Instantly Captain Falconer"s footman leaped from the box of the coach, and, while the maid was at the chair door to help her mistress, dashed into the porch and stood so as to prevent any one"s reaching the door of the house. The captain himself, springing out of the coach, was at Madge"s side as soon as she had emerged from the chair. Philip and I, gliding unseen across the street, saw him hand something to the front chair-man which made that rascal open his mouth in astonishnent--"twas, no doubt, a gold piece or two--and heard him say:
"You and your fellow, begone, and divide that among you. Quick!
Vanish!"
The men obeyed with alacrity, bearing their empty chair past Phil and me toward Gerrard Street at a run. The captain, by similar means, sent the boy with the light scampering off in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, Philip and I having stopped behind a pillar of the next porch for a moment"s consultation, Madge was bidding the footman stand aside from before her door. This we could see by the rays of a street lamp, which were at that place sufficient to make a carried light not absolutely necessary.
"Come into the coach, madam," said Falconer, seizing one of her hands.
"You remember my promise. I swear I shall keep it though I hang for it! Don"t make a disturbance and compel me to use force, I beg. You see, the street is deserted."
"You scoundrel!" she answered. "If you really think you can carry me off, you"re much--"
"Nay," he broke in, "actresses _are_ carried off, and not always for the sake of being talked about, neither! Fetch the maid, Richard--I wouldn"t deprive a lady of her proper attendance. Pray pardon this--you put me to it, madam!"
With which, he grasped her around the waist, lifted her as if she were a child, and started with her toward the coach. The footman, a huge fellow, adopted similar measures with the waiting-woman, who set up a shrill screaming that made needless any cries on Madge"s part.
Philip and I dashed forward at this, and while I fell upon the footman, Phil staggered the captain with a blow. As Falconer turned with an exclamation, to see by whom he was attacked, Madge tore herself from his relaxed hold, ran to the house door, and set the knocker going at its loudest. A second blow from Philip sent the captain reeling against his coach wheel. I, meanwhile, had drawn the footman from the maid; who now joined her mistress and continued shrieking at the top of her voice. The fellow, seeing his master momentarily in a daze, and being alarmed by the knocking and screaming, was put at a loss. The house door opening, and the noise bringing people to their windows, and gentlemen rushing out of Jack"s tavern hard by, Master Richard recovered from his irresolution, ran and forced his master into the coach, got in after him to keep him there, and shouted to the coachman to drive off.
"Very well, madam," cried Falconer through the coach door, before it closed with a bang, "but I"ll keep my word yet, I promise you!"
Whereupon, the coach rolled away behind galloping horses.
Forgetting, in the moment"s excitement, my intention of d.o.g.g.i.ng the captain to his residence, I accompanied Philip to the doorway, where stood Madge with her maid and a house servant. She was waiting to thank her protectors, whom, in the rush and partial darkness, she had not yet recognised. It was, indeed, far from her thoughts that we two, whom she had left so many years before in America, should turn up at her side in London at such a moment.
We took off our hats, and bowed. Her face had already formed a smile of thanks, when we raised our heads into the light from a candle the house servant carried. Madge gave a little startled cry of joy, and looked from one to the other of us to make sure she was not under a delusion: then fondly murmuring Phil"s name and mine in what faint voice was left her, she made first as if she would fall into his arms; but recollecting with a look of pain how matters stood between them, she drew back, steadied herself against the door-post, and dropped her eyes from his.
"We should like to talk with you a little, my dear," said Phil gently.
"May we come in?"
There was a gleam of new-lighted hope in her eyes as she looked up and answered tremulously:
""Twill be a happiness--more than I dared expect."
We followed the servant with the candle up-stairs to a small drawing-room, in which a table was set with bread, cheese, cold beef, and a bottle of claret.
""Tis my supper," said Madge. "If I had known I should have such guests--you will do me the honour, will you not?"
Her manner was so tentative and humble, so much that of one who scarce feels a right even to plead, so different from that of the old petted and radiant Madge, that "twould have taken a harder man than Philip to decline. And so, when the servant had placed additional chairs, down we sat to supper with Miss Warren, of Drury Lane Theatre, who had sent her maid to answer the inquiries of the alarmed house concerning the recent tumult in the street.
CHAPTER XX.
_We Intrude upon a Gentleman at a Coffee-house._
Little was eaten at that supper, to which we sat down in a constraint natural to the situation. Philip was presently about to a.s.sume the burden of opening the conversation, when Madge abruptly began:
"I make no doubt you recognised him, Bert--the man with the coach."
"Yes. Philip and I saw him outside the theatre."
"And followed him, in following you," added Philip. "We had intended--"
"You must not suppose--" she interrupted; but, after a moment"s halt of embarra.s.sment, left the sentence unfinished, and made another beginning: "I never saw him or heard of him, after I left New York, till I had been three years on the stage. Then, when the war was over, he came back to London, and chanced to see me play at Drury Lane. He knew me in spite of my stage name, and during that very performance I found him waiting in the greenroom. I had no desire for any of his society, and told him so. But it seems that, finding me--admired, and successful in the way I had resorted to, he could not be content till he regained my--esteem. If I had shown myself friendly to him then, I should soon have been rid of him: but instead, I showed a resolution to avoid him; and he is the kind of man who can"t endure a repulse from a woman. To say truth, he thinks himself invincible to "em all, and when he finds one of "em proof against him, even though she may once have seemed--when she didn"t know her mind--well, she is the woman he must be pestering, to show that he"s not to be resisted.
