Lord Loveland Discovers America Part 37

There were not nearly enough local stage hands employed in the theatre, and acting was not the only work the actors had to do. They helped place the scenery, and change the settings; they flew about like distracted demons, half dressed, with suspenders flying, turning a burglar's den into a millionaire's drawing-room; and between the bewildering alterations of scene, there was no rest for the sole of anyone's foot.

How they ever got themselves out of one costume into another in time, how they ever remembered which of their many doublings came first, which last, Loveland could not conceive; but, standing in the wings waiting for his own dreaded turn, he was filled with an increasing respect for the barn-stormers, male and female. They could act, too, most of them, which seemed to him the strangest part of all, for he had not expected to find the satellites of Bill's little Star twinkling with the light of talent. As for his own performance, he realised before it had begun that such histrionic efforts as had won him applause when an amateur in London would not be good enough to gain him admiration as a professional in Modunk. It was another thing when, as a handsome young soldier, Lord Loveland had swaggered easily about the stage, pleased with himself and pleasing everyone else, because everyone had come with the intention of being pleased.

Here, in remote little Modunk, the audience was evidently far more critical, and if it didn't like what it saw, it said so audibly with a voice from the cheap seats, or at least indulged in a prolonged fit of bored coughing. If Loveland could have gone on "as himself," as Jacobus had said, he might have captured the fancy of the girls; but as old Dave Dreadnought in a wild wig, and moth-eaten beard lent by "Pa" Winter, the new addition to the company could conquer the audience only by sheer force of acting.

Fortunately for Loveland, he was not obliged to walk onto the stage in answer to a cue, or it seemed to him that he could not have moved. It was bad enough to be "discovered," in the act of being murdered; and as the moment came when he would have to make his first speech, his blood was beating like a drum in his temples. His throat felt dry, and when his cue to speak was given by Jacobus with meaning emphasis, he could only swallow, and glare. Not a word of the carefully rehea.r.s.ed part could he remember, and involuntarily looking out in front (a thing Ed Binney had warned him not to do) it seemed as if the rows of faces down below the yellow footlights were leaping up at him like a wave.

If he had seen the mocking grins or heard the t.i.tters which his morbid fears and exaggerated sensitiveness led him to expect, he would have collapsed into gasping helplessness, and died without giving the famous curse on which the rest of the play depended. But to his intense, almost agonising relief, the eyes staring up at him were eager, excited. The people were taking him in earnest! They were not laughing at him. He had power over them; and suddenly he felt able to make use of it.

Just as Jacobus bent over him, frantically glaring, ready to prompt and swear at the same time, Loveland's frozen hesitation melted into words and gestures, the right words, the right gestures. Jacobus sighed a great sigh of thanksgiving, and Val delivered his curse with a transport of zeal. He was half frightened at his own explosiveness, but the audience enjoyed it, and when the curtain went down upon his death there was a round of applause from the audience.

"They liked it all right," said Miss Moon.

"Are they doing that for me?" Loveland asked, incredulously.

"Why, of course," she replied. "You were the star of the scene."

"It would have to be a mighty rotten Dave not to get a few hands on his curse," said Jacobus. "Never saw one yet bad enough for that. It's the scene, not the actor, they clap."

But even this cold douche did not depress Loveland. Though dead as Dave, it was his business to rise again in the third act as a young man of fas.h.i.+on--a youthful b.u.t.terfly from an ancient chrysalis--and drunk with the sweet draught of triumph, he made the change gaily, as happy for the moment as if he were playing before an audience of kings and queens.

He had dressed, and was lurking in the wings again, watching with some interest the arrest of the leading man for his (Loveland's) murder, on false evidence snakily given by Ed Binney, when Miss de Lisle flitted noiselessly up, very insufficiently disguised as a boy.

"I suppose you _do_ remember that you're a young English Lord?" she whispered, anxiously.

Loveland started, and stared. Had she found him out?

"In your next scene," she explained.

"Oh," said Loveland, relieved. "Am I--er--a lord?"

"Yes. Didn't Jacobus tell you? But perhaps he thought it didn't matter."

"It doesn't seem to," retorted Val, smiling faintly at his own hidden meaning.

"You're supposed to be the son of the Duke of Highgate. Pa Winter's the Duke, you know. Of course, though, you haven't seen the whole play yet--only your own scenes, so you can't keep track of everything. You only have to walk on; or rather _waltz_ on with Miss Moon, you know; and when she goes off, and I come on in girl's clothes again, you must say, "The next is mine, I believe," with an English drawl. But the part's down on the program as 'Lord William Vane.'"

"By Jove, I know w.i.l.l.y Vane. He's in the Black Wa----" began Loveland, but he bit his lip and broke off abruptly.

The Human Flower laughed. "I don't suppose _your_ friend's a lord, though!"

Loveland did not reply, as the choice lay between a fib and an affirmative.

"You ought to know how lords behave, more than any of us," went on the girl, "as you're an Englishman. I suppose you've seen some?"

"Yes, a few," said Val cautiously.

"Did you ever get a chance to speak to one?"

"Now and then."

"Were they very haughty?"

"Not all of them."

"Well, as you've seen them you'll know just how to act, and you _look_ real swell. This is an exciting play, ain't it? And my! how it does makes us all work. This is my only quiet time, and I guess you're tired.

Perhaps you'd rather watch Jack Jacobus's big scene than talk to me? I have to go on, anyhow, in about four minutes."

"I'd rather talk to you than watch, if you'll let me," said Val.

"Well, as long as you don't make yourself too interesting, so I miss my cue! J. J. will be cross if he sees us whispering here, but he's too taken up with himself and his wife in this scene to notice much."

"That's lucky, because I have a message for you from an old friend of yours, that I've been wanting to tell you all day," Loveland began hastily, not to waste one of the four minutes. "I wonder if you remember him? Bill Willing?"

"Bill Willing!--a friend of _yours_?" the girl spoke sharply, in her surprise.

"Then you haven't forgotten him."

"Forgotten him? I never will, to my dying day."

Her voice quivered a little, for, like most actresses of her type, her emotions were as easily played upon as harp-strings.

"Those are almost the words he used about you," said Loveland, interested in Lillie's part of the broken love melody, as he had been in Bill's. "Only--his were stronger."

"What were they--exactly?"

"Shall I tell you, really?"

"Yes, quick--quick."

"He said he always _had_ loved you, and always would love you till his dying day."

"Oh!" Lillie de Lisle gulped down a small sob. "I thought he'd forgotten all about me--long, long ago. He never wrote."

"No. He told me he didn't dare, or something like that, but he couldn't resist sending a message by me."

"If you _knew_ what it is to me to hear from him again! How in the world did you meet him?"

But that was a long story, and before Loveland could begin to sketch it, the Human Flower heard her cue. With professional instinct she darted out of the entrance on to the stage, and took up her part, as if she had thought of nothing else since she laid it down.

It was not until the end of the third act that there was the smallest chance to continue the talk so suddenly broken short. Loveland had to change back again into the beard, wig, and bloodstained clothes of murdered Dave Dreadnought in order to appear as a ghost, and wave his Dead Hand under the remorseful villain's nose. But this act of retribution was reserved for the end of the play; therefore, encouraged by Lillie, Val stood half concealed in the shadow of some disused scenery, talking of Bill to Bill's Star.

He told her of Bill's dog, Shakespeare, the tiny creature "who made up a bit for the lost 'little gal.'" He told her how Bill generally contrived to put aside a dime each week, to buy a stage paper, solely in the hope of finding news of her. He described Bill's delight at hearing that she had become a "Star," with her own company, and explained how it was by Bill's wish and advice that he had written to ask for his present engagement.

"If only it _was_ my company, really," sighed the poor little Star, "wouldn't I just send for Bill to come out? But I haven't got any more say than the property man, and J. J. used to hate Bill, because--because he was jealous. You see, that was before Jacobus married. Oh, since you're a friend of Bill's and he told you he cared about me, I can talk to you as if I'd known you for ever. If Bill had asked me to marry him, I would, in a minute. But he never did. I wasn't sure he ever really cared, till what you said tonight. He was the best man I ever knew."

"I'm not sure he isn't the best I ever knew, too," said Loveland.