CHAPTER IV
THE ELIPHALET TOUCH
Eliphalet Cardomay was not, in the true sense of the word, a Bohemian. In his own particular way he was rather conventional. He knew he had not been drunk by any intentional intemperance of his own, yet the memory of the affair at Brigan was a nightmare to which even Manning was not permitted to refer.
To a man who has formed for himself certain high standards of behaviour, even the inadvertent collapse of any one of these is a matter of acute distress. Eliphalet Cardomay hated insobriety. The word conjured up in his mind a vision of a last scene in his married life. He regarded drunkenness as the thief of virtue, and with Eliphalet virtue was of supreme account. So far as lay within his power he suppressed any tendency in his company toward what is inaccurately termed by laymen, “theatrical arrangements.”
To prevent some little wanderer from committing a false and foolish step he would take any amount of trouble. Eliphalet Cardomay was, despite the failure of his own marriage, a romanticist. He would gladly walk ten miles to a wedding, and an equal distance on his hands to a christening.
There is a sentimental kink in most childless old men. A wise and loving parent Eliphalet Cardomay would have made, had the fates not willed it otherwise, for he was the very type of sentimentalist who gladly would have given his every possession to have his dress-tie—on the rare occasions he wore one—tied by dainty daughter-fingers. But no daughter bore the name of Cardomay—he was alone and self-contained, and watched all around him a world of apathetic parents seemingly insensible to the happiness that was theirs. And so, in his little way, Eliphalet fathered his flock, guided and ferried them over rough waters, gave them gentle, easy advices, and, without saying much about it, contrived to do a deal of good.
Some girls are always old enough to be on their own—others are never old enough to be on their own, even when middle-age has made their girlhood a sham.
Of the latter order was Miss Eunice Terry, whose real name was Mary Kent. She became Eunice Terry on her accession to the stage because she foolishly believed such verbal extravagances would facilitate her ascent of the ladder of Fame. The foolishness of Eunice did not stop with her choice of a name, for the stage had scarcely claimed her as its own before she adopted the practice of calling everyone “My dear,” of colouring her naturally pretty face with unnatural pigments, and of wearing clothes, and particularly boots, of a type which no man admires, except on evenings of frivolity removed from the home circle.
Had Eunice Terry been a wise little girl she would have remained Mary Kent even though on the stage. For Mary Kent was quite an attractive person, and far more likely to figure in the cast of a play than any amount of Eunice Terrys. But she was not a wise little girl, she was a very foolish one, and her folly was the cause of a growing grief in the heart of Henry Churchill, who had loved her with joy as Mary, and continued to do so with melancholy as Eunice.
Henry Churchill was a big, conventional young man, with a disproportionately small salary derived from an estate agent. He had first met Mary when the latter was employed by the same firm as typist, and had succumbed at once to her fascinations.
They spent four delightful months getting engaged, and, after working hours, would sit on the pebbles of Bognor beach and make delicious plans for the future. There was only one cloud to dim the skies of these pleasant discourses, and that was Mary’s constantly expressed ambition to go on the stage.
“I should have gone ages ago,” she would say, “if it hadn’t been for Auntie, and you know what she is.”
And Henry secretly thanked Heaven for Auntie, for, knowing nothing whatever about the stage or stage-folk, he very properly disapproved of both.
Auntie, it appears, was the stumbling-block to many joyous enterprises. It was she who insisted that he must earn fully two hundred a year before she would consent to the match.
“Mary wants any amount of looking after,” she said, “and you’re not old enough yet to look after yourself.”
A premature marriage was thus averted, and the young lovers consoled themselves by privately condemning Auntie’s tyranny and common-sense.
Then one day Auntie died, unexpectedly and inconspicuously on the horsehair sofa in the parlour, and Mary Kent was left alone in the world to work out her own destiny.
It might be imagined that Henry embraced the opportunity to make her his wife then and there, but Auntie had left, by way of a legacy, a certain amount of the one-time detested common-sense. Reviewing his financial position by the clear light of before-breakfast sunshine, he was forced to admit that a salary that barely sufficed to satisfy his own needs would inevitably prove insufficient for two. He conveyed this weighty decision to the ears of his adored one, who, deprived of the same clarity of vision that had been given to him, accepted it as a token of waning affection.
“If you can’t keep me,” she sobbed, “then I’ll keep both of us.”
Sorely perplexed, he asked her what she meant.
“I shall go on the stage and earn a huge salary, and then perhaps you’ll be sorry.”
“Don’t talk like that, Mary,” he begged.
“I always meant to go when Auntie died, as it makes no difference, anyhow, and now I shall.”
These remarks being somewhat involved, Henry Churchill scarcely knew how to answer, so he said the worst thing possible.
“I don’t see how you can go on the stage without knowing anything about acting.”
“I do know something about it, and when you see me driving about in my carriage I sha’n’t take any notice of you, and that’ll pay you out!”
Henry pondered for a moment before replying:
“Surely you have more respect for your poor aunt’s memory than to go talking about carriages, like that?”
But Mary only pouted, and never said another word during the whole walk home.
Next morning Miss Mary Kent’s place at the estate agent’s was unoccupied, and when Henry, after an agonising three hours, rushed round to her abode, he found a letter awaiting him, the gist of which was she had gone to make her fortune on the stage, and though she would always love him she must give rein to her artistic abilities before the consummation of their happiness could be achieved.
Beginner’s luck is no fable, and it was certainly exampled when Mary Kent presented herself at the stage-door of the Theatre Royal, Brighton, at the psychological moment Eliphalet Cardomay decided that another lady-guest was required for the reception-scene at the Ambassador’s.
The Brighton Herald had commented upon the quality and lack of guests in this important function, and Eliphalet, viewing the scene from the wings, was bound to confess there was justice in their observations.
It is not pleasant for an actor of his standing to read in the “What People are Saying” column that “The Ambassador at the Royal this week hasn’t many friends, and what he has hardly seem worth knowing.”
As a general rule, guests can be made to double in other acts with peasants, gardeners, or policemen, but in this particular play there were no peasants, policemen, or gardeners; hence, to invite more than a select few to the Ambassadorial rout was a distinct extravagance. Nevertheless, it would not do if people got hold of the idea that he was cheese-paring. Accordingly, at the end of the matinée, he called the stage-manager, and addressed him as follows:
“Mr. Manning, you will endeavour to find a girl and a young gentleman to walk on in the third act; the stage is not sufficiently dressed.”
“Right you are, Guv’nor,” said the stage-manager. “There was a girl asking for a job at the stage-door five minutes ago. Nip down the road, Sydney, and try and catch the young lady.”
Sydney, the call-boy, departed with speed, and came up with Mary at the corner of the street.
“The Guv’nor wants to have a look at you, miss,” he said. “Might be a shop going.”
With fluttering heart Mary retraced her footsteps, and was led by Sydney to that most hideous of structures, the back of the stage.
But it was all wonderful to Mary, especially when she found herself within a few paces of the great Mr. Cardomay, irreproachably attired in evening-dress, with a velvet collar, and wearing many mystic orders on his white shirt front.
Mr. Manning detached himself from his employer, who melted into the wings, and, twisting the card she had left at the stage-door between forefinger and thumb, approached her.
To the tyro Mr. Manning was rather terrifying. His bowler hat, which he always wore either on the extreme back or the extreme front of his head, seemed menacing, as also did the extinguished cigarette which stuck to his lower lip and engaged upon the strangest evolutions as he spoke.
“Y-e-es,” he said, looking her up and down. “Um! Of course I know what you can do. What have you done?”
“Nothing,” said Mary, startled into speaking the truth.
Mr. Manning sucked his teeth and shook his head. At this juncture Eliphalet Cardomay appeared from behind the scenery, and said:
“All right, Manning, make the engagement. She will enter after the French Consul and his wife—cross down right and sit in chair below settee until music cue, then off; on again at finale by door right. Walk it through and see the wardrobe-mistress. Tell Boscombe to make a duration of tour contract.” And without another word he vanished into the shadows.
“Am I really engaged?” panted Mary. “Is it a good part?”
“No worse than other walk-on,” replied Manning. “Come on through this door; you’ll have to go on to-night, and I want some tea.”
It is questionable whether the inclusion of Miss Eunice Terry at the Ambassador’s reception greatly improved the scene. For certainly never was a guest more awkward.
With jealous amazement she viewed the natural ease of the other young ladies in the crowd, and envied them their mellifluous laughter. Earlier in the evening she had listened with awe to the conversation in the dressing-room, and had marked how each, according to her own tale, was usually to be seen in highly important rôles, but being sick of “resting” had accepted a “walk-on” as a “fill-in.” From the way the Christian names of stage celebrities flew about Mary judged them to be well in with the élite of the profession. After a few days she learnt that it was not essential to be personally acquainted with such persons as Julia Neilson or Marie Löhr, before speaking of them as “Julia” or “Marie.”
These familiarities intrigued her greatly, and before the week was out she was able to refer to H. B. Irving as “Harry” or Dion Boucicault as “Dot” without the slightest embarrassment. Eliphalet Cardomay was the only person never spoken of by an abbreviation. He was and remained “The Guv’nor.”
Mr. Manning, the stage-manager, automatically became “Freddie,” not to be confounded with Fred, which, as everyone knows, was reserved for Fred Terry.
“Freddie” was the subject of much conversation, indeed about forty per cent, of the entire output either started with “Freddie is a brick, you know,” or “Freddie is a perfect beast.”
Another twenty per cent, was given over to the doings of the call-boy, “that little devil, Sydney,” and the remaining to reminiscences of past successes, or such remarks as:
“I feel a perfect rag to-day.”
“Have you seen the show at So-and-so?”
“My dear, he was perfectly awful!”
“There was nothing but paper in the house.”
“But I always do love Marian; she makes me cry, of course.”
“She’s such a dear off the stage.” And so forth and so on.
Harmless stuff for the most part—not, as a rule, scandalous—always and without exception vapid and silly.
They are dear, kind-hearted, empty-headed little ladies who sail their boats round the fringes of the lake of dramatic art. They belong to a genus of its own. They never play parts—in the main they couldn’t if they tried—in the main they don’t want to. They are content to talk big, to walk on and on in one “show” after another, until at last they have walked away their good looks and disappear to an even greater obscurity than that of the peasant or the guest.
