THE next day Jackie saw Mr. Walter Carters at the Old Strand Theatre in the Strand. She was kept waiting for two hours, in which she had two cups of coffee on two separate floors of a neighbouring A.B.C. establishment — the stage-doorkeeper having no notions concerning, nor any-apparent interest in, Mr. Carters’ whereabouts. At her fourth inquiry, however, she encountered Mr. Carters in the doorway, and he asked her if she was wanting him. She showed her letter of introduction from Mr. Gissing, and he murmured “Oh, yes,” and asked her to follow him. He took her up the stairs into a small dressing-room, where he switched on the light. The room was bare save for some red-bound and decayed scripts on the shelf, a disused whiskey-bottle, pen and ink, and Mr. Carters’ overcoat on a property basket. He read the letter through in a difficult silence.
Mr. Reginald Carters was an untidy, thickly built, sunburnt, listless little man of forty-five, with a small moustache and very blue and innocent eyes. He had been actively concerned in this business for forty years, and was indeed something of a landmark and rock in his profession. His theatre, the Old Strand, which he had inherited from his father and now shared with his sister, had reached a legendary status — and from this legend he had made no attempt to break away. The titles of the plays and revivals with which he had, for the last twenty years, had almost exclusive connection, were revealing of this tendency. Such titles as “Alone in the City”—“Just a Girl”—“Married for Money”—“A Girl’s Best Friend”—“A Soul for Sale”—“Three Lasses from Blackpool”—“Tried and True”—“Masters of the Turf” —“Merely the Drudge”—“White All Through”—“Only a Working Girl”—“Waifs from the Workhouse”—“For God, King and Country”—or “Sweet Seventeen” were representative and immediately identifiable titles. The plots of these melodramas accorded with these titles, and were similarly identifiable — dealing, as they did, exclusively and traditionally with infamously monocled scoundrels, pathetically credulous young women, oily-mannered (but blackhearted) solicitors, young men vaguely on His Majesty’s Service (but with plenty of time for white flannels, father-defying, and yachting caps), Generals (given to plumes, adamance, and remorse), aged but benign priests (with a benediction habit), youthful and moth-like clergymen, temptresses for same, hirelings of the monocle (abiding in taverns), a sprinkling of female Spies, and a red-nosed postman, or a red-nosed publican, or a red-nosed bookmaker, who, in imbecile partnership with his wife (who would behave in a captious and querulous manner), afforded light refreshment in an otherwise unrelieved emotional essay in high piety and moral integrity. The action took place in England and abroad, and amounted, in the long run, to little. Abroad there was a War, which people came back from (after many years) and found things lamentably altered: at home there was free and incessant criticism of motives, under the nervous wear-and-tear of which somebody at last got up and Struck some one, and there was a great to-do. The whole was presented in from sixteen to twenty scenes, with ample use of front-cloths, which were, in their two-dimensional placidity, unconvincing, and, in their frequently exercised ability to deal facetious but savage blows upon the comedian’s back, supernatural. There were introduced on the stage as many trains, battles, live race-horses, shipwrecks and the like, as could be afforded or negotiated.
With these plays revived, or with new attempts in the same model, Mr. Walter Carters was now almost exclusively associated — the “Old Strand‚” having one of the largest stages in London, being admirably suited to this type of thing. He was able to work with a minimum of cost, having a vast theatrical store (another family legacy) down at Wimbledon, whence came not only a great part of the costumes and scenery of his productions, but also much of his printing. Hence, and in the nineteen-twenties, large posters depicting corseted young women with a multiple of petticoats standing challengingly and temptingly on tables, or red-coated soldiers strutting forth with their padded and chess-queen-shaped “gals,” or a straw-hatted nobility going floridly down on its knees before skirt-sweeping and hair-crowned susceptibles, or black-moustached landlords ejecting ancients (and their daughters) from honey-suckled but mortgaged property —directly defined a modern period, and added to the general historical flavour of the whole. Mr. Carters was, in fact, more of an artistic excavator of the past than a modern producer; and those vast dusty stores at Wimbledon, at which he spent so much of his time, could furnish an instructive tale of bygone melodramatic decades and rantings long ago.
At this time Mr. Carters had two shows in the provinces — one of which, “The Loves of an Empress,” had left the Old Strand some months ago and was paying him extremely well —the other of which, “The Girl from Somewhere,” was losing him from fifty to two hundred pounds weekly. He was withdrawing this and replacing it with a play called “A Man of Steel”— a revival from nineteen-eight, which he was giving an experimental run on the London Halls. He was also the owner of the King’s Theatre, Brighton, where he proposed finally to take “A Man of Steel,” and afterwards commence a repertory of the old dramas.
Mr. Carters’ professional manner was innocence, slight confusion, kindliness, slow speech, slightly wounded simplicity, and a general air of being on the verge of bankruptcy, but carrying on for others’ benefit alone. He was, indeed, a genius at evasion, as he was also a genius in his own line, and he had a wide reputation for being grasping. He knew, however, how to handle actors and actresses.
“Yes,” said Mr. Carters, naïvely. “I think I might have a Part for you.”
“Oh, do you think you might?” said Jackie.
“You have n’t had very much Experience, have you?”
“No,” said Jackie. “I’m in ‘Little Girl’ now….”
“Very good show, that….”
“Yes,” said Jackie, “it is….”
There was a pause.
“Well,” said Mr. Carters, taking up his manuscripts and making a sudden move to the door. “I can’t say anything definite just Now. But I think I’ll have something for you, and I’ll let you know. Of course we can’t Pay you very much here….”
“No,” said Jackie, following him out….
“But you’ve got the right voice and looks, haven’t you? And I think I could find something for you…. Well, I’ll let you know in a few days’ time, shall I?”
“Will you?” said Jackie. “Thanks very much.”
The next morning she received a thin, tattered part, bound in brown paper, and a letter agreeing to employ her at two pounds ten shillings a week. She was therefore able to get her blow in first with the management of “Little Girl”— which was a very trifling and barely observable revenge — but one giving her enormous satisfaction for all that.
II
And so it was that three weeks later, at eleven o’clock on a grey morning in July, Jackie found herself in the Strand, walking to the theatre for her first rehearsal. In her bag she had a printed rehearsal-call card, as well as her part (which she had intended, but for some reason unknown still neglected to have learnt by heart), and she was very nervous indeed.
There were signs of professional life outside the Old Strand Stage Door (which opened on a spacious side-street) but no signs of participation in theatrical transactions. That is to say, there were several little groups of two or three, standing chatting out on the pavement, or lurking in the doorway; but all appeared perfectly content to remain chatting there, with a complacency which surprised and puzzled Jackie, whose call was for eleven and who was accustomed to the strictest discipline. There was an air of something portentous occurring inside, which did not at present affect those out here.
She therefore walked up and down, or stayed self-consciously still, surveying her new associates, who all appeared to have some acquaintance with each other, and who in turn surveyed her with cold and peering interest (on the part of the women) or grave detachment (on the part of the men).
The women were all much older than herself, and extremely dowdy. This caused Jackie some vexation with respect to her
own coat and skirt, which she had arranged to wear for the first time to-day, and which she knew became her well. Nor did their glances spare her. The men also were all much older than herself, and their glances did not spare her either. In two of the groups there were children; and there was, in fact, a heavy, marital and almost boastfully domestic atmosphere over the greater part of those assembled here, which Jackie found displeasing. She was unable to explain this displeasure. Apart, that is, from a vague feeling that individuals with responsibilities in this world had no business with this kind of tomfoolery, and should not be hanging idly about stage doors at eleven o’clock in the morning. But then she had not as yet consciously and deliberately identified it as tomfoolery….
There were one or two very old men, who talked ponderously and gazed miserably ahead; and there was one old man in an old hat whose hair was white and whose eyebrows were painted thick black. Very crudely and foolishly and naïvely painted black. There was one short young woman of about thirty, who was fairly good-looking, and better dressed, and more aggressive. And there were four or five curious males, who wore rough suits and cow-boy hats, and had an air of familiarity with starvation and lassoes. (“A Man of Steel” was a Western drama.) At one o’clock these would be observed hanging outside Jones’ Restaurant in Leicester Square, conferring either with their own kind or with stout yet waisted gentlemen with abnormally peach-like complexions…. Not all these were to appear in the present show — many having come solely on the chance of seeing Mr. Carters with a view to the future. The rumour, flying like fire down Garrick Street and St. Martin’s Lane, that Reggie, or (as he was sometimes even more colloquially and intimately termed) “Rej,” was taking out a new show, invariably inspired assemblies of this sort. Jackie felt that she was nearing abysses in the theatrical profession.
Mr. Carters came bustling at last, however, with scripts under his arm, and after various waylayings and swift conversations outside, vanished within. And then the rest slowly filtered in after him — Jackie amongst them — down the stone steps and on to the vast, bare, historic stage of the Old Strand, where the curtain was down, and the groups reassembled, and a low running murmur of brooding talk floated echoingly up to the grid. But it was dark, and cosier in here.
III
Jackie once caught the roving eye of Mr. Carters (who looked diplomatically away), but otherwise no notice was taken of her.
There was an old wooden table up against the curtain, and at this there were two chairs upon which Mr. Carters and a pale, hook-nosed young man were seated. There were also one or two chairs placed, with apparent plan, about the stage. The rehearsal began, amidst the mumbling, almost before anyone was aware of it.
The plot of “A Man of Steel” involved eight or nine leading characters in one Saloon scene, and one Ranch scene in Kansas, and it was a simple plot. The characters, also, were simply conceived.
The only character of importance, however, was Jack Lawson (sometimes termed Honest Jack Lawson, which was deserved), who was first the owner of the Lazy Z Ranch, and later a peer of the British Realm, where he had suffered singularly in youth from a false charge of embezzlement. He was a disillusioned man, and his relationships with Sadie Hicks (a saloon dancer of low repute) — with Big Jim Granger (a foreman with a taciturn but honest nature) — with Lady Gwendolyn Power (an English Rose) — with Two-Gun MacFerran (an outlaw from Western society, upon which he revenged himself with curses, Indian-flogging and revolvers) — with the Hon. John Power (a gentleman who had the monocle, moustache, and a gait of an embezzler, and was one) — with Mr. Hardbite (a lawyer and inheritance-announcer) — and with The Boys (a crowd which hardly ever opened its mouth except to cheer its Boss) — need not be described. It is enough to say that these relationships would have broken any other man of steel, but could not break this one.
Jackie’s part, which was that of Lady Joan Hope (the English Rose’s dearest woman friend), ran to three pages:
1
Lady Joan Hope
Act II. Scene II.
……and I’m going to do it now!
(ENTERS with others. Stands R.)
……if it is n’t Joan!
Why, Jack, how long is it since I saw you last?
(Takes Jack’s hand)
……a little girl in short frocks.
Well, you haven’t changed. You’re just the same
as ever.
……and both of us were sent to bed.
And that was all your fault, Jack, and you know it. Always up to mischief. Always in boyish scrapes. And what memory you have, to be sure.
……and nothing when we got there.
(Laughs)
……and perhaps he won’t!
(Follows others out)
……don’t want a row just now.
(ENTERS)
……if you’ll pardon me, ma’am.
I’m afraid that I don’t quite understand what you mean.
2
(Exits haughtily.)
…… never try it on again, I assure you.
(ENTERS chatting with others)
…… And I too!
And I too!
…… is in the hands of the gods.
(Exits)
…… and let me think. Let me think.
(Lawson goes out. Pause. Enters softly R.)
Why, Gwen? You still here?
…… that would be funny, wouldn’t it?
