Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

IV

IV.

Jan. 24.—Mrs. Shaw has treated me very coldly since the evening when Edgar Stadding spoke to me in the garden, and I am glad that that gentleman has of late been away pretty frequently at one place and another, and that when he does meet me he makes no attempt to engage in conversation. I think he understands me pretty well now. Mrs. Hetherwick ignores me altogether—of which I should be glad did I not doubt she is only waiting a favourable opportunity to injure me in the eyes of her employer.

Mrs. Shaw surprised me yesterday. I have mentioned that I was struck with a certain grim suggestion of sanctimoniousness about her at our first interview, and that impression has been made a good deal stronger lately. She is the very last person in the world I should expect to see patronising a theatre or, indeed, any other amusement; yet last night she not only went to the theatre herself, but took her retainers with her—me along with the rest. I wonder what she would think if she knew my reason for being interested in the play? Early in the morning she received a visit from a certain Dr. Carmichael—a tiresome, good-natured old man, who officiously superintended my work with my pupils during the forenoon, and seemed to think his grey hairs justified him in playfully pinching my cheek and pulling my ears, which he would persist in doing—and I think it must have been on his persuasion that she allowed herself to be led so far out of her ordinary hum-drum groove. I had taken the ticket Catherine had offered me, but without any hope of using it, for I was anxious to avoid doing anything that I thought might displease Mrs. Shaw—and I was pretty sure my going to the theatre would displease her—but I felt very much disappointed, for I was really curious to see how Kate could act. Mrs. Shaw is one of those persons who have gained us the reputation, as a nation, of taking our pleasures sadly. She called the two servants and myself into the drawing-room yesterday, where she was sitting in company with Doctor Carmichael, with Mrs. Hetherwick knitting and glowering in the background. She surprised them even more than she did me by saying she had gone to the expense of buying tickets for the theatre. She was opposed to the habit of theatre-going. It was, generally speaking, a Thriftless, Worldly, even Immoral page 14 practice; but on this occasion the piece seemed different from those usually given, and was advertised as being of a strictly moral tendency, and specially adapted to appeal to the young, and it was for the purpose of assisting a good charitable object. She approved of that—she emphatically approved of that. She was a charitable woman herself, and always wished to help a good object with her humble mite. But still, those who did not wish need not go, and she would write an appropriate text on their tickets, which they might keep instead. Both the servants assumed an air of infinitely preferring the text, but being compelled by a disagreeable duty to go to the theatre.

"And which will Miss Gower have, the text or the play?" said the doctor, with a sly smile, sidling up to me and pinching my ear again. "I am going to the play, myself. Gratify an old man by saying you will go too. Miss Gower smiles. I answer for her, Mrs. Shaw; Miss Gower will go to the play, and you can give her the text afterwards."

Mrs. Shaw, who was no doubt vexed at the others declining the text, received my decision with a very bad grace, and silently offered me a ticket. I did not wish to place myself even under the trifling obligation of accepting it, and in consequence I allowed myself to commit a piece of very bad generalship.

"Thank you," I said, "I have a ticket."

"Oh, indeed," she said, icily. "I was not aware of that."

Something like a muttered, "Well—upon—my—word," from Mrs. Hether-wick's corner, as if the speaker had almost lost the power of speech from amazement, showed me the mistake I had made.

"Very good. You see, Miss Gower's charitable feelings have anticipated yours, Mrs. Shaw," said the doctor, who seemed to understand the situation.

"Quite so. It is a very commendable feature in a young person's character, "said Mrs. Shaw, with a frigid stare. "I can quite understand the ticket was bought with no other purpose than that of charity."

Her temper was still ruffled when we set out for Wellington, and was made worse by the sudden appearance of Edgar Stadding, who had been away duringthe first part of the day, and who now declared his intention of accompanying us to town. I, too, could have wished he had not put himself in evidence, for though I was not looking at her, I knew Mrs. Shaw at once set herself to keep a vigilant watch upon me; and when we entered the theatre, I took care to take the seat farthest away from Mr. Stadding.

I had very seldom been in a theatre before—never, of course, under like circumstances—and I sat with a feeling of nervous distraction upon me, waiting for the rising of the curtain, and the appearance of Catherine upon the stage. The house was not half full as yet; and a confused buzz of conversation arose from the continual throng of new comers making their way in. As I was wondering, in my simplicity, how Catherine would ever be able to go through her part before so many people, and thinking how impossible it would be for a nervous creature such as 1 to say even half a dozen words in the presence of such a battery of eyes, 1 was startled by a face I caught sight of on the opposite side of the circle. It was that of a tall, dark man, who had just been obsequiously ushered to his seat, and was standing waiting, with a certain statuesque pose, for two ladies, who were making their way towards him. He was a spare, powerful-looking man, with a closely-cut black beard, and one shoulder a very little higher than the other.

