It was at least some comfort to be out of the proximity of Brother Paul. The sounds of the lay brother in the neighbouring cell had brought back recollections of Glory, and he had more than he could do to conquer his thoughts of her. Since he had taken his vows and had ceased to mention her in his prayers she had been always with him, and his fears for her fate had been pricked and goaded by the constant presence of Brother Paul's anxieties.
On the other hand, it was some loss that he could not go to the church, and he remembered with a pang how happy he had been after a night of terrors when he had gone into God's house in the morning and cast his burden on him with one yearning cry of “God bless all women and young children!”
It was now the Christmas season, and his heart tingled and thrilled as the brothers passed through the door at midday and talked of the women who attended the Christmas services. Were they really so calm as they seemed to be, and had they conquered their natural affections?
Sometimes during the midday service he would slide back the grating and listen for the women's voices. He heard one voice in all of them, but he knew it was only a dream. Then he would watch the snow falling from the little patch of dun-coloured sky crossed by bars, and tell himself that that was all he was to see of the world henceforth.
The sky emptied itself at last, and Brother Paul came again to shovel away the snow. He was weaker than ever, for the wax was melting away. When he began to work, his chest was oppressed and his face was feverish. John snatched the spade out of his hand and fell to doing his work instead of him.
“I can't bear to see it, and I won't!” he said.
“But the Father——?”
“I don't care—you can tell him if you like. You are killing yourself by inches, and you are a failing man any way.”
“Am I really dying?” said Brother Paul, and he staggered away like one who had heard his sentence.
John looked after, him and thought: “Now what should I do if I were in that man's place? If the case were Glory's, and I fixed here as in a vice?”
He was ashamed when he thought of Glory like that, and he dismissed the idea, but it came back with mechanical obstinacy and he was compelled to consider it. His vows? Yes, it would be death to his soul to break them. But if she were lost who had no one but him to look to—if she went down to wreck and ruin, then the fires of hell would be as nothing to his despair!
Brother Paul came to him next day and sat on the form by his side and said:
“If I'm really dying, what am I to do?”
“What would you like to do, Brother Paul?”
“I should like to go out and find her.”
“What good would there be in that?”
“I could say something that would stop her and put an end to everything.”
“Are you sure of it?”
A wild light came into his eyes and he answered, “Quite sure.”
John played the hypocrite and began to counsel patience.
“But a man can't live without hope and not go mad,” said Brother Paul.
“We must trust and pray,” said John.
“But God never answers us. If it were your own case what would you do? If some one outside were lost——”
“I should go to the Father and say, 'Let me go in search of her.'”
“I'll do it,” said Brother Paul.
“Why not? The Father is kind and tender and he loves his children.”
“Yes, Iwilldo it,” said Paul, and he made for the Father's room.
He got to the door of the cell and then came back again. “I can't,” he said. “There's something you don't know. I can't look in his face and ask.”
“Stay here and I'll ask for you,” said John.
“God bless you!” said Paul.
John made three hasty strides and then stopped.
“But if he will not——”
“Then—God's will be done!”
It was morning, and the Superior was reading in his room.
“Come in, my son,” he said, and he laid his book on his lap. “This is a book you must read some day—the Inner Life of Père Lacordaire. Most fascinating! An inner life of intolerable horror until he had conquered his natural affections.”
“Father,” said John, “one of our lay brothers has a little sister in the world and she has fallen into trouble. She has gone from the place where he left her, and God only knows where she is now! Let him go out and find her.”
“Who is it, my son?”
“Brother Paul—and she is all he has, and he can not help but think of her.”
“This is a temptation of the evil one, my son. Brother Paul has newly taken the vows and so have you. The vows are a challenge to the powers of evil, and it is only to be expected that he who takes them will be tested to the uttermost.”
“But, Father, she is young and thoughtless. Let him go out and find her and save her, and he will come back and praise God a thousand times the more.”
“The temptations of Satan are very subtle; they come in the guise of duty. Satan is tempting our brother through love, and you, also, through pity. Let us turn our backs on him.”
“Then it is impossible?”
“Quite impossible.”
When John returned to the door Brother Paul was standing by the alcove gazing with wet eyes on the text hanging above the bed. He saw his answer in John's face, and they sat down on the form without speaking.
