  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover [image] SHE PUT ALEXANDRIA INTO THE MOST COMFORTABLE OF HER CHAIRS AND DREW ANOTHER CLOSE TO IT. PAGE THE HONEY-POT BY Author of "The Little Mother Who NEW YORK Copyright, 1916 FIRST IMPRESSION, FEBRUARY 1916 I am a traveler in the great World-path; my garments are dirty and my feet are bleeding with thorns. Where should I achieve flower-beauty, the unsullied loveliness of a moment's life? The gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman. Here have all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling toward immortal life. Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble and grand. If the flower service is finished, my master, accept this as your servant for the days to come. —Rabindranath Tagore. THE HONEY-POT I In her petticoat, barefooted, because the morning was sultry, Miss Maggy Delamere plied a well-worn hare's foot to her cheeks with the sure touch of an artist. Professionally speaking and adding a final "e" to the term, that is what she was—chorus-lady by courtesy, showgirl in the vernacular of the stage. On her small dressing-table were ranged a number of pots and bottles, unguents and creams. A battered make-up box containing remnants and ends of variously colored grease sticks flanked a looking-glass of inadequate size and small reflective power. A beam of sunlight striking across a corner of the table danced with minute particles of dust from a powder-puff. The astonishing amount of vigor she put into the process of facial adornment, the prodigality with which she used pigments and washes, were characteristic of her temperament, all generosity and recklessness. Paint and powder were a habit with her, not an exigency. No girl of nineteen could have needed them less. Her complexion, well-nigh flawless, bloomed beneath the unnecessary veneer. Not even a cracked mirror could mitigate her good looks nor detract anything from her vivacious expression. It reflected a speaking face even when the lips were still. She was taking unusual pains with her appearance this morning. A card stuck in the edge of the looking-glass provided the reason. Memo. from A. Stannard, Dramatic Agent. As everybody knows, the Pall Mall is the one London Theater of all others to which ladies of the chorus most aspire. In Maggy's case that aspiration was intensified by real want of an engagement. She had recently succumbed to an attack of that childish complaint, measles, and was more than usually hard-up. Her choice of garments was as limited as her means, yet twice she changed her mind about one or another of them before she was satisfied that she looked her best. Her efforts to that end finished with the tacking of several sheets of tissue paper to the inside of her skirt to give it the rustle of a silk lining. The rustle—deceptive and effective as stage thunder—convincingly accomplished, she felt ready to present herself before any stage-manager in existence. If her mood was serene vanity had no part in it. Unlike the average chorus-girl she was quite free from conceit of any kind. She was too good-looking to be unaware of it, but she did not trade on her appearance further than professional principles strictly allowed. She asked no more of it than that it should bring her in from thirty shillings to two pounds a week for honest work behind the footlights. Commercialism with her ended there. She was all heart, but free from illusions. Her mother had been on the stage before her. Always on the stage herself since childhood, familiarized with its careless, hand-to-mouth existence, its trials and its exuberances, she had become worldly-wise at ten and a woman at fifteen. But the life did not demoralize her. The bad example of a mother's frailty and intemperance had been her safeguard. She had never lost her head or her heart. She did not rate herself very high, but she rated men lower. Apart from this she had no hidebound views about life or morality. Since her mother's unlovely death she had lived alone and kept her end up somehow. She had often been penniless, gone hungry and cold; but so did many of the people among whom she moved. So long as she was not quite penniless she never worried. Cigale-like she lived in the present. If she ever suffered from fits of depression it was when she realized that she was more than usually shabby and needy, a condition, however, which she preferred to put up with rather than descend to the acquisitive methods of other girls. Through the rattle of the traffic in the street below she heard a church clock booming. Incidentally, she regarded churches less as places of worship than timepieces of magnitude, convenient when you do not possess a watch. She counted the