It was, indeed, a dramatic moment when the gloom of Macias"s cell was first broken by the glimmer of the hand-lamp, which revealed to the vast expectant audience the form of Elvira standing on the threshold, searching the darkness with her shaded eyes; and in the great love scene which followed the first sharp impression was steadily deepened word by word and gesture after gesture by the genius of the actress. Elvira finds Macias in a mood of calm and even joyful waiting for the morrow. His honour is satisfied; death and battle are before him, and the proud Castilian is almost at peace. The vision of Elvira"s pale beauty and his quick intuition of the dangers she has run in forcing her way to him produce a sudden revulsion of feeling towards her, a flood of pa.s.sionate reconciliation; he is at her feet once more; he feels that she is true, that she is his. She, in a frenzy of fear, cannot succeed for all her efforts in dimming his ecstasy of joy or in awakening him to the necessity of flight, and at last he even resents her terror for him, her entreaties that he will forget her and escape.
"Great heaven!" he says, turning from her in despair, "it was not love, it was only pity that brought her here." Then, broken down by the awful pressure of the situation, her love resists his no longer, but rather she sees in the full expression of her own heart the only chance of reconciling him to life, and of persuading him to take thought for his own safety.
"_Elvira._ See, Macias! these tears--each one is yours, is wept for you!
Oh, if to soften that proud will of yours this hapless woman must needs open all her weak heart to you, if she must needs tell you that she lives only in your life and dies in your death, her lip will brace itself even to that pitiful confession! Ah me! these poor cheeks have been so blanched with weeping, they have no blushes left."
To her this supreme avowal is the only means of making him believe her report of his danger, and turn towards flight; but in him it produces a joy which banishes all thought of personal risk, and makes separation from her worse than death. When she bids him fly, he replies by one word, "Come!" and not till she has promised to guide him to the city gates and to follow him later on his journey will he move a step towards freedom.
And then, when her dear hand is about to open to him the door of his prison, it is too late. Fernan and his a.s.sa.s.sins are at hand, the stairs are surrounded, and escape is cut off. Again, in these last moments, when the locked door still holds between them and the death awaiting them, her mood is one of agonised terror, not for herself, but for him; while he, exalted far above all fear, supports and calms her.
"_Macias_. Think no more of the world which has destroyed us! We owe it nothing--nothing! Come, the bonds which linked us to it are for ever broken! Death is at the door; _we are already dead_! Come, and make death beautiful: tell me you love, love, love me to the end!"
Then, putting her from him, he goes out to meet his enemies. There is a clamour outside, and he returns wounded to death, pursued by Fernan and his men. He falls, and Elvira defends him from her husband with a look and gesture so terrible that he and the murderers fall back before her as though she were some ghastly avenging spirit. Then, bending over him, she s.n.a.t.c.hes the dagger from the grasp of the dying man, saying to him, with a voice into which Isabel Bretherton threw a wealth of pitiful tenderness, "There is but one way left, beloved. Your wife that should have been, that is, saves herself and you--_so_!"
And in the dead silence that followed, her last murmur rose upon the air as the armed men, carrying torches, crowded round her. "See, Macias, the torches--how they shine! _Bring more--bring more--and light--our marriage festival_!"
"Eustace! Eustace! there, now they have let her go! Poor child, poor child! how is she to stand this night after night? Eustace, do you hear?
Let us go into her now--quick, before she is quite surrounded. I don"t want to stay, but I must just see her, and so must Paul. Ah, Mr. Wallace is gone already, but he described to me how to find her. This way!"
And Madame de Chateauvieux, brushing the tears from her eyes with one hand, took Kendal"s arm with the other, and hurried him along the narrow pa.s.sages leading to the door on to the stage, M. de Chateauvieux following them, his keen French face glistening with a quiet but intense satisfaction.
As for Kendal, every sense in him was covetously striving to hold and fix the experiences of the last half-hour. The white m.u.f.fled figure standing in the turret door, the faint lamp light streaming on the bent head and upraised arm--those tones of self-forgetful pa.s.sion, drawn straight, as it were, from the pure heart of love--the splendid energy of that last defiance of fate and circ.u.mstance--the low vibrations of her dying words--the power of the actress and the personality of the woman,--all these different impressions were holding wild war within him as he hastened on, with Marie clinging to his arm. And beyond the little stage-door the air seemed to be even more heavily charged with excitement than that of the theatre. For, as Kendal emerged with his sister, his attention was perforce attracted by the little crowd of persons already a.s.sembled round the figure of Isabel Bretherton, and, as his eye travelled over them, he realised with a fresh start the full compa.s.s of the change which had taken place. To all the more eminent persons in that group Miss Bretherton had been six months before an ignorant and provincial beauty, good enough to create a social craze, and nothing more. Their presence round her at this moment, their homage, the emotion visible everywhere, proved that all was different, that she had pa.s.sed the barrier which once existed between her and the world which knows and thinks, and had been drawn within that circle of individualities which, however undefined, is still the vital circle of any time or society, for it is the circle which represents, more or less brilliantly and efficiently, the intellectual life of a generation.
