The Christian Part 35

At the bottom there was a footnote from Aunt Rachel: "Do you ever see the Queen in London, and the dear Prince and Princess?"

She went to service that night at St. Paul's Cathedral. Entering by the west door, a verger in a black cloak directed her to a seat in the nave. The great place was dark and chill and half empty. All the singing seemed to come from some unseen region far away, and when the preacher got into the curious pulpit he looked like a Jack-in-the-box, and it seemed to be a drum that was speaking.

Coming out before the end, she thought she would walk to the Whitechapel Road, of which Aggie had told her something. She did so, going by Bishopsgate Street, but turning her head away as she pa.s.sed the church of the Brotherhood. The motley crowd of Polish Jews, Germans, and Chinamen, in the most interesting street in Europe, amused her for a while, and then she walked up Houndsditch and pa.s.sed through Bishopsgate Street again.

At the Bank she took an omnibus for home. The only other fare was a bouncing girl in a big hat with feathers.

"Going to the market, my dear? No? I hates it myself, too, so I goes to the 'alls instead. Come from the country, don't ye? Same here. Father's a farmer, but he's got sixteen besides me, so I won't be missed. Live?

I live at Mother Nan's dress-house now. Nice gloves, ain't they? My hat?

Glad you like the style. I generally get a new hat once a week, and as for gloves, if anybody likes me----"

That night in her musty bedroom Glory wrote home while little Slyboots slept: "'The best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft aglee.' Witness me!

"I intended to send you some Christmas presents, but the snow has been so industrious that not a mouse has stirred if he could help it.

However, I send three big kisses instead, and a pair of mittens for grandfather--worked with my own hands, because I wouldn't allow any good Brownie to do it for me. Tell Aunt Rachel I _do_ see the Prince and Princess sometimes. I saw them at the theatre the other night. Yes, the theatre! You must not be shocked--we are rather gay in London--we go to the theatre occasionally. It is so interesting to meet all the great people! You see I am fairly launched in fashionable society, but I love everybody just the same as ever, and the moment the candle is out I shall be thinking of Glenfaba and seeing the 'Waits,' and 'Oiel Verree,'

and 'Hunting the Wren,' and grandfather smoking his pipe in the study by the light of the fire, and Sir Thomas Traddles, the tailless, purring and blinking at his feet. Merry Christmas to you, my dears! By-bye."

VIII.

"'Where's that bright young Irish laidy?' the gentlemen's allwiz sayin', my dear," said Mrs. Jupe, and for very shame's sake, having no money to pay for board and lodgings, Glory returned to the counter.

A little beyond Bedford Row, in a rookery of apartment houses in narrow streets, there lives a colony of ballet girls and chorus girls who are employed at the lighter theatres of the Strand. They are a noisy, merry, reckless, harmless race, free of speech, fond of laughter, wearing false jewellery, false hair, and false complexions, but good boots always, which they do their utmost not to conceal.

Many of these girls pa.s.s through the Turnstile on their way to their work, and toward seven in the evening the tobacconist's would be full of them. Nearly all smoked, as the stained forefinger of their right hands showed, and while they bought their cigarettes they chirruped and chirped until the little shop was like a tree full of linnets in the spring.

Most of them belonged to the Frailty Theatre, and their usual talk was of the "stars" engaged there. Chief among these were the "Sisters Bellman," a trio of singers in burlesque, and a frequent subject of innuendo and rapartee was one Betty, of that ilk, whose name Glory could remember to have seen blazing in gold on nearly every h.o.a.rding and sign.

"Says she was a governess in the country, my dear." "Oh, yus, I dare say. Came out of a slop shop in the Mile End Road though, and learned 'er steps with the organ man in the court a-back of the jam factory."

"Well, I never! She's a wide un, she is!" "About as wide as Broad Street, my dear. Use ter sell flowers in Piccadilly Circus till somebody spoke to 'er, and now she rides 'er brougham, doncher know." Then the laughter would be general, and the girls would go off with their arms about each other's waists, and singing, in the street subst.i.tute for the stage whisper, "And 'er golden 'air was 'anging dahn 'er back!"

This yellow-haired and yellow-fingered sisterhood saw the game of life pretty clearly, and it did not take them long to get abreast of Glory.

"Like this life, my dear?" "Go on! Do she look as if she liked it?"

