The smile died away from the girl"s face, and for some time she sate and gazed wistfully before her. Then she said-
"You ought to be able to say what I ought to do, mother. I did not say no, I did not say yes; I was too afraid to say either. And now, if we are to talk seriously about it, I am quite as much afraid. Tell me what to do, Lady Jane."
"Is it so entirely a matter of indifference that you can accept my advice?"
"It is quite a matter of indifference," said the girl, calmly.
"Do you love him, Annie?" said the old woman.
For one brief second the girl"s thoughts flashed to the man whom she did love; but they returned with only a vague impression of pain and doubt.
She had not had time to sit down and reason out her course of duty. She could only judge as yet by the feelings awakened by the Count"s proposal, and the pictures which it exhibited to her mind.
"Do I love him, mother?" she said, in a low voice. "I like him very well, and I am sure he is very fond of me; I am quite sure of that."
"And what do you say yourself about it?"
"What can I say? If I marry him," she said, coldly, "it will give him pleasure, and I know he will be kind to me and to you. It is his wish-not mine. We should not be asking or receiving a favour, mother.
I suppose he loves me as well as he loves any one; and I suppose I can make as good a wife as any one else."
There was in this speech the faint indication of a bitterness having its root in a far deeper bitterness, which had suggested the whole tone of this interview. When Mrs. Christmas thought the girl was laughing cruelly at a man who had paid her the highest compliment in his power, when she saw this girl exhibiting an exaggerated heartlessness in talking of the proposed marriage as a marriage of convenience, she did not know that this indifference and heartlessness were but the expression of a deep, and hopeless, and despairing love.
"Poverty is not a nice thing, mother; and until I should have established myself as a teacher of music, we should have to be almost beggars. The Count offers us a pleasant life; and I dare say I can make his dull house a little more cheerful to him. It is a fair bargain. He did not ask me if I loved him: probably he did not see the necessity any more than I do. What he proposes will be a comfortable arrangement for all of us."
Mrs. Christmas looked at the calm, beautiful, sad face, and said nothing.
"I think the Count is an honourable, well-meaning man," continued the girl, in the same cold tone. "If he sometimes makes himself ridiculous, so do most of us; and doubtless he is open to improvement. I think he is remarkably good-natured and generous, and I am sure he will be kind to us."
Consider Mrs. Christmas"s position. An old woman, almost bedridden, ailing, and requiring careful and delicate attention,-one who has seen much of the folly of love and much of the power of money,-is asked for her advice by a young girl who is either on the one hand to marry a wealthy good-natured man, willing to give both a comfortable home, or, on the other hand, to go out alone into the world of London, unprotected and friendless, to earn bread for two people. Even admitting that no grain of selfishness should colour or shape her advice, what was she likely to say?
Ninety-nine women out of a hundred, under such circ.u.mstances, would say: "My dear, be sensible, and accept the offer of a worthy and honourable gentleman, instead of exposing yourself to the wretchedness and humiliation of poverty. Romance won"t keep you from starving; and besides, in your case, there is no romantic affection to compel you to choose between love and money. People who have come to my time of life know the advantages of securing a happy home and kind friends."
This, too, is probably what Mrs. Christmas would have said-if she had not been born and bred an actress. This is what she did say:-
"My dear" (with a kindly smile on the wan face), "suppose you and I are going forward to the footlights, and I take your hand in mine, and look into your face, and say, "Listen to the sad story of your mother"s life?""
"Well, Lady Jane?"
"You are supposed to be interested in it, and take its moral deeply to heart. Well, I"m going to tell you a story, sweetheart, although you may not see any moral in it-it"s a story your mother knew."
"If she were here now!" the girl murmured, inadvertently.
"When I was three years younger than you, I was first chambermaid in the Theatre Royal, Bristol. Half the pit were my sweethearts; and I got heaps of letters, of the kind that you know, Annie-some of them impudent, some of them very loving and respectful. Sometimes it was, "My dear Miss, will you take a gla.s.s of wine with me at such and such a place, on such and such a night?" and sometimes it was, "I dare not seek an introduction, lest I read my fate in your refusal. I can only look at you from afar off, and be miserable." Poor boys! they were all very kind to me, and used to take such heaps of tickets for my benefits, for in Bristol, you know, the first chambermaid had a benefit like her betters."
"There were none better than you in the theatre, I"m sure, mother," said Annie.
"Don"t interrupt the story, my dear; for we are at the footlights, and the gallery is supposed to be anxious to hear it. I declare I have always loved the top gallery. There you find critics who are attentive, watchful, who are ready to applaud when they"re pleased, and to hiss when they"re not. Well, there was one poor lad, out of all my admirers, got to be acquainted with our little household, and he and I became-friends. He was a wood-engraver, or something like that, only a little older than myself-long fair hair, a boyish face, gentleness like a girl about him; and nothing would do but that I should engage to be his wife, and he was to be a great artist and do wonders for my sake."
The hard look on the young girl"s face had died away now, and there was a dreaminess in her eyes.
"I did promise; and for about two years we were a couple of the maddest young fools in the world-I begging him to make haste, and get money, and marry me-he full of audacious schemes, and as cheerful as a lark in the certainty of marrying me. He tried painting pictures; then he began scene-painting, and succeeded so well that he at last got an engagement in a London theatre, and nearly broke his heart when he went away there to make money for both of us."
