Phyllida : a life drama

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ROBERT W WOODRUFF LIBRARY

PHYLLIDA.

F V WHITE & CO.'S SELECT NOVELS.

Prologue

THE reading of that letter seemed to exhaust Nelson Cole's stock of patience, for before he had finished it he jerked it from his hand, whence it fluttered to the ground.

' Crow away, my bantam ! ' he said to some imaginary listener, as he lit a cigar and elevated his legs until they formed a right angle with the mantelpiece. ' Crow away ! You will have discovered your error long before you come to my age. Your theory is all very well as a theory, but it won't wash, my Saint Bernard, it won't wash.' But after a while spent in watching the rings of cloudy blue smoke, with which he was doing his best to fill the apartment, Nelson Cole seemed to determine that his friend's letter was too good to lie upon the floor, for he took the trouble to bring his legs down to their normal position in order that he might pick it up, and smooth out its creased pages on his knee. 'Poor dear Freshfield,'

A he thought, somewhat contemptuously as he did so, 'he is a deal too good for such a naughty world ! He sees no further beyond him than a week-old puppy. He ought to come to this country to get his eyes opened. He'd see a few marriages here and a few women that would make him view his impossible ideal in its proper light. How can a man live to eight - and - twenty and remain so green ? '

The letter, as it lay smoothed out on Nelson Cole's knee (or at least the part that had so much amused him), ran thus : —

' You ask me if I think of marrying again. No ; my dear Cole, that page of my life is, I believe, closed for ever. Not that I have lost the wish or the power to love, far from it — the difficulty is, that in discovering what I have missed, I seemed to have realised a paradise which is too great for attainment. Let me try and explain myself. You know that I married, partly to please my mother, partly to satisfy my conscience. My wife was pretty, amiable, well-bred, and fond of me. We never had a differing word in the course of our married life, and I am sure that she never disregarded a wish that I expressed. Added to all this, I had a tender affection for her, which I still retain for her memory. You will ask me then what more I could desire, and I cannot tell you, exceptin^ this, that our union did not include the union of our souls, and our separation leaves mine still hungering to find its mate. I was fond of poor Alice, and I mourned her loss ; but, at the same time, I could have loved fifty other women as well as I loved her, and all at once, if the laws of my country had permitted it' ('Hullo!' said Nelson Cole, ' here's a nice specimen of an English parson.

This is what they call a " muscular Christian," I suppose. Why, the fellow will be wanting to keep a harem next.')

' Now that is not the feeling one should have respecting one's wife. A man should as soon be inclined to be untrue to himself as to her, or to have another self as another wife. Once wedded, should be wedded for eternity, and death should come as a veil only, not as a divorce between man and woman. There should never be a second marriage, Cole ; there never could be, if the first proved the true union of soul to soul. I have made one mistake, you see, but I will never make another. My eyes have been opened, and the next awakening would be far more terrible than the first. Of course my mother will not admit my argument. She is a good mother to me, but she holds to the old-fashioned idea that parsons and doctors should be married men for the sake of their patients, as if one could preach truth all the better with a lie in one's right hand.

' No, Cole ! I believe I shall die as I live, but I shall go through the world with my eyes open, and should I happily succeed in finding my soul's mate, whether she be clothed in rags or satin, seated on a dunghill or a throne, I will woo her till she is mine. But do not imagine that I believe in the possibility of such happiness — I only dream of it, as men dream of heaven.'

' Yes ! and you may go on dreaming, my boy,' said Nelson Cole, as he twisted up the paper, and threw it this time upon the burning fire ; ' and you will die dreaming, take my word for it ! Your " soul's mate," indeed ! Show me the women with souls, and I'll soon find the men to mate with them. But I question with the followers of Mahomet, if women have such things. The Lotties and Dotties and Totties of the present day go far to persuade us they have not. And your theory is a dangerous one, Saint Bernard ! Going in search of your " soul's mate " will lead you to wooing your neighbour's wife perhaps — or striking up a paradisaical wedding with your housemaid. I am fond of this boy with his Puritanical ideas and close shorn monkish face, and wish I could go to England and look after him a bit. But it can't be just yet, and I must content myself with a letter of sound practical advice. The lad was always a dreamer, with those blue eyes and white cheeks of his. Ah ! wait till you come to forty, Bernard, then you'll know how much a woman is worth striving for, or grieving after.'

