The two women wore a strange contrast to each other. Alice with her serious air of meditation, and her grave eyes, might have sat to a painter for the Spirit of Music, or for St. Cecilia herself: or indeed for any saint, or muse, or heathen G.o.ddess who must show in her face a heavenly sweetness of thought, with holy meditation. All the purity and tenderness of religion lay always in the face of Alice. Our visitor, on the other hand, would have sat more fitly for the Queen of Love, or the Spirit of Earthly Love. Truly she was more beautiful than any other woman whom I had ever seen, or imagined. I thought her beautiful on the stage, but then her face was covered with the crimson paint by which actresses have to spoil their cheeks. Off the stage, it was the beauty of Venus herself: a beauty which invited love: a beauty altogether soft: in every point soft and sweet and caressing: eyes that were limpid and soft: a blooming cheek which needed no paint, which was as soft as velvet and as delicately coloured as a peach: lips smiling, rosy red and soft: her hands: her voice: her laugh: everything about this heavenly creature, I say, invited and compelled and created love.
You think that as one already sworn to love and comfort another woman, I speak with reprehensible praise. Well, I have already confessed--it is not a confession of shame--that I loved her from the very first: from the time when she spoke to me first. I am not ashamed of loving her: Alice knows that I have always loved her: you shall hear, presently, why I need not be ashamed and why I loved her, if I may say so, as a sister.
It is possible to love a woman without thoughts of earthly love: to admire her loveliness: to respect her: to worship her: yet not as an earthly lover. Such love as Petrarch felt for Laura I felt for this sweet and lovely woman.
She gave back the child to his mother. "Mr. Will Halliday," she said.
"It is not only for the child that thou art blessed above other men"--looking so intently upon Alice that the poor girl blushed and was confused. "Sure," she said, "it is a face which I have seen in a picture."
She was a witch: she drew all hearts to her: yet not, like Circe, to their ruin and undoing. And if she was soft and kind of speech, she was also generous of heart. She was always, as I was afterwards to find out, helping others. How she helped me you shall hear. Meantime I must not forget that her face showed a most remarkable virginal innocence. It seemed natural to her face: a part of it, that it should proclaim a perfect maidenly innocence of soul. I know that many things have been said about her; for my own part I care to know nothing more about her than she herself has been pleased to tell me. I choose to believe that the innocence in her face proclaimed the innocence of her life. And, with this innocence, a face which was always changing with every mood that crossed her mind: moved by every touch of pa.s.sion: sensitive as an Aeolian harp to every breath of wind.
She sat down on the bed. "I told you that I would come again," she said.
"Do not take me for a curious and meddlesome person. Madam," she turned to Alice, "I come because I know something about your husband"s cousin, Matthew. If you will favour me, I should like to know the meaning of this imprisonment, and what Matthew has to do with it."
So I told the whole story: the clause in my father"s will: the attempt made to persuade me to sell my chance of the succession: the threats used by Mr. Probus: the alleged debt for his harpsichord: and the alleged debt to one John Merridew.
She heard the whole patiently. Then she nodded her head.
"Probus I know, though he does not, happily, know me. Of the man Merridew also I know something. He is a sheriff"s officer by trade; but he has more trades than one. Probus is an attorney; but he, too, has more trades than one. My friends, this is the work of Probus. I see Probus in it from the beginning. I conjecture that Merridew, for some consideration, has borrowed money from Probus more than he can repay.
Therefore, he has to do whatever Probus orders."
"Mr. Probus is Matthew"s attorney."
"Yes. An attorney does not commit crimes for his client, unless he is well paid for it. I do not know what it means except that Matthew wants money, which does not surprise me----"
"Matthew is a partner in the House of Halliday Brothers. He has beside a large fortune which should have been mine."
"Yet Matthew may want money. I am not a lawyer, but I suppose that if you sell your chance to him, he can raise money on the succession."
"I suppose so."
