A Stage Romance. A novel

Front matter

At every Library and Bookseller. IDOLS OF THE FRENCH STAGE. BY H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS. Two^J/ols.r crown 8vo., Wja jaobel BY LILITH ELLIS " If one fail to create one's own heaven one falls into the hell of another's making." EVELTN EELK. LONDON REMINGTON & CO PUBLISHERS HENRIETTA STREET COVENT GARDEN 1889 [Alt Rights Reserved] I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO ARTHUR ROTHBURY EVANS AS A SOUVENIR OF OUR LONG AND HAPPY FRIENDSHIP CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. Rehearsal Twelve Sharp ... ... 1 II. Let Me Explain 14 III. Evelyn finds a Judge .. . ... ... 25 IV. A Ride and a Play 36 V. The Dawn of Hope 48 VI. Love took the Form of Hate, and Hate of Love ... ... ... 58 VII. Let Fate Decide 71 VIII. Lady Royal's Reception ... ... 82 IX. Is it She ? 91 X. Lili's Perplexities .. ... .. 104 XL Trust Me 117 XII. Shall it be? 135 XIII.

In the Woods 142 XIV. Too Late 152 XV. Is it True? 167 XVI. A Secret Meeting 180 XVII. Under the Roses 191 XVIII. Tears and Smiles 201 XIX. What will you do ? 207 XX. 'Twixt Love and Fear 221 XXI. On the Brink 231 XXII. For the Last Time 245 XXIII. Love, Lord of all 252 XXIV. Which of Them ? 265 XXV. Can Love Atone ? 277 XXVI. The Forest received her into Sanctuary 287 XXVII. The Assignation 297 XXVIII. At Last ! CHAPTEE I. EEHEAESAL TWELVE SHAEP. It was twelve o'clock on the 18th day of Septem ber, 188 — , and the bells of the principal church of Colchester were chiming the meridian. Their slow and musical tones seemed to echo and reverberate on the scorching summer air. It was the hottest autumn that had been known for years. The harvest was over, the country roads were baked and parched with dust, not a drop of rain had fallen for weeks, and the gardens and fields were languishing with drought.

Even the quiet little town looked more than usually deserted, now and then a few solitary pedestrians came from the shady side of the way, and crossed the brilliant stream of liquid B light into the market place or the High Street, principally soldiers or market people, bent on some definite object of business or pleasure ; but the heat was so intense at this hour that even the loafers of street corners had abandoned their accustomed lounges for any welcome shade that offered itself. Yet exactly as the clock struck twelve two men appeared at the little green gate of a superior looking cottage in Friars Street, and bent their steps toward the centre of the town. One was several years older than the other, and both were young ; both also had that unmistak able professional air that caused the few people they met to regard them with a certain amount of interest.

Chapter II. Let Me Explain

Miss Le Steange, accompanied by her maid, had come into the town about an hour before Gilbert's seizure, and had gone straight to the rooms selected for her in the house opposite to that occupied by the two friends in Friars Street. It was she who had played the serenade that had so painfully affected Gilbert, but it was not until her return from rehearsal that she was aware of the tragic occurrence of the morning. As a rule she heard all the gossip of the town from her maid, but this particular and important item came direct from her acting manager, and after his departure she dispatched a telegram to London, the answer to which came in due course. It ran as follows : — " To Evelyn Le Strange, " Theatre Royal, Colchester. " I sent Gilbert thinking to surprise you. He does not know who you are.

Blame me for everything. " Leon Faiepax." This telegram distressed her more than she had imagined possible, and she sent her maid many times in the course of the day to inquire after the invalid. She even offered to sit up with him herself in case a nurse could not be procured ; she placed herself and all she possessed at his disposal, and gave no reason for so quixotic a sense of responsibility. Arnold, however, in the name of his friend, quietly declined all her over tures of assistance. The next day she was too unwell to leave the house, the rehearsals were postponed, and Gilbert's illness, its cause, its origin, was the theme of every tongue. It was in the evening that she sent for Arnold Rivers. In the dusk of the late twilight he found himself at her door, and was shown at once to her room.

They had not met before, but they knew mutual friends, and had heard much of each other. The impression of each was one of disappointment and disillusion. Arnold introduced himself, and waited for her to speak, but her embarrassment was so great that he began to pity her. " Will you tell me the truth ? " she said at last, and with an evident shrinking from the subject that sooner or later must be mentioned. " Is Mr. Royal very ill, that is, dangerously ? " Arnold repeated the doctor's opinion. " You cannot think how anxious I am. I am an old friend of his, and I fear I am partly to blame for this trouble, inasmuch as he came here to join my company. Have you communicated with Lady Royal ? It will be a terrible blow for her ; her son Sir William is dying, and I do not think she can leave him."

