SUCCESS AND AFTERWARDS
Etta Romney sat in her little dressing-room when the play was over, so
very tired after all she had done that even the congratulations of Mr.
Charles Izard failed to give her pleasure.
Unlike the successful actress of our time, she had not yet attracted
the attention of the "flower" brigade, as little Dulcie Holmes, one of
her friends in the theatre, would call them; and despite her success
and the astonishment it had provoked, no baskets of roses decorated her
dressing-table, nor were expensive bouquets thrown "negligently" to the
various corners of the room. Two red roses in a cheap vase; a bunch of
narcissi, which had obviously come from the flower-girls of the
Criterion, witnessed her triumph in lonely majesty. Even the
redoubtable Mr. Izard, not anticipating the splendor of the evening,
had forgotten to "command" a basket for his star. He, good man, had
but one word for his surprising fortune. "It's bully," he said--and
repeated the conviction _usque ad nauseam_.
Etta sat alone, but it was not for many minutes after the curtain fell.
Little Dulcie Holmes, the artist's daughter, who had a "walking part"
at twenty-four shillings a week, came leaping into the room presently
and catching her friend in both arms kissed her rapturously.
"Oh, Etta," she cried ardently, "oh, my dear--they won't go away even
now. Can't you hear them calling for you?"
"They are too kind to me," was the quiet response, "and all because I
love Derbyshire. Isn't it absurd?--but, of course, I'm very pleased,
Dulcie."
"Think of it, dear Etta. Your very first night and Mr. Izard in such a
state that he'd give you a hundred a week if you asked him. Of course,
you won't play for nothing now, Etta."
"I've never thought of it," said Etta still without apparent emotion
... and then with a very sweet smile, she asked, "What would you say if
I told you that I was about to give up the theatre altogether, Dulcie?"
Dulcie opened her eyes so wide (and they were pretty blue eyes too)
that the rest of her piquant face was quite dwarfed by them.
"Give up the theatre. You're joking. Here Lucy--here's Etta talking
of giving up the theatre. Now, what do you say to that?"
Lucy Grey, a pretty brunette, whose share in the triumph was the saucy
delivery of the momentous line, "Oh, Captain, how could you?" (she
playing a maid's part for thirty shillings a week), would not believe
that Dulcie could possibly be serious.
"Whatever will the papers say to-morrow?" she exclaimed. "Did you ever
think she could do it? I didn't, and I'm not going to say that I did.
Why, here's Mr. Izard quite beside himself."
"And he'll be beside Etta just now wanting her to sign a three years'
engagement as principal. Now, you take my advice and don't you do it,
dear--not unless he'll pay you a hundred a week. That's where girls
ruin their prospects, taking on things just when they're excited. If
it were me, wouldn't I ask him something! Perhaps he'll play hot and
cold--they sometimes do; but your fortune's made, Etta, and I can't
think why you take it so quietly. How I should dance and sing if I
were you----"
Etta had begun to gather up the heavy tresses of her long black hair by
this time; but she did so slowly and deliberately as one whom success
had neither surprised nor agitated. Could the two young girls about
her have read her thoughts they would have been astonished indeed. Not
idly had she asked Dulcie Holmes what people would say if she gave up
the theatre entirely. For give it up she must. In one short month her
father would return from the Continent. She must be at home by that
time, and none must ever know that she had left her home.
"We'll talk it all over in the morning," she said, still smiling--"I
want both of you to come and see me to-morrow. We shall have read the
papers by that time. Whatever will they say about me?"
"It doesn't matter what they say. Everyone in London will be talking
about you before the week's out. All the same, the papers are going to
be nice. Lucy's cousin was in the vestibule between the acts and he
heard the critics talking. They called you 'immense,' dear. That
means bad luck for the play, but everything for you. You just wait
until the morning comes."
"I fear I'll have to," said Etta, with a sly look toward them; but just
then there came a tap on the door and who should it be but a messenger
with the intimation that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Izard expected Miss Etta
Romney to supper at the Carlton Hotel as soon as she could conveniently
join their party. To the extreme astonishment both of Dulcie Holmes
and Lucy Grey, Etta appeared to be distressed beyond words by this
customary invitation.
