A Mummer's Wife Part 31

'Didn't Mr. Lennox tell you that you had to sing my song, the market-woman's song, in the first act?'

'No, I heard nothing of it.'

'Then for goodness' sake make haste. Here, stick your face out. I'll do your make-up while the dresser laces you. But you'll be able to manage the song, won't you? It's quite impossible for me to get dressed in time. I can't understand Mr. Lennox not having told you.'

'Oh yes, I shall be able to get through it--at least I hope so,' Kate answered, trembling with the sudden excitement of the news. 'I think I know all the words except the encore verse.'

'Oh, you won't need that,' said Beaumont, betrayed by a twinge of professional jealousy. 'Now turn the other cheek. By Jove! we've no time to lose; they're just finishing the wedding chorus. If you're late it won't be my fault. I sent down word to the theatre to ask if you'd sing my song in the first act, as I had some friends coming down from London to see me. You know the Marquis of Sh.o.r.eham--has been a friend of mine for years. That'll do for the left eye.'

'If you put out your leg a little further I'll pull your stocking, and then you'll be all right,' said the dresser, and just staying a moment to pull up her garters in a sort of nervous trance, she rushed on to the stage, followed into the wings by Beaumont, who had come to hear how the song would go.

She was a complete success, and got a double encore from an enthusiastic pit. But in _Madame Favart_ she had nothing to do, and wearied waiting in the chorus for another chance which never came, for after her success with the fish-wife's song in _Madame Angot_, Beaumont took good care not to give her another chance. What was to be done? d.i.c.k said he couldn't sack the princ.i.p.als.

'Kate could play Serpolette as it was never played before,' exclaimed Montgomery, 'and I see no reason why she shouldn't understudy Leslie.'

'But What's-her-name is understudying it.'

'Why shouldn't there be two understudies?'

d.i.c.k could advance no reason, and once begun, the studies proceeded gaily.

Apparently deeply interested, d.i.c.k lay back in the armchair smoking perpetual cigarettes. Montgomery hammered with nervous vigour at the piano, and Kate stood by his side, her soul burning in the ardours of her task.

She would have preferred the part of Germaine; it would have better suited her gentle mind than the frisky Serpolette; but it seemed vain to hope for illness or any accident that would prevent Beaumont from playing. True, Leslie was often imprudent, and praying for a bronchial visitation they watched at night to see how she was wrapped up.

As soon as Kate knew the music, a rehearsal was called for her to go through the business, and it was then that the long-smouldering indignation broke out against her. In the first place the girl who till now had been entrusted with the understudy, and had likewise lived in the hopes of coughs and colds, burst into floods of pa.s.sionate tears and storms of violent words. She attacked Kate vigorously, and the scene was doubly unpleasant, as it took place in the presence of everybody. Bitter references were made to dying and deserted husbands, and all the acridness of the chorus-girl was squeezed into allusions anent the Divorce Court.

This was as disagreeable for d.i.c.k as for Kate. The rehearsal had to be dismissed, and the lady in question was sent back to London. Sympathy at first ran very strongly on the side of the weak, and the ladies of the theatre were united in their efforts to make it as disagreeable as possible for Kate. But she bore up courageously, and after a time her continual refusal to rehea.r.s.e the part again won a reaction in her favour; and when Miss Leslie's cold began to grow worse, and it became clear that someone must understudy Serpolette, the part fell without opposition to her share.

And now every minute of the day was given to learning or thinking out in her inner consciousness some portion of her part. In the middle of her breakfast she would hurriedly lay down her cup with a clink in the saucer and say, 'Look here, d.i.c.k; tell me how I'm to do that run in--my first entrance, you know.'

'What are your words, dear?'

'"Who speaks ill of Serpolette?"'

The breakfast-table would then be pushed out of the way and the entrance rehea.r.s.ed. d.i.c.k seemed never to weary, and the run was practised over and over again. Coming home from the theatre at night, it was always a question of this effect and that effect; of whether Leslie might not have scored a point if she had accentuated the lifting of her skirt in the famous song.

That was, as d.i.c.k declared, the 'number of grip'; and often, at two o'clock in the morning, just as she was getting into bed, Kate, in her chemise, would begin to sing:

'"Look at me here! look at me there!

Criticize me everywhere!

From head to feet I am most sweet, And most perfect and complete."'

