A Mummer's Wife

by George Moore

The words dwelt long in Kate's mind, but she found it hard to keep her temper. Her temper surprised even herself. It seemed to be giving way, and she trembled with rage at things that before would not have stirred an unquiet thought in her mind. Remembrances of the passions that used to convulse her when a child returned to her. As is generally the case, there was right on both sides. Her life, it must be confessed, was woven about with temptations. Dick's character easily engendered suspicion, and when the study of the part of Clairette was over, the iron of distrust began again to force its way into her heart. The slightest thing sufficed to arouse her. On one occasion, when travelling from Bath to Wolverhampton, she could not help thinking, judging from the expression of the girl's face, that Dick was squeezing Dolly's foot under the rug; without a word she moved to the other end of the carriage and remained looking out of the window for the rest of the journey. Another time she was seized with a fit of mad rage at seeing Dick dancing with Beaumont at the end of the second act of Madame Angot. There were floods of tears and a distinct refusal 'to dress with that woman.' Dick was in despair! What could he do? There was no spare room, and unless she went to dress with the chorus he didn't know what she'd do.

'My God!' he exclaimed to Mortimer, as he rushed across the stage after the 'damned property-man,' 'never have your woman playing in the same theatre as yourself; it's awful!'

For the last couple of weeks everything he did seemed to be wrong. Success, instead of satisfying Kate, seemed to render her more irritable, and instead of contenting herself with the plaudits that were nightly showered upon her, her constant occupation was to find out either where Dick was or what he had been doing or saying. If he went up to make a change without telling her she would invent some excuse for sending to inquire after him; if he were giving some directions to the girls at one of the top entrances, she would walk from the wing where she was waiting for her cue to ask him what he was saying. This watchfulness caused a great deal of merriment in the theatre, and in the dressing-rooms Mortimer's imitation of the catechism the manager was put to at night was considered very amusing.

'My dear, I assure you you're mistaken. I only smoked two cigarettes after lunch, and then I had a glass of beer. I swear I'm concealing nothing from you.'

And this is scarcely a parody of the strict surveillance under which Dick lived, but from a mixture of lassitude and good nature it did not seem to annoy him too much, and he appeared to be most troubled when Kate murmured that she was tired, that she hated the profession and would like to go and live in the country. For now she complained of fatigue and weariness; the society of those who formed her life no longer interested her, and she took violent and unreasoning antipathies. It was not infrequent for Mortimer and Montgomery to make an arrangement to grub with the Lennoxes whenever a landlady could be discovered who would undertake so much cooking. But without being able to explain why, Kate declared she could not abide sitting face to face with the heavy lead. She saw and heard quite enough of him at the theatre without being bothered by him in the day-time. Dick made no objection. He confessed, and, willingly, that he was a bit tired of disconnected remarks, and the wit of irrelevancies; and Mortimer, he said, fell to sulking if you didn't laugh at his jokes. Montgomery continued to board with them, the young man very uncertain always whether he would be as unhappy away from her as he was with her. He often dreamed of sending in his resignation, but he could not leave the company, having begun to look upon himself as her guardian angel; and, without consulting Dick, they arranged deftly that Dubois should be asked to take Mortimer's place. Dick approved when the project was unfolded to him, the natty appearance of the little foreigner was a welcome change after Mortimer's draggled show of genius. He could do everything better than anybody else, but that did not matter, for he was amusing in his relations. Whether you spoke of Balzac's position in modern fiction or the rolling of cigarettes, you were certain to be interrupted with, 'I assure you, my dear fellow, you're mistaken' uttered in a stentorian voice. On the subject of his bass voice a child could draw him out, and, under the pretext of instituting a comparison between him and one of the bass choristers, Montgomery never failed to induce him to give the company an idea of his register. At first to see the little man settling the double chin into his chest in his efforts to get at the low D used to convulse Kate with laughter, but after a time even this grew monotonous, and wearily she begged Montgomery to leave him alone. 'Nothing seems to amuse you now' he would say with a mingled look of affection and regret. A shrug of the shoulder she considered a sufficient answer for him, and she would sink back as if pursuing to its furthest consequences the train of some far-reaching ideas.

And in wonder these men watched the progress of Kate's malady without ever suspecting what was really the matter with her. She was homesick. But not for the house in Hanley and the dressmaking of yore. She had come to look upon Hanley, Ralph, Mrs. Ede, the apprentices and Hender as a bygone dream, to which she could not return and did not wish to return. Her homesickness was not to go back to the point from which she had started, but to settle down in a house for a while.

'Not for long, Dick,' she said, 'a month; even a fortnight would make all the difference. We spent a fortnight at Blackpool, but we have never stayed a fortnight at the same place since.'

'I know what's the matter with you, Kate,' he answered; 'you want a holiday; so do I; we all want a holiday. One of these days we shall get one when the tour comes to an end.'

It did not seem to Kate that the tour would ever come to an end: she would always be going round like a wheel.

Dick begged her to have patience, and she resolved to have patience, but one Saturday night in the middle of her packing the vision of the long railway journey that awaited her on the morrow rose up suddenly in her mind, and she could not do else than spring to her feet, and standing over the half-filled trunk she said: