A Mummer's Wife Part 37

'My opera?' he said, as soon as she averted the brown eyes that burnt into his soul. 'It's all finished. It's ready to put on the stage when d.i.c.k likes.'

The ruse proved successful, for Mr. c.o.x, bending forward, said in an interested voice:

'May I ask what is the subject of your opera, Mr. Montgomery?'

This was charming, and the musician at once proceeded to enter into a complicated explanation, in which frequent allusion was made to a king, a band of conspirators, a neighbouring prince, a beautiful daughter unfortunately in love with a shepherd, and a treacherous minister. Beaumont listened wearily, and, seeing that no mention she could make of her singing would avail her, she commenced to fidget abstractedly with one of her big diamond earrings. In the meanwhile Montgomery's difficulties were increasing. To follow successfully the somewhat intricate story of king, conspirators, and amorous shepherd a sustained effort of attention was necessary, and this d.i.c.k, Kate, and Mr. c.o.x found it difficult to grant; for in the middle of a somewhat involved bit--in which it was not quite clear whether the king or the minister had entered disguised--the landlady would beg to be excused--if they would just make a little way, so that she might remove the soup.

This lady, in her Sunday cap, a.s.sisted by the maid-of-all-work, from whose canvas-grained hands soap and water had not been able to extract the dirt, strove to lift large dishes of food over the heads of the company. There was a sirloin of beef that had to be placed before Mortimer. Then came two pairs of chickens, the carving of which d.i.c.k had taken upon himself. A piece of bacon with cabbage, and a pigeon-pie, adorned the sides of the table. The cutlets were handed round; and for some time conversation gave way to the more necessary occupation of eating. Even Bret and Leslie left off billing and cooing; the grandson of the baronet, forgetful of his family's misfortunes on the turf, dug vigorously into the pigeon-pie and liberally distributed it. The clattering of knives and forks swelled into a sustained sound, which was only broken by observations such as 'Thanks, Mr.

Lennox, anything that's handy--a leg, if you please.' 'May I ask you, Montgomery, for a slice of bacon? No cabbage, thank you.' 'Mr. Mortimer, a little more and some gravy; that'll do nicely.'

It was not until the first helping had been put away, and eyes began to wander in search of what would be best to go on with, that conversation was resumed. To Mortimer, who had had a good deal of trouble with the beef, d.i.c.k said, 'I hope you are satisfied with your part, Mortimer, and that we shall have some good roars. The piece ought to go with a scream.'

'I think I shall knock 'em this time, old boy,' said the comic man, drawling his words slowly through his nose. 'It pretty well killed me when I read it over to myself, so I don't know what it will be when I spit it out at them.'

This was deemed unnecessarily coa.r.s.e, and for a moment it was feared that Mortimer was as drunk as Mr. Hayes, whose eyes were now beginning to blink pathetically. He awoke up, however, with a start and a smile when the first champagne cork went off, and holding out his gla.s.s, said, 'Shall be very glad to drink your health, a wedding only comes once in a lifetime.'

Mortimer tried to turn the embarra.s.sing pause that followed this remark to his profit. The beef having kept him silent during the early part of the dinner, he resolved now to prove what a humorist he was, and by raising his voice he strove to attract the attention of the company to himself. This, however, was not easily done. Dubois had begun to pinch the backside of the canvas-handed maid, who was lifting a plate of custards over his head; but these frivolities did not prevent him from discussing Carlyle's place in English literature with the baronet's son on his left, and arguing from time to time with Montgomery on his right against certain effects employed by Wagner in his orchestration. Kate laid down her spoon and stared vaguely into s.p.a.ce and again laid her hand on d.i.c.k's.

The past seemed now to be completely blotted out. What more could she desire? She would go on acting, and d.i.c.k would continue to love her. By some special interposition of Providence all the hazards of existence over which she might have fallen had been swept aside. What broader road could a woman hope to walk in than the one that lay before her in all its clear and bland serenity? G.o.d had been good to her! and He was going to be good to her. What a tie the child would be, what an influence, what a source of future happiness! They would work for their child; a boy or girl, which?

Would it not give them courage to work? Would it not give them strength to live? It would be something to hope for. Oh, how good G.o.d had been to her; and how wicked she had been to Him! Her heart filled with a fervour of faith she had never felt before; and facing the gracious future which a child and husband promised her, she offered up thanksgivings for her happiness, which she accepted as eternal, so inherent did it seem in herself.

'Oh, just look at him!' said Kate, waking up with a start from her reveries. 'How can he make such a beast of himself?'

'Don't take any notice of him, dear; that's the best way.'

But Mortimer, who had been vainly struggling for the last five minutes to draw Beaumont from the memory of a lord, Dubois from his Wagnerian argument, and Bret and Leslie from their flirtation, now seized on poor Hayes's drunkenness as a net wherein he could capture everybody. Raising his voice so as to ensure silence, he said, addressing himself to Mr. c.o.x at the other end of the table, 'How very affecting he is now, how severely natural; the innocence of a young girl in her teens is not, to my mind, nearly so touching as that of a boozer in his cups. Have you ever heard how he fancied the waiter was calling him in the morning when the policeman was hauling him off to the station?'

Mr. c.o.x had not heard; and the whole story of how they b.u.mped in the hotel door at Derby had to be gone through. Having thus got the company by the ear, Mortimer showed for a long time no signs of letting them go. He went straight through his whole repertoire. He told of a man who wanted to post a letter, but not being able to find the letterbox, he applied to a policeman. The bobby showed him something red in the distance, and explained that that was the post. 'Keep the red in your eye, my boy,' said the drunkard; and this he did until he found himself in a public-house trying to force his letter down a soldier's collar. He had mistaken the red coat for the pillar. This was followed by a story of a man who apologized to the trees in St. James's Park, and explained to them that he had come from a little bachelor's party, until he at last sat down saying, 'This is no good; I mus-mush wait till the b.l.o.o.d.y pro-prochession has pa.s.sed.' A heavy digestive indifference to everything was written on each countenance; and in the slanting rays of the setting sun the curling smoke vapours a.s.sumed the bluest tints. Odours of spirits trailed along the tablecloth.

Disconnected fragments of conversation, heard against the uninterrupted murmur of Mortimer's story-telling, struck the ear. The baronet's son was now explaining to his three ladies that no woman could expect to get on in life unless she were very immoral or very rich; Dubois argued across the table with Leslie and Bret concerning the production of the voice: Beaumont cast luminous and provoking glances at Mr. c.o.x, and tried to engage him in conversation regarding the inartistic methods of most stage-managers in arranging the processions.

'd.i.c.k, dear, the cake hasn't yet been cut.'

'No more it hasn't,' d.i.c.k answered, and when the white-sugared emblem of love and fidelity was distributed, the wedding party awoke to a burst of enthusiasm. Everyone suggested something, and much whisky and water was spilt on the tablecloth.

But matters, although they were advanced a stage, did not seem to be much expedited. The bride's health had to be drunk, and d.i.c.k had to return thanks. He did not say very much, but his remarks concerning _Olivette_ suggested a good deal of comment. Mortimer took a different view of the question, and Dubois explained at length how the piece had been done in France. Leslie insisted that Bret should say something; and once on his legs, to the surprise of everybody, the silent tenor became surprisingly garrulous.

It was Kate, however, who first guessed the reason of Montgomery's despondency, and in pity for him, she made a sign to the ladies, and the room was left to the flat chests and tweed coats. Montgomery prayed that this after-dinner interval would not prove a long one, for he dreaded the s.m.u.tty stories. The baronet's son sprang off with a clear lead, watched by Mortimer and Dubois. In the way of anecdotes these two would have been rivals had it not been for the latter's fancy for more serious discussions.

Still, in the invention and collection of the most atrocious, they both employed the energy and patience of the entomologist. A chance word, out of which a racy story might be extracted, was pursued like a rare moth or a b.u.t.terfly. Dubois's were more subtle, but Mortimer's, being more to the point, were more generally effective.

They waited eagerly for the baronet's son to conclude, and he had hardly p.r.o.nounced the last phrase when Mortimer, coming with a rush, took the lead with 'That reminds me of--' Dubois looked discomfited, and settled himself down to waiting for another chance. This, however, did not come just at once; Mortimer told six stories, each nastier than the last. Everybody was in roars except Montgomery and Dubois; whilst one thought of his opera, the other searched his memory for something that would out-Mortimer Mortimer.

This was difficult, but when his turn came he surprised the company. Mr.

c.o.x leaned over the table with a gla.s.s of whisky and water in his hand declaring that he had never spent so pleasant a day in his life: and thus encouraged Dubois was just beginning to launch out into the intricacies of a fresh tale when Montgomery, beside himself with despair, said to d.i.c.k:

'It was arranged that I should play the music of my new opera over to Mr.

c.o.x. If you don't put a stop to this it will go on for ever.'

'Yes, my boy, it's getting a bit long, isn't it: just let Dubois finish and we'll go upstairs.'

The story proved a weary one; but like a long railway journey it at last drew to an end, and they went upstairs. There they found the ladies yawning and looking at the presents. Kate ran to d.i.c.k to ask him to arrange about the music, but Beaumont had been a little before her and had taken Mr. c.o.x out on the balcony. Bret was not in the room; Leslie did not know the music, and in the face of so many difficulties, d.i.c.k's attention soon began to wander, and Kate was left to console the disappointed musician. Once or twice she attempted to renew the subject, but was told that they were all going down to the theatre in half an hour, and that it had better be put off to another time.

Montgomery made no answer, but he could not cast off the bitter and malignant thought that haunted him, 'I'm as unfortunate in art as in love.'

XX

The ebb of the company's prosperity dated from Kate's marriage. Somehow things did not seem to go well after. In the first place the production of _Olivette_ was not a success. Mortimer was drunk, did not know his words, and went 'fluffing all over the shop.' Kate, excited with champagne and compliments, sang the wrong music on one occasion; and to complete their misfortunes, the Liverpool public did not in the least tumble to Miss Beaumont's rendering of the part of the heroine. The gallery thought she was too fat, the papers said she was not sprightly enough, and on Wednesday night the old _Cloches_ had to be put up. By this failure the management sustained a heavy loss. They had laid out a lot of money on dresses, property and scenery, all of which were now useless to them; and the other two operas were beginning to droop and lose their drawing power, having been on the road for the last three years. The country, too, was suffering from a great commercial crisis, and no one cared to go to the theatre. In many of the towns they visited strikes were on, and the people were convulsed with discussions, projects for resistance, and hopes of bettering their condition. Great social problems, the tyranny of capital, and such-like, occupied the minds of men, and there was naturally little taste for the laughing nonchalance of _La Fille de Madame Angot_ or the fooling of the Baillie in the _Cloches_. As forty thousand men had struck work, our band of travelling actors rolled out of Leeds, and they left it bearing with them only a reminiscence of empty benches, and street-corners crowded with idling, sullen-faced men. At Newcastle they were not more fortunate, at Wigan they fared even worse, and at Hull it was equally bad. Gaiety seemed to have fled out of the North; the public-house and the platform drew away the pit and the gallery; the frequenters of the boxes and dress-circle remained at home, to talk around their firesides of their jeopardized fortunes. When the workers grow weary of work a hard time sets in for the sellers of amus.e.m.e.nt, and the fate of Morton and c.o.x's Operatic Company proved no exception to the rule. Money was made nowhere, and every Friday night a cheque for five-and-twenty pounds had to be sent down from London to make up the deficit in the salary list. Nevertheless for two months matters went on very smoothly. The remembrance of large profits made in preceding years was still fresh in the minds of Messrs.

Morton and c.o.x, and they had not yet begun to grumble; but an unintermittent drain of twenty-five to forty pounds a week keeps a man from his sleep at night, and after a big failure in the city, in which Mr. c.o.x was muleted to the extent of a couple of thousand pounds, he wrote to d.i.c.k suggesting that he had better look out for another opera. This was welcome news to Montgomery; but no sooner had d.i.c.k raised him to the seventh heaven of bliss, than he had to knock him down to earth again: a letter arrived from Mr. c.o.x, saying that no opera was to be put up; that it would be useless to try anything new in such bad times; they had better try to reduce expenses instead.

'Reduce expenses? How are we to reduce expenses except by cutting down the salaries?'

'I'm sure I don't know,' said Montgomery; 'and the expense of mounting my piece would be very slight.'

Without attempting to discuss so vain a question, d.i.c.k said, 'I must speak to Hayes.'

But Hayes only pulled his silky whiskers, blinked his Chinese eyes, drank three gla.s.ses of whisky, and changed the position of his black bag several times, and the matter was scarcely alluded to again until the following fortnight, when d.i.c.k found himself forced to write to Mr. c.o.x demanding a cheque for thirty-five pounds, to meet Sat.u.r.day's treasury and the current expenses of the following week. The cheque arrived, but the letter that came with it read very ominously indeed. It read as follows:

'DEAR MR. LENNOX,--I enclose you the required amount; but of course you will understand that this cannot go on. I intend running down to see you on Tuesday evening. Will you have the company a.s.sembled to meet me at the theatre, as I have an important explanation to make to them.'

d.i.c.k had too much experience in theatrical speculations not to know that this must mean either a reduction of salaries or a break-up of the tour; but as two whole days still stood between him and the evil hour, it did not occur to him to give the matter another thought, and it was not until they returned home after the theatre, to prepare for the Sunday journey, that he spoke to Kate of the letter he had received.

