Part 10

He gave a slightly startled movement at her news. It was as though he shrank from hearing it.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "Where is she?"

"At Eastbourne."

"Is--is it serious?"

"Very serious. They--" the words stuck in her throat--"they are operating now. She wished to see you. She was talking of you to me this morning--"

She was interrupted by the entrance of a third person, a woman who came in without knocking, a woman, pretty beneath her paint, with curiously hard blue eyes. She stared at Alexandra with open hostility and then looked interrogatively at Lambert.

"This lady has come up from Eastbourne," he hesitated. "My wife is ill and wants to see me."

After a momentary silence the newcomer allowed herself a trifling shrug of the shoulders.

"She has been ill before," she said a little contemptuously, and turned to Alexandra. "What is it this time? A bilious attack?"

Alexandra looked at her steadily, perhaps disdainfully. She guessed she had to do with Mary Mantel, the woman who had displaced Mrs. Lambert in her husband's affections.

"We fear she is dying," was her rejoinder.

The other woman laughed.

"Oh, I see! Advertising her 'farewell to the stage.' I daresay she will take her time over it."

Lambert turned on her.

"Be quiet!" he exclaimed irritably.

Again she shrugged. "It's our call directly."

"I can't help that. MacBride must go on for me."

He picked up a towel and was about to remove the grease paint from his face, but stopped at the ejaculation that broke from her.

"You can't possibly go to-night," she burst out. "Evidently these people"--she made an impatient gesture that indicated Alexandra--"don't know that it's the last night of your season, and that you're booked to leave for America in three days' time. Or probably they don't care. To think of throwing up your part at a moment's notice and letting the curtain come down in your absence is madness. You must stop for your speech. If you want to you can go first thing to-morrow, though you'll probably have a wire by then to say your wife's better and won't see you for worlds!"

A boy put his head in at the door.

"Your call, sir," he announced.

Lambert got up, the towel still in his hand, the paint still on his face. Alexandra watched the indecision in it. Had he enough strength of mind to come? Or would he let self-interest prevail?

"Hugh, do be guided by me," begged Miss Mantel. "Think of your career. There will be call on call for you at the end of the show. The house is full of pressmen. Are you going to throw away hundreds of pounds' worth of gratuitous advertisement?"

That last argument decided him. Publicity, the acclamation of the crowd, the opportunity to pose before it, to deliver the carefully-prepared speech, egotistical yet full of sham humility, were temptations he was unable to resist. With a quiver of his painted lips that owed nothing to solicitude for a wife who lay between life and death, he said:

"I'll come in the morning;" and without looking at Alexandra, made for the stage.

She heard the thunder of applause that greeted him. To the little tin gods the plaudits of the multitude are as the music of the spheres.

XXIV

It was verging on midnight when Chalfont came out of the sick room to hear the result of Alexandra's errand. The moment he saw that she was alone, limp and tired from her journey, he knew it had failed. He had had the forethought to have some cold supper ready for her, and while she ate a little of it and drank the glass of champagne which he insisted on her taking, he answered her many questions about Mrs. Lambert. In tones of sad resignation he told her that the operation had been successful but that there was little hope. She had taken the anesthetic badly and was still under its influence.

"So Lambert wouldn't come?" he asked, when the painful subject was exhausted.

"I believe he was willing to come," she replied. "I saw him alone first. But Miss Mantel came in and dissuaded him. It was a last night. He had to make a speech. She urged him to stay. He's very weak, I think. He said he would come in the morning. Can I go to her?"

"Better not. The nurse will let us know when she is conscious. It oughtn't to be long now. Lie down on the sofa and try to sleep."

She was too anxious for that, so they sat waiting, for hours as it seemed. Now and again they talked, but most of the time absorbed and troubled thought held them silent. No sound came from the next room. Presently its quiet was broken by the monotonous drone of a man's voice. Alexandra sat up, listening.

"Who is that?" she asked.

"The priest. He's with her."

Twice they heard a faint murmur mingled with a low intoning. Another half-hour passed. Then the priest came noiselessly into the room. He drew Chalfont on one side and they spoke together in whispers.

Presently the latter beckoned to Alexandra.

"Come," he said; and the three went into the sick room.

A light, carefully screened, threw the bed in shadow, but not sufficiently to hide the still form that lay upon it. Although the pallor of death was in Mrs. Lambert's face, it seemed to have grown youthful. She looked like a child asleep. Her eyes were closed. They could not tell whether she was aware of their presence or not. The priest stood at the foot of the bed lost in prayer. The nurses, still and white like statues, watched from a distance.

Chalfont, kneeling with a hand laid gently on that of the woman he loved, broke the long silence.

"Speak to us," he implored.

She heard his voice and opened her eyes. They had a spectral look, and as she turned them from him to Alexandra an expression of concern crept into her face. She murmured something faintly.

"Your husband will be here in the morning, dearest," he said softly but distinctly, trying to stimulate her to consciousness.

Some weighty thought was affecting her mind. Her eyes were on Chalfont. She seemed to be making an effort to say something.

"That poor girl ... that nice girl..."

Chalfont bent low, fearful of losing the whispered words.

"What poor girl, dear?"

They thought she said "Maggy."

Lambert arrived at six the next morning. His first concern was to explain breathlessly to Alexandra that he had been detained ... a business matter ... farewell supper.... She would understand.... He had hardly had three hours' sleep before starting. Chalfont and Alexandra could not help exchanging an outraged glance. When she told him that he had come too late his weak mouth opened in surprise. Then his features worked unpleasantly. He stood stupidly, looking as though he were about to burst into tears. Chalfont's tolerance was near its limit. With a set face he indicated the closed door.

"In there," he said.

Lambert hesitated.

"Do you not want to see her?" Chalfont's voice was like steel.

It only wanted the point-blank demand to unnerve Lambert completely. He collapsed into a chair. It would have been difficult to recognize his huddled figure as that of the debonair stage-gallant so familiar and so dear to a host of infatuated theater-goers.

"Do you not want to see her?" Chalfont repeated remorselessly.

Lambert's face was lowered. When he looked up cowardice transfigured it.

"I--I've never looked on death," he quavered.

Alexandra, shocked beyond words, thought that Chalfont would surely strike him. He stood over him so long in a tense attitude.

"My God!" he at last exclaimed. "Can this be a man?"

He went to the door by which Lambert had entered, opened it, and then drew aside as far as he could to let the actor pass.

XXV

The London newspapers had not given much of their space to Mrs. Lambert's doings while she was alive. She did not advertise in them. Besides, all their dramatic critics were on speaking terms with Lambert, and even dramatic critics have second-hand prejudices. But now that Mrs. Lambert was dead she was accorded the half-column of obituary notice to which actors and actresses seem to have a prescriptive right. Defunct millionaires and jam-makers get a little less: British officers who die for their country have to be satisfied with a couple of lines tucked away among the Military Intelligence.

The papers belauded the dead woman. They recorded her dramatic successes with much detail. They were fulsome concerning her virtues. Their readers were left to imagine the feelings of her bereaved and heart-broken husband, who at the moment was sorting an auction-bridge hand in the cardroom of a transatlantic liner. It was the sort of pretentious gush that had always sickened Mrs. Lambert when she read it about others.

The funeral was largely attended by members of the theatrical profession. Few of them knew the deceased personally, but as the occasion provided an opportunity for public exhibition and incidentally for getting their names into the papers they did not miss it.

Maggy was not of these. Woolf had made some engagement for her which he would not let her break. But she sent a wreath. It was quite unlike any of the others. Hers was composed of autumn-tinted leaves and the last homely flowers that one sees in cottage gardens. She purposely wished to avoid the conventional effect aimed at by the professional florist whose stiff made-to-order wreath implies such indifference to death.

Alexandra placed it at the head of the coffin. Mary Mantel had also sent one, ordered before she left for America with Lambert. But Alexandra refused to take it in. Lambert's card was inscribed "From your sorrowing husband." All the newspapers dragged in those words with a suitably unctuous comment.

Late on the afternoon of the funeral Maggy managed to evade Woolf and go to Albert Place, thinking to find Alexandra there. The blinds had not yet been drawn up, but the front door was open. Feeling an aversion from disturbing the silence of a house of mourning she went in without ringing and ascended to the room Alexandra had used. Finding it empty she came down and looked into the drawing room. It was in the green gloom of a closed jalousie and she thought it unoccupied. In that room she had spent such a pleasant half-hour with Lord Chalfont not so very long ago. Since then, disaster had befallen its owner, and she herself had been very near to death. The three events seemed associated in her mind.

She was about to draw back when a movement arrested her. At the far end she made out Chalfont. He was sitting at an escritoire with his head bent over it. After a moment of hesitation she went up to him and timidly touched him on the shoulder. Dazed by grief and with his thoughts far away he did not at first recognize her. Seeing how it was with him she gently said:

"I'm Maggy. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was looking for Lexie.... Now that I'm here I'd like to say how dreadfully sorry I am."

After he had thanked her there was a pause. His ease had temporarily left him. Maggy felt she was intruding.

"Do you know where she has gone? Lexie, I mean," she went on.

"She wrote down her address." Chalfont searched for and found it among the papers on the escritoire. "109, Sidey Street."

"Then she's gone back. That's where we used to live together."

There was another silence. Then Chalfont said:

"Will you let me know if there is anything I can do for her? Mrs. Lambert was very interested in her--and yourself. Indeed--" here he hesitated a little--"the last word she spoke was your name. That is why I--"

The color came into Maggy's face. She did not let him finish.

"Did she--did she say anything else?"

"No; only your name. She seemed to be concerned about you."

Maggy nodded.

"She knew all about me," she said in an explanatory tone. "She was worried because I had been ill, I expect. She was like that, I know.... And she knew I--I wasn't married."

Her meaning was quite plain, as plain as the wedding-ring on her ungloved hand. In her honesty she thought the admission was due to Chalfont after he had apprized her of Mrs. Lambert's interest in her. His manner of doing so had implied friendship. She did not want to accept that under false pretenses.

Chalfont was quick to appreciate her motive in making the confession. If possible it raised her in his estimation. But it filled him with a curious sense of disappointment. In spite of the absence of a legal bond between Mrs. Lambert and himself he had a strong distaste for free alliances. He had chafed against circumstances in his own case, and he was far from sitting in judgment on Maggy's. Still, he could not help the shock they had on his feelings.

"You didn't think I was that sort," she said, guessing at what was in his mind. "Lexie's not, but I'm different. I'm not a lady. It wasn't only because I wanted clothes and jewelry, or because I was hungry that--that it happened. I _did_ hate going without things. But it was because I met a man who made me feel--like jelly. If he'd had nothing a year I would have gone to the devil with him just the same.... I'm telling you all this to show you why we can't be friends, although I know you're ever so kind."

"Can we not? Mrs. Lambert was your friend."

"I can't think why." Tears came into her eyes. "There aren't many women like her.... You loved her, didn't you?"

"I loved her very dearly. More than she loved me. Though she loved me as much as I deserved," he added quickly.

"And she loved her husband. I know. I think he must be a pig! ... Why do we love things that are bad for us, and men that don't care for us? ... You would have married her, wouldn't you?"

"That was what I desired more than anything else," he rejoined in a voice full of regret.

This unreserved talk did not strike either of them as strange. Chalfont was usually sphynx-like about his innermost feelings, but with Maggy it seemed unnecessary to hide them. It did him good to unburden his heart to her. Maggy not only inspired confidence, she attracted it. It gave her a double hold on sympathy.

