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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter XXXI. The Other Side of the Medal

Chapter XXXI. The Other Side of the Medal.

Miss Fitzroy's popularity and hold upon the public favour seemed only to increase with time. She maintained her sway professionally against all rivals. Her circle of private admirers (still masculine always) never diminished or deteriorated. She became the fashion. New types of feminine headgear and habiliments were named after her. Portraits of her in her most successful impersonations were in every studio and photographic establishment. The sale of her photographs resulted in a really handsome revenue. Altogether, time dealt very kindly with Miss Fitzroy. She had obtained a reputation for heartlessness, but she rather gloried in that. A vindictive disclaiming of all possibility of good in herself and everybody else was her forte; yet there were a few people who knew her differently. In addition to the daily levees that she still affected, she had inaugurated a system of nightly suppers, merely to oblige her friends. For these suppers the friends paid, because it was never part of any system of Miss Fitzroy's to be at any expense herself.

'Man's only vulnerable spot is his pocket,' she was wont to say; and she smote him there as relentlessly as she could without the utter compromise of herself and her reputation.

Behold her now at one of these little suppers, the gay, grace-page 208ful, witty, satirical centre of a gathering of men whom she hated and despised, one and all. What enjoyment she gained from this kind of thing it would puzzle anyone to divine. She cared nothing for the eating and drinking part of it. She avoided wine, because she feared its effect upon her delicate rose-blush complexion. She must have been long since satiated with flattery, but 'It amuses me, it arouses me,' she would cry, 'and I live only to be amused.'

But that was only the one side of the medal; there was another.

'Miss, that woman has come to say that her child is dying,' whispered Himmons to her mistress.

'I will go there directly,' returned Miss Fitzroy, also whispering. 'Put a little wine in my reticule, Himmons; nothing else will he of use now.'

Presently, with some trifling excuse she quitted her company, leaving them to make the best of themselves and the champagne they had liberally provided for their own entertainment.

Himmons was waiting with her hat and wrap and reticule.

'I've been to the stand, miss, but there isn't a cab left, it's so late. I reely think you oughtn't to go, miss.'

'How can I help going, Himmons, if that little thing is dying and wanting me?'

'Perhaps the mother's only telling lies, miss.'

'Perhaps, but I had better go. Is she gone?'

'Yes, I packed her off pretty quick. She's drunk, and not fit for you to be in company with.'

'No. Thanks, Himmons. When I am inquired for, say that I am out, and that you don't know when I shall be back.'

'Yes, miss. But they'll be awful mad.'

'A comfort to my soul, Himmons. I like them to be mad. Good-night'

'For heving's sake, miss, be keerful and don't stay out late.'

'I will take care of myself, never fear.'

It was rather a 'far cry' from the house in Carlton to one in the lowest lane of that lowest thoroughfare Little Bourke page 209Street, but the actress met with no serious personal adventure during her midnight walk, though the streets and lanes were alive with those who live only through the night-hours. She saw one larrikin deliberately knock another one in the gutter for uttering an obscene oath as she passed. She saw a sailor flung out on the pavement with fearful violence from the door of a house that looked as dark and as silent as the grave.

When a policeman had dragged the man up and won him back to semi-consciousness he sat on the kerbstone and began to laugh.

'What are you doing that for?' said the policeman.

'Oh, to think how they've been done,' chuckled the sailor. 'To think how that——' (unmentionable feminine appellation) 'got me in there and hocussed me, and set her bull-dogs on me, and thought they'd robbed me of everything, and they never looked in my necktie, although they throttled me. And there's a ten-pun-note in the knot, mister, look for yourself; and all as they got was less nor a fiver. O Lord! but it's too good—too good.'

The lane rang with his drunken mirth, though certainly few but himself would have seen the humour of being choked, battered, robbed, and cast out like a dead dog as he had been. To him the whole thing seemed a brilliant joke, and he staggered off telling the whole neighbourhood about it at the top of his voice.

He won't get far with his ten-pound note,' said the policeman, as he parted company with him and resumed his beat. But that was a miscalculation; for when, ten minutes after, two lurking ruffians felled the sailor, sat on him, and unfastened his neckcloth, they found the money was gone, and he, with an uncontrollable outburst of merriment, as soon as he could get breath, told them they were too late, he had just swallowed it!

'Hi! Where are you going to, you woman?' said the policeman, standing full across Miss Fitzroy's path when he espied her directly after the sailor episode.

'No. 10, don't you know me?'

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'Oh, it's you, miss. I beg pardon, I'm sure. You see, it's so dark to-night. Shall I go with you as far as the door?'

'Thanks.'

He escorted her down a dark noisome alley to the door of a foul dingy tenement, and said he would see her safely out again if she left within the time of his beat. Inside the house were a dying child and a drunken woman. The woman looked up with a defiant snort as the actress entered; the child stretched out two bony arms with a pitiful little cry of welcome.

'Where are the sheets and pillows I sent down for the bed again to-day?' asked Miss Fitzroy, angrily.

'Where all the others is—popped,' said the woman, with an ugly laugh.

'You fiend! I wish I had taken the child home to my own house. I would only that I knew if I did, I could never keep you away from it.'

'Cert'ny not,' said the woman. 'You wouldn't never attempt to part a mother from her child, would ye?'

'Oh, but you are bad. With such a thing as this to love' (lifting the little one tenderly) 'and redeem you, you might have been a good, happy woman. There are hundreds of rich, good people who would give half their years for a gentle, loving little child like this.'

'That's cos they're a set of greedy, selfish devils, and won't spend their richness and goodness on poor people like me. They must have children of their own to leave it all too, else, my God! they ain't satisfied. I've got neither money nor goodness to leave my brat, and I ain't satisfied neither. Nobody's satisfied—everybody's selfish. All the world's made up of selfishness, and there's nothing good in it'

Madge Fitzroy's heart stood still as she heard her own oft-expressed sentiments thus repeated by this woman.

