Part 9

"Has your friend been ill?" he asked with concern. "I'm sorry to hear that. We must send her some flowers, Ada."

"Yes, we will," Mrs. Lambert concurred.

After breakfast he went out to buy some. When he came back Mrs. Lambert was alone in the room.

"What beauties!" she said, lifting the lid of the box he had brought in with him. "Catherine Mermets."

She hung over the roses, the bitter-sweet of the memories they evoked coming up to her with their delicate fragrance. Chalfont always bought her Catherine Mermets when they were in bloom, great masses of them; but it was Hugh Lambert who had first given her a bunch of three, purchased at a street corner at sixpence each in the days when sixpences were scarce with him.

"I got them because they are your favorites," he said. "I thought she would be sure to like what you like. Anyway, what's good enough for you is good enough for anybody."

She put her arm over his shoulder and kissed him.

"You're always so thoughtful, and so loyal," she said. "I'm getting old and you remain steadfast. It seems such an irony of fate that I can't love you as you deserve. Although Hugh has no claim on my feelings or my memory, I can't forget him. I give you so little, Leonard. One day, perhaps, some girl will love you worthily, and make up for my meanness."

He smiled down at her, shaking his head.

"Keep those roses," he said. "I'll get Miss Delamere some more."

"No, no, I want her to have them. Put your card in. Shall I write the address?"

Woolf was with Maggy when the post brought her the roses. He cut the string and stood looking on while she removed the tissue wrappings.

"Oh, roses!" she cried delightedly. "Who can have sent them?"

They had traveled as well as could be expected of cut flowers, but they were flagging a little for want of water.

Woolf pounced on the card that accompanied them.

"'Lord Chalfont,'" he read, and scowled at the club address in the corner. "Damn his impudence sending you flowers! And how the devil does he know your address?" he demanded angrily.

Maggy was perturbed at this outburst.

"You needn't mind, Fred," she said placably.

"Did you tell him where you lived?"

"Of course not. You needn't go back to that. You said you'd forgiven me for going to lunch with Mrs. Lambert that day. You know I met him there, and that's all there is in it. He must have known that I--I hadn't been well--through Lexie, and sent the flowers out of politeness." She turned the lid of the box up. "The address is in a woman's hand: Mrs. Lambert's. There's nothing to look so furious about."

The fact that flowers should come to Maggy from a comparative stranger would not, of itself, have irritated Woolf. She often received flowers now, and from men she had never met. Her good looks and prominence at the Pall Mall accounted for this. Woolf made no objection. The admiration of other men for her rather enhanced her desirability in his eyes. He took it as a tribute to his own good taste in having secured possession of her. But Chalfont's name affected him in much the same manner as a red rag does a bull. It blinded him with rage because it stood for everything that he himself was devoid of--birth, breeding, nobility of nature--and, moreover, because it was that of the man who had humbled him by having him turned out of the select club to which he aspired to membership. That incident had touched Woolf on the raw. It was much as if he had been told that he was unworthy of association with gentlemen.

He picked up the roses and pitched them into the fireplace.

"Damned cheek, sending you a few pennyworth of dead flowers!" he flared out. "I'll go and buy you some live ones!"

Maggy did not protest. She had learnt discretion with Woolf. He flung out of the flat. Half-an-hour later a messenger boy came with a magnificent bouquet of freshly-cut Catherine Mermets.

Maggy was so happy arranging them.

XXI

In spite of the pleasant conditions under which the tour proceeded it began to be evident to Alexandra that Mrs. Lambert was suffering from acute nervous strain. She would spend hours on the sofa in thoughtful silence. Conversely, she showed undue vivacity on the stage at night. Sometimes she evinced an almost feverish interest in the financial side of her tour, growing depressed when business was indifferent and unduly elated when it was extra good.

During this period Alexandra learnt for the first time that Mrs. Lambert had a daughter. Inconsequently enough, as it seemed to her, Mrs. Lambert's reference to the fact was the outcome of a talk between them one day concerning Maggy. It showed the elder woman in a new aspect, strongly maternal in her feelings. The child's absence evidently distressed her.

"Why don't you have her with you?" was the natural inquiry that rose to Alexandra's lips.

The reply to this was as spontaneous as the question.

"I would love to! But how could I? Baba is ten. There's Chalfont.... Children are so quick to notice things...."

Alexandra's puzzled look showed that she placed a very innocent construction on the intimacy of these two.

"You didn't think we were only friends?" Mrs. Lambert inquired a little reluctantly. "It's not so. I supposed you knew."

The admission did not actually shock Alexandra, but it pained her. She found it difficult to associate Mrs. Lambert with any form of liaison. Lord Chalfont, moreover, had also given her the impression of being a man averse from it. That these two, in Alexandra's estimation so free from the taint of theatrical libertinism, should not have been superior to circumstances was singularly disconcerting.

"I did think you were only friends," she said.

Her voice was so full of disappointment that Mrs. Lambert half-regretted her frankness. She knew Alexandra to be a very pure-minded girl. She felt she owed her an explanation.

"Friendship as you understand it is difficult, almost impossible, between a man and woman in circumstances like ours," she said. "Lord Chalfont has remained unmarried on my account. I think you must know that my husband and I are separated. Well, a woman is a very lone creature without love and sympathy. There are so many things she cannot do for herself. If there were nothing else there would always be the difficulty of business. I have to work for Baba's sake. I couldn't do it alone. I _must_ leave her independent of the stage."

"I am so sorry," was all Alexandra could say.

"I believe you are. My dear, when I was your age, like you I was full of regrets for all the wrongs of the world. I wanted it perfect and morally rigid. I meant to show that an actress could still be a lady and quite virtuous. I don't think I've disproved the one, but the Fates have been too strong for me to fulfill the second qualification. I had to separate from my husband. I did not want to. I loved him. I have nothing to reproach myself with for the rupture between us. But for that I should always have been a faithful wife. I only thought of his career. I used to fight all his battles, on and off the stage. At one time I did all his business for him because he hated it. In those days he wasn't spoilt. He was just a fascinating, childish person with all the sensitiveness of an artistic temperament. He was very fond of me, too.... Then came the time when he went into management, and there was no part for me. I was not to play "lead" with him because he considered me unsuited to it. I was too proud to play a smaller part in his own theater.... He engaged Mary Mantel. In that play their love-making brought down the house. It was so real. It _was_ real. I found that out very soon. Mary Mantel deliberately took my husband from me. He was too weak to resist her--to resist pleasing any pretty woman.... I told them both what I knew ... and we parted. If I hadn't discovered what I did, or suppressed my knowledge of it, I don't doubt but that he would be with me now, behaving as a lover to two women! ... For years Lord Chalfont went about with me. We were friends, nothing more. I always hoped Hugh would make atonement and want me back. But I lost heart, and Chalfont was always there, so patient and kind.... As a Catholic I couldn't bring myself to divorce Hugh and marry him, and I thought that if he should ever get tired of me I should like him to feel free.... Because I am an actress, to whom all things are forgiven, the voice of social ostracism had never been raised against our union.... That is the whole story. Well, what do you think of me now?"

Alexandra did not know what to think, still less to say. The only comment she felt capable of making was that Mrs. Lambert was not degraded by what she had done. That was evident. Alexandra did not make the comparison, but all the same she dimly comprehended that there was a certain similarity between Maggy's case and Mrs. Lambert's. It had never occurred to Alexandra that Maggy was degraded either.... Quite suddenly, like a revelation, the reason of the sympathy between these two, now her closest friends, dawned on her.... Insensibly too, because she was not thinking of herself, her own resistance to frailty seemed to weaken. There was to come a time when she would recall every word Maggy and Mrs. Lambert had spoken on the subject of sex conflict and the stage.

"I think none the less of you," she answered steadily after a long pause. "I suppose you are being more true to yourself in not divorcing your husband and marrying Lord Chalfont."

"I don't know. I'm not sure that I've done right. But the stage makes it so easy for you to do wrong, to choose the way your inclinations lead.... Chalfont has been the greater sufferer. He hates to think that our relationship, when discussed, is bracketed with the usual run of light and unholy compacts. I confess to being more thick-skinned. The stage blunts one's finer feelings, I suppose. There's something dreadfully insidious about it. Its lax atmosphere saps the sense of rectitude. You don't know that your views are gradually altering until you suddenly discover that, like everybody else on it, you are about to make its customs fit your own circumstances. Nobody on the stage is free from that taint: chorus girls are not a bit more frail than highly-paid actresses. Chorus girls are more flagrant, that is all."

Alexandra was looking very serious and dismayed.

"It's rather terrible," she said reflectively. "Maggy has often said much the same thing in a different way. Is _everything_ wrong?"

"For a girl like you, yes. I don't assert that everything and everybody on the stage is bad. There are exceptions, of course. Clouds have their silver lining. What I do maintain is that the stage is not and never can be a profession that a nice-minded girl can adopt and expect to remain untainted by."

"I wonder"--Alexandra's voice was almost fearful--"what my own ideas about it will be in a few years' time."

"In a few years' time, my dear girl, with luck you will be married and have forgotten all its ugliness. You may perhaps still be sufficiently enamored of the theater to let your husband sometimes pay for two stalls; and sometimes when you pass a struggling actress in the street you will recognize her by her stamp and thank God that you're out of it all. That's the best that can happen to you."

"But you? You wouldn't like to be out of it--altogether?"

Mrs. Lambert's eyes seemed to hold some happy secret.

"I look forward to the day when I shall be--resting," she made answer. "Have you ever tried to wind a ball of thread with the skein in your hand? It isn't easy. My skein is tangled ... and I am tired."

XXII

They were at Eastbourne during the following week. One morning whilst in her bedroom putting on her hat in readiness for a walk Alexandra was startled by an impetuous knock at her door. Chalfont's voice, calling her by name, took her hurriedly to it.

"Please go to Ada at once," he said. "She's ill. She can't act to-night. I have to see her manager and telephone to London for her doctor. You'll look after her while I'm gone, won't you?" he added with deep solicitude as he hastened off.

Alexandra went quickly to Mrs. Lambert's room. She was greatly concerned by Chalfont's bad news, but far less unprepared for it than he had been. On the previous night Mrs. Lambert had almost collapsed in her dressing room, though she had made light of it and had forbidden Alexandra to say anything about it to Chalfont. Now she was worse, just recovering from the dead faint in which she had been found. She looked exceedingly ill.

"Don't be frightened," she said in a weak voice. "I know perfectly well what is the matter with me. I'm afraid it means an untimely end to the tour, though. You won't leave me?"

"Of course not," Alexandra promised. "You mustn't worry about the tour, or anything. You want a rest. You'll be quite strong again soon."

Mrs. Lambert smiled faintly. "I told you I looked forward to resting. I meant it in its eternal sense. Six months ago I knew what was in store for me, but I meant to stand out this tour, if I could. I'm afraid they'll try and persuade me to have an operation.... Just an outside chance of living.... Oh, my dear, I would so like to die quietly without being cut about and pried into."

The tears came into Alexandra's eyes. Illness she was prepared for, but not the thought of death.

"Please, please, don't talk like that," she said unsteadily. "Heaps of people who are very ill get better. Let me undress you. Then I'll sit by you. But I don't think you ought to talk."

Mrs. Lambert was very passive. When Alexandra had undressed her she lay for a little in silence. Suddenly she said:

"Remember I'm a Catholic.... See that I have a priest at the last ... if it comes to that. And--I must say this, don't stop me--if--it's necessary--afterwards--I would like you to write to my husband and tell him I sent my love."

"Yes, yes, I promise," murmured Alexandra huskily.

Mrs. Lambert turned on her pillow.

