Part 36 (1/2)
The ladies returned to the dressing-room again and again in the coa.r.s.e of the performance, and when not occupied with the changing of their dresses they amused themselves variously. Sometimes they smoked cigarettes, sometimes sent Collins for brandy and soda, sometimes talked of their friends in front: 'Lord Johnny's 'ere again. See 'im in the prompt box? It's 'is sixtieth night this piece, and there's only been sixty-nine of the run--and sometimes they discussed the audience generally: ”Don't know what's a-matter with 'em to-night; ye may work yer eyes out and ye can't get a 'and.”
The curtain came down at length, the outdoor costumes were resumed, the call-boy cried ”Carriages, please,” the ladies answered ”Right ye are, Tommy,” her plump ladys.h.i.+p nodded to Glory, ”You'll do middling, my dear, when ye get yer 'and in”; and then nothing was left but the dark stage, the blank house, and the ”Good-night, miss,” of the porter at the stage door.
So these were favourites of the footlights! And Glory Quayle was dressing and undressing them and preparing them for the stage! Next morning, before rising, Glory tried to think it out. Were they so very beautiful? Glory stretched up in bed to look at herself in the gla.s.s, and lay down again with a smile. Were they so much cleverer than other people? It was foolishness to think of it, for they were as empty as a drum. There must be some explanation if a girl could only find it out.
The second night at the theatre pa.s.sed much like the first, except that the ladies were visited between the acts by a group of fellow-artistes from another company, and then the free-and-easy manners of familiar intercourse gave way to a style that was most circ.u.mspect and precise, and, after the fas.h.i.+on of great ladies, they talked together of morning calls and leaving cards and five-o'clock tea.
There was a scene in the performance in which the three girls sang together, and Glory crept out to the head of the stairs to listen. When she returned to the dressing-room her heart was bounding, and her eyes, as she saw them in the gla.s.s, seemed to be leaping out of her head. It was ridiculous! To think of all that fame, all that fuss about voices like those, about singing like that, while she--if she could only get a hearing!
But the cloud had chased the suns.h.i.+ne from her face in a moment, and she was murmuring again, ”O G.o.d, do not punish a vain, presumptuous creature!”
All the same she felt happy and joyous, and on the third night she was down at the theatre earlier than the other dressers, and was singing to herself as she laid out the costumes, for her heart was beginning to be light. Suddenly she became aware of some one standing at the open door.
It was an elderly man, with a bald head and an owlish face. He was the stage manager; his name was Sefton.
”Go on, my girl,” he said. ”If you've got a voice like that, why don't you let somebody hear it?”
Her plump ladys.h.i.+p arrived late that night, and her companions were dressed and waiting when she swept into the room like a bat with outstretched wings, crying: ”Out o' the wy! Betty Bellman's coming!
She's lyte.”
There were numerous little carpings, backbitings, and hypocrisies during the evening, and they reached a climax when Betty said, ”Lord Bobbie is coming to-night, my dear.” ”Not if _I_ know it, my love,” said the tall lady. ”We are goin' to supper at the Nell Gwynne Club, dearest.”
”Surprised at ye, my darling.” ”_You_ are a nice one to preach, my pet!”
After that encounter two of their ladys.h.i.+ps, who were kissing and hugging on the stage, were no longer on speaking terms in the dressing-room, and as soon as might be after the curtain had fallen, the tall lady and the little one swept out of the place with mysterious asides about a ”friend being a friend,” and ”not staying there to see nothing done shabby.”
”If she don't like she needn't, my dear,” said the boycotted one, and then she dismissed Glory for the night with a message to the friend who would be waiting on the stage.
The atmosphere of the dressing-room had become oppressive and stifling that night, and, notwithstanding the exaltation of her spirits since the stage manager had spoken to her, Glory was sick and ashamed. The fires of her ambition were struggling to burn under the drenching showers that had fallen upon her modesty, and she felt confused and compromised.
As she stepped down the stairs the curtain was drawn up, the auditorium was a void, the stage dark, save for a single gas jet that burned at the prompter's wing, and a gentleman in evening dress was walking to and fro by the extinguished footlights. She was about to step up to the man when she recognised him, and turning on her heel she hurried away. It was Lord Robert Ure, and the memory that had troubled her at the first sight of Betty was of the woman who had ridden with Polly Love on the day of the Lord Mayor's show.
Feeling hot and foolish and afraid, she was scurrying through the dark pa.s.sages when some one called her. It was the stage manager.
”I should like to hear your voice again, my dear. Come down at eleven in the morning, sharp. The leader of the orchestra will be here to play.”
She made some confused answer of a.s.sent, and then found herself in the back seat, panting audibly and taking long breaths of the cold night air. She was dizzy and was feeling, as she had never felt before, that she wanted some one to lean upon. If anybody had said to her at that moment, ”Come out of the atmosphere of that hot-bed, my child, it is full of danger and the germs of death,” she would have left everything behind her and followed him, whatever the cost or sacrifice. But she had no one, and the pain of her yearning and the misery of her shame were choking her.
Before going home she walked over to the hospital; but no, there was still no letter from John Storm. There was one from Drake, many days overdue:
”Dear Glory: Hearing that you call for your letters, I write to ask if you will not let me know where you are and how the world is using you.
Since the day we parted in St. James's Park I have often spoken of you to my friend Miss Macquarrie, and I am angry with myself when I remember what remarkable talents you have, and that they are only waiting for the right use to be made of them.
”Yours most kindly,
”F. H. N. Drake.”
”Many thanks, good Late-i'-th'-day,” she thought, and she was crus.h.i.+ng the latter in her hand when she saw there was a postscript: