Part 11

"Yes, I am. If I hadn't been on the stage Fred wouldn't have thought I was easy fruit, and I shouldn't have known what he wanted from the start. I went over the line because I knew living with him was all he expected, or I could expect. I don't say I wouldn't rather be married and respectable, but as I couldn't have Fred that way, I've got to put up without it. Marriage and the stage are like oil and vinegar. They don't mix. Look at Mrs. Lambert and her husband. Look at the girls who marry noblemen. Don't they keep the divorce court busy? And you can't do any good on the stage without a man at the back of you. Make up your mind to that. You've got to bury your conscience like a dog does a bone. At first you keep on going back to it to see if it's there, and one day you forget all about it, or you find it's gone. That's the big difference between you and the dog.... So you've come back to this hole, Lexie. Do you think I don't know what you feel about it? You're like Cinderella, only you've been to the funeral of your fairy god-mother. I suppose you'll hold out while your money lasts, and then begin the old fight all over again. But there won't be so much fight left in you. You don't _feel_ like fighting. You don't feel the same. You said so, just now.... Lexie dear, don't think of your old pal Maggy as a she-devil taking you up on top of a mountain and tempting you. But I do want you to make the most of your chances. I honestly believe if you take things as they come you won't be sorry. You're sure to meet some nice man sometime. If he's able to--to keep you, do give in. If you love him you'll want to. And what's the use of giving love the cold shoulder simply because he doesn't always go about with a marriage license in his pocket? If it's wrong to talk like that all I can say is I'd rather love without marriage than not love at all, even though I knew I was going to be burnt to a cinder for it."

"Perhaps I'm asbestos--"

"All the better if you are: you'll stand it better. Anyhow, asbestos gets hot.... Lexie, I haven't a regret in the world. I was a bit down on my luck before I was ill, but now I'm well again, I'm glad that I'm Maggy who loves her Fred."

Alexandra sat staring in front of her, turning Maggy's advice over in her mind. She knew she meant every word she said. She recalled Mrs. Lambert's views about the stage. She had less faith in her powers of endurance now. Privation and disappointment had done their work. In easy circumstances any one may withstand temptation: surrender comes with adversity. At the present moment Alexandra was not actually in touch with adversity. She felt capable of holding out against temptation.

"I shan't give in," she said with a little of her old tenacity. "I'm going to try and write."

"What?" asked Maggy blankly.

"My experiences."

"But you haven't had any."

"You and Mrs. Lambert and all that you both have told me are experiences."

This was a new aspect of Alexandra. It mystified Maggy.

"But can you write?" she asked doubtfully.

"I--I think so. At least I've made a beginning."

"It seems so funny. Fred says that actresses can't write. All those things you see in the magazines and the _Jockey's Weekly_ by actresses all about themselves, with photos stuck in between, aren't written by them. The printer does it."

"Not the printer, surely?"

"Well, the man from the paper. It's all the same. I've been interviewed and I know. All I did was to sign my name at the end. It came out in _The Housewife_."

"What I meant was a serious article. Something true."

"But nobody wants to read anything serious about the stage," Maggy contended. "It's for pleasure.... Fancy you writing! Do let me see what you've done, Lexie."

Alexandra went over to the chest of drawers and came back with her article. It was in manuscript. She handed it over shyly.

"Why, it's pages and pages!" exclaimed Maggy, with the bewilderment of one to whom the space on a postcard presents difficulties.

She commenced to read aloud from it.

"'The stage as a profession for women has frequently been a subject of discussion. Seldom however has it occurred to any one to descant on it as a profession for ladies...'

"We're always called _ladies_ of the profession," debated Maggy, and read on.

"'... To do this effectively one must first try and arrive at the proper definition of the term "lady," and when one has done so enquire into the economic and moral effects which the stage may have on her if she should embark on...'"

Maggy raised enquiring, rather helpless, eyes.

"Does this mean you're a Suffragette?" she asked.

"No, of course not."

Maggy skipped a paragraph.