The bell rang for service and the religious began to pass through the hall. As the Father was crossing the threshold Brother Paul flung himself down at his feet and clutched his cassock and made a frantic appeal for pity.
“Father, have pity upon me and let me go!”
The Father's eyes became moist but his will remained unshaken. “As a man I ought to have pity,” he said, “and as the Father of all of you I should be kind to my children; but it is not I who refuse you, it is God, and I should be guilty of a sin if I let you go.”
Then Paul burst into mad laughter and the religious gathered round and looked at him in astonishment. There was foam on his lips and fire in his eyes, and he threw up his hands and fell back fainting.
The Father made the sign of the cross on his breast and his lips moved in silence for a moment. Then he said to John, who had raised the lay brother in his arms:
“Leave him there. Damp his forehead and hold his hands.”
And turning to the religious he added: “I ask the prayers of the community for our poor brother. Satan is fighting for his soul. Let us wrestle in prayer that we may expel the spirit that possesses him.”
At the next moment John was alone with the unconscious man, except for the dog which was licking his forehead. And looking after the Superior, he told himself that such unlimited power over the body and soul of another the Almighty could have meant for no man. The love of God and the fear of the devil had swallowed up the love of man and stifled all human affections. Such religion must have hardened the best man ever born. As for the poor broken creature lying there so still, his vows had been made to heaven, and to heaven alone his obedience was due. The nature within him had spoken too loudly, but there were laws of Nature which it was a sin to resist. Then why should he resist them? The cry of blood was the voice of God, or God had no voice and He could speak to no man. Then, why should he not listen?
Brother Paul recovered consciousness and raised his head. The waves of memory flowed back upon him and his eyes flamed and his lips trembled.
“I will go if I have to break my vows!” he said.
“No need for that,” said John.
“Why so?”
“Because I will let you out at night and let you in again in the morning.”
“You?”
“Yes, I. Listen!”
And then these two crushed and fettered souls, bound by no iron bonds, confined by no bolts and bars, but only under the shadow of the supernatural, sat together like prisoners in a dungeon concocting schemes for their escape.
“The Father locks the outer gate himself,” said John. “Where does he keep the key?”
“In his own room on a nail above his bed,” said Paul.
“Who is the lay brother attending to him now?”
“Brother Andrew.”
“Brother Andrew will do anything for me,” said John.
“But the dog?” said Paul. “He is always in the court at night, and he barks at the sound of a step.”
“Not my step,” said John.
“I'll do it,” said Paul.
“I will send you to some one who can find your sister. You'll tell her you come from me and she'll take you with her.”
They could hear the singing in the church, and they paused to listen.
“When I come back in the morning I'll confess everything and do my penance,” said Paul.
“And I too,” said John.
The sun had come out with a sudden gleam and the thawing snow was dripping from the trees in drops like diamonds. The singing ceased, the service ended, and the brothers came back to the house. When the Father entered, Paul was clothed and in his right mind and sitting quietly on the form.
“Thank God for this answer to our prayers!” said the Father. “But you must pray without ceasing lest Satan should conquer you again. Until the end of the year say your Rosary in the church every night alone from Compline to midnight.”
Then turning to John he said with a smile: “And you shall be like the anchoret of old to this household, my son. We monks pray by day, but the anchoret prays by night. Unless we know that in the dark hours the anchoret guards the house, who shall rest on his bed in peace?”
At the end of the fourth week, after Glory had paid her fee to the agent, she called on him again. It was Saturday morning, and the vicinity of his office was a strange and surprising scene. The staircase and passages to the house, as well as the pavement of the streets far as to the public-house at the corner, were thronged with a gaudy but shabby army of music-hall artistes of both sexes. When Glory attempted to pass through them she was stopped by a cry of, “Tyke yer turn on Treasury day, my dear,” and she fell back and waited.