"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't," said Glory.

"Tell that to the marines, my dear. I use ter be in a shop myself, but I couldn't a-bear it. Give me my liberty, I say; and if a girl's got any sort o' figure----Unnerstand, my dear?"

Late that night one of the girls came in breathless and cried: "Hooraa!

What d'ye think? Betty wants a dresser, and I've got the shop for ye, my dear. Guinea a week and the pickings; and you go tomorrow night on trial. By-bye!"

Glory's old infirmity came back upon her, and she felt hot and humiliated. But her vanity was not so much wounded by the work that she was offered as her honour was hurt by the work she was doing. Mrs.

Jupe's absences from home were now more frequent than ever. If the business that took her abroad was akin to that which had taken her to Polly Love----

To put an end to her uneasiness, Glory presented herself at the stage door.

"You the noo dresser, miss?" said the doorkeeper. "Collins has orders to look after you.--Collins!"

A scraggy, ugly, untidy woman who was pa.s.sing--through an inner door looked back and listened.

"Come along of me then," she said, and Glory followed her, first down a dark pa.s.sage, then through a dusty avenue between stacks of scenery, then across the open stage, up a flight of stairs, and into a room of moderate size which had no window and no ventilation and contained three cheval gla.s.ses, a couch, four cane-bottom chairs, three small toilet tables with gas jets suspended over them, three large trunks, some boxes of cigarettes, and a number of empty champagne bottles. Here there was another woman as scraggy and untidy as the first, who bobbed her head at Glory and then went on with her work, which was that of taking gorgeous dresses out of one of the trunks and laying them on the end of the couch.

"She told me to show you her first act," said the woman called Collins, and, throwing open another of the trunks, she indicated some of the costumes contained in it.

It was a new world to Glory, and there was something tingling and electrical in the atmosphere about her. There were the shouts and curses of the scene-shifters on the stage, the laughing voices of the chorus girls going by the door, and all the mult.i.tudinous noises of the theatre before the curtain rises. Presently there was a rustle of silk, and two young ladies came bouncing into the room. One was tall and pink and white, like a scarlet runner, the other was little and dainty. They stared at Glory, and she was compelled to speak.

"Miss Bellman, I presume?"

"Ye mean Betty, down't ye?" said the tall lady, and at that moment Betty herself arrived. She was a plump person with a kind of vulgar comeliness, and Glory had a vague sense of having seen her before somewhere.

"So ye've came," she said, and she took possession of Glory straightway.

"Help me off of my sealskin."

Glory did so. The others were similarly disrobed, and in a few moments their three ladyships were busy before the toilet tables with their grease and rose-pink and black pencils.

Glory was taking down the hair of her stout ladyship, and her stout ladyship was looking at Glory in the gla.s.s.

"Not a bad face, girls, eh?"

The other two glanced at Glory approvingly. "Not bad," they answered, and then hummed or whistled as they went on with their making-up.

"Oh, _thank_ you," said Glory, with a low courtesy, and everybody laughed. It was really very amusing. Suddenly it ceased to be so.

"And what's it's nyme, my dear?" said the little lady.

A sort of shame at using in this company the name that was sacred to home, to the old parson, and to John Storm, came creeping over Glory like a goosing of the flesh, and by the inspiration of a sudden memory she answered, "Gloria."

The little lady paused with the black pencil at her eyebrows, and said:

"My! What a nyme for the top line of a bill!"

"Ugh! Mykes me feel like Sundays, though," said the tall lady with a shudder.

"Irish, my dear?"

"Something of that sort," said Glory.

"Brought up a laidy, I'll be bound?"

"My father was a clergyman," said Glory, "but----"

A sudden peal of laughter stopped her, whereupon she threw up her head, and her eyes flashed: but her stout ladyship patted her hands and said:

"No offence, Glo, but you re'lly mustn't--they're all clergymen's daughters, doncher know?"

A sharp knock came to the door, followed by the first call of the call-boy. "Half-hour, ladies." Then there was much bustle and some irritation in the dressing-room and the tuning up of the orchestra outside. The knock came again. "Curtain up, please." The door was thrown open, the three ladies swept out--the tall one in tights, the little one in a serpentine skirt, the plump one in some fancy costume--and Glory was left to gather up the fragments, to listen to the orchestra, which was now in full power, to think of it all and to laugh.