strokes, ten of them, darted to the glass for a last survey of herself, gave a touch to her hat, another to her waistbelt, and pattered in her now stockinged feet to the top of the stairs. "Shoes, please, Mrs. Bell!" she sang out. "You don't want me to be late, do you?" "Coming this moment, Miss Delamere!" shouted an answering voice. Mrs. Bell lumbered up the stairs with the shoes in her hand—high-heeled ones of the sort that only last a fortnight before losing shape. "I just stopped to give them an extry polish," she panted. Maggy took them from her and hurriedly put them on. While she buttoned them her landlady went on her knees and gave them a final rub up with her apron. She meant well. "You'll have luck to-day," she said, regaining her feet and surveying her lodger with approval. "I should look out for the butcher's black cat on my way, if I was you. Back to dinner, dear?" "I'll have a cut off whatever you've got, if I am," Maggy answered. "Mine's hot Canterbury lamb and onion sauce." "All right." Maggy ran downstairs, slammed the hall door behind her and walked down the street into the main thoroughfare, looking for the green motor-bus that would take her within a stone's throw of the Pall Mall Theater. In a quarter of an hour she had reached that imposing edifice. Going in at the stage door she descended a flight of stone steps, traversed a long passage, and found herself upon the stage. Gray daylight filtered down from the skylight above the flies, just enough for the business of the moment, no more. Across the unlit footlights was a gloomy void, pierced by an occasional gleam from an open door at the back of the pit or dress-circle, and relieved by the lighter hue of serried rows of dust-sheets hanging over the seats and balcony edges. Close to the footlights was a table occupied by the stage-manager and one of his satellites. In the corner to their left an upright piano was set askew with the conductor of the orchestra seated at it. At the back of the stage, standing about in groups, some thirty girls and a few men were waiting to have their voices tried. They chattered noisily. Most of them seemed to know one another. One or two called out a greeting to Maggy. Some were volubly discussing their professional experiences, telling of late engagements and prospective ones; the run of this piece, the closing down of that; incidents on tour and in pantomime; suppers at restaurants and the demerits of landladies. These topics ran into one another and overlapped. Others, with giggles, imparted risky anecdotes in undertones. Most of them appeared to be taking the situation with the calmness of habit. Nervousness showed in a few faces; anxiety in one or two. One pale-faced girl was in a condition of approaching maternity. In other surroundings she would have attracted attention, perhaps called up pathetic surprise that in the circumstances she should be attempting to obtain employment. But here very few were affected by pathos at sight of her, nor was she an object of much surprise. After Maggy had exchanged a word or two with those whom she knew she took very little notice of the people about her. She stood apart, humming a tune, and every now and again her feet broke into a subdued dance step. But this state of abstraction did not last long. That she was a creature of impulse showed in an abrupt change from it to close attention of what was going on around her. Her fine eyes went alertly over those present and came to rest on a girl of about her own age whose quiet manner and dress of severe black singled her out from the rest. She was tall and slight, very much in the style of the women in Shepperson's drawings. Her small features and graceful figure gave her a distinguished appearance. She looked what she was, a lady, and a stranger to her surroundings. She held a roll of music and glanced nervously about her until she became aware of Maggy's smiling regard. It seemed to encourage her. She returned the smile and advanced. "At which end will they begin?" she asked nervously, making it clear that she was an amateur. "Anywhere," replied Maggy with friendly cheerfulness. "You're not a pro.?" "No." "I thought not. I shouldn't let on if I were you. Managers fight shy of beginners. First thing they'll ask you at the table is what experience you've had. Haven't you been on the stage at all before?" "No, I've never appeared in public. I'm new to it all." "Been looking for a shop—an engagement—long?" "For five weeks. Ever since I came to London." The girl in black could not hide the note of disappointment that came into her voice. Maggy gave her an encouraging tap on the arm. "Five weeks!" she scoffed. "That's nothing. Lots of us are out for months. You'll know that if you ever hit real bad luck." "I can't wait months." "Hard up?" Maggy asked with quick understanding. "I shall be soon." "Same here. Tell me, where are you living? You're different to the crowd. I like you." The girl in black hesitated and got a little red. "I'm not living anywhere at present," she confessed. "I was in a boarding-house until to-day. I had to leave. I shall have to find rooms before night. Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me where to look?" They had moved away from those nearest them. Each felt attracted to the other without knowing why. "Did they keep your box?" "No. Why should they?" "I thought you meant you couldn't pay." "No, it wasn't that. But I can't go back. A man came into my room last night—one of the men staying there. I rang the bell and called the landlady. I don't understand why, but she blamed me and was very offensive. I didn't go to bed again. I sat up, waiting for the morning." "The beast!" The cheery look left Maggy's face, giving place to one of deep resentment. "The man, I mean," she said, "though I've no doubt the woman was just as bad. There are houses like that. Fancy you not knowing it. I should have ... Here, they're going to begin. Keep by me. I'll see you through." The stage-manager rapped on the table. "Silence, please! We'll commence now." An immediate hush followed. The groups broke up, spreading across the stage, facing the footlights. Such indifference to the occasion as many of them had hitherto evinced was gone now. They were there to be engaged. Even the most self-assured became serious, made so by the competitive equation. Only twelve girls and three men were wanted to complete the ranks of the chorus, and here were nearly forty applicants for the vacancies. "Come on, come on. Who's first? You with the boa," proceeded the stage-manager. "What's your song?" The girl indicated handed her music to the pianist. He rattled off the prelude without the waste of a moment. The girl sang a few bars, and was interrupted by: "That'll do. Next!" Nothing more was said or asked. The girl took her sheet of music, and effaced herself. With equal celerity the next dozen were disposed of. Not more than one out of four was called to the table for her or his name to be recorded. All the while the singing was going on the stage-manager kept up a running fire of remarks at the expense of the singer. Generally they were merely sarcastic; some were rude. The girl in black kept close to Maggy who looked on unperturbed, now and then jerking out a subdued comment on the proceedings, partly to herself, partly for the information of her companion. "Now it's Dickson, poor kid! Look at the state she's in. Silly of her to come. Powell won't let her open her mouth.... There you are! Off she goes. She's crying. The brute! He needn't have said it! ... That's Mortimer. She'll get taken on.... Knew it at once. Down goes her name—address 'Makehaste Mansions!' Don't they get through us quick? We're not human beings, only voices and figures. My turn!" She walked confidently down to the table, ignoring the piano. "Where's your song?" inquired the stage-manager. "Won't you take my voice on trust, Mr. Powell?" was her jaunty reply. "It's like a bird's." "Nightingale, I suppose?" he jeered. "No, bird of Paradise. Aren't I good enough to look at?" After a momentary hesitation, during which he appraised her face and figure, he said: "Got a photo of yourself in fleshings?" "Not here. Plenty at my agent's—Stannard's." "All right. Name, please. Next." The girl in black was next. Her heart beat uncomfortably fast as she moved down. Had she to pitch her voice to fill that gaping void across the footlights? She shrank from singing to these blasÉ-looking men who gave the impression of damning before they heard. Then she saw that Maggy was still standing by the table and nodding encouragingly to her. It gave her heart. She handed her song to the pianist and commenced to sing. "Louder, please," said some one. She sang louder and lost her nervousness. It was not so difficult to fill that huge auditorium, after all. So far, she was the only one of them that had been allowed to sing her song half through. "Shouldn't mind hearing the rest of that another day," said the stage-manager, stopping her at last. "Not half bad, my dear. Name, please." She gave her name, Alexandra Hersey. "What have you been in?" came the query. Before she could answer Maggy chimed in. "She was with me on tour in 'The Camera Girl.' No. 2 Company." "Address?" Again Maggy came to the rescue. "Put her down to mine. 109 Sidey Street. Then you'll remember us both—p'r'aps!" She hooked her arm in Alexandra's and made for the wings. When they were in the passage facing the stage-door she said: "I'll