CHAPTER XIX
NANCY’S CONTRALTO
The acquaintance began in Bristol by Nancy’s finding a letter waiting for her at the stage-door on the second evening.
Royal Severn Hotel,Bristol,Oct. 11. Tuesday aft.Dear Miss O’Finn,Business having brought me to Bristol, I found myself at the Princess’s Theatre last night, and I want to tell you how very much I enjoyed your performance of the Baroness—a difficult and ungrateful part in an absurd production. But apart from your acting I was tremendously struck by your voice. If it were well trained, I don’t hesitate to say that you might go very far indeed in grand opera. Good contraltos are so rare, and good contraltos who can act are simply not to be found except in the unusual atmospheric conditions set up by a blue moon. To show my genuine enthusiasm, although my business in Bristol is at an end, I am staying on another night in order to give myself the pleasure of hearing you sing a second time. And will you set the seal upon the pleasure by joining me at supper in my hotel after the performance? I will call for your answer before going in front. Don’t concern yourself about “clothes.” Such a supper as I can offer you will not be worthy of a grand toilette.Yours very truly,John Kenrick.
Royal Severn Hotel,Bristol,Oct. 11. Tuesday aft.
Royal Severn Hotel,Bristol,Oct. 11. Tuesday aft.
Royal Severn Hotel,
Bristol,
Oct. 11. Tuesday aft.
Dear Miss O’Finn,
Business having brought me to Bristol, I found myself at the Princess’s Theatre last night, and I want to tell you how very much I enjoyed your performance of the Baroness—a difficult and ungrateful part in an absurd production. But apart from your acting I was tremendously struck by your voice. If it were well trained, I don’t hesitate to say that you might go very far indeed in grand opera. Good contraltos are so rare, and good contraltos who can act are simply not to be found except in the unusual atmospheric conditions set up by a blue moon. To show my genuine enthusiasm, although my business in Bristol is at an end, I am staying on another night in order to give myself the pleasure of hearing you sing a second time. And will you set the seal upon the pleasure by joining me at supper in my hotel after the performance? I will call for your answer before going in front. Don’t concern yourself about “clothes.” Such a supper as I can offer you will not be worthy of a grand toilette.
Yours very truly,John Kenrick.
Nancy was not used to getting letters of appreciation from the front of the house. Adventuresses of the type that she had been playing did not attract the susceptible pen. She really hardly knew how to reply. At the sametime it was pleasant to be told nice things about one’s voice and one’s acting. She reread the letter. Rather an affected way of writing, she decided, when she came to the remark about the blue moon. Still, the affectation of the host was not sufficient reason to decline supper with him. Grand opera? The man was mad. Grand opera? Did he know anything about grand opera? It might be interesting to go out to supper. After all, if he turned out to be an idle bore she was not bound to see any more of him. Business might detain him in Bristol; but she never would, if he were tiresome. Nancy borrowed a piece of notepaper from the stage-door keeper and wrote a brief acceptance of the stranger’s invitation.
“I’ve got off with an impresario,” she told the lady who shared her dressing-room.
“With a what, dear?”
“Or a Lothario. I’m not quite sure yet,” Nancy laughed.
“Have I put too much black on my left eyelid?” the other asked intensely. “It looks a bit smudgy, doesn’t it?”
“You’re not much interested in my young man,” said Nancy in mock reproach.
“I’m sorry, dear. I was so fussed by this gard-awful liquid-black I bought last week at Cardiff.”
“Perhaps it was coal,” Nancy suggested.
“Oh, you don’t think it is really!” exclaimed her companion. “Oh, whatever shall I do? My god, if I wasn’t a perfect lady I could say something.” Whereupon Miss Pamela Fitzroy proceeded to express her opinion of Cardiff chemists and of the liquid-black they supplied to poor actresses, in very strong language indeed. “What were you saying, dear?” she stopped suddenly to ask Nancy. “Weren’t you saying something about getting off with a foreigner? You watch him, that’s my advice. I had a Spanish boy following me round last tour when I was with theFun of the Faircrowd, and what I went through, my dear! He’d onlygot to look at me, and I’d feel like ringing the nearest fire-alarm. And then he got jealous and took to walking up and down outside the stage-door and glaring at all the men of the company. Of course it used to amuse them, and they’d whistleToreadoror whatever the song is. In the end, however, he ran out of money and got pinched for passing a dud cheque at Bradford.”
