The Actor's Wife: a novel

Chapter I

" Juliet. Is-fhere no pity sitting in the clouds, That sees into t,he bottom of my grief?" Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. sc. v. Dead ! Stone dead ! The miserable, crippled old man had gone to " his account with all his imperfections on his head." As Gertrude fell over her father's corpse, Mrs. Bulger rushed to the side of her friend to raise her. The good old lady lifted the prostrate form of Gertrude to the bed ; in the meanwhile Rorman, collecting his scattered senses, fled from the room and from the house. Having deposited her burden, Mrs. Bulger hastened down the stairs with the double vol. in. intention of seeking a policeman to capture Rorman, and a doctor to see Totter, whom she could not bring herself to believe was really dead. Rorman was out of sight, and, after making fruitless inquiries of persons she met, she hastened on to the doctor's ; she Avas absent some little time.

Gertrude presently came to herself; she quickly remembered all that had occurred, and, starting from the bed, went to her father's side. She began to call him by name, gently patting him as he lay there, face downwards ; she took his hand to stroke it — something was clasped in it : it was the lapel of a coat. With a cry, she hastily concealed it in the bosom of her dress. A sudden thought seemed to cross her mind ; she went to the table, and searched over it, and with a sad cry exclaimed : " He has taken them ! he has taken them !" The " them " being the extract from the log, and the papers Rorman had placed upon the table, but which, even in his fright at having caused the old man's death, he remem bered to seize and replace in his pocket in his hurried flight from the room. Gertrude threw herself in a chair, and the old dazed glassy look came back into her eyes — the brain disease had returned, and merci fully obliterated memory for the present.

The doctor returned with Mrs. Bulger ; the former examined the remains of old Totter, and pronounced life to be quite extinct — that death must have been instantaneous. The good man then turned to Gertrude, his former, or rather his late, patient, and muttered the Avords, " relapse— very bad this time !" He helped Mrs. Bulger to place the un resisting girl on the bed, and directed that means should be taken to have the body of old Totter removed from the room, and then waited until a policeman arrived. Then came the inquest. 35—2 Mrs. Bulger Avas examined. She stated that on the day in question Mr. Totter's daughter had rushed into her, Mrs. Bulger's, room in great excitement, exclaiming that the man Rorman was a villain, and had ruined her for ever. She, Mrs. Bulger, had tried to calm and quiet the poor girl, avIio, besides having but recently recovered from an attack of brain-fever, AA-as in the greatest state of excitement.

Presently they heard angry voices proceeding from the room occupied by the daughter of the deceased. They ran upstairs, and found the door locked ; inside evidently a struggle was going on ; they heard Rorman's voice threatening the old man ; they cried to them to open the door ; presently they heard the sound of something falling heavily. With a tremendous effort the daughter of the deceased burst in the door. They found Mr. Totter lying in the grate in a pool of blood, with Rorman standing over him. While the Avitness's back was turned for a moment, the man Rorman escaped down the stairs. This, and more, Avas Mrs. Bulger's evidence. The doctor was examined, and gave in a cer tificate showing that Gertrude was not, and would not be for Aveeks to come, in a state to be examined. The policeman who had been called in gave his evidence.

The jury, satisfied with what they had heard, gave a verdict of manslaughter against Rorman, and a warrant was issued for his apprehension. Old Totter was buried, Mrs. Bulger, his old enemy, being the sole mourner. Gertrude's relapse was not serious. A feeling of rest and security seemed to steal into her heart, and gradually health and reason returned to her. The New Year found her once again at her sewing-machine. Her old father's shocking death, which she could only regard as a murder, was, in truth, a release ; and in her inmost heart, she could not deuy that it was so. Again, the terrible means of his death had secured her from the hateful presence and machinations of her enemy — Rorman. He was " wanted ;" he must, perforce, remain in hiding : if he showed himself, the law would come to her assistance, and relieve her of his persecutions.