Only one thing was unchanged--the sweetness and spontaneity of that rich womanly nature. She gave a little cry as she saw Madame de Chateauvieux enter. She came running forward, and threw her arms round the elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughter to a mother. And then, still holding Madame de Chateauvieux with one hand, she held out the other to Paul, asking him how much fault he had to find, and when she was to take her scolding; and every gesture had a glow of youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible. She had thrown off the white head-dress she had worn during the last act, and her delicately-tinted head and neck rose from the splendid wedding-gown of gold-embroidered satin--vision of flowerlike and aerial beauty.
Fast as the talk flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemed to be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dress rustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of gaiety or quick emotion.
"Oh, Mr. Kendal," she said, turning to him again after their first greeting--was it the magnetism of his gaze which had recalled hers?--"if you only knew what your sister has been to me! How much I owe to her and to you! It was kind of you to come to-night. I should have been so disappointed if you hadn"t!"
Then she came closer to him, and said archly, almost in his ear,
"Have you forgiven me?"
"Forgiven you? For what?"
"For laying hands on Elvira, after all. You must have thought me a rash and headstrong person when you heard of it. Oh, I worked so hard at her, and all with the dread of you in my mind!"
This perfect friendly openness, this bright _camaraderie_ of hers, were so hard to meet!
"You have played Elvira," he said, "as I never thought it would be played by anybody; and I was blind from first to last. I hoped you had forgotten that piece of pedantry on my part."
"One does not forget the turning-points of one"s life," she answered with a sudden gravity.
Kendal had been keeping an iron grip upon himself during the past hours, but, as she said this, standing close beside him, it seemed to him impossible that his self-restraint should hold much longer. Those wonderful eyes of hers were full upon him; there was emotion in them,--evidently the Nuneham scene was in her mind, as it was in his,--and a great friendliness, even grat.i.tude, seemed to look out through them. But it was as though his doom were written in the very candour and openness of her gaze, and he rushed desperately into speech again, hardly knowing what he was saying.
"It gives me half pain, half pleasure, that you should speak of it so. I have never ceased to hate myself for that day. But you have travelled far indeed since the _White Lady_--I never knew any one do so much in so short a time!"
She smiled--did her lip quiver? Evidently his praise was very pleasant to her, and there must have been something strange and stirring to her feeling in the intensity and intimacy of his tone. Her bright look caught his again, and he believed for one wild moment that the eyelids sank and fluttered. He lost all consciousness of the crowd; his whole soul seemed concentrated on that one instant. Surely she must feel it, or love is indeed impotent!
But no,--it was all a delusion! she moved away from him, and the estranging present rushed in again between them.
"It has been M. de Chateauvieux"s doing, almost all of it," she said eagerly, with a change of voice, "and your sister"s. Will you come and see me some time and talk about some of the Paris people? Oh, I am wanted! But first you must be introduced to Macias. Wasn"t he good? It was such an excellent choice of Mr. Wallace"s. There he is,-and there is his wife, that pretty little dark woman."
Kendal followed her mechanically, and presently found himself talking nothings to Mr. Harting, who, gorgeous in his Spanish dress, was receiving the congratulations which poured in upon him with a pleasant mixture of good manners and natural elation. A little farther on he stumbled upon Forbes and the Stuarts, Mrs. Stuart as sparkling and fresh as ever, a suggestive contrast in her American crispness and prettiness to the high-bred distinction of Madame de Chateauvieux, who was standing near her.
"Well, my dear fellow," said Forbes, catching hold of him, "how is that critical demon of yours? Is he scotched yet?"
"He is almost at his last gasp," said Kendal, with a ghostly smile, and a reckless impulse to talk which seemed to him his salvation. "He was never as vicious a creature as you thought him, and Miss Bretherton has had no difficulty in slaying him. But that hall was a masterpiece, Forbes! How have your pictures got on with all this?"
"I haven"t touched a brush since I came back from Switzerland, except to make sketches for this thing. Oh, it"s been a terrible business! Mr.
Worrall"s hair has turned gray over the expenses of it; however, she and I would have our way, and it"s all right--the play will run for twelve months, if she chooses, easily."
