Thelma Part 60

"She's been drinking?" thought Lady Winsleigh disgustedly. In fact, the "Vere's Own" tipple had begun to take its usual effect, which was to make the Vere herself both blatant and boisterous.

"I'm sure," said her ladyship with frigid politeness, "that you are everything that is quite charming, Miss Vere! I have a great respect for the--the ornaments of the English stage. Society has quite thrown down its former barriers, you know!--the members of your profession are received in the very best circles--"

"I ain't!" said Violet, with ungrammatical candor. "Your Irvings and your Terrys, your Mary Andersons and your Langtrys,--they're good enough for your fine drawing-rooms, and get more invitations out than they can accept. And none of them have got half my talent, I tell you! Lord bless my soul! if they're respectable enough for you,--so am I!"

And she struck her hand emphatically on the table, Lady Winsleigh looked at her with a slight smile.

"I must really say good-bye!" she said, rising and gathering her furs about her. "I could talk with you all the morning, Miss Vere, but I have so many engagements! Besides I mustn't detain _you_! I'm so much obliged to you for your kind reception of me!"

"Don't mention, it!" and Violet glanced her over with a kind of sullen sarcasm. "I'm bound to please Lennie when I can, you know!"

Again Lady Winsleigh shivered a little, but forced herself to shake hands with the notorious stage-Jezebel.

"I shall come and see you in the new piece," she said graciously. "I always take a box on first nights? And your dancing is so exquisite! The very poetry of motion! So pleased to have met you! Good-bye!"

And with a few more vague compliments and remarks about the weather, Lady Winsleigh took her departure. Left alone, the actress threw herself back in her chair and laughed.

"That woman's up to some mischief," she exclaimed sotto voce, "and so is Lennie! I wonder what's their little game? _I_ don't care, as long as they'll keep the high-and-mighty Errington in his place. I'm tired of him! Why does he meddle with _my_ affairs?" Her brows knitted into a frown. "As if he or anybody else could persuade me to go back to--," she paused, and bit her lips angrily. Then she opened the envelope Lady Winsleigh had left with her, and pulled out the bank-notes inside. "Let me see--five, ten, fifteen, twenty! Not bad pay, on the whole! It'll just cover the bill for my plush mantle. Hullo! Who's there?"

Some one knocked at her door.

"Come in!" she cried.

The feeble Tommy presented himself. His weak mouth trembled more than ever, and he was apparently conscious of this, for he pa.s.sed his hand nervously across it two or three times.

"Well, what's up?" inquired the "star" of the Brilliant, fingering her bank-notes as she spoke.

"Miss Vere," stammered Tommy, "I venture to ask you a favor,--could you kindly, very kindly lend me ten shillings till to-morrow night? I am so pressed just now--and my wife is ill in bed--and--" he stopped, and his eyes sought her face hopefully, yet timidly.

"You shouldn't have a wife, Tommy!" averred Violet with blunt frankness.

"Wives are expensive articles. Besides, I never lend. I never give--except to public charities where one's name gets mentioned in the papers. I'm obliged to do that, you know, by way of advertis.e.m.e.nt. Ten shillings! Why, I can't afford ten pence! My bills would frighten you, Tommy! There go along, and don't cry, for goodness sake! Let your fiddle cry for you!"

"Oh, Miss Vere," once more pleaded Tommy, "if you knew how my wife suffers--"

The actress rose and stamped her foot impatiently.

"Bother your wife!" she cried angrily, "and you too! Look out! or I tell the manager we've got a beggar at the Brilliant. Don't stare at me like that! Go to the d----l with you!"

Tommy slunk off abashed and trembling, and the Vere began to sing, or rather croak, a low comic song, while she threw over her shoulders a rich mantle glittering with embroidered tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and poised a coquettish Paris model hat on her thick untwisted coils of hair. Thus attired, she pa.s.sed out of her dressing-room, locking the door behind her, and after a brief conversation with the jocose acting manager, whom she met on her way out, she left the theatre, and took a cab to the Criterion, where the young Duke of Moorlands, her latest conquest, had invited her to a sumptuous luncheon with himself and friends, all men of fashion, who were running through what money they had as fast as they could go.

Lady Winsleigh, on her way home, was tormented by sundry uncomfortable thoughts and sharp p.r.i.c.ks of conscience. Her interview with Violet Vere had instinctively convinced her that Sir Philip was innocent of the intrigue imputed to him, and yet,--the letter she had now in her possession seemed to prove him guilty. And though she felt herself to be playing a vile part, she could not resist the temptation of trying what the effect would be of this compromising doc.u.ment on Thelma's trusting mind. It was undoubtedly a very incriminating epistle--any lawyer would have said as much, while blandly pocketing his fee for saying it. It was written off in evident haste, and ran as follows:--

"Let me see you once more on the subject you know of. Why will you not accept the honorable position offered to you? There shall be no stint of money--all the promises I have made I am quite ready to fulfill--you shall lose nothing by being gentle. Surely you cannot continue to seem so dest.i.tute of all womanly feeling and pity? I will not believe that you would so deliberately condemn to death a man who has loved, and who loves you still so faithfully, and who, without you, is utterly weary of life and broken-hearted!

Think once more--and let my words carry more weight with you!"

"BRUCE-ERRINGTON."

This was all, but more than enough!

