TWO PERSONALITIES
Etta Romney was very early awake upon the following morning; and not
for the first time since she had come to London did her environment so
perplex her that some minutes passed before she could recall the
circumstances which had brought her to that square room and made her a
stranger in a house of strangers.
Leaping up with a young girl's agility, she drew the blind aside and
looked out upon deserted Bedford Square, as beautiful in that early
light of morning as Bedford Square could ever be.
How still it all was! Not a footfall anywhere. No milk carts yet to
rattle by and suggest the busy day. Nothing but a soft sunshine upon
the drawn blinds, a lonely patch of grass beneath lonely trees, and
great gaunt houses side by side and so close together that each
appeared to be elbowing its neighbor for room in which to stand upright.
Etta returned to her bed and crouched upon it like a pretty wild
animal, half afraid of the day. A whole troop of fears and hopes
rushed upon her excited brain. What had she done? Of what madness had
she not been guilty? To-day the newspapers would tell her. If they
told her father also--her father whom she believed to be snug in
distant Tuscany--what then, and with what consequences to herself! A
fearful dread of this came upon her when she thought of it. She hid
her eyes from the light and could hear her own heart beating beneath
the bed-clothes.
She was not Etta now, but knew herself by another name, the name of
Evelyn, which in this mood of repentance became her better, she
thought. True, she had been Etta when she appeared before the people
last night, the wild mad Etta, given to feverish dreams in her old
Derbyshire home and trying to realize them here amid the garish scenes
of London's dramatic life. But arrayed in the white garb of momentary
penitence, she was Evelyn, the good nun's pupil; the docile gentle
Evelyn awaiting the redemption of her father's promise that the gates
of the world should not be shut forever upon her youth, but should open
some day to the galleries of a young girl's pleasure. It was the Etta
in her which made her impatient and unable to await the appointed time;
the Etta which broke out in this mad escapade, ever trembling upon the
brink of discovery and fearful in its possibilities of reproach and
remorse. But the Evelyn reckoned up the consequences and was afraid of
them.
She could not sleep again although it was then but six o'clock of the
morning, and she lay for more than an hour listening to those growing
sounds which are the overture of a London day. Workmen discussing
politics, amiably, if in strident tones, went by with heavy tread upon
their way to shop or factory. Milk carts appeared with their far from
musical accompaniment of doleful cries and rattling cans. An amorous
policeman conducted flirtations dexterously with various cooks, and
passed thence with sad step. Then came the postman with his cheery
rat-tat at nearly every house; the newsboy with the welcome cry of
"piper"; the first of the cabs, the market carts, the railway vans,
each contributing something to that voice of tumult without which the
metropolis would seem to be a dead city.
Etta sat up in her bed once more when she heard the newsboy in the
square. The papers! Was it possible that they would tell the public
all about last night's performance; that her name would figure in them;
that she would be praised or blamed according to the critics' judgment?
The thought made her heart beat. She had been warned by that great
man, Mr. Charles Izard, not to pay too much attention to what the
papers said; but how could she help doing so? A woman is rarely as
vain as a man, but in curiosity she far surpasses him. Etta was just
dying of curiosity to read what the critics said about her when old
Mrs. Wegg, her landlady, appeared with her morning tea; and this good
dame she implored to bring up the newspapers at once.
"I can't wait a minute, Mrs. Wegg," she said, for, of course, the old
lady knew that she was a "theatrical." "Do please send Emma up at
once--it's absolute torture."
The excellent Mrs. Wegg, who had her own ideas of newspaper reading,
expressed her sympathy in motherly language:
"Ah, I feel that way myself about the stories in 'Snippets,'" she said.
"I assure you, my dear, that when the Duke of Rochester ran away with
the hospital nurse, I couldn't sleep in my bed at night for wanting to
know what had become of her. I'll send Emma up this minute--the lazy,
good-for-nothin', gossipin' girl she is, to be sure. Now, you drink up
your tea and don't worrit about it. I've known them that can't act a
bit praised up to the sky by the crickets. I'm sure they'll say
something nice about you."
She waddled from the room leaving Etta to intolerable moments of
suspense. When the newspapers came, a very bundle which she had
ordered yesterday, she grabbed them at hazard, and catching up one of
the morning halfpenny papers immediately read the disastrous headline,
"Poor Play at the Carlton." So it was failure after all, then! Her
heart beat wildly; she hardly had the courage to proceed.
POOR PLAY AT THE CARLTON
BUT
A PERSONAL TRIUMPH FOR MISS ROMNEY
------
The Old Story of Haddon Hall Again
------
The Star Which Did Not Fail To Shine
Etta read now without taking her eyes from the paper. The notice would
be described by Mr. Izard later in the day as a "streaky one"--layers
of praise and layers of blame following one another as a rare tribute
to the discretion of the writer, who had been far from sure if the play
would be a success or a failure. In sporting language, the gentleman
had "hedged" at every line, but his praise of Etta Romney was unstinted.
