Berenice Part 9

She handed him a little volume of poems; he glanced at the t.i.tle and made a faint grimace. They were his own.

Nevertheless, he read for an hour, till the streets below grew silent, and his own voice, unaccustomed to such exercise, lost something of its usual clearness. Then he laid the volume down, and there was silence between them.

"I have been thinking," he said at last, "of a singular incident in connection with your performance at the New Theatre; it was brought into my mind just then. I meant to have mentioned it before."

She looked up with only a slight show of interest. Those days at the theatre seemed to her now to be very far behind. There was nothing in connection with them which she cared to remember.

"It was the night of my first visit there," he continued. "There is a terrible scene at the end of the second act between Herdrine and her husband--you recollect it, of course. Just as you finished your denunciation, I distinctly heard a curious cry from the back of the house. It was a greater tribute to your acting than the applause, for it was genuine."

"The piece was gloomy enough," she remarked, "to have dissolved the house in tears."

"At least," he said, "it wrung the heart of one man. For I have not told you all. I was interested enough to climb up into the amphitheatre. The man sat there alone amongst a wilderness of empty seats. He was the picture of abject misery. I could scarcely see his face, but his att.i.tude was convincing. It was not a thing of chance either. I made some remark about him to an attendant, and he told me that night after night that man had occupied the same seat, always following every line of the play with the same mournful concentration, never speaking to any one, never moving from his seat from the beginning of the play to the end."

"He must have been," she declared, "a person of singularly morbid taste. When I think of it now I s.h.i.+ver. I would not play Herdrine again for worlds."

"I am very glad to hear you say so," he said, smiling. "Do you know that to me the most interesting feature of the play was its obvious effect upon this man. Its extreme pessimism is too much paraded, is laid on altogether with too thick a hand to ring true. The thing is an involved nightmare. One feels that as a work of art it is never convincing, yet underneath it all there must be something human, for it found its way into the heart of one man."

"It is possible," she remarked, "that he was mad. The man who found it sufficiently amusing to come to the theatre night after night could scarcely have been in full possession of his senses."

"That is possible," he admitted; "but I do not believe it. The man's face was sad enough, but it was not the face of a madman."

"You did see his face, then?"

"On the last night of the play," he continued. "You remember you were going on to Lady Truton's, so I did not come behind. But I had a fancy to see you for a moment, and I came round into Pitt Street just as you were driving off. On the other side of the way this man was standing watching you!"

She looked at him with a suddenly kindled interest--or was it fear?--in her dark eyes. The colour had left her cheeks; she was white to the lips.

"Watching me?"

"Yes. As your carriage drove off he stood watching it. I don't know what prompted me, but I crossed the street to speak to him. He seemed such a lone, mournful figure standing there half dazed, shabby, muttering softly to himself. But when he saw me coming, he gave one half-frightened look at me and ran, literally ran down the street on to the Strand. I could not follow,--the police would have stopped him.

So he disappeared."

"You saw his face. What was he like?"

Berenice had leaned right back amongst the yielding cus.h.i.+ons of her divan, and he could scarcely see her face. Yet her voice sounded to him strange and forced. He looked at her in some surprise.

"I had a glimpse of it. It was an ordinary face enough; in fact, it disappointed me a little. But the odd part of it was that it seemed vaguely familiar to me. I have seen it before, often. Yet, try as I will, I cannot recollect where, or under what circ.u.mstances."

"At Oxford," she suggested. "By the bye, what was your college?"

"St. John's. No, I do not think,--I hope that it was not at Oxford.

Some day I shall think of it quite suddenly."

Berenice rose from her chair with a sudden, tempestuous movement and stood before him.

"Listen!" she exclaimed. "Supposing I were to tell you that I knew or could guess who that man was--why he came! Oh, if I were to tell you that I were a fraud, that----"

Matravers stopped her.

"I beg," he said, "that you will tell me nothing!"

There was a short silence. Berenice seemed on the point of breaking down. She was nervously lacing and interlacing her fingers. Her breath was coming spasmodically.

"Berenice," he said softly, "you are over-wrought; you are not quite yourself to-night. Do not tell me anything. Indeed, there is no need for me to know; just as you are I am content with you, and proud to be your friend."

"Ah!"

