“Dear Stephen,—Oh, why didn’t you come last night? I wassodisappointed. You surely did n’t think I only asked youout of politeness. I hope nothing has happened to you. Myhead was running over all day with a little plan for you. Docome and catch it before it all runs away. I shall be in to-morrow afternoon.You know it’s just like old times—writing a silly littlenote to you.Yours sincerely,Yvonne Latour.”
Joyce went to bed and slept the sound sleep of a jaded man. But the letter lay under his pillow.
There’s nothing like leather,” cried Yvonne, gaily. “If I had been a milliner, I should have thought what a gentlemanly shopwalker you would have made. As I am a singer, I can only think of the profession. You did n’t know I was so philosophical, did you?”
“But I can’t sing a note now, Madame Latour,” said Joyce.
“We ’ll try after you have had some tea. But you ’ll be good enough for Brum, I’m quite sure. If he did n’t take you on I should never speak to him again.”
With which terrible threat she poured the tea outside the cup into the saucer.
“It seems too good to be true,” said Joyce, in a subdued tone. “It seemed impossible I should ever get work among honest men again. I am deeply grateful to you, Madame Latour—I cannot tell you how deeply.”
“Here is some tea,” said Yvonne, cup in hand, “I have put milk in, but no sugar. I am so glad you like my little scheme. I was afraid it was n’t worth your while.”
Joyce laughed ironically.
“You would n’t say that if you knew the posts I have sought after, the advertisements I have answered. It will be a fortune to me.”
“And it may lead—how far, you don’t know. Why in two or three years you may be playing a leading part in a West End light opera. Or you may do dramatic business and come to the top. One never can tell. Won’t it be nice when you can command your £40 or £50 a week?”
Yvonne was very happy. She had conceived the plan all by herself and had gone off impulsively to Brum to put it into execution. Joyce’s future was assured. His cleverness, of which she used to be a little afraid in earlier years, would soon lift him from the ranks. She was excited over this forecast of his success. But Joyce could not look so far ahead. All he could feel was a wondrous relief to find a door still open for him, gratitude to the woman who had led him to it. His spirit was too shrouded to catch a gleam of her enthusiasm. She strove to brighten him.
“You will find Brum all right. He has always been good to me, since I stepped into a gap for him once at a charity matinée—-a medley entertainment, you know. When he has a theatre in London he always sends me a box, if there’s one vacant. You see, I knew he was taking out ‘The Diamond Door,’ into the provinces, and he pays pretty high salaries all round—so I did n’t see why you should n’t have a chance in the chorus. Oh, you ’ll like the stage so much. I wish I were on, instead of singing at concerts. I have always hankered after it.”
“Why don’t you make the change?” asked Joyce.
“I’m not good enough. I am too insignificant. But I don’t really mind. I love singing for singing’s sake, no matter where it is. I only have one great anxiety in life—that I should lose my voice. Then I should put my head under my wing and die, like thecigale. That is to say, if thecigalehas wings—has she?”
“Yes, pretty brown wings—as yours must be. I believe you have them somewhere hidden from us.”
“You mustn’t make pretty speeches,” said Yvonne, pleased.
“It expresses clumsily what I feel,” said Joyce, with a sudden rush of feeling. “I have been asking myself what are the common grounds on which we can meet—you, a pure, bright, beautiful soul—and I, a mean, degraded man, who knows it to be almost an outrage upon you to cross your threshold. I feel we are not of the same human clay. I wonder how it is that the sight of me does n’t frighten you. Thank God you don’t see me as I see myself.”
“Hush!” said Yvonne, gently.
She glanced at him in a puzzled way, unable to comprehend. She knew that he felt his disgrace very deeply, but she could not understand the way in which he related it with herself. Beyond looking careworn and ill, he seemed almost the same externally as in the days of their former intimacy; and more so now than on the occasion of their meeting on the Bank Holiday, when he was shabbily attired. Now he was wearing a new blue serge suit and a carefully tied cravat—he had bought the clothes on the chance of his being suddenly required to be correctly dressed, and this was his first time of wearing them—and looked at all points the neat, well-groomed gentleman she had always known; so that she found it difficult to realize fully even the change in his material fortunes. The blight that had come over his soul was altogether beyond her power of perception. She could find no words to supplement her sympathetic exclamation, and so there was silence. When she looked at him again, as he sat opposite, his cheek resting on his hand, and his mournful eyes fixed upon her, she found herself thinking what a good-looking fellow he was, with his clear-cut face, refined features and trim blonde moustache. It was a pity he had those deep lines on each side of his mouth and wore so unsmiling an expression. There was sunshine in Yvonne’s heart that quickly dissipated clouds. She rose suddenly, and went round to the key-board of the great piano.
