The cabman rattled away to Grove End Road, and thence to the superior quietude and seclusion of Beech Tree Road, where he drew up at a house with a glazed entrance. He rang the bell, and Christabel alighted before the summons was answered.
“Is Miss Mayne at home?” she asked a servant in plain clothes — a servant of unquestionable respectability.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and preceded her along a corridor, glass-roofed, richly carpeted, and with a bank of hot-house flowers on either side.
Only at this ultimate moment did Christabel’s courage begin to falter. She felt as if she were perhaps entering a den of vice. Innocent, guileless as she was, she had her own vague ideas about vice — exaggerated as all ignorant ideas are apt to be. She began to shiver as she walked over the dark subdued velvet pile of that shadowy corridor. If she had found Miss Mayne engaged in giving a masked ball — or last night’s supper party only just finishing — or a party of young men playing blind hookey, she would hardly have been surprised — not that she knew anything about masked balls — or late suppers — or gambling — but that all these would have come within her vague notions of an evil life.
“He loved her,” she said to herself, arguing against this new terror, “and he could not love a thoroughly wicked woman.”
No, the Gretchen idea — purity fallen, simplicity led astray — was more natural — but one could hardly imagine Gretchen in a house of this kind — this subdued splendour — this all-pervading air of wealth and luxury.
Miss Courtenay was shown into a small morning-room — a room which on one side was all window — opening on to a garden, where some fine old trees gave an idea of space — and where the foreground showed a mass of flowers — roses — roses — roses everywhere — trailing over arches — clustering round tall iron rods — bush roses — standard roses — dwarf roses — all shining in the golden light of a westering sun.
The room was elegantly simple — an escritoire in the Sherraton style — two or three book-tables crowded with small volumes in exquisite binding, vellum, creamy calf, brown Russia, red edges, gold edges, painted edges, all the prettinesses of bookbinding — half a dozen low chairs — downy nests covered with soft tawny Indian silk, with here and there a brighter patch of colour in the shape of a plush pillow or an old brocade anti-macassar — voluminous curtains of the same soft tawny silk, embroidered with poppies and corn-flowers — a few choice flowers in old Venetian vases — a large peacock-feather fan thrown beside an open book, upon a low pillow-shaped ottoman.
Christabel gazed round the room in blank surprise — nothing gaudy — nothing vulgar — nothing that indicated sudden promotion from the garret to the drawing-room — an air of elegant luxury, of supreme fashion in all things — but no glare of gilding, no discords in form or colour.
“Your name, if you please, madam?” said the servant, a model of decorum in well-brushed black.
“Perhaps, you had better take my card. I am not personally known to Miss Mayne,” answered Christabel, opening her card-case. “Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly, as with a cry of pain.
“I beg your pardon,” said the servant, alarmed.
“It’s nothing. A picture startled me — that was all. Be good enough to tell Miss Mayne that I shall be very much obliged to her if she will see me.”
“Certainly, madam!” said the man, as he retired with the card, wondering how a young lady of such distinguished appearance happened to call upon his mistress, whose feminine visitors were usually of a more marked type.
“I dare say she’s collectin’ funds for one of their everlastin’ churches,” thought the butler, “‘igh, low, or Jack, as I call ‘em—’igh church, low church, or John Wesley — ever so many predominations, and all of ’em equally keen after money. But why did she almost s’riek when she clapt her eyes on Mr. ‘Amleigh’s portrait, I wonder, just as if she had seen a scorpiont.”
Christabel stood motionless where the man left her, looking at a photograph on a brass easel upon an old ebony table in the middle of the room. A cluster of stephanotis in a low Venetian vase stood in front of that portrait, like flowers before a shrine. It was an exquisitely painted photograph of Angus Hamleigh — Angus at his best and brightest, before the flush and glory of youth had faded from eyes and brow — Angus with a vivacity of expression which she had never seen in his face — she who had known him only since the fatal hereditary disease had set its mark upon him.
