The Changeling

Such a supreme moment came to Hilarie after long consideration.

"I thought," she explained, "that if the Archbishop and his brethren were living to-day, they would do something for the women who work."

Her cousin slowly drank a glass of champagne. "Yes?" he asked, without much affectation of interest.

"I thought that if the Archbishop were living, he would like to found a college – not for priests, nor for old villagers, but for girls; not to teach anything, but to give them a place where they can go and stay. In this college we do not teach anything. There are no lectures. We need not do any work unless we please. Every girl does exactly what she pleases: some study, some paint – not after your school, I fear; some practise music; in fact, they do just what they please. I believe that at least a dozen are writing novels, two or three are writing verse, one or two are working for examinations. In the evening we amuse ourselves."

"You give them all this?"

"Certainly. They come here whenever they please, and they can stay here for three months, or more if there is necessity. In three words, my cousin, I maintain an establishment of forty guests, and I fear I shall have to increase the number."

"And what's the good of it?"

"When the Archbishop built his school, he argued, first, that education is good even for the swineherd; next, that with education follow manners; and, thirdly, that it was good for himself to give. So, you see, it is good for the girls to get the rest and quiet; living thus all together in a college raises their standard of thought and manners; and, thirdly, it is good for me, as it was the Archbishop, to give."

"I do not feel myself any call to give anybody anything."

"Meantime, I keep before myself the great function of woman. She is, I say, the eternal priestess. She compels men into ways of gentleness and courtesy; she inspires great thoughts. By way of love she leads to the upper heights. But you do not feel these things."

"I do not, I confess."

"If the girls must work, I want them ever to keep before themselves the task laid upon them. They have hitherto civilized man from the home; they must now civilize him from the workshop. That, my cousin, is the meaning of this college."

"You've got some rather pretty girls in the place," said Humphrey.

"Oh, pretty! What has that to do with it?"

The music ceased. There was a general lull. The guests all leaned back in their chairs. The president knocked with her ivory hammer, and they all returned to the lady's bower.

In the drawing-room Humphrey left the president to the people who pressed in upon her, and wandered round the room, looking, apparently, for some one. Presently he discovered, surrounded by a company of men, the girl who was called Molly. She, too, was dressed in white, and wore a cherry-coloured ribbon round her neck; a dainty damsel she looked, conspicuous for this lovely quality of daintiness among them all. At sight of her the young man coloured, and his eye brightened; then his face clouded. However, he made his way to her. She stepped out of the circle and gave him her hand.

"It is a week and more," he whispered, "since I have seen you. Why not say at once that you don't care about it any longer?"

"You are welcome to the college, Sir Humphrey," she replied aloud. "Confess that it is a pretty sight. The president was talking to you about it all dinner-time. I hope that you are interested."

"I think it is all tomfoolery," he replied ungraciously; "and a waste of good money too."

"Hilarie wants money to make happiness. You do not look in the best of tempers, Humphrey."

"I am not. I couldn't get enough to drink, and I have had to listen to a lot of stuff about women and priestesses."

"Good stuff should not be thrown away, should it? Like good pearls."

"I want to talk to you – away from this rabble. Where can we go?"

"I will take you over the college." She led the way into the library, a retired place, where she sat down. "Do you ask how I am getting on?"

"No, I don't." He remained standing. "You'll never go on the stage with my consent."

"We shall see." By her quick dancing eye, by her mobile lips, by the brightness of her quaint, attractive face, which looked as if it could be drawn into shapes like an india-rubber face, she belied his prophecy. "Besides, Hilarie wants me to become a tragic actress. Please remember, once more, Humphrey, that what Hilarie wishes I must do. I owe everything to Hilarie – everything."

"You drive me mad with your perverseness, Molly."

"I am going to please myself. Please understand that, even if I were engaged to you, I would keep my independence. If you don't like that, take back your offer. Take it back at once." She held out both her hands, as if she was carrying it about.

"You know I can't. Molly, I love you too much, though you are a little devil."

"Then let me alone. If one is born in a theatre, one belongs to a theatre. I would rather be born in a theatre than in a West End square. Humphrey, you make me sorry that I ever listened to you."

"Well, go and listen to that fiddler fellow who calls you Molly. Curse his impudence!"

"Oh, if you had been only born differently! You belong to the people who are all alike. You sit in the stalls in a row, as if you were made after the same pattern; you expect the same jokes; you take the same too much champagne; you are like the pebbles of the seashore, all rounded alike."

"Well, what would you have?"

"The actors and show folk – my folk – are all different. As for kind hearts, how can you know, with your tables spread every day, and your champagne running like water? There's no charity where there's no poverty."

"I don't pretend to any charity."

"It is a dreadful thing to be born rich. You might have been so different if you had had nothing."

"Then you wouldn't have listened to me."