The old woman heaved a gentle sigh.
"Whenever I"m very sad, all the wretchedness of that first parting of my life comes over me, and I see the wet streets of Bristol, and the shining lamps, and his piteous face, though he tried to be very brave over it, and cheer me up. I felt like a stone, and didn"t know what was going on; I only wished that I could get away into a corner and cry myself dead. Very well, he went, and I remained in Bristol. I needn"t tell you how it came about-how I was a little tired of waiting, and we had a quarrel, and, in short, I married a gentleman who had been very kind and attentive to me. He was over thirty, and had plenty of money, for he was a merchant in Bristol, and his father was an old man who had made a fine big fortune in Jamaica. He was very kind to me, in his way, and for a year or two we lived very well together; but I knew that he thought twenty times of his business for once he thought of me. And what was I thinking of? Ah, Miss Annie, don"t consider me very wicked if I tell you, that from the hour in which I was married there never pa.s.sed a single day in which I did not think of the _other one_."
"Poor mother!" said the girl.
"Every day; and I used to go down on my knees and pray for him, that so I might be sure my interest in him was harmless. We came to London, too; and every time I drove along the streets-I sate in ray own carriage, then, my dear-I used to wonder if I should see _him_. I went to the theatre in which he was scene-painter, thinking I might catch a glimpse of him from one of the boxes, pa.s.sing through the wings; but I never did. I knew his house, however, and sometimes I pa.s.sed it; but I never had the courage to look at the windows, for fear he should be there. It was very wicked, very wicked, Annie."
"Was your husband kind to you?"
"In a distant sort of way that tormented me. He seemed always to consider me an actress, and a baby; and he invariably went out into society alone, lest I should compromise him, I suppose. I think I grew mad altogether; for one day, I left his house resolved never to go back again--"
"And you said he was kind to you!" repeated the girl, with a slight accent of reproach.
"I suppose I was mad, Annie; at any rate I felt myself driven to it, and couldn"t help myself. I went straight to the street in which _he_ lived, and walked up and down, expecting to meet him. He did not come.
I took lodgings in a coffeehouse. Next day I went back to that street; even then I did not see him. On the third afternoon, I saw him come down the steps from his house, and I all at once felt sick and cold.
How different he looked now!-firm, and resolute, and manly, but still with the old gentleness about the eyes. He turned very pale when he saw me, and was about to pa.s.s on. Then he saw that my eyes followed him, and perhaps they told him something, for he turned and came up to me, and held out his hand, without saying a word."
There were tears in the old woman"s eyes now.
""You forgive me?" I said, and he said "Yes" so eagerly that I looked up again. I took his arm, and we walked on, in the old fashion, and I forgot everything but the old, old days, and I wished I could have died just then. It seemed as if all the hard intervening years had been swept out, and we were still down in Bristol, and still looking forward to a long life together. I think we were both out of our senses for several minutes; and I shall never forget the light there was on his face and in his eyes. Then he began to question me, and all at once he turned to me, with a scared look, and said-
""What have you done?"
"It was past undoing then. I knew he loved me at that moment as much as ever, by the terrible state he got into. He implored me to go back to my husband. I told him it was too late. I had already been away two days from home.
""If I could only have seen you on the day you left your husband"s house," he said, "this would never have happened. I should have made you go back."
"Then I began to feel a kind of fear, and I said-
""What am I to do, Charlie? What are you going to do with me?"
""I?" he said. "Do you ask me what I must do? Would you have me leave my wife and children--?"
"I did not know he was married, you see, Miss Annie. Oh, the shame that came over me when I heard these words! The moment before I scarcely knew that I walked at all, so deliriously full of joy I was; _then_ I wished the ground would open beneath my feet. He offered to go to my husband and intercede for me; but I would have drowned myself rather than go back. I was the wretchedest woman in the whole world. And I could see that he loved me as much as ever, though he never would say so. That is all of my story that need concern you; but shall I tell you the rest, Miss Annie?"
"Yes, Lady Jane."
"Your mother was then the most popular actress in London; she could do anything she liked in the theatre; and it was for that theatre that _he_ chiefly worked then, though he became a great artist afterwards. Well, he took me back to the coffeehouse, and left me then; and then he went and persuaded your mother to take an interest in me, and through her means I got an engagement in the same theatre. From the moment I was settled there, he treated me almost like a stranger. He took off his hat to me in the street, and pa.s.sed on without speaking. If I met him in the theatre, he would say "Good evening" as he would to the other ladies. He used to send me little presents, and he never forgot my birthday; but they were always sent anonymously, and if I saw him the next day he seemed more distant than ever, as if to keep me away. Oh, many and many a time have I been on the point of throwing myself at his feet, and clasping his knees, and thanking him with my whole heart for his goodness to me. I used to hate his wife, whom I had never seen, until one Sunday morning I saw her and him going to church, one little girl at his hand, another at hers-and the sweet face she had turned my heart towards her. Would you believe it, he bowed to me as kindly and respectfully as ever, and I think he would have stopped and spoken to me _then_, only I hurried away out of his sight."
"And you never went back?" said the girl, softly.
"How could I go back, clothed with shame, and subject myself to his suspicion? Besides, he was the last man to have taken me back. Once he felt sure I had left his house wilfully, I am certain he did not trouble himself much about me-as why should he?-why should he?"
"It is a very sad story, Lady Jane."
"And it has a moral."