The Lowest Rung Part 15

The play started again. Marion, astonished at her own violence, ashamed, shattered by conflicting emotions, speechless, could only bow her approval of the change, not that the manager cared a pin whether she approved or not.

_Was Delacour acting?_ Marion knew that he was not. And as the play proceeded it changed in character. The words were the words she had written. Many of them were the words he had used himself, but his pa.s.sion transformed them. They took on a new meaning. It was Maggie who was becoming a mean figure in spite of her grandiloquence--perhaps because of it. Her rigid principles, her petty, egotistic pride, her faultless demeanour jarred on the audience. Lenore, like a true artist, caught the novel side of the situation and emphasised it. Her Maggie dwindled, dwindled, until the man held the stage alone, dominated it.

Marion had never before seen his side of the miserable drama in which her happiness had made s.h.i.+pwreck, had never before seen her own character in this light. It was as if he were saying the truth at last, defending himself at last--which he had never done in real life.

Finally repulsed, silent under her scornful invective, Delacour gathered himself together and went off magnificent in defeat.

The curtain fell for the last time.

The tiny audience, strengthened by the rest of the cast who were not needed in the final scene, broke into rapturous applause. The manager, excited and radiant, clapped with the rest.

"He's immense. He's immense!" he kept on saying. "Delacour's the making of it. He's immense! Hang Montgomery! He may have bronchitis till he's blue. Delacour makes the play. I will fetch him!"

He disappeared behind the curtain, and in a few minutes reappeared, dragging Delacour with him to introduce him to Marion.

"We have met before," she said faintly, putting out her hand.

"Did we ever really meet?" he said gently, taking it for a second in his.

He seemed quite exhausted. Now that she saw him close at hand, he looked much older. And his face was grievously lined, deteriorated.

She tried to thank him, to express her grat.i.tude for the way he had extricated them from a great difficulty; but her words were so hesitating and frigid that the manager broke in, shaking him warmly by the hand.

Delacour bowed his thanks, murmured something conventional, and was gone.

Every one was in a hurry to go, too. Marion remained a moment longer talking to the manager, and then they went together through the royal box to the private entrance, where her brougham was waiting. Just as they reached it, he was called away, and an attendant let her out.

Waiting beside her brougham, in the rain, holding the door for her, was Delacour, in a shabby overcoat, his hat in his hand.

Again their eyes met in a long look. His, sombre, melancholy, humble, had a great appeal in them.

She seemed encased in some steel armour, which made movement and speech wellnigh impossible. She thanked him inaudibly.

He shut the door, said "Home" to the coachman, and turned away.

The carriage drove off.

Then something in Marion snapped. Her other self, the poor woman in her whom she had denied and starved and brow-beaten, pounced upon her and called out suddenly, desperately:

"Forgive him. What is life without him? Think of the last ten years. Has there been one day in all those grinding years when you have not longed to see him? Has there ever been one day when you would not have given up your ease and luxury for a cottage with him? And now he has come back into your life. He still loves you. Are you going to lose him again? You were vindictive, and you know it. Go back now and kneel down in the wet street and ask him to forgive you. Quick! quick!--before it is too late."

The other woman in her, the woman who had discarded him, stopped her ears.

"No, no; I had good reasons for breaking with him. They hold as good to-day as ten years ago."

"Very well," said the other scornfully. "Then never dare to tell yourself again that you ever loved him. Let that lie cease. Your love was only pretty words and pride and self-seeking, and a miserable streak of pa.s.sion. What do you care what happens to him? Don't go back. You don't care for him. You never cared. Never, never. And he knows it. He is telling himself so now--at this moment."

She stopped the brougham. She trembled so much that she could hardly tell the man to drive back to the theatre. He turned slowly, the horse evidently reluctant, and in a few minutes she was once more at the private entrance. The door was closed. No one was to be seen in the little _cul de sac_. The lamp over the door was out. She got out and rang--once, twice, and yet again. Then she realised that every one else had hurried away as precipitately as she had done, for the dawn was already in the sky. She dragged herself back into her carriage and drove home, shaking in every limb.

