Part 5

At such times there would be a little stir and scrimmage amongst the men and women in which she would not share. Men would elbow women, women elbow men in their efforts to catch the agent's eye or better still his sleeve. And he would shake them off in a precipitate passage from his own room to that of his partner's at the other end of the waiting room. Alexandra knew his short, little, staccato, stock sentences by heart.

"Nothing for you to-day, dear." (Shake her off.)

"Sorry, my dear, I can't stop." (Shake her off.)

"No, my dear, I--oh, it's you. Stop behind. I'll see you later." (Pressure of the hand.)

"Nothing in your line to-day, old fellow." (Shake him off.)

Perhaps a fleeting look at Alexandra, so that she was in doubt as to whether she had been noticed or not.

Then the crowd would wait on, lessened by the few who lost heart and went on to other agencies. The assembly varied little in any of these refuges of the out-of-works. There you would find every specimen of stageland: the sprightly young man with an eye stimulated hopefully by sherry from the adjacent Bodega, dressed in the last fashionable suit left from his wardrobe, his waistcoat pocket bulging with pawntickets; the old actor with a blue chin, a red nose and a kindly smile, unctuously imparting the latest "wheeze" to a brother comedy-merchant; the hard-eyed woman of forty, rouged, smelling of spirits and patchouli, consumed with inward wrath because of the refusal of managers to entertain her applications for youthful parts; the fresh-looking girl with an air of country lanes and a pigtail, who nevertheless was bred and born at Stratford-at-Bow; the seedy advance-agent, vainly trying to adopt a managerial air; the plump and cheery chorister with no ambitions beyond thirty shillings a week and a long pantomime run; her male compeer nourishing a secret belief that he could "wipe the floor" with every tenor on the boards.

Eleven, twelve, one o'clock, and still the patient crowd would linger on in the agents' offices, chattering intermittently, giggling occasionally, desperately anxious all the same, eyes ever glancing toward the two shut doors.

At one would come the unwelcome news, spoken by the young man who kept the accounts and made out the contracts:

"Mr. Whitehead's gone to lunch. Won't be back to-day. No use waiting."

How quickly the room emptied! Alexandra did not know that a goodly proportion of its habitues would quickly foregather for consultation and refreshment in Rule's or the Bodega, where the atmosphere was redolent of alcoholic odors, curiously aromatic, sonorous with sustained conversation and the low chuckle of the comedians.

One saw the same faces again after the luncheon hour, at Denton's, at Hart's, at Paul Stannard's, a little less hopeful, a little more tired as the day went on.

Paul Stannard had got Alexandra her engagement at De Freyne's. She went to him again now. She liked him. He was a gentleman by birth, had drifted on to the stage, loathed it, could not get free of it, and ended by running a theatrical agency with fair success. He did not call all girls "dear," only the ones that liked it, and was more accessible to the rank and file than most agents.

"I thought I had fixed you up with De Freyne," he said. "His show's in for a long run. Couldn't stick it?"

"Mr. De Freyne told me to go."

Alexandra was tired. She could hardly stand.

"Sit down," invited Stannard. "Up against it?"

"Well, I've nothing to do. It's serious."

"I'm sorry." He turned over the leaves of a big book on his desk. "And I can't help you. Nothing's doing, except a sextette for Rio."

"Can't I go?" she asked eagerly.

"My God, no!"

He put his hands in his pockets and surveyed her compassionately. Belonging as he did to the class that shelters its women it still hurt him to see women engaged in fighting for bread. It was more desperate still when they fought for honor too, or held it above the price of bread.

"Why did you send me to the Pall Mall if you knew they wouldn't want--any one straight-laced?"

"I can't ask every girl who comes to me for a job to sign an affidavit concerning her morals. Why are you on the stage at all if you've got different ideas to the others? You haven't an earthly. Might as well buy a toothbrush."

"Buy a toothbrush?"

"To sweep out an Augean stable." He scribbled some addresses on a half sheet of paper. "There's just a chance these aren't filled up. Mention my name. I don't hold out any hope, though." He hesitated for a minute. "Are you bound to go on at this? Haven't you a home to go to?"

