The Actress

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{| | {| | THE ACTRESS | FRANK OWEN

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"She felt as though she were in the grip of hopeless things."

The Actress

THE ACTRESS

I.

As the music of the dance ceased, Olga Fullerton stole, unnoticed, out onto the balcony of the great house overlooking the Hudson. She sighed softly as she sank upon a divan. She was very tired. All night the dance had been in progress at the home of the Waddington's, and now it was almost dawn. She gazed wistfully out over the softly rippling water lapping drowsily among the rocks of the Palisades. Over the great rock wall the moon was softly rising, throwing the entire river into delightful shadow.

"It is all magnificent," she breathed rapturously.

"Yes," said a voice speaking at her elbow, "very magnificent."

With a start, she glanced up into the smiling face of Jerold Wharton. Rugged as a rock, he stood and gazed down upon her lovely shoulders in open admiration.

"I have waited here for nigh an hour," he continued.

"You wished to see me?"

"Yes, I wished to see you."

"But how did you know I would come here?"

He smiled slightly.

"I have been to the home of the Waddington's before," said he. "Surely when a man has known a woman as many years as I have known you, he must of necessity begin to understand her."

She laughed softly, as though she were enjoying the situation immensely. "I sometimes wonder," she mused whimsically, "whether a man really ever does grow to understand a woman."

"I was conscious of my error as soon as I had made it," replied Jerold Wharton quickly, but in his voice there was no longer any trace of humor. "To me," he went on slowly, thoughtfully, as though he were carefully choosing each word, "woman has always seemed like the jungle—ununderstood, unconquerable and merciless. But you can always depend on the jungle. It is always terrible. You know when you enter it that you must fight."

For a moment she sat silent, gazing at the softly murmuring water, a faraway look in her fine gray eyes.

"One can scarcely charge you with being a lover of women," she said presently.

"And yet I am," came the soft reply. "To me woman has always seemed God's greatest creation. But even Creation has made mistakes. All women are not worthy of the title. But all ought to endeavor to be." He paused for a moment, then he said: "Last season in London I saw you portray the leading rôle in Carmody's great play, 'The Better Self.' I saw you fighting against predestined conditions; struggling with hateful impulse; praying in the darkness that you might behold the light. And I saw a wonderful dawn break through the terrible billows of gloom, and in the glorious light stood a woman who had made herself. Spotless as the driven snow, she had risen from the very dregs of the city. And then I saw her sink down again, back into the depths from whence she had sprung in order that she might cover up her brother's crime. You can't overcome Destiny, but you can change it. Since that day I have never beheld a wretched woman in the streets but what I have thought of 'The Better Self.' Plays like that are like oases in the desert. They don't poison or corrupt; they just give life and make us understand."

Somewhere among the palms in the ballroom beyond them, a violinist was playing Moskovitz's "Serenata." Softly, sweetly, grandly, the music floated to their ears as though it were the echo of a dream. Now loud, now soft and calm, it fell upon the night, and somehow to the two upon the balcony it seemed sadly beautiful.

"Music," she whispered, "is the connecting link between earth and Paradise."

"Yes," he murmured, "and the 'Serenata' is a link of purest gold. But somehow, when I hear it played, it always makes me conscious of a great void in my life. So, also, does it affect Coningsby."

As he spoke, Olga looked up quickly into his eyes.

"And how is Arthur?" she asked abruptly. "Tonight, I had forgotten him entirely."

"Some women are born to forget," said he, and in his voice there was just barely perceptible the faintest suggestion of cynicism.

This Olga ignored.

"And how is Arthur?" she repeated softly.

