B007TB5SP0 EBOK (46 page)

‘Why, none!’

‘Just a girlish touch …’

‘Mrs Smee defies time,’ Mrs Sixsmith remarked.

‘My dear, I once was thought to be a very pretty woman … All I can do now is to urge my remains.’

Miss Sinquier raised a forefinger.

Voices shivering in altercation issued loudly from a private dressing-room next door.

‘What’s up?’

‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear!’ the wardrobe-mistress, entering, said. ‘Sir Maurice and Mr Fisher are passing sharp words with a couple of pitchforks.’

‘What!’

‘The “Farm-players” sent them over from the Bolivar for their Pig-sty scene – and now poor Mr Mary,
Sir M’riss
, and Mr Fisher are fighting it out, and Mrs Mary,
her ladyship
, has joined the struggle.’

‘Murder!’ called a voice.

‘Glory be to God.’

Mrs Sixsmith rolled her eyes.

‘Da!’ she gasped, as Lady Mary, a trifle dazed but decked in smiles, came bustling in.

‘Oh, Men! Men! Men!’ she exclaimed, going off into a hearty laugh. ‘Rough angelic brutes! …’

She was radiant.

She had a gown of shot brocade, a high lace ruff and a silver girdle of old German work that had an ivory missal falling from it.

‘Quarrelsome, quarrelling kings,’ she stuttered, drifting towards a toilet-table – the very one before which Miss Sinquier was making her face.

On all sides from every lip rose up a chorus of congratulations.

‘Viva, Lady Mary!’

Touched, responsive, with a gesture springing immediately from the heart, the consummate Victorian extended impulsive happy hands.

‘God bless you, dears,’ she said.

‘Three cheers for Lady Mary!’

The illustrious woman quashed a tear.

‘Am I white behind?’ she asked.

‘Allow me, milady,’ the wardrobe-mistress wheezed.

‘I fancy I heard a rip! …’

‘There must have been quite a scrimmage.’

From the orchestra a melodious throb-thrum-throb told a ‘curtain’.

‘Lady Mary –
you
, Mum,’ a call-boy chirped.

‘Me?’

‘Five minutes.’

Lady Mary showed distress.

‘For goodness sake, my dear,’ she addressed Miss Sinquier, ‘do leave yourself alone. I want the glass.’

But Miss Sinquier seemed engrossed.

At her elbow a slip of a ‘Joy-baby’ was holding forth with animation to Mrs Sixsmith and Mrs Smee.

‘That was one of my dreams,’ she was saying, ‘and last night again I had another – in spite of a night-light, too! It began by a ring formed of crags and boulders enclosing a troop of deer – oh, such a herd of them – delicate, distinguished animals with little pom-pom horns, and some had poodles’ tails. Sitting behind a rhododendron bush was an old gentleman on a white horse; he never moved a muscle. Suddenly I became aware of a pack of dogs … And then, before my very eyes, one of the dogs transformed itself into a giraffe …’

‘You must have been out to supper.’

‘It’s true I had. Oh, it was a merry meal.’

‘Who gave it?’

‘Dore Davis did: to meet her betrothed – Sir Francis Four.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Don’t ask me. It makes one tired to look at him.’

‘Was it a party?’

‘Nothing but literary-people with their Beatrices … My dear
the scum
! Half-way through supper Dore got her revolver out and began shooting the glass drops off her chandelier.’

‘I should like to see her trousseau,’ Mrs Sixsmith sighed.

‘It isn’t up to much. Anything good she sells – on account of bailiffs.’

‘Pooh! She should treat them all
en reine
.’

Mrs Smee looked wise.

‘Always be civil with bailiffs,’ she said; ‘never ruffle them! If you queen a sheriff’s officer remember there’s no getting rid of him. He clings on – like a poor relation.’

‘Oh, well,’ Mrs Sixsmith replied, ‘I always treat the worms
en reine
; not,’ she added wittily, ‘that I ever have …’

Miss Sinquier twirled herself finally about.

‘There,’ she murmured, ‘I’m going out into the wings.’

‘When’s your call?’

‘After Lady Mary.’

For her unofficial first appearance she was resolved to woo the world with a dance – a dance all fearless somersaults and quivering
battements
; a young Hungarian meanwhile recording her movements sensitively upon a violin.

She was looking well in an obedient little ballet skirt that made action a delight. Her hair, piled high in a towering toupee, had a white flower in it.

