The Christian Part 45

"That's my style--a merry touch-and-go," said the lady. And then glancing at Glory, "Singing to-night, my dear?"

Glory shook her head.

"Thort you might be a pro' p'rhaps. Use ter be myself when I was in the bally at the Lane. Married now, my dear; but I likes to come of a Sunday night when the kids is got to bed."

Then Aggie danced a skirt dance, and there were shouts of applause for her, and she came back and danced again. When she reappeared in jacket and hat, and with her stage-box in her hand, the girls crushed their way out. Going through the bar they were invited to drink by several of the men who were standing there, but they got into the streets at last.

"They're rather messy, those bars," said Aggie; "but managers like you to come round and tyke something after you've done your turn--if it's only a cup of cawfy."

"Do you like this life?" said Glory, taking a long breath.

"Yes, awfully!" said Aggie.

Their next visit was to a Swiss club, which did not greatly differ from the Italian one, except that the hall was more shabby, and that the audience consisted of French and Swiss waiters and skittish young English milliners. The girls had taken their hats and cloaks off and sat dressed like dolls in white muslin with long streamers of bright ribbon.

A gentleman sang the "Postman's Knock," with the character accompaniment of a pot hat and a black-edged envelope, a lady sang "Maud" in silk tights and a cloak, Aggie danced her skirt dance, and then the floor was cleared for a ball.

"They're going to dance the Swiss dance," said Aggie, "and the M. C.

wants me to tyke a place; but I hate these fellows to be hugging me.

Will you be my partner, dear?"

"Well--just for a minute or two," said Glory, with nervous gaiety. And then the dance began.

It proved to be a musical version of odd man out, and Glory soon found herself being snapped up by other partners and addressed familiarly by the waiters and their women. She could feel the moisture of their hands and smell the oil of their hair, and a feeling like a spasm of physical pain came over her.

"Let us go," she whispered.

"Yes, it's getting lyte," said Aggie, and they crushed through the crowded bar and out into the street.

The tw.a.n.ging of the fiddles, the thud of the dancing, and the peals of coa.r.s.e laughter followed them from the stifling atmosphere within, and Glory felt sick and faint.

"Do you say that managers of good places call at these clubs sometimes?"

"Often," said Aggie, and she hummed a music-hall tune as she skipped and tripped along.

The streets, which had been dark and quiet when they arrived in Soho, were now ablaze with lights in every window, and noisy with people on every pavement. The last club they had to visit was a German one, and as they came near it they saw that a man was standing at the door bareheaded and looking out for somebody.

"It's Charlie," said Aggie with a little jump of joy. But when they came up to him a scowl darkened his dark face, and he said:

"Lyte as usyal! Two of the bloomin' turns not come, and me looking up and dahn the bloomin' street for you every minute and more!"

The girl's eyes blinked as if he had struck her, but she only tossed her head and stiffened her under lip, and said: "Jawing again, are ye? I'd chuck it for once, Charlie, if it was only for sake of company."

With that she disappeared to the dressing-room, and Charlie took charge of Glory, crushed a way for her through the refreshment room, offered her a "glaws of somethink," and with an obvious pride of possession introduced her to admiring acquaintances as "a friend o' mine." "Like yer style, Charlie," said one of them. "Oh, yus! Dare say!" said Charlie.

The proscenium was surmounted by the German and English flags intertwined, the walls were adorned with oleograph portraits of the Kaiser, his father and grandfather, Bismarck and Von Moltke, and the audience consisted largely of lively young German Jews and Jewesses in evening dress, some Polish Jews, and a sprinkling of other foreigners.

During Aggie's turn Glory was conscious that two strangers out of another world altogether had entered the club and were standing at the back.

"Toffs," said Charlie, looking at them over her shoulder, and then, answering to himself the meaning of their looks, "No, my luds! 'Tain't the first we've seen of sech!"

Then Aggie came up with an oily person in a flowered waistcoat and said, "This is my friend, guv'nor, and she wouldn't mind doing a turn if you asked her."

"If de miss vill oblige," began the oily one, and then the blood rushed to Glory's face, and before she knew what else had happened, her hat and ulster were in Aggie's hands and she was walking up the steps to the stage.

There was some applause when she went on, but she was in a dazed condition and it all seemed to be taking place a hundred miles away.