“Ah!” she sighed, “he was happier when he loved her than he ever was with me.”
She stood gazing at that pictured face, her hands clasped, her heart beating heavily. Everything confirmed her in her despair — in her iron resolve. At last, with a long-drawn sigh, she withdrew her eyes from the picture, and began to explore the room. No, there was no trace of vulgarity — no ugly indication of a vicious mind. Christabel glanced at the open book on the ottoman, half expecting to find the trail of the serpent there — in some shameful French novel, the very name of which she had not been allowed to hear. But the book was only the last Contemporary Review, open at an article of Gladstone’s. Then, with faintly tremulous hand, she took one of the vellum-bound duodecimos from a shelf of the revolving book-table—”Selections from Shelley” — and on the title-page, “Angus to Stella, Rome,” and a date, just three years old, in the hand she knew so well. She looked in other books — all choicest flowers of literature — and in each there was the same familiar penmanship, sometimes with a brief sentence that made the book a souvenir — sometimes with a passionate line from Shakespeare or Dante, Heine or De Musset. Christabel remembered, with a sharp pang of jealousy, that her lover had never so written in any book he had given her. She ignored the change which a year or two may make in a man’s character, when he has reached one of the turning points of life; and how a graver deeper phase of feeling, less eager to express itself in other people’s flowery language, succeeds youth’s fervid sentiment. Had Werther lived and loved a second Charlotte, assuredly he would have loved her after a wiser and graver fashion. But Christabel had believed herself her lover’s first and only love, and finding that she was but the second volume in his life, abandoned herself at once to despair.
She sank into one of the low luxurious chairs, just as the door opened, and Miss Mayne came into the room.
If she had looked lovely as Psyche, in her classic drapery, with the emerald butterfly on her shoulder, she looked no less beautiful in the costly-simplicity of her home toilet. She wore a sacque-shaped tea-gown of soft French-grey silk, lined with palest pink satin, over a petticoat that seemed a mass of cream-coloured lace. Her only ornaments were three half-hoop rings — rubies, diamonds, and sapphires — too large for the slender third finger of her left hand, and half concealing a thin wedding-ring — and a star-shaped brooch — one large cat’s-eye with diamond rays, which fastened the lace handkerchief at her throat.
Christabel, quick to observe the woman whose existence had ruined her life, noted everything, from the small perfectly-shaped head — shaped for beauty rather than mental power — to the little arched foot in its pearl-coloured silk stocking, and grey satin slipper. For the first time in her life she beheld a woman whose chief business in this world was to look her loveliest, at all times and seasons, for friend or foe — for whom the perfection of costume was the study and delight of life — who lived and reigned by the divine right of beauty.
“Pray sit down!” said Miss Mayne, with a careless wave of her hand — so small — so delicate and fragile-looking under the lace ruffle; “I am quite at a loss to guess to what I am indebted for the honour of this visit.”
She looked at her visitor scrutinizingly with those dark, too lustrous eyes. A hectic flush burned in her hollow cheeks. She had heard a good deal about this Miss Courtenay, of Mount Royal and Mayfair, and she came prepared to do battle.
For some moments Christabel was dumb. It was one thing to have come into this young lioness’s den, and another thing to know what to say to the lioness. B
ut the straightness and purity of the girl’s purpose upheld her — and her courage hardly faltered.
“I have come to you, Miss Mayne, because I will not consent to be governed by common report. I want to know the truth — the whole truth — however bitter it may be for me — in order that I may know how to act.”
Miss Mayne had expected a much sharper mode of attack. She had been prepared to hear herself called scorpion — or viper — the pest of society — a form of address to which she would have been able to reply with a startling sharpness. But to be spoken to thus — gravely, gently, pleadingly, and with that sweet girlish face looking at her in unspeakable sorrow — was something for which she had not prepared herself.
“You speak to me like a lady — like a good woman,” she said, falteringly. “What is it you want to know?”
“I have been told that Mr. Hamleigh — Angus Hamleigh — was once your lover. Is that true?”