help you find rooms if you like. I've nothing to do. I say, you can sing!" "If it hadn't been for you—" "Oh, rats!" "But it was awfully good of you," Alexandra maintained. "Is there a room in the house where you live?" she asked, actuated by a strong desire not to lose sight of her new acquaintance. "There's room in my room, that's all. I pay ten shillings a week. My landlady charges fifteen for two in it. That would be seven-and-six each. But"—she made a wry face—"you wouldn't like it. It's slummy. There's a smell of fried fish and a beastly row half the night. Still, you can have a look at it if you like." There was invitation in the tone. "I'd like to come," said Alexandra. "Right-O. Here's my motor car. The green one." She held up her hand to a 'bus driver. "My chauffeur doesn't like stopping, except for policemen." She gave Alexandra a push up and sprang on the footboard after her. They climbed to the top, and were rattled and jerked in the direction of the King's Cross Road. II One Hundred and Nine Sidey Street was not an attractive apartment house, but it was cheap and respectable. Mrs. Bell, an "old pro" herself, by reason of having, in some distant past, earned twelve shillings a week as a "local girl" in pantomime, preferred the lesser lights of the stage for tenants. She knew their ways, their freedom from "side," their unexacting habits. When she could not secure them she took in "respectable young men." At the present juncture the young men predominated. Maggy Delamere was the sole representative of "the professional" in her house. She occupied the third-floor front, and owed three weeks' rent. She threw open the door for Alexandra to enter. It was the sort of room that many a domestic servant would have considered inadequate. The only compensating feature about it on this hot June day was that it had two windows. Both stood open, and on the sill of each a pot of flowers, mignonette in the one, sweet peas in the other, helped to create an impression of freshness. This was strengthened by the paucity of its furniture and the chilly look which an unrelieved expanse of linoleum invariably gives. A single iron bedstead occupied one angle. A clean but faded nightdress case, trimmed with crochet work, lay on the pillow. This and the flowers in the windows were the only things that gave evidence of the room being occupied by a young girl. Maggy made a comprehensive gesture with her hand. "The chorus lady at home!" she declaimed humorously. "Living in the lap of luxury. There's her voluptuous couch, her Louis the what's-his-name chest of drawers, her exquisite bric-À-bric washstand and—My dear, be careful of the chair! It's a real antique, only three legs and a swinger! Sit on the bed, it's safer. Pretty little place, isn't it? We'll have lunch in a minute or two. Can you eat hot New Zealand mutton? I told the old woman I'd have a cut off her joint to-day. I'll just shout down to let her know there's two of us." After her voice had echoed down the three flights and been duly answered, she came back and poured out water for her new friend to wash her hands in. Common yellow soap was all she could offer for this purpose. She was only able to afford the fancy variety and cheap perfumes when she was in an engagement. She took off her hat while Alexandra dried her hands and then, as they sat side by side on the bed, she suddenly blurted out: "What the dickens makes you want to go in for the stage? Don't tell me if you'd rather not." "There's no reason why I shouldn't," said Alexandra. "I've longed to ever since I was quite small." "Goodness! And I've wanted to get off it ever since I can remember. Not that I ever had the chance. I don't know how to do anything useful. I suppose you got cracked about the stage, same as most girls, because you didn't know anything about it. You belong to a swell family, I suppose?" "No," was the smiling reply; "only Anglo-Indians." "What are they? Half-castes? You're fooling!" "English people who live or have lived in India. My father was in the army." "What, an officer?" "Yes." Maggy was impressed. She had once met a Sergeant-Major, and, superior being as she thought him, knew that his glory was reflected from the commissioned ranks. "That's something to be proud of, anyway." Alexandra's people had been in the Army and Civil Service for generations. It had not occurred to her to think of them unduly on this account. She said as much. "Well," observed Maggy sententiously, "I should say your father and the rest of your relations must be either dead or dreaming to let you go on the stage." "Nearly all my near relations are dead. I have an aunt and uncle—" "What does he do?" "He's a retired colonel. He—they wanted me to live with them." Alexandra