“But my young man isn’t a foreigner,” said Nancy.
“Damn and blast this liquid-black,” swore Miss Pamela Fitzroy.
With the consciousness that somebody in front was interested in her Nancy sang her two songs better that night than she had ever sung them. She was feeling so much excited over the prospect of going out to supper while she was dressing after the performance that, though she knew she was being ridiculous, she simply could not resist saying to Miss Fitzroy:
“I felt in voice to-night. I really enjoyed singing.”
“That’s right,” her companion replied indifferently. “A short life and a merry one. Do you know, dear, I think I’ve put on weight. My corsets! I believe I’ll have to give up drinking Guinness. They say it’s fattening. What a shame! Still, I don’t want to get too fat. Men don’t really like massive women nowadays. I wonder why. My dear old mother says they got had so often when women used to wear crinolines that they took to thin women in self-defence. You ought to meet my dear old mother. She’s such a naughty old thing. You know, a real good sport. Weren’t you saying you were going out to supper with a fellow in front, dear? Have a good time, and say ‘champagne’ in a firm voice. Don’t let him think he can get away with Sauterne, or you’ll find yourself going home on the last tram instead of in a cab. You want to watch these fellows in the provinces. They think an actress will give them a season ticket for paradise on a bottle of lemonade and two ham sandwiches.”
Nancy’s admirer was waiting for her outside the stage-door. He was a tall dark clean-shaven man with a heavy chin and large deep-set eyes. The impression of his size was accentuated by the long double-breasted overcoat he was wearing. His voice was deep and sympathetic in spite of his rather sombre appearance.
“So kind of you to accept my casual invitation,” he murmured. “Come along, I’ve a decrepit vehicle waiting for us outside the front of the theatre.”
The dining-room of the Royal Severn Hotel did not succeed any better than most provincial hotels in suggesting an atmosphere of nocturnal gaiety. The two waiters looked as if they had been dragged out of bed by the hair of their heads in order to attend to the wants of the unreasonable beings who required to be fed at this unnatural hour. Most of the tables suggested that they would welcome more cheerfully the eggs and bacon of the morning breakfast than the lobster mayonnaise of supper. The very flowers in attendance appeared heavy with sleep and resentful at not being allowed a night’s repose with the other table decorations that were piled upon one of the sideboards like wreaths upon a coffin. Half the room was in twilight, so that the portion of it that was lighted was so uncomfortably bright as to seem garish. At one end two members of the chorus were trying to make a pair of youthful hosts feel at their ease by laughter that sounded as thin as broken glass.
“I’m sorry to inflict this atmosphere of gloom upon you,” said Mr. Kenrick. “Let’s try to dissipate it in a bottle of champagne. I did my best to order a special supper, but my efforts were regarded with suspicion by the management. Your fellow performers over there seem to be enjoying themselves. Touring with them must be rather like travelling with an aviary of large and noisy birds.”
“Oh, but they’re such dears,” Nancy exclaimed, in arms against any criticism of her fellow players.
Mr. Kenrick put up a monocle and looked across atthe group for a moment. Then he let it fall without comment.
“You sang better than ever to-night,” he said gravely.
Nancy felt that she simpered.
“I’m in earnest, you know. What are you going to do about it?”
“My voice?”
He nodded.
“What can I do?”
“You could have it trained.”
“But, my dear man, do you realize that I’m twenty-eight? Rather late in the day to be cultivating operatic ambitions.”
“Not at all when the voice is as good as yours, and if you go to the right man.”
“And where is he to be found?”
“Naples.”
Nancy laughed.
“It’s like a fairy-story where the poor heroine is set an impossible task by the wicked stepmother. How do you think I could afford to go to Naples?”
“That’s just what I wanted to discuss with you,” said Kenrick.
“But wait a moment,” Nancy interrupted. “I have a little girl.”
“What has that got to do with training your voice?”
“Why, this. Every penny that I can save I am saving for her. She is in a convent now, and when she leaves school in another twelve years I want her to have a voice and be able to afford to pay for its training. I want her to have everything that I lacked. I would be wrong to spend the money I have saved in building castles in Spain for myself.”
