I was telling you about the young lady, who was so ill in our house, when I was interrupted through Harry insisting on my coming to supper. No matter whether I want any supper or not, Harry won’t let me stop away. He always makes the excuse, that he hates to have his meals alone. Certainly it is not very nice, but often and often I could get a quiet half-hour at my writing but for supper. After supper I can never do anything, for, somehow or other, I settle down in my easy chair and get sleepy directly. Harry smokes one pipe—his quiet pipe, he calls it—looks at the paper, and then we go to bed. Sometimes, if there is a very exciting or very amusing case in the Law Courts, he reads it out loud to me. If we have friends staying with us, or come to spend the evening, sometimes after supper we have a hand at cards, but it is not often. We are generally very glad indeed to get to bed, as most people are who have done a hard day’s work, especially as we are always up very early in the morning, which is necessary in an hotel, where everybody wants looking after personally, or else it very soon goes wrong.
After the doctor had told me the story of the young lady, who was so ill in our house, you may be sure that I took more interest in her than I had ever done before. There is nothing which touches a woman’s heart so much as an unhappy love affair, and poor Miss Elmore’s was unhappy enough in all conscience, for it had brought her to what looked like being her death-bed.{184}
One day the doctor told me he had had a very serious talk with Mrs. Elmore—I told you about her being so hard—and had as good as said to her that there was only one thing could save the young lady, and that was to let her see her sweetheart again.
Mrs. Elmore sniffed and tossed her head, and said, “And what about my daughter’s soul? Was it a fit preparation for the other world, if she was dying, to have a play-actor standing by her bed-side? The only persons who had a right there were the doctor and the clergyman.” It was no good to argue—all Mrs. Elmore would say was that never, with her consent, should her daughter see that lost young man again. “What was the good?” she said. She would never consent to the marriage, and if what the doctor said was true, that she was breaking her heart about the young fellow, what was the good of seeing him if she couldn’t marry him? Besides, she was sure her daughter wasn’t so bad as the doctors tried to make out. She would be better again if she would only make an effort, and allow herself to rally, and fix her thoughts upon respectable things instead of play-actors.
You wouldn’t think a mother would talk like it, but Mrs. Elmore did. The human nature in her seemed to have dried up—if I may use the expression.
The doctor said it was no good talking to the mother any more, so he went and saw our local Methodist clergyman, that Mrs. Elmore sat under every Sunday, and that came sometimes to visit the sick young lady.
He put the case straight to him, and told him he believed that the poor girl’s life might be saved if her mother could be induced to consent to the match, and perhaps he, the clergyman, might be able to persuade her.
Now, our Methodist clergyman was a very nice gentleman indeed, and he was quite affected by the way the doctor told the story. He said, “I don’t know that I could induce Mrs. Elmore to let her daughter marry this young play-actor, while he is still acting in what we, rightly or wrongly, consider to be a sinful place, and a place full of devilish wiles and temptations; but if he would give up his present life, and take to another calling, perhaps it might be different.{185}”
“Well,” said the doctor, “there is no time to lose. He ought to come down at once, but it’s no good his coming down while he is a play-actor, because the mother wouldn’t allow him to see his sweetheart. I can’t go to London, because I have a lot of people ill here, and a case I can’t leave. Would you go to London and see the young fellow?”
“Why not write to him?” said the clergyman.
“That’s no use,” said the doctor; “it couldn’t be explained in a letter. Come, it is a life that hangs on your decision. Won’t you go?”
The clergyman hesitated. He said he didn’t know the young fellow, and he wasn’t authorized by the young lady or her mamma, and it seemed such a queer thing for him to do.
But at last he consented, and the doctor so worked him up, that he promised to go that very evening. They didn’t know the young fellow’s private address; but the doctor knew the theatre he was playing at, because, of course, he was advertised among the company.
The clergyman said it was a dreadful thing for him to have to go to a theatre. He had never been inside one in his life, and he didn’t feel quite sure what would happen to him. He told the doctor that he looked upon it that perhaps he might be going to rescue a young man from perdition, and to do that, of course, a clergyman might go into a worse place than a theatre.
Our doctor—a very jolly sort of man, and fond of his joke, and not above coming into our parlour and having a little something warm when he is out on his rounds late on a cold night—told us all about what the clergyman said afterwards, and he told us that he couldn’t for the life of him help telling the dear old parson to be very careful in the theatre, as there were beautiful sirens there, and he told him to remember about St. Anthony. I didn’t know what he meant about St. Anthony, no more did Harry, because I asked him who St. Anthony was afterwards; but I didn’t tell the doctor I didn’t know, because I never like to show ignorance, if I can help it.
I suppose St. Anthony went to a theatre and fell in love with one of the lovely ladies. Perhaps it was that.{186}
But our clergyman—the Methodist one—went. I call him ours, though we are Church of England, and our clergyman I told you about, is the Rev. Tommy Lloyd, who carries stones and roots in his pocket—Harry, in his exaggerating way, says he carries rocks and trunks of trees there. He went up to London, and, as we learnt afterwards, he got to the theatre about half-past eight in the evening. He saw the place all lit up, and he wondered how he was to find the young fellow—Mr. Frank Leighton his name was.
He went into the place where they take the money, and said, “Please can I have a few moments’ conversation with Mr. Leighton, on a private matter?”
