Jill the Reckless Part 58

"The fascination of a thtage life! Why girls leave home!" She looked at her reflection in the little mirror of her vanity-bag. "It _is_ a face!" she murmured reflectively. "But I should hate to have to go around with it long!"

A sallow young man, with the alertness peculiar to those who work on the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with a clatter. The d.u.c.h.ess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling.

The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the mere sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of the theatrical worker had begun to a.s.sert themselves. In five minutes these girls would be feeling completely restored and fit for anything.

Conversation broke out with the first sip of coffee, and the calm of the restaurant was shattered. Its day had begun.

"It's a great life if you don't weaken," said the Cherub hungrily attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose all you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten from end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time we're on the road."

"Why?" Lois Denham spoke with her mouth full. "What's wrong with it?"

The d.u.c.h.ess took a sip of coffee.

"Don't make me laugh!" she pleaded. "What's wrong with it? What's right with it, one would feel more inclined to ask!"

"One would feel thtill more inclined," said the Cherub, "to athk why one was thuch a chump as to let oneself in for this sort of thing when one hears on all sides that waitresses earn thixty dollars a month."

"The numbers are all right," argued Babe. "I don't mean the melodies, but Johnny has arranged some good business."

"He always does," said the Southern girl. "Some more buckwheat cakes, please. But what about the book?"

"I never listen to the book."

The Cherub laughed.

"You're too good to yourself! I listened to it right along, and take it from me it's sad! Of courthe they'll have it fixed. We can't open in New York like this. My professional reputation wouldn't thtand it!

Didn't you thee Wally Mason in front, making notes? They've got him down to do the re-writing."

Jill, who had been listening in a dazed way to the conversation, fighting against the waves of sleep which flooded over her, woke up.

"Was Wally--was Mr. Mason there?"

"Sure. Sitting at the back."

Jill could not have said whether she was glad or sorry. She had not seen Wally since that afternoon when they had lunched together at the Cosmopolis, and the rush of the final weeks of rehearsals had given her little opportunity for thinking of him. At the back of her mind had been the feeling that sooner or later she would have to think of him, but for two weeks she had been too tired and too busy to re-examine him as a factor in her life. There had been times when the thought of him had been like the sunshine on a winter day, warming her with almost an impersonal glow in moments of depression. And then some sharp, poignant memory of Derek would come to blot him out.

She came out of her thoughts to find that the talk had taken another turn.

"And the wortht of it is," the Cherub was saying, "we shall rehearthe all day and give a show every night and work ourselves to the bone, and then, when they're good and ready, they'll fire one of us!"

"That's right!" agreed the Southern girl.

"They couldn't!" Jill cried.

"You wait!" said the Cherub. "They'll never open in New York with thirteen girls. Ike's much too thuperst.i.tious."

"But they wouldn't do a thing like that after we've all worked so hard!"

There was a general burst of sardonic laughter. Jill's opinion of the chivalry of theatrical managers seemed to be higher than that of her more experienced colleagues.

"They'll do anything," the Cherub a.s.sured her.

"You don't know the half of it, dearie," scoffed Lois Denham. "You don't know the half of it!"

"Wait till you've been in as many shows as I have," said Babe, shaking her red locks. "The usual thing is to keep a girl slaving her head off all through the road-tour and then fire her before the New York opening."

"But it's a shame! It isn't fair!"

"If one is expecting to be treated fairly," said the d.u.c.h.ess with a prolonged yawn, "one should not go into the show-business."

And, having uttered this profoundly true maxim, she fell asleep again.

The slumber of the d.u.c.h.ess was the signal for a general move. Her somnolence was catching. The restorative effects of the meal were beginning to wear off. There was a call for a chorus rehearsal at four o'clock, and it seemed the wise move to go to bed and get some sleep while there was time. The d.u.c.h.ess was roused from her dreams by means of a piece of ice from one of the tumblers; bills were paid; and the company poured out, yawning and chattering, into the sunlight of the empty boardwalk.

Jill detached herself from the group, and made her way to a seat facing the sea. Tiredness had fallen upon her like a leaden weight, crushing all the power out of her limbs, and the thought of walking to the boarding-house where, from motives of economy, she was sharing a room with the Cherub, paralysed her.

It was a perfect morning, clear and cloudless, with the warm freshness of a day that means to be hotter later on. The sea sparkled in the sun. Little waves broke lazily on the grey sand. Jill closed her eyes, for the brightness of sun and water was trying; and her thoughts went back to what the Cherub had said.

If Wally was really going to rewrite the play, they would be thrown together. She would be obliged to meet him, and she was not sure that she was ready to meet him. Still, he would be somebody to talk to on subjects other than the one eternal topic of the theatre, somebody who belonged to the old life. She had ceased to regard Freddie Rooke in this light; for Freddie, solemn with his new responsibilities as a princ.i.p.al, was the most whole-hearted devotee of "shop" in the company. Freddie nowadays declined to consider any subject for conversation that did not have to do with "The Rose of America" in general and his share in it in particular. Jill had given him up, and he had paired off with Nelly Bryant. The two were inseparable. Jill had taken one or two meals with them, but Freddie's professional monologues, of which Nelly seemed never to weary, were too much for her. As a result she was now very much alone. There were girls in the company whom she liked, but most of them had their own intimate friends, and she was always conscious of not being really wanted. She was lonely, and, after examining the matter as clearly as her tired mind would allow, she found herself curiously soothed by the thought that Wally would be near to mitigate her loneliness.

She opened her eyes, blinking. Sleep had crept upon her with an insidious suddenness, and she had almost fallen over on the seat. She was just bracing herself to get up and begin the long tramp to the boarding-house, when a voice spoke at her side.

"Hullo! Good morning!"

Jill looked up.

"Hullo, Wally!"

"Surprised to see me?"

"No. Milly Trevor said she had seen you at the rehearsal last night."

Wally came round the bench and seated himself at her side. His eyes were tired, and his chin dark and bristly.

"Had breakfast?"

"Yes, thanks. Have you?"

"Not yet. How are you feeling?"

"Rather tired."

"I wonder you're not dead. I've been through a good many dress-rehearsals, but this one was the record. Why they couldn't have had it comfortably in New York and just have run through the piece without scenery last night, I don't know, except that in musical comedy it's etiquette always to do the most inconvenient thing. They know perfectly well that there was no chance of getting the scenery into the theatre till the small hours. You must be worn out. Why aren't you in bed?"

"I couldn't face the walk. I suppose I ought to be going, though."

She half rose, then sank back again. The glitter of the water hypnotized her. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Wally speaking, then his voice grew suddenly faint and far off, and she ceased to fight the delicious drowsiness.

Jill awoke with a start. She opened her eyes, and shut them again at once. The sun was very strong now. It was one of those prematurely warm days of early Spring which have all the languorous heat of late summer. She opened her eyes once more, and found that she was feeling greatly refreshed. She also discovered that her head was resting on Wally's shoulder.