"Probus must want money too. Else he would not have committed the crime of imprisoning you on a false charge of debt. Well, we need not waste time in asking why. The question is, first of all, how to get you out."
Alice clutched her little one to her heart and her colour vanished, by which I understood the longing that was in her.
"To get me out? Madam; I have no friends in the world who could raise ten pounds."
"Nevertheless, Mr. Will, a body may ask how much is wanted to get you out."
"There is the alleged debt for the harpsichord of fifty-five pounds: there is also the alleged debt due to Mr. John Merridew of fifty pounds: there are the costs: and there are the fines or garnish without which one cannot leave the place."
"Say, perhaps in all, a hundred and fifty pounds. It is not much. I think I can find a man"--she laughed--"who, out of his singular love to you, will give the money to take you out."
"You know a man? Madame, I protest--there is no one, in the whole world--who would do such a thing."
"Yet if I a.s.sure you----"
"Oh! Madame! Will!" Alice fell on her knees and clasped her hand. "See!
It is herself! herself!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "ALICE FELL ON HER KNEES AND CLASPED HER HAND."]
"But why?--why?" I asked incredulous.
"Because she is all goodness," Alice cried, the tears rolling down her face.
"All goodness!" Madame laughed. "Yes, I am indeed all goodness. Get up dear woman. And go on thinking that, if you can. All goodness!" And she laughed scornfully. "A hundred and fifty pounds," she repeated. "Yes, I think I know where to get this money."
"Are we dreaming?" I asked.
"But, Will," she became very serious, "I must be plain with you. It is certain to me that the man Probus has got some hold over your cousin.
Otherwise he would not be so impatient for you to sell your reversion.
Some day I will show you why I think this. Learn, moreover, that the man Probus is a man of one pa.s.sion only. He wants money: he wants nothing else: it is his only desire to get money. If anybody interferes with his money getting, he will grind that man to powder. You have interfered with him: he has thrust you into prison. Do not believe that when you are out he will cease to persecute you."
"What am I to do, then?"
"If you come to terms with him he will at once cease his persecution."
"Come to terms with him?"
"His terms must mean a great sum of money for himself, not for you--or for your cousin. Else he would not be so eager."
"I can never accept his terms," I said.
"He will go on, then. If it is a very large sum of money he will stick at nothing."
"Then what am I to do?"
"Keep out of his way. For, believe me, there is nothing that he will not attempt to get you once more in his power. Consider: he put you in here, knowing that you are penniless. He calculates that the time will come when you will be so broken by imprisonment that you will be ready to make any terms. Nay--he thinks that the prison air will kill you."
"The Lord will protect us," said Alice.
Madame looked up with surprise. "They say that on the stage," she said.
"What does it mean?"
"It means that we are all in the hands of the Lord. Without His will not even a sparrow falleth to the ground."
Madame shook her head. "At least," she said, "we must do what we can to protect ourselves." She rose. "I am going now to get that money. You shall hear from me in a day or two. Perhaps it may take a week before you are finally released. But keep up your hearts."
She took the child again and kissed him. Then she gave him back to his mother.
"You are a good woman," she said. "Your face is good: your voice is good: what you say is good. But, remember. Add to what you call the protection of the Lord a few precautions. To stand between such an one as Probus and the money that he is hunting is like standing between a tigress and her prey. He will have no mercy: there is no wickedness that he will hesitate to devise: what he will do next, I know not, but it will be something that belongs to his master, the Devil."
"The Lord will protect us," Alice repeated, laying her hand on the flaxen hair of her child.
We stared at each other, when she was gone. "Will," asked Alice, with suffused eyes and dropping voice. "Is she an angel from Heaven?"
"An angel, doubtless--but not from Heaven--yet. My dear, it is the actress who charmed us when we went to the Play--on our wedding-day. It is Miss Jenny Wilmot herself."
"Oh! If all actresses are like her! Yet they say----Will, she shall have, at least, our prayers----"