But Eunice Terry was not in all respects the counterpart of these other girls. At least she was ambitious. She desired success, fame—that is to say, she desired the advantages these conditions carried with them. It did not occur to her that to be successful and beloved of the public one must give the public something by way of return. She was out for her chance without even considering whether or no she would be able to make good if she got it. So, instead of thinking about her profession, she devoted herself entirely to acquiring silly habits of speech and little vulgarities of attire which robbed her of all her good taste and most of her good looks.
On the day Eliphalet Cardomay engaged her he made the following note in a little book kept for that purpose. “18th January. Engaged Eunice Terry. A guinea for eight performances and one-fourteenth for any addition. Looks about twenty years of age, pretty, slightly wistful; evidently inexperienced. Might be suitable for very sympathetic parts. Note: the name Eunice Terry seems strangely out of keeping—Dorothy or Mary would be more appropriate.” Having made this entry he forgot all about her until one day when he decided to revive “East Lynne,” and then, in looking through his first-impression book for a suitable “Joyce,” the faithful nurse, he came across the paragraph, and at once dispatched the call-boy for Mr. Manning.
“Manning,” he said, “I’ve been thinking of Miss Terry for the part of Joyce. Is she still with us?”
“Yes, Guv’nor. Of course, we’ve never tried her out.”
Eliphalet nodded.
“That should hardly matter. I have a note here that she is simple and sympathetic. With these attributes the part will play itself. Will you send her to me?”
There was a tremendous flutter in the dressing-room when Mr. Manning popped in his head and said:
“Guv’nor wants to see you, Miss Terry. Look slippy!”
Eunice, dressed for the street, felt her hour of triumph was at hand.
“If I’d only known in the morning,” she gasped, “I’d have put on my fawn coat and skirt. This old thing’s a rag. Does this white fox look dirty, dear?”
“No; you look sweet, dear.”
Followed some frenzied powdering—some dexterous touches with a be-rouged hare’s-foot—the borrowing of a pair of white gloves from one girl, “that lovely parasol” from another, and a hurried departure to meet her fate.
At the door of Mr. Cardomay’s room she halted. It would not do to appear flurried. She must be calm and remember all the wonderful things she had learnt during the last six weeks. She must stand her ground as an artiste, and it was comforting to reflect upon the irreproachable plinth provided by her patent-leather boots, with the uppers that soared upwards to the height of her knee. She knocked, and heard the answering “Come in.”
Mr. Cardomay was engaged in writing in an autograph book as she entered, and he laid it aside and turned his eyes towards her. What he saw seemed to surprise him, for he contracted his brows a little. He had expected to find the same little rosy-cheeked runaway from Bognor, but, instead, here was a young lady all over white fur, white boots, white powder, long gloves and short skirts.
“There’s some mistake, I think,” he said. “I asked for Miss Terry.”
“I’m Eunice Terry.”
“Tch-tch! dear me, you will think it very strange that I hardly know the young ladies in my own company.”
“Oh, not at all,” she replied. “One knocks up against so many people on the road, doesn’t one?”
He nodded gravely. Evidently the young lady was no use for the part, but, being kind-hearted, he hardly knew how to get rid of her.
“I sent for you,” he said untruthfully, “to ask if you were any relation of the Terrys.”
Eunice’s high hopes came down with a bump.
“Not really a relation,” she answered. “Of course, we know Fred very well.”
“Um!” said Eliphalet. “Well, I trust you’re happy in the company. Good afternoon.”
Eunice turned to go, then, with sudden courage stayed and said: “I was hoping, Mr. Cardomay, you had got something for me in the next show. I’m simply dying to play a part—a big part.”
The unsatisfied fatherly instinct in Eliphalet Cardomay came to the surface, and pointing to a chair, he said:
“Sit down a minute. How old are you?”
“I’m twenty.”
“Have you a father or a mother?”
“No. I used to live with an old aunt. She was a frightful ogre, Mr. Cardomay. Wouldn’t let me go on the stage. So silly.”
“She is dead?”
“Yes.”
“What a pity. And you are not engaged?”
“Well, only in a way. I don’t think I shall ever marry him; not, at any rate, until I’m famous. You see, he’s foolish about the stage, too. Seemed to think it would spoil me.”
Eliphalet’s eyes wandered to the white boots elaborately displayed for his benefit.
“Poor young man,” was his comment.
“He’s a great dear, of course, and I like him very much, but I couldn’t let him stand in the way of my career, could I?”
“He won’t.”
“I’m so glad you agree with me.”
“Real love does not stand in the way of an artistic career, it advances it.”
“I’m madly keen to get on.”
“What do you call getting on?”
“I mean to have one’s name and photograph in all the papers, to keep a motor, and be recognised—all that sort of thing.”
Eliphalet smiled ironically. “At least it was an honest answer,” he said. “The last girl to whom I put the same question replied: ‘To play Lady Macbeth better than anyone else.’ ”
“How silly!” said Eunice.
And Eliphalet rose to put an end to the interview.
“Do you think you will have something for me?” she hazarded.
“Advice at any time you need it, and, as a little to go on with, don’t lose track of that poor young man.”
Everyone had waited in the dressing-room to hear the result of her interview, and a salvo of “Well’s” and “Did you fix anything?” was fired from the expectant circle.
“I’d rather not say,” she answered evasively. “He particularly said I mustn’t mention it to anyone.”