‘Down a step and through an arch.’ A pierrette who passed her in the corridor directed her to the stage.

It was Miss Ita Iris of the Dream.

Miss Sinquier tingled.

How often on the cold flags of the great church at home had she asked the way before!

‘O Lord,’ she prayed now, ‘let me conquer. Let me! Amen.’

She was in the wings.

Above her, stars sparkled lavishly in a darkling sky, controlled by a bare-armed mechanic who was endeavouring, it seemed,
to deliver himself of a moon; craning from a ladder at the risk of his life, he pushed it gently with a big soft hand.

Miss Sinquier turned her eyes to the stage.

The round of applause accorded Lady Mary on her entry was gradually dying away.

From her shelter Miss Sinquier could observe her, in opulent silhouette, perfectly at her ease.

She stood waiting for the last huzzas to subside with bowed head and folded hands – like some great sinner – looking reverently up through her eyelashes at the blue silk hangings of the Royal box.

By degrees all clatter ceased.

Approaching the footlights with a wistful smile, the favourite woman scanned the stalls.

‘Now most of you here this afternoon,’ she intimately began, ‘I will venture to say, never heard of Judy Jacock. I grant you, certainly, there’s nothing very singular in that; for her life, which was a strangely frail one, essentially was obscure. Judy herself was
obscure
… And so that is why I say you can’t have ever heard of her! … Because she was totally unknown … Ah, poor wee waif! alas, she’s dead now. Judy’s among the angels … and the beautiful little elegy which, with your consent, I intend forthwith to submit, is written around her, around little Judy, and around her old Father, her “
Da
” – James, who was a waiter. And while he was away waiting one day – he used to wipe the plates on the seat of his breeches! – his little Judy died. Ah, poor old James. Poor Sir James. But let the poet,’ she broke off suddenly, confused, ‘take up the tale himself, or, rather – to be more specific! –
herself
. For the lines that follow, which are
inédits
, are from the seductive and charming pen of Lady Violet Sleepwell.’

Lady Mary coughed, winked archly an eye, and began quite carelessly as if it were Swinburne:

‘I never
knew
James Jacock’s child …

I knew he
had
a child!

The daintiest little fairy that ever a father knew.

She was all contentment …’

Miss Sinquier looked away.

To her surprise, lurking behind a property torso of ‘a Faun’, her pigtails roped with beads of scarlet glass, was Miss May Mant.

‘Tell me what you are up to?’ she asked.

‘Sh—! Don’t warn Ita!’

‘Why should I?’

‘I dodged her. Beautifully.’

‘What for?’

‘If she thought I was going on the stage, she’d be simply wild.’

‘Are you?’

‘I intend tacking on in the Pope’s Procession.’

‘That won’t be just yet.’

‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful?’

‘What?’

‘Being here.’

‘It’s rather pleasant.’

‘Can you feel the boards?’

‘A little.’

‘They go
right
through me. Through my shoes, up my legs, and at my heart they sting.’

‘Kiss me.’

‘I love you.’

‘Pet.’

‘Do I look interesting?’

‘Ever so.’

‘Would you take me for a Cardinal’s comfort?’

Lady Mary lifted up her voice:

‘Come, Judy, the angel said,

And took her from her little bed,

And through the air they quickly sped

Until they reached God’s throne;

So, there, they dressed her all in white,

They say she was a perfect sight,

Celestial was her mien!’

‘Lady Violet Sleepwell admires Ita.’

‘Indeed.’

‘She’s a victim to chloral.’

‘Rose-coiffed stood J.

Amid the choir,

Celestsial-singing!’

The august artiste glowed.

‘Ita thinks she drinks.’

‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ Miss Sinquier replied, covering her face with her hands.

Through her fingers she could contemplate her accompanist’s lanky figure as he stood in the opposite wing busily powdering his nose.

The moment, it seemed, had come.

Yet not quite – the public, who loved tradition, was determined on obtaining an encore.

Lady Mary was prepared to acquiesce.

Curtseying from side to side and wafting kisses to the gods, she announced:

‘The Death of Hortense; by
Desire
.’

The Source Theatre.