She sat down again. He could not see her face, but he fancied that she was weeping. He himself found his customary serenity seriously disturbed. Perhaps for the first time in his life he found himself not wholly the master of his emotions. The atmosphere of the little room, the perfume of the flowers, the soft beauty of the woman herself, whose breath fell almost upon his cheek, affected him as nothing of the sort had ever done before. He rose abruptly to his feet.

"You will be so much better alone," he said, taking her fingers and smoothing them softly in his for a moment. "I am going away now."

"Yes. Good-by!"

At the threshold he paused. She had not looked up at him. She was still sitting there with bowed head and hidden face. He closed the door softly, and went out.

CHAPTER XI

The enthusiasm with which Matravers' play had been received on the night of its first appearance was, if anything, exceeded on the night before the temporary closing of the theatre for the usual summer vacation. The success of the play itself had never been for a moment doubtful. For once the critics, the general press, and the public, were in entire and happy agreement. The first night had witnessed an extraordinary scene. An audience as brilliant as any which could have been brought together in the first city in the world, had flatly refused to leave the theatre until Matravers himself, reluctant and ill-pleased, had joined Fergusson and Berenice before the footlights; and now on the eve of its temporary withdrawal something of the same sort was threatened again, and Matravers only escaped by standing up in the front of his box, and bowing his acknowledgments to the delighted audience.

It was a well-deserved success, for certainly as a play it was a brilliant exception to anything which had lately been produced upon the English stage. The worn-out methods and motives of most living playwrights were rigorously avoided; everything about it was fresh and spontaneous. Its sentiment was relieved by the most delicate vein of humour. It was everywhere tender and human. The dialogue, to which Matravers had devoted his usual fastidious care, was polished and sprightly; there was not anywhere a single dull or unmusical line. It was a cla.s.sic, the critics declared,--the first literary play by a living author which London had witnessed for many years. The bookings for months ahead were altogether phenomenal. Fergusson saw a certain fortune within his hands, and Matravers, sharing also in the golden harvest, found another and a still greater cause for satisfaction.

For Berenice had justified his selection. The same night, as the greatest of critics, speaking through the columns of the princ.i.p.al daily paper, had said, which had presented to them a new writer for the stage, had given them also a new actress. She had surprised Matravers, she had amazed Fergusson, who found himself compelled to look closely to his own laurels. In short, she was a success, descended, if not from the clouds, at least from the mists of Isteinism, but accorded, without demur or hesitation, a foremost place amongst the few accepted actresses. Her future and his position were absolutely secured, and her reputation, as Matravers was happy to think, was made, not as the portrayer of a sickly and unnatural type of diseased womanhood, but as the woman of his own creation, a very sweet and pure English lady.

The house emptied at last, and Matravers made his way behind, where many of Fergusson's friends had gathered together, and where congratulations were the order of the day. A species of informal reception was going on, champagne cup and sandwiches were being handed around and a general air of extreme good humour pervaded the place.

Berenice was the centre of a group of men amongst whom Matravers was annoyed to see Thornd.y.k.e. If he could have withdrawn unseen, he would have done so; but already he was surrounded. A little stir at the entrance attracted his attention. He turned round and found Fergusson presenting him to a royal personage, who was graciously pleased, however, to remember a former meeting, and waved away the words of introduction.

It chanced, without any design on his part, that Berenice and he left almost at the same time, and met near the stage door. She dropped Fergusson's arm--he had left his guests to see her to her carriage--and motioned to Matravers.

"Won't you see me home?" she asked quietly. "I have sent my maid on, she was so tired, and I am all alone."

"I shall be very pleased," Matravers answered. "May I come in with you?" Fergusson lingered for a moment or two at the carriage door, and then they drove off. Berenice, with a little sigh, leaned back amongst the cus.h.i.+ons.

"You are very tired, I am afraid," he said gently. "The last few weeks must have been a terrible strain upon you."

"They have been in many ways," she said, "the happiest of my life."

"I am glad of that; yet it is quite time that you had a rest."

She did not answer him,--she did not speak again until the carriage drew up before her house. He handed her out, and opened the door with the latch-key which she pa.s.sed over to him.

"Good night," he said, holding out his hand.

"You must please come in for a little time," she begged. "I have seen you scarcely at all lately. You have not even told me about your travels."