Miser Farebrother Volume Ii Part 10

CHAPTER VIII.

THE POOR AUTHOR'S HOME.

Outside the humble house in Lambeth in which Mr. Linton and his family occupied two modest rooms--and those not the best--Uncle Leth paced the lonely street. There was not a soul about, with the exception of the policeman, with whom Uncle Leth exchanged a few words explaining his presence; but although that functionary expressed himself satisfied, he still kept an eye upon the stranger in the neighbourhood. Aunt Leth was upstairs with Mrs. Linton; the unfortunate author had not returned home, as Aunt Leth, running breathlessly down to the street door, had informed her husband; and Uncle Leth was now looking anxiously for his appearance. It was out of a feeling of delicacy that he had not entered the house; he knew that the intrusion of a strange man would have alarmed Mrs. Linton, and have marred the kind errand upon which he and his wife were engaged. So he waited outside, listening for footsteps, and mentally praying that Mr. Linton had done nothing rash.

Aunt Leth and Mrs. Linton were already friends, and it seemed to the poor author's wife as if she had known her kind visitor for years. It was not without trepidation that Aunt Leth had introduced herself to Mrs. Linton, but she allowed no signs of this feeling to appear in her manner: she was cheerful and un.o.btrusive, and her sweet face and pleasant voice conveyed hope to the heart of the anxious wife.

"I am a friend of your husband," Aunt Leth said, "and I hope you will forgive me for calling upon you at so late an hour. My name is Lethbridge."

"Yes," said Mrs. Linton; "my husband has often spoken of you and your family. He was desirous that we should become personally acquainted some time since; but"--she paused here; the sentence, completed, would have been an avowal of poverty.

"But," said Aunt Leth, taking up the words, with a sweet smile, "you have been so busy, and your husband has been so much engaged, that you could not find time. It is just the way with us at home. The days are really not long enough for one's cares and duties."

"Are you alone?" asked Mrs. Linton.

"No; my husband is below, waiting for me. He would not come up, it is so late. I should not have had the courage to come had I not heard that your little boy was not well. Dear little fellow! You won't mind my kissing you, will you, sweet?"

She was by the bedside, bending over the lad, who was awake, and who, when she lowered her face to his, put his little arms round her neck. In Aunt Leth's beautiful ways there was an affectionate magnetism which won the hearts of old and young. Mrs. Linton burst into tears.

"Don't cry, my dear," said Aunt Leth; "we are going to be very good friends, and everything will be bright and happy. Ah! it is only wives and mothers like ourselves who know what real trouble is; but then we are able to bear it, thank G.o.d! It is love's duty. To be strong and reliant and hopeful will help to bring back the roses to your little boy's cheeks."

All the time she was speaking she was either at the bedside or doing un.o.btrusively something housewifely about the room, which made her presence there like an angel's visit.

"Where did you hear that our little boy was ill?" asked Mrs. Linton.

"At the theatre."

"Ah! you have been there?" Mrs. Linton's agitation was so great that her hand rose instinctively to her heart. It was a thin white hand, eloquent with weakness and suffering. "Tell me, tell me about the piece! I expected my husband home by this time. If it was a success he would have flown here."

"My dear," said Aunt Leth, with a bright look, "I am not an author's wife, and therefore I cannot speak with authority; but I can understand how much there must be to talk about at the theatre after the first representation of a play. Perhaps some trifling alterations to make, or a little dialogue to be strengthened or shortened, and there is nothing like taking these things in hand on the spur of the moment. That is business, and must be attended to, must it not? I hardly know whether I am right or wrong in what I say, but it seems to me so."

"You are right," sighed Mrs. Linton; "there are always a great many alterations to make in my husband's plays. I used to go on the first nights, but the excitement had such an effect upon me that I wait now to know whether they are likely to be a success or not. It is an anxious life, waiting, waiting, waiting for what, perhaps, will never come. It is wearing my poor husband out; and he works so hard, so earnestly--"

"All the more need for courage, my dear," said Aunt Leth, taking Mrs.

Linton's hand and patting it hopefully. "Bright fortune, when it comes, will be all the sweeter for a little delay. It will come, my dear, it will!"

"Perhaps too late!" murmured the mother, her apprehensive eyes travelling to the bed upon which her sick child was lying.

"You must not say that; you must not think it. When your husband returns you must be cheerful and strong; he will require such help after his anxious night. And what a beautiful play he has written! How proud you must be of him!"

