STAGE-STRUCK.
For the next week but little was talked of at the Folly, save the forthcoming theatricals.
The morning hours grew strangely silent. Gone was the light laughter, banished the echo of gay voices, the quick coming and going of youthful feet; indeed, to any one entering suddenly and unknowing, the air of the house was so changed and transformed they might well exclaim, "The place is haunted!"
And haunted it certainly was, but with fair ghosts in modern raiment, who, if they moved about at all, did so with tragic step and abstracted gaze, or with comic gesture and exaggerated action, accompanied by eagerly-moving lips, from which, however, no sound proceeded, while each and all held, tightly clasped and closely scanned, one of those thin yellow paper books which Mr. French has made so happily familiar to all of us.
Indeed, as Dick Darling remarked, with a piteous shake of her head, and a twisting up of her round mouth, "There wasn't such a thing as a 'rise' to be got out of any one of them, since the craze for acting had descended upon them."
Now and then George Newbold, in honour of whose birthday all this commotion was undertaken, would come upon a solitary group of two—always a girl and a man—who evidently considered learning in couples the quickest way, and who would scowl upon him distractedly when he approached them, or seem wrapped in contemplation of the other's genius as, with halting speech and flushed face, he or she repeated their respective lines.
Mr. Newbold had been heard to declare more than once within the safe precincts of the smoking-room, in language more forcible than polite, that for his part, he should be glad when the "shindy" was all over; and as to its having anything to do with him, or his birthday, it was a—lie. He didn't see where his fun came in, since he took no part in it.
"Paying the bills, old man," replied Jack Howard, lazily, to this outburst; "what more can you ask? Isn't that the proud position and boast of the typical American husband?"
To which grim comfort George only replied by lighting a very large and disreputable-looking pipe, and smoking furiously.
Miss James was among those who elected to study à deux, and had undertaken, in this way, Jack Howard's education, who, much to Baby Leonard's chagrin, had become in some manner, the clever Rosalie's slave. Baby, with tears in her eyes, marked his defalcation from her ranks, and with a feeling of self-pity and wounded vanity, sought compensation in Freddy Slade, and absorption in her rôle.
Between Miss James and Dick Darling coolness reigned. These once fast friends were now almost declared enemies, for even Dick's proverbial good-nature was not proof against the continued and unbending anger of her whilom friend. Miss James had neither forgotten nor forgiven little Marianne's unfortunate revelations, and she visited her annoyance and jealousy upon Dick, who at least was guiltless of all wish to offend; and from brooding over Mr. Perkins' plain and unvarnished words, Rosalie grew to forget they were the utterance of a servant, and magnified their consequence until she fairly hated Dick, and longed to see some evil befall her.
Perhaps the keenest sting of all lay in the fact of her humiliation before Mr. Tremain, for, with an unreasoning confidence, she had made out to herself that Philip was attracted to her, that he found in her a mind superior to the general run of young ladies, and that consequently he might, in time, come to fully realise and appreciate her abilities, and so, perhaps, would be solved the enigma of her future; for Miss James was no longer a jeune ingénue, and the thought of continued single-blessedness troubled her not a little.
It was therefore very bitter to be humiliated in his presence, and to see the lurking smile gather about his lips at Marianne's reckless disclosures. Mr. Tremain, be it remarked, was innocent of any co-operation in Miss James's schemes; he did not even give her a second thought beyond the necessities of every-day life; and the fact that they were often thrown together created no suspicion in his mind, as to any ulterior hopes being built upon his words and manner. Though, indeed, Philip had that courteous and deferential bearing towards women which made his smallest service an appeal, and his lightest word a caress—as Dick Darling said, "When he asked one to have sugar in one's tea, it was with such an assumption of intimacy and entreaty, one might well imagine he was suing for one's heart and hand."
Perhaps Miss James built upon this manner, and though so clever in ologies and ethics, failed to read aright the signs of this man's heart, and raised foundations on sand in consequence.
And still Patricia did not come. Each day Mr. Tremain looked for the old familiar witching face in the circle of "fair women" who gathered at tea-time in the pleasant library; where the wide fireplace, never empty of smouldering pine-logs, was very attractive in the chilly spring mornings and evenings. But he looked in vain. The faces were constantly changing—for Mrs. Newbold was a great favourite, and had many guests—and they were fair enough, too, but none so fair as Patty's, as he remembered it, ten years ago, and not so winsome or so full of grace.
