It was past one o'clock. For over two hours without a pause the chorus
had been going through their "business" in the new play with the
reiteration that exasperates the teacher and the taught. The girls had
relapsed into sulkiness, the stage-manager's temper was ruffled. Even
the pianist in the O.P. corner by the footlights felt the reaction. His
hands rested on the keys without energy.
Powell, the stage-manager, faced the forty girls standing in a
semi-circle, three-deep. The majority of them were dressed in the
ultra-fashionable style of the moment, some very expensively, a few with
taste. The exceptions were Maggy and Alexandra. He knew they were all
tired and rebellious; but he was concerned only with their recalcitrant
feet.
"Now then, girls. Once more."
The pianist's hands came down heavily on the opening chords of a dance
movement.
"La-la-la--da-di-dum--point! Step it out. Don't mince!"
A tall girl, gorgeously arrayed, brought the dance to a stop by leaving
her position in the front row.
"I'm not going to stick here all day," she announced defiantly. "I'm
lunching with my boy, and he won't wait."
"Get back to your place, Miss Mortimer," snapped Powell.
"Not me. I'm going."
As she began to cross the stage on her way out a voice came from the
depths of the auditorium:
"Miss Mortimer, we're not concerned with your private appointments. If
they're to interfere with your work here you can look for another
engagement somewhere else."
The show-girl glanced in the direction of the voice and shrugged.
"Mean you'll fire me, Mr. De Freyne? Well, I don't care. Pa's rich!"
She walked off jauntily, her high heels clicking on the boards, a costly
plume streaming over her left ear. The lessee of the Pall Mall Theater
said nothing. He was mildly amused. He stood in the dark at the back
of the dress circle complacently regarding his theatrical seraglio. All
the girls were pretty, or if not pretty, showy. Some had been selected
for their figures, some for their faces, some for both. No duchess, not
even a fashionable duchess, was arrayed like one of these. Solomon in
all his glory might perhaps have competed with them, but not the lilies
of the field. Presently De Freyne's gimlet eyes picked out Maggy and
Alexandra. Their appearance disturbed his equanimity.
He watched them attentively for ten minutes or so, at the end of which
period the tired stage-manager dismissed the chorus for the morning. De
Freyne's authoritative voice again made itself heard.
"Miss Delamere and Miss Hersey. Step up to my room before you go,
please. I want to speak to you."
The girls exchanged scared glances. A special interview with De Freyne
was sufficiently unusual to fill them with dismay. He was not in the
habit of detaining members of his chorus for the fun of the thing.
They groped their way along dim, soft-carpeted passages to the front of
the house and entered the managerial office. De Freyne was blunt to a
degree. He wasted no time.
"You two girls have got to make more of a show," he told them. "I can't
have shabby dresses at the Pall Mall."
Alexandra was too taken aback by this curt rebuke to make any reply; but
Maggy lost her temper.
"Meaning flash clothes and jewelry?" she bit out. "How do you expect us
to do it on thirty-five shillings a week, Mr. De Freyne?"
"I'm not interested in your resources," was De Freyne's cold answer.
"You ought to be. You ought to get a pencil and slate and write down
the cost of lodgings, food, boots, and all the rest of it, and figure
out how little we've got left to buy clothes with--unless we don't care
who buys them for us. _We're_ not that sort--not yet."
"You must look smarter," reiterated De Freyne, showing no resentment at
this tirade. "You silly creatures, don't you want to attract attention?"
"We'll attract attention on the night. Don't worry," said Maggy. She
was afraid of De Freyne, but she did not let her voice show it.
"That's all very well, but you know the unwritten clause of my agreement
with you all. The ladies of my chorus have got to be dressed decently
off the stage as well as on.... Anyhow, there it is. Take it or leave
it." He dismissed them with a nod.
Neither said anything until they had passed out of the stage-door and
were in the street.
"That means new clothes," said Alexandra in a tone of deep depression.
"Or Dick Whittington!" Maggy rejoined dryly. "Turn and turn again--our
dresses. I'll have a go at yours to-night, Lexie. Look, there's
Mortimer and her boy."
A big car slid past them, ridiculously upholstered in white velvet. An
effete-looking youth and the girl who had stated that her "pa" was rich
lolled in the back seat.
