Part 86 (2/2)
The old man only stared blankly at the carpet on the floor, and his son's fingers closed like a vice around his arm.
”You have practised an infernal imposture upon me! You told me she followed him, and that the child was his.”
”He said so.”
General Laurance's voice was husky, and a grey hue had settled upon his features.
”You paid him to proclaim the base falsehood! You whom I trusted so fully. Father, where is my child?”
No answer; and the curtain rose on the fair young mother, came forward with her own golden hair in full splendour.
Involuntarily the audience testified their recognition of the beautiful actress who now appeared for the first time, looking as when she made her _debut_ long ago in Paris. She was at the asylum, with a young child clinging to her finger, tottering at her side, and as she guided its steps, and hushed it in her arms, many mothers among the spectators felt the tears rush to their eyes.
Walking with the infant cradled on her bosom, she pa.s.sed twice across the stage, then paused beneath the box, and murmured:
”Papa's baby--Papa's own precious baby!” and her splendid eyes humid with tears looked full, straight into those of her husband.
It was the first time they had met during the evening, and something she saw in that quivering face made her heart ache with the old numbing agony. Cuthbert could scarcely restrain himself from leaping down upon the stage and clasping her in his arms; but she moved away, and the sorely smitten husband bowed his face in his hand, luckily s.h.i.+elded from public view by the position in which he sat.
The dinner scene ensued, and the abrupt announcement of the second marriage. The anguish and despair of the repudiated wife were portrayed with a vividness, a marvellous eloquence and pa.s.sionate fervour that surpa.s.sed all former exhibitions of her genius, and the people rose, and applauded, as audiences sometimes do, when the magnetic wave rolls from the heart and brain on the stage to those of the men and women who watch and listen completely _en rapport_.
The life of the actress began, the struggle to provide for her child, the constant care to elude discovery, the application for legal advice, the statement of her helplessness, the attempt to secure the license; all were represented, and at last the meeting with her husband in the theatre.
Gradually the pathos melted away, she was the stern relentless outraged wife, intent only upon revenge. She spared not even the interview in which the faithless husband sought her presence; and as Cuthbert watched her, repeating the sentences that had so galled his pride, he asked himself how he had failed to recognize his own wife?
In the meeting with the child of the second marriage, her wild exultation, her impa.s.sioned invocation of Nemesis, was one of the most effective pa.s.sages in the drama; and it caused a s.h.i.+ver to creep like a serpent over the body of the father, who pitied so tenderly the afflicted Maud.
As the scheme of saying her own daughter, by sacrificing herself in a nominal marriage with the man whom she hated and loathed so intensely, developed itself, a perceptible chill fell upon the audience; the unnaturalness of the crime a.s.serted itself.
While she rendered almost literally the interviews at Pozzuoli and at Naples, Cuthbert glanced at his father, and saw a purplish flush steal from neck to forehead, but the old man's eyes never quitted the floor. He seemed incapable of moving, Gorgonized by the beautiful Medusa whose invectives against him were scathing, terrible.
As the play approached its close and the preparation for the marriage, even the details of the settlement were narrated, suspense reached its acme. Then came the letters of reprieve, the deliverance from the bondage of Peterson's vindictive malice, the power of establis.h.i.+ng her claim; and when she wept her thanksgiving for salvation, many wept in sympathy; while Regina, borne away in breathless admiration of her mother's wonderful genius, sobbed unrestrainedly.
When the letters of Peterson and of the lawyer were read, mapping the line of prosecution for the recovery of the wife's rights, the father slowly raised his eyes, and, looking drearily at his son, muttered:
”It is all over with us, Cuthbert. She has won; we are ruined. Let us go home.”
He attempted to rise, but with a glare of mingled wrath and scorn his son held him back.
The last scene was reached; the triumphant vindication of wife and child, the condemnation of the two who had conspired to defraud them, the foreclosure of the mortgages, the penury of the proud aristocrats, and the disgrace that overwhelmed them.
Finally the second wife and afflicted child came to crave leniency, and the husband and the father pleaded for pardon; but with a malediction upon the house that caused her wretchedness, the broken-hearted woman retreated to the palatial home she had at last secured, and under its upas shadow died in the arms of her daughter.
Her play contained many pa.s.sages which afforded her scope for the manifestation of her extraordinary power, and at its close the people would not depart until she had appeared in acknowledgment of their plaudits.
Brilliantly beautiful she looked, with the glittering light of triumph in her large mesmeric eyes, a rich glow mantling her cheeks, and rouging her lips; while in heavy folds the black velvet robe swept around her queenly figure. How stately, elegant, unapproachable she seemed to the man who leaned forward, gazing with all his heart in his eyes upon the wife of his youth, the only woman he had ever really loved, now his most implacable foe!
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