One by one they passed upstairs, came down again with cheerful faces, shouted their adieus and disappeared. Meanwhile they amused themselves with salutations, all more or less lively and familiar, told stories and exchanged confidences, while they danced a step or stamped about to keep away the cold. “You've chucked the slap [* Rouge.] on with a mop this morning, my dear,” said one of the girls. “Have I, my love? Well, I was a bit thick about the clear, so I thought it would keep me warm.” “It ain't no use facing the doner of the casa with that,” said a man who jingled a few coins as he came downstairs, and away went two to the public-house. Sometimes a showy brougham would drive up to the door and a magnificent person in a fur-lined coat, with diamond rings on both hands, would sweep through the lines and go upstairs. When he came down again his carriage door would be opened by half a dozen “pros” who would call him “dear old cully” and tell him they were “down on their luck” and “hadn't done a turn for a fortnight.” He would distribute shillings and half-crowns among them, cry “Ta-ta, boys,” and drive away, whereupon his pensioners would stroke their cuffs and collars of threadbare astrakhan, tip winks after the carriage, and say, “That's better than crying cabbages in Covent Garden, ain't it?” Then they would all laugh knowingly, and one would say, “What's it to be, cully?” and somebody would answer, “Come along to Poverty Point then,” and a batch of the waiting troop would trip off to the corner.
One of the gorgeous kind was coming down the stairs when his eye fell on Glory as she stood in a group of girls who were decked out in rose pink and corresponding finery. He paused, turned back, reopened the office door, and said in an audible whisper, “Who's the pretty young ginger you've got here, Josephs?” A moment afterward the agent had come out and called her upstairs.
“It's salary day, my dear—vait there,” he said, and he put her into an inner room, which was tawdrily furnished in faded red plush, with piano and coloured prints of ballet girls and boxing men, and was full of the odour of stale tobacco and bad whisky.
She waited half an hour, feeling hot and ashamed and troubled with perplexing thoughts, and listening to the jingle of money in the adjoining room, mingled with the ripple of laughter and sometimes the exchange of angry words. At length the agent came back, saying, “Vell, vat can I do for you to-day, my dear?”
He had been drinking, his tone was familiar, and he placed himself on the end of the sofa upon which Glory was seated.
Glory rose immediately. “I came to ask if you have heard of anything for me,” she said.
“Sit down, my dear.”
“No, thank you.”
“Heard anything? Not yet, my dear. You must vait——”
“I think I've waited long enough, and if your promises amount to anything you'll get me an appearance at all events.”
“So I vould, my dear. I vould get you an extra turn at the Vashington, but it's very expensive, and you've got no money.”
“Then why did you take what I had if you can do nothing? Besides, I don't want anything but what my talents can earn. Give me a letter to a manager—for mercy's sake, do something for me!”
There was a shrug of the Ghetto as the man rose and said, “Very vell, if it's like that, I'll give you a letter and velcome.”
He sat at a table and wrote a short note, sealed it carefully in an envelope which was backed with advertisements, then gave it to Glory, and said, “Daddle doo. You'll not require to come again.”
Going downstairs she looked at the letter. It was addressed to an acting manager at a theatre in the farthest west of London. The passages of the house and the pavements outside were now empty; it was nearly two o'clock, and snow was beginning to fall. She was feeling cold and a little hungry, but, making up her mind to deliver the letter at once, she hastened to the Temple station.
There was amatinée, so the acting manager was “in front.” He took the letter abruptly, opened it with an air of irritation, glanced at it, glanced at Glory, looked at the letter again, and then said in a strangely gentle voice, “Do you know what's in this, my girl?”
“No,” said Glory.
“Of course you don't—look,” and he gave her the letter to read. It ran:
“Dear ——: This wretched young ginger is worrying me for a shop. She isn't worth a ——. Get rid of her, and oblige Josephs.”
Glory flushed up to the forehead and bit her lip; then a little nervous laugh broke from her throat, and two great tears came rolling from her eyes. The acting manager took the letter out of her hands and tapped her kindly on the shoulder.
“Never mind, my child. Perhaps we'll disappoint him yet. Tell me all about it.”
She told him everything, for he had bowels of compassion. “We can't put you on at present,” he said, “but our saloon contractor wants a young lady to give out programmes, and if that will do to begin with——”
It was a crushing disappointment, but she was helpless. The employment was menial, but it would take her out of the tobacco shop and put her into the atmosphere of the theatre, and bring fifteen shillings a week as well. She might begin on Monday if she could find her black dress, white apron, cap, and cuffs. The dress she had already, but the apron, cap, and cuffs would take the larger part of the money she had left.