With such like affectionate interchange of confidences did the time pa.s.s in Mrs. Linton's room; but Aunt Leth's heart almost fainted within her at the lengthened absence of the author. No less anxious was Uncle Leth in the street below. Two or three times, on some pretence or other, Aunt Leth ran down to him to satisfy herself that he was all right, hoping on each occasion that she would return in the company of Mr. Linton. She and her husband were afraid to give expression to their fast-growing fears. All that Uncle Leth said was: "Don't hurry away. You must not leave till Mr. Linton comes home. He will be here soon."

But more than an hour elapsed before the author appeared, and Uncle Leth breathed a "Thank G.o.d!" when he saw him turn the corner of the street, in the company of Kiss. Uncle Leth hastened toward them to explain the meaning of his presence, but Mr. Linton did not give him time to utter a word. His agitation was so great, he had been so wrought up by the incidents of the night, that he saw a tragedy in the surprise.

"My G.o.d!" he cried; and but for the support afforded by Kiss's strong arm he would have fallen to the ground. "My wife! my child!"

"Are well," said Uncle Leth, quickly. "My wife is with yours, and they are waiting for you. Don't take it ill of us; we are here in true friends.h.i.+p and sympathy. Keep up your heart; all will turn out right."

"That's what I've been telling him," said Kiss, heartily; "and if ever there was a bright omen, this is one. Now go up to your wife, like a good fellow, and put on a cheerful face. We shall rub through. Never lose sight of the silver lining, my boy; it is s.h.i.+ning now in your room on the faces of two good women!"

Mr. Linton, unable to speak, pressed Uncle Leth's hand, and pa.s.sed into the house, leaving his friends in the street.

"How kind of you!" murmured Kiss. "I intended to go up with Linton, but now your good wife is there my presence is not required. I have had a dreadful time with him. When he rushed out of the theatre I hardly knew what to think, being knocked over, so to speak, by the strange speech he made. I was not the only one; it was so novel, so thoroughly unexpected.

There is just the chance it may be the talk of the town, and if that happens it will bring money to the treasury. I ran up to my dressing-room for a quick change, and it suddenly occurred to me that in the state Linton was in it would be as well if he had a friend by his side. Quick as thought I left the theatre, without waiting to wash, and knowing the road Linton always took home, followed it without coming up to him. I didn't trouble myself about the public-houses: Linton is a temperate man, and he was in no mood for company. With a great success it might have been different: he might have taken a gla.s.s. You see, Mr.

Lethbridge, I know him and his ways. He is wonderfully sensitive and nervous, and he had taken it into his head that upon the success of _A Heart of Gold_ his whole career depended. He had staked all his hopes upon it. Success meant life, fortune, fame, happiness: failure meant death, ruin, despair. It is the misfortune of these highly sensitive natures; they suffer the tortures of the d.a.m.ned! How did you come here?"

"In a cab," said Uncle Leth.

"I followed Linton on foot, and must have been pretty smart, because I got here before you arrived. I ascertained from the landlady of the house that Linton had not come home, and back I started, retracing my steps, first cautioning the landlady not to let Mrs. Linton know that I had been here making inquiries. I'll tell you what was in my mind.

Linton's road home led past a bridge, which he had no occasion to cross, and I thought if I didn't meet him before I came to that bridge that I would cross it myself, to see if some impulse of despair had drawn his steps in that direction. Sir, I was right! There, looking down upon the river, stood Linton. I must not do him an injustice: I do not believe he had any idea of suicide; it was simply that he was in a condition of blank despairing bewilderment, and it is my opinion he might have stood there for hours without conscious thought. When I laid my hand upon his shoulder, he looked at me like a man in a dream. It was quite a time before he completely recovered himself; before, it may be said, he was awake. Then we talked. He could not tell me how he had got on the bridge; he had been drawn there, as I supposed, and he stood looking down upon the river in a kind of waking trance. I could dilate on the theme, but the hour is not propitious. Well, Mr. Lethbridge, when we conversed intelligently, I discovered that he was afraid to go home.

Hereby hangs a tale. His wife, before he married her, was in a better position in life than he; she had wealthy relatives, who disowned her when she married Linton. Since then it has been one long struggle; nothing but hards.h.i.+ps; nothing but privations. She has never reproached him; such a thought I am certain has never entered her mind. But he has taken it into his head that he has done her a great wrong, and the culminating events of this night at the theatre took all the courage out of him; he dared not face her. But for him she might have been prosperous and happy; it was through him that her life had been wrecked.

