A Pasteboard Crown Part 28

And this last bore strongest witness to the depth of study she had given to the play--yes, the play; for the actress who studies only her own lines gains but the narrowest and baldest view of the character. Sybil had studied the environment of the brilliant, high-born, wilful "she Mercutio," as Jim Roberts in an inspired moment of intoxication had termed Beatrice, in order to know in what manner she should address her impertinences to her uncle--whether with a spoiled-child daring, made pardonable by a respectful bearing; in open insolence, or in veiled dislike. So she studied Leonato carefully, and so she did all the characters she came in contact with, with the result that her manner varied according to her varying companions; and the tension of the bow was not strained to the breaking-point at any time.

Actors and certain critics knew that that swallow-like skimming from laughing badinage to biting satire--that fine restraint, that incredible lightness of touch was backed by certainty, that certainty meant knowledge, and that knowledge meant work. Yet, though Thrall told her again and again that she had in herself the same mocking spirit that informed Beatrice, she would have it that he and he alone had made the performance possible to her. And though he denied it, the a.s.sertion was like nectar to the vanity of the artist--like balm to the heart of the man who longed to serve her.

And as it happened the newspapers had, in so many words, hailed her as Queen of the Stage. The term had not been inspired by a suggestion from him. It was extravagant, perhaps, but it was impromptu. And as he read it, the blood swept over his face so redly that the watchful eyes of Mrs. Thrall, sitting behind the tea-urn at the breakfast-table, saw and noted, and when he had left for the theatre, she had studied eagerly that side of the paper, but could not solve the riddle of that deep flush of pleasure. For, though the notice of the play was very flattering to his Bened.i.c.k, he could not be moved so by the praise of a single newspaper, she thought, even though he triumphed doubly as actor of a part and as managerial producer of n.o.bly correct scenery.

No, she could not solve the riddle; she could never have understood that, because the praise had not been extorted, it was doubly precious, or that one who lauded Sybil--magnified him.

"Yes," the girl said to herself, as she sat there, "he has crowned me, but--" She sighed, and turned the ruby to catch the light. "I wonder what your message is? One word, he says; perhaps it's _faith_. And yet, no! that would be satirical. What is there to be faithful to--no churchly vows! no!" she bit her lip to silence.

She missed Dorothy very greatly, now, in the lull that always follows the hurry and excitement of preparing for a production, for an irregular love is a great isolation--of necessity.

Dorothy, now two years a wife, had become so precious that she might no more be permitted to pa.s.s through that tunnel than to kneel before the car of the Juggernaut. Indeed, Leslie challenged the right of the very winds of heaven to blow too harshly on her face, and if any sweet folly of exaggerated care escaped him John Lawton was on hand to bring it to his attention.

"Ja!" said Lena, who was herself preparing for marriage to her "Mickle,"

her "mash-man." "Ja, my Miss Lady, I youst hav' ter make of der lies to der Herr Galts und der Herr Boss in der fron' uf der house, und keep der' tentions, vile der Miss Dorrie-Galts com' by der back porch und find out uf she's got any feet on der legs. Youst vat I tell you--der Herr Mens vatch her like der two pig cats, und, ven she get der chance, she laf und say, 'Lena! com' take me out uf der cottin'-battin, quvick!

und let's see den uf I break ven I cross der room!"

When the news had reached Sybil first, she had lain across her bed and sobbed and wept the night away. But next day, when she had repeated it to Thrall, she had withstood the piercing inquiry of his searching eyes, until she heard the sigh of relief that told her he had seen no sign of pain. And she had had hard work to convince him that the splendor of the gift he wished her to send the happy, expectant young mother would not be consistent with her supposed salary, and that Leslie would not be as innocently un.o.bservant as Dorothy.

So now she had not the dear pleasure of her sister's occasional visits.

Her face was unutterably sad. Suddenly she stretched her arms above her head, in the same pa.s.sionate gesture which she had used that night at the old White house, under the starry sky, and now as then she cried out against the bondage that held her! Then it had been poverty--now it was sin! She wore her crown; she lived in luxurious comfort; Stewart's loyalty was complete, beyond question, but--"Love and the world well lost!" she quoted, and laughed aloud--such a woful little laugh. For now, with tear-washed, experienced eyes, she saw the awful error she had made, when in ignorant young pa.s.sion she had declared "that love was enough"!

