The Lady Evelyn: A Story of To-day

by Max Pemberton

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE IMPRESARIO'S PRAYER

So the Lady Evelyn had become Etta Romney once more, the child of the theatre, the daughter of a mystery which London was upon the eve of solving. The events which brought her to this resolution are briefly outlined in a letter which she wrote to her father upon the morning after her interview with the great Charles Izard at the Carlton Theatre. No longer ashamed of her resolution, she took up her residence boldly at the Savoy Hotel and entered her own name in the visitors' book, afraid of none.

SAVOY HOTEL,
Thursday.

My dear Father:

I am here in London, according to my determination already announced to you. I shall live a little while at this hotel, and afterwards where my profession may make it necessary. Believe me, my dear father, that this life alone is best for me, and best for you at this moment. I could live no longer in a house where, rightly or wrongly, I have always felt a stranger—and my love for Gavin forbids me to hear those things which I must hear every day in my old home. Now that I am mistress of my own actions, you will be able to find an answer in my independence to those who are not to be answered in any other way. Should Count Odin follow me to London, he will learn that I am neither without friends nor resources; and I shall not hesitate to call upon both for my protection. It is my intention to establish myself here until such time as news of Gavin's welfare may come to me or that I may, myself, go to seek it. That he has been the victim of foul play I am sure; and I will not rest until the truth is known. Dear father, if you must suffer because of me, forgive and forget, and be sure always of my love for you and my desire for your happiness. We are outcasts of fortune both, and while the world is enjoying our position, we know that it is false, that we are but intruders by accident, and that our past is rising up every day to laugh our ambitions to scorn. Happier far when we were wanderers and poor, with days of love and hope to live and no debt to pay to a great and insupportable heritage. Dear father, you will next hear of me as Etta Romney, the actress—but never forget that Evelyn will return to you if you have need of her; and that her love for you is imperishable. Willingly would she take your burdens upon her own shoulders, and give you those years of rest and peace which are your heart's desire. But, for the time being, she must live alone for the sake of the man who has befriended her and to whom she has given her love.

Dearest Father,
Your loving EVELYN always.

From which it is clear that the month of November found Gavin Ord still in Roumania and Count Odin again in Derbyshire. The latter had returned from Bukharest early in the month of September, and, dismissing his friends, the gypsies, had settled down at Melbourne Hall as one who, at no distant date, would be its master. That the Earl acquiesced in this assurance convinced Evelyn finally that she did not possess the whole of her father's story. Either he was a coward (and this she would never believe), or some mystery of her own past or his abetted the Count's pretensions. No other explanation of the matter was possible; nor could she foresee a day which would rid her of the presence of a man who ever spoke to her of the heritage her mother's country had bequeathed to her and its penalties.

She had always feared Count Odin, and she feared him now when the true meaning of a man's love had been made known to her and her daily prayer was for Gavin's safety. Not that she doubted herself or the truth of her love, but that she feared that something in her blood which might bring her to the Count's arms and mock for all time her faith in her own womanhood and her spoken word that she would be Gavin's wife upon his return. So greatly did this fear haunt her that the days of waiting became almost insupportable. She would rise with the sun each morning and say, "to-day his letter will come." The nights found her brooding and restless and fighting ever against the insidious advances of a man who made love to her with a Southern tongue—and when he was repulsed had no shame to threaten her.

"Your English friend was a fool to go to the mountains," he would say; "we cannot protect him there—my Government is helpless. The prison in which my father lies, sent there by the man who should have been his friend, will not open to an Englishman's knock. If I could have helped your friend, I would have done so because he was your friend. You say that he loves you. I will believe it when the sun shines in England. My dear lady, your heart is in the South with the vine and the pomegranates. All your life has not made an Englishwoman of you. You are like a flower that cries for the sun all day and withers because there is no sun. I will take you to a land of roses and set your feet upon golden sands. We will visit the East together—the color, the life, the music of it, shall enthrall us. There they will teach you how to love. In England your hearts are ice—but you have not an English heart."

Day by day these vehement protests would be made; day by day he whispered them in her ear, following her at home and abroad, in the galleries of Melbourne Hall, and to the glades and the thickets of the park. And her father abetted him, not openly by word but silently by impotent consent he acquiesced in her persecution, protesting that Georges Odin's son had a claim of hospitality upon him, and that he could not shut the gates of the house in his face. In plain truth, Robert Forrester sinned not of his will but of despair. He did not dare to tell Evelyn that, by the English law, Dora d'Istran might not be recognized as his wife at all and that she, his daughter, had therefore but a dubious claim to that dignity which the accidents of fortune had thrust upon him. He loved her, understood every whim of that strange, romantic mind, and believed, it may be, that the young Count would not be an unworthy husband for her. But the fear that she would charge him with the shame prevailed above other thoughts. He would not that she should pay the price for the follies and the amours of his youth.

And what of Evelyn herself, meanwhile? She was as one to whom the heaven of life has been suddenly revealed after long years of darkness and doubt. If she understood the meaning of womanhood, that of manhood was not hidden from her. In Gavin Ord she had, for the first time, met and known intimately an Englishman; understood the nobility of man, the resolution, the courage of those reticent personalities by which the nation has been made great and its children sent out to rule the new countries of the world. Such a knowledge uplifted her and revealed truths which had been hidden during her childhood. By Gavin's love would her soul be re-born; by faith in him would the victory over her heritage be won. This had become her credo, sustaining her in the conflict, and sending her to London with a brave heart and an unconquerable determination to win independence and freedom. More than this, she believed that the great city would give her friends; and that these friends would tell her how to find Gavin, and, if need be, to save him. No longer could she hide it from herself that something beyond the quest for Georges Odin kept her English friend in Roumania. She had received but two letters from him, and these had been written during the early days of his journey. The rest was silence and a dreadful doubt creeping upon her as a shadow; the doubt which said, "he may have given his life for you; he may never return."