These were brave words, and brave also was the gaiety of the song she sang as she left the theatre. But that night, after the gas had been turned out in the lodging she shared with another girl, Eunice Terry found herself crying, and seemed in no great likelihood of stopping.
Flora Wayne, her companion, heard the sobs in her sleep, and, instantly sitting bolt upright and wide awake, as only a woman can, demanded what was the matter. Whereupon Mary Kent forgot that she was Eunice Terry, and whimpered with piteous grief, because she hadn’t got on and didn’t understand why Mr. Cardomay should have sent for her and given her nothing.
“Why don’t I get on?” asked the tear-stained one pathetically.
And Flora, like the fool she undoubtedly was, whispered various reasons by which, according to her study of human beings, it appeared that to rise upon the stage was only possible for those who consented to fall in other ways.
“It’s the only way to get a start,” said Flora. “Because I wouldn’t take it is why I have always stuck where I am.” And having sown the canker of this perilous seed in the fertile soil of the silly little brain beside her, Flora turned over and continued her broken sleep.
But Eunice lay awake and turned the matter over in her mind. It was a disturbing thought that art and virtue could never be allied, and she wondered very deeply if it were so, approaching the subject as fearfully as a child with a strange dog.
She had been in Mr. Cardomay’s company four months when this mental crisis occurred, and during these months Henry Churchill, to bury the sorrow of her loss, had plunged himself so deeply into work at the Real Estate Agent’s, that he had attracted the favourable attention of his superiors. One bright day he was sent for to the inner office, where he found Mr. Robins, senior partner of the firm of Robins, Robins and Crusoe, who informed him of their intention of starting a new branch at Lancingdon and placing him in charge, as manager, with a salary of two hundred and fifty a year and a commission on business transacted. This momentous interview took place on the day before Henry Churchill’s annual holiday, and it was not unnatural, after a night’s rest in which he set his mind in order, he should have packed a bag and after studying a theatrical paper hastened off to the town where his Mary was playing, to tell her the wonderful news and seek to rescue her from the paths of unrighteousness and sin.
Having arrived and taken a room at a temperance hotel, he lost no time in seeking out the theatre. To a young man of gentle upbringing it required no small courage to turn down that narrow alley towards the stage-door—that alley which in his imagination was at the conclusion of each evening performance probably chock-a-block with the gilded youth of the city, each one bearing a bouquet of exotic flowers designed to anæsthetise the blossom of his heart into accepting their addresses.
Fortunately he was spared the indignity of asking for her at the stage-door, for at the moment of his arrival she herself stepped out. For a moment he failed to recognise her—so little of the original Mary remained under the mask of pink powder and the screen of white fox, but the features of the little figure were the same.
The “Mary!” he exclaimed savoured more of rebuke than recognition.
“Why, it’s Harry!” she cried, with a genuine pleasure in her voice.
But he was so shocked by the silly little changes she had made in herself that the tone of welcome was lost to his ears, and it was only with difficulty he restrained himself from saying many foolish things.
“Is there anywhere we could go and have a few words together?” he gravely asked.
“Yes, rather! How about the Mik?”
“Mik?”
“Mikado,” she replied. “It’s much better than the Royal, you know; the Royal’s always so full. Fancy your turning up! I’m real glad to see you, boy!”
Henry had never been called “Boy” before, and it grated on his ears as the powder offended his eyes.
All the way to the Mikado Eunice kept up a sharp rattle of dressing-room remarks, about poor dear Flo who couldn’t act a bit, but was such a dear for all that; about Sydney Lennox, who had played second leads with Fred, and was reported to have ticked off Dot before an entire West End company; and endless other showy fragments intended to impress him with the manner of her success, since the day they had parted.
As a matter of fact she had another reason for talking, and that was to hide her own feelings, which had been sorely upset by a short interview she had forced on “Freddie” Manning half an hour before.
Like all good stage-managers, Manning assiduously avoided persons who sought to converse with him on business subjects—but this time Eunice had caught him unawares at the end of a passage that led to a blank wall.
“Mr. Manning,” she had said, “do be a dear and tell me straight out what my chances are.”
Manning rubbed his small, round ended nose and screwed up his features, like a child before a dose of physic.
“Dare say there’ll be a walk-on for you in the next show,” he said at last.
“But I mean my chances of a part—a real part.”
“Umph!” remarked the stage-manager. “What do you want to play parts for, anyway?”
“But I do. Please tell me, and don’t tease.”
Mr. Manning could be very straightforward when he wished.
“Acting’s like everything else,” he said. “It’s got to be learned. No one’s going to give you a part unless you give something in return.”
It was a perfectly innocent speech, but, thanks to the vapourings of Flora, Eunice Terry read its meaning all wrong.
“And that’s the only way to get on?” she asked nervously.
“Sure!” responded Freddie. “You don’t get anything for nothing in this life.” Then very dexterously he slipped past her down the passage.
Henry listened to her chatter with growing displeasure, but it was not until they had seated themselves at a table in that Japanese-fanny, coffee-smelling restaurant known as the “Mik” that he really spoke his mind.
“Now, look here, Mary,” he said. “I want to talk to you very straight. Mr. Robins has offered me the managership at the Lancingdon branch, with the salary of £250 a year.”
