A Woman of Heart

Chapter I

It was on the eve of the first performance of the new opera which was the joint production of Samuel Winchester and Sir Timothy Irvine. For the past month there had been rehearsals at the ' Eden ' every day. A few friends — a very select few, be it understood — had been invited to witness the last dress rehearsal. There were just sufficient of them to occupy the front row of the stalls. Every other part of the theatre was draped with long calico sheeting, which was used to protect the gilding from being damaged by the gas and the atmosphere. Mr. Alexander Jephson, the manager who had made the fortunes of the ' Eden,' was giving the final directions to the stage carpenters as to VOL. I. B the arrangement of the scenery and of the furniture for the first act, and there was a good deal of hammering, talking, and shouting on the stage.

Meanwhile the conductor, oblivious of all else, was compelling his well-trained orchestra to repeat a difficult passage a dozen times over. The favoured few who had been invited for this occasion stood in little groups in the stalls, talking and discussing excitedly the different situa tions in the opera, and prophesying success. Miss Ruth Elliott, the prima donna, was in her dressing-room with her lady's-maid and the dress maker and her assistant, putting the final touches to the gorgeous costume in which she was to appear — a costume which it was expected would make a sensation. Mr. Robert Fenwick, a gentleman well known in theatrical circles, was privileged to sit in the room. He was smoking a cigarette, and criticising from time to time, with the air of a connoisseur, the costume as the final touches were administered to it ; and Miss Elliott deferred to his opinion more than she was in the habit of deferring to the opinion of others.

The last dress rehearsal, particularly of an opera, is always a matter of considerable impor tance. With it ends all chance of correction or amendment. The actors and actresses are on their mettle ; the manager is full of anxiety. There is very little laughter or gaiety — the matter is too serious for frivolity. Every bar of the music, every line of the dialogue, every action has to be carefully watched. Every actor's part has to fit in exactly with every other actor's part. All must know their cues : there must not be a word of ' gag.' The critics will be there to-morrow night, and the fortunes of the piece will be made or marred by what they say. And what they say will depend a great deal on the music, a great deal on the libretto, but a great deal more on the accuracy and perfection with which the piece is produced.

Mr. Alexander Jephson, although a kind hearted man at ordinary times, could be exb ceedingly severe and despotic when he chose, and he did choose on this occasion. It was a light and brilliant opera, and Mr. Jephson was anticipating a tremendous success. For months previously he had been getting para graphs inserted in the newspapers, puffing the new piece without stint, and, in consequence, all the theatrical, musical, and artistic world was on the tip-toe of expectation. It was said that Sir Timothy's music was more tuneful than anything he had ever pro duced before ; and, as for the dialogue, it was sparkling and brilliant, and would keep the house in a roar of laughter from the beginning to the end. The Hon. Coleport Stephen, a gentleman well known in society, and who was, moreover, one of the proprietors of the theatre, was giving expression to his indignation that the ' Eden ' should be degraded for the purposes of such exceeding low comedy.

The 'Eden' had been opened some three years before, for the purpose of producing first-class English opera, by a society of gentlemen amongst whom the Hon. Coleport Stephen held a prominent position. First-class English opera had been introduced with a very great flourish of trumpets. Royalty had been present in great force on the first night ; duchesses, countesses, and the rest, glittering and brilliant as they always are when they have competed for the entree to something which is supposed to be particularly exclusive. It was announced that the piece had been composed by Sir Timothy Irvine, but it was evident that Rossini had had something to do with it; that Bellini had taken his share; that Wagner also had contributed a mite, and that several of the airs and orchestrations could be traced to other more or less distinguished com posers.

The mise en scene had been magnificent, the cast had been as perfect as it well-nigh could be. The newspapers, on the next morning, con tained columns of the wildest praise. Notwithstanding all this there had been a very considerable loss, with the result that serious English opera, which was inspired by foreign musicians, was not attempted again. The theatre had been closed for some time when Mr. Jephson came upon the scene. Mr. Jephson was a vulgar man. In the eyes of the Hon. Coleport Stephen he was even worse than a vulgar man. He was a vulgar man who was clever enough to vulgarise Art. Art, in the eyes of the Hon. Coleport Stephen, was a great and exclusive ideal. The moment the public appreciated it, it was no longer Art. Art was reserved for the select few — the connoisseurs, the illuminati, the upper crust of literary, musical, and artistic society.

When the common people came in, it lost its charm ; hence Art must be kept at a point which the common people would not be likely to understand. You must have music without tunes, pictures which required con sideration before you knew which was the top and which the bottom, novels which tortured you with gymnastic arrangements of words — and then you had Art. If a boy caught an air and whistled it in the street, if an oleograph was made of the picture, or a servant girl could read the novel, it was immediately excommunicated as unworthy of the consideration of the professors of high Art. Mr. Jephson declined to be trammelled by such notions. He had frequently said, much to the annoyance of the Hon. Coleport Stephen, that he ran a theatre for money and not for 'Art,' however big the word might be written ; and if the proprietors of the theatre wanted money, he would consent to be their manager ; if they wanted 'Art,' they had better revert to the management of the Hon. Coleport Stephen.

So it happened that, as the directors had sunk a considerable sum in the Eden Theatre, and as ' Art ' had not brought them anything in the shape of interest, they came to the conclusion, notwithstanding the protest of the Hon. Coleport Stephen, that Mr. Jephson should be entrusted with the management. From that moment the fortunes of the ' Eden ' turned. Jephson was enterprising and shrewd ; he understood what people wanted to see. He used to say : " You can lead the public a little, but not far. The public will pay for that which they wish to see and hear. The public do not care twopence for ' High Ideal.' The public want to be amused, entertained ; and if you amuse and entertain the public, they will pay you." He knew exactly the piece that, as he said, had money in it. He knew exactly the actor or actress who could play a particular part to perfection.

His first production at the ' Eden ' had been a gigantic success, the second even a greater ; and after two years of indefatigable industry, Mr. Jephson was able to show his directors a dividend of nearly one hundred per cent. The third venture of Mr. Jephson was a new opera by Samuel Winchester and Sir Timothy Irvine. Samuel Winchester had written libretto for Sir Timothy Irvine before. Samuel Winchester understood Sir Timothy, and the sort of music he could write — pretty, tuneful, poetic — yes, to per fection. But grand opera after the Italian school, after the German school, after the French school even — no. So when Mr. Jephson thought of producing a comic opera by Sir Timothy Irvine, he stipulated that the libretto must be by Samuel Winchester. At the time that Jephson had taken over the ' Eden,' there was a third-row chorus girl named Ruth Elliott — beautiful, clever, untrained, raw.

She was pointed out to him. Now Mr. Jephson was one of those managers who did not always run upon well-established roads. A favourite ex pression of his was : " There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it." And during the course of his life he was always fishing in the sea on the chance of picking up good fish. No author, however obscure or unknown, ever sent a piece to Mr. Jephson but that it was considered ; no aspirant for theatrical fame ever approached him, but that he would grant him an interview. He was always looking out for unknown talent, and he had made the fortunes of a good many people. Those people gave him no thanks, and he did not expect any. He knew how to protect himself by stringent agreements, and that sort of thing. So after observing Ruth Elliott for a few weeks, and after quietly transposing her from one part to another as if by mere accident, he ultimately came to the conclusion that he had found a person who, as he said, "had money in her."

Miss Elliott was called one day into the private sanctum of Mr. Jephson. She had been getting two pounds a week. An agreement was placed before her, by tho terms of which she was to take leading parts, and to play for the Eden Company for one year at fifteen pounds a week, and if they should choose to renew the engagement for another year, at thirty pounds a week. Then came covenants and clauses that she was not to act, sing, or dance anywhere, except at the beck and call of the management, during the stipulated time. Miss Elliott was considerably astonished. She was bluntly asked whether she would sign it, or whether she preferred her present position. It need not be said that she joyfully accepted the brilliant offer which the manager had made to her. And now the third year of her engagement had come, and the salary, which had been thought magnificent, of fifteen or thirty pounds a week, had been raised to fifty pounds a week.

And the directors would not have parted with her even if she had demanded a much more extravagant sum. So Mr. Jephson's prophecies and anticipations were realised to the letter. There were critics who, in the early days of his management, had said that he was mad; that the Eden Company would be in bankruptcy in a very short space of time, and so on. Those critics had long since all been silenced, stubborn facts had been too strong for them ; and now there was scarcely any one who would have ventured upon a theatrical enter prise in London, but would have been very glad of the opinion of Mr. Jephson as to whether it was likely to succeed or not — so great an impression had he made by his extraordinary run of success. Miss Elliott had been entrusted with the leading part of ' Ivonette ' in the new opera, and she was particularly anxious to appear to the very best advantage.

Her dresses had been made regardless of expense, and she had consented to spend days in trying them on, in fitting them, in alterations without number. They had been de signed by a very famous artist with a view to displaying her beautiful figure to the very best advantage ; soft, graceful, harmonious. Mr. Fenwick looked on as the final touches were given, contemplating her with the greatest enthusiasm. " Now, Bob, how is that ? " cried the delighted Ruth, as she turned round to the glass. " It is simply grand ! " he answered, eyeing her from head to foot. " Gorgeous ! I tell you what it is, Ruth. To-morrow you will make a sensation such as has not been felt in a London theatre for twenty years." " You think so ? " The French maid looked on in admiration. Then Mr. Jephson came in. " Is Miss Elliott ready ?

Shall we begin ? " He seemed cross about something. " I wish that my advice had been taken about the second act," he continued. "There is just one line too much. It spoils the Curtain." " Nonsense, Mr. Jephson. I call the situation charming. If that line were struck out the curtain would have to fall with Paul embracing me, and that would never do." " It is the first time I have given way in my life," remarked the manager; "the very first time." And it was evident that he was very dubious as to whether he had done right in giving way at all. " Are you ready ? " he asked. " Quite," she answered. Then she took up a few leaves of music, and ran through a passage or two, waiting for her time to come when she should be called. And the while Mr. Fenwick lit another cigarette. The curtain was let down, and the orchestra took their places.

The overture was light and frolicsome, and put everybody in a good humour to begin with. There was not a hitch, Mr. Jephson, who stood at the back of the stalls, watched critically every movement, every sound, every word ; and he had not a suggestion to offer. He was perfectly satisfied, and so was everybody else. If Ruth Elliott had made successes before, she was simply magnificent now. Her voice had gained power, her acting had become subtle and brilliant, her dancing was graceful and easy, and added to that, her personal appearance was start ling and beautiful. Act after act was gone through until the curtain came down upon the last scene. Then there was a little cheer from the few who were present — a thorough, hearty cheer, which meant undoubtedly that there would be a big cheer to-morrow, when, instead of twenty, there would be very nearly a thousand persons to witness the performance.

Jephson was delighted. He said he should not require another piece for two years at the very least. Everybody was pleased except, perhaps, the Hon. Coleport Stephen, who complained that the music was tricky, that the libretto was slow, that it was not Art, that it was pandering to vitiated taste. However, Mr. Jephson was too delighted to be annoyed. He answered all the Hon. Coleport's objections by one remark, " There is money in it," and that remark was quite sufficient for his Board of Directors. Then the manager invited the company to a little supper in his private room upstairs. The supper was provided by the people of the ' Albany' next door. Everybody was happy and content. They drank to the prosperity of the new piece, to the health of Jephson, but above all, long life and happiness to Ruth Elliott.

Sir Richard Macklin, an elderly roue, but who happened to be a millionaire, desired to be intro duced to Ruth. Sir Richard had been instru mental in obtaining Mr. Jephson his appointment, and the manager owed him this little service. Mr. John Armitage, the new Member of Parliament for B , who would undoubtedly be in the Ministry some day, so people said, also asked to be presented. Ultimately, at about ten the party dispersed. Ruth Elliott, accompanied by her maid, drove in her brougham to her villa in St. John's Wood. Sir Richard Macklin adjourned to his club,. there to dilate, probably, until two in the morning, on the qualities of the new opera, but particularly on the charms of the celebrated prima donna. John Armitage retired to his chambers in Piccadilly, with an agitation in his breast which he had never in his life experienced before.

Chapter II

John Armitage was considered in the world to be a very rising man. He was just thirty-five years of age, and had been returned at the recent elections as Member of Parliament for a division of the county of B . The son of a small country attorney, he had, at a very early age, left his home to seek his fortunes in the great metropolis. He was armed with a vigorous constitution, an excellent presence, a certain amount of industry, great mental capacity _ and a rather remarkable store of knowledge which had been for the most part self-acquired, He had read and mastered ' Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England.' He had written a fiveact play in blank verse, which, although it had never been produced and never vol. i. c was likely to be, was considered not inferior to a great many plays which had seen the light, and which had found favour with the public.