"I wonder what he means," thought Lady Winsleigh. "It looks as if he were in love with the Vere and she refused to reciprocate. It _must_ be that. And yet that doesn't accord with what the creature herself said about his 'preaching at her.' He wouldn't do that if he were in love."

She studied every word of the letter again and again, and finally folded it up carefully and placed it in her pocket-book.

"Innocent or guilty, Thelma must see it," she decided. "I wonder how she'll take it! If she wants a proof--it's one she'll scarcely deny.

Some women would fret themselves to death over it--but I shouldn't wonder if she sat down under it quite calmly without a word of complaint." She frowned a little. "Why must _she_ always be superior to others of her s.e.x! How I detest that still solemn smile of hers and those big baby-blue eyes! I think if Philip had married any other woman than she--a woman more like the rest of us who'd have gone with her time,--I could have forgiven him more easily. But to pick up a Norwegian peasant and set her up as a sort of moral finger-post to society--and then to go and compromise himself with Violet Vere--that's a kind of thing I _can't_ stand! I'd rather be anything in the world than a humbug!"

Many people desire to be something they are not, and her ladyship quite unconsciously echoed this rather general sentiment. She was, without knowing it, such an adept in society humbug, that she even humbugged herself. She betrayed herself as she betrayed others, and told little soothing lies to her own conscience as she told them to her friends.

There are plenty of women like her,--women of pleasant courtesy and fashion, to whom truth is mere coa.r.s.eness,--and with whom polite lying pa.s.ses for perfect breeding. She was not aware, as she was driven along Park Lane to her own residence, that she carried with her on the box of her brougham a private detective in the person of Briggs. Perched stiffly on his seat, with arms tightly folded, this respectable retainer was quite absorbed in meditation, so much so that he exchanged not a word with his friend, the coachman, beside him. He had his own notions of propriety,--he considered that his mistress had no business whatever to call on an actress of Violet Vere's repute,--and he resolved that whether he were reproved for over-officiousness or not, nothing should prevent him from casually mentioning to Lord Winsleigh the object of her ladyship's drive that morning.

"For," mused Briggs gravely, "a lady 'as responsibilities, and 'owever she forgets 'erself, appearances 'as to be kep' up."

With the afternoon, the fog which had hung over the city all day, deepened and darkened. Thelma had lunched with Mrs. Lorimer, and had enjoyed much pleasant chat with that kindly, cheerful old lady. She had confided to her, part of the story of Sir Francis Lennox's conduct, carefully avoiding every mention of the circ.u.mstance which had given rise to it,--namely, the discussion about Violet Vere. She merely explained that she had suddenly fainted, in which condition Sir Francis had taken advantage of her helplessness to insult her.

Mrs. Lorimer was highly indignant. "Tell your husband all about it, my dear!" she advised. "He's big enough, and strong enough, to give that little sn.o.b a good trouncing! My patience! I wish George were in London--he'd lend a hand and welcome!"

And the old lady nodded her head violently over the sock she was knitting,--the making of socks for her beloved son was her princ.i.p.al occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt.

"But I hear," said Thelma, "that it is against the law to strike any one, no matter how you have been insulted. If so,--then Philip would be punished for attacking Sir Francis, and that would not be fair."

"You didn't think of that, child, when you struck Lennox yourself,"

returned Mrs. Lorimer, laughing. "And I guarantee you gave him a good hard blow,--and serve him right! Never mind what comes of it, my dearie--just tell your husband as soon as ever he comes home, and let him take the matter into his own hands. He's a fine man--he'll know how to defend the pretty wife he loves so well!" And she smiled, while her shining knitting-needles clicked faster than ever.

Thelma's face saddened a little. "I think I am not worthy of his love,"

she said sorrowfully.

Mrs. Lorimer looked at her with some inquisitiveness.

"What makes you say that, my dear?"

"Because I feel it so much," she replied. "Dear Mrs. Lorimer, you cannot, perhaps, understand--but when he married me, it seemed as if the old story of the king and the beggar-maid were being repeated over again. I sought nothing but his love--his love was, and is my life!

These riches--these jewels and beautiful things he surrounds me with--I do not care for them at all, except for the reason that he wishes me to have them. I scarcely understand their value, for I have been poor all my life, and yet I have wanted nothing. I do not think wealth is needful to make one happy. But love--ah! I could not live without it--and now--now--" She paused, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.

"Now what?" asked Mrs. Lorimer gently.

"Now," continued the girl in a low voice, "my heart is always afraid!

Yes! I am afraid of losing my husband's love. Ah, do not laugh at me, dear Mrs. Lorimer! You know people who are much together sometimes get tired,--tired of seeing the same face always,--the same form--"

"Are _you_ tired, dearie?" asked the old lady meaningly.

"I? Tired of Philip? I am only happy when he is with me!" And her eyes deepened with pa.s.sionate tenderness. "I would wish to live and die beside him, and I should not care if I never saw another human face than his!"

"Well, and don't you think he has the same feelings for you?"

"Men are different, I think," returned Thelma musingly. "Now, love is everything to me--but it may not be everything to Philip. I do believe that love is only part of a man's life, while it is _all_ a woman's.

Clara told me once that most husbands wearied of their wives, though they would not always confess it--"

"Clara Winsleigh's modern social doctrines are false, my dear!"