So thinking, our cynical friend reached down his hat and overcoat, and prepared to leave the house. He was a sojourner in the city of Chicago, in the United States of America, at this time ; but only for a brief period. His profession, that of a civil engineer, had led him out to the New World some years before, and he had been reaping the golden profits of an experienced hand and clever practical brain ever since. He had been employed in laying down railroads in several of the States, and began to feel himself quite a naturalised American, especially as he was well known, and sure of a welcome in most of their hospitable cities. In Chicago he felt himself peculiarly at home, having many old friends settled there, and as he strolled towards the principal theatre, he knew that he should be met by a score of outstretched hands. And from the male portion of creation, Nelson Cole deserved the cordiality extended" to him. He was a man of about fifty — grey-haired, keen-eyed, clear-headed, and critical — a bit of a philosopher, without an atom of romance in his composition, and wishing to be thought more hard and bitter than he naturally was. Essentially a man's man : fond of sport, politics, late hours and bachelors' parties, and eschewing — like the evil one — all assemblies where the female element predominated, or was the principal attraction.

What Nelson Cole really thought of women few of his own sex had never heard. He seldom mentioned them ; apparently they engaged his thoughts as little as though they did not exist. Some men thought that he must have been cruelly disappointed or betrayed in his early days : others that he actually felt as little as he professed to do. But whatever their speculations, Nelson Cole remained a thorough good friend and boon companion to themselves. It was past eleven o'clock as he entered the theatre saloon, and the bar was crowded with noisy, chattering young men. The babble was so great, and the discussion so animated, that his entrance was at first altogether disregarded, and he had time to gather some notion of the subject of which they spoke.

' They say he has dismissed her, — it's a d — d shame ! ' cried one.

' I don't see that. I think she fully deserves it. The woman was intoxicated,' replied another.

' Intoxicated ! ' interrupted a third contemptuously, as though that word were far too weak. ' She was drunk — drunk as an owl ; ' and then the chorus swelled indiscriminately.

' But it's the first time, and it's deuced hard a girl should lose her bread for a single offence.'

' How do you know it's the first time ? — not likely. A woman tries it on a good many times in private before she ventures to appear before the public in that condition.'

' Of whom do you speak ? ' asked Nelson Cole, and then the general attention was directed to him.

' Oh ! here's Cole. How are you, Cole, old fellow ? Glad to see you, my boy ! ' and so on, and so on. But amongst them all Nelson Cole addressed but one.

' Jack Neville ! ' he exclaimed, ' can I believe my eyes ! Where do you hail from ? I thought you were safe in San 'Frisco.'

The man he spoke to, a fine, handsome, sunburned fellow of about thirty, coloured visibly even beneath the tan of a Californian sun.

' Oh, I left 'Frisco long ago, and have been lounging about the South for the last six months,' he replied hurriedly. ' I — I — got into a bit of a scrape down there, you know ! '

' And serve you right, my boy, for herding with such a rascal as that Sandie Macpherson,' said Cole. ' I told you what he was from the beginning ; and I only hope you've shaken yourself free of his clutches.'

' Be careful, Cole ! some one may hear you,' interposed the younger man. ' Macpherson's friend, Pawley, was at the bar not two minutes ago ! '

' Pawley may hear me or not,' replied Cole loudly. ' Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have an opportunity of settling old scores with that detestable Scotch rascal.' But men, as a rule, dislike a disturbance in a public place, especially if it does not concern themselves, and the other loungers at the bar commenced to crowd about Cole, and reiterate the news that had occupied them on his arrival.

'Only fancy, Cole! poor little Stephanie Harcourt'

' That pretty girl, with the blue eyes and golden hair.'

' Blue eyes, Marshall ? What are you talking about ? her eyes are as black as night.'

' Black eyes — rubbish ! Why, the girl is as fair as she can be.'

' I tell you, her eyes are black, or nearly so ; I've been close to them, and ought to know.'

' Well, well, never mind her eyes ! interrupted Nelson Cole impatiently. What's the matter with the girl ? '

' Why, she came in so drunk in the burlesque to-night that she couldn't stand, and Evans has dismissed her from the theatre.'

' That's nonsense ! she could stand fast enough ; only she had had a little too much, and forgot her part.'

' Broke down entirely in her singing, and you know she had the song of the evening.'

' Who is Stephanie Harcourt ? ' demanded Cole in an indifferent tone, addressing Jack Neville, who stood next him.

' I don't know,' answered Jack slowly, as he moved away.