A certain austere power of endurance had developed in her during these crowded years. She neither whimpered nor complained, only to her own soul she admitted that lawful, virtuous living was better than love alone; that one could not depart from rect.i.tude and morality without sorrow, tears, and much bitterness of spirit. Just at first the wild sweetness of the forbidden fruit enthralled her--the romance of secret love, the thrill of stolen caresses, of fingers pressed under cover of a stage direction, of kisses swiftly given upon the little "scolding" lock of hair upon her neck, as he deftly and gallantly tied her veil after rehearsal, the precious rare half-days stolen from task-mistress and the world, and spent with her among the palms and poinsettias. Then all the levity fell from him, and he was at his fascinating best--witty, gracious, tender, sympathetic, wholly free from the smell of the footlights that some actors carry about with them all their days. The tiny notes pressed into warm palms, the code of signals--had all been so deliciously mysterious that she had felt herself a real heroine of romance.

"Poor little fool!" she murmured, contemptuously now, for she recalled that for a time in her infatuation she had felt how ineffably superior was her own romantic, secret, self-sacrificing love to the dull, commonplace, strictly legalized affection of Dorothy and Leslie. But since then--oh, since then! she had had time to wake from her beautiful dream, she had had time to think and to suffer. She knew now that the beautiful temple of love must stand on a foundation of legality, or it would tremble dangerously under every wind that blew! She no longer found anything to deride in the word "propriety," since she had come in bitterness of spirit to realize its meaning: "What ought to be--what should be." And dear Dorothy's life was what it should be, and she had peace and security and had never known humiliation. "Humiliation!" Sybil twisted her hands and gasped aloud, "G.o.d! oh, G.o.d!" at the recollections that came to her. For Stewart Thrall's wife had kept her word and stood at his side, and shared his popularity, and applauded him from her box, and called him "dear" before all men on all possible occasions. And suspecting that Sunday evenings might not be spent with "the boys," she had inaugurated small "at homes," to give her dear Stewart a chance to gather his valued friends about him in his own home. And he who had never disregarded public opinion felt compelled to dance attendance upon his wife in name, who held him to his bond for her vanity and convenience. The trite endearments necessity forced from his lips were torture to Sybil when she chanced to hear them; and oh, the agony of a woman, who is secretly loved, when she sees the man who is hers--for whom she has paid with her pride and honor and self-respect--held to the side of another woman, by her legitimate rights! Just as maddening pain will sometimes drive a sufferer to press upon the torturing wound, so Sybil would cry to herself: "She is his true wife, and I am a--caprice!"

It was not true, she knew it was not true, yet a strange necessity for self-torture forced her to repeat the cruel words, as it forced her often to remind Stewart that it was time for him to hasten to some appointment, to drive or to lunch with Mrs. Thrall, who much enjoyed displaying publicly the devotion of her actor-husband. And once, when Sybil had longed to attend a sacred concert that offered her an only opportunity to hear a certain great singer, she had been forced either to accept Roberts's escort or remain at home, because Mr. Thrall learned at the last moment that Lettice had invited a large party, who were to return afterward and sup with them in the informal way "dear Stewart so enjoys." And, having swiftly decided in favor of a long evening of loneliness at home, taking a bitter pleasure in her own suffering, she had tried to hasten his departure, saying: "A man should never keep his wife waiting."

And in sudden pa.s.sion, shamed, wounded, angry, he had turned upon her, forbidding her ever to so misapply that word again. "If you must call her Mrs. Thrall, well, be it so--that is enough to bear!"

But Sybil pressed upon the wound, insisting obstinately: "But she is your wife!" and he had doggedly contradicted: "No! no! She is a sort of legalized money-changer in the temple of marriage! She is not a wife!

Our wedded life is a monstrous hypocrisy! We are false to ourselves, false to society, false in word, deed, and thought! And yet she is a good woman, whose legal and technical virtue would certainly have given her the valued right to hurl rocks at the woman taken in adultery. Wife?

She? The woman whose companions.h.i.+p dragged me down to a lower level than that at which she found me? Oh, I see in your cloudy, scornful face your contempt for the man who blames a woman, and Lettice Rowland Thrall should not be censured for not giving what she has not to give! But oh, her chains are very heavy, and my bondage grows more bitter day by day!