I had to combat this view, and it needed all my powers. Without wearying you I may say that I partly succeeded at length in bringing him to a better state of mind. That is all, and I have ended just in time. Here is your wife. Madam," he said, advancing, and raising her hand to his lips, "in the garden of human nature you are the sweetest flower!"

CHAPTER IX.

WHAT THE NEWSPAPERS SAID OF "A HEART OF GOLD."

Mr. Linton's speech before the curtain served more than one good purpose with many of the dramatic critics. It diverted the attention of some from the demerits of the comedy drama, and it softened the condemnation which others would have p.r.o.nounced upon it. Again, it furnished a theme upon which one and all dilated--this one indulgently, that one severely; but the main point was (and the most important in the judgment of the manager of the Star Theatre) that it drew public attention to the production.

"The great point gained," said that astute individual, "is that we get a lot of advertising for nothing."

There were leading articles upon the incident, and it provoked correspondence upon certain collateral matters, which the theatrical manager did his best to nourish. "Keep the pot boiling," said he, and he persuaded his friends to write to the papers, not caring much which side they took so long as their letters were inserted. The old cry of first-night cliques was raised; the right of pa.s.sing judgment within the walls of the theatre on the first night of production was defended, as to which certain methods in vogue were challenged or upheld, some calling them cruel, others maintaining that they were just. Novel theories were discussed. Said one correspondent:

"We are compelled to pay our money at the doors before we know anything of the quality of the dish which is to be set before us. If it is worthless, we are naturally indignant, and we say as much; if it is good work, we give unstinted praise. Had we the option of paying afterward, instead of being compelled to part with our money beforehand, the case would be different."

To this it was replied:

"n.o.body forces you to the theatre on first nights; you can keep away if you choose until you hear from the dramatic critics whether the fare is good or bad."

Of course came the indignant rejoinder:

"It is the public who are the critics, not the writers on the press.

There is not a man in pit or gallery who is not as good a judge of the merits of a play as the best professional dramatic critic in the country."

An Englishman who had just returned from a visit to America wrote:

"Three weeks ago I was present in a New York theatre on the first production of a new play. It was the most wretched trash imaginable, and was an unmitigated and deserved failure. In comparison with the play I witnessed then, _A Heart of Gold_, at the first representation of which I was present, s.h.i.+nes forth a most worthy, intellectual, and praiseworthy effort. It is the work of an earnest, capable playwright, who deserves every encouragement, even when he does not come up to the requirements of the modern play-goer. I will, however, go so far as to place the two plays on a level, p.r.o.nouncing them, for the purpose of my ill.u.s.tration, as equal in merit--which is not the case, for one is a gem, the other the vilest paste. Both plays were condemned. Note, now, the methods of condemnation. In New York, when the curtain fell, the audience very quietly left the theatre; there was no applause; there were no shrieks and howls; no brutal cries for 'Author,' to serve a cruel end. There was something almost funereal in the manner of the New York audience as they filed slowly out of the house; they seemed to tread more softly than usual; they spoke in lower tones. This was their method of d.a.m.ning the play, and I commend it to the attention of London play-goers as incomparably more decent and respectable than that which they adopt to break an author's heart. There are certain of our national customs which will bear reform; this undoubtedly is one. As I pen these lines I see the two a.s.semblages; one conducting itself with reason and dignity, as becomes rational men and women; the other conducting itself with unreasoning and indefensible cruelty, as becomes a lower order of being."

A morning paper of high repute summed up the matter thus:

"In our columns to-day will be found a letter from a gentleman who contrasts with some force the different methods of 'd.a.m.ning' a play in England and America. He commends the American system and condemns the English, ignoring, as it appears to us, the more important issues which hang upon the methods he describes. If the matter which he argues commenced and ended with the behaviour of an audience on the first night of a new production, his views would be convincing, but it only commences and does not end there. We have ourselves, on several occasions during late years, commented with some severity upon the unnecessarily noisy conduct of first-night audiences in London when an indifferent or a bad play has been submitted to their judgment, but we have never gone so far as to absolutely condemn the method which has excited the indignation of our correspondent. It is merely a question of degree, and the good sense of the public will sooner or later set the matter right. To this end the proceedings at the Star Theatre on the first representation of _A Heart of Gold_ will healthfully contribute.