“Oh, I am glad!” said Eunice Terry, laying a white-gloved hand on his sleeve. “That’s fine!”
“The question is whether you will throw up this business and marry me.”
For a moment she made no answer. Awhile she turned over in her mind the words of Flora and Freddie Manning. Here was this big, honest young man, who really did love her, and there was that remote phantom of possible success, with its barrier of the price to be paid. It would be very nice to set up house with Harry with two-fifty a year, for after all the thirty shillings a week she earned didn’t go far, and really and truly there was nothing very sensational or exciting in her present life. When she lifted her head she was smiling very prettily, and it was on her lips to say “Yes,” when some demon, possibly the ghost of Auntie, inspired Henry Churchill to say:
“Of course, if you consent, there must be an end to all this making-up business.”
“Oh!” gasped Eunice. “How dare you speak to me like that!”
“It’s better we should understand each other. I dare say all this is very suitable to your present mode of life, but it wouldn’t do in Lancingdon.”
“You beast!” she said. “If you think I’d marry you and be a rotten little estate agent’s wife, you’re wrong. You talk about the stage like that, and know nothing about it. I’d be a pretty sort of fool if I gave up the stage for you!”
“Is this the little Mary I used to know?” inquired Henry Churchill, employing an old formula.
“No, it isn’t. I’ve grown up a lot.”
“Grown into bad ways,” said Henry Churchill, getting deeper into trouble. “Come, come, Mary, let us forget this unhappy chapter of your life and begin again with a clean sheet.”
“I’ve got a clean sheet.” She stamped her foot. “How dare you talk to me as if I was a wicked woman!”
“I am trying to prevent such a thing.”
“Funny way of doing it. If anything does happen to me, it’ll be your fault. I hope—I hope I go thoroughly to the bad—just to pay you out.”
“I forbid you to say such things.”
“You forbid! You have no control over me. I lead my life in my own way—with my art.”
Considering that Henry’s main desire was to placate her wrath, his response of “I don’t see how you can call being one of a crowd ‘Art,’ ” was as infelicitous as you could wish.
Mary rose with the single word “Cad!” and, flinging the white fox about her shoulders, swept from the room.
Henry did not attempt to follow her, but sat gazing into a highly-decorated coffee-cup and chewed the cud of tragedy. The love of his life was ruined—his beautiful image destroyed by the vile pollution of the stage. A great resentment surged through him that such destructive machinery should be allowed to exist to lure the righteous to their undoing.
On the table before him was a throw-away of the week’s play. He picked it up and held it at arm’s length, as though it were a tract of the devil. The name Eliphalet Cardomay shrieked from the page in block type. That was the fellow—he was the man at whose door her ruin must be laid. Henry Churchill crumpled the paper fiercely, and as he saw the name twist up in his grasp a thought came to him.
That evening, at ten o’clock, he was at the stage-door, demanding that his card should be conveyed to Mr. Cardomay.
“Never sees anyone till after the show,” said the doorkeeper, and returned to his football edition.
It was well after eleven before Henry eventually found himself in Mr. Cardomay’s dressing-room. Possibly he expected to see some Satanic apparition, for certainly he was a little astonished to find himself in the presence of a grey-haired and elderly gentleman, with a deeply-seamed face, which he was thoughtfully wiping with a towel. Over the edge of the towel peered a pair of shrewd but kindly eyes.
“Yes? What can I do for you?”
“I—My name is Henry Churchill.”
“I had already gathered as much from your card.”
“I am here on a matter of very important business.”
“You are seeking an engagement, perhaps?” It was said very kindly.
“No—far from it,” replied Henry. “In fact, I may say that I despise the stage and everything to do with it.”
A whimsical smile played round the corners of Eliphalet’s eyes.
“You appear to have chosen an odd place to make such an assertion,” was all he said.
“Perhaps, but I didn’t come on that score. You have a girl here named Mary Kent.”
“Not here, believe me.”
“There’s no use denying it. She—she’s a member of your—troupe.”
Eliphalet held up his hand. “Mr. Churchill,” he said, “would you mind going away and not returning until you have bettered your vocabulary and learnt a modicum of good manners?”
The distinction with which this speech was delivered quite took the wind from Henry’s sails.
“I—I am sorry,” he said, “but what would you say if your affianced were ruined—spoiled and painted up like a Jezebel?”
“Do you accuse me of ruining, spoiling and painting up a certain Miss Mary Kent? Because I assure you I have never before heard the lady’s name.”
“You know her better, perhaps, as Eunice Terry?”
“Miss Terry? Dear me! Really! So you are the young man of whom she spoke. The young man I advised her not to lose sight of.”
“You advised her?”
“Certainly. I sensed that you might prove a valuable sheet-anchor to—well, rather a will-o’-the-wisp little craft. I hope, Mr. Churchill, you have come to carry her away to the hymeneal altar?”
“That’s what I did come for, but, thanks to your teaching, it’s all knocked on the head.”
“My teaching?”
“Yes. Since you taught her to get herself up—talk a lot of silly theatrical shop, and put on stagey ways.”