“I ’ll sing you something first and then we ’ll try your voice.”
She paused before she sat down, and asked:
“Would you like something sad or something gay?”
The afternoon light, slanting in through the further unshaded window, fell full upon her, and revealed the warmth of her cheeks and the smiling softness of her lips. To have demanded sadness of her would have been an act of unreason.
“Something bright,” said Joyce, instinctively.
She ran her fingers over the keys and broke into abarcarolleof Théophile Gautier.
"Dites, la jeune belle,
Où voulez-vous aller?
La voile ouvre son aile,
La brise va souffler!
L’aviron est d’ivoire.
Le pavillon de moire,
Le gouvernail d’or fin;
J’ai pour lest une orange,
Pour voile une aile d’ange,
Pour mousse un séraphin.”
Her exquisite voice, sounding like crystal in the little room, seemed to Joyce as if it came from the dainty boat. Her sweet face seemed to peep forth under the angel’s wing, mocking the seraphic cabin-boy.
The setting was as perfect as her rendering. All the joy and inconsequence of life rang from her lips. She came to the last verse.
"Dites, la jeune belle,
Où voulez-vous aller?
La voile ouvre son aile,
La brise va souffler!
—Menez-moi, dit la belle,
À la rive fidèle
Où l’on aime toujours.
—Cette rive, ma chère,
On ne la connaît guère
Au pays des amours.”
When she had finished, she looked up at him, as he leaned over the tail of the piano, with laughter in her eyes.
“I adore that song. It is so lovely and irresponsible. Canon Chisely says it is cynical. But it always puts me in mind of a dragonfly.”
“I am afraid Everard is right,” replied Joyce, with a smile. “But if you live in the fairyland of love, constancy must be a serious hindrance to affairs.”
“Oh, now you talk just as you used to!” cried Yvonne, “I ’ll sing you something else.” She scamped the prelude in her impulsive way, and began, “Coming thro’ the Rye.” His black mood was lifted. The tender, mischievous charm of her voice held him in a spell, and he smiled at her like “a’ the lads” in the song.
“Now it is your turn,” she said, reaching towards a pile of songs. “Help me to choose one.”
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.”
“I have n’t felt it so, since I met you,” said Joyce.
“But you won’t have even me, any more. I wish I could help you.”
“Help me? Why, you ‘ve raised me out of the gutter, Madame Latour.”
“Oh, don’t call me ‘Madame Latour,’” she said, “I don’t call you ‘Mr. Joyce.’ I am ‘Yvonne’ to all my friends. You used to call me ‘Yvonne’ once.”
“You were not my benefactress then,” said Joyce.
“Please don’t call me hard names,” she returned whimsically, “or I shall be afraid of you, as I used to be.”
“Afraid of me?” echoed Joyce.
“Yes. Weren’t you dreadfully clever? I was always afraid you would think me silly. And then, often I could not quite understand what you were saying—how much you meant of what you said. Don’t you see?”
“I see I must have been insufferable,” he replied. “It makes what you are to me now all the more beautiful. But I scarcely dare call you 'Yvonne’—don’t you understand? But it would gladden me to write it. May I write to you on my pilgrimage?”
“It would be so good of you, if you would,” she answered eagerly. “I do love people to write to me.”
She had unconsciously slipped from her fairy-godmother attitude. Her simple mind could not look upon welcoming his letters as an act of graciousness.
“Would you sing to me once more before I go?” he asked, a little later. “I don’t know when I shall see you again, and I should like to carry away a song of yours to cheer me.”
She sat down at the piano and sang Gounod’s Serenade. Something in its yearning tenderness touched the man in his softened mood. The pure passion of Yvonne’s voice pierced through the thick layers of shame and dead hopes and deadening memories that had encrusted round his heart, and met it in a tiny thrill. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the walls, which grew misty before his eyes. The scene changed and he was back again in his mother’s house and Yvonne was singing this song. The benumbing spell that had kept him dry-eyed since the news came to him of his mother’s death, was lifted for the moment. But, only when a sudden silence broke the charm, was he aware that tears were on his face.
