Etta Romney sat in her little dressing-room when the play was over, so very tired after all she had done that even the congratulations of Mr. Charles Izard failed to give her pleasure.
Unlike the successful actress of our time, she had not yet attracted the attention of the "flower" brigade, as little Dulcie Holmes, one of her friends in the theatre, would call them; and despite her success and the astonishment it had provoked, no baskets of roses decorated her dressing-table, nor were expensive bouquets thrown "negligently" to the various corners of the room. Two red roses in a cheap vase; a bunch of narcissi, which had obviously come from the flower-girls of the Criterion, witnessed her triumph in lonely majesty. Even the redoubtable Mr. Izard, not anticipating the splendor of the evening, had forgotten to "command" a basket for his star. He, good man, had but one word for his surprising fortune. "It's bully," he said—and repeated the convictionusque ad nauseam.
Etta sat alone, but it was not for many minutes after the curtain fell. Little Dulcie Holmes, the artist's daughter, who had a "walking part" at twenty-four shillings a week, came leaping into the room presently and catching her friend in both arms kissed her rapturously.
"Oh, Etta," she cried ardently, "oh, my dear—they won't go away even now. Can't you hear them calling for you?"
"They are too kind to me," was the quiet response, "and all because I love Derbyshire. Isn't it absurd?—but, of course, I'm very pleased, Dulcie."
"Think of it, dear Etta. Your very first night and Mr. Izard in such a state that he'd give you a hundred a week if you asked him. Of course, you won't play for nothing now, Etta."
"I've never thought of it," said Etta still without apparent emotion ... and then with a very sweet smile, she asked, "What would you say if I told you that I was about to give up the theatre altogether, Dulcie?"
Dulcie opened her eyes so wide (and they were pretty blue eyes too) that the rest of her piquant face was quite dwarfed by them.
"Give up the theatre. You're joking. Here Lucy—here's Etta talking of giving up the theatre. Now, what do you say to that?"
Lucy Grey, a pretty brunette, whose share in the triumph was the saucy delivery of the momentous line, "Oh, Captain, how could you?" (she playing a maid's part for thirty shillings a week), would not believe that Dulcie could possibly be serious.
"Whatever will the papers say to-morrow?" she exclaimed. "Did you ever think she could do it? I didn't, and I'm not going to say that I did. Why, here's Mr. Izard quite beside himself."
"And he'll be beside Etta just now wanting her to sign a three years' engagement as principal. Now, you take my advice and don't you do it, dear—not unless he'll pay you a hundred a week. That's where girls ruin their prospects, taking on things just when they're excited. If it were me, wouldn't I ask him something! Perhaps he'll play hot and cold—they sometimes do; but your fortune's made, Etta, and I can't think why you take it so quietly. How I should dance and sing if I were you——"
Etta had begun to gather up the heavy tresses of her long black hair by this time; but she did so slowly and deliberately as one whom success had neither surprised nor agitated. Could the two young girls about her have read her thoughts they would have been astonished indeed. Not idly had she asked Dulcie Holmes what people would say if she gave up the theatre entirely. For give it up she must. In one short month her father would return from the Continent. She must be at home by that time, and none must ever know that she had left her home.
"We'll talk it all over in the morning," she said, still smiling—"I want both of you to come and see me to-morrow. We shall have read the papers by that time. Whatever will they say about me?"
"It doesn't matter what they say. Everyone in London will be talking about you before the week's out. All the same, the papers are going to be nice. Lucy's cousin was in the vestibule between the acts and he heard the critics talking. They called you 'immense,' dear. That means bad luck for the play, but everything for you. You just wait until the morning comes."
"I fear I'll have to," said Etta, with a sly look toward them; but just then there came a tap on the door and who should it be but a messenger with the intimation that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Izard expected Miss Etta Romney to supper at the Carlton Hotel as soon as she could conveniently join their party. To the extreme astonishment both of Dulcie Holmes and Lucy Grey, Etta appeared to be distressed beyond words by this customary invitation.
"Oh, I never can go; I dare not go—whatever shall I do?" she asked.
"Not go!" cried Dulcie, almost too amazed to speak; "why, of course you must go. Charles would send soldiers to fetch you if you refused. The star always sups with him on a first night. I never heard of such a thing. She talks of not going, Lucy!"
"That's the excitement," said Lucy wisely. "I should be just the same in her place. She wants a glass of wine. She'll break out crying just now if she doesn't get one."
Their solicitude for Etta was very pretty and really honest. They were too fond of her to be jealous. Women who love loyally welcome their friends successes; men rarely do. Dulcie and Lucy might say "what a lucky girl she is;" but they would not have wished her to be less so.
As for Etta herself, the invitation perplexed her to distraction. How if she met some one who knew her at the Carlton. It was very unlikely she thought. Fifteen years passed in a French convent with few English pupils do not admit of many embarrassing acquaintances. The subsequent years, lived chiefly in the park of a mediæval country house rarely open to strangers, were not likely to be more dangerous. Etta knew that discovery might be disastrous to her beyond the ordinary meaning of the term; but her cleverness told her that the risk of it was very small. It was then after eleven o'clock. She remembered that they turned the people out of the Carlton Hotel at half-past twelve.