"'A lady, we will say, is one who, apart from the question of birth, has been brought up to respect the usual conventions of social life. Let us now consider how far those conventions are respected on the stage.'"

As she turned the pages, singling out portions of them at random, she found it very hard reading. She thought it like the leaders in the daily paper, which she always skipped. In reality, it was not a bad little article for a beginner, in spite of its consciously correct phraseology and want of cohesion of idea. But as an unglossed commentary concerning the ethical side of stage life it provided food for thought.

"I suppose it's brainy," said Maggy, handing it back. "It doesn't sound a bit like you though. I hope I'm not a wet blanket, but I think you'll get sick of the crumply plop it will make coming back through the letter-box. It's not what you ever see in the papers. You may ask things about inferior flannelette or horrid sausages or white slaves, and it's all right. But the truth about the stage! Well, there, it's written now, so you may as well post it; but if I were you, I'd go and see the editor in the morning before he's had time to read it."

"Why?" enquired Alexandra innocently.

"Well ... if he's young--and impressionable--it might-- No, on second thoughts, don't."

Tea came in. By the side of the teapot Mrs. Bell had ostentatiously placed a small medicine bottle. She had also provided what purported to be a cake.

"I sent out for 'three' of gin," she said, beaming placidly at the bottle.

"Whatever for?" demanded Alexandra.

"For a dash in your tea, dear. Seeing as how you've just come from a funeral--"

Alexandra's face showed a repugnance. Mrs. Bell looked grieved. Maggy intervened.

"Miss Hersey only drinks champagne now," she said cheerily. "Doctor's orders. And I've sworn off. You trot off with it downstairs. Gin's good for landladies."

XXVII

Alexandra's bad luck held.

The only engagements she was offered she could not accept. One was in provincial pantomime and therefore not immediate, another a "walk-on" at a London theater, for which a premium of L10 was asked. Suggestions were made to her by doubtful-looking touring managers which besides being only tentative were also unwholesome. One agent made it impossible for her to go and see him again.

The soul-sickening chase after employment continued for several weeks. By husbanding the money she had saved while on tour with Mrs. Lambert she was able to keep out of debt; but time was against her. Soon she would be unable to do without a fire in her room. Coals at six-pence a scuttle sounded to her like extravagance and were therefore prohibitive. She did not think it likely she would be able to find a cheaper lodging, or at any rate one where the landlady was as honest as Mrs. Bell. In Sidey Street she could at least make sure that if half a herring was left over at breakfast the other half would be available at supper time.

Mrs. Bell was also "particular" about sheets and cleanliness generally. She took an open pride in having a lodger who indulged in a daily bath. The blush of modesty often came to Alexandra's face as she heard the fact being exultantly advertised on the stairs to some new or would-be tenant. Her landlady used it as a testimonial. Once a week, too, the little room with the cistern was "done out," which meant that Mrs. Bell used a duster for a motor-veil and threw the furniture out on the landing. For these reasons 109 Sidey Street was tolerable. The lodgers there were respectable. True, the shunter from King's Cross Station had the room overhead, but as he did not import his boisterous occupation into domestic life Alexandra found him unobjectionable.

She saw a good deal of Maggy, but Maggy was only able to offer advice and the use of her purse, neither of which Alexandra would accept. It hurt her to refuse. The advice she could not reconcile with her conscience: the money, being Woolf's, seemed tainted. All this while her one attempt at literature had kept returning to her with hopeless monotony. A month had elapsed since she had last seen it. She had all but forgotten it when a letter unexpectedly reached her, nebulously signed "The Editor," requesting her to call at the offices of his paper.

She went there full of a natural excitement at the prospect of hearing that her article was to be printed. To her chagrin the Editor, otherwise quite a pleasant person, disillusioned her on this point.

"It's quite all right," he told her; "but I can't use it."

"Then why did you send for me?" asked poor Alexandra helplessly.

"For one reason, because I saw you knew your subject, and it struck me you might put your knowledge to a more commercial use. My dear young lady, there isn't a paper in England that would print this as it stands."

Alexandra had nothing to say.