"Thank you. Listening doesn't mean consenting."

"You cannot withdraw. You are promised to me."

"Only on conditions. You want me to be engaged secretly. Well, I won't. You want me to marry you secretly. Well, I won't."

"You are engaged to me."

"I am not. And I don't think now that I ever shall be. It flattered me at first, having a man in your position following around. I should like to be 'my lady.' But I can't see any happiness in it. You belong to a different world, not to my world."

"I will lift you into my world."

"It looks more like tumbling down than getting lifted up. There is still time, however, to back out. If you dare to maintain that I ever said 'Yes,' I'll say 'No' on the spot. There!"

This sweet and loving conversation explains itself. Every one will understand it. The girl lived in a boarding-house, where she took lessons from an old actress in preparation for the stage. From time to time she went to stay with her friend – her benefactress – who had found her, after her father's death, penniless. At her country house she met, as we have seen, her old friend Dick, and the other cousin. The second meeting, outside the boarding-house, which the latter called, and she believed to be, accidental, led to other meetings. They were attended by the customary results; that is, by an ardent declaration of love. The girl was flattered by the attentions of a young man of position and apparent wealth. She listened to the tale. She found, presently, that her lover was not in every respect what a girl expects in a lover. His ideas of love were not hers. He turned out to be jealous, but that might prove the depth and sincerity of his love; suspicious, which argued a want of trust in her; ashamed to introduce her to his own people; anxious to be engaged first and married next, in secrecy; avowedly selfish, worshipping false gods in the matter of art and science; and, worst of all, ill-tempered, and boorish in his ill temper. Lastly, she was, at this stage, rapidly making the discovery that not even for a title and a carriage and a West End square ought she to marry a man she was unable to respect.

"We will now go back to the lady's bower," she said. "This talk, Humphrey, will have to last a long while."

CHAPTER VI.
THE OLD LOVER

"My dear Dick!" Molly ran into the dining-room of her dingy boarding-house, which was also the reception-room for visitors. "At last! I thought you were never coming to see me again."

"It has been a long summer. I only came home last night."

"Sit down, and let me look at you." She put him in a chair, and turned his face to the light, familiarly holding it by the chin. "You look very well, Dick. You are browned by the summer's sun, that's all."

She released his chin, and lightly boxed his ears. They had always been on very friendly terms, these two.

"Well, Dick, tell me about your summer. Has it been prosperous? Have you had adventures?" She laughed, because she knew very well the kind of adventures that this young man desired.

"Adventures come to the adventurous, Molly."

"Oh, how I envied you that day when you turned up among the tombs, covered all over with dust, looking so fit and going so free! If I were only a man, to go off with you on the tramp!"

"I wish you were, Molly. We would go off together. I've often thought of it. You should carry a mandoline; I would stick to the fiddle. We would take a room at the inn, and have a little show. You should dance and sing and twang the mandoline. I should play the fiddle and do the patter. We should have a rare time, Molly."

"We should, oh, we should! Do you remember that time when daddy let me go with him, and you came too?"

"I do. I remember how charming you looked, even then! You were about fourteen; you wore a red flannel cap. You used to take off your shoes and stockings whenever we came to a brook, and wade in it with your pretty bare feet."

"And we rested on the trunks of trees in the woods, and had dinner in the open. And you talked to all the gipsies in their own language. And one night we sat round their fire, and had some of their stew for supper. Oh! And we listened to the birds, and made nosegays of honeysuckle. And the people came to the inn at night while you played the fiddle, and daddy sang comic songs and did conjuring tricks. Oh, what a time it was!"

"And you danced. Don't forget your dance, Molly. I taught you that dance."

The girl laughed merrily. Then she threw herself into the attitude common to all dancing-girls in all ages and all countries – the arms held out and the foot pointed.

"I haven't forgotten it, Dicky. I only wish I could forget it." She sighed. "It would be better for me if I could."

"If we could go away together, Molly!" He took her hand and held it.

"Don't, Dick, don't! You make me feel a longing for the road and the country."

"There's nothing like it, Molly darlin', nothing! When the summer comes, I'm off. All the winter I live in a lonely flat, and am respectable."

"As respectable as you can be, Dick."

"Well, I put on dress clothes and get engagements. I don't mind, so that in summer I can be a tramp and a rogue and a vagabond."

"Not a rogue, Dick."

"I was born behind the scenes in a circus at St. Louis before my worthy parent ran away from his wife. It's in the blood, I suppose. I don't care, Molly, what they say." He sprang to his feet, and began to walk about. "There is no life like it. We don't want money; we don't try to be gentlefolk. We're not cooped up in cages. All we've got to do is to amuse the people. We're not stupid; we're not dull. We're not selfish; we are contented with a little. We're never tired of it. We're always trying some new business. My poor Molly, you're out of it. Pity, pity!" He sat down again, shaking his head. "And you born to it – actually born to it!"