"Tell Mr. Izard that I will come," she said to the messenger, and then to the girls, "You won't forget to-morrow. Run round early and we'll read the newspapers together. And, dear girls, we'll spend Sunday at Henley, as I promised you."
They kissed her affectionately, promising not to forget. There was not so much pleasure in their lives that they should pass it by when a good fairy approached them. Sharing rooms together, they had as yet discovered upon some fifty-odd shillings a week little of the glamour and none of the rewards of theatrical life. For them the theatre was the house of darkening hope, wherein success passed by them every hour crying, "Look at me—how beautiful I am; but not for you." They had believed that the pilgrim's way would be strewn with gold—they discovered it to be paved with promises.
"Of course, we shall come," said Lucy in her matter of fact way; "whatever should we be thinking of if we didn't."
But Dulcie said:
"I'm going to wear my pink blouse on Sunday and the hat you gave me—didn't I tell you that Harry Lauder would be at Henley? Well, then, he will ... and, Etta, could you, would you, mind if I——"
Etta laughingly told her that she could not, would not positively mind at all; and then remembering how late it was, she hurried from the theatre and found herself, just as the clocks were striking the quarter-past eleven, in the hall of the Carlton, standing before Mr. Charles Izard and listening but scarcely hearing the shrewd compliments which that astute gentleman deigned to shower upon them.
"You've struck it thick, my dear," he was saying. "Get twelve months' experience in my company and you'll make a great actress. I say what I mean. All you want is just what my theatre will teach you—the little tricks of our trade which go right there, though the public doesn't know much of them. Come and have supper now, and we'll talk business in the morning. I shouldn't wonder if the critics spread themselves over this. Don't pay too much attention to them—they dare not quarrel with me."
Mrs. Charles Izard, a frank florid woman, was much less discreet and much more honest.
"Perfectly adorable, my child," she said; "it was joy all the time to me. You couldn't have played it better if you'd have been born in a Duke's house. Wherever you got your manners from, I don't know. Now, really, Charles, don't say it wasn't; don't contradict me, Charles. You know that Miss Romney is going to make a fortune for you; and you're rich enough as it is. Why, child, the man's worth five million dollars if he's worth a penny. And it isn't five years since I was making my own clothes."
The supper room unfortunately put an end to these interesting revelations. Etta followed the loquacious Mrs. Izard as closely as she could, being sure that such a gorgeous apparition (for the lady was dressed from head to foot in scarlet)! would divert attention from herself; and, in truth, it did so. A few turned their heads to say, "That's Izard and there's the only woman of his company who fixes her own salary;" but the supper was already in full swing and the people for the most part silent upon their own entertainment or that of their guests. Of the six or seven women who remarked the stately girl in Izard's company, the majority first said, "What a charming gown!" The men rarely noticed her. They had taken their second glasses of champagne by this time and were genially flirting with the women at their own tables. If they said anything, it was just, "What a pretty girl!"
And what were Etta's thoughts as she sat for the first time amid that garish company, typical of one of London's sets, and in some sense of society? Possibly she would have had some difficulty in expressing them. The music excited her, the ceaseless chatter hurt ears long accustomed to silence. In truth, she had tried to depict this scene in her Derbyshire home many times since her father had shut his gates upon the world. But the reality seemed so very different from her dreams; so very artificial, so shallow, so far from splendid. And beneath her disappointment lay the fear that some accident might disclose her identity. How, she asked, if she stood up there and told them all, "My name is not Etta but Evelyn. To-night I am an actress at the Carlton Theatre, but you will know me by and by as an Earl's daughter." Would they not have said that she was a mad woman? Such a confession would have been nothing but the truth, none the less.
She had planned and carried out, most daringly, as wild an escapade as ever had been recorded in the story of that romantic home of hers, to which she must soon return as secretly as she had come. Until this moment her success had been complete. Not a man or woman in all London had turned upon her to say, "You are not Etta Romney but another, the daughter of the one-time Robert Forrester, of whom your cousin's death has made an earl." Living a secluded life in a quiet lodging in Bedford Square, none remarked her presence; none had the curiosity to ask who she was or whence she came. The very daring of her adventure thrilled and delighted her. She would remember it to the end of her life; and when she returned to Derbyshire the stimulus of it would go with her, and permit her to say, "I, too, have known the hour of success, the meaning of applause, the glamour of the world."
These thoughts followed her to the supper room at the Carlton and were accountable for the indifference with which she listened to the praises and the prophecies of that truly great man, Mr. Charles Izard. He, wonderful being, confessed to himself that he could make nothing of the girl and that she was altogether beyond his experience. Her stately manners frightened him. When he called her, "my dear," as all women are called in the theatre, the words would sometimes halt upon his lips and he would hurriedly correct them and say, "Miss," instead. The first guess that he had made at her identity would have it that she was a country parson's daughter, or perhaps a relative of the agent or the steward of a Derbyshire estate. Now, however, he found himself of another opinion altogether, and there came to him the uneasy conviction that some great mystery lay behind his good fortune and would stand eventually between him and his hopes.
