Part 52 (1/2)
”Mr. Lemuel brought it last evening. He knew you were coming home to-day. Oh Gerty, do you know I have seen your portrait, though it isn't finished yet; and you look--you look like an inspired prophetess. I never saw anything so lovely!”
”Indeed!” said Miss White, with a smile; but she was pleased.
”When the public see that, they will know what you are really like, Gerty--instead of buying your photograph in a shop from a collection of ballet-dancers and circus women. That is where you ought to be--in the Royal Academy: not in a shop-window with any mountebank. Oh, Gerty, do you know who is your latest rival in the stationers' windows? The woman who dresses herself as a mermaid and swims in a transparent tank, below water--Fin-fin they call her. I suppose you have not been reading the newspapers?”
”Not much.”
”There is a fine collection for you upstairs. And there is an article about you in the _Islington Young Men's Improvement a.s.sociation_. It is signed _Trismegistus_. Oh, it is beautiful, Gerty--quite full of poetry!
It says you are an enchantress striking the rockiest heart, and a well of pure emotion springs up. It says you have the beauty of Mrs. Siddons and the genius of Rachel.”
”Dear me!”
”Ah, you don't half believe in yourself, Gerty,” said the younger sister, with a critical air. ”It is the weak point about you. You depreciate yourself, and you make light of other people's belief in you.
However, you can't go against your own genius. That is too strong for you. As soon as you get on the stage, then you forget to laugh at yourself.”
”Really, Carry, has papa been giving you a lecture about me?”
”Oh, laugh away? but you know it is true. And a woman like you--you were going to throw yourself away on a--”
”Carry! There are some things that are better not talked about,” said Gertrude White, curtly, as she rose and went indoors.
Miss White betook herself to her professional and domestic duties with much alacrity and content, for she believed that by her skill as a letter-writer she could easily ward off the importunities of her too pa.s.sionate lover. It is true that at times, and in despite of her playful evasion, she was visited by a strange dread. However far away, the cry of a strong man in his agony had something terrible in it. And what was this he wrote to her in simple and calm words?--
”Are our paths diverging, Gerty? and if that is so, what will be the end of it for me and for you? Are you going away from me? After all that has pa.s.sed, are we to be separated in the future, and you will go one way and I must go the other way, with all the world between us, so that I shall never see you again? Why will you not speak? You hint of lingering doubts and hesitations. Why have you not the courage to be true to yourself--to be true to your woman's heart--to take your life in your own hands, and shape it so that it shall be worthy of you?”
Well, she did speak in answer to this piteous prayer. She was a skilful letter-writer:
”It may seem very ungrateful in an actress, you know, dear Keith, to contest the truth of anything said by Shakespeare; but I don't think, with all humility, there ever was so much nonsense put into so small a s.p.a.ce as there is in these lines that everybody quotes at your head--
”To thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
”'Be true to yourself,' people say to you. But surely every one who is conscious of failings, and deceitfulness, and unworthy instincts, would rather try to be a little better than himself? Where else would there be any improvement, in an individual or in society? You have to fight against yourself, instead of blindly yielding to your wish of the moment. I know I, for one, should not like to trust myself. I wish to be better than I am--to be other than I am--and I naturally look around for help and guidance. Then, you find people recommending you absolutely diverse ways of life, and with all show of authority and reason, too; and in such an important matter ought not one to consider before making a final choice?”
Miss White's studies in mental and moral science, as will readily be perceived, had not been of a profound character. But he did not stay to detect the obvious fallacy of her argument. It was all a maze of words to him. The drowning man does not hear questions addressed to him. He only knows that the waters are closing over him, and there is no arm stretched out to save.
”I do not know myself for two minutes together,” she wrote. ”What is my present mood, for example? Why, one of absolute and ungovernable hatred--hatred of the woman who would take my place if I were to retire from the stage. I have been thinking of it all the morning--picturing myself as an unknown nonent.i.ty, vanished from the eyes of the public, in a social grave. And I have to listen to people praising the new actress; and I have to read columns about her in the papers; and I am unable to say, 'Why, all that and more was written and said about me!' What has an actress to show for herself if once she leaves the stage? People forget her the next day; no record is kept of her triumphs. A painter, now, who spends years of his life in earnest study--it does not matter to him whether the public applaud or not, whether they forget or not. He has always before him these evidences of his genius; and among his friends he can choose his fit audience. Even when he is an old man, and listening to the praise of all the young fellows who have caught the taste of the public, he can, at all events, show something of his work as testimony of what he was. But an actress, the moment she leaves the stage, is a snuffed-out candle. She has her stage-dresses to prove that she acted certain parts; and she may have a sc.r.a.p-book with cuttings of criticisms from the provincial papers! You know, dear Keith, all this is very heart-sickening; and I am quite aware that it will trouble you, as it troubles me, and sometimes makes me ashamed of myself; but then it is true, and it is better for both of us that it should be known. I could not undertake to be a hypocrite all my life. I must confess to you, whatever be the consequences, that I distinctly made a mistake when I thought it was such an easy thing to adopt a whole new set of opinions and tastes and habits. The old Adam, as your Scotch ministers would say, keeps coming back, to jog my elbow as an old familiar friend. And you would not have me conceal the fact from you? I know how difficult it will be for you to understand or sympathize with me. You have never been brought up to a profession, every inch of your progress in which you have to contest against rivals; and you don't know how jealous one is of one's position when it is gained. I think I would rather be made an old woman or sixty to-morrow morning, than get up and go out and find my name printed in small letters in the theatre-bills. And if I try to imagine what my feelings would be if I were to retire from the stage, surely that is in your interest as well as mine. How would you like to be tied for life to a person who was continually looking back to her past career with regret, and who was continually looking around her for objects of jealous and envious anger? Really, I try to do my duty by everybody. All the time I was at Castle Dare I tried to picture myself living there, and taking an interest in the fis.h.i.+ng, and the farms, and so on; and if I was haunted by the dread that, instead of thinking about the fis.h.i.+ng and the farms, I should be thinking of the triumphs of the actress who had taken my place in the attention of the public, I had to recognize the fact. It is wretched and pitiable, no doubt; but look at my training. If you tell me to be true to myself--that is myself. And at all events I feel more contented that I have made a frank-confession.”
Surely it was a fair and reasonable letter? But the answer that came to it had none of its pleasant common-sense. It was all a wild appeal--a calling on her not to fall away from the resolves she had made--not to yield to those despondent moods. There was but the one way to get rid of her doubts and hesitations; let her at once cast aside the theatre, and all its a.s.sociations and malign influences, and become his wife, and he would take her by the hand and lead her away from that besetting temptation. Could she forget the day on which she gave him the red rose?
She was a woman; she could not forget.
She folded up the letter and held it in her hand, and went into her father's room. There was a certain petulant and irritated look on her face.
”He says he is coming up to London, papa,” said she, abruptly.
”I suppose you mean Sir Keith Macleod,” said he.
”Well, of course. And can you imagine anything more provoking--just at present, when we are rehearsing this new play, and when all the time I can afford Mr. Lemuel wants for the portrait? I declare the only time I feel quiet, secure, safe from the interference of anybody, and more especially the worry of the postman, is when I am having that portrait painted; the intense stillness of the studio is delightful, and you have beautiful things all around you. As soon as I open the door, I come out into the world again, with constant vexations and apprehensions all around. Why, I don't know but that at any minute Sir Keith Macleod may not come walking up to the gate!”