Arnold drew back in astonishment. How was it possible she knew all this ? Perhaps she read his thoughts, for she hastened to explain — " I have known Gilbert for several years, although I have not seen him for some time. He does not know me under my nom de theatre. Mr. Fairfax, who recommended him to Mr. Courtney, thought it a practical joke to send him down in ignorance of whom Miss Le Strange was. I am Evelyn Erie." Had a thunderbolt fallen at Arnold's feet he could not have been more astounded. " Evelyn Erie ! " he repeated vaguely. "There is Mr. Fairfax's answer to my telegram confirming what I tell you." She rose as she spoke, and stood before him with the paper in her hand. Arnold merely glanced at it ; he remained spell bound, looking at her. His heart was full of anger against the world, and against this woman of all others.

His first thought was a righteous sense of scorn and resent ment. So this was the enchantress who had broken his friend's heart, and ruined by her wickedness a fair young life. He was almost inclined to walk straight out of her presence and take the first train back to town. Evelyn Erie ! He was not quite sure that he was not dreaming. " When I last saw Gilbert Royal," she went on, after waiting for Arnold to speak, " he promised to return to Sunnyside, to be reconciled to his family, and begin to live a new life. You know how true and sincere his nature is, that is if you have known him long enough, and, alas ! that is the beginning and end of his troubles. He is delicate, sensitive, and impressionable, but I hoped he had strength enough to retrieve the past, and make a future more worthy of him."

Arnold hardly knew how he found courage to answer her. c "In other words, you wished him to forget you ? " " That should not have been difficult," she said coldly. The vibrating sweetness of her voice startled him, and for the first time he looked at her criti cally. She looked very tall and slender as she stood thus statelily before him : her face was pure and soft in outline, although too full of character to be pretty ; she had an exquisitely shaped head, golden hair, and clear grey eyes fringed with heavy lashes, and larger than ever through a mist of tears. She wore a white dress of clinging silk gathered at the throat and loosely tied with a purple cord ; a great knot of purple pansies relieved the cream of the folds on her breast. She was unlike any other woman he had ever met, and while acknowledging this he owned it was an attraction.

She looked so gentle, so fragile, as she stood thus quietly before him, that he already felt ashamed of his momentary condemna tion ; but this mood lasted only for a moment, he remembered just in time the reputation she had gained of bein g a dangerous coquette, a mondaine to her finger tips despite her innocent looks and childish manners, and when next he spoke it was with all his distrust and suspicion fairly aroused from a momentary lethargy. "If you are Mrs. Erie you have much to regret." She drew herself up with a sudden hauteur, but replied very quietly — " I was always kind to Gilbert, never more so than when I seemed most cruel." " Perhaps you were too cruel, after being too kind." "You misjudge me, Mr. Rivers, but I cannot help that ; some day you will know me better." Arnold protested that in fairness to his friend, and her own confession, he neither judged nor condemned her.

If his frankness pained or dis pleased her that was not his fault. " Does he speak of me at all ? " she asked, after a little pause. " Constantly ; your name is always on his lips." "I am sorry for that." He shrugged his shoulders. " If she will talk on this subject she must take the consequences," he thought bitterly ; " it would show better taste on her part to keep such inquiries to herself." She remained silent, evidently very ill at ease, then she continued — " It was all folly from first to last ; Gilbert and I were always the best of friends. I cared for him as a brother. He was not very happy with his people, and I sympathized with him. He knew exactly what my position was, and I have nothing to blame myself for, except that I was too ill and wretched myself at the time to be able to understand his folly until it was too late."

She broke off abruptly, and the colour flushed into her face, remembering for the first time that the man she was speaking to was a stranger; yet an irresistible impulse urged her to clear herself in his sight, and Arnold remaining silent, she added, quickly — " I am sorry for Gilbert, and sorrier for myself." " I do not doubt that ! " was the tardy answer. " Gilbert is young, he has a future before him, and life will wear another aspect when he recovers." She spoke with an earnestness that almost amounted to a certainty. Arnold stopped her with an anger against which he had been battling for some time. " Miss Le Strange, you try to believe what you desire to be true. You deceive yourself, and are surprised that no one else is deceived. Gilbert's is no common character, as you have said, and his love, rightly or wrongly given, is given once and for ever.