Now many of Mr. Charles Izard's friends visited his supper-table from time to time, and of these one or two were languid young men in quest of introductions. These stared at Etta, open-mouthed and rudely; but her host made short work of them and they ambled away, seeking whom they might devour elsewhere, but never with any ardor. Supper was almost done, indeed before anyone of sufficient importance to engage the great Charles Izard's attention made his appearance. At last, however, he hailed a stranger with some enthusiasm, and this at a moment when Etta was actually listening to a piteous narrative of Mrs. Charles' domestic achievements.
"Why, Count, what good fortune tossed you out of the blanket? Come and sit right here. You know my wife, of course?"
Mrs. Izard and Etta turned their heads together to see a somewhat pale youth with dark chestnut hair and wonderfully plaintive eyes—a youth whose dark skin and slightly eccentric dress proclaimed him unmistakably to be a foreigner; but one who was quite at home in any society in which he might find himself. The face was pleasing; the manners those of a man who has travelled far and has yet to learn the meaning of the word embarrassment. To Mr. Izard he extended a well-shaped hand upon which a ruby ring shone a little vulgarly, but to Etta he spoke with something of real cordiality in his tone.
"Why, Miss Romney," he exclaimed, his accent betraying a considerable acquaintance with Western America, "why, Miss Romney, we are no strangers surely?"
Etta colored visibly; but fearing a misconception of her momentary confusion, she said to Mrs. Izard:
"The Count and I ran into each other in the Strand the other day. I fear I was very clumsy."
"So little," said the Count, "that never shall I call a cab in London again without remembering my good fortune."
He drew a chair to Etta's side and sat so near to her that even the great man remarked the circumstance.
"That's how I'd like to see 'em sit down in my comedies," he remarked with real feeling. "The young men I meet can't take a chair, let alone fix themselves straight on it. You come along to me, Count, and I'll pay you a hundred dollars a week to be master of the ceremonies. Our stage manager used to do stunts on a bicycle. He thinks people should do the same on chairs."
Count Odin looked at the speaker a little contemptuously with the look of a man who never forgets his birthright or jests about it. To Etta he said with an evident intention of explaining his position:
"Mr. Izard crossed over with me the last time I have come from America. I remember that he had the difficulty with his chair on that occasion." And then he asked her—"Of course you have been across, Miss Romney; you know America, I will be sure?"
Etta answered him with simple candor, that she had travelled but little.
"I was educated in a convent. You may imagine what our travels were. Once every year we had a picnic on the Seine at Les Andlays. That's where I got my knowledge of the world," she said with a laugh.
"Then your ideas are of the French?" He put it to her with an object she could not divine, though she answered as quickly.
"They are entirely English both in my preferences and my friendships," was her reply, nor could she have told anyone why she put this affront upon him.
"She's going to make friends enough out yonder in the Fall," said Izard, whose quick ear caught the tone of their conversation. "I shall take this company over in September if we play to any money this side. Miss Romney goes with me, and I promise her a good time any way. America's the country for her talent. You've too many played-out actors over here. Most of them think themselves beautiful, and that's why their theatres close up."
He laughed a flattering tribute to his own cleverness, as much as to say—"My theatres never close up." Count Odin on his part smiled a little dryly as though he might yet have something to say to the proposed arrangement.
"Are you looking forward to the journey, Miss Romney?" he asked Etta in a low voice.
"I am not thinking at all about it," she said very truthfully.
"Then perhaps you are looking backward," he suggested, but in such a low tone that even Izard did not hear him.
When Etta turned her startled eyes upon him, he was already addressing some commonplace remark to his hostess, while Mr. Charles Izard amused himself by diligently checking the total of the bill.
"I could keep a steam yacht on what I pay for wine in this hotel," he remarked jovially, addressing himself so directly to the ladies that even his good dame protested.
"My dear Charles," she exclaimed, "you are not suggesting that I have drunk it?"
"Well, I hope some one has," was the affable retort. "Let's go and smoke. It's suffocating in here."
Etta had been greatly alarmed by the Count's remark, though she was very far from believing that it could bear the sinister interpretation which her first alarm had put upon it. This fear of discovery had dogged her steps since she quitted her home to embark upon as wild an adventure as a young girl ever set her hand to; but if discovery came, she reflected, it would not be at the bidding of a foreigner whom she had seen for the first time in her life but a few days ago. Such wisdom permitted her quickly to recover her composure, and she pleaded the lateness of the hour and her own fatigue as the best of reasons for leaving the hotel.
"I am glad you were pleased," she said to Izard, holding out her hand directly they entered the hall. "Of course it has all been very dreadful to me and I'm still in a dream about it. The newspapers will tell me the truth to-morrow, I feel sure of it."
He shook her hand and held it while he answered her.
"Don't you go thinking too much about the newspapers," he said, with a splendid sense of his own importance. "When Charles Izard says that a play's got to go, it's going, my dear, though the great William Shakespeare himself got out of his grave to write it down. You've done very well to-night and you'll do better when you know your way about the stage. Go home and sleep on that, and let the critics spread themselves as much as they please."