"Oh, I never can go; I dare not go--whatever shall I do?" she asked.
"Not go!" cried Dulcie, almost too amazed to speak; "why, of course you
must go. Charles would send soldiers to fetch you if you refused. The
star always sups with him on a first night. I never heard of such a
thing. She talks of not going, Lucy!"
"That's the excitement," said Lucy wisely. "I should be just the same
in her place. She wants a glass of wine. She'll break out crying just
now if she doesn't get one."
Their solicitude for Etta was very pretty and really honest. They were
too fond of her to be jealous. Women who love loyally welcome their
friends successes; men rarely do. Dulcie and Lucy might say "what a
lucky girl she is;" but they would not have wished her to be less so.
As for Etta herself, the invitation perplexed her to distraction. How
if she met some one who knew her at the Carlton. It was very unlikely
she thought. Fifteen years passed in a French convent with few English
pupils do not admit of many embarrassing acquaintances. The subsequent
years, lived chiefly in the park of a mediaeval country house rarely
open to strangers, were not likely to be more dangerous. Etta knew
that discovery might be disastrous to her beyond the ordinary meaning
of the term; but her cleverness told her that the risk of it was very
small. It was then after eleven o'clock. She remembered that they
turned the people out of the Carlton Hotel at half-past twelve.
"Tell Mr. Izard that I will come," she said to the messenger, and then
to the girls, "You won't forget to-morrow. Run round early and we'll
read the newspapers together. And, dear girls, we'll spend Sunday at
Henley, as I promised you."
They kissed her affectionately, promising not to forget. There was not
so much pleasure in their lives that they should pass it by when a good
fairy approached them. Sharing rooms together, they had as yet
discovered upon some fifty-odd shillings a week little of the glamour
and none of the rewards of theatrical life. For them the theatre was
the house of darkening hope, wherein success passed by them every hour
crying, "Look at me--how beautiful I am; but not for you." They had
believed that the pilgrim's way would be strewn with gold--they
discovered it to be paved with promises.
"Of course, we shall come," said Lucy in her matter of fact way;
"whatever should we be thinking of if we didn't."
But Dulcie said:
"I'm going to wear my pink blouse on Sunday and the hat you gave
me--didn't I tell you that Harry Lauder would be at Henley? Well,
then, he will ... and, Etta, could you, would you, mind if I----"
Etta laughingly told her that she could not, would not positively mind
at all; and then remembering how late it was, she hurried from the
theatre and found herself, just as the clocks were striking the
quarter-past eleven, in the hall of the Carlton, standing before Mr.
Charles Izard and listening but scarcely hearing the shrewd compliments
which that astute gentleman deigned to shower upon them.
"You've struck it thick, my dear," he was saying. "Get twelve months'
experience in my company and you'll make a great actress. I say what I
mean. All you want is just what my theatre will teach you--the little
tricks of our trade which go right there, though the public doesn't
know much of them. Come and have supper now, and we'll talk business
in the morning. I shouldn't wonder if the critics spread themselves
over this. Don't pay too much attention to them--they dare not quarrel
with me."
Mrs. Charles Izard, a frank florid woman, was much less discreet and
much more honest.
"Perfectly adorable, my child," she said; "it was joy all the time to
me. You couldn't have played it better if you'd have been born in a
Duke's house. Wherever you got your manners from, I don't know. Now,
really, Charles, don't say it wasn't; don't contradict me, Charles.
You know that Miss Romney is going to make a fortune for you; and
you're rich enough as it is. Why, child, the man's worth five million
dollars if he's worth a penny. And it isn't five years since I was
making my own clothes."
The supper room unfortunately put an end to these interesting
revelations. Etta followed the loquacious Mrs. Izard as closely as she
could, being sure that such a gorgeous apparition (for the lady was
dressed from head to foot in scarlet)! would divert attention from
herself; and, in truth, it did so. A few turned their heads to say,
"That's Izard and there's the only woman of his company who fixes her
own salary;" but the supper was already in full swing and the people
for the most part silent upon their own entertainment or that of their
guests. Of the six or seven women who remarked the stately girl in
Izard's company, the majority first said, "What a charming gown!" The
men rarely noticed her. They had taken their second glasses of
champagne by this time and were genially flirting with the women at
their own tables. If they said anything, it was just, "What a pretty
girl!"
