The Powers and Maxine - Charles Norris Williamson
Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful
undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on--till she breaks. I
think that she can't be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women
who haven't had to learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to
me that they must suffer less.
At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain
calls. Five times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look
delighted with the ovation I was having. Then, when the time came that I
could escape, I met on the way to my dressing-room men carrying big
harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of flowers which had been sent up
to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly glancing at them, for I knew
that Raoul would be waiting.
There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me--my big, handsome
lover, looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in
modern clothes than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the
Foreign Office. But then, of course, he is really quite out of place in
diplomacy. Since he can't exist on a marble pedestal or some Old
Master's canvas, he ought at least to be a poet or an artist--and so he
is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of beautiful dreams, as
beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might be cold if it
were not for the eyes, and lips.
There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I'd
led Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room.
Then--well, we spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough
to say. And we had five minutes together, before I was obliged to send
him away, and go to dress for the second act.
The touch of Raoul's hands, and those lips of his that are not cold,
gave me strength to go through all that was yet to come. There's
something almost magical in the touch--just a little, little touch--of
the one we love best. For a moment we can forget everything else, even
if it were death itself waiting just round the corner. I've flirted with
more than one man, sometimes because I liked him and it amused me,--as
with Ivor Dundas,--sometimes because I had to win him for politic
reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du
Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his
shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word.
I thought--for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping
up and hiding my secret--that when I was dead the best paradise would be
to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three
hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain,
back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how
little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would
put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had
done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me.
For ten years I'd been a political spy--yes. But I owed a grudge to
Russia, which I'd promised my father to pay: and France is Russia's
ally. Besides, it seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a
man you adore, who adores you in return. We women are true as truth
itself to those we love. For them we would sacrifice the greatest cause.
Always I had known this, and I had thought that I could prove myself
truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had betrayed my lover
and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I hardly had
realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms.
Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing
on earth could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so
good, so pure.
What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to
hold a man's respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his
eyes? Such a woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves
in this world. My punishment had begun, and it would always go on
through my life with Raoul, I knew, even if no great disaster came. Into
the heart of my happiness would come the thought of that hidden spot;
how often, oh, how often, would I feel that thought stir like a black
bat!
I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I
shuddered and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe
me, thinking it was but my excitement in playing for the first time a
heavy and exacting part. He little guessed how heavy and exacting it
really was!
"Darling," he said, "you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you--how
proud I am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I
did. But I love you a thousand times more than ever to-night."
It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.
Since his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had
comforted him for their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to
help him out of his trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his
salvation. To-night his heart was almost breaking with love for me, who
so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for him, which would make him long
to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him that the jewels were
safe. He would love me still more passionately in his happiness, which I
had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love as if it
were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. But
how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty
had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not
on its way to blot us for ever out of life and love?
The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said
to myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this
might be the last time that his eyes--those eyes that are not
cold--might look at me with love in them, as now.
"Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of
applauding?" I asked. "Would you still be proud of me, still care for
me?"
"I'd love you better, if there could be a 'better,'" he answered,
holding me very close.
"You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I'm a jealous brute. I
can't bear you to belong to others--even to the public that appreciates
you almost as much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I'm proud
that they adore you, but I'd like to take you away from them and adore
you all by myself. Why, if the whole world turned against you, there'd
be a kind of joy in that for me. I'd be so glad of the chance to face it
for you, to shield you from it always."
"Then, what _is_ there would make you love me less?" I went on, dwelling
on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink
of a precipice.
"Nothing on God's earth--while you kept true to me."
"And if I weren't true--if I deceived you?"
"Why, I'd kill you--and myself after. But it makes me see red--a blazing
scarlet--even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it--when
it's beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you
wouldn't make such noble sacrifices to save me from ruin."
I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I
wished that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness.
Why dwell on horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness--perhaps
the last I should ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had
for Raoul. I would have told him then, but he went on, saying to me so
many things sweet and blessed to hear, that I could not bear to cut him
short, lest never after this should he speak words of love to me.
Then--long before it ought, so it seemed--the clock in mydressing-room
struck, and I knew that I hadn't another instant to spare. On some first
nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down
(though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted,
more than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by
midnight or before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know
the worst--or best.
"I must go. You must leave me, dear," I said. "But I've some good news
for you when there's time to explain, and a great surprise. I can't give
you a minute until the last, for you know I've almost to open the third
and fourth acts. But when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come
behind again. I shan't take any calls--after dying, it's too inartistic,
isn't it? And I never do. I'll see you for just a few more minutes here,
in this room, before I dress to go home."