She heard her own voice saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, with your kind permission I will endeavour to give you an imitation----" and something more. Down to that moment her breath had been coming and going in hot gasps, and she had felt a dryness in her throat; but every symptom of nervousness suddenly disappeared, and she threw up her head like a charger in battle.

Then she sang. It was only a common street song, and everybody had heard it a thousand times. She sang "And her golden hair was hanging down her back" after the manner of a line of factory girls going home from work at night. Arm-in-arm, decked in their Vand.y.k.e hats, slashed with red ribbons and crowned with ostrich feathers, with their free step, their shrill voices--they were there before everybody's eyes, everybody could see them, everybody could recognise them, and before the end of the first verse there were shouts and squeals of laughter.

Glory felt dizzy yet self-possessed; she gave a little audible laugh while she stood bowing between the verses. In a few minutes the song was finished and the people were stamping, whistling, uttering screeching cat-calls, and shouting "Brayvo!" But Glory was sitting at the foot of the stage by this time with a face contorted as in physical pain. After the first thrill of success the shame of it all came over her and she saw how low she had fallen, and felt horrified and afraid. The clamour, the clapping of hands, the vulgar faces, the vulgar laughter, the vulgar song, Sunday night, her own birthday! It all pa.s.sed before her like the incidents in some nightmare, and at the back of it came other memories--Glenfaba, the sweet and simple household, the old parson smoking by the study fire and looking up at the evening star, and then John Storm and the church chimes at Bishopsgate! One moment she sat there with her burning face, staring helplessly before her, while people crowded round to shake hands with her and cried into her ears above the deafening tumult, "You'll have to tyke another turn, dear"; and then she burst into pa.s.sionate weeping.

"Stand avay! De lady's not fit to sing again," said some one, and she opened her eyes.

It was one of the two gentlemen who had been standing at the back.

"Ach Gott! Is it you? Don't you know me, nurse?"

It was Mr. Koenig, the organist.

"My gracious! Vot are you doing here, my child? Two monts ago I haf ask for you at de hospital, and haf write to de matron, but you vere gone.

Since den I haf look for you all over London. Vhere do you lif?"

Glory told him, and he wrote down the address.

"Ugh! A genius, and lif in a tobacco shop! My vife vill call on you and fetch you avay. She is a goot woman, and vhatever she tell you to do you must do it; but not musical and clever same like as you. Bless mine soul! Singing in a Sunday club! Do you know, my child, you haf a voice, and talents, great talents! Vants training--yes. But vhat vould you haf?

Here am I, Carl Koenig! I speak ver' bad de Englisch, but I know ver'

goot to teach music. I vill teach you same like I teach oder ladies who pay me many dollare. Do you know vhat I am?"

Yes, she knew what he was--he was the organist at All Saints', Belgravia.

"Pooh! I am a composer as veil. I write songs, and all your countrymen and countryvomen sing dem. I haf a choral company, too, and it is for dat I vant you. I go to de first houses in de land, de lords, de ministers, de princes. You shall come vith me. Your voice is soprano--no, mezzo-soprano--and it vill grow. I vill pitch it, and vhen it is ready I vill bring you out. But now get away from dis place and naivare come back, or I vill be more angry as before."

Then Glory rose, and he led her to the door. Her heart felt big and her eyes were glistening. Aggie was in the refreshment-room. Having finished for the night, the girl had resumed her outdoor costume without removing her make-up, and was laughing merrily among a group of men and playing them off against Charlie, who was still in the sulks and drinking at the bar. When Glory appeared, Aggie fidgeted with her glove and said, "Aren't you going to see us home, Charlie?"

"No," said Charlie.

"Where are you going to?"

"Nowhere as you can come."

Aggie's eyes watered, and she wrenched a b.u.t.ton off, but she only laughed and answered, "Don't think as we're throwing ourselves at _your_ head, my man! We only wanted to _know_. Ta-ta!"

It was now midnight, and the streets were thin of people, but sounds of music and dancing came from nearly every open window and door.

Aggie was crying. "That's the worst of the clubs," she said, "they lead 'em to the gambling h.e.l.ls. And then a young man always knows when he can tyke advantage."

As they returned past the Swiss club somebody who was being thrown out into the street was shouting in a gurgling voice, "Let go o' my throat or I'll corpse ye!" And farther on two or three girls in their teens, with their arms about the necks of twice as many men, were reeling along the pavement and singing in a tuneless wail.