By Sunday night she had swallowed her pride with one great gulp and was writing home to Aunt Anna:
“I'm as busy as Trap's wife these days; indeed, that goddess of industry is nothing to me now; but Christmas is coming, and I shall want to buy a present for grandfather (and perhaps for the aunties as well), so please send me a line in secret saying what he is wanting most. Snow! snow! snow! The snow it snoweth every day.”
On the Monday night she presented herself at the theatre and was handed over to another girl to be instructed in her duties. The house was one of the best in London, and Glory found pleasure in seeing the audience assemble. For the first half hour the gorgeous gowns, the beautiful faces, and the distinguished manners excited her and made her forget herself. Then little by little there came the pain of it all, and by the time the curtain had gone up her gorge was rising, and she crept out into the quiet corridor where her colleague was seated already under an electric lamp reading a penny number.
The girl was a little, tender black and white thing, looking like a dahlia. In a quarter of an hour Glory knew all about her. During the day she served in a shop in the Whitechapel Road. Her name was Agatha Jones—they called her Aggie. Her people lived in Bethnal Green, but Charlie always came to the theatre to take her home. Charlie was her young man.
In the intervals between the acts Glory assisted in the cloak-room, and there the great ladies began to be very amusing. After the tinkle of the electric bell announcing the second act she returned to the deserted corridor, and before her audience of one gave ridiculous imitations in dead silence of ladies using the puff and twiddling up their front hair.
“My! It's you as oughter be on the styge, my dear,” said Aggie.
“Do you think so?” said Glory.
“I'm going on myself soon. Charlie's getting me on the clubs.”
“The clubs?”
“The foreign clubs in Soho. More nor one has begun there.”
“Really?”
“The foreigners like dancing best. If you can do the splits and shoulder the leg it's the mykings of you for life.”
When the performance was over they found Charlie waiting on the square in front of the house. Glory had seen him before, and she recognised him immediately. He was the young Cockney with the rolled fringe who had bantered the policeman by Palace Yard on Lord Mayor's Day. They got into the Underground together, and when Glory returned to the subject of the foreign clubs Charlie grew animated and eloquent.
“They give ye five shillings a turn, and if yer good for anythink ye may do six turns of a Sunday night, not ter speak of special nights, and friendly leads and sech.”
When Glory got out at the Temple Aggie's head was resting on Charlie's shoulder, and her little gloved fingers were lightly clasped in his hand.
On the second night Glory had conquered a good deal of her pride. The grace of her humour was saving her. It was almost as if somebody else was doing servant's duty and she was looking on and laughing. After all it was very funny that she should be there, and what delicious thoughts it would bring later! Even Nell Gwynne sold oranges in the pit at first, and then some day when she had risen above all this——
It must have been a great night of some sort. She had noticed red baize and an awning outside, and the front of one of the boxes was laden with flowers. When its occupants entered, the orchestra played the national anthem and the audience rose to their feet. It was the Prince with the Princess and their daughters. The audience was only less distinguished, and something far off and elusive moved in her memory when a lady handed her a check and said in a sweet voice:
“A gentleman will come for this seat.”
Glory's station was in the stalls, and she did not go out when the lights went down and the curtain rose. The play was a modern one—the story of a country girl who returned home after a life of bitterness and shame.
It moved her and thrilled her, and stirred the smouldering fires of her ambition. She was sorry for the actress who played the part—the poor thing did not understand—and she would have given worlds to pour her own voice through the girl's mouth. Then she was conscious that she was making a noise with her hands, and looking down at them she saw the crumpled programmes and her white cuffs, and remembered where she was, and what, and she murmured, “O God, do not punish me for these vain thoughts!”
All at once a light shot across her face as she stood in the darkness. The door of the corridor had been opened, and a gentleman was coming in. He stood a moment beside her with his eyes on the stage and said in a whisper:
“Did a lady leave a seat?”
It was Drake! She felt as if she would suffocate, but answered in a strained voice:
“Yes, that one. Programme, please.”