"Well, I'm to have the next best thing to it. I'm to be an actress, at any rate."

"An actress! Well, that's something. Tell me about it, Molly."

"A serious actress – a tragic actress. It's all settled. I'm to show the world the real inwardness of Shakespeare. I'm to be the light and lamp of all other actresses. I'm to be another Siddons."

"You another Siddons? Oh, Molly!" He laughed, but not convincingly. The part of the scoffer was new to him. "You, with that face, with those lips, with those eyes? My child, you might be another Nelly Farren, but never another Siddons."

The girl laughed too; but only for a moment. Then she became serious.

"It's got to be, Dick. Don't tempt me. Don't make me unhappy. It would grieve Hilarie awfully if I failed or changed my mind – which is her mind."

"My cousin Hilarie hasn't the complete disposal of your life, has she?"

"She ought to have, because she saved my life. What should I have done, Dick, when daddy died and left me without a penny? There are relations about, I dare say; but I don't know where. My only chance was to get in somewhere. You were away. What could I do? Eighteenpence a night to go on – "

"No, no; not with that crew, Molly."

"There Hilarie found me. And she thinks she is doing the best thing in the world for me when she gets me taught to be a tragedy queen."

"You shall be a great actress, Molly. You shall rake in fifty pounds a week, and you shall wear long chains of diamonds, if you like."

"I've got ambition enough, if that counts for anything. I like that part of it where the great actress sweeps across the stage, with all the people shouting and clapping. Why, when daddy took me to the pit, and I used to watch the leading lady marching majestically – like this – with her long train, sweeping it back – so – I resolved to be an actress. And when she spoke the lines, I didn't care twopence about the sense, if they had any; I was thinking all the time how grand she looked, and how splendid it must be to have all the world in love with you."

"You shall have it, Molly – if you like, that is. You were always ready to think about fellows being in love with you, were you not?"

"Why not? The stories and the plays and the songs are all about love. A girl can't help wanting all the world to be in love with her. At the theatre I used to see love and admiration on every man's face. The women's faces were not so full of love, I noticed."

"Oh, you noticed that, did you? At so early an age? Wonderful!"

"And now, Dick, now, you see, I've found out that it means work; and after all the work it may mean failure. Sometimes I think – Dick, I don't mind saying everything to you – girls who are beautiful – like me, in my way – were never intended to work; they were to be rewarded for their good looks by – you know – the prince, Dick."

"Sometimes it comes off," Dick replied thoughtfully. "There was Claribel Winthrop – Jane Perks her real name was – in one of my country companies; she married a young lord. But she worked desperately hard for it. All of us looked on and backed her up. It might come off that way; but I should be sorry, Molly. You're born for better things; you ought to have an empty purse."

"What should you say, Dick, if it was to come off that way?"

"Is there a young lord, then? Already?" He changed colour.

"He isn't a lord, but he is not far off, Dick; and I can have him if I like."

"What sort of a fellow, Molly? Oh, be very careful. It is the devil and all if he isn't the right sort. Do you like him?" His face twisted as if he could not find it in his heart to like him.

"He's a baronet. He's young. He wants to conceal things. His mother doesn't like show folk. He thinks most people are cads. He's rich."

"You don't mean to say it's that cousin of mine – not Sir Humphrey?"

She nodded her head. "You don't like him, I know. I'm afraid he's got a temper, and I don't know if I shall be able to put up with him."

"You haven't promised, have you?"

"He says I have. But I haven't, really. I am always reminding him that there is still time to draw back. But, Dick, think! To have plenty of money! To be independent!"

Dick groaned. "It's the greatest temptation in the world. Eve's apple was made of gold, and after she'd got it she couldn't eat it. You think of that, Molly. You can't eat a golden apple. Now, I could give you a real delicious Ribstone pippin." He sat down beside her, and took her hand again. "It's very serious, my dear." It is the manner of the stage to address the ladies so. It means nothing. Whether it is also the manner to take their hands, I know not. "You must be very careful, Molly. Will my other cousin, Hilarie, advise?"

"It's a secret, so far. But don't think about it, Dick. I've got to please Hilarie first. The young man will have to be considered next."

"Well, if there's nothing fixed – Molly, I don't like the fellow, I own. I don't like any of the lot who talk about outsiders and cads, as if they were a different order. Still, if it makes you happy – Molly, I swear there's nothing I wouldn't consent to if it would make you happy." The tears stood in his eyes.

"My dear Dick," she said. "There's nobody cares for me so much as you." And the tears stood in her eyes as well.

The young man let go her hand, and stood up. "That's enough, Molly – so long as we understand. Now tell me about the studies. Are you really working?"

