CHAPTER II.
A railway train is sometimes the scene of much misery in those who travel by its carriages; sometimes of much mirth, most often of the assumed indifference adopted by English people as a rule, and which, despite the contempt with which it is spoken of by dwellers on the Continent, is also the theme of admiration to chatterers.
Two people occupying a first class carriage, of congenial sympathies, can often while away the tedium of several hours. If their sympathies are opposed, they will of course entertain mutual distrust and dislike.
When they are of opposite sexes, and experienced enough to judge of character impartially, friendships are often formed which endure for a lifetime.
“I owe you many thanks for the pleasure you have permitted me to enjoy. I looked forward to a wearisome journey only, but you have accepted my society, and made me your debtor as well.”
“I could not help myself, you see,” smiling.
“But you might have frozen me up in the true British style, and then I should have had to wait in helpless misery for the first stopping-place. You looked very annoyed when I got in at Swindon.”
“I am sorry; but the guard was fee’d to let me be alone if possible. Perhaps the desire of wanting to hide yourself, to get away even from one’s best friends, is happily strange to you.”
He was silent for a little, not looking at her.
Had anyone told Muriel that she would be holding a conversation with a perfect stranger less than an hour after she had started, she would have repudiated the imputation with scorn.
Her nature was a very proud and reticent one, she was not given to sudden confidences.
But there was in her as in all natural women—a hidden spring of impulse, and on meeting a nature sympathetic with her own, she almost unconsciously broke down her guard, with the result that she and her companion were talking as naturally as if they had known each other for years.
“May I hope that you will forgive my presumption in expressing sympathy? You are so young to experience suffering.”
“I am twenty-one in years, but I feel quite old,” she said, quietly. “I am going to London to make my fortune—or to fail.”
“You have resolution enough to succeed, but a woman has many difficulties to encounter. And you aren’t of the calibre to be a governess.”
“Never.” She shuddered a little. “I possess no certificates.”
“Had you a dozen, your face and air would debar you,” he said, with quiet courtesy. “May one ask which of the professions you are wishing to enter? I know a great many people, and perhaps you may allow me the pleasure of being of some service to you.”
“I thank you very much, but I am thinking of the stage.”
He started, and looked at her for a moment or two, at which she laughed, and drew farther into her corner.
“Your offer of introduction had better be withdrawn. You did not expect to hear that.”
“You are right. I did not expect to hear that,” he repeated.
“You think that it is a pity I have chosen this—career?”
“It is fraught with many dangers, particularly for one gently born and brought up with luxury.”
“My father and my mother were; but I lost them both in earliest childhood, and all my life has been passed in a farmhouse amid middle-class poverty.”
“But your friends? Pardon me if I am impertinent; I do not mean to be.”
“I know that you do not,” she said, simply. “My mother had changed her name, so that no one knew me. The lawyer of the place was appointed my guardian; he and his wife were very kind to me, even when—” She paused, then went on again. “I was a great deal with them and their family, in fact, we grew up together. They are all in the world now, most of them married. The girls live abroad, too far for me to visit them.”
“Have you made up your mind to become an actress?”
“It is the only thing I am fit for. I can sing a little; the organist at Idleminster Cathedral was a good musician, and he trained my voice. I used to sing the solo in the anthems and oratorios on special occasions—hidden behind a screen, of course. And I have had lessons in elocution and declamation from an actor. He knew Shakespeare and most of the French and English dramatists by heart. I used to listen to him for hours.”
“What was his name?”
“Gray Leighton.”
He started violently with excitement.
“Gray Leighton. You knew him well. I have been trying to find him for four years. You are fortunate to have had lessons from one of the most gifted actors of the day. Did you know his history?”
“No. He was crippled, and could not stand for more than a few minutes at a time. He came to Idleminster about four years ago, and lived very quietly, making no friends nor ever reciting in public. I got to know him through his little boy. The child was very lovely. I used to play with him, teach him music, and take him out. His father would always trust Bertie with me.”
Watching her lovely face, with its look of sweet girl-woman’s sympathy in the deep clear eyes, the man thought it was matter for small wonder that a father had trusted her with his only child.