“My dear young man, those very stagey ways you speak of are none of my teaching. Indeed, but for their existence I might have done something to advance the little lady in her profession. It was their presence dissuaded me and also caused me to advise her not to lose touch with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are many young and very foolish girls whom the glamour of the stage attracts—who are in no way suited, nor try to suit themselves, for success upon the boards. Oddly enough, they solace their souls with trumpery talk and silly vanities. They are good enough in themselves, but weak, do you see? Unable to grasp the essentials of a fine picture while hypnotised with the glitter of a cheap gilt frame. With a little care—a little sympathy—a little tact—they can be won away from where they are not wanted to where they are wanted. Now I advise you to talk to this little runaway very gently. Condole with her on the lack of opportunity she has had, but plead your love as a finer and greater outlet for her self-expression. Do this, Mr. Churchill, and upon my word, within a month you’ll be happily house-hunting, with her hand upon your arm.”
“It’s no good,” said Henry Churchill. “I have talked to her.”
“What did you say?”
“Told her I heartily disapproved of everything she was doing.”
“That was unwise.”
“I believe in saying what I think.”
“Yet people who always say what they think rarely have the privilege of doing what they like. You have made a regrettable mistake, and there is nothing left for you to do but leave her horizon until the memory of it has vanished.”
“But I want to marry her.”
“Precisely. Hence my suggestion.”
“Look here: will you promise not to re-engage her after this piece?”
“Why should I?”
“I want to get her out of this business.”
“You would not achieve your object that way. She is pretty enough to ensure her getting another engagement, and while she is with me she is unlikely to come to any harm. No; I shall engage her and re-engage her for one crowd after another, in the hope that she will surfeit of walking on, and that it will soak into her little head that she is not destined for a great career. And now, good night, Mr. Churchill—some matters of business——”
But Henry did not move at once.
“I am not at all sure,” he said, “you are going about this business in the best way.”
Eliphalet smiled. “Of course you are not. But then you are not a student of human nature, and by profession I am. Good night, again.”
But Henry Churchill disregarded Mr. Cardomay’s advice, and wrote a letter to Mary urging her to abandon a profession in which she was doomed to failure, and accept his hand in marriage. This foolishly-constructed affair fired her determination to show him, at all costs, that she could succeed, and moreover to say that she never wished to see or hear from him again. Both letters, in a fit of emotional confidence, she showed to Flora, who, being a meddlesome little busybody, decided that it was merely a lovers’ quarrel, and determined to act as intermediary and secretly keep the unhappy young man informed as to his sweetheart’s doings.
Now it was just at this critical time that Sydney Lennox (he who was reputed to have ticked off Dot Boucicault before a West End company) chanced to cast a favouring eye upon the cherry-lipped Eunice. Sydney Lennox was attracting a good deal of attention in the company, for it was common knowledge that in a few weeks’ time he was taking out a tour of his own. The younger members would haunt his exits in the hope of a chance word with him, and many there were who besought him to give them work. Then one night, during one of his waits, Eunice boldly bearded the lion and asked if he couldn’t find her a part to play.
Mr. Lennox blew a cloud of cigarette-smoke towards the ceiling and watched it disappear.
“Can you act, then?” he demanded.
“Oh, I’m certain I could if I had the chance.”
“And you want me to back the chance you can, eh?” It was not a pretty speech, but Mr. Lennox was like that. “Nothing doing, my dear,” he finished up.
“I’m sorry,” said Eunice, and turned sadly away.
Something in the cut of her retreating little figure made an appeal to Sydney Lennox, for he called out:
“Here! Come back a minute.”
She turned expectantly, and he allowed his eyes to wander over her. Certainly she was pretty, very pretty. Quite an asset on a summer tour.
“Got any people?”
“No; I’m an orphan.”
“On your own, then?”
“Yes; and I’m awfully keen to get on.”
Mr. Lennox rubbed his chin.
“Find things pretty dull, don’t you?”
“I’m bored to tears with being in the crowd. I’d give anything to get out of it and play a part.”
“You would? I see—I see. Right! Well, come and talk to me again.” He touched her shoulder with a light, familiar touch, and walked towards his entrance.
A week later Flora noticed a great excitement in her companion’s manner.
“What’s the matter, Euny?” she asked.
“I—I’m to play second lead in Mr. Lennox’s tour.”
“Euny!”
“Yes. Isn’t it splendid?”
But Flora made no answer for a moment; then she said very slowly, “Is it splendid?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“I’d like to know the terms that got you that shop.”
Then Eunice burst out with:
“You told me yourself it was the only way to get a start. I shouldn’t be the first, and——”
But Flora interrupted.
“Don’t you touch it, Euny,” she said. “Don’t be a fool. You’d never forgive yourself, and it isn’t as if you’re likely to get on.”
Ah! that unhappy string! Why must all her advisers harp upon it?
“Isn’t it? Well, I will get on, you’ll see. I’m not going to be an old stick-in-the-mud all my life—like—like some people.”
That night Flora wrote to Harry for the last time, and told him the state of affairs.
On receipt of the letter Henry Churchill went quite mad. Seizing his hat and an umbrella, he rushed to the station and steamed Mary-wards by the first train. Had he possessed such a thing, he would probably have taken a revolver rather than an umbrella, for his intentions were certainly lethal.
The great length of the railway journey had the effect of partially flattening his effervescence, and surely the hand of Providence was evident in the fact that the first person he met on arriving at his destination was Eliphalet Cardomay. The sight of the old actor peaceably pursuing his way brought about a fresh paroxysm of anger.