"And so, at last, to be rid of his plaguing, I went away from London, and took another stage name, and acted in the country. Only Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan were in the secret of this: "twas Mr. Sheridan gave me letters to the country managers. That was in the Fall of "83. Well, I heard after awhile that he too had gone into the country, to dance attendance on an old aunt, whose heir he had got the chance of being, through his cousin"s death. But I knew if I came back to London he would hear of it, and then, sure, farewell to all my peace! He had continually threatened to carry me off in a coach to some village by the Channel, and take me across to France in a fishing-smack. When I declared I would ask the magistrates for protection, he said they would laugh at me as a play-actress trying to make herself talked about. I took that to be true, and so, as I"ve told you, I left London.
"Well, after more than two years, I thought he must have put me out of his mind, and so I returned, and made my reappearance to-night. And, mercy on me!--there he was, waiting outside the theatre. From his appearance, I suppose the aunt has died and he has come into the money. He followed me home, as you saw; and for a moment, when he was carrying me toward the coach, I vow I had a fear of being rushed away to a seaport, and taken by force, on some fisherman"s boat, across the Channel. And then, all of a sudden, "twas as if you two had sprung out of the earth. Where did you come from? How was it? Oh, tell me all--all the news! Poor Tom! I thought I should die when I heard of his death. "Twas--"twas Falconer told me--how he was killed in a skirmish with the--What"s the matter? Why do you look so? Isn"t it true? I entreat--!"
"Did Falconer tell you Tom died that way?" I blurted out, hotly, ere Phil could check me.
"In truth, he did! How was it?" She had turned white as a sheet.
""Twas Falconer killed him in a duel," said I, with indignation, "the very night after you sailed!"
"What, Fal--! A duel! My G.o.d, on my account, then! Oh, I never knew that! Oh, Tom--little Tom--the dear little fellow--"twas I killed him!" She flung her head forward upon the table, and sobbed wildly, so that I repented of my outspoken anger at Falconer"s deception of her.
For some minutes her grief was pitiful to see. If ever there was the anguish of remorse, it was then. I sat sobered, leaving it to Phil to apply comfort, which, when her outburst of tears had spent its violence, he undertook to do.
"Well, well, Madge," said he, softly, ""tis done and past now, and not for us to recall. "Twas an honourable death, such as he would never have shrunk from; and he has long been past all sorrow. The most of his life, while it lasted, was happy; and you could never have foreseen. He will not be unavenged, take my word of that!"
But it was a long time ere Phil could restore her to composure. When he had done so, he asked her what had become of Ned. Thereupon she told us all that I have recorded in a former chapter, of their first days in London, and the events leading to her acceptance of Mr.
Sheridan"s offer. After she had been acting for some time, under the name of Miss Warren, Ned chanced to come to the play, and recognised her. He thereupon dogged her, in miserable plight, claiming some return of the favours which he vowed he had lavished upon her. She put him upon a small pension, but declared that if he molested her with further demands she would send him to jail for robbing her. She had not seen him since; he had called regularly upon her man of business for his allowance, until lately, when he had ceased to appear.
Of what had occurred before she turned actress, she told us all, I say; for the news of Tom"s real fate had put her into a state for withholding nothing. Never was confession more complete; uttered as it was in a stricken voice, broken as it was by convulsive sobs, marked as it was by falling tears, hesitations for phrases less likely to pain Philip, remorseful lowerings of her eyes. She reverted, finally, to her acquaintance with Falconer in New York, and finished with the words:
"But I protest I have never been guilty of the worst--the one thing--I swear it, Philip; before G.o.d, I do!"
If any load was taken from Phil"s mind by this, he refrained from showing it.
"I came in search of you," said he, in a low voice, "to see what I could do toward your happiness. I knew that in your situation, a wife separated from her husband, dependent on heaven knew what for a maintenance, you must have many anxious, distressful hours. If I had known where to find you, I should have sent you money regularly from the first, and eased your mind with a definite understanding. And now I wish to do this--nay, I _will_ do it, for it is my right. Whatever may have happened, you are still the Madge Faringfield I--I loved from the first; nothing can make you another woman to me: and though you chose to be no longer my wife, "tis impossible that while I live I can cease to be your husband."
The corners of her lips twitched, but she recovered herself with a disconsolate sigh. "Chose to be no longer your wife," she repeated.
"Yes, it appeared so. I wanted to shine in the world. I have shone--on the stage, I mean; but that"s far from the way I had looked to. A woman in my situation--a wife separated from her husband--can never shine as I had hoped to, I fancy. But I"ve been admired in a way--and it hasn"t made me happy. Admiration can"t make a woman happy if she has a deeper heart than her desire of admiration will fill. If I could have forgot, well and good; but I couldn"t forget, and can"t forget.
And one must have love, and devotion; but after having known yours, Philip, whose else could I find sufficient?"
And now there was a pause while each, fearing that the other might not desire reunion, hesitated to propose it; and so, each one waiting for the other to say the word, both left it unsaid. When the talk was finally renewed, it was with a return of the former constraint.
She asked us, with a little stiffness of manner, when we had come to London; which led to our relation, between us, of all that had pa.s.sed since her departure from New York. She opened her eyes at the news of our residence in Hampstead, and lost her embarra.s.sment in her glad, impulsive acceptance of my invitation to come and see us as soon as possible. While Philip and she still kept their distance, as it were, I knew not how far to go in cordiality, or I should have pressed her to come and live with us. She wept and laughed, at the prospect of seeing f.a.n.n.y and my mother, and declared they must visit her in town.
And then her tongue faltered as the thought returned of Falconer"s probable interference with the quiet and safety of her further residence in London; and her face turned anxious.
""Faith! you need have no fear on that score," said Philip, quietly.
"Where does he live?"
She did not know, but she named a club, and a tavern, from which he had dated importunate letters to her before she left London.
"Well," said Philip, rising, "I shall see a lawyer to-morrow, and you may expect to hear from him soon regarding the settlement I make upon you."