'I am going to stay with the little one,' she said, 'You had better go to bed.'

'No, I won't.'

'What will you do, then?'

'Sit here and keep you company, and purse my darling child.'

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The little thing screamed faintly in terror as the mother approached.

'Oh, for the sake of pity, leave her to me, and don't touch her!' cried the actress.

'Tell you what,' said the woman—an exceptionally bad woman even among her own vile kind—'you gimme half a crown, and I'll clear out till morning and leave you to it'

Miss Fitzroy gave her the money instantly.

'Moralists would condemn that, I suppose,' she said to herself; 'but whether is it better to let her get drunk and the child die in peace, or to try to keep her sober and have the little thing tortured?'

The woman went away to her debauch. Miss Fitzroy took the child in her arms and sat down to her long patient vigil, sometimes in silence as the little one slumbered, sometimes crooning soft little melodies to soothe and comfort it in moments of wakefulness and pain. In the grey dawn of a new day the tiny liberated spirit made its way heavenward and left only the soft limp pallid prison of clay lying on the actress's breast; and so there came an end to a task that had been self-appointed and well fulfilled for many weeks past.

'It is all over, Himmons,' she said, entering her own house later in the morning with pale face and swollen eyelids.

'Which it's a blessing, I'm sure,' replied Himmons, heartily.

'I suppose it is. I tried to think so all the while I watched the poor little life sobbing out of the poor little body. Oh, dear!'

'Oh, dear, as you say, miss. And the mother of it?'

'She is away drunk somewhere; locked up, I hope. I found a decent old woman to go in and watch. And you, Himmons, do you go down to Daley's, the undertaker's, and bid him get the little thing put away at once and send the account to me. I am going to bed now.'

And this was the other side of the medal.

Just a few days after the episode above related, Miss Fitzroy made two new acquaintances, Edgar Paget and Leslie Hugill. These two men met each other first at her house, and the trio talked and jested and exchanged experiences in utterest page 212ignorance of the bond that existed between them. Mrs. Hugill had kept Philiberta's secret too well to mention Edgar Paget's name to her son; many new interests had conspired to blot from Miss Fitzroy's mind the recollection of Berta Morven; and that one strange dear chapter in Edgar Paget's life was buried in deep, sacred silence by him. Before they had known each other a week, Leslie Hugill hated Edgar Paget with a deadly, unreasoning hatred, because that the world had become to him as a place only worth consideration in that it held one woman, and because that woman had as many smiles for one new friend as for the other. He was madly, passionately in love with the actress, lavishing on her the wealth and strength of a passion that was as different from that early calf love of his, that we wot of, as sunlight is different from moonlight. The Hugills had come to live permanently at St Kilda for the invalid magistrate's sake. Mr. Hugill's days in the land could not be many now, but sea-breezes might prolong them a little, and so he was brought where he might gain such benefit. Mrs. Hugill was his nurse, and we, knowing Mrs. Hugill, need make no senseless affirmations of his being in good hands. Leslie, young, susceptible, full of vitality and the keen interests of life, dawdled about town, was led into frequent and various temptations, and finally fell in love, which, bad as it was, probably saved him from something worse. Edgar Paget had come to town for a much-needed, much-desired holiday and rest. The same good-natured friend that introduced Leslie Hugill to the actress introduced Paget in the same week. Of the two men Miss Fitzroy liked the elder one the better, for the very simple reason that he seemed to care very little about her. She liked him so well that, when ultimately she learned from his own lips that he was married, the knowledge came to her with a slight shock. The effect was transient, however, and then she set herself to win his friendship, being still a little puzzled and piqued by his apparent indifference to her. And as in almost all the desires, small and great, that she gave her mind thoroughly up to, she won. Her presence grew upon Edgar Paget, her manner soothed him, her voice was sweet to him.

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Every woman has the gift of dissimulation more or less—generally more,—and it is a question whether Madge Fitzroy herself knew what a thorough actress she really was. Scarce any woman ever lived who had so perfect a talent for being all things to all men when she so pleased. Tact and power of sympathy were hers in unlimited degree; it was a wonder and it was a pity that with all this she could be so bitter. The bitter aspect she never exhibited to Edgar Paget, however; to him her worst fault was an impulsiveness that was in reality assumed. It was Lavater, I think, who said that a woman's first instinct is to please; and, save in a few exceptional cases of natural obstreperousness, the great physiognomist was doubtless right. He asserted also, I believe, that a woman is a natural hypocrite, because, acting on that first instinct, she can and will mould herself to anything and anybody; can and will look and act all that she fancies will be most acceptable to the one she most desires to allure or gratify. But to attempt any solution of that most mysterious problem, feminine human nature, is more vain than all other vanities; so let us be done with efforts at metaphysical elucidation of the peculiarities of this particular case. It is certain that whatever Madge Fitzroy proposed in the first instance with regard to Edgar Paget, the issue of their acquaintance was an earnest friendship between the two by which both profited intellectually, but which caused more jealous suffering to Leslie Hugill than either of the friends could have thought possible. With all the confidence Edgar Paget reposed in Madge Fitzroy, it is perhaps surprising how little she learned about him from himself. Of business affairs, bush-experience, trifling harassments and worries he spoke freely enough; but of the weightier troubles that she intuitively knew he had he never spoke. Yet it is no matter for surprise after all when we consider the instinctive tendency of all animals to hide pain and get out of sight when suffering. It is easy to speak of, and pleasant to have sympathy in, our lighter trials and infelicities; but the deep griefs, the real hurts! we cannot endure even sympathy in them.