"It's quite simple," he went on. "Papers live by advertisement. The stage is one of their sources of revenue. Besides, it doesn't pay to vilify the stage. It's too popular. We have to butter it up. Look at this," he flicked over the pages of his popular weekly. "Full of photos of stage beauties, with a eulogistic paragraph to each. Many of them paid for. Well, we can't publish a picture of, say, Miss Tottie Fluff on one page and an indictment of her morals on the next. Now can we?"

"I--I suppose not," said Alexandra, vastly impressed by this amiable frankness.

"If you'll be guided by me you'll leave the question of stage morality alone. The press, the public and the profession all unite in a conspiracy of silence about it. You're on the stage, I suppose?"

"Generally off," said Alexandra.

"Doing anything now?"

"No, I wish I were."

"Well, look here: why not write something in a chatty way about theatrical matters? Take the exact opposite view to what you have here. Treat the stage sympathetically. Point out its elevating influence on the masses. Sugar it all up. And, I say, not twelve pages: a thousand words or so. I'll give you thirty shillings for it."

Alexandra went back to Sidey Street and sat down to try and write fulsome untruths about the stage. She thought and thought. The ink dried on her pen. Presently an idea came. She commenced to write swiftly. When she had covered two pages she stopped and read them over, realizing what she was doing. For the paltry sum of thirty shillings she, who recoiled from sacrificing her body, was prostituting her pen.

She put it down and deliberately tore the sheets into fragments, so small that she would not be tempted to piece them together again.

Not for thirty pieces of silver!

XXVIII

The cistern, that prominent feature of Alexandra's bedroom, was for once in a way overshadowed. So to speak, it was put out of countenance. If a cistern--squat, square, and forbidding as this one was--could have expressed itself it would have done so in the form of a gasp.

For, on the bed lay the sable coat, muff and toque and half-a-dozen unworn French frocks. Such richness could never have been seen in Sidey Street before. Alexandra's emotions as she stood and stared at them were indescribable.

They had come--several huge cardboard boxes--that afternoon--with a letter from a firm of solicitors stating that the furs and the dresses were a legacy from Mrs. Lambert. The reason why they had not been delivered before was that the executors of the will were ignorant of Miss Hersey's whereabouts. Lord Chalfont had, however, now returned to London and had given them her address.

And there they lay, beautiful and costly, in startling contrast with the cistern and the other unlovely appurtenances of the room. Alexandra supposed the furs must be worth quite a hundred pounds. The irony of the situation was not lost upon her. Here she was in a fireless room, dreadfully hungry, and there on the bed lay valuables which nothing would induce her to sell because they were a gift from the dear dead.

A day or two ago she had found herself regretting the destruction of that sugary eulogy of the stage. She had reconstructed it, but so unsuccessfully that in the end she decided against posting it. The editor in all probability would have forgotten her existence.

It was now late November and a particularly cheerless specimen of the month. She was glad to leave her fireless room each morning for the warmth of the agents' offices, always hoping against hope that something would turn up. Pride made her hide her straitened circumstances from Maggy. She still refused to borrow from her friend. Maggy's counsel was always the same: "Climb down, Lexie. Go back to De Freyne. He'll very likely take you on again."

She put out a cold hand and touched the furs. They were so rich, so soft; they signified the very quintessence of warmth. All she had had for her lunch that day was cold rice pudding--rice pudding made with three parts of water to one of milk. She felt as if she would never thaw again. It was sheer desire for warmth that made her suddenly discard her thin black serge for one of the new acquisitions, a dark brown velvet dress.

Over it she slipped the fur coat. The warmth of it was better than a fire. It permeated her, sent a glow all through her chilled body. She looked at herself as well as she was able in the small mirror on her dressing-table and--thought of De Freyne. De Freyne only wanted well-dressed girls. She was well-dressed now. She had enough frocks to keep her looking expensively dressed for many months. She could not go another week without an engagement. Her money would not hold out longer than that. Even supposing that De Freyne, following his usual custom, should want to put her in the way of what he termed "a chance," she need not necessarily avail herself of it. It was sophistry and she knew it. Allowing herself no more time for thought she put on the toque, picked up the muff and went out.