"For a few minutes!" Raoul caught me up. "But afterwards? You promised
me long ago that I should have supper with you at your house--just you
and I alone together--on the first night of the new play."
My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had
I forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten.
There had been so many miserable things to think of, that they had
crowded the one pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away
from him involuntarily with a start of surprise.
"You'd forgotten!" exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt.
"Only for the instant," I said, "because I'm hardly myself. I'm tired
and excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But--"
"Would you rather not be bothered with me?" he asked wistfully, as I
paused to think what I should do.
His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I
couldn't bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me.
"Don't say 'bothered'!" I reproached him. "That's a cruel word. The
question is--I'm worn out. I don't think I shall be able to eat supper.
My maid will want to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old
Marianne! She's such a tyrant, when she fancies it's for my good. It,
generally ends in my obeying her--seldom in her obeying me. But we'll
see how I feel when the last act's over. We'll talk of it when you come
here--after my death." I tried to laugh, as I made that wretched jest,
but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn't ring true. There was
a shadow on Raoul's face--that dear, sensitive face of his which shows
too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world--but I
had little time to comfort him.
"It will be like coming to life again, to see you," I said. "And now,
good-bye! no, not good-bye, but _au revoir_."
I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where
Marianne was growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up
things on the dressing table, or fussing with some part of my dress for
the next act.
"There's a letter for you, Mademoiselle," said she. "The stage-door
keeper just brought it round. But you haven't time to read it now."
A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and
thought it best to warn me without delay?
"I must read the letter," I insisted. "Give it to me at once."
Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old
enough to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but
something in my voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary
promptness. Then came a shock--and not of relief. I recognised on the
envelope the handwriting of Count Godensky.
I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort
of will that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid--afraid
of a hundred things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the
treaty was in his hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and
try to drive some dreadful bargain.
Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to
go to the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as
I might have counted "one, two," slowly, the paper looked black before
my eyes, as if ink were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the
dark smudge cleared away, and showed me--nothing, except that, if Alexis
Godensky held a trump card, I was not to have a sight of it until later,
when he chose.
"MY DEAR MAXINE," [he began his letter, though he had never been
given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to
call me before] "I must see you, and talk to you this evening,
alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more
than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with
you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I
am so sure that you _will_ guess, and that you will not only be
willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were
before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage
door when you come out.
"Yours, in whatever way you will,
"ALEXIS."
If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have
been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on.
Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, "That's your
answer."
But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done
what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he
need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to
order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But
how could I manage it after refusing--as I must refuse--to let Raoul go
home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage.
At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I
left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be
Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape
from such an _impasse_?
CHAPTER IX
MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS
I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt
dead. "I can't think now. I must trust to luck--trust to luck," I said
to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. "By and by I'll think it
all out."
But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine
de Renzie, but Princess Helene of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even
more sure and swift than miserable Maxine's. When Princess Helene had
died in her lover's arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to
die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life,
where I'd laid them down, the questions were still crying out for
answer, and must somehow be decided at once.
First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way--Raoul, my
best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must
forego, and hurt him instead.
The stage-door keeper had orders to let him "come behind," and so he was
already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Helene had
died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to
leave the stage.
As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing
them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face
was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden
live flame among red ashes.
"What is it, Raoul?--why do you look like that?" I asked; while inside
my head another question sounded like a shriek. "What if some word had
come to him in the theatre--about the treaty?"
Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the
tension, when he answered: "It was only that terrible last scene,
darling. I've seen you die in other parts. But it never affected me like
this. Perhaps it's because you didn't belong to me in those days. Or is
it that you were more realistic in your acting to-night than ever
before? Anyway, it was awful--so horribly real. It was all I could do to
sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. Prince Cyril was a
poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed him in the
third act, and then Helene might have been happily married, instead of
dying."
"I believe you would have killed him," I said.
"I know I should. It's a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I'm
jealous. But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not
an insult."
"How you feel things!" I exclaimed. "Even a play on the stage--"
"If the woman I love is the heroine."
"Will you ever be blase, like the rest of the men I know?" I laughed,
though I could have sobbed.
"Never, I think. It isn't in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?"
"I only love you the more," I said, wondering every instant, in a kind
of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away.
"I admit I wasn't made for diplomacy," he went on. "I wish, I had money
enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some
beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love
for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and
to keep our world beautiful. Would you go with me?"
