“Fifty? Forty? I tell you—I’ll tell you—I’m thirty. That’s what I am. Not a day more. And Tim was accidental. Quite. If I’d had my way——Of course a child takes it out of you—and touring on the top! I played Aladdin at the time I was nursing him. It wasn’t as easy as you’d think either. My word, how that kid used to howl! My dressing-room was star, you see—right off the stage. We used to have to arrange with the conductor for incidental music whenever he woke up. Can’t trust land-ladies—will give ’em gin when your back’s turned. Well, as I say—I may be thirty and there’s Tim and the mourning; but made-up I don’t look a day over twenty, I give you my word. Why shouldn’t I get married again?”
Laura fidgeted, and Coral reddened anew. She had a terrible trick of accusing you of thinking that which, as a matter of inconvenient fact, you had been thinking.
“If you think I wasn’t fond of poor old John—well, you’re wrong. But he’s dead and I’m alive. And once you’ve had a husband, you know——”
Laura obviously didn’t.
“Well—mind, I’m not saying it’s only habit—but a man’s like a fur coat. Not absolutely necessary, but once you’ve had one you can’t get on without. You feel lost. You want some one to look after. I’d never go wrong, you know. I’m not that sort. A girl who can’t control herself makes me sick. I’ve seen too much of it. And they call it love! But give me a husband! Not that I’d live on a man even if he were my husband. I own myself, you know. I pay my way. Why—I’ve earned my keep ever since I was twelve. Up to six-ten a week I’ve been, and down to eighteen bob and provide your shoes and gloves. But I’ve always kept myself—and John too sometimes; though he hated it, poor Johnnie. But there it was, you see. I could play anything from Little Eva to The Worst Woman in London. But, John, he wasn’t much good. He could act straight parts all right, and of course I always got him cast for earls when I knew the management; but he wasn’t much use for anything else. Too much the gentleman, you know. And a joint engagement—it’s cheaper one way—living together; but they beat you down. Still, it’s better than living alone. It’s hell, living alone——”
That was always the burden of the conversations with which she beguiled their long hours together. For Mrs. Cloud was pathetically absorbed in Timothy, and Justin had grown adroit in calculating and evading his sister-in-law’s whereabouts. Laura, as Mrs. Cloud told Aunt Adela in an apologetic call, was invaluable. She got on so well with Coral. Indeed, as she said one day to her son, she was doing Coral good. Hadn’t Justin noticed how much quieter poor dear Coral had grown in manner?
But neither Mrs. Cloud nor Justin noticed how much good Coral was doing Laura. For Laura, doing her duty with wide eyes and ears and mouth, drank in knowledge that had never before come her way: was introduced to facts—facts as crude and obvious as bread-and-cheese—and that, often enough, in a fashion that would have appalled Aunt Adela and would have been incomprehensible to Mrs. Cloud.
For Coral, inevitably, sprinkled her conversation with tales of the trade, occasionally funny, invariably coarse—tales so complicatedly Rabelaisian that Laura, that seeker after knowledge, would wrinkle her brows and ask questions, and Coral would double up with laughter and sometimes explain. But the explanations were even more extraordinary than the stories. Now and then she carried a perplexity to Justin. He, in his sensible fashion, always explained the point that would have horrified Aunt Adela, and, though he laughed, agreed with her that it was not really funny. Laura was satisfied. She liked Justin. She knew where she was with Justin. He never left his sentences unfinished. She was superior one day when Coral began, as usual, to tease her.
“Oh, I understand that now. I asked Justin.”
“You didn’t! You haven’t? Really, Laura!” For once Coral was shocked. “I never heard of such a thing! Haven’t you any sense of decency? To ask a man——! I wonder you’re not ashamed.” And then, with a giggle, “What did he say?”