Their portmanteaus were spread out before them, and Kate was counting her petticoats when d.i.c.k said:

'I'll tell you what, Kate, I shouldn't be surprised if the company broke up shortly, and we all found ourselves obliged to look out for new berths.'

'What do you mean?' she said, with a startled look on her face.

'Well, only that I think that Morton and c.o.x are beginning to get tired of losing money. As you know, we've been doing very bad business lately, and I think they'll give us all the sack.'

'Give us all the sack!' Kate repeated.

'Yes,' said d.i.c.k, pursuing his own reflections 'I'm afraid it's so. It's a deuced bore, for we were very pleasant together. But I don't think I showed you the letter I got this morning. What's the matter, dear?'

Pale as the petticoat at her feet, Kate stood with raised eyebrows and hands that twitched at the folds of her dress.

'Oh, d.i.c.k! what shall we do? We shall starve; we shan't have any place to go to!'

'Starve!' said d.i.c.k in astonishment. 'Not if I know it. We shall easily find something else to do. Besides, I don't care if he does break up the tour. I believe there's a good bit of coin to be made out of the pier theatre at Blackpool. I've been thinking of it for some time--with a good entertainment, you know; and then there's the drama Harding did for me--a version of Wilkie Collins's story--_The Yellow Mask_--devilish good it is, too. I was reading it the other day. We might take a company out with it. Let me see, whom could we get to play in it?' And, sitting over his portmanteau, the actor proceeded to cast the piece, commenting as he went along on the qualifications of the artists, and giving verbal sketches of the characters in the play. 'Beaumont would play Virginie first rate, you know--a strong, determined, wicked woman, who stops at nothing. I'd like to play the father; Mortimer would be very funny as the uncle. We'll have to write in something for you. You couldn't take the sympathetic little girl yet; you haven't had enough experience.'

The expenses of scenery, properties, and posting were gone into, and while listening to the different estimates Kate looked at her husband vaguely, and plunged in a sort of painful wonderment, asking herself how standing on the brink of ruin he could calmly make plans for the future. But to the actor, whose life had never run for a year without getting entangled in some difficult knot or other, the present hitch did not give the slightest uneasiness. A strange town to face and half a crown in his pocket might cause him some temporary embarra.s.sment, but a hundred pounds at the bank, and the notoriety of having been for two years the manager of a travelling company, was to d.i.c.k an exceptionally brilliant start in life, and it did not occur to him to doubt that he would hop into another shop as good as the one he had left. But as the woman had been engaged in none of these anxious battles for existence, the news of a threatened break-up of her world fell with a cruel shock upon her, and she experienced in an aggravated form the same dull nervous terror from which she had suffered in the early days when she had first joined the company, but then the full tide of love and prosperity bore their bark along, and quieted her fears.

But now in the first puff of the first squall she saw herself like one wrecked and floating on a spar in a wide and unknown sea of trouble.

Sitting on the bed where she would never sleep again, she watched d.i.c.k counting on his fingers and looking dreamily into the s.p.a.ces of some impossible future, and asked herself what was to become of them. For the twentieth time since she had donned them the robes of the Bohemian fell from her, and she became again in instincts and tastes a middle-cla.s.s woman longing for a home, a fixed and tangible fireside where she might sit in the evening by her husband's side, mending his s.h.i.+rts, after the work of the day. A bitter detestation of her wandering life rose to her head, and she longed to beg of her husband to give up theatricals, and try to find some other employment; and the next day it appeared to her more than usually sinful to drive to the station as the church bells were chiming, spending the hours, that should have been pa.s.sed in praying, in playing 'nap,' smoking cigarettes, and talking of wigs, make-ups, choruses, and such-like. But apparently there was no help for it, and on Monday night, in her excitement, increased by the arrival of Mr. c.o.x, she could not help getting out of bed to beseech G.o.d to be merciful to them; her husband's heavy breathing often interrupted her, but it told her that he was her husband, and that was her only consolation.

It astonished her that he could sleep as he did, having in front of him the terrible to-morrow, when perhaps Mr. c.o.x would cast them adrift; and she trembled in every fibre when she stood on the stairs leading to the manager's room. There was a great crowd: the chorus-girls wedged themselves into a solid ma.s.s, and murmured good-mornings to each other; Mortimer told a long story from the top step; Dubois tried to talk of Balzac to Montgomery, who listened, puzzled and interested, fancying it was a question of a libretto; whilst Bret, till now silent as the dead, suddenly woke up to the conclusion that it would probably all end in a reduction of salaries. At last d.i.c.k appeared and called them into the presence of Mr.