"Here," he said, "is one of the most natural actresses recently
discovered upon the English stage. Miss Romney has sincerity, a
charming presence, a feeling for this old world comedy which it is
impossible to overpraise. We undertake to say that experience will
make of her a great actress. She has flashed upon our horizon as one
or two others have done to instantly win the favor of the public and
the praise of the critic."
Etta put the paper aside and took up a notice in a very different
strain. This was from the stately pages of "The Thunderer." Herein
you had a dissertation upon Haddon Hall, the Elizabethan Drama, the
Comedie Francaise, the weather, and the tragedies of AEschylus. The
writer thought the play a good specimen of its kind. He, too, admitted
that in Miss Etta Romney there was the making of a great actress:
"But she is not English," he protested, "we refuse to believe it. An
_artiste_ who can recreate the atmosphere of a mediaeval age and win a
verdict of conviction has not learnt her art in Jermyn Street. We look
for the biographer to help us. Has the Porte St. Martin nothing to say
to this story? Has Paris no share in it? We await the answer with
some expectation. Here is a comedy of which the Third Act should be
memorable. But whoever designed the scene in the chapel is _capable de
tout_...."
So to the end did this amiable appreciation applaud the player and
tolerate the play for her sake. Etta understood that it must mean much
to her; but she was too feverishly impatient to dwell upon it, and she
turned to the "Daily Shuffler" wishing that she had eyes to read all
the papers at once. The "Daily Shuffler" was very cruel:
"Miss Etta Romney," it said, "is worthy of better things. As a whole,
the performance was beneath contempt. At the same time, we are not
unprepared to hear that an ignorant public is ready to patronize it."
Had Etta known that the author of this screed was a youth of eighteen,
who had asked for two stalls and been allotted but one, she might have
been less crestfallen than she was when her fingers discovered this
considerable thorn upon her rose-bush. But she knew little of the
drama and less than nothing of its criticism; and there were tears in
her eyes when she put the papers down.
"How cruel," she said, "how could people write of others like that!"
She did not believe that she could have the heart to read more, and
might not have done so had not little Dulcie Holmes flung herself into
the room at that very moment and positively screamed an expression of
her rapture.
"Oh, you dear," she cried, "oh, you splendid Etta! Have you read them!
Have you seen them? Now isn't it lovely? Aren't you proud of them,
Etta? Aren't you just crying for joy?"
Lucy Grey, who had climbed the stairs in a more stately fashion and was
very much out of breath at the top of them, came in upon the climax to
tell Dulcie not to carry on so dreadfully and to assure Etta that the
notices were very nice. She, however, soon joined a shrill voice to
her friend's, and the two, sitting upon the bed, began to read the
papers together with such a running babble of comment, interjections,
cries, and good-natured expressions of envy, that the neighbors might
well have believed the house to be on fire.
"The curtain fell to rapturous--oh, Etta--now, Lucy, do keep quiet--her
acting in the Gallery Scene--I say that I began it first--her acting in
the Gallery Scene--she has a grace so subtle, a manner so
winning--isn't that lovely!--now, Lucy, be quiet--we began to think
after the Second Act--oh, bother the Second Act--now, there you go
again--she is indeed the embodiment of that picture romance has painted
for us and history destroyed--oh, Etta--!" and so on, and so on.
Etta admitted upon this that they had some good excuse for
congratulating her. In the theatre she found it quite natural to
listen to the girls' pleasant chatter and to put herself upon their
level both as to Bohemian habits of life and odd views of the world.
Away from the theatre, however, the Evelyn in her would assert itself.
Despite her affectionate nature, she found herself not a little
repelled by that very freedom of speech and act which seemed to her so
delightful a thing upon the stage. She was too kind-hearted to show
it, but her distaste would break out at intervals, especially in those
quiet morning hours when the freshness of the day reproached the
memories of the night with its garish scenes and its jingling melodies.
To-day, especially, she would have given much to be alone to think upon
it all and try to understand both what she had done and what the
consequences might be. But the girls gave her no opportunity even for
a moment's leisure.
"You said we'd lunch at the Savoy, Etta----"
"And you'd drive us in the Park afterwards----"
"Aren't you really very rich, Etta? You must be, I'm sure. Do you
know I have only got three shillings in the world and that must last me
until salaries are paid."
"I've worn this dress seven months," said Lucy, "and look at it.
Who'll write nice things about me with my petticoat in rags? Well, I
suppose what is to be is to be. I'm going to the Vaudeville in the
Autumn and perhaps my ship will come in."
"My dear children," said Etta kindly, "you know that I will always help
you when I can, and you must let me help you to-day when I am happy--so
happy," she added almost to herself, "that I do not believe it is real
even now."
They laughed at her quaint ideas and would have read the notices over
again to her but for her emphatic protest.
"No," she said, "we have so much to do; so much to think of. After
all, what does it matter while the sun is shining?"