"I'm bound to go on," she said, trying to keep the desperate note out of her voice.

"Well, good luck." Stannard held open the door for her.

"Poor devil!" he said as he shut it.

XII

All the names which Stannard had given her were those of minor managers. It was late in the season and their companies would in all probability be made up and booked for the road. Still she went to them. There was a bare chance that one of them might have a vacancy. For two hours she hung about their offices waiting for an interview, only to waste her time in the end. "Full up" was the answer she got to each application. The last place she called at was situated in a block of buildings off Shaftesbury Avenue. As she left it a door facing her on the opposite side of the passage opened and a man in a frock coat and silk hat came out. He stopped short, looked her up and down and spoke.

"Excuse me, but are you out of an engagement?"

"Yes," she replied, a last glimmer of hope flickering within her, the silk hat suggesting something managerial.

The stranger's next words confirmed her in this idea.

"I believe you're the very person I've been looking for for a week. The question is, can you sing?"

"Yes."

"Then come in."

He threw the door open again and followed her in. The room contained two chairs, a desk, a small grand piano, one or two playbills on the walls and several diagrams of the larynx, looking not unlike a map of the tube railways.

"This is my practise room and therefore bare," he explained. "It's bad to sing in a room blocked up with furniture. Breaks up the voice, you know. By the way, my name's Norburton--Gerald Norburton. You may have heard of it," he added modestly.

Alexandra had heard of it. The name was that of a singer of some repute.

"Oh, then, you're not an agent," she said, a little disappointed.

"Lord, no." The idea seemed to amuse him. "Fact of the matter is this: my friend, Maurice Haines, wrote to me the other day--here's his letter--asking me to find him a likely girl for a sketch he has booked at the Palace. He'd engaged some one, but she's just gone in for appendicitis. Funny thing, appendicitis. Has it ever occurred to you--" The blank look in Alexandra's face constrained him to keep to business. "So he appeals to me, thinking that as a singer I might know some one likely. But I didn't--not until I saw you. If you can sing it's a sure thing." He read from the letter he had been searching for.

"'She must be tall and dark and a lady. Youth essential. Of course she must have a well-trained voice, but previous experience doesn't matter. I'll look in next week, and if you know a girl who will do, for heaven's sake have her round. The sketch is booked for the next six months, first here and then in the leading provincial towns. I'll pay ten pounds a week for the right woman.'

"What do you think of that?"

"It seems to me it depends on my voice," said Alexandra.

"That's it. Do you mind singing me something? Here's a pile of songs. Pick out one you know."

She found a song. Norburton played the accompaniment. She had an idea she was singing well and hoped he would think so. When she finished, she had the impression that he was not satisfied.

"I'm afraid you're disappointed," she said, with foreboding.

"No, not exactly. You've a nice voice. You want to know how to pitch it better. As it is it won't carry. I believe I could teach you in five days, before Haines comes round."

"I couldn't expect you to do that."

"But I _do_ teach," he laughed. "Do you doubt my capability? I assure you that besides being a public singer I get three guineas for every half-hour lesson I give."

"What I meant was," said Alexandra, "that I couldn't expect you to coach me for nothing, and I couldn't pay enough to make it worth your while."

He appeared to think.

"I want to do my best for Haines," he said. "Look here. I'll give you five lessons--one every day for ten minutes--and you can pay me what you can afford, five shillings a lesson, say."

She colored. "That's charity."

"No. I really want to help Haines."

Now Alexandra had little more than five shillings in her purse. The next quarterly payment of her annuity would not be due for a fortnight. In the meantime all she possessed was some old jewelry that had belonged to her mother. There was the money Maggy had left behind her, but she was not going to touch that.

"I should like you to teach me. It's very good of you," she said. "Would you take this instead of money? It's worth a little more than five five-shilling lessons." She tendered him a ring with a single pearl in an antique setting. A pawnbroker would have lent her five pounds on it. She was anxious that he should take the ring. It would make her feel less under an obligation to him.

Apparently he appreciated her feelings.

"That's very pretty of you," he said. "It fits my little finger, too. Would you rather I took it?" There was a shade of reluctance in his voice.