Moreover, she could now defy him ; she had no father to consider or to assist her enemy in his designs. He had blighted her life for ever; that was his worst — he could now do no more. And she Avould think and think. She who was by right, by law, and love the wife of Arthur Cuthbert was dead to him for ever. Rorman had plotted her ruin, and succeeded to a miracle. Mrs. Bulger was still ignorant of much that had taken place in her house, and one evening Gertrude told her all. Mrs. Bulger's advice to her young friend was : " Never give up, my dear ; he may have ruined you through lies for the present : you shall have back your happiness in the future through truth. First of all you must write to your husband aud tell him everything." " How can I ?" replied Gertrude. " Why, the very things I have to tell will only, in his estimation, confirm his belief in the truth of what he thinks has happened."

"Never mind. You write first, at all events." And Gertrude composed a letter to her husband. Long did it take her, and great consideration. At last she read the following composition to her old friend : " My Husband, " Before I attempt to ask your forgiveness, I wish you to know the diabolical plot which has ruined our home, and nearly killed me. Husband, I now know they have taught you to believe the worst of me — before God I am innocent. The morning when in frantic madness I left you, you read in the Times the announcement that my first husband, Captain Giles, was still alive, in the Avords that the captain and part of the creAv of the Proud Janet had been saved. The Proud Janet was the name of the ship he last sailed in. This, I found out from a remark you then made, you did not know, but were still in the belief that Captain Giles had died in New Zealand.

Oh that I had not been weak — that I had then undeceived you. But how could I tell you — you, my loving husband, in whose arms I was clasped — how could I tell you that you were no husband of mine — that one had returned from the grave Avho had a right to claim me ? I was mad — I flew from you — I dared not see you again. With my father I hid myself, and for Aveeks and Aveeks I knew nothing — I was seized Avith brain fever. At length I recovered, and found my life had been blasted — but oh ! husband, not for ever, in mercy — by the lying machinations of a devil in human shape — the man who has hounded me through life— Richard Rorman. The paragraph in the Times, as are so many, was erroneous ; the greater portion of the crew ofthe Proud Janet had been saved, but Cap tain Giles had been killed in a storm two days before the vessel was wrecked.

This Rorman knew, and used his knowledge to aid him in my ruin. He confessed all to me. He laid a trap for the detective you employed, and, while I was ill and delirious, employed a woman to personate me before your very eyes, using my dress and ornaments to assist in the -deception. Husband, this is true — I can prove it. But retaliation came speedily ; my poor father came to his death at the hands of the ruffian, who is now in hiding from the law and the just reward of his crimes. I have been at death's-door twice since I so madly and so Avickedly ran from you in my fear without telling you the reason of my flight ; but if you can never see me again, let me know at least that you forgive me for the pain I must have caused you, for oh ! I have been punished heavily for my Aveakness and my want of trust in you.

Let me hear from you — one little word of forgiveness, as a sun beam in the dreary life of your broken-hearted, true wife, "Gertrude." We shall see, hereafter, how this epistle was receiA-od. The result will quickly appear. Gertrude and Mrs. Bulger waited patiently for an answer ; but days and weeks Avent by, and no answer came. At length, at the beginning of February, a letter arrived in a blue envelope, addressed to " Mrs. Gertrude Giles or Rorman." With beating heart and nervously twitch ing hands Gertrude tore the letter open, read it, and in a quarter-of-an-hour Mrs. Bulger came into the room and found her poor young friend in a paroxysm of weeping. The communication ran as follows " Messrs. Corbett and Williams, solicitors for Mr. Arthur Cuthbert Curzon, acknowledge the receipt of a communication from Mrs. Gertrude Cuthbert or Curzon.

Messrs C. and W. will feel obliged if Mrs. Cuthbert or Curzon could inform them whether or not there will be any defence in the approaching suit for divorce, ' Curzon versus Curzon and Rorman.' If there will be defence, will Mrs. Curzon kindly forward to Messrs. C. and W. the name of her solicitor." " Defence ?" cried Gertrude, as Mrs. Bulger tried to console her. " What defence can I make ? — what can I prove ? who can speak for me ?" " Speak for you, child ?" replied her friend, in warmth. " Why, who but Lucy ? Did you not live in my house all the time ? Cannot I prove that you were lying ill in bed at the time they were plotting against you ? There, there, the divorce suit will be the best thing of all, for that will prove your innocence beyond a doubt. And, Lord bless you, the moment your husband finds he's been gulled by Rorman, he'll be the first to go on his knees to ask your pardon.

Cheer up, dear, this is better news indeed than ever I expected." And Gertrude did brighten up. Why, of course Mrs. Bulger could disprove most that could be brought against the wife. Mrs. Bulger Avas a respectable woman, the intended to-be co-respondent was certainly not respect able ; again, they might perhaps induce the woman who had personated Gertrude during her illness to come forward, and that would be clear proof of the conspiracy and the death-blow to the divorce suit. So Gertrude wrote a short note to Messrs. Corbett and Williams announcing that the suit would be defended, and that in time she would send the name of her solicitor. But the next day the post brought troublous news to Mrs. Bulger. It must be remembered that Mrs. Bulger's son, James, who, as a lad, assisted his stepfather in the cat's-meat business, had deserted that lucrative trade for the army, and had " 'listed in the dragons," as his mother put it.

He was now on furlough, and had gone to Stogis, a thriving town on the South-East coast, to pay a visit to his lady-love, wha resided there. It appears that immediately on his arrival he was taken with fever, and in a few days was dangerously ill ; his mother was written to, and this was the troublous news above alluded to. " My dear, my dear !" cried, poor Mrs. Bulger, on reading the letter. " Misfortunes, they say, never come single : my poor soldier boy, Jim, is a-dying. I must go to the poor lad." ' A brief consultation was held ; Mrs. Bulger's sister, Sarah, was now much better of her rheumatism, and could well be left to look after the Cohen Street washing and lodging. Gertrude could not think of allowing her old friend to go to the sick-bed of her son alone, so they decided to go to Stogis together, and not return to London until Sarah should really require her sister's help again.

So the sewing-machine was packed up ; I may here say that poor James's " young lady" at Stogis was a dressmaker, and Mrs. Bulger had not the least doubt that her intended daughter in-law Avould be able to find plenty of work for Gertrude. So they started for Stogis within three hours of receiving the sad news about young James Runt. Starting from Victoria (their heavy luggage only consisting of the sewing-machine), their light bags and traps being placed in the third class carriage with them, they steamed off in a driving storm of rain. The journey would occupy about three hours ; two hours and three-quarters had passed, and the two tra vellers were beginning to get very tired. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, bang — crash — smash — and the carriage in which Gertrude and her friend Avere seated was re duced to a confused mass of splinters.

Cries and screams rent the air. The work ■5 of assisting the wounded at once began. One of those unfortunately too common accidents had occurred : goods vans had been shunted, couplings had given way, and a third of a luggage -train had run backwards down an incline, with ever-increasing force, and dashed into an advancing passenger train. Four of the carriages of the latter were completely smashed, and all the passengers injured, and several killed. The third-class carriage in which Gertrude and Mrs. Bulger were tra velling was as I have said, a confused mass of splinters. In after days, Gertrude, in describing the accident, said that all she remembered of it was a tremendous jolt, and then — oblivion. When she came to herself, she found herself in a strange sort of shed ; she was covered with a blanket, and a man, evidently a surgeon, was bending over her ; she tried to move, but in agony she fell back in a faint.