He brushed them away quickly, rose, took her hand and kissed it, and then he laughed awkwardly, and bade her good-bye.
On his way downstairs he brushed against a man ascending. It was a squarely-built, keen-faced man of forty in clerical attire. Each stepped aside to apologise, and then came the flash of recognition. Joyce looked down in some confusion. But Canon Chisely turned on his heel and continued his ascent.
Joyce walked away moodily. His cousin’s cut brought back the old familiar sense of degradation which Yvonne had charmed away. Again he realised that he was an outcast, a blot upon society, an object of scorn for men of good repute. No one but Yvonne could have befriended him and forgotten what he was. And Yvonne herself,—was her friendship not perhaps solely due to her childlike incapacity to appreciate the depths of his disgrace? He would have given anything not to have met the Canon on the stairs.
Three weeks afterwards Yvonne was at Brighton for change of air and holiday, accompanied by Geraldine Vicary, her dearest friend, confidante, and chastener. They had taken lodgings in Lansdowne Place, where they shared a sitting-room and discussed Yvonne’s prospects and peccadilloes. Not but what the discussion was continued out of doors, on the Parade, or in a quiet nook on the sands at Shoreham; but it proceeded much more effectively within four walls, where there was nothing to distract Yvonne’s attention. Miss Vicary had her friend’s good most disinterestedly at heart, and Yvonne herself loved these discussions, very much as she loved church. She felt a great deal better and wiser, without in the least knowing why. In intervals of leisure they idled about, dissected passing finery, and ate prodigious quantities of ices—which, as all the world knows, is the proper way to enjoy Brighton.
They were sitting in one of the shelters on the cliff overlooking the electric toy-railway. It was a lovely day. A sea-breeze ruffled the blue Channel into a myriad dancing ridges, and blew Yvonne’s mass of dark hair further back from her forehead. Suddenly she slipped her hand into her friend’s.
“Oh, Dina, is n’t this delicious!”
“Rapturous,” said Geraldine, with a smile. She was a tall, plainly-dressed young woman, some four years older than Yvonne, with a pleasant, frank face and a decided manner. She wore a plain sailor-hat, a blouse, and a grey-stuff skirt that hung rather badly beneath a buff belt; thus contrasting with Yvonne, who suggested dainty perfection of attire, from the diminutive bonnet to the toe of her little brown shoe. Miss Vicary gave the impression of the typical schoolmistress, which she would most probably have been, had not the possession of a magnificent voice decided her career otherwise.
“I mean it’s delicious being here alone with you,” returned Yvonne. “Away from men altogether.”
“They are a horrid lot,” said Geraldine, drily. “I wonder you see as much of them as you do.”
“But how can I help it? They will keep coming my way. Oh, I wish they were all women. It would be so much nicer!”
Geraldine broke into a laugh.
“You goose!” she said. “You wouldn’t have the women falling in love with you as the men do!”
“But I don’t want them to fall in love with me,” cried Yvonne. “It is so stupid. I don’t fall in love with them.”
“Then why do you give them encouragement? I am always at you about it.”
“I am only kind to them, as any one else would be.”
“Fiddlesticks, my dear. You should keep them in their place.”
“But whatistheir place?” asked Yvonne, pathetically. “I never know. That is why I wish they were women. Oh, I love so being here with you, Dina. I wish I had a lot of women friends that I could talk to when I can’t see you. But you’re the only real woman friend I ’ve got.”
“You dear little mite!” exclaimed Geraldine, with sudden impulse. “I can’t see why women don’t take to you. And I can understand all the men falling in love with you. Even the Canon.”
“Oh, how can you say such a thing?” cried Yvonne, quickly, the colour coming into her cheeks.
“By reason of the intelligence that God has given me, my dear,” replied Geraldine. “I would send him packing if I were you.”
“It is very kind indeed of a man like that to come and see me.”
“And to pick you out from among all the concert singers in London for his musical festival?”
“But we’re old friends, Dina. He is only doing me a good turn.”
“So as to deserve another, you simple darling. In the meantime, I wouldn’t encourage Vandeleur or your newprotégé, the Canon’s unmentionable cousin.”
“You know, I once thought there was something between you and Van,” remarked Yvonne, with guileless inconsequence.