gave the information with a touch of reluctance. "Why didn't you?" To give a stranger adequate and convincing reasons why one prefers not to live with uncongenial relations is not always easy. Alexandra put it briefly. "We have nothing in common," she said. "And what do you think you have in common with this life and the people you'll meet in it?" propounded Maggy. "If I were you I'd go back and say: 'Nunky old dear, I've changed my mind. I'll come and live with you and be your loving niece, amen.' Fancy! a retired colonel—Anglo-Indian—and you think twice about it!" "Nothing would induce me to change my mind," said Alexandra with decision. "There are three girls, and they find it a tight fit without me. They're not rich.... When my mother died I had to do something. Besides, I'm really ambitious to get on." Maggy snapped her fingers. "Oh, ambition! Do you know what the ambition of every chorus girl is? It isn't to become a star-actress. That's clean beyond her. It's to find a man who'll take her away from a room like this and treat her decently." Alexandra found it difficult to reconcile such a statement with one so beaming and joyous-looking as Maggy. "But you—you don't think like that?" she rejoined. "Sometimes I do. I've kept straight so far because I like being on my own. I hate men, with their nasty thoughts and their prowling ways. But I haven't met any that I liked. If I had, perhaps I shouldn't be here now. If we get taken on at the Pall Mall it'll be nothing but men, men, men. We shall get no peace." "You paint everything in such somber colors. There must be light as well as shade." "There's a lot of limelight, if that's what you mean; but the shade's all the darker for it. Oh, I can tell you the stage is a rotten place if you've got no money or no friends or no chap at the back of you. I'm not saying that for the sake of talking. It's good enough for any one like me. But when I see a blind man crossing the road I always wish I could make him see, and as I'm not God Almighty the only thing I can do is to give him a hand. That's how I feel about you. The traffic's dangerous enough when you've got eyes in your head, like I have. It's all traffic on the stage. I suppose you think you'll be able to look after yourself? Well, you wait and see. There'll be Mr. Johnnie at the stage-door asking you to hop into his landaulette because the road's slippery or some such nonsense. But what's the use of trying to convince anybody? I can see I shan't put you off the stage.... I'll help you to look for a room, unless—" Maggy's volubility checked for a moment. "—unless you'd like to chum with me. I'm just what you see. Nothing hidden up my sleeve; no drink and no boy." She saw Alexandra wince at her plain language, and watched her anxiously. Hardly ever before had she sought the companionship of another girl, nor could she quite understand the motive that was making her do so now. Her extreme candor certainly had a startling effect on Alexandra. She had never met any one so outspoken. But she put the right construction on Maggy's frankness, recognized it as a manifestation of genuineness and honesty, and succumbed to it as she had to the girl's fascinating vivacity. She was altogether drawn towards her. Again, Maggy stood to her as the personification of the new life she had elected to make her own. Maggy was looking at her expectantly, looking and smiling. There was something very compelling in her smile. "I'd like to chum," said Alexandra impulsively. III When Maggy spoke of the stage she generally meant the Pall Mall Theater. Just now it was in her thoughts more than any other, perhaps because she had met Alexandra there, but also because she was inclined to think that Alexandra and she had made a favorable impression on its stage-manager. The Pall Mall, De Freyne, its lessee and manager, and the Pall Mall chorus are a trinity known the world over. Productions at the Pall Mall invariably enjoy success. Long runs prevail there. That was one of the reasons why Maggy looked forward to an engagement at that theater. Another was the pay, rather more than was obtainable elsewhere. In other respects it offered her no advantages and some drawbacks. She had, for instance no aspiration to become one of a chorus whose unrivaled attractions marked it out as a sort of human delicatessen for the consumption of epicurean males. On the other hand, De Freyne was indifferent to expense on the question of costume, and that had had considerable weight with Maggy. Like any other pretty girl she reveled in beautiful clothes, even though they should only be on loan to her for an hour or two out of the twenty-four. On tour the dresses were often effective enough at a distance, but either of