A Mummer's Wife Part 30

'Not a bad idea,' said d.i.c.k. 'Let's get it down.'

'And then,' screamed Montgomery, as he perched both his legs over the arm of his chair, 'she can say, "I mean a great head, Mr. Baillie."'

For a moment d.i.c.k's eyes flashed with the light of admiration, and he seemed to be considering if it were not his duty to advise the conductor that his talents lay in dialogue rather than in music. But his sentiments, whatever they may have been, disappeared in the burst of inspiration he had been waiting for so long.

'We can go through the whole list of heads,' he exclaimed triumphantly.

'Fat head, fine head, broad head, thick head, ma.s.sive head--yes, ma.s.sive head. The Baillie will appear pleased at that, and will repeat the phrase, and then she will say "Dunderhead!" He'll get angry, and she'll run away.

That'll make a splendid exit--she'll exit to a roar.'

d.i.c.k noted down the phrases on a piece of paper, to be pasted afterwards into the script. When this was done, he said:

'My dear, if you don't get a roar with these lines, you can call me a ----.

And when we play the piece at Hull, I shouldn't be surprised if you got noticed in the papers. But you must pluck up courage and check the Baillie.

We must put up a rehearsal to-morrow for these lines. Now listen, Montgomery, and tell me how it reads.'

XV

'Rehearsal to-morrow at twelve for all those in the front scene of the _Cloches_,' cried the stage-door keeper to half-a-dozen girls as they pushed past him.

'Well I never! and I was going out to see the castle and the ramparts of the town,' said one girl.

'I wonder what it's for,' said another; 'it went all right, I thought--didn't you? Did you hear any reason, Mr. Brown?'

'I 'ear there are to be new lines put in,' replied the stage-door keeper, surlily, 'but I don't know. Don't bother me.'

At the mention of the new lines the faces of the girls brightened, but instantly they strove to hide the hope and anxiety the announcement had caused them, and in the silence that followed each tried to think how she could get a word with Mr. Lennox. At length one more enterprising than the rest said:

'I must run back. I've forgotten my handkerchief.'

'You needn't mind your handkerchief, you won't see Mr. Lennox to-night,'

exclaimed Dolly, who always trampled on other people's illusions as readily as she did on her own. 'The lines aren't for you nor me, nor any of us,'

she continued. 'You little silly, can't you guess who they're for? For his girl, of course!'

Murmurs of a.s.sent followed this statement, and, her hands on her hips, Dolly triumphantly faced her auditors.

'It's d.a.m.ned hard, but you can't expect the man to take her out of her linen-drapery for nothing.'

The old stage-door keeper, whose attention had been concentrated on what he was eating out of a jam-pot, now suddenly woke up to the fact that the pa.s.sage was blocked, and that a group of musicians with boxes in their hands were waiting to get through.

'Now, ladies, I must ask you to move on; there're a lot of people behind you.'

'Yes, get on, girls; we're all up a tree this time, and the moral of it is that we haven't yet learnt how to fall in love with the manager. The paper-collar woman has beaten us at our own game.'

A roar of laughter followed this remark, which was heard by everybody, and pus.h.i.+ng the girls before her, Dolly cleared the way.

These girls, whose ambitions in life were first to obtain a line--that is to say, permission to shout, in their red tights, when the low comedian appears on the stage, 'Oh, what a jolly good fellow the Duke is!'--secondly, to be asked out to dinner by somebody they imagine looks like a gentleman, revolted against hearing this paper-collar woman, as they now called her, speak the long-dreamed-of, long-described phrases; and at night they did everything they dared to 'queer' her scene. They crowded round her, mugged, and tried to divert the attention of the house from her.

She had to say, 'Mr. Baillie, you've a fine head.' _Baillie (patting his crown)_: 'Yes, a fine head!' _Kate_: 'A fat head.' _Baillie (indignantly)_: 'A fat head!' _Kate (hurriedly)_: 'I mean a broad head.' _Baillie_: 'Yes, a broad head.' _Kate_: 'A thick head.'

_Baillie (indignantly)_: 'A thick head!' _Kate_: 'No, no; a solid head.' And so on _ad lib._ for ten minutes.

The scene went splendidly. The pit screamed, and the gallery was in convulsions, and in the street next day nothing was heard but ironical references to fat and thick heads. The girls had not succeeded in spoiling the scene, for, encouraged by the applause, Kate had chaffed and mocked at the Baillie so winningly that she at once won the sympathy of the house.

But the following night a tall, sour-faced girl, who wore pads, and with whom Kate had had some words concerning her coa.r.s.e language, hit upon an ingenious device for 'queering the scene!' Her trick was to burst into a roar of laughter just before she had time to say, 'A fat head.' The others soon tumbled to the trick, and in a night or two they worked so well together that Kate grew nervous and she could not speak her lines. This made her feel very miserable; and her stage experience being limited, she ascribed her non-success to her own fault, until one night d.i.c.k rushed on to the stage as soon as the curtain was down, and putting up his arms with a large gesture, he called the company back.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'I've noticed that the front scene in this act has not been going as well as it used to. I don't want anyone to tell me why this is so; the reason is sufficiently obvious, at least to me. I shall expect, therefore, the ladies whom this matter concerns to attend a rehearsal to-morrow at twelve, and if after that I notice what I did tonight, I shall at once dismiss the delinquents from the company. I hope I make myself understood.'

After this explanation, any further interference with Kate's scene was, of course, out of the question, and the verdict of each new town more and more firmly established its success. But if d.i.c.k's presence controlled the girls whilst they were on the stage, his authority did not reach to the dressing-rooms. Kate's particular enemy was Dolly G.o.ddard. Not a night pa.s.sed that this girl did not refer to the divorce cases she had read of in the papers, or pretended to have heard of. Her natural sharp wit enabled her to do this with considerable acidity. 'Never heard such a thing in my life, girls,' she would begin. 'They talk of us, but what we do is child's play compared with the doings of the respectable people. A baker's wife in this blessed town has just run away with the editor of a newspaper, leaving her six little children behind her, one of them being a baby no more than a month old.'

'What will the husband do?'

'Get a divorce.' (Chorus--'He'll get a divorce, of course, of course, of course!')

To this delicate irony no answer was possible, and Kate could only bite her lips, and pretend not to understand. But it was difficult not to turn pale and tremble sometimes, so agonizing were the anecdotes that the active brain of Dolly conjured up concerning the atrocities that pursuing husbands had perpetrated with knife and pistol on the betrayers of their happiness.

And when these scarecrows failed, there were always the stories to fall back upon. A word sufficed to set the whole gang recounting experiences, and comparing notes. A sneer often curled the corners of Kate's lips, but to protest she knew would be only to expose herself to a rude answer, and to appeal to d.i.c.k couldn't fail to excite still further enmity against her.

Besides, what could he do? How could he define what were and what were not proper conversations for the dressing-rooms? But she might ask him to put her to dress with the princ.i.p.als, and this she decided to do one evening when the words used in No. 6 had been more than usually warm.

d.i.c.k made no objection, and with Leslie and Beaumont Kate got on better.

'I'm so glad you've come,' said Leslie, as she bent to allow the dresser to place a wreath of orange-blossom on her head. 'I wonder you didn't think of asking Mr. Lennox to put you with us before.'

'I didn't like to. I was afraid of being in your way,' Kate answered. 'I hope Beaumont won't mind my being here.'

'What matter if she does? Beaumont isn't half a bad sort once you begin to understand her. Just let her talk to you about her diamonds and her men, and it will be all right.'

'But why haven't you been to see me lately? I want you to come out shopping with me one day next week. We shall be at York. I hear there are some good shops there.'

'Yes, there are, and I should have been to see you before, but Frank has just got some new scores from London, and he wanted me to try them over with him. There's one that's just been produced in Paris--the loveliest music you ever heard in all your life. Come up to my place to-morrow and I'll play it over to you. But talking of music, I hear that you're getting on nicely.'

'I think I'm improving; Montgomery comes to practise with me every morning.'

'He's all very well for the piano, but he can't teach you to produce your voice. What does he know? That brat of a boy! I'll tell you what I'll do,'

cried Leslie, suddenly confronting Kate: 'we're going to York next week.

Well, I'll introduce you to a first-rate man. He'd do more with you in six lessons than Montgomery in fifty. And the week after we shall be at Leeds.

I can introduce you to another there.'

'The curtain is just going up, Miss Leslie,' cried the call boy.

'All right,' cried the prima donna, throwing the hare's-foot to the dresser, 'I must be off now. We'll talk of this to-morrow.'

Immediately after the stately figure of Beaumont entered. Putting her black bag down with a thump on the table she exclaimed:

'Good heavens! not dressed yet! My G.o.d! you'll be late.'

'Late for what?' asked Kate in astonishment.