CHAPTER XIV
Since the last chapter went away to be typewritten I, myself, have been in the theatre on Blithepoint Pier. A pantomime was being performed. The seat I was in yielded me a view of more than I had paid to look at; I could see the Prompt entrance, which is the place where they signal for the sunset and the moonbeams and where the players come to peep at the doings on the stage. Last night a young woman came there. She wore a brief, blue skirt, and a silver crown, and for the nonce an unlovely wrap hung over her whitened back and bosom, since you may get rheumatism in the Prompt entrance, as well as moonbeams. Before the footlights two comic men were bawling a duet; I knew they were comic because they had made their faces so repulsive; and the spirit moving her, the woman broke into lazy dance steps to the refrain. In the glare, and the distance she was pretty. As I watched, I felt instinctively for the hand of Rosalind; I knew the craving that was in her blood, and turned to meet her gaze. If she had been there, I think she would have liked me. I said, "Those who saw that would understand Rosalind; the tawdry figure dancing in the draught says everything!" That was why I brought the picture at home, to show it to you ... but somehow, all at once, I doubt whether you will understand any better than you did.
However I beg you to believe that on the morrow Rosalind accompanied Tattie Lascelles to a rehearsal with infinite zest. She had no right to accompany her, but a discussion was in progress when they arrived, and she passed unchallenged. Mr. Omee, the local manager, who stood in the pit, was talking to Mr. Quisby, the travelling manager, who stood on the stage. It appeared that owing to the pressure of Christmas traffic, the railway company had failed to dispatch the scenery.
"Well, but who has been to the station? What do they say?"
"I tell you the fools at this end don't know anything about it."
"What the bleak Helvellyn's the good of bringing the piece without any scenery?"
"Isn't there any scenery in your theatre?"
"I've told you what cloth you can have, my boy. That's the best we can do."
"It's no use offering us Hyde Park Corner when we want a blooming mosque! ... Well, let's have a look at it!"
Mr. Omee shouted for "Bates."
There was a lull, and then from unseen heights a voice announced that Bates had just "stepped outside."
Mr. Omee ramped in the pit.
The shouts for "Bates" were resumed—the rafters rang with the name of "Bates"—and after some minutes a discomfited working man slouched onto the stage, to be received with a volley of abuse. He was understood to retort that he was unable to be in two places at once, and parties who expected it might find someone else to do the work, that was the straight tip. Those nearest to him also learnt that he had a poor opinion of the job at its blessed best.
"Let's have that Hyde Park cloth," commanded Mr. Omee. "Come on, look alive, man—hurry up!"
"What I want to know," grunted the low comedian, "is 'ow I'm to get that wheeze of mine into that song. That's what's bothering me."
"What song?" inquired Miss Lascelles.
"What song! Why, 'All the Winners.' I was going to say the Blithepoint football team was 'all the winners' in the match on Saturday, and now I'm told that Sweetbay beat 'em. My luck again! That queers my wheeze."
"Why not say," suggested Rosalind, "that the next time Sweetbay is rash enough to play them, Blithepoint will be all the winners?"
"Wot ho!" said the low comedian, brightening. He added promptly, "Of course that's what I was thinking of doing! But I must see if I can get all that cackle into the tune. Where's the conductor of the blooming band?"
Presently the cloth was displayed. It was no faithful representation of Hyde Park Corner, but it was still less like a mosque, and the players stood about, and sneered, and muttered contemptuous criticisms. Miss Jinman said that in all her experience she had never known such disgraceful mismanagement before. She was to figure in her Turkish trousers in this scene, and she pointed morosely to the omnibuses painted outside the hospital.
"Clear the stage, please!" cried Mr. Quisby. "We'll just run through Miss Vavasour's scenes. Come on, Miss Vavasour—we don't want to be here all day!" He told her this indignantly, as if the delay in lowering the cloth were directly attributable to her. She was the girl who had been suddenly promoted to the leading part.
The manager of the theatre lounged from the pit into the stalls, where Rosalind sat now too. He chewed his cigar, and there was gloom on his face. This should have been a week of large receipts, but the outlook was unpromising.
Miss Vavasour was rendered additionally nervous by the fact that she had not had time to learn the lines. She advanced constrainedly, and said in a timid voice—
"'We are alone at last! Oh rapture!'"
"Speak up, my dear!" said Mr. Quisby. "Say it as if you meant it. 'Rapture!' Do a bit of a caper there, be fetching!"
"'We are alone at last!'" repeated Miss Vavasour, with a mechanical jump. "'Oh rapture!'"
"Oh rats!" said the manager of the theatre. He turned to Rosalind—"Can she sing?" he asked.
"She sings even better than she acts," said Rosalind innocently.
"Good Lord!" groaned the manager. "Well, what are they waiting for now?"
It was the cue for an embrace, and Miss Vavasour was hanging forward to be clasped in the Tenor's arms, but the Tenor had a request to make—
"Mr. Quisby," he said, disregarding her, "I think it would be better if somebody read my part. I don't know how I shall get through to-night as it is—my cold is so severe."
"Oh, my sufferings!" muttered the manager of the theatre. "Now the Tenor's got a cold. This is going to be a great draw, this show is!"
"Don't you think you could just 'walk through' the 'business,' my boy?" Mr. Quisby asked. "The girl's a bit uneasy in the love scenes—she'll be all over the shop to-night if she don't know what you're going to do."
"I am really very ill," insisted the Tenor feebly; "I'm not fit to rehearse, I ought to be in bed."
"Oh, all right then," answered Mr. Quisby. He beckoned to the prompter. "Here, read the lines—give Miss Vavasour her cues. Do get on, Miss Vavasour, we shall be in the theatre till Doomsday if you don't wake up! 'We are alone at last'—go back, please."
"'We are alone at last. Oh rapture!'" faltered Miss Vavasour for the third time, with the mechanical jump.
"That's marked 'Kiss,'" said the prompter. He was a slovenly man with a dirty face.
"I know it is," snapped Miss Vavasour. "Do let's get to the next line!"
"I was 'elping yer," said the prompter, aggrieved. "If yer don't want no 'elp, sye so!" He read, "'My Prize! My Pearlikins!'"
"'Sometimes,'" continued Miss Vavasour, simulating maiden modesty. "'I wonder if it's all a dream. Why do you love me? You might have married Delicia, who has millions—I am a very poor girl.'"
"You're a very poor actress too," said Mr. Omee under his breath.
"'Why do I love yer, sweetheart?'" mumbled the prompter. "'Your question reminds me of what the apple-blossom said to the moon.'"
"Band cue!" shouted Mr. Quisby. "Have you got that, there in the orchestra?—'The Apple-blossom and the Moon,' song! Go on, Mr.—er—Song over. Get on with the lines."
"Excuse me!" exclaimed the Tenor, reappearing. "That's a cue for the limelight. I don't think it has been marked; I didn't get it at the dress rehearsal."
"Oh yes, it is marked," declared the prompter; "I marked it." He referred resentfully to the typescript. "'Moonlight'! There it is, in its proper plice."
"Its proper place is on me," said the Tenor.
"Well, we'll see it's all right to-night," said Mr. Quisby, with impatience. "If you're so ill, you had better get home and rest your voice, hadn't you?"
"I should be only too glad to be at home," rejoined the Tenor stiffly. "I just called attention to the matter for the sake of the scene.... Interests of the Show at heart!"
"Where do I speak from now, Mr. Quisby?" murmured Miss Vavasour.
"You're on the balcony, my dear—up left. 'And now ta-ta, my Romeo'! Get on with it, get on!"
"One moment, Miss Vavasour!" put in the Tenor, coming back. "You mustn't speak too soon, there; I expect an encore! Take your cue from me."
She nodded helplessly. "'And now ta-ta, my Romeo.'"
"''T is not the nightingale, let's have a lark!'" read the prompter. "'Come out to supper!——
'For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my 'ead——'"
"Come to cues!" said Mr. Quisby, stamping.
"'When 'e bestrides the liezy-piecing clouds,
And siles upon the bosom of the air,'"
gabbled the prompter.
"'Bosom of the air'!" bellowed Mr. Quisby. "Pick up your cues, Miss Vavasour, for Gawd's sake!"
"I beg your pardon, I didn't hear it, Mr. Quisby," she stammered.
"Well, then, listen, my girl! What do you suppose we're here for? 'Bosom of the air'—caper down centre. Lightly—lightly! Great Scot! not like that. You come down like a sack o' coals."
"The girl has no experience," remarked Miss Jinman in a deep undertone to all about her.