The people in the pay-box stared at him, and said, “Stage door.”
“Thank you,” said the clergyman. And, seeing a door, he went through it, and up a flight of stairs.
“Your check, sir,” said the man at the top of the stairs.
“What?” said the clergyman.
“Your check,” said the man; “you’ve got a check, haven’t you?”
“I have a cheque-book,” said the clergyman, “but not with me. What, my good friend, do you want with a cheque from me?”
The man looked at him as if he was something curious, and said, “A voucher; you have a voucher, haven’t you?”
The clergyman thought perhaps they were very particular whom they admitted behind the scenes, and he thought that was very proper, so he said, “I have not a personal voucher with me, but there is my card. I am a clergyman, and well known in the district.”
“Can’t pass your card, sir,” said the man politely; “you’d better see the manager.”
“Thank you,” said the clergyman; “where shall I find him?”
“Here he comes, sir.”
At that moment a gentleman came up the stairs in full evening dress, and with very handsome diamond studs. The clergyman told the doctor that he noticed everything, all being so new and strange to him.
The man took the clergyman’s card, and showed it to{187} the gentleman in full dress, and said, “Gentleman wants to be passed in.”
“Very sorry,” said the manager; “but we’ve no free list.”
“I think there is some mistake,” replied the clergyman. “I have no desire to see the performance. I want a few moments’ private conversation with Mr. Frank Leighton.”
The manager stared. “Oh!” he said. “But, my dear sir, how do you propose to converse with him privately this way? You can’t shout at him from the dress circle.”
“I know nothing of theatres. Is not this the stage door?”
“Oh, you thought this was the stage door. I see. Simmons!”
A commissionaire in uniform stepped forward.
“Show this gentleman the stage door.”
“Yes, sir.”
And with that our clergyman was taken outside by the commissionaire, and they went along the street and then down a dirty narrow court; and when they got to the end of the court there was a dirty old door, and the commissionaire pushed that open and said, “This is the stage-door, sir,” and left our clergyman there.
He told the doctor that it was a narrow passage, with a little room just off it; and in this little room, which was very dingy, was an old gentleman with grey hair, who said, “What do you want, sir?”
“I want a few minutes’ conversation with Mr. Frank Leighton, on a private matter. There is my card.”
The man took the card, and said, “Wait a minute, sir.”
Then he pushed another door open and went through.
Presently he came back again, and said, “Will you take a seat a minute, sir?” And the clergyman went into the dingy little room and sat down.
There was a young lady who had come through from downstairs, and she had evidently just come off the stage, for the doorkeeper said, “Is Mr. Leighton on yet?” “Yes,” she said; “he’s on to the end of the act now.”
Presently there was the report of a pistol, and the clergyman jumped up.
“Good gracious! what’s that?” he exclaimed.{188}
“Oh,” said the young lady, “that’s Mr. Leighton; he’s just tried to commit suicide!”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed the clergyman, horrified. “How terrible—let me go to him.” And before anybody could stop him he had rushed through the door.
At first he could not see where he was for things sticking out here and there; but presently, through some scenery, he saw a young fellow lying on the floor, with a pistol beside him. A gentleman was leaning over him and feeling his heart.
“He is not dead,” said the gentleman; “thank God! thank God!”
Our clergyman said, “Thank God!” too, and rushed to where the young gentleman was lying, and said, “Oh, my unhappy young friend, how could you do such a terrible thing! I am a clergyman; let me——”
Before he could say another word there was a wild roar of voices, and the suicide sat up and said, “What the——”
And the people at the sides yelled, “Mind your head.” And the curtain came down with a bang.
And then the clergyman knew he had made a dreadful mistake, and that it was all in the play, because the suicide jumped up and said, “What in heaven’s name do you mean, sir?” And the manager came on and was furious, and the people in front of the house were yelling and hooting, and there was a nice commotion.
The poor clergyman, who was quite bewildered and covered with perspiration, tried to explain that he had never been in a theatre before in his life, and knew nothing about it; that, hearing Mr. Leighton had committed suicide, he thought it was because of his love affair, and having come from where the young lady he loved was lying very ill, he thought it his duty as a minister to rush on and say a word or two to the poor sinner before he died.
There was quite a buzz of astonishment among the people on the stage when the clergyman told his simple story, and they saw at once that it was true.
Mr. Leighton, who had been awfully wild at having his scene spoiled, when he heard the clergyman’s story,{189} was very much affected, and said he would see the clergyman after the performance, if he would wait. They asked him if he would like to go into a box; but the clergyman said, “No; he did not want to see anything in a theatre. He would wait outside.”
The manager said perhaps it was as well, for if he went anywhere in the house where he could be seen it would start the people off, and be unpleasant; because, of course, as playgoers, what with the clergyman’s words and manners, and the curtain coming down bang, they knew something had happened that wasn’t in the play.
When the clergyman told the doctor the story, the doctor laughed till the tears came into his eyes; and he chaffed the poor man finely about making his first appearance, and having acted a part.
He was in a very good humour, because, though the clergyman, through his ignorance, had made such a mess of it at the beginning, he had finished by doing what he wanted. He told the young gentleman, after the play was over, all about the young lady, and what the doctor said, and the young fellow told him that he had never known a happy moment since they were parted, and he would make any sacrifice in the world to save his sweetheart’s life.............