We have said that Evelyn took up her residence at the Savoy Hotel, fearing no longer the disclosure of her identity. Thither upon the second morning came little Dulcie Holmes and the melancholy Lucy Grey, entering her splendid room with timid steps and altogether abashed by the changed circumstances under which they found their friend. Their introduction of themselves was characteristic. Dulcie, unable to restrain her impulse, threw herself into Evelyn's arms and waited to apologize until she had kissed her. Lucy Grey stood bolt upright and rebuked her friend with almost tearful melancholy.

"Oh, how can you, Dulcie ... and it's all in the papers too."

"I don't care a bit," rejoined the unabashed Dulcie. "I must kiss her if she'll kill me for it." And then to Evelyn she said: "Oh, you darling Lady Etta, oh, I am glad; I can't believe it's really true. But I've always said you'd come and I've told Mr. Izard so—and there's the gold watch you sent me, round my neck where it's always been since the day it came—and, oh, Etta, what times we will have again—what times!"

Lucy Gray appeared altogether dumbfounded by the familiarity.

"You forget yourself, Dulcie," she protested again and again, "after it being in the papers too—you certainly forget yourself. How can you say such things—to her ladyship as we all know after what's in the papers. I'm sure, miss, your ladyship won't think any the worse of Dulcie for this. It's her bringing up, that's what it is."

Evelyn was very much amused; but she hastened to reassure them, and, insisting upon their relating all their personal troubles (which they did with many exclamations and minute particulars), she ventured to asked them what the papers really had said and why it should make a difference to them. To this they answered in a breath that the Carlton would reopen in a fortnight with "Haddon Hall" and Miss Etta Romney in the title-rôle.

"And it says you're a Duchess, and Mr. Izard wouldn't say so before though he knew it all the time." Dulcie added with considerable enthusiasm, "Oh, Etta, how you kept it from us all, just as though you had been no different to anybody else. But I knew you were; I said you were no ordinary human being, and Lucy knew it. My life's never been the same since you went away, Etta. You won't leave us again, will you?"

They rambled on alternately in confusion and delight while Evelyn sent for the morning papers and read the news they spoke of. There, sure enough, was the story written for all to read.

"Many will hear with pleasure," said the "Daily Shuffler," "that one of the most capable and finished of our younger actresses is about to return to the stage. Some months ago, all dramatic London was not ashamed to be curious concerning the Romney Mystery. A new play presented to us an artiste of no common order. Scarcely had we settled down to admire her when she disappeared from our ken, and, while we do not doubt that certain of her friends were in the secret, this was well kept and remained undiscovered by the public. Now we know that Etta Romney is the nom de theatre of Lord Melbourne's daughter, the Lady Evelyn. Mr. Charles Izard informs us that he is about to present her in the rôle already familiar to us and sure of a wide welcome. Etta Romney, assuredly, will establish the success of the Carlton Theatre as no other actress of our time could do. We offer our cordial greetings upon her return to the stage, and congratulate all concerned upon the clever advertisement achieved."

Evelyn cringed when she read the last words; but her sense of humor proved greater than her annoyance.

"Did you believe, does anyone really believe, that I went away to advertise myself?" she asked the girls.

They answered in a breath that all the world believed it.

"Why, what else should it have been for? They say you and Mr. Izard did it, just as he lost Elsie Barton's jewels last year and had Billie Dan photographed in a motor-car accident. People love anything like that—they think it's so clever. There'll be such a scene when we open, Etta, as never was known. Shall I call you Etta, though, or should it be your ladyship?"

Etta was about to answer her as well as her amusement would let her when a man-servant opened the door and announced a visitor.

"Mr. Charles Izard," he said, and the girls stood up abashed.

"Mr. Izard here, however shall I look him in the face!" cried Lucy in an extremity of terror.

"I could drop through the ceiling for my nerves," said Dulcie, but she did nothing of the sort; merely standing and giggling nervously while the great man came panting in; and he, who had "presented" so many, now presented himself with the air of a Rajah just dismounted from an elephant, or a monarch about to address an assembly of barons.

"My dear," he said to Evelyn, "I've come to pay my respects to you, and that's what I do to few of 'em. You've got London by the throat and we'll both be rich before you let go. Didn't I say you'd come back to me? Why, when I think how we've fooled the populace, I could shout 'bully' until my tongue's tied. Now, let these girls go their way and we'll talk business. I've come to offer you a five years' engagement certain, and there's no one in London is going to better my terms. Three words and we settle it. Let 'em be spoken and we're friends for life."

"Mr. Izard," said Etta quickly, "I will play at your theatre for three months. Then I am going away. If I return, I will come to you again. But I may never return, and so I cannot engage myself to do so. Should my present determination be altered——"

Izard laughed hardly and almost impatiently.

"At coming or going, my dear, you have no equal in Europe," he admitted gloomily ... and then quickly, fearing to offend her, he added, "Well, have your own way. Take a fortune or leave one, Charles Izard will always be your friend."

It was a great admission, honestly meant, though uttered with the regret of one who saw a golden vision falling from his view. To himself, the great man said: "There is a man and he is not in England. The Lord send him a handsome funeral before the mischief is done."