inferior material or their pristine freshness considerably depreciated by having seen previous service in a London theater. That militated against the pleasure of wearing them. At the Pall Mall everything would be new and the best that money could buy. That De Freyne's object in dressing his chorus regardless of cost was a licentious one, the desire to make his two-score of attractive-looking girls still more attractive in the eyes of the jeunesse dorÉe, who filled his stalls, was no deterrent to Maggy on her own account. She did think of it in regard to Alexandra. She wondered whether Alexandra would be affected by the demoralizing influence of those beautiful clothes which at the Pall Mall were fashioned to display a girl's physical charms to the very limit of decency. It ended in her being almost sorry that Alexandra's innocence and the callousness of an agent should have sent her to the voice trial. How Alexandra was to make a good impression on the public by posturing in the chorus was not explained to her. It was the expression of an opinion which she could take or leave. In her innocence she made the common error of imagining that the public chooses its plays, its novels, its pictures, its music and its actors and actresses for itself. She did not stop to think that there might be gradations in that public or that the vast majority of it is deprived of selective taste by the interested parties who cater for it. Generalizing by the noise the public makes with its hands when it approves of anything, she argued that everything it applauds must be good. The noise is there right enough and the approval is genuine; but that has to be discounted by the fact that the public has nothing better to approve of. For the public—the crowd—is a led horse most of the time. It is enormously manageable. It does what it is told and goes where it is taken. Its taste has never been given a chance of becoming educated because of the fare that has been forced upon it. Its purveyors feed it as injuriously as an ignorant man will a horse. For the want of anything better the horse will eat what is given it. So with the public. Obviously the public never has anything to do with the choice of a play. Nobody has except the man who buys it and puts it on the stage. Following the simile of the led horse and the proverb that, though you may take it to the water you cannot make it drink, the public likewise will once in a way evince the same sort of stubbornness. Then the play that failed to "go down" is unostentatiously withdrawn, or the pretender to histrionic laurels unable to obtain them will try his or her luck again in another piece with another's money behind it. After all, it is but a question of credulity. Even Alexandra had to conform to it. She was advised to apply for a place in the chorus and she did so. With her necessarily vague ideas about the chorus she did not think of it as anything very dreadful. It did not offer so good a footing on the stage as she desired, that was all. She did not, for instance, believe all the disparaging things Maggy said about the stage. She appreciated that on the stage a girl might be unduly exposed to temptation, but in her austerity that was no reason for yielding to it. In her Arcadian purity she could not conceive of circumstances, however degrading, having any adverse effect on herself. Nor could she credit Maggy's insistent assertion that without money or influence an actress must remain in the depths. She believed, as inexperience always does, that talent is bound to be recognized sooner or later. The creed of the chorus girl, unspoken, unwritten, was yet hers to learn. For ten days the two girls heard nothing from the Pall Mall Theater. It was possible, if not probable, that they might not hear at all. Meanwhile Maggy went about with Alexandra looking for an engagement in some other direction. It was a matter of urgency to both of them to get something to do. Maggy had been out of an engagement for two months. She was in Mrs. Bell's debt, and she owed money to a doctor. Alexandra was little better off. As the orphaned daughter of an officer she had a pension of £40 a year so long as she remained unmarried. But with the expense she had been put to in coming to town and in spite of the strictest economy it was not enough to live on. She could not help being anxious about the future; more so than Maggy. Maggy, though she chafed at them, was accustomed to bad times: Alexandra had never struck them before. Hardly had she got over the illusion of imagining that a small part in a London theater was obtainable than she found herself in no request even for the chorus. It was terribly disappointing. They were forever haunting stage-doors and the crowded waiting rooms of theatrical agencies. For hours every day they wandered about the Strand and its environs. But for the prospect of sheer want confronting them they would have been quite happy. The bond that united them was based on mutual respect as well as affection. Disappointment and privation only cemented it. In these days when the stale breakfast egg was a comestible to be shared, when anything better than canned food became a luxury, their friendship remained free from any of the pettinesses which generally characterize the intimacy of people living under conditions of hardship. The stoicism of a family of soldiers supported Alexandra. She had the pride of race that refuses to surrender to misfortune. Her grit, astonishing in one so delicately reared, surprised Maggy. She began to look up to Alexandra as a being of a superior world in which the virtues, being Anglo-Indian, were of a particularly high order. She had a very nebulous conception of the meaning of the term. Just as Alexandra found it absorbing to listen to Maggy's stage talk, even though it was humorously misogynistic, so nothing pleased Maggy so much as to listen to Alexandra's narration of life in an Indian military station. It sounded to her like a history of the high gods: a medley of color, warmth and ease, good living and brass bands. She loved to hear of parades and polo, of the troops of servants, the gymkhanas and dances, all the social amusements and advantages of the sahib caste. From habit, Alexandra would use native words when talking of these things, and Maggy's unaccustomed brain never quite differentiated between syce, hazari, maidan, ayah, chit, durzi, kitmagar, butti, tikka-gari and such-like terms in common use with Anglo-Indians. But they impressed her immensely. The amount of talk they got through in these early days of their friendship was stupendous. It helped to relieve the harassing search after employment and its invariable ill-success. One morning, three weeks after their first meeting, Maggy sprang out of bed to gather up two letters which their landlady had pushed under the door. On the flaps were inspiring words in red lettering. "Pall Mall Theater! Hooroo! One for each of us!" she cried, and danced about in her nightdress. Alexandra, behind an improvised screen formed of a shawl over the towel rail, was having her morning bath in a zinc tub of inadequate size. "Open mine," she called. "I'm wet." She waited anxiously. There came the sound of tearing paper and then Maggy's voice, raised excitedly: "Pull that old shawl down, Lexie! If you don't practise on me you'll die of shyness and no clothes at the Pall Mall. We're engaged! Rehearsal Thursday. Eleven o'clock!" IV It was past one o'clock. For over two hours without a pause the chorus had been going through their "business" in the new play with the reiteration that exasperates the teacher and the taught. The girls had relapsed into sulkiness, the stage-manager's temper was ruffled. Even the pianist in the O.P. corner by the footlights felt the reaction. His hands rested on the keys without energy. Powell, the stage-manager, faced the forty girls standing in a semi-circle, three-deep. The majority of them were dressed in the ultra-fashionable style of the moment, some very expensively, a few with taste. The exceptions were Maggy and Alexandra. He knew they were all tired and rebellious; but he was concerned only with their recalcitrant feet. "Now then, girls. Once more." The pianist's hands came down heavily on the opening chords of a dance movement. "La-la-la—da-di-dum—point! Step it out. Don't mince!" A tall girl, gorgeously arrayed, brought the dance to a stop by leaving her position in the front row. "I'm not going to stick here all day," she announced defiantly. "I'm lunching with my boy, and he won't wait." "Get back to your place, Miss Mortimer," snapped Powell. "Not me. I'm going." As she began to cross the stage on her way out a voice came from the depths of the auditorium: "Miss Mortimer, we're not concerned with your private appointments. If they're to interfere with your work here you can look for another engagement somewhere else." The show-girl glanced in the direction of the voice and shrugged. "Mean you'll fire me, Mr. De Freyne? Well, I don't care. Pa's rich!" She walked off jauntily, her high heels clicking on the boards, a costly plume streaming over her left ear. The lessee of the Pall Mall Theater said nothing. He was mildly amused. He stood in the dark at the back of the dress circle complacently regarding his theatrical seraglio. All the girls were pretty, or if not pretty, showy. Some had been selected for their figures, some for their faces, some for both. No duchess, not even a fashionable duchess, was arrayed like one of these. Solomon in all his glory might perhaps have competed with them, but not the lilies of the field. Presently De Freyne's gimlet eyes picked out Maggy and Alexandra. Their appearance disturbed his equanimity. He watched them attentively for ten minutes or so, at the end of which period the tired stage-manager dismissed the chorus for the morning. De Freyne's authoritative voice again made itself heard. "Miss Delamere and Miss Hersey. Step up to my room before you go, please. I want to speak to you." The girls exchanged scared glances. A special interview with De Freyne was sufficiently unusual to fill them with dismay. He was not in the habit of detaining members of his chorus for the fun of the thing. They groped their way along dim, soft-carpeted passages to the front of the house and entered the managerial office. De Freyne was blunt to a degree. He wasted no time. "You two girls have got to make more of a show," he told them. "I can't have shabby dresses at the Pall Mall." Alexandra was too taken aback by this curt rebuke to make any reply; but Maggy lost her temper. "Meaning flash clothes and jewelry?" she bit out. "How do you expect us to do it on thirty-five shillings a week, Mr. De Freyne?" "I'm not interested in your resources," was De Freyne's cold answer. "You ought to be. You ought to get a pencil and slate and write down the cost of lodgings, food, boots, and all the rest of it, and figure out how little we've got left to buy clothes with—unless we don't care who buys them for us. We're not that sort—not yet." "You must look smarter," reiterated De Freyne, showing no resentment at this tirade. "You silly creatures, don't you want to attract attention?" "We'll attract attention on the night. Don't worry," said Maggy. She was afraid of De Freyne, but she did not let her voice show it. "That's all very well, but you know the unwritten clause of my agreement with you all. The ladies of my chorus have got to be dressed decently off the stage as well as on.... Anyhow, there it is. Take it or leave it." He dismissed them with a nod. Neither said anything until they had passed out of the stage-door and were in the street. "That means new clothes," said Alexandra in a tone of deep depression. "Or Dick Whittington!" Maggy rejoined dryly. "Turn and turn again—our dresses. I'll have a go at yours to-night, Lexie. Look, there's Mortimer and her boy." A big car slid past them, ridiculously upholstered in white velvet. An effete-looking youth and the girl who had stated that her "pa" was rich lolled in the back seat. Maggy's eyes followed them speculatively. "Wonder if there's anything in it?" she remarked. "In what?" "In that sort of a good time. Flat, money, pet dog, car, week-ends at Brighton—enough to eat." "I don't want to think about it." "Neither do I. But I have lately. I'm wondering what on earth we're standing out for. No one thinks any the better of us for it. The girls all think us fools, and the men just grin and wait." "Don't talk about it. Talking makes it all seem worse." "One day I shall do more than talk. I shall walk off." Alexandra said nothing. She knew Maggy's mood. Maggy was hungry, tired, and cross. Motives of economy impelled them towards their lodgings, where half a tin of sardines was waiting to be consumed. Neither had had anything to eat since early morning. And when they had lunched they would have to walk back to the theater for rehearsal again at three. Maggy suddenly halted before a Lyons' depot. "Come on in, Lexie," she said. "We can't wait. We shan't be home till past two. And if we're late back we'll be fined." "There's the tin of—" Alexandra began and stopped. Maggy had pushed open the swing doors. The grateful smell of hot and well-made coffee and savory, nourishing food, cheapness notwithstanding, made her surrender to temptation. Deprivation has this effect. De Freyne, lunching expensively at the Savoy, recognizing here and there approved members of his chorus and their cavaliers, could not be expected to know anything of empty stomachs. Besides, it was their own fault if the girls did not know which side their bread was buttered. They sat down at one of the marble-topped tables. A waitress came towards them. "Two cups of coffee, rolls and butter—" This was Alexandra's order. "Coffee, rolls, and two steak-and-kidney puddings," augmented Maggy recklessly. Unmoved, the attendant went off to execute the order. Maggy met Alexandra's startled eyes. Her own were defiant. "Don't tell me," she said. "It'll cost us nearly eighteenpence. I don't care. I'm going to pay, and if I don't go bust that way I shall do something worse. We're going to feed, dear!" |
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