Maggy's eyes followed them speculatively.
"Wonder if there's anything in it?" she remarked.
"In what?"
"In that sort of a good time. Flat, money, pet dog, car, week-ends at
Brighton--enough to eat."
"I don't want to think about it."
"Neither do I. But I have lately. I'm wondering what on earth we're
standing out for. No one thinks any the better of us for it. The girls
all think us fools, and the men just grin and wait."
"Don't talk about it. Talking makes it all seem worse."
"One day I shall do more than talk. I shall walk off."
Alexandra said nothing. She knew Maggy's mood. Maggy was hungry,
tired, and cross. Motives of economy impelled them towards their
lodgings, where half a tin of sardines was waiting to be consumed.
Neither had had anything to eat since early morning. And when they had
lunched they would have to walk back to the theater for rehearsal again
at three. Maggy suddenly halted before a Lyons' depot.
"Come on in, Lexie," she said. "We can't wait. We shan't be home till
past two. And if we're late back we'll be fined."
"There's the tin of--" Alexandra began and stopped.
Maggy had pushed open the swing doors. The grateful smell of hot and
well-made coffee and savory, nourishing food, cheapness notwithstanding,
made her surrender to temptation. Deprivation has this effect. De
Freyne, lunching expensively at the Savoy, recognizing here and there
approved members of his chorus and their cavaliers, could not be
expected to know anything of empty stomachs. Besides, it was their own
fault if the girls did not know which side their bread was buttered.
They sat down at one of the marble-topped tables. A waitress came
towards them.
"Two cups of coffee, rolls and butter--"
This was Alexandra's order.
"Coffee, rolls, and two steak-and-kidney puddings," augmented Maggy
recklessly.
Unmoved, the attendant went off to execute the order.
Maggy met Alexandra's startled eyes. Her own were defiant.
"Don't tell me," she said. "It'll cost us nearly eighteenpence. I
don't care. _I'm_ going to pay, and if I don't go bust that way I shall
do something worse. We're going to feed, dear!"
V
"Damn! She's turned off the gas!"
Maggy stopped machining. The small room was plunged in darkness.
Alexandra groped for matches and lit the candles. It was not easy to
work by the flickering light, but both girls went on with what they were
doing. There was something grim about the task. One associates the
alteration of frills and furbelows with some small pleasure to the
adapter; but there was none here. Necessity impelled them, kept them
out of their beds. They were heavy with sleep. The air of the room was
close and unpleasant.
Maggy had all but finished turning Alexandra's coat and skirt.
Alexandra had adapted two Indian shawls into an effective dress for
Maggy. The work was too hastily done to bear inspection at close
quarters or much strain by its wearer. They had been steadily at it for
five hours.
It was Maggy who gave in first. She finished machining with a savage
jerk, leaving the handle to revolve by itself.
"Let's go to bed," she said. "I'll get up half an hour earlier and
finish that."
Alexandra went on. She was not going to be beaten for the sake of half
an hour. Besides, she knew that Maggy in the cashmere shawl arrangement
would please De Freyne. She, at any rate, would pass muster.
"I'm not so very tired now," she answered without looking up, "and I may
be in the morning."
Maggy shook her hair down and slipped out of her clothes with the
celerity that comes of practise between the acts. She did not even
trouble to take the paint off her face. She got into bed and lay
watching Alexandra working by the guttering candle-light. She did not
talk. She was too utterly tired.
At last Alexandra's work was done. She hung up the dress and put away
the needles and cotton. She had a strong inclination to get into bed
without more ado than Maggy had shown; but habit was not to be denied.
She knew she would not be able to rest properly unless she was clean and
cool. She brushed her hair, washed her face and hands, brushed her
teeth. A huge sigh from Maggy's bed made her turn.
"Am I keeping you awake?"
"No. I sighed because you're so different to me. _I_ couldn't wash
to-night. And I knew my hair'd be a mat in the morning and the pillow
pink from my cheeks."
"I wish you didn't paint. There's no harm in girls doing it if they
need it, but you spoil yourself."
"Force of habit. Mother made up my face from the time I was ten."
