a couple of ubiquitous newspaper men--hence the "Stage Notes" next day.

Early Sunday morning Stewart had slipped from his room and the house, and hurrying off in search of Jim Roberts had found him at his boarding-house, already well on the way to complete inebriation, early as it was; and so unruly, headstrong, and unmanageable that it was difficult indeed to learn anything about the pa.s.sing of the night at Stivers's house; and what he did wring from him only added to his own pain.

"For two hours by that cussed watch," said Jim, flinging the scratched and dented timepiece across the room, "minute by minute, I watched and listened to her unceasing walk--walk--walk over my head. She had shut Stivers out! She had acted a five-act tragedy twice that day, she had had neither dinner nor supper, and there she was walking miles up there alone--in the night! And then we heard speaking, and Jane and I listened on the stairs, and she was saying, over and over--oh, how I wish you had died last summer, Thrall, you with your infernal soft eyes and girl lashes and stony, hard heart! Friendship?--nothing! How can there be friendship without mutual respect and esteem and good will? You've a lot of esteem for me, haven't you? Well, I've less for you! Why should I tell you what she said or did? Oh, the _past_! You let that past alone, do you hear? Poor child, saying over and over, 'Too early seen unknown and known too late! known too late! _known too late!_' Oh, you're going, are you? Well, I was starting for a doctor when that cat Stivers played her last card. She said: 'Miss Sybil, dear, you _must_ take a little nourishment, or I shall send this telegram I've written to your mamma, Mrs. Lawton, and she will be here by ten in the morning. I can't have you fainting from exhaustion, and me getting the blame;' and at that the door opened quickly, and the cup of beef-tea was accepted. Stivers even got the chance to brush her hair a bit, but not one word did she speak of any trouble or worry, other than that she 'was suffering from an attack of the nerves.' Poor, plucky little soul! She'd never give anyone away! Well, go! I'm devilish glad to see your back, for your face puts murder in my heart!"

And as Thrall left Jim, who was dragging a full flask from his pocket, he muttered to himself: "G.o.d! I begin to understand what makes drunkards of some men! Oh, my beloved! my beloved! If I could only go to you--claim you before all the world--do you public reverence! Perhaps--I wonder if Lettice would accept her freedom, we are such utter strangers to each other--perhaps----"

He hastened back home, and was surprised to find that Mrs. Thrall had already breakfasted in her own room. He would have been more surprised had he known that her quick ears had heard and her pale eyes had watched his early departure, and that the suspicion it had aroused in her mind would add much to the difficulties of the interview he sought. For what he had to face, he faced without hesitation or delay.

Stewart Thrall's knowledge of feminine character was considerable, yet it was neither deep nor thorough--it was superficial. He understood the tastes, the fancies, the caprices of women; he was a past-master in delicate flattery; he was quick to recognize the almost unconscious pose of a pretty woman. Was she literary, he was earnest and intellectual and quoted her favorite poet; was she artistic, he straightway saw in her the potential painter, only handicapped by circ.u.mstance; while, if she were simply coquettish, he was indeed upon solid ground. Women loved to be appreciated; he not only accepted them at their own valuation, but added something to the apprais.e.m.e.nt. What wonder, then, that he thought of them as conceited, vain, full of pride, without merit? But even what knowledge he had was to-day useless and unavailing, for there was probably no woman in the world so hopelessly incomprehensible to him as this chill, ashen-blonde creature, whom he had called his wife these twelve years past, though she remained abroad so long at a time for her health (which was perfect) that other people almost forgot he was a Bened.i.c.k. Save in the theatre one never heard her mentioned. Long ago, a low-cla.s.s English servant had habitually referred to her as the "Missus," and with gleeful unanimity the actors adopted the t.i.tle, and thus Sybil remained all ignorant that behind the screening nickname of the "Missus" stood a secure and dominant Mrs. Stewart Thrall.

The pair, who had been talking long, were sitting facing each other. The table between them had a dish of half-dead ferns in a handsome receptacle. Though meant for ornament, they were sadder even than the paper-dry, stick-dead contents of the window jardiniere, for they at least no longer struggled, no longer suffered for loving care. Stewart had remarked apropos of their condition: "You see they have felt your absence, Lettice?"

