CHAPTER IX
THE DAWN
Jimmy had been dressed three hours before it was absolutely necessary that he should be at the theatre, and then had wandered about his rooms, tortured by doubts and fears; wondering if by chance it would not have been better to have altered this line at the last, or to have extended that phrase, so as to convey the meaning better. Suppose, after all, the theatre took fire—now, when people were gathering at its very doors; suppose the iron curtain refused to go up (such things had been known to happen); or suppose Bennett Godsby, in the very hour of his triumph, dropped dead from sheer excitement. Would there be a call for the author, and should Jimmy go on, in that case? Nay, more—would he be permitted to go on? That was the more vital question, because Bennett Godsby had to be reckoned with in such a matter.
He went down to the theatre at last, to find the man at the stage door, who always sat in the company of the gas stove and the very old dog, rising to his feet to wish him good luck; Jimmy blushed to think that he had not sufficient in his pocket for a tip. Also, there were telegrams; one in particular from Alice, which he thrust into an inner pocket. Then he went down on to the stage and looked about him.
Actually there was a man there—a property man, or some other debased character—lounging on a settee, and whistling! It did not seem to occur to him that so much depended on this night; if anything, the debased one looked a trifle bored. Jimmy trembled at the thought that in the hands of such people as this rested perhaps the fate of the play; for, according to Bennett Godsby, the wrong coloured carpet put down on the stage, or a chair six inches too much to the left, had ruined the fate of the finest ere this. Thinking that, Jimmy went in search of Bennett Godsby, with the object of cheering him.
He found him in his dressing-room, opening letters and telegrams, and apparently not in the least anxious. The great man looked round at Jimmy as he entered and nodded.
"I've got a ghastly feeling come over me, Larrance," he said—"a horrible feeling that I shan't do myself justice to-night. It's the life, I suppose; it's telling on me a bit. Every blessed thing seems to have gone out of my head. I know I look calm," he added, as if in reply to Jimmy's deprecatory smile, "but that's only manner. I've got to that pitch that I simply don't care what happens—I don't indeed. It may suit the part better, in a way—and it may not. Here—take this coat!"
He turned to the dresser, and began to prepare for the evening's work. Jimmy, with a dull feeling that all was over with him, and that he wished someone would stop the band then tuning up in the distance, turned to go. Mr. Bennett Godsby called him back.
"By the way—you'll be somewhere about, I suppose?" he said.