“True as the stars in heaven — the stars by which we swore to love each other to the end of our lives — looking up at them, with our hands clasped, as we stood on the deck of the steamer between Dover and Calais. That was our marriage. I used to think that God saw it, and accepted it — just as if we had been in church: only it did not hold water, you see,” she added, with a cynical laugh, which ended in a hard little cough.
“He loved you dearly. I can see that by the lines that he wrote in your books. I ventured to look at them while I waited for you. Why did he not marry you?”
Stella Mayne shrugged her shoulders, and played with the soft lace of her fichu.
“It is not the fashion to marry a girl who dances in short petticoats, and lives in an attic,” she answered. “Perhaps such a girl might make a good wife, if a man had the courage to try the experiment. Such things have been done, I believe; but most men prefer the safer course. If I had been clever, I daresay Mr. Hamleigh would have married me; but I was an ignorant little fool — and when he came across my path he seemed to me like an angel of light. I simply worshipped him. You’ve no idea how innocent I was in those days. Not a carefully educated, lady-like innocence, like yours, don’t you know, but absolute ignorance. I didn’t know any wrong; but then I didn’t know any right. You see I am quite candid with you.”
“I thank you with all my heart for your truthfulness. Everything — for you, for me, for Angus — depends upon our perfect truthfulness. I want to do what is best — what is wisest — what is right — not for myself only, but for Angus, for you.”
Those lovely liquid eyes looked at her incredulously.
“What,” cried Stella Mayne, with her mocking little laugh — a musical little laugh trained for comedy, and unconsciously artificial—”do you mean to tell me that you care a straw what becomes of me — that it matters to you whether I die in the gutter where I was born, or pitch myself into the Regent’s Canal some night when I have a fit of the blue devils?”
“I care very much what becomes of you. I should not be here if I did not wish to do what is best for you.”
“Then you come as my friend, and not as my enemy?” said Stella.
“Yes, I am here as your friend,” answered Christabel, with an effort.
The actress — a creature all impulse and emotion — fell on her knees at Miss Courtenay’s feet, and pressed her lips upon the lady’s gloved hand.
“How good you are,” she exclaimed—”how good — how good. I have read of such women — they swarm in the novels I get from Mudie — they and fiends. There’s no middle distance. But I never believed in them. When the man brought me your card I thought you had come to blackguard me.”
Christabel shuddered at the coarse word, so out of harmony with that vellum-bound Shelley, and all the graciousness of Miss Mayne’s surroundings.
“Forgive me,” said Stella, seeing her disgust. “I am horribly vulgar. I never was like that while — while Angus cared for me.”
“Why did he leave off caring for you?” asked Christabel, looking gravely down at the lovely up-turned face — so exquisite in its fragile sensitive beauty.
Now Stella Mayne was one of those complex creatures, quite out of the range of a truthful woman’s understanding — a creature who could be candour itself — could gush and prattle with the innocent expansiveness of a child, so long as there was nothing she particularly desired to conceal — yet who could lie with the same sweet air of childlike simplicity, when it served her purpose — lie with the calm stolidity, the invincible assurance, of an untruthful child. She did not answer Christabel’s question immediately, but looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, wondering how much of her history this young lady knew, and to what extent lying might serve. She had slipped from her knees to a sitting position on the Persian hearthrug, her thin, semi-transparent hands clasped upon her knee, the triple circlet of gems flashing in the low sunlight.
“Why did we part?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders. “I hardly know. Temper, I suppose. He has not too good a temper, and I — well, I am a demon when I am ill — and I am often ill.”
“You keep his portrait on your table,” said Christabel.
“Keep it? Yes — and round my neck,” answered Stella, jerking a gold locket out of her loose gown, and opening it to show the miniature inside. “I have worn his picture against my heart ever since he gave it me — during our first Italian tour. I shall wear it so when I am dead. Yes — when he is married, and happy with you, and I am lying in my grave in Hendon Churchyard. Do you know I have bought and paid for my grave?”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to make sure of not being buried in a cemetery — a city of the dead — streets and squares and alleys of gravestones. I have chosen a spot under a great spreading cedar, in a churchyard that might be a hundred miles from London — and yet it is quite near here, and handy for those who will have to take me. I shall not give any one too much trouble. Perhaps, if you will let him, Angus may come to my funeral, and drop a bunch of violets on my coffin.”
“Why do you talk like that?”
“Because the end cannot be very far off. Do you think I look as if I should live to be a grandmother?”
The hectic bloom, the unnatural light in those lovely eyes, the transparent hands, and purple-tinted nails, did not, indeed, point to such a conclusion.
“If you are really ill why do you go on acting?” asked Christabel, gently. “Surely the fatigue and excitement must be very bad for you.”
“I hardly know. The fatigue may be killing me, but the excitement is the only thing that keeps me alive. Besides, I must live — thirty pounds a week is a consideration.”
“But — you are not in want of money?” exclaimed Christabel. “Mr. Hamleigh would never — —”
“Leave me to starve,” interrupted Stella, hurriedly; “no, I have plenty of money. While — while we were happy Mr. Hamleigh lavished his money upon me — he was always absurdly generous — and if I wanted money now I should have but to hold out my hand. I have never known the want of money since I left my attic — four and sixpence a week, with the use of the kitchen fire, to boil a kettle, or cook a chop — when my resources rose to a chop — it was oftener a bloater. Do you know, the other day, when I was dreadfully ill and they had been worrying me with invalid turtle, jellies, oysters, caviare, all kinds of loathsome daintinesses — and the doctor said I should die if I didn’t eat — I thought perhaps I might get back the old appetite for bloater and bread and butter — I used to enjoy a bloater tea so in those old days — but it was no use — the very smell of the thing almost killed me — the whole house was poisoned with it.”
She prattled on, looking up at Christabel with a confiding smile. The visit had taken quite a pleasant turn. She had no idea that anything serious was to come of it. Her quondam lover’s affianced wife had taken it into her head to come and see what kind of stuff Mr. Hamleigh’s former idol was made of — that was all — and the lady’s amiability was making the interview altogether agreeable.<
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Yet, in another moment, the pain and sorrow in Christabel’s face showed her and there was something stronger than frivolous curiosity in the lady’s mind.
“Pray be serious with me,” said Christabel. “Remember that the welfare of three people depends upon my resolution in this matter. It would be easy for me to say — I will shut my eyes to the past: he has told me that he loves me — and I will believe him. But I will not do that. I will not live a life of suspicion and unrest, just for the sweet privilege of bearing him company, and being called by his name — dear as that thought is to me. No, it shall be all or nothing. If I cannot have his whole heart I will have none of it. You confess that you wear his picture next your heart. Do you still love him?”
“Yes — always — always — always,” answered the actress, fervently. This at least was no bold-faced lie — there was truth’s divine accent here. “There is no man like him on this earth.” And then in low impassioned tones she quoted those passionate lines of Mrs. Browning’s: —
There is no one beside thee, and no one above thee; Thou standest alone as the nightingale sings; And my words, that would praise thee, are impotent things.
“And do you believe that he has quite left off loving you?”
“No,” answered the actress, looking up at her with flashing eyes, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe he could after all we have been to each other. It isn’t in human nature to forget such love as ours.”
“And you believe — if he were free — if he had not engaged himself to me — perhaps hardly intending it — he would come back to you?”
“Yes, if he knew how ill I am — if he knew what the doctor says about me — I believe he would come back.”
“And marry you?” asked Christabel, deadly pale.
“That’s as may be,” retorted the other, with her Parisian shrug.
Christabel stood up, and laid her clenched hand on the low draperied mantelpiece, almost as if she were laying it on an altar to give emphasis to an oath. “Then he shall come back — then he shall marry you,” she said in a grave earnest voice. “I will rob no woman of her husband. I will doom no fellow-creature to lifelong shame!”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 700
