Poppy Part 38

Only one more question Bramham asked her.

"Was it Karri you told me of that night, Rosalind?--the man you loved?"

"Yes," she said. "The only man I have ever loved, or will love."

She dined with Bramham, after all, and before they parted she had bound him by every oath he honoured never to reveal her secret to Carson.

"If you do," she pa.s.sionately told him, "you may precipitate both him and me into terrible misery, and neither of us would forgive you. We should probably hate you for ever. Leave alone things that you do not understand.... How _should_ you understand! You have accidentally touched on the fringe of a strange story ... something you would never have known except by accident. For I don't intend the world to know this when it knows _me_ some day, Charlie."

"Why?" said he, looking keenly at her. "Are you ashamed of your child?"

"Ashamed!" she laughed happily. "Ashamed of the greatest joy that ever came to a woman; the son of the man she loves!"

A happy look came into his face, too, for the first time since he had known the truth.

"That's the spirit! If a woman has the courage to take the big jump, she should have the grit to face the fences all round the course ... but I don't believe many do; and you can't blame them for that either.

Rosalind, I want to tell you something. I'm a rich man, and I ... I have no children." He swallowed an odd sound in his throat and averted his eyes for a moment, but went on calmly: "I long ago made up my mind to leave every rap, when I die, to women who have done what you have done--and had to suffer for it."

She looked at him thoughtfully for a while.

"I think you would be wrong, Charlie. People would call it putting a premium on sin, and--you couldn't really help the woman who suffered.

Nothing could help her. The right kind of woman would value her suffering more than your money, believe me." Then, as she saw his saddened face, she said, "Help the little love-babies, if you like, and bring them up to be as kind and sweet a friend as _you_ are to women--"

Impulsively he put his hand on hers lying on the dinner-table.

"Let me--" he began.

"But never offer to help _my_ love-baby," she said warningly, "as long as he has a mother to work for him, and a king for his father somewhere in the world."

CHAPTER XIX

At the end of April the season at the Lyceum drew to a close, and Ravenhill re-formed his company to tour the provinces.

Many of those who had worked with him throughout the season were moneyed girls, with such a pa.s.sion for the stage, that they were only too glad to give their services--"walking-on," dancing, and understudying--without salary, for the sake of the experience in a London theatre; and it would have been an easy matter for the manager to have composed his touring company largely of such people. But he happened to be a man with a big heart for the stragglers of the profession; those who were in it for the love of their art, too, but incidentally obliged to make a living. And so, though he did not disdain to employ occasional rich amateurs, he never allowed them to usurp the work of legitimate actors and actresses.

In making a selection of people who would be useful to him by reason of their looks, or talent, or both, he included Poppy on his list, and forthwith she received a little notice during the last London week to the effect that if she cared to go on tour (with the hope of advancement if she studied) the offer was open to her. But the salary offered was smaller than she had been receiving, and she knew that it was useless to think of travelling with her small Pat and supporting herself and him on it. (Ravenhill was unaware, of course, that there was any question of supporting a child.) She was obliged to refuse the offer.

With the closing of the theatre the face of the future took on a blank and appalling expression. Exercising the greatest economy, she had yet not been able to save more than three pounds out of her long engagement; and she knew not where the next money was to come from. The stories she wrote still faithfully returned. The _Book of Poems_, the one brave string in her viol of hope, had been lost. The publisher said that it was only mislaid and might be found at any moment; but Poppy felt a sick certainty that she would never hear of or see her darling book again.

Most foolishly, she had kept no copy of it, and though she believed that by turning up the pages of her memory she might re-write it, she could not spare the time it would cost to do this. Even if she had the necessary leisure, she despaired of ever writing her poems again in all their first perfection--a thought would surely be lost here, a line missing there!

Heart-broken, rage seized her when she first received the news. She saw a red haze before her eyes as in the days when she hated Aunt Lena, and she longed for a hammer and the publisher's head on a block. Afterwards she achieved calmness that was not resignation, and went to interview the publisher and find out what he meant to do. Apparently he had not meant to do anything except take up the bland and Micawberesque att.i.tude of waiting for the book to "turn up." But Poppy's heart was full of the rage and fear of a mother-wolf who sees famine ahead, and though she successfully hid these primitive emotions under a composed manner, there was a feverish urgency about her which, strangely convincing, subtly communicated itself to the publisher, so that presently, quite unintentionally, he found himself promising (in the event of the book not being found within three months) to pay her a sum to be agreed upon, but not less than twenty pounds. In the meantime he engaged, if the book should "turn up," to read it and make her a _conscientious offer_ for it. He did not forget to add that poems were unmarketable ware at the best of times, and that he could not hold out hope of any specially high price for hers.

With these conditions Poppy was fain to be content, though there was poor comfort in them for her. Three months is not long if fame and name wait at the end. But it is a long time to wait for twenty pounds. And it is too long to starve. In a panic she started out once more on the dreary round of agents' offices and theatres. At the end of a week's wasted walking, and talking, chill despair began to eat its way into her brave heart; in the second week the chill was freezing bitter cold that enwrapped, and seemed to paralyse her senses, so that she could feel nothing but dull fear, not for herself, but for little crowing, merry Pat. At that time her thoughts turned to Bramham, her friend. But he was gone, and she knew not where to find him. He had bidden her good-bye and sailed for South America on a prolonged visit. It would be many months before he returned to Durban.

