Tommy had none too much to eat, and, according to her own aesthetic
ambitions, nothing at all to wear; but she was busy all day long and
absurdly happy. Her income was uncertain, but that was amusing and
thrilling rather than pitiful or tragic. She had two or three
"steadies" among singers, who gave her engagements as accompanist at
small drawing-room recitals or charitable entertainments. There was a
stout prima donna whose arias for dramatic soprano kept her practicing
until midnight, and a rich young lady amateur who needed a very
friendly and careful accompaniment because she sang flat and always
lost her breath before the end of a long phrase. The manner in which
Tommy concealed these defects was thoroughly ingenious and
sympathetic. When Miss Guggenheim paused for breath, Tommy filled the
gap with instrumental arabesques; when she was about to flat, Tommy
gave her the note suggestively. If she was too dreadfully below pitch,
and had breath enough to hang on to the note so long that the audience
(always composed of invited guests) writhed obviously, Tommy would
sometimes drop a sheet of music on the floor and create a diversion,
always apologizing profusely for her clumsiness. The third patron was
a young baritone, who liked Miss Tucker's appearance on the platform
and had her whenever he didn't sing Schubert's "Erl Koenig," which
Tommy couldn't play. This was her most profitable engagement, but it
continued alas! for only three months, for the baritone wanted to
marry her, and she didn't like him because he was bald and his neck
was too fat. Also, she was afraid she would have to learn to play the
"Erl Koenig" properly.
All this time Tommy was longing to sing in public herself, and trying
to save money enough to take more lessons by way of preparation.
When she lost the baritone, who was really peevish at being rejected
after suiting his programmes to her capacities for a whole season,
Tommy conceived a new idea. She influenced Jessie Macleod, who had a
fine contralto, and two other girls with well-trained voices, to form
a quartette.
"We can't get anything to do separately; perhaps we can make a
pittance together," she said. "We'll do good simple things; our voices
blend well, and if we practice enough there's no reason why we
shouldn't sing beautifully."
"Singing beautifully is one thing and getting engagements is another,"
sighed Jessie Macleod.
"As if I didn't know that! We can't hope to be superior to other
quartettes, so we must be different--unusual, unique--I can't think
just how at the moment, but I will before we make our debut."
And she did, for Tommy was nothing if not fertile in ideas.
Every hour that the girls could spare in the month of October was
given to rehearsal, till the four fresh young voices were like one.
They had decided to give nothing but English songs, to sing entirely
from memory, and to make a specialty of good words well spoken. All
the selections but one or two were to be without accompaniment, and in
these Tommy would sit at the piano surrounded by the other three in a
little group.
Miss Guggenheim was to give them their first appearance, invite fifty
or sixty people, and serve tea. She kindly offered to sing some solos
herself, but Tommy, shuddering inwardly, said she thought it was
better that the quartette should test its own strength unaided.
Miss Guggenheim couldn't sing, but she could dress, and she had an
inspiration a week before the concert.
"What are you going to wear, girls?" she asked.
"Anything we have, is the general idea," said Tommy. "Mine is black."
"Mine's blue"--"White"--"Pink!" came from the other three.
"But must you wear those particular dresses? Can't you each compromise
a little so as to look better together?"
"So hard to compromise when each of us has one dress hanging on one
nail; one neck and sleeves filled up for afternoons and ripped out for
evenings!"
"I should get four simple dresses just alike," said Miss Guggenheim,
who had a dozen.
"What if they should hang in our closets unworn and unpaid for?" asked
Jessie Macleod.
"We're sure to get at least one engagement some time or other. Nothing
ventured, nothing have. We ought to earn enough to pay for the
dresses, if we do nothing more,"--and Tommy's vote settled it.
Miss Guggenheim knew people, if she did sing flat, and her
drawing-room was full on the occasion of the debut. Carl Bothwick, a
friend of Tommy's, was in a publishing office, and nobly presented
programmes for the occasion. The quartette had not thought of naming
itself, but Carl had grouped the songs under the heading, "The Singing
Girls," and luckily they liked the idea.
At four o'clock the hum of conversation ceased at the sound of singing
voices in the distance. A sort of processional effect had been Tommy's
suggestion, and the quartette formed in the dressing-room and sang its
way to the audience.
"Hark, hark, the lark at Heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins to rise."
The voices rang high and clear, coming nearer and nearer. All the
words could be heard and understood. The hall portieres divided, and
the girls entered, all in soft gray crepe, gardenias at the belt,
little brimmed hats of black velvet with a single gardenia on the
side, the flowers being the offering of the dramatic soprano, who
loved Tommy. They were young, they were pretty, they sang delightfully
in tune, and with quite bewitching effect. Several ladies fell in love
with them at first sight, and hoped that they would sing for nothing a
few times, "just to get themselves known." They had done nothing else
for two years, so that Tommy said they must be acquainted with the
entire State of New York, though nothing ever came of it. It was a
joyous surprise, then, when an old gentleman in the company (who was
seen to wipe tears away when the girls sang "Darby and Joan") engaged
them to sing at his golden wedding the next night. That was the
beginning of a season of modest prosperity. Tommy's baritone had
married his new accompanist (he seemed determined to have a
piano-playing wife), and wishing to show Miss Tucker that his heart
was not broken by her rejection, he gave a handsome party and engaged
the quartette, paying for their services in real coin of the realm.
Other appearances followed in and out of town, and Tommy paid for her
gray dress, spent a goodly sum for an attack of tonsillitis, the
result of overwork, and still saved two hundred dollars. The season
was over. She was fagged, but not disheartened. Who is at twenty-two?
But it was late April, and drawing-room entertainments were no more.
The two hundred dollars when augmented by the church salary would
barely take her through till October.
"It is very annoying," thought Tommy, "when you have to eat, drink,
sleep, and dress twelve months in the year, that the income by which
you do these things should cease abruptly for four months. Still,
furriers can't sell furs in hot weather, and summer boarders can't
board in winter, so I suppose other people have to make enough money
in eight months to spend in twelve."
"'Hark, hark, the lark at Heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins to rise!'"
she caroled, splashing about in her morning tub as she finished making
these reflections, the tub being an excellent place for trills and
scales.
Proceeding from tub to her sitting-room to make things ready for
toilet and breakfast, her mind ran on her little problems.
"I want to learn more, see more, hear more," she thought. "I have one
of those nasty, unserviceable, betwixt-and-between talents: voice not
high enough for 'Robert, toi que j'aime,' nor low enough for
'Staendchen'; not flexible enough for 'Caro Nome,' nor big enough for
'Ocean, Thou Mighty Monster'; poor French accent, worse German;
awfully good English, but that doesn't count. Can sing old ballads,
folk-songs, and nice, forgotten things that make dear old gentlemen
and ladies cry--but not pay. If I were billed at all, it ought to be
"First Appearance in Public[[v:small-caps]]
of[[v:small-caps]]
Behind-the-Times Tommy"[[v:small-caps]]
This appellation so tickled her fancy that she nearly upset the
coffee-pot, and she continued to laugh at her own wit until a fat
letter was pushed under her door from the hall outside. She picked it
up. It had an English postmark.
"Helena Markham!" she cried, joyously.