"Go back," shouted Mr. Quisby. "'Bosom of the air,' now again! What have you to say as you run down?"
"I forget," she whimpered.
"What's the line, Mr.—er—you?"
"I—I'm just looking to see," said the prompter.
"Looking to see?" yelled Mr. Quisby, furiously, throwing up his arms. "Upon my life and soul it's maddening! What's your business, what are you engaged as, what is it you're supposed to be? Are you the prompter, or are you not? Good — ——— is it asking too much of a man with the book in his hand to follow the lines? I've got the whole weight of the production on me, I've done the work of twenty men, I'm wearing myself out—and nobody takes the trouble to study a part, or to read the 'scrip! Ladies and gentlemen, the ensanguined rehearsal is dismissed, while the prompter looks for the line!"
"'Supper? Oh, it will be a merry evening!' read the prompter, sulkily.
"Very well then! Now, Miss Vavasour! let's have it."
"I think it's v-v-very hard on me," said Miss Vavasour, beginning to cry; "I've only had the p-part three days."
"Come, come, do your best! You've nothing to cry about, I've been very patient with you. 'Supper? Oh, it will be a merry evening!' Trip down pretty; speak as you come."
"Very hard on me," she sobbed; "I think it's m-m-most unfeeling!"
"Bring me a chair!" called Mr. Quisby to no one in particular. "Look here, my girl, I'm going to see you do it if we have to stop on the stage till the doors open. Understand? If I keep you here till the curtain rises, I'll see you do it! 'Bosom of the air!' Now take it up sharp."
"A bit of all right, keeping the Company 'ere to see a novice taught her business, I don't think," grumbled the low comedian.
Miss Vavasour, still sobbing, drooped to where the balcony was to be imagined. She sniffed violently, and, with an effort at sprightly grace, scuttled down the stage again.
"'Supper? Oh, it will be a merry evening!' she quavered.
"It'll be a merry evening to-morrow—about sixpence in the house!" growled the manager of the theatre. He caught Rosalind's eye. "Are the rest of you as good as this, my dear?" he said bitterly.
"Oh yes," said cheerful Rosalind, "I think you'll like us all!"
Presently Miss Lascelles wanted to see where she was to dress, and with a heartful of memories Rosalind explored with her. The pencilled lists of names on most of the doors were lengthy, but Miss Lascelles was to share a room with no one but Miss Vavasour this week, so she was jubilant, and had been in no hurry to annex a gas-burner. As a rule the ladies scamper on Monday morning to secure the best places.
The room was very comfortably furnished.
"Oh my!" said Miss Lascelles, enraptured.
"Oh dear!" said Lady Darlington, disappointed. "Why, there's a full length mirror! Where's the single washstand for five people? Where's the one chair, broken? Why, you've got two rugs! This is a blow, Tattie!"
Miss Lascelles was doing coon steps before the mirror. "Is the rehearsal hateful enough for you?"
"It's a dream of delight," said Rosalind.
But even she was rather tired of it when it finished at five o'clock.
It was nearly half-past five when they reached their lodging, and they were glad to hear from Mrs. Cheney that "the kittle was on the bile." At a quarter to seven Miss Lascelles had to hurry to the theatre again.
Rosalind went later. The wind had risen, and on the pier she had to fight against it. The lamps streaked a heaving sea. The little wooden theatre was fairly full, and a few Christmas trippers in the balcony were comporting themselves with less decorum than prevails in Blithepoint as a rule. Knowing what she knew of affairs behind the curtain, Rosalind heard the whistles with misgiving. She feared that if the whistlers found the entertainment meagre, they were likely to create entertainment for themselves.
However, they listened to the opening chorus with polite attention. It was surprising how attractive many of the chorus ladies had become. They represented the seamen of the Battleship Deadly Oyster, and wore sailors' jackets and trousers made of silk—or a material that passed for it. Some of the seamen also wore paste necklaces. They sang that there was "No life so jolly as Jack's," and when one watched their saucy gambols, and remembered that they were actually paid to be there, it looked as if there could be no life so jolly as a chorus girl's.
As it happened, the first to provoke dissatisfaction was the Tenor. He had been refused permission to beg indulgence for his cold, but resolving that the Audience should understand that they were not hearing him to advantage, he kept laying his hand on his chest, with an air of suffering. It made him a depressing figure; and when he exclaimed, "'Beware, my temper's hot!'" a humourist in the balcony cried, "How's your poultice?"