As before, when she had first come to the hotel, Mrs. Izard defied the warning glances thrown toward her by the man of business and repeated her honest praise of Etta's performance.
"It's years since I heard such enthusiasm in a theatre," she admitted; "why, Charles was quite beside himself. I do believe you made him cry, my dear."
The mere suggestion that the great man could shed tears under any circumstances whatever appealed irresistibly to Count Odin's sense of humor.
"Put that in the advertisement and you shall have all the town at your theatre. An impressario's tears! They should be gathered in cups of jasper and of gold. But I imagine that they will be," he added gayly before wishing Etta a last good-night.
"We shall meet again," he said to her a little way apart. "I am the true believer in the accident of destiny. Let us sayau revoirrather than good-night."
*****
Etta looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Good-night."
Etta Romney was very early awake upon the following morning; and not for the first time since she had come to London did her environment so perplex her that some minutes passed before she could recall the circumstances which had brought her to that square room and made her a stranger in a house of strangers.
Leaping up with a young girl's agility, she drew the blind aside and looked out upon deserted Bedford Square, as beautiful in that early light of morning as Bedford Square could ever be.
How still it all was! Not a footfall anywhere. No milk carts yet to rattle by and suggest the busy day. Nothing but a soft sunshine upon the drawn blinds, a lonely patch of grass beneath lonely trees, and great gaunt houses side by side and so close together that each appeared to be elbowing its neighbor for room in which to stand upright.
Etta returned to her bed and crouched upon it like a pretty wild animal, half afraid of the day. A whole troop of fears and hopes rushed upon her excited brain. What had she done? Of what madness had she not been guilty? To-day the newspapers would tell her. If they told her father also—her father whom she believed to be snug in distant Tuscany—what then, and with what consequences to herself! A fearful dread of this came upon her when she thought of it. She hid her eyes from the light and could hear her own heart beating beneath the bed-clothes.
She was not Etta now, but knew herself by another name, the name of Evelyn, which in this mood of repentance became her better, she thought. True, she had been Etta when she appeared before the people last night, the wild mad Etta, given to feverish dreams in her old Derbyshire home and trying to realize them here amid the garish scenes of London's dramatic life. But arrayed in the white garb of momentary penitence, she was Evelyn, the good nun's pupil; the docile gentle Evelyn awaiting the redemption of her father's promise that the gates of the world should not be shut forever upon her youth, but should open some day to the galleries of a young girl's pleasure. It was the Etta in her which made her impatient and unable to await the appointed time; the Etta which broke out in this mad escapade, ever trembling upon the brink of discovery and fearful in its possibilities of reproach and remorse. But the Evelyn reckoned up the consequences and was afraid of them.
She could not sleep again although it was then but six o'clock of the morning, and she lay for more than an hour listening to those growing sounds which are the overture of a London day. Workmen discussing politics, amiably, if in strident tones, went by with heavy tread upon their way to shop or factory. Milk carts appeared with their far from musical accompaniment of doleful cries and rattling cans. An amorous policeman conducted flirtations dexterously with various cooks, and passed thence with sad step. Then came the postman with his cheery rat-tat at nearly every house; the newsboy with the welcome cry of "piper"; the first of the cabs, the market carts, the railway vans, each contributing something to that voice of tumult without which the metropolis would seem to be a dead city.
Etta sat up in her bed once more when she heard the newsboy in the square. The papers! Was it possible that they would tell the public all about last night's performance; that her name would figure in them; that she would be praised or blamed according to the critics' judgment? The thought made her heart beat. She had been warned by that great man, Mr. Charles Izard, not to pay too much attention to what the papers said; but how could she help doing so? A woman is rarely as vain as a man, but in curiosity she far surpasses him. Etta was just dying of curiosity to read what the critics said about her when old Mrs. Wegg, her landlady, appeared with her morning tea; and this good dame she implored to bring up the newspapers at once.
"I can't wait a minute, Mrs. Wegg," she said, for, of course, the old lady knew that she was a "theatrical." "Do please send Emma up at once—it's absolute torture."
The excellent Mrs. Wegg, who had her own ideas of newspaper reading, expressed her sympathy in motherly language:
"Ah, I feel that way myself about the stories in 'Snippets,'" she said. "I assure you, my dear, that when the Duke of Rochester ran away with the hospital nurse, I couldn't sleep in my bed at night for wanting to know what had become of her. I'll send Emma up this minute—the lazy, good-for-nothin', gossipin' girl she is, to be sure. Now, you drink up your tea and don't worrit about it. I've known them that can't act a bit praised up to the sky by the crickets. I'm sure they'll say something nice about you."
She waddled from the room leaving Etta to intolerable moments of suspense. When the newspapers came, a very bundle which she had ordered yesterday, she grabbed them at hazard, and catching up one of the morning halfpenny papers immediately read the disastrous headline, "Poor Play at the Carlton." So it was failure after all, then! Her heart beat wildly; she hardly had the courage to proceed.
POOR PLAY AT THE CARLTON
BUT
A PERSONAL TRIUMPH FOR MISS ROMNEY
———
The Old Story of Haddon Hall Again
———
The Star Which Did Not Fail To Shine
Etta read now without taking her eyes from the paper. The notice would be described by Mr. Izard later in the day as a "streaky one"—layers of praise and layers of blame following one another as a rare tribute to the discretion of the writer, who had been far from sure if the play would be a success or a failure. In sporting language, the gentleman had "hedged" at every line, but his praise of Etta Romney was unstinted.
"Here," he said, "is one of the most natural actresses recently discovered upon the English stage. Miss Romney has sincerity, a charming presence, a feeling for this old world comedy which it is impossible to overpraise. We undertake to say that experience will make of her a great actress. She has flashed upon our horizon as one or two others have done to instantly win the favor of the public and the praise of the critic."
Etta put the paper aside and took up a notice in a very different strain. This was from the stately pages of "The Thunderer." Herein you had a dissertation upon Haddon Hall, the Elizabethan Drama, the Comedie Française, the weather, and the tragedies of Æschylus. The writer thought the play a good specimen of its kind. He, too, admitted that in Miss Etta Romney there was the making of a great actress:
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"But she is not English," he protested, "we refuse to believe it. Anartistewho can recreate the atmosphere of a mediæval age and win a verdict of conviction has not learnt her art in Jermyn Street. We look for the biographer to help us. Has the Porte St. Martin nothing to say to this story? Has Paris no share in it? We await the answer with some expectation. Here is a comedy of which the Third Act should be memorable. But whoever designed the scene in the chapel iscapable de tout...."
So to the end did this amiable appreciation applaud the player and tolerate the play for her sake. Etta understood that it must mean much to her; but she was too feverishly impatient to dwell upon it, and she turned to the "Daily Shuffler" wishing that she had eyes to read all the papers at once. The "Daily Shuffler" was very cruel:
"Miss Etta Romney," it said, "is worthy of better things. As a whole, the performance was beneath contempt. At the same time, we are not unprepared to hear that an ignorant public is ready to patronize it."
Had Etta known that the author of this screed was a youth of eighteen, who had asked for two stalls and been allotted but one, she might have been less crestfallen than she was when her fingers discovered this considerable thorn upon her rose-bush. But she knew little of the drama and less than nothing of its criticism; and there were tears in her eyes when she put the papers down.
"How cruel," she said, "how could people write of others like that!" She did not believe that she could have the heart to read more, and might not have done so had not little Dulcie Holmes flung herself into the room at that very moment and positively screamed an expression of her rapture.
"Oh, you dear," she cried, "oh, you splendid Etta! Have you read them! Have you seen them? Now isn't it lovely? Aren't you proud of them, Etta? Aren't you just crying for joy?"
Lucy Grey, who had climbed the stairs in a more stately fashion and was very much out of breath at the top of them, came in upon the climax to tell Dulcie not to carry on so dreadfully and to assure Etta that the notices were very nice. She, however, soon joined a shrill voice to her friend's, and the two, sitting upon the bed, began to read the papers together with such a running babble of comment, interjections, cries, and good-natured expressions of envy, that the neighbors might well have believed the house to be on fire.
"The curtain fell to rapturous—oh, Etta—now, Lucy, do keep quiet—her acting in the Gallery Scene—I say that I began it first—her acting in the Gallery Scene—she has a grace so subtle, a manner so winning—isn't that lovely!—now, Lucy, be quiet—we began to think after the Second Act—oh, bother the Second Act—now, there you go again—she is indeed the embodiment of that picture romance has painted for us and history destroyed—oh, Etta—!" and so on, and so on.
Etta admitted upon this that they had some good excuse for congratulating her. In the theatre she found it quite natural to listen to the girls' pleasant chatter and to put herself upon their level both as to Bohemian habits of life and odd views of the world. Away from the theatre, however, the Evelyn in her would assert itself. Despite her affectionate nature, she found herself not a little repelled by that very freedom of speech and act which seemed to her so delightful a thing upon the stage. She was too kind-hearted to show it, but her distaste would break out at intervals, especially in those quiet morning hours when the freshness of the day reproached the memories of the night with its garish scenes and its jingling melodies. To-day, especially, she would have given much to be alone to think upon it all and try to understand both what she had done and what the consequences might be. But the girls gave her no opportunity even for a moment's leisure.
"You said we'd lunch at the Savoy, Etta——"
"And you'd drive us in the Park afterwards——"
"Aren't you really very rich, Etta? You must be, I'm sure. Do you know I have only got three shillings in the world and that must last me until salaries are paid."
"I've worn this dress seven months," said Lucy, "and look at it. Who'll write nice things about me with my petticoat in rags? Well, I suppose what is to be is to be. I'm going to the Vaudeville in the Autumn and perhaps my ship will come in."
"My dear children," said Etta kindly, "you know that I will always help you when I can, and you must let me help you to-day when I am happy—so happy," she added almost to herself, "that I do not believe it is real even now."
They laughed at her quaint ideas and would have read the notices over again to her but for her emphatic protest.
"No," she said, "we have so much to do; so much to think of. After all, what does it matter while the sun is shining?"