He took the programme without looking at her, put his fingers into his waistcoat pocket, and slid something into her hand. It was sixpence.
She could have screamed. The humiliation was too abject. Hurrying out, she threw down her papers, put on her cloak and hat and fled.
But next morning she laughed at herself, and when she took out Drake's sixpence she laughed again. With the poker and a nail she drove a hole through the coin and then hung it up by a string to a hook over the mantelpiece, and laughed (and cried a little) every time she looked at it. Life was so funny! Why did people bury themselves before they were dead? She wouldn't do it for worlds! But she did not go back to the theatre for all that, and neither did she return to the counter.
Christmas was near, the shops became bright and gay, and she remembered what beautiful presents she had meant to send home out of the money she had hoped to earn. On Christmas Eve the streets were thronged with little family groups out shopping, and there were many amusing sights. Then she laughed a good deal; she could not keep from laughing.
Christmas Day opened with a rimy, hazy morning, and the business thoroughfares were deserted. They had sucking pig for dinner, and Mr. Jupe, who was at home for the holiday, behaved like a great boy. It was afternoon before the postman arrived with a bag as big as a creel, and full of Christmas cards and parcels. There was a letter for Glory. It was from Aunt Anna.
“We are concerned about the serious step you have taken, but trust it is for the best, and that you will give Mrs. Jupe every satisfaction. Don't waste your savings on us. Remember there are post-office savings banks everywhere, and that there is no friend like a little money.”
At the bottom there was a footnote from Aunt Rachel: “Do you ever see the Queen in London, and the dear Prince and Princess?”
She went to service that night at St. Paul's Cathedral. Entering by the west door, a verger in a black cloak directed her to a seat in the nave. The great place was dark and chill and half empty. All the singing seemed to come from some unseen region far away, and when the preacher got into the curious pulpit he looked like a Jack-in-the-box, and it seemed to be a drum that was speaking.
Coming out before the end, she thought she would walk to the Whitechapel Road, of which Aggie had told her something. She did so, going by Bishopsgate Street, but turning her head away as she passed the church of the Brotherhood. The motley crowd of Polish Jews, Germans, and Chinamen, in the most interesting street in Europe, amused her for a while, and then she walked up Houndsditch and passed through Bishopsgate Street again.
At the Bank she took an omnibus for home. The only other fare was a bouncing girl in a big hat with feathers.
“Going to the market, my dear? No? I hates it myself, too, so I goes to the 'alls instead. Come from the country, don't ye? Same here. Father's a farmer, but he's got sixteen besides me, so I won't be missed. Live? I live at Mother Nan's dress-house now. Nice gloves, ain't they? My hat? Glad you like the style. I generally get a new hat once a week, and as for gloves, if anybody likes me——”
That night in her musty bedroom Glory wrote home while little Slyboots slept: “'The best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft aglee.' Witness me!
“I intended to send you some Christmas presents, but the snow has been so industrious that not a mouse has stirred if he could help it. However, I send three big kisses instead, and a pair of mittens for grandfather—worked with my own hands, because I wouldn't allow any good Brownie to do it for me. Tell Aunt Rachel Idosee the Prince and Princess sometimes. I saw them at the theatre the other night. Yes, the theatre! You must not be shocked—we are rather gay in London—we go to the theatre occasionally. It is so interesting to meet all the great people! You see I am fairly launched in fashionable society, but I love everybody just the same as ever, and the moment the candle is out I shall be thinking of Glenfaba and seeing the 'Waits,' and 'Oiel Verree,' and 'Hunting the Wren,' and grandfather smoking his pipe in the study by the light of the fire, and Sir Thomas Traddles, the tailless, purring and blinking at his feet. Merry Christmas to you, my dears! By-bye.”
“'Where's that bright young Irish laidy?' the gentlemen's allwiz sayin', my dear,” said Mrs. Jupe, and for very shame's sake, having no money to pay for board and lodgings, Glory returned to the counter.
A little beyond Bedford Row, in a rookery of apartment houses in narrow streets, there lives a colony of ballet girls and chorus girls who are employed at the lighter theatres of the Strand. They are a noisy, merry, reckless, harmless race, free of speech, fond of laughter, wearing false jewellery, false hair, and false complexions, but good boots always, which they do their utmost not to conceal.