"Coningsby is dying," said he simply. "The doctor says he cannot live a month. It seems as though it can't be true, a man of iron stricken down with typhoid as though he were no stronger than a child. When he is gone I know not what I shall do. The world will say, 'Coningsby, the explorer, is dead,' and then all will go on again as ever. But to me it will be, 'Coningsby, the friend, the comrade, who is gone.' And you must have lived in the tropics to know what that means. Why, I have seen him plunge into surging rapids to save the life of a little coal-black African child, possibly the son of a cannibal, and fight against the terrible fury of the waters until he, in turn, had been rescued by the natives. I have been lost for weeks alone with him in the awful forest, almost dead from hunger and afire from thirst. Once, down in Uganda, we lay in the blinding, scorching heat and dust, our tongues parched and blackened, half delirious with thirst. A few yards away stood a bottle containing a few precious drops of water. Although suffering frightfully, Coningsby would not even moisten his lips. It meant life for one of us, but it wasn't enough for two."

Jerold Wharton paused for a moment, as though he could see again the picture which he described blazing out before his eyes.

Olga placed her hand softly upon his arm. "Tell me," she said, and her voice shook, "did you drink the water?"

He did not reply.

Again she repeated the question.

"No," he replied at last, "neither drank a drop. I wish I could tell you of the tortures we suffered during the few hours we lay baking in that terrible sun. We could not sweat. Our bodies were boiled dry."

"And yet," she murmured, "within reach of your hand was life. I cannot understand."

"No," he said, "only those who have lived much in the jungle can understand." … He paused for a moment, then he continued softly, "And now Coningsby is dying. The man who has given the best years of his life to danger lies dying in quiet old New York. He often told me that he hoped to die in the jungle. Once when he saw an old truck-horse stricken in the street, Coningsby declared that he envied the old fellow, for he had died in harness. But none of Coningsby's hopes ever materialized. He always fought and worked like a man, but he never received a man's reward."

By the tone in which Jerold Wharton spoke, Olga Fullerton knew that he implied more than he had said.

"What do you mean?" she asked quickly.

"Simply, that Coningsby loves you," he declared quietly, with a terrible simplicity. "He is calling you to come."

She started back at his words as though she had been struck.

"But I do not love him!" she gasped weakly, and her words seemed to choke her.

"No," said Jerold Wharton. "Men like Coningsby, women admire but they do not love. I sometimes think they are not big enough to understand great things. All his life Coningsby's lived and suffered without the love of women. Now he must die as he has lived."

Olga put her hands up to her eyes.

"Oh, I can't stand it," she sobbed brokenly. "You make me feel as though I were killing him."

"No," he said tenderly, "you are not killing him. You could not save him if you would. But you could prevent his dying that way!"

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Go to Coningsby."

"If I did," she faltered, "he would think I loved him."

"Yes," said he, "he would think you loved him and in that thought he would be wonderfully happy."

"But I do not love him."

"No, but you can act. I have seldom seen a better emotional actress. Now you have an opportunity to play your greatest rôle. Again you have an opportunity to play 'The Better Self,' only this time you must write your own part before you play it. Coningsby cannot live and will never know … Will you go to him?"

She rose to her feet and her eyes shown with a strange brilliancy. "I will go to him," she said softly. "I could almost love you for what you have done tonight."

While she went to get her wraps, Jerold Wharton waited for her upon the balcony. He lighted a cigar and, as he puffed dreamily, the last sentence she had uttered came back to him, "I could almost love you for what you have done to-night."

He sighed wearily.

"Dear girl," he said, "if she only could."

II.

Slowly Coningsby opened his eyes. His head throbbed with fever and he could scarcely see. The room was almost in darkness; the shades were drawn, creating a restful twilight of peace. Over in one corner he could just dimly make out the lines of his favorite gun. How many times he had carried that gun through the untrodden trails of the dark continent. As he lay there, half-conscious, he remembered the first lion he had slain in East Africa. That was over a dozen years ago, but it seemed like yesterday. One of the native porters had been entrapped by the frenzied animal. In one spring, unexpectedly, the lion was upon him, virtually slashing the poor fellow to ribbons. Arthur Coningsby had heard the Swahili's wild, unearthly screams, screams which seemed to bite into the soul, and in a moment he was rushing to his assistance. For an instant Coningsby gazed upon the sight in horror. Then he raised his rifle and fired once. With a mighty roar which seemed to be echoed by the whole forest, the stricken beast rose to its haunches, blood dripping from its horrible jaws. It made one great bound toward Coningsby, then rolled over dead.