And she had given the little downward pull to the corners of her mouth that always made him wince, and answered: "But _you_ were never looking better or younger in your life than"--(she glanced at his thin, pale, anxious face, and significantly finished)--"than you were yesterday."

There was a litter, too, of Sunday papers, a Tauchnitz novel, and writing materials keeping the dead ferns company, and now, in the pause that was lengthening out between them, he carefully piled up the pencils and penholders, building and unbuilding pens, some square, some three-cornered, while all the time the ash-blonde woman opposite sat steady, self-contained; and, though her satirical lightness of manner was changing fast into a sullen anger that settled heavily about her lips and clouded her brow, her hands yet rested quietly in her lap, while her cold eyes watched the man she wondered at not a little--for he was changed. Heretofore, innuendoes had ever had power to drive him to hot rage, to-day his tolerance might have pa.s.sed for indifference, but for the quick trembling of those ever-building fingers.

She told him of the anonymous letters that had convinced her that he was making a fool of himself, publicly enough, to endanger her dignity as a wife, and so----

"And so," he interrupted, "you broke faith with me on the strength of an anonymous lie? You have returned, not to find the scandal in existence, but to learn that your presence here makes life much harder for us both.

You must feel proud to know that a creature like Manice has used you so easily!"

"Almost as proud as you must be to recall certain love pa.s.sages between you," retorted Lettice.

"Pardon me, one cannot 'recall' what has never existed. I have even yet a little respect for the word and the sentiment of love, and would never think of casting such pearls into the Manice trough!"

"You are so remarkably frank about this malicious young person, perhaps you will be equally so about this rare conservatory blossom--this quite wonderful Juliet, this new 'chere amie'? Oh, you can't deny--save to the blind--your infatuation for her! Admitting that you have had so far an eye to appearances, that no open scandal is yet afoot, it is still plain to all that you love her! Silence? That's odd--from you! Does she understand how she is honored? Have you acquainted her with the number she should wear upon her breast? Don't break that holder! What creatures men are! Deception, ingrat.i.tude, and treachery were your very wedding-gifts to me. Disloyalty has long become a habit with you."

"Lettice, did it ever occur to you that a wife's unjust suspicions may help a man on to disloyalty? You no sooner took my name than you became a personified suspicion. You claimed dominion over my very thoughts. My every movement seemed to arouse your mistrust. You put spies upon me, when I had not even a thought of disloyalty. I discovered it, and, though I am ashamed now of the boyish folly, it's none the less true that I first broke my solemn vow to you out of revenge for your unjust suspicion. Then you helped me with your money and with your astonishing ability to twist and turn everything to our advantage and profit; and let me say that your audacious plans were not always quite scrupulous, Lettice! But when I found that that troubled you not a bit, I somehow felt that my disloyalty was not worth troubling about either. I was truly grateful for your help, but you wanted me on my knees, and you rubbed the service in so hard that it became unendurable, and I was in torment until I paid you the money back, with interest. But still you feel that I owe you a debt of grat.i.tude, because, finding me an artist, full of dreams and willing to wait for their fulfilment, you have made of me a showman instead--a successful one at that. And now we have become such strangers that we place the ocean between us, for the comfort of its vast breadth dividing us. Lettice, we can't be less to each other than we are, and yet you reproach me with my infidelities. I can't understand why. I can't even understand why you married me. If you had ever loved me"--(he was busy with the pencils, he never saw the slowly rising blood creeping up even to the roots of her hair)--"but you never did, even at the first. I suppose you could not resist that craving you had to show what you could do with me, how you could push me. Lettice, don't you want to accept half of my earnings, and--and take your freedom--your legal freedom, I mean--without any blame being attached to you? Lettice, cast back my name, you can't care for it longer. See, I humble myself to entreat your favor in this matter!

Accept your freedom--become once more Lettice Rowland!"

And, as the urgent voice ceased, Lettice asked, coldly: "Why?" and then had followed the silence.

And the man with the restless fingers saw all the time the dark, stricken face of the girl he loved, and seemed to hear the rapid, uneven footfalls of the young creature pursued by bitter memories through the heavy hours of the night, and the perspiration stood upon his forehead.