But—
…… and it’ll be my last!
You poor, poor thing! (Kisses her) Now, Gwen, you‘re coming straight along with me, and I’ll put you to bed. And you’re not to think about it again until tomorrow. Come along.
…… have said it, unless it were true.
(Thoughtfully) Isn’t that a little unfair to Jack?
…… but never means it.
(Pause. Walks up R.) Not always, Gwen, surely.
…… never, never, never!
Now, will you come along. (Takes her arm)
Please, Gwen. (Leads her out)
3
Act III. Scene II
…… the last, my God, the last!
(Runs on excitedly with others)
…… for ever and ever Amen.
Amen.
This, to Jackie, was at once simple and obscure. She trusted that she would be able to endow it with life, and give a satisfactory rendering of character.
IV
The rehearsal began very quietly, with a burly gentleman putting his foot upon a chair, adjusting his pince-nez, leaning over to look at his part, and commencing a conversation, first by Reckoning that his companion was just about Right, and then by endorsing categorically every one of his own and his companion’s previous statements. This he did with the utmost innocence, but the utmost thoroughness, establishing his disinterest by naming his drinks, lighting a cigarette, and similar airy business. It was very lucky to have caught him at such a moment, for he explained a great deal.
He was soon out of the way, however, never again to return, and the rehearsal continued quietly until twelve o’clock, when Jackie made her appearance. There was little production. The hook-nosed young man, with his eyes glued to the script, occasionally edged forward to explain positions and interpret difficulties in an amiable way; and Mr. Carters — strolling ruminatively about and having odd little chats with his employees (who all attempted to catch him) — himself made occasional suggestions, which were treated with great deference, and gave final judgments in appeals. And this was all there was of production. Mr. Carters was alluded to, in general, as the “Guv’nor.”
Jackie had become very tired from standing all this time, and she had at last ventured to seat herself upon a property chest. She was beginning to wonder whether she would be called upon to perform this morning, and if not, why she had been brought here, when the hook-nosed young man, with his eyes still glued to the script, sidled over to her and advised her to Stand By. This, he said, was where she came on.
Whereat J
ackie rose, with her heart pounding of its own accord, like some steady and intelligent instrument, and stood at the edge of a group of three, which also appeared to be about to perform. Unhappily, though, at this point the last five pages were taken again (“Better have that once more‚” said Mr. Carters), and ten minutes passed before they were back again at the same place. She then very cleverly recognized her cue, which was given by Mr. Derek Anderson, a handsome if somewhat portly gentleman who impersonated Honest Jack. She moved forward with the other three, and gazed at her part in horrified concentration and complete suspension of her reasoning powers. She heard voices about her, she was aware of Mr. Carters looking at her, but she was otherwise without consciousness….
She was then aware of a silence that in some mystic, swift, and hideous way was surrounding and bearing in upon herself.
“Miss Mortimer?” said the hook-nosed young man.
“Yes?” said Jackie, looking first at the hook-nosed young man, and then at Mr. Anderson.
“Why, and God bless my soul,” said Mr. Anderson, strongly but mechanically (for he was repeating himself), “if it isn’t Joan!”
“Oh,” said Jackie. “Sorry. Er ——” There was a pause.
“Why, and God bless my soul,” said Mr. Anderson, “if it isn’t Joan!”
He held his hand out with great cordiality, and Jackie, swiftly removing her part from her right hand to her left, accepted it. She was now, however, unable to see her part.
“Why, and God bless my soul,” said Mr. Anderson, “if it is n’t Joan!”
“Sorry,” said Jackie, and he freed her hand. “Why, Jack,” added the wretched girl, in a very feeble, indeed in a barely audible tone, “how long is it since I saw you last?” She blushed.
“How long?” cried Mr. Anderson with renewed gusto. “Why ——” But here Mr. Carters cut in.
“Speak up there, dear,” said Mr. Carters. “Don’t be afraid to speak up.”
“No,” said Jackie….
There was a silence.
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