The sunny day, indeed, passed all too quickly. A splendid telegram, fifty words long, from the splendid Mr. Charles Izard set the seal of that great man's approval upon the verdict of the newspapers.
"You have got right there," he wired, "the business follows. See me at four o'clock without fail...."
"That means a long engagement," said the shrewd Dulcie, when she read the telegram.
Lucy, prudent always, thought that Etta should have a gentleman to advise her.
"Don't go to the theatre-lawyers," she said; "they always make love to you. If you had a gentleman friend, it would be nice to speak to him about it. Mr. Izard knows what he's got in his lucky bag. Now, don't you go to signing anything just because he asks you, dear. Many's the poor girl who's engaged herself when half the managers in London wanted her. I should hold my head very high if it were me. That's the only way with such people."
Etta promised to do so, and having taken them to lunch, as she promised, she found herself, at four o'clock of the afternoon, in the elegant office wherein the great Charles Izard did his business. Then she remembered with what awe and trepidation she had entered that sanctum upon her first business visit to London. How different it was to-day, and yet how unreal still! The little man had the morning and evening papers properly displayed upon his immense writing table; and, when Etta came in, he wheeled up a chair for her with all the ceremony with which he was capable.
"Why, now," he said, "what did I tell you? Afraid of the newspapers, eh? Well, there they are, my dear. Don't tell me you haven't read 'em, for I shouldn't believe you."
Etta admitted that she might have glanced at them.
"Every one seems very kind to me," she said. "I wish they had spoken as well of the play; but I suppose they must find fault with something. I know so little about these things, Mr. Izard."
"Then you'll soon learn, my dear. As for what they say about the play, that don't matter two cents while the business keeps up. We'll take $9,000 this week or I know nothing about it. Let the newspapers enjoy themselves while they can. They've been kind enough to you; but you're clever enough to understand the advantages my name gives you. Produce that play at any other house and let any other man bill it and they'd have the notices up in a fortnight. But they'll take just what I give 'em, because I know just what they want and how they want it. That's how we're going to do business together. You can earn good money with me and I can find you the plays. My cards are all on the table; I'll sign a three years' engagement here and now and pay you a hundred dollars a week—that's £20 sterling, English money. If you want to think it over, take your own time. You've a good deal of talent for the stage, and my theatre is going to make you—that's what you've to say to yourself, 'Charles Izard will produce me and his name spells money.' As I say, take your own time to think it over. And don't forget you are the first woman in all my life to whom I have offered a hundred dollars a week on a first engagement."
Etta listened a little timidly to these frank and business-like proposals. Such a situation as this had never occurred to her when she left her home in Derbyshire and set out upon this mad escapade. She had asked for a hearing from a man who made it his boast that he saw and heard every one who cared to approach him. The tone of her letter, the restraint of it, the fact that she had known Haddon Hall all her life, that every bit of that splendid ruin, every tree in the old park, every glade in the gardens were familiar to her, struck a note of assent in the great American's imagination and compelled him to send for her. He believed that at the outset she would serve for a "walking on" part. When he saw her, he asked her to read a scene from "Haddon Hall" and heard her on the stage. Then he said, "Here is a born actress, and not only that but an aristocrat besides." The secrecy which had attended her application whetted his desire to engage her. "I will play for a month for nothing," she had said. Even Charles Izard did not feel disposed to offer her a smaller sum.
And here he was talking of agreements for a term of three years and of £20 a week!
How to answer him Etta did not know.
She was perfectly well aware that her weeks in London must be few. Any day might bring a letter from her father in which he would speak of a return to Derbyshire. The mythical visit to Aunt Anne, which had been her excuse to the servants at home, would be exploded in a moment should her father return. None the less, the situation had its humors. "If only I dare tell Mr. Izard," she had said to herself, knowing well that, she would not tell him unless it were as a last resource.
"You are as kind to me as the critics," she exclaimed upon a pause, which greatly alarmed that shrewd man of business—he had expected her to jump down his throat at the offer. "You are very kind to me, Mr. Izard, and you will not misunderstand me when I hesitate. I have already told you that money is nothing to me. Perhaps I am tired of the stage already; I do not know. I feel quite unable to say anything about it to-day. It is all so new to me. I want to be quite sure that I am a success before I accept any one's money."
Her reply astonished Izard very much, though he tried to conceal his annoyance. Shuffling his papers with a fat hand, upon which a great diamond ring sparkled, he breathed a little heavily and then asked almost under his breath:
"Any one else been round?"
"Do you mean to ask me have I any other offers?"
"That's so."
"As frankly, none—at present."
He looked at her shrewdly.
"Expecting them, I suppose?"
"I have never thought of it," she said, greatly amused at the turn affairs were taking. "Of course, I know that successful people do get offers——"
"But not twice from Charles Izard," he exclaimed very meaningly—then turning round in his chair he looked her straight in the face and said, "Suppose I make it one hundred and fifty dollars?"