' She's quite a beginner — only been on the boards a few months — and I think it's awfully hard lines on her to get her dismissal for a little mistake,' said another young man. Nelson Cole's hard voice fell like cold water on his enthusiasm.

' Drunkenness is never a little mistake with women : when they once begin, they go on, and Evans is quite right to check the first symptoms of it by a summary dismissal. He'll find plenty of girls to take Miss Harcourt's place. There are more than enough of them in the world, heaven knows ! ' ' You didn't expect to get any sympathy out of

Cole, I suppose ? ' laughed some of the men at the drinking-bar, as the person they spoke of elbowed his way from amongst them, and went to the private room of his old friend, the manager, where, after a little desultory conversation, he contrived to bring the subject round to Miss Stephanie Harcourt's offence.

' Sorry to hear you had a fracas on the boards to-night, Evans.'

' Yes, a disgraceful business ! Little Harcourt perfectly intoxicated ! I was rather afraid of it from the beginning. She's a strangely excitable

girL'

( Got connections in Chicago ? '

' Don't know, I'm sure. I've heard some report of her being married, but I don't trouble myself about the affairs of my company outside the theatre. But I was obliged to make an example of her. I had no end of trouble last year with a woman named Harrison, who went on in the same way. so I gave Miss Harcourt her dismissal then and there.'

' Shall you miss her?'

' Not much. She's a sharp girl, but no particular talent, and I fancy she'll not find it easy to get employment on the boards again in this city.'

' Not when you've made a public example of her from your theatre, certainly,' replied Nelson Cole, with apparently the utmost indifference to Stephanie Harcourt's fate. Yet the girl's pathetic eyes and mouth, which he had noticed but cursorily in his visits to the Athenian Theatre, seemed to haunt him strangely for the remainder of the evening, and when he rose to return home, he passed out by the stage door and asked the porter if he knew Miss Harcourt's address.

' I can't say I do, sir ; but I think that lady can tell us. Miss Vavasour,' he continued, addressing a tall, closely-veiled figure about to cross the threshold,'can you tell this gentleman where Miss Harcourt lives ? '

The veiled woman turned, and regarded Nelson Cole somewhat suspiciously.

' She lives with me,' she replied, with caution ; do you wish to send her a message ? '

' Are you her friend ? ' asked Nelson Cole, stepping out into the street beside her.

' I am, sir. Are you ? '

' I should wish to be, Miss Vavasour ! I feel for the misfortune that has overtaken her this evening, and if she requires assistance — it is a delicate thing that I would say, but perhaps you understand me — '

' It is a kind thing, sir,' replied the actress — they were walking slowly on together by this time — ' and in her name I thank you for it. Her dismissal from the Athenian is a very serious matter, for she has no other means of support, but I hope she may get work somehow. You mustn't think this is a habit with her, sir — indeed — indeed it is the first time she has ever so transgressed. I have known her for eighteen months, and I can swear to it; but Mr Evans would not take my word.'

'And what was the occasion of this first transgression, Miss Vavasour ? Do you know ? '

' I am not sure if I should be justified in disclosing Stephanie's secrets, sir ; but she has had great trouble. I can tell you so much, and an old friend met her out to-day and told her some good news and took her in and treated her to dinner somewhere, and I think it was the load off her mind and the excitement and the champagne altogether that did it.'

I o Phyllida.

' Poor child ! no wonder it had an effect upon her. But what will she do now for a living ? '

' I don't know, sir ! You had better ask Stephanie herself. It is here that we live together. This is our door ! '

' Thank you for the information. Of course I cannot intrude to-night, but to-morrow perhaps, if you would prepare Miss Harcourt for my appearance— '

But he had not had time to finish his sentence before the door of the house was thrown open, and Stephanie Harcourt appeared upon the threshold.

' Bella,' she cried to her friend hysterically, ' it is all over. I am dismissed without salary, and I can't even pay you my share of the week's rent ! The sooner I go to the Tombs with that scoundrel the better ! '

' Hush, hush, dear ! there is a stranger present,' said Miss Vavasour compassionately.

But the girl was too excited to heed her caution.

' I might have known misfortune was at hand,' she went on passionately, ' for I met him to-day, you know who I mean — my evil genius. There has always been trouble for me following in the wake of Sandie Macpherson.'

At that name, heard for the second time that evening, Nelson Cole started ; but he was too much a man of the world not to conceal his surprise.