"Baba will be all right, I think," she whispered, and fell asleep.

She was awake again and quite cheery when the doctor, a noted specialist, arrived during the late afternoon. He was a long time with her and also a long time with Chalfont afterwards. The result of that conference was that the latter came to Alexandra and told her that an immediate operation had been decided on.

"To-morrow?" she asked fearfully.

The weakening effect of suspense made her shrink from the imminence of the ordeal, although it was not she who was to endure it. Deep distress was in Chalfont's face.

"No, to-night," he said brokenly. "She wouldn't consent at first.... When Sir James told me that delay was dangerous I had to--to advise her to undergo it." He could hardly get the words out. "There isn't time to move her. The hotel people have been very decent about it. I have just seen the manager.... Two nurses are coming."

Alexandra could only stand and struggle with her voice. Her feelings were beyond expression.

"I'm afraid--terribly afraid we have to face losing her," said Chalfont at last.

"Oh, I hope not," she said fervently, while the tears streamed down her face. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes, there is." What he had to say cost him a struggle. "Her husband ought to know. He ought to be here. I doubt whether a telegram would be any use, and I can't go to him. Will you?"

"I'll do anything," she said.

"Thank you. I'll have the car round at once then." He looked at his watch. "It's six now. You can be in town by a little after eight. You'll catch him at the theater. Try and bring him back with you. It--the operation--will be over by that time. We shall know--one way or the other. You would like to see her before you start?"

"Please." Alexandra was very white, but she was quiet now that she knew the worst and had not to await in inactivity. "She told me she would like a priest," she said. "I think you should send for one."

"I have already."

She took a step toward the door but turned suddenly and without speaking put her hand out. He grasped and held it tightly, taking comfort from the action.

"You'll do your best, I know," he said gratefully.

XXIII

Alexandra said nothing to Mrs. Lambert of her impending errand. Discretion counseled silence about it. From what she had heard of Hugh Lambert, and judging also by Chalfont's doubts, unexpressed though they were, whether he would respond to the obligation imposed on him, she was dreadfully afraid that she might not be successful. Still, she could do nothing by remaining in the hotel, and in going she was avoiding the purgatory of having to sit in an adjoining room while the woman who had been so good to her was in the toils of death.

It was half-past six when Chalfont saw her off after bidding the chauffeur use the best speed the car was capable of. The man, who was devoted to his mistress, needed little incentive. Once informed of her perilous condition his one thought was to do his best for her by getting to his destination without the loss of a moment.

Once out of the town he let his engine out. Alexandra found herself leaning forward in the car, involuntarily actuated by a desire to urge it on still faster. At first her troubled mind could not think coherently, but as the Panhard tore along over the smooth tarred road northwards, the monotony of its motion tended to abate her nervous tension. She found herself reviewing the incidents that had culminated in the present crisis. They passed through her mind like a set of moving pictures, the hum of the engine accentuating the illusion.

She saw herself at home, alone, bereft of the mother with whom she had happily spent so many years in the small and placid provincial town that was like a harbor of refuge to superannuated Anglo-Indians; her departure from it under the eyes of a sceptical circle of friends, suspect because she had elected to choose so unconventional a way of life as the stage; flitting shadows of herself in London looking for employment; the unpleasant picture of a boarding-house; the still more unpleasant incident that had caused her to leave it; then the somber picture of the Pall Mall stage and Maggy. The screen of her mind threw things up clearly now. The perspective of time robbed the little room in Sidey Street of its uninviting aspect, and her life there of its straitened circumstances. Maggy's desertion of her was the one sad feature of that picture. The reel of experience became vivid again as it showed her in happy companionship with the actress. Pleasant scenes and cheerful incidents characterized it, obliterating from her mind the troublous past. Then, close on the heels of this state of content came the unexpected shock of present happenings. From being a spectator of the introspective drama she came to herself, startled by the abrupt consciousness of personal participation in it.