All this time the Swahili had not moved. After making certain that the lion was dead, Coningsby went and knelt by the side of the porter. As he knelt there, silent in the terrible solitude, Jerold Wharton came upon him.

"He was my favorite carrier," said Coningsby simply.

"And you arrived too late," Wharton had declared without any trace of emotion.

"Perhaps," was the calm reply, "but I lessened his agony by a fraction." As he spoke he turned the poor fellow over on his back and showed a bullet wound which was clotted with sickening blood.

"I did not shoot to kill the lion," said Coningsby, and there the matter had ended.

When news of the incident filtered back to civilization, Coningsby had been severely criticized by many. But probably no one summed up the matter so well as did Jerold Wharton.

"To judge of a man's actions in the jungle," he had declared curtly, "one must live in the jungle."

Now as Arthur Coningsby lay, racked by a terrible fever, all this flamed out in his mind in startling vividness. Fever sometimes dulls a man's faculties but it often intensifies his memory. Thus was its affect upon Coningsby. As he thought of these things a great longing to hold the old gun in his hands once again overcame him. With a half-audible groan of pain, he turned to ring for his man-servant and gazed full into the face of Olga Fullerton.

For a moment he gazed at her speechless, then he slowly closed his eyes.

"Dreams, dreams," he murmured wanly.

An unaccountable tear-drop slipped from Olga Fullerton's eye and rolled softly down her cheek. She placed her cold, soft hand upon his fever-scorched forehead. Then slowly he opened his eyes again, which shown with a glorious light of hope.

"Tell me," he said weakly, longingly, "is it true?"

"Yes," she replied in a voice which she endeavored to keep firm, "it is true."

As she spoke she leaned down and touched her cold lips to his burning cheek.

After that almost every day Olga spent several hours by Coningsby's bedside, hours which he declared were made up of the most happy, glorious moments of his life. One day he said to Jerold Wharton:

"Jerry, I am making up for the wasted years, the years which contained no love. And do you know somehow when a person doesn't love he is missing one of the really greatest things of life. Old man, take my advice and settle down."

As Coningsby spoke, Jerold Wharton had walked to the window, a terrible hunger gnawing at his heart. Yes, he needed love, the love of Olga Fullerton. Outside a sluggish, misty rain was falling. Everything looked dark and gloomy and the walks were paved with soggy mud. He smiled whimsically as he gazed out upon the dreary scene. All Nature, to him, seemed to accord with his mood. Presently he turned again to his friend, and now the look of sorrow had passed from his face.

"Conny, old man," said he, "I reckon some men were born to be loved by women, others to be wedded to their work. Down in the jungle is the place where I belong, the region where a man can fight against odds and forget he has a soul."

Coningsby lay with closed eyes. So long did he lay thus, Jerold Wharton commenced to think he were sleeping. Finally he asked softly, "Can a man forget?"

The simple sentence seemed to have a strange effect upon Jerold and he was glad that the eyes of his friend were closed so that he could not see his face. He gripped the arms of his chair, unconsciously, so tightly that his fingers turned white.

"A man can forget," said he, "when he must."

At the moment both were thinking of Olga, but their thoughts were entirely different.

As the weeks rolled on Coningsby showed no improvement. Neither did his condition become any worse. Day after day passed by without apparent change, until at last Jerold Wharton began to have hope. When he approached the Doctor on the subject, the physician gravely shook his head.

"Cases like his always remind me of a lighted match," said he. "Bright for a moment then plunged in darkness, as the flame is quenched by a puff of wind. So will it be with Coningsby. He may live a month, and on the other hand, he may not last through the night."

And Jerold had returned to his rooms, plunged back again into the valley of sadness, all hope dead within him.

Meanwhile Olga Fullerton sat by Coningsby's bedside.