His life is ruined; he will achieve nothing, and the fault must lie at your door. If I pain you by my frankness, you must pardon me. I am accustomed to feel strongly, and you have permitted me to speak." Miss Le Strange's gentle manners suddenly underwent a change, and the suppressed resent ment she showed in her indignant look challenged all the worst in Arnold. " Gilbert is fortunate," she said scornfully, " to have so sincere a friend." " She would fight if she dare, but she hasn't pluck to do more than skirmish," thought Arnold* " It would serve her right to pay her out in her own coin." Why should he not avenge Gilbert ? The majority of men were no match for her, but he felt himself her match. He knew her, the dainty, delicate self-analytical coquette who played with the lives and passions of men, as though they were toys created for her pleasure.

What did she really care whether Gilbert lived or died, provided her reputation was unsullied, and another fool ready to take his place ? Were all women of the world like that, he wondered. Miss Le Strange sat down by the window, not altogether unconscious of the anger she had aroused. She began to regret her desire for this ill-timed interview, without knowing why; she had made Gilbert's friend her enemy, and done no good as far as she could see to Gilbert. Arnold watched her, vaguely unconscious of her next mood. She made a lovely picture as she sat there, her profile clear cut against the deep blue of the coming night. She was certainly not cold, as he had at first thought, but rather a creature of impulse. Her fingers had a trick of interlacing themselves at a moment of excitement, and her movements were graceful and unstudied.

Her voice pleased him, although he disliked her rapid way of talking ; still, it was full of charm in its little surprises of intonation and a curiously vibrating sweetness. He wished to know more of her, to study her, and at the same time he was annoyed at the interest she inspired. " Oh, pardon me," she said, suddenly turning to him with a complete change of manner. " I be lieve you suggested that Mr. Clement should take your place. He is already engaged, but Courtney is arranging for Balfour Grant to come down at once. I thought you would be glad to hear this." Arnold drew nearer to her. A jealousy, springing out of he knew not what, burned in him at a white heat. Not Balfour Grant nor Charley Clement, nor any other man should usurp his right to play to this woman. She was cruel, deceitful, unworthy of the name of a woman, of this he was quite satisfied ; and yet he longed to prove his power over her, to subdue, to conquer her, and having done this, to point to Gilbert and say — " Behold your work; as you have treated him, so have I treated you !

" It was a sudden fit of madness that took possession of him, for he hid the truth from himself that he was already under the spell of a fascination from which he was powerless to escape, and therefore he went to his doom as surely as the fly whose sympathy for another victim leads him straight into the spider's web. " Miss Le Strange," he said quietly, " to-morrow is the first day of my freedom. Lady Royal will be here to undertake the care of Gilbert, and Cooperis a host in himself. Under these circum stances I shall be happy to play to you as arranged." She rose and placed both her hands in his, with a pretty childish frankness. She looked genuinely pleased, and her voice trembled to his touch. " I am so glad that you do not utterly condemn me." "I have no right to presume to be your judge," he answered, but conscious even at that moment that the right would be his one day, and that in his own time she should answer to him for every word or look that she had given to another.

A fortnight later, and Gilbert Royal was pro nounced out of danger, and by the death of his brother had succeeded to the title and estate of Sunnyside, and Arnold Rivers had played " Romeo " to Miss Le Strange's " Juliet."

Chapter III. Evelyn Finds

A JUDGE. Evelyn Erle was one of those women who are rarely met with in modern life, and who, as we have already seen, are doomed to suffer iu any phase of modern civilization. She was romantic and idealistic, with an origi nality of character that thought and acted for itself independently of others, and a high intellectuality that lifted her out of the ordinary sphere of a woman's restricted life ; she was cold and proud, quick to resent an injury, yet generous to a fault, capable of the most exalted heroism or suffering, yet chafing ceaselessly against the conditions of her life. Her convent education had ill-fitted her to suit herself to the exigencies of the society in which she eventually found herself. Experience did not tend to make her practical, it merely saddened and chilled all the tender and romantic sympathies that once seemed so true and beautiful.

She became cold, proud, and cynical only because her truer nature being denied all legitimate expression retreated into itself, and watched with critical distrust its faintest struggle or desire for freedom. It must be ever so with the finest natures, crushed beneath the iron heel of conventionality, and lacking strength to defy the monster who devours them; their passive resistance renders them at last impervious even to their despair. She had married Royston Erie in the first flush of his artistic success, and in obedience solely to the wishes of her friends. She admired, esteemed, respected him, but she had not known what love meant. The marriage was an unhappy one from first to last. It could not have been other. Yet duty and obedience remained with Evelyn when all else had gone, and the world knew nothing of the tragedy of her daily life.