"Oh," she rejoined, "it really is not a question of money, Mr. Izard——"
"No," he said savagely, "it's that—Belinger. Been seeing you, hasn't he—talking of what he could do? Well, you know your own business best. That man will be waiting on my doorstep by and by, and he'll have to wait patiently. Think it over when you're tossing us both in the blanket. He's a back number; I'm a dozen editions."
Etta was seriously tempted to smile at this frightened earnestness and at the great man's idea of her shrewdness. She could not forget, however, that he had given her the opportunity she had so greatly longed for to put the dreams of her girlhood to the proof. And for that she would remain lastingly grateful.
"My dear Mr. Izard," she said, "I fear you don't understand me at all. Who Mr. Belinger may be I don't know; but he certainly has not made me any offers. And just as certainly should I refuse them if he did so. You have been generous enough to give me my chance. If I remain on the stage, it will be with you."
Izard opened his dull eyes very wide.
"If you remain upon the stage! Good God, you don't mean to say that you have any doubt of it?"
"I have every doubt."
"Have you read the papers?"
"Oh, but you told me not to pay any attention to them——"
"That's from the front of the house point of view. Don't you know that they say you are as great as Réjane?"
"I cannot possibly believe that."
"It won't be so difficult when you try. Go home and read them again and come to me to-morrow morning to sign agreements."
He was pleased at her promise to continue at his theatre and clever enough to understand her reticence.
"She's a genius," he said to himself, "and she's more than that, she's a woman of business. Well, I like her sort. When Belinger goes round, he'll get some dry bread. As for her leaving the stage—pooh! she couldn't do it."
Had he known what Etta was saying at that very moment, his self-satisfaction assuredly had been less. For when she returned to her rooms in Bedford Square she found the expected letter from her father awaiting her there and in it she read these words: "I shall be returning to England on the 29th of June."
She had a short month, then, to live this Bohemian life which so fascinated her! And when that month was over Etta Romney would cease to be, and the stately Lady Evelyn must return.
The news in the letter alarmed Etta not a little; but when she reflected upon it, she remembered that it was just such news as she had been expecting all along. Her adventure had been for a day. She had never hoped that it would be more. The desire to appear upon the stage of a theatre had haunted her since her childhood. Now she had gratified it. Why, then, should she complain?
True, the glamour of the stage no longer deceived her. All the gilt edge of her dreams had vanished at rehearsal. She no longer believed the theatre to be a paradise on earth. It was a somewhat gloomy, business-like, and sordid arena of which the excitements were purely personal, and concerned chiefly with individual success and achievement. These she had now experienced and found them unsatisfying. A morbid craving for something she could not express or define remained her legacy. The "Etta" in her had not been blotted out by triumph. Had she known it, she would have understood that nothing but tragedy would efface it.
This, naturally, she did not know. Believing her time to be brief, she desired to see as much of Bohemia as the numbered weeks would permit; and she refused no invitation, however imprudent it seemed, nor denied herself any experience by which her knowledge might profit. A perfect mistress of herself, she did not fear whatever adventure might bring her. Her desire had been to do exactly what the ordinary stage girl did—to live in lodgings, to tramp about the London streets, to spend little sums of money as though they had been riches, to give a girlish vanity free rein. Sometimes she almost wished that a man would make love to her. The homage of men, she had read, always attended success upon the stage. Etta would have been delighted to evade her pursuers, to see their flowers upon her table, to read their ridiculous letters.
For the moment, however, her dramatic experiences appeared likely to be somewhat prosaic. She had answered Mr. Charles Izard with the intimation that she would give him a definite reply within a week, and with that, perforce, he had to be content. The early promise of success for "Haddon Hall" was amply justified. The business done at the Carlton Theatre proved beyond experience. There were two matinées a week, and splendid houses to boot. Etta delighted in the triumphs of these more than words could tell. The thunderous applause, the ringing cheers, the frequent calls, animated her whole being and awoke in her the finest instincts of her inheritance. She knew that she had been born an actress, and that nothing would change her destiny. All the frivolous life of the theatre could show her made their instant appeal to her senses and were enjoyed with a child's zest. Her gestures were quick and excited, and, as little Dulcie Holmes would say, "so French." She could behave like a schoolgirl sometimes—a schoolgirl freed from bondage and ready for any tomboy's play.
This was her mood on the afternoon of the seventh day after the first production of "Haddon Hall" at the Carlton Theatre. The exceedingly "genteel" Lucy Grey had invited a few friends to tea upon that occasion; and an artist, known to all the halfpenny comic papers as "Billy," a lodger in the same house as Lucy, kindly put his studio at the disposal of the company. Here for a time gentility reigned supreme over the tea-cups. The theatrical ladies found themselves awe-struck in the presence of Etta Romney, and remained so until the amiable painter volunteered to do a cake-walk if Dulcie Holmes would accompany him. This set the ball rolling; and although gentility suffered a snub when a lady from the Vaudeville remarked that she always "gorged" currant loaves, nevertheless merriment prevailed and some striking performances were achieved. Etta had not laughed so much since she left the convent school—and she could not help reflecting, as she returned to Bedford Square, upon the vast capacity for innocent enjoyment these merry girls possessed and the compensations it afforded them in lives which were by no means without their troubles.