There was a scene in the first act in which Serpolette had to run screaming with laughter away from her cross old uncle, Gaspard, and dodge him, hiding behind the Baillie, and to do this effectively required a certain _chic_, a gaiety, which Kate did not seem able to summon up; and this was the weak place in her rendering of the part. 'You're all right for a minute, and then you sober down into a Germaine,' d.i.c.k would say, at the end of a long and critical conversation. The business she learned to 'parrot.' d.i.c.k taught her the gestures and the intonations of voice to be used, and when she had mastered these d.i.c.k said he would back her to go through the part quite as well as Leslie.

Leslie! The word was now constantly in their minds. Would her cold get worse or better? was the question discussed most frequently between d.i.c.k, Kate, and Montgomery. Sometimes it was better, sometimes worse; but at the moment of their greatest despondency the welcome news came that she had slipped downstairs and sprained her foot badly.

'Oh, the poor thing!' said Kate; 'I'm so sorry. Had I known that was----'

'Was going to happen you wouldn't have learnt the part,' exclaimed Montgomery, with his loud, vacant laugh.

She beat her foot impatiently on the ground, and after a long silence she said, 'I shall go and see her.'

'You'd much better run through your music with Montgomery, and don't forget to see the dresser about your dress. And, for G.o.d's sake, do try and put a bit of gaiety into the part. Serpolette is a bit of a romp, you know.'

'Try to put a bit of gaiety into the part,' rang in Kate's ears unceasingly. It haunted her as she took in the waist of Leslie's dress, while she leaned over Montgomery's shoulder at the piano or listened to his conversation. He was enthusiastic, and she thought it very pretty of him to say, 'I'm glad to have had a share in your first success. No one ever forgets that--that's sure to be remembered.'

It was the nearest thing to a profession of love he had ever made, but she was preoccupied with other thoughts, and had to send him away for a last time to study the dialogue before the gla.s.s.

'Try to put a little gaiety into the part. Serpolette is a romp, you know.'

'Yes, a romp; but what is a romp?' Kate asked herself; and she strove to realize in detail that which she had accepted till now in outline.

XVI

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Mr. Hayes, who had been pushed, much against his will, before the curtain of the Theatre Royal, Bristol, to make the following statement, 'I'm sorry to inform you that in consequence of indisposition--that is to say, the accidental spraining of her ankle--Miss Leslie will not be able to appear to-night. Your kind indulgence is therefore requested for Miss D'Arcy, who has, on the shortest notice, consented to play the part of Serpolette.'

'Did yer ever 'ear of anyone spraining an ankle on purpose?' asked a scene-shifter.

'Hush!' said the gas-man, 'he'll 'ear you.'

Amid murmurs of applause, Mr. Hayes backed into the wings.

'Well, was it all right?' he asked d.i.c.k.

'Right, my boy, I should think it was; there was a touch of Gladstone in your accidentally sprained ankle.'

'What do you mean?' said the discomfited acting manager.

'I haven't time to tell you now. Now then, girls, are you ready?' he said, rushing on to the stage and hurriedly changing the places of the choristers. Putting his hand on a girl's shoulder, he moved her to the right or left as his taste dictated. Then retiring abruptly, he cried, 'Now then, up you go!' and immediately after thirty voices in one sonority sang:

'"In Corneville's wide market-pla-a-ces, Sweet servant-girls, with rosy fa-a-ces, Wait here, wait here."'

'Now, then, come on. You make your entrance from the top left.'

'I don't think I shall ever be able to do that run in.'

'Don't begin to think about anything. If you don't like the run, I'll tell you how to do it,' said d.i.c.k, his face lighting up with a sudden inspiration; 'do it with a cheeky swagger, walking very slowly, like this; and then when you get quarter of the way down the stage, stop for a moment and sing, "Who speaks ill of Serpolette?" Do you see?'

'Yes, yes, that will suit me better; I understand.'

Then standing under the sloping wing, they both listened anxiously for the cue.

'She loves Grenicheux.'

'There's your cue. On you go; give me your shawl.'

The footlights dazzled her; a burst of applause rather frightened than rea.s.sured her, and a prey to a sort of dull dream, she sang her first lines. But she was a little behind the beat. Montgomery brought down his stick furiously, the _repliques_ of the girls buffeted her ears like palms of hands, and it was not until she was halfway through the gossiping couplets, and saw Montgomery's arm swing peacefully to and fro over the bent profiles of the musicians that she fairly recovered her presence of mind. Then came the little scene in which she runs away from her uncle Gaspard and hides behind the Baillie. And she dodged the old man with such sprightliness from one side of the stage to the other that a murmur of admiration floated over the pit, and, arising in echoes, was prolonged almost until she stepped down to the footlights to sing the legend of Serpolette.