“But, my dear woman, if in another twelve years you are an operatic star of some magnitude you’ll be able to do much more for your daughter than you could with what you’ll save as a provincial actress between nowand then. But forgive me; you speak of a little girl. You have a husband then?”
“My husband is dead. He died nearly four years ago.”
Kenrick nodded slowly.
“And—forgive my bluntness—you have no other entanglements?”
She flushed.
“My marriage was never an entanglement ... and if you mean ‘am I in love with anybody now?’ why, no, I could never love anybody again.”
“That’s a sad remark for twenty-eight. A woman’sgrande passionusually happens when she is thirty-three.”
“Mine won’t,” said Nancy obstinately.
“I shouldn’t dare the God of Love,” Kenrick warned her. “Remember, he’s a mischievous boy and nothing gives him greater delight than to behave as such. Never dare a boy to climb an apple-tree or Cupid to shoot his arrows in vain. You offered him a fine target by that remark of yours. But don’t let’s begin an argument about love. It’s your voice I want to talk about. Surely you must realise that you possess a contralto of the finest quality?”
“I thought it was a fairly good natural voice,” Nancy admitted. “But I certainly never supposed it was of the finest quality.”
“Not only have you a marvellous voice, but you can act. Very few contraltos can act. On the operatic stage they usually sound like governesses who have drunk a little too much at a fancy-dress ball.”
“Rather voluptuous governesses usually,” Nancy laughed.
“Yes, but with the healthy voluptuousness of women who have been eating plenty of the best butter and drinking quarts of the richest cream. You would be different.”
“I hate to be rude,” Nancy said. “But do you know,it always seems to me such a waste of time to talk about impossibilities. Perhaps I’ve no imagination. I’ll talk as long and as earnestly as you like about the best way of travelling from one town to another, or of any of life’s small problems, but to discuss which seaside resort in the moon would be the jolliest place to spend one’s holidays surely isn’t worth while.”
“But why is your appearance in opera so remote from any prospect of being realised?”
“I’ve told you, my dear man,” said Nancy impatiently. “I have planned my life so that my small daughter may have what I could not have. To indulge my own ambitions at her expense would be wrong. I can’t pretend that I’m denying myself much, because, to be honest, until I had your letter I had never contemplated myself as an operatic star. I knew I had an unusually good contralto voice. I knew that I could act as well as most women and a good deal better than some. Your letter was a pleasure, because it is always a pleasure to feel that one has interested somebody. I am grateful to you for inviting me out to supper and saying nice things about my possibilities. But now let’s talk of something else, for you’ll never infect me with any ambition to do anything that could risk my ability to do what I can for my daughter, just by acting quietly in the provinces as I am acting at present.”
“Listen to me, Miss O’Finn,” said Kenrick earnestly. “I am a business man. That is my inheritance from a hard-working father. But I have one passion, and that is not business. My passion is the opera; my dream is to make enough money to be able to help the opera in England. But I am rich enough to do something for the individual artist, and I beg you to let me help you. Let me guarantee you what you would usually earn on the provincial stage. Let me pay for your lessons. ThemaestroI want to teach you is an old friend of mine. If at the end of six months he tells me that you are not the finest contralto of the time, why, then you can go back to yourlife on tour. At the worst you will have spent six months in Italy to gratify the whim of an eccentric business man whose dreams are all of art. At the best you will be able to do what you like for your daughter in another ten years, and long, long before that. We’ll not talk about it any more to-night. Go home and sleep over my proposal. Think over it for a week. I must be back in town to-morrow. If at the end of a week you feel that you can risk six months in Italy to have the world at your feet, send me a line, and I will pay into your account the necessary funds. You can leave this absurd company when you like.”
“Och, I would have to give a fortnight’s notice,” said Nancy quickly.
Kenrick smiled.
“Very well, give your fortnight’s notice. To-day is the eleventh. If you settle by next Saturday that will be the fifteenth. On the first of November you can quit the fogs and be on your way to Naples. It will probably be fine weather. It usually is about then in the south of Italy.”
“You seem to have made up your mind that I’m going to accept your generosity,” Nancy said.
“There is no generosity in gratifying one’s own desires,” Kenrick observed. “But if you have any feelings of pride on the subject, why, you can pay me back when your position is secure.”
“But why, really, are you doing this?” Nancy asked, looking deep into the eyes of her host.