Alexandra in her nightdress knelt down at the side of her bed. Maggy
never said prayers. To see Alexandra say them, she said, was the
nearest she would ever get to such things. She had never been taught to
pray when a child.
"Might as well drop Him a hint that we're at the end of our tether," she
suggested presently.
When Alexandra rose from her knees Maggy was sitting up in bed watching
her, her hands clasping her legs.
"And you mean to say that you believe somebody hears you!" she said
wonderingly.
"Yes."
"And does what you ask?"
"Yes--in the end."
"Then He must be pretty deaf.... You look nice saying your prayers. If
I were God I couldn't refuse you anything. P'raps He's a woman-hater.
Women get the worst of it everywhere, I think. If we do wrong, we have
to pay for it. If we don't do wrong, we have to pay just the same.
We're made so that we're not fit to be working all the time. Oh, it's a
hell of a world for women! I can stand anything when I feel it's fair
and just. I can't see any justice where we're concerned. They have an
inspector Johnnie to see that the scales in the grocery-shops are fair,
but if a woman wants to make a bargain she's got to do it on the heavy
side."
"The law courts are the scales."
"The law? Aren't the scales against us there too? If we want a divorce
we've got to be knocked about as well as--other things. If we're
deserted and ruined before we're married we can get so many shillings a
week until the kid's in his teens. And if there's no kid or it dies,
well, p'raps your God'll help us, but the law won't. It's all too hard
to fight against, and one can't make head or tail of it. Look at the
White Slave Traffic. They'll flog a man if they catch him at it, but
they won't flog De Freyne and give him hard labor for the dirty work
he's doing every day of his life, though everybody knows about it. Why,
he's only a--what's it called?--procurer for the nobility and gentry and
all the rich bounders. And we're not all in yet, but we shall be. My
word, one hears a lot about the chorus-girl being on the make-haste and
living you-know-how. One doesn't hear how she's driven into it, like
cattle into a dirty pen. I'm done, Lexie. I shan't hold out long."
Alexandra blew out the remaining candle. In the darkness one could just
make out the two narrow beds and the glimmer of the window.
"You mustn't give in, Maggy," came Alexandra's voice after a pause.
"When one meets the man one cares about one doesn't want to come to him
with nothing to give."
"Why not? There isn't a man in a hundred who comes to a woman with a
clean slate. Why should they expect us to have nothing written on
ours?"
"Because when a man marries nature makes him want a pure woman, not for
his own sake but because of the children she will probably have. For
myself, I know I would rather show a clean slate to the man I loved and
who loved me in a decent way whatever his life had been, than let a man
who was nothing to me write his name there first. That must be wrong
because it's against nature."
"Is it? I don't know. You can argue better than I can. You don't lose
your temper. Let's bring it down to ourselves and our difficulties. The
stage is a honey-pot and we girls are the honey in it, and the men are
the flies buzzing round. They won't leave us alone. They make it
almost impossible for us to live a decent life. And if it's decent it
isn't beautiful. You can't call it beautiful, Lexie. This room's the
limit. Think of the food we eat. Generally beastly. And our clothes.
Everything's ugly and makeshift, and yet we've only got to stretch out
our little fingers--"
"More than our little fingers."
"Well, if you like. Anyway, what are we waiting for? There's no sense
in it. It won't get us any forrader. Why don't you leave me alone?
I'd almost made up my mind to give in when I met you. I should rather
enjoy cutting a dash and having everything I want and going one better
than the other girls who crow over us, and snapping my fingers at the
management like Mortimer did to-day. If a man was going to marry me and
give me a nice broad ring and a little home there'd be some reason for
going on like this and keeping good; but men don't ask chorus-girls to
marry them, as a rule--not by a long chalk! Oh, goodnight!"
She twisted on to her side, and the bedsprings groaned.
From neighboring churches clocks began striking twelve. The noises from
the street subsided. Only an occasional footfall was heard or a cart
rumbling past. Sometimes a shrill voice broke the stillness, sometimes
a drunken song.
The girls slept.
At dawn a cool breeze moved the dingy window curtain. Maggy woke and
peered through the gray light at Alexandra, sleeping.
She looked as though she were dead and at peace.
Maggy wondered if that was the better fate.