“Rubbish!” said Miss Vicary. And then she added, rising hastily, after a moment’s silence, “Look, you are getting chilly in this cold wind,—and I am sure you have next to nothing underneath.”
To keep Yvonne out of draughts and other pretexts for catching cold was one of Miss Vicary’s self-imposed tasks, and she sought to compensate Yvonne’s reckless exposure of herself when alone by excess of vigilance on her own part when Yvonne was under her control—which is not an uncommon irrationality in women, who, geniuses or not, have an infinite capacity for taking superfluous pains. However, in spite of her maternal precautions, it happened that Yvonne was laid up two or three days afterwards with a cold which flew at once to her throat. Although in no way serious, it filled her with dismay. She knew her throat to be delicate. That her voice might one day fail her was the dread of her life.
“What does he say about me?” she asked, pathetically, when Geraldine had returned from a short consultation with the doctor. “Is it going to hurt my voice? Oh, do tell me, Dina?”
“You must n’t talk, or else it will,” replied Geraldine, severely.
Then she threw off the chastener, put on the consoler, and, sitting on the bed, petted Yvonne until she had restored her mind to a measure of peace.
“Then I must throw up my engagements?” Yvonne asked, wistfully, after a while.
“Certainly the one here next week. But don’t bother your dear little head about it.”
“And the concerts at Fulminster for Canon Chisely. I must get well for them, Dina.”
“Why, of course you will,” replied Geraldine. “They are weeks and weeks ahead. Besides, let the Canon go to Jericho!”
“Why are you so hard upon Canon Chisely?” asked Yvonne.
“A case of Dr. Fell, I suppose. I don’t like his always hanging about you.”
Yvonne burst out laughing.
“I believe you are jealous, Dina,” she cried.
Miss Vicary’s retort was checked by the entrance of the landlady with Yvonne’s supper. She busied herself with the arrangement of plates and dishes on the tray. But all the time the expression on her face was that of a woman who foresees a considerable amount of trouble to come.
The common dressing-room appointed for the male members of the chorus was crowded with half-attired men, strangely painted and moustachioed. The low, blackened ceiling beat down the heat from the gas-jets over the dressing-ledges, and the air reeked of stuffiness, tobacco, and yellow soap. Everywhere was a confusion of garments, grease-paints, open bags, beer bottles, and half-emptied glasses. It wanted only five minutes to the rise of the curtain, and hurry prevailed among belated ones, who got in each other’s way and swore lustily.
Joyce had finished dressing. He wore a mandarin’s hat, a green robe, a pigtail, and long, drooping moustaches, like the rest of his companions. Having nothing more to do, he was leaning back against the dressing-table with folded arms, and staring absently in front of him.
“You are looking down in the mouth, old man,” said the man who dressed next to him, turning away from the mirror and buttoning his robe.
“I beg your pardon, McKay?” said Joyce, with a start.
“I asked why you were so blooming cheerful,” answered the other.
“I was only thinking,” said Joyce.
“It seems to be an unpleasant operation, old man.”
“Don’t you see it’s ofher?” said another man standing by. “They’re always like that.”
“Perhaps it’s better to put her out of your mind and grin—isn’t it?” retorted Joyce, pointedly, for the railer’s quasi-matrimonial squabbles had already become a byword in the company. McKay burst into a loud laugh, in which those who heard joined, and the railer retired in discomfiture.
“Had him there,” said McKay. “Well, how’s the world, anyway?”
“Oh, all right!” replied Joyce, vaguely.
“Blake and I took his missus and two of the girls for a sail to-day,” said the other. “If the whole crew hadn’t been sick, we should have had a gay old time. Been doing anything?”
“No. What is there to do?”
“At Southpool? Why, there’s no end of things. I wish we went to some more seaside places, late as it is.”
“I don’t think it matters much where we go,” said Joyce. “Life is just the same.”
“I suppose it is, if you moon around by yourself. Why don’t you get a pal?”
“Masculine or feminine?” asked Joyce; for there was as much pairing in the company as in the Ark.
“Whichever you please. You pays—no you don’t—you takes your choice here without paying your money. But take my tip and keep clear of women. You never know when they ’ll turn round and scratch you—like cats. After all, what can you expect of ’em? I ’ve done with ’em all long ago.”
“What about the sea-sick girls to-day?”
