CHAPTER X.
A VISIT TO ST. PENFER.
| “Oh, waly waly, but love be bonny A little while while it is new; But when ’tis auld it waxeth cauld And fades away like morning dew.” ––Old Song. |
| “Oh, and is all forgot–– All school days’ friendship, childhood’s innocence? . . . . . . . . . . Our sex as well as I may chide you for it, Though I alone do feel the injury.” ––Shakespeare. |
Denasia made her début in the last ten days of January, and she retained the favour of that public which frequented Willis Hall for three months. Then her reputation was a little worn; people whistled and sang her songs and were pleased with their own performance of them. And Roland, also, had tired a little of the life––of its regularity and its obligations. He was now often willing to let any other performer who desired to do so take his place at the piano. He began to have occasional lookings-backward to Burrell Court and the respectability it represented.
Then at the close of April Denasia fell ill. The 182 poor girl fretted at the decline of enthusiasm in her audience. She made stupendous efforts to regain her place in the popular favour, and she failed because of the natural law which few are strong enough to defy––that change is as necessary to amusement as fidelity is to duty. Denasia did not indeed reason about the event; the simple fact that she had no recalls and no clamorous approval made her miserable, and then sickness followed.
She was very ill indeed, and for four weeks confined to her room; and when she was able to consider a return to the hall, Roland found that her place had been taken by a Spanish singer with a mandolin and a wonderful dance. That was really a serious disappointment to the young couple, for during the month money had been going out and none coming in. For even when Denasia had been making twenty-five pounds a week, they had lived and dressed up to the last shilling; so that a month’s enforced idleness and illness placed them deeply in debt and uncomfortably pressed for the wherewithal to meet debt.
Denasia also had been much weakened by her illness. Her fine form and colour were impaired, she was nervous and despondent; and a suffering, sickly wife was quite out of Roland’s calculations and very much out of his sympathies. Poverty had a bad effect upon him. To be without money to buy the finest brand of cigars, to be annoyed by boarding-house keepers, tailors, and costumers, to have to buy medicines with cash when he was without his usual luxuries, was a condition of affairs that struck 183 Roland as extremely improper for a young man of his family and education.
And he disliked now to interview managers. Mademoiselle Denasia was a recognised member of the profession which more than any other demands that everyone stand upon their merits; and Denasia had not been a very pronounced success. She remained just about where she had begun, and managers naturally thought that she had done the best of which she was capable. That best was not a phenomenal one, and Roland, as her husband and business agent, received no extraordinary amount of respect. He was offended where he had no reason for offence––offended often because everyone did not recognise him as a member of an old Cornish family and the son of an ex-lord mayor of London. Often he felt obliged, in order to satisfy his own self-respect, to make the fact known; and the chaff, or indifference, or incredulity, with which his claims were received made him change his opinions regarding the “jolly company of actors.” In fact, he was undoubtedly at this period of Denasia’s career her very worst enemy; for whatever Denasia might be, Roland and his pretensions were usually regarded as a great bore.