He was too proud to ask news of her; ever since his conversation with Esther, his heart had gone forth more and more to his little wayward love of a decade ago, and though he turned his thoughts resolutely from all remembrance of her, and sternly told himself that he had been right in his judgment of her, she was but a frivolous butterfly, and as such more unsuited than ever to him in his graver years, still there would come unbidden a lurking memory of her sweet mutinous face, the wilful lips, the flashing eyes, the silks and laces that surrounded her lithe form, the faint sweet odour of violets that always accompanied her, and he would pull himself up with a start to find his heart and mind gone captive to the ghost of his old love.
"Ten years ago!" he said, half unconsciously to himself, "ten years ago! It is ten years since we parted; why, Patty must be past her jeunesse now; she was nineteen then, she is nine-and-twenty now, and what woman keeps youth's fairness or freshness when so close on thirty? Patty thirty! Patty grown out of wilful, petulant girlhood; Patty with suffering and change written on her face; nay, with perhaps a wrinkle or two, or even a gray thread in the soft brown darkness of her hair!"
Impossible! He could never think of her save as when they parted, when she was in the full flush and arrogance of her young beauty, surrounded by every luxury, and flattered by the gay homage of her little court, triumphant, sparkling, inaccessible. To picture her in any different guise, was to wilfully take down his idol from its pedestal.
He sauntered into the library one afternoon, at the accustomed hour of tea, and found the room full of people. Mrs. Newbold was pouring Indian Hyson into faultless cups of royal Worcester, which Jack Howard passed about, followed by Dick Darling with what she called "the trimmings," i.e. sugar and cream.
An animated discussion was going on, so Philip's entrance was unnoticed save by Miss James, who beckoned to him to take the empty chair beside her. Nothing loth to escape introductions, he fell into her scheme and made her supremely happy; for they sat a little withdrawn from the general group, and this made Mr. Tremain's position all the more marked. Miss James was never quite content unless what she called Philip's "attentions" were fully en évidence.
Dick Darling's bright eyes spied him out presently, and she brought him a cup of tea, handing it to him with a shrug of her shoulders and an absolute wink of her eye, at which Miss James coloured and cast an angry look after the retreating culprit.
"And when is Miss Hildreth coming?" were the first words that caught Mr. Tremain's ear, and riveted his attention at once.
"Not until the very day of the play," replied Mrs. Newbold. "It's rather provoking of her, isn't it? But really, you know, Patricia's so spoiled, and it doesn't very much matter. She's quite perfect in her part, and we can have a dress rehearsal before evening on the day, if necessary."
"And who acts Henri de Flavigneul's part?" asked another voice.
"Oh, Mr. Tremain," replied Mrs. Newbold again. "You need have no fear, Mrs. Beverley. Mr. Tremain is sans reproche in his character."
"Do you mean Philip Tremain," the lady persisted, "the clever Mr. Tremain, who has such bijou chambers and who is so unapproachable? But surely, won't that be a little awkward? Wasn't he once engaged to Miss Hil——?"
But here Dick Darling managed to upset the brass water-kettle, and in the confusion which ensued the question was never completed.
Soon after the guests took their departure, and as the house party stood about the fire waiting for the dressing-gong, Esther said:
"I am sure it is high time we had a rehearsal; we shall never be ready if we go on in this lazy fashion. I have sent for Mr. Robinson, of Wallack's Theatre, to coach you all, and he will be here to-morrow; so I call a rehearsal for that afternoon, and I advise you to study up well, for he's a perfect martinet regarding correct lines, and thinks nothing of reducing one to abject misery by his sarcasm."
"But who will take Miss Hildreth's part?" asked Baby Leonard. "It's no use our rehearsing if the Countess isn't here—it will be Hamlet with Hamlet left out, and no mistake."
"Baby is thinking of her grand scene," murmured Miss James aside to Philip. "Her part is nothing without the Countess as a foil."
"Some one might read the lines of her rôle," suggested Freddy Slade, who, as De Grignon, thought very little of any other character. "It won't matter very much if one only gets one's proper cues."
"Oh, but it matters a great deal, thank you," cried Baby, quite roused from her usual lethargy. "Who wants to act to bare cues, I should like to know? And how is one to work up into anything, if one hasn't the proper assistance?"
"You are quite right, Baby," said Esther, when she could make herself heard, "and you shan't be put in any such dampening position. Mdlle. Lamien has offered to be Patricia's substitute, and she knows the lines by heart. I think it's very good-natured of her."
To which there was a general assent, only Miss James whispered again to Mr. Tremain:
"You will have no temptation to draw you from your allegiance to your Baby-ish sweetheart, Mr. Tremain. Mdlle. Lamien can scarcely offer any counter attractions, as the Countess, to Baby, as Léonie."
Then with a quick upward look and the least perceptible halt: "How would it be, I wonder, if our capricious leading lady were here in person?"