"Really working. But, oh, Dick, my trouble is that the harder I work the more I feel as if it isn't there. I do exactly what I am told to do, and it doesn't come off."

"But when you used to sing and dance – "

"Oh, anybody could make people laugh."

The actor groaned. "She says – anybody! And she can do it! And they put her into tragedy!"

"Whenever I try to feel the emotion myself, it vanishes, and I can only feel myself in white satin, with a long train sweeping to the back of the stage, and all the house in love with me."

"This is bad; this is very bad, Molly."

"See, here, Dick, I'm telling you all my troubles. I am studying the part of Desdemona – you know, Desdemona who married a black man. How could she? – and of course he was jealous. I've got to show all kinds of emotion before that beast of a husband kills me."

"It's a fine part – none finer. Once I saw it played magnificently. She was in a travelling company, and she died of typhoid, poor thing! Yes, I can see her now." He acted as he spoke. "She was full of forebodings; her husband was cold; her distress of mind was shown in the way she took up trifles, and put them down again; she spoke she knew not what, and sang snatches of song; in her eyes stood tears; her voice trembled; she moved about uneasily; she clutched at her dress in agitation.

"'The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,

Sing all a green willow.'"

"Why," cried the girl, "you make me feel it – you – only with talking about it! And I – alas! Have I any feeling in me at all, Dick?"

"Oh yes, it's there – it's there all right. There's tragedy in the most unpromising materials, if you know how to get at it. I think a woman's got to be in love first. It's a very fine thing for an actress to fall in love – the real thing, I mean. Then comes jealousy, of course. And after that, all the real tragedy emotions."

"Oh, love!" the girl repeated with scorn.

"Try again now; you know the words."

Molly began to repeat the lines —

 
"My mother had a maid called Barbara;
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad,
And forsook her; she had a song of 'Willow.'"
 

She declaimed these lines with certain gestures which had been taught her. She broke off, leaving the rest unfinished.

The effect was wooden. There was no pity, no sorrow, no foreboding in the lines at all. Dick shook his head.

"What am I to say to Hilarie?" she asked.

Dick passed his fingers through his hair. Then he sat down again, and began to laugh – laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

"You a tragedy queen!" he said. "Not even if you were over head and ears in love. Now, on the other hand, if I had my fiddle in my hand, and were to play – so – that air which you remember" – he put out his legs straight and sat upright, and pretended the conduct of a fiddle and bow – "could you dance, do you think, as you used to dance two years ago?"

She stood before him, seeming to listen. Then she gently moved her head as if touched by the music. Then she raised her arms and began to dance, with such ease and grace and lightness as can only belong to the dancer born.

"Thank you, Molly." He stood up as if the music was over. "We shall confer further upon this point – and other points. When may I come again to visit Miss Molly Pennefather?"

He caught her head in his hands and kissed her gaily on her forehead – after all, he had no more manners than can be expected of a tramp – and vanished.

"If Dick could only play 'Desdemona'!" she murmured, looking after him at the closed door. "Why, he actually looked the part. I suppose he has been in love. If I could only do it so!" She imitated his gestures, and broke out into singing —

"The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,

Sing all a green willow."

"No," she said; "it won't do. I don't feel a bit like Desdemona. I am only myself, and I am filled with the most unholy longing for money – for riches, for filthy lucre, which we are told to despise."

Her eyes fell upon a newspaper, folded and lying on the floor. It had probably dropped out of Dick's pocket. She took it up mechanically, and opened it, expecting nothing. The sheet was one of the gossipy papers of the day, full of personal paragraphs. She glanced at it, thinking of the paragraphs about herself and her grand success, which would probably never appear, unless she could transform herself.

Presently her eye caught the word "millionaire," and she read —

"Among the nouveaux riches– the millionaires of the West – we must not, as Englishmen, forget to enumerate Mr. John Haveril, who has made his money partly by transactions in silver-mines, and partly by the sudden creation of a town on his own lands. He is said to be worth no more than two or three millions sterling, so that he is not in the very front rank of American rich men. Still, there is a good deal of spending, even in so moderate a fortune. Mr. Haveril is by birth an Englishman and a Yorkshireman. He was born about sixty years ago, and emigrated about the year '55. His wife is also of English origin, having been born at Hackney. Her maiden name was Alice Pennefather."

 

Molly looked up in bewilderment. "There can't be two people of that name!" she said. She went on with the paper —

"They have no children to inherit their wealth. They have arrived in London, and have taken rooms at the Hôtel Métropole."

That was all. She put the paper on the table. "Alice Pennefather! Why, she must be the Alice who disappeared – Dad's first cousin! But Alice married an actor named Anthony; Dad gave her away. He often wondered what had become of her. This Mr. Haveril is a second husband, I suppose. And now she's a millionairess! I think I might go and call upon her at the Hôtel Métropole. I will."