He selected one that he used to sing and commenced it creditably. But after a few bars he broke down. Yvonne encouraged him to take it again, which he did with greater success. But his voice, a high baritone, was wofully out of condition. At a second breakdown, he looked at her in dismay.
“I fear it’s no good,” he said.
“Oh, yes it is,” said Yvonne. “They don’t want a Santley in the chorus of the provincial company of a comic-opera. We ’ll have a good long time now. You shall do some scales. And you can come in to-morrow morning, before you go to Brum, and have half-an-hour more, and that will set you right.”
The little authoritative air sat oddly upon her. Vandeleur used to say that Yvonne in a business mood was even more serious than a child playing at parson. But she knew she was giving a professional opinion; and that was bound to be serious. Taking him through the scales, then, in her best professional manner, she brought the practice to a satisfactory conclusion. Then she became the sunny Yvonne again, and, after he had gone, sat smiling to herself with the conscious happiness of a fairy god-mother.
The interview with Brum, the manager, was satisfactory, and Joyce after accepting the engagement at thirty shillings a week, went straight on to rehearse with the rest of the chorus. And after this there were daily rehearsals extending to the Sunday two weeks ahead when the start was to be made for Newcastle, where the company opened. After the first two or three days, the rather helpless sense of unfamiliarity wore off, and Joyce found his task an easy one. His voice, by comparison, certainly warranted his selection, and in knowledge of music and general ability he was vastly superior to his colleagues, who received rough usage for stupidity at the hands of the stage-manager. He found them mostly dull, uneducated men, two or three with wives in the female chorus, very jealous of their rights and the order of precedence among them, but with little ambition and less capacity. In spite of the old suit, which he was careful to wear, he was looked upon at first, rather resentfully, as an amateur; but he bore disparaging remarks with philosophical unconcern, and, after a judicious drink or two at a “professional” bar near the stage-door of the theatre, he was accepted among them without further demur.
But Joyce was too much exercised at this time with his own relations to himself to think much of his relations to others. The reaction from the most poignant despair he had known since his freedom, to sudden hope, had set working many springs of resolution. He would banish all thoughts of the past from his mind, forget Stephen Chisely in the new man Stephen Joyce, take up the new threads fate had spun for him, and weave them into a new life without allowing any of them to cross the old: a resolution which would be laughable, were it not so eternal, and so pathetic in its futility. The world will never know the enormous expenditure of will-power by its weak men.
The fortnight, however, passed in something near to contentment and peace of soul. If we can cheat ourselves into serenity at times, it is a gift to be thankful for. Besides, occupation is a great anodyne to trouble; and the provincial production of a great London success offers considerable occupation for those concerned in it. Rehearsals were called twice a day, morning and evening. As Joyce did not leave the theatre until nearly midnight he had no time to look in at the familiar billiard-room, and so Noakes and his “penny bloods” were forgotten. On the other hand he spent several of his afternoons with Yvonne, who was delighted with his accounts of himself, and sent him away cheered and sanguine.
“The only thing I regret,” said Joyce, during his farewell visit, “is that I shall be cutting myself off from you. I suppose every one is entitled to a grievance. And this is mine. Do you know you are the only friend I have in the world?”
As Yvonne knew that the world was very big and that she herself was very small, the fact somewhat awed her. She regarded him pityingly for a moment “What a dreadful thing it must be to feel alone like that.”