He had studied science as best he could with the resources at his command, and had taken a first place in an examination in the mysteries of organic chemistry. He had joined a debating society, and very soon had been elected Prime Minister of the local parliament by the young men who constituted themselves the Liberal Party in that assembly. With these varied attainments he had come to London to seek his fortune, thinking, no doubt, that inasmuch as he had been always well received in his native town, he would be welcomed in the metropolis by the few persons to whom he had introductions of a more or less pressing character. But he found that in this great city of ours men are left very much to their own resources. It is very seldom that you meet a person who will, so to speak, put himself or herself, as the case may be, out of the way to place a young man upon the railroad of advancement.

Everything in London runs in grooves, and until you find yourself in some particular groove, you wander aimlessly and without result. The development of civilisation, highly organised as it is in London, divides and subdivides labour to a very remarkable extent, and it is only when you have learnt to do some particular thing better, or, if not altogether better, at any rate as well as any body else, that you are recognised, and meet with the reward of your industry. You are a genius. Granted. You have re markable attainments. Possibly. You have a vast education, and all is to no purpose unless you can do something which is useful to some one, and which you can do better than anybody else. Then when you have accomplished this, people will want you, and as soon as people want you they will pay you.

So it was with John Armitage. He soon discovered that his varied attainments led him to no successful result. If he spoke of science, there were others who knew infinitely more science than he ; if he spoke of law, there were others who were better lawyers, although the lawyers knew no c science, and the scientists no law. He soon realised that a young man in his position seeking to earn his living in London, must devote himself to some particular thing — possibly at the very bottom of the ladder, and in a very humble capacity — until he can do that particular thing better than anybody else. Then he will begin to rise. Then, and then only, he will have placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder of progress. There were bitter times for John Armitage at the commencement of his career in the city of London.

He tried to gain employment in a merchant's office. He would have been satisfied with a very small salary. No one would have him because he could not sit at a desk and cast figures with sufficient rapidity. It was of no use to tell a merchant : " But I know chemistry ; I can speak French; I am a Latin scholar, and I know some law." The man of business wanted some one to cast figures, and he was prepared to pay fifteen shillings a week for a man to cast figures. All the rest was of no value to him. Young Armitage applied at a lawyer's office for employment. In the outer room of a law yer's office they do not want a man who has read ' Blackstone's Commentaries,' however in telligent he may be. They want a man who can prepare writs and who can serve them ; who knows law offices, and who can copy.

And they will pay such a man probably a pound a week. So he failed to gain employment in a lawyer's office. The little store of money which he had brought with him, and which he had saved with so much industry and care in the small country town from which he had come, was very soon exhausted. His coat became threadbare. His boots offered no resistance to the mud and slush of the London streets. He was dejected and heart-broken. His landlady wanted her rent, and if he were to confess it — if now, John Armitage, M.P., could be made to speak the truth — he probably would tell you that he had slept on the benches of Hyde Park on a summer's night, because he had no money wherewith to pay his lodging. One day some one said to him that in a newspaper office he might obtain employment provided that he did not ask too much.

Ask too much ! Great Scott ! He would have been willing enough to work night and day for the merest pittance that would keep his body and soul together. So he applied from newspaper office to newspaper office. At last he found that there was one little thing he could do better than most people, and that was to write short paragraphs on the ordinary topics of the day. One day he was offered a situation on the Shepherd' s Bush Examiner. Here his diversified knowledge came into play. He was able to apply his attainments in a way which very few people could equal. A paragraph one day upon some chemical discovery ; a para graph another day on an explosion in a coal-pit ; a paragraph on a third day upon the sentences of some police magistrate. At this work his imagination, his originality, his knowledge could find play.

Not that he could write paragraphs better than any one else in the world, but better than any one else who would be prepared to accept the position of paragraph writer on a small local paper, and who would be content to earn and to live on the magnificent sum of one pound a week. His duties were various. He would have to attend the meetings of the local public bodies, and to give an intelligent summary of what had taken place. Sometimes he would have to correct proofs, at others to see the paper to press ; occasionally he would have to do duty as canvasser for advertise ments, and besides all these things, he was the general office-boy. Still, in this school he learnt a good deal. He learnt what the business of a newspaper is. He learnt the art and the trick of writing leading articles, and by-and-by, in a year or two, he began to apply his varied knowledge in that direction.