The pale face and luminous eyes of the sick woman filled her thoughts; the odor of drugs that permeated the room in which she had left her seemed to fill her nostrils. She thought too of Chalfont and the self-denying motives that had prompted him to send for the one man he could least wish to see.

It was dark inside the car now, but the lit streets and the turmoil of traffic through which it was threading its way meant that she had reached London.

London again! She no longer felt about it as she had in the days when she was new to it. The novelty of it had worn off. She had seen its seamy side, lived on the verge of its submerged life, been up against the brunt of it. Repugnance to it filled her when she remembered, as she suddenly did, that before many days had elapsed she would probably have to return to it. She found herself shrinking at the prospect of going back to the conditions that wore one down and sapped one's power of resistance in the unequal fight for a living there, from having to resume the weary round once more among the agencies; the interminable suspense in stuffy waiting rooms among the loquacious crowd of out-of-works. It all came back so vividly: her soul sickened of it.

She knew that if Mrs. Lambert should recover she would stand by her. She had said as much. But if she died.... The unhappy speculation was not induced by selfishness. The next moment Alexandra's thoughts were solely concerned with Mrs. Lambert's personal peril. They made her forget her own fears. She tried to pray for her. It seemed incongruous to pray in Piccadilly, where the car was slowly threading its way among the traffic. Still, surely God could and would hear her in spite of the din made by the motor-buses!

They were close to Lambert's theater now.... Another few minutes.... The piece would be half over.... The car turned down a side street and stopped at the stage door. Alexandra got out. There was the usual difficulty with the stage-door keeper about admittance. He did not know her. She mentioned Mrs. Lambert's name. That stirred him even less. His attitude toward the last-named was that of the hireling inspired by the master. No _Mrs._ Lambert existed for him. Indeed, the importation of her name struck him as the ruse of a stage-struck damsel. They were always inventing dodges to get past him and make him lose his job. Ten precious minutes passed in futile argument. Even in an urgent case like this, vital to Lambert himself, the absurd inaccessibility of the successful actor toward any one of the outside world was borne in on Alexandra with exaggerated force.

"I'll wait here until Mr. Lambert leaves the theater," she said at last. "And I think I can promise you that you'll lose your place when he hears that you refused to take up my card."

Her indignation and her threat were too real to be ignored. They influenced the man's manner.

"Oh, well, chuck it over," he said grudgingly.

She handed it to him. In addition to her name it bore the words "Mrs. Hugh Lambert's Company." She had already penciled on it a line meant for Lambert's own eye. The man went off grumbling. When he returned his arrogance had entirely disappeared.

"The governor will see you," he said. "Up the stairs and the first door on the right." Then he added insinuatingly: "Sorry to keep you waiting, miss; but I get it that hot if I let anybody pass who's wanting an engagement."

She was indifferent to his regrets. All she wanted was to see Lambert and take him back with her. She passed in, hurried up the stairs, where at the top his dressing-room door stood open.

Lambert was playing in a costume piece, a mid-Georgian comedy that owed a great deal of its inspiration to Sheridan. In it he appeared as a beau of that elegant period, and as Alexandra on entering saw him she could but admit that he looked the part. Dressed in gorgeous brocade through which a dainty sword-hilt protruded, immaculately bewigged, lace-ruffled and overpoweringly scented, as she discovered on nearing him, he gave her the impression of extreme elegance, tempered by foppishness and effeminacy. He was sitting before the mirror on his dressing-table, leaning toward it, adding a deeper pencil mark to his eyebrows. When he had done that to his satisfaction he picked up a stick of carmine and deliberately touched up the curve of his lips before turning round to face his visitor. Alexandra had always felt an instinctive dislike of make-up on a man's face, though she recognized it as essential to the stage. But Lambert's attitude before the mirror was so affected, so vain that he instantly inspired her with contempt.

"You come from my wife?" he asked, and she thought she detected a note of dismay in his fine-toned voice. "Did she send you?"

"No," she answered. "But I want you to come down to her at once. She is very ill. I motored up so as not to lose a minute."