A motorbus took her to the theater. There she asked to see De Freyne, fearful lest he should have forgotten her name. But De Freyne had not forgotten it nor her. He saw her at once. He remembered the circumstances under which he had dismissed her, her inability to dress up to his standard and her resolve to keep straight. That had been too novel to slip his memory.

His jaded, practised eyes took in her changed appearance, and priced her furs more accurately than she had done. He knew they must have cost a good many hundreds, and wondered who had paid for them. But he made no comment and asked no questions. He would hear all about it in good time.

"Come for a fresh contract?" was all he said. "That's right."

Alexandra had not got back to Sidey Street when Maggy knocked at her door. She looked very fetching and contented in a gray squirrel coat, a present from Woolf. She often contrasted her lot with Alexandra's and felt uncomfortable when she thought of all she had and all that her poor proud Lexie went without.

When she heard that the latter was out she decided to await her in her room. Mrs. Bell accompanied her up to it. The first thing Maggy noticed was the absence of a fire. The tidy grate showed that it had not been lit that day. She shivered.

"What time do you expect her in?" she asked.

"She's sure to be back by half-past four," said Mrs. Bell.

"Well, hadn't you better light the fire?"

Mrs. Bell pursed her lips.

"She don't like her room hot," she mumbled.

"Nonsense; it's freezing!"

A look, such as a person who is about to reveal a State secret wears, came into the landlady's face. She dropped her voice to a tone proper to confidences.

"To tell you the truth, Miss Delamere, I'm sadly afraid the poor dear hasn't the money to pay for a fire. I've lit a bit of a one sometimes on my own, but coals is coals, and I've my living to make."

"My goodness! You ought to have told me," said Maggy accusingly. "You know I would have paid for it."

"That's what I told her; but she wouldn't have it. I don't like to think what'll be the end of her going on like this. She's so different to any one I ever come across. I've let rooms to ladies of the profession for fifteen years. There was Freddie Aragon. She left me to go off with a trick bicyclist, and after that she took up with a baronet. I forget the name. Then there was Cleo Kaydor who got married to a jockey in church. She used to come and see me--"

"I can smell something burning!" Maggy broke in, and the tide of Mrs. Bell's reminiscences was immediately stemmed. She clattered downstairs to enquire into the false alarm.

Maggy lit the fire and settled herself before it with a book which she found lying about. It was one which failed to sustain her interest. Gradually she dozed and ultimately dropped off asleep. By the time Alexandra returned the fire had burnt red, warming the room to a pleasant and unaccustomed temperature. As she came in Maggy woke up with a start, unable to believe the sight that met her eyes. They went from the sable coat and muff to the toque and back again. Astonishment and the lovely effect they produced on their wearer took her breath away.

"Lexie!" she cried. "Where _did_ you get them? You look a princess! Is it--you don't mean-- Are--are you ruined?" she quaintly stammered.

Alexandra explained how she had come by the furs. If Maggy had not been so intent on Mrs. Lambert's legacy she would have noticed an odd look in their wearer's face.

"Oh, my dear, they're perfect!" she exclaimed. "Real sable!" She clutched at the arm nearest her. "Lexie, go and see De Freyne in them. He'll think you've married Rockefeller--or ought to!"

"I've just come from him," said Alexandra in a weak voice. "He's taken me on again."

XXIX

De Freyne was puzzled about Alexandra. Her furs and her frocks baffled him. When it transpired that she was still living in Sidey Street she became more than ever an enigma to him. He could not reconcile that neighborhood with her new and expensive appearance. Business instincts apart from curiosity made him keep an eye on her. Some acquaintance with the private affairs of his fair and usually frail merchandise was sometimes of value to him. Like a good tradesman it was his habit to take stock of it.