It was at this time that she first met Dudley Vane. The friendship of a clever, earnest man, whom she admired and respected, brought a new element into her life. He awoke all the latent ambition in her ; he restored her faith in herself, the greatest of all gifts from man to man, and tried to develop the power he saw was only waiting for an opportunity to blossom forth in actual achievement. Through him she learned to love art and to follow it as the shipwrecked mariner steers for the beacon that must save him. Her happy friendship had almost been mistaken once for love, for he had loved her, but her finer instincts had carried her unscathed over this peril. Then had followed his death, wrecked off a boat in a storm near Whitby, and Evelyn had had to face not only this shock, but the fact of her husband's desertion, and equally sudden death.

She herself had gone down to death's door unknowing of the new elements of tragedy already entering into her life in Royal's boyish love. She had neither seen nor anticipated it. When she left him in Paris she disappeared from the world as Evelyn Erie, and a few months later made her cUbut on the stage as Miss Le Strange. She believed her new life would have power to absorb her past, to silence memory, to blot out everything but her art. To Arnold Rivers she had already become a mystery that did not grow clearer as time went on. He was not long in discovering that she was a charming companion, as well as an actress, and an amateur poet and novelist of no ordinary ability. She confessed she had once hoped to make literature a profession, but found the com petition too great or her skill too small.

She took the greatest interest in books and all kinds of modern philosophies. She believed that everyone was sent into the world with a given nature, and could only develop that nature in accordance with the extent of individual capacity; beyond that limit neither improvement nor power was possible. A mystic, and a fatalist in reality, she held that essential nature could never change, and that no one could be greater or wiser than his destiny. She had studied deeply the religions and philo sophies of many lands, and held her own opinions on most of these debatable questions. In theory she was a Platonist, tinged with the mysticism of Allan Kardec's theory of reincarna tion. She had not yet met the man who could touch her strangely balanced nature. She in fluenced all with whom she came in contact with out in return being influenced by any.

Love was unknown to her, and the sentiment that had once almost taken its place in her friendship for Dudley Vane had long since given way to cynicism and doubt. As people had once called her fascinating with out knowing why, so to-day they regarded her as dangerous because she was invulnerable to the ordinary motives that actuate human conduct. She had a profound distaste for the worldly prizes that most women longed to possess. Ex ternal things influenced her but little. Riches, titles, position, had no attraction for her, save as they gave her power to develop her interior life, or help the burdens of others. Her simplicity was as great as her charity. She was a woman who gained nothing from her surroundings, so strong was the charm of her personality. Her inheritance of Vane's fortune at his death never quite satisfied her punctilious sense of honour, and she spent it largely in charity.

It had enabled her to escape many a dangerous rock and pitfall during her brave struggle for the success she had attained, and she remembered this gratefully. From her husband's executors she received nothing. Eoyston's latest will had disinherited her except for a mere pittance which she refused to accept. She had developed strong likes and dislikes in place of her once timid gentleness, but although a staunch friend, she proved but an in different foe. She was amiable and good-natured enough until her will was thwarted, then she brooked no control. Such was Evelyn Erie to-day — strong, brave, and self-reliant, a woman to love and honour when fate should let her dare to dream again of love. She had known Gilbert Eoyal from the first days of her marriage, and had always been interested in him ; his unhappiness at home, added to his gentle impracticable nature, appealed to all her sympathies.

An old friend of Eoyston's, Leon Fairfax, a distinguished critic and writer, had introduced him to her, and she had taken him under her own special care, treating him more as a younger brother than a friend in his brief visits to her London home. Gilbert had alienated his people by writing articles for the papers of a strong Socialistic tendency, and Evelyn was the first to acknowledge his ability, and to encourage him to persevere. She sympathized with his misfortune in quarrel ling with his family, while his delicate health and chivalrous nature pleaded on his behalf to her romantic temperament, and she accepted his boyish devotion as a tribute to her own friendly influence which she invariably used for his benefit. But during the days of her terrible ordeal at Prey, when she could no longer blind herself to the passion she had thus inadvertently raised, she found it very difficult to extricate herself from her dilemma.

He asked so little, and endured neglect so patiently. He made no demand upon her time or her friendship, a kind word, a gentle look satisfied and made him happy. He haunted her like her shadow to echo every mood, to smile, or grieve, or despair as she bade him. " He is only a boy," she thought. " He will go away and forget that he ever knew me; this often happens in youth." But it had not been so. In the hour of Erie's desertion, of Dudley Vane's death, Gilbert's love and helpfulness had saved her from utter despair, and she could not be unthankful in the hour of her shame and humiliation. She had followed her husband to Prey, aud learnt there the tidings of his flight. In the delirium and weakness that followed that revela tion she clung to her boy friend as her one strength and hope. But for him she might have thought all she suffered but a dream within a dream.

