‘And in Mr Smee,’ she said, ‘I see the makings of a fine Friar Lawrence!’
‘How’s that?’
‘With a few choice concetti.’
‘Faith!’
‘I see the lonely cell, the chianti-flask, the crucifix …’
‘Gosh!’
‘I see Verona … the torrid sky … the town ascending, up, up, up. I hear the panting nurse. She knocks. Your priest’s eyes glisten. She enters, blouse-a-gape – a thorough coster. You raise your cowl … Chianti? She shakes her head. Benedictine? No! no! A little Chartreuse, then? Certainly not! Nothing … You squeeze her waist. Her cries “go through” Lady Capulet and her daughter in the distant city on their way to mass. Romeo enters. So!’ Mrs Sixsmith broke off as Mr Weathercock and a curly-headed lad, followed by a swathed woman and a whey-faced child, showed themselves upon the stairs.
Mrs Sixsmith sought Miss Sinquier’s arm.
‘Listen to me, my darling!’ she said.
‘Well?’
‘Write.’
‘What?’
‘Write.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I fear we intrude.’
‘Intrude?’ Harold Weathercock exclaimed, coming up. ‘I assure you it’s a treat …’
Mrs Sixsmith threw a sidelong, intriguing glance across her shoulder.
‘Who’s the cure in plaits?’ she demanded.
‘It’s Little Mary Mant – she’s seeing her sister home.’
‘Oh! … Is that Ita?’ Mrs Sixsmith murmured, stepping forward to embrace Miss ‘Ita Iris’ of the Dream.
Miss Sinquier swooped.
‘I’m having a season,’ she, without further preamble, began. ‘And I want to persuade you to join—’
‘Principal?’
‘Yes.’
‘I should like to play for you,’ Mr Weathercock said.
‘Harold!’
Miss Mant addressed him softly.
‘Well?’
‘Honey husband …’
‘Hook it!’
‘Give me a cigarette.’
‘Mary!’ her sister called.
‘Quick! ’cos of Ita.’
‘Mary Mant.’
Miss Mant tossed disdainfully an ultra-large and pasty-faced head.
‘Why must you insult me, Ita?’ she bitterly asked. ‘You know I’m Miss Iris.’
‘I know you’re Miss Mant.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘I tell you, you are!’
‘Liar!’
‘M-A-N-T!’
‘Oh, stow it,’ Mr Smee said. ‘Put it by.’
‘I’m Réné Iris.’
‘Réné Rats.’
Mrs Sixsmith looked detached.
‘Is that a wash-tub?’ she asked.
‘Certainly.’
‘What’s that odd thing floating, like the ghost of a child unborn?’
‘It belongs to Mrs Mary.’
‘There’s a rumour – she refuses a fortune to show herself in Revue.’
‘With her hearse-horse tread …’
‘Sh— Harold worships her.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘He sees things in her that we don’t, perhaps.’
‘To some ideas,’ Mrs Sixsmith said, ‘I suppose she’s very blooming still …’
‘If it wasn’t for her figure, which is really a disgrace.’
Miss Iris smiled.
She had a tired mouth, contrasting vividly with the artificial freshness of her teeth.
‘When I reach my zenith,’ she declared, ‘it’s Farewell.’
‘Shall you assist at poor Esmé Fisher’s?’
‘A couple of songs – that’s all.’
Mrs Sixsmith looked away.
‘Naturally,’ Miss Sinquier was saying, ‘one can’t expect instantly to be a draw. More than – perhaps – just a little!’
‘With a man who understands in the Box Office …’
‘Some one with a big nose and a strong will, eh?’
Mr Nice lifted a rusty iron and wiped it across his leg.
‘In my opinion,’ he said, ‘to associate oneself with a sanctified classic is a huge mistake. And why start a season on the tragic tack?’
‘Because—’
‘Suppose it’s a frost?’
‘Oh!’
‘Suppose your venture fails. Suppose the thing’s a drizzle.’
‘What then?’
‘There’s a light comedy of mine that should suit you.’
‘Of yours!’
‘Appelled Sweet Maggie Maguire.’
‘Tell me why she was sweet, Mr Nice,’ Mrs Sixsmith begged.
‘Why she was sweet? I really don’t know.’
‘Was she sentimental? …’
‘She was an invalid. A bed-ridden beauty … and, of course, the hero’s a Doctor.’
‘Oh! my word!’
‘Is there anyone at home?’ A tired voice came thrilling up from below.
‘Who comes?’
Mrs Sixsmith started.
‘It sounds to me like my husband,’ she said, with an involuntary nervous movement of the hands.
‘I forgot,’ Mr Weathercock said. ‘He mentioned he might blow in.’
‘Oh!’
‘I’d take to my heels!’ Miss Iris advised.
Mrs Sixsmith stood transfixed.
The moonlight fell full on her, making her features look drawn and haggard.
XI
Like wildfire the rumour ran. The King had knighted – he had knighted – by what accident? – Mr Mary, in lieu of Mr Fisher, at Mr Fisher’s own farewell. In the annals of the stage such an occurrence was unheard of, unique.
The excitement in the green-room was intense.
‘M-m! He is not de first to zell ’is birs-r-rite for a mess of porridge!’ Yvonde Yalta, the playgoers’ darling, remarked as she poised with an extravagant play of arms, a black glittering bandeau on her short flaxen hair.
‘A mess of pottage!’ some one near her said.
‘You correct me? Ah, sanx! I am so grateful, so – so grateful,’ the charming creature murmured as she sailed away.
From the auditorium came a suppressed titter.
The curtain had risen some few minutes since on Mlle Fanfette and Monsieur Coquelet de Chaussepierre of the Théâtre Sans Rancune in the comedietta, Sydney, or There’s No Resisting Him.
‘It’s extraordinary I’ve never seen a man knighted,’ a show-girl twittered, ‘and I’ve seen a good deal …’
‘How do they do them?’
‘Like this,’ a sparkling brunette answered, bestowing a sly pat on the interlocutress with the back of a brush.
‘Of all the common—!’
‘Ladies! Ladies!’
‘Who was in front at the time?’
‘I was!’ Mrs Sixsmith said, who had just peeped in to exchange a few words with her friend.
‘You were?’
‘I was selling sweets in the vestibule and saw it all. Really! If I live to be an old woman I shan’t forget it. Mr Mary – Sir Maurice – was in the lobby chatting with Sylvester Fry of the Dispatch, when the Royal party arrived. The King instantly noticed him and sent one of his suite, quite unpremeditatedly, it seemed, to summon him, and in a trice … Oh! … and I never saw the Queen look so charming. She has a gold dress turning to white through the most exquisite gradations …’
Mrs Sixsmith was overcome.
‘A-wheel,’ Miss Sinquier’s dresser disrespectfully said, ‘how was the poor man to tell? Both the blighters – God forgive me – are equally on their last legs.’
Miss Sinquier shivered.
‘Is it a good house?’ she inquired.
‘Splendid! Outside they’re flying five “full” boards … There’s not a single vacant place. Poor Sydney Iphis gave half a guinea for a seat in the slips.’
‘Are you here all alone?’
‘I�
��m with Sir Oliver Dawtry,’ Mrs Sixsmith replied, ‘except when I’m running about! … Can I sell anyone anything?’ she inquired, raising sonorously her voice. ‘Vanilla! Caramel! Chocolate! … Comfits!’ she warbled.
‘What have you netted?’
‘Eighteenpence only, so far; – from such an angel!’
‘Comfits, did you say?’ a round-faced, piquant little woman asked.
‘Despite disguise! If it isn’t Arthurine Smee!’
The actress displayed astonishment.
Nature had thrown up upon her lip and cheek two big blonde moles that procured for her physiognomy, somehow or other, an unusual degree of expression.
‘My husband has been waiting to hear from you,’ she said, ‘as agent to this Miss Sin—, the new star with the naughty name, and from all I could make out I understand it would be likely to be a Double Engagement.’
‘This is Miss Sinquier,’ Mrs Sixsmith exclaimed.
Miss Sinquier blinked.
‘Have you done it much?’ she asked.
‘Often.’
‘Where?’
‘Everywhere.’
‘For example?’
‘I may say I’ve played Pauline and Portia and Puck …’
‘Mother-to-Juliet I fear’s the best I’ve to offer.’
Mrs Smee consulted enigmatically the nearest mole in reach of her tongue.
‘Were I to play her in “good preservation”, ’ she inquired, ‘I suppose there’d be no objection?’
‘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.
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