Those leading articles drew attention, they were read; so that when an opportunity occurred, and a sub-editorship was vacant on one of the great London dailies, he was fortunate enough to be accepted for the post. By degrees his salary and remuneration improved, until at the age of twentyfive or thereabouts he was earning from six to seven pounds a week. Then he felt secure. He determined to go to the Bar. I do not wish you to imagine that he was by any means the model young man of heroic fiction. He was nothing of the sort. He had his faults, plenty of them. He was weak, vacillating, at times uncertain, even vicious. He had his boon companions, and within certain limits, which were very vague and undefined, he went in for the revelry and dissipation of London life. Notwithstanding, however, there was one thing which kept him from falling as thousands of others have done.

It was not a sense of right and wrong; it was not a consciousness of morality. It was nothing but inordinate ambition. It made him mad to think that other men had advantages which he did not possess. A well appointed carriage, a grand dinner-party in May fair, a stall at the opera, made him boil with indignation. Not from any Utopian ideas that wealth was extravagance ; that some men ought not to be very rich when other men were very poor, but simply because he did not possess those things which others did who had done nothing more in the world than he had done, nor half as much. And this restless, jealous ambition kept him straight. He was determined that he would rise, and that some day or other he would force the world to recognise what he considered his true place and rank in society. And to do this he was prepared to suffer self-denial.

He was prepared to abstain within certain limits from the vices which otherwise no doubt he would have embraced. He entered an Inn of Court. He got duly called ; and it was not long before the acquaint ances which he had formed during his journalistic career enabled him to acquire a practice. He was not generally liked by his brother barristers, because he declined to bend his knee before the powers that are. He did not abstain from showing his contempt for men who had acquired reputation and wealth by reason of being sons, nephews, or otherwise related to great railway directors, judges, or solicitors, or to persons who were able to influence business in other directions. A great genius no doubt he would worship. The great leaders of the profession he would follow steadily, and he would study and imitate them ; but the others he would not condescend to recognise.

The first four or five years of his existence at the Bar were as they are with all men — a struggle. A young man is called to the Bar, and he im mediately fancies that because he has read a great deal, and has studied much, he has only to place his name on a door-post in the Temple or Lincoln's Inn, and that attorneys will flock around him to secure his valuable services. He does not at first understand that experience is a greater necessity than anything else in the profession of the law. However, if he is fortunate, by degrees he gains experience, and as he gains experience he becomes valuable. Then, and then only, people employ him, and are content to pay for his labour. Six or seven years saw John Armitage in the possession of almost a leading junior practice. It was time to turn his attention to politics.

He felt a peculiar mission in a political career. That hatred of, as he called it, the superior advantages which some men possess over others, stamped him through and through as a Radical. No doubt, as in the case of many other men, he persuaded himself into the idea that he was a Radical because he wished to benefit his fellow-men, because he saw great poverty on the one side and great wealth on the other, injustice, misery, starvation, and he wished to remedy all these evils. If he had examined his heart of hearts he would have found that he was a Radical because he was madly jealous of other men ; because he felt a sense of injury in not having been recognised as he conceived he ought to have been recognised ; because he wished to reduce all things that were above him down to his own level — not that there should be universal equality, but that he should be at the top and no one else; that his name should be in every mouth, that his voice should be law.

He did not wish to raise any one to his level ; he placed himself on too high a pedestal for that. He felt, he knew, that the others were inferior to him. They must occupy their proper place in the world, and not aspire to stand side by side with him. So he was a Radical, and spoke beautiful platitudes concerning the rights of man, and he became familiar with the jargon of social de mocracy. But in the meantime, undoubtedly he rose, and when he was returned Member of Parliament for a division of the county of B , many people said they should not be surprised if John Armitage were to attain to any position, however exalted it might be. Hitherto, woman had played but little part in the life of John Armitage. His mother had died when he was a child — he scarcely remembered her. Sisters he had had none, and the few female relatives he acknowledged had been too busy with their own cares and their own families to trouble themselves about a young man who was struggling for existence in the metropolis.