' Stephanie ! this gentleman wishes to be your friend, but this is not the time for you to speak to him. Come in now and let us go to bed, and to-morrow, when you are more composed, perhaps he will come and hear the story of your troubles,' said Miss Vavasour.

' I shall never be more composed,' replied the girl incoherently. * I have had so little good luck in my life. Why couldn't they have left me the little I possessed ? But now I've lost everything, and I might just as well be in the Tombs with him as starving in the streets of Chicago. Oh, those horrid dreary Tombs ! Why did I ever meet Jack ? '

' Come in, come in,' whispered her friend in a soothing voice.

Nelson Cole tried to make his escape without further parley.

' I will call to-morrow afternoon,' he said, as he lifted his hat and turned away.

' Do you know Sandie Macpherson ? ' screamed Stephanie after him, and that name from her lips seemed somehow to send a chill through him.

What connection this poor little burlesque actress in Chicago could possibly have with the desperate and evil-disposed gold-digger of Sacramento Valley, whose villany had cast a secret shadow over his own life, he could not imagine ; but the fact of her having mentioned his name would have drawn him to her side again, without the inducement of wishing to befriend her poverty. He tried to persuade himself, in his free and easy manner, that the whole affair troubled him but little ; but the fact is that it troubled him very much, to the extent of preventing his going to sleep till the early morning, and not waking up until it was time to keep his appointment with Miss Harcourt. But when he reached her presence, it was a very different person who presented herself to him from the flushed and dishevelled Bacchante of the day before. It was a very pale and miserable-looking girl — half frightened and half ashamed — whom Miss Vavasour dragged rather than led into the room to be introduced to him. There was none of the brazen defiance of a woman used to vice in Stephanie Harcourt.

She looked rather like a child who had been detected in some fault and brought up for punishment.

She knew now what had befallen her the night before ; and it was so terrible to be presented to this grave, elderly man, who had seen her a preyto the most disgusting vice of which a woman can be guilty. But the worldly view that Nelson Cole took of the matter reassured her. If he had looked shocked, the girl would have shrunk from his scrutiny. Had he sympathised with her, she would have broken down, — but he treated it as a matter of every-day occurrence, as indeed it unfortunately was with the women he was most in the habit of seeing.

' Come, come, Miss Harcourt,' he said, as sheheld backward, ' this has been an unfortunate accident ; but accidents will happen, as we all know,, in the best regulated families. You will not be surprised to hear that your face is well known to me, as it is to most of the inhabitants of Chicago, and perhaps your friend here, Miss Vavasour, has told you that if I can be of any assistance to you in this dilemma, I will. I am an old man, you see, and you need have no scruples in accepting my help. What can I do for you ? '

' Can you get me other work ? ' demanded the girl shyly.

' Perhaps I can. At all events I will try. What do you wish to do ? Do you intend to apply for another engagement in Chicago ? '

' Oh no ; anything but that — anything but that,' cried Stephanie, with visible repugnance. ' I could

Phyllida. i o not bear the shame of another public appearance here. If there were only work that I could do to be procured in the country — in the open peaceful country.'

' Do you love the country, then ? '

' Oh ! to find oneself there,' continued the girl excitedly. ' To wake up and find oneself amongst the primroses and violets, and the cool, cool grass, and the leafy trees and waving corn, and to know that one had done for ever with the noise and glare of the town, and the cruel bricks and mortar that seem to press upon one's heart, and keep all the joy and freshness of life from bubbling over.'

' Stephanie, do think what you are saying !' exclaimed Miss Vavasour. ' The gentleman asked you what work you would like best. You must excuse her wandering, sir,' she continued to Nelson Cole, ' for she is still weak and feverish, and I don't think she half knows what she is talking about.'

' Pray, let her talk as she will — I am interested in all she can tell me,' he replied ; and, indeed, a colder man than himself must needs have felt some interest in the ultimate fate of the beautiful creature before him. For Stephanie Harcourt was beautiful, with more than the mere physical beauty of colour and shape. She was about eighteen years of age, with a graceful figure of middle height — a head of rippling golden hair — whether natural or artificial Nelson Cole was not skilled enough to determine, and pathetic eyes of some deep neutral tint, which looked just now like the eyes of a hunted animal. But her greatest charm lay in the far-off look of those eyes, as if her soul saw more than was presented to her earthly vision, and was filled with high and glowing thoughts.

As Nelson Cole gazed upon those upturned eyes, they reminded him of — he knew not what — and he turned away with a shudder.

