Her schooldays over, Evangeline came back to her home—a tall, aristocratic-looking beauty; and, in the hope of companionship, Lady Stableford turned again to the girl. But it was then too late. Of duty the girl knew nothing, and the keen memory of her youthful mind matched against any present show of affection which was made to her, the vivid recollections of the scoldings and punishments of her nursery days. The two women were out of sympathy. The old lady ceased her efforts, the girl never attempted to make any.
The pair lived together in the same house. The girl’s life was one constant rebellion against the irritable, irritated, and irritating attempts at her own control made by the elder woman.
Bored to extinction by the life she was apparently expected to lead, exasperated by the querulous exactions of the irritable old lady, driven inexorably by the exuberance of youth and the nervous restlessness of her own excitable temperament, Evangeline had made up her mind that it was a necessity to her that she should find occupation in a working career. The girl was probably right, but it by no means followed that her choice had been made in the right direction. That choice had fallen upon the stage—had been expressed to Lady Stableford—and the interview had terminated with an emphatic refusal of consent and an emphatic forbidding of further thoughts in that direction.
Sir James, now long since deceased, had been a stalwart among Nonconformists. Lady Stableford, always despising in her heart the social position of Nonconformity, had nevertheless lacked the moral courage to adopt a change of religious persuasion, and, until increasing years relieved her from the necessity of the great mental effort involved in the framing of plausible excuses for absence, continued, Sunday by Sunday, to “sit under” the long succession of electro-plated divines who held forth in the building which her husband had built, endowed, and opened. To say that Lady Stableford was religious would not be accurate, because all that a lifetime of Nonconformity had endowed her with was a restriction of her mental aspect to the intolerant narrowness of the bigoted orthodoxy of her own particular brand. Hatred of the theatre, which she regarded as a forcing house of sin, was one of those fixed ideas she had absorbed and accepted. Degradation in this world and damnation in the next she believed to be the foreordained and inevitably resulting consequence of any association with things theatrical.
To the inherent inclination of Evangeline towards a theatrical career was now added not only the attraction of the forbidden thing, but also the fascination of that which has been declared to be wicked. To this composite and powerful temptation the girl succumbed. The thing was inevitable—probably would have happened in any case; the happening was in all likelihood no more than precipitated by Lady Stableford’s attitude and prohibition. But these affected the relations of the two when the separation came, and caused the elder woman many a long month of pain and unhappiness, of stubborn anger, which step by step had mellowed into regret, forgiveness, and then into comprehension and keen remorse. Drilled by her loneliness the old lady at last swallowed her pride and wrote asking the girl to come back to her.
Lady Stableford had waited too long. There had been occasions, many and oft indeed, when Evangeline, cowed by the pitiful hardships in the poverty-stricken existence of the provincial travelling company in which she was striving to master her profession, would have jumped at the invitation. There had even once or twice come times when, heartbroken by illness, by lack of employment, and utter weariness of spirit, the girl’s pride had been broken, and she had penned piteous appeals to be allowed to return home; but the letters had never been sent, and at last had come success. The girl’s reviving spirit soaked up like a sponge the adulation that success brought in its train, and her parched soul again expanded into the proud, high-spirited temperament which had been her inheritance. But hardship bravely borne had chastened her, taught her forbearance and charity of thought and had given her some control of her hot temper.
The invitation when it reached her was not refused, but was accepted only for a visit. A tentative suggestion to settle a suitable income, and in return that Evangeline should leave the stage, was gently but firmly put on one side, and Lady Stableford perforce had to content herself with the consent of the girl to make her old home her headquarters, living there whenever her profession did not require her presence elsewhere, and with the acceptance of a liberal allowance. Once again the old lady altered her will, and once more the name of Evangeline Stableford stood as chief beneficiary and residuary legatee.
CHAPTER III
From time to time in the ever-recurring sequence of murders of which the details are given to the world by a vigilant and busy Press, one will be found which stands out and grips the public attention. Sometimes it is the gruesome detail of the crime which awakens the interest of the world at large. More often it is the mystery which envelopes its circumstance and stands between the general curiosity and the satisfaction thereof by a full explanation of the motive. But the greatest excitement always occurs when the victim of the crime happens to be an individual already, on other grounds, well known to the public and more or less a celebrity. Such a murder occurred a few days before Easter, in the year 1902. Sir John Rellingham, a well-known solicitor—one of the most prominent men in his profession—stayed on late at his offices one afternoon, busily engaged in writing. One by one his junior partners and managing clerks had drifted away, and, after the office clock had indicated the hour of six, Sir John and his confidential secretary were the only ones who remained in the building. The solicitor rang his bell, and his secretary presented himself.
“There’s no need for you to stay any longer, Smith. Don’t wait for me. I shall be busy for some time.”