In the third week, while she was eking out her last ten shillings, still desperately seeking work at the theatres, she met in the Strand a girl who had been with her at the Lyceum--one of Ravenhill's moneyed girls, pretty and charming, with a host of friends and acquaintances, of whom she bitterly complained that they would not allow her to fulfill her destiny and become a _Sarah Bernhardt_. She and Poppy had shared the same mirror in a Lyceum dressing-room, and become friendly over their "make-up" boxes.

By many little marks and signs that women judge on, Marion Ashley had concluded that Miss Chard needed every penny of the small salary she earned. Her idea was that Poppy probably had an invalid mother or sister to support; and she had often wished for an opportunity to lend a helping-hand to a girl whom she sincerely liked and admired. When, in the Strand, she met Poppy, pale and hara.s.sed, in worn shoes and an unseasonable gown, a thought shot through her quick mind and she advanced gaily, holding out her hands.

"You are the _very_ girl I wanted to see," she cried. "Come into 'Slater's' for tea, and _do_ see if you can help me in a _great_ difficulty."

While Poppy took off her gloves Marion Ashley poured out the tea and her tale. It transpired that she had a cousin who was young and pretty and rich, but with a broken back. She had injured herself in the hunting-field and would never be able to walk again.

"Ever since, she has become the most awful peevish creature in the world, poor thing, and one can't be surprised at that! But no one can put up with her temper, and no one will stay with her, though she has had companion after companion. She insists on their being young and pretty, and afterwards she is jealous of them and fires them out. Then her mother and her husband come and fetch _me_ round, no matter where I am, and really, you know, dear, it's a _little_ hard on _me_ to have my _career_ interfered with ... it isn't as though I can be of any real use, for Frances is jealous of me too, if I am in the house much. Well, I'm looking out for someone for her now, and--I thought perhaps you could help me. _Do_ say you can?"

She looked appealingly at the pale face opposite her, but Poppy gave no sign. She had considered the matter rapidly, but--companionships were badly paid, as a rule, and she would have to be separated from her little Pat. Marion Ashley's face fell.

"To tell the truth, dear," she said, "I thought you might undertake it yourself. Of course, I know you're far too good for that sort of thing; but I thought you might make a stop-gap of it--and the salary would be good--a hundred a year Frances pays, and you'd have no expenses."

Poppy's face changed. A hundred a year! If she _must_ part with Pat that would at least ensure him a home in the country, and she could save the rest.

"It is very good of you, Miss Ashley.... Will you let me think it over?"

"Oh, yes--_anything_, if you will only take it on. I should be _so_ glad. Her husband is always round bothering the life out of me to find someone. Oh! I must tell you, dear there's _one_ thing besides Frances's temper ... _he_ is difficult."

"Bad-tempered, too?" smiled Poppy.

"_Far_ from it--altogether too good-tempered and fascinating--especially where a pretty girl is concerned. In fact, my dear, he's rapid--and Frances is jealous; so there you have the trouble in a nutsh.e.l.l.

Tiresome, isn't it? It's just as well to know these things beforehand.

But I daresay you'll be able to keep him in his place."

This information depressed Poppy more than a little. She was beginning to realise that whether she liked them or not, she attracted men, and she would rather have heard of some place where there was no man on the scene. As it happened, she was still smarting from an experience of the night before. She had, in mistake, opened the door of a first-cla.s.s carriage in the underground station at Victoria. She speedily closed it, but the one occupant, a man, had had time to observe her, and instantly he whipped the door open again and was out on the platform. A minute afterwards she found an almost empty "third" and stepped into it just as the train started, someone hard on her heels. When she looked up there was the first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger opposite, smiling at her. For the rest of the journey he made ardent love to her with his eyes, and she sat, flaming and paling there with anger. The man was serenely handsome, a gentleman in appearance at least, but his eyes had a look that angered and terrified her; a look that now she seemed to know the meaning of.

"It is terrible to have no innocence left! to know the meaning of a man like that!" she thought shudderingly, and she would not meet his eyes.

Only she resolved that _always_ she would turn her feet away from the paths frequented by men.

"Where does your cousin live?" she asked at last. "Perhaps, I'd better go and see her, if I make up my mind I can take the engagement."

"Yes, _do_, dear--Lower Sloane Street--I'll write the number down for you. I must fly now for rehearsal. I'm going to be in the new romantic play at The York. Send me a line there after you've seen Frances. _Do_ take it on, there's a darling--good-bye."

Poppy spent the afternoon crooning and weeping over Pat's head. It seemed to her that she died a little death every time she thought of parting with him. But--was it not true that the little face had lost some of its pink tints of late?--that the odd eyes were growing larger?

After she had dried her desperate tears and could trust herself to speak equably and reasonably, she called Mrs. Print into consultation.

Mrs. Print had a sister-in-law who lived in a rose-clad cottage in Surrey, and adored babies. Poppy had often seen and talked to her, and let her take Pat out; for she came up to London constantly to try to beguile Mrs. Print to part with one of her little boys--even the vivacious Jimmy would have been made welcome.

Mrs. Print a.s.sured Poppy that no _Dook's_ baby would be better looked after than a child in Sarah Print's care, and that she (Poppy) could go and stay down in the little rose-clad cottage whenever she was free, for Sarah had lots of room, a lovely garden, and corn-fields all round her.

"You can't see nothing but 'ills and corn-fields wheresumever you look!

It would drive me off my nut to live there a week, but Sarah likes it.

You tike baby down and go and 'ave a look to-morrow, ma'am."

"Nothing but hills and corn-fields!"

The words brought a mist over Poppy's eyes. _That_ was what she wanted for her son. She kissed him and asked Mrs. Print to mind him for an hour while she went to Sloane Street.