' Have you ever lived in the country, Miss Harcourt ? ' he asked her presently.

' No ! no ! Never ! I have been reared amongst the glare and the gas of cities. I can remember nothing but the smell of liquor and the sound of oaths, and the clash of the dice and the billiard balls, and the horrid, horrid bricks and mortar.'

' You must have had a strange experience ? '

' Ah ! you would say so if you knew all I have passed through before I came to Chicago — all the horrors that I saw in San Francisco. How I wish,' she went on passionately, ' that that place and everything connected with it, down to its very name, might be burned off the face of the earth ! '

' You mustn't excite yourself like this,' said Nelson Cole. ' It is giving way to their feelings after that fashion that makes people forget themselves, as you did yesterday.'

'But that was an accident — indeed it was! How •could I imagine a little wine would affect me so ? And Jack said it would do me good. And we laughed and talked so much I did not notice how often he filled my glass, and I felt so well and happy until I walked out of the keen frosty air into the theatre, and then, somehow, all the lights seemed to close round me, and my head felt like a feather, and I seemed to be floating somewhere between the flies and the stage, until a crash came and I fell down. But it was all Jack's fault. He ought not to have given me so much champagne.'

4 Is Jack your husband ?'

' Who told you I had a husband ? '

' You see I know it.'

' Ah ! and so you may ! Every one may know it now, if they choose, for it can't last long. Jack my husband ! Oh no ! he's only a friend ; but we came across each other yesterday in the streets, and he gave me news of him that drove me mad.'

' Not mad with grief, I hope ? '

' No ! no ! mad with joy ! And what do you think the news was ? That he's locked up for two years in the Tombs for forgery. Two years ! Two long, blessed years. And I shall be free before he comes out, Bella, sha'n't I ? ' she cried, as she cast herself into the arms of her friend. ' Free from him and from all of them. Free to bury my secrets in the sea ; free from that awful curse — '

' Hush, dear, don't talk so fast. Yes, yes, you shall be free, if there's any justice or truth in the laws of our country. But, meanwhile, you must live, you know, and this gentleman is kind enough to say that he will help you ; and I do think if he would assist you to go to your friends for a little while, and try and forget all this misery before you turn your thoughts to work again, that it would be the kindest thing he could do.'

' Never fear,' said Nelson Cole, ' but that I will perform all that I have promised. Meanwhile, Miss Harcourt, your disclosures have interested me very much. May I ask the name of your husband ? '

'Oh yes; it is no secret. He is a Brazilian, called Fernan Cortes.'

' And — pardon me, he is a rascal ! '

* The greatest rascal that ever existed, sir.'

' My poor child, how came you to marry him ?

' I can't tell you that. I was frightened into it in a way that you would hardly understand. Only, thank heaven, I am now delivered from him.'

' But after his two years' incarceration are over, he will come out again and claim you.'

' I will have broken the chain by that time. I will have gone far away where he shall never find me.'

' And you met Cortes in San Francisco ? '

'Yes, sir.'

'And that scoundrel Sandie Macpherson had some hand in your marrying him ? '

The girl's cheek became as white as ashes.

' Who has told you that ? '

' No one. I guessed it.'

' You have guessed wrong, sir. But I hate Macpherson. God forgive me. I hate him like my life.'

' You share the feeling with many others. He is a man universally detested.'

' But few know him as I do,' murmured the girl ; ' all his cruelty, his artifice, his secret crimes. And my poor mother — can I ever forget her ? '

' He injured your mother too ?'

' Ah, sir, do not ask me to speak of it ! Whom has he not injured ? But when you hear me talk of the peace and quiet of the country, as if I were talking of heaven, remember that I can never disassociate the rattle and bustle and glare of the town from the thought of cruelty and crime.'

Nelson Cole left his seat and began to pace up and down the room.

' Did you live long in California ?' he asked.

' Many years. All my life, until I came here.'

' Did you ever happen to meet there — a — a — anybody of the name of Summers ? '

' A woman ? ' inquired Stephanie innocently.

4 Yes ; yes ; well — a — a woman.'

' No ; I never knew any woman there except my mother, till she died.'

Phyllida. i 7

'And you said yesterday that you had seen Sandie Macpherson in this town ? '

' Oh yes, sir ; I met him suddenly,' with a shudder ; ' but he did not see me, and so I escaped him.'

' One would think from the way you mention him, that this man had a hold on you, Miss Harcourt.'

Stephanie glanced meaningly at her friend before she answered.