After all, it did not matter. She would get his address from the manager first thing to-morrow, and go straight on and see him, and sacrifice her pride, and beseech him to take her back. She had been too proud. She saw that at last. She would say so. She saw at last that resentment is disloyalty. She would say so. She was so sick of her present life that she would say anything. And he loved her still, thank G.o.d! And--thank G.o.d, too--she was rich. And it was obvious that he was poor. She had much to share with him. And she was still attractive. Other men still wished to marry her. She was pretty, still. All that she had, all that she still was, she would give him. And this long nightmare of the last ten years would pa.s.s at last, as that other nightmare of her youth had pa.s.sed--her wretched home, with a drunken father and a heartbroken mother. That had pa.s.sed, though at the time it had seemed as if it would endure for ever. Her parents had died, and her vulgar, kindly, rich aunt had adopted her. And now this second nightmare was at an end, too. The ache would go out of her life, the long daily hunger and thirst would cease. There would be no more dreadful homecomings after evenings of amus.e.m.e.nt; no more sick recoil and despair at waking and seeing the pale finger of the dawn upon the blind. She would be happy at last.

Marion cried herself to sleep that night. Next morning, as early as she dared, she was at the theatre. The manager was going through his usual paroxysm of anxiety and ill-temper which preceded a first night. He could hardly find time for a word with her. There was a hitch in the scenery of the last act; the lighting was not yet repaired; one of the actors of the minor parts was ill, for whom an understudy had not been provided; and the head scene-s.h.i.+fter had sprained his wrist.

"I won't keep you," said Marion, as he hurried up, fuming; "I only want Mr. Delacour's address. I should like to see him at once--to--to talk to him about his part. There are a few points----"

"Delacour's address?" said the manager. "Don't know it. Oh, yes, of course!" He tore a little notebook out of his pocket. Then he suddenly looked up at her. "Don't go to him. Send for him, if you like, or see him here. He'll be here in an hour--at least, he will be if Smith is worth his salt. I've bribed him to keep a lynx eye on him day and night, and bring him up to time. But don't go and see him. I suppose you know he----"

"He's married?" gasped Marion.

The manager laughed scornfully.

"He _drinks_, my dear lady. He drinks. He's only just out of an inebriates' home. But don't alarm yourself. If he's watched, I dare say we shall manage all right. I hope to goodness we shall! Don't look so scared. Smith has charge of him, and he is accustomed to the job. He was quite sober last night. I hear he always is after an outbreak. You're going home? Well, I think you're right. Yes, very cold here now. Quite right not to stop. See you again later."

Marion drove home and shut herself up in her room. There was no need to lock the door. She was alone in the world, alone in her handsome, empty house, where she had always been alone, even before her aunt died and left it to her.... She would always be alone now. Only yesterday she had hoped--what had she not hoped! She had seen him there in imagination changing this weary house into a home, brilliant and faulty as ever, lovable as ever, beloved as ever, surrounded by her lavished adoration.

She had seen their children running along its wide pa.s.sages, playing in its empty hall.

And now.

_He drank._

She shuddered. She had seen drink once. She knew. Never while she lived would she forget what her home had been like. The past crowded back upon her with all its vileness and nausea, all its unspeakable degradation and violence, wrapped up with maudlin sentiment and cheap tears. The sweat stood on her forehead.

What an escape she had had! To think that if it had not been for that chance word of the manager's she would by now have pledged herself irrevocably to a drunkard, waded back into the slough from which she had emerged. Oh, what a merciful fate it had been, after all, which had parted them! How faithless she had been all these years! How little she had realised how the divine love and wisdom had watched over her, had s.h.i.+elded her!

"Oh! thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!" she groaned. The other self in her, the poor dying woman in her, arose on her deathbed and screamed to her, screamed insane things. If a certain voice is too long ignored, its dictates seem at last insane.

"Take him back all the same!" gasped the dying voice. "Marry him.

Devote yourself to him, day and night. Cure him. Set him up. You love him. Love can do it, if anything can."

"I can't do it," groaned Marion. "Mother tried, but it was no good."

"Then do as she did, try and fail."

"I can't. He would break my heart."

"Let him break it."

Marion strangled the terrible, urgent voice with fury, and then cried as if her heart would indeed break. The silenced voice spoke no more.

The play was a great success. Delacour, who had recently returned from America, was the making of it. Lenore was the first to acknowledge it, though his success was at her expense. Her part seemed only as a foil to the sombre splendour of his.

The play ran and ran.

Delacour made no further effort to speak to Marion. He avoided her systematically. He, on his side, was watched, was spied on, was protected from himself, was never given a chance of yielding to temptation. His self-imposed gaoler loved him. He was very lovable. The manager was enthusiastic. Ignorant people said he was reformed. It almost seemed as if he might grasp the great position to which his talent ent.i.tled him. But how often before he had fallen just when he was doing well! No one could depend on him. His record in America gradually became known. It was a record of hideous outbreaks and cancelled engagements.

By dint of the strenuous will of others, to which he yielded himself, he was kept on his feet through the whole run of the play.

And then, released from surveillance, exhausted in mind and body--he fell again.