“Different versions of his story will reach your ears in London, so it is as well that you should know the truth. Leighton’s professional name was Lyon Fenton. His mother was an Italian, and he inherited her southern nature. As an actor, it is hardly too extravagant to say that he took the world by storm. Paris, Florence, Milan, and Vienna idolised him. He was five-and-thirty when he came to London, and there his slight foreign accent was the only impediment to his success. His Romeo, Othello, Shylock, and Hamlet were the constant theme among critics, who almost to a man praised him. But he did not like London and left it after the second year for Italy. On the eve of his marriage with a beautiful young actress who played Juliette to his Romeo, his fiancée eloped with his best friend.”
Muriel was listening with breathless attention, her eyes full of indignation at his last sentence.
“What horrible treachery!”
“Unfortunately no new thing. The girl was duped into believing some base fabrications about Fenton, and impetuously went off with the man who considered nothing so long as he attained his object. Fenton followed them, and a duel was fought, in which he was unfortunately wounded in the hip. His adversary escaped, for Fenton generously fired in the air rather than injure the man who had married the girl he himself loved.
“Here you have the man’s character—erratic, quixotic, impetuous, but noble to the core.
“When the girl discovered her husband’s treachery she poisoned him and herself, leaving a letter for Fenton, entreating his forgiveness. The child Bertie is theirs.”
Muriel drew a long breath, unconscious that tears were trembling on her eyelashes.
“Oh!” she said with feeling, “what a tragedy, and all occasioned by a man’s perfidy. The world has lost a great actor, whose whole life is spoiled. Then Mr. Leighton is not Bertie’s father?”
“He has never married; the man’s nature is not one to change. He must be about five-and-forty now. I knew all this, as I was a personal friend of Fenton, for whom I had the greatest admiration. But when his injury necessitated his leaving the stage, he disappeared, and none of his former friends nor acquaintances ever heard of him. Knowing his sensitive nature, I understood, and did not try to find his whereabouts. From time to time he sent me tidings, but it is quite four years since I heard anything.”
“How strange it is that we should both know him,” Muriel said, reflectively.
“Very. I can understand your desire for the dramatic profession if you have been under the spell of Leighton’s influence. He gave you lessons, you said?”
“Three times a week for the last two years and a half. I thought it wisest to prepare myself as much as possible; but I did not like to tell Mr. Gascoigne, the lawyer, that I was thinking of the stage. He knows that I can sing a little, and that I am wanting to come out by-and-bye.”
“It is but a step from the vocal to the dramatic stage,” he said, smiling a little. Then, very gravely: “I have lived so many years longer in the world than you, that you will possibly permit me to give you my opinion. For one absolutely alone in the world, as you are, of gentle birth, you will be cruelly exposed to fearful dangers, from which it will be next to impossible to escape.”
“But I am not so very young,” she said wistfully “and the Gascoignes will never lose sight of me, I think. I am going to live in Bloomsbury, with a very respectable woman and her husband who let lodgings, and I should pay her to accompany me to the theatre. She used to be one of the maids at the farm.
“What other can I do? I have about £70 a year of my own, which will just keep me from starving; barely that in London, but I detest the country. I cannot be a governess, nor serve in a shop. Mr. Leighton has given me two letters of introduction to the managers of the ‘Coliseum,’ and ‘Opera Comique.’”
“So, then he has a very high opinion of your powers or you would not have obtained those introductions.”
“To the two best theatres, owning the most critical of managers? But I would rather be condemned by them than praised by the inferior ones. Mr. Gascoigne has promised to come up and see me in three or four weeks, and I am to go down there for Easter. I suppose he thinks that I shall fail.”
They were nearing Charing Cross by this, and Muriel looked out at the densely packed houses.
“Is this your first visit to town?”
“Yes,” she said, wondering whether he would tell her what his name was, or whether they would never meet again.
“In a very short time we shall have arrived,” he said quickly. “You will permit me to say that I hope we shall meet as friends? Here is my card. Please do not look at it now—I have a reason,” meeting her look of inquiry with a smile as he handed her the little slip of cardboard to her. “If you will grant me permission I will send you seats for the ‘Coliseum’ to-morrow, as I—know the manager, Mr. Harbury, and so it is nothing. You will like to see Hamlet?”