"Who is that man," I said, laying my hand on the arm of Doctor Carmichael, who sat next to me.

"Who? Where? How your hand trembles! What is the matter?"

I knew my hand shook, for I was excited, though I did not know why.

"That tall dark man opposite us, who is showing the lady into her seat. There, he has just sat down, and is reading his programme."

The doctor, who is rather short-sighted, put up his glasses.

"That," he said, focussing his glass, "is Llewellyn, the owner of Scythe-bearer, the disputed winner of the Auckland Cup, that we have heard so much of ever since the race. This is the first time I have had the chance of a good look at his face, and what an evil-looking one it is, isn't it? He could play the part of Mephistopheles without change of dress, and no one would notice the incongruity. Here, just look at him through this," and the doctor offered me his lorgnette.

page 15

Llewellyn raised his head as I brought the glass to bear upon him, and I had a good view of his face. As the doctor said, it was indeed an evil-looking one. But its chief characteristic, and that which fixed the attention to the exclusion of all else, was the expression of the eyes—deep-sunk, black, and piercing, with a depth of hidden passion and fire in them.

"Miss Gower, you shuddered, I'll take my oath you shuddered! How would you like a man like that for a husband, eh? You wouldn't care to cross his purpose, would you?"

"No, that indeed I shouldn't," I said. "I hope our paths in life may never meet." And then the curtain went up.

I could wish that my record of the evening ended here, for, as a matter of fact, I blush even in the privacy of my own room, when I think how I disgraced myself; and I am really ashamed to think I could let a mere piece of make-believe sensationalism have such an effect upon me.

It was the last scene of the third act, the central tableau of the piece, and was, to my thinking, horribly realistic. It represented a glade in a forest at midnight, so dimly lighted that one could scarcely distinguish the actors. Two men had met, and were talking angrily. Presently they closed furiously in a death struggle. In the midst of the combat, the stage moon burst out from a bank of canvas clouds, and revealed one man in the act of plunging a knife into the other. The wounded man sank upon the ground; the murderer, alarmed at what he had done, made off—and all was done in such dead silence that it made one quite nervous. Then, from among the bushes, Catherine, in the character of the Deserted Wife, rushed towards the fallen man, who was no other than her faithless husband. He struggled to his knees as she came near, and dumbly held out his hands to her, and clutched her dress. She snatched up the knife from where it had fallen upon the ground, seized one of his wrists, and brandished the dagger over his head. Her action was so terribly life-like I could not bear to see more, and I covered my face with my hands. I heard her clear voice ringing through the building, "Let me finish the work!" There was quietness for a moment, and then a burst of applause, that died away on my ears as if I had been plunged under water, and then—well, and then I must admit I was guilty of the weakness of fainting.

When I recovered, someone was holding my head up, and someone else was chafing my hands. There was a crowd of people round me—a pyramid of curious eyes piled almost to the ceiling, it seemed to me in my confusion, and the first face I distinguished, as the mist cleared away from my eyes, was that of the man Llewwllyn looking down at me over the shoulder of Edgar Stadding. Then, I saw Mrs. Shaw, who seemed, by her looks, to have been disappointed in detecting the moral tendency of the play, standing grim and silent beside me, with my shawl dangling from her hand. Then, I found myself outside, and revived as if by magic with the breath of the keen cool night air. The carriage drove up. Doctor Carmichael, who had monopolised me as completely as if I had been a piece of his property, gently lifted me in, and we were soon trundling homeward again. Had it not been for the doctor, I think we should have been absolutely the dreariest party of pleasure-seekers that ever rode on wheels. I remained dumb under a sense of my own humiliation and disgrace, and the humiliation and disgrace I bad brought upon my rigid mistress by making her, upon the one occasion on which she had relaxed, the centre of a scene in a theatre. She had insisted on having a light in the carriage—owing to her uncertainty as to what further weakness I might betray, I suppose, and she sat next me, bolt upright, angular, mute Once I thought I heard her mutter, "Moral tendency, indeed!" but that was all. Doctor Carmichael was saying, "I was disappointed, too, in the piece—I most admit I was disappointed in the piece. There is too much of the garments rolled in blood about it to my thinking."

"Dev—er—jolly good play, I think," said Edgar Stadding, "as plays go nows-days. I hate your milk-and-water crossbreds between a Sunday school pic-nic and a Methody prayer meeting. Give me something hot and strong before your tea and-cake-in-the-garden business."

Mrs. Shaw glared, but said nothing.

"I don't know," said the doctor. "I've got a theory on the point. I believe, page 16 and have always believed, that an actor's character is affected by his profession. He unconsciously takes upon himself the features of the part he represents."

"Oh, that's all stuff," answered Mr. Stadding, in his delightfully frank way.

"You mean to say that a man is more likely to become a murderer because he pats a man on the sconce with a brown-paper club—why, what rot!"