She recovered very slowly, and then, when it was too late, she sent him away for ever. In one long interview she announced her intention of returning to England to carve out a career for herself, and, despite Gilbert's passionate en treaties, he knew he would see her no more as he had seen her in those dark yet to him happy days. With returning health, a new strength, a definite desire had come to her; they. had both been idle too long — now they must make up for lost time. It was better they should not meet again ; they must part some time, why not now ? He could not argue, he submitted to her decision. The fortune Vane left her was a very modest one of £300 a year, but large enough to secure her from the humiliation of actual poverty. During her life and struggles as an authoress she accepted this help gladly, feeling that even from the grave his love protected her.

She had never loved him, but she tenderly cherished his memory, and remembering how anxious he had been that she should become an actress, she determined to adopt the stage as a profession. She studied for several months in London, made a successful debut in the country, and after a year's hard work found herself no longer unknown or unappreciated. In the meantime Gilbert, having written a drama in connection with Leon Fairfax, by one of those curious chances we call coincidence, had actually joined her at Colchester, without knowing the real name of his manageress. Before Gilbert was out of danger, his brother had died, and when Lady Royal arrived at Col chester it was to break the news to him of his accession to the title and estate of Sunnyside. She did not see Miss Le Strange. The Company had already removed to another town, and Lady Eoyal was only too thankful to escape such a con tretemps.

To Arnold Rivers, Evelyn spoke freely of her interest in Gilbert. She was indignant at his family's treatment of him, and when she heard of his good fortune she rejoiced for the freedom it would give him. It never occurred to her that in his delirium he might have revealed his secret to his friend, and she talked to Arnold without reserve, and also without an idea that he knew more than she her self had confessed. At these times Arnold only half -believed her; he could not understand how Gilbert's mad passion could have reached its present stage without en couragement, and the delirium he had witnessed, with its wild ravings and hopeless frenzy, had left an impression on his mind that all her apparent truth could not remove. He thought her cruel and deceitful ; he did not believe in her pity or her innocence.

Yet he liked to study her ; at the same time he was always on his guard against any weakness on his own part, for he confessed the attractions that sprang out of her peculiar nature, and knew in his heart that he daily fought a dual battle for and against her, and that while he believed, he dis believed, and while he condemned, he excused. His mind, at once reticent and observant, found a pleasure in analyzing her moods, and he delighted to turn her cynicism upon herself and startle her with a candour which, if she resented, she was forced to respect, until even this semi-hostility be came a bond between them. There was nothing common in Arnold Rivers ; his ability and earnestness were qualities that ensured her friendship, and the fact that she never D quite knew how he regarded her gave an additional charm to his outspoken truths.

She frankly owned to herself how much she liked him; he touched a certain chord in her nature none had ever touched before ; an unknown sympathy gave him greater power to understand her than hitherto had been possible for any man to do. The growth of love in the human heart yet remains a study for the poet and the despair of the philosopher. " Many waters," we are told, " cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it ; " but whence its origin, or what its power, are enigmas, per plexing us as much to-day as they puzzled the brains of the wisest man thousands of years ago. It never occurred to either of these people that during the last few weeks their lives had found a centre, and that under the surface of their every day existence ran a current of deep and perfect happiness. Not a suspicion of the truth came to them.

Evelyn's thoughts rarely went beyond the day; she ceased to look backwards or forwards. She became gentle, childlike, happy, as she had been in the convent garden in the days of her early youth. The sweetness of a new life restored at one bound all her old and tenderly-cherished illusions. " You portray the emotions of love and sorrow with great power," Arnold said to her one day, " especially as you confess that love is unknown to you." "I have imagination," she answered, gaily, " and that is a quality one can hardly rank too highly. It is a gift of Fate's equal to being born a goddess." But she did not add that imagination without love for a motor power can only suggest, and never realize, the mysteries that live alone in passionate human hearts.

Chapter IV

A EIDE AND A PLAY. A few weeks later Leon Fairfax came down to see her. Evelyn was waiting for him in her little parlour, dressed in her riding habit, and pulling on her gloves. She was passionately fond of riding, and on Leon's chance visits she availed herself of his escort for a country gallop. They set off together, and taking the high road were soon out of the town. Evelyn's horse, a rich chestnut, threatened to give her enough to do in managing it. Leon smiled to see how easily and firmly she settled back in her saddle, her delicate hands grasping the reins with a consciousness of power. " He wants it taken out of him," she said, laughing ; " what do you say to a little cross country work? " " By all means ; but no rashness, mind." " All right," she answered, and away they started. After an exciting chase of ten minutes they came to a stout hedge, with a bank on one side and a ditch on the other.