“Very much indeed. I have the greatest longing to see Francis Keene, and to compare him with Mr. Leighton.”
“He will not bear the comparison,” her companion smiled. “You would not, I suppose, entertain the idea of acting as secretary to a literary man?” he said presently. “And possibly writing his wife’s letters as well? I have a friend who is wanting a lady in that capacity, and I think you would suit him admirably, that is, if I am not too impertinent?”
“Oh! no; you are very kind to think of me. How you must dislike the stage,” laughing a little, “to endeavour to persuade even a stranger to leave it alone.”
He turned to her and held out his hand.
“It is because I no longer think of you as a stranger, Miss——”
“Winstanley,” putting her hand into his.
“Thank you. I will give you the address of my friend, so that if you should care to see him you might write in a day or two; in any case, he would be a good person for you to know. May I mention your name? His wife gives ‘At Homes’ every Saturday, and you would meet many professionals there. Here is the address.”
“Meanwhile I am not to know of whom I am to think as a true friend.”
“Until the day after to-morrow,” smiling; “that is if you think your landlady will accompany you to the theatre. I imagine you see that you have no one else at present, though that will not be for long.”
“Mrs. Armstrong will look rather strange—”
“She will not be noticed much in a box. Here we are. What a pleasant journey it has been. Shall I get you a cab?”
And as Muriel found herself driving to Charlotte Street in a hansom she thought that if all her days in London were only half as pleasant as this had proved, she would never have cause to regret leaving Abbot Mansfield.
The “Coliseum” was crowded as usual.
Nine months in the year the cultivated and impassioned acting of Francis Keene drew rapt admiration from packed audiences, who listened to every syllable that fell from his firm mouth.
As lessee, stage-manager, and principal actor, he had his hands full, and his genius for staging a play from Shakespeare downwards was known throughout Europe.
Critics could find no flaw in this, though they occasionally differed about his rendering of a part.
His tall, well-proportioned figure moved easily on the stage, and the clearly-cut features and musical, perfectly-trained voice were especially fitted for picturesque rôles, although Keene was too true an actor to adhere to them.
His Shylock was as fine as his Romeo, and King Lear as Benedict, Othello as Iago.
Down in rural little Abbot Mansfield his name of course was known, but as he was particularly averse to being interviewed and would not allow his photographs to be exhibited in any shop or photographer’s window, his face was totally unfamiliar to Muriel Winstanley.
Even Gray Leighton had no portrait amongst his large collection of celebrated members of the profession.
Her delight at being about to witness the finest play of the greatest dramatist the world has ever produced, and of seeing the great actor in his favourite part—many pronouncing him to be absolutely unrivalled in it—was so intense that she was strung up to the greatest pitch of excitement.
Mrs. Armstrong had been with her husband in the pit she told Muriel, and in her own language, “he looked that beautiful, miss, but so sad as made me quite miserable, I did want him to ’ave ’ad the poor young lady all comf’table at the end, and she so pretty, but it goes contrary all through.”
Muriel’s black evening gown would not attract much, if any, attention she hoped in their box on the second tier, and Mrs. Armstrong was, as she expressed it frequently, that flustered at being for the first time in such an exalted position, that she kept well backward from observation in the intervals between the acts.
It was a grand performance.
Keene’s theory was that Hamlet was a man about thirty years of age.
His eccentricity and madness merely assumed of course, and in the scene with Ophelia, his
“Get thee to a nunnery, go,”
was uttered with regretful longing rather than peremptory harshness, great love for her was revealed beneath the stern language, and his last wild embrace was full of a man’s passionate agony in parting from all that made life worth living to him.
The girl sat as one entranced, drinking in every word, not letting a single gesture escape her keen scrutiny.
Her eyes flashed responsively, her breath came in gasps, she was deaf and blind to her surroundings.
Once or twice Keene himself glanced up at the beautiful sympathetic face, and his own eyes glowed with quiet triumph.