Many of these girls pass through the Turnstile on their way to their work, and toward seven in the evening the tobacconist's would be full of them. Nearly all smoked, as the stained forefinger of their right hands showed, and while they bought their cigarettes they chirruped and chirped until the little shop was like a tree full of linnets in the spring.
Most of them belonged to the Frailty Theatre, and their usual talk was of the “stars” engaged there. Chief among these were the “Sisters Bellman,” a trio of singers in burlesque, and a frequent subject of innuendo and rapartee was one Betty, of that ilk, whose name Glory could remember to have seen blazing in gold on nearly every hoarding and sign.
“Says she was a governess in the country, my dear.” “Oh, yus, I dare say. Came out of a slop shop in the Mile End Road though, and learned 'er steps with the organ man in the court a-back of the jam factory.” “Well, I never! She's a wide un, she is!” “About as wide as Broad Street, my dear. Use ter sell flowers in Piccadilly Circus till somebody spoke to 'er, and now she rides 'er brougham, doncher know.” Then the laughter would be general, and the girls would go off with their arms about each other's waists, and singing, in the street substitute for the stage whisper, “And 'er golden 'air was 'anging dahn 'er back!”
This yellow-haired and yellow-fingered sisterhood saw the game of life pretty clearly, and it did not take them long to get abreast of Glory. “Like this life, my dear?” “Go on! Do she look as if she liked it?”
“Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't,” said Glory.
“Tell that to the marines, my dear. I use ter be in a shop myself, but I couldn't a-bear it. Give me my liberty, I say; and if a girl's got any sort o' figure——Unnerstand, my dear?”
Late that night one of the girls came in breathless and cried: “Hooraa! What d'ye think? Betty wants a dresser, and I've got the shop for ye, my dear. Guinea a week and the pickings; and you go tomorrow night on trial. By-bye!”
Glory's old infirmity came back upon her, and she felt hot and humiliated. But her vanity was not so much wounded by the work that she was offered as her honour was hurt by the work she was doing. Mrs. Jupe's absences from home were now more frequent than ever. If the business that took her abroad was akin to that which had taken her to Polly Love——
To put an end to her uneasiness, Glory presented herself at the stage door.
“You the noo dresser, miss?” said the doorkeeper. “Collins has orders to look after you.—Collins!”
A scraggy, ugly, untidy woman who was passing—through an inner door looked back and listened.
“Come along of me then,” she said, and Glory followed her, first down a dark passage, then through a dusty avenue between stacks of scenery, then across the open stage, up a flight of stairs, and into a room of moderate size which had no window and no ventilation and contained three cheval glasses, a couch, four cane-bottom chairs, three small toilet tables with gas jets suspended over them, three large trunks, some boxes of cigarettes, and a number of empty champagne bottles. Here there was another woman as scraggy and untidy as the first, who bobbed her head at Glory and then went on with her work, which was that of taking gorgeous dresses out of one of the trunks and laying them on the end of the couch.
“She told me to show you her first act,” said the woman called Collins, and, throwing open another of the trunks, she indicated some of the costumes contained in it.
It was a new world to Glory, and there was something tingling and electrical in the atmosphere about her. There were the shouts and curses of the scene-shifters on the stage, the laughing voices of the chorus girls going by the door, and all the multitudinous noises of the theatre before the curtain rises. Presently there was a rustle of silk, and two young ladies came bouncing into the room. One was tall and pink and white, like a scarlet runner, the other was little and dainty. They stared at Glory, and she was compelled to speak.
“Miss Bellman, I presume?”
“Ye mean Betty, down't ye?” said the tall lady, and at that moment Betty herself arrived. She was a plump person with a kind of vulgar comeliness, and Glory had a vague sense of having seen her before somewhere.
“So ye've came,” she said, and she took possession of Glory straightway. “Help me off of my sealskin.”
Glory did so. The others were similarly disrobed, and in a few moments their three ladyships were busy before the toilet tables with their grease and rose-pink and black pencils.
Glory was taking down the hair of her stout ladyship, and her stout ladyship was looking at Glory in the glass.
“Not a bad face, girls, eh?”