Sometimes I think that I could welcome the death that, taking me from you, beloved, would at least free me from her!"

Frankness was so natural to Sybil's nature that the secrecy and stratagem of intrigue wearied her; the manoeuvring, the clandestine, the sly, the underhand, shamed her. She knew now the secret of the window-curtained door in Thrall's private office, opening on a narrow pa.s.sage that led up a stair to another door opening in turn behind a wardrobe in a dressing-room--her dressing-room now these three years.

And Jim Roberts knew of it, too; she wondered why, and reddened as she glanced toward a key that lay in an open desk-drawer.

"Oh!" she groaned, "how can I bear it! I love him! I love him! but it is not right that love should bring only dishonor! I do not need churchly vows to keep me loyal! I shall be faithful till I die; but I am a woman, and I long for the privileges and prerogatives that marriage gives--and that _she_ receives!"

She thought that she hid her suffering--she tried to do so, and sometimes, in her work, forgot for a while her false position and the weight of the chains she had herself forged. But those brilliant blue eyes saw more than she guessed; and always, beside the growing hatred of his bitter bondage, there was the agony of fear that this young creature, made to win love, would weary of the double life, would some day be sought by one brave enough to take her to wife--knowing all there was to know! He saw glowing admiration in the eyes of men young and free, and he cursed them in his heart _for_ their freedom, for he knew he had no claim upon her, no legal tie bound her to him. She, the wife of his heart and soul, might turn from him. Her beautiful, cloudy face might flash into smiles for another, should she weary of him and of his secret love. Therefore _his_ days, too, were often days of torment, and the blonde woman, who watched them both with cold, keen eyes, knew much and understood perfectly. She believed the taste for forbidden fruit was common to all men. Thrall's conduct in the past had done little to dispel that belief; but she knew now that his love for the beautiful, gifted girl, whose faith he longed to justify by wedding her, was a real--and oh! galling thought--a _loyal_ love! In the past her suspicions had often borne fruit, and she could recall certain gas-lit, laughing trysts, very scant of secrecy, mere counterfeit amours, that he had lived to loathe, and she knew that this was no such caprice.

When he escaped for a little, she knew that he was at the feet of the girl whose sombre eyes were so woful that sometimes they moved her heart to a faint throb of pity. A n.o.bler, warmer, more self-sacrificing woman would have set them free, to find a purer faith, to form happier ties.

But Lettice, forced to realize the existence of this great mutual love, this loyal pa.s.sion, watched, and slowly grew to hate--intensely, bitterly to hate--them both. Verily a noxious plant is illegitimate love, and its poison far-reaching!

"Oh! Dorothy!" cried Sybil to the silent walls; "dear little mother to be! I shall be so thankful when you can once more bring a breath of honesty, of every-day open frankness, into this house!"

And then she heard a step, light but firm, coming from the back of the hall, and the blood rushed into her face as she sprang to her feet, for her fear was great lest the approaching man might read her grieving thoughts in her face.

He entered, and, tossing a bunch of violets to the table, came to her, and, taking her in his arms, buried his face in the cloudy, dark hair that had always tempted him. Presently he said: "I should have been here earlier, sweetheart, for I thought you would be lonely after your people's departure." (She looked gratefully at him.) "But Jim kept me; yes, he has broken loose again, and though I had someone take him home and look after him, I was so doubtful of his being able to play to-night that I gave his small part to an understudy, and that all took time."

"How good you are to that poor, worthless fellow! I don't believe any other man in the world would be so generous and so patient as you are."

But Thrall said quickly, almost sharply: "Don't--don't say that!" and turned away his face, while Sybil continued:

"But actors are so queer--actresses, too. They will hide malice under compliments; they will deliver innuendoes in a jest; they will make most injurious statements about one another; but let one of them be stricken down with sickness or trouble and every hand goes instantly into the pocket, even if it is already nearly empty, and the only feeling is sympathy, the only thought relief for the unfortunate. You are a generous people, Stewart!"

"_You?_" he repeated, pointedly.

And she laughed, and answered: "Oh, well! _we_ are generous--is that better?"