She next remembered coming gradually back to her senses, with returning memory of her journey to Stogis, and it suddenly passed through her brain that there must have been an accident. She was unable to move, and was aAvare of intense pain in her right side, arm, and shoulder. Presently the same man, the sur geon, came to her, and found she had returned to consciousness ; she tried to speak to him, but could only murmur " Lucy, Lucy." The surgeon begged her not to try to speak, and presently some men came in and bore her away on ,a mattress ; as they moved her, iu the intense agony caused by their doing so, her eyes lit upon a form that had been lying by her side, completely covered by a blanket. Peeping out of the corner of the covering was a bit of a woman's dress : bright purple, edged with black ; in a moment she recognised it — it was Mrs. Bulger's holiday costume, which she had donned for her journey to Stogis.

Ger trude uttered a faint scream, and remem bered no more. It was some days before she returned at all to her senses — when she did so, she found herself in the hospital at Stogis, and by her side as she thought, her friend Mrs. Bulger. She began, " Oh, Lucy, Lucy, you are safe." " Hush, hush, my dear," was the reply ; and Sarah, Mrs. Bulger's sister, whom Ger trude had but once before in her life set eyes on, stooped over her. Gradually the truth came to her — her old, only and best friend was dead. Mrs. Bulger bad been removed from the splintered remains of the third-class carriage, but it was Mrs. Bulger no more — it was a corpse. Her head had been completely crushed in iu the collision. Gertrude had received a terrible cut on the head and a smashed arm and dislocated shoulder, besides being severely shaken.

It was weeks before she could leave the hospital ; when she was allowed to do so, she was taken to the home of Miss Maria Hatton, the fiancee of the now convalescent Mr. James Runt, and by that amiable young lady was most tenderly nursed. vol. in. But as she returned to health the dreadful reality of the loss of her only friend came to her in terrible earnest. With Lucy, her only chance of establishing her innocence in her husband's eyes was gone for ever. During the time she was staying in Cohen Street, Lucy's sister, Sarah, had been away ill, only returning after the inquest on her, Gertrude's, father. Sarah could prove nothing — she might, perhaps, give a little hearsay evidence, but of what value was that ? Now all hope in life was dead ; but God had given her back that life — it was a gift she was bound to keep, else but she refused to allow her thoughts to travel any further in the direction whither they were drifting.

Once, and once only, she had murmured against the decrees of her Maker, and then, in subdued heart and spirit, she set herself to face her miserable future. In that moment of murmuring she had cried : " Father, friend, and husband all snatched from me ; only life, hopeless, joyless, love less, left me now ! If there is mercy in heaven, take that life ! But no, there is no heaven — there is no God !" 36—2 CHAPTER IT. "Hamlet. . . . Dost know this waterfly ? Horatio. No, my good lord. Hamlet. Thy state is the more gracious ; for 'tis a vice to know him. He hath much land and fertile : let a beast be a lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess ; 'tis a chough ; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt." Hamlet, Act v. sc. ii. Once upon a time there lived a rich and prosperous king.

For years he had ruled over his country, and was beloved by all his subjects ; his good deeds were lauded and sung by strangers and foreigners as well as by his own people ; these good deeds were set up upon pedestals all over the land, and their lustre shed a brightness over the entire country. One morning, after a stormy night, the sun UFFE. 21 had risen in brightness and splendour, and the king went forth accompanied but by his own meditations, to walk in the gardens of his palace ; suddenly he saw a small but muddy pool of scandal across his path, and before he could step back the toe of one foot was in the pool, and the muddy splashings had covered his boot. With his own royal hands he cleansed the mud-stains, and, fearful lest anyone else should be splashed by the scandal from the puddle, he obtained a vessel, and, with a cup, scooped up the dirty liquid, and removed every trace of the pool of scandal with which he himself had been bedaubed.

Not content with removing the puddle and mud from the garden, the king, fearful again that the scandal might be spilt and so defile his palace or his household, caused to be made a miniature tank of mighty strength, into which he poured the muddy fluid from the vessel in which he had collected it : the tank was covered, the cover riveted down, and the whole rendered air-tight. The king kept the tank and its contents a secret from the world; but knowing the mighty powers of scandal, he daily examined the structure which contained it, apprehensive of a flaw or a leak. Time passed on, and the king had to pay a visit to a neighbouring city. The scandal, though strongly imprisoned in its iron tank, had been fermenting ever since it had been placed there : a flaw had existed in the structure that had contained it, which the king's closest examination had failed to dis cover.

At first, drop by drop, the scandal oozed out ; larger and larger grew the leak ; stronger by fermentation became the muddy fluid, till at last, one day, with a mighty noise, the tank burst, and the little muddy pool of scandal, now grown into a mighty torrent, flowed over palace, people and country ; the land was full of it ; the good deeds of the king, which, placed upon the pedestals throughout the kingdom, had given light to the land, were dulled and dimmed by the muddy fluid which had burst forth ; not a robe of the king, not a particle of his clothing, not a corner of his palace which was not stained by the dirty torrent. But years and years passed on, and the stains from the muddy eruption gradually faded out of the land ; but the good deeds on the pedestals never entirely regained their brightness, the palace was never thoroughly cleansed ; and the king, though still wise, good and great, never really recovered from the polluting touch of the muddy waters of scandal.

So much for a fable. There was a flaw in the tank which con tained Arthur's secret, although to this day none could say where it was, and through that flaw the scandal oozed out. One morning — Romeo and Juliet had been performed about six nights at the Prince's— Mrs. Colderson and Alice were dawdling over a late breakfast in the little dining-room in Cranberry Cottage, when a letter was brought in for the elder lady, upon which was the Manchester post-mark. Mrs. Colderson took the letter, and looking at the handwriting, exclaimed, " Oh, from Clarelands ;" and surely enough it was from Aunt Jakes. It ran as follows : " My dearest Aurelia, " Bless us and save us ! how wicked is this wicked world ! Oh, my dearest friend ! Can it be possible that you, as I, have been deceived by that truly wicked snake in the grass, Arthur Cuthbert ?

My dear, my dear, I have heard such news ! All I can say, it serves him right, running after that beggar's chit, when our own darling, like a ripe goose berry " At this part of the letter Mrs. Colderson, who was reading it aloud to Alice, suddenly came to a standstill, but quickly resumed : " I went into Manchester this morning, and one of the first persons I met as I was turning out of Ducie Street into the Oxford Road was Clarine Lonsdale, the first old woman now at the Royal (you remember her, my dear, when we were girls, before she took to the stage, as Matilda Squirks). ' Oh,' she cried, without even saying so much as how d'ye do. ' My dear Miss Jakes, have you heard the news about your friend Arthur Cuthbert ?' " ' Arthur Cuthbert ?' said I, ' he's no friend of mine, Miss Lonsdale.' " ' Well, then, about his wife,' said she.

" ' And she's still less,' said I. ' But what about her ?' " ' Why,' said she, ' Cynthia Harrington, who has been playing in London at the Prince's, has come to the Royal, and she says that Mrs. Cuthbert has run off from her husband with an old flame, by whom she had three children before she was married to Cuthbert; he, Cuthbert, it appears, came home unexpectedly one afternoon, and found the old love and the three olive branches all at tea together in the parlour. It seems that Mrs. C. confessed the truth, and Cuthbert kicked the flame, the hearth, and the three fire-irons into the street on the moment.' " Now, my dear Aurelia, I can believe it all to be true, and I don't think it right that my niece should any longer be mixed up with Mr. Cuthbert, unless he can give a satisfactory explanation.

I leave the matter in your hands and am, as ever, etc., etc." " Poor Jakes," exclaimed Mrs. Colderson, as she finished the letter ; " it's all tbat malicious Harrington. Well, the truth is bound to leak out some day : better let the real facts go abroad than scandalous lies of this kind ; so I shall tell Arthur." And gradually some of the outside world knew the real story of Gertrude's flight, as Arthur himself knew it — some a story more entertaining, but still further from the truth than the version given to Miss Jakes by the amiable Miss Clarine Lonsdale, nee Miss Matilda Squirks. And Arthur used every means to enable him to forget the vile creature he had called his wife, who had brought him such misery and disgrace. The last we heard of the young actor was on the occasion of his supping with his friend Mr. Poleon.

