The turn of the Casino Juveniles consisted of vocal soli, concerted numbers, pas seuls, and ensembles, in the costumes of the early nineteenth century. It was entitled Old-fashioned Flowers (you may remember it), and, with a nice catholicity, it embraced the minuet and the pavane no less than the latest coon song and dance. At the end of the first show, Madame expressed herself as well satisfied with Gina.
“Seems to have a real—what you might call flare—for the stage. Understands what she’s doing. Made for a dancer. Let’s hope she don’t grow.”
For the tragedy of the good lady’s life was that her children would grow, and every two years or so they had to be weeded out and new little girls laboriously trained to take the places of those who possessed neither the divine grace of the juvenile nor the self-assurance of the adult. She had a much-furrowed face, and swore hybrid oaths at electricians and stage hands. They understood.
For the first week, Gina thoroughly enjoyed herself, and, true to her creed, forced the rest of the company to enjoy her.
Sharp at five every afternoon, she had to appear at the centre where the private omnibus collected the children and whisked them away to the first hall, where they were an early number—on at seven-five—for the first house. Then, out of that hall to another at the far side of London, where they were a concluding number for the first house. Then back to the starting-place for the second house, and off again to finish at the distant hall. At about one in the morning she would trip home to supper, which Mumdear left in the kitchen oven. So to bed. At ten o’clock next morning Mumdear would bring her a cup of tea and a cigarette, and at about noon she would descend, unless a rehearsal were called for eleven.
Then, one brave night, came her chance to display that Ginaesque quality that made her loved and admired by all who knew her. In a low river-side hall in the Blackhall direction the Casino Juveniles were the bill-footers. This hall was a relic of the old times and the old manners—a plaintive echo of the days when the music hall was little more than a cave of harmony, with a saw-dusted floor, a husky waiter, and a bull-throated chairman. Efforts to bring it up to date by renovation and structural alteration had only had the effect of emphasising its age, and its threepenny gallery and its fourpenny pit told their own tale.
By this time Gina had, by some subtle means, unknown to herself or to others, established herself as leader of the Casinos. Her compelling personality, her wide knowledge of “things” as well as matters of general interest, and her confident sagacity, had, together, drawn even those youngsters who had been two years with the turn to look to her as a final court of appeal in all questions and disputes. They listened to her ideas of dance, and took cues from her that rightly should have come from the titular leader. Perhaps it was the touch of devil which alternately smouldered and flamed in Gina’s eyes that was the real secret of her domination of her fellows; a touch that came from the splash of soft Southern blood in her veins, bequeathed by a grandfather who, in his early twenties, mislaid his clasp-knife somewhere between the ribs of a neighbour on the island of Sicily, and found it expedient to give up the search for it and come to England. This languorous, sun-loved blood, fused with the steady blood of the North, resulted in a mixture which raced under her skin with the passion and energy of a greyhound, and gave her that mysterious élan which decided, as soon as she could walk, that she was born for dance.
On the big night—a Wednesday: early-closing night—the hall was playing to good business. It was lit with a suave brilliance. Gallery packed, pit packed, stalls packed, and the gangway by the babbling bar packed close with the lads of the water-side—niggers, white toughs, and yellow men.
The air was mephitic: loud with foot and voice and glass. It stunk of snarling song. Solemn smokes of cut plug swirled in a haze of lilac up to the dreary rim of gallery and the chimera of corpse faces that swam above it. At nine-ten Gina and the rest of the Casinos stood in the wings, watching the turn that preceded them on the bill—Luigi Cadenza, the world-renowned Italian tenor: salary three guineas per week for thirteen shows a week—who was handing Santa Lucia and O sole mio to an indifferent audience; for in vaudeville it is the early turn that gets the bird. Near them stood the manager, discussing the Lincolnshire probables with the stage manager. Much dirty and faded scenery, alleged fireproof, was piled to the flies, and on either side were iron doors and stone staircases. Everywhere were strong draughts and crusted dirt.
Suddenly, from behind a sweep of canvas, leapt an antic figure, dishevelled, begrimed, inarticulate. It plucked the manager by the sleeve.