"She would have been 'my lady' then," she said thoughtfully. "What a draw that would be to a lot of women--the women who don't put love first. It's when we love that we don't think what we get by it.... If the Earl of the Scilly Isles came crawling all the way from Scotland and wanted me to marry him I wouldn't leave Woolf."

Chalfont lost sight of her amazing geography in the surprise he felt at the name she mentioned.

"Woolf! What Woolf?" he stared.

"Fred Woolf," she said with a touch of pride. "He owns the _Jockey's Weekly_ and Primus cars. You must have heard of Biretta, his racehorse."

"Oh!"

Chalfont was incapable of more than the exclamation. He knew all about Woolf. Sudden pity for Maggy took hold of him. He could not run the man down; he could not tell her that Woolf's name stank in the nostrils of decent-minded men; that even the men who fraternized with him took care to keep their womenfolk out of his reach. He could not tell her of Woolf's shady reputation on the turf, at the card table, and in the city. He saw that it would be useless to do so, and also cruel.

"You've met him, haven't you?" she asked.

"I've seen him at race-meetings and--and once at a club to which I belong."

She nodded. "Fred goes everywhere."

Chalfont did not pursue the subject.

"I must go now," said Maggy. "Good-by.... Oh, I forgot to thank you for the roses." She colored, remembering the fate they had suffered.

"I'm glad you liked them. They were Mrs. Lambert's favorites."

"Oh, were they? If I'd known that I would have got some instead of the wreath I sent."

"It was a beautiful wreath--so simple. She wouldn't have wished it altered if she could have seen it. It didn't remind one of a funeral."

"I didn't want it to. I felt I couldn't just go and give an order to a florist who grows flowers on purpose for graves. I was up ever so early this morning and motored into the country. The dew was all over the hedges. That's where I got the leaves from. And in the cottage gardens wherever I saw the sort of flowers I'd have liked some one to give me, whether I was dead or alive, I stopped and asked the woman to pick me a few for a wreath for a sweet lady. They were so pleased to give them. Not one would take payment. They were _given_ flowers, given for love, fresh and--"

She broke off, shy at having exhibited her feelings. It saddened Chalfont to think of her in association with such a man as Woolf. In spite of it she was still something of a child, with a child's pretty thoughts. But the next moment her womanliness showed itself.

"Are you going away?" she asked. "I would, if I were a man and had lost all I loved I should go away to places where I could kill something. Wild places, where there's solitude and danger, so that it would be quite sporting to keep alive.... You'd come back feeling different ... and perhaps marry some nice girl who would love you and make up for all that's happened.... I think Mrs. Lambert would wish that."

She spoke as if Mrs. Lambert were not so far away.

"What makes you say that?" he wondered.

"Because--because she told me things." Maggy hesitated. "May I draw up the blinds before I go?"

They pulled up the blinds together and let the autumn sunshine into the room. Maggy threw up one of the windows. They stood side by side looking at the movement in the street. Around a barrel organ a little way off children were dancing. A man and a girl, looking into each other's eyes, passed under the window. On the opposite side a woman was wheeling a perambulator, running every now and then so that the baby in it screamed with delight. The roar of London's traffic came from a distance. Maggy's eyes grew soft.

"Life goes on," she said.

XXVI

The landlady of 109 Sidey Street opened the door to Maggy.

"Goodness me!" were her first words. "Whatever have you been doing to yourself, Miss Delamere? You _are_ thin!"

"I've had appendicitis," said Maggy.

Mrs. Bell's face immediately indicated the thirsty interest which people of her class take in any form of illness. She closed the door carefully. A hushed note came into her voice.

"Appendicitis! What did they find?"

"Latchkey and a bath mat," said Maggy solemnly.

Mrs. Bell looked offended, also disappointed.

"What a one you always were for jokes," she complained. "I believe you'd joke in your coffin. Talking of coffins--"

"I hope you've not been talking of such things to Miss Hersey," Maggy interrupted.

"Not talk about them? And she just come back from a funeral! What else would _any one_ talk about? Not that _she_ said much, mind you. I only know there was a carriage-full of wreaths besides what was in the hearse. I'll have to wait for the rest of it in the Sunday paper. Miss Hersey wouldn't say what the corpse looked like."

Mrs. Bell was wound up. Maggy knew that the only way to avoid a repetition of the ghoulish verbosity from which Alexandra must already have suffered was to get away.

"Where is Miss Hersey?" she asked, beginning to mount the stairs. "Same room?"

"No; a shunter from King's Cross has that now. Such a nice-spoken young feller. Miss Hersey's in the room with the cistern. I'll bring you up a nice cup of tea directly, dear. I won't put it down in her bill," she whispered in a burst of generosity.

Upstairs in the room with the cistern the two girls ran into one another's arms. But Maggy was not to escape a repetition of the scrutiny that Mrs. Bell had given her downstairs. After their embrace Alexandra drew back and looked at her with concern.

"Maggy!" she exclaimed. "Have you been ill? There's nothing of you."

"Rubbish!" said Maggy. "It's all over, anyway. I'm what they call _svelte_ in the society papers. I was all face and fatness before. Fred says I'm a lady-like size now. It's the 'Willow' corset. I'm in the _Ladies' Field_ this week. Such a sketch! Just a chemise and-- But don't let's talk about me. Lexie, I wanted to ask you something. Mrs. Lambert wrote to me two or three times, and I wrote to her. Do you know if she tore the letters up?"

"I found them. Lord Chalfont asked me to look through a lot of her papers, and your letters were there. They were marked in pencil 'Destroy.' I expect she meant to have done it, so I tore them up myself. There were three letters and a postcard. I couldn't help seeing what was on the postcard--'All over, Maggy.' What did you mean?"

Under her paint and powder Maggy flushed a little.

"Oh, that was--about my illness. Thank you for destroying the letters, Lexie. There was nothing in them I couldn't have told you, but they were about things you'd rather not know."

"Then you have been ill?"

"Rest cure, my dear. Forget it."

"I'm not hurt because you wrote to her about it instead of me."

"You needn't be. Was it nice being with her?"

Alexandra told her all about the tour. While she talked Maggy began to notice a subtle change in her. Her views seemed to have grown broader. She appeared to be more tolerant of human failings. Her old, hard attitude toward them had disappeared. She showed this by the manner in which she spoke of Mrs. Lambert and Chalfont. It was entirely sympathetic.

"Lexie, you're different," declared Maggy in surprise when she had done. "You've come alive!"

"I don't feel quite the same," Alexandra admitted. "I believe I'm--changing. I've been trying to think things out, Maggy." There was puzzledom in her voice.

"What sort of things?"

"Principally morals and--lack of morals.... Not long ago I had everything neatly labeled and pigeon-holed in my mind. Things were either good or bad. People the same. Now all the labels seem to have come off.... Really, I'm not half so good as poor Mrs. Lambert was, and yet she did what I always considered so wrong. She lived with Lord Chalfont. The strange thing is it didn't make either of them bad. They were just like two married people who had the deepest respect for each other."

Maggy gave a nod of comprehension. "And that puzzles you?" she asked.

"Yes, in a way."

"I think I know why. You're asking yourself whether that sort of thing is really bad, after all, since it didn't drag them down. You've got the labels wrong, mixing up morals with people and putting them all together in the honey-pot. The stage, I mean. It's a contaminating place, right enough. The wonder is how anybody gets out of it clean. Some people can drink filthy water and keep healthy, and others get typhoid from it. It doesn't alter the water. What makes me sorry is that nice people like Mrs. Lambert and Lord Chalfont and you should have to drink it at all. The worst of it is you can't tell whether it's done you any harm until it's worked right into your system, and then you're generally past help. That rather proves that immorality is a sort of disease, probably a microbe, which thrives especially on the stage. What a pity they can't vaccinate us against it when we're babies. It would have done _me_ good. _I'm_ an example of the corruption of the stage, if you're looking for one."

"You're nothing of the kind, Maggy!"