One thing he could not reconcile with Alexandra's apparent opulence: he never saw her lunching or supping at the Savoy or similar places. Nor did she appear to have a motor-car, that invariable sign of private advancement. Not knowing what to make of it he was reduced to detaining Maggy on pretext of business one matinee afternoon and sounding her about her friend.

"By the way," he observed casually, after mildly cautioning her against a want of punctuality of which she had been guilty on the previous night. "By the way, Miss Hersey seems to have come to her senses at last. But why does her friend keep in the background?"

Maggy saw that De Freyne took it for granted that Alexandra had a man behind her. She also knew that it would not be to her advantage to correct the assumption. She even deemed it wise to stimulate his imagination. It was easy to do that with a mysterious smile and a knowing shake of the head.

"It's a bit of a State secret," she said with just the right amount of hesitation. "I oughtn't to say anything about it. I--I've never seen his Roy--him, I mean."

De Freyne pricked up his ears.

"But you know who he is? Some foreigner, I suppose?"

"Oh, there wouldn't be any need for secrecy about a foreigner," protested Maggy with wicked plausibility.

He put a few more questions but she refused to be drawn.

De Freyne was anything but gullible, but Maggy's artfulness quite took him in. Her hesitation alone was convincing proof that she knew more than she would tell. She gleefully retailed the conversation to Woolf later in the day.

"Mischievous little devil!" he grinned, amused by her audacity. "What does your precious Lexie say?"

"She doesn't say anything because I shan't tell her. She'd probably go straight to De Freyne and blab out the truth, which wouldn't do her any good. He'll think more of her now. At any rate he won't bother her with men."

Woolf grunted. He could never understand why Maggy was always suggesting that though a thing might be adequate to herself it was not of necessity good enough for her friend.

Maggy was not far wrong about De Freyne's subsequent attitude toward Alexandra. Nothing was said, but all the same she began to receive more consideration. De Freyne kept an open eye on the stalls and boxes for any distinguished personage who might be there on her account. On two nights in succession one such happened to be among the audience. This lent color to Maggy's powers of invention. Alexandra was at once promoted to the front row. When, a week later, a young American Croesus made advances to De Freyne for an introduction to the "tall, dark girl on the extreme right," he was put off with airy nonchalance.

"Not the least use, my dear sir," said De Freyne. "Between you and me, a certain royal personage is in the way there. But have a look at the filly next to her, to-night. She's only sixteen."

De Freyne would not have felt flattered had he been told that his methods differed little from those of the astute tradesman who, not having a particular article in stock, never hesitates to try and palm off the nearest equivalent on his customer. Meanwhile he was debating whether it would not be wise to interpolate a small part for Alexandra. The upshot was that he sent for her and heard her sing. The quality of her voice surprised him.

"Damn it, you know how!" he observed. "Why didn't you tell us you could sing?"

"I sang at the voice trial," she said.

"Oh, then! You weren't sensible in those days. I must see what I can do for you." He turned to his stage-manager, who was present. "'Phone Goss and Lander to come round. I want to talk over a new song to be put in for Miss Hersey."

The sudden stroke of luck quite confounded Alexandra. Just as Maggy was unaware of the far-reaching effects of her hints, so was she unable to account for her preferment. She hardly dared to believe it would materialize. But a couple of days later her new song and the script of a few lines of dialogue to introduce it were handed to her. She was to have a week in which to rehearse them.

De Freyne watched some of these rehearsals, giving much mental consideration to the style of costume best suited to the singer. In the end he thought out a design in sprigged muslin, looped with turquoise ribbon. It would have a refined and childish effect. Refinement, homeopathically prescribed, would by its contrast look well on the stage of the Pall Mall.

What De Freyne was not prepared for was an expression of gratitude from Alexandra. After her first rehearsal she sought him in his office. He assumed that, after the manner of her kind, she had come to ask for an increase of salary.

"Well, aren't you satisfied?" he enquired, hoping to put her off.

"I've come to thank you," was her shy answer. "It's so kind of you, Mr. De Freyne. I'm very grateful."

He was so unaccustomed to being thanked by the members of his chorus, and so seldom deserved any, that for a moment he was taken aback.