Near by were the Worralls, looking a little sulky, as Kendal fancied, in the midst of this great inrush of the London world, which was sweeping their niece from them into a position of superiority and independence they were not at all prepared to see her take up; Nothing, indeed, could be prettier than her manner to them whenever she came across them, but it was evident that she was no longer an automaton to be moved at their will and pleasure, but a woman and an artist, mistress of herself and of her fate. Kendal fell into conversation on the subject with Mrs. Stuart, who was as communicative and amusing as usual, and who chattered away to him till he suddenly saw Miss Bretherton signalling to him with her arm in that of his sister.
"Do you know, Mr. Kendal," she said as he went up to her, "you must really take Madame de Chateauvieux away out of this noise and crowd? It is all very well for her to preach to me. Take her to your rooms and get her some food. How I wish I could entertain you here; but with this crowd it is impossible."
"Isabel, my dear Isabel," cried Madame de Chateauvieux, holding her, "can"t you slip away too, and leave Mr. Wallace to do the honours? There will be nothing left of you to-morrow."
"Yes, directly, directly! only I feel as if sleep were a thing that did not exist for me. But you must certainly go. Take her, Mr. Kendal; doesn"t she look a wreck? I will tell M. de Chateauvieux and send him after you."
She took Marie"s shawl from Kendal"s arm and put it tenderly round her; then she smiled down into her eyes, said a low "good-night, best and kindest of friends!" and the brother and sister hurried away, Kendal dropping the hand which had been cordially stretched out to himself.
"Do you mind, Eustace?" said Madame de Chateauvieux, as they walked across the stage. "I ought to go, and the party ought to break up. But it is a shame to carry you off from so many friends."
"Mind? Why, I have ordered supper for you in my rooms, and it is just midnight. I hope these people will have the sense to go soon. Now then, for a cab."
They alighted at the gate of the Temple, and, as they walked across the quadrangle under a sky still heavy with storm-clouds, Madame de Chateauvieux said to her brother with a sigh: "Well, it has been a great event. I never remember anything more exciting, or more successful. But there is one thing, I think, that would make me happier than a hundred Elviras, and that is to see Isabel Bretherton the wife of a man she loved!" Then a smile broke over her face as she looked at her brother.
"Do you know, Eustace, I quite made up my mind from those first letters of yours in May, in spite of your denials, that you were very deeply taken with her? I remember quite seriously discussing the pros and cons of it with myself."
The words were said so lightly, they betrayed so clearly the speaker"s conviction that she had made a foolish mistake, that they stung Kendal to the quick. How could Marie have known? Had not his letters for the last three months been misleading enough to deceive the sharpest eyes? And yet he felt unreasonably that she ought to have known--there was a blind clamour in him against the bluntness of her sisterly perception.
His silence was so prolonged that Madame de Chateauvieux was startled by it. She slipped her hand into his arm. "Eustace!" Still no answer. "Have I said anything to annoy you--Eustace? Won"t you let your old sister have her dreams?"
But still it seemed impossible for him to speak. He could only lay his hand over hers with a brotherly clasp. By this time they were at the foot of the stairs, and he led the way up, Madame de Chateauvieux following in a tumult of anxious conjecture. When they reached his rooms he put her carefully into a chair by the fire, made her take some sandwiches, and set the kettle to boil in his handy bachelor way, that he might make her some tea, and all the time he talked about various nothings, till at last Marie, unable to put up with it any longer, caught his hand as he was bending over the fire.
"Eustace," she exclaimed, "be kind to me, and don"t perplex me like this.--Oh, my poor old boy, are you in love with Isabel Bretherton?"
"He drew himself to his full height on the rug, and gazed steadily into the fire, the lines of his mobile face settling into repose.
"Yes," he said, as though to himself; "I love her. I believe I have loved her from the first moment."
Madame de Chateauvieux was tremblingly silent, her thoughts travelling back over the past with lightning rapidity. Could she remember one word, one look of Isabel Bretherton"s, of which her memory might serve to throw the smallest ray of light on this darkness in which Eustace seemed to be standing? No, not one. Grat.i.tude, friendship, esteem--all these had been there abundantly, but nothing else, not one of those many signs by which one woman betrays her love to another! She rose and put her arm round her brother"s neck. They had been so much to one another for nearly forty years; he had never wanted anything as a child or youth that she had not tried to get for him. How strange, how intolerable, that this toy, this boon, was beyond her getting!
Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the same time, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him. Had he counted upon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence which would lighten the veil over the future? It must have been so, otherwise why this sense of fresh disaster?
"Dear Marie," he said to her, kissing her brow as she stood beside him, "you must be as good to me as you can. I shall probably be a good deal out of London for the present, and my books are a wonderful help. After all, life is not all summed up in one desire, however strong. Other things are real to me--I am thankful to say. I shall live it down."