If Only etc. Part 10

Her daughter laughed.

"I certainly do not wish him to be more demonstrative, mother dear; love-making is the most boring process imaginable; but still, I should prefer, I must confess, that there was no under-current of feeling for wife number one."

"You amaze me, Ethel, by suggesting such a horrible idea. The woman may be dead for anything I know; at all events, she left England before he obtained his divorce, and no one has heard anything of her since. It is extremely improbable that she will ever return to this country."

But in this, as we know, the d.u.c.h.ess was in grave error.

At that very moment Bella was sitting by the open piano in her cosy apartments in a street off the Strand, idly striking a note here and there and humming the air of a new song; but her cough, which was incessant, made singing almost out of the question.

"I believe I'm getting worse," she cried, rising and flinging herself on the sofa, "I'm sure I was not so bad as this three months ago--not so bad when--he never came. Ah! why should he? How could I expect it?

Perhaps to-day may have been his wedding day! Come in."

The door opened noisily, and Saidie Blackall, very much over-dressed and distinctly rouged and made up, entered, followed by Mr. and Mrs.

Doss, looking precisely the same as on that memorable night when they had been the innocent cause of so much trouble to Bella's husband.

The old music-hall singer and his wife had lost no time in looking her up when she returned from the States, and were really well-meaning, kindly folk.

"Hallo, Bella, you look done up!"

"I am," admitted the girl wearily. "It was as much as I could do to pull through to-night, and I have got a beastly new song to tackle."

"I don't like your cough, my dear," said Mrs. Doss, looking distressed; "it shakes you to bits."

"I've got a little more cold, I fancy; but I'll be all right in a day or two."

"You're not looking the thing--I saw you from the front to-night--and--well, I guess it was a bit of a heffort to sing at all, eh?"

Bella turned quickly and looked sharply into Mr. Doss's face.

"If you have got anything disagreeable to say, don't be afraid, out with it. I suppose you have jumped to the notion that I'm dying?"

She tried to laugh, but it was a piteous attempt, and ended in a fit of coughing which left her white and trembling in every limb.

"There, there!" cried Mrs. Doss, compa.s.sionately; "you must not excite yourself; we will do the talking, and you keep quiet."

Bella lay back on her cus.h.i.+ons, weak and exhausted, and when the Dosses at length went away she gave a sigh of relief.

"What did they come for to-night?" she said thoughtfully.

"Well, Bella, Doss had heard a bit of bad news and thought it as well to put you on your guard; but finding you like this put it out of his head, I suppose."

"Bad news? What do you mean? He's not married, is he?"

Saidie stared at her.

"Not that I know of--why, he would have you to-morrow; you know that as well as I do! you are treating him in a rough way; there's no mistake about it."

Bella fell back again relievedly.

"Oh, you're talking about Charlie, are you?" she said.

"Who should I be talking about? There isn't no one else as wants to make an honest woman of you, is there?"

The shaft fell short of its mark. Bella did not even wince.

"Well, it strikes me, my girl, you'll have to fall in with his views," Saidie continued presently; "for if what has come to Doss's ears is true, you'll be out of a berth before you can say Christopher Columbus."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"The management are getting dissatisfied, and we know what that means."

The pale face flushed poppy red.

"They can't help themselves," she said eagerly. "I have a contract for six months. They cannot cancel it, you must know they can't, and it's not very likely I shall allow myself to be played fast and loose with as the fancy takes them."

"But if you're not able to fulfil your share of the contract--"

"Who says I am not?" cried Bella fiercely. "Old Robertson is a fool, and if he thinks I'm going to put up with any hanky-panky, he's jolly well mistaken. Let him try it on, that's all! I should immediately take steps to enforce my rights, the law is on my side, that's clear enough."

"I don't know! You heard what Doss said--about how you looked from the front; and others have got their eyesight as well as him, and can see you are not well and not--"

"Not fit to sing--that's what you are driving at?"

Saidie was silent.

"I tell you I will sing. Nothing and no one shall stop me. I shall just defy them all, and go on, and there's no law in England to stop me."

"If you are not a goose, Bella, I never saw one! What in all the world keeps you on the boards, I cannot see. Here's a man come over from N'York with the intention of marrying you; a man who is earning his hundred dollars a week, and you turn up your nose at him. I can't understand you. You seemed proud enough of him a week or two back; but now all on a sudden, for no earthly reason, you show him the cold shoulder."

"I suppose I can please myself," answered Bella, and her lip quivered, and the tears began to roll down her cheeks.

"I wish to G.o.d I had never left--Jack," she said weakly.

Whereupon Saidie gave her what she was pleased to call a "piece of her mind" as to the insane folly of any such speech, the result of which was that Bella wept and coughed herself into a state of collapse, and had to be carried off to bed.

Things did not mend. Bella persisted, ill though she was, in appearing night after night in public until at length what Saidie had predicted came to pa.s.s, and she received a formal notice cancelling her engagement at the Empire on the ground of the extreme delicacy of her health.

Mr. and Mrs. Doss happened to be with her at the time she received the notice, and Bella partially appealed to them.

"You will help me, won't you? You won't allow them to impose upon me so shamefully. They have no right to do it. It's infamous--'annul my engagement' indeed! They shall find out who they are dealing with. It would be ruin for me, it would simply spoil my career. I shall go down at once and see Robertson. It's a likely thing that I'm going to sit down calmly and quietly and accept my dismissal. Not if I know it. I'll give Robertson beans."

"I wouldn't do it if I were you," said Mrs. Doss quietly.

"Not do it; what do you mean? You must be dreaming. It is the only thing to be done."

And now Mr. Doss, obeying a pathetic glance of his better half, put in his oar.

"Be a bit patient; wait and see how things turn out; don't do anything in a 'urry--that's our advice--the old gal's and mine."