The glance she gave him was brief; but in the second that her eyes scanned his face, she noted the blood steal slowly into his cheeks, and the lines deepen about his mouth, and with an angry impotent throb at her heart she realised his secret, and the hopelessness of her plans and desires. She turned away however, as the gong sounded, with a light laugh, despite the dull heavy sense of her own impuissance.
Mr. Tremain was not long in completing his toilette that evening, and when he came downstairs and made his way to the library in search of a book, it was with the purpose of half an hour's quiet reading before dinner. He crossed the room to the low book-cases that lined one side, and selecting his volume turned back to the fireplace, where a low reading-lamp on the sofa-table made an inviting resting-place.
He had thought himself quite alone, and was consequently not a little surprised to see within the shadow of the chimney recess, opposite to him, the dark quiet figure of Mdlle. Lamien. He put down his book with a half-sigh, and approached her; not even at the sacrifice of his dearest self-indulgence could Mr. Tremain be discourteous to a lady, still less to a stranger and a dependent. Moreover, he acknowledged to himself that Mdlle. Lamien exercised a distinct and strange kind of spell over him, reminding him in some occult mysterious way of Patricia, though why and wherefore he was at a loss to explain.
It was not that these two women—who had so little in common, whose lives were as wide apart as the poles, and whose interests were as diversely opposite as well could be—had ever met; and yet—such is the strong personal magnetism of certain natures—Philip, though he had spoken but twice to Mimi's governess, felt the sense of her power over him; a power so subtle, and yet so strong as to amount almost to physical force; while always with the sense of this domination came the thought of Patricia.
Mdlle. Lamien was sitting where first he remembered seeing her, well within the shadowed recess; her face, even in the subdued light of the single lamp, looked paler than ever, perhaps because its waxen pallor was touched by a shade of red in the cheeks; the kindly shadows hid the painful mark that disfigured one of them, but the light, catching the silver of the wavy hair beneath the falling lace folds, played about it, and across the dark sombre eyes, and thin hands that lay clasped with a sorrowful droop on her knees.
As Philip drew near to her, some polite words of salutation on his lips, she suddenly raised her head, and turning it more fully towards the light, smiled at him. It was wonderful, the effect of her smile; in a moment, as it flashed across her face, it transfigured it wholly, and restored, once more, somewhat of the youth and beauty of bygone days.
Mr. Tremain stood spell-bound; once again there swept across him that strange intangible something, that reflex of Patricia, that evanescent likeness, gone as soon as caught, yet so tantalising in its reality. As he stood silent, amazed, and yet in a manner fascinated, by the singular metamorphose wrought by a smile, two lines of an unpublished poem, written by a dear dead friend, rose unbidden to his lips. He repeated them, half unconsciously, below his breath:
"Light my path thro' Stygian darkness,
By the splendour of thy smile."
Such indeed must have been the light that glowed upon the face of Cleopatra, when Anthony called her his
"Glorious sorceress of the Nile."
As Philip gazed upon the face before him, and no word was spoken, he felt a sudden thrill of life and fire pass through him; the blood leapt in his veins and flew to his face, he put out his hands entreatingly, drawing nearer to her; he felt the subtle essence of her being wrapping him around, enervating his mind, his will; and yet he had no power, no desire to combat it. For it was not Mdlle. Lamien he saw, it was not her white, wan face, with its disfiguring scar, that enchanted him, it was not her burning eyes that held his, it was not even the present he was conscious of. No, he was back again in the past, ten years ago, and he was looking his last upon his sweet girl-love, seeing the mocking smile upon her lips, the trembling hands, the piteous, defiant eyes.
"Patricia," he cried, "Patricia!" And as he called her name, the spell was broken, the glory faded, the past fell from him, and he found himself alone; and only the light rustle of a silken gown, the faint click of a closing door, gave evidence of a departing presence.
"Good heavens!" he said at last, drawing a deep breath, and looking about him uncertainly, "who and what is this Mdlle. Lamien, that she is so like, and yet so unlike Patricia? And what spell does she own to trick me into such hysteric emotion?"
Then the door opened, and Long came in, followed by Perkins, and the wax candles were lit in the brackets and sconces, and the room from semi-darkness and mysterious shadows, leapt into vivid, brilliant life. Then came Mrs. Newbold, bringing a touch of this world's goods in her latest importation of a Wörth gown, full of joyful content and well-being, fastening her gloves and jingling her jewelled bangles, and looking very much surprised to find Mr. Tremain in advance of her.
And so the hour passed and the spell faded, and Philip gave no further thought to Mdlle. Lamien or, strange to say, to Patricia.
Miss James scored several points that evening in her own estimation, and felt almost feverishly anxious to have the preliminaries over with, and her engagement to Philip recognised as un fait accompli.