"Much rather."

"Well, thank you very much. Now I must pull you through by a little teaching. Can you have your first lesson now? No time like the present, is there? Stand in the corner over there to the right. Now, sing 'ah' on middle C. Keep your tongue well down. Give it room--give it room! Swell it out! You'll do very well," he said, after ten minutes. "To-morrow, same time. I'll drop Haines a line. Don't thank me, please."

Another girl came in as Alexandra went out. She heard Norburton tell her she was early.

"Have you heard from Mr. ----" She thought the name mentioned was Haines, but argued she must have been mistaken. The girl was fair and short, not at all the type Norburton's friend wanted. Alexandra assumed she must be one of the singer's private pupils, and thought no more about her.

For the next four days she came for her lessons, and at the end of that time Norburton told her he was quite satisfied with the result.

"Haines will be here to-morrow at eleven," he told her. "Don't worry, you'll get the engagement."

All the same she did worry. She pinned her hopes on it. She had curtailed her food down to the irreductible minimum. Privation showed in her looks. She was not a big eater, but her physique demanded good and nourishing food, which now she never got. She wanted new shoes and gloves badly. These she could not manage to do without indefinitely. She began to lose confidence in herself in these days. She knew her appearance was noticeably shabby, and that she was getting the delicate look that employers dislike. One cannot say to the man from whom one is hoping for an engagement: "I'm pale, but I'll look better when I can afford to feed myself properly. My clothes are shabby, but they would be in rags if I hadn't looked after them as if they were priceless brocades. And I'm not poor and hungry and out of an engagement because I've no talent, but because I've certain principles that I've brought to the wrong place. Give me a chance and don't ask anything else of me."

At five minutes to eleven the next day she was in Shaftesbury Avenue. Outside Mr. Norburton's door some ten or twelve girls were waiting. They looked a mixed lot, all of them anxious, poor and shabby.

"He told me ten," said one of them, "and he's not here yet."

"I've been here since half-past nine," said another.

One bold spirit rapped sharply on the door.

As a result one next to it bearing a brass plate and a solicitor's name was opened and a man put his head out and angrily demanded:

"Who's making that row? If you're waiting to see the fellow who had that room, he's gone. Went away yesterday afternoon."

"Meaning Mr. Norburton?" asked one of the girls.

"I don't know what his name was. He's gone, anyhow. It's no good waiting about and making a noise."

He shut the door. The girls stared at one another blankly.

"I want to know the meaning of this," said one of them truculently. "P'raps the caretaker can tell us." She clattered down the stone stairs, and half a dozen of the others followed her.

A fair girl standing next to Alexandra spoke to her.

"Did you want to see Mr. Norburton too?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid I shan't." Alexandra felt faint.

"I don't think we shall either. It's my belief we've been done. Did he give you lessons?"

"Five."

"I had five, too," nodded the girl. "Two pounds I paid the blighter. He said I'd suit Mr. Haines a treat. Read me a letter saying he wanted a fair girl with a good figure and contralto voice-- What's that? It was a 'tall and dark' to you! My hat! What did _you_ pay?"

"I gave him a pearl ring."

"O-oh!" Her eyes went round. "I saw it on his finger. Then you were hard up?"

"I had the ring, but not the money to pay him."

"And I had the money. And I haven't got it now."

One of the girls who had gone to make enquiries below came up again.

"Thought I'd come and tell you," she panted. "It's true. He's gone, right enough. The piano was hired and it's been fetched away. He's done seventeen of us, the beast! His name isn't Norburton at all, but Easton or Weston, I forget which. If the real Mr. Norburton or Maurice Haines heard what he'd been up to they'd prosecute him. He's just been using their names to cod us. Oh, I'd like to--to--" The unspoken threat tailed off in a resigned sigh. "Well, there's a voice-trial at Daly's at 11.30. I'm off."

Alexandra did not move. She was dazed. The other girls melted away, all but one little creature in black who commenced to sob.

"Don't cry," said Alexandra, touched by her grief. "You must try and forget the disappointment."

The girl raised streaming eyes. She was very plain and wore her hair frizzed out all round her head. The fingers through which her tears had been trickling were red and work-worn.

"I paid him f-four pounds in gold," she wept. "And he s-said my voice was g-good enough to get me the engagement. And I've given notice at the place I'm at on the strength of it, and now I'll have to go back and ask to be kept on. Makes me ashamed of myself, it does, after what I said to the mistress about gettin' ten pounds a week on the stage. And now f-four pounds of good money gone!"

"Haven't you any left?"

"I've got eleven saved, but it would have been fifteen," sniffed the girl. She took it hardly that she had to pay so heavily for her experience.

"Well, then, cheer up," said Alexandra. "I haven't got fifteen shillings."

"Not in the world?"

"Not in the world."

"But you're a lady!"

"Am I?" asked poor Alexandra. Tears were not far from her own eyes now. The girl saw them, and the fount of her own dried up in her compassion for a disappointment that must be even greater than her own because of the actual need behind it. A lady, and with less than fifteen shillings in the world! Why, she had always been able to earn nearly ten shillings a week, without counting her board and keep. She had always been able to count on regular employment, plenty of food and a fairly comfortable bed; and until she had been dazzled by the magnificent prospect of ten pounds a week and still more by the idea of becoming a "star actress," she had been fairly contented with her life. She wished she had never seen that catch advertisement in the newspaper.

"I shouldn't think any more about the stage if I were you," advised Alexandra.

"I shan't," was the resolute answer. "It's no good, is it?"

"Not a bit of good."

The girl hesitated.

"Do you mind telling me," she said, "if it's very bad. The girls on it, I mean."

"It's difficult sometimes for them to be good," was Alexandra's qualified reply.

"That's pretty much what our milkman says. He had a wife he divorced that used to go on the stage once a year in pantomime."

Alexandra smiled wanly. She was getting accustomed to the democratic atmosphere of the stage, where social differences are inexistent. The dragging in of the milkman's wife was only a sharp-cut illustration of the lengths to which the leveling-down process could go. The life had robbed her of all surprise at the necessity of having to rub shoulders with ex-shopgirls and the like; but this was the first time she had found herself on terms of equality with a domestic servant.

"Dessay I'm well out of it," said the girl philosophically. "I hope you'll get on, miss."

As she passed Alexandra she stopped, making believe to pick up something that was not there.

"Oh, look what you've dropped!" she exclaimed, holding out two half-crowns.

Alexandra had come out that morning with only a few pence.

"It isn't mine," she disclaimed. "If you look in your purse you'll probably find it's your own money."

The girl made a pretense of doing so.

"No, that it isn't," she insisted. "It must be yours, right enough."

"But it can't be."

Before she could anticipate the movement, the girl slipped past her and raced down the stairs. Alexandra followed as fast as she could. But the girl was too quick for her. She was nowhere to be seen when Alexandra reached the street.

Only then did she comprehend the meaning of the generous subterfuge. She stood staring down at the money in her hand--two half-crowns, given her by a servant!

XIII

July, that theatrical close season, was wearing itself out. Alexandra subsisted on the small quarterly dividend that a grateful country bestows in the way of pension on the orphaned children of the men who fight its battles. She sweltered in her one room or else sat in the deserted ones of theatrical agencies waiting for an engagement that never came.

One sultry afternoon, on turning into Sidey Street, she found, standing opposite her door, a brand-new landaulette. In her prosperous days she had learnt to distinguish between the makes of cars, and a glance showed her that this one belonged to a type that was just then being widely advertised at a popular price. But it was neither its shape nor finish, nor even the bright coloring of its paintwork that attracted her attention so much as the large monogram composed of an M. and a D. in the center of its door-panel. The world might contain a thousand other people with those initials, but M. D. on an empty car outside Alexandra's door meant that Maggy was inside the house, waiting for her.

Her heart beat fast and she went in. There would be a visible difference in Maggy. Their girlish friendship was a closed chapter. Maggy had left her. The hurt still rankled. She felt nervous. It would be like greeting a stranger; worse, it would be meeting as a stranger one with whom she had shared a close intimacy. There would be awkwardness....