"Yes!--much!" he answered, and knelt at her feet.

"What are you doing there?" she asked.

"One kneels to a queen!" replied he. She laughed, and flushed a little.

She had become actress enough to send out early for her papers. "And,"

he added, "particularly when one wishes to make an offering. This is an anniversary, beloved!"

Her color fled, for that was the one unsympathetic note that had ever sounded between them. She did not understand him in that one respect. To her it seemed almost indelicate to remind her of that day when she had forgiven. She was to understand him later; but now he saw the shadow on her face, and his interpretation was, she "regrets her generosity," and all his love shone appealing in his eyes as he took her hand, and, whispering, "In memory of your mercy, beloved," slipped a great ring upon her finger.

She glanced down at it, and a startled cry came from her lips. It was an opal--a marvel! a very wonder! It was not merely the play of color through the soft, milky translucence, the ghost of blue, the vivid flecks of green, the pale rose deepening into flashes of ruby red, the amber glow, but it was the strange quiver and throb in it that made it seem alive--uncanny! She looked at him questioningly. "Did he not know, then," she asked herself, "the superst.i.tion attached to this n.o.blest, most fascinating gem, that he offered it as a love gift?"

"See," he said, "how sharp the diamond scintillations are compared to this softened glory! Do you see that throbbing that keeps the colors all the time in play? That's my heart, beloved, as it quivers with pain and shame when, belonging to you utterly, I have to ignore you before the world. Do you guess how I suffer--I, who am bound--I, who am helpless! I live only by your mercy--for I love you with all my soul!"

And, woman-like, she hid her own grief, and comforted him, and arranged her violets and talked over their mutual triumphs and Dorothy's last note. For he had great regard for the gentle creature in whom he recognized great moral strength. And, as he was leaving, he looked at a trophy of small arms and weapons on the wall, and said: "This Turkish inlaid thing is rusting, Sybil, and this dagger--which is genuine--needs attention, too. Let Jane Penny bring them over to-night, with that bulldog revolver I left upstairs. If Jim is straightened up by that time he will clean the whole outfit to-morrow. The property-man's shooting-irons are all out of kilter, too. There'll be a good day's job to clean and oil them all, but it's the sort of pottering work Jim likes. Good-by, sweetheart! Take an hour's rest, dear, before going to the theatre. Beatrice needs to be well keyed up, you know." He kissed her lips and eyes and hair, and left her.

And she stood and cried: "He loves me! He has crowned me! I love him with my whole heart! I thank him from my very soul! But oh, what a position is mine! Unmarried--I am deprived of all freedom and girlish pleasures! A wife--I am denied the honors and prerogatives of marriage!"

Her eyes fell upon the great opal, quivering, glowing, glinting! "He suffers, too," she said. "Poor Stewart!" and again she wondered if he knew the superst.i.tion attached to opals, and, turning, took the rusting weapons from the trophy.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN

Long before Sybil rose next morning Leslie Galt had left at the door a great bunch of lilacs, the very first spring blossoms from Dorothy's own garden, and with it a note. Stivers took them into the bedroom with the breakfast tray, and as Sybil put out her hand to take the letter Jane gave a cry of dismay. "For G.o.d's sake! is that thing real?" she asked, pointing to the splendid ring. "I--I thought last night it was an extra fine stage jewel. Do you mean to sit there with that unlucky stone just calling out for death and destruction, fire or flood or scandal or--or all of them together to come upon you? Take it off, I say! _take it off_! and let me carry it back, for, of course, it was Mr. Thrall who gave it to you! He must be off his head--and I'll tell him so!"

"Oh!" laughed Sybil, "do you mind it so much? No! I could not send it back, that would hurt the giver's feelings; besides, what possible harm can a thing so beautiful do to one?"

"H--uh!" snorted Stivers. "I suppose Mary Stuart thought opals beautiful, too, but they didn't help to keep her head on her shoulders!"

"But," argued Sybil, "the poor, lovely, tormented, blundering queen would have lost her royal head even if she had never owned an opal."

"You don't know that," answered Stivers; "but you do know that she wore opals and lost it. My very own cousin had a little, weeny, footy bit of an opal scarf-pin given him, and wore it, like the fool he always was, and had his house burned over his head for his pains. Don't talk to me!