The pale eyes opposite that watched saw he suffered, and bitterness grew evenly with the wonder that filled her heart. She was a tenacious woman, one who would even hold fast a thing which she no longer valued, simply because it belonged to her. She was clever and shrewd, and she was making some astonishingly correct deductions from Thrall's looks and manner as well as his words. Hitherto his amours had been lightly formed and lightly broken, and she had been conscious at times of a sort of contemptuous pity for the women whose reign she knew would be so brief--but this was different. She had known last night--she told herself, she had seen, she had heard the new tenderness in his glance and tone. She saw in Sybil a new type of rival, a creature of intelligence as well as of beauty; and then and there had lighted even the dull anger that was burning in her now. She looked at his goodly length of limb, at his well-shaped, closely cropped head, at the black sweep of lashes she knew he hated. A sudden quiver came about her pale lips as she recalled how, in their early married days, she had often called his attention to something on the floor just for the pleasure of seeing their silky length sweep downward. He had never known, or he would probably have repeated the deed of his boyhood, when in a rage he had cut them off close to the lids and had been shut up under the doctor's care in consequence. And now he wanted her to give him up.

"Why?" She had not known that she had spoken the word until his start told her. Then he said, slowly:

"You would be happier, I think, Lettice" (he smiled faintly). "You would not be distressed, then, by my bad conduct, you know."

"Your consideration for my feelings is as touching as it is novel, but it is not a convincing reason for the putting away of a wife."

"A wife?" repeated Thrall, as he raised his eyes and looked steadily, meaningly, at her. "I think the precise and unemotional dictionary itself will describe wife as a 'woman united to a man by marriage.' Are we united, Lettice? It is nearly three years since our tenderly emotional public parting at the steamer, but our real parting dates much farther back."

She interrupted, to say, sharply: "Well, no one knows of that, and I'm sure my presence in London was of great service to you. At least two important plays would have escaped you, but for me and my clever planning."

"Yes," he answered, a little weariedly. "But I was not speaking of our relations as manager and agent--they are quite satisfactory; but I was about to state that while I am not an unmarried man--I am wifeless."

"Ah!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "that never troubled you before!"

He paid no heed, but went on, steadily: "The law cannot put us one inch farther asunder than we are now, but it can free us from this hypocrisy and pretence, and restore us our dignity and independence and freedom."

"My friend," came in the well-modulated voice that was the sole charm of the woman opposite, "do you then take me for a fool? It required two to make our bargain, it will require two to break it. I am Mrs. Stewart Thrall as surely to-day as I have ever been. You have broken your vows; but I have kept mine, at least [in answer to an accusing look] I have not broken them--I have been loyal."

"Why?" dryly put in Thrall.

A little of color came into her face as she answered: "From self-respect, sir! I have pushed your interests, I have seen you rise, and I mean to stand by your side and share your honors! You are mine!

You can't divorce me, and I won't divorce you, without more reason than this new whim of yours for a swarthy, black-browed girl with a red mouth that you will tire of in six months' time, and who, in spite of her good breeding, which is evident enough, may give you sufficient trouble for you to be glad to have this marriage service to hide behind!"

"_Lettice!_" cried Thrall, springing to his feet, "so help me G.o.d, you tempt me to strangle you! Oh, but see here! You are hard as nails in seeming, but how can I tell what is in your heart? Perhaps it is big and generous and warm enough to pity the innocent victim of your husband's l.u.s.t; yes, and there you have a reason strong enough for a divorce."

Perhaps she might, in sheer swift contempt, have cast him his freedom had he not blundered, as men will in their dealings with women; and, in a sudden pa.s.sionate burst of love and pity and remorse for the girl not yet twenty years old, whose life and honor were resting in their hands, "prayed her to be generous and great in magnanimity; to leave him free to right the horrible wrong he had done, and in return to accept his lifelong service, his reverent friendship!" His eyes were misty, his voice was trembling, his very soul was at his lips.

She rose, and, looking coldly into his pleading face, she said: "I am Mrs. Stewart Thrall. I will not be cast aside!"

Patiently he answered: "I ask you to put _me_ away!"