The other two glanced at Glory approvingly. “Not bad,” they answered, and then hummed or whistled as they went on with their making-up.
“Oh,thankyou,” said Glory, with a low courtesy, and everybody laughed. It was really very amusing. Suddenly it ceased to be so.
“And what's it's nyme, my dear?” said the little lady.
A sort of shame at using in this company the name that was sacred to home, to the old parson, and to John Storm, came creeping over Glory like a goosing of the flesh, and by the inspiration of a sudden memory she answered, “Gloria.”
The little lady paused with the black pencil at her eyebrows, and said:
“My! What a nyme for the top line of a bill!”
“Ugh! Mykes me feel like Sundays, though,” said the tall lady with a shudder.
“Irish, my dear?”
“Something of that sort,” said Glory.
“Brought up a laidy, I'll be bound?”
“My father was a clergyman,” said Glory, “but——”
A sudden peal of laughter stopped her, whereupon she threw up her head, and her eyes flashed: but her stout ladyship patted her hands and said:
“No offence, Glo, but you re'lly mustn't—they're all clergymen's daughters, doncher know?”
A sharp knock came to the door, followed by the first call of the call-boy. “Half-hour, ladies.” Then there was much bustle and some irritation in the dressing-room and the tuning up of the orchestra outside. The knock came again. “Curtain up, please.” The door was thrown open, the three ladies swept out—the tall one in tights, the little one in a serpentine skirt, the plump one in some fancy costume—and Glory was left to gather up the fragments, to listen to the orchestra, which was now in full power, to think of it all and to laugh.
The ladies returned to the dressing-room again and again in the coarse of the performance, and when not occupied with the changing of their dresses they amused themselves variously. Sometimes they smoked cigarettes, sometimes sent Collins for brandy and soda, sometimes talked of their friends in front: 'Lord Johnny's 'ere again. See 'im in the prompt box? It's 'is sixtieth night this piece, and there's only been sixty-nine of the run—and sometimes they discussed the audience generally: “Don't know what's a-matter with 'em to-night; ye may work yer eyes out and ye can't get a 'and.”
The curtain came down at length, the outdoor costumes were resumed, the call-boy cried “Carriages, please,” the ladies answered “Right ye are, Tommy,” her plump ladyship nodded to Glory, “You'll do middling, my dear, when ye get yer 'and in”; and then nothing was left but the dark stage, the blank house, and the “Good-night, miss,” of the porter at the stage door.
So these were favourites of the footlights! And Glory Quayle was dressing and undressing them and preparing them for the stage! Next morning, before rising, Glory tried to think it out. Were they so very beautiful? Glory stretched up in bed to look at herself in the glass, and lay down again with a smile. Were they so much cleverer than other people? It was foolishness to think of it, for they were as empty as a drum. There must be some explanation if a girl could only find it out.
The second night at the theatre passed much like the first, except that the ladies were visited between the acts by a group of fellow-artistes from another company, and then the free-and-easy manners of familiar intercourse gave way to a style that was most circumspect and precise, and, after the fashion of great ladies, they talked together of morning calls and leaving cards and five-o'clock tea.
There was a scene in the performance in which the three girls sang together, and Glory crept out to the head of the stairs to listen. When she returned to the dressing-room her heart was bounding, and her eyes, as she saw them in the glass, seemed to be leaping out of her head. It was ridiculous! To think of all that fame, all that fuss about voices like those, about singing like that, while she—if she could only get a hearing!
But the cloud had chased the sunshine from her face in a moment, and she was murmuring again, “O God, do not punish a vain, presumptuous creature!”
All the same she felt happy and joyous, and on the third night she was down at the theatre earlier than the other dressers, and was singing to herself as she laid out the costumes, for her heart was beginning to be light. Suddenly she became aware of some one standing at the open door. It was an elderly man, with a bald head and an owlish face. He was the stage manager; his name was Sefton.
“Go on, my girl,” he said. “If you've got a voice like that, why don't you let somebody hear it?”
Her plump ladyship arrived late that night, and her companions were dressed and waiting when she swept into the room like a bat with outstretched wings, crying: “Out o' the wy! Betty Bellman's coming! She's lyte.”