"You simply must get well!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," was the quick reply, "I must get well. Before it didn't reâlly matter, but things are different now."

As Coningsby spoke, Olga thought of the words which Jerold Wharton had used that night upon the balcony.

"He always fought and worked like a man, but he never received a man's reward."

Impulsively she stooped and kissed his lips.

"With medicine like that every day," he declared, "I could get well in a week."

A few days later, as Olga Fullerton was about to enter Coningsby's room, she met the Doctor coming out. Doctor Richmond took her by the arm and patted her gently on the shoulder. His stern old face was wreathed in smiles as he announced:

"Girl, I have good news. Coningsby seems much improved. I think Jerold Wharton was right after all. He is going to get well. But why I do not know, I do not know."

Olga Fullerton's face had grown very white. As the doctor was about to comment upon it, she hastened to say:

"The shock of your words is so great that it has indeed quite taken my breath away."

"I appreciate your feelings," agreed the old doctor quickly, "the shock must indeed be great."

But how great it was, Doctor Richmond did not know.

III.

That night Olga Fullerton could not sleep. She lay and tossed upon her pillow in an agony of wakefulness, tortured by thoughts which she simply could not put from her. Her head throbbed dully and she felt as though her body were being slowly consumed by an inward fire. What should she do? A thousand times she asked herself this question, but could find no solution. The night seemed to bear down upon her with a fatalistic pressure. She felt as though she were in the grip of hopeless things. As she lay there, tortured by a mental anguish which she could scarcely bear, the words Jerold Wharton had used on that never-to-be-forgotten night at the Waddington's recurred to her as though the very blackness were shouting them in her ears: "You can't overcome Destiny, but you can change it."

"Poor boy," she whispered softly, "one can't do either, but he did not know."

And then she rose from her bed and stole to the window. Softly she lifted the shade, flooding the room with a glorious wave of silvery moonlight. For a moment she stood gazing at the surrounding peaceful country in silence. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted dismally. She shivered slightly. On the very outskirts of a great metropolis she felt very much alone. If only she had someone to comfort her, someone in whom she could confide.

Down in the room below, Arthur Coningsby lay sleeping peacefully. He was going to get well. Her coming had probably saved his life. Somehow she wondered whether she had any right to save his life under those conditions.

A leaf crackled in the garden below, then a match was struck and it seemed as though someone were lighting a cigar. The next moment the figure of a man appeared in the moonlight. Up and down he walked, restlessly up and down on a trail that led from nowhere and did not have an end.

Even in the moonlight Olga had no difficulty in recognizing Jerold Wharton. Back and forth he walked, puffing nervously at his cigar, ever back and forth.

"Dear boy," she murmured wistfully, "I wonder which is the most unhappy—you or I."

Then she stole noiselessly back to bed and found sleep at last. For now it seemed as though she were no longer alone in her trouble.

When Olga Fullerton awakened, dawn was just breaking through the mists of morning, painting a light of gladness over the distant palisades. Quickly she dressed and stole down into the garden.

Jerold Wharton still paced restlessly back and forth under the trees. At her approach he glanced up with a start, as though her coming had summoned him back from a dream world.

"You are out early," said he finally, with a cordial smile.

"Yes," she murmured simply, "I could not sleep."

"Nor I," said he. "I have been up for several hours, walking restlessly back and forth from place to place. Like 'The Wandering Jew,’ my soul can find no rest."

"And I too have been most miserable," she declared with quivering voice. "Have you heard? Arthur is going to live."

"Yes," he replied in a voice so low that it was almost drowned by the breeze in the treetops, "you have saved his life."

At his words, so earnestly, yet so tenderly spoken, the tears rose in her eyes at last, and her slender form shook with uncontrollable sobs. Jerold Wharton could not speak. A woman's tears will sap the strength from even the strongest of men. Silently he took her into his arms, and drew her head to his breast. He could not trust himself to speak. And that moment was the saddest of his life. Although she stood in an attitude of surrender, he knew that she did not realize it. He was just a friend in trouble. So he fought back the impulse to crush her in his arms, to hold her to him and never let her go.