And what were Etta's thoughts as she sat for the first time amid that
garish company, typical of one of London's sets, and in some sense of
society? Possibly she would have had some difficulty in expressing
them. The music excited her, the ceaseless chatter hurt ears long
accustomed to silence. In truth, she had tried to depict this scene in
her Derbyshire home many times since her father had shut his gates upon
the world. But the reality seemed so very different from her dreams;
so very artificial, so shallow, so far from splendid. And beneath her
disappointment lay the fear that some accident might disclose her
identity. How, she asked, if she stood up there and told them all, "My
name is not Etta but Evelyn. To-night I am an actress at the Carlton
Theatre, but you will know me by and by as an Earl's daughter." Would
they not have said that she was a mad woman? Such a confession would
have been nothing but the truth, none the less.
She had planned and carried out, most daringly, as wild an escapade as
ever had been recorded in the story of that romantic home of hers, to
which she must soon return as secretly as she had come. Until this
moment her success had been complete. Not a man or woman in all London
had turned upon her to say, "You are not Etta Romney but another, the
daughter of the one-time Robert Forrester, of whom your cousin's death
has made an earl." Living a secluded life in a quiet lodging in
Bedford Square, none remarked her presence; none had the curiosity to
ask who she was or whence she came. The very daring of her adventure
thrilled and delighted her. She would remember it to the end of her
life; and when she returned to Derbyshire the stimulus of it would go
with her, and permit her to say, "I, too, have known the hour of
success, the meaning of applause, the glamour of the world."
These thoughts followed her to the supper room at the Carlton and were
accountable for the indifference with which she listened to the praises
and the prophecies of that truly great man, Mr. Charles Izard. He,
wonderful being, confessed to himself that he could make nothing of the
girl and that she was altogether beyond his experience. Her stately
manners frightened him. When he called her, "my dear," as all women
are called in the theatre, the words would sometimes halt upon his lips
and he would hurriedly correct them and say, "Miss," instead. The
first guess that he had made at her identity would have it that she was
a country parson's daughter, or perhaps a relative of the agent or the
steward of a Derbyshire estate. Now, however, he found himself of
another opinion altogether, and there came to him the uneasy conviction
that some great mystery lay behind his good fortune and would stand
eventually between him and his hopes.
Now many of Mr. Charles Izard's friends visited his supper-table from
time to time, and of these one or two were languid young men in quest
of introductions. These stared at Etta, open-mouthed and rudely; but
her host made short work of them and they ambled away, seeking whom
they might devour elsewhere, but never with any ardor. Supper was
almost done, indeed before anyone of sufficient importance to engage
the great Charles Izard's attention made his appearance. At last,
however, he hailed a stranger with some enthusiasm, and this at a
moment when Etta was actually listening to a piteous narrative of Mrs.
Charles' domestic achievements.
"Why, Count, what good fortune tossed you out of the blanket? Come and
sit right here. You know my wife, of course?"
Mrs. Izard and Etta turned their heads together to see a somewhat pale
youth with dark chestnut hair and wonderfully plaintive eyes--a youth
whose dark skin and slightly eccentric dress proclaimed him
unmistakably to be a foreigner; but one who was quite at home in any
society in which he might find himself. The face was pleasing; the
manners those of a man who has travelled far and has yet to learn the
meaning of the word embarrassment. To Mr. Izard he extended a
well-shaped hand upon which a ruby ring shone a little vulgarly, but to
Etta he spoke with something of real cordiality in his tone.
"Why, Miss Romney," he exclaimed, his accent betraying a considerable
acquaintance with Western America, "why, Miss Romney, we are no
strangers surely?"
Etta colored visibly; but fearing a misconception of her momentary
confusion, she said to Mrs. Izard:
"The Count and I ran into each other in the Strand the other day. I
fear I was very clumsy."
"So little," said the Count, "that never shall I call a cab in London
again without remembering my good fortune."
He drew a chair to Etta's side and sat so near to her that even the
great man remarked the circumstance.