It was a quarter to six when she reached her lodgings. She had time upon her hands, for seven o'clock would be quite early enough to set out for the theatre. The weather promised to become a little overcast as she stood upon her doorstep; and she was conscious of that sudden depression with which an approaching storm will often afflict nervous and highly sensitive people. Opening the front door slowly, with her eyes still watching the creeping clouds above, she became aware that there were strangers in the hall beyond, and she stood for an instant to hear rapid words in the German tongue—a language her father had always advised her to study and had insisted upon the good nuns teaching her. To-night it served her well, for by it she became aware instantly that the strangers were speaking of her—indeed, that they awaited her coming.
"Go into the room," said a voice. "I must be alone here."
Another said, "Hush, that's her step!"
Etta turned as pale as the marguerites in the flower boxes when she heard these words; though, for the life of her, she could not say why she was alarmed. Perhaps the constant fear of discovery which had attended her escapade from the beginning asserted itself at the moment to say that these strangers knew the truth and had come to profit by it. If this were so, the idea passed instantly to give place to that more sober voice of reason which asked, "How should a stranger know of it, and what is my secret to him?" Such an argument immediately reassured her; and, entering the hall boldly, she found herself face to face with no other than the Roumanian, Count Odin, who had been presented to her eight days ago at the Carlton Hotel.
Now, here was the last man in all London whom Etta had expected to see in Bedford Square, and her astonishment and distaste were so plainly visible in her wide-open eyes that the victim of them could not possibly remain under any delusion whatever. Plainly, however, he was quite ready for such a welcome as she intended to give him, for he barred her passage up the hall and, holding out his hand, greeted her with that accepted familiarity so characteristic of the idlers who lounge about stage-doors.
"My dear lady," he said, "do not put the displeasure upon me. I come here because my friend, Mr. Izard, recommend me when I ask him where I shall find a lodging. 'Miss Romney is at Bedford Square,' that's what he says; 'go right there and you will find an apartment in the same street.' Now, isn't it wonderful! I arrive at your house by accident and here is your landlady who has the dining-room to let. You shall forgive me for that when I say that my friend, Horowitz, is with me and his sister. Why, Miss Romney, we'll be just a happy family together; and that's what Charles Izard was thinking of when he sent me here. 'Tell her I wish it,' he said; 'she's too much alone in London, and it doesn't do——'"
Etta interrupted him with a dignity he had not looked for.
"Mr. Izard would not be so impertinent," she exclaimed hotly. "Your coming or going really does not interest me, Count. I have to be at the theatre immediately. Please let me pass!"
She tried to go by, but he still forbade her, smiling the while and seemingly quite sure of himself.
"My dear lady," he said, "you do not go to the theatre until half-past seven. This amiable person of the house has told me as much. If I am rude, forgive me. I wish to ask you to see my pictures of Roumania, a country your father once knew very well, Miss Romney, though he has not been there for many years. Say that you will come and see them to-morrow and I will ask Mademoiselle Carlotta to help me to show them to you. Now, dear lady, will you not name the hour? I shall have much to show you, much for you to tell your amiable father about when you see him again."
Etta shivered as though with cold. Never before had she known such a curious spell of helplessness as this man seemed able to cast upon her. The words which he spoke amazed her beyond all experience. Roumania! She understood vaguely that her father had lived dreadful years there so long ago that even he almost had forgotten them. And this stranger could speak of them, youth that he was, as though he held their secret. Had she wished to terminate her acquaintance with him then and there, her woman's curiosity would have forbidden her. But, more than this, the man himself attracted her in a way she could not define—attracted her, despite her early aversion from him and her sure knowledge that there must be danger in the acquaintance.
"Do you know my father, Count?" she asked presently—in a voice which could not conceal her apprehension.
"To my family he is well known, to me not at all," was the frank reply. "I came to England to make my misfortune good; but now that I come your father is not here, Miss Romney."
"Then he was not aware of your intended visit?"
"Quite unaware of it."
"You did not write to him?"
"How should I write when I do not know the house in which he live?"
"Then why do you say that he is not in London?"
He looked at her with the triumphant eyes of a man who puts a master card upon the table.
"I say that he is not in England because you are alone, Miss Romney."
Etta bit her lips, but gave no other expression to her emotion.
"A compliment to my discretion," she exclaimed with a little laugh; and then, as though serious, she said, "You will make me late for the theatre after all. Do please talk of all this to-morrow."
He drew aside instantly.
"Izard would never forgive me," he said; "let it be to-morrow as you wish—shall we say at twelve o'clock?"
"Oh, by all means, at twelve o'clock to-morrow," she rejoined and upon that she ran up the stairs, and, entering her own room, locked the door behind her.
Who was the man? How had he come thus into her life? She was utterly unnerved, amazed, and without idea. But she knew that she would go to the theatre no more.
"And what will Mr. Izard say?" she asked herself blankly; "what will they all say?"
Etta was ready both to laugh and to cry at that moment. Conflicting sentiments found her sitting upon her bed, a very picture of irresolution and dismay. The deeper truths of the night were not as yet understood by her, although the day for understanding could not be far distant.