"She is not for me," he kept repeating fiercely to himself, "she is not for me."

When at last the sobs had grown fainter, and he could control his voice, Jerold said wistfully:

"Little woman, as soon as Coningsby is strong enough, you must tell him the truth; but not until then, for it will be a terrible blow indeed." As he spoke, he inwardly cursed himself for a meddling fool.

IV.

As the days sped by, Coningsby's condition steadily improved until at last he was entirely out of danger. Soon he was able to sit up, and eventually a morning came, warm and beautiful, when he could go out into the garden.

In front of the house, down near the river, stood a summer-house, delightfully charming, almost hidden beneath the maze of climbing vines and flowers which scrambled up the moss-covered logs on every side. From this little retreat, the house could not be seen, and in no matter whatsoever direction one turned no sign of life was visible; nothing save hills and river and sky. Of course there were homesteads, hidden by the trees, only a very short distance away, but as these were not apparent they did not disturb the soft, cool harmony of repose.

Often as Coningsby sat in the summer-house, Olga read books to him, stories which he seldom heard, so intent was he in gazing on the face of the reader and dreaming of the future. Daily Olga said, "I must tell him the truth to-morrow." But ever she put off the confession, for she could not summon up sufficient courage.

One morning, out in the summer-house, Coningsby said: "A year ago to-day, I stood upon the banks of a river in East Africa and cursed the jungle because it was not civilized and the city because it was civilized. You probably wonder at such a pessimistic attitude, and to-day I am surprised myself. But then the declaration seemed sane enough. For five months our little band of explorers had been seeking for a man named Warburton who had gone down into the Rana country and never returned. I could fill a book with the horrible tortures we endured on that journey. An epidemic of a particularly malignant native disease broke out among our carriers. For almost a week one was buried each morning just before sunrise. And yet, in spite of everything, we kept plodding steadily forward. As long as one man remained alive, he would see that expedition to completion. That is the law of the wild. Death alone can make a man give up the fight, not the death of others, but the death of himself. Thus, as I say, for five months we had lived like dogs. Nothing kept us alive but our own will power. It seemed as though all the horrors of earth were concentrated in that terrible march of death. And every morning a Somali uttered a sickening groan and pitched forward on his face, to rise no more. But finally a day came which marked the end of our quest. We found Warburton—a filthy, maudlin, drunken wreck—married to a native woman more beastlike than himself. And this was what my brave men had fought and died to save! Warburton refused to return with us, but he begged me to send a barrel of liquor to him as soon as I reached Nairobi. As I looked at the miserable, shaking, cringing derelict, my brain seemed on fire with hatred, hatred of the law of evolution which raised man up from the brute-strength age, only to sink him further down until he was less than a beast! As I stood on that river-bank, I thought of that grim, solemn chain of graves stretching back through the gloomy forest, and my heart was very bitter." … Coningsby paused for a moment, before he continued softly:

"But all that happened over a year ago. "And what a wonderful change has come over me since then. I feel as though, like Pygmalion_(mythology)#In_Ovid, I have for the first time been endowed with life; that previously I was but a thing of stone. Last night I sat in my room stretched out in a great armchair. Save for the joyful flame of my cigar, the room was in total darkness. And yet in every shadowy corner I seemed to see your figure hiding, only visible when the tip of the cigar glowed bright. And in the smoke I drew pictures. Poets may eulogize on the reveries of a bachelor, but I tell you, girl, they don't begin to compare with the reveries of a man in love."

As Coningsby spoke, he leaned down and touched his lips to the tips of her fingers. Olga Fullerton sat speechless, her face almost as white as the roses growing in the garden. She wanted to tell him the truth and yet she seemed almost powerless.

"Oh, you mustn't do that!" she exclaimed, her voice trembling with emotion.