Maggy, waiting for her, felt equally nervous. She had struggled against the desire to see Alexandra again, but it had grown too strong for her. She yearned for her. She wanted to tell her that she had not deserted her, that she could still be as true a friend as ever. Suppose Alexandra were so intolerant of what she had done that she would not even let her stay a minute! Perhaps she would refuse to speak, or worse still, and this was more likely, she might pretend hard that her feelings had not changed so that she, Maggy, might not feel hurt, and Maggy would know she was pretending. She began to wish she had not come.

Looking round the little room it seemed difficult to believe that she had really left it. Only the expensive frock she was wearing, a peep through the curtains at the new toy that she liked to drive about in, assured her that she had. Then she noticed that her bed was gone. That was even more conclusive evidence of the domestic rupture than the expensive frock and the car. And yet Alexandra had her photograph on the mantel-piece. That cheered her.

During one of her periodical peeps at the window she saw Alexandra walking down the street. A panicy feeling assailed her. She peeped again and noticed how slowly she was coming along, how listless was her step. She looked tired, frail. Maggy's warm heart gave a compassionate thump. Her nervousness increased as she heard Alexandra mounting the stairs. What should she say to start with? "I was passing, and I thought I'd look in?" That would sound casual, forced. Or "I hope you don't mind my coming to see you." That would be groveling. Should she wait for Alexandra to speak first? Suppose she should say something cold and cutting, final? Suppose she just stood still, waiting for Maggy to speak? And how long might they not stand looking at each other like that, without saying a word....

Alexandra opened the door and Maggy faced round, her breast rising and falling.

Unrehearsed words bubbled from her heart.

"Oh, Lexie, I'm just the same. Won't you be?"

"Maggy, dear!"

Choking with emotion and gladness, they found they were holding hands tightly, as if they could never let go. Big tears welled up in Maggy's eyes.

"It doesn't alter one a bit," she got out huskily.

They sat down on the bed, close together, for a moment or two dumb with congestion of thought--the numberless things, essentials affecting themselves, that needed asking and answering.

"Are you happy, Maggy?"

"Don't I look it?" She irradiated happiness. Her eyes beamed, her lips laughed. "I love him, Lexie. It's lovely to love a man whatever way love comes to you. He can't give me the brown egg at breakfast because he's not there then, but I feel just as--oh, you know! I'm not really _bad_, Lexie. There isn't another man in the world for me. Tell me about yourself, darling. Have you got anything to do yet?"

"No. I'm beginning to wonder whether I ever shall. I can't see anything ahead. It's black."

"Your stomach's empty," said Maggy prosaically. "You look as if you've lived on nothing for ten days."

"I've lived on four-and-sixpence a week."

"Oh, Lexie! And I've had caviare and plovers' eggs and all sorts of expensive things while you've been starving!" She looked horribly contrite. "Do you know that picture advertisement with a big fat cat talking to a thin miserable one and saying it had been fed on somebody's milk? I'm the fat cat because I'm being kept by--"

"Don't!" said Alexandra.

"I'm sorry. I forgot. Fred encourages me to be downright. Don't take the pins out of your hat. Look here, Lexie. Do me a favor and come out with me sometimes. Come now! When Fred's not around I'm at a loose end, and it's lonely. I get tired of mooching round the shops and only buying things for myself. The day would go faster if I could lie in bed half the morning, but I'm so beastly energetic. I'm awake at seven and thinking of eggs and bacon. I would like to show you my flat. Would you mind coming to see it? There's no one there, only me."

She saw Alexandra hesitate.

"It's such a duck of a flat," she went on. "I haven't got any one to show it to. Dozens of times I've said to myself: if only Lexie could see this or that.... You needn't approve of me, but do come! We can have an early dinner before I go to the theater."

"But what about--"

"Fred's never there at that time. We generally lunch out and then I don't see him till after the show."

On Maggy's left hand Alexandra noticed the gleam of a wedding ring. Maggy, following her glance, smiled contentedly. For the moment it occurred to Alexandra that perhaps Maggy was really married after all. She asked the question.