Had not Eliphalet been a man of ready perceptions, it is probable that he would have made neither head nor tail of the torrent of reproaches and threats that fell from Henry’s lips; but through it all he was able to discern that here was real tragedy, and that the need for action was immediate. With great presence of mind he piloted the distraught young man into an adjacent dairy and, placing before him a bun and a glass of milk, besought him to drink and assuage his heat. And since no one can be really violent in the butter-smelling coolth of a dairy, he managed to extract the story and at the same time bring the narrator to a more rational mood.
“If you will leave it to me,” he said, “I promise you on my word of honour I will put this matter right. I only ask you to go away and wait until I send for you. Do this, and all will be well.” Thereafter he piloted Henry back to the station and waited until the south-bound train bore him out of view. Then his brows came together and the lines of his mouth hardened.
That night he sent for Lennox, and after a few small formalities, including the offer of a chair and a cigarette, he said:
“I hear you are thinking of Miss Terry for the second lead in your new production.”
“I had thought of her,” conceded Lennox.
Eliphalet placed his finger-tips together.
“Is that quite wise?” he asked. “She is young and very inexperienced.”
“Quite so; but one can but try her.”
“I see no reason why you should try her. There are many others far more suitable.”
“Very likely, but I’ve promised this girl. Of course, if the audiences don’t like her, it will be easy enough to take her out of the bill.”
“Will it? Will it?” There was an insistent note in Eliphalet’s voice.
“Why not?”
“Would your obligation towards the young lady be fairly discharged if you did?”
“What obligation?”
“To be frank, Mr. Lennox, I understand you have made certain proposals—er—conditions to her—which I regret should have come from a member of my company.”
Sydney Lennox rose rather stiffly.
“I don’t admit your right to interfere in my private affairs, Mr. Cardomay. What I may choose to do or not to do is no possible concern of yours.”
“No?” came the mild rejoinder. “But it happens that I take a personal interest in this young lady.”
“Indeed?” said Lennox, then added unforgiveably, “First come, first served.”
One assumes that Sydney Lennox had played in his time many villains, for he deported himself throughout the offensive inspired by his previous remark, with a cynical calm little short of remarkable. Briefly and very much to the point Eliphalet Cardomay spoke his mind, and what he said could hardly have been pleasant hearing.
At the conclusion, Lennox bowed and walked towards the door. Here he turned with:
“What a pity so much eloquence should have been wasted. Doubtless your next move will be to warn the little Eunice against my machinations, but let me assure you that her ambition to get on will certainly outweigh your most moral representations.”
“That being so,” replied Eliphalet, “I must think of other means.”
“There are no other means.” And with this Parthian arrow Lennox withdrew.
It was a challenge, and Eliphalet Cardomay bit his nails over it until he was “called.”
While in his bath that night, after a period of much brain-racking, the “other means” suddenly illumined his brain, causing him to rise so abruptly that nearly a gallon of water splashed on the oilcloth, percolated through the ceiling of the parlour below and figured to the extent of fifteen and six-pence on his week’s account.
The next morning he said to Manning:
“I am going to give a special matinée at Birmingham the week after next. Second Act of ‘The Corsican Brothers’—Trial Scene from ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and—and—well, I shall think of something.”
Freddie Manning politely asked what the idea was.
“I wish to—er—to try out some of our younger members.”
At the stage-door he encountered Miss Terry, and beckoned her into his dressing-room.
“They tell me you are to play a part in Lennox’s tour. Hum?”
“Yes,” said Eunice, with a slight increase of colour.
“It is, in a sense, unfortunate, since I myself had possibilities for you.”
Eunice almost seized his arm.
“Oh, Mr. Cardomay,” she exclaimed, “do you really mean that? Oh, I wish you would!”
“Some other time, then, perhaps.”
“No, now. I’d much rather now.”
“But your contract with Mr. Lennox?”
“I haven’t signed one. Please——”
“Perhaps it would be a mistake, since what I have to offer is only a single performance. Naturally, if your success merited it, I should look after your future.”
In her excitement Eunice rose and paced up and down.
“Please, please let me do it. I don’t really want to take the other engagement—not a bit, I don’t. What was it you thought of me for?”
“A special matinée in three weeks’ time. Selections from my favourite plays. I should want you for the Trial Scene in ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ For—for Portia, in fact.”
“Portia!” repeated Eunice. “Is it a good part?”
“It has made many reputations,” he gravely answered, without a shade of a smile.
“I’ll accept. I’ll tell Mr. Lennox at once. Oh, thank you ever so much.”
“There, there,” said Eliphalet, patting her shoulder with a kindly hand. “Don’t be too grateful. One never knows!”
Sydney Lennox played a losing hand rather creditably. He even refrained from expressing his views on the reason for Eliphalet’s action. Possibly he thought that to do so would have reflected but little glamour on his own personality.
At the rehearsals everybody remarked to everybody else on the extraordinary lack of guidance Eliphalet gave to the youthful Portia.
“She’s simply awful, my dear,” said her dressing-room companion, “but he doesn’t seem to mind.”
A day or two before the matinée Eliphalet sent a letter to Henry Churchill, saying he had to give Miss Terry a “chance.” “Doubtless,” he wrote, “you will think I am behaving unfairly towards you by so doing, but I am convinced that it is the wisest course. I want you to be present and to come round after the performance (not before) and pay your respects to the little débutante.”