Coningsby laughed merrily. "Mustn't?" he chuckled. "Why then I suppose I mustn't do this either?" And he seized her in his arms and stifled her with kisses. She did not resist; she did not seem to have sufficient strength.

"Oh, you don't understand," she moaned, "you don't understand."

Something in her tone made him draw back as though he had received a blow.

"Why, what do you mean?" he exclaimed breathlessly.

And then, although it tore her heart to do it, she told him the truth.

"I am an actress," she murmured helplessly. "I have been only acting all the time. But please don't misunderstand me," she continued quickly, as he made as though to interrupt. "I did not do it because I wanted to, but simply because I thought you would not live. In its bare simplicity, the fact seems brutal, and yet——"

She broke off abruptly. "Oh, I can't explain!" she sobbed brokenly. "But I couldn't go on this way forever."

Coningsby belonged to that class of men who are born to suffer in silence, the class who bear their troubles alone. With a visible effort he pulled himself together.

"Tell me," he said, and his voice sounded strangely hollow, "when did all this begin?"

"On the night of the Waddington's ball," she replied slowly. "I had slipped out onto the balcony after one of the dances, and there I met Jerold Wharton. He told me that you could not live, and that you were calling me to come. As I listened to his words my heart was touched and I came to you at once."

After a momentary silence, he said: "At least, I can always remember the great goodness of heart which prompted you to come to me."

"Don't misunderstand," she replied wistfully. "It was not I who suggested my going to you. It was the plan of Jerold Wharton."

For a while he sat in silence, his face cold and colorless. Minutes passed and still he did not speak. Finally Olga Fullerton could bear the terrible strain no longer.

"You are angry," she whispered. "I do not blame you. I have acted shamefully."

He smiled wanly.

"No," he said wearily, "I am not angry, for you have given me a few months of the really greatest things of life. Before you came to me, I had nothing to look back upon save work and nothing to look forward to. Now, the future is the same, but the past is made beautiful by the presence of wonderful memories."

He took her hand in his and looked into her eyes, dim with tears. "Before I go," said he very softly, "I wonder if you will kiss me once."

Back at the house, in his own room, Jerold Wharton was playing the "Serenata." Softly his fingers wandered listlessly over the keys. And thus it happened that at the self-same moment both he and Coningsby were thinking of that memorable night on which he had talked with Olga Fullerton upon the balcony. He was interrupted in his reveries by a step in the room behind him.

"Jerry, old man, I am going back into the jungle," said a strangely hollow voice, speaking at his elbow. "Do you want to go along?"

And Jerold Wharton answered simply, "Yes." But he did not glance up, for when one has lived much in the tropics one learns to understand men.

V.

A month later, Arthur Coningsby dined with Colonel Mowbray in the European Club at Zanzibar. Outside through the narrow, filthy lanes which served as streets, throngs of people were hastening to and fro. Here all the world seemed to have come to rub shoulders against each other. Englishman cursed Arab, and Arab raved at Hindi. In some of the dimly lighted, odorous alleys steaming black and yellow bodies and kinky heads were struggling excitedly with one another, jabbering and shrieking in a dozen different tongues. From the tops of tall, flat-roofed houses floated strains of weird, dreamy music, which rose ever and anon above the laughing, chattering voices of the hidden merrymakers. The entire disjointed, unsystematic mass united to form a wondrous weird and wavering picture of color. White, dust-tinted houses, cobbled streets fallen into ruin, alcoves dark and mysterious with flickering yellow lights gleaming in the distance; frightfully miserable hovels; gorgeous palaces—how can one describe the strangely wild, fantastic, fascinating sight? Porters sitting cross-legged before the entrances to forbidden gardens; merchants reclining amongst their wares at the truly beautiful bazaars. And what wares are here for sale! Ivory, Gum copal, hides, lumber, silk rugs and cotton cloth; cloves, chillies, kanikies, machetes; in fact almost everything purchasable in the Occident—and more, for where is there any place which has such a spell of romance as that awesome, terrible land bordering on the Equator?