"That's how I'd like to see 'em sit down in my comedies," he remarked
with real feeling. "The young men I meet can't take a chair, let alone
fix themselves straight on it. You come along to me, Count, and I'll
pay you a hundred dollars a week to be master of the ceremonies. Our
stage manager used to do stunts on a bicycle. He thinks people should
do the same on chairs."
Count Odin looked at the speaker a little contemptuously with the look
of a man who never forgets his birthright or jests about it. To Etta
he said with an evident intention of explaining his position:
"Mr. Izard crossed over with me the last time I have come from America.
I remember that he had the difficulty with his chair on that occasion."
And then he asked her--"Of course you have been across, Miss Romney;
you know America, I will be sure?"
Etta answered him with simple candor, that she had travelled but little.
"I was educated in a convent. You may imagine what our travels were.
Once every year we had a picnic on the Seine at Les Andlays. That's
where I got my knowledge of the world," she said with a laugh.
"Then your ideas are of the French?" He put it to her with an object
she could not divine, though she answered as quickly.
"They are entirely English both in my preferences and my friendships,"
was her reply, nor could she have told anyone why she put this affront
upon him.
"She's going to make friends enough out yonder in the Fall," said
Izard, whose quick ear caught the tone of their conversation. "I shall
take this company over in September if we play to any money this side.
Miss Romney goes with me, and I promise her a good time any way.
America's the country for her talent. You've too many played-out
actors over here. Most of them think themselves beautiful, and that's
why their theatres close up."
He laughed a flattering tribute to his own cleverness, as much as to
say--"My theatres never close up." Count Odin on his part smiled a
little dryly as though he might yet have something to say to the
proposed arrangement.
"Are you looking forward to the journey, Miss Romney?" he asked Etta in
a low voice.
"I am not thinking at all about it," she said very truthfully.
"Then perhaps you are looking backward," he suggested, but in such a
low tone that even Izard did not hear him.
When Etta turned her startled eyes upon him, he was already addressing
some commonplace remark to his hostess, while Mr. Charles Izard amused
himself by diligently checking the total of the bill.
"I could keep a steam yacht on what I pay for wine in this hotel," he
remarked jovially, addressing himself so directly to the ladies that
even his good dame protested.
"My dear Charles," she exclaimed, "you are not suggesting that I have
drunk it?"
"Well, I hope some one has," was the affable retort. "Let's go and
smoke. It's suffocating in here."
Etta had been greatly alarmed by the Count's remark, though she was
very far from believing that it could bear the sinister interpretation
which her first alarm had put upon it. This fear of discovery had
dogged her steps since she quitted her home to embark upon as wild an
adventure as a young girl ever set her hand to; but if discovery came,
she reflected, it would not be at the bidding of a foreigner whom she
had seen for the first time in her life but a few days ago. Such
wisdom permitted her quickly to recover her composure, and she pleaded
the lateness of the hour and her own fatigue as the best of reasons for
leaving the hotel.
"I am glad you were pleased," she said to Izard, holding out her hand
directly they entered the hall. "Of course it has all been very
dreadful to me and I'm still in a dream about it. The newspapers will
tell me the truth to-morrow, I feel sure of it."
He shook her hand and held it while he answered her.
"Don't you go thinking too much about the newspapers," he said, with a
splendid sense of his own importance. "When Charles Izard says that a
play's got to go, it's going, my dear, though the great William
Shakespeare himself got out of his grave to write it down. You've done
very well to-night and you'll do better when you know your way about
the stage. Go home and sleep on that, and let the critics spread
themselves as much as they please."
As before, when she had first come to the hotel, Mrs. Izard defied the
warning glances thrown toward her by the man of business and repeated
her honest praise of Etta's performance.
"It's years since I heard such enthusiasm in a theatre," she admitted;
"why, Charles was quite beside himself. I do believe you made him cry,
my dear."
The mere suggestion that the great man could shed tears under any
circumstances whatever appealed irresistibly to Count Odin's sense of
humor.
"Put that in the advertisement and you shall have all the town at your
theatre. An impressario's tears! They should be gathered in cups of
jasper and of gold. But I imagine that they will be," he added gayly
before wishing Etta a last good-night.
"We shall meet again," he said to her a little way apart. "I am the
true believer in the accident of destiny. Let us say _au revoir_
rather than good-night."
* * * * *
Etta looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Good-night."