"Ah, if I could!" I sighed. "If I could go with you to-morrow, away into
that beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile--"
"Meanwhile, you don't mean to send me away from you?" he pleaded, in a
coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like
a boy. "You don't know what it is, after that scene of your death on the
stage, where I couldn't get to you--where another man was your lover--to
touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You
_will_ let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the
house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you're so tired you must
drive me out then?"
I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say "yes."
But instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we
mustn't be seen leaving the theatre together--yet, until everyone knew
that we were engaged. As for letting him come to me at home, if he
dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn't ask it. I almost broke down as I
said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately
offered to leave me at once.
"It's a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I've been looking
forward to for days," he said, "and to let you go from me to-night of
all nights."
"Why to-night of all nights?", I asked quickly, my coward conscience
frightening me again.
"Only because I love you more than ever, and--it's a stupid feeling, of
course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play--yet I
feel as if--But no, I don't want to say it."
"You must say it," I cried.
"Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in
danger of losing you. It's just a feeling--a weight on my heart. Nothing
more. Rather womanish, isn't it?"
"Not womanish, but foolish," I said. "Shake off the feeling, as one
wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all
the sweeter." As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying
different words mockingly. "If there be any meeting--to-morrow, or
ever."
I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly:
"Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you--something you'll
like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room."
Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and
there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with
my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the
least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would
have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as
placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than
she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my
jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred
thousand francs.
There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt
perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on
earth--short of a bomb explosion--could tempt the good creature out of
my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she
would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands.
Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my
third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the
box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my
carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the
diamonds on fire.
Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how
magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The
necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels
depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp
came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were
almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire,
extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless.
Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting
even if it hadn't been intrinsically of half its value.
With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the
treaty had disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and
slipped them into a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade
which lay on the table. It was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a
friend had made and sent to me at the theatre a few nights ago, and was
intended to carry a purse and handkerchief. But I had never used it yet.
Now it seemed a convenient receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly
planned out my way of giving it to Raoul.
At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his
hands and say, "See what I have for you!" But now I had changed my mind,
because he must be induced to go away as quickly as possible--quite,
quite away from the theatre, so that there would be no danger of his
seeing Count Godensky at the stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was
jealous, because, as he said, his jealousy was a compliment to me; and
it is possible only for a cold man never to be jealous of a woman in my
profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. But I did not want him
to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly jealous, if he
thought that he had the least cause.
If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He
would ask me questions which I would rather not answer until I'd seen
Ivor Dundas again, and knew better what to say--whether truth or
fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to have the necklace to-night, because it
would mean all the difference to him between constant, gnawing anxiety,
and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a happy night, even though I
was sending him away, even though I did not know what to-morrow might
bring, either for him or for me.
I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it
to Raoul in the next room.
"This holds something precious," I said, smiling at him, and making a
mystery. "You'll value the something, I know--partly for itself, partly
because I--because I've been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When
you see it, you'll be more resigned not to see me--just for tonight. But
you're to write me a letter, please, and describe accurately every one
of your sensations on opening the bag. Also, you may say in your letter
a few kind things about me, if you like. And I want it to come to me
when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, dearest, and have the
sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of you every
minute, asleep or awake."
"Why mayn't I look now?" asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and
silver from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a
woman's things.
"Because--just _because_. But perhaps you'll guess why, by and by," I
said. Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag
away in an inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held
nothing but a handkerchief and a pair of gloves.
"Be careful!" I couldn't help exclaiming. But I don't think he heard,
for he had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in
my heart--the fear that it might be for the last time.
CHAPTER X
MAXINE DRIVES WITH THE ENEMY
When Raoul was gone I made Marianne hurry me out of the cloth-of-gold
and filmy tissue in which the unfortunate Princess Helene had died, and
into the black gown in which the almost equally unfortunate Maxine had
come to the theatre. I did not even stop to take off my make-up, for
though the play was an unusually short one, and all the actors and
actresses had followed my example of prompt readiness for all four acts,
it lacked twenty minutes of twelve when I was dressed. I had to see
Count Godensky, get rid of him somehow, and still be in time to keep my
appointment with Ivor Dundas, for which I knew he would strain every
nerve not to be late.
My electric carriage would be at the stage door, and my plan was to
speak to Godensky, if he were waiting, if possible learn in a moment or
two whether he had really found out the truth, and then act accordingly.
But if I could avoid it, I meant, in any case, to put off a long
conversation until later.
I had drawn my veil down before walking out of the theatre, yet Godensky
knew me at once, and came forward. Evidently he had been watching the
door.
"Good-evening," he said. "A hundred congratulations."