D
EAR
M
OTHER
, – I saw your notice in a newspaper not very long ago, and this morning I came across it again in the
Dispatch
. Really I don’t know what there can be to ‘forgive’, and as to ‘coming back’! – I have undertaken the management of this theatre, where rehearsals of
Romeo and Juliet
have already begun. This is the little house where Audrey Anderson made her début, and where Avize Mendoza made such a hit. You could imagine nothing cosier or more intimate if you tried. Father would be charmed (tell him, for, of course, he sometimes speaks of me in the long
triste
evenings as he smokes a pipe) with the foyer, which has a mural design in marquetry, showing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, sunning themselves by the side of a well. They say the theatre contains a well
beneath the stage
, which is why it’s known as the Source. I have left, I’m glad to say, the hotel, which was getting dreadfully on my nerves, for a dressing-room here, where I pass the nights now: an arrangement that suits me, as I like to be on the spot. A sister of Ita Iris of the Dream Theatre keeps me company, so that I’m not a bit solitary. We understand each other to perfection, and I find her helpful to me in many ways. She is such an affectionate child, and I do not think I shall regret it. I’ve decided to have half my teeth taken out by a man in Knightsbridge – some trial to me, I fear; but, alas, we’ve all to carry our cross! I seem to have nothing but debts. Clothes,
as well
as scenery, would ruin anyone.

I’m allotting a little box to you and father for the opening night, unless you would prefer two stalls?

The other afternoon I ‘offered my services’ and obtained three curtains at a gala matinée; I wish you could have been at it!

Your devoted Daughter.

I went to the oratory on Sunday; it was nothing but a blaze of candles.

Remember me to Leonard and Gripper – also Kate.

An absence of ventilation made the room an oven and discouraged sleep. Through the width of skylight, in inert recumbence, she could follow wonderingly the frail pristine tints of dawn. Flushed, rose-barred, it spread above her with fantastic drifting clouds masking the morning stars.

From a neighbouring church a clock struck five.

Miss Sinquier sighed; she had not closed her eyes the whole night through.

‘One needs a blind,’ she mused, ‘and a pane—’

She looked about her for something to throw.

Cinquecento
Italian things – a chest, a crucifix, a huge guitar, a grim carved catafalque all purple sticks and violet legs (Juliet’s) crowded the floor.

‘A mess of glass … and cut my feet …’ she murmured, gathering about her a
négligé
of oxydized knitted stuff and sauntering out towards the footlights in quest of air.

Notwithstanding the thermometer, she could hear Miss May Mant breathing nasally from behind her door.

The stage was almost dark.

‘Verona’, set in autumn trees, looked fast asleep. Here and there a campanile shot up, in high relief, backed by a scenic hill, or an umbrella-pine. On a column in the ‘Market Place’ crouched a brazen lion.

An acrobatic impulse took her at the sight of it.

‘Sono pazza per te

Si!
Sono pazza, pazza, pazza …

Pazza per amore,’

she warbled, leaping lightly over the footlights into the stalls.

The auditorium, steeped in darkness, felt extinguished, chill.

Making a circuit of the boxes, she found her way up a stairway into the promenade.

Busts of players, busts of poets, busts of peris, interspersed by tall mirrors in gilt-bordered mouldings, smiled on her good-day.

Sinking to a low, sprucely-cushioned seat, she breathed a sigh of content.

Rid of the perpetual frictions of the inevitable
personnel
, she could possess the theatre, for a little while, in quietude to herself.

In the long window boxes, tufts of white daisies inclining to the air brought back to mind a certain meadow, known as
Basings
, a pet haunt with her at home.

At the pond end, in a small coppice, doves cried ‘Coucoussoucoucoussou’ all the day long.

Here, soon a year ago, while weaving herself a garland (she was playing at being Europa with the Saunders’ Fifeshire bull; flourishing flowers at it; tempting it with waving poppies; defying it to bear her away from the surrounding stagnance), the realization of her dramatic gift first discovered itself.

And then, her thoughts tripped on,
he
came, the Rev. George – ‘just as I was wondering to whom to apply’ – and drew all Applethorp to St Ann-on-the-Hill by the persuasive magnetism of his voice; largely due – so he said – to ‘scientific production’. To the
Bromley Breath
! He never could adequately thank Elizabeth, Mrs Albert Bromley, for all she had done. No; because words failed … Her Institute, for him, would be always ‘top-o’-the-tree’, and when asked, by her, ‘What tree?’ he had answered with a cryptic look: ‘She trains them for the stage.’