“Geraghty,” said Ralph, with a mischievous smile, “You have such a respect for birth that it’s my firm conviction you’ll be the last and most staunch supporter left to the House of Lords.”
Geraghty laughed all over his face, and his broad shoulders shook.
“I’ve seen just a little too much of the aristocracy to pin my faith to them, sir. Handsome is as handsome does, and gentle is as gentle does. But from the House of Lords and their marrin’ and muddlin’—Good Lord deliver us!”
Ralph who had purposely provoked this tirade from the Irishman, laughed and changed the subject by an inquiry after Evereld.
“Well, thank God, she’s getting on finely, sir. Seems as if there was a special Providence over orphans, and Bridget she says why that’s natural enough, that their parents can see better how to guide them bein’ higher up so to speak. But, however that may be, at first we all thought she’d fret her heart out with missin’ you, sir. But in September, Bridget took her down to the school at Southbourne, and though she was a bit faint-hearted at the notion, she’d no sooner set eyes on the place than she was sure she’d be happy there. Bridget says it’s the most beautiful house and garden you ever saw, and all so comfortable and homelike in spite of the size. And Miss Evereld writes that she’s as happy as the day is long, and that they’re teaching her how to nurse sick folks, and that she’s learnt to darn her own stockin’s—a thing she never got a chance o’ doin’ at home—and to dance the minuet, and to do algebra, and I don’t know what beside. But, from what Bridget told me, I foregathered that it wasn’t a school where they cram them like turkeys for Christmas or geese for a Michaelmas fair, but just a home on a large scale for turnin’ out well-mannered young gentlewomen who’ll have a very good notion how to manage a home on a smaller scale.”
When the old Butler had gone, Ralph fell into a reverie. The effect of hearing all about Evereld had been to make him long very impatiently for the end of their separation. It was true that when she returned to the Mactavishes at Christmas he could write to her without any breach of regulations, but there seemed no chance of their meeting, and he greatly missed his old companion. He began to weave all manner of visions of future success, and to imagine that in an incredibly short space of time he had gained quite a high position at Washington’s theatre, that he met Evereld in society, and that Sir Matthew, who always paid homage to the successful, became quite friendly and cordial to him. How strange it would be to be invited as a distinguished guest to the very house in Queen Anne’s Gate where he had been snubbed and scolded as a boy.
It was with something of a shock that he came back to the prosaic present and found himself merely a super about to go through, for the fiftieth time, the wearisome business which was his allotted share in a play which was likely to run for many months more.
It was just at Christmas that he was confronted by one of those decisions that form the chief difficulty of an actor’s career. To seize the right opportunity of promotion, yet to avoid “Raw haste, half-sister to delay”; to have precisely that right judgment which often determines the success or failure of a life, is hard to all mortals, but hardest to those of the artistic temperament. The temptation to escape from the monotony of his present work came to him through the Professor’s granddaughter.
To little Ivy Grant he had from the very first seemed a full fledged hero. He was the first man she had ever looked up to, for although devoted to her old grandfather it was not easy to respect the Professor. He seemed, to shrewd little Ivy, a very weak old man, and she despised the weak, not understanding at all that habit of making large allowance for human infirmity which grows with the growing years. The old man was a confirmed opium eater. The habit, begun in a time of physical pain and great mental worry, had now bound him fast in its cruel chains, and the kindly benevolence which had struck Ralph at first sight as so strange a contrast with his blameworthy neglect of Ivy’s safety, was all due to the influence of the drug. His will was now not in the least his own, and though he had his moments of exquisite exaltation he had always to pay for them by times of black depression and misery. Under these circumstances the child’s life could hardly be a happy one; she was, moreover, scarcely strong enough for the late hours and the exposure to all sorts of weather which her work entailed, and in spite of her brisk, managing ways she began to crave for something more strong and trustworthy to support her than her grandfather whose simile of the lifeless trunk of the tree kept up by the ivy supporting it, had been singularly near the truth.
When Ralph no longer played at the same theatre, and their meetings became less frequent, the little girl flagged and lost heart. She had good impulses but she was easily led, and her friendship with Ralph had filled her with a sense of dissatisfaction with her own life, and the lives that most nearly touched her own. Her busy little brain began to form eager plans for the future, and at last fate put in her way a chance which revived her drooping spirits, and lighted up her blue eyes with hope. Her good news arrived on Christmas day, otherwise the festival would have been cheerless enough, for the old Professor had slept in his invalid chair the whole of the morning, and Ivy, sitting in solitary state beside the fire, had eaten a sober little Christmas dinner consisting of a slice of cold meat and a mince-pie kindly given to her by the landlady. Then having tidied the bare little room, and stuck a solitary piece of holly in the window that people might see she was “keeping Christmas” properly, she returned to her place on the hearthrug, and tried to become interested in a penny novelette which should have been exciting, but somehow failed to touch her.