A man in the pit said "Hush!" but several persons giggled, and the humourist was stimulated to further witticisms. Other humourists began to envy him his successes; as the piece proceeded, the interruptions were frequent. Once the low comedian attempted a repartee, but it came too late in the evening to turn the scale; the malcontents had grown spiteful, and as a rejoinder he was hissed. His companions stared at one another haggardly. "Behind," they stood quaking, dreading the cues that would recall them to the stage.
At every exit they came off gasping, "The brutes! the pigs! Oh, what a wicked house it is!"
The "house" would have been astonished at the emotion displayed, at the "extraordinary sensitiveness of such people." To the Stalls there were "Just a few noisy young fellows upstairs who made jokes." Indeed it seemed a long time between the jokes to the Stalls; they wore an air of superior detachment, but they were secretly amused. Only Rosalind understood. Rosalind felt faint.
Miss Lascelles had been accepted by the Balcony while they were still good humoured, and she was among those who escaped contumely; but Miss Jinman's record availed her little. Derisive cheers greeted her every entrance, and a lifetime on the boards could not save her from the sickness of the senses which attacks a player who is being "guyed." As for Miss Vavasour, she trembled as if she had ague when a youth mimicked her high notes in her solo, and on her bloodless face, while she sang, the make-up stood out in patches, like paint on the cheeks of a corpse. At the conclusion of the song she clung hysterically to Tattie Lascelles in the wings.
When the end was reached, the Audience rose murmuring that it was a "silly piece," and "not worth going to"—they "shouldn't think it would be a success!" No one but Rosalind suspected the despair that was hidden by the curtain.
She made her way to the stage-door. Tedious as the performance had been, a number of young men had preceded her, and were assembling to address the chorus ladies when they came out. (Thirty were waiting there that night when the Chorus came out at last.) An old woman—a dresser—was hurrying in with two glasses containing whisky from the refreshment room. One of the young men asked her jauntily if she would take a message for him to "the sixth girl on the right." She said she was in a hurry, and pushed the door open. As the door-keeper wasn't there, to be obstructive, Rosalind followed her inside.
Many of the players were in the flaring passage. They had not begun to doff their costumes yet; they were lingering in groups, a tinselled, nerveless crowd with harassed eyes. Miss Vavasour sat crying on a clothes hamper; Miss Jinman was waiting weakly for her whisky. As it appeared, her gaze fell on the huddled girl; "Here, have half of this, child!" she said gently. The brunette with golden hair exclaimed, "No, no, take yours, Miss Jinman; Queenie can have half of mine!" Everybody kept casting anxious glances in the direction of the stage, where voices could be heard disputing.
"Poor old Tat!" murmured Rosalind.
Now Miss Lascelles, as we know, had had less than the majority to unhinge her, but so infectious was the atmosphere, so easily swayed are some of these "extraordinarily sensitive" people of the theatre, that as Rosalind's arm was slipped round her waist, she immediately burst into tears, and sobbed as if her heart would break.
"Cheer up," said Rosalind. "It'll go all right after a few more rehearsals."
"I shall be b-better directly," gulped Miss Lascelles. "D-don't mind me. I'm a fool, but I can't help it; I'm broke up!"
"We're all of us broke up," groaned Miss Jinman. "Did you ever see such a house as it was? In all my experience I never saw anything like it! What were they saying as they came out? Do you think we shall go on, my dear?"
"I sha'n't be kept, anyhow," wailed Miss Vavasour. "Mr. Quisby's been bullying me as if it was all my fault. I shall be out of a shop again! And I did hope I was settled till the spring—I don't know what I shall do, I'm sure!"
"Where is he?" inquired Rosalind.
"That's him, quarrelling with Mr. Omee there," said Miss Lascelles. "Mr. Omee says he won't let the piece go on to-morrow night."
"Not go on?"
"They say he says so," put in the demi-blonde. "That's all gas—he'd have to shut the theatre; he won't do that."
"If you ask me," said the low comedian, taking part in the conference gloomily, "it puts the kybosh on the tour. We may as well pack up our props, and git. There's no good health for Miss Kiss-and-Tell after to-night's show."
"Git?" demanded Miss Jinman, "Git where? I shall have my rights; I've got a contract."