On the day following he lunched with his new acquaintance, Captain George Osborne ; it was a tete-a-tete meal, and their acquaintanceship appeared likely to ripen into close friendship. " Do you sup with Sir Horace Oldham to morrow night ?" asked Arthur of his host during their meal. " He has asked me," was the reply. " As you are going, I shall go — but he is an odious prig. In his own opinion, he is the only dramatist, reader, and actor in London. And as for criticism — well, he out-criticises the critics. There is a class of periodicals in which may be found pages ofthe most blatant bosh; the editors and proprietors, suffering from poverty and toadyism, are only too ready to accept anything from a somebody IHE ACTOR'S WIFE. who will write for nothing, be it ever such rubbish, while a nobody's contributions, how ever good they may be, requiring to be paid for, are consigned to the waste-paper basket.

Have you ever read any of the milk-and water filth of the Anglo-Roman Spanish- Oriental nobleman, the hook-nosed hero of the bread-and-butter misses of a very, very middle-class of society ? I met the cad once at an artists' ' at home ' : the artists' wives and sisters being women and girls of taste, as well as sense, strongly objected to the pseudo noble. I was dancing with Miss Wharton (you know her father's pictures) when the gentleman approached us : it seems that Miss Wharton had been asked to dance that waltz with him, and had refused, saying she did not feel inclined. The Whitechapel foreign nobleman, in East London broken English, spoke in a loud whisper to her as we passed, ' You 'ave telled me a lie — a dam lie!' " Asking Miss Wharton to excuse me a moment, I took the little cad gently by the arm and led him out of the dancing-room and downstairs to the cloak-room ; in gentle sur prise he kept asking me what I meant.

I obtained his hat and cloak, and giving them to him, I opened the door. He then found breath to ask me, in Whitechapel Saxon, what I meant. I replied : " ' I mean this : that I cannot understand how it was my foot allowed my arm the plea sure of bringing you to the bottom of the staircase ; your Whitechapel, I mean your foreign, manners possibly cause you to be ignorant of the fact that it is somewhat rude to tell a lady she tells " a dam lie " — so good night. I will not fail to tell your hosts the exact reason of your early departure. ' " The miserable cur began to talk something about satisfaction. " '. You had better descend those steps at once,' I said, 'or my foot may assist you.' " He has gone to Paris now, to add to the literature of this unhappy country. Then there is an Anglo-French marquis dabbling in magazine literature : his contributions axe always accepted when he requires no pay, provided he signs them with his full title ; Lord Armand (and raisins, they call him) is another.

The reading public, if any of that long-suffering body do read his twaddle, have to thank the British Peerage that the ramblings of his poor little brain ever stain paper with printers' ink. And our friend Horace Oldham scribbles for a few small circulation periodicals, through which, if any one dare to disagree with him, or dispute his authorities, upon the unfortunate's head will he launch the mighty thunderbolt of his tiny wit and milk-warm satire. He'll give you a dose to-morrow night, I can promise you." " It doesn't sound promising though," replied Arthur. "What about Lord Harold Grimsby's breakfast party on Sunday ? Is that to be a slow affair ?" " Au contraire," said Osborne. " At Old ham's you will be introduced to the most persect form of mutual admiration society. Young men with long hair, open shirt-collars, white hands, and scented handkerchiefs, æsthetic bodies with fleshy souls — sweet young Englishmen, who consider it most un manly to be manly, whose lives are spent in an atmosphere tinted with sage greens, eau de Nile and sweet greys, and are as neutral as are, almost, the young gentlemen them selves.