There were numerous little carpings, backbitings, and hypocrisies during the evening, and they reached a climax when Betty said, “Lord Bobbie is coming to-night, my dear.” “Not ifIknow it, my love,” said the tall lady. “We are goin' to supper at the Nell Gwynne Club, dearest.” “Surprised at ye, my darling.” “Youare a nice one to preach, my pet!”
After that encounter two of their ladyships, who were kissing and hugging on the stage, were no longer on speaking terms in the dressing-room, and as soon as might be after the curtain had fallen, the tall lady and the little one swept out of the place with mysterious asides about a “friend being a friend,” and “not staying there to see nothing done shabby.”
“If she don't like she needn't, my dear,” said the boycotted one, and then she dismissed Glory for the night with a message to the friend who would be waiting on the stage.
The atmosphere of the dressing-room had become oppressive and stifling that night, and, notwithstanding the exaltation of her spirits since the stage manager had spoken to her, Glory was sick and ashamed. The fires of her ambition were struggling to burn under the drenching showers that had fallen upon her modesty, and she felt confused and compromised.
As she stepped down the stairs the curtain was drawn up, the auditorium was a void, the stage dark, save for a single gas jet that burned at the prompter's wing, and a gentleman in evening dress was walking to and fro by the extinguished footlights. She was about to step up to the man when she recognised him, and turning on her heel she hurried away. It was Lord Robert Ure, and the memory that had troubled her at the first sight of Betty was of the woman who had ridden with Polly Love on the day of the Lord Mayor's show.
Feeling hot and foolish and afraid, she was scurrying through the dark passages when some one called her. It was the stage manager.
“I should like to hear your voice again, my dear. Come down at eleven in the morning, sharp. The leader of the orchestra will be here to play.”
She made some confused answer of assent, and then found herself in the back seat, panting audibly and taking long breaths of the cold night air. She was dizzy and was feeling, as she had never felt before, that she wanted some one to lean upon. If anybody had said to her at that moment, “Come out of the atmosphere of that hot-bed, my child, it is full of danger and the germs of death,” she would have left everything behind her and followed him, whatever the cost or sacrifice. But she had no one, and the pain of her yearning and the misery of her shame were choking her.
Before going home she walked over to the hospital; but no, there was still no letter from John Storm. There was one from Drake, many days overdue:
“Dear Glory: Hearing that you call for your letters, I write to ask if you will not let me know where you are and how the world is using you. Since the day we parted in St. James's Park I have often spoken of you to my friend Miss Macquarrie, and I am angry with myself when I remember what remarkable talents you have, and that they are only waiting for the right use to be made of them.
“Yours most kindly,
“F. H. N. Drake.”
“Many thanks, good Late-i'-th'-day,” she thought, and she was crushing the latter in her hand when she saw there was a postscript:
“P. S.—This being the Christmas season, I have given myself the pleasure of sending a parcel of Yuletide goodies to your dear old grandfather and his sweet and simple household; but as they have doubtless long forgotten me, and I do not wish to embarrass them with, unnecessary obligations, I will ask you not to help them to the identification of its source.”
She straightened out the letter and folded it, put it in her pocket and returned home. Another letter was waiting for her there. It was from the parson:
“So you sent us a Christmas-box after all! That was just like my runaway, all innocent acting and make-believe. What joy we had of it!—Rachel and myself, I mean, for we had to carry on the fiction that Aunt Anna knew nothing about it, she being vexed at the thought of our spendthrift spending so much money. Chalse brought it into the parlour while Anna was upstairs, and it might have been the ark going up to Jerusalem it entered in such solemn stillness. Oh, dear! oh, dear! The bun-loaf, and the almonds, and the cheese, and the turkey, and the pound of tobacco, and the mull of snuff! On account of Anna everything had to be conducted in great quietness, but it was a terrible leaky sort of silence, I fear, and there were hot and hissing whispers. God bless you for your thought and care of us! Coming so timely, it is like my dear one herself, a gift that cometh from the Lord; and when people ask me if I am not afraid that my granddaughter should be all alone in that great and wicked Babylon, I tell them: 'No; you don't know my Glory; she is all courage and nerve and power, a perfect bow of steel, quivering with sympathy and strength.'”