Mrs. Shaw glared harder than ever, but still said nothing.

"What seems 'rot' to you, sir, as you elegantly term it," said the doctor, gripping the head of his stick very tightly, and getting red in the face, "may seem sound common sense to other people with perhaps equal powers of judgment. I mean to say that a conscientious actor, who sinks his own individuality, and for the time being assumes that of a murderer—though there is no necessity for flying to that extreme, mind you—forces himself into the same frame of mind, and acts as a murderer would act—he is, I say, simply putting himself through a course of criminal education. And that's the long and short of it."

"And that's your theory, is it? If you saw murderer and murdered over their oysters and beer after the play, you'd see what nonsense it is."

"Upon my word, sir, you have a peculiar way of putting your argument," said the doctor, growing redder in the face, and taking a fresh grip of his stick. "I repeat, and I speak from a pretty wide professional experience of human nature, that, given the provocation, a man, who, by repeatedly acting the part, has lost that salutary horror of crime, which is the best safeguard against it, will be prone, much more prone to—to—to—"

"Commit murder for instance," suggested Edgar Stadding, with a grin.

"Well, if you will persist in going to that extreme, sir,—even to commit murder than if he had not had such an insidious training."

"Oh, query, query, query," said the other.

"Oh, it's easy to cry 'query, query, query'; but that's no argument. And let me add, that the chances would be increased tenfold if he were under the influence of drink, or was delirious, or—"

"Or mad."

"Or mad, especially if mad. I'm glad you follow me."

"I follow you! Not at all. The way you were running on naturally suggested 'mad' to me."

"Upon—my—word!" gasped the doctor, with long intervals between his words, his face of an apoplectic hue. "You're impudent, sir. You're talking of what you know nothing about."

"One of us is, I'll take my oath," admitted the amiable Edgar.

"I quite agree with what you say, doctor," said Mrs. Shaw, opening her lips for the first time. "And I ben of you never to ask me to go to such a place again. I consider myself imposed upon, and my charity abused. Moral tendency, indeed!"

"We didn't stay long enough to see that," put in Mr. Stadding, with another grin; "the moral tendency didn't come out till the last act."

"I am very glad you do agree with me, Mrs. Shaw," said Doctor Carmichael "I am sorry if you have not enjoyed your evening; but theatre-going is apt to lose its charm for people of our years, I know."

"Considering this is the first and last time I have ever been in such a place—and considering I was only induced to go under the mistaken idea that I was doing good—I fail to see why you should use the word 'theatre-going' in connection! with me, doctor," said Mrs. Shaw, ill-temperedly, and speaking very rapidly. I don't think she liked the doctor's last phrase.

"I beg your pardon; I did not mean to offend," he answered. "And what is your opinion of my theory, Miss Gower?" he said, turning to me.

"I have never given the subject any consideration, doctor."

"And therefore hold the same views as Doctor Carmichael," put in Edgar Stadding, apparently thinking he had said a very good thing.

"Perhaps, sir, you will allow Miss Gower to give her own opinion! When you are as old as I am you too will probably see fit to draw the same conclusions as I do."

"H'm, most things would be excusable under those circumstances!" said the amiable Edgar, with spiteful significance.

page 17

The doctor drew in his breath hard; but before he could answer the carriage drew up at the gates of The Peak, and he stepped out in wrathful silence

Jan. 28.—Edgar Stadding went away to-day on a visit to some friends in the country; and I am glad of it.

Feb. 10.—A good long while since my last entry, and a good deal has happened in the interval. It has come at last. I am the most unfortunate girl that ever lived. I have dreaded it ever since I overheard Mrs. Hetherwick's flattering remark concerning myself after her quarrel with Edgar Stadding in the garden that day—of which quarrel I suppose I may regard myself as in a measure the innocent cause. But it has come from a most unexpected quarter, and has arisen from a source whence, unless I am much mistaken, more trouble may be looked for.

I have left The Peak. Have been ignominiously dismissed, in fact, and am writing this at the Truss o' Straw, where I have temporarily taken up my quarters in the room in which I saw Catherine, when she came to the Hutt.

Ever since I had the misfortune to rouse the dislike of that vindictive old creature, Mrs. Hetherwick, the tide in my affairs has steadily set against me, until the climax has been reached in my summary discharge.

And what is the reason?

A charming, romantic, Gretna Green elopement, if you please, between that detestable Edgar Stadding and Catherine, who is now Mrs. Stadding! She must be mad! I would not trust my happiness in such hands for any earthly consideration. I do hope there may not be the seeds of future unhappiness for her in I thus recklessly throwing herself upon the mercy of that man; for I am convinced of nothing more surely than that he is utterly unworthy of being trusted. I may be wrong; I hope for her sake I am. But I am afraid she is blinded to his faults, sad that her awaking will be a bitter one. The future will show—the future will show!

[To be continued.]