"Take it to your Uncle's!" said the low comedian. "See what he'll lend you on it. If you ask me, the Syndicate's a wrong 'un. If we strike it lucky, we'll get our fares; and if we don't strike it lucky, we can travel on our luggage. I see it sticking out a foot!"
A shudder ran through the players. They gathered about him dumbly.
"We can all claim a fortnight's salary in lieu of notice," asserted Miss Jinman, rallying. "That's the Law. It's the Rule of the Profession."
The company perked up a little. They turned their eyes to Miss Jinman.
"So I've been led to believe," said the low comedian. "And in such circs the pros always get it, I don't think! Claim? Oh, we can claim! We'll all get fat claiming, won't we? You're better off to claim from the Post Office than from a Syndicate—at all events you do know where St. Martin's le Grand is."
The company collapsed.
"The long and the short of it," he continued, "is that we're out with a stumour of a piece. Why didn't it go? Is there anything wrong with us? No! a jolly clever crowd, if you ask me. The piece has got no stamina—" "stamina" was not the word he used—"that's what's the matter; and that 'Iyde Park Corner cloth settled us. I'll lay anyone 'ere ten to one that the tour dries up, and the Syndicate does a guy. 'Oo's Quisby?"
"Quisby?" they gasped. "'Who's Quisby?'"
"Quisby!" repeated the low comedian emphatically; "I say, 'Oo's Quisby? I'll lay anybody 'ere ten to one that Quisby calls us to-morrow to say he ain't responsible. Now? I wish all Syndicates were in 'ell."
The dispute between the powers had ended, and suddenly the prompter's voice rang through the passage. He bawled, "Everybody on the stige, please! Principals and Chorus are wanted on the stige!"
The eyes met for a moment, and then the players trooped away, with sinking hearts. The cold, bare stage was in shadow, for the floats and battens had been extinguished, and the only light was shed by a single burner of the T-piece. By the T-piece Mr. Quisby stood, his back to the dark emptiness of the auditorium. The prompter was still heard calling in the distance;—
"Everybody on the stige, please! Principals and Chorus on the stige!"
Shivering, they flocked there, some in their plumes and spangles, others already in their shabby street clothes; many were in a state of transition—the faces daubed with grease, the undergarments and naked necks revealed by hasty ulsters. Nobody spoke. When the last comer had scrambled to the crowd, all looked at Mr. Quisby. The suspense that held them mute was pitiable.
Outside, the thirty young men had collected to accost the merry chorus girls.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Quisby, "there will be no performance to-morrow." He forced a hearty air. "I'm going to talk to you like a pal. Things look a bit rocky, but we must hope for the best. I won't disguise from you that there may be no tour. Now you all know as much as I do—there may be no tour. Whether there is, or not, I've no doubt we shall all get what's due to us. I hope we shall, I'm sure—God knows I can't afford to lose what they owe me!" He made a slight pause, to let this sink. "As soon as I hear from London what the Management intends to do, we'll put our heads together again. You worked nobly to-night, nobly—one and all! Some of you ought to be in London, getting your thirty, and forty, quid a week! If the thing's a frost, it won't be the fault of the artists, and I mean to let the Management know it!"
"What Management?" cried the low comedian. "'Ave you left off being manager all of a sudden?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, as you're all aware, the Management is a Syndicate," Mr. Quisby proceeded with difficulty. "If this was my crowd, I should talk very different. Do you know what I should say if this was my crowd? I should say, 'Between you and I, I'm a bit doubtful of the piece—that's straight!—but I've got a first-class company of artists, and by George I mean to keep 'em!' I should say, 'If I can't pull this piece together, then I'll cast the whole blessed crowd for another!' That's what I should say if I was manager. But I'm not. No, I'm one of you. We're all in the same boat. I'm engaged at a salary, like yourselves. Still"—he smeared the perspiration round his lying lips—"still it's always darkest before dawn. There's a silver lining to every cloud, and we may find as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Mr. Omee won't have the piece, and—er—you're all to clear your props out of the theatre first thing in the morning; but there are plenty of other theatres in the kingdom! We must stick together. Where there's a will, there's a way! We must stick together, like Englishmen in the hour of trouble all the world over, and—er, er—be loyal to the show! Ladies and gentlemen—Boys and girls!—Mr. Omee is waiting to see me in his office. That's all."
"Well, he couldn't have spoken any fairer," many of the poor, wretched women said to one another as they lagged through the forsaken streets.