Cruel Barbara Allen | Page 4

guilt returned.
'If he is willing to entrust you to my tuition,' said Mrs. Lochleven Cameron, 'I should be willing to instruct you without charge on condition that you bound yourself to pay to Mr. Cameron one-third of your earnings for the first three years.'
This opened up a vista to Barbara, but she was certain that her uncle would give his consent to no such arrangement.
'You had better lay the matter before your uncle, Miss Allen,' said the tragedian. 'Without his consent, Mrs. Lochleven Cameron could not see her way to an arrangement. She is; aware--as I am--of the undeserved stigma which has been cast upon the profession by bigotry and ignorance. She has no respect for the prejudice--nor have I--but she will not violate the feelings of those who are so unfortunate as to suffer under it.'
'Ye're quite right, Joe,' said Mrs. Cameron colloquially, and then, with added grandeur, to Barbara, 'Mr. Lochleven Cameron expresses me own feelings admirably.'
Barbara made no reply. It would have been sweet to work for Christopher even by so audacious a means as going on the stage. But the vision crumbled when she thought of her uncle. She dropped her veil and drew on her gloves slowly, and as she did so a rapid step ascended to the front door, there came the click of a latch-key, the slam of the street door as it closed, and then, with an imperative knock which awaited no answer, a young man rushed into the room and shouted,
'Done at last!'
There was triumph in this young man's eyes, and the flush of triumph on his cheek. He was a handsome young fellow of perhaps five-and-twenty, with a light curling beard and a great blonde moustache. His clothes were a little seedy, but he looked like a gentleman. He did not notice Barbara, and the tragedian and his wife apparently forgot her presence.
'You don't mean------?' began Mrs. Lochleven
Cameron.
'But I do mean it,' cried the new-comer.
'Rackstraw has taken it. It is to be put in rehearsal on Monday, and billed for Monday-week. How's that for high, eh?'
'Good, dear boy, good!' said the tragedian, and the two shook hands.
'But that's not all,' said the new-comer. 'Milford was there.'
'The London Milford?' asked Mr. Cameron.
'The London Milford,' said the other. 'Milford of the Garrick. He heard me read it, prophesied a great run for it, has promised to come down again and see it, and if it fulfils his hopes of it, means to take it up to town. In fact, it's as good as settled.'
'I congratulate ye, me boy,' said Mr. Cameron. 'I knew ye'd hit 'em one of these fine days. I knew ut.'
Through all this, which she only half understood, Barbara was silent. She took advantage of the lull which followed the tragedian's expression of friendly triumph to recall Mrs. Cameron to the knowledge of her presence.
'I will speak to my uncle,' she said, 'and I will write to you.'
The stranger looked round when she spoke, and snatched his hat off. Barbara bent her head in general salutation and went her way. When she left the street, she could scarcely believe that it had not all been a dream. It was so unlike herself to do anything so bold-She felt more and more guilty as she waited for the coach, more and more afraid of confiding to her uncle such a scheme as that she had so hastily formed. When she reached home she made one or two inward overtures towards the attempt, but her courage failed her, and she kept silence. Yet she used to think sometimes that if she had the power to shorten poor Christopher's struggles, it was almost a crime not to do it.
CHAPTER II.
We who live in London know well enough that its streets are not paved with gold. If one had asked Christopher his opinion on that point, he would no doubt have laughed at the childishness of the question, yet he came up to London with all the confidence and certainty which the old childish belief could have inspired. He was coming to make his fortune. That went without saying. He was brim-full of belief in himself, to begin with. 'The world's mine oyster,' he thought, as the cheap parliamentary train crawled from station to station. The world is my oyster, for that matter, but the edible mollusc is hidden, and the shell is uninviting. Christopher found the mollusc very shy, the shell innutritive.
Publishers did not leap at the organ fugue in C as they ought to have done. They skipped not in answer to the adagio movement in the May-day Symphony. The oratorio conjured no money from their pockets--for the most part, they declined to open the wrapper which surrounded it, or to see it opened. Poor Christopher, in short, experienced all the