To be sure of a good attendance an early-closing day was chosen, and a general invitation issued to the Hepplewhite Steel Works Shakespeare Society.
“Don’t know what they’ll think of our Portia, Guv’nor,” said Manning.
“But we shall know, whatever they think,” replied Eliphalet sweetly.
He had chosen an act from one of his most popular melodramas to complete the programme, and the Trial Scene was reserved for the final item.
Certainly it was a meaty audience who were gathered in. The theatre was packed with a cheerful “How-do-you-do” whistling crowd, who hurled recognitions and shrill pleasantries from one part of the house to the other.
In the second row of the stalls sat Henry Churchill. He had the look of a man attending his own funeral.
Within his bosom there surged a great resentment against Eliphalet Cardomay, a resentment which would certainly find expression when their meeting took place after the performance. His anger was not lessened when he found himself greatly enthralled by “The Corsican Brothers,” and worked up to a keen pitch of excitement by the act from “The Weir.” It was infuriating that this shameless mummer could be capable of inspiring sensations other than those of disgust in his properly ordered brain.
Then he found himself overtaken by a feeling of great nervous apprehension. In a few minutes he would be seeing his beloved bathed in the effulgent glow of the lime—treading the first stage of the road to ruin.
Then the curtain rose on the Trial Scene.
It must be confessed, after the generous and lurid fare that had been accorded them, the audience (not excepting the Hepplewhite Shakespeare Society) failed to look forward with any pleasurable anticipation to this example of the Bard’s genius.
Very naturally they felt aggrieved that William Shakespeare should have been dragged into an afternoon’s entertainment, when the time allotted him might have been more profitably spent with the work of some lesser littérateur. Consequently their attitude was disposed to be hostile.
Wonderful to relate, Eunice Terry felt no apprehensions. She was quite certain of herself. She had spent long hours “getting” her “silly old lines,” and she had “got” them. True, she thought the part was a “dud and a stuma,” and she didn’t pretend to understand half the things she had to say—still, that was the way with Shakespeare, and she had a “perfect duck of a make-up.” Violet O’Neal had helped her with it, and never were lily tints and rose more happily blended. She was as sure of her success as though already her picture postcards had gone into the hundredth edition.
Before going on, she approached Mr. Cardomay, sombre and Semitic as the Merchant, and asked, more for something to say than from any doubt on the point, “D’you think I shall be all right?” and he gravely replied, “You will do everything I expect of you.”
It would not be fair to follow the performance through its disastrous stages of incompetence and “dry-up” to the abrupt and unfinished climax. The Shakespearean Society were chiefly responsible for the disturbance. From the moment of Eunice’s first entrance they felt an insult had been placed upon their intelligence, an insult that called for immediate reprisals. The Quality of Mercy is all very well, but when you are told about it by someone who evidently hasn’t the slightest idea what she is talking about, the most lenient is apt to change his mercy to a Quality of Justice.
To borrow a phrase from the parlance of “the road,” Eunice Terry asked for, and got, “the Bird.”
At first she didn’t understand, and floundered on hopelessly through a quagmire of unbalanced lines. Then, to an accompaniment of shouts and whistles, the truth dawned on her, and her little lower lip shot out and began to work spasmodically.
Seeing which, Henry Churchill got up and “engaged” the gallery.
“You cowards!” he cried.
And Freddie Manning from the prompt corner took advantage of the tumult to shout:
“Shall I ring down, Guv’nor?”
“No,” said Eliphalet, but he had to shut his eyes to hide the grief on the little face before him. “Go on, Miss Terry.”
“I—I can’t.”
“You must.”
“I can’t—I’ve forgotten—I don’t want to——”
“Rotten!” shouted the house with one accord. “Rotten!”
Then Eunice burst into tears and rushed from the stage, and simultaneously Henry Churchill fought his way out of the stalls.
“I am very sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” said Eliphalet Cardomay, and the curtain fell.
Eunice Terry was crying brokenly against a scene flat, but he offered her no word of comfort or condolence. He had seen Henry Churchill’s furious exit from the stalls, and he hoped he wouldn’t be long.
“I am afraid you have done yourself very little good, Miss Terry,” he said.
“I—I’ll never act again!” she sobbed.
Then, at the psychological moment, when all the world was against her, came Henry Churchill, with a broad shoulder, to soak up her tears.
“As for you, sir, to expose her to such—such brutal treatment,” he exploded over his enveloping arm, “if you were a younger man, I’d—I’d——”
“Why?” said Eliphalet.
“As it is, I shall take her away here and now. Yes, and if you sue us for breach of contract, we shall fight.”
“Don’t fight,” said Eliphalet quietly. “Rather live happily ever afterwards.”
“Go, dear, put on your things, and I’ll get you out of this.”
“Yes, Henry.”
And so anxiously did she obey his instructions that she took off her stage make-up and forgot to put on the one for the street. She even forgot the white fox in her haste to be off.
Through his dressing-room window Eliphalet Cardomay watched Henry Churchill, still scarlet with indignation, place Mary Kent in a cab and drive away.
“I have often remarked, Manning,” he said, “one gets very little thanks for doing things for people.”