“Really and truly because I believe you have a great voice and may become a great singer, and because if you did I should get as much satisfaction from your success as if I had a voice and were a great singer myself,” he replied.
The thin laughter of the chorus-girls at the other end of the room commented upon this grave assertion. The waiter put up a grubby hand to hide a yawn.
When Nancy woke next morning she felt like the heroine of an Arabian Nights tale who has been carried half across Asia by a friendly djinn. But when she called at the theatre for her letters, the following note was a proof that she had not been dreaming:
Royal Severn Hotel,Bristol.October 12.Dear Miss O’Finn,Do think very hard over our talk last night. You can’t lose anything by my offer; you may gain a very great deal. In fact, I am positive that you will. Let me know your decision at my London address, 42 Adelphi Terrace, and I will get into communication with Maestro Gambone, and fix up your lessons. I suggest you live at an Italian pensione in Naples. The more Italian you can learn to speak, the better you will sing it. I’ll find out a good place.Good luck to you.Yours sincerely,John Kenrick.
Royal Severn Hotel,Bristol.October 12.
Royal Severn Hotel,Bristol.October 12.
Royal Severn Hotel,
Bristol.
October 12.
Dear Miss O’Finn,
Do think very hard over our talk last night. You can’t lose anything by my offer; you may gain a very great deal. In fact, I am positive that you will. Let me know your decision at my London address, 42 Adelphi Terrace, and I will get into communication with Maestro Gambone, and fix up your lessons. I suggest you live at an Italian pensione in Naples. The more Italian you can learn to speak, the better you will sing it. I’ll find out a good place.
Good luck to you.Yours sincerely,John Kenrick.
It was a fine October day of rich white clouds and rain-washed blue deeps between. A faint haze bronzed the lower air and lent the roofs and chimneys of the city a mirrored peace, a mirrored loveliness. Nancy wandered down by the docks and in contemplation of the glinting masts tried to find an answer to the riddle of her future. Suppose her voice turned out to be less good than he had supposed? Well, that would be his bad judgment. But had she the right to accept money from a stranger in the event of failure? It would be his own fault if she proved a failure. It was a serious matter to leave a company in which she had expected to be playing until next summer. What would Sister Catherine say? Nancy remembered what Sister Catherine had said about Italy that night they met in the train. Sister Catherine would never be the one to blame her. She took Letizia’s letter out of her bag and read it through again.
St. Joseph’s School,5 Arden Grove,N. W.Sunday.My dear Mother,I hope you are very well. I am learning Italian with Sister Catherine. It is very nice. I know twenty-two words now and the present indicitive of “I am.” I like it very much. We have a new girl called Dorothy Andrews. She is very nice. She is eight and a half years old, but she is not so big as me. I must stop now because the bell is ringing for Vespurs and Benedicsion.Your lovingLetizia.
St. Joseph’s School,5 Arden Grove,N. W.Sunday.
St. Joseph’s School,5 Arden Grove,N. W.Sunday.
St. Joseph’s School,
5 Arden Grove,
N. W.
Sunday.
My dear Mother,
I hope you are very well. I am learning Italian with Sister Catherine. It is very nice. I know twenty-two words now and the present indicitive of “I am.” I like it very much. We have a new girl called Dorothy Andrews. She is very nice. She is eight and a half years old, but she is not so big as me. I must stop now because the bell is ringing for Vespurs and Benedicsion.
Your lovingLetizia.
She was safe for so many years, Nancy thought. Would it be so very wrong to embark upon this adventure?
That night, when she was singing the first of her two songs, she tried to imagine that the piece wasAïdaand that she was Amneris.
“If I get a genuine encore,” she promised herself, “I’ll write to him and accept.”
And she did get a most unmistakable encore.
“Your songs went very well to-night, dear,” said Miss Fitzroy grudgingly. “Had you got any friends in front?”
The next day Nancy wrote to John Kenrick and told him that she was going to accept his kind offer, and that on Sunday, October 23rd, she should be in London.
He telegraphed back:Bravo will meet train if you let me know time.
But she did not let him know the time of her arrival at Paddington, for she thought that there was really no reason why he should want to meet her train. Somehow it made his interest in her seem too personal, and Nancy was determined that the whole affair should be carried through on the lines of the strictest business. Besides, she would be staying at the convent, and it would be so exciting to learn her first words of Italian from Letizia.