“I would n’t touch any of ’em with a ten-foot pole,” replied the misogynist, with bitter scorn. “I never was in an engagement where there was such an inferior lot of ladies. I don’t know where the management picked them up. And to think of the number of nice girls in London simply starving for work.”
“They seem right enough,” said Joyce, indifferently.
“Gad! You should have been with me in ‘Mother Goose’ at Leeds this winter. I was playing one of the men in the moon—they noticed me from the front. You should have seen the slap-up lot we had there. What kind of shop were you in for the winter?”
“I was in another walk of life,” replied Joyce, with a curl of his lips.
At that moment the call-boy’s voice was heard in the passages: “Beginners for the first act;” and then he appeared himself at the door.
“Everybody on the stage.”
They trooped out, up the narrow stairs and along the dusty passages and through the wings on to the stage, where they were met by the ladies of the chorus, who came on from the other side; and then all grouped themselves in their customary attitudes under the stage-manager’s eye. Joyce was posed, second on the left, with a girl resting her head on his knee. He greeted her as she took her place.
“How are you to-night, Miss Stevens?” he whispered.
“Oh, badly. The heat in the dressing-room is awful.”
“So it is in ours. It is a wonder we don’t all melt together in a sticky lump.”
“It is the worst arranged theatre I was ever in.”
“I am sorry,” said Joyce, “you look tired.”
“Hush—the orchestra—”
The curtain rose slowly, revealing the glare of the footlights and the vague cavernous darkness of the auditorium, seen shimmering, as they reclined on the stage, through the band of unbumed gases above the jets.
The opening chorus began with its nodding-mandarin business, followed by eccentric evolutions. Then the tenor came on alone. He jostled Joyce who was standing near the entrance.
“Damn it, don’t take up all the stage,” he muttered irritably under cover of the radiant expression demanded by the business.
He broke into his song, the chorus lining the sides. Then two minor characters appeared, and after some dialogue, interrupted by Chinese exclamations of delight on the part of the chorus, the latter danced off in pairs.
“I do call that cheek,” said Miss Stevens, as soon as they had reached the wings, “why could n’t he look where he was going to?”
“Yes, it was his fault,” said Joyce.
“That’s the way with all these light tenors—simply eaten up with conceit. If I were you I’d give him a piece of my mind and ask him what the something he meant by it.”
“I have n’t enough individuality here to make it worth while,” replied Joyce with a shrug of the shoulders.
The girl did not quite understand, but she caught enough of his drift to perceive that he was not going to retaliate. Possibly she thought him a poor-spirited fellow. “Oh, well—if you like being insulted—” she said, turning away toward a group of girls.
Joyce did not attempt to remonstrate. What did it matter whether a coxcomb had cursed him? What did it matter, either, whether he had fallen in Miss Stevens’s estimation? In fact, what did anything matter, so long as starvation was not staring you in the face, or your companion was not pointing at the trace of black arrows? He turned also and joined in desultory whispering with McKay and Blake. At the end of the first act, men and women went off at different sides to their dressing-rooms. It was only during a wait in the second act that he found himself next to Miss Stevens again.
“Are you going to see me home again tonight after the performance?” she asked.
“If you will allow me,” replied Joyce.
“I’m sorry I was short with you,” she said, awkwardly.
“Oh, it was nothing.”
The polite indifference in his tone rather piqued her. She was naturally a plain, anaemic girl and the heavy make-up of grease-paint did not render her more attractive at close quarters. The knowledge of this irritated her the more.
“You don’t seem to care about anything.”
“I don’t much,” said Joyce.
At that moment the leading lady came off the stage and passed by them as they stood leaning against the iron railings of the staircase. She was wearing the minimum of costume allowed by Celestial etiquette, and looked very fresh and charming.
“Oh, you are Mr. Joyce, aren’t you?” she said, pausing at the top of the stairs; and, as Joyce bowed,—“Some one told me you were a friend of Yvonne Latour’s.”
“Yes,” said Joyce, “I have known her for a very long time.”
“How is she? I have n’t seen her for ages.” She moved down a couple of steps, so Joyce had to lean over the balustrade to reply.
“She’s a dear little creature. I used to know her while she was living with that wretch of a husband of hers,” said the lady, looking up. “He’s dead, or something, is n’t he?”
“Yes, thank goodness,” said Joyce, with more warmth perhaps than he was aware of; for she smiled and replied:—
“You seem to look upon it as a personal favour on the part of Providence.”
“I think it is a personal boon to all Madame Latour’s friends.”
“Oh, I am delighted,” she said, with a touch of raillery. “If ever there was a marriage that ought to have been labelled ‘made in heaven,’ that was one.”
“Yes, it was a very cheap imitation of native goods,” replied Joyce, with a smile.
“Well, if you were going to meet her soon, I should ask you to remember me to her; but as we are on a long tour—”
“I shall be writing shortly,” he interposed.
“Then that will do. Good-night, Mr. Joyce.”
She disappeared down the stairs. When Joyce turned round, he discovered that Miss Stevens had walked off, perhaps in dudgeon at having been neglected. Joyce felt sorry. She was the only girl with whom he cared to be on friendly terms outside the theatre, and who, accordingly, had manifested any interest in his doings. It would be a misfortune if she were offended. Meanwhile the late unexpected chat about Yvonne had been very pleasant. Miss Verrinder had been nice and frank, assuming from the first that he was a gentleman, and could be spoken to without restraint. Joyce felt the fillip to his spirits during the rest of the performance.
When it was over, he dressed as quickly as the crowded confusion of the dressing-room rendered possible, and refusing an invitation on the part of McKay to drink at the adjoining public-house, went down the short street that led to the Parade, where he had arranged to meet Miss Stevens.
She did not keep him long waiting. He relieved her of a bulky parcel she was carrying, and, holding it under his arm, walked gravely by her side.
“I thought you said you were n’t an amateur,” she said suddenly.
“Neither am I. It’s my livelihood.”
“Oh, yes—between you and starvation, I suppose.”
“Just so,” said Joyce.
“Could n’t you do anything else?”
“I can’t get anything else to do.”
“Then how did you manage to come down in the world?”
“How do you know I have come down?” asked Joyce, amused at the catechism.
“Can’t I see you were up once? Miss Verrinder would n’t have talked to you like that if you had n’t belonged to her set. And I have heard of Yvonne Latour. She does n’t make friends with the likes of McKay and me and the rest of us. So you’re either an amateur come for the practice or the fun of the thing, or—”
“It’s hugely funny, I assure you,” he interrupted, “to live in a back-street bedroom—‘lodgings for respectable men’—on thirty shillings a week, and save out of that.”
“Well, then you’ve come a cropper.”
“Really, Miss Stevens,” he replied drily, “it would be rather embarrassing to have to account to you for all my misdeeds.”
“Oh, I don’t want to hear ’em. Not I—I’m not that sort But when I like a man, I like to know just what he is. That’s all. Now my father was a butler, and my mother a housekeeper, and they used to let lodgings in Yarmouth. And they’re dead now, and I shift for myself. Now you know all about me. I think I’d better carry that parcel.”
She was rather defiant. Joyce could not understand her. Surely something more than inconsequent bad taste had prompted her to draw this distinction between their respective origins. But he was too self-centred to speculate deeply upon feminine problems. He hugged the parcel closer, and said:—
“Nonsense. The paper is torn and all the stuff will drop out.”
“Oh, then I must carry it,” she cried, in quite a different tone. But he refused gallantly.
“What’s inside it?” he asked, glad to divert the conversation into less perplexing channels.
“It’s a dress—the one I wear in the third act. Well, you can carry it. My head’s splitting. And I’m ready to drop.”
They had reached the end of the Parade. Their way lay at right angles through the town. It was a gusty, though warm night, and the cloud-racked sky and sea were dimly visible.
“Would you like to sit down for a few minutes?” he asked.
“Would you like it?”
Her white face was turned up earnestly toward his.
“It might do you good,” he replied.
“No,” she said abruptly, after a pause, “Let us get home.”
They walked together in silence. Joyce’s thoughts were far away. He parted from her at the door of her lodgings and went on slowly to his own.
He had accustomed himself quickly to the nomad life on tour, its mechanical regularity despite the weekly change of scene. Once, perhaps, a round like this among the large provincial towns would have been filled with interests. But now it was empty. He tried in vain to whet his dull curiosity, by strolling through the streets and seeking to busy his mind with the industrial or municipal aspects, the art treasures, the historical monuments of the various towns. But all intellectual keenness seemed to have been blunted during those deadening years. His lonely walks were at best but an aimless killing of time. All the towns presented to him the same essential features: one busy thoroughfare, the theatre with its flaring bills, and a poverty-stricken side-street where his bedroom was situated. His life was singularly monotonous. The long hours of the day, given up to lounging in solitude, or reading what cheap literature his means would allow, were succeeded by the uninspiring, almost impersonal work at the theatre. All that was required of him was to sing his parts correctly, and to execute automatically the “business” in which he had been drilled. It was painfully easy. But he doubted within himself whether he had any dramatic aptitude. He could never divest himself of the self-conscious idea that he looked a fool in theatrical garb. The green robe and pigtail gave him the sense of being a spectacle for gods and men. His spirit was too crushed to look upon life humorously. Still, the great anxiety was lifted from his mind. It was a livelihood, secured for an indefinite time. The tour was booked a year ahead, and, as the outset proved “The Diamond Door” to be as great a provincial success as it had been a London one, there seemed no reason against a continuous run for three or four years. In the meantime, he might advance a step or two. But he did not care to contemplate the future. He was thankful for the dull, unruffled present. He was working again among honest men, reckoned as one himself. Could he dare hope for more?
At times he found himself half cynically content with his lot. At others, a yearning rose within him like a great pain to be able to look the world in the face without shrinking from its condemnation. A strange idea began to work in his brain; to win back by some great deed of sacrifice his self-honour and respect. But he knew himself to be a dreamer of dreams, of too sorry stuff for such stern action. He would go whither the wind drifted him. Of this he thought as he walked home after parting with Annie Stevens.
He met her the next morning on the beach, a long way from the town, sitting, a lonely figure upon a great drain-pipe rising half above the sand. She was resting her chin upon her fingers, that grasped a crumpled copy of “Tit-Bits,” and she was looking out to sea. Their eight weeks of pairing on the stage had brought to Joyce a feeling of companionship with her, which he did not have as regards the others. Besides, those who were not either domestic or commonplace, belonged to the flaxen-haired, large-eyed, tawdrily-dressed type so common in the lower ranks of the profession. Miss Stevens had a personality which, though unrefined, was at least her own, and he honestly liked her.
She gave a little start when she was aware of his presence, and a quick flush came into her cheeks. But he did not notice it With a pleasant greeting he sat down by her side and talked of current trifles. At last she broke out suddenly.
“Oh, don’t let’s talk ‘shop.’ I’m sick of the piece and the theatre altogether.”
“Oh, come, it is not so bad,” said Joyce, consolingly. “We both ought to be playing good parts, and having rosier prospects. But things might be very much worse.”
He was feeling brighter this morning. Yvonne had written him a long, gossipy letter, full of encouragement and her own unconscious charm, thus lifting him on a little wave of cheerfulness. With a friend like Yvonne and daily bread, he ought to be thankful. As for Miss Stevens, he did not see what she had particularly to grumble at. If she had been beautiful or talented, she might have had reason to quarrel with her lot.
“Besides,” he added after a pause. “Look what a lovely day it is!”
“So you think we ought to be quite happy?”
“Moderately so.”
She was in a taciturn mood, and did not reply, but turned a little away from him and began to dig the sand with the toe of her boot. Suddenly she said, rather petulantly:—
“I wonder if you could ever love a woman.” He had grown accustomed to her late, discrete methods of conversation, so the question scarcely surprised him. He took off his hat, so as to enjoy the breeze, and rested both hands at his sides on the drain-pipe.
“I suppose I could if I tried,” he said carelessly, “but I’m very much better as I am. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know. I thought I’d say something. We were n’t having exactly a rollicking time, you know.”
This time the acerbity in her tone did strike him. Something had gone wrong with her. He bent forward so as to catch a sight of her averted face.
“What is the matter, Miss Stevens?” he asked concernedly. “You are not yourself. Could I be of any service to you?”
She did not reply. Her silence seemed an encouragement to press his sympathy. It was a new thing to be of help to a human being. He put his fingers on her sleeve and added:—
“Tell me.”
She drew away her arm and started to her feet.
“Yes, I will tell you. I ’ve been making a miserable little fool of myself. Let’s go back.”
Joyce rose and walked by her side.
“You are not by any chance embarrassed in money matters?” he asked, in as delicate a tone as he could.
“Money!”
